cormac hier ; the chemist (chemist) wrote in emillion, @ 2013-10-20 20:24:00 |
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Entry tags: | !plot: as i lay dying, cormac hier, sabina domicetti |
log ; cormac & sabina
Who: Cormac & Sabina
What: Cormac & Sabina descend upon an outland village to figure stuff out. They find dark magic afoot, but need more help.
Where: cammon; the outlands.
When: Let's say the 4th => 8th?
Rating: PG-13.
Status: Complete
Cormac was not in the best of moods when he set out that morning for the assignment he'd volunteered for. Just because he said he'd do it, didn't mean he'd be too happy about it. He knew that he'd be going with Sabina which wasn't so bad. It could have been far far worse. He could have been stuck with any number of diddling idiots. If it wasn't clear by the fact that he'd separated himself from everyone, his back was turned in order to keep from actually having to talk with anyone. There was a leather trunk at his side full of different things. He would build a lab once he found the proper place to do so within the village. The mage just hoped that there wouldn't be a bunch of kids attempting to crawl all over his things. He leaned against the railing, letting the cool air whip against his face. It was nice to not be puking over the edge. The potion he'd concocted was working so far. A glance at his watch told him, it'd been working for at least five minutes. Not wanting to take any chances, he opened the small silver flask at his hip and took another sip. Not every member of the Mages' Guild enjoyed working with Cormac Hier, given his less-than-sterling reputation. Sabina Domicetti rather knew what that was like, and she found it quite amusing that the two of them were the Council's hand-picked representatives on this important mission. That would show the students and teachers alike who snickered behind their hands, thinking themselves better than her, than Cormac. Sabina was not a prideful woman by nature, but some vindication was always nice. She had dressed for work, but what passed for work in Sabina's world was, as ever, what a less ostentatious woman might have worn to a fancy dinner party. Her rich brocade gown was a deep green in colour and complimented her auburn hair, which she wore tied up beneath a splash of white feathers. As she gathered her silk shawl about her shoulders, her only concession to practicality became obvious -- no gloves, as it was likely she'd be working with her hands once they arrived in the village of Cammon. Blood, bile, and all the other humours do leave such an unfortunate residue on fine fabrics. "It must be quite bad," she remarked, idly, "if they've elected to send us both. Surely one would be enough if it were anything less than an absolute disaster." The voice floated near Cormac, but he should have expected it. Sabina was her own sort of woman. He guessed he should indulge her with a bit of conversation. If nothing else, they were going to have to do a lot of talking while they were in Cammon. He looked over his shoulder at the woman and shrugged before turning. "It has to be bad if they actually had to send out someone to petition us to come out in the first place. They usually have some sort of village healer." Usually. Maybe this small village was lacking. Or maybe they just didn't know enough. He was actually surprised that there weren't more holy people living in the outskirts in piety and poverty or whatever it was that they believed brought them closer to Faram. "I imagine we'll find out soon enough," Sabina said, doing her best to sound breezy and confident. Her tight-mouthed smile betrayed her unease, though, as they gazed down the road toward where Cammon waited. Initial reports were grim, and she could not imagine that an easy day's work lay before them. The back of her neck began to tingle as they drew close to the village, her hair standing on end. Something was here. Something she could feel. Something evil. This one's nearly gone. Sabina plunged her hands into the washbasin again, scrubbing the bile from her fingertips. The mysterious illness they'd been sent to treat was as devastating as it was fast-acting; one villager had expired only moments after their arrival, and it was taking every bit of medical expertise she had to prevent his daughter -- a child, barely ten years old -- from joining the mounting ranks of the dead. The girl's mouth was open, slack, keening sounds issuing from deep in her throat as Sabina's magical poultices ate away at the contagion. "Keep breathing, my dove," Sabina cooed, turning back to the girl and concentrating. Emilja, Sabina thought. Emilja was the girl's name. Energy crackled between Sabina's wet fingertips, green-white and humming. She touched the blackened veins at the girl's shoulder with a scouring antibiotic spell, and Emilja screamed. Three more Poisonas and a Cleansing and the easy part was over; the rest would be up to Emilja, who would have to fight hard to stay in the world of the living. Her eyes were closed, her breathing ragged. Keep breathing. Sabina shook her head, walking to Cormac from across the length of the small chapel they'd turned into a makeshift hospital. "It's a poison," she said quietly, "but it's no poison I've ever seen. And I'm something of an expert, or at least I'd fancied myself one." Cormac had taken samples of corpse flesh, only to find that once they were dead the disease just seemed to disappear. He'd taken blood samples from the victims only to find that they were not any actual traces of existing poisons he'd ever seen. Maybe it was foreign. "Just how much do you know about poisons not from Valendia?" he asked not to belittle or discredit, but out of mere curiosity. He wanted to figure this out just as much as she did, if not for different reasons. He wasn't a fan of people dying, but this was a scientific oddity. "It just disappears when they die," he said evenly. "Look, it's clear," he said holding the vial toward the woman as she washed her hands. "Also this is an abnormality in the pattern. From what everyone said before, it's not contagious and everyone who contracted it was nowhere near each other," he said with a frown as he looked at the little girl. "I know Valendian poisons most readily, of course, but I've certainly done my reading on toxins native to Ordalia and Kerwon. Not a one that I can think of has a dispersal method like this." Sabina took the vial and held it up to the light. "And you're right -- that girl and her father, they were near each other that morning. But each contracted it hours later, while she was at the schoolhouse and he was at the mill. None of his fellows are sick, nor any of her classmates." She frowned. "I checked the water supply for some sort of contaminant, but it came up clean. Otherwise… if it isn't blood-borne or food-borne or airborne, which it clearly isn't, then…" Emilja hiccoughed from her cobbled-together pew-bed. Blood coursed down in a rivulet from the corner of her mouth. Sabina strode briskly back toward her patient, the air around her humming as she sent another burst of healing energy into the girl's body. "Then I think it's magic," she said, finally, eyeing Cormac again. "A hex of some kind, a curse on the village, perhaps something moving through the earth itself. I've never seen a spell like this, either, but without a method of infection I can't see how it could be a natural illness. If it were a poison, we wouldn't have to work so hard to excise it. I've the best Poisona talent I know -- not to brag, but it's simply a fact that I've never had this kind of difficulty before." It was times like these, he wish he had brought Cy with him. She would have been standing right behind him, compiling notes and putting his thoughts in order, not that he couldn't do that himself. He just didn't have to for a long time. Coming out here with Sabina had caused him to use his noggin more than he would have liked. "Well." The word was more of a filler. It wasn't leading into a sentence, just something to help fill the break that Sabina had left after her explanation. The suggestion of magic made Cormac's frown deepen. If it had been more of an actual disease he would have a better chance of fighting it. As for magic, he was as stunted as they came. "It would explain a lot of the findings," in the way that they were unexplainable. "Is this something you can deal with here, or will there need to be more research or more mages?" He had no problem saying that it rested on her. He was of no use when it came to magic. He didn't fight magic with magic. He fought magic with potions and science. "We don't have time to get other mages," Sabina said gravely. "This girl, she was the farthest gone, but there are all those others waiting." Between her own efforts and Cormac's they'd managed to heal half a dozen, but supplies were already running short and she could feel herself growing tired. Too much more exertion and she risked burning herself out, but without them all these people would be as dead as Emilja's father in a few hours time. "And if this spreads any further inland..." The guild had no way of knowing a magical contagion was to blame, but Sabina nevertheless found herself mentally chastising them for sending so small a party. She straightened up, drawing herself imperiously to her full height and hoping she looked as powerful as she needed to be. "I'm going to do it. I'll heal them all." Immediately her resolve gave way to a bit of nerves, and she bit her lip as she turned back to Cormac. "I'll need all the mana potions you can cook up, darling." A small grin, sheepish: "And a shot of whiskey, if you've got it." Cormac snorted at Sabina's declaration. "We can send a runner back to the city and hold out for back-up." It only made sense. "You're bogged down with healing, sure, but you're almost out of gas. We need to stop treating the symptom and treat the disease. Whatever or whoever is doing this needs to be sought out. You can't do it in your condition, and I can't do it if I'm sitting here attempting to keep you upright so you can do what you do." A moment later, he passed her a flask. What she would find was definitely not whiskey, but some Elixir. He'd been holding out on it, but she needed the boost if she was going to keep going. It was extremely hard to make. "Don't drink it all at once." "Thank you, dear. I shall sip daintily, of course." Sabina took the flask and sniffed it experimentally. "Very nice," she said. Cormac's concoctions were always well-done, of course; she'd scarcely recommend another apothecarian in all Emillion before him. A dainty sip, as promised, and Sabina sighed contentedly. "I think with this I can do it, at least with the ones displaying symptoms. Not the whole village, though the sickness is fast-acting enough that hopefully those are the only infected." Already the power was surging back into her veins, that easy thrumming in her blood that spoke to her natural ability for working her will on the universe. "But we should definitely get word back to the city, yes. Faram only knows when or where this dark magic will strike again, even if we root it out of all the people of Cammon." Cormac nodded at the compliment, not bothering to really acknowledge it. He knew his work was good. If it wasn't he threw out the entire batch. That was the last of elixir he'd made. He'd have to make a bigger batch next time. The gifts he'd brought to the village were now actually being used to remedy the problem, which meant he'd have to just send them another batch after he returned and was able to create more. This was really hurting his store. "I hope we don't have to root out everyone. Even if it is a small place, it is a lot and I do hate actually working," he said with disdain. He didn't consider what he did work most of the time. Cormac pulled on his coat and made for the door. "I'll go see to that runner." |