november 2019. welcome to the void.

[modblob]

Who: Everyone in Anchor.
What: Fifth Introductory Mingle
When: The Month of November 2019
Where: Around and outside the city.
Warnings: Please add any warnings in the subject lines.

Redshift: Welcome to the v͖͕̺̲̘̱̜͎o̴̦̣̠̦̘̹͞i̯̖d̛̪̬͈̱̦̝͍̕.

Click here to read what characters will experience when arriving in Anchor.

a. outbreak.

There's a plague in the city.

What was an annoyance before, a bug that seemed to be passing, has erupted into a full-scale biomedical hazard. Onset is slow. It’s a near mystery who is infected and who isn't, who is immune and who isn't. Doors lock themselves seemingly at random to prevent people passing through. Is that person with you one of the sick? How do you know? Would they tell you if they were?

The city will do its best to isolate the ill, once again locking them out of communal areas and trying to force them down toward the MedBay for quarantine. All bots will be temporarily shifted to plague protocols, rounding up and caring for the ill as best they can. (Lucky you, you get your cough syrup with a mixer courtesy of the barbot.) But they might not always get things right, and what healthy person wants to be locked away in a ward full of the violently ill? How do the bots even know which is which?

The ill will slowly find themselves dizzy, lightheaded, with chills and fever. They may cough hard enough to spit blood from irritated throats, or sneeze so long and hard they give themselves bloody noses. The symptoms can vary wildly depending on body chemistry, species, and dozens of other factors, making it difficult to pin down a specific set that indicates a person is infected. All bodily fluids are dangerously infectious. Maybe you want to keep your distance from your friends if you start to feel the onset, to keep them safe. But you also want to keep your freedom, not get trapped in a room full of people who seem to be dying. And anyone who was exposed to the first outbreak will find themselves either completely immune to this new one through early exposure...or far more susceptible, their immune systems doing almost nothing to protect them, with extreme symptom sets that hit them much harder than the average infected.

And through all of this, that voice that cheerfully chirped out helpful hints during the item exchange, that giggled and sang songs in the crashed spaceship in the wasteland can be heard again - but this time it's different. This time, there's very little cheer left, and though the commentary is still sing-song, it's much harsher, more monotone and without much energy. 'Go on, hurry up to the MedBay. No breaking quarantine!' it says, or to those moving through the city with friends, 'You must not like those people much, are you sure you want to get them sick?' In the depths of the worst of it, in the third week of the month, people may start hearing more of those 'helpful' suggestions - 'Maybe it would be better if we just left them out in the wastelands, you know? For the greater good and all...'

Mod Note: An NPC post will be going up next weekend on redshiftrp to supplement this prompt. Keep an eye out!

b. gone to shit.

With 90% of the city's bots repurposed to serve the ill (the matchmaking bot being the notable exception), things are starting to go downhill fast elsewhere. Didn’t realize how much work the bots were actually doing? You can't avoid knowing now.

Restaurants, slowly coming back online after the increased activity in the agricultural areas, are promptly shut down again with things starting to go bad in the fridges. The VR rooms have no attendants to help with glitches. The maintenance bots are prowling the halls looking for ill people to assist to the MedBay. The spa bots are all down in the lower levels helping keep people comfortable while they convalesce, leaving the spas to run themselves. Sometimes to overflowing. It's definitely going to be an adventure discovering what else the bots were doing to keep things running smoothly.

There's no bots manning the bar (make your own drinks while you can), but this also means there are no bots cleaning up the messes people leave behind in the bar either. The detritus of people living their lives starts to pile up - which means if you don’t want garbage filling up the most used common rooms, you're going to have to apply some good old elbow grease. Exactly what you wanted to do while everyone is violently ill, right?

c. dance of the moonlight jellies.

In spite of everything going on elsewhere in the colony, something magical is happening in the lakes and ponds of the park. Maybe your healthy or recovering character stumbles across it on their own. Maybe they see the glow from a higher levels and are drawn down to it. Maybe a persistent and super helpful voice, the same voice from the item exchange, the same voice that suggested throwing the sick out into the wasteland, suggests that you should go down and look at what's happening there.

However you ended up in the park, the place is filled with a silvery glow that emanates from the ponds, rivers, and lake. Fish have come up from the bottom, from where they were buried under the sand. They look almost like East Asian dragons, for those familiar with Earth. They're long, muscular, with two sets of fins trailing in the water like legs. Their heads are delicate, beautiful things that trail whiskers in the water along beside them.

And they're dancing.

In loops and whirls, over and under each other, diving deep and then rising up again to create patterns of light and shadow. Anyone who watches for more than a minute can start to feel relief moving through them, calm, the sense that things will be okay. Watching the dance is almost like meditation. Probably, for some, a much-needed break.

Navigation.

Comments

[killedwithlove]

"He can see you, but it's not the face he wants to see." Cole watches Lalli slip in, is aware of what he wants, he wants them to stop touching him and Cole wants to oblige him, but Cho says he needs his temperature taken. "He has a fever, does the number really matter? It's higher than it should be, but lower than deadly."

He looks into the tub again. "He doesn't like being touched. And he doesn't really understand how sick he is. What do you need me to do to make him better?"

[tenuefarfalla]

"It matters," she tells him, and she's already pulling off her shoes so she can get in the tub and do it herself. She's not sure of the most efficient way to put why it matters into words. "It's-- how I know." Maybe she doesn't have to verbalize it. She can feel it. She can feel the way the numbers, something concrete and measurable, give her a certainty. The way she knows what the dangers are for each degree above ideal body temperature he climbs, when medications will help and when they will harm, the amounts to be given based on severity. She can feel the way that having that initial number gives her a place to start, to know how much better things are getting, or if, God forbid, they get worse. She knows what to do because she's read so many books, listened ot so many lectures, been through so many decks of flash cards with Gabriel during his long and difficult education, and it all has its basis in numbers and charts and concrete facts.

What she needs is a willing patient, or at least one that can be made compliant. Willing is better, though, and she's at a loss, because all she knows about Lalli--

It snaps strongly into focus in Cho's mind, all at once, as she's picking up the thermometer again. "There's a box, in my room, on my desk. About this big." She holds her hands roughly a foot apart. "With a big square of light pink cloth wrapped and tied around it. Can you get it for me? Fast as you can?"

[killedwithlove]

Cole nods, already aware of what she wants. He vanishes in a curl of smoke and takes off towards the source of the solution, feeling it calling and pulling him.

He'll be a few minutes, even at his speed.

[lallipop]

Lalli resurfaces after a moment or two when nothing happens (he'd expected them to keep trying to grab him, honestly), though he stays low in the water and presses against the sides as much as he can, as far away from Cho as he can get. He's startled when Cole isn't there, though--there's no way he could have vanished that quickly--but after determining that he really isn't in the room anymore he focuses back on Cho with narrowed eyes.

"Don't want to talk to you. Go away." It's low and slurred from fever, but the sentiment is clear. Whatever she's selling, he's not interested.

[tenuefarfalla]

Cho huffs a deep breath. "I'm sorry, but I can't, and I hope you'll forgive me when you're feeling better." Then she moves quickly, sticks the thermometer in his ear and pushes the button to take his temperature, so it can get a read before he can lash out at her. The instant she hears the beep that tells her she has a reading, she retreats, just far enough away that he won't be able to hit her while she takes her attention off of him to look at the result.

Oh... not good.

She's back at the tub, holding onto the edge and peering at the skittish man in the water. "Lalli. Please listen to me. Your fever is very high. That's dangerous. It can do permanent damage to your hearing and your eyesight if we don't bring it down." She doesn't mention brain damage. She doesn't want to scare him too badly, she just wants to make him a little more receptive to the care that he needs, so that she can help. "I'm going to put more water in this bathtub. It'll be cool, but not cold. You're wearing too much clothing. I need you to take off the heavy layers that are holding in your body heat. Do you understand me?"

[lallipop]

He jerks back and bats at her when she sticks the thermometer in his ear, but he's too slow to make a difference. Still, he holds his ear and glares at her to ensure she knows he did not appreciate it.

And, unfortunately, his reaction to her question is to curl up and shake his head.

"'s cold, though." A shiver runs through him as if to prove his point. How can he be too hot if he's cold? That doesn't make any sense. The woman must be lying, for... some reason, and that means he has no reason to listen to her.

[tenuefarfalla]

That's more complicated, but all right. She'll try. While she turns the water on, of course. She's not going to let him overheat for this. If they have to cut him out of his clothes down the line, so be it. Last resort, but she'll do it.

"I know it's confusing. You have a virus. It's a type of influenza. Your body wants to kill the virus, so what it's doing is trying to turn your temperature up to the point that the virus can't survive. You feel cold because you're not as hot as your body wants to be in order to fight the virus, but you are still far too hot to be safe. Here." She lays her hand on the edge of the tub, within reach. "Put the back of your hand on my hand, then put it on your own forehead. You'll feel how much hotter you are. It's not safe. It could do real damage to you. I want to bring your body temperature back down to where it's safe, and fight the virus off with other methods."

Like the box from the med-bay, and the bag from her room. She's prepared. Nervous, but a strange kind of calm has settled over her in that nervousness. This is new, but it's important, and she has to make it successful. For Lalli's sake.

[lallipop]

His brow furrows as he tries to process this; it's not really working. He's hot because his body needs to kill the virus, but he also can't be that hot or it's bad for other reasons, so he needs to cool down? But then what about the virus? None of it's really parsing, it's too hard to think.

He lets out an mmmmmmm of discomfort as he gives up. He has too much of a headache for this. All he knows is that he's already shivering and he doesn't want to get even colder. The water in the tub is already higher (how did that happen?), but trying to take off his clothes like she's asking sounds like torture.

"Don't want to be cold." Maybe he'll die as a result, but whatever. Dying doesn't sound too bad right now.

[tenuefarfalla]

"I know," she tells him, because she really does. She remembers having fevers as a child, and how uncomfortable they always made her feel, how she wanted nothing more than to curl up in her mother's lap and shut out the world. Not that she was ever allowed to, but she would have loved it. "The good news is, in a minute, it won't feel as cold. Water, the great equalizer." She just has to find the right temperature - cool him down, but keep him from shivering. Chills are fine, it's the shivers that are dangerous.

He's not fighting it so hard any more. Resignation? It's not as good as understanding, but she'll take it. "All right. Let's get you out of these, because they're going to feel very heavy and uncomfortable soon." She reaches for his tunic, fingers working at the laces so she can hopefully get it over his head before it becomes too water-logged and heavy.

[killedwithlove]

Cole makes a conscious effort to open the door and come in with the box he was asked to get. It is an effort, he wants to just appear, but it might startle Lalli startling him could lead to him hurting himself, which was the last thing anyone of them wanted.

"Box." He puts it down on the counter carefully and comes back to Lalli. "I know, it's awful, but you'll feel better if you do what Cho asks, not just get better. It won't feel as terrible."

[lallipop]

He peers up at Cole suspiciously, as if to ask him how he could possibly know that, is he the one shivering in a bathtub? It takes him another moment to register what Cho is trying to do, and he ends up batting her hands away so that he can at least do it himself. He can't quite remember why she's doing it or that he hadn't even wanted to moments ago, he just knows that she's doing something he can do himself and he isn't a baby.

Except apparently he can't, though. He's uncoordinated enough that his fingers fumble to pull at the ties.

"Mrrrrr." This is way more frustrating than it should be. Why isn't this working?

[tenuefarfalla]

Oh good, Cole is back, and she could use the extra pair of hands. "We need to get him out of the heavy layers of clothing. The water will draw the heat away from his core, but it'll be most effective without all of this trying to hold his body heat in." Cole will probably be better at this than she is. He's stronger.

Instead, Cho goes to the box and unties the cloth, revealing the tiered sweets box. It's not entirely full at this point, but there should be enough to see them through this. From the layer of fudge, Cho picks out a cube, and returns to the tub. "Lalli? We're going to get you out of these clothes, all right? It'll help you, and it'll feel better soon, all right? And I have candy." Oh Lord, she is a stranger with candy. This is her life now. At least she genuinely intends him absolutely no harm. "This is fudge. Do you like fudge? It's got chocolate and sugar and condensed milk." It's a cube of cavity, and it's all for you, if you want it. Smell that chocolatey goodness, man.

[killedwithlove]

"Okay." Cole can understand that. Dorian complains about the cold but refuses to wear more covering clothes. The leather binder is hot and uncomfortable, even when the day is cool and he wants the chance to strip it off. The fur collar is hot, the feathers cool-

He shakes his head a little and waits to see if Lalli responds to bribery.