hazmats | Glowfic Constellation

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"Spiders, just a couple, they're not moving around." She points. "I can do a circuit of the place before either of us becomes more vulnerable than usual."

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"Yeah, good plan. Let's."

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Walk walk walk. Annie investigates for not only moving things but also shapes that might be beds or baths or beyond.

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Some of these ruined houses contain beds! Some contain baths! Some contain both!

...that partially collapsed side cavern over there contains a moving humanoid dwarf-sized shape that isn't quite horrible enough to be a darkspawn!

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"There's... some... one... in there," she says, adjusting the angle of her hand that was previously pointing at a promising bedded and bathed house. "I don't... think it's a darkspawn. Quite. Can something be part darkspawn...?"

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"...The word you're looking for may be 'ghoul'. Um. If there's only one I sort of want to go talk to them, or at least determine whether they are able to be talked to."

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Nod. "And that house has a bed and a bath both."

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"Useful. Ghoul first."

To the ghoul's cave they go.

The ghoul is very much more dwarflike than darkspawnlike. He has 100% of his nose, and an ordinary complement of teeth, not the weird fanged skeleton/beak arrangement of the genlocks. But he moves in an odd restless twitching way that seems imperfectly controlled, and he mutters to himself.

"Um... hello?" says Stalas cautiously.

"Aaaah!" says the ghoul.

"Sorry," says Stalas.

"Who comes to Ruck's cave?!" says the ghoul.

"...My name is Stalas."

The ghoul moans unhappily.

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"Hello," echoes Annie uncertainly. "I'm Annie."

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"Pretty lady..." says Ruck, twisting from side to side and nodding his head awkwardly.

"Um," says Stalas.

"How do you come to be here, in the dark, with... them?"

"The darkspawn?" clarifies Stalas. Ruck shrug-nods. "It's... sort of a long story. Um. How about you...?"

Ruck shakes his head rapidly. "No! No!"

"All right, I won't ask." Stalas glances at Annie. "...Can we - can you help him, do you think?"

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"I - maybe." She nibbles her lip, then says, "I can share a healing power, Ruck. It might help you. Do you want it?"

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"Might... help?"

"It might cure the taint," says Stalas. "Might. We don't know."

"I - I ate their flesh," Ruck mutters.

Stalas winces. "Yeah. But - I'm not sure it will work."

"...cure... cure Ruck..."

"Do you want us to try?"

Twist, twist, head-wobble. "Yes..."

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"Um, it's also possible you will... disintegrate... I don't know exactly how that works yet... but you can try if you want to." She holds out her hand.

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"I didn't disintegrate," offers Stalas, when Ruck looks uncertain. This seems to be sufficiently cheering. Ruck very tentatively touches Annie's hand.

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And he doesn't disintegrate! And Annie gives him the healing power.

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Ruck makes a series of strange facial expressions, and then wobble/shuffles his way over to a pile of junk near the back of the cave, which he picks through for some coins. Then he wobble/shuffles back to offer the coins to Stalas and Annie.

"...thank you," says Stalas. He accepts the coins. Ruck shrug-nods.

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"It has some kind of side effect we don't know about," Annie mentions. "So once you're done fixing you might not want to have it any more. I can take it back when you're done."

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Ruck mumbles something unintelligible.

"Hmm?" says Stalas.

"...cure... how long...?"

"I had two crossbow bolts in my shoulder and after a couple of minutes of this I was fine," says Stalas. "But I don't know what it does about the taint, or how fast."

"You... you have..."

"Yeah," says Stalas. "I do. Still. I don't know. ...Annie, what if you gave him the one that disintegrates darkspawn? Alongside the healing? Might that solve the problem, if healing alone doesn't?"

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"We don't know which drawback goes with that one..." Unspoken: He might spontaneously fall in love with one of us.

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"Yeah."

"...if... cure..."

"One of the potential side effects is disappearing and appearing somewhere completely different. That's how Annie got here," Stalas adds.

"Ruck could leave?"

"Yes."

Shrug-nod-nod-nod, goes Ruck. "Be cured... leave," he mutters. "Never go home again. Never be here again... yes, yes."

"There are other possible side effects."

"Never go home," Ruck repeats.

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"You could wind up blind and deaf, or be really warm all the time... but if you want to leave I can just try everything on you one by one and see what goes with which?"

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Shrug-nod-nod-nod-nod. "Never go home. Never go home."

"Darkspawn disintegrator first, I think," says Stalas. "For the maximum chance of helping with his ghoul problem if that does turn out to be the one that vanishes you."

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"Yeah.

Tap.

And now Ruck is really uncomfortably warm, like he has been improbably surrounded on all sides by an open lava pit.

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"Aaah!" says Ruck.

"What's wrong?"

But Ruck is already calming down. Shrug-nod shrug-nod. "Too warm. She said. Too warm. That one."

"Not so bad," says Stalas.

Shrug-nod, nod, nod...

Stalas watches the changing tone of Ruck's movements thoughtfully. "Feeling better?" he asks.

Ruck nods. His control over his body seems noticeably improved already.

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