Video - UN: Runeseeker (CW for mentions of the Erasure Plague within)

[onerthes]

[Vira-Lorr had reached a point of being more active gradually, and one of her new years resolutions was to make herself useful. All of that came face to face, however, with an innocent and well-intentioned gift on her door front. The video shows an utterly innocuous sight. It's a box. There's a half dozen cans of chicken noodle soup, some tissues and a bottle of orange juice in it. There's an actual gas mask next to it, and Vira-Lorr's shaking hand clenches a hand-scrawled note that reads...

DRINK THE JUICE.]

IS THIS SOMEONE'S IDEA OF A SICK JOKE?!? [She's seething, breathing hard, through her teeth.]

I swear, I will tan your hide if one of you is pranking me!!! Do not joke about this! First I almost fall into a freaking sinkhole and have to kill a zombie, and now THIS?!?

[Huh? What?]

(OOC: Vira-Lorr's having a wee bit of a flashback because that package? Oh, she recognizes it. And it stems back to an old event in the previous game that was very traumatizing.]

Comments

video; un: v

[mehanizovati]

[ok just. he has to ask, this is a very strong reaction to orange juice.]

I got a similar package. You seem eh... concerned.

[onerthes]

Wait... you got a package exactly like that?

[The anger left her voice. The next emotion was one of raw, uncompromising terror. There were the sounds of her rummaging through her posessions.]

No no no no... I don't have any starstone... We're not ready for this. Gods please be some sick joke! [breathe.] The zombies weren't the same. They were just frozen undead. Maybe it's a bad coincidence?

[mehanizovati]

Yes?

[ah, there's the intense reaction. now he's getting concerned.] Has this happened in the Trench before?

audio | un: sds

[fogsong]

Do you not like chicken noodle soup and juice?

[onerthes]

Chicken Noodle is fine! [A little too loud.] It's why some random stranger left me six cans and a hand written note to drink the juice along with a gas mask.

That's very very not good.

[fogsong]

Won't lie, the gas mask makes me nervous. What about it all is 'very very not good'? I'm guessing this is a call back to something that's happened here before.

un: eudaimonikos | video

[eudaimonikos]

What's the matter with you?

[like, beyond the whole thing we already know about? this seems like a different thing!]

[onerthes]

You weren't there back then. You didn't see, but I know you heard about the Erasure, and the zombie carpets and all those awful tunnels we had to deal with to get the cure.

[she gestured at the package.]

That's the exact same package Doug gave us years ago when it happened! I'd never forget it, right down to the gas mask! And there's been snowquakes and zombies in sinkholes! Damnit, it better not be this all over again!

[eudaimonikos]

...I do remember people saying something about a zombie floor.

[But yeah, that was definitely before his time. Michael frowns thoughtfully.]

Well - the things that happen here aren't usually exactly like the dream?

un: kickflips, video

[strongroots]

[ Okay, he's gone through some of the responses to get an idea, but. ]

...Is there something in the juice?

[ Because guess who didn't want to drink a bottle of juice saying to drink it?? No thanks!! ]

[onerthes]

No, nothing specific. Juice is just something humans drink when they're sick, and the soup's common for that situation too. It's not that it's a bad gift. There's nothing wrong with it.

It's that it is the exact same gift I've received before, years ago. Before one of the worst events in my life in Trench and Deerington. And there's maybe a handful who remember those times, with the sinkhole and the zombie carpets.

[Seriously? She knew it sounded ridiculous, but "Carpet made of zombie" just kind of drove the oh shit home.]

I really hope this is just some paranoid Waste. My vision's too cloudy to be sure.

[strongroots]

[ Oh, well, at least there's nothing in the juice. ...Not sure if he wants to drink it regardless. ]

Did you find out who left it? [ Uh. ] Was it the Pthumerians?

[ Leaving chicken and juice and a gas mask.... but Trench is bizarre, so?? ]

voice; un: price is right

[tagartist]

That’s a hella sick fucking joke if it is one. No pun intended.

[onerthes]

See! You? You understand what this is!

[She is presently brandishing a 3/4 jug of OJ like it's a bludgeoning weapon in one hand, her face livid. It might just be one of the more comical visuals available in Trench right now, if it weren't so dire.]

And I know it's not you who did it. We both remember that time too much to joke about it like this. But apparently other people got it. Still, those sinkholes weren't the same, thank the gods.

It might just be one of the wastes thinking they're being helpful just in case? I really hope that's all this is!

[tagartist]

You didn't actually go into said sinkholes to confirm they weren't the same, right? I mean like. Until you waited several months to see how shit shook out and confirmed?

[ She feels nauseous just thinking about going into a sinkhole, new powers or no new powers. Nope. Fuck that. Fuck them. Fuck Deerington. ]

video; un: ushiromiya

[entreats]

[ Yeah, that message is.. a little intense, isn't it. But it's not like Ange is going to think it's too intense or anything when she's - more than anything - just worried about Vira-Lorr.

And when she can kind of understand the paranoia, with how heightened it's been inside of her over the past few months too. ]

Vira-Lorr. Even if it's a dumb joke, there's nothing we can do about it. [ Nothing so immediate, anyway - as far as Ange can see. ] Try to take a deep breath, alright..?

[onerthes]

[Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. Ok, Ange isn't the first to speak to her. She has a moment. When Ange sees Vira-Lorr reply, there's a crystal globe in front of her, partially wrapped in cloth. The small black rock infused inside glitters like starlight.]

You're... right. I need to be calm. There's differences, but everyone got the package. Maybe the wastes are worried. It might not be the same problem.

...

Because I really don't think we can get deer's blood right now, much less starstone like this. So I don't know for sure how we'd actually cure it with only one of the three components.

video; un: lady

[dohaeris]

[sansa has silver scales scattered across her face. she's sitting at a table in her kitchen with the care package items, along with a fancy looking lunch tin and a patch of bloody (formerly white) snakeskin. she seems...concerned. the responses here have been...worrying.]

I thought they were from Madame Generosity.

[she drank the juice... she delicately holds up the snakeskin to her omni.]

I found this outside my door. I thought she might have been hurt...

[the north and the vale are too cold for snakes!! sansa doesn't know very much about their biology or the shedding process.]

[onerthes]

[She gripped the package in white-knuckled hands, setting it on a desk in her home and flopping into a seat.]

I... don't think it was a Pthumerian. I think it was a Waste. The package is identical to one in a very bad time in our history.

Video | Clickclickbloom

[onekindsoul]

At least you're in the clear if you catch a cold.

Re: Video | Clickclickbloom

[onerthes]

This isn't a time for jokes, Ruby! [She growled.] This is the package that they gave us when that damned plague happened, before your time, in the nightmare!

We had better hope there's nothing going around... besides what the Pthumerians are getting.

Video; un: darkness

[survivalthroughhate]

What's wrong?

[Short and to the point. Maul wasn't sure what was causing Vira-Lorr to freak out but he knew if something was bad enough to get to the usual unflappable woman, that menat things were getting dire indeed.]

[onerthes]

This... this package is the exact same one, down to the gas mask, that was present in that horrid, mind-breaking plague.

With the great sinkhole. And all of the zombies. I think you arrived a little after it, but Reaper knows.

[Video][UN:A_Wesker013][CW: Medical treatment, fictional pathogens discussed.]

[subject_013]

[The feed shows Wesker working over what appears to be his own right elbow, cutting Lockjoint-related crystals from it, while Cypher tweezes them out with a pair of medical tweezers, dropping them into a white enamel pan.]

...If this is what I think it could be... [He doesn't even finish that sentence. Erasure might have emerged before his time, but he's familiar with it from reading over Peter Parker's collected accounts of past terrors.]

[onerthes]

[She was calming, considerably. She'd talked to a lot of them, but she wasn't entirely calmed down yet, still animated.]

Bath salts.... use bat... you know that. [She growled.] And it's the package we received, down to the gas mask. So I don't know for sure. It may be the wastes being paranoid?