Researching Barriers I: A Brief History of Everything.

[Faith Augustin]

4th Vhalar 720

From her first step out into the world, on 20th Ymiden, in Arc 716, Faith had been focused. Focused on helping people, on understanding her place in the world and on knowing. Always on knowing. A few trials later she had met the man who would, in a very real sense, set her on the path to who she was. Malcolm Krome had told her, that trial, about the university. From there, things had changed and grown. Malcolm - or Lord Krome as she had known him, and his wife, Lady Elyna had been her friends. So Faith had believed. But then, of course, the truth had outed and people who were genuinely so had come into her life.

But she had learned a lot from Lord Krome and Lady Elyna. Not all of them negative, many of them positive. And one of the things that she could make a difference. No matter what, no matter who, one could make a difference. But also, it reminded her of who she was. Where she had come from. Faith often considered that. Looking back was important and, in doing so with new information, allowed you to come to new conclusions, learn new things.

Which was the next step in terms of the blood.

Her and Padraig had studied the dragon blood, the blood of the mortals from Vetrarstig, and now Faith wanted to go back and look at all the research on diseases. She and Padraig had studied the blood itself, but what she sought to do now was to find links to it in relation to things which changed blood. To look at known blood mutations which might - unbeknownst to her - mutate human blood, or biqaj blood, eidisi or any of the races in such a way as to give them a similarity to either the dragons or the mortals in Frosvindurr's realm.

It was unlikely, Faith knew. Her knowledge of Medicine and study of blood was such that she would probably know of anything which looked the same. But probably and might and could happen were not sufficient. She needed to be sure. And, the only way to be sure was to start at the beginning and - in terms of study of blood - that meant that she'd need to revisit all that was known.

A brief history of everything, Faith thought, and started.

[Faith Augustin]

4th Vhalar 720

It made sense to her to start with two races. Humans and ithecal. Humans because she had studied the blood of humans beyond the Barriers and ithecal because there was very obviously something about Ithecal and Dragons which were related. That was of interest to her, but she knew that Varlum was dealing with that side of things in terms of speaking to Ethelynda. When they met back up, then she'd find out what he had.

But right now, she wanted to look at the blood at a basic, simple level. She had always had a focus on blood, from the very early stages of her medical training, and so she had built up a wealth of knowledge. Sometimes, though, Faith knew, it was important to go back to the very basics and that was what she was doing to-trial. She had dragon blood, kaldvind blood, human blood from humans beyond the barrier and human blood from someone this side of the barrier. She began the process of putting it through a variety of tests.

Just as she had, all those arcs ago, Faith knew that she had to get down to the real basics with the blood now. Separating it out into yellow blood and red blood, then measuring both against all the scientific baselines she had taken as part of her Charter of Science. Separating out the blood, she got started. Viscosity, pH level, reaction to other chemicals. Faith had all of these baseline measurements for each of the races, separated out by age and gender, but she needed to make sure that she wasn't missing something basic.

It was a raft of tests, and they each took time. That didn't matter to her, she knew that it was the case and she had more than sufficient patience to do so. Then, it was time to start testing in relation to diseases. To mutations. To everything she could find. Nothing to do with ether or ectoplasm or ephemera, those were things they were looking at already, but this was things like Lightbane, like The Rot, like the Rynmere plague carrier disease. All of these things were tested, every injectable disease that she had - each poison and antidote.

Because she had to know the limits and the capacities in order to fully understand and she had to fully understand. It was the only way that she could be sure, Faith knew. Also there might be something here which was completely unrelated to the information she and Padraig were researching but it might just make a breakthrough in medicine.

And so, one thing at a time, slowly, carefully and always writing things down, Faith got on with it. First, for the humans. That left her with nothing remarkable, but she did it anyway. Only once she was sure that these were humans who were exactly the same as the humans this side of the barrier did Faith get started on the next bit.

Because the next bit was the dragon blood and it was there that she thought things might - just might - be about to get really interesting.

[Faith Augustin]

4th Vhalar 720

The dragon blood was remarkable.

Faith saw lots about it which delighted and intrigued her, but she maintained her focus away from the ether of it (that had been the focus when she and Padraig had looked together). No, in this moment she was researching dragon blood with a medic's eyes. So, she lowered her gaze to the magnifier and she began to study it.

It was unlike anything Faith had ever seen before and she took her time considering it. There were some similarities with ithecal blood and she first got her notes from when she had catalogued all the different races bloods, when she began her Charter in Medicine, and she began to compare. It was true that Faith didn't need those notes - she remembered everything perfectly, but that was a lazy way to work in her mind and she didn't do it. While she could recall everything, the notes themselves gave her a visual, made her focus. She had learned the valuable lesson that remembering and analysing were two very different things.

So, she got on with that. The points of comparison with ithecal blood were noted - each similarity written down. Then, she looked at the differences, because the similarities were rather defined by them. Each one, noted down and carefully considered. When next she saw Varlum, Faith considered, she was going to do some experimenting with his blood and dragon blood together. Would he be able to be a recipient of dragon blood, she wondered. Then, of course, her mind went to all sorts of scenarios. Varlum was a mortalborn, the son of Faldrun. That might lead to a different answer than a pure blood ithecal. She would definitely need to check that out, Faith thought.

Once she was absolutely sure that she had exhausted all aspects of comparison between dragon and ithecal blood, Faith focused on the cells. First, she separated out the two types of blood, using her foot-operated centrifuge, and she examined them carefully. There was - as with all living things - the yellow blood and then there was the red blood which most races had. What fascinated Faith was the sheer number of infection fighting cells which were in this dragon blood. That had to be helpful, she thought. Could it be something that she could do and....

... and why had she never thought of that? Those cells fought infection. The more of them there were naturally, the better that the body fought infection and diseases. But also, if they had 'practice' at fighting something particular, then the body was naturally better at fighting again. Could there be a way to make that helpful? To remove some blood, infect it with a tiny amount of a disease - strengthen that blood with more of these infection fighting cells and then, put the blood back in?

Thoughts were swirling around her mind as she considered it. It could work, she knew it could. Once inside the body, the stronger and more resistant cells would grow and multiply and provide a level of defence, surely? Faith's hands moved, quickly writing down her ideas. It would require testing and re testing - but if it was the patient's own blood, then there would be no issues with rejecting blood. She could even look at introducing tiny levels of a disease in order to build up resistance to it.

Could this work? Faith thought it could and if it could, then she could take a step in proactive protection against disease, rather than reactive curative measures. It had to be worth a shot.

[Jackalope]

]

Experience: +10 xp

Magic xp? No.

Collaboration: No.
Renown: +15 for discovering some important unique features of dragon blood. I’m going to say that’s major as dragons aren’t just another species of lizard.
Injuries/Overstepping: None.
Loot: No.

Skillplay: Appropriate to level.

Knowledge:


Investigation x 2
Detection x 2
Research x 2

Comments
Exciting stuff. You manage to take what is essentially a story of somebody looking at slides under a microscope and make it interesting. And you don’t even have a soundtrack.

Faith is developing a method for making medicinal serums. Also, the differences between dragon blood and ithecal blood.

I love your description of Faith’s work ethic, and how she eschews using her Bellinos ability as a crutch. Being able to retrieve data is not the same as being able to organize and analyze it!

I’ve been racking my brains trying to think of more to say, but I think that’s about it.

Enjoy your rewards!