acatalepsy_logs | ( the sickness: phase two )

( the sickness: phase two )

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the sickness ends.

the temple.

The Temple, shortly after Astoria's burst of energy, is in a constant state of growth. Trees are bursting into existence from seeds in mere seconds, flowers are growing wherever magic lands . . . and the Temple is abruptly a-buzz with energy, magic crackling throughout the air. You may find a tree in your house, or flowers suddenly growing along the walls, or plants wiggling their way through the stone walls of the buildings of the Temple. All of a sudden, the place looks very overgrown.

The Forest of the Fey seems to be responding in kind, too. Sprites are exceptionally active, darting out of the Forest and into the Temple with increasingly regularity, playing basic little tricks on the members of the Circle they can find. Flower crowns are made at an alarming rate, and there might be a few fruit-food fights that break out with the sudden abundance of peaches and apples that appear on the grounds. Learn how to duck!

With the magic comes the sudden fluctuation of energy: canon powers flicker on and off, as do the powers granted by Astoria. You feel more like yourself, you suddenly have access to energies you did not have previously in the Temple However, it's a double-edged sword -- it is not constant, and it may be more trouble than its worth.

And, remember: the Sickness is not fading immediately. If you make it to Stage 3, then you're stuck with sensory deprivation for at least another week or two. Sorry, friends.

lake dona.

Lake Dona is a massive body of water, stretching outward for so far that it almost seems like an ocean until you see that the water is fresh. It is surrounded by long, leafy trees that dip into the water and has a variety of ancient ruins scattered around it -- weathered stones set into circles at seemingly even intervals, old buildings that seem to mirror the Temple in construct.

In addition to the ruins, there are a network of caverns tucked along the water’s edge, just underneath the surface on the western side of Lake Dona, that appear to go underground into murky darkness. The actual entrance to these caverns seem to be underwater, seemingly guarded by merfolk, but poking around may seem to be more trouble than its worth.

There is plenty of wildlife to be found within the lake itself, ranging from freshwater mermaids who would rather you stay the hell out of their backyard to a rather large and suspiciously friendly plesiosaurus-like creature (some would say that she prefers to be called Nessie) that seems intent on checking out who you are. The lake teems with odd-looking fish, most of which seem to be okay to eat, and plenty of plant life! But who knows what lurks in the depths below . . . that giant sea-monster looking thing has to be eating something.
PROMPT IDEAS: Here are some prompt ideas for this new area! However, don't feel limited to such ideas! Feel free to fish, to explore, to swim, to poke around . . . it's always possible Astoria may check in on your character, too, once she is feeling better! ;)

1.) The Great Pumpkin The overgrowth of plants have caused a massive growth spurt in a lot of the trees, including the fruit trees that sprinkle themselves throughout the Temple. However, the fruit themselves seems to be growing at a rather . . . alarming rate, resulting in a few pumpkin-looking squash growing to the size of small boulders in the fields. Hope you have a lot of spare time on your hands to make a hell of a lot of Temple-pie, because these squash aren't going anywhere anytime soon.

2.) Food Fight!: Those damn sprites are at it again, and are collecting fruit off the ground and throwing it at people. Fight back, organize, and conquer! Or not. It's probably better to just not.

3.) Part Of Your World: The mermaids within Lake Dona are a suspicious lot, and they don't take kindly to strangers stomping through their territory. However, they are receptive to music, so if you are so musically inclined, they will definitely be more inclined to be a little more playful than territorial. If you aren't? Have fun getting tossed into the lake head-first by a bunch of pissed off mermaids who want you to get the hell of their lawn. They don't take kindly to your type around here.

4.) Nessie: Within Lake Dona is a massive plesiosaurus-type creature which seems to be . . . oddly friendly? It seems to pop up at the most inconvenient of times. Are you sitting on the edge of the lake enjoying the water? Enjoy a massive ass dinosaur sticking its impressively long neck out of the lake to check you out and also scare the bejesus out of you. That being said, Nessie is an extraordinarily friendly being, and will even give you laps around the lake if you ask nicely!

5.) Caverns: The caverns within the lake are dark, deep, and menacing The merfolk inform you that you cannot go there -- no one can, but the merfolk sure seem to be keeping a careful eye out on it. Testing the boundaries indicates a weird magical field around the entrance of the cave, that works like a bit of a forcefield. Weird, right?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

... really?

[As hard as it had been to believe in things like... music having changed that much since her "time"... it was even more unbelievable that... people just didn't die of the things that killed her and her own people so easily.]

Not... any kind of problem? Sickness, or childbirth, or injuries?

[Her parents... they'd had five children. Only three made it to adulthood. None made it out of the wars.]

[Sheryl looks at Konoha for a while.] No, there's still sickness and injuries, and people do die.

Just not as often as they used to, that's all-- by a lot. Medicine is much better.

[She says it so simply, that medicine is just... better.

But it's so overwhelming a thought to Konoha that she... suddenly sits down, plopping her rear onto the sand, back legs akimbo with forelegs straight, feeling weirdly dizzy. A world where people didn't die so easily...]

That must be really nice...

[Geez, she can't even think of anything smarter to say...]

[...what kind of world is this girl from, where just learning about the existence of modern medicine has such an effect on her? Sheryl's suddenly aware that perhaps this simple-seeming, straightforward horse lady may be a little deeper than she's given her credit for.]

Well, it's not all good. Technology and science have advanced in everything. We're a lot better at making things to hurt and kill other people, too.

[... oh. That does put a damper on things.

Konoha hasn't really thought about killing because... she said there were so many people alive, and surely if there were wars you couldn't have that many people, could you? But what she doesn't know is that her concept of population scale is just too different to imagine it properly, and her brow furrows a bit as she tries to imagine.]

So your people fight wars... because they're running out of space?

[With too many people kept alive with better medicine???]

That's one reason. [She shrugs.] It was a lot more common before the First Space War, since that... freed up a lot of space, we'll say.

On the colony fleet? We fought against the Vajra because it seemed to be either us or them.

[Space War... for space... in space?]

What's vajra?

[No, it was against people from space.] Hm, how do I explain them...

...you know bugs? Think about a rhino beetle, or something like that. Big nasty horn on its nose and all.

Now imagine that it's 50 feet tall. That's a Vajra.

Edited 2018-10-06 05:34 (UTC)

Right, bugs.

[50 feet... tall?]

Giant bugs.

That... live in the sky?

Not in the sky, no. In space.

[Wait a second. Does she even know what that is?] Do you know what space is? It's above the sky-- where all the stars are at night.

[Good question, Sheryl. Good question.]

I heard... that it's past the stars? But... I don't think we do that in my world...

[She's heard about space, but. She definitely doesn't seem to have a good concept of it as... a place. That can be moved around in. Or lived in.]

No, I can't imagine that you would. [Okay, she's now finding herself having to explain the concept of space to a centaur girl.

God, her life is weird lately.] And it's not past the stars. It's everything up there-- [she gestures above her] --that's between the stars.

[Hold on.] Do you know what the stars are? Like, what they actually are, not just little twinkling lights overhead at night.

[........ Another very good question, Sheryl.]

... Are they more than that? My mother said they were light from the gods of the sky.

[Oh jeez. Okay. Sheryl pinches the bridge of her nose.] Well, you and your mother lived long before people started finding this stuff out, I guess, so it's not her fault she didn't know the truth.

Each of those stars? That's a place you can go. They're giant balls of gas-- hundreds of times bigger than a planet-- that burn all day and all night for billions of years. And there are hundreds of thousands or millions of miles between each one. And "space" is what we call everything in between.

Space is really big. Too big for you to even wrap your head around.

[Hey... her mom was really wise, okay?

Also... how are twinkling stars gas? And what' a planet- was that a "world"? What could be bigger than a world? And if they were so big, how were they so small in the sky? And-]

Wait... is that where everyone else's worlds are?

[In her world's sky???]

[How does she explain this? All of her explanations rely on some basic understanding of modern science. Not even anything high level or advanced-- basic high-school stuff that even she knows! How does she try to get these concepts across to someone without even that?]

I don't know. Probably some of them? But I know that some of us come from different versions of Earth, and I don't think you can explain that just by being from faraway stars.

[Hang on--] Oh! The sun! You know, the sun every day? That's a star, too-- it's just a lot closer.

[To someone without even... an elementary school education.]

The worlds without jinba, right?

[Those were... too different? Or- the ones with all the metal and fancy technology? Those were really different...

Hold up-]

How can the sun also be a star? It's a sun.

[There's different words for them, Sheryl????]

Yes, that's one of the differences. [But ugh, how does she even explain this one?]

Okay, you know how there are "mountains" and you might give a name to a certain mountain? Like this mountain is Mount Snow, but it doesn't stop being a mountain.

It's like that with the sun. It's a star, it's just called "sun." That's its name. But really, it's the same thing as all of the other stars, just a lot closer.

Like Mount Tsurugi?

["Mount Snow" is a silly name for a mounta- Focus up, Konoha.

She'd... never considered that the sun wasn't a type of thing, but a name... and it's painfully obvious how the gears in her head keep turning until-]

Oh.

[It... kind of makes sense??? Konoha perks up in revelation, a hand flying to her mouth to cover the gasp.]

Oh!

Sure, like that. [She has no idea, but it sounds right to her?

And she breathes a sigh of relief as Konoha finally seems to get it.] Right, you understand now!

So all of those lights in the night sky, they're just like the sun. Except they're so far away that you don't feel any of the heat from them, but you would if you were closer.

"Space" is everything in between them. Millions and millions of miles of empty nothing. That's where I live.

[Konoha is... really glad that she's already sitting down. This is mindblowing stuff to a country girl from the 1630's, and she does kind of sway a bit in place, staring up at the sky.

Okay... there's lots of suns... they're just far away... and she's supposed to think of the sky as... not like a blanket over the earth but... as... like a field! A field you can travel through somehow.]

No one is going to believe me if I tell them that...

So don't tell them that. [Sheryl shrugs. Why make it hard on yourself if you don't have to?]

Besides, most people here probably already know that.

I mean back home...

[But.

Yeah, she could just... not say anything... Still...

Konoha's head is obviously spinning, and she tries to shake it out with a full body movement head to tail, slapping her cheeks lightly.]

I'm going to go crazy if I get any smarter-

[She's learning so much her brain might explode.]

Well, you probably shouldn't tell them that, either. They might think you were crazy! [She reaches up to pat Konoha on her... arm. Yes, let's settle for patting her on the forearm. That seems a safe place to touch.]

If you could see my home, you'd probably think you had gone crazy~

Yeah... probably...

[Konoha absently sort of... pats Sheryl's hand patting her arm, nodding along.]

You said people fly and fit cities into theaters, so... yeah... I think so...

[Insane? Yeah, that's like... an understatement.]

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