[EVENT] Space Sickness ☣

[khuimods]

Characters: Open to everyone
Date: May 3 onward
Location: Turtle-wide
Situation: The latest Shunt mission had a few extra passengers aboard.
Warnings/Rating: Parasites. Ew. (Also hallucinations)


The most recent shunt has faded back into the Dreaming, but nothing ever wraps up neatly. The ship was, unbeknownst to most, a floating biohazard - and the rescuers brought the contagious, microscopic cargo back to shore.

Members of the shunt mission will have picked up some of these nasty parasites, and by now they’d have had a chance to breed and spread. They are small, practically invisible to the naked eye. They feed on strong emotional energy and are reasonably contagious. Their particular nature means that even those with good immune systems, or those who would normally be safe from such creatures, may still be under threat.

Symptoms include:

Visual and auditory hallucinations - particularly pertaining to the deceased

Mild to severe paranoia

Distorted sense of time

Synesthesia, such as “seeing” sounds or “hearing” colors.

Impulsive behavior

The hallucinations combined with the paranoia have made many people who contracted the parasites dangerous with a potential to lash out violently. The parasites are spread by contact, and upon getting them, it takes only a few days for them to become a real problem.

The Corfuhl inform the Sentry that some of their scanners had picked up the parasitic organisms on the mother while treating her hallucinations. The medical sector really steps up here, determining that the parasites probably came from the space debris that struck the ship, and immediately get to work with containing the damage. The Corfuhl and their rescuers are contacted discreetly, and questioned about symptoms. Since the parasites are alien in origin, the medical staff reach out to the Dreamfolk - especially from Dreamfolk with backgrounds in disease control and parasitology, or anything even remotely neighboring.

The real difficulty is finding patterns in how microscopic bugs are spread and figuring out the vector, and any and all help is appreciated. Given that Dreamfolk are also much more varied in terms of physiology, the medical teams may want to keep an eye on those showing symptoms in case they have an especially adverse reaction - or if any who participated on the mission are symptom-free, and potentially key to treating the parasites.

Fortunately, this isn't the first time Aifaran has had to deal with tiny invaders, and so within a few days of the first symptoms being shown, there's a prepared treatment: bathe in this pungent liquid, wash all your clothes in it, and the bugs are gone. Unfortunately it doesn't repel them, only kill them, so if you're incautious it's entirely possible to be exposed a second time.

At least the treatment is plentiful. Notes on this particular parasite are filed along all the other Dreaming weirdnesses, for future reference. It's going to take a little time to make sure the city is completely clean, but it will be.

---

OOC Notes: Please note that this event is by no means compulsory. Even if your character was on the mission, if this is something you don't want to deal with then perhaps your character's emotions were just the wrong flavor for these clingy new friends parasites.

Additionally, because they're efficient little things, it's also to become infected through secondary transmission, so your character doesn't have to have participated in the mission to have some or all of the symptoms.

Apart from that, threading is open, feel free to plonk anything having to do with these parasites and their fallout here.

Comments

[corundrum]

Thankfully, the kind of attack Padparadscha is remarking on is one from the sky, so a voice behind them isn't enough to set them off. They do, however, take a few moments to turn their attention from the moon, take their hand off their blade, and turn to him with one of their mild, faintly insincere smiles.

"So I can see. Don't worry, it's rare that my weapon has ever been needed for anything on the ground," Padparadscha replies, running a hand over the sheath. Due to the excessive length of it - almost as tall as them - rather than being attached to their belt or something similar, it's tied horizontally, hanging from the back of their pants.

"Have you encountered our new world-transcending friends as well?" They give a somewhat amused smile at it, despite the situation. The parasites are certainly an...experience for someone from a species with no real concept of illness.

[bestofthevein]

"Have you encountered our new world-transcending friends as well?"

A snort follows, along with a lopsided smirk that conveys a great deal of exhaustion as well as some amusement. "Yeah, they've been a real treat. Hearing colours is a new one for me. It's weird."

The shape and make of Padparadscha's sword is unlike anything Kit has ever encountered before; the one-handed war axes he so often carries (though not tonight) are the typical solid, sturdy things constructed by the dwarves of Orzammar. He leans a bit to the side to get a better look at it, unable to hide his curiosity, then juts his chin at it.

"Nice sword."

That's one way to change the subject.

[corundrum]

"Oh? That sounds interesting, I would've preferred that kind of symptom..." The last word is somewhat measured, as if it's one they've only recently picked up. They heard the scientists using it a lot after the initial studies.

At Kit's curiosity about the sword, Padparadscha hums slightly in agreement and unsheathes it slightly. The blade is black and has an odd sheen to it, as if it's constructed of crystal rather than metal.

"Obsidian has been doing good work for some years now. I've yet to find a blacksmith here who could match their skills, but I suppose that's to be expected when you only have a limited life to hone your craft."

Padparadscha shrugs slightly, as if it can't be helped.

[bestofthevein]

The moonlight adds an air of the spectacular to the blade as it is unsheathed; Kit emits a low whistle and takes a few steps nearer to get a better look at it in the dark.. He's no smith, but he's spent enough of his life wielding weapons to recognize master craftsmanship when he sees it. "Incredible," he murmurs under his breath.

"Obsidian has been doing good work for some years now. I've yet to find a blacksmith here who could match their skills, but I suppose that's to be expected when you only have a limited life to hone your craft."

That makes him look up in some surprise. "Hey now," he says, and even though he's wearing one of his trademark, lopsided little smiles as he does it, it's clear he's a little defensive. (And trying not to be; it's a matter of perspective here, he recognizes that, but all the same.) "Maybe I didn't have that much of it, but I like to think I put a lot of living into my life, for a dead guy."

...There's a joke in there somewhere, about the Legion of the Dead, its ritually dead soldiers, but it doesn't only fall flat because Padparadscha can't really know about it. But Kit's death in Thedas ultimately wasn't just figurative, and it's still a little too soon for him to really be laughing about it. Uncomfortable suddenly, he scratches at his beard and grimaces. "It really is a beautiful weapon though."

[corundrum]

Padparadscha laughs a bit at the slightly defensive tone, waving a hand as if to say it wasn't meant like that. "There's nothing wrong with their craft, little one, or with having a shorter life. There comes a point where any person becomes so good that all they can truly do is continue to hone, and that point would fall within the lifetime of most living things."

A master can still exist among the living, but an immortal one can continue to streamline and perfect their work as long as their passion allows. In any case, since Kit is already looking somewhat uncomfortable about something, Padparadscha offers a thin smile and sheathes the blade again.

"All of my people who are sent to do fighting duties of any kind are given one. We have specialised forms for things like cutting ice as well, but Antarcticite was the only one of us to ever really use those."

And Phos, but the less questions invited about Phos, the better.

[bestofthevein]

A special sword designed to cut ice? "That sounds handy," he muses out loud, and looks to be genuinely mulling it over if his expression is any indication. "Probably more efficient than hacking away at a glacier with an ice pick. Which seems like a weird thing to do to me anyway. The cold is bad enough on its own, why would anyone want to pick it up and carry it around with them?"

His smile is a little more relaxed now; that joke came to him easier than the last, and seems to have swept away his residual discomfort. For a second or two he considers Padparadscha where they stand, as if trying to decide through looking at them whether their paranoia from moments before was still causing them trouble. Then he suggests, "I don't know if you like beer or anything but--you want to go get a drink or...?" Vague hand gesture. "Just go sit somewhere?" He nods at the sword. "We can talk about who you usually wield that thing against, if you want. Or not." He shrugs, understated acceptance in the action.

[corundrum]

That makes Padparadscha laugh a little. "I don't think an ice pick would be nearly as useful for what we need."

Breaking up glaciers into the ocean each winter is an important job, and the style of the swords allows them to do it with relative ease compared to spending whatever amount of time trying to pick through the massive structures. Still, it's not something they want to linger on for too long considering Antarcticite's fate.

It's somewhat difficult to tell whether Padparadscha's paranoia is still a concern - though they do keep glancing back slightly towards what's behind them. Force of habit, in a way, even if it's not nearly as advanced as the paranoia some others are displaying. But his offer makes them pause slightly, before they let out a low, rolling laugh.

"Food and drink would ruin my insides, I'm afraid, but if you want to get one yourself and talk, I'm not opposed."

[bestofthevein]

"Food and drink would ruin my insides, I'm afraid, but if you want to get one yourself and talk, I'm not opposed."

That doesn't sound like a refusal to Kit's ears. (Even the deaf one.) Still--

"You don't eat or drink? ...Anything?" His eyebrows reach high towards his hairline. Thus far he's encountered a lot of peculiarities in Aifaran, but this is definitely one of the strangest. Already he's taking a few ambling steps back towards the city, and in the general direction of a cafe that he hopes will be open at this hour. Unless the paranoia afflicting Padparadscha has spread to other corners of the city, to greater effect. "How do you, you know," an idle gesture, "keep going?"

[corundrum]

With a slight laugh, Padparadscha knocks on their own stomach, producing that solid chime of gem on gem that it does. "I don't have anything for it to go through."

Still, they start to follow Kit back towards the city, sliding their sword properly back into its sheath. While they may be paying a little more attention to moonlight shadows than usual, they seem more controlled than some of the people under the paranoia effects.

"My people live off sunlight. It's tiring for me to be out this late, but it's a nice hour. Some gems can cheat, like Cinnabar, but for the most part we exhaust ourselves easily working at night."

Padparadscha doesn't technically require sleep, but considering how lethargic night can make them, sometimes it's just more worth it to sleep until the sun rises.