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Post by Vanitypirate on Sept 9, 2018 16:06:47 GMT -8
"He is my patient. It is my duty to protect his wellbeing. You protect no one." Florence stared upward into his twin lenses despite the neck-breaking angle it was situated at. The nose of her mask jutted upwards like a dagger poised at his neck.
"Not only do you protect no one, but your incompetence has endangered the family of my patient." She jabbed at his hip with a finger.
Meriwether shifted uncomfortably, a hand resting on his pommel.
"Ehm... this isn't the time, ma'am." He glanced nervously to Lekalis and made to nudge Florence away.
Florence was undeterred.
"I spent valuable time copying notes for you to ensure that assassins would not come to the Hamlet. They were sent regardless, and you offered no warning." She flaffed Meriwether's hand away.
"You are a false doctor. I wish upon you the deepest shame, and I shall no longer write notes for you."
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Post by Bloodtrailkiller on Sept 9, 2018 16:27:42 GMT -8
/Cross/
"Oh..." He offered fruitlessly, his shoulders slumped even more as he hummed again and felt a bead of nervous sweat bloom on his scarred brow as he flinched at Florence's jab; he hid more pain than it caused, but he took a step back all the same as he brought his cane and arms forward to protect himself from anymore of her transgressions.
"... I can only stop those assassins that I'm aware of, Florence." Cross pointed out sourly with a sneer as he flexed his fingers about the crow's head of a cane.
"I did not offer to give you warning neither..." He continued to deny her accusations slowly, carefully. His tone seemed genuine as he took another step back, shy of her mask.
Though, a small realization dawned on Doctor Cross, as he paid a half-glance to Meriwether. Florence's accusations and words all but condemned his guilt on some premeditated murder... In most provinces, that was a deed worthy of punishment.
"... I only wished to help where I could!" He insisted with a bit of a defeated tone.
"You..." The words were difficult to say, but he supposed he'd enough of her notes anyways,
"... You needn't write me anymore notes. Once this... Interrogation is over, I will write to inquire upon any assassins here... Or on their way.", Cross smiled hopefully, disarmingly, but it was for naught behind his mask as all he did was hunch lower to look more tame.
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Post by Vanitypirate on Oct 2, 2018 17:31:20 GMT -8
"You are lying still. You could have inquired upon any assassins before my patients were almost murdered; you could have helped, and you chose not to." Florence insisted, hands planted on her hips as she spouted the words she was no longer obligated to bite back.
And it felt good.
Stepping back, she rose a palm as though to wave it dismissively, though she certainly lacked the flair.
"Detain this fraudulent man." She instructed Meriwether, who seemed, himself, ready to sink into the floor in some desperate means to escape the disaster this arrest was surely becoming...
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Post by Bloodtrailkiller on Oct 2, 2018 18:27:49 GMT -8
/Cross/
He felt like a rat caged on a hotplate as the little Crow squawked on and on. Doctor Cassius Cross shifted from one foot to another, his teeth grinding and chewing on the thin meat of his charred flesh.
"Should you not... protect--" His words came through a clenched jaw, whispered with the tension of sinews pulled taut.
"--ME???" His hooked mask curled to face Meriwether expectantly, before it flicked to Florence again with a grumblesome snarl, he looked past her to Lekalis idly cleaning his nails in the distance.
A figure of nonchalance, but he knew his veiled hand was on the pommel of his blade...
"I am... already detained." His head quirked to one side, as his hands curled around his cane and it creaked, perhaps under pressure or weight; all the same, he stabbed it into the stone ahead of him, pulling himself forward and past Florence. Another stab, and he seemed like to make a slow beating pace away from the annoyance...
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Post by Vanitypirate on Oct 2, 2018 18:46:54 GMT -8
Meriwether hopped back in surprise-- surprise, and not fright, he reminded himself.
He drew an inch of steel from its sheath. In the next moment, he realized he did so and pushed it back in place.
"You..." Unhappily he jabbed a finger at Florence, though all intimidation was surely lost as he already made to scurry on ahead to escort the Doctor to the guild hall. "--I have questions for you, too. I'll... find you later!"
Florence did not mind. She was quite satisfied, in fact.
She was quiet, but the nose of her mask drifted to point down the hall as she stared down the way.
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Post by Bloodtrailkiller on Oct 2, 2018 19:05:25 GMT -8
/Cross/
The Boy was alright, he supposed, as he stalked on and slowed down so Meriwther could proudly escort the elderly down the hall. What a right proper squire he was.
"Thank you." He muttered gravely, as a hand relaxed and he used a single one on the cane to pull himself forward and past Lekalis, who casually stepped out of the way with a bow of the brow...
\\
/Lekalis/
"Do mind the steps, Professor. Your knees look awfully weak today." He teased with his head so tilted still, that he saw Cross' footsteps linger, his hands creased about the head of the cane, before the Doctor beat a hasty retreat with the Guard.
Lekalis rose and watched Meriwether depart with more fret than he 'ought. The last thing he wanted for Florence is an interrogation.
All in all, he was rather impressed by her invigorated nature... as stiff as it was; like a man of broomsticks brought to Life. Not as impressive as some stony golem, but impressive nonetheless.
"You'd do well in the courts, you know..." He mulled over, teasingly, nostalgically remembering the last she showed a spat of rather fervent air in light of the walking trees of the Weald.
He didn't see it, but he knew she no doubt smiled at the efficiency of her bombs.
Though she was always focused on some objective; her lens peered down the way like a crow pondering a meal on the road.
Lekalis sidled up beside Florence, his shoulder brushed against hers as he looked down it too;
"... What's on your mind?" He inquired, his inkish gaze flicking to the Crowgazer's mask, scrying through her mask was a tad difficult at this angle, so he simply brought his hand up to squeeze her shoulder supportively.
Doubly so, incase she'd a mind to run off to danger on a "calculated" whimsy.
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Post by Vanitypirate on Oct 3, 2018 15:11:13 GMT -8
There was a moment, then, that Florence pondered how Lekalis could gage the state of the old doctor's knees, or how anything she said qualified her for nobility.
Curious things, indeed. Her imagination did not take her far as she dismissed the notion of nobility.
"We must investigate his room."
She stepped forward, momentarily halted by the hand on her shoulder, which she patted stiffly to signal it to let go.
"There is little time to waste."
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Post by Bloodtrailkiller on Oct 3, 2018 15:32:50 GMT -8
/Lekalis/
His inkish squinted at Florence again, a smile thinly veiled in a frown as he nodded and relinquished his hand. He stretched the digits wide to emphasize his release, but it trailed down to hold her gloved hand yet again.
"Then we'll investigate the room, quickly... But efficiently. I won't doubt they'll want to lock his room behind a guard sooner rather than later." His tone was pleased at first, before he took on a more dire measure.
There was an undeniable excitement in his swelled chest and eager step forward; making to lead Florence onwards to the office he'd been to only once before.
"It seems we never have time to waste..." Lekalis commented casually with a cheeksome shrug as he looked to Florence, hoping for a reply. Though he doubly cast a glance over his shoulder, as he realized his haste and interlinked hand might prove to be quite the scandal to a lingering eye... the last thing he needed on the cusp of a marriage.
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Post by Vanitypirate on Oct 3, 2018 16:24:34 GMT -8
Florence linked her hand without a second thought or a drop of ceremony as they made their way down the impossibly long hallway... Florence, on her part, somewhat distractedly as she counted each windowpane that they passed by.
"We must... always be efficient. Time is a limited resource. Especially in your current matters." The doctor nodded grimly, as grim as one could be with a tone as flat as hers.
"...I want to find books on your condition. I believe Doctor Cross may have them, or information on them."
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Post by Bloodtrailkiller on Oct 3, 2018 23:51:29 GMT -8
/Lekalis/
"Truly? The man fancied mushrooms and herbs..." Lekalis mused with dual risen brows in idle bemusement as he mimicked her window-counting. It was an unspoken reflex.
"... He never reached fame for a reason. Passionate and rambling pieces of literature." He remarked absently, a bit of faded pomp in his tone as he flicked his hand free of his cloak's veil. His hand was getting frustratingly sweated as his thoughts wandered on... He squeezed Florence's idly and rubbed his thumb over her knuckles. Though, he was hesitant and slowly stopped... He rolled his shoulders awkwardly and cleared his throat.
"We might find something." He agreed, though, and furrowed his brows, looking to Florence with a curious complexion,
"Do you ever reckon we could be a little... Inefficient? Time is, theoretically, unlimited in its grand scale; it's just the little events within that limit it." Lekalis pursed his lips and flourished his hand outward, their destination, an office door, appearing out of the gloom.
"This investigation, my marriage, the breaking of this curse... Our Deaths? Time will go on beyond it all... We just need to fix what's ahead of us." His hand drew back to pinch at his amulet but paused... His gaze shifted to Florence and he brought her hand up in both of his to stop her shy of the door some meters away.
"You brought Audrey... Silvant, whatever-- You brought her back." He emphasized, his head veering left and right, like a cat positioning itself to pounce,
"... You brought... a crow back. Not quite the same but... All great discoveries for Man are preceded by simpler creatures. If we can transfer a Man's soul..?" Lekalis quirked his head to one side and a small smile curled the edges of his lips up with desire. He hid it with a quick frown and glance to the door as he loosened his grip on Florence's hands.
"... Our Death's would be little more than another hiccup, wouldn't it?"
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Post by Vanitypirate on Oct 16, 2018 16:55:24 GMT -8
"I restored the body, but..." In some small way, hardly visibly behind the lenses, the Crowgazer's eyes seemed a touch distant, as though making some silent calculations and conclusions in her head.
She stopped with him, outside, mask pointed to Lekalis. Her hand was limp, neither pulling or clinging tighter.
"...Her mind-- she is changed I do not understand. It was disputed in my university that a soul existed at all, let alone what its purpose is. We must continue with the assumption that our deaths will be permanent, until further evidence otherwise."
She cocked her head, pausing.
"...It is my wish to prolong your death and help you become healthy. Uncursed. There is a finite amount of time to do so." She shifted on her boots, almost nervously, and made to draw closer to the door, arm extended to push it open.
"As incentive to hurry, perhaps after we have finished with our business, we can allow ourselves to be inefficient."
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Post by Bloodtrailkiller on Oct 16, 2018 17:16:42 GMT -8
/Lekalis/
With a hum and nod, he pondered on Florence's words as she opened the door. He let go of her hand and drew his own to his breast to pinch at the collar of his shirt with some small anxiety.
It was a ponderous query to be sure, and he felt the answers at the cusp of his tongue... He felt drowned in his own knowledge of the world; a billion philosophies collided with a billion religions as he tried to think on the measures of a soul.
"If her mind is changing.. Because of a soul... And the crow became a corpse without one--" He hopelessly recited as he followed her into Cross' lair.
The cookstove in the distant corner smoldered with glittering embers. The windows gave a partial illumination to the menagerie of labstuffs and notes strewn about... though they looked organized, more than Lekalis remembered Cross to be.
Though he made little note of it as he pondered on and absently pinched at his chin, moving on to examine a particularly large contraption of glassware and leather. A distillery.
"-- Most believe the soul to be some sort of energy... In the East, many believe it possible to channel this energy; much like the Miracles of The Light. And... perhaps like a song to glass; both hold a shape but the physical object, the glass in this case, absorbs the other." he cocked a brow and looked over to Florence,
"Do you think we'll have time to see if the Crow's soul fades to Silvant? Or Silvant to the Crow?"
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Post by Vanitypirate on Oct 16, 2018 17:52:32 GMT -8
"A belief in itself is not enough. We need proof."
Florence drifted closer to the desk-- surprisingly, smaller than what she remembered-- to leaf through the open notes.
It had always been horrifically disorganized, but there was a part of her that hoped the open, vulnerable notes never bore notable information. Hoarded, useless papers, while the rest of the notes were stowed away in some carefully-bound book.
She was curious to see if that was the case as she sorted through the pictures. She stacked them, too, for good measure.
"Silvant shows aspects of a Crow. I do not know how much of her personality she retained, but her personality is undoubtedly shaped, at least somewhat, by this soul." She continued on. The muscles in her hand tensed. Evidently, she was chewing on another uncomfortably thought.
"Your personality, Tilly's personality, your child's... I worry that this curse may have affected those as it had affected Silvant's."
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Post by Bloodtrailkiller on Oct 16, 2018 18:12:29 GMT -8
/Lekalis/
With both a familiar smile and gesture, Lekalis reached over to Florence's hand he'd just released and lightly rested his over hers.
"Silvant is shaping more to be... Silvant, than a Crow. I don't see her pecking at bread crumbs, at least." He chuckled and glanced down in some modicum of shame before he looked to the notes she was organizing; he splayed out a few and smirked, chuckling lightly as he used his finger to guide his readings over the scribbled notes.
Cross' letters were still high and tight, his sketches of wiry mushrooms and decaying corpses were still very impressive, if not a bit strangled in the weight of their lines.
"Seems he never let go of his... Singular discovery." Lekalis offered a small laugh in hopes of helping distract Florence a little. It was unlike her to be so tense. Lekalis eyes fell to her heart, before setting to the notes again.
They read on like many others; covering the details of the three mushrooms he'd observed to grow from corpses slain by acclaimed arcane means. His findings were inconsistent, and he blamed the presence of magic to be the reasoning for this inconsistency.
The more recent notes, ones taken during his tenure in the Darkest Estate apparently, have reported evermore consistent findings.
Amidst it all, was a set of notes bound together by a rat's tail, while treated with preservatives no doubt, Lekalis still kept his hand free of the papyrus and anatomy.
These notes were labelled thusly,
"The Extraction of Casusnecrosis and Other Reagents"
Lekalis repeated it a bit pointlessly, looking to Florence expectantly as he tapped his finger on another set of notes which showed a seemingly sporadic array of lines meant to be a diagram, alongside a title that was much too scrunched to read.
"Cross did love his mushrooms... Do you still have the skull? The red finger?" He inquired softly as he began to read over the notes concerning a familiar red rootish fungus, and its correlation to a particular dark sludge and white growth.
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Post by Vanitypirate on Oct 19, 2018 18:04:28 GMT -8
"I do have both. They are... still in your room. I hope they have grown well." Florence recalled with some satisfaction, as though that dastardly fungus were a pleasant, potted plant she was tending to.
Leafing through the pages, she was mildly surprised that the notes were written in English at all,
Cross studied mushrooms, but before that... it was the amulet. How long ago was it? He knew enough about the amulet to have a few books laying around, for sure.
Florence was quiet for all the moments before she turned rigidly on her feet and made to poke through the stacks of notes stacked against the wall, searching for what seemed to be the older of the papers...
...a more tedious task than it rightly should have been; there were no dates on any of the pages.
Cross was a sloppy, unprofessional scholar, she reminded herself before carrying on.
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