ph_logs | november catchall

november catchall

Who: Artemy and Perhaps you? If you'd join me?
What: Understanding a soft heart, experiencing a life after the plague, learning to fill time with meaning.
When: During November!
Where: Amongst Pumpkin Hollow.
Warning(s): Mentions of a consensual romantic murder! also mentions of a plague, of child death, of mourning said children... normal haruspex things!

Grocery Shopping

Artemy does his shopping like a man in a daze. His mind seems to be elsewhere, seemingly thinking of something else, as he goes through the motions. He's tall as his form sticks out amongst the townsfolk, picking out the basics he needs. Dried meat, milk, bread, eggs. He still buys groceries like he lives in the Soviet Union, like things could run out at any moment, yet his basket is bare, making sure to leave enough for everyone else, while still perfectly rationing out everything he needs for the week.

He looks down at his shoes. They are still splattered with blood. He keeps forgetting to go to the cobbler to get a new pair made. These can simply be his work shoes, he reasons.

Or his "murder his colleague" shoes. Consensually murder. For work reasons. Of course.

He avoids thinking of it further, knowing that he might start to blush if he does. He curses himself, and wonders if he truly does have poor rational thought, as Dankovsky so eloquently put it. Artemy wonders if he truly has nothing better to think of than their conversation as he irritatedly grabs some fish to fry up this evening.

Falls Promise Cemetery

All of Artemy's work is done. Artemy's work work is done. He's considering buying about five more alembics to brew tinctures upon tinctures just to keep himself busy. He's finally gotten himself his new boots and he decides to finally go on a walk, and what better place to walk than a cemetery? There could be worse places, certainly.

He walks amongst the gravestones. He thinks of home. Of little Grace who tended the cemetery who offered to help him speak to his father, who he turned down in fear for her constitution. He thinks of Murky and Sticky and wonders if they're alright. He wonders if time in the Town-on-Gorkhon and Pumpkin Hollow run one for one or if things are off set. If he gets to go back someday, and that is a big if, he wonders if things will be as he left it, or if everyone will be dead of the plague, including his adopted children. Such things are enough to keep a man up at night, guilt ridden, particularly a man that takes all things as his single and sole responsibility.

Perhaps a walk in the middle of autumn in the middle of a cemetery was not such a great idea after all! He sighs to himself, wondering how other people fill so much free time.

Closed to Anya

Artemy will knock on Anya's door and leave a package wrapped in twine and brown wrapping paper, walking away before she answers. If she opens it she will find a lab coat carefully folded inside. It is made of thick material with her name carefully hand embroidered in beautiful blue thread on the lapel. In the breast pocket is a small card addressed to her as well. It reads.

Dear Miss Anya,

You have my apologies for the other day. I am aware that I owe you a coffee as well. Please accept a gift, something I believe that suits you, for all of your accomplishments up to this point, and for all your hard work up to this point both in this life and in your last.

- Artemy Burakh

If she chases after him, she might be able to catch up to him.

Wildcard

(Feel free to reach out on discord to plot something else!)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

She needs to keep working on herself, and that means finding safe areas to work on magic. Areas where she can work it out, her primary target an old rotted stump in the woods that serves well enough. Focusing, letting herself channel power and see how far she could push her concentration.

The air's shifted a little, to the attentive nose. The scent of the earth after lightning, though none has yet struck, and flashes of light through the brush. Fever's got her brow furrowed, feeling the strength through her, and twists her hands in a gesture she hasn't practiced in a while.

Vines grow from the earth, shadowy things that cover the ground in a deep green carpet. Yet they do not offer violence against their fellow plants but rest quietly in their new blanket, offering a mildly springy sensation underfoot.

Fever grins, delighted - and then freezes, her head whipping around in a direction. She's heard something, or someone, and she wants to know what it is, to fight or flee.

Artemy isn't disguising himself. Not that he's very good at that. He's pretty tall. And large. So he's kind of just standing there. Looking at Fever curiously. He sees that look on her face, and he holds his arms up in the air. He's not trying to be a threat. Not here to do anything suspicious. Artemy and Fever just happened to be in the same place at the same time.

"What are you doing, if I might ask?" Artemy asks, voice a low timber.

"Practicing my spells," she replies, looking back at him with slightly less guarded posture. He's not a threat, but the way she holds herself says she's been ready for one since she came out here.

"I need to make sure I'm ready to use any of them that might be needed. What are you doing out here yourself?"

He both recognizes and respects a woman that is ready for trouble. He too, can be ready for trouble, but more in a defensive manner. Artemy is rarely looking for a fight at any given moment, and certainly not when he's just out and about.

"Just clearing my mind with a bit of a jog." He says, and you can see it in his eyes to be true, "May I ask- what sort of spells are those?"

Without any lies to her, she has no reason to meet him with her own, and honest questions about her skills are things she's never not up to explain.

"I know a fair deal of them across different disciplines. The one I just cast is a friend of mine's invention. The vines that sprout are harmless to the living - but a trap to the undead. If you're alive, then you can pass through them easily."

And to demonstrate, she steps up to where she had cast the layer of woody greenery, each stride forward supported and unhindered.

"Of course, given this isle, I may never have a need to use it. But I don't wish to forget it."

Artemy steps forward, but still looks to Fever for her approval before moving through the vines. It still feels like an intrusion, somehow, to cross without an invitation.

"May I?" He asks quietly.

"Yes. Go ahead."

They will support him and his weight, lying dormant under his feet. There's no hint of being a barrier, and Fever's concentration remains intact. If not for the fact that he saw them be created, they could almost be normal. It's hard to showcase their effects when neither of them are undead, but there's been enough fantastical things on this island that one can believe a simple claim like that.

Artemy gives another curt nod, and then, with steps soft for a man of his size, walks through the vines just as she promised. With no harm to himself whatsoever. He even turns around, putting arms through, just to make sure he didn't simply imagine it.

"That's amazing." He says, under his breath, but just loud enough for Fever to hear.

"Isn't it?"

The warmth in her voice is genuine, looking at him interacting with them. Good, she hasn't lost her skills with this one. It's been so long since she saw Arabella, it'd be impossible to fix if she was doing it all wrong.

"I might have been a sorceress all my life, but magic never stops being incredible to me. What it can do and what it will do, in the hands of someone who knows how to work with it."

He turns to give her a genuine nod, and so he can speak to her directly, putting his hands back to his side.

"I'm familiar with some sorcery, but not quite like this." He thinks of the sorceresses of the towns, who can see the future, or the herb brides, but it's nothing quite like this. "It's not like anything I've ever seen before. Slightly adjacent, but not quite the same."

He's seen a herb bride's blood nurture a tree so it could suddenly grow roots. That was about as similar as to this as he could think of.

"What kinds have you seen? If you can tell me, of course. Just curious."

Maybe he knows, maybe he doesn't know, but she'll never learn without asking.

"Oh, the sorceresses from home, the mistresses, they were typically born into certain families. In the town where I am from. Clairvoyant, they were. They saw visions in their dreams of things that would come to pass but in turn, they were unable to lie. Therefore they often spoke in riddles as to avoid telling any falsehoods. Frustrating, but understandable, given the nature of such things. One to be Mistress told me I would spill rivers of blood- though that did never come to pass before my death."

He crosses his arms, thinking on it for a moment.

"Perhaps I have avoided such a fate with my untimely passing?" Or, well, he leaves the other possibility unstated, but implied-

"Perhaps it was your own blood she saw in her visions."

She'll say it aloud, if he won't. Letting the spell go, the vines half fall apart, half fade out of being, until there's no sign of where they were but the grass that bent under their weight. And even that will change, with time.

"Sight such as that is a far different domain than mine. My skills are more...immediate in nature, and place no such limitation on my speech. But that suits me just fine - I don't know what I'd do with the gift of prophecy in the first place. What if you see something you aren't meant to be seeing at all?"

He does seem thoughtful about this for a moment, but then thinks to himself, alas, his death wasn't that bloody, most likely. If a river of blood meant a river of blood it must mean more than one body. It must mean enough to form a river- but telling her this seems unsightly, so he doesn't.

"I do believe that may be the reason why at least one of the mistresses of the town has a Morphine addiction." Artemy says while placing both hands on his hips, "I'd say your abilities likely have more practical uses."

"Indeed. And a broader spectrum of applications."

Her hands shift, turn, and she commands herself to hold the spell that forms there - a light as blue as the heart of a glacier, a chill wind grasped in her palm, an orb of ice that could be turned to any purpose.

"Without knowing what the future holds, one must be prepared for what may come."

Her hand closes on itself, pulls back, and turns in a different direction with the other, and the new light shifts in hue, a little softer, a little warmer, before she lets it go out of her hands with a word.

"Pluo."

Careful, careful, and thus what falls over Artemy Burakh is not an inelegant splash, but weather without clouds. For a moment, two, he stands in a rain of pure water, as if he stepped out on the right sort of morning. It trickles over the tree leaves, the grass, his shoes, his hair. Real as any rain could be.

(She can fix him being damp now, fear not. That's also part of showing off.)

Artemy's expression turns from amazement to displeasure rather quickly when he finds himself entirely and completely drenched. He is still amazed. Don't get him wrong. But he doesn't know she plans on fixing it, okay.

"... Do you mind?" He says, holding out his arms in front of him to observe his clothing- yep, wet. He laments the day, thinking about how the sun will go down before he is able to get home on time- "Don't get me wrong, I am very impressed, but I am also rather cold."

She chuckles, completely unbothered, and makes a new gesture.

"Aresce."

The water leaves - he's bone dry now, as if he had just pulled all his clothes off the line on a summer's day. All fixed, all done. No real harm.

"What, did you think I was just going to leave you like that?"

"I would certainly hope not."

He grins softly, seeming impressed. He straightens out his clothing. Yes. Dry as can be. Artemy seems genuinely impressed with her.

"If I ever need a portable heater, I will be sure to seek you out, Miss." He jokes dryly.

Though the usefulness isn't lost on him. She could water entire fields with her abilities. People wouldn't need to go hungry. Fever truly has Artemy's admiration.

She laughs a little, folding her arms. No need to spoil his fun by telling him that sustained warming charms aren't her skillset, and that they'd need to resort to fully unmagical means for it.

"You're also free to seek me out if you have need of an adventurer. Or if you need someone who can threaten to fry someone's brain with lightning. The range is quite broad."

Gesturing out, to call to mind the previous displays.

"I'm Fever. It's a pleasure."

"Artemy Burakh. I'm a surgeon, and healer of sorts." He holds out his hand for a handshake. Which, yes, is something he seems to do with everyone around here. "In turn, if you find your body in disarray, please let me know, I'm certain I can do something to help."

He's also plenty capable in a fight, but, well, that's not really something a surgeon goes around admitting- but by his build you could likely guess just that.

"I'd heard that we'd had a new doctor arrive," she remarks, taking his hand. Her own is smaller, clad in gloves of brown suede. "And I was hoping I'd get to meet them before it was necessary."

No doubt one day it will be necessary. But at least today, her insides are, well, inside, and not without.

"Hopefully you've heard nothing but good?" He says, voice sounding a tad bit hopeful as he shakes hers.

He's seemed to make a mostly good impression on people here, but with Dankovsky running about, Artemy's aware that he does have to be at least a little bit careful about his reputation now.

"Indeed, though not so much you need to worry about being on a pedestal," she replies, deciding that he doesn't need to know what precisely Dankovsky had been saying. "I heard you were an apothecary as well as a physician - and that you're fond of walking."

"I mean. I suppose the first two are true enough, but walking?" Artemy just sort of blinks dumbly, hands to his sides, "I am neither fond nor do I hate walking. It is simply a means to an end."

"I am relaying the words I was told but passing no judgement upon them, Dr. Burakh. I also use walking as a means to an end, since I possess no wings and no horse, and using magic comes with limitations and risks."

She shrugs.

"I thought it was funny enough to mention."

wildcard as discussed.

YAY

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cw: drug addiction

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