Something in the air...

[polymods]

✖ The Isle That Blooms

Ⅰ. ARRIVAL
You can read all about your character's arrival in the game lore.
This is the first isle you can smell before you see it rising on the island. It starts with the faint hint of growing things that blossoms into a floral scent that teases you with the combination of familiarity and the unknown. The next breeze seems to carry you closer even as it coats everything in a delicate wash of golden pollen that only the Ferryman seems to be able to avoid.

Do you like your lips to taste the gritty sweetness? Or are you already starting to sniffle? Either way, the island starts as a smudge then turns into a riot of color as it reveals itself.

The Isle that Blooms lives up to its name as flowers vie in a silent war of roots and strangling vines to cover every viable surface with sprays of color and vibrant pulsing life. There are signs of human life in the form of a village built on stilts and full of little anachronisms like a glowing neon sign that hint that the island sees a large number of Travelers come through this place.

And who wouldn’t be drawn to the abundant flora, brightly painted houses, and lively locals?

Everyone seems to be glowing with health as the locals gather near the dock to welcome the latest set of tourists. They come with arms full of flower wreaths and friendly smiles, clearly in control of their faculties and interested in trade. Their clothing is as bright as the paintings on their buildings, as the flowers that surround them, and perfect for the warmth of the day.

Do you notice, though, the absence of any babies or prepubescent children? Or that while there are old people, no one shows signs of the infirmities that come with age? It might be easy to miss, especially as the Isle starts to affect you, too.

The ache in your back from that terrible fall, the craving for that next drink, the trauma that’s too close to the surface, all the petty hurts the build up in a lifetime start to fade as you, too, start to bloom.

Notes:
1. NO GUNS are allowed on this island. The Ferryman will keep them safe for you.

2. These residents of the island are normal humans. Killing them is possible and may affect the color of your Scrywatch.

3. Any type of flower could exist on the island, blooming somewhere, regardless of its real world requirements. Rare ones are difficult to find and magical ones need a check in with the mods.

4. There is nothing preadolescent of any animal species on the entire island, including insects.

5. The island’s ability leaves people as the healthiest, most energetic version of their current selves. Examples: A blind person in otherwise good mental and emotional health would notice minimal changes. A person with a disorder would find themselves having a string of good days. A 50 year old probably hasn’t felt this good since their thirties.

---

Ⅱ. THE TEMPLE
Orchids in shades of yellow and pink so bright they glow have been trained to grow along the walkways and bridges of the elevated village to guide Travelers to this island’s Temple. The building stands alone at the edge of the Village, extending out in the ocean of flowers that fill most of the isle.


The temple is made of simple stout wood that has been carved and painted in patterns ornate and lovely in a way that speaks of hundreds of hours of creation and maintenance. The same orchids that guided you here gild building and act as camouflage the sleeping porches ring the outside. They are kept private and safe from insects by fine netting, and you will find the bedding soft and fine.

This Temple’s Guardians are a pair of lazing cats with strange spots and scaly wings that regard you with affectionate disinterest as you explore the facilities. There are toilets and sinks, but no baths or showers. The pantries are stocked with edible flowers and fresh fish and the space and tools to cook. If you are brave enough, the Guardians will probably give you practical advice on how to use those supplies. There are new clothes and sandals better suited to the heat, and even practical machetes.

Notes:
1. The Main Temple is still open to those who are brand new to PM.

2. There are paints and carving tools if you want to add to the temple decorations. (Maybe mention it during the Oracle Event if you do.)

3. All fabric items are ridiculously bright and vaguely tie dyed.

4. The marker orchids have a distinctly strong smell of vanilla with a hint of lime.

---

Ⅲ. THE LOTUS BATHS
CW: fantasy setting drugs.
There’s only so long a person can stand to be covered in pollen, and when you ask the locals, they grin. Oh, you want a bath? There’s a path back to the ground and through the tall flowers to a natural spring. Make sure to head out early, they warn.

It’s always better to be in the village before nightfall, and you are clearly going to take a while.

As you walk the winding path to the baths, the everpresent flowers seem to thin out and even disappear as ground warms and rock rises from rich soil. You can smell the mineral richness of the bright blue pools that form waterfalls over a series of rising ledges. There is life, though, even here, in the form of delicate lily pads that float in rafts around vivid lotus flowers.

If you test the water, you’ll find it’s warm enough to melt the knots out of muscles and make it easy to understand why the few bathers seem to be so languid and relaxed. If you sink all the way in, well, not only will you manage to get clean, but you might find yourself mellowing out even more. So mellow you’ll hardly notice when the pleasant hallucinations start.

You’ll find yourself drawn into visions of your most private joys and of the pleasures you keep to yourself. Maybe it’s a matter of shame or maybe it’s because they’re too precious. There’s one small problem, though. If someone else gets in the same pool, not only will they start to share the same vision, but you’ll start to see theirs too.

Will the fantasies become a nightmare or will you manage to navigate them together? Will you ever be able to look at each other the same way again?

Notes:
1. The hallucinations will end when you leave the water, but only once you and your bathing partner are both out.

2. The flowers are magical and will affect everyone, even robots or super powered people.

---

Ⅳ. NIGHTBLOOMING
CW: abduction, violence.
You are warned to stay in the elevated village at night. The flower fields are safe enough during the day, but things happen at night. It’s hard to imagine during the day when stingless bees that glitter in jewel colors bumble along and hummingbirds the size of chihuahuas feed from the abundant flowers while squeaking their strong opinions at each other.

But as the moon rises, and most of the flowers close, there’s rustling sounds that make it clear that there are big things moving through that growth. Things that make the hair rise up on the back of a person’s neck. It would take a big prize to make it worth finding out what makes those sounds. A big prize or a reason to face your fears.

There’s a scream in the night. You can ignore it, of course. Not everyone is meant to run towards the scream. It might not even change the color of your ScryWatch.

But if you go to the source of the sound you’ll find a mother weeping openly while other locals gather around to comfort her. It seems her teenager decided that the best way to woo their lover was with glowing flowers that only open under a full moon. The teen has been gone for hours, and the grim expressions on the people around you say his chances aren’t good.

You have a choice to make. Will you go into the dark to face the unknown dangers? Will you offer some other form of comfort? Or will you go back to hide in the safety of the Temple?

Notes:
1. The danger in the flowers consists of six foot tall nocturnal orchid mantises who have the teen pinned in a tree. They are currently singing a human language lullaby to the kid to get them to go to sleep and fall out of the tree.

2. The mantises have a hive mind and will retreat if one of their number is killed, but can also be talked to and negotiated with. They will be willing to trade a regular supply of fish for no longer hunting people.

---

Ⅴ. SPECIAL EVENT: THE FLOWER ORACLE
In the center of the village, there is a giant flower bud that is bigger than a man is tall. The villagers tell you that you are lucky. You will be here when the Flower Oracle blooms. You will have a chance to speak directly to the Ancient One through the Oracle, and She even answers. All it takes is a little sacrifice.

Notes:
1. During the week of July 12-18, there will be a special event post where characters can choose to interact with the Flower Oracle for a chance to be rewarded, get an answer, get silence, or get punished by the Ancient.

2. Any starter posted during this window will be honored, specifics to come.

3. This event is optional!

Bonus: music to watch the flowers bloom to.

Network · Logs · OOC · Memes · Plurk

Comments

[prodigalmess]

Well. That was a quick answer. Based on her matter of fact tone and the skull face paint, it seems to Malcolm like she's embracing the idea that they might be dead. He's less accepting of it than she is at this point.

At her comment, his fingers instinctively go to the pulse point on his neck. She's right about having a heartbeat.

"So you believe that we've died and this is some kind of afterlife?"

[necrosaint]

"I believe it is for at least some of us, yes, as I know those who remember dying."

There's a very brief wry grin for the pulse check; Harrow can tell when someone has a heartbeat, but she can appreciate when someone questions it. She also knows that kind of sudden fluid movement, as someone else who moves to that kind of instinct.

"And I myself — might, I am not sure," she confesses more quietly. "So it seems to be a reasonably valid inference. Then again, we could make others as well, like that we have all simply been abducted, or that we are all on drugs and having an absurdly long mass group hallucination, but at this point that seems to be the least likely even as I might have once suspected it to be the most."

She looks very young, but she does not talk like it one bit.

[prodigalmess]

"Whereas I do not remember dying," Malcolm replies. He remembers being shocked, and frightened and panicked, but not dying.

She does speak very maturely compared to how she looks, and what she says is like reading my mind. "That was another scenario that I had thought of, but I've ruled it out." Malcolm shakes his head. "This is too real. Even if there are fantastic elements, the hallucination would not go on this long or be this vivid."

[necrosaint]

Harrow does not move; she considers his response like she is a statue, or a creature from a hallucination capable of horrible stillness. Except she's still a person with a heartbeat, just a person capable of stillness just as horrible.

"I am not able to say that I have not been," and then she loses track of how she's going to say it, because this isn't something she talks about, but he seems to inspire an easiness in this particular confession, "I mean to say. I have had hallucinations as vivid. Maybe. But they are not so long or complex, and I do know that I am not on drugs, nor have I ever been." She doesn't realize that normal people who aren't on drugs don't get hallucinations; she doesn't know what she's confessed to. "The place beyond the River--an afterlife--seems the parsimonious conclusion."

[prodigalmess]

Malcolm watches her for a moment, curious about how she can stand so still. Interesting that she's had very vivid hallucinations despite not being on drugs. It's not like he can judge though.

"A therapist taught me something when I was a kid." He shows her the watch on his wrist, the second hand ticking around the face of it. "Time doesn't move in dreams or hallucinations. As long as time is going, what we're experiencing is reality." Like it or not - and he doesn't not like having drawn that conclusion.

The two of them keep walking, Malcolm looking up at the trees that surround them as they take a path through the jungle. "The whole thing with crossing the river was very Charon crossing the Styx, wasn't it?" he asks.

[necrosaint]

Harrow considers the statement, considers the watch, and her, "Oh," is the sort of exhaled oh that gives off the idea that this explanation has cleared up a lot for someone. It's absolutely something Malcolm would be able to pick up on, with his training: she has had some kind of revelation here.

The way time moved for Harrow as a child has now begun to make sense.

"Yes, it--death is a passage through river of souls," Harrow isn't exactly quoting, so much as stating a fact. "And it seemed like it should have been what was going on, but I also know one does not cross that River so easily. A ferryman, though, very allegorical if not literally where we were and what we were doing. I remember the story having some sort of three-headed animal, though?" She isn't sure that's right. The Ninth House does not have animals, and the myth of Hades is essentially a childrens' story marred by time and warped by the Resurrection.

But someone who can explain the passage-of-time-during-madness thing to her ... is going to keep getting Harrow's conversation as long as he'll put up with it.

[prodigalmess]

He's glad that was helpful to her. Malcolm has found it very helpful, more so when he was younger and had more difficulty telling dreams and hallucinations from reality. Unfortunately now, he has so many nightmares that he's used to being able to tell what isn't real. This place, however, was not as easily discernable.

"Death is explained that way in many cultures, yes," Malcolm agrees. "I didn't see any souls in the river when we were crossing, but maybe I wasn't looking hard enough." He smiles. "You're thinking of Cerberus, the three-headed dog. He guards the gates. Maybe we haven't met him yet."

He's joking, but who knows? At this point, anything seems possible.

[necrosaint]

"A temple guardian who does like having its abdomen scritched," Harrow observes, actually allowing for a light smile herself. It's an awkward smile; she is clearly (at least to an analyst like him) someone who rarely smiles sociably and isn't entirely sure how it works.

"I have seen the River, so I can at least promise it is there. I've seen the souls, too—but not in this body of water, in a different one. I was expecting the souls here and was pleased to not see them."

That is a statement made by someone who knows that she was not delusional at the time. Certainly, Harrow admits to hallucinations (though not here), but she has no doubt about the River and what it is made of.

[prodigalmess]

She comes off as awkward, but that could be attributed to any number of things. Harrow's a bit morbid too. Honestly, Malcolm has no room to talk about anything, being somewhat awkward and morbid himself.

His eyes widen a bit as he listens to her talk about the River matter-of-factly.

"You've seen the River Styx?" he asks. "The river of souls?"