crystal;

[heirring]

FORM: Crystal
SENDER: Richard Dickerson & Wysteria de Foncé
RECIPIENT: You All
NOTES: The highly scientific results from studying a not-so-recent amputation, and a call for volunteers (don't worry, it's not volunteering to get your limbs chopped off). Wysteria is in blue. Richard is in green.

Hello everyone. This is Madame de Foncé speaking, accompanied by Mister Dickerson. There is a whole report written up on the matter which we wish to discuss today. Anyone curious will find it filed among the Project Felandaris records. However, we agreed [sure that's the word for 'Wysteria bullied Richard into it'] that discussing the broad points in a more public venue might do some good.

Go ahead, Mister Dickerson.

Dissection of Madame de Foncé’s arm revealed extensions of the anchor growing outward along the vascular system, confirming the existing supposition that as much of the affected limb should be taken as possible to ensure an anchor is truly separated from its host.

[ There is an odd beat where it seems likely Mister Dickerson is hoping for Wysteria to chirp back in before he continues: ]

It further appears that lyrium has an affinity for -- [ more quietly ] Rifter flesh, for lack of a more delicate distinction. When exposed to Madame de Foncé’s arm it made a fleeting attempt to regrow the parts of her that were missing. [ So the rest of the Wysteria? Another pause. He doesn’t deign to specify. ]

We believe it may hold promise as a healing agent for Rifters if applied topically.

[Which brings them to the true aim of this whole endeavor, the enthusiasm for which has Wysteria's clipping in so briskly after him that there's almost no pause at all between 'if applied topically,' and—]

And so Mister Dickerson and I would like to make a request for volunteers from among the Rifter population. We would like to make a more thorough study of the effects of lyrium on us. I have prepared a sort of sign up form and have posted it on the door of Project Felandaris' office. If you would please add your name to it, Mister Dickerson, and myself, and indeed the general record would be most grateful.

That's all. Thank you. Ask whatever questions you wish to.

[Slightly muffled then, as if the crystal has been lowered away from the general nexus of conversation, Wysteria continues on in the same breath, 'You see, Mister Dickerson? That wasn't painful in the slightest. I hardly see why you were so hesitant—']

Comments

[doggish]

You play with things you do not understand.

This is a foolish idea. Idiotic to the extreme, and for a nebulous purpose you can barely define. You wish to experiment? I will commend you on taking your madness out on yourself first, but there is nothing good that can come from lyrium experimentation. At best, you will poison and sear the bodies of anyone fool enough to volunteer; at worst, you will drive them to madness and addiction, and all for . . . what? The potential to heal a gaping wound? You do not even know if it will work. You did not see it heal; you saw it mutating, desperate to reform and reattach to a living host, and you think it can work as neatly as a bandage.

Do you understand how people like Corypheus began? How magisters of old began to delude themselves so greatly that they attempted to become gods themselves? Like this. Well-intentioned extremism fueled by delusions of grandeur. You will count yourself lucky that I do not deem your zealousness glory-hounding and little more. You see a substance that you barely understand and you think yourself so clever that you can make it dance to your tune, all without dreaming of all the ways in which it could backfire.

[A beat, and then, oh, so bitterly:]

No. I suspect you do dream of them. I suspect you are so thorough about your documentation. But you deem them failed experiments, and move on, jotting it down as a useful note and nothing more.

Do you wish to know how this ends? I can tell you. With mutilations like mine. With the blood of hundreds spilled to fuel magic and experimentation that oh, I'm certain someone somewhere could justify if they tried long enough. Perhaps I can heal a handful of the population if only I experiment a bit more, and it ends only when the cost is too great— and I do not trust that you will ever deem a cost too great, should it all be in the name of some nebulous furthering of scientific method.

Leave it be. Or experiment upon yourself if you wish, but do not poison an entire organization with your mania and your sociopathy.

[nonvenomous]

[ Evenly: ]

I’ve made a note here of your disapproval.

[doggish]

Oh, I'm certain you did.

Look upon it, then, when you find yourself at a dead-end and your meager pool of volunteers has shrunk. When your means and methods escalate to compensate for it. Look upon it when you find yourself compromising your morals in pursuit of magical breakthroughs, justifying atrocities in the name of experimentation. She has already cut her own arm off; I suspect she would have long since laid me flat on a table and dissected me from tip to toe if given half a chance.

Kirkwall is soaked in the blood of elves who were sacrificed in the name of such things. Millions of souls who were deemed acceptable losses for the sake of things like— what was it? Oh.

A potential topical healing agent.

[There's a pause, just long enough that one might imagine he, say, walked away in a fury before reeling around to add:]

And bear in mind that there is not a soul alive resistant to the effects of raw lyrium. You may not realize how far gone you are until it is too late.

[heirring]

[Somewhere in the Felandaris office, Wysteria is studiously taking notes and pointedly ignoring whatever new wave of insults floats their direction. She has chosen all at once to be so very responsible and even tempered and to not pick any further debates, no matter how nonsensical the argument against their work. Mister Dickerson is correct; if someone wishes to be hysterical, then why not let them? The rational minded members of the company will eventually come forward if given room to—

'She has already cut her own arm off.']

Are you a Rifter, sir? And here I believed you to be a native to this place. How funny. I don't recall you being in possession of an anchor. But perhaps you were wearing gloves when last we spoke and I only failed to notice it.

[doggish]

You were busy slavering over my lyrium, asking after how it was embedded into my skin. I imagine there was very little you noticed.

No. I am no Rifter. But do not act as though I have no place in this discussion.

[heirring]

[Sweetly, purposefully obtuse, and venemous as an asp:]

Do you? I would be hard pressed to name one, given that this is at its core meant to be a study of Rifter nature. But please, do go on.

[doggish]

No.

If you refuse to understand why I— the product of a mage who was so driven by a desperation to impress others with his magical knowledge that he obsessively researched and enacted obscene blood magic, searing vast quantities of lyrium into his slave's body in the name of pushing magical boundaries— then you are even more foolish than I thought.

[heirring]

Well thank the gods for you, sir! How relieved I am to have one member of this company with a personal investment in this subject outside the—what was it? An obsession to impress? It's true, you've caught us out. We're pursuing this matter strictly out of a fascination for the macabre and for no other purpose whatsoever.

[nonvenomous]

[heirring]

[notathreat]

[doggish]

Oh, of course. Your intentions are pure. Entirely for the sake of others, and if you gain glory from it, well, won't that be a nice coincidence.

[Is he projecting? He absolutely is.]

And how far will you go, hm? In your oh-so-noble attempts at following a meager thread. What is your limit? If it sears skin, will you stop? If it needs only a trickle of blood to work properly, or an open wound— will that cease your meddling?

What cost is too great for you, hm? Tell me, truly. For I doubt you even have an upper limit.

private

[armd]

Fenris. (Abby might have bowed out of this conversation but she's been keeping wary tabs on it all the same; this has her reaching for the crystal, brow furrowed, to ask:) Are you okay?

(It's simple sentiment but she does like Fenris, for whatever that's worth. And what he's saying makes sense to her own foreboding about all of this.)

private 4 ever

[doggish]

No! I am not okay! I am—

[An abrupt cut-off; a sharpened exhale, and it's a long few seconds before he can return to her.]

No. For I have been down this path before, and I know better than anyone what comes from experimentation with lyrium. I am a living, breathing product of a Magister who wanted to boast of his magical prowess via experimentation with ancient magical techniques involving lyrium, and it cost me everything.

And she wants to do it for a damned topical agent.

This is how it starts. With volunteers and seemingly innocent experimentation. With no thought save glory and knowledge, and never mind how many lives it tears apart.

[And maybe, just maybe, he's projecting. Maybe Wysteria is not, in fact, as bad as Danarius (she assuredly isn't), but oh, he is too lost in his memories to realize that just now.]

[armd]

(Abby thinks that outburst is all he has to say on the matter... which, fair, but she has no idea how to respond; she opts to wait it out. Thankfully, he trails back, and she listens with a little crease at home between her eyebrows.

Firmly,) We're not about to let that happen. (It might not be much reassurance, but it's all she has.) Enough of us are watching too closely for them to get away with it.

(Muttered,) And it's pretty obvious we've given them both a lot to rethink, going forward. (She isn't here to defend Wysteria and wouldn't anyway, even though she privately thinks of her as harmless, but... she spoke as if she expected all of them to share in her enthusiasm, when why the fuck would they.)

[doggish]

[He scoffs, but it isn't directed at Abby, not really.]

A pleasing thought, but I doubt it. Why should she stop? She sees my dissent as nothing more than the wailing of an ignorant fool, not nearly as educated in these matters as she.

[That's not necessarily true, but ah, he's a bit off-kilter.]

Tell me you see this as madness.

[armd]

(Abby snorts, a humourless sound.) You're not the only one she thinks she's smarter than. It's how she is.

("You Forces people," she'd said to Abby. Well, Abby could say it right back, couldn't she, you Research people.

There is no hesitation before she says,) It's fucking insane. I don't like it. (Can't help but feel somebody is going to get really hurt, and that Riftwatch will gain nothing in return for it.)

[doggish]

[At least it isn't just him. That's of some comfort, he thinks.]

It's foolishness to the extreme. I understand the initial thought process, but to ignore the risks, to assume that all experimentation is inherently correct . . .

Countless magisters have done the same thing. And we have seen how that ends.

[. . .]

But it is a comfort to know that Rifters see that too.

Private; 1/2

[notathreat]

[Ellie's suspected, but she didn't know. Hell of a time to throw some ugly light on some ugly wounds.]

I'm keeping an eye on them.

[Ellie's voice is quiet. A small promise, an indirect acknowledgement of pain.]

Private; 2/2

[notathreat]

I don't want this anchor to eat me alive, either.

[Full disclosure -- she has several different stakes in this. She won't pretend she doesn't.]

But I think they did need to hear that. And maybe so did the people listening and not talking.

[doggish]

[The anchor is a concern, and not one he has really stopped to think about before now. It grows upwards, and what happens when it reaches one's heart? One's lungs? Will they merely die, or become some kind of demonic entity, Fade-touched and twisted?

He exhales shortly, silent acknowledgement.]

I will not say there is not a need to solve this issue.

But this is not the way. Not with lyrium. Not with this level of experimentation, treated so causally and whimsically.

[. . .]

How often has this happened? You do not seem shocked by it.

[notathreat]

I think they're treating it more seriously than it sounds. They do want to help, and I don't think they want to hurt people, but-

When people get desperate, they justify a lot of things.

[Ellie gives a long pause. When she speaks it's forced-casual, aware of how he just spilled his guts about his trauma in public.]

Personal history.

...

I've had it happen to me, a couple times. Not- what you had. Not by a long shot. But it's not the first time there have been scientists and doctors and I've had something in my body that could save lives, if they could find out what made it tick.

[doggish]

. . . I see.

[Understand: he appreciates this. More than he can say, really, for his mind is a chaotic mess right now, past trauma colliding with present rage.]

I would hear more of it, if you would be inclined to share. But I would not ask you to confess something you are not comfortable with telling me.

What was it you had?

[notathreat]

[They've spoken in snapshots, in portraits painted of things it was easy to frame. He knows it was hard, and that there were people sick, that it destroyed things. That she was immune.]

It's that thing I told you about- the infection in my world, the one I'm immune to. It turns people into darkspawn-like stuff, but it didn't work on me.

There was a group called the Fireflies. They still had some scientists who were trying to find a cure. We figured if I could get to them, they might be able to study what happened to me. I wanted to be there. I wanted to help them. I'd lost a lot of-

A lot of people. To the infection.

[She pauses here, chewing over the painful memories. Belatedly, realizes that part of this is Abby's story rather than hers, and there's parts of it that she still hasn't fully processed.]

It turns out that the spores, the infection... it grows all over the inside of the brain. It's still there. Studying it would've meant opening up my skull.

[doggish]

And they wished to. Without hesitation, citing a greater good that had to be thought of.

[As if that matters at all. As if there aren't other factors at play. And you know, he can understand it? He can fully understand why people who lived in such a hell-ridden world would be so desperate for a cure that they'd sacrifice anyone to get it, for there is such a thing as the greater good.

But people are so terribly quick to sacrifice others for a cause. They rationalize it to hell and back again as something necessary, something worthy, and look at death as a statistic and little else. Coldly, logically, stacking one against a hundred or a thousand, and never mind that people are so much more complex than that.]

Yes?