Day 196 : Start of the "Sickness Inside" plot

[bastionpc]

Who: Nathaniel (NPC) and everyone else who wants to be involved
Open: Open
When: Day 196
Where: Near the monument --> Out on the Skyway
What: Nathaniel needs a radio tower. He's enlisting the help of others to get said radio tower
Format: any
Warnings: Dead body discovery in the radio tower threads. Mentions of throw-up when Zulf joins the Okumura group.

This is the post for everything related to Day 196 of this particular event. The starter is in the comments, and important threads will be linked here as they are made.

Important threads:

START: by the monument

At the radio tower and the surrounding area

Regrouping

Meanwhile, at the Bastion...

Comments

[hellpyre]

... I mean the light, you dork. God...

[Seriously, Zulf.

Rin shakes her head at him, moving her hand up. The flame was just in her palm before, but now she makes it spread over her entire hand, stopping just below the elbow. It's not light bulb-bright but it's still better than darkness.]

[fuckthemancers]

Let that be a lesson to you in being clear, then.

[He'll angst all he goddamn wants, Rin.]

[But with that light now available, he grabs one of the bags and starts to carefully put some of the radio equipment in it. Are these important? Fuck if he knows, Rucks is the technology guy in their group, not Zulf.]

[hellpyre]

[Save it for later.]

Yeah, yeah, gimmie a hard time 'bout everythin' ever...

[She pokes idly at one of the papers with her other hand.]

God it still smells in here... what's this stuff say, anyway?

[fuckthemancers]

[You underestimate how much angst he can possess and keep going with.]

...Letters to the loved ones they lost to the Calamity. Things such as how they would see them again.

One of them talks about how the group got the disease.

[hellpyre]

[She doesn't doubt that. It just needs to be stowed until they can get through this.]

... shouldn't we take that stuff back with us then? It... it might help...

[Just in case.]

[fuckthemancers]

I was already planning to.

...They may not have been a part of the Bastion, but they don't deserve to be forgotten.

[hellpyre]

... we can take them to the memorial, right? The papers, I mean.

[fuckthemancers]

That's what I was thinking.

[Something occurs to him, and he stops shoving things into the backpack so that he can go back besides Rin. He wants to take a look at that one bitter letter again to skim it.]

I wonder what happened to the original plaguebringer?

[bastionpc]

[The letter doesn't say directly, but it's probably safe to say that they died, since the letter talks about how everyone is dying. 'Everyone' would include the initially infected too.]

[hellpyre]

Uhh. Dead. Probably.

[Really, Zulf?]

Pretty sure we woulda heard some one screamin' for help by now.

[fuckthemancers]

[There's a flat look for you, Rin.]

I meant the corpse. I don't have any doubt that they're with the Mother now.

[hellpyre]

[RUDE.]

How would you even tell it apart from...

[sweeping motion with her other hand.]

Hell, they might not even be in this room. There was three others besides this one.

[fuckthemancers]

[You're rude at him ALL THE TIME]

If the letters have any more information on them, that could narrow it down even to just which room it is... If the person wasn't outcast once it was realized what a danger they were.

[Something that could likely have happened, honestly.]

Who they were, if they were from Caelondia or the Terminals or another world entirely... and where they picked it up from. That's what I want to know the most.

[hellpyre]

[YOU'RE RUDE RIGHT BACK]

If I had somethin' for you to light, I could go check out the other doors and see if any of 'em are locked.

[fuckthemancers]

Let's just finish in here really quick. [Deciding not to look through them anymore, he starts to just grab all the papers in as neat piles as he can make and starts to shove them into Bag #2.] I'd rather the two of us not get separated.

[hellpyre]

Right right...

[He has a point. And she'd be lying if she said she didn't find this place pretty damn creepy...]

[fuckthemancers]

[Zulf finishes as quickly as he can. The papers are easy and quick. The equipment is a bit more guesswork but if Nathaniel has any issues with it, he can fucking come into the room full of dead plague victims himself.]

Can you carry the equipment? You're stronger than I am.

[hellpyre]

[Even Rin has to agree with that. She has no idea what this stuff is but hopefully it'll be worth something.]

Yeah. Load me up.

[She moves back in, dropping to one knee with her back to Zulf so he can put both bags on her.]

[fuckthemancers]

[Mutual agreement to tell Nate to fuck off if he complains, yes?]

[Zulf carefully makes sure the bags are on her right before he takes a step back.]

That good?

[hellpyre]

[Basically.

She might... still be a tiny bit miffed at him for what happened forever ago.

Just a tiny bit.]

Yeah. Let's go.

[fuckthemancers]

Alright.

[Carefully, and doing his best not to look down or breathe in too deep, Zulf heads out of the room. He looks around a bit, deciding, before figuring they may as well just go across the hall. His hand reaches out and... the door opens up smoothly.]

...Not locked.

[He takes in a breath to help steel himself this time and opens the door to see what's inside.]

[hellpyre]

[She's with him on that, too. The smell is bad enough, she'd rather not breathe even more of this in than she absolutely has to.

Pack heavy on her back but not so much that she can't carry it, she keeps behind Zulf, letting him lead the way down the hall to the next room.]

... would they have locked whoever got this crap up somewhere that he couldn't get to everyone else? Or... did they not have enough time for that... ?

[bastionpc]

[It's hard to tell, what with the doors all being unlocked.

This room had been a storage room, but had been changed into a sleeping room of sorts. There aren't any real beds here, just bedrolls strewn about. There are some personal items too.

Most of the dead are in here, as they had never made it out of their 'beds'.]

[fuckthemancers]

I can't say. Either way, it probably would have been too late. The disease would have spread.

[A hiss escapes him as he sees even more corpses and he squeezes his eyes shut for a moment before reluctantly forcing them open again. He's starting to shake harder, as much as he does his best to contain it.]

Give me the lighter pack, please. [He says it even as he glances around. The people who died here knew Caelondian... But are there any Ura here? That's what he's looking for.] And Rin... You don't have to come inside if you don't want to.

[hellpyre]

[She might have argued with him, because really death wasn't so much of an issue for her anymore (and that was frankly a terrifying thought on it's own), but the smell is even worse than the other room.

She starts to say something, to reply to what, but what comes out instead is a disgusting gagging as she quickly turns away.

All that effort to keep her stomach has gone away, and she's too busy retching to reply or hand him the pack.]