“If you are sure…I will take you both up for assistance. If you would begin to clean and prepare the table.” Tanner nods, and the princess Olympia watches Dedren for a few moments, fascinated by the tendrils moving so fluidly,”...Miss. Caelum, do you have a question?” She freezes, eyes wide,
“I…yes. A few.” She wasn’t this nervous usually, but…she chalks it up to being around strangers in a place she’s never been before,”What made you want to work here?” He pauses,
“...compensation. I was a private butler for some time, but my duties changed, and though sometimes tough-I quite enjoy working here.” Olympia admires the ivory plates decorated with green ivys,
“What makes your job so tough?” Tanner laughs, cleaning the streaks off the glasses,
“Eden fighting him, tha messes we book it and tha whole place falling apaht.”
“Are we discusseing eden or Das workplace?” Lilith chimes in, sauntering over to a spot and taking a seat,” because either I want in on.” she crosses her legs and looks over at Olympia, “...go ahead Anne ask.” she snips at the stary eyed teen. Olympia stutters, caught off guard that she already knew she had questions. NOt only was she beautiful, but apparently a mind reader as well,
“Oh. uh… i was just going to ask why you’re here…working here I mean. Look at you. You could be a model or something.” Lilith looks apprehensive, but shrugs…how little can she divulge about herself to satisfy this…girl. To keep her from asking even more questions as well.
“Fuhrer needed Eh drug dealer…here i am.” She’s not giving more than she has to. Gods only know she could just be a test from Mr. Huxley about keeping shit private. Olympia blinks in confusion,
“Drug…dealer? So, uh… I bet you have a lot of experience with new and unusual things like the stranger’s syndrome, right?” So that’s what she was hinting about - Lilith knew she was trying a round about way of asking about something. She leans back and silently stares at Olympia,
“How, exactly, Vould you know about that…minus all Das militaristic brain washing, hm?” Olympia takes a seat close to Lilith, and looks at the middle of a plate. Should she really explain everything?
“...I was…curious and such. Bought a secret laptop but even then I’m not certain what’s real and what’s rumours.” Lilith nods, knowing many of the conspiracies the web has on Drifera,
“Fein then- Vat do you know?” she smiles at Dedren as he pours her a drink-something stronger than what she normally has. He knows a lot more about her than everyone else, and thankfully he’s not a snitch either. Olympia pauses, watching the interaction between the two before rubbing her arm,
“...what i’ve found is it’s really contagious and painful, and can turn people into evil, mean monsters.” Lilith takes a sip of her drink and sighs. Of course she’d find that out. That what everyone thinks,
“Nein quite. It Izt contagious, Anne some Oef Das stages are painful - but it doesn’t turn everyone into mindless, evil monsters. …nobody really knows where driftera originated, but we do know it’s in Eh crystal form when it makes contact with organic life - so plants, animals, people… i Tink they’ve even seen it’s crystal form on nonorganic life, like rocks Anne metal.. It's Eh mineral-esq magical corruption that'll increase your odds Oef Nein only haveing your own magic go wild, but turneing you feral.” lilith sighs, and stretches her arm,” so, as i said - there’s four stages. there's 4 stages; acute, chronic, stage 3 Anne feral.” She pauses, “just…give me Eh piece Oef paper Anne Eh pen. I don’t feel like sayeing all Oef this…as Vell as Eh lighter.” Olympia nods, and after a few moments, returns with the requested things. Lilith stretches again, before quickly scratching down a few things,”Read quick, because i’m burneing Zis after.”
Acute: the afflicted have been exposed. There's odd smoke when there’s high emotions, and hard bumps on you that sometimes bleed. Those afflicted look paler, and their eyes look cloudy. Gives a 10-30% of their magic going wild.
Chronic stage means they’ve been exposed for 3-7 days. They’re paper white, and you look like they’re blind. There's a colourful, glowing and smoking thing coming from their chest - and it hurts occasionally. Those bumps? Yeah - those were...crystals. Now you're bleeding and there's a lot of raw, jagged crystals over your skin. Highly infectious in every sense of the way, and they have a 40-50% their spells going wild.
Stage 3; Distorted physical form, the color smoke corrupting their entire being. They do have extra eyes popping out of their"head" now. there;s a 60-80% of wild magic. An 80% chance they’'ll stay this way, and won't go towards feral unless they fight the wild magic, or egg it on somehow. they’re not as infectious as they were in chronic, but the crystals can break off and infect plant and animal life, even bacterial
Feral: You're not you anymore. No face, just smoke. Distorted long limbs and hands, tall lanky...90-100% of all magic is corrupted and wild. legs look like twisted paper and it's unstable. You can, and will try to infect anyone else you can and/or spread the crystals. Nobody knows what drives those infected this far into doing what they do.
Lilith is watching olympia read, attempting to digest everything she just wrote. As she finishes re-reading all of it, she hands it back,
“...How…do you know all this?” Lilith lights the paper aflame as Dedren goes to comfort Lilith, having been informed a while back about how she knows. Her mom went through all the stages...including feral. She had to "take care" of her own mom, burn her house down, and flee the country. It's why she's always drunk... though Dedren doesn't approve of it, he...unfortunately understands the pain. Olympia frowns, not quite getting it but attempting to piece it together,”You were affected by it, weren’t you?”
“i neit tae speir ye something, but ye have tae promise me ye won’t get mad at me.” Eden doesn’t look at Goss, flipping through his outdated CPT coding book,
“I’ll make no such promises, but ask away.” he bounces his leg looking for “temporary pacemaker”, which he put in a few days ago . 33210. There it is. Goss seems nervous, which isn’t like himself,
“Ye neit tae promise me, caelum.” he drops the book off to the side with a thud and types the number into the insurance portal. Fucking hated this shittily programed site, but it was necessary,
“Fine. I promise. What’s got you bent out of shape?” Goss nods, and takes a seat on one of the tables- making it groan under his weight. Maybe sitting on something that has a weight limit was a bad idea,
“Alricht sae, we’ve went ower genitalia an gonads. However- whit gin a man has female genitalia? or, er… the primary, no the secondary genitalia?” Eden doesn’t stop looking over the insurance website,
“You’re asking about me, aren’t you?” he doesn’t sound mad, just deadpan.
“Thon A am, but ye promisit ye wouldn’t get mad.” He sounds like a child. Behaves like one too,
“I’m not. I figured you’d ask eventually. I’m transgender - born with female genitalia, but a man.” Goss tilts his head, and Eden sighs, saving his work,”I did have secondary sex characteristics, breasts, but I had a double mastectomy so I would look how I am. I take hormones, like the white bottle pumps you’ve seen in my bag, Testosterone. So, I don’t have a penis…doesn’t mean I can’t bend you over. ” he shrugs, and goes back to his work,”There are technologic…things.” Goss chuckles and nods. That solves some of the scars, but not why he’s so scrawny. Doesn’t testosterone make you build more muscle?
“Sae, whit i’m hearin is you’re a self made man. Can’t say the same for some o the soldiers under me. Are ye stronger than them…i wonder…” Eden looks up at him,
“You really want to test that, big man? I’ve already put you on your knees before.” Goss scoffs,
“A let ye win thon time, A hope ye know.” The wood elf stands, folding his arms,
“Are you sure about that? Because-” Goss scoops him up, throwing him gently over his shoulder,”A shoud have also mentioned, it’s close tae dinner. We’ll ficht later.” he laughs, shaking some of the glass as Eden looks pissed. That fucking manipulative bastard! Thank fuck he saved, but still!
“You motherfucker!!” he yells as Goss fucking books it out the door, thundering towards the kitchen- laughing his ass off as he does so.
