WG - The Mystery of the Poisoned Healer Options

[Grits]

(Continued from approximately here.)



Abiene in Chorrol

Eyja explained what would be needed for a complete recovery. “For the amount of metal you've been exposed to, you may need to keep taking it several times daily for at least a week, and do a restorative healing on yourself several times per day as well. The raw ingredients work better and quicker if you can stand the bitter taste. The potions are flavored, but are much weaker.”

Abiene started to reply. “I can stand the taste, but I’m sure an alchemist will be better able to…” Several times per day? She pressed her fingers against her face again, fighting down that frantic feeling. “I have patients to tend! I won’t be able to— I’m already taking far too many magicka potions just to keep up my workload. There’s nothing for it, I’ll have to ask for a leave of absence from the chapel.” She clenched her fists on her knees, anger creeping up through her fear. “Darn whoever did this!”

Eyja handed Abiene a list of ingredients. “Expect to be near an urn for a while,” she told Abiene. Then Eyja tucked her materials away.

Great, thought Abiene. I’m not going to go through a week of purging on the pot in my chapel quarters. She put that concern away for now and looked at the list.

Garlic
Sunflower seeds
Pumpkin seeds
Flax seed oil
Corkbulb root
Netch Leather
Scrib Jelly
Scamp skin
Kwama cuttle
Ash yam
The juice of a lemon
Dried seaweed
Charcoal

“Abiene, I need you to remember exactly how long you were at the inn, who you saw there, who brought you that tea, and if it was the same person you ordered it from,” said Eyja.

Abiene tried to clear her thoughts. “I reached the inn after dark and spent the night. There was a commotion when Irvana arrived with talk of vampires, and I ended up healing her in her chamber. I had a glass of Tamika’s last night with the stuffed mushrooms, plus a cheese plate with strawberries. This morning I ate a sweet roll and drank some kahve at the bar. A Dunmer woman was there, I didn’t catch her name. She was another guest. Lycus was sitting there, too. Yetta the cook and Lleris the hallboy were serving, but I got my breakfast from what was already set out on the bar. Bograk and Aravi were there, too. Oh, and I believe Kayla headed upstairs around the time I came down with Aravi. Honestly Eyja, I’m probably forgetting someone. I’ve been told to improve my situational awareness, but I’m not really sure what that even means.”

She hoped Eyja wasn’t too disgusted with her lack of information. She had not been paying attention at the inn because she had not been up to anything she felt she needed to hide. And Aravi’s troubles had been foremost in her mind.

“Then I got some tea from Yetta and went outside. I spoke with Dar’muktah and watched Lowren and the Argonian man cleaning up after the storm. Then I met Maxical. We sat on the bench chatting for a while. We have some mutual friends.” What happened next? “I must have been in a fog, because I can’t say how long we sat there or even what we talked about. I don’t really remember getting my things from the inn, but I must have.”

Abiene looked at the list again. “I can pick up a few of these things today at the chapel. Master Selvilo might have some of them, he’s a Dunmer. I can’t imagine why he would have netch leather, though. I’ll need to pick up my crystal ball so I can try to reach Darnand. He’ll know where Jerric is. That’s the alchemist.” She shook her head. “I hate to involve them in this.”

Abiene’s mouth went dry and her heart began to race. Perhaps that’s still the poison, she thought, gripping the bench’s edge.

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This post has been edited by Grits: Aug 24 2013, 04:01 PM

[Black Hand]

Earth met hatchet and was thrown out to the pile alongside the graves. The sujamma and remnant energies were being redirected into this task. Ninety percent of Master Goren Andarys defensive philosophy was about redirection.

The heart beats. It knows no direction. It merely goes on, in unending rhythm. The veins and arteries guide and redirect this force, bringing life to every extremity. This is the essence of Redirection. It takes more effort and power to meet a force head on, why do this? I carry no shield that can be seen, my knowledge; my mind is my shield. I let my opponent move as they wish. Then I move them as I wish.

He grabbed the greatly damaged body of the Orc, and carefully laid it out into the grave. To him, he returned his weapon, gave some coins and alcohol, and repeated Arkay's Blessing once more.

He took Earana's corpse and laid her out carefully. To her he gave a potion of magicka, some coin and alcohol, and repeated Arkay's Blessing once more.

Go now. If you return as vengeful spirits, your unsavory actions brought this upon you. See the truth in this, and seek redemption. Not the unending cycle of vengeance. He thought prayed over them.

He filled and covered them as best he could, trying to make them look part of the natural surroundings rather than freshly dug graves.

I am finished. Now, can I take a damn bath, Mephala? Or is there more intrigue you have set aside for me? He thought crossly, yet in jest.

He returned to the Wobbly Goblet in shorter time than one would expect for a mer on foot. But he'd walked all the way from Morrowind here, and to most places in his years. He was more than just a little used too it.

The evening had come, and the drinking revelers brought their end of the day relief with them, in spite of the bustling crowd he still managed to get a bath brought into his room. While he waited he silently checked in on his new companions, preferring to observe than to engage at that moment in time.

Besides, he was sweaty and smelly from his laborious efforts, even he was offending himself with his scent.

Finally, he checked and rechecked everything in his room. The hairs he'd placed on the windows with a bit of saliva were still there, the thin layer of saltrice flour, which was more grey than white and nearly invisible on these hardwood floors showed no signs of disturbance or tracks other than his.

He took off the armor piece by piece, laying it neatly next to the dresser and laid out his weapons in similar fashion, keeping his silver dagger with him as he did at all times. He let himself surrender to the warmth of the bath, which he'd added some salts and herbs too, and let it go to work on his strained muscles.

He extended his senses listening to anything and everything in the Inn. Sipping slowly on a flask of flin, even in rest he continued his vigil.

Finally clean and relaxed, he dressed for bed but went to his alchemy station and prepared a concoction for Maxical's skooma addiction. He re-read his own notes on the subject as well as some studies he'd acquired over the years from mages and healers who 'lowered' themselves to working with the afflicted.

He'd tried moon sugar himself, but not in the conventional sense. It had it's use in alchemical preparations such as 'fortify speed' and 'dispel'. It was also quite illegal, especially in Morrowind. Out here, the Cyrod's seemed to be a bit more lax on it, if a little more open to alternate forms of trade. He believed the Dunmer simply refused it on the basis that it was a 'Khajiit' drug and were notoriously racist. That didn't mean Morrowind didn't have it's fair share of addicts as well. They were known as having a 'sweet tooth'.

Skooma was the more powerful narcotic, still derived from moon sugar and it was powerfully intoxicating. Divayth Fyr; the ancient Telvanni wizard was also a casual user. It was in fact he who had taught him how to create the separator philter. Apparently derived from his work with attempting to cure corpus disease, he tested it extensively on addicts who were desperate for the 'cure'. Initially the brew was a little too powerful, resulting in the addicts actually dying from the stress of extreme withdrawal.

He'd cut it back quite a few notches, and started to see some progress. When that progress halted, he'd lost interest and moved onto another avenue of treatment, abandoning the libation altogether. Not without using it on himself after the occasional skooma use however, which helped to prevent a physical addiction in the first place.

Since then, Sethyas had made a few of his own adjustments to the remedy. Notably adding simple tannins from trama root tea that reduced the stress hormones in the bloodstream helping to induce a sense of general wellbeing in to the imbiber. He in fact instructed that it was best taken with dark teas over a short period of time.

Maxical was doubtless suffering, and he finished the potion with a sense of relief himself. He scribed it's direction for use on a loose parchment, and folded it neatly, wrapping it together with the vial that housed the 'cure', and left his room to deliver it too Eyja.