GLoG

Herein lies the various threads in which our characters live out their lives
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Morty
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Re: GLoG

Post by Morty »

[A Good Talk]

Alright, here we go. Sophie doesn't tell this to many people. Braon and Sekhmet know she's a demigoddess, but neither asked for details. In fact, Braon seems to assume she's some kind of saint from her own homeworld.

"A few years ago I was chosen by a deity, called the Unconquered Sun. I don't know why, because he didn't deign to inform me. I can only guess what I was doing at the time impressed him. Ever since then I've had considerable supernatural power. Which causes me to glow when I expend it."
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Re: GLoG

Post by Rebonack »

[A Good Talk]

Khannie listens.

And contemplates.

And draws a very important conclusion.

"So like how the wizard Shazam gave Billy Bastion his super powers! Or kinda like how Kyubie made me a magical girl, I guess. But there wasn't any trial or test or deal or anything? You just got a buncha magic powers and you don't really know why?"

That does seem a bit odd to Khannie.

Usually powers like those come with obligations or responsibilities.
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Re: GLoG

Post by Morty »

[A Good Talk]

Sophie smiles slightly. It figures Khannie would have a direct frame of reference.

"There wasn't. The Unconquered Sun didn't even speak to me. I just felt a surge of power. I was fighting a monster at the time... having rushed into a situation against my better judgement again. When he Exalted me, I was able to get the monster to stand down and even negotiate with its master. From what I learned later, the Sun chooses mortals who impress him in some way."

[Arrivals]

"For now, let's take care of something more pedestrian. Namely making sure our little ones are looked after." Sophie looks at a nearby wall, where a list is hanging. "Let's check the volunteer list to see who's working here today."
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Re: GLoG

Post by Rebonack »

[A Good Talk]

Of course she would.

Khannie loves comic books. She loves super heroes and tales of noble struggles to uphold justice.

So! Impressing mister Sun guy.

"It sounds to me like you did something brave and he decided to reward you by helping you finish what you started," Khannie concludes. "That seems like a good enough reason to me. There are lots of people who try doing something brave and they just... fail. 'cuz sometimes just being brave isn't enough."

You need ability to back up bravery.

Khannie offers that doofy foxy smile of hers.

"I'm glad you didn't get eaten by the monster, Sophie."
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Re: GLoG

Post by Morty »

[A Good Talk]

"I'm quite glad of it as well. I'm sure my wife is too." Sophie nods solemnly. "I've been using my new power to help people and keep the campsite safe. But I prefer to do it subtly. Solar Exalted can become very... domineering when they exert their power too much."
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Re: GLoG

Post by Ironsmith »

[Miranda's Cabin]

"It's a small insect that bites people and drinks their blood." Eun explains, sliding the tube of blood into the side of what appears to be a tablet computer. "They're very annoying. If one bites you, the itch doesn't go away for days. Not to mention they tend to carry disease, like yellow fever and west nile and-"

"It's rare to get sick off the ones around here." Miranda interrupts. "Don't worry about it too much."

Eun nods and taps a few buttons on the screen, running through an analysis of Alto's blood. Without a baseline of comparison, the information this will give her is limited, but it should still say... something. Something that isn't readily obvious from Alto's appearance.
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Re: GLoG

Post by Hraithre »

[Miranda's Cabin]

It's not as hopeless as Eun thought - the machine does recognize Alto's blood as human. It also confirms Alto is a boy, with blood type O negative. The component causing unusual blood coloration remains unindentified, but it does not seem to be direct cause of what's happening. It looks like the most likely culprit is unusually high concentrations of androgens, adrenaline and growth hormones. Alto's endocrine system has gone into overdrive, and with it, the rest of his metabolism.

If Eun's instrumentation can do genetic analysis, she can find out something more startling. Alto is a hybrid, but not of natural sort. His genome is almost that of a human with mixed ancestry, North-African and North-European to be specific, but then in the parts sometimes called "junk" DNA, there suddenly appear various odd alterations. Eun's seen these before, in the genetic sequence shown to her by LB2.

Alto is also a cellular chimera. At some point, the non-conding "junk" DNA isolated itself and started taking part in coding proteins again, altering newer cells more radically. The differences are enough that Eun's instrumentation might be complaining of her giving it a mixed blood sample.
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Re: GLoG

Post by Earl of Purple »

Arrivals

Benedict nods and will join Sophie in looking at the list, and his eyes are immediately drawn to one of the names. "Miss N. Flome? Unusual surname. I knew a man with that surname, not well, by reputation mostly. A university rector, teaching magic. His specialty... I forget. Not elementalism, that was his wife. He was... oh, a relic-mage, I think. Drawing power from the associations between specific objects and history." Natalie's father was, in fact, a university dean, and he did know magic. And he forbade Natalie from learning magic since her mother detonated herself when Natalie was three; her current knowledge of conjuration came from Santa at Thanksmas. Natalie rarely mentions what kind of magic her father knew, though may have mentioned his use of objects in it historically. "I suppose he's dead now. I had to flee England because of the peasants deciding to take power into their own hands. Anyone linked to the nobility was at risk; his knighthood would have been enough." And Natalie's father was a knight, and married a baron's daughter. Natalie might have mentioned, when discussing her brother, that he's inherited it due to nobody closer to get the barony.
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Re: GLoG

Post by Rebonack »

[A Good Talk]

Khannie nods to that.

She gets it. She sure does.

"When you're stronger than everyone else it's easy to think that you should be in charge," Khannie observes. "But that's why heroes have gotta be selfless."

The teen has given a great deal of thought to what it means to be a hero.

"Don't worry, Sophie. Your secret is safe with me."
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Re: GLoG

Post by Morty »

[Arrivals]

Sophie's mind runs down what she knows about Natalie. That's her father Benedict is talking about, she's certain.

"Natalie is a nice young lady. She's been living with us for some time. Been through a lot, so we were happy to lend her shelter."

[A Good Talk]

"I knew you'd understand. So let's keep this between us two heroes." Sophie winks.
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Re: GLoG

Post by Earl of Purple »

Arrivals

"I am sure she is, if she's a relative. Her father and I had some... opposing scholastic views, which is one reason we rarely met. He was a noble man, despite the lowness of his birth." Which did make things somewhat hard, for him and Natalie. The aristocrats didn't like anyone not born amongst them rising to their height... Although the Beaulieu habit of marrying witches, alchemists, diabolists, necromancers and hedge-mages regardless of their social standing means it was one prejudice Benedict did not share.
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Re: GLoG

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Hraithre wrote: May 12, 2023 11:32 am [Miranda's Cabin]

It's not as hopeless as Eun thought - the machine does recognize Alto's blood as human. It also confirms Alto is a boy, with blood type O negative. The component causing unusual blood coloration remains unindentified, but it does not seem to be direct cause of what's happening. It looks like the most likely culprit is unusually high concentrations of androgens, adrenaline and growth hormones. Alto's endocrine system has gone into overdrive, and with it, the rest of his metabolism.

If Eun's instrumentation can do genetic analysis, she can find out something more startling. Alto is a hybrid, but not of natural sort. His genome is almost that of a human with mixed ancestry, North-African and North-European to be specific, but then in the parts sometimes called "junk" DNA, there suddenly appear various odd alterations. Eun's seen these before, in the genetic sequence shown to her by LB2.

Alto is also a cellular chimera. At some point, the non-conding "junk" DNA isolated itself and started taking part in coding proteins again, altering newer cells more radically. The differences are enough that Eun's instrumentation might be complaining of her giving it a mixed blood sample.
[Miranda's Cabin]

"Well, that's..." Eun trails off.

"That's what? Concerning? A relief? Surprising?" Miranda insists.

"Concerning and surprising." Eun amends. "Your son here is... ah... well, his cellular makeup is chimeric. That in of itself isn't especially worrisome; we don't see it in modern humans back home thanks to the advent of medigel, but before then it was a mostly harmless phenomenon that occasionally manifested in people who, say, underwent random mutations or absorbed a twin in the womb." Eun flips over the screen so Miranda can look over her shoulder. "What bothers me is that the second DNA set is going to have a radically different phenotype from Alto as he is now. In effect-"

"Tumors?" Miranda finishes. "He has cancer?"

"...In layman's terms, more or less." Eun nods. "I wouldn't characterize it as cancer, but the concept is quite similar. I would need to test further to be certain, but it seems likely that these tumors are what's causing his endocrine system to go into overdrive, and with that, the rest of his symptoms. If that is indeed the case, removing the tumors is a simple enough procedure, and he can be on his way to recovery by morning. But..."

"But?"

"Well..." Eun glances to the side, back up at Alto. "Again, I would need to test further to be certain, but the possibility exists that this is a form of natural process. Sort of. I recognize the second gene set from an artifact I studied a while ago. It's very much artificial, and may in fact be designed to facilitate some sort of process similar to what we're seeing now. To... make him into something else, or play host to a separate organism, or something." She shakes her head. "I have no idea what. Nor do I intend to find out. But..."

"But if that's the case, this isn't an accident and there's a good chance he'll be dealing with bouts of this for the rest of his life."

"Or at least until we systematically scrub the junk DNA from every cell in his body, yes." Eun nods. "And that may be inadvisable."

"..." Miranda shuffles up next to Alto and puts a reassuring hand on his side. "...How soon can you get back the necessary test results?"

"A few hours. I'll get started on them right away." Eun gives the two of them a small smile. "...I might turn out to be completely wrong. It wouldn't be the first time it's happened."

"God, I hope you are."
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Re: GLoG

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Gullara wrote: May 07, 2023 7:06 pm [Birb Babysitting]

That is a slightly difficult question. Her instructions were to go to 'Sapling Cabin' whens he arrived, but at a glance the array of wooden buildings might be hard to tell apart. She can hear the chatter of voices a ways off, maybe toward the lake? Though she'd have to trek across the whole camp to get there. One of those buildings is larger than the others. Maybe that's somewhere important?

Though while she considers this, another option presents itself. Two girls walk into the open space amidst the main cluster of buildings, which the road Kes followed lead her to. At a glance they must be sisters. They share the same red skin, lightly curled horns, and tails. In fact, the longer Kes looks the more it's apparent that if they weren't dressed differently and their hair weren't styled different she might not be able to tell them apart at all.

Currently they two are walking across the space, talking to each other too quietly for Kes to hear at this distance, and carrying armfuls of fist sized stones. They don't show much regard for how this is dirtying their clothes. They're not moving closer to Kes, just crossing the space perpendicular in front of her.

Seeing as she's here to supervise kids, then kids might know where she needs to go, right?
[Birb Babysitting]

Kestrel's pauses, surprised for a brief moment, as the girls walk into view. It's not everyday you see what looks to be two tiny demons just casually going for a stroll. But nobody seemed to mind, and now that she looked closer- oh, they were kids! Red-skinned kids with horns and tails, sure, but very clearly kids. It was a very strange sight to the birdgirl, but.. all of the Nexus was a strange sight. She'd gotten used to seeing people here just being people, when she would have thought of them monsters back home. Atreyu and Krivka, just to name a couple. So it only took her a moment to shake past that initial pause of shock.

"You be good, okay, Sil?" She scratched her wolf behind the ears, and began to approach.

"Uh, hey, you girls- oi, settle down Silver- uh, ahem, do you know where Sapling Cabin is? I'm supposed to look after some kids like you there." Silver, for his part, finally seems to listen to her for once, ceasing his squirming long enough to peer curiously at the girls, tongue hanging loosely from his mouth.
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Re: GLoG

Post by Hraithre »

[Miranda's Cabin]

Eun's not completely wrong.

The good news is, it's not a cancer. If anything, it is almost the opposite. One important contributor to all kinds of cancer is that the mutated cells refuse to undergo apoptosis, or programmed cell death. In contrast, Alto's body has accelarated levels of apoptosis.

It's just that the dying cells are the least altered ones. As they wither, the new cells absorb them, steadily increasing proportion of altered tissue. The process seems to be furthest along in Alto's bones, from where it has spread to other part of his body, including his endocrine glands. His rapidly replacing skin is just the most visible effect. Of course, if Eun thinks to test them, Alto's eyes are also in this category, consisting entirely of altered tissue.

For what it's worth, like Alto's eyes, the new tissue appears completely healthty, if a bit short-lived, as the cycle of death and renewal repeats itself. It looks like the process could have a natural endpoint once all or nearly all of Alto's cells are replaced. Eun could slow the process down by administering hormone inhibitors. But, more acutely, Alto is in need of water, both to keep from being dehydrated, and to cool himself down.

As for scrubbing the modified DNA and cells from Alto's body? Perversely enough, that is not impossible. Now that Eun can see how these genetic alterations work in a real setting, she can see they are reversible using the same method that's causing them. If she had a sample of Alto's original DNA, sans modifications, she could insert it to his bone marrow and co-opt the process.

But it, too, would result in replacing every or nearly every cell in his body.
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Re: GLoG

Post by Morty »

[Arrivals]

"I suspect he might have been her father." Sophie decides to stop being cagey. "But I shouldn't talk too much about Natalie's family situation, you understand."
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Re: GLoG

Post by Gullara »

[Birb Babysitting]

The girls turn toward Kes. not having been paying much attention until she spoke up. Before there's any answers forthcoming, one of the two—with her hair done up in space buns and wearing a loose, patterned green top—lets out a little squeal. She drops her armful of rocks and takes a step closer, her eyes fixed on Silver, but then seems to remember herself. "Can I pet your puppy?" She asks with pleading eyes for Kes.

The other child, with a low bun and a yellow patterned dress, seems more composed in the face of dog. "Uh huh, we're going there right now." She answers. "Oh, you're the new person Sakura talked about. What's your name?" She suddenly realizes. Kes would recognize Sakura's name as belonging to one of the people who run the daycare operation.
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Re: GLoG

Post by Earl of Purple »

Arrivals

"I am glad to know that despite the anger of the serfs I am not the last of England's aristocracy. I was unaware that others had found this realm and manage to escape here. I was able to bring my manse with me, due to a ritual building upon enchantments and wards laid into the building by my ancestors. It required a lot of power, however." He fuelled the ritual with the lives of the mob that besieged his house with the intent of killing him and destroying it. An unpleasant way to die, but Benedict ultimately justifies it as self-defence. And they'd not have died if they hadn't walked into the ritual circle, either.

Natalie's going to turn up now. "Hi Sophie, and... someone else! I'm Natalie, it's nap time at the moment but if you'll ensure the children are awake they can come with me." If they're not awake, and she takes them anyway, when the babies wake up they'll be more confused and it'll be harder to calm them down.
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Re: GLoG

Post by Morty »

[Arrivals]

"Hello, Natalie. This is Benedict Beaulieu and his wife Libertine," Sophie says. Will Natalie recognize the name? "I don't think my boys are very sleepy right now."
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Re: GLoG

Post by Earl of Purple »

Arrivals

"Really? I think I met a relative of yours, a long time ago. A Benedict Beulieu Esquire came round. He was quite old, though I was seven and not the best judge of age. Grey-haired, though. I remember because he and Dad spoke briefly about Mum." Natalie looks curiously at Benedict, giving him quite a bit of attention.
"That's fine, we can handle some awakey lads, can't we?" She smiles as she takes first Donatien from Libby and then pauses, trying to figure out how to carry three babies.
"That would have been me. A few years ago I achieved rejuvenation, not exactly permanent but decidedly not temporary either. I will age from here at the same rate as anyone else. I remember your brother more; an alert child, very interested in my carriage. Is he well?" Benedict smiles, before realising he may have stumbled, from Natalie's expression.
"I don't know. His name is not on the most recent list of traitors and tyrants the Revolutionary Council published." Which is unfortunate, as that's the only method she had of keeping track of him. She did know an intermediary, at one point, who passed letters across.
"I am sorry. I did not think. Your family, despite its relative youth, is adaptable and resourceful, however. I sincerely hope your brother takes after your father. I did not like him, but I respected him greatly." Benedict is quite bad at empathising, and although it seems genuine it also seems rather awkward.
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Re: GLoG

Post by Morty »

[Arrivals]

Oh boy. While it's probably good for Natalie to meet someone from her homeland, Benedict is not good at being delicate.

"I can carry Bertin," she offers to simplify things. "If you think there's any way any of us here could help you find him, Natalie, don't hesitate to ask."
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Re: GLoG

Post by Earl of Purple »

Arrivals

"Thankyou, Sophie, that'd be handy." Natalie smiles, and will take half of Sophie's load to carry alongside Donatien.
"Right, we should be going. We'll come back later, yes? Come on, Libby, he'll be fine." There's some time-wrangling there, before Benedict and Libertine walk back to their carriage.

"It... might be an idea to keep an eye on him, when he comes round. The Beaulieu history... I mostly know rumours and hearsay. Apparently, his grandfather was a conjurer, and there's no records of what happened to him. He just disappeared and his son took over, marrying a pair of identical twins. One, from what Dad said, was a necromancer, the other a curse-smith. And it goes back like that, on and on for... well, a very long time. Nothing explicitly illegal or forbidden, but always nudging that line. I heard it from Dad, and he didn't like Benedict at all, so... might be biased." Would explain Benedict's mention of his mothers, if it's true. And Natalie doesn't sound certain; she is reporting rumours she heard a decade ago and which have been going around longer than she's been alive.
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Re: GLoG

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[Arrivals]

"He told me about his grandfather. Supposedly he's sealed away but not quite dead. He wants to put him to rest, but can't do it by himself." She'll put Bertin down in a crib next to his brother. The babies squirm and stare at their mom and the strange person. "But I definitely don't find him very trustworthy. I'll help him with his grandfather but watch him."
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Re: GLoG

Post by Ironsmith »

Hraithre wrote: May 15, 2023 12:05 pm [Miranda's Cabin]

Eun's not completely wrong.

The good news is, it's not a cancer. If anything, it is almost the opposite. One important contributor to all kinds of cancer is that the mutated cells refuse to undergo apoptosis, or programmed cell death. In contrast, Alto's body has accelarated levels of apoptosis.

It's just that the dying cells are the least altered ones. As they wither, the new cells absorb them, steadily increasing proportion of altered tissue. The process seems to be furthest along in Alto's bones, from where it has spread to other part of his body, including his endocrine glands. His rapidly replacing skin is just the most visible effect. Of course, if Eun thinks to test them, Alto's eyes are also in this category, consisting entirely of altered tissue.

For what it's worth, like Alto's eyes, the new tissue appears completely healthty, if a bit short-lived, as the cycle of death and renewal repeats itself. It looks like the process could have a natural endpoint once all or nearly all of Alto's cells are replaced. Eun could slow the process down by administering hormone inhibitors. But, more acutely, Alto is in need of water, both to keep from being dehydrated, and to cool himself down.

As for scrubbing the modified DNA and cells from Alto's body? Perversely enough, that is not impossible. Now that Eun can see how these genetic alterations work in a real setting, she can see they are reversible using the same method that's causing them. If she had a sample of Alto's original DNA, sans modifications, she could insert it to his bone marrow and co-opt the process.

But it, too, would result in replacing every or nearly every cell in his body.
[Miranda's Cabin]

Fortunately, water is a class of problem Miranda is much more equipped to handle, provided Alto doesn't mind it being lukewarm and coming in half-gallon units. Eun is able to provide something slightly more helpful, in that she sets about filling the cabin's bathtub with ice and therefore providing Alto a makeshift ice bath (albeit one that is way too small to hold him comfortably). And of course, hormone suppressors follow immediately thereafter (administered with the same tool as the blood test, so it's at least not painful).

Looking over thr results again, Eun finds herself baffled. Not at the nature of the problem itself; even someone without a medical background could follow along on that front. But finding unaltered DNA is, in of itself, an extremely difficult task, one she wouldn't even begin to know how to start. Part of her wants to cross-reference Alto's genome with LB2's and see if she can isolate the modifications, but... even if she accomplished that, she'd still need to put something else there, and it'd have to be something that's compatible with his genome. At best, she could potentially splice in some donor DNA from Miranda, but there's no telling how that would affect the stability of his genome and therefore his likelihood of survival.

All of this articulated in a series of increasingly-agitated grunts as she looks over the data, as though expecting an answer to materialize in front of her.

Had she missed something?
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Re: GLoG

Post by Hraithre »

[Miranda's Cabin]

Alto happily accepts any water offered to him, a warm drink is better than no drink. But he is indees to big to fit in the tub. It would be easier to just pile the ice on him, or have him go outside and sit in the lake. The camp grounds might also have a bigger, communal bathtub around, and a ready-made ice machine. Hormone inhibitors work as expected: Eun and Miranda can expect Alto's metabolism to slow down to normal levels by the morning, but they'll need to keep reapplying the dosage every 24 hours or so to keep him stable.

As for Eun's agonizing, as far as Alto's medical condition goes, she hasn't misses a thing. The biggest remaining question is what kicked off this process, but it can't be answered by the data she's looking at.

If she goes out of her way to check VIGIL expedition's notes on the Octahedron, she might stumble upon a transcript of Khafir's vision. Based on it, humans who were originally in the care of the structure were meant to be placed inside pods of some sort and connected to the building's artificial intelligence. The original design is unavailable to Eun, but she's familiar enough with various sleeping pods and nutrient tanks that building one, or ordering one built to specifications, would be within realms of possibility.
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Re: GLoG

Post by Earl of Purple »

Arrivals

"Really? No matter how he managed that, it sounds like something the Crown would have stopped. Magical immortality has been illegal in Britain for a very long time." Something temporary that extended life, however, was acceptable- although Benedict de-ageing himself in the manner he managed it would have been borderline enough he'd get prosecuted just to be on the safe side, especially given how little trust there existed regarding the Beulieu's methods and practices.

"Your boys are really cute." As opposed to Donatien, who Natalie's also holding. Donatien is a baby, and cute as they are, yet the eyes he inherited form his mother are very creepy.
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Re: GLoG

Post by Ironsmith »

[Miranda's Cabin]

All of which amounts to a temporary solution, in the grand scheme of things. She can keep Alto from getting any worse, maybe, but she can't help him get better.

If he's even actually sick. He seems to be uncomfortable, but a lot of natural biological processes are somewhat unpleasant, especially the ones that are only meant to go off once. For all she knows, suppressing his hormones like this is going to permanently damage his ability to grow into a healthy adult... whatever he is at this point. She doesn't see how, but spending time in the Nexus has convinced her that the immediately apparent material concerns usually tell her less than half of what she needs to know.

"...I'm afraid that's the best I can do for now." Eun finishes, as she presents a list of her findings and prescribed treatments to Miranda. "I'll see if I can get some sort of specialized nanite developed to make compatible sleeping gel for him, but without more information..."

"You've bought us time, at least." Miranda gives Alto a reassuring hug, smiling at her friend. "Thank you for that much."
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Morty
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Re: GLoG

Post by Morty »

[Arrivals]

"I haven't asked for details. But something being illegal doesn't mean someone couldn't manage it. He just needed resources." Then she beams widely. "Oh, they really are, aren't they? They look more like Trick, but they have my eyes. And those adorable little crocodile tails."
Hraithre
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Re: GLoG

Post by Hraithre »

[Miranda's Cabin]

After receiving the inhibitors, Alto begins to cool down. He falls asleep just as sun begins to rise over the horizon. He'll likely sleep till noon, it was an exhausting night. Miranda is left to ponder what to do - maybe she should take the opportunity to rest too.
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Earl of Purple
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Re: GLoG

Post by Earl of Purple »

Arrivals

"Well, that's something the Beulieus have plenty of, resources. Magical especially. Dad never went to an archaeological site in Devon or Cornwall that hadn't been looted at least once, by people who both knew what they were looking for and were after potent magic. That's where the Beaulieu Manse is located, Cornwall." Or it was, since Benedict was able to transport his entire estate to the Nexus, which is part of why his grandfather is still an issue.
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Ironsmith
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Re: GLoG

Post by Ironsmith »

Hraithre wrote: May 25, 2023 5:45 pm [Miranda's Cabin]

After receiving the inhibitors, Alto begins to cool down. He falls asleep just as sun begins to rise over the horizon. He'll likely sleep till noon, it was an exhausting night. Miranda is left to ponder what to do - maybe she should take the opportunity to rest too.
[Miranda's Cabin]

Despite having no meta-narrative perceptions or powers, Miranda finds herself incidentally agreeing with that sentiment. Granted, she hasn't been doing much physically to merit being that tired, but her relative impotence with regards to the disease itself was its own kind of draining.

So when she and Eun have said their goodbyes, Miranda finds herself heading back to her room, before thinking better of it and walking up to Alto's nest.

He's probably going to want mum to be right there when he wakes up, isn't he?

Miranda turns one of the living room chairs around and settles in, throwing a blanket over herself as she watches her son for any signs of discomfort as he sleeps... before drifting off herself, maybe half an hour later.
Who're you? ...Don't matter.

Want some rye? Course ya do!

Here's to us!
Who's like us?
Damn few,
And they're aaaaall dead.
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