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]

[ Strange rifles through the paperwork as well, and locates Vlast’s response: almost blank, with few pieces of information. He’s realising now that he didn’t think to include a line on species; Riftwatch is low on Qunari and dwarves and such, so this was a blind spot. ]

He’s a rifter. Is he a dragon, do you think, or is this some delusion?

[wythersake]

[ the look that he trains upon strange is, perhaps, its own answer. isaac has never held the most starry-eyed view of rifters. that vlast thinks himself a dragon, is little different than thinking himself a sorcerer-surgeon.

more diplomatically: ]

I don't know that the distinction matters.

[portalling]

[ He looks up after a moment, meeting that look. Thanks for the ever-ongoing existential crisis, buddy— But he sighs, exhales. ]

Fair enough. Doesn’t make a concrete difference either way. In that particular instance.

[ Vlast isn’t physically a dragon here. But here, in this world, Stephen Strange still knows where the nerves in the human body are connected and how they work; these things weren’t imagined. ]

[wythersake]

[ that spirits locate and mend the same little pathways, that some blood-soaked anatomist has doubtless their own practice, ideas, dreams,

a peace offering: ]

I've been told that true dragon's blood contains properties of magical distinction. And there are stories, of course, of men drunk on the stuff. Sprouting scales and spines for it.

[ his hand flaps loose. stories. ]

I can't say whether we've tested its effects on Rifters.

[portalling]

[ It might be a peace offering, but it makes Strange let loose a strangled laugh. Airily dismissive, the way he can be once he’s gotten comfortable: ]

If we somehow get a hold of more true dragon’s blood, I’m not giving it to some lug in Forces to drink. We’re setting it aside as an incredibly rare magical ingredient.

[wythersake]

Expand on that.

[ rare ingredients imply rare recipes ]

[portalling]

[ Offhand, not actually realising that Isaac hasn’t heard about Granitefell yet, ]

I mean, the time magic and all.

1/2

[wythersake]

[wythersake]

Expand on that.

[portalling]

Huh.

[ Strange finally looks up from his shuffling of the medical forms (sorting them into stacks, categories, earmarking the ones which require some expansion with the healers’ notes), and glances at Isaac in surprise.

And once he realises, and because he can’t resist showing off a little in the way he relates this: ]

Last year, there was a calamitous mission; it resulted in about a quarter of Riftwatch dying. Myself, Provost Stark, Viktor, and Mademoiselle de Fonce developed time magic to rewind the event and prevent it all from happening in the first place. There’s a report about it in the archives, look under Granitefell. Specifics redacted,

[ The details of the execution are deeply classified — you can’t have Venatori spies joining Riftwatch and then instantly rifling through the Research files to steal all their secrets — but he decides Isaac can presumably be trusted this much to hear about it, at least. He’s been with the organisation long enough. ]

but needless to say, it involves high dragon blood. People almost died getting that specific ingredient, so it’s not exactly a play we can utilise every single time something goes awry, plus you really oughtn’t meddle so frivolously with the timeline—

But either way. It was an elegant bit of magic, if I may say so myself.

[wythersake]

[ he sits in silence. a moment, then another. stands and leaves the room. his hand lifts at the door, and he turns as if to speak —

keeps walking. lets hinges shut heavy. he's gone.

(and if he knew a little more, he might ask, again? and if he knew a little less, he might ask, why? but the real question, the devil of a thought that crawls in his ear, is what quarter of them are worth so much greater sorrow than those dead in his hands) ]

[portalling]

[ He watches the other man go with the tilt of a head, a raised question in the crinkle of his brow; but when Isaac leaves, Strange doesn’t question him or reach out to stop him. It’s a surprise, a careless blow landing which he hadn’t even intended to give,

but perhaps that’s why it worked so well. ]