OPEN | I won't be made useless

[keenly]

WHO: Colin and OPEN
WHAT: Administering magebane, dealing with phylactery bullshit
WHEN: Present/course of maybe a week
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: I will mark individual threads for any warnings.

I: Apothecary

The room across from the infirmary doesn't actually have a name, but at the moment, Colin has claimed it for mixing up drugs and one particular poison. He has never made poisons before, but the concept is really quite the same. There's also something soothingly demystifying about learning the ins and outs of a drug that causes mages to be powerless. Maybe he can start fashioning an antidote. But mainly, he is here to administer the poison to the sick. Since he has agency over this, he has made the stuff as palatable as possible by mixing it into spicy-sour bowls of gazpacho topped with fresh herbs and minced garlic. The soup is cold but flavorful, made from raw winter vegetables from the garden. The vinegar helps to mask the bitterness of the magebane, but there is still an unavoidable metallic taste. Patients are handed a hunk of bread and encouraged to wipe the bowl clean with it, eating every drop.

The apothecary himself, however, is dealing with occasional...problems. Not just being overworked to the point of moving some bedding into the room and sleeping there.

A few times, he finds he cannot put a cork in a bottle without missing. He reaches for something and his hand grabs air. His feet won't go in his shoes. It only lasts a few minutes each time, but it's maddening.

You might be in the room when there's a sudden burst of electric energy and Colin gives a cry of agony as it hits him. He hits the floor, hard.

II: Closed to Kostos

It's time for their spirit magic lesson, and Colin is waiting in his quarters when Kostos comes in. But he's sitting with his back to a wall, knees against his chest, trembling so hard his teeth chatter. His gaze is fixed on the opposite corner of the room. Nothing is there. Not to Kostos, at any rate.

You're not real.

Of course I'm real, Colly-boy. I'm just not here. And you're still afraid of me.

III: Hallway - one thread

Colin is coming back from running an errand to his store when he hears the air crackle. It's not the same sort of electric crackle as he heard before. It whistles, shrieks like ice, and before he can fling up any manner of defense, it closes around him. Ice encases him, freezes him, minute but sharp crystals digging into fingertips and toes. Most frightening is the chill in his chest, and the layer of ice between his face and air. He can't breathe.

Comments

Anders

[keenly]

Colin was taught to cast spells. He was terrible at some of them, of course. Fancy ice spells, even basic ones, were so difficult for him that he wonders if that led to them delaying his Harrowing. It never quite sank in, seeing apprentices cast such spells on dummies and buckets of water or whatever other inanimate, unfeeling thing they used it on. Now, he has felt it with his own body, and he has finally come to understand what the Circle preached for so long: magic is dangerous. Not because of demons, but because of itself.

One simple, basic spell any apprentice can learn is the reason he lies on a cot near the fire, wrapped in blankets and shivering with an intermittent cough. The worst part is the tips of his fingers and nose, burning with horrible pain and gradually turning from waxy-white to angry red. Frostbite would take time to set in on its own, but a simple, basic spell made it happen to Colin in seconds. And it could happen again to him at any moment. It could happen to any of them, so long as their phylacteries exist. The profound impact such a little thing has on the body is terrifying.

"Someone's trying to kill us," he rasps at Anders, then coughs.

[justice_is_blond]

He's gentle as he takes one on Colin's hands from under the blanket, face grim before he starts casting. Colin might not be wrong. What had been 'merely' terrifying before was now seemingly leaping headlong into lethal territory.

"We will find them, and we will kill them," he promises his student. "They will hurt us, but in the end they Will pay the higher price."

Anders feels no guilt in making that promise. Colin had hurt no one, Julius was as tamed a mage as any non - mage could hope, Inessa was rather inoffensive; they didn't deserve this. He might. But those three were being blindly wronged, and deserved vengeance.

"For now, I'm here. Mercy and I will get you through this."

[keenly]

There isn't much to be done, healing skin while it's still thawing, but it does help with the pain. A tear crawls slowly down one temple to soak into his hair, and after a moment, he shakes his head. He can't rely on someone else's protection, not if self-interest can still get in the way. Which leads him to thinking about the one bit of leverage he has with people who could aid him.

"My lyrium melted," he says. "Otherwise I'd pressure the Templars I have as customers. Take them and go after whoever's doing this. Except we don't even know what direction to go."

[justice_is_blond]

"Don't blackmail a Templar when you don't have to, Colin. Especially when it comes to a cache of phylacteries." That could backfire so horribly on them all.

"Julius is digging in the libraries, I was digging and will be again now that the plague is dealt with, we will figure this out." He pauses, pressing his lips together before continuing. "It's Circle mages in general, too. Not just Kinloch Hold. Inessa told me that another has symptoms too. . Enough people will be digging to find out where this went."

[keenly]

"A lot of good it'll d-do us when we're d-dead." More tears come to his eyes. "Could I get some elfroot? For the p-pain?" It's transcendent, the sort of pain he's in. He doesn't feel real. Only the pain is real.

[justice_is_blond]

"Of course," he says hastily, breaking off from healing to grab a potion and bring it to Colin's lips. "I'm sorry. I'd assumed you'd been given some already."

The stress is making him sloppy.

"Drink this, and I can get you a second vial if you need." The damage is extensive enough to justify it.

[keenly]

Colin would toss this back like a shot if he could hold the bottle. It burns and tastes bitter, but it will bring such relief once it kicks in. When the vial is drained, he slumps back to the bed, still shivering. It takes a few minutes, but soon the pain diminishes to a pinprick. A weighty grogginess sets in.

"I sh...sssaw things." His accent slips back a little into something low-class and utterly Denerim. "They're not just tryin' to kill us. They're t-tryin' to scare us."

Julius

[keenly]

At some point during the day, Colin remembers he hasn't eaten. It's not that he hasn't had help--to the contrary, people tend to really step up in a crisis once they know what they can do about it. It has given him...hope? Is that the word? Maybe even a little faith in the world? But it has still been an insanely busy day. And if that weren't enough, someone is currently messing with his phylactery. At this moment. He's trying to amuse himself with this one, though, wadding up papers and tossing them into a wastebasket, only for them to inexplicably turn away and land on the floor. The last batch of magebane is stewing under a haste spell, and he has run out of certain agents for another batch, so he's killing time poking at this mystery and seeing if the wads of paper fall in any particular pattern. They don't. What is this supposed to accomplish, mad genius with a million vials of other peoples' blood?

[overharrowed]

While Julius is deeply relieved that they've solved one problem, he's acutely aware that he's lost one of the major ways he was distracting himself from how deeply unsettled he is by the entire phylactery situation. He's still looking for answers and still not finding them.

It won't take his mind off the situation, but he's determined to keep an eye on his fellow mages to the extent he can. He's no one's teacher anymore, and he knows a lot of them find him untrustworthy, but even so... He starts with Colin, who he knows is both affected and speaking to him. If Julius is honest, he still feels a bit protective of his former students especially. And it's not hard to find a reason to drop by, when Colin's getting magebane out the door as fast as he can compound it.

Julius knocks lightly on the doorframe. "Supply delivery, if this is a good time?"

[keenly]

Colin had just stuck a piece of bread between his teeth and was biting down. He stops, happily waves Julius in, and returns his hand to the bread to finish biting. Anders may not trust the man, but Colin has never had any reason to doubt good old Julius. Loyalists are not abuse-enablers or Templar flunkies. They are mages, and mages who want the same things as non-Loyalists. They just have disagreements about methodology.

"It's always a good time for supplies," he says with his mouth full. "Is that my corrupted lifestone?"

[overharrowed]

"It is indeed." He comes in properly and sits across from Colin. "We're actually back to our regular level of under-supplied, rather than quarantine levels. How's the magebane coming?"

Talking about the problem that had been solved might not be as productive as discussing the one that hadn't, but it was much more comfortable.

[keenly]

"Coming along well, which," Colin turns away from his work to squint at Julius, "how is it our lives got to a point where mages are making this stuff to give to Templars, anyway?"

Back from hiatus, though if it's been too long, no worries on handwaving the rest

[overharrowed]

Julius laughs, at that, surprised but frank. "Maker, I don't know. I'd say it's been a strange few weeks, but I suppose it's been a strange few years at this point." He exhales, not quite a sigh. "Though I admit, even so, having something concretely helpful to do is a nice change of pace, even if it's for Templar benefit. And the rifters, of course." Who he may have slightly warmer feelings toward.

I.

[exsecutus]

Nikos is in the room when there's a sudden burst of electrical energy, followed by a yell, followed by the thud of something solid and meat-based hitting a surface that is, possibly, the floor.

Possibly, because, he isn't looking. He is to work, so work he was doing, in exchange for wine which he is now, sampling. He has actually made poisons before, and if anyone had asked, he might have shared that fact of his past. There's just as good a chance that he would have kept it back. If you can make poisons you don't go around boasting about it.

Instead, he was here to put corks into bottles and to drink the wine he was promised. Now he narrows his eyes at the wall he is facing. It would be very contrived and storybook if his burn scar were to be tingling right now, which it is not. The feeling of the energy in the room is somewhat similar. Nikos is no mage, but he knows this sort of feeling by proximity, has stood close to it and laughed at it and directed its power by pointing out trespassing beetles. Mercifully in this room, there is no smell of burning flesh and no one is screaming and whatever is happening has nothing to do with him and, also, Nikos is thirty fucking years old and not a weak kitten fainting under the weight of memories.

So instead, he just sighs.

"If you are suddenly contagious with something else," he says aloud, in a tone pitched like a threat. He doesn't finish it as he turns about to look for Colin. Because he's here, so he might as well. If Colin dies of hitting his head or whatever has actually just happened to him, it will be very annoying.

[keenly]

The pain is unreal, but once Colin starts breathing again, he decides it could have been worse. There's now an odd pattern of hurt, one of the worst being his outer ear. His right ear, to be specific. He finds that weird until he realizes why. He touches the earring in his cartilage. It's not hot, but the skin around it is burned and tender to the touch. He'll have to take it out until this situation is resolved.

When Nikos speaks, Colin nearly snarls a rude response. He's not in the mood for this. He bites it back mainly because talking is hard enough, as is moving. But he thinks it at him really hard instead. That'll show him. After a bit of struggling, he manages to roll over and get up on his knees. And, instead of bursting into tears or swearing at the only other person in the room, he sighs. Deeply.

[exsecutus]

Well. Colin is not dead, so that's a start. Nikos doesn't move to give him a hand, or offer any kind words of bracing comfort. Instead, he looks down at him. Thoughtfulness, on Nikos, looks like distrust, with a pinch or two of disgust.

He does, sort of, feel the thinking. Allows it to wash over him.

"Would that be a yes, or a no." As he did ask a question, sort of, unfinished as it was.

[keenly]

Colin really wants to say he is absolutely contagious with colpo di fulmine and Nikos had better leave before he is infected, but it would confuse the public perception of this phylactery crisis. A residual shudder wracks him before he stills, breathes, and finally reaches up to remove the earring that burned him.

"Not contagious," he gasps. "Some of the Inquisition is--"

He stops. The phylactery issue has been discussed on public channels. He's not sure he wants Nikos to know he's a mage.

"Not contagious," he repeats lamely. A reddish lattice is blooming, creeping up the side of his neck. Pain is centralized on his right shoulder and left side now, and Colin tries to remember what the Circle taught about electrical wounds. Inflict them is the only thing he can recall as the pain gets worse.

[exsecutus]

"'Some of the Inquisition is not contagious'," Nikos repeats, flatly. His eyebrows do not arch when he says it, because Nikos does not arch his eyebrows. "By the tits of my ancestors. No wonder we're all so irritated by the quarantine."

And then he sees the spread of color on Colin's neck, an angry flush. At first, he thinks perhaps it was there before--a birthmark that he overlooked, because he wasn't checking out Colin's neck. But the red mark is spreading, and still, Nikos stays where he is. His right hand closes over itself, forming a fist.

"Don't mistake this for interest," he says, in a tone that is, regrettably, far less flat, "but what is that."

And what can be done to stop it, he does not add, though he is thinking it. Though of course, this is something else, something entirely Colin's fault, some stupid ailment to which Nikos has now borne witness, and all for the wine.

cw: electrical burns are fucked up

[keenly]

"Isn't that a dwarven curse?" That Colin's brain puts that together moments after being struck by lightning may be a testament to his composure, or it may be that he's just train-of-thought-ing. "Orzammar curse, I mean."

At the comment, Colin turns his head, unable to peer at his own neck, but he gingerly peels the shoulder of his shirt off his skin so he can look underneath at what he's dealing with. It's a hole. There's a burned hole as if something burrowed into his arm. He untucks the left side of his shirt now and lifts it, and sees another burned hole as if the same thing burrowed its way back out. So the lightning went straight through him like an arrow, meaning the majority of the damage is on the inside.

"Oh, is that all?" he says faintly. The red marking on his neck is becoming more defined--a fractal pattern much like the scarring Nikos has. It's all over Colin's arm as well, and he's not going to think too hard about it yet.

"Please look away," he requests calmly. If he's going to heal himself, he doesn't want Nikos gawking. He's sure the man will work out what's going on, but he would like something to be sacred.

II

[exequy]

He doesn’t have time for this.

He doesn’t think that, precisely, in as many words. But he has three books with him, only one to foist off on Colin, and an appointment elsewhere in about an hour (give or take to allow for everyone’s lack of watches). It’s been a bad few weeks. And given the state of the world beyond their walls, regardless of any rifter plagues, the following weeks can realistically only be so much better.

So what Kostos thinks is more like, of course. Of course something is wrong with his secret quasi-student who can’t control his magic and also can’t be exposed as a mage.

He closes the door behind him. He puts the books down on the nearest flat surface. He moves with the slow but steady speed of a man expecting a half-wild animal to bite.

“Colin.”

[keenly]

Colin glances toward the voice. Kostos seems dimmer, less real, and Colin has the urge to lash out at him. The urge is so against his nature, however, that he thinks it is a clue. He glances between Kostos and Lutair, and knows Kostos is the more probable of the two. He nods toward what would appear to Kostos as an empty corner, from where he can barely tear away his gaze.

"Is he real?"

Lutair turns away and scoffs laughingly, like he's amused by Colin's idiocy.

[exequy]

Kostos looks where Colin is looking, and he can’t see through the Veil—no one can. But it feels like the surface of the sea reflecting back the sky. Smooth waters could be mirrors. But here there are waves. The things that press against the other side cause ripples.

Real is a complex idea. The Fade is a tricky thing even when someone isn’t hanging halfway out of it, if that is what’s happening here.

One of Kostos’ fists curl at his side, but he doesn’t cast yet.

“Could he be?” he asks, and steps halfway between Colin and the corner. “Look at me. Think it through.”

[keenly]

Kostos' tone is familiar and soothing. It's the tone of an instructor turning this into a learning moment. It means there is no danger here that Colin cannot overcome on his own. He looks away from the spectre of his abuser, focusing on Kostos. His terror wanes, though he trembles still.

"He's not real," he whispers. "He's not here."

Perhaps not, boy, Lutair chuckles. But now we know--

He doesn't finish. The spell runs its course. And Colin knows the rest of that sentence. Now he knows how he would react if the real Lutair showed up.

Colin looks toward the now-empty corner, then up at Kostos. "It's gone," he says faintly.

[exequy]

Kostos nods, a curt tip of his head, and comes close enough to offer Colin a hand if he would like help up off the floor. That's the only real outward sign of sympathy, and it's half an instruction to pull himself together. To begin, at least. Thirty seconds for shaking hands and unsteady breathing, to get it out of your bones, and then you stop.

He asks, "Does this happen often?"

He suspects not. He suspects—

But it is possible, that this is part of what Colin meant when he said he struggled with control.

[keenly]

It is sympathy, and kindness, to just give him a moment to pull himself together instead of making a fuss. Allowing him the little dignity he has left. After some time, he pushes to his feet and tries to shake the memory of the voice out of his head.

"We think someone stole some phylacteries and casts spells on them 'round midday. We don't have any leads or anything, just... And that spell, I remember reading about it. Making someone see nightmares wide awake. I reckon anything is possible."