Entreri Parasite - #01

Adrian sits down.

The undead scholar crosses his legs, placing his tome onto the table. His attention is directed towards Penelope, Aesperus and finally Eldwyn. He makes a gesture with his hand.

"I've my own observations from our initial meeting with Aesperus. That said, Eldwyn, I'd like for you to present the information you've gathered and share it with us."

Adrian offers him a curt nod and a soft smile. His artificial eyes glaze back over towards the woman directly in front of him.

"From there, we will begin discussing potential experiments."
(Adrian Montbell)

Aesperus looks towards Eldwyn.
(Aesperus Entreri)

Eldwyn reached for his journal by his side and brought it up to the desk, where he had been taking notes regarding Aesperus and the infection. He flipped it open and began to summarise his notes aloud.

"Right... So if we treat it as a parasite like we've been considering recently, it seems plausible that it is altering the infected individual's brain chemistry" he gestures towards Aesperus and continues "This is furthered considering the description Aesperus gave me regarding the Kaor the infection came from. She described the brain in a way that definitely seemed irregular."

He took a deep breath and continued onto the next point.

"Though, we also know there were some sort of spores that can spread this infection, as witnessed by Rilla and Aesperus, and the spores can cause growths on non-organic things also. Which means, I assume, that if the parasite gains mroe and more control over the host, it becomes stronger. Possibly creates those spores they saw?"

He reaches his final point regarding Aesperus.

"This does worry me though, given the description of the Kaor's brain, and also the possibility of this infection worsening... I fear Aesperus will have less control over herself as time goes on."
(Eldwyn)

Penelope tents her hands together.

"Yes, that is one plausible cause. Another possibility is that the fluids in Aesperus' body are infected. However, she's reported to me that expelling any fluids doesn't tend to provide relief. We can't really confirm or deny that yet, because we haven't ran any tests..."

She taps at her chin.

"The one thing that has me reconsidering my hypothesis is that, if Aesperus' infection were truly parasitic in nature, it would have long ago destroyed her body, or completely taken it over. If it regenerates as I have thought, then it would also be constantly growing, yes...? Taking over gradually more and more of her body."

"Yet, that's not the case."

She pauses, but something about her expression says she's not done. She's caught in thought for a moment, and then she speaks up.

"It is of my mind that, if we find no gleaming,obvious solution, we attempt a complete blood transfusion in order to cleanse her body of the fungus."
(Penelope)

Well, all of this scientific mumbo jumbo got through to her. As the three talked she'd sit there in silence, watching, waiting. There were many theories, many thoughts on what it could be, but no definitive answer just yet. If they looked at her blood samples, they'd find the blood was infected with spores and that's it.

It seemed to just be an occultic fungus. Aesperus' eyes danced from Penelope, to Eldwyn, to Adrian. She wanted to do more with this, what she was feeling, the feeling of the spores gnawing at her mind. She knew that it could prove deadly to the enemy.

However, right now, she'd sit there and wait, commenting on a single thing.

"It's been a good few months since then. I don't feel my mind slipping at all, not yet anyways. If it were trying to get into my head, then it'd surely have done so by now, right?"
(Aesperus Entreri)

Adrian folded his hands in front of him, scarred fingers resting beneath his chin. He waited for everyone to finish speaking before putting in his two-cents. When the air of silence encompassed them, he was quick to break it. His artificial gaze was fixed onto Eldwyn for a moment. An aura of professionalism seemed to exude from the undead scholar.

“Your notes are not dissimilar to mine, Eldwyn. In fact-- they are nearly indistinguishable. Paint me impressed. Though, if you intend on pursuing the life of an academic you must remember one thing.”

He looks towards Penelope, smiling. Slowly, his eyes travel back towards the aspiring alchemist.

“Variables. For every action, there is an equal or opposite reaction. Said actions are determined by a plethora of factors. Too many to count. Arcanic, biological, the list goes on. Probability, chance. Gravity, mathematics, relativity. All of these things contribute to a single outcome.”

Adrian’s gaze locks onto Aesperus.

“That’s just the thing, though. Conclusive results are not finite. An alteration to a single one of these variables, and the outcome will be divergent. A general lack of intrinsic and empirical evidence leaves us with little to work with. There are too many factors at play.”

The scholar stands up. He makes his way over towards one of the cabinets, grabbing a small lockbox and bringing it towards the table. He was no doctor. Far from it. Medicine had never been his specialty, but he was educated enough to understand how to carry out the procedures he had in mind with due diligence.

“Penelope raises a fair, just argument. We cannot hope to understand this at face value. Our adherence to the scientific method will enable us to piece together this puzzle of a contagion. Our goal right now is to find a solution. This disease, if handled properly in a controlled environment, could also be utilized as a biological weapon.”

Adrian opens up the lockbox. Inside arean assortment of vials, scalpels, gloves and so on. His head turns to face each one of them, a serious and weighty expression assuming control over his visage.

“For the reasons mentioned above, it is important that we proceed with due diligence and ensure our own safety while working with Aesperus. I want both of you to put on a pair of sterile gloves and to cover your mouths with masks.”

“The testing phase begins now.”
(Adrian Montbell)

Aesperus Entreri says, "... Whaat the fuuuck."

Eldwyn listens dilligently to every word from both Penelope and Adrian, adding notes to his journal as new ones are presented. He also looks rather inspired and impressed by Adrian's words.

With little more than a nod, he prepares himself with a mask and some gloves from the lockbox on the table. It seemed the testing phase was going to be what we needed for conclusive results.

"Sure. Ready when you are."
(Eldwyn)

Aesperus Entreri says, "You should tell me what tests are being run first."

Snap. Penelope pulls on a pair of gloves with such a casual sense that one could assume she was a doctor in her spare time.

...she sorta was.

A mask falls over her face, and then she begins to speak:

"Yes, yes, we are simply preparing first, Aesperus. We will give you full disclosure to what we are doing to you." There... there didn't seem to be much of a choice involved here!

"I have several different samples I'd like to collect. Blood, saliva, and sweat." She pulls out several petri dishes from the lockbox, preparing them on the table in front of them. "Yes, that way, I can figure out exactly where the infection is coming from, and where it is spreading in your body."
(Penelope)

"Yes, Aesperus. As much as it pains me to say it.. this is for the greater good. Know that I would never intentionally try to cause you any suffering. In this case, however, it may be a small price you have to pay in order to become whole again."

The scholar said, rather cryptically. It was evident though, given the concerned look on his face, that his words were indeed genuine.

"To make things smoother, I will do my utmost to keep you informed as to what tests we will administer before we begin the actual processes themselves."

Adrian pulls on a pair of gloves. He covers his face with a mask as well. He offers a firm nod towards Penelope, a clear indication of support.

"Blood, saliva, sweat. Urine, feces." He didn't seem to be joking in the slightest. As strange, unorthodox and uncomfortable as it might have been, the more data collected the better.

He looks towards Eldwyn.

"Once the samples have been collected, I want you to use your knowledge on fauna to try and identify the cellular structure of the fungus in its various forms."
(Adrian Montbell)

Knowledge on flora might be one of the most useful benefits Eldwyn has gained through use of nature magic, not being a fighter at all.

If not for the mask covering his mouth, it would be apparently of Eldwyn's discomfort. Less for himself, more for Aesperus. He imagined some of those samples would be rather uncomfortable to collect.

"Right. I can do my best with that, I will say beforehand that, due to this being a foreign disease, it's possible that it may be unlike anything else we've seen. Though, if I can find even something similar in nature, or anything useful at all, I'll let you know of course."
(Eldwyn)

Ah... this was important.

Penelope stops herself in her thought, and she turns to quirk a brow at Aesperus.

"Would you like something to drink? A fibrous meal?"
(Penelope)

Aesperus Entreri says, "... Yeah. That'd be enjoyable."

Well, time to start the various tests. First was the blood, saliva, and sweat. The woman would be able to get that part done with ease.

First the blood and salive. As two different dishes were handed to her, she'd spit in one. She'd bite part of her finger, and release a good amount of blood into the dish. The saliva seemed green, but the blood was most definitely green.

Now sweat, this was fairly easy as well. The woman would heat up her internal body temperature, and she'd begin to sweat almost immediately. She'd collect that into a dish, and transfer it to the appropriate place.

After a convenient black screen, she'd hand off eevry dish to Adrian and nod.

"What next?"
(Aesperus Entreri)

Adrian leaped back in disgust.

"WH- WHAT THE HELL AESPERUS!? I DIDN'T MEAN NOW!"

Adrian paced around the room, shivering as if he'd seen a ghost. He reluctantly placed the two samples back inside of the lockbox.

"I was going to have you.. collect the samples on your own time, return here when it was convenient to you. You'd then place it into the lock box for us to examine at a later time."

He rubs the sides of his temples with both hands, shaking his head.

"At any rate. Now that all of the samples have been collected, Eldwyn, it's your time to shine. I look forward to seeing what you have to offer."
(Adrian Montbell)

Ah, yes, the samplings.

The samplings were good.

"Yes, Eldwyn, get right on that."

She was completely and utterly unphased... and also unsure of what to do, since Adrian seemed to be pushing all of the work on Eldwyn.
(Penelope)

Eldwyn asks, "Right, uh. Before I begin, a hand? Do you think you could use some sort of rune to to magnify what I'm looking at?"

Eldwyn says, "Adrian, I mean."

Adrian Montbell says, "Of course."

Penelope is a runewriter too.....
(Penelope)

Adrian Montbell says, "Once you are done with the samples, let me know. Myself and Penelope will begin performing various tests on them to see how different things react with the contagion."

Adrian walks over to Penelope. He smiles, a gloved hand wrapping around hers.

"We'll do it together. You are the Chief Scribe, after all. What would I do without your keen eye, dear?"
(Adrian Montbell)

Adrian pulled the woman from her corner, making his way back towards the table. He looked towards his fiancé with a smile.

He hovered his opposite hand in the air, an intricate runic array roughly the size of Eldwyn's eye appearing in front of him. The complexity of the sigils and combined polygons was nothing short of impressive, especially given such short notice.

"Penelope. We're both going to siphon our mana into the array to ensure maximum efficiency. I want you to add another layer above and beneath the one I created. We want to be able to offer him various magnification settings."
(Adrian Montbell)

Penelope strolls over.

"Okay."

A gloved hand raises in the air, and mana begins to twist and weave from her fingertips. It forms and shapes intricate geometries at her will, twisting to interlock above and below Adrian's glowing array.

Her master's grasp of the runic language was almost baffling. Within moments, she had translated nearly an entire page's worth of commands into a single, impressive ringlet, floating in front of Eldwyn.

Her hand falls to her side, and she moves back to her corner.
(Penelope)

Aesperus Entreri says, "That's amazing."

Adrian gives Eldwyn a thumbs up. He follows Penelope, joining her at her little corner. The scholar sits down next to her and wraps his arm around her shamelessly, lacing his fingers between hers.

He offers a snide, joking response to Aesperus.

"No, Aesperus. It's magic."

Then he patiently waits for Eldwyn to conclude his observations.
(Adrian Montbell)

Aesperus Entreri says, "Who would'a thought."

As Adrian AND Penelope both prepare the runes, hovering about in front of Eldwyn's eye to magnify his observations of the samples with various settings, he quickly got to work.

He lined up the samples ahead of him, all of them. One of them rather reluctantly... Then began the observation.

First, the similarities. Everything was green. Quite literally. Some may be more obvious than others, but every single sample had traces of green coloration, similar to that of Aesperus' veins.

Looking closely, rather than everything simply being green, it would appear that all the bodily fluids... ahem and solids... were interwoven with spores all throughout, moving about and reproducing in the fluids, giving it the green appearance it held.

"Hmmm... okay... so these were the spores you mentioned, I'll assume..." though directed at Aesperus, it was more of a quiet mutter to himself.

Each individual spore seemed to glow with a hint of magic, though one could assume it was nature, it did not appear so... Eldwyn would have recognised it as such, but it was something much more sinister.

This infection was incredible down to every detail. The very function surrounding it was daunting. Eldwyn gulped. He knew this task to find a cure may be something that needed some extra hands on deck.

From what info he had from his time reading, he could have presumed these spores had some signs of occultism. Magic ever present through them, but they still remained biological. Some sort of hybrid between magic and biological hazard.

His voice became much more stern and loud-spoken.
"Adrian, Penelope. We might have an issue."

Before completely arriving at this conclusion, he gave it one more look, with maximum magnification that was allowed by these runes. Each and every individual spore that was interwoven with Aesperus' samples were further interwoven with magic. Very sinister magic.

"I would almost consider calling this a curse instead of an infection, but it's not. In a manner of speaking, it's a bit of both." he took a deep breath before continuing "If... observations prove correct, this is both magic and biological. It's very, very sinister. It seems occult, even. We may be looking at this the wrong way. I think if we want a cure, we might need someone who specialises in dealing with occultism. An Exorcist... maybe? They may be able to help sterilize this to a point where it's treatable by regular means, like how you would treat a regular biological infection.
(Eldwyn)

The scholar didn't bother getting up. He seemed to be very comfortable in his fiancé's presence, so much so that he couldn't be asked to do the simplest of things or offer the kind of courtesies one might expect.

It is clear, however, that he is listening. Quite intently. The undead nods his head every now and then, his free hand raising to his chin as he pondered over the data that Eldwyn managed to procure.

"Yes. That is quite the issue indeed."

He took mental footnotes of what the aspiring alchemist was saying, making sure to dedicate some crevice of his mind to retaining the information that he discovered through his observations.

"An infection and a curse melded into one. This is unlike anything I've heard of before. That within itself frightens me beyond comparison, but instills me with a stronger desire for understanding."

"If your observations would suggest that it is indeed occultic, then yes.An Exorcist is what we need. A powerful one at that."

Adrian offers the young man a sincere smile.

"Splendid job, Eldwyn. Truly. Your diligence has certainly impressed me. However, your work is not done yet. Based off the information you were able to find, I want you to find a way to halt the progression of the disease until we can find a suitable Exorcist."

(Adrian Montbell)

Eldwyn was understandably intimidated by the task of finding a way to halt the spread of infection. He had a few ideas that may be able to help slow it down, but he wasn't entirely sure.

"Right... I'm still not a spectacular alchemist by any means, I may need to get Acha's opinion on something... I'll get to work on a few ideas though..." his voice had a tone that quite honestly lacked confidence. For once, the pressure was on. He obviously did not want to fail Aesperus, or disappoint Adrian and Penelope.

"I don't have a lot to offer in the way of a temporary solution just now, I'll have to take some time to think on it. If that is alright, of course."
(Eldwyn)

Penelope says, "I will surely have some ideas. In time."

Penelope seems far too preoccupied being cuddly and gross with her bacon boy.
(Penelope)

"Of course, of course."

He nods once.

"Referring to Acha will surely make things go a little smoother, I'd imagine. He is an unparalleled potion brewer. But unlike you, Eldwyn, he does not express the desire to use his understanding of fauna for.. "

He looks towards Aesperus, a look of concern plaguing his scarred visage.

"For the kind of endeavors the Galeford Research Association is pursuing."

"Take what time you need in order to formulate an appropriate and amicable solution, at least for the time being. We want to ensure Aesperus retains as healthy as she can while we work on a cure. With the diligence you showed me to today?"

Adrian offers Eldwyn a smile.

"I suspect that it will not be an issue."
(Adrian Montbell)