crystal & medical questionnaire.

[portalling]

FORM: Sending crystal + blank questionnaire available at the infirmary
SENDER: Stephen Strange
RECIPIENT: Everyone
NOTES: The form is below! Submit your character’s response as a reply to that sub-thread, and this will also be linked from the Riftwatch orientation & infirmary wiki pages for posterity, so you can edit/submit a new one if details change. Your character does not have to take this super seriously. Strange might just come nag if they don’t.

What with the new faces recently, I’ve been working on the medical curriculum and refreshing the infirmary’s recordkeeping. It’s high time to establish some better-kept patient files.

To that end, we’ve provided a written questionnaire at the infirmary — thank you to Amsel for her neat penmanship — and I’d appreciate it if you could fill out a form for yourself and drop it off. The records will only be referenced by healers in the course of their duties, and otherwise locked away; your personal details will remain private. Having as much information as possible will only help the healers take care of you properly.

If you don’t read Trade or otherwise require assistance filling out the form, say as such and we can have someone sit with you. Any other questions, let me know.

— but also, fill it out.

Comments

[portalling]

Yep.

Bit squeamish about decomposition, then?

[bouchonne]

A bit squeamish about being eaten.

[portalling]

It’s hardly as if you’d be alive to feel it happening, serah; what difference does it make?

[bouchonne]

What, you must experience something to be horrified by it?

[portalling]

In the abstract, sure, but not to the extent that that reaction really matters in the end. To each their own preference.

But I also once entombed my own corpse in my own rooftop, so I admit I might be more blasé about this sort of thing than I should be.

[favoriteanalyst]

You've gotta stop saying things like that.

[portalling]

( A laugh— Mobius so often catches the worst of these— )

Hm. Noted.

[favoriteanalyst]

Not that it's not fascinating, [because every time he says something fucked up and horrifying, Mobius still wants to know], just at least not where everyone else can drop in and go 'hey, you know, that was a really concerning thing that you said, what the shit is wrong with you'. As a suggestion!

Nevarrans might find that detail curious though.

[portalling]

The Nevarrans have got their heads on straight. If I could do an exchange semester with the Mortalitasi, I’d be out of here in a heartbeat.

[ Sort of joking, sort of not. ]

[favoriteanalyst]

I won't argue that. And obviously, given Nevarrans, the general entombing idea isn't the most repulsive and weird thing.

It's really the fact that it was your corpse. Is the notable part there. That's the part that turns heads right off their shoulders.

[pathlit]

[ my good doctor, what the actual fuck ]

[portalling]

[ listen, ]

[bouchonne]

[ The best way to deal with Rifter Shit is pretend you didn't hear it. ]

In the abstract, sure? What, I am not permitted to be revolted by the absolutely tasteless staging of Le Rat Rouge that was put on a few years ago in which the titular Rat Red was reimagined as a disgruntled Orlesian noble who sided with the uncouth and simple Fereldan peasants, merely because I refused to see it?

[portalling]

[ It takes him a moment to sort through how to receive Byerly’s own tone; in the end, Strange decides it’s funny. With some bitten-back humour and, dryly: ]

Fair enough. I see no problem with this whatsoever.

That said, if you did see Le Rat Rouge, you could be armed with every last piece of context to lambast it properly. Write the most scathing theatrical review in the papers.

[bouchonne]

[ A theatrical pause, and then he admits - ]

I actually did see it. But I stand by my argument.

[portalling]

Are you always like this?

[ A beat, elaborating, blunt but not actually trying to be insulting: ] Contrary, for the sake of being contrary.

[aberratic]

[ adding to the dogpile, whoops— ]

Under what circumstances? Was it a simulacra, or a clone? We have magic for that in my previous home, but I'd never seen it in action. Did the corpse remain so, or was it to be revived later? Doctor, you can't say such things and not expand!

[portalling]

[ Oh finally, someone with the right priorities— ]

You have clones in your world? How are they made?

This one was an alternate version of myself from another timeline, in a world where I’d made different choices and had a truly awful ponytail. He fell out of a portal dead at my feet. He wasn’t revived as such—

[ Hmmm okay actually he does know enough that people would be alarmed about this one. He toggles this conversation over to private as well. ]

He wasn’t revived as such, but I did have to control the corpse for a time, to accomplish an urgent mission at a distance.

private ∞

[aberratic]

Clones are made magically, grown for three months from a bit of flesh and then functionally identical to their original, though I believe they can be younger. It's incredibly advanced magic, nearly god-like, so I have had no contact with a clone myself, and can't speak to it more than that. All I know is that it is possible.

That kind of necromancy is very advanced—far beyond the skill of a novice, and even many adepts. Did you specialize in necromancy, or was it a matter of necessity that induced you?

[ ness is not, despite her questions, particularly knowledgable of magic herself. she was taught to tap into the innate magic of her father's drow blood, but only to call up pretty lights. still, her innate sense of curiosity and access to the writings of the greatest minds of faerûn means she can sound a lot more knowledgable than she is. ]

[portalling]

To what purpose are they made? Would the clones be walking around, conscious, sentient, at the same time as their originals? Do people ever wind up fighting their clones?

[ She’d said she couldn’t speak much more about it, so Strange bites back the tidal wave of questions he wants to ask. ]

Sorry if you don’t know any of the answers; I just find this fascinating. I wouldn’t say I had an arcane specialty, as such— I’d inhale whatever I could find, magic-wise. That specific necromancy was a matter of necessity, and not the sort of magic I’d be able to do ordinarily, so I won’t be raising any corpses here, alas.

[exequy]

If you are entombed correctly, [ Nevarranly, ] there are no worms.

[bouchonne]

Define correctly.

[exequy]

Mummified and tended to long-term.

[bouchonne]

[ The desire to be an Asshole is weaker, for once, than curiosity. ]

Is that true? A worm won't touch a mummified body?

[exequy]

They aren't repelled. But our dead are not in the dirt. They are kept clean. They do not rot or smell like spoiling meat. There is not much there to appeal to worms or to maggots. And any that do find their way there are removed.