lostcarnival | OPEN MINGLE: Search for the Cure

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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.

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[closed to herbert / d5 / medical tent]

After a brief conversation over the radio, Rita sets out to meet the new doctor at the medical tent. She wears a simple tank top and shorts; if she's going to get a medical examination, she might as well wear something easy to work around, where most of her petrified skin is visible. Around her neck, however, she wears a yellow scarf, loosely wrapped over her bruises to conceal them. Not from the doctor, mind you. Just to avoid any nosy passers-by who might wonder at the shape of them.

She steps into the tent, and barely casts a glance around at its inhabitants before just taking the direct route and calling out, "Hey. Somebody here named Herbert West?"

[laboratory / d5 / fetch quests]

Maybe you're here to work with one of the teams. Maybe you're just curious and happpened to poke your nose in to see how things are going. Whatever your reason for being here, you'll find Rita sitting on the floor, surrounded with beakers containing various substances, and some illegible notes scrawled on scrap paper and spread around her.

Seeing someone come in, she looks up. "Oh, perfect. You don't look too busy." Because they literally haven't had a chance to do or say anything yet. "I need something. Think you can get it for me?"

[wildcard!]

Feel free to encounter Rita hanging around any of the major locations. She'll usually be analyzing samples using magic or chemistry, or mixing solutions at the lab, or looking over notes at the medical tent. As one of the afflicted, she also might occasionally run out of steam and just pass out on top of her notes or in the middle of the laboratory floor or something. Don't mind her. Or, y'know, do mind her and give her a hand.

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."

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.

Edited 2017-11-20 14:42 (UTC)

"Of course," Strange answers, as he bends down to look at Rita's...well, set-up is too generous a word for what this is. Workspace? Area? Needless to say, it's very interesting and he'd like to know what she's doing so don't mind Strange as he picks up one of Rita's notes to read while he answers her question.

"What do you need?" he asks, as he doesn't pay any attention to Rita and is instead reading one of her notes on scrap paper.

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.

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...?"

Edited 2017-11-20 19:15 (UTC)

The notes were hastily scrawled with an unsteady hand, and are even more illegible than Rita's usual messy writing. However, from the organization of the scribbles, it may be possible to determine that it's a sort of recipe.

"Magic resin," she replies simply, like that's self-explanatory. Rita doesn't look at him either; she's already turned her attention back to the substances in the beakers.

"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."

"I'm afraid I've no idea what that is," Strange replies. However, he obviously expects Rita to tell him what it is in the first place, as he picks up some more of her notes and starts reading through them. Coming to a particularly unreadable word, he can't help but frown.

"Your handwriting's worse than usual." Which really, considering that Strange knows Rita's handwriting is kind of terrible, certainly says a lot about the state of Rita's notes. "I can't even make out half of these words."

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.

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.

Rita shoots him a sour glance. "You don't need to read it," she says plainly.

But fortunately, she's willing to explain her request. "It's like a sap secreted by living plants, ones with magic properties. It's used in petrification remedies, where I'm from." In fact, it's the most important ingredient. This realm might not have the same kinds of plant monsters found on Terca Lumireis, but there should be some rough equivalent around.

"Of course I need to read it," Strange responds, without explaining just why he needs to read her notes. And, he's grabbing another sheet of paper off of the floor to try and read.

But alright, magic resin, he can work with that. Although, that does open up a few questions. "Wouldn't all plants in the carnival have magic properties? We are in Faerie, after all." A magical plant in a magical realm must be magical by default, correct? Maybe?

This next page is just as sloppy as the first. It seems to have a series of brief notes jotted down in point form, most of them with numbers next to them, some of which have been crossed out and revised a few times.

"Potentially," Rita replies. "But an ideal candidate would have some level of sentience. In Terca Lumireis, we could draw it from certain monsters. It's basically their version of blood." Which was never really an issue, as anyone venturing outside the cities could expect to have to spill a lot of monster blood. That some of it could be used for potions and tools was a bonus.

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

"Why?"

So they were looking for a sentient magical plant that was akin to certain monsters from Rita's world. Well, that limits his options. There were plenty of plants that were magical, but the sentience part seems to be the problem. He mulls it over a bit, thinking through their options with a frown, as Strange looks at Rita's notes.

And then one solution presents itself. And Strange turns a bit pale.

"If you want me to draw some sap from that damn Coco, I refuse to do so!"

"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.

In truth, Rita already had a candidate or two in mind... and indeed, that freakish walking palm tree was one.

She's quite pleased when Strange comes to that conclusion as well... though his response is significantly less pleasing. In fact, it's odd. Rita would've thought he'd be raring to go, eager to show off some stupid, flashy way of solving the problem with his English magic, blathering all the while...

So she has to ask: "And why the hell not?"

"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?"

The Nightrider can be found in the laboratory he and Sans share, but anyone coming in will be explicitly instructed not to touch anything on one side -- that's all the Warden's things.

Most of the time, he's standing at the table in the middle of the room, either examining some sort of chemical reaction happen in a beaker and writing down notes on a sheet of paper distractedly. Other times, he's brandishing a wickedly sharp looking knife to chop various herbs with alarming skill, but he seems to be happy to be working with his hands even if he's a bit tired.

Occasionally, he'll frown and concentrate: Celandine, the marbled polecat that acts as his daemon, will appear and race around to retrieve items for him. Otherwise, he's alone in his lab, though he's expecting company.

"You here to work, or to ogle?" he asks whenever someone steps in through the door. "First minute's free, but after that you've got to pay."

He'd ask if he's paying to work or to ogle, but first he has to decide if anyone would ever actually ogle a 60+ year old dragon man. No, he decides, the answer for that is a definite no. The disgusted expression on his face communicates that decision pretty clearly, if Lambert's even looking their way.

"Work." he answers instead, ignoring the rest of the sentence.

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."

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?"

Edited 2017-11-21 05:45 (UTC)

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'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."

Edited (how did i misspell that title that badly, hell if i know) 2017-11-21 07:04 (UTC)

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OPEN MINGLE: Search for the Cure

Rita Mordio | OTA, will match formats

d5, cw: mild sexism? sorry...

Jonathan Strange | ota!

lab!

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Big Top

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laboratory

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Lambert | OTA

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itp let's bullshit video game mechanics