Sideplot: Plague Doctor [cw for organ disease, decay, death, etc]

[biomed]

All right, so McCoy infiltrated a clinic over the blackout and got himself unintentionally infected with the Plague™.

While the health center will be able to immediately stabilize him and hit him with a serum to delay the inevitable, he'll need as many healer hands on deck to keep him alive through the rest of the Arc– and to work in tandem with him to engineer a cure.

This plot is entirely opt-in only.

More info is under the cuts below, courtesy of the mod!

Symptoms

"effectively, what's kick-starting is a fast-acting and faster-spreading decay. His organs are dying faster in parts than he is as a whole."

Biologically: lungs start to wither, intestines to contract and gain holes, tissue is falling apart, the works.

Emotionally: he'll start feeling increasingly listless, detached from his body, low on appetite, low on basic necessities like sleep.

Mentally: still sharp, no loss of memory, possibly some of the sense of time, if he is gradually disconnecting from his body — he wouldn't receive or acknowledge stimuli as fast.

Spiritually: he wouldn't know this, but he'd start feeling more and more dead to necromancers and those sensitive to life forces.

What Healers Can Do For Him

Let's let them help him both ways: through classical medicine (which Bones can also use to the best of his ability) and spiritually.

For classical medicine, they need to:
— alleviate his pains, such as they are
— take down his fever, if and when it becomes apparent
— give him tonics and anything that stimulates cell replenishment / rejuvenation. I don't know what that is in their respective canons. They can look it up.
— if they can outright... remove decay or fully replenish his flesh, you can decide with them it should work for, but it shouldn't be permanent

For spiritual/magical healing:
— exorcisms, get the death out of him — like the physical sickness, it keeps coming back
— get healthy energy in him, to sustain his sad, pathetic, crumbling body — again, up to you/them how long you want this to sustain him

Per Mod suggestion (and bc it makes sense!) items and methods will have more of an effect in the early days, then gradually start to lose their efficacy toward the end of the 8-10 weeks.

If your character isn't a healer but still wants to help out, he'll need cr to raid medical centres regularly for medicine, or supply him & healers with supplies/equipment.

He'll also need to be snuck out of the medical center and isolate so he can actually work on a cure, whomp whomp. Once we have a solid idea of who wants in, I'll slap up a network post for him and we'll be off to the races!

Comments

[rumorate]

I have a potentially terrible idea?

[groundrules]

.................I love that this is the first comment.

[biomed]

Do tell 👀

[silverneedles]

Wen Qing will (happily? willingly) help him out-- she's both a proper physician and can provide painkillers and tonics for rejuvenation/vitality/etc. How does he feel about acupuncture? It won't hurt a bit, really. She can also help with getting health energy in him through spiritual energy transfers. All while lecturing him endlessly and being very grumpy that he went and did this when he should know better; what kind of a doctor are you?

[biomed]

McCoy is extremely pro-any form of treatment that works, he won't be picky. Getting to put their heads together will be outstanding. And GOOD, he'll deserve having the shoe on the other foot for once. Stupid clinic and it's stupid ineffective ppe 😩

[weifinder]

Wen Qing, please use energy from the werewolf, he's a practical battery of regenerating energy she can syphon to use for other things

please be his energy vampire

[sunnydaymonic]

I have a modern-trained baby doctor here who also happens to have magical healing/soul sensory abilities he tries to avoid using (for Reasons). He would be very Concerned about a plague going around want to research how to cure it.

[biomed]

Time to put their heads together and get Team Antibiotics up and running then!

[soulsrob]

I meeeaaannn

If Bones isn't terribly attached to his soul, Winnie has no problem sneaking his soul away from his body for a bit of rest in-between this.... she just needs as few people as possible to know about it and also for Bones to swear to secrecy on it sooo

He can complain in her head and she can just pop his soul back into his body to keep his soul from withering away. give bones a lil break.

just a lil

or something

[biomed]

He would probably be too hesitant to take Winnie up on her offer, which sucks because that's such a cool power! Once things start to ramp up he might change his mind though.

[matermali]

Everybody here is offering some bonkers options and here she is just...

...offerin' some soup. You want some soup? Also, don't let her fancy look fool you, she is more than happy to be a gofer at some point if she hears about this through the grapevine. She ain't afraid of no plague.

[biomed]

Soup would be lovely and so very comforting, he accepts.

And he will absolutely provide Vanessa with a list of needed items once they get going. Would she be interested in helping him initially get out of the clinic?

[weifinder]

Wei Wuxian over here to help as a necromancer! His husband and son also being exorcists, he's just the uh. Passably most fun one. But yes he's here to help and to brainstorm re a cure, considering the decay aspects. He's also got resurrection magic, they might try that on an organ... ALSO HE HEALS he forgets this but he learned how in Taravast. Easier for him to do necromancer related things though, energy wise!

If someone can channel energy, Licyn is essentially a magic battery that works as healthy regenerating energy--so he can donate, but I'd need a character able to facilitate, since it's a passive ability for Licyn!

[biomed]

Awesome! Yeah, this is looking like they'll need some kind of multi-pronged approach to treatment (which means more nifty folks getting to pool resources and skills), so Wei Wuxian will be more than welcome! Resurrection magic could probably work, per mod rules, it just wouldn't be permanent.

[paperbutterflies]

Sizhui is absolutely down for the exorcism route, even repeatedly if it keeps coming back BUT gives a respite (and maybe? a delay in the worsening?) of the simptoms...

[incantates]

I have a magical healer capable of donating energy, numbing pain, regenerating wound sites, and a bit of exorcism on the side. Whatever is lacking, he can fill in the gaps. Also comes equipped with booze if you want to go that pain-numbing route...

[biomed]

All of that sounds marvelous, and booze will rapidly endear Magnus to McCoy, forreal.

[chosenbylight]

HELLO I have a magical healer I would love to lend to the cause!!! Anduins healing is technically using the power of The Light to heal, aka… Life Energy??

Basically he could help heal him and also give him energy top-ups and/or just help him feel not so shitty for a little while??? Up to you how long you want although Anduins magic is pretty strong so he could definitely bring in the Big Guns when they are needed

He’d definitely be interested working towards finding a cure with him as well 👀

[biomed]

YEAH big guns will be greatly appreciated and needed, especially once he starts getting in deep and the less-powerful efforts start to not become as effective.

I'm thinking once we know who's all volunteering we can say they've got an ic schedule going, and we can start working out how they'll pool their efforts toward a lasting cure.

[intermingled]

GDI BONES HE JUST MET YOU AND YOU'RE ALREADY FALLING APART

[biomed]

LOOK HE WAS NOT INFORMED OF JUST HOW VIRULENT THESE BLACKOUT CASES WERE AND FURTHERMORE THEIR PROTOCOLS SUCK AND THEIR PROTECTIVE GEAR SUCKS AND—

Look after Jim, please.

[winscenario]

Jim is pretty useless in terms of medical stuff and magical healing, but he can and will do these things:
- break Bones out of the medical center
- with Spock's help (with Lauren's agreement of course), set up Bones's room so it's an actual effective isolation room, and design/create PPE that actually works (other characters are more than welcome to join in on this)
- break into whatever facility he has to in order to get Bones any supplies he needs to work on the cure

[biomed]

Perfect ❤️ I've pinged you & Jesse on plurk so we can work out the Bones-heist, and I'll make a note on the post that that's preemptively sorted.

He'll be non-infectious while he's receiving treatment so pls additional, therapeutic hand holding?

[reparo]

For her troubles in Ke-Waihu, Hermione did get rewarded a one-use medicine that would cure a disease - is this something worth fucking around to find out over?

[biomed]

Definitely worth it to Bones, since he's pretty anti-dying-horribly! I'll point groundrules this way & see what's appealing.

[hatejakku]

Finn doesn't have an healing abilities (yet), but what he does have is a can-do attitude, a dubious yet reputable and admirable criminal background, and gigantic puppy dog eyes.

tldr, throwing his name in to help raid clinics for medical supplies/medicines, if you need more folks on that detail.

I would offer him to help break Bones out but he'd probs do more harm than good, lbr.