Eis
.
Posts: 189
|
Post by Eis on Jun 26, 2021 17:06:46 GMT -8
After Gavin is shown the path to his own meeting, and she and Stephen are alone, Eis clears her throat.
"Yes. Well, then. You and I have something entirely different to talk about. I'll do you a favor in being concise." She pauses a beat. She's actually, in all likelihood, going to accomplish the opposite. She wishes 'Stephen Callahan' was a name that invoked more than just what she'd been told about him. It might make things a little easier for her.
"There has been an accident, of sorts, involving a young woman who is no longer with us. Her name was Yasmin. I'll leave other names out of this, for brevity, but let's just say there were some 'Verdant' fellows using her for nefarious ends. Taking her up from the ashes of her ruined life and grooming her for use in a ritual. Which resulted in her being reduced to a literal vegetable. Of sorts. We now know that the state she'd been put into resulted from some kind of goblin fruit." Another pause. Curiosity alone narrows her focus on the man, seeing if anything she'd said thus far made him squirm.
|
|
|
Post by Krakenbox on Jun 30, 2021 16:33:39 GMT -8
Glamour burns through Gavin's system as the dryad's hand sprouts into a clawed appendage large enough to easily wrap around his face if she fancied. Rather, she traced a sigil, sealing the declaration under the recognition of the Wyrd.
"If your target of your research is in the Skein, a Keeper is known to currently be actively travelling within the same space," Chunhua explained with a slow blink. There was a stretch of silence to see if there was going to be more from the Beast, but it was clear she felt she had passed on what was necessary without Callahan's involvement.
--
Stephen sighed, expressing regret as one would hearing about a tragedy, but having no personal connection to it—polite, but no reason to feel anything beyond it being a shame and a waste.
"Oh, what ritual?" he asked, suddenly curious. If Eis knew something old and sacred to the court of Spring, he was excited for her to share with the class.
"Do you have the fruit? Or can you describe it in detail?" he asked, all ears as his grey attention flicked to her pockets.
|
|
|
Post by Gavin Graves on Jul 1, 2021 16:16:34 GMT -8
"A Keeper, well that puts a solid damper on the rush, yeah. Thanks," he pondered a moment letting the weight of that truth sink in. Gavin wasn't sure what 'the target of his research' was truly. He realized then that he'd just been running down the next truth in the investigation. No, not investigation, hunt. His actions had slowly and subtly shifted to the old ways from his time There. It was possible there was some part of him that gravitated toward the odd places and otherworld nature of it. Whatever it was, it was inextricably part of him to hunger for these things now. Why else would the mention of a threat on that scale not completely annihilate his interest?
"Well that was the extent of what I'd meant to convey. The situation had grown beyond my scope and checking with an expert on multiple fronts of this seemed the prudent thing. I'm open to input on helping Callahan save these people and keeping things from heating up further," he offered failing to imagine a way where the humans dying miserably led to anything good.
|
|
|
Post by Chunhua on Jul 2, 2021 11:24:10 GMT -8
"Give him a report...since the evidence is destroyed he will be working purely with theory. And then he will do his best," she said, attention trailing to the path he came.
"Your time to help humanity is limited, correct?"
--
Gavin arrives back in the office while Eis and Callahan are talking. Time moved on a different scale in the Echo Chamber.
|
|
Eis
.
Posts: 189
|
Post by Eis on Jul 3, 2021 5:23:21 GMT -8
Eis catches Gavin's arrival and blinks a few times. That was... quick. She turns back to Callahan, considering. He doesn't seem guilty, which is a relief. Confident now that she can trust him on the matter, she gives him a nod.
"I'll give you everything I can. Gavin can fill in the holes. As far as the fruit is concerned, our Yasmin seems to have ingested it, where it lay dormant for an unknown period of time. It later erupted from her stomach, blooming into so much flora and fungus that effectively made her a... 'vegetable'." Eis winces at her own proclamation. It hadn't been meant as a joke, dismissively worded though it my have been. "At any rate, the fruit seems to have been created with or by the Thorns, as though it was designed to bridge one reality to another. There was also evidence of something necrotic about it, though we've come to the conclusion this didn't serve the purpose of the intended ritual. An 'accident', if you will."
"As to the ritual?" Her eyes dart back to Gavin, seeking... emotional support? She looks uncertain, almost terrified to recall what had transpired all too recently. She swallows hard before giving her selective, brief description. "Something about harnessing human potential, culminating in a dedication or sacrifice. The lines between what was intended and what actually occurred are hazy for me. We all know about Queen Philicia's decree, ending human sacrifice. This may have been the catalyst to rush the ritual to its conclusion. When I attempted to beseech the Wyrd, through a Contract, for a way to alter the ritual to remove the need for death... I as rewarded with something cryptic. It doesn't seem like an easy task to alter the nature of the ritual." Her mind returns to the gun and the bag of silver. It's all she can do to suppress a shudder at what had been suggested.
"Changing the ritual doesn't seem to be an option. But preventing more innocent deaths can still be done. Which brings us back to the fruit. Gavin, you kept a sample of it, didn't you?"
|
|
|
Post by Gavin Graves on Jul 3, 2021 11:50:54 GMT -8
Gavin was nodding along with Eis' remembrance of the details about their initial investigation just a few nights ago. It had seemed so long ago. So much had transpired in such a short duration. Much of it was a whirlwind of dichotomously serious investigating and raucous partying. He'd forgotten he had squirreled away the core of the fruit, and the bits he had snipped, into his bag for later.
Later was now. "Right, yeah!" he said with a layer of realization.
Digging through his leather messenger bag from his days as a street level courier--he had since repurposed it for more scholarly things--he dug out a few unrelated goblin fruit and his notebook to get at the contents that sank to the bottom. He had to be careful when poking around in there else he shred what he was looking for instead of finding it. At the sound of crinkling plastic, it seemed he found the desired bit from within.
He placed the ziplocs in Callahan's hands. The zips had been further taped down. A sticky label read 'Yasmin stomach contents' and 'Yasmin unknown samples' and the date he'd sourced them on each.
"The ritual, yeah," he started. "It seems she and the others were intended as a sacrifice of sorts to Spring itself for Midsummer--basically now. She had been prepped as Eis said by having this inside her." Gesturing toward the core of the fruit and the hedge thorns, Gavin paused a second, coming to a thought he then shared, "What if the conduit wasn't the effect of the fruit? What if it was a necessity for it to grow in the first place as well as feed her eventual sacrifice back?--Yasmin was also a fruit for the harvest after all." The beast's mind clearly had found prey within and was running it down.
He remained in his manic thought process while he spooled out the remaining facts about the rite as if by rote, "... The energy of death that was found had tainted the offering to the Sentries. It desecrated the ritual. The ritual's purpose, though entirely related to Spring, was not about maintenance of the Wards. It seems to be maintenance on the bargain for some Spring contracts. I don't know which. The occult principles indicate something in the vein of renewal, given the sympathetic pattern in how Yasmin and the other subjects were prepared: Average people made to hit rock bottom in their lives, then a meteoric recovery and rise to new heights." He went on to describe the occult meanings that led him to his conclusions and supported their being here in particular.
A feral look came over Gavin's mania "What if the person who was growing the fruit wasn't an expert and that had been why it failed? If they were merely using the conclusions of someone else's work without the context of all the variables, it would explain the catastrophic failure."
Gavin was open to the concept Callahan may not have been directly involved now. The Bodhisattvas had previously used people unwittingly. Someone with access perhaps. Someone seemingly leveraged. Someone wearing bruises and already involved. He had the scent.
"Does anyone else have regular or even sporadic access to your workspace, or have you noticed having odd occurrences in your dreams? Maybe you regularly use your dreams to work out ideas and a project along these lines repeated over and over in them like someone was trying to learn a process by rote over your shoulder."
The beast was obviously running down different tracks simultaneously trying to provoke a thought. The high strung energy came from the ticking clock on the lives to be saved.
|
|
|
Post by Krakenbox on Jul 6, 2021 14:52:06 GMT -8
Stephen's expression lit up as he took the seed, muttering to himself that Turning the Clock wouldn't do with something that wasn't rotted, unfortunately. He tsk'd to himself with a small sound of annoyance, though it wasn't towards the pair.
"Hm? This isn't my workspace when it comes to weaving magic...and no," he wrapped a knuckle against his temple, smirking wryly as black ichor flickers across his vision. "Tapping into my head would probably hurt the average person..." As he answered Gavin, he rooted through his desk and took out his electronic notebook, sliding it into the rest of his bag and grabbing various notes and texts as he started walking. "All right! Well, follow me then."
Whistling to himself, he also grabs one of the old clock displays, casually smashing it and opening the exit to a lab that didn't exist before. He gestured for the others to go first, pulling and twisting the hook from the wall to make it look like the heavy thing fell by shoddy craftmanship.
Inside, he looked a little regretful as he carefully grabbed a vial from a locked cabinet that was mostly bare--they were clearly in limited supply. "I wish I could make a copy..." he muttered, glancing at the other two to see if the other two offered a surprise. Stuffing it in a body was off the table.
Gavin and Eis confirmed it wasn't toxic, but he offered masks anyway while they noted the whole hazmat supply he had on standby. Popping the seed in a pot of soil large enough to support a tree, he poured the shimmering red substance, frowning in concentration as he waits to see if this was a massive waste of resources.
The shoot released itself from the earth, he watched with a scientist's affect of curiosity as the chromatic roots and twisting wood spun itself in an explosive display, pot shattering from the force. A single fruit produced among the blossoms and thick pollen, looking like a pear with the texture of a cherry.
"Fuck yeah!"
|
|
|
Post by Gavin Graves on Jul 6, 2021 16:21:10 GMT -8
Gavin followed along in his manic curious state working to help the poor humans set up for a tragic fate. The assurance Callahan gave that others could not have stolen knowledge from him, if it were to be believed, left open ended threads: who else could do the work and where could it be done?
The guilt he was feeling, not for setting up any of the problems facing the lot of them now, was for his failing to prevent Loki and the others from destroying evidence that would have helped now. He channeled those feelings into the work in the alien and sterile laboratory environment. The HAZMAT and safety precautions added a layer of claustrophobia to the mix. He never liked feeling contained. Running through trees and low brush was the normal where he would feel alive. This tiny plastic envelope of air was not comfortable in the least for the beast. Having to restrain himself lest he pop the thin layer of protection. It took away some of the momentum he might otherwise have had with pure focus.
|
|
Eis
.
Posts: 189
|
Post by Eis on Jul 6, 2021 18:17:51 GMT -8
Eis eyes Gavin studiously as he goes from zero to one hundred on theories. She’s been guilty of the same; going off on a tangent about a wild theory with even wilder enthusiasm. Still odd to observe it from someone else. Is that what she sounds like?
Of course not. She doesn’t have his accent.
But some of his ranting rings true in her head. A more obvious solution she’d overlooked while trying to dig deeper. “Of course… a complicated ritual item in the hands of an amateur.” she mutters, more to herself than anyone else.
Callahan’s secret access to his lab earns a bemused look. Some adage about genius and eccentricity going hand in hand…
She dons the protective mask rather quickly, after witnessing the seed sprout forth in such dramatic fashion. But, her little startle over, she leans into her work in earnest. Trying to help Callahan find a way to neutralize the ticking time bomb of a goblin fruit.
|
|
|
Post by Krakenbox on Jul 8, 2021 19:59:38 GMT -8
Despite not being experts in terms of botany or the scientific process of a lab setting, Stephen turns out to be quite adept at direction and breaking down steps. Eis was left impressed as an educator, knowing everything was taking longer as he pulled apart ideas and conveyed them in a manner that wouldn't confuse them. The time restraints left it exclusively reactionary, where there wasn't really time to go over theory, despite Gavin's bubbling questions that Callahan smoothly brushed past with another task if it required more explanation than a sentence.
"I have some books you can borrow."
"You can take a class with the university."
"No, that isn't magic."
"Yes, that is magic."
The lack of a test subject was also a huge blow, though at one point Callahan did produce a fresh corpse from God Knows Where. The last two vials to spin the plant forward in time had to be used for more fruit, much to the Autumn's chagrin. He fussed over the idea of needing to grow an altered species, muttering his concerns under his breath as he squinted at slides and made notes.
They slept in shifts with micro-naps. Until Eis and Gavin awoke to loud swearing and a crash as the exhausted scientist mishandled the equipment, though their quick acting saved the sample. Stephen wasn't doing so great, occasionally trembling with caffeine sweat misting his brow, but turned down the option to take a longer rest. He wasn't confident the mundane would last much longer, and they were fighting fate as it was trying to develop something unprecedented in a manner of days.
Hardened by resolve, his instruction was getting a little more disjointed, with Eis and Gavin having to rely on the routine they were used to to avoid any mishaps. They still didn't fully understand the process, but their roles were assistants and weaving glamour where it counted. They read over occult documentation from Callahan's extensive notes, finding the information the Flowering was asking for while he doggedly watched reactions as not to kill the results with poor timing. He handled the tissue samples with care, though Eis and Gavin both had to admit there was a lack of reverence with the human body, where it felt more like another piece of a equipment that the Squire was detached from in his focus. Gavin could relate.
By day three, Stephen wasn't talking much at all. His pallor was atrocious, though everyone was a little haggard and needing showers as the laundry piled in the back. Eis was the first to break, weaving a very convincing argument that it might contaminate the project and help wake them up. They started taking bets on whose coffee was more effective, creating inane conversation that required a response between timing chemical reactions to keep everyone alert.
When Callahan collapsed, they were both expecting it and made sure both the equipment and his skull were kept safe.
He was thorough with his notes: the anti fungal medication looked mundane enough as Eis put them into empty pill capsules. The instructions for a mortal to follow without question. There was a small chance that this was simply remission, and they would need to come up with a new solution if the growth retuned. Continued visits and observation was a must with something so experimental...
Gavin and Eis blearily left the Hollow after the Squire was helped to one of the cots. Had they made it in time?
|
|