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

[espigeon]

Julien raises his head so he won't look quite as helpless, even though it's a bit of an effort to do so.

"I'm all right," he says, too quickly. "I mean, all right considering. I don't have the strength to fly, and that's kinda bumming me out, but, you know, what can you do?"

[dontpokethat]

...Okay so that's one of the most suspicious answers he could possibly have received. But Ginko doesn't show it beyond a slight raise of his eyebrows. Instead, he sits down on the ground in front of Julien.

"Really? Guess I can see how that would be a problem. How much energy does flying normally take, anyway?"

If he can just get a conversation going, that will be something.

[espigeon]

Noticing Ginko's about to settle on the ground, Julien dips his head down, grabs one of the sacks of straw in his beak, and lobs it in the man's direction. He makes no effort to use the couple of fingers on his wings, they are wings and have a very specific range of motion. he just automatically uses his mouth as a hand. "Here, sit on this. It takes a lot of energy, honestly, or at least it does at home, since here I think magic means not having to worry that much about oxygenation or muscle mass or steering. But I'm made for flying on my own power. So like two hundred pounds of me is flight muscles, it's kind of insane."

To someone used to assessing humans, Julien's bird form is extremely difficult to read. There are basically no facial muscles for him to emote with, he tends to take a light tone, and the curvature of his beak suggests a faint smile. To the eye of someone who also does birds he looks worse. His body feathers are ruffled coarsely as if he's ill and trying to stay warm, there's a little bit of a wobble when he holds his head up, his translucent inner eyelids show in the inner corners of his eyes and his pupils are tighter than they should be in this light, suggesting he's making some kind of active effort. Patches on his neck are also pinfeathers, but that's to be expected, he pulled out some of his neck feathers while serving the Prince, and they haven't finished growing back yet.

[dontpokethat]

"--Ah, thanks." Ginko pulls the sack over to himself and sits down with a small, appreciative smile. His ears swivel forward with genuine interest as he listens to Julien's explanation. "That really is impressive. Guess that's to be expected, though, if the changes were meant to be functional to begin with. Can't be surprised if the magic here assists physical functionality, either... I'm pretty sure a lot of our bodies here aren't even technically viable anymore, but here we are."

That's kind of a horrifying thought, but anyway.

A couple years ago, he may not have noticed much wrong with Julien's appearance at all, besides a vague impression of something being off. Most of his medical work has been with humans, with the rare exception of mushi-infected animals that he studied symptoms in. After working with the animals in the menagerie for so long, though, he's gotten more of an idea of what to look for, which makes it all the more obvious that Julien is not even remotely "all right".

[espigeon]

"If I could take credit for it I would!" His tail shakes behind him, this form's equivalent to laughter. "Thanks, though."

Julien suspects he's being studied but doesn't know why. He keeps his chin up and folds his wings back against his body, knowing he'll look a little more presentable when not splayed out like drying laundry.

"I wonder. I've heard once we go home, any changes we really don't like will start fading. Maybe without being here, under her influence, they need our will or something to stay." He's really not sure how he feels about things reverting. There are some changes he doesn't like, most notably the parting shots the Prince left him with, little things he's been hiding under feathers and clothing. Those suck, admittedly. Otherwise, though...

[dontpokethat]

"Maybe so. I guess it would make sense; these changes aren't a natural part of us, so they'll need something to keep them in effect. Here, the magic itself is enough, but... back in our own worlds, maybe it's fitting that whatever magic is still clinging to us would need us to want it to remain in effect."

Of course, he's thought about this; it's hard not to, after nearly two years of watching his body change, especially given Ginko's past experience with things that work in strange, often distinctly meaningful ways.

[espigeon]

There's a tremor that's started in Julien's neck. He tightens its S-curve, resting his chin along a lower swell of his throat and, thanks to all the feathers, making his neck look nonexistent. It helps, even though it does make him look weaker and more ill than a more raised neck and head does. Birds naturally try to hide illness and injury; when they can't anymore, they look rather like this.

"Weird thinking of them as something that requires like some sort of continuous effect to maintain! Where I'm from when you change you don't really change back, that's just what and who you are now. I heard something to the effect that if this body dies but my spare stays alive it'll turn into a bird too." He knows what that's like, now, the dying. Is it better when he's got another body out there safe? Or is it worse because his consciousness wouldn't get to fade out? Julien can't make a face, but some of his feathers pull closer to his skin, and his sepia-tinted inner eyelids close and stay closed.