snowblindrpg | [log] Bedside Manners [closed]

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[log] Bedside Manners [closed]

Characters: House and Dorian
Location: Building 131 - the Hospital
Date: Day 49
Summary: Exploring the Hospital after making it there!
Warnings: House and all of the acerbic wit and lack of PC that comes with that.

Of course the elevator's out. Of course it is.

[The comment is muttered under House's breath as he and Dorian make it down one flight after another. The idea to start at the bottom and work their way up - given that Dorian's planning on departing to head north after this - is seeming like a less and less bright idea. House regrets it. The last flight of stairs is worse than the others. Going down isn't as bad as going up stairs for House, but the strange, oppressive air of the place grows heavier as they move down.

When they finally emerge from the stairwell, the doctor in him desperately wants to explore, but the non-doctor part of him wants to get the hell out. Now.]

Morgue. Any chance you could liven up one of the dead guys to get him to talk to us?

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[Only a year's worth. House's glances are nothing but askance as they continue. Just because he's decided to believe some things doesn't mean he's going to be taken in by others.

But if there really are people from different time periods here...

He really hates magic and sci-fi bullshit when it's not just in books and movies.]

Everybody's got their aesthetic. Knew a chick once. Entire house was filled with dolls - creepy as all hell. So, what color's your magic when you get to magicking to counteract spells, or do necromancers not do the glowy thing?

I'm guessing black? Black's a good color. Always slimming on any mage.

A few things burn a lovely shade of green but generally yellow or orange. Because I only glow when I'm on fire. I try to limit that as much as possible. My simulacrum is a shade of light blue that glows in case you're disappointed.

[He gives House a bright smile.]

I don't require slimming. My countrymen like blacks and greys. Very dreary. I prefer something brighter. Tan and brown for everyday. Whites and light blues and greens for special occasions.

[House stops and looks over at Dorian, giving him a mock elevator stare.]

The Snowhell diet does wonders for everyone's waistlines. Don't let it go to your head, stud.

Tan and brown makes you sound like one of the Jedi fighting the Sith Lords by the way. Just so you know. [A pause.] And given that's going to go entirely over your head, this conversation is pointless.

What's a simulacrum? Because I'm gonna take a stab in the dark and say that means something different to you than it does to me.

Edited 2015-11-16 04:17 (UTC)

[Dorian gives House a mocking bow. He knows how good looking he is.

He lets the Jedi and Sith topic go without comment and hesitated to address the next part but decided to go with it. He and Ellana weren't hiding the work they did.]

My simulacrum is a Spirit I've trained to take my place and fight on if I become too badly injured to continue. It takes awhile to train one properly. The Spirits I work with aren't terribly intelligent.

You can train ghosts to fight for you? Sorry. 'Spirits.' I don't know if that's more ridiculous or amazing. Is there a reason you don't just have those schmucks step in for you any time you want?

[There's a brief pause as he realizes he's being drawn into believing this nonsense wholesale. The temptation to pull back is strong, but screw it. If Dorian's messing with him, this is hilarious. He'll accept it.]

Because it only lasts for a minute or two at the outside. They're more fragile than we are. It takes fewer hits to bring them down and a lot of effort to train them in the first place.

[And he develops a bit of an attachment to them while he's training them.]

Ghosts have too much personality.

So, what? Once you destroy one, that's it? Can't recall it? How many of those things do you have on reserve at any one time?

Once they've been disrupted enough they can't coalesce anymore. I don't usually keep more than a half dozen at any time. If I'm too injured to fight, I'm too injured to call a second one.

[And by injured he means unconscious. Minor details.]

[Very minor.]

That happen a lot for you? Fainting in the middle of a fight? You seemed tougher than that.

Depends on what we're fighting. I am very little use against single, well armored foes. I work fight best against crowds of lesser foes. Or single lesser foes if we're being thorough.

Bears aren't my strong suit. Hordes of undead are.

[Dorian is a little offended by the question.]

Well, I'm never taking you camping. [House snorts and shakes his head, amused in spite of himself.] Necromancers who don't do bears.

I'm not finding anything in here, are you?

No. [His frustration was evident.]

I don't even know what half of this is for.

[House rubs a thumb across his forehead, smoothing some of the wrinkles out.] I don't, either.

There was some sort of mass sickness here. What was it, though?

[It's clearly not a question directed at Dorian as House looks down at one of the make-shift beds.]

Let's try checking the nurse's station on the next floor up. Might be something there.

[Just like there might be something anywhere. Or there might be nothing. As they pass near the elevator, House eyes it mournfully.]

Do you guys have fantasy elevators back home? Or 'lifts,' I guess you'd call them in your fancy, not actually British way.

The dwarves have lifts in their mines.

[Dorian followed House, half talking just to keep things from getting too quiet.]

There are three flights of stairs between the front gate and my preferred place in the library. Two flights down from my spot to the tavern. The flights back up afterward seem a lot longer.

Don't they always?

[As staring doesn't make the elevator shaft any more functional, House turns his attention to the stairs. Up and up. He doesn't usually do small talk like this, but the silence really is oppressive in this place. Even for a man who prefers it to mindless chatter.]

So, you hung out with the dwarves a lot? Lotta those guys into necromancing?

No magic for dwarves.

[Dorian keeps his pace on the stairs relatively slow, he's not going to get up there faster than House so no hurry.]

In my homeland they're everywhere, in all walks of life. In the south, they seem to be mostly be merchants or criminals. Ellana and I did visit a dwarven mine once. It was an incredible experience that I'd thank the Maker never to experience again. This reminds me of it, come to think of it. All the climbing and stone walls. [ And the feeling of doom waiting around the corner.]

Of course, they'd argue that any dwarf who has seen sunlight isn't a true dwarf.

Nothing to worry about here, then. [That's half-muttered as they reach the second floor. Unfortunately, there's no nurse's station. But there are a curious number of rooms, and the laboratory catches House's attention as he turns to look around.]

Hmm... detour. [House starts toward it.] Lab's a good place to look for reports or test results.

Laboratories? I like laboratories.

I can read the local language. What would be the most useful words to look for should I come across any paperwork that's on paper?

[He has no knowledge of the tech and has no idea of what to expect in terms of equipment but he is familiar with safety protocols for blood-borne pathogens.]

And what should I avoid touching without gear?

[House snorts.] The 'local language' is called English. The country kids didn't mention that? It's their 'mother tongue.' [But onto relevant questions.]

Look for anything with test results, sample analysis, final report, baseline, calibration, or anything that looks like a chart or graph - lines and bars.

Basic lab safety. Avoid touching anything that looks sharp enough to cut yourself on or stab yourself with, don't stick your hands in any solutions. You find bottles of anything, I'll take a look at them for the labels, but they should be safe to handle. We like to make it easy for the interns in modern hospitals.

English. I call it what the Alamarri left us with after they invaded. Otherwise we'd still be saying 'Manaveris Dracona' at all the major festivals.

[He has a British accent and speaks Latin's bastard cousin. Figure that one out.]

I was planning to drink whatever I found and rub it in my eyes but you've saved me.

[Dorian says very, very dryly as he goes to investigate.]

[What is your language, even, Dorian. House just raises his brow at the other man as they move into the lab and start checking shelves and drawers.]

Well, everyone knows you should rub it in your eyes before you drink it if you're gonna go that way, dude. [Returned in an equally dry tone.]

Hmm... you can see where they had the equipment bolted down to some of the tables. Outlines for some of the machines. Maybe whoever was running the joint pulled it out for the parts before they left...? [He doesn't like speculating with so little information, but you use what you have. House gives up after a little bit and seats himself on an empty table, looking around the lab.]

Say you're a military scientist with a plague sweeping through the population. Your experiments caused it. What do you do to cover up the deaths of over a hundred people?

[Dorian nodded to acknowledge the point and thought before answering House.]

The Legion doesn't have that much power back home. The Strategoi individually might but I could more easily imagine a Magister dreaming up an illness illegally.

The first step would be to get rid of the physical evidence or the Magister's connection to the project. Destroy the evidence, including equipment, bodies, and paper trail if possible or make it look like something else. Then dispose of any accomplices or take other steps to insure their silence if killing them would be too splashy. Lastly, either dispose of the slaves used to work on the project and the previous two steps.

If I were in charge of a project that unleashed a plague on a town, the town would not be standing if only to contain the disease itself. The medical center in particular would have received my attention for burning. If I control the information flow, I'd claim there was some sort of revolt that required immediate action. So long as I pay off the right people, the truth wouldn't matter.

[Slaves. How quaint.]

You're right. They're pretty shit secret ops here if they've left everything standing and mass graves any idiot can find just waltzing around.

[He's quiet a little while as he thinks, just staring up at the ceiling.]

Theories, Pavus. If this isn't a government or Magister experiment gone awry, what else is it? What do we know? Protesters yelling about a babysitter, original residents that can literally possess people, more than one universe... What else do we know?

They give injections so they have continued access to supplies related to the project. Either the experiment or the cleanup are ongoing. Either Admin or someone above them hasn't written this off yet.

Dragging in people from across worlds can't be easy. Even if it's accidental it must be taking energy of some sort.

[Thermodynamics do apply in Thedas.]

Supplies are being replaced but in sufficient amounts for us to really stock up. It's just enough to keep us scrambling for more, keep us too distracted with surviving to mount any real resistance. It could be a shortage but it feels deliberate to me.

[Though that could just be the paranoia Norfinbury caused.]

The way useful supplies are restocked and the excess food at the school definitely point to an artificial shortage.

[And they don't want a real resistance, not like what they got from the protesters.]

If the experiment's ongoing, what's the point of it? See how a bunch of random-ass people thrown in a box together react? At least if they wanted to study something like your necromancing, they could've let you keep that. [House would certainly be more interested in watching that than seeing what Dorian does without the benefit of his powers. And what about the people who have none? Is House supposed to be part of the control group?

He drums his fingers on the counter top.]

It's something that would have made sense at the time. Some sort of survival simulation? Behavior studies? [They certainly know how to pick them, if that's the case.] There are incremental rewards we're being fed. We get to the ice tunnels, there's a pharmacy. We get to the hospital, there's a large safe place with beds to congregate. May the next reward will be warm food.

[Wouldn't that make most people thank whatever god they believe in?]

[Dorian thought through his answer before starting to speak.]

The depth of my connection to the Fade is something that was bred for. Tevinter prizes my kind of talent highly. It isn't always predictable, much the way that a good racing horse won't always throw good racers.

[As opposed to simple dominance though he doesn't know that terminology.]

If you put a large enough number of us in one place, even if we're not using our magic, we have an effect on the Veil. The physical presence of mages can alter the way complex magic works.

All of us are from somewhere other than Norfinbury. Maybe there is something about our physical presence that creates conditions that wouldn't otherwise exist. But if those of us who have powers could use them, then we'd pose too great a security risk.

Al said there were only a few of them at the beginning. There are more of us now. Maybe double. That could point to a deliberate alteration of the variables. The incremental rewards could be a distraction. Give us hope that we can solve the puzzle, keep us occupied.

[A force reaction to whatever magical physics exist in Dorian's world. It's a small comfort to know that even in some bullshit fantasy realm with drinkable 'poultices,' there are still some sensible mechanics. At least while they're playing the 'I'll believe anything Dorian tells me about his world like a rube' game.]

Conditions to do what, though? Generate energy? [The idea that they're on some massive shake table dance floor is ridiculous.] ...Cure whatever killed these people? [There's a long pause as House considers that possibility.] If whatever caused the epidemic here got out to the general population, it might've been the superbug. The one everyone was worried about would end the world. Pestilence. One of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Might be seeing if any of us show signs of immunity after exposure. Or they could be testing a vaccination regime with those injections.

[If only Dorian were drawn from a later canon point where Dorian had found out just how broken his world was.]

Time manipulation is the one that leaps to my mind first but that may simply be due to that being the area I studied and the fact that me and those form my world came from different points in time. I'll admit that that might be confusing cause and effect.

Perhaps trying to create or control a device that bridges worlds. I am not wholly convinced they chose us specifically rather than abducting whoever they could get. Our continued presence may give them data for future targeting.

You'd know more about medical and Horsemen of the Apocalypse than I would.

[None of it makes actual logical sense is the problem. House's mind keeps getting hung up on how ridiculous any of this would be on its own, let alone in concert. Trying to make himself believe bullshit fantasy and sci-fi tropes are real and he's living them out is just making his head hurt. The doctor massages the bridge of his nose.]

We need more hard data. Which we're not going to get in here. [House slides carefully off the table.] Lets check some of the other rooms on this floor. Might be interesting.

((ooc: Think we can go to a fade with your next tag for a wrap up unless there's anywhere else you want to head the conversation toward!))

We always need more data.

(OOC: End scene is good.)

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[log] Bedside Manners [closed]

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