OPEN MINGLE: Search for the Cure

[anti_nonsense]

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.

Comments

Jonathan Strange | ota!

[kingsroads]

big top / d5 onward
The big top's been set aside for weird spell or rituals, larger scale magic that might mess up some of the more delicate equipment. Surprising no one, that's where Strange hangs out most of the time. He's not any good with the more medical and magitech sort of things but dumb magical nonsense is right up his alley.

He's sitting on the floor of the big top, looking at a normal sized undead rat in a cage. Said rat has the stone covering that those afflicted have. And Strange is just muttering a spell, staring at the rat with a frown.

As he hears someone come in, he raises his head. "Odd question, but how are you with rats?"

laboratory / d5 onward
Strange should not be touching this piece of equipment. And yet, he is straight up touching this piece of equipment, fiddling with it and moving it around and just messing up whatever settings it was on because he is a literal child who does not know how to leave well enough alone.

Someone please fuss at him.

wildcard!
Strange is not afflicted. However, he's been going full steam for the past few weeks and, as such, has developed the world's most erratic sleeping schedule. When he can't be found working on magic in the big top of pestering people in the laboratory, you might find him just passed out in one of those locations.

Big Top

[mylastchance]

His pet rat, Stanley, is in his shirt pocket at that exact moment. He looks from Strange, to her and then back again, starting to feel a bit wary.

"Fine...?"

[kingsroads]

Strange smiles a bright and eager smile that's only slightly worrying. Partly because Lauren knows a bit about rats, partly because oh good, Lauren's actually talking to him. There's probably still some hard feelings with regards to the Hunt but at least they're able to work together now.

"Wonderful! I need you to hold this rat while I enchant him." As he talks, he gestures to the rat in the cage. It's got a tiny bit of stone on it's back, is very undead, and looks like it's going to bite Strange if he puts his fingers anywhere near the cage.

[mylastchance]

He looks from the undead animal back to Strange. His look screams suspicion.

"Why?"

[kingsroads]

"Because I cannot hold the rat and cast my spell at the same time," Strange explains as if it's the most obvious thing in the world. There's an awkward pause before he continues and grumpily admits, under his breath,

"Besides, the damn thing keeps trying to bite me."

Equal parts practicality and annoyance.

[mylastchance]

He frowns, looking to the undead rat again. His first thought is that it isn't really a rat. It's undead. At this point it's nothing but an animated shell, anything that made the animal what it was now gone. That's sort of a pointless thing to mention, but it's wrong for Strange to ask people if they've experience with rats when what he's dealing with isn't even really a rat at all.

His second thought, is to wonder why the rat would be biting at all. Was it simply scared? Could an undead rat feel the same instinctual fear a living rat like Stanley could? He wasn't sure. The other answer was that the rat just didn't like Strange. It could also just not like being held. Perhaps as an undead beast it could only act on aggressive impulses, that would line up with his own experiences with undead creatures, but since such things worked different on different worlds he couldn't necessarily assume that was the case here. If it wasn't something specific to Strange then it was likely the creature would bite anyone who crossed it, not just Strange, and an affinity towards rats would make no difference.

After thinking all this and staring silently at the creature for sometime as he did so, Lauren finally turns back to Strange with a suggestion.

"Do you have leather gloves?"

[kingsroads]

As Lauren stares at the rat, Strange turns back towards it, muttering something under his breath: it isn't a spell, it's an exhortation, just please stop trying to bite me and I'll get this stone business settled, it's not that hard, you don't have to keep biting.

At Lauren's question though, Strange looks up, briefly distracted from the rat plea.

"I don't have any on my person. But this is the big top, it wouldn't surprise me if someone left a pair of gloves in the back." Either for work purposes or handling animals purposes. Gingerly picking up the rat cage, Strange starts to walk towards the offstage area of the big top, assuming that Lauren's going to follow him (because of course he would).

[mylastchance]

Unfortunately that's not an assumption Lauren picks up on, so he just watches Strange walk off feeling even more confused.

[kingsroads]

Strange gets near the back of the big top before he realizes huh, Lauren isn't there.

"Well come on!" he yells, like it's Lauren's fault that Strange didn't say 'follow me.' "It's easier if we've two people looking for the gloves."

[mylastchance]

Well, he never agreed to help Strange look, but he guesses he doesn't mind. Or at least, he wouldn't have minded if Strange had actually asked instead of ordering him about. So, he's just going to pretend he's fine with it, though he doesn't pretend away the annoyed look on his face. He's also not pretending it's okay to borrow someone's gloves without asking, but then again he couldn't think of anyone in performance who would actually mind lending their gloves to someone for a few minutes so maybe it was okay.

Either way he follows Strange and begins to reluctantly look for some gloves.

[kingsroads]

Strange has none of those compunctions. Borrowing someone's gloves for a moment without telling them? He's fine with that! Accidentally bossing Lauren around instead of asking nicely? Doesn't cross his mind! He also starts looking for the gloves but ends up rummaging through more people's stuff than Lauren does.

They've been searching in silence for far too long. So Strange, a man who lives off of the sound of his own voice, starts talking.

"How have things been, by the way? I know the petrification is...trying, but what about aside from that?"

[mylastchance]

His first instinct is to ask why Strange wants to know. Strange isn't petrified or sick from the Prince's poison. He and Lauren hardly know each other. There's no reason for the man to care about Lauren's well being. Of course then Lauren realizes that Strange probably doesn't care, and the question becomes unnecessary. This is what people call 'small talk.' The inane idle chatter of everyday life that always manages to trip Lauren up. They're conversations people have without actually communicating anything of value. They are pointless, and a never-ending source of annoyance for someone like Lauren who has trouble even with meaningful communication. He considers answering, 'fine' and having that be the end of it, but if Strange wants to have a conversation there's something else on his mind he's more than okay with talking about.

"Did you really think that they wouldn't try to bite you if you kept on handling them over and over again?"

[kingsroads]

Well that's not an answer to his question. Strange frowns for a moment, before he continues rummaging through other people's stuff, trying to find anything remotely close to leather gloves. This trunk doesn't have any, so he moves on to a different trunk, still talking to Lauren as he does so.

"I've only started handling them. I think they're suspicious." Of what, Strange doesn't clarify, though he has a long laundry list of reasons why rats and mice might be suspicious of him which he'll explain if asked. "Besides, I'm trying to see how my magic affects the stone on the poor devils. You'd think they'd realize I'm trying to help."

laboratory

[whattaprick]

"Don't touch that." Guess who's being stooping to using mind control magic to get his best friend to stop attempting to break his lab equipment? This guy!

"Why are you even here?" Lambert asks. He's working on something at the table -- cutting and separating leaves from stems and grinding them in a mortar and pestle -- and he's twisted around to make a face at Strange. "I thought you were working on magic, not alchemy."

[kingsroads]

Said mind control works, as Strange moves his hands away from whatever piece of lab equipment he was fiddling with. Once he blinks away the spell, he can't help but give Lambert a bit of a frown. Party foul, you could have asked!

Still, he did ask a question, so Strange is going to answer. "I am. I've been trying to coax the stone covering into working with me all morning." And, based on Strange's frown, it hasn't happened. So, time to change tactics for a little bit.

"I've an idea though. How much do you know about the act of enchanting an object? Imbuing something not magical with magic itself or magical properties, for example."

Because that's something Strange doesn't really know about. He does know how to break spells, after all, if he could enchant some of the equipment or some of the liquid into breaking spells as well, that could help. Somehow. He's not entirely certain yet. If Lambert has any ideas, he's not too proud to hear them out.

itp let's bullshit video game mechanics

[whattaprick]

"That's probably because it's not natural stone," Lambert points out. "Your magic works by talking to the elements, right? Maybe you need to speak a different language."

Strange probably shouldn't listen to him on that, though, because like fuck Lambert knows what he's talking about, and also he's pretty sure Strange will do whatever he wants regardless of the commentary from the peanut gallery. Moving on, though, since Strange has asked a question he can actually answer:

"Just a little. Witchers can get smiths to brand runes on their swords. Just simple stuff -- add more power to your swing, that kind of thing." Because of course, if Lambert has any sort of knowledge in that department, it always comes down to weapons, or how to use it in a fight. "The magic concentrates on the symbol and the branding binds it to the metal."

[kingsroads]

Strange frowns...then swears slightly, rubbing the bridge of his nose as he talks. "It's stone caused by the Prince. I'd have to adjust to that element, try and find some point of common reference between the two of us."

What that would be, he's still not sure. After all, Strange wasn't caught and wasn't changed the way others were. Maybe he could draw upon both of their statuses as fae-changed, but even that is a tenuous stretch to begin with and oh wait, Lambert's answering his question, change of thought.

"I do know how to break enchantments," Strange continues, letting himself get a bit puffed up as usual. "What if I figured out a way to imbue some of the medical equipment with that power as well?"

[whattaprick]

"What are you going to do, kiss a scalpel?" Lambert asks, skeptically. Then he thinks about it. That does actually sound like something Strange would do, come to think of it.

"It's not the worst idea you've ever come up with, but you might want to make sure you aren't accidentally enchanting it to take someone's limb off instead. Don't know if the body parts are replaceable if you break them while they're stone."

[kingsroads]

Strange scoffs...but then his expression shifts to a frown. He's considering this. He's 100% considering putting his mouth on some nastyass scalpel for the sake of magical experimentation and English magic and whatever bullshit he's coming up with to justify this.

"I was thinking of simply enchanting bandages or a mortar and pestle with it, but a scalpel? That isn't a bad idea."

It's an awful idea.

[whattaprick]

"Denied." Lambert rejects, flatly. "The last thing anyone wants or needs is a enchanted scalpel making incisional biopsies."

As it happens, however, there is a mortar and pestle on the table, which he eyes consideringly before he grimaces. Spend enough time with Strange and even the crazy ideas start looking reasonable.

"Have you ever even done something like that before?"

[kingsroads]

"I haven't," Strange admits. But really, this doesn't seem to be a problem in his mind. Yeah he technically doesn't know how to enchant objects but why not give it a try anyway! He can do this!

As Lambert views the mortar and pestle with a grimace, Strange views it with excitement. There's no harm in trying.

"What's the worst that can happen?" Strange asks, as he walks over towards the counter. He's totally gonna give it a try whether Lambert wants him to or not.

[whattaprick]

"You could accidentally enchant it to beat in the skull of anyone who tries to use it," Lambert answers instantly. It doesn't require much imagination to come up with a nightmare scenario for objects imbued with magic. He's seen it too many times to be surprised at what new and exciting ways magic can fuck things up.

"If you break it, you'd better replace it," he says, and lifts one clawed finger to point at the door. "If you're doing it now, do it outside. Last thing we need is to break anything around here."

[kingsroads]

Idly, Strange puts his hands in his pockets. He's about to go on a rant about how he knows what he's doing, greatest magician of the age and all that, when his fingers brush against what he wanted to give to Lambert in the first place.

Oh, right. He came here for a specific reason. Reaching into his pocket, Strange pulls out two blue rose petals.

"I forgot. I've something to give you. These aren't from the Blue Rose itself, but from Syrlya. He has taken on a few changes related to the rose. They seem to have a trace of that magic, though whether it exists within the petals or it's left over from the use of the rose, I do not know."

It's magic. Magic is odd. Still, Strange shrugs, "Perhaps it could help."

[whattaprick]

Lambert blinks, but he automatically reaches a hand out to accept the petals anyway. He's arguably used stranger ingredients in witcher potions, but all the same, he feels it has to be said --

"You harvested part of Syrlya?" Lambert asks, just to be sure he heard that correctly. Like, just to be clear, that is what Strange said, right? Two petals isn't much, though, and he frowns slightly.

"Was this all you could get?" Hey, if you're going to start picking pieces off your own coworkers, might as well go all the way!

[kingsroads]

"I asked nicely," Strange grumbles. Harvested sounds...well, people don't harvest things from their housemates, even if their housemate is technically a plant. "And there wasn't that much touched by the Rose growing from him that I could use. The easiest thing to obtain were petals from the rose at his neck."

He's pretty certain there are vines around his arms now but Strange isn't going to be the person to try and figure out a way to get those out. Let's not mutilate his friend.