It seems Gamon's predilection for helping a certain apothecary places him in peril regularly as he once again has a nasty cough.
As soon as Gamon begins showing signs of the plague again, Jolon asks for permission to treat him.
Gamon gratefully accepts Jolon's help.
"I can't fault you for contracting the plague again, Gamon. You're helping to fight its spread, so you're putting yourself at risk for it. Just make sure to keep yourself and your things as clean as possible.
Other people you visit might not have me on hand to remove the disease," Jolon tells Gamon after his ancestors finish curing Gamon.
Gamon nods in agreement. I was been trained in avoiding spreading disease but we're all at risk when we spend so much time around those who are already ill. If the city's healers really are making the problem worse then we need to find a bigger solution fast, before the rest of the city is incapacitated.
Nicolai's going to take a day to study some spells. But I can do that through the OOC thread.
The Hospice of the Blessed Maiden appears to be an old warehouse, perhaps a bit run-down, but it certainly looks secure enough to be a facility for healing. A quick investigation around its perimeter shows that there is only one main entrance with a series of loading bays in the back. No windows exist to allow light within the enormous building.
Aloysia spends some extra time around back looking for any evidence of what's going on inside.
Jolon looks up at the building and hisses through his tusks.
"I doubt they'll let us in, even for a token tour. I just hope our hunch is right, otherwise our breaking in will disrupt the attempts at keeping the plague under control," he says to the others while they wait for Aloysia's report.
Gamon nods, Once we do this, they won't trust us at all. But if they're doing no harm, not trusting us should not change their work at all, and otherwise we could be preventing great harm from being done.
Aloysia's poking about doesn't discover much, just some bloody bandages and a half burned note.
Subject not responsive to-
Davalaus suggests talking wi-
sent them below to A. Hope h-
princess can give answers.
Aloysia returns to the group, "Not much back there, looks like we'll just have to go in if we want any info."
"Which entrance would attract the least attention?"
The spirits begin whispering again, but Jolon frowns.
"I know, I know, I want to storm into the front door and demand answers as much as you do, but these tshameks are people of shadows and secrets. If they weren't afraid to speak the truth we would not be here in the first place," he says quietly, and they fall silent in assent.
"Thank you."
"Something tells me it won't matter that much, but going in the front seems slightly less like to provoke immediate attack. We might just be people seeking out a "cure" going in the front. I can even set up a disguise to look like I need treatment. In fact, I'll do that."
Aloysia heads to a discrete location, opens her disguise kit, and starts going to work...
She then triggers her Sleeves of Many Garments to change her garb to something more drab and peasant like. Returning to the group once this is all done, she looks at everyone and asks, "How do I look?"
Gamon examines Aloysia closely, You look poorer, certainly, but should you make yourself look ill as well? That may buy us some time if they don't want to touch you.
"Don't forget," Jolon says as he life links with the party.
The stinging scent of alcohol and medicine floods this dingy reception room, an odor typical of hospices—and morgues. Across from the entrance sits a long wooden desk, beyond which a stained leather curtain covers an archway, muffling the moans issuing from the rooms beyond.
Six poor citizens huddle in chairs and against walls here, all bearing signs of bloodveil, some well advanced in stage. A burly nurse sits behind the desk, looking bored over some paperwork. She looks up disinterestedly and waits for you to come over and add your names to her list of those waiting for treatment.
Aloysia walks over and places a pseudonym down on the paper while trying to take a peek behind the desk for anything of importance.
After morning after meeting up with his friends and discussing strategy for infiltrating the Hospice of the Blessed Maiden Nicolai heads to the Adcademae and begins searching the stacks for new spells that may be of help. After spending an exhausting day of research he heads home to get some sleep.
Before grabbing his gear the next morning, he sits down at his table and, closing his eyes, draws a card from his harrow deck.
"The Stage. Hmmm, all the worlds a stage. There's more going on than meets the eye. Ominous, much?"
Meeting up with the others Nikolai watches with fascination as Aloysia transforms herself into a plague victim, using the time he casts heightened awareness and mage armor on himself before enters the building.
While Aloysia is signing she notices that the nurse appears to be loaded for bear. She's wearing armor under her scrubs, has no less than three scarves over her mouth, thick leather gloves up to her elbows, a sword at her hip, and a crossbow sitting next to her seat.
After waiting for a half hour one of the Queen's Physician's peeks their head through the curtain to the next room and says, "We're ready for the next one." They disappear as quickly as they appear and one of the citizens ahead of you is ushered through the curtain. You begin to think this may take a while.
Aloysia takes a seat where she can get the best view of what might be behind the door when it does open, and waits to see what she can.
More time passes, the next person being called in after nearly an hour. Aloysia manages to lean close to the curtain as it is parted in a fit of 'coughing'. She can't get a good view of anything other than what is right behind the 'door', but what she does see is disturbing. A row of sickbeds lining all the way to the back of the warehouse are filled with suffering citizens, all wracked with blood veil. A few Queen's Physicians are carrying someone recently deceased out of view to the right while watched over from a Gray Maiden.
The sound of clanking metal reveals boots stepping on something high in the air, though Aloysia can't be sure of what it is from here.
Aloysia continues coughing, using the fit to excuse herself from the room, and steps outside to collect herself. She finds the group and reports what she saw.
"I couldn't see much, but it almost just looked like a a room where you wait to die. I just couldn't get a better look to know what's going on, and unless they are completely negligent they'll see through my disguise with the barest of physical exam. This might not be the place for subterfuge."
Nicolai listens to Aloysia's report as a thought strikes him "I have an idea. I can make Aloysia invisible for a few minutes. I can go in and distract the nurse while she slips into the backroom to reconnoiter." as he speaks he rips a piece of cloth off his shirt and pricks his finger with his dagger, carefully dotting the cloth with his blood. He looks to Aloysia "If you're ready?"
Jolon gives a grave look towards Nicolai as he prepares to cast the spell.
"I can see you're no stranger to sacrifice when it comes to casting your magic either, Nicolai," he says.
Aloysia grins widely, "I like the way you think, Nicolai!"
She gets the mirror from her disguise kit to check her makeup to be sure she still looks appropriately ill in case the spell wears off before she can get out of the back. Feeling content in her appearance she replaces the mirror and says, "Exactly how long will I have before the spells wears off? And yes, I am ready."
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Nicolai blushes slightly "I'm Varisian. We're supposed to be devious. The spell will last for seven minutes before it runs out, so give yourself a little leeway and call it five."
Once the spell is cast Nicolai uses the Pearl of Power to recall it back to memory and walks towards the Hospice's door. He flings the door open and pauses, ostensibly to allow his eyes to adjust the dim waiting room light, before approaching the nurse's station "Nurse, I need to see one of the Doctors. I'm not feeling well." he pulls the kerchief from his pocket and coughs into it, allowing the nurse to see the blood splattered upon it.
No sooner does he take his seat then he jumps up again, agitated he shouts he runs around the room and grabs one of the people waiting by the shirt and gives him a shake
Gamon cringes away from Nicolai and gasps audibly, He has the plague! He's going to infect us all!
"And I'm half-Shoanti, half-orc. I should be TWICE the savage. Stereotypes are aurochs-$#@%," he replies as Nicolai casts the spell.
Then his jaw drops as Nicolai begins producing his "distraction." He was NOT ready for that.
Aloysia chuckles internally to herself, and takes advantage of Nicolai's outburst heading straight for the back room...
Then tries to slip in with a little movement of the curtain as possible...
Before immediately moving away from the curtain quickly in case someone noticed the movement of her slipping in and comes to investigate. Then, she takes a closer look at what is going on in the room...
The nurse visibly rolls her eyes at Nicolai's antics, only saying, "You'll wait your turn sicky. We all have to die, and if you keep acting that way you'll be meeting Pharasma sooner than most." She flicks her gaze over towards the curtain, noticing it move, but shrugs and goes back to her paper.
The warehouse’s vast interior has been converted into one gigantic convalescent ward. The stench of alcohol, sickness, and waste chokes the breath, and tight rows of low, stained cots cram the stone-floored hall. Every bed is filled with a pitiful story—men and women of all walks groaning and wheezing as they’re consumed by blood veil, their sufferings multiplied by the echoing chamber.
Inside, inspecting various patients are four of the Queen's Physicians, their plague masks looking down on every person they pass. In the north two Gray Maidens guard a set of double doors, and above two more prowl catwalks with longbows out.
"That's no way to speak to a man whose time may not yet have come," Jolon says, admonishing her, making a point of showing off his holy symbol. "He needs your patience, not your scorn."
The nurse shrugs. "No one's found a cure for this plague yet. And its mortality rate is crazy high. He's not the first to come in demanding help and he won't be the last. The doctors determine when they're ready for the next patient and I can't let more in otherwise."
Aloysia stalks silently through the enormous space, avoiding the writhing bodies on the floor and the doctors floating from patient to patient. None of the physicians are actually doing anything, not applying medicine, not touching patients, just cooing at them about their pain being over soon.
The minutes tick by slowly, everyone keeping a mental count. At minute three a particularly rattling cough draws Aloysia's attention, as well as the physicians. They all swoop on one woman who breathes her last, their masks making them look like nothing more than scavenging vultures. The woman expires and the aura coming from the physicians is one of pleasure.
"Another has passed. Get someone else from the waiting room. You two, take the body downstairs to her."
The physicians immediately spring into action, moving the body towards the double doors guarded by the Gray Maidens. The armored women sheathe their blades and step aside, pulling the doors open while doing so. Inside are cubbies, wooden lockers, a table surrounded by four rickety chairs, and a cargo lift. The double doors are shut and swords out as soon as the physicians step into the lift.
"I'm not asking you to let him in, just to be a little more patient with his...hysteria. He is afraid, we all are, and harsh words will only make that fear worse," Jolon replies.
The nurse puts her hands back above her desk, saying only, "So long as he doesn't touch me or try to get into the back before his turn he can scream all he wants."
Aloysia thinks to herself, "Hmm, I wonder if they are just using the bodies for something..."
She has more or less lost track of time, and figures she must be getting close to her time and heads back to the curtain to try to slip out and report back.