Tropical Dome

The air inside the Tropical Dome is humid. You can feel the moisture in the air heavy against your skin. Your limbs feel weak and your head is foggy. It’s not pleasant, however, without this extreme humidity none of these plants would survive, and you need one in particular for the cure. You hope you can find the Noni fruit as quickly as possible and escape back into the comparatively cool air outside.

Your phone vibrates and you receive a confusing message from your uncle.

Come and bring the ingredients to me at the Lotus Pond when you are quite finished. Seven and one eights brandy my dear. And the plants I asked you to collect, yes. Plants.

You shake your head. That’s… strange. But there’s no time to waste. You walk up the ramp on the right side, which slowly spirals around until it reaches a platform in the middle of the dome. On the platform is a large pond containing numerous flowering waterlilies and different types of algae. You spot the Noni fruit next to the pond. You approach and hold your phone up to scan the Noni fruit.

You breathe a sigh of relief. You’re on the homestretch now. You’ve collected two ingredients, just like your uncle asked. Now all that’s left is to send him the information so that he can rematerialise the ingredients and synthesise a cure. You just hope that you picked the right ones.

You click ‘Upload Samples’ on your phone but it gives you an error message.

Error 304C: Telecommunications towers inoperative at this time.

You try sending him a text message but your phone repeats the same error message. Your heart sinks. Of course this would happen. Nothing ever goes smoothly does it? You could try making the cure yourself but it would be all pot luck. You wouldn’t know where to begin with preparing the ingredients or how to mix them and with what. Collecting ingredients was one thing, but advanced bio chemistry and molecular biology is entirely another.

Luckily Uncle Frederick has set up his portable lab at the Lotus Pond, which is part of the three water gardens outside the auditorium not too far away, though you will need to avoid a gauntlet of infected. But your uncle’s text message was…odd, and confusion and nonsense was one of the symptoms of the older victims. What if he’s infected? Just as you stand indecisive, you see a woman walk past the outside of the dome holding some garden shears. She might be a gardener or a Botanic Gardens Education Officer. She’s too far away to make out whether she is infected or not, but she’s not crouched over throwing up, so that’s a good sign. She would know what to do with these ingredients. She could help you make a cure, and you wouldn’t have to face a potentially infected uncle.

Do you:

Japanese Garden: Approach the Education Officer for help? You don’t want to risk infection from the many infected that appear to be in the Gardens and Uncle Frederick was acting very strange in that last text message. He could be infected. If that’s the case, he won’t be able to help you make a cure. There might be a better chance that the Education Officer can help. Exit the Tropical Dome and follow the path to the right. Go past the Fern House and follow the signage to the Japanese Garden where you catch up with this stranger.

OR

Auditorium: Get back to the three water gardens, outside the auditorium and combine ingredients with your uncle? You don’t want to take the risk that the Education Officer herself is infected. You know you can trust Uncle Frederick. You know it. Exit the Tropical Dome and walk back towards the entrance near the restaurant. Follow the brick path through the gate and towards the Planetarium. Go past the bus stop and continue straight towards the brick building at the bottom. In front of it there are several rectangular ponds, one of which has Lotus blossoms in it during the summer months.