[Nexus] Mallside V

[Halae]

[EE - Dorota's Lab]

And thus, with Crissy and Syela's help - mostly Syela's - Dorota will commence her tests. First test is cutting the apples into small slices and putting them in her testing solutions to try and break their properties down to their basic components and figure out how they do what they do.

[EE - Dorota's Lab]

This has an... odd effect. Without the physical anchor of the apples, the fey magic is going to burst forth from the solutions and any plant material (including dead ones, such as a wooden table) are going to see a bit of leafy growth. It might also have the effect of making the girls a bit giddy if they don't have magical protections handy, and finally any class in the area should turn an odd color; the further away from the solution it is, the less of a change the color shift will have.

[Lost_Deep]

[Dana's Place]

"I'm sure they'll get it all sorted out soon." Dana says reassuringly. She sure hopes they do at least. Lily may be here safe with her, but there's still all the other kids at the orphanage.

"I guess we'll just have to wait and see." Gerri looks over at Lily. Hope she'll be okay.

[Slii Arhem]

Mental Menagerie]

Eric's brow furrows, "Yog-Sothoth then? I thought I was free of him. Prism and Scylla should be the only far-presence in the family."

He's not particularly happy about what Waldorf just implied. Obviously, this predicament came with a lot of power, but power at a price always feels constraining.

Mental Menagerie

"Or something else in the Far that has taken an interest in you. And the worse it gets, the less I'm going to be able to enjoy your company. Having the eyes of the far cast directly upon me is something I try to avoid." Waldorf admits from next to nowhere once more.

"If it is Yog-Sothoth, it should come as no surprise. He is nothing if not patient in his machinations. But, there are ways of delaying what seems inevitable. Or at least the negative bits. Fortunately, one of those ways is what we were going to do here in the first place, so I'll leave you to that and see how it turns out." The floating appendages Waldorf was speaking from vanish, and Julie sighs before speaking up.

"If it isn't one thing, it's another. Alright Eric, we'd better get this done with so we can pump Wally for information about what's going on. He's way too slippery when he's spooked like that." She sits crosslegged next to Nathaniel's apparition and pats the space in front of her, gesturing for Eric to sit as well.

"We'd usually do this with everyone here, but that wouldn't be possible even if we could grab Wally and make him hold still for a second, since both Rocid and Jakob are missing. It's really just ceremonial anyway. What you have to do is open a telepathic link to me, and I'll lead it through to all the others. Each will put a hook in you, so to speak, so you'll still be connected to them while I lead you on to the next. Once you're connected to all of us, we can guide you into place and settle you in permanently. Sound good?"

Dana's Place

Lily is just quietly drawing on the floor where she was left, trying her best not to listen in on the conversation despite having better hearing than most give her credit for. Whatever happened to Gerri, it sounds really sad.

She draws extra fast, hoping that her picture will cheer Gerri up a bit, but it's not done yet.

[Halae]

[Mental Menagerie]

Eric frowns towards the location where Waldorf was speaking from, but complies. First off, he peels Scylla off of his chest, then sits down in front of Julie as bid, leaving his daughter to sit off to the side with Prism.

He'll then open a telepathic link to Julie, allowing his mind to be open to her. He doesn't say anything in this time, except giving Scylla a look that means she shouldn't do anything disruptive. At very least, she knows that look by now. In the meantime she occupies herself by poking her sister with a tentacle.

[Morty]

[EE - Dorota's Lab]

"Oh, my," Dorota says, blinking as the magic erupts. She does have the laboratory protected by various alchemical sigils, though. "They're a lot more volatile than I thought. Or rather, the fey magic in them seems to be."

[Gullara]

[EE - Dorota's Lab]

Syela takes a little step back away from the now more leafy table. That was rather unexpected. "That's pretty crazy." She comments. "What are we going to do now?" Hopefully progress hasn't been halted.

[The Bushranger]

[EE - Dorota's Lab]

"Oooh, that was pretty wild!" Crissy giggles, maybe just a little on the giddy side. But, then again, that might be hard to tell. "But I guess they really are pretty potent, aren't they?"

[Morty]

[EE - Dorota's Lab]

"We continue as planned, only with more caution and using other equipment," Dorota says. "Namely, more secure testing tubes. Let's get those apples over there," she says, pointing at another table. It contains similar equipment as the one they're using right now, but made of a different sort of glass and inscribed with runes here and there. Dorota uses it for testing more volatile substances. "Let's try it now." The alchemist will try to repeat the process, using a smaller sample and hoping that the equipment - treated and carved with runes to contain the properties of magical substances in it - will produce results without the apples transmuting everything around them.

[Halae]

[EE - Dorota's Lab]

Contained within the test tube will be a swirling golden light, which makes the solution swirl with it. if there's any form of escape for it, it'll do something similar to what the previous samples just did

[Gullara]

[EE - Dorota's Lab]

"Whoa, that's so cool." Syela leans in to take a closer look at the swirling substance. "That's amazing that that came from those apples."

[Dana's Place]

Dana nods and looks back at Lily as well. "Hey sweetie, how's that picture coming?" She asks, a sudden surge of warmth fulling her voice.

[The Bushranger]

[EE - Dorota's Lab]

Crissy leans in as well, peering at the Golden Swirly Thing.
"Ooooh. It's pretty! So, that's, like, Fey Energy?"

[Morty]

[EE - Dorota's Lab]

Dorota picked a test tube from special glass and inscribed with runes to make it durable and magic-resistant. The fey energy won't escape.
"Yes, quite," she says. "Really unstable, though. This is one of my most secure tubes. It'll be a challenge to harness this potential for change and make it work consistently." Her tone indicates she doesn't mind the challenge at all, however.

[Gullara]

[EE - Dorota's Lab]

Syela nods and glances at her notebook. She's gotta remember all the things she wants to write.

"What kind of things do you usually do when you're working with things like this that aren't solid or liquid?"

[The Bushranger]

[EE - Dorota's Lab]

Crissy takes a step back from the table, waiting for any directions to help.

[Morty]

[EE - Dorota's Lab]

"I try to make them either solid or liquefy them," Dorota says. "It's not easy, of course. We'll have to make a special elixir for that purpose. And if that works, we will still have to make it change the things we want it to instead of randomly making plants grow and increasing bust size," she adds.

[Gullara]

[EE - Dorota's Lab]

Syela giggles and nods. "I gotcha. We probably don't want that happening." She says with a silly grin that can't be seen behind her mask. "So how do we do that?" She asks, even if she figures it's about to be demonstrated.

[Slii Arhem]

[EE - Dorota's Lab]

"Whoa, that's so cool." Syela leans in to take a closer look at the swirling substance. "That's amazing that that came from those apples."

[Dana's Place]

Dana nods and looks back at Lily as well. "Hey sweetie, how's that picture coming?" She asks, a sudden surge of warmth fulling her voice.

Dana's Place

"Good!" Lily chirps brightly, "Not done yet though. You can keep talking quietly if you like. I don't mind." The little girl completely fails to keep it a secret that she heard most or all of the hushed conversation as she scribbles the last few strokes of whatever she decided to draw for her new friend. She's laying down on her chest over it, so it's quite hard to see what she has drawn from Dana's angle. Something that takes up most of the page, that's for sure.

[Mental Menagerie]

Eric frowns towards the location where Waldorf was speaking from, but complies. First off, he peels Scylla off of his chest, then sits down in front of Julie as bid, leaving his daughter to sit off to the side with Prism.

He'll then open a telepathic link to Julie, allowing his mind to be open to her. He doesn't say anything in this time, except giving Scylla a look that means she shouldn't do anything disruptive. At very least, she knows that look by now. In the meantime she occupies herself by poking her sister with a tentacle.

Mental Menagerie

Prism responds by making the tentacle visibly purple by changing the light wavelengths that hit it. She has the intuitive twin thing going on full bore with her natural empathy, and so she highly suspects that this is the reaction Scylla was looking for.

Julie begins the process with the next closest Fiske, Nathaniel. She will attempt to guide and pull Eric's mind through hers and into the web that makes up the Fiske hivemind. When viewed astrally, it makes up a massive cloud of vapor that surrounds and fuses with other smaller and more dense clouds of varying colours and roiling intensities. Each bears small bits of the others within it, making them all hard to tell apart if you don't spend an interminable amount of time peering into them to determine the dominant shade.

Eric's mind currently rests in Julie's cloud, which then floats over to Nathaniel's and fuses with it, mixing as easily as water with water while they both slip over and around Eric as if he were a hovering ball of oil. Slowly, both attempt to slip a tendril of their colour into his mind and leave it there as a marker. As they do this, the other clouds slowly draw towards them and join the medley of radiant fog, the rainbow of minds condensing into one for this event.

Each does the same, attempting to leave a piece of themselves with Eric before they all move back as one. Assuming that all completes itself without incident, Julie will move herself away and leave Eric, implanted with shards of their personalities, to his own headspace. In the astral space around him a fog of colours will begin to swirl and twist, his own psionic link to each of them. While he has not joined the Fiske clan's mental weft, he should be anchored to them all, and will be able to contact them through it no matter where he is, or receive aid from them in time of trouble.

[Lost_Deep]

Dana's Place

Gerri will just wait, if Dana doesn't have anything more to say. She can't help but wonder what Lily draws... she is blind, after all.

[Halae]

Mental Menagerie

Prism responds by making the tentacle visibly purple by changing the light wavelengths that hit it. She has the intuitive twin thing going on full bore with her natural empathy, and so she highly suspects that this is the reaction Scylla was looking for.

Julie begins the process with the next closest Fiske, Nathaniel. She will attempt to guide and pull Eric's mind through hers and into the web that makes up the Fiske hivemind. When viewed astrally, it makes up a massive cloud of vapor that surrounds and fuses with other smaller and more dense clouds of varying colours and roiling intensities. Each bears small bits of the others within it, making them all hard to tell apart if you don't spend an interminable amount of time peering into them to determine the dominant shade.

Eric's mind currently rests in Julie's cloud, which then floats over to Nathaniel's and fuses with it, mixing as easily as water with water while they both slip over and around Eric as if he were a hovering ball of oil. Slowly, both attempt to slip a tendril of their colour into his mind and leave it there as a marker. As they do this, the other clouds slowly draw towards them and join the medley of radiant fog, the rainbow of minds condensing into one for this event.

Each does the same, attempting to leave a piece of themselves with Eric before they all move back as one. Assuming that all completes itself without incident, Julie will move herself away and leave Eric, implanted with shards of their personalities, to his own headspace. In the astral space around him a fog of colours will begin to swirl and twist, his own psionic link to each of them. While he has not joined the Fiske clan's mental weft, he should be anchored to them all, and will be able to contact them through it no matter where he is, or receive aid from them in time of trouble.

[Mental Menagerie]

Scylla giggles. Yep, that was definitely what she was going for.

Eric, on the other hand; Julie might find some resistance in the initial connection, and it'll be a bit more difficult than it should be. Like lifting a ten pound box, then findoing out it actually weighs fifteen; not hard to do, by any means, but out of place, especially given that Eric opened himself up, and this has never happened before.

Eric, though, Doesn't even realize it's happening. Should Julie proceed despite the extra difficulty, it'll go off without a hitch.

Eric, for his part, remains quiet and once everything is connected, tests out feeling after the other minds he now has a connection to.

[Gullara]

[Dana's Place]

Dana looks a bit embarrassed. Here she thought they were talking quieter than that. "Alright. You're ice cream's ready as soon as you're done." Dana looks back at Gerri with a smile on her face. "You're in for a treat. Lily's the best artist I know, that's for sure."

[Slii Arhem]

Mental Menagerie

Julie doesn't pay it any mind, knowing that if Waldorf was so sketchy about Eric's current predicament that it could have some effect on the process. With all the Fiskes there working on it, there's no way they would slip up just because of a minor amount of added drag.

When Eric tries to touch on the presences linked to his mind, he'll get minor senses of their current state, and all but Nathaniel and Julie seem to be busy with something or other. There is a sort of call function built into the link that is fairly easy to figure out, to let whoever you need to contact know that you need them soon so they can initiate contact once they're busy. A mental doorbell, so you aren't just barging in, even though with enough power that may be possible.

Waldorf shows up in full now, brushing off his lapels, "Well, now that your psionics are connected to us rather than floating free, progressing in them should not put you further on the path to Yog-Sothoth's wishes and back where you were before you met Julie. I don't doubt that he'll try something else, but at least this avenue should be closed to him."

Prism just slowly starts making everything around her purple. Seems like a good enough idea, so why not?

Dana's Place

Lily finally looks up after she places her last stroke. "All finished! Look!" Without much inspiration, Lily just drew every face she remembers in miniature, all standing together in the ice cream parlor. The parlor's dimensions are fairly wonky, as are some of the bodies, but those aren't the main focal point. Everyone she knows at the orphanage, the few children from school who thought her drawing was neat and not weird (before she had to leave because she kept crying all the time. Most of the other kids were mean, and Michael had to beat some of them up so he could come home too) Trix, Michael, and Dana were right up in front. Every face, despite having to be so small to fit on the notebook paper, was remarkably detailed and accurate. Although since Gerri had likely only ever met Dana out of these people, it'd be hard to tell for anyone except the owner of the ice-cream store.

[Halae]

[Mental Menagerie]

"So I-" Eric's eyes go wide and he turns to the side so that he's not aimed at Julie as he vomits. Can't say any good things for the floor though.

He then collapses to the floor, holding his head and starting to sweat, grunting in agony. Anybody checking through the connection will be able to tell that he has an insane migraine, his stomach is roiling, and just about every muscle in his body is screaming in pain at him. His high pain tolerance is the only thing keeping him from screaming in front of his daughters.

Scylla's attention is caught away from her sister, as she stares wide-eyed at her father.

If anybody takes a moment to try and figure out the cause of this, they may realize that Eric's body has been going through this for a while, but for some reason he hasn't felt the pain. What "this" is is simple.

His entire body is slowly turning into a massive psychic organ in human shape. It's difficult to tell how long the process has left to go, but it's not that far into it just yet. He's been like this for maybe a week or two.

[The Bushranger]

[EE - Dorota's Lab]

"Yeah, I guess we, like, should totally figure out how to make it do other things," Crissy agrees, nodding, although she is eyeing the vial with distinct curiosity.

[Lost_Deep]

Dana's Place

Gerri doesn't recognize most of the faces... but she does realize that it's really high quality. Not even just that it's good for someone who's been blind for a while, this is amazing work!

"Wow."

[Gullara]

[Dana's Place]

"That's amazing, Lily." Dana glances at Gerri, wearing a big grin on her face. "See? I told you she was good."

[Morty]

[EE - Dorota's Lab]

"I'm sure there's a market for a potion that increases bust size... just in a controlled manner," Dorota says. "Now, let's get that liquefying agent done..." She will proceed to one of the shelves in her meticulously organized laboratory to gather the ingredients for the potion. She will then enlist Crissy and Syela's help in making it. It'll take a while.

[Slii Arhem]

Dana's Place

Lily smiles brilliantly, nearly jumping up and down as she reaches way up to put the picture on the counter for Gerri to take, "You can have it. I hope it makes you a bit happier, with all the stuff going on." Drawing it made Lily forget about all that nasty stuff, so logically owning it might do the same for Gerri, at least to a child.

Mental Menagerie

Waldorf sighs as Julie begins to panic, and for an instant he winks out of present existence.

At least from the perspective of everyone else present. One moment he's standing with a long-suffering look on his face, and the next he's hovering over Eric, trying to put a palm through the man's forehead.

Thankfully, it's an ethereal palm, and should it connect it should force Eric's consciousness outside his body, disconnecting him from the troublesome body for the time being. Normally, this would either kill the person being forced out of themselves or be a simple out of body experience, but with the Fiskes there to anchor him there is extremely little chance of the former happening.

So, if all goes swimmingly, there will be a ghostly Eric floating above his painwracked body, next to a Waldorf who is yawning into an astral palm while his two normal hands are clasped behind his back.

Prism is briefly stunned by this, before colouring her mommy's hair pink while Julie recovers from watching Eric scream like that.

[Halae]

[Mental Menagerie]

In that case, a moment later, Eric is having an out-of-body esperience with Waldorf, as his body twitches on the floor

"What the hell was that?!" He'd be breathing heavily if he had to breathe right now.

[Slii Arhem]

Mental Menagerie

"My question exactly." Julie grinds out between clenched teeth, trying to get her heart to stop racing. Waldorf lets the astral arm he created dissipate as he settles in to explain.

"As far as I can tell, you becoming a starspawn again had begun a while ago, and now that you're joined to the Fiskes, your nature is reacting badly to the connection, something like a feedback loop perhaps? It's a bit outside my experience to be honest. So long as you're not joined to your body, you won't feel the pain, even though your body will in your absence. So we've got some time to figure out what is happening and how to stop it."

[The Bushranger]

[EE - Dorota's Lab]

Crissy will do her best to help in any way that she can, an eager smile on her face throughout!

She does kinda look like she has something she wants to ask Dorota, though.