Completed Business As Usual (Valerius, Inoadar)

[Amolina]

Timestamp: During the minor flu of Day 47-50 Winter 513 AV
Location: The NMSS Research Location

Purpose of the thread
Skill levelling with room for social interaction. The thread is an experiment in order to try out this way of doing a soical & skill levelling thread together.

Rules

• SHORT posts
• Flexible turn order, we can just post on
• Same player can also post several times in a row in order to level skills at faster pace if somebody whishes to do that. If it's something long and complicated, think series of shorter posts where something is carried out step by step.
• Will be handed in as is, at the end of winter, with no parlticular need of wrap up.

Background Plot
The work and interaction at the NMSS Research Location is in full swing...Valerius is falling ill in the minor flu but doesn’t want to admit it. He tries hard to keep appearances up, says the ongoing epidemics confirms he was right to start the NMSS project and he’s now going to work night and day. So he can't meet any people, only his associates. It’s the same with Ino and Amo. All three of them are falling ill, but all of them refuse to admit it, all of them may try to make various treatments and other things of their choice, to help themselves and others, and so on. They lock the doors to the location and start working, none of them being at their best, and they will only leave the location very briefly to buy more ingredients now and then if needed.

***********************************************************************

First Amolina post - cooking tea :

Amolina was feeling depressed, sad, irritable and low this day. Everything seemed dull and grey. Not even the rose walls and the floral patterns in the office and lobby room could cheer her up. She decided to make tea.

Cooking wasn’t her forte, but tea was as easy as cooking comes, and even an absolute beginner could do it. She went to the simple kitchen place in the lab area and lit a cooking fire and poured water into a kettle. Valerius seemed very busy, looking at a bunch of notes he seemed to study very thoroughly. Nolan Parnell, the self-appointed king of this lab, tried to meddle and give besserwisser instructions for how too make tea. She ignored him - tea wasn’t rocket science. She could cook tea, for Rhysol’s sake ! How hard could it be ?! She took the boiling water off from the fire and added a spoonful of herbal tea mixture from a box the previous owner of the house had left behind. After waiting a few minutes she filtered it through a simple tea strainer of cloth, into another kettle - she made a mental note to buy a teapot - and the tea was ready.

Muttering to herself she poured herself a mug of the hot tea and put it on a free space on a table in the lab.

[Inoadar]

Inoadar - Noose Vine Tea

'If only my snot was a valuable component...I'd be a rich man.' Inoadar thought miserably as he dragged himself into the NMSS. He had no doubt that one of these wretches had generously bestowed their ailment on him. 'If I knew which one, I'd relieve their sinus pressure through their neck.' he sneered silently.

This flu was having its way with Ravok. Inoadar wondered briefly if Wrenmae had returned. The last time such health afflictions had stricken him, it had coincided with the presence of the man. He shrugged off the thought, categorizing it with other pointless and unverifiable notions. He had work to do, but it was hard to think when his head felt as though his horse was sitting on it. He had to do something about this pressure in his head.

None of the herbs he'd brought in had any such benefit to them though. They had many other effects. Sleep aid, nausea relief, stomach and body aches, sore throat, etc. But nothing for a simple, petching, stuffy nose. He hated the thought of admitting that Amolina's tea did more to clear his head than anything else. Not in the meditative sense of Calgonquit, but the simple relieving of sinus pressure.

He knew it was the steam and heat of the boiling water that relieved the swelling and loosened the stuffiness, he just wished it lasted longer. 'Well, better a few chimes than nothing,' he told himself as he helped himself to the strained tea, collected in one of his large beakers. He checked to ensure that this was one of the extra beakers that had not yet been used to brew poisons for research.

It struck him that there was some prior research he had done on the swollen flesh resulting from a particular poison he sold. He followed that train of thought to the follow-up discovery of the antidote, generated by the same plant, the Noose Vine.

Gears began to turn...

x

[Amolina]

Warning For Flu Tantrums !

Amolina cooks again - more herbal tea
The herbal tea had helped, but not by much. She still felt irritated, low, sad and now also angry, beause there was no tea left. Parnell had helped himself to most of it. She glanced at him, feeling annoyed, but didn't say anything.

Now she would need to make new tea ! Once again she poured water into the kettle and put it over the fire, waited for it to boil and added the last spoonfull of old herbal tea mixture. After waiting for around 5 chimes she filtered it.

She was irritated and clumsy and at got the last drips of hot water on her fingers. She dropped the empty kettle and it hit the floor with an unpleasant sound.

"Petch!"

The new tea was ready though. She filled her cup anew, drank some of the hot tea too early and burnt herself on the tongue. Getting angrier by the chime she left the cup on the table and donned her cloak.

"Be right back" she said, her voice somewhat hoarse.

She went out to buy more herbal tea mixture. She hoped this would be a quick thing to fix at The Spicy Lass, as she really didn't feel like going out at all.

[Inoadar]

Inoadar - Noose Vine Tea

They continued to turn all the way back to his shop. He staggered in, the walk taking more out of him than it should, and he looked through his papers to find the notes he'd made while working with Vanari on some perfume item. They had ultimately settled for candles...perfumed candles, but he'd still gotten some lists of herbs.

He found the one he was looking for...'Belltor! Yes, that was it.' The thought of going all the way to the Merchant's Ring, however, was daunting. Normally, it would be no trouble at all. But feeling as though he was drowning in his own mucus made it much worse. Feverish within chimes of going inside, shivering within chimes of going out, aching and dizzy...No, he was only grabbing the Noose Vines.

It was his good fortune that Vera had gotten around to cracking the husks on these, and collecting the outer fluid separately from the inner. He gathered the outer fluid up in a beaker and hurried, as best he could, back to the NMSS. Amolina was there, giving him dirty looks for some reason as she made more tea.

He set the beaker with the tea, that he'd set aside previously, on a burner. The simple process of boiling down the fluid from the Noose Vine was all it took to make the antidote, so he just poured it into the tea. He capped the beaker with a funnel spout lid and sat on the table to bring his nose in line with the spout where the steam would emit.

Normally, when he didn't know if something was going to work, he'd try it out on a patient first. But this was really just the processing of an antidote vapor and shouldn't have any ill effects he wouldn't already be aware of. And if it DID work, he needed it now! The patients could wait.

x

[Amolina]

Amolina tries to do impersonation when she enters The Spicy Lass

Amolina was shopping. It was perhaps only imagination and wishful thinking, but if felt like shopping helped a bit against the general misery she felt. At least temporarily. It hadn’t been fun to go to the Merchants Ring, to be honest the whole trip seemed to have been one long blur, but now she was here.

It also helped a great deal to pretend to be somebody else, who wasn’t feeling miserable, as far as Amolina knew. So Amolina decided to impersonate the mysterious Amelia Cross, the fortune teller Amelia used as a model for training at impersonation OOCApproved by Amelia before I started btw.

Thus, she made her facial expression calm and serious, yet somehow looking like she was smiling a nice and pleasant smile. Amelia’s face.

Then she thought about how the fortune teller had moved, with elegant and well, balanced movements and the soft and light voice she had spoken in. She also thought about the mysterious and vague way the girl had words things, making everything seem loaded with interesting secrets, yet kind of saying nothing substantial at all.

And now Amolina would do the same and try her best to come off as Amelia Cross. She opened the door to The Spicy Lass and stepped in. A small bell rang. With an elegant movement she closed the door behind her in a very well behaved manner. She turned her seemingly smiling face to the shop owner, Ruby. In very light, soft voice she made a sweet and polite greeting. Then she walked over to the shelves where the wares were displayed.

[Amolina]

Amolina tries to impersonate more in The Spicy Lass

The shop owner Ruby was a nice woman well dressed and with good manners. Her facial expression too was now smiling without smiling. Her goal was to sell as much as she could and the sweet and very well-behaved greeting she had received made her feel the well behaved customer was one of those people who could be persuaded to buy a great deal. She also seemed to have money, judging from the very good quality of the dark cloak she wore.

“What can I help you with? Are you looking for something special?”

“I’m out of herbal tea” Amolina said. ”I had a really nice tea mixture, but unfortunately I don’t know what it’s named.”

“We have several nice mixtures.” This was true. Many wares were displayed in baskets. But there were a number of small ceramic jars on a shelf nearby and each of them contained a different tea mixture. Ruby looked at Amolina and then she took one jar and opened it. “This one is named Sweet Dreams and very suitable for calming down in the evening before you go to bed. The smell is lovely, isn’t it?”

Amolina tried to smell the aroma of the tea mixture but it didn’t seem to smell much. The idea of sleeping appealed to her though. “Which herbs is it?” she asked. She really put in an effort to keep her voice light and sweet, but it came out somewhat husky. In order to conceal it she coughed. She made a small elaborate gesture with her hand, Amelia style, and delivered one of those somewhat vague and mysterious little speeches that was part of the impersonation.

“And I would like something that can cheer people up on a day like this. On a day like this people can need something to see things with new eyes and understand things that have been concealed for them before. It’s important for everybody to listen to their inner knowledge. It would be good with something that gives energy and makes you feel…clear and ready to go on with the day. ”

At this point she sneezed.

[Amolina]

Amolina - a last effort at impersonation in The Spicy Lass

“On days like this … well I guess you mean the unreliable weather, and all that dancing recently. People dance themselves tired, it seems. And there’s rumors that the weather at the Lakeshore isn’t nice.”

Ruby wasn’t sure what to think now. She put the Sweet Dreams tea away without bothering to answer Amolina’s questions about it. “You seem to have caught a cold ? Perhaps you would like to buy herbs and mix your own tea ? We have Belltor and Elentai. Both of them are helpful for feeling better. The Belltor is good against colds, very uplifting some people say, and Elentai can prevent infections … also, if you chew on a piece of Ellentai it can help against a troublesome stomach.”

Amolina sneezed again. Maybe Ruby was right and she was catching a cold.

“I’ll try it” she said. She moved her face back to the smiling without smiling expression and as she still wanted to impersonate Amelia Cross she added new words of vague wisdom. “We all need something uplifting now and then, in particular on days like this. But who can tell if one have caught a cold or been caught by a cold? There is a difference between catching something and be caught. However, it is wise to catch the things that try to catch you, because it’s better to catch than to be caught.”

Ruby glanced at her, bevildered. She wrote the names of the herbs on pouches of parchments and filled two of them with dried leafs and one with small pieces of something. “That will be 32 silver miza for 4 oz of Elentai leafs, 32 silver for 4 oz of pieces of dried Elentai root, and …” The Belltor would only be 40 copper mizas for the 4 oz, so Ruby said :

“Tell you what ! If you buy some of the Sweet Dreams tea mixture too I will give you a discount on belltor into the bargain ! It’s 3 gold miza for 4 oz of the tea. “ She smiled brilliantly. “The tea contains some Calgonquit, and that’s a very potent herb for making your mind be more clear” she added. “Pure Calgonquit is 12 gold mizas per oz, dried.” This was true. But she forgot to say the percentage of the rare and expensive herb in the tea was low. It was enough to give and effect, so why complicate this?

Amolina tried to think but felt too tired to figure out the total of all this.

“In total it would be 3 gold mizas and 64 silver” Ruby said helpfully. You'll get it for 10 gold miza. A bargain! "I'd advice you to start chewing at a piece of Elentai root at once." It wasn't really...she had rounded it up to 10. But the customer seemed bad at maths.

It seemed good. Amolina bought it all, paid and left with a sweet and well-behaved farewell.

Ledger- 10 GM : Elentai , Elentai root, Belltor, Tea Mixture “Sweet Dreams”

[Valerius Nitrozian]

Valerius was in a much worse mood than his two colleagues. He felt sick, and he absolutely hated it! Every now and then he glared at Amolina and Inoadar. He didn’t want them to say a single word about his condition to him. He was fine! The stuff that was coming out of his nose was due to whatever stuff the other two were making, and it was only natural that he would feel a little exhausted and sore after a long day in the laboratory.

While the other two were making things that would alleviate their symptoms, Valerius was doing something entirely different. He was convinced that, with three sick people who didn’t want to admit it, the whole research location was full of bacteria. The Nitrozian Estate was propbably even worse. While they were making what he assumed was medicine, Valerius was working on a disinfectant.

He poured water into a spray bottle and then added a few drops of tea trea oil into it. He had once heard Doctor Gaius Alzelin say that tea tree oil had anti-fungal properties, and right now anti-fungal properties definitely wouldn’t hurt. He glared at Amolina and Inoadar.

After he had added the tea trea oil, he put two tea spoons of vinegar into the bottle, and then he shook it.

Once he was convinced he had shaken the bottle enough, he started spraying it one every surface that he could see to get rid of all the digusting, invisible things that could make people sick. Normally he would consider it slave work, but right now he was just too worried.

And if Amolina and Inoadar had a problem with it, then so be it! They were just lowly commoners anyway!

[Inoadar]

Inoadar - Noose Vine Tea

Steam begin to puff from the spout of the apparatus. Inoadar leaned in, trying to inhale deeply through his nose, but barely managing to inhale at all. But slowly the anti-inflammatory started to work. As it did its job, he was able to breathe deeper, allowing ever better results. After a good half bell of nurturing the burner to keep the steam even. He took the beaker off and extinguished the flame.

He moved into the next room to find Valerius spraying the surfaces of everything with a vengeance. Inoadar asked him if he knew where Amolina had gone, but the doctor was either suffering from a sudden onset of deafness or he was ignoring him. Inoadar rolled his eyes 'Petching moody aristocrats!' he muttered to himself as he left the room. It smelled like vinegar in there anyway.

Not that his "tea" smelled much better. but at least his nose was cleared enough to smell at all! There was the base aroma of tea, but there was the added earthy smell of viney pungence.

He stole into Amolina's stores, looking for herbs. There was nothing useful on hand. He supposed she had gone to procure more, but for now, all he had were the unseasonal samples he'd managed to scrape out of the frosty countryside at the start of the season.

He found the withered leaves, and put them into an infusion chamber, which allowed the steam to pass across them. This caused a small degree of condensation, which collected to drip from vertical spouts in the underside of the tubular attachment. The color of the dripping liquid gave an indication of the concentration of any beneficial content. By the time he'd used the entire batch of leaves, he had less than a quarter of what he would normally gain. 'Oh well...I was lucky to get anything at all.' he groused.

Normally, it would then be boiled down to a syrup, to take a few drops at a time, but this was going to be put in the tea instead. He grieved for the taste, but there was nothing to be done about it. it occurred to him that sugar would be a good thing to keep on hand here as well.

x

[Amolina]

Amolina visits The People's Market. She learns about the minor flu symptomes (upset stomachs, vomiting, fever). She learns about the medical benefits of steeped lilypad root and honey. She learns about simple cooking recipes.

Amolina had an odd feeling in her stomach - hunger she concluded, she seemed to have forgotten to eat. As she already was in the Merchants ring she decided to use the time efficiently and buy food. She entered the market and stopped to take in the atmosphere. There was lots of wares on display as usual, but she was under the impression that there were fewer customers around than there normally used to be.

She walked over to her favorite vegetable seller. The gnarled old man who was a good seller and had a talent for making people buy higher quantities and more things than they had planned - but he didn’t cheat with the quality so albeit she used to end up buying too much, the wares used to stay fresh long enough that none of them went to waste. Also, she found him entertaining.

There used to be a queue, but this day there was no one before her and she got to order at once. That was the good news. The bad news was that Amolina seemed to not be able to feel like eating anything at all, despite all the beautiful grains, eggs, cheeses, fruits and vegetables in front of her. She looked at them and she felt the odd feeling in her stomach, yet she didn’t want to eat.

“I seem to not have an appetite today” she said apologetically.
“So? Perhaps you have caught the cold then. Lots of people have. They say the symptoms are upset stomachs and fever. Some people have vomiting attacks too.” The old man sat on a stool behind the table where he showed his wares.

Now he pointed to big jar on the right side of the table. “There you have steeped lilypad root. Best quality, from the lilypad farms at Lakeshore. Tea from it makes wonders if you want to cure chills and colds.”

He looked at her. “If you aren’t feeling hungry I bet you’re falling ill. You ought to make sure to have lots of steeped lilypad root at home, if you don’t want to fall victim to this nasty cold that everybody seems to catch. It’s only a question of time before you too fall ill, sad to say that, but as I said, the lilypad root will help you.”

It sounded good…Amolina bought quite a lot of steeped lilypad root, now when she had learnt about it’s medical properties.

Somehow the seller managed to also make her buy a pint of honey, which he said was known to help against colds too. At this point he found and empty basket behind the table and sold this too to her. Amolina put all the things she had bought from him and from The Spicy Lass in the basket. She felt weak and tired, but he shopping cheered her up. She agreed to buying more now when she had the basket and everything seemed more practical and possible.

Before she knew it she had been persuaded to make omelette with tomatoes, hot and spicy vegetable soup and toasted bread. The seller told her it was easy cooking and gave her a short instruction to follow.

She bought a dozen of fresh eggs (guaranteed non-kelvic) , 1 ounce of dried tomatoes, the sellers own homemade “hot spice mix” with a touch of something named “chilies” in it , 2 ounces of mixed dried vegetables and a one day old bread “nothing wrong with it, just roast it over fire and it will be like fresh again”. She also bought butter and got salt into the bargain, and a few cooking tips.

She paid in total 5 gold mizas for this, “the basket included, a good buy”. She felt content but very tired. No more shopping now, she decided. She went to take a ravonsala straight back to the Nitrozian- Moletta research location.