#All of this directly approved by Bren

[displaced-tactician]

I’ve Got a Jar of Dirt! || Sea Drabble

The curse, Anacanoa, the crest stuff.... none of it was making sense. Not a single bit of sense. Morgan wasn’t able to learn anything from the Kólga and Tethra about the relic so Morgan made the assumption that she must have ‘accidentally’ encountered it. That was assuming the relic caused the curse. Her tome had record of Morgan herself having stolen someone’s relic once, and it had hurt her quite a bit. 

But then again the symptoms were different. The moment Morgan dropped that weird spear she was fine. Yet still... she couldn’t help but feel they were somewhat related? Perhaps she was wrong but it felt important to investigate.

Was it the damn turtle? If it was, Morgan would kick its butt later. The turtle didn’t matter now after all. She was coat deep in the forest searching for the local shaman Anacanoa and those fancy flowers the legend spoke of, alongside her battalion of loyal soldiers. 

The soldiers took orders well and continually spread out and came back in formation to search for clues, individuals, or objects of interest. While she was young, she did eventually command their respect, and she returned it in kind.

Still Morgan’s mind stayed sharp on subject as she commanded them, what was this curse and where was this damn relic? Everything was hinging on a single theory and Morgan didn’t know if anyone else really had any other ideas. The lack of information was really bothering her. It couldn’t be the damn turtle a second time and now it had a relic, could it?

As she cut down the brush in front of her with her Levin Sword she heard a soft thud on the top of her hood, then another, and another. Then dozens in rapid succession. It was starting to rain. She was glad her cloak was relatively water resistant. Certainly not perfect, but she had to keep her tome and apple cider candies protected and safe. 

Speaking of the candies, she popped one into her mouth, just to keep her mind sharp from the new sensation of flavor. There was a level of boring monotony Morgan felt wandering the forest. Tree here, tree there, oh a plant, oh an animal. Nothing.... Interesting for her. Her boredom needed to be quelled with the excitement of the candies. Yet still she wandered, more aimlessly than she had before. 

It had been another couple hours before her stomach roared with the hunger of... well she’d assume only Grima could be as hungry as she was now. She could eat a bear alongside Fredrick if he was here! She sighed, her expedition a failure in the end. 

She didn’t care to wander in the forest too much after today if she couldn’t find anything. Maybe one more try tomorrow? She ordered the soldiers to gather and share any rations they had with those hungry... herself included, so they could make a quick trip back to the capitol. Rations were spread amongst the battalion and everyone had a small meal before preparing to go back. 

As they began to leave, one of the soldiers began complaining of a headache and nausea. As Morgan wandered over she stopped and quickly found out why. Right next to the soldier was a concentrated spot of dark energy and magic. Something... evil? Perhaps the source of the curse? Morgan jumped in excitement! FINALLY A CLUE! 

“Alright new plan. We will be splitting into two groups. I think we found something.” Morgan commanded with glee. She got half the battalion to go get tents and more rations from the capitol, they’d be here for a bit after all and so would Morgan. The others, helped her do some marking. The spot itself was only a foot by a foot or so and marked with some small survey flags. 

Morgan’s first test was to dig a hole and fill a jar with dirt. As she observed the jar and recognized the dark energy felt... more cut off for the glass jar. But also it diminished quite a bit in the first few hours. So it was the spot producing dark energy, not the soil. She put the jar in her robes to store, in case she needed pocket sand in the future. There was also no relic near by. By the time she drew that conclusion, tents and a small camp had been set up near by. And thus ended the first day.

The next day came and first things first, Anacanoa... where was she? Morgan sent half the team to do recon and find Anacanoa, as she began testing this evil spot. 

Her next test would take... longer. For the next three days she set up men in a radius across the spot. One on it, one five meters away, and another 5 meters from the one five meters away. Through shifting her troops in and out of the spots, and of course testing it on herself, she was able to find out that after spending roughly... half an hour on the spot an individual would be... she called it “infected”. After leaving the spot the individual would be “infected” with nausea likely caused by the magical influence there. It’d wear off in a few hours but it was an “infection” of sorts.

On none of these days was Anacanoa found.

She stationed a rotation of three men to guard the area at least from a 2 meter distance. She didn’t want them any closer as distance seemed to be the safety net, but she wanted to make sure it was guarded for now.

Then it was time to scout for Anacanoa yet again, this time she’d join. Half the soldiers stayed at the camp while the other half followed Morgan further in the forest and up the mountain. The trek was difficult for the tactician. She definitely slowed down the distance of the expedition itself but still she needed to search herself. If Morgan could find these fancy flowers that would cure the curse, maybe she could find Anacanoa.

Yet after the day of searching, Anacanoa was... still no where to be found. No bones, no trace, nothing. Morgan’s best assumption was she was so far in it’d be impractical for Morgan to search for her, or she was dead. This would be sad news certainly.

But on her way down Morgan stumbled across something... interesting. Rather something peculiar. She sniffed the air and smells such a sweet and amazing smell not too far away. When she followed it she found a few... really boring flowers. Pale yellow petals but really pleasant to smell. When she neared them she felt... weird. It almost felt like the flowers didn’t like her but flowers couldn’t choose who to like right? Or could they?

Still... the flowers were interesting and Morgan decided to make an educated assumption in that these were the flowers Anacanoa were looking for. She had the battalion pot two and began to plan some tests to determine if they were indeed the plants she was looking for. 

Once she made it back to base camp she had half the pots emptied and replaced with soil from the evil spot. She set they on opposite sides of the camp and began observing the flowers.

The one in the “Hubert” trial (so she called them) began to slowly become more yellow, as if feeding off the evil energy. The one in the control group did not. How ever what was curious was that over a few days she noticed that the Hubert trial killed the plants in two days while the control lasted four. 

And still, no sign of Anacanoa.

Ten days in and Morgan couldn’t help but wonder if she found more answers or questions. The relic... wasn’t noticeably here. At least not immediately. It could be deeper under ground but... it didn’t feel like the other relics and crests. So this must be seperate? Or a result of it? 

Still, everything was detailed in her tome. Of course it was. She did have some answers though and possibly a cure for that curse.

She decided to run a test while delivering Kólga a pot of flowers. They reclimbed the mountains and picked 8 flowers. Five were in a pot, but made more like a bouquet and three more pots had one flower each. Morgan said she’d deliver the larger pot to Kólga with half her troops and be back the next day. She instructed one pot to be planted in the evil soil, one to be a control, and one to be bombarded with healing magic three times a day until they died. She should be back before any had a chance to die though.

The next day she was at Kólga’s residence and gave her the pot of flowers.... and the bad news. Anacanoa was no where to be found. At least not yet. Kólga was happy she got the flowers but clearly depressed over the fact her wife was missing. Morgan said her troops were looking but it wasn’t promising and Kólga seemed grateful. Morgan also said that she’d try to find a way to keep the flowers alive for longer. Kólga offered to find aid for Morgan in her search for keeping the flowers alive for longer as well. 

She smiled, waved goodbye at the translator, and noticed the flowers began to change color to a brighter yellow. At least some of them did. She wondered why, and if Kólga would be okay. But that didn’t matter. She rushed back to the camp alongside the portion of the battalion she brought. 

By the evening they were back. The flower that was being healed and the control group looked the same, but the flower directly in the evil spot were... extremely bright. Their yellow bright against the evening light. But still... the spot was evil.

Morgan didn’t know what to do. The next few days Morgan watched the flowers and surprisingly all four lasted about four days. No significant difference. In the presence of great evil, these flowers seem to shine. Dark magic harms them but healing magic doesn’t let them live longer. In the ground they’re just fine but in a pot they’re not. 

But... she didn’t like this. And certainly the flowers didn’t like her either, but this uneasy truce of theirs seemed to be... understandable for now. 

She had one more night before she needed to head back. And still.... no sign of Anacanoa... 

They had to return to the monastery soon after all. Her investigation had come to a halt and she wasn’t sure if she’d be able to really bring any home with her. No, likely not. She sighed readying herself to return.

But before she could fall asleep she thought on the people in Brigid and how they viewed the flowers. Many wove them into their hair, many picked them and kept them close, and interwove them with their clothing. That’s when it hit her!

These flowers were evil magic sinks! They were used to actually prevent things that were bad from happening to individuals! But... she had used a lot and she didn’t remember there being many more. She left camp silently and ran up the hill looking for more.

Was it possible that in the past the evil was more prevalent and the culture formed to have flowers so prevalent due to these flowers? In theory, these flowers may even be rarer and harder to find because the evil is more contained and they feed off it! No food means no flowers! So now any flower is used except for specific cases like Anacanoa and Kólga’s! Morgan you genius! 

Though if there was more evil growing and affecting individuals in the town like  Kólga, it meant these flowers would become important yet again. It was, at worst, a wild theory based upon loosely tied threads. And at best, possibly something to really help the group. 

When she reached the mountain they saw that... unfortunately there weren’t many left. Or at least not enough that Morgan would be comfortable taking from the environment. Morgan sighed, cutting one for herself and letting the base of the plant stay. It should grow just fine. She put it in her hair and ran back to the camp, satisfied she at least had one. 

She wouldn’t start worry if there wasn’t a need to. At least in her mind, it was only a small possibility. 

[fiveisnumber1]

So we discussed this a couple days ago that how Lucas and Dean's dynamics are totally different to Luther and Diego's even though they're all the Idiot Four together. I finally came up with the perfect scenario to display that (Warning, it's long xD) :

So something goes wrong on a mission. I'm not quite sure what but let's say (off the top of my head, feel free to change it) Lucas and Dean disagree on a strategy that combines both their powers in the middle of a fight and as a result: Viktoria gets impaled in the shoulder with an arrow meant for a criminal, Five ends up jumping in front of a misfired bullet that was meant for Addison in an attempt to push her out of the way cuz she's distracted cuz of Viktoria and it jarrs her enough that she forgets to keep the criminal's attention who then knocks out the Reader for a couple of minutes who was coming up behind him. Bren is busy fighting another one with Kenny but luckily they manage to get the situation under control.

They come back home with few injuries given the severity of the situation but Viktoria and Five have lost a lot of blood. Addison and Reader have bruises and scrapes and the rest of them are also not quite well cuz this is the first time they had a mission that went quite so terrible.

The result is a horrible blowout in the parlor. The Hargreeves are worried sick and their questions to the anxious teens keep pushing and it ends up with Lucas and Dean straight up starting a fistfight until Kenny and Bren have to hold them apart and Addison comes in between them. (Reader is with Five and Viktoria, helping Grace patch them up).

The fight lasts for a couple of days and no amount of pushing from the Hargreeves has them agree to work it out. It only serves to make them more moody. The H8 mostly let them work it out on their own because they know they will, this isn't the first time. Although the Reader as the leader does make it a point to say the accident was nobody's fault and that not every mission is bound to go perfectly.

The following week Diego and Luther seek out their counterparts. Diego talks to Dean about always feeling frustrated cuz of Luther's pigheadedness and refusal to listen and how he understands how Dean must hate having to compromise for Lucas' ego. Luther complains about how Diego never listened to his authority even though he was team leader and tries to be sympathetic to Lucas saying he understand what it's like to have your better judgement ignored. They're both surprised when Dean and Lucas are more sad than angry at each other and are surprised when both teens get angry at the elder's projection on them

In the end, Luther and Diego end up observing how Lucas and Dean interact when fighting and see that even if they make snarky comments in the same vicinity, they never directly attack each other at their weakest points. It's mostly their usual jokes but with a bit of edge. Neither of them bring up the fight or serve each other the blame again. They even look sorrowful when Dean sees the bruise on Lucas' face and Lucas winces seeing Dean's limp.

They make up about four days to six days later. They both apologize. They sit down and talk. They end up hugging and then half an hour later they're laughing again and they're genuinely sorry. Maybe they even cry cuz they were so worried the other would still be mad at them for not cooperating.

Idk if someone would actually knock some sense into them beyond that. I think it's necessary cuz they are kinda thick sometimes. I feel like Luther and Diego would be confused about how the younger two got over everything so quickly and Five and Reader are in the room and basically tell them that "This is what you could have been if you weren't always fighting for Dad's/Reggie's approval."

And that's when Luther and Diego realize that Lucas and Dean have never fought each other for the title of smarter or more powerful. Heck, none of the H8 have. Even Five doesn't say he's better than the H8 (other than very rare teasing) even though he still occasionally says it in frustration to the Hargreeves and he actually means it. And Luther and Diego feel ashamed cuz these two boys who are so similar to them, put their affection and trust in each other first and their desire for power last and it's just a very humbling moment.

This ended up being really long but tell me what you think. If you'd add or change anything and whatnot etc.

I think since Viktoria’s skill relies on her ability to play the viola she wouldn’t be in the middle of the action where she could get hurt like that. Especially, since the fact that she needs two hands to play, she probably wouldn’t be anywhere near where someone could come at her. So I can’t see her getting hit with an arrow. I can see the reader getting hit by an arrow that had a messed up trajectory because Dean got distracted. And then I can also see that leading to a series of unfortunate events. The reader gets hit in the shoulder area with a stray arrow and accidentally throws one of her knives. Instead of it hitting a criminal it hits Addison in the leg sending her to the ground. With Addison on the ground, it gives way for the criminal the knife was supposed to be for to gain access to other members leading to some minor injuries for them.

Like this would cause a real fight because that means Dean directly hurt the reader who he sees as his twin sister and Lucas indirectly led to Addison, his girlfriend getting hurt. Not only would they be pissed at each other over the dispute that happened to cause these injuries but they’d be so upset with themselves. I also imagine along with them being upset with themselves,, on top of it you have Five, with all he has been through worried once more about his girlfriend.

And I agree that they would both be more so sad at the fight than angry because they’re homies, they’re best friends, and they didn’t mean it.

They definitely would be angry at Luther and Diego for projecting onto them though because just because they can’t get along and treat each other as equals doesn’t mean that Lucas and Dean can’t as well. They may be similar mini versions but they’re not carbon copies. And it throws Diego and Luther for a loop because it’s just like “wow are we really that messed up?” especially after the reader and Five point out that they were pitted against each other by Reggie.

But yeah those are my thoughts!

[orbemnews]

Plan to Rebuild Louisiana’s Vanishing Coast Moves Ahead The next phase of a $50 billion plan to protect the Louisiana coast from erosion and rising sea levels has cleared an important hurdle, with the Army Corps of Engineers delivering a long-awaited environmental impact statement for a key part of the project. The report, issued Thursday evening, looked at a proposal to punch a hole in the Mississippi River levee. The corps said the move would largely benefit coastal areas in the state, though it might also affect some marine life, especially bottlenose dolphins, and could cause problems for those who make their living from raising and catching seafood in the area. “This is what climate adaptation looks like at scale,” said Kyle R. Kline, Jr., chairman of the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Board. “This project, in our mind, is the lifeline for our coast.” Money for the project will come from penalties paid by BP for the damage caused by the Deepwater Horizon oil platform disaster in 2010, which killed 11 rig workers and spilled some 200 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. The new project, formally known as the Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion, is, of course, more complex than punching a hole in a levee. If the corps issues final permits, which could happen as early as next year, a $1.4 billion structure will be dug into the west bank of the river below New Orleans. It will include gates that allow operators to control the flow of water and sediment from the mighty river into Barataria Bay, nearly an Olympic swimming pool’s worth of water every second. By letting fresh water and sediment flow from the river into the depleted wetlands of Barataria Basin, the diversion will mimic the spring floods that were common before people built levees to contain the river — floods and sediment that built the Mississippi Delta in the first place. Without those regular deposits, the land has subsided. Further damage from activities like oil exploration cut channels into the delicate wetlands and let destructive salt water intrude into the delicate marshes; all that and rising sea levels have combined to cause the loss of some 2,000 square miles of land in the last 100 years. The corps evaluated seven alternative ways to build and operate the diversion, including the option to do nothing. The state’s proposal, it found, would build some 17,300 acres of new land after 30 years. And while sea level rise from climate change is expected to cut into some of those gains over time, greater New Orleans would still be helped by the equivalent of a “speed bump” for hurricanes. The report also estimated that more than 12,000 jobs would result from the project, which will take five years to complete once it has been approved. After a period for public comment on the new report, technically a draft, the final environmental impact statement will be published and the permit could be issued next year. The project “is needed to help restore habitat and ecosystem services injured in the northern Gulf of Mexico” as a result of the 2010 spill, the environmental impact statement said. The river water will inevitably change salinity levels in Barataria Bay, which will have repercussions for marine life in the area. The environmental impact statement said that dolphins would be especially hard hit by the changes. It suggested that 30 percent of the bottlenose dolphins in the Barataria Basin could die or be driven away. In 2018 Congress provided a waiver for the project from federal laws protecting marine mammals. Oyster and brown shrimp populations would also be strongly hit by the change in salinity, while white shrimp were expected to be less affected. Alligators, the report found, would do somewhat better. The Louisiana coastal authority also issued a new report that discussed the diversion, and which focused on how it plans to counteract the negative effects. Those initiatives include millions of dollars to monitor dolphin populations and protect them, as well as helping to pay to relocate oyster beds to areas that will have the right level of salinity. They also plan to provide funding to upgrade boats with refrigeration and more efficient engines to make longer trips possible if the close-in waters of Barataria Bay are no longer suitable for oysters. It also said it would be providing funding for retraining for people whose jobs may disappear and to provide some relief for the vulnerable poor and minority communities that depend on the waters for subsistence fishing and for their livelihoods. Some officials acknowledge having mixed feelings. “I do believe the project should be built, but I have a lot of questions,” said Richie Blink, a council member of the Plaquemines Parish government. “We need to make sure the people who are impacted most by the structure and the project have some say,” he said. “We need to make sure there’s a safety net for those folks.” Those who have expressed opposition to the project in the past said they were not changing their positions because of the governments report. Tracy Kuhns, executive director of Louisiana Bayoukeeper, an organization that opposes the diversion, said she preferred another, faster method the state has employed to build land: dredging sediment directly from the river and pumping it into place. That land-building method is more expensive, however, and needs regular replenishing; the diversion is designed to replenish the wetlands continuously. Byron Encalade, a longtime oysterman who opposes diversions, applauded whatever efforts the state might take to address the damage to the fishing communities. “Anything that will help, I’m not going to say no,” he said, but called the efforts “too little, too late.” Coastal officials point out that the ongoing damage to the state means that change is inevitable, and that their plan will help avert some of the worst consequences of erosion. “Things are heading in the wrong direction without the project,” said Bren Haase, executive director of the state coastal authority. He said that he understood the fears of people who oppose it. “The purpose of the project is to effect change, and change is a scary thing.” However, he added: “The alternative is unthinkable. It’s a coastal Louisiana that doesn’t exist. That’s just not an option in my mind.” Source link Orbem News #Ahead #Coast #Louisianas #Moves #Plan #rebuild #Vanishing