#now i've gotta find a way for ockham not to get instakilled the second the cacophony reaches himherthem

[viric-dreams]

A Study in Viric

Being out of Parabola for so long hasn't been good for Ockham, who's been progressively fading away as the months wear on, leaving Ockham desperate and hungry for some taste of Parabola, something to regain hishertheir strength and not disintegrate to Nothing. A chance meeting with an interesting character (@ticktopsworld) led to Ockham being offered an entire box of honeyed cosmogone.

What happens when you give an excess amount of cosmogone to a creature made of viric? It tries to convert it as quickly as possible into something usable. Ockham's body goes into overdrive trying to process that much cosmogone. It has unfortunate effects.

Anyone within an immediate radius of Ockham is sent to sleep. Plants grow explosively, soon taking over Ockham and Tamara's home. Warden (@oneirotecture) visits, unaware of the situation and bringing a pineapple grown in Parabola, only to be knocked unconscious by the viric haze.

Overjoyed by the newfound energy and life, Ockham visits Arnaud (@eddie-dearest), determined to celebrate hishertheir miraculous recovery in the way the two of them do best. Ockham's viric radiation only grows more and more powerful as time passes, eventually sending an Arnaud--begging Ockham to stay--into a dream-filled sleep.

It's getting harder and harder for Ockham to focus, each sight, each sound, each new sensation drawing hishertheir attention at the expense of anything else. Friends and strangers alike are sent into slumber by hishertheir presence alone, even when, in moment of lucidity, Ockham begs them to stay awake. Warden, the victim of yet another one of these encounters, decides to get revenge, entrancing Ockham with a cosmogone ink tattoo and leading the parabolan on an extended chase through the Pavilion of Butterflies.

Ockham's most recent employer, Shaw (@zeebreezin) has also not been spared from sleepy Ockham sightings as the holiday progresses. Surmising that the issue was an excess of viric, he attempts to remedy the situation by exposing Ockham to an irrigo-irradiated artifact. This backfires spectacularly, when the exposure to irrigo--not targeting the excess of cosmogone causing the problem, but the viric leaking from Ockham's body at the rate hishertheir body's trying to convert it--cancels out all of the ambient viric, partially dissolving Ockham in the process.

The injured and afraid Parabolan runs out into the streets, viric escaping hishertheir body like sand from a broken hourglass. The trip has decidedly turned Bad, and unable to parse what's going on, only that there are people trying to hurt himherthem Ockham runs, without purpose, just to get away, no matter the cost.

If there's anything to be learned, you do not run from a predator. The Scrimbeast (@t6fs) gives chase, mauling Ockham. Ockham's body and the guilded rot attempt to heal the damage, as the Poet's silks hold it in place.

Ockham sits up to say something, blinks, then blinks out of existence. Between the drugs, the adrenaline, and the strain of healing wounds, it proves too much for hishertheir heart, and it gives out.

A creature of Parabola, however does not go to the Slow Boat. And there is one ophidian hivemind who knows precisely where Ockham is, and who'd been waiting for this moment to finish the job.