Upon Vestia: Chapter Fourteen

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(Cause the old thread won't split.)

flying_purple_monkfish wrote:"aww poor little green mouse." Luka laughed. "That trap is ridiculous."

Mourn stared at him, then nodded and indicated the front pocket of the coveralls he wore. He winced, hand moving back up to claw at his ear irritably. Every sound was being channeled through this thing as just NOISE, and his other ear was picking up the tiniest whirr and the sound of people moving but his brain had no idea how to begin to decode that information, so it was rather like white noise to him, annoying white noise.

Asher smiled reassuringly, and after a bit of searching, got the screwdriver from the pocket. "Okay, this is going to be loud for a bit, please try to not hurt yourself or me," he told Mourn, still silently.

James couldn't see what Asher was saying from where he was, and probably couldn't have read Asher's lips anyway. Bah.

Mourn tensed, he wasn't sure what LOUD meant really, but he looked worriedly at James.

James had found a complimentary notepad and pencil in a drawer, and he brought them over to Asher and Mourn.

Asher smiled gratefully. He wrote quickly, [I'm going to disable the transmitter. Please try to prevent Mourn from hurting us if needed.]

James nodded. "It'll be okay man," he told Mourn, also doing the silent voice trick.

Asher took the screwdriver and prepared to open up the horrible device that was causing Mourn so much panic.

Mourn flinched with each sound, closing his good eye and whimpering despite his best efforts not to. He was scared, genuinely actually afraid and this was a pretty alien sensation too.

Within a half hour, Vestia would be greeted with another visitor. This time it appeared to be a woman much alike in Vanessa, holding a sort of clipboard as she silently floated across the ground and introduced herself as she tried to step on, with a small wave of her hand, a ribbon of faint yellow light emitted from her hands and ascribed itself into words.

[Greetings, I am Nutrix, one of the Master Healers within the Guild's Caretakers. Spring, Akili and Rusty have informed the Medical Department of the sudden... predicament. I have heard noise is rather unorthodox in this event. I was sent here to help and explain what little we can about the situation, if I may?]

Asher steadied Mourn's head as well as he could with one hand, and carefully got to work unscrewing the screws that held the transmitter together. He tried to be quiet, but the sounds were probably awful for Mourn anyway. Hopefully opening the device up wouldn't take too long.

Mourn struggled, it was too much, he couldn't stand it. He lashed out, trying to wrench the damn thing from his head in his desperation for the noise to just STOP.

some of swarm coalesced to greet Nutrix. "You are here to help Mourn?" "fix him?"

James hurried to restrain Mourn's arms, hopefully not getting clawed too badly in the act. He almost yelled "Stop it!" but remembered just in time how bad that would be, and stayed silent.

Asher kept working, trying to make this quick for his friend.

Nutrix looked at Swarm, blinking as they spoke and realized it was okay to do so at the moment. "I was sent here to do what I can. The Guild is comprised of master magicians that are willing to help with the situation at hand. We believe, upon hearing what Rusty had told us, what had happened, and with further inspection may be able to help."

"You can return him to his usual state? He is terrified. Speak with the medics! Come, the androids are with him now but the other medic can explain what has happened better than we. "The swarm moved, hoping she would follow.

---

James was thankfully a great deal stronger than Mourn was, even with his new arm. He might get a little clawed up but he'd manage to restrain the felid.
Mourn's tail lashed and he growled, trying to struggle out of both android's grip.

With a final twist of the screwdriver, Asher got the transmitter open and disconnected it.

James continued to hold onto Mourn, waiting to see if this would stop the pain and finally let him calm down.

Nutrix followed behind diligently, gracefully floating along in silence.

Swarm lead Nutrix to the medical room where Kay was clearing up.

Kay looked at the anamcara with a frown. [yes?]

"Say they are here to help Mourn." Swarm explained.

Kay looked uncertain [How? Unless you can undo the magic that's healed him, I don't think there's much you can do.]

---

Well the whining noise stopped. Mourn relaxed a little, relieved. "What.. happening?" He flinched at the sound of his own voice and tried to grab at his head again.

"We're here to help with what we can. We need to see exactly the problem before we can decide on how to help. Greetings." The anamcara bowed again, "I am Caretaker Nutrix, a master in the arts of Healing Study. We believe we have a firm grasp on what had happened, and we can offer different solutions, if the... patient? Is willing to... read them."

James released Mourn's hands and found the pen and paper to hand to Mourn. "Write on this, it's quieter," he told Mourn silently.

Asher smiled gratefully at James, then looked at Mourn. Poor guy, at least now he was dealing with just his own hearing and not the implant as well. That was a start at least. Still completely overwhelming though, obviously. "Connecting to the anamcara healed you significantly, restoring your hearing as well as making the cochlear implant work."

Kay looked hesitant, then nodded. [What sort of solutions are we talking about? ] He had a sense of duty to look out for Mourn's wellbeing here and honestly he wasn't sure how a healer could help someone who's problem WAS that they'd been healed.

"We are Swarm." Swarm told her. "We know what happened. He plugged himself into an anamcara, the magic surged into him and appears to have healed his injuries."

[It's more than that, it's brought back dead tissue. That shouldn't be possible.] Kay's frown deepened. He didn't introduce himself. [Mourn is currently in the care of two of my colleagues, whom he trusts and can't really hurt too badly. Until he's calmed down I don't think he'll pay you any attention. ] He looked up to the cameras. [Vestia, how is Mourn doing currently?]

---

Mourn cringed, staring at the paper and very very awkwardly writing. His handwriting was pretty terrible. [fix it] the sound of the pen on paper made him wince. It all seemed so LOUD and overwhelming. [Make it stop. I don't like it. Make it stop.]

"Mourn is... okay-ish," Vestia told Kay. "Asher got the cochlear implant disconnected, and Mourn isn't actively panicking at the moment. He's scared though."

~~
{We'll do what we can,} Asher told Mourn. {Believe me, I know how awful this is, but we won't be able to fix it right away. I'm sorry.}

Mourn shook his head. [got to fix. got to.] He couldn't live like this, it was awful. He rubbed at his ears, shaking his head as if trying to shake the sound out. He looked so uncomfortable.

"Actually, it is quite possible. The Anamcara are an ancient people driven by ancient magic." Nutrix explained, "I'm aware you had Keepers on this ship--" With another wave of her hand, a tiny, holographic image appeared of Merith, standing silently in the air. "The magic that occurred in your friend is inherent in both Anamcara and Keepers. When they die --" By a disembodied spear, the Merith holograph fell and laid limply, "The dead tissues are revitalized and reborn by this Time-driven arcana, which is merely a sort of... reset of the body, for lack of a better word." Within a few second, the wounds on the Merith clone healed, and he slowly stood again. "It is useful for frostbite, other decay of the body and crop growth."

[But he isn't a keeper, or anamcara. ] Kay looked annoyed. [How is it that this magic can heal his brain, but it can't help the canid?] He shook his head, it didn't matter. He waved a hand dismissively. [Can you undo it or not? ]

{We'll figure out a way to take the sound away,} Asher said, {We just need to figure out how to do it without hurting you. Trust me, this isn't something you'll be forced to endure for any longer than is absolutely necessary to find a solution.}

"He was affected by anamcara magic." Nutrix stayed patient with Kay's hotheaded nature, tapping her temple. "When he connected with Daniella and Penelope, their magic was transferred over to him temporarily. For all we know it might not have exited his systems yet."

Her eyes and expression suddenly flashed in fear at the mention of Rusty... "W... We can explain th-that to you at a l-later date." Her voice trembled, as if the thought terrified her. "But our priority is your friend.

"The same way you can target cancer cells, yes. We can undo it."

Mourn nodded slowly, his ears flattened against his skull. [I think... I can help the Not Robot] he wrote. [but we'd have to stop the magic.... Her code is like a puzzle, It needs to be put back together, put into the right order. but I can't.. ] He shook his head again. [I don't like magic.] He didn't write like he spoke apparently. He hated the noise of the pen on the paper, he hated the crinkle of the paper. He hated that faint humming he could hear from the androids, the sound of his own movements. He hated all of this, he mostly just wanted to curl up, cover his ears and shut down. In fact, now he'd explained about the not robot, that's exactly what he did. He set the paper down, drew his legs up and curled into a ball.

---

Kay rubbed the bridge of his nose, nodding. [I'm sorry, it's been a long day.] He exhaled deeply. [Much as I don't like the idea of reversing miraculous healing in a patient as badly damaged as Mourn, his mental health is substantially more important. ] He wondered why Rusty's condition scared her so much, huh.. weird. [I'll take you to him, just, try to remain as silent as possible. He can do quite a lot of damage if he takes it into his mind to do so.] He did have one arm bandaged.

Swarm bobbed and dissipated.

Asher nodded sadly. {We'll figure that out later, don't worry about it for now. First we'll try to help you.} He reached out hesitantly, not sure if Mourn would find physical contact comforting or not.

Mourn closed his good eye, the way his optic continually clicked and whirred was annoying as all hell, he couldn't tune it out. He tried to cover his ears with his hands but it wasn't overly effective. the bulk of the implant in his ear got in the way on one side and his robotic arm, though stronger than it had ever been, was still without any tactile sensation and he jerked away from the claws before they could stab him in the face. Damnit.

He didn't cringe away from Asher's touch though, he just looked miserable, fur all on end, tail swishing.