lostcarnival | OPEN MINGLE: Search for the Cure

Who: Anyone involved in the cure development effort! Or poisoned people, last-minute volunteers (and voluntolds), nosy people, whoever!
When: D5 onward. Efforts will continue through part of the moon visit.
Where: Medical tent, the laboratory in the Supervisor Grove, the Big Top, and more!
What: Working together to develop an antidote! This is an open mingle log, so feel free to make your own toplevel and tag around! Most of the actual work doesn't need to be played out on-screen, but this is a chance for participating characters to meet, chat, or interact while working!
Warnings: Potential for medical squicky stuff, testing on (undead) animals

After a public call to action over the radios, several people have volunteered their skills and resources for the cause of curing workers afflicted with the Prince's poison.

Over the next several days, they meet at various locations to collaborate on a cure. In the medical tent, affected characters and their symptoms are examined through medical, magical, and spiritual means. A file on a desk there is also used to consolidate information, and volunteers may go there to report their findings or to look over reports of what others have learned.

Lambert has volunteered use of the laboratory he and Sans share in a spare trailer in the Supervisor Grove, so that individuals with knowledge of chemistry, herbs, or potion-making may attempt to concoct helpful solutions. From D7 onward, he’ll move the equipment to his cabin on the moon, where work can continue through the visit.

A portion of the big top has also been roped off and may be used as a working space. Trying out some weird spell or ritual? That might be a good place for it, away from the delicate lab equipment and sick people.

Of course, those are only the main bases, and people may take their work to wherever they find suits them best.

When enough progress has been made, there will be a need for practical testing. Foster has made use of his necromancy to procure them some undead rats (ranging from normal-sized to weirdly gigantic) to test on. For later-stage tests, some brave volunteers may be needed.

For reference, the characters in leadership roles are:

Oversight: Peridot (+ Mari, Herbert)
Magic: Strange, Rita
Medical/Chemistry: Herbert
Herbs/Potions: Lambert
Spiritual: Ginko
Anyone is welcome to join the effort at any point. Completed cures will be administered at a later time, during the vacation on the moon.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Herbert isn't precisely in the middle of much at the moment, just staring with some irritation at a beaker with a failed test in it. So he doesn't have any problem in setting it down and looking towards the sound of his name from the tent's entrance. Miss Mordio's voice over the radio had been young, definitely, but he thinks that he personally is evidence that age need not act as a barrier to intelligence. As for her gender, if Peridot is indicative of more than just her species, he may have been too dismissive in his prior interactions with females. Maybe. Anyway, he's not discarding the possibility his judgement might have been impetuous, not taking into account the variables.

But then he recognises her, through the haze of his Manor memories.

"Oh," he says, pulling off nitrile gloves as he walks over, "it's you." He disposes of the gloves in a nearby container before he reaches Rita and stands in front of her, his hands in his pockets. "A specialist, was it."

Rita's eyes widen with recognition when she sees his face.

"What the... you're that onion guy!" she blurts out. "You're the new medic?"

It's not completely inconceivable... but it is a weird coincidence that the guy who was tending to them back in the dungeon is now the guy tending to the same victims in a medical context. Rita's not sure how she feels about that yet.

"West," he corrects instinctively, followed with, "Herbert," because they're doing first names, right. "I was a medical student before I ever was an. 'Onion'. 'Guy.'"

Is he ever going to be allowed to lose that moniker? The Prince is haunting him even now that he's been excised from his mind.

"Should I call you, 'Shouting Girl' or will Rita be sufficient?"

Hm. So Onion Guy's got a bit of a backbone. That won't necessarily stop Rita from making digs at him when she can, but she'll keep that in mind.

She gives him a glance and a half-shrug and replies, "Rita. Or Mordio -- whichever." Generally, friends called her Rita and colleagues called her Mordio. It's only since coming to the carnival that she knew anyone who fell into both categories... though Rita's slow to admit to considering anyone her friend.

And, since this is technically an exchange of introductions, she supposes she'll go ahead and elaborate on who she is. "I'm a researcher of magic and magic technology."

That was...a lot easier than Herbert was expecting it to have to be. What a relief. Names feel a bit complicated, with a girl a decent amount younger than him, but he'll see what he settles on. Polite, as long as she stays away from onions.

"As far as I was aware in my particular universe magic was a fiction, an excuse used to avoid understanding the actual, way things function so as you might imagine I. Will have to accustom myself to the, concept of magic as yet another field. My previous experiences with." His face shifts into mild disgust. "A, dabbler, in the field of magic went poorly." It's Strange. He's talking about Strange. Strange is a crap magic scientist is what he is saying. "You sound like a scientist, which is preferable."

"Magic is a science," Rita asserts with a confident nod, her arms crossed. "Some people might be able to use it without fully understanding how it works, but ultimately, it's a method of manipulating elements of physics and chemistry... and it works best when the user has a strong understanding of those fields."

At least, that's true in Rita's world. The more studious the mage, the greater the magic they're able to command.

People like Strange are anomalies, as far as she's concerned. Even after working to familiarize herself with English magic, she still doesn't fully understand how he can just... fling himself at magic, try weird things, kiss a freaking horse, and have things just fall into place for him. Maybe he's extraordinarily lucky... or he has some kind of innate talent for the art.

"Yes, just as I thought!" says Herbert, looking excited and a bit smug. Finally, confirmation that magic is the science he presumed it was! "Obviously our focus needs to be on the cure for the present moment but if you are willing to teach or have any textbooks on the subject I would be very interested to learn more--I will be able to work much more effectively here with a firm basis in magic!"

What luck that despite their rude start, Rita is exactly the specialist he was looking for. What will he be able to do in his particular specialisation with the ability to more directly manipulate scientific forces? The possibilities are nearly overwhelming.

Rita's expression brightens, and for the moment, her earlier disdain is forgotten. Few things could be so exciting for a researcher as meeting someone with a genuine interest in her work. As a scientist, he'll probably even be able to understand some of the complexities, things that fly right over most people's heads...

"As a matter of fact," she gloats, beaming, "I've been working on a book that should touch on some of the fundamentals of magic theory." At least, within the context of blastia magic. But, whatever. Blastia are important and there's plenty of value in studying the theories surrounding them, even for someone who won't use blastia. Rita firmly believes that.

"I'll let you have a look at it when I've made more progress." At present, her manuscript is in pieces; she's written a lot, but she needs to organize her ideas just right. But soon...

...Well, it should probably wait until after they've solved their current problems.

"Excellent. I'll look forward to reading it." Genuine excitement for someone else's stuff coming from Herbert? It's more likely than you think!

"Of course if there's anything, relevant to our current work I would appreciate knowing it; this venom seems intrinsically magical." And finally, the audible quotation marks around "magic" are gone. He's just going to accept that it's a new field of science now. Mostly.

"Unfortunately, healing magic isn't exactly my kind of field," Rita explains. "Although... I do have the ability to perceive magic energy in a way that the human eye normally can't. I can get a sense of where the venom spreads and how it interacts with the body, to some extent."

Speaking of eyes, Rita's have flecks of blood in them right now, symptoms that hint at trauma and heightened blood pressure consistent with asphyxiation. They still seem to move and focus normally, fortunately for her.

OPEN MINGLE: Search for the Cure

d5, cw: mild sexism? sorry...

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