Eternal Summer

[polymods]

✖ The Isle That Blooms

Ⅰ. ALWAYS BLOOMING, NEVER HARVEST
July flowers bring, well, August flowers.

Another month has come and gone, and you may have noticed things haven’t changed much. Everything is still beautiful. There are still no signs of babies or prepubescent children or young animals.

In fact, if you’re paying close enough attention, you may have noticed there are no fruits or grains or vegetables that have come from the constant riot of color and pollen. Only flowers, always flowers.

You still have access to the city’s temple and the baths. The High Temple’s doors are open to everyone.

Some of you may still be dealing with the unpleasant side effects of the Ancient’s now dead and gone Flower Oracle, but it should wind down before the end of the month. Or maybe you already faced your demons.

Hiding out in the Temples for the rest of the month is always an option, but be careful not to get too stagnant. It would be a shame if your ScryWatch stays stuck on the same color forever because you, too, decided to stop growing.

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Ⅱ. FLOWER MARKET FESTIVAL
CW: Optional Alcohol/Drug Consumption.
You didn’t think the celebrations would be over just because the Flower Oracle came and went, did you? There’s always a new event, a new thing to do, a new way to make some benefit off the Travelers who pass in and out of the Isle looking to take something away from this place.

This month it’s the Flower Market!

During the days, stalls bloom beneath the elevated buildings and in the empty center where the Flower Oracle once stood. There are flowers, of course, in buckets, arrangements, wreaths, crowns, growing in tiny little pots, made into cakes, salsas, and snacks! Artists will find pigments, paints, inks, dyes, and papers. There are perfumes, lotions, oils, soaps, and more. Spices and herbs are abundant; you’ve certainly never seen saffron this cheap. If you haven’t gotten enough tie-dye from the temple, you’ll find beautiful batik clothing, purses, and even jewelry. Everything is bright, everything is for sale.

At night, the stalls are all folded away and instruments come out. Little stalls sell flowery alcoholic drinks and did you know or remember that cannabis is a flowering plant? The locals certainly remembered to make the edibles. Careful, though, drink or imbibe and you’ll find yourself talking about the things you need that you cannot buy. The things you are aching for.

And you won’t stop until someone acknowledges it.

Notes:
1. If you want it and it’s made of flowers, it’s here. No drugs or alcohol during daylight hours.

2. The Temple gives a small amount of spending money daily. Save up and get fancy, or buy a little bit of everything.

3. There is a tiny group of unknown Travelers that show up for the market. They don’t seem to have access to the same network as PCs, but their watches flash green, blue, or purple. They seem to be avoiding PC Travelers and disappear into parts of the Temples that don’t seem to be open to our group yet whenever they get too close.

---

Ⅲ. POISON GARDEN
CW: Poisons, narcotics, ect.
As you wander the now familiar village, you will notice a new pathway has opened at the edge of the village. It leads to an area with a high stone fence and a heavy gate. A skull and crossbones are painted on the gate in bright white paint, but there’s nothing actually stopping you from opening the gate and walking in.

The garden is beautiful, but surprisingly formal after the chaotic abundance of the rest of the Isle. The paths are wide and there’s space between the plants. Each one is meticulously labeled with a stake in the ground.

Do you read the labels? How long does it take you to realize everything in the garden is toxic or poisonous? There are so many options from hemlock and oleander to aconitum and angel’s trumpet and beyond.

Welcome to a study on how not everything that's natural is good for you as you continue to wander the fractal paths. Of course, not everything that's poisonous has no purpose. By the opium poppies there’s a sign that tells you that you can choose to wander the deadly garden until it kills you or you can own up to a toxic habit or behavior that you need to deal with.

Notes:
1. In theory, a character could wander forever without touching or consuming any of the poisons. For plot/fun reasons, feel free to make it a little more difficult. And remember, some of your characters can be poisoned to death.

2. Acknowledging bad habits or a need for change in an honest way is very likely to result in a shift in a ScryWatch color. Remember, the Ancient is looking for growth and improvement, not moral perfection.

3. Characters can collect poisonous or medicinal plants but will be at risk while doing so.

---

Ⅳ. FLOWERY FIELDS FOREVER
Maybe you need to get away from the fuss at the market or just want to stretch your legs, but it’s time to explore the flowering landscape around the village. The villagers have baskets waiting at each of the outbound trails with the request that you come back with the basket full in trade for the picnic lunch they provide.

Wander the rolling hills and you’ll find a surprising amount of wildlife for an island without offspring. There are hummingbirds the size of chihuahuas, tiny pollinating bats, nectar eating possums, giant stingless bees, and more butterflies than you can shake a stick at. All of them seem entirely unafraid of humans despite being wild animals. If you get bitten or pecked, it’s your own fault.

As you fill your basket, you’ll notice patterns in what blooms. All kinds of plants bloom outside of reason and season and traditional need because the land is trying to talk to you through flowers. What did you need to hear? The villagers can help you translate when you come back from your adventure.

Notes:
1. The giant orchid mantises are still there! Thank Gideon and Harrow for negotiating a truce, so they probably won’t eat you. A mantis might even have a conversation with you if you ask nicely, (Quentin managed somehow,) and they have their own knowledge and worship of the Ancient.

2. Feel free to use any reference for plant/flower meaning. Here’s one to get started!

3. Don’t get too attached to any of the critters, they will stay here at the end of the month.

Bonus: music to watch the flowers bloom to.

Network · Logs · OOC · Memes · Plurk

Comments

[helpdesk_hero]

Oh laugh at him, really? David rolls his eyes and steps closer.

"I've seen plenty of unseasonable growth in my time. And strange animals. Adn really, the dude with the Charon impression isn't impressing me at all. It's these, more than anything. The things that don't fit together, even if one takes powers into consideration."

He's known biokinetice and florapaths and plenty of other types of mutants. Even they couldn't force this.

[mewnifestos]

"So...none of that bothers you, but a few out of place flowers do?"

He's still not seeing the difference, there. If one can create whole, isolated little worlds among an endless sea of nothingness, Anders is certain they'd have no trouble at all putting winter blooms next to summer. Or anything else more extraordinary.

He shakes his head, reaching again to start picking careful cuttings of the blooming plant he's crouched beside. "I've seen a lot stranger than that over the past few months."

[helpdesk_hero]

"I've met multiple gods, engaged in arranging a rock concert to free a world, fought interdimensional magical parasites, and been to a hell-dimension. No. Supernatural beings don't bother me. But this? This is something against nature, and that isn't really the MO of fae."

So that worries him. And that there is stranger still bothers him more.

[mewnifestos]

Even if he knew what half those words meant in that order, Anders would still be having trouble doing the math, here. Because unnatural nonsense like this is precisely his definition of strange magic at work. Especially in a world that seems to be entirely dominated by strange spirits (and perhaps even demons), so much like the Fade.

(Well, maybe part of his trouble is likely just from assuming this is the Fade, and therefore, if the sky wants to fall or the furniture wants to talk, or a bunch of flowers all want to spontaneously crop up near each other without a care for when or why, well. That's all perfectly natural.)

So his puzzled skepticism stands. "...You think it's fairies?"

[helpdesk_hero]

Differences in magic was not something David had truly considered yet. But David... He shook his head. That was bothering him more than anything.

"No, I really don't. Fae believe in order. Usually an order we cannot understand, and it's often ageless and unchanging like this, but have you really looked around this island and found yourself constantly breathless for the undeniable beauty of it all? If not, fae aren't likely."

[mewnifestos]

"Every time I see the sky, I'm breathless for the undeniable beauty of it all, so maybe I'm the wrong person to ask that," Anders replies, equal parts lightly mocking and somewhat self-deprecatingly sarcastic.

"Anyway, I don't really believe in fairies. Not the sort of fare children's stories in the Circle tend to trade in."

[helpdesk_hero]

Breathless for the undeniable beauty. Well that was poetry enough to have David stopping to smile at the other.

"You're a poet? nice to see we get all types. And fairies definitely exist in my world. In many forms."

[mewnifestos]

"Hardly. Just following your lead." Anders eyes him skeptically again, brushing out his robes as he straightens up, flower-laden basket a little fuller.

"Perhaps you ought to spend a little less time in the sun?" Believing in fairies may not be a symptom of anything dire, but it's probably not distinctly healthy.

[helpdesk_hero]

"My lead? No one ever really turns to me for guidance," David admitted. But he rolls his eyes at that comment. "I don't have heat exhaustion or a heat stroke. I know the symptoms. I am a doctor."

Mostly. Sorta. IT counts. "I went to school with wings that generated a dust that causes hallucinations. Don't tell me there aren't fae."

[mewnifestos]

"Well, I won't try to convince you otherwise." But there's still going to be a hefty dose of judgement in that resignation.

"We're all from drastically different places, anyway. No point in trying to sort out all of that strangeness while we're stuck with plenty enough of it, here."

[helpdesk_hero]

Wow, judgement? Man, that's something new. Wait, nope. He's used to it. And it makes him just that much more resigned.

"That's horribly rational. I was hoping for less rational here because this place seems sorta to spurn that."

He sighs, fingers coming up to his temples. "I need a drink.

[mewnifestos]

Anders chuckles, at that. "Don't we all."

Booze has never solved any of his problems, but it certainly is an entertaining way to avoid them for a little while.

"If you figure out where to get one, around here, point me in the same direction."

[helpdesk_hero]

"Oh, you just need to go into the market at night," David answered. "I haven't bothered yet."

Because really, drinking alone was miserable.

[mewnifestos]

"Only at night? Sounds a bit shady."

Not that that's ever stopped him, before. A drink's a drink. And the questionable dives are usually the fun ones, anyway.

[helpdesk_hero]

"Most things done with alcohol are seen as shady," David counters with a brief shrug. Surely Anders was from a world where alcohol was only for adults and seen as a night thing, right? Clearly right.

[mewnifestos]

"Most things that are fun, you mean," Anders corrects him, short and to the point, though he probably could go on. Liquor itself doesn't have such connotations, in his experience - unless they're speaking of a certain, uptight, possibly religious point of view. But if that's the case, his curiosity is probably better off not indulged, this time.

"I don't see why we have to single the booze out."

[helpdesk_hero]

"Because that's what puritanical thinkers will single out as a reason?" David asks. "Nothing wrong with alcohol, just abuse there of."

And not having your biokinetic friend around when you have had too much

[mewnifestos]

"I'm not sure you can abuse something in a bottle."

Best not to take his word for it, though. He's a big fan of self-medicating, as it were.

"Needlessly judgemental types must be everywhere, though, I suppose. Ruining it for the rest of us."

[helpdesk_hero]

Anders, are you really that pure and innocent? David stares for a moment and shakes his head.

"Alcohol abuse, as in addiction? Definitely something you can do, mostly by getting the thing out of the bottle. It's not healthy. But sometimes, if you don't have a problem, it's an important way to get through some stress."

[mewnifestos]

Pure? Innocent?? Hardly. But he does happen to be from a pseudo medieval fantasy world where alcoholism is viewed more as a general personality quirk than an illness. It's certainly nothing he's ever been called upon to cure, personally.

"Right." He's pretty sure the only unhealthy thing about drinking until you blackout is waking up somewhere like the castle parapets or deep in the wolf and sylvan-infested wood, and it shows. "If drinking were that bad for you, the Wardens wouldn't have any pastimes at all. I suppose if I were chugging that brew with lyrium in it, or making a career out of smelling like a brewery, one might consider it a problem, though."

[helpdesk_hero]

Not like mental health things were so easily fixed with a spell anyway. Still, he's very intrigued by what the man is saying. Who are even the Wardens.

"It's a mental health thing. Like depression, or BPD. Except it's more one that can be managed if you have people to support you."

[mewnifestos]

"...You've lost me again."

Mental health??? Never heard of her.

[helpdesk_hero]

"Mental health... Do you not have the field of psychology where you're from?"

Anders, he's got SO MUCH to tell you.

[mewnifestos]

"Well, there are a lot of fields where I come from. Having not seen all of them, I can't say for sure."

He fully understands this is not the question; he's just being difficult now. (And the answer, accordingly, should be self-evident, shouldn't it?)

[helpdesk_hero]

David pauses. And stares. What?

"The study of the human mind and why it behaves the way it does is called psychology."