Rhombus's backlash is honestly not that bad. Hell week was bad! She was in the hospital the whole time on a lot of drugs and they didn't have Epione back then. She was also in the hospital for two weeks following; hell week itself does not stand out to her and they didn't realize she was an esper till a few days after it was over and her grandma, who hadn't been visiting every day to get frogboiled about it, noticed that her eyes had gone pale glass green from their previous watery blue.

The backlash, by itself, if the dice are on her side? Heartburn. Heartburn that responds fine to all normal medication for that; the acid goes where it's not wanted, it doesn't make more of itself by fucking magic. Tendency to bruising, but it doesn't spontaneously generate unless she's really fucked up, if she doesn't get hit she's good. Leaks in the abdomen, in general, but only probabilistically.

Tendency to bowel perforation. That's the scary one. She has to be on so many antibiotics when one of those hits.

(Actually, her doctor insists that the scary one is that her backlash logically includes brain bleeds but that's never actually happened, so maybe it doesn't, or maybe that's how she'll go, shrug. She will not retire until she stops being the best combat esper in Toronto, like Maple before her.)

So if she knows a bowel perf is going to hit her sooner or later, might as well take the antibiotics in advance.

The confluence strikes while Rhombus is in a dungeon. It goes from "Rhombus can solo it" to "Rhombus would really have liked some company but they're all also abruptly busy", and she makes it out without worse than a black spot of blood under the skin of her arm.

Then, right at the beginning of the confluence, she takes the next day off. She checks in to the hospital. She starts nuking her digestive system. She will not eat anything by mouth until the dungeons calm the hell down - water is still safe, even some electrolyte drinks, but nothing that could recolonize her gut, because her guts are going to suck at keeping their colonists to themselves at unpredictable random points in the next few months. Guiding will make her odds of that happening drop; it will not repair existing damage. What will is -

Subject: happy confluence, Uisa!

It's that time of decade again. I'm CCing my med team & Luis & my newish secondary Ginny & Epione & Kevin so the addresses are all in one place if anything comes up. Anything we need to know about your availability this time around? Epione's is the same as before.

- Rhombus