• Solo • The Worm Carriage

[Devin]

Continued from here.

Ymiden 13, Arc 721

“That’s Heidi, one of my pets”, Devin said to Magdalene who stared at the little black and white goat incredulously. “Do you want to stroke her? She doesn’t bite! Look!” he told her and proceeded to rub Heidi’s neck affectionately in order to prove his point.

Magdalene furrowed her brow a bit before she came closer and followed Devin's example. She had been taken by surprise by his unusual pet, but she was not afraid of it. If she could handle cutting dead bodies open during a dissection course, she could definitely handle that!

Heidi quite enjoyed being stroked by two humans, but eventually she wandered off again, bleating loudly as she did so, and Devin gestured for his red-headed (former?) classmate to follow him into the living room where the meal that he had cooked for her was waiting.

He even pulled out a chair for her and bowed slightly, much like a gentleman, before he sat down with a wide smile and gestured towards the food on the table that would have been enough for a whole family.

Magdalene’s eyes widened for a moment, and then she pulled the plate with the baked potatoes towards her and glanced at it for a moment before she decided to give it a taste. “When I said that I liked cottage cheese and bacon, I didn’t think that you’d put them into a potato”, she admitted. “But this here quite decent. Why did you surround the baked potatoes with mashed potatoes though?” she wanted to know.

“Because two potato products are better than one?” Devin replied, wiggled his eyebrows a little and grinned which caused Magdalene to laugh before she decided to eat more.

“So, you said that you needed my help with a research project of yours”, she remarked a few moments later and poured a bit of juice into a glass while Devin helped himself to a baked potato of his own as well as some coffee. “You said that it had something to do with agriculture and animals and parasites. What kind of problem exactly are you trying to solve?” she wanted to know and looked at him questioningly.

“The beer crisis”, Devin replied, and her eyes widened.

“I have a pretty good idea of what might be going on”, he continued before she could say something. “But I need you to look at some samples with me and help me with two questions. I’ll credit you of course when I write to the Council and Saoire and the University, and I’ll invite you to the party that I want to have next cycle.”

“I’ll even do your makeup and hair beforehand”, he added, both in order to make her even more inclined to help him and in order to decrease the chance of her claiming that she had solved the beer crisis. He didn’t think that she’d try to steal his idea – Magdalene was not mean and sneaky and such, although he really wished she had a bit of a sense of humor – but still, he’d decided not to tell her how exactly he had found out.

The people who would use his findings to fix things would probably be interested in learning how the solution had been found, and if you couldn’t tell them … well, then something was off!

“Well, that’s pretty nice of you”, Magdalene remarked and smiled as she thought about the things that Devin had promised her when she’d mostly wanted him to cook for her. She especially liked that he had offered to credit her (Which was something that she might have asked of him if he hadn’t done so!). That would look very good on her resume. If she could tell people that she had helped Baron Smooglenuff solve the beer crisis, it would increase her chances of finding a good and well-paying job greatly. Who knew, maybe she’d even become a researcher at the university or something like that when she had her degree?

There was just one thing that she couldn’t help but wonder about.

“What exactly do you think is going on though?” she wanted to know and leaned forward.

[Devin]

“There’s something wrong with the worms – I have collected a couple of worms and put them into a terrarium – some sort of parasite that moved from the worms to the wheat and made the beer go bad, but that seems to be harmless otherwise. I’m not sure why all the beer went bad practically overnight yet though. Maybe there’s an incubation period, or the parasite has to mature first, or interact with something else to cause problems or …”

Devin was talking very quickly, and listing all his theories for why the beer had only gone bad now and been normal before – with the exception of a single incident - and then he stopped abruptly and looked at Magdalene who looked back at him with a mixture of confusion, curiosity and excitement. She didn’t reply right away, but furrowed her brow and made various sounds such as “hmm” before she got another baked potato.

“Hmm”, she made and poked the baked potato with her fork a bit before she remarked, “Low temperatures affect the rate of growth and development and the metabolism of parasites, and they tend to grow better and cause more problems when the temperatures are higher. That could be a reason for your parasite only causing problems now. Maybe, the temperatures had to rise above certain point in order for the parasite to cause problems.”

“I’ve seen things like that when I was studying plants for my agriculture classes”, she added before she asked, “You said that you had two questions though?”

“Take a look”, Devin only said and gestured for her to follow him to the terrarium that he had placed in a dark corner – because worms liked it dark. “These guys don’t look like they are particularly fast. The only thing that they do quickly is eat. You wouldn’t believe just how much they eat!” he told her in an incredulous tone of voice before he returned to the question at hand. “In order to affect the entire island in a reasonable timeframe they need some sort of means of transport, some sort of worm carriage.”

“Worm carriage?” Magdalene asked and raised an eyebrow.

“Worm carriage”, Devin confirmed, nodded and grinned all over his face because it was just such a great term. “Maybe something in the brewing process also exacerbated the problem - I'm not a brewing expert, but it's not impossible, isn't it? I’ve collected bird droppings as they might contain the parasite as well. If two things have a parasite inside, the likelihood of a third thing being affected increases greatly”, he pointed out to Magdalene, looking incredibly proud as he did so.

“This is not really how it works in my …” the redhead began, but Devin wasn’t listening to her anymore. He had just had a great idea, a veritable epiphany in fact. He had already had a lot of those over the course of his investigation, but this one, he decided, was his best epiphany so far!

“The birds!” he exclaimed abruptly, smiled all over his face and resisted the urge to hug Magdalene for a moment before he decided to do so anyway because he just couldn’t contain his excitement anymore.

Why hadn’t he thought of it sooner?!

[Devin]

“Can parasites survive in bird droppings?” Devin asked a somewhat flabbergasted Magdalene before he abruptly raced into the basement and retrieved the container with the poop samples. “I collected bird droppings”, he told his classmate. “Birds eat worms, so they could have transported the parasite – accidentally, of course”, he added because that was rather important. Such beautiful birds as the little blackbird that he had talked to would never spread nasty parasites and make beer (and similar drinks) go stale on purpose!

“Bird droppings aren’t generally harmful to plants”, Magdalene murmured before she put on a pair of protective gloves, just in case (Devin did the same, of course.) and carefully opened the container. “If bird droppings land on young and still fragile plants, they can damage them, of course, but most parasites don’t seem to survive digestion. If the bird droppings build up on the other hand”, she continued while she examined the samples. “It’s not impossible that something in the bird droppings can affect agricultural plants such as wheat.”

“Wait a moment, please!” she told him a bit later, rooted through the bag she had brought with her and pulled out a book. “When you told me approximately what you were working on, I decided to take a couple of my books with me”, she continued, and leafed through the book that she had pulled out for a while before she handed it to Devin.

“In agriculture, we use copper-based fungicides to treat plant diseases and parasites, for example. Copper can be harmful, especially in large quantities though. An alternative would be a specially brewed tea from compost that can be used to bioremediate toxins”, she murmured before she abruptly looked up as something occurred to her. “You haven’t found out which parasite exactly it is, haven’t you?”

Devin considered making a face because he didn’t like admitting that he didn’t know something, but then he just nodded.

“I can only speculate myself. I’m afraid I don’t have the means that are necessary to identify the exact parasite either”, Magdalene admitted and gestured towards the worms in their terrarium, the bird droppings and the bag of grain that Devin had bought at a farm that was located near the place where the birds had complained about the bad tasting worms.

“That’s what the university will help me with. I know what is going on, why it is happening now, how it has spread, and you just told me two possible treatments. The specialists there can hopefully identify the exact parasite. And if they don’t – well, it sounds as if your tea and your copper don’t only treat one problem, do they?” Devin asked, grinned and waited for Magdalene to confirm that which she did.

“There’s just one important thing”, he continued and raised a hand to get her attention. “Your fungicide stuff won’t harm the earthworms or the birds that eat them, right?”

“The tea definitely won’t. I’m not entirely sure about the copper though. I’m not an expert on earthworms. I specialize more in agriculture as well as medicinal plants. I’d try mild alternatives first though”, Magdalene admitted before she wanted to know. “Why do you ask?”

“Because birds love worms!” Devin replied which caused Magdalene to blink in confusion for a bit. That was very important in his opinion. He didn’t only want to fix the beer crisis, he also wanted to give the birds he had met (as well as all their friends and colleagues) their favorite food back because birds were Delroth’s animals, and he absolutely loved Delroth!

[Devin]

Because birds loved worms, and he loved birds (and Delroth!) Devin thoroughly discussed his research with Magdalene. His initial hypothesis had been that the worms themselves had spread the parasite across the entire island somehow; he’d had to refine and adjust it to account for new information several times though – except that it wasn’t really a hypothesis anymore. There was, he decided, no other alternative that made sense!

He had the evidence to back up his findings – and the testimony from the blackbird and its friends!

He had solved the case!

“I think that we can stop now”, he told Magdalene. “I think I’ll write my letters now. Actually, I think I’ll carry the samples to the university myself to make sure that they are intact when they arrive – well, most of them. I’ll keep some of them, just in case. It’s always good to have spare ones. Do you want to watch me, by the way?” he abruptly asked and grinned at his classmate because he was so excited.

“Watch you go to the university?” Magdalene asked because she wasn’t sure what he had meant.

“No, watch me write the letters, to make sure that I really credit you”, Devin explained. “You can eat the rest of the baked potatoes while you do so. Thank you, by the way, truly”, he added, because it was important to thank such a helpful person.

“Nah, I trust you, Devin. If you don’t credit me, I’ll find out”, she said – which Devin realized a bit belatedly, was for the better. If Magdalene had decided to stay and watched him write the letters, she would have found out how he had found out about the bad tasting worms. He didn’t think that she would steal his investigation anymore, but the suspense … he wanted to keep up the suspense a bit longer. Who knew, maybe there would be some sort of big announcement once the beer was normal again, with him as the star?

He sure hoped so!

Once his classmate had left – he made sure to thank her appropriately and even gave her the rest of the food – Devin went to his desk, just as something suddenly occurred to him. Magdalene was a nerd who didn’t have any sense of humor. His roommate Aidan was a nerd who didn’t have any sense of humor, too! Maybe, he should set up a date for them!

But then he realized that he had no idea if Magdalene was single, and he wasn’t sure if Aidan also liked women. He thought about whether he should try to find out, and then he shrugged his shoulders and decided to focus on something that was much more important for the time being – his letters. He wanted to finish them before the trial was over.

So, he got a pen and the finest paper that he owned and started to write.

[Devin]

Devin explained how he had found out about the beer crisis and decided to investigate, how he had examined the beer and visited a farm that grew the grain beer was made from. He made sure to describe his meeting with the birds that had told him about the bad tasting worms in detail – and that an ability granted by His Magnificence, Lord Delroth, had allowed him to talk to them. He mentioned gathering samples, and researching earthworms, and how he had come to the conclusion that a parasite had caused the beer to go stale overnight – and he made sure to reference his being a doctor of considerable skill, so that people would know that he wasn’t just any random layman.

He was actually competent!

A parasite that was only activated once the temperature rose above a certain point, a parasite that was harmless for human(oid)s and birds was responsible for the beer crisis. The parasite had been in the worms at first, and the birds had eaten the worms and spread the parasite throughout Scalvoris – through their droppings!

He speculated that an aspect of the brewing process could have exacerbated the problem. He also mentioned Magdalene’s tea as a possible way of getting rid of the parasite, and copper-based fungicides as an alternative if that didn’t work, and he made sure to give Magdalene, Rose and his roommate Aidan (and the birds and Delroth, of course) the credit they deserved.

And what more, in the letters to Saoire's School and the Council he mentioned that he had shared some samples with the University so that they'd be able to inspect them.

Hopefully, he wrote, people would be able to use the information to make everything normal again!

Devin made a real effort to write nicely rather than in his usual messy handwriting and he finished each of the three letters (to the University, to Saoire’s School and to the Council) with the following lines:

Regards,
Baron Devin Von Smooglenuff
High Priest of Delroth

It was important that people knew exactly who and what he was!

As he put each letter into a pretty cream-colored envelope and sealed the envelopes, yet another thing occurred to him. He had never identified the source of the parasite. Some things, he decided, probably just occurred naturally though. That made more sense than a worm-poisoning criminal sneaking around Scalvoris and making all the beer and ale taste bad!

With that thought in mind, he delivered the first letter and the samples to the University and sent the other two letters, and then he went back home. Soon, he would have to return to Faldrass and his Barony (He had originally planned on travelling to Scalvoris Town to buy supplies, but then he had found out about the beer crisis.), but for now, he would enjoy himself.

So, he poured himself a glass of the finest wine that he owned, sat down on the couch, put his feet on the table in front of it and started to drink, a thoroughly content expression on his face as he waited for all the fame and glory to come his way. The University, Saoire’s people and the Council would use his findings to fix things, and once the beer was normal again, he could finally have his party at the manor – and the birds would have worms that tasted good again, of course!

Notes

Other threads in this series:

1. The Ghost That Never Was
2. Stale Beer and Travelling Merchants
3. Haven and Hope
4. Blackbird
5. The Plantinosis Hypothesis
6. The Worm Habitat
7. Worm Studies
8. Cottage Cheese and Bacon

[Jackalope]

Experience: +10 xp

Knowledge:

Skill:

Knowledge:

Investigation: Adjusting your hypothesis to account for new information
Investigation: Answering follow-up questions
Investigation: From the hypothesis to the solution of the case
Investigation: You don’t always have to determine the exact cause to solve a problem
Investigation: Beer Crisis: What caused the beer to go stale and why it went stale
Etiquette: Give credit to the people who help you solve a problem

Skillplay: Appropriate to level

Loot: Information.
Injury/Overstepping: None.
Renown: +20. Not only is Devin’s contribution important to a scientific field, it is of practical and commercial importance to the island. He is the Scalveen John Snow! No, not *that* John Snow, the other one. Everybody from Almund to Egilrun can once more drink beer because of Devin! He will literally be the toast of Scalvoris!
Wealth Points: None.
Collaboration: No
Magic Experience?: No.
Consequence:

For every important scientific idea, there are inaccurate and even cranky popularizations. Some time after Devin’s hypothesis starts to gain traction in the halls of academia, a certain popular lecturer starts making the rounds with his dramatic and somewhat alarmist talk: A Feathered Plague? In it, he impresses on his audiences the idea that birds not only are a scourge to horticulture, but spread diseases as well! They will everything if we don’t stop them! And the work of eminent expert Dr. Devin Thorn, Baron von Smooglenuff, proves this!

Academics dismiss the talk as uncomprehending, pseudo-learned rubbish, and even most farmers suspect it’s rubbish. But a few are nodding their heads, and insisting that “we need to keep an open mind”. After all, if Dr. Thorn says birds will kill us all if we don’t stop them, who are we to disagree? What will Devin do when he learns of this witch pursuit thing brewing against his Delroth-beloved winged friends, not to mention this gross misrepresentation of his own work?

Comments:

You’d better credit Heidi, too, or she’ll eat your letters!

A great end to a great series of threads! Devin’s brain goes in at least three or four different directions, but always manages to cycle back to the task at hand long enough to get things done. As with Aidan, you present in Magdalene a more serious and prosaic (and often more knowledgeable) sounding board for Devin’s wacky ideas. And you find ways to incorporate Devin’s personal charm and miscellaneous skills and interests cleverly into the plot even when the connection isn’t especially obvious. It works really well.

I think worm carriages equipped with walkie-talkies would have been a lot of fun, if not very lore friendly; however, basing the whole thing in plausible science, rather than, say, “Lisirra cursed us because evil”, made the whole thing much more satisfying.

Enjoy your rewards!