Sixth Iteration Logs

WHERE: 6I Inn
WHEN: Morning, 18 April
OPEN TO: ALL - This is a mingle post
NOTES: Details may be found here

In the often-bustling front room of the inn there sits a large, old-style chalboard on a wooden stand. Chalk is a precious commodity, but limestone can be found easily, and both sides of the board are often covered with notes and notices from villagers.

This morning, the board has been wiped clean and a much different message has appeared on its worn gray surface:

Jude Sullivan and Francis Mulcahy have been exposed to toxic spores and will slowly drown if a counter-agent is not procured.

A yellow lichen is needed. It only grows on a small stand of trees in marshland two days to the southeast. There is no other antidote.

The following people have coordinates for the lichen loaded into their wrist devices. Only they may retrieve it, and only if they work together. If anyone else attempts this, the expedition will fail.

Peggy Carter
Beverly Crusher
Jean-Luc Picard
Owen Prichard
Margaery Tyrell
Mark Watney

Hurry. Soon it will be too late.

collaronhisneck

WHO: Father Francis Mulcahy
WHERE: Inn
WHEN: April 16th
OPEN TO: Any
WARNINGS: Gross illness? It's a thing here.

It'd been so small he hadn't even noticed it, not in the seesawing weather that kept starting to warm and then dumping more snow, ice, and wind on them. He'd seen some rough winters in Korea and the States - the Depression didn't leave a lot of spending money for fuel left over - and at least here it was possible to just go collect wood, while the army had so many roadblocks up to getting proper supplies to its camps and trees weren't really too much of a thing in inner city Philadelphia. So it's no wonder he's getting sick, really. Anyone but the absolute healthiest of individuals would get sick in this sort of weather, and he's noticed more sniffles, sneezing, and running noses these past few days on other people through the village. No wonder he gets the same symptoms.

(He hadn't even noticed the weed latching on to his pants leg and bursting; it's a weed, he's seen hundreds of them, and any plants that had started to grow were likely going to get wiped out by the temperature drop. Nothing to be concerned about, right?)

But first comes the sneezing, then the coughing, and it doesn't ease no matter how much hot water (no salt, sadly) he gargles with, or how much of Miss Kelly's carefully hoarded hot drink stock he sips. In fact, it gets worse, and he starts coughing more, and bundling up in every single blanket he can find in the house-slash-church doesn't stop it. Nothing seems to stop it.

Mulcahy misses his usual reporting for chores in the inn on the fifteenth - but the next day, he's there, stumbling in the door, a half-grown kitten tucked into his jacket and coughing badly. He almost sounds like he's swallowed a giant glob of honey and is trying to get it out of his throat, and it's overall not pleasant and he looks wrecked, a lack of sleep catching up with him and making him lean against the door frame. When he speaks, his voice is hoarse and quiet.

"If I- m-may, can I-" he has to pause to cough, hard and for too long, "-get s-some help?"

theintercessor

WHO: Jude Sullivan
WHERE: 6I Village, between the store room and schoolhouse
WHEN: April 15
OPEN TO: All
WARNINGS: Jude's been hit with a plant spore that slowly drowns the victim in mucus/fluids, so maybe just gross symptoms?

He'd talked something of a big game to Sam about asking for help--but there's a metaphorical canyon between puking blood and what he thinks is a spring cold. The cold weather snaps into spring and then back to snow; easier to link a runny nose to that than a plant he's never seen before, crushed underfoot and spitting something up his pant leg. He cuts a new kerchief out of an old towel and keeps going.

The next day, he wakes up fuzzy-headed, nose and throat thick with snot, and wishes there were more fruit in the village--more tea in the house. He can't imagine what the docs would do but tell him to keep warm and sleep it off, so he builds up the fire and waits.

It's the third day that he braves the world outside of his house. The dust in it can't be helping, and after the last disaster--he knows he shouldn't be alone. If nothing else, Bodhi can fuss over him in a clean kitchen with tea and whatever we have soup. The journey shouldn't be long, a few rows of houses, a couple of paths. Jude tries to cut between the storage house and now-standing school to save time.

He makes it to the back corner, hand steadying on the wall, before he sinks down toward the lingering snow. A cough drops his head, barking and sharp--not the cough of a common cold, but the too-familiar choke of something blocking his throat, dripping into his windpipe. It goes on for long minutes, disturbing the quiet of the morning, until he's coughed and spat enough thin fluid into the snow and grass to drag in a breath. As soon as he does, it starts again, and he leans harder on the wall as he chokes.

Sixth Iteration

Logs

Entries tagged with - plot: illness

Credits & Style Info

[MINGLE] Color Coordination: The Announcement

God Our Father, Your Son Accepted Our Sufferings to Teach Us the Virtue of Patience in Human Illness

[open] you won't feel the drowning