Maladi£$ and Wo=unds Clinic

Your name is ALIPES TIGANY. You run the MALADI£$ AND WO=UNDS CLINIC with your friend and colleague, HELEPH BALZAR. Although you're a pretty decent all-round medic your specialty is POISONS. The clinic flies under the radar for a number of reasons, practicing medicine while lowblooded is one of them. You are generally CHARMING and ELOQUENT, but also prone to PREDICTABLE AND DRAMATIC MOOD SWINGS. Some say you're a drama queen, you prefer the term 'mercurial'. [Character portrait by scloutier]

[hypotheticalwoman]

Ali’s ancestor, the Poisoner. Named Kraith Tigany. Known for his madness and tendency to treachery, although neither ever stopped him from having his quadrants filled pretty much all of the time, usually at least twice over.

He was eventually tracked down and put on trial for treason, oathbreaking, sabotage against the empire, theft and gross indecency, and by that time he’d double-crossed so many different groups that there was nobody left to defend him at all, and he was executed by burning.

The subsequent toxic smoke that emanated from his body killed a further twenty-eight people and left far more with such crippling respiratory injuries and chemical burns that they had to be culled.

[variablejabberwocky]

concept sketches of babby fantroll I’m collaborating on with hypotheticalwoman

[serpentinesilver]

[Oh Ali won't know what hit 'im]

[serpentinesilver]

Just had a thought

[Ali gets a wriggler dumped on him. He poisons it.

It survives.

So he drops it into one of his deadlier traps.

He comes into the lab the next day and finds it in his nutrition block, rooting through the fridge.

So he chucks it over the side of the ship in a weighted bag.

It comes back.

So he straight up stabs it, or tries to, and it somehow manages to dodge or gore his hand or whatever, it gets out of that too.

The point is that Ali has somehow got hold of the most resilient wriggler this side of Alternia and like it or not he is going to have to raise it.

It could be a yellowblood called Tecatt Cambak.]

[scloutier]

[nacreousvenom]

NV: {~ Yes. He just contacted me. ~

NV: {~ Thank you for your forbearance while I was indisposed. It would’ve been easy for you to dispatch me and help yourself to my possessions, but you didn’t. I appreciate that. ~

NV: {~ Now I have a very important question for you. ~

NV: {~ Do you want to see him again? ~

[serpentinesilver]

SS: H£ll y£$.

SS: I m£an, of cour$£ I want to $££ him again, if only to mak£ him £xplain at l£ngth what h£ think$ h£’$ doing giving m£ four arms.

SS: Al$o th£r£ ar£ a numb£r of r£a$on$ not to di$patch you. V£ry good on£$. You’r£ w£lcom£, though.

[nacreousvenom]

NV: {~ We need to make plans. This is going to be a long-term undertaking. ~

NV: {~ Meet me in the Ammonite’s lounge area. Tell Ms. J.; I trolled her but she hasn’t answered. ~

NV: {~ And bring food. ~

NV: {~ My thermal hull smells like a shadow dropper convention. ~

[serpentinesilver]

SS: Got it.

serpentineSilver has Trolled brutalIrony!

SS: Jay, th£ bo$$ $ay$ to bring him food in th£ loung£ ar£a.

SS: W£’r£ going to g£t H£l£ph back.

You close your husktop and do not stow it in your sylladex - you did that once with a different computer and had to pay in quite expensive poison to get it back again. The poison’s still there and technically you could get it out, but you’d have to have run out of all alternatives, and also be able to get hold of something expensive.

Funny, the longer you know Vaziok, the more it seems that this might actually end up happening.

In any case, now you use a microhusktop that you can fit in the pocket of your lab coat, which now has two new armholes. Six limbs, what was he thinking of, does he think you looked better as a grub or something? You shove the two extra hands in your pants pockets and leave the lab, where you’d been sweeping up all the broken glassware, to go looking for Jay.

[brutalirony]

When Drama Lord McSpazFins started lobbing heavy ordnance at the landscape, you retreated to your respiteblock on the lab barge and put on your biggest, most noise-cancelly pair of headphones. You’ve been catching up on your soaps. You have your husktop set to mute the Trollian alert while a video is playing, because it’s super loud in headphones for some reason, but you don’t figure you’re gonna miss anything important. Ali knows where to find you, and Mr. D. — after the shit he’s pulled? He better come in here waving a fistful of caegars if he wants you to jump.

Eventually you notice it’s been a while since the barge rocked from a shockwave, but hell if you’re coming out just yet. You’re just starting the next episode when Ali comes in.

You pull the headphones down around your neck and cock an eyebrow at him. “Boss run out of torpedoes, or what?”

[serpentinesilver]

You are not really worried about Jay. You're pretty sure that if she decided to, she probably could sleep through an earthquake, or the localized seaquake that Vaziok's been causing. All the same, you're a little relieved when you see the headphones - not that you seriously thought something heavy had fallen on her head, but it's good to know she's safe and sound.

'Not quite,' you say, flashing your fangs at her. 'Heleph confirmed his alive-ness and he realised he's going to need some firepower if we're going to be the heroes of the hour here. There's a strategy meeting in the lounge area, but he wants us to bring food. Apparently landscape remodelling makes one hungry.'

You flop down on the couch beside her. 'Personally I have no idea how we're going to get Hel back, but I suppose this is where we find out. What are you watching?'

[jumpingjacktrash]

PUPPYKITTENS!

tonight it is rah who needs cheering, so here is her fantroll heleph doing what he does best: mad science.

[jumpingjacktrash]

bumping this cuz i posted it at like 4am :D

[serpentinesilver]

[this has to go on here, no question.]

[jumpingjacktrash]

so i thought i’d have another go at drawing vaziok since he got all lusus-bleached. looks freaky, man.

[variablejabberwocky]

cool

he’s all…fey-ified

like a water fairy

but with artillery

[jumpingjacktrash]

a water fairy with artillery is the best possible description of him thank you <3

[vastderp-placeholder]

Fuck yeah.

[serpentinesilver]

[This is what Alipes is so scared of, by the way.]

[scloutier]

[nacreousvenom]

NV: {~ Yes. He just contacted me. ~

NV: {~ Thank you for your forbearance while I was indisposed. It would’ve been easy for you to dispatch me and help yourself to my possessions, but you didn’t. I appreciate that. ~

NV: {~ Now I have a very important question for you. ~

NV: {~ Do you want to see him again? ~

[serpentinesilver]

SS: H£ll y£$.

SS: I m£an, of cour$£ I want to $££ him again, if only to mak£ him £xplain at l£ngth what h£ think$ h£’$ doing giving m£ four arms.

SS: Al$o th£r£ ar£ a numb£r of r£a$on$ not to di$patch you. V£ry good on£$. You’r£ w£lcom£, though.

[nacreousvenom]

NV: {~ We need to make plans. This is going to be a long-term undertaking. ~

NV: {~ Meet me in the Ammonite’s lounge area. Tell Ms. J.; I trolled her but she hasn’t answered. ~

NV: {~ And bring food. ~

NV: {~ My thermal hull smells like a shadow dropper convention. ~

[serpentinesilver]

SS: Got it.

serpentineSilver has Trolled brutalIrony!

SS: Jay, th£ bo$$ $ay$ to bring him food in th£ loung£ ar£a.

SS: W£'r£ going to g£t H£l£ph back.

You close your husktop and do not stow it in your sylladex - you did that once with a different computer and had to pay in quite expensive poison to get it back again. The poison's still there and technically you could get it out, but you'd have to have run out of all alternatives, and also be able to get hold of something expensive.

Funny, the longer you know Vaziok, the more it seems that this might actually end up happening.

In any case, now you use a microhusktop that you can fit in the pocket of your lab coat, which now has two new armholes. Six limbs, what was he thinking of, does he think you looked better as a grub or something? You shove the two extra hands in your pants pockets and leave the lab, where you'd been sweeping up all the broken glassware, to go looking for Jay.

[scloutier]

[vividanimosity]

BWAHAHAHA really? …H=o=ly ship, really? Hey guys. I’M IN SPAAAAAAAAACE how you fools doin 

[serpentinesilver]

H£L£PH BALZAR WH£R£ TH£ H£LL AR£ YOU.

I WA$ IN NO WAY WORRI£D $ICK.

I JU$T WANT TO A$K $OM£ PR£SSING QU£$TION$ ABOUT TH£$£ £XTRA LIMB$.

WH£R£ YOU GOT TH£M FOR A $TART.

[vividanimosity]

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Oops there’s my time limit.  Later skater!

[serpentinesilver]

GodDAMNIT.

You sit there and stare at the screen for a few minutes, wondering whether to be delighted or furious. You settle for aggravated and send a message to Vaziok.

SS: You can $top firing mi$$il£$ at that poor innoc£nt cliff fac£ now. It n£v£r did anything to you and in any ca$£, H£l£ph’$ aliv£.

[nacreousvenom]

NV: {~ Yes. He just contacted me. ~

NV: {~ Thank you for your forbearance while I was indisposed. It would’ve been easy for you to dispatch me and help yourself to my possessions, but you didn’t. I appreciate that. ~

NV: {~ Now I have a very important question for you. ~

NV: {~ Do you want to see him again? ~

[serpentinesilver]

SS: H£ll y£$.

SS: I m£an, of cour$£ I want to $££ him again, if only to mak£ him £xplain at l£ngth what h£ think$ h£'$ doing giving m£ four arms.

SS: Al$o th£r£ ar£ a numb£r of r£a$on$ not to di$patch you. V£ry good on£$. You'r£ w£lcom£, though.

[nacreousvenom]

[by the amazing rah! i haven’t been able to get my head in the game enough to write this scene, and then they kinda skipped past it ahahaha i am such a bad rp partner… but basically vaziok’s reaction to waking up heleph-less was to flip the fuck out and start firing off heavy ordnance at the landscape. :D]

[serpentinesilver]

[I was not expecting this and I adore it :DDDD]

[scloutier]

[vividanimosity]

BWAHAHAHA really? …H=o=ly ship, really? Hey guys. I’M IN SPAAAAAAAAACE how you fools doin 

[serpentinesilver]

H£L£PH BALZAR WH£R£ TH£ H£LL AR£ YOU.

I WA$ IN NO WAY WORRI£D $ICK.

I JU$T WANT TO A$K $OM£ PR£SSING QU£$TION$ ABOUT TH£$£ £XTRA LIMB$.

WH£R£ YOU GOT TH£M FOR A $TART.

[vividanimosity]

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Oops there’s my time limit.  Later skater!

[serpentinesilver]

GodDAMNIT.

You sit there and stare at the screen for a few minutes, wondering whether to be delighted or furious. You settle for aggravated and send a message to Vaziok.

SS: You can $top firing mi$$il£$ at that poor innoc£nt cliff fac£ now. It n£v£r did anything to you and in any ca$£, H£l£ph'$ aliv£.

[scloutier]

And then there’s these idiots. Fantrolls portrayed are: Vaziok Dasyat/nacreousvenom Heleph Balzar/vividanimosity Alipes Tigany/serpentinesilver Negaje Jalaga/brutalirony  

[vividanimosity]

BWAHAHAHA really? …H=o=ly ship, really? Hey guys. I’M IN SPAAAAAAAAACE how you fools doin 

[serpentinesilver]

H£L£PH BALZAR WH£R£ TH£ H£LL AR£ YOU.

I WA$ IN NO WAY WORRI£D $ICK.

I JU$T WANT TO A$K $OM£ PR£SSING QU£$TION$ ABOUT TH£$£ £XTRA LIMB$.

WH£R£ YOU GOT TH£M FOR A $TART.

[scloutier]

And then there’s these idiots. Fantrolls portrayed are: Vaziok Dasyat/nacreousvenom Heleph Balzar/vividanimosity Alipes Tigany/serpentinesilver Negaje Jalaga/brutalirony  

[jumpingjacktrash]

THERE ARE EVEN MORE OF THEM AAAAAAAAA

TODAY IS THE BEST DAY

[serpentinesilver]

Now w£ $££ what Vaziok did wh£n h£ $aw that H£l£ph wa$ gon£.

H£ bu$t£d n£arly a y£ar'$ $upply of lab gla$$war£, not that I blam£ him...

[clairecelaena]

The Alnwick Poison Garden Alnwick Castle, Northumberland, England The Alnwick Poison Garden boasts some of the world’s most dangerous plants, hence the name. Behind big black gates, the carefully curated garden contains about 100 varieties illegal narcotics including poppies, which are used to make opium, the poisonous Atropa belladonna (also known as deadly nightshade), Strychnos nux-vomica (used to make strychnine), Coca (from which cocaine is produced), hemlock (used to kill Socrates), cannabis and more. The current Duchess of Northumberland decided to revamp the gardens when she became mistress of Alnwick Castle. The project began around 2000, but she did not begin the Poison Garden until five years later. Inspired by the garden near Padua, Italy which was once used by the Medici’s to find better ways to kill their enemies, the Duchess decided to build a garden that was filled with narcotic, poisonous and deadly plants. The initial design included some medicinal plants, but she had them removed to maintain the concept of the Poison Garden.

[editorincreeps-deactivated20180]

::uncomfortable sounds of longing::

WHY WOULD YOU LABEL IT SO CLEARLY IF YOU DON’T WANT ME TO MOVE IN THERE? OH GOD

[serpentinesilver]

SS: I want to go h£r£...

[vividanimosity]

The Lab

[brutalirony]

“Your modus is the dumbest,” you chuckle as you slide down beside him. Then, because fate can’t resist a joke, your locker room modus dumps a pile of laundry and half an elderly sandwich on you when you try to take out a bottle of Haterade.

Rehydrating helps. It’s not many minutes before you’re thinking a lot more clearly. “Well, I like not having to kill the boss. But why the hell would a drone take Heleph alive? He’s an overage, shuttle-dodging hotblood with no…” You hesitate. “Huh. He does have psi. I just didn’t think it was the helming kind.”

[serpentinesilver]

You laugh at the shit her modus dumps on her, and your forehead wrinkles when she mentions psi.

‘I… suppose? But if it was powerful enough for that then surely I’d have seen it? Unless he was hiding it in case someone took him for helmsman training?’

You shudder and take another gulp of water. ‘I hope not. I’ve always been thankful I didn’t have that sort of psi. I wouldn’t wish helming on anyone.’

[brutalirony]

“Somebody he did some work on must’ve squealed on him,” you say darkly. “Bet hunting down the gnawbeast would keep Mr. D. occupied for a while.” You bump Ali’s shoulder encouragingly with your own. “Hey, the boss ain’t gonna kill you. I won’t let him. If he looks like he wants to blame this shit on you, well, I been working for him a while now. I got some leverage.”

[serpentinesilver]

You bump her back and grin. 'You're the best moirail. It's you,' you say, and you settle in to wait till Vaziok wakes up.

After a while snakedad slithers out and curls up beside you, and you decide to practice dexterity by scritching him lightly behind the hood with one of your spare hands.

'You're right, of course,' you say eventually. 'If I could've got over muself for longer than three minutes I totally would have tied him up and gnawed his tusks out.'

[soulstrolls-deactivated20240731]

?????????????????

[jumpingjacktrash]

omggggg lususified negaje!!! <333

folks, don’t play with Mad Science, or this could happen to you. :D

[serpentinesilver]

SS: W£ look $o w£ird...

[vividanimosity]

The Lab

[brutalirony]

You scruffle his hair sympathetically. Yours has been bleached for a while, so you’re alongside the idea of white hair, but it looks really weird on him. His horns are bleached out too, pale pink shading to butter yellow, and the scleras of his eyes are cream instead of gold. His irises are still bright greeny-yellow, though, which is a relief. White-on-white eyes would be fucking creepy.

“We look goofy as all fuck, bro,” you point out.

It’s no use trying to distract him from Heleph being dead while you’re still searching for the body, you guess. You’re gonna have to have a massive jam afterwards, though. Not a lotta things sadder than figuring out you’re pitch for somebody after they go and get themselves culled.

Outside, the night is quiet except for the slap of waves against steel. Rather than build from scratch or host the lab on the Ammonite, Mr. D. decided to steal a barge and repurpose it. That turned out to be handy as all get-out; he could tow it around with the submarine, park it in some populated harbor when you went out to get test subjects, take it somewhere secluded the rest of the time. Right now it’s parked in some cliff-sheltered cove in the middle of nowhere — which begs the question of how a drone even found Heleph, but they have their ways.

That is, if it was a drone at all, and not some random seadweller who burst in, did a number on Heleph, and then didn’t touch the rest of you or steal anything… nah. Totally a drone.

There’s no body out here. No drag marks either, no blood on the rail to suggest he got dumped overboard. A quick check of your handheld device informs you it hasn’t rained here in weeks, so it’s not because the evidence got washed away, either.

“Ali, drones don’t clean up their messes,” you muse. “I think the motherfucker took him.”

[serpentinesilver]

You blink at her as the implications of this sink in. ‘Well then… he might be alive! Which means we can find him! And your boss probably won’t- well, might not kill me after all!’ Hope lights up your face, you take a step forward and have to grab the rail to stop yourself from going down.

‘Right, great… we should sit down and let this anaesthetic wear off or I’ll trigger one of my own traps and lose one of these new arms.’

You pick up a chunk of debris and try and put it into your modus in exchange for a bottle of water, but it refuses to take it. You sigh, look around the deck until you see a hypodermic that has been thrown through the wall in the struggle, and you grab it and trade that instead.

You’re sure your modus is stingier when you’re stressed.

[brutalirony]

“Your modus is the dumbest,” you chuckle as you slide down beside him. Then, because fate can’t resist a joke, your locker room modus dumps a pile of laundry and half an elderly sandwich on you when you try to take out a bottle of Haterade.

Rehydrating helps. It’s not many minutes before you’re thinking a lot more clearly. “Well, I like not having to kill the boss. But why the hell would a drone take Heleph alive? He’s an overage, shuttle-dodging hotblood with no…” You hesitate. “Huh. He does have psi. I just didn’t think it was the helming kind.”

[serpentinesilver]

You laugh at the shit her modus dumps on her, and your forehead wrinkles when she mentions psi.

'I... suppose? But if it was powerful enough for that then surely I'd have seen it? Unless he was hiding it in case someone took him for helmsman training?'

You shudder and take another gulp of water. 'I hope not. I've always been thankful I didn't have that sort of psi. I wouldn't wish helming on anyone.'

[vividanimosity]

The Lab

[brutalirony]

You scruffle his hair sympathetically. Yours has been bleached for a while, so you’re alongside the idea of white hair, but it looks really weird on him. His horns are bleached out too, pale pink shading to butter yellow, and the scleras of his eyes are cream instead of gold. His irises are still bright greeny-yellow, though, which is a relief. White-on-white eyes would be fucking creepy.

“We look goofy as all fuck, bro,” you point out.

It’s no use trying to distract him from Heleph being dead while you’re still searching for the body, you guess. You’re gonna have to have a massive jam afterwards, though. Not a lotta things sadder than figuring out you’re pitch for somebody after they go and get themselves culled.

Outside, the night is quiet except for the slap of waves against steel. Rather than build from scratch or host the lab on the Ammonite, Mr. D. decided to steal a barge and repurpose it. That turned out to be handy as all get-out; he could tow it around with the submarine, park it in some populated harbor when you went out to get test subjects, take it somewhere secluded the rest of the time. Right now it’s parked in some cliff-sheltered cove in the middle of nowhere — which begs the question of how a drone even found Heleph, but they have their ways.

That is, if it was a drone at all, and not some random seadweller who burst in, did a number on Heleph, and then didn’t touch the rest of you or steal anything… nah. Totally a drone.

There’s no body out here. No drag marks either, no blood on the rail to suggest he got dumped overboard. A quick check of your handheld device informs you it hasn’t rained here in weeks, so it’s not because the evidence got washed away, either.

“Ali, drones don’t clean up their messes,” you muse. “I think the motherfucker took him.”

[serpentinesilver]

You blink at her as the implications of this sink in. 'Well then... he might be alive! Which means we can find him! And your boss probably won't- well, might not kill me after all!' Hope lights up your face, you take a step forward and have to grab the rail to stop yourself from going down.

'Right, great... we should sit down and let this anaesthetic wear off or I'll trigger one of my own traps and lose one of these new arms.'

You pick up a chunk of debris and try and put it into your modus in exchange for a bottle of water, but it refuses to take it. You sigh, look around the deck until you see a hypodermic that has been thrown through the wall in the struggle, and you grab it and trade that instead.

You're sure your modus is stingier when you're stressed.