Stronghold of education and learning, this fortress is in one of the coldest areas of Idalos and home to many knowledge seekers in a variety of disciplines. However, unknown to most, below the city are those who suffer for the sake of science. While all are welcome, not everyone will be treated as they expect.
“… and don’t forget to do your homework!“ the Mortalborn warned the young men and women that were hurriedly stuffing their books into their backpacks. “I want you to write three pages on primers, what they are, when they are necessary and when they aren’t – and give me a few examples of which reagents constitute adequate primers!” A few students paused and abruptly turned their heads in his direction. He could see looks of surprise and even horror on their faces, a common reaction when one confronted a couple of mortals of around twenty arcs of age with homework, it seemed.
Another couple of students had already left though, he noticed, as he let his gaze quickly sweep across the classroom. They would help him with the demonstration that he intended to conduct the following trial, he decided, and possibly scrub his dirty cauldrons clean which was, contrary to popular belief, not just a cruel and somewhat petty kind of punishment for leaving the classroom a few bits too early, but an absolute and undeniable necessity.
Clean equipment was of the utmost importance, especially when dealing with a science that was as powerful and dangerous as alchemy. Contamination simply rendered the potion useless if you were lucky. In the worst case, it could lead to serious injury or even death though. He remembered a few such cases, students that had thought that they could be lazy and paid the price. He had even treated a few such patients himself, back when he had been a doctor.
What had been left of them had not been pleasant to look at.
He waited until his students had all left before he took his books, put his cloak on – a fine, dark wool cloak that was lined with silver fur – locked the classroom so that nobody would be able to sneak into it, steal something or possibly set something on fire – such things had happened before – and made his way across the university grounds. He would not go home yet, not for a while. He had recently signed a contract with the Infirmary and agreed to provide them with a few of his potions.
He made his way to one of the laboratories in order to pick up his latest batch, potions that would speed up the body’s healing rate, potions that had anti-inflammatory and bone-strengthening properties as well as a few more extraordinary and complicated ones. Approximately half a break later, he stood in front of the Infirmary and knocked on the door.
If Cassian opened it, he would find himself facing a tall, dark-haired man that had the build of a warrior – Doran was not only an accomplished alchemist, but likely also one of the greatest swordsmen alive – and that was holding a crate that was filled with a multitude of vials in his arms.
“Doran Thetys”, he introduced himself curtly in a tone that was somewhat cold, but not impolite – while he cared little about most mortals, he saw no need for bad manners. “I was asked to create a few potions for the Infirmary.”
“I will need your signature”, he added, a necessary measure in order to prevent a crafty doctor from claiming that they hadn’t received the potions and stating that they wanted another crate, free of charge to make up for the one that had supposedly gotten lost somewhere.
Last edited by Doran on Mon Jul 30, 2018 4:53 pm, edited 1 time in total. word count: 573
It wasn't that Cassian wasn't annoyed easily. Though he did of course endeavour to rise tall and far above his emotional makeup and even though his natural disposition gave him a leg up in that regard, humanity as a whole was usually working against his attempts to ascend from their midst. They chained him down with their idiocy, their tardiness, their inefficiency and their overall lack of... well, perfection, he'd presume. What was wrong with attempting to do your work properly, expediently and in such a way as to leave minimal cleaning up in its wake?
But such was the lot of an assistant, he surmised. While better educated, more capable and obviously smarter than the nurses and even some of his seniors, he occupied the lowest rung of the local hierarchy. Thus, the cleaning of the medical supplies fell to him. It was of course logical to leave the lowly work to the one considered most expendable. This was clear, the young man thought as he tossed a handful of scalpels into a bowl of vinegar. The problem was in the consideration itself. It was based on an incorrect idea of his abilities.
The old saying was wrong. In the Kingdom of the Blind, the one-eyed man was not a king. He was a cripple by popular decree.
Turning a small glass to measure the time before he had to remove the scalpels again, Cassian moved to dry off his hands. The vinegar was an efficient cleaner, but it was also acidic. Prolonged exposure might damage the metal. Quick stock was taken of the rest of the infirmary. Bloody cloths were in a bin for washing, sundries were almost done in their own bath of vinegar while the scalpels still had a while. The operating table was soaking in a mixture of vinegar and soda and someone else would see after the bloody aprons which left...
An intruder. A medical emergency would not have knocked, but this person had so it probably was not urgent. Tossing the towel in his hands aside, the surgeon in training stepped up to the door and opened it, giving the man on the other side a curious look briefly interrupted by the suggestion of a bow. "Good evening, how may I help you?" he intoned mirthlessly.
The well-built man outside the door announced that he was making a delivery of potions, which seemed like a legitimate reason to disturb Cassian's deliberations. Vaguely recalling his education, the young man stepped away from the door and back into the room, briefly appreciating the directness of the man. "Do feel free to put them down anywhere but the operating table. I trust the nurses usually deal with this." His politeness had surprisingly near limits. Faced with an easy solution to the disturbance, he'd already turned away from his visitor even ae he had spoken to him. Seeningly wholly unconcerned about the man he briskly stepped to a nearby desk to fetch a pen and give it a dip in the inkwell.
As he signed Doran's form he inquired, "I presume your payment is handled through the Academy in some fashion? Because I certainly have no coin on me." Or more precisely he would not put up the money for a single tonic even if he had enough on his person. While waiting for an answer, Cassian blew over the ink so that it might dry better. "At any rate, there you are." he added as he pointed at the letters spelling out his name:
“So you are a doctor?” the Mortalborn asked Cassian as he stepped inside and briefly took a look around before he turned to face him again, raising an eyebrow fractionally as he did so. The mortal was shorter than him, he observed, and he was pale, as if he spent most of his time in closed spaces, like a lot of his kind were unfortunately wont to do. There was something else about him as well, something vaguely familiar that he couldn’t point a finger at, no matter how hard he tried. It was almost as if he had seen him before … or somebody that looked like him …
“I worked as a doctor as well, back in Ne’haer, before I took up alchemy”, he informed him in a cool, clipped tone, not because he felt the need to brag – he saw no need to brag in front of a mortal that was by definition a lesser being – but so that Cassian would be aware that he knew how to comport himself in a hospital. Having said that, he set the crate down on an empty table, carefully so that the precious vials wouldn’t break.
He didn’t mind that the mortal refused to engage him in conversation and seemed to want to get this over with as quickly as possible. On the contrary, he welcomed such behavior. He was much the same and saw no need for small talk. “Your superiors have already paid for the potions up-front”, he informed him and accepted the form. “I just needed somebody to confirm the delivery.” As he said that, his gaze fell on the mortal’s signature, and his eyes widened slightly before he looked at Cassian.
“You are a Gawyne? One of Jason Gawyne’s grandchildren, I assume, judging by your age?” he wondered and paused for a moment before he remarked in a very dry tone, “It seems as if we are related then. The Duke and I are half-brothers”, he explained. A few seasons prior the Lord Arbiter of the Order of the Mantis, Caius Gawyne had revealed his Immortal heritage to him – and that his grandfather was a Mortalborn of Ziell, just like he was.
He still wasn’t sure what he was supposed to think of his new grand-nephew – the boy’s manners left something to be desired, and his association with those mage-killers was questionable at best - but the fact that one of Ziell's children held such a powerful position, he decided, definitely had potential. There would be much to be gained from it.
The young man took pride in being something of a clockwork automaton where matters of the flesh and duties of his profession both chosen and necessitated were concerned; he functioned as needed and excelled where possible. There was a list of potential improvements for the Infirmary and its operations filed away in a notebook, and he tested them by applying them himself. Doing away with what was considered 'bedside manner' by his peers was not even one of them. That was just his nature. It was in that spirit that he'd regarded the delivery man, though what that one had to say at least roused the tiniest mote of curiosity in the self-styled man machine. "Student yet. Of surgery to be precise, though I manage to advise people who come in with the sniffles." There was a clear complaint woven into that last part. A place like Viden probably saw a lot of ill-prepared visitors falling victim to either stripe of cold.
"Though I imagine you know those kinds of people. Why did you decide to give up the practice of medicine? Did you lose interest in... improving the human condition? Or did you find a better way?" Words spoken with an eye towards the assortment of elixirs and concoctions, whatever they might do. It wasn't so much that Cassian distrusted Alchemy, it was that it was hard to quantify its effects without observation. With bone and muscle and nerve, the observation was immediate. In theory, this was not always the case with Alchemy. For all he knew, the Infirmary was buying a box of urine samples. Still, he tried to keep an open mind at most times. There were a few things his mind was made up on. Yet a part of him longed to be surprised. Maybe the stranger would manage to do just that. Maybe not.
And maybe he was no stranger.
And maybe he had just managed to surprise Cassian. A Mortalborn, he said, and one whose lineage would indeed bind them with the flimsiest thread. The surgeon's surprised reaction at Doran's statement uttered itself in four blinks, three of surprise and one that was slower, more deliberate as he allowed his Spark to take hold of his vision and searched his purported great-uncle's Tangle for hints of malice. He found Doran wanting in that peculiar characteristic and thus allowed himself to admit in a well-rehearsed manner, "I am Ryan Gawyne's oldest."
Though not his wife's but that was immaterial to the conversation. Unbidden, a genuine if slight smile spread across Cassian's lips. He had never been happy at Gawyne, had rarely felt a proper part of that family or household. It was still his family. It was still home. It meant something to him, like his stepmother's letters that he kept. And no matter how tenuous, this Doran Tethys fellow represented a link to all of that. "It is a pleasure to meet you," the young man heard himself say and, "How long have you been in Viden?"
A Mortalborn and an Alchemist and in a way that was more figurative than literal a relative. This was becoming interesting all of a sudden.
“I didn’t give up the practice of medicine entirely. I merely stopped working at the hospital in order to dedicate myself to a different aspect of the medical field”, the Mortalborn pointed out in a cool tone as Cassian posed his question. “I wasn’t interested in treating conventional ailments and telling people what was wrong with them anymore, I wanted to research, to move beyond the tried and tested – and ultimate advance the medical field. I found that alchemical potions tend to be far more effective than anything that a conventional doctor could provide”, he spoke and gestured towards the crate that he had brought, smiling faintly before he turned to look at the mortal again.
He still remembered how Caius had reacted when he had informed him of the fact that they were related. The Lord Arbiter had been absolutely flabbergasted and nearly driven him mad with all of his questions. He had been exceedingly emotional and wanted to know everything – how long he had lived, if he had had any children - and why he had stabbed the Immortal of Hope. Cassian on the other hand, he observed, merely looked at him and blinked a couple of times – a reaction that he greatly preferred to Caius’ nearly overwhelming excitement.
“Since the beginning of the season”, he replied. The smile on his face was still exceptionally faint as he saw no point in an excessive display of emotions, although he did find himself rather appreciative of Cassian’s choice of study and his cool demeanor. The man reminded him of himself, when he had been younger. “I decided to take up a teaching post this time as that will give me access to the Academy’s vast resources. And what about you, Cassian? Why did you decide to become a surgeon and go to Viden?” he wanted to know and raised an eyebrow questioningly. He had to admit, he was rather interested in the newest grand-nephew that he had acquired and what his motives were. The man had some potential, as far as he was concerned.
“I assume that you are aware of your grandfather’s and my somewhat unusual background?” he wanted to know. Caius had known about the Duke’s being a Mortalborn. He wondered if everybody in House Gawyne knew – and if they all knew when they were going to die. Caius possessed that ability due to his watered-down Immortal blood.
Knowledge:
Alchemy: Dirty equipment can have harmful consequences
Discipline: Refraining from an excessive display of emotions
Etiquette: Introducing yourself
Etiquette: How to comport yourself in a hospital
Medicine: The use of alchemical potions in medicine
Teaching: Punishing students for leaving the classroom too early
Loot: N/A
Injuries: N/A
Renown: 5 For doing a small job
Points: 15 May not be used for Magic
This seemed like an interaction that was going places. It is sad to see good threads die young. Doran seems to be an alright teacher, using punishments as ways to not do some cleaning. Cassian was playing the role of assistant, something I am sure he wished to be ride of, and become the head himself. This thread could of been a fun interaction, as the two were connected in more ways then just the academy.
Any injures are based on a 1d100 roll using applicable skills
