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]

[She breathed. It was a very obvious reaction of someone forcibly calming themselves down. No, there were differences. This wasn't the same. It couldn't be the same. She did, however, take a chug straight from the bottle of that juice.]

There... was a time in the nightmare. A horrible disease that gradually rotted memories. To get the cure, we had to fight our way through a wretched place where the floor was made of zombies and worse monsters crawled through it.

This exact package was given when it happened. And... there's sinkholes. I'm ... gods but I hope it's not happening again. We're not ready for this shit.

[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.

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!

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!! ]

voice; un: price is right

[tagartist]

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

[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.

[mehanizovati]

[well. a little breath there because he needs a moment to just consider all that, much more grim now.]

This disease, could you describe it? We can at least try to keep an eye on symptoms.

[and a pause] It wouldn't happen to be anything like whatever seems to be afflicting the pthumerians, would it?

[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!

[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.

[onerthes]

The gas mask should make you VERY nervous. [Breathe] In Deerington, in the nightmare, the wastes were the original residents of the town, struggling to survive in the dying dreams of a child god. They wore them because the air was saturated with poisonous squid ink, touched by her power as she died. They weren't acclimated to all of this nonsense like we are now.

This package came to us right before a horrible time that involved a sickness that destroyed memories and a cure only found in a tunnel where the floors were made of zombies.

I really hope the sinkholes we've seen recently just made the wastes nervous. I would get it if that was the case.

[onerthes]

[Vira-Lorr's response took a little while to come. When it did, she was holding what looked like a glass globe. There was a piece of black rock that glittered like starlight in it. Some tendrils of smoke were returning to the object.]

Sorry... needed a [Shudder] refresher. This contains some of my memories of the events.

The skin dries well beyond what the winter entails. Horrible fevers, cracks and fissures in the skin that leak blood. Terrible, wracking coughs. Confusion. Memory fugues. If a sinkhole opens up where you can see stone like this in it, that's a very bad sign.

No... no, god... they could never catch the Erasure Plague... oh god, even the thought of one of them having that makes me nervous. I don't think so, but I'm concerned.

I don't know for sure, so don't panic, but definitely... drink the juice. I would recommend you care for your health. There's a possibility this is a waste who's nervous because of the snowquakes and the frozen zombies. They were there when this happened too.

[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?? ]

[mehanizovati]

The juice helped? [he wasn't going to drink it before, to be fair, but now... okay, he can test it and maybe give it a try. better safe than sorry, really.]

I'll keep an eye out. My partner is a blood minister, if he sees anything like this starting up it will be good to at least try to get a head start on coping with it.

Thank you, for the information. [the very stressful information apparently. ah, trench.] Regardless the pthumerian behavior is concerning in general, I agree. Have you ever seen anything like this with them before?

[fogsong]

Oh. [ she's just gone from a mild nervousness to a sharp anxiety that nestles in her belly. ] Fuck.

I'm hoping the same thing, honestly, but is there anything we'd need to be on the lookout for? Like warning symptoms?

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]

This was definitely not the Pthumerians. Doug, the Dog Keeper, gave us the packages the last time. But it's not his handwriting. My guess is it's a Waste. Probably concerned it's happening again, even if it isn't.

[onerthes]

Alleviate the earliest symptoms? Maybe a little. I never got the worst of it. I had... other problems. It would not hurt to drink. It wasn't poisoned.

[Zombie carpet]

yes. If you see disease symptoms among Wastes or Sleepers, let people know that they're occurring.

... The state the Tower is in? No. I haven't, and it worries me. We seemed to help somewhat, but I don't know that the city is well exactly.

1/2

[onerthes]

If it's the Erasure Plague? One moment. I have to ... refresh my memory.

Ugh, I hate this thing so much.

[The feed showed her rifling through a set of small containers in her office... or perhaps more accurately the fortune teller booth attached to her house. There was a small globe of glass with a black rock fused inside of it, which glittered of starlight.]

I will contact you in about fifteen minutes.

[When she touched it, smoke started to pour out and surround her, and she cut off the feed.]

2/2 CW for really gross magic plague stuff

[onerthes]

[The feed kicked in. She was using cloth to put the globe away.]

Blasted thing. It's better it's in storage. Maybe it will help. Sorry, I stored memories of the event in that. I don't actually remember them. They're in there. I remember... other things from that time.

[She shuddered.]

Dry skin to the point where it cracks and bleeds, profusely at worst. Racking, awful cough. Fevers and chills but no clamminess due to the dry skin. Exhaustion and fatigue. Confusion and light delirium. At worst, memories begin to be erased and you can't remember much of anything at all, which is usually when you wander somewhere and die a horrible death if you don't slowly just get consumed internally.

That's the Erasure Plague. But the sinkholes below ground are different. There aren't nearly as many undead and they seem more ... normal? Are zombies normal for you? Whatever, I don't know if it's the same.

But we can't be too prepared.

[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.