"virus brake down over time, They are basically fatty Acids, so UV acidic or caustic environments, too much heat or cold, they break down."
Says Hathway,
Jonathan nods to Dr. Quan to acknowledge the benefits of his control. "If the virus remains forever dormant, then we need cleaners in the lab, the apartments, and potentially wherever that packing material could lay dormant. Hathaway, can you make that happen?"
The kettle sings with boiling water to shadow the tension. The vampire removes the kettle and pours a tea for Dr. Quan. Setting the kettle down, he serves her the mug, which is the nicest cup on the boat. "So to summarize, we have a self described mother of all monsters in a lagoon which hosts underwater plants which can transform humans into monstrous minions. What did I miss which changed the recent dynamics? Presumably, she could have extended her reach centuries ago, right?"
"So, we've got to motivate this mother to return to her position as a large fish in a small pond? Dr. Quan, would you have any suggestions?"
Dr. Quan shakes her head slowly, overwhelmed by the idea. "I don't know anything about monsters. I don't even really believe in them, and somehow I am one! But as for what changed, there must have been some change in the stasis. Organisms don't evolve unless their environments change."
"They call us monsters, Dr. Quan, but I think you will find that humans are the true monsters." She shakes her head sadly. "What Mr. Hathway says is true, but... they can lie dormant for long periods in the right conditions, such as a host."
"These viruses, especially. The more sturdy walls of the plant cells keep them well protected. Still, as you say, fire should destroy them, or something that will break down the cellulose cell walls."
Jonathan leans against the counter in the galley giving Dr. Quan space and looking very British gentlemanly. "So, nothing that you heard from Cassie or the others could have been some change in stasis?"
The last phrase is obviously a repetition from Dr. Quan, probably indicating that it may be the first time that he has ever used those words in that order. But, he is trying to speak her language.
At an opportune moment, after Dr. Quan answers the other questions, Helen brings this up.
"Something just clicked for me. A woman I spoke to at the night market mentioned Dr. West smelled like the yacaruna and the golphino rosa. So she is as exposed to the virus as you are, Dr. Quan. Does this mean she can transform? And she can also speak to the river dolphins, as you have?"
After that question, she pulls out the little fetish given to her by the woman. "Sorry, if you don't mind continuing the interrogation. Do you recognize this? Nanã Buruku? Is she the mother of monsters, or is she its antagonist? Do you know what Dr. West seeks at the Black Water?"
"If we're talking about viruses, perhaps my healing powers can actually cure the problem? Lets find out.
Are you willing to let me try and heal you? I can NOT guarantee the result I'm afraid as this is something I've never seen before.
But I AM the Avatar of a Goddess of Healing. That has to count as something!"
"Healing and Slaughter. Probably best to not mention that part"
"Cassandra would be better to answer these questions. She wanted to use the virus, alter it, improve it, so if she can transform, she likely is infected with an 'improved' version. Cassandra talked about her. Nana Buruku and Mami Wata. They are West African gods, and here they are orisha in a few of the religions that are practiced as combinations of West African beliefs, indigenous beliefs, and Catholicism. But Cassandra was the anthropologist. Ask me a molecular biology question."
To Sehkmet: "I know even less about healing magic. I would have said such a thing was nonsense. But if you have some way to take this away, I would give it a try."
"Thank you, Dr. Quan. You've been extremely helpful." Jonathan concludes and then looks to his teammates.
"Time to face the music at that lagoon, right?" He signals that he is ready to finish this. If he could sweat, he might complain about the heat.
"Well, lets try and see what I can manage. Sehkmet, please help me to heal this woman"
If that is insufficient I'd also use my Hero point to reroll that.
for a 27
Sehkmet lays her clawed hands on the woman, reaching into her cells and soul. The power of the lion headed goddess pulls at the power woven through Dr. Quan's body.
Tendrils that are somehow vines and hair sprout from the tiny woman's fawn-brown skin. The vines writhe, lashing out, grabbing onto the hull of the boat, a water pipe, a railing, and even reaching for Sehkmet.
The vines lift the small Doctor from the deck, wrapping her like a cocoon, leaving some skin and part of her face showing, but largely obscuring her.
Sehkmet knocks the tendrils away with her claws.
Jonathan notes the vines grabbing the boat and offers in a very nonplussed tone, "do you think those vines can damage the boat? Damage to the boat could distract us from the mission."
Other than ripping the vines away by hand, the vampire does not see how he could intervene at this moment.
Sorry, I'm still a little confused. Is the bunch of mutated plants an actual foe for us to fight or some kind of environmental threat to be destroyed.
On the assumption that it is the first
"Lets kill these plants first, then I'll continue with trying to heal her"
With that, she leaps at the plants.
Toughness save DC 27
Assuming that hits, she will then try to grab it
Henrietta watches in horror as the vines form and immediately assumes her other form.
Sehkmet tears through some of the vinelike matter, but it recoils from her attempts to grab it and root it out.
Don’t think it has a will per se. it just wants to survive.
"I've never been a gardener. I could always give Dr. Quan a choice of immortality or living with that infection. But, I would hope there is a better choice than that." The vampire could kill her. The infection, probably doesn't feast on the dead.
"No. Let's not go to those extremes just yet." Helen had been hoping one of the scientific minds among them might have an idea, but as no one else speaks up, she approaches Dr. Quan, reaching toward the shards. "Sekhmet had the right idea, but it is Isis who is Queen of all Healers. And a goddess of fertility, including that of plant life. Perhaps we can alter the ritual of healing. Convince the virus we are a flourishing life form long enough to draw it into us." Helen doesn't usually speak in the royal "we," but is reaching within to Amunet to help her with this trick.
Reaching into the strands, trying to grasp Dr. Quan's shoulder, she intones a spell in an ancient language.
The viny tendrils writhe in what an animal could interpret as either pleasure or pain. Amunet is a goddess of secrets, of hidden ways, and this ancient form of not quite life is drawn to her power.
The tendrils pull away from the deck and hull and thrust themselves violently at Helen. The tendrils penetrate her mummified flesh, but find no purchase in the dry mummified form. As they encounter this desiccated mummified form, the incredible humidity that sustains them proves to be insufficient. The virus dies at the hands of your assault, and Dr. Quan appears to be free of it as far as your senses can tell.
When Dr. Quan and Helen appear free of the virus, Jonathan nods and offers, "oh, well done. Much better than my choice of immortality."
"Dr. Quan, how do you feel? Now that you are free of your infection, do you have anything new to help us prevent someone else from being infected?" The vampire watches Dr. Quan with a touch of envy, who actually recovers from her monstrous infliction.
"I feel...I feel strange. Sort of like I felt before, but like I know there is more to the world, and I'm missing something. Does that make any sense? Before, I could smell and taste everything. The air, the water. I feel like I've shrunk back down into something lesser now...I'm not sure it is better."
Hathaway let done the force bubble he had placed around Mummy's Bride once it has latched onto her.
"Is it fully gone?"
He asks her.
"Yes. It makes sense, young lady. One of these days, the experience might make you appreciate being human more."
Helen's whole form seems to seize, and she looks drier than ever. Suddenly she collapses into a cloud of sand floating inside the protective bubble, and then it reforms back into Helen, looking fresh and bright eyed as ever. "Yes, to the best of my ability to know," Helen replies to the Phantom.
She gives Dr. Quan and then Harker a thoughtful look, before returning to address Dr. Quan. "Many of us have become what we are not out of our own choice. Nonetheless we've been forced to exist with it... and some even come to enjoy it, or at least accept and appreciate it. Still. I am grateful for my existence. I appreciate, deeply, what I can do for others. But the event that began my existence was... well, I was hypnotized, assaulted, and murdered. I still have nightmares nearly every night about his hands at my throat. Would I trade my capabilities to be rid of those nightmares? Even if it meant I died? I just might.... but recognizing that would come with a loss of power that can help other people. And that just might be selfish, for me, to want release. Especially as I myself carry a connection to a life, a mind, that may not feel the same way as I do. And trouble though she may cause me, I have not ever regretted my connection to her.
"Dr. Quan, you did not ask to be infected. That, I expect, was horrifying, even if your new form accepted its role and its yearnings. Nevertheless that infection came with a risk of harming others. And might even have put you at risk of being controlled by Wells, if she has further refined control over the virus. So I hope you may forgive us for severing you from this supernatural disease. But I also recognize that you sense a loss of connection. A gift given you that is now gone.
"We can't return that gift, but if you're interested, but... well, I was trying to analyze the cadence and rhythm of the song you sang to the river dolphins. If you still at least have a memory of it, perhaps we can work together and identify how you might still communicate with them, without risking losing your soul or harming others. What do you think?"
“I understand,” Dr. Quan says quietly, voice raw but without resentment. “I don’t know if I am grateful or horrified."
Her hand drifts to her throat, as if feeling for vines that are no longer there. She takes a slow breath, looking out over the dark water.
“Whatever happens next, I’m with you. I won’t run from this.”
A cold wind coils over the deck, rippling across the steamboat’s slick deck. Beyond the prow, the lagoon’s entrance yawns wide. The water here is thick as oil and swirling in slow counter currents, as if the lagoon itself is full of doubt.
The dolphins continue to arch their way through the river, pink flesh moving forward in strange ways. Clearly, their intelligence is different from yours.
The Blood Orchid slides into a broad lake of black water.
Far away in the darkness of the water, something vast and pale moves beneath the surface.
You all feel it now, a thrumming in the bones of the Blood Orchid, and in the marrow of your own bones. You have the sense that the river, the whole rainforest, are drawing breath in anticipation.
This is the place. Whatever Wells has awakened waits just ahead.
If you have any last preparations or words for one another, this is your moment. Otherwise, the Lagoon awaits.
Jonathan feels the lake and forest draw breath in anticipation of the fight. Obviously, there would be many spectators and few potential allies.
The British gentleman takes off his jacket setting it aside in a relatively safe place and begins to roll up his sleeves. "I guess we've arrived at the home of the big bad. Get yourselves ready."
"You also would have attacked us were it not for our own group's hypnosis abilities. Now that you are freed, that is no longer necessary." She gives Harker a look, which the two have worked together long enough he probably knows is a silent question. Is Harker still controlling Quan?
As they arrive, Helen approaches the Captain. "Whatever happens, as long as nothing attacks you on the ship, please stay here. If we do not return in a few days, do as you must."
She gathers her journal and a few sundries into a cross body satchel, and is ready when everyone else is.
Is Harker still controlling Quan?
"Ready," the hulking woman nods.
Is Harker still controlling Quan?
"I am always ready"
The pink dolphins vanish as you come closer to your destination. The rainforest crowds closer on both sides and overhead, until the sky is completely blotted out by tall trees and the shores are lined with vines and leaves that seem to writhe at the edge of your vision.
The Captain brings the boat close to shore and ties it off to a massive tree that has fallen across the river. The tree will provide you with the best you are going to get as a dock.
"The boat can go no more. You must take to the shore from here," he says.
Dr. Quan agrees to stay put and wishes you well.
You step off the boat and make your way into the surrounding forest. You haven't gone more than a minute into the forest before you hear a low gurgling growl. From the undergrowth emerges a black jaguar, but you immediately notice that it is twisted and befouled. Plant-like growths twist across its body, tendrils writhe. It lowers its shoulders as it faces you, clearly ready to pounce.
"Watch it," Hyde warns. "There are three of them, one to either side."
Jonathan follows his companions into the jungle. Seeing the jaguar and hearing Ms Hyde's warning, the vampire thinks about summoning the equivalent of wolves here to fight on their behalf but notices plant-like growth encircling the jaguars. His wolves would be similarly infected, so he forgets that idea.
Not wanting to fight an animal, he becomes mist leaving the cats to Hyde, Sekhmet, and Helen. He floats past the jaguar to see what they are protecting.
Lord Hathaway steps off the boat, but tops to keep their base safe. Being opacity bling but not psionically so, he scanned the area. Color was always hard for his mind scene. As he hit the others minds he linked them, seeing thru their eyes.
::"I will have to be support on this one, but you should be able to mind talk to each other by me. If anyone gets into trouble I can also put a protective bubble of force around you."::
Helen eyes the creatures carefully. "The jaguars are afflicted with the virus, no doubt. Sekhmet, how do you feel if we have to put them out of their misery? Or shall we try another way?"
"You poor, poor little things"
"We should DEFINITELY try and find another way. These are far too magnificent to kill unless ABSOLUTELY necessary"
She is going to try and talk them down (unlikely, I know, but she has to try_
In feline
"My friends, I know you aren't feeling right. But please, please calm down and do not attack us. If you attack us you'll only get hurt"
The center jaguar growls again, but the sound is strained and garbled, as though something impinges on the structure of its voice. "We must kill all who do not serve the Mother."
It leaps at Sehkmet, claws outstretched.
"Let's see if the uninfected will heed the call of the True Mother to restrain them."
Helen lifts her arms and calls upon Isis to bring a flock of birds to surround and limit the movements of the lead jaguar.
AS the Jaguars paw comes in Sehkmet leaps to the side, getting out of reach of the claw and positioning herself for the following.
She gets to a position where there are as many Jaguars as possible within 30 feet of her but none of her allies, or at least none that can be diseased. Not affecting her allies takes precedence.
She will then use one of her few non lethal attacks, an area of affect sickness.
"I'm sorry my children, but I have to knock you out without hurting you."
30 foot burst Affliction. Fort save DC 20. Impaired/Disabled/Incapacitated