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

[wild_magic]

Susan of course has no idea what Lauren is thinking, but at least he hasn't said anything too stupid yet so it's okay. Instead he laughs at the question before responding himself.

"Lauren's here to work, at least. He just didn't want to come alone."

[whattaprick]

Lambert could act the part of a concerned adult and ask if they should be up yet at all, but he's fairly sure that isn't their style at all. He probably should have expected that where one went, the other was sure to follow -- they seem attached, like that. He glances up at them, smirking when he catches sight of the disgust on Lauren's face, before his expression turns sober again.

"Fair enough. Then I won't waste your time," he says, directly. If Lauren's anything like he feels right now, there's only so far determination can carry him; inevitably, he's going to have to rest. "Other people are working on figuring out how the poison works with magic. What we'll be doing here--" he waves a hand around. "--is making all the herbs, potions, and unguents we know of that might be related to the symptoms, so the mages and the doctors have something they can test. To do that, we're going to need ingredients, and hands."

He pauses there, waiting to see if Lauren's following so far.

[mylastchance]

He appreciates the no nonsense introduction to things, and the lack of parental concern from Lambert. Lauren and Susan are both of the mind that they can take care of themselves. The input of other adults isn't necessary.

He steps forward, taking a look at whatever Lambert is working on. He thinks he understands. They just need him to grow and brew things. Other people could work out which combinations of things could help, but only once they had all the base parts.

"How many do we need to grow?"

[wild_magic]

Herbs and potions and all that stuff... That's definitely Lauren's thing, not Susan's. Even as Lauren goes in closer to see what's going on, Susan stays back, instead just staying near the door and looking around from there. He's here for Lauren, mostly, as some kind of emotional support, and so for now he stays quiet unless there's some issue or something. He does come closer after a moment though to see if they're going to work on anything interesting.

[whattaprick]

"I'm not sure yet," Lambert admits. "I've got the start of a list of what I know I need here--" He taps a piece of paper on the table that does, indeed, look like the start of a list. "-- but I haven't gotten around to asking anyone else. What do you need to start growing things?"

If he needs seeds to start, it might get a bit tricky, but they can probably figure it out.

[mylastchance]

He looks at the list, trying to see if there's anything he recognizes among the ingredients. There's one or two he can think of that might help as well that could be added. Though he didn't really have any with him, and he doubted anyone else bothered carrying plants around either. Maybe the Ringmaster could procure some though? He wasn't honestly sure how half the things at the carnival actually appeared there, but if anyone could get them supplies it would be her.

He's distracted from his thoughts by Lambert's question, though, and honestly not sure what it is he's being asked.

"I just need a living plant." Seeds would work too, as long as they were planted in soil. He couldn't make anything that was dead grow, but he figured that was an obvious stipulation. He tries to clarify, just in case.

"I assume you mean to magically grow them."

To grow them the normal way they still need to be alive though so...

[wild_magic]

"If it was normal growing, he wouldn't need you." Probably, at least. Growing plants normally wasn't too hard after all, he can't imagine there being no one here who could do it.

After another look around, Susan decides that for now he'll just sit and watch. If he's lucky there's a chair he can sit in or something, but if not he just ends up on the floor. After a moment his familiar, currently in cat form, pops into existence in front of him and he settles down to pet her while the others hopefully get started on working.

[whattaprick]

Passiflora, celandine, blowball, vervain, ranogrin ... some of the names might be familiar to Lauren, but others might not. They're not all things they necessarily have at the Carnival, either, but they'll cross that bridge when they come to it. At any rate, Lambert will nod at them both.

"Right. Waiting to grow it the normal way would take too long." Living plants though, that might be a tall order. Lambert drums his claws against the table (and yes, there are chairs Susan can sit in if he'd like, but Lambert will ignore him and the familiar popping up for now).

"I've marked what I have seeds for on that list, but the rest of it we might have to find substitutes for. If you don't recognize the names, I can describe what it looks like and what its properties are."

[mylastchance]

He looks to Lambert, feeling slightly confused.

"I don't need to know what they look like to grow them."

Knowing the properties could be helpful in case there was one Lauren knew that could be a good replacement, but other than that he doesn't understand why he would need to know that.

[wild_magic]

Susan watches from his seat as they talk about it before chiming in to hopefully help Lauren out.

"But if you know what they look like, we can try to find them, right? Maybe there's some growing somewhere!"

[whattaprick]

"Right," Lambert nods at Susan. "And I'm just telling you what it looks like is just so we know if it's just the same plant by a different name, or something completely different."

Hell if he knows how different plants work, honestly.

"Can you grow plants from cuttings, too?"

[mylastchance]

He thinks it over. Honestly, it's not something he's ever done before, but that didn't mean he couldn't. It might take a bit of extra effort and focus, but if the conditions were right it should be possible. He nods.

"Do you have some?" Of course it would also depend on what state the cutting was in.

[wild_magic]

Susan smiles as his brother nods. He admittedly doesn't know a lot about plants or what Lauren can or can't do, but in his mind Lauren is basically the best and can do anything. It's always nice when he hears that he's right about that.

"Lauren can do anything with making them grow. He can even talk to them and ask them questions! And one time, he even made friends with a tree!"

[whattaprick]

"I do," Lambert confirms. He'll turn and poke around his own desk a bit, and then come up with a glass bottle that seems to hold ... a short segment of stem, one end in water and the other a furled bud with blue petals. It's fairly fresh, only cut a sometime today ... but he's also not going to say where it came from.

'Hey, can you grow this part of a plant person into a whole plant' isn't probably something to lead off in conversation with, ever.

"It's magic, so I've got no idea if that changes anything," he explains, sliding it across the table for Lauren's inspection. "But this is the only one of it we've got, so having more would help. It's a rose." Specifically: it's a rose that grew off Syr after he used the Blue Rose to run the Prince through. Again, probably not something to share. But there's the lingering traces of magic on it, something that makes it more than just an ordinary plant.