RP:The Scientific Method
Summary: Lyetta Markan helps Langley with one of their experiments! How nice.
House Markan, Vailkrin
Langley || Playing the part of a Markan unfortunately meant that Langley had to do a fair bit of eating horse. So when her body's sire found that Langley had promised Markan research to both the necromancer's guild and to Kasyr, she was quite decidedly scandalized. The audacity that this vampire had shown, from the sire's perspective, was nothing short of the gravest of insults. The earful that Langley received would very likely go down in Markan history for its creativity and savagery both. Langley took every unkind word with grace and dignity though, quietly waiting with a blank face for her body's sire to be done.
"I understand your anger, ma'am," Langley would eventually reply when there was a sufficiently long enough pause for her to feel it was safe to speak. She would even show further audacity by turning her back on her side, which was certainly rubbing salt in the wound, so that Langley could face her work station."I understand that you are mired by fear and blinded by tradition and it has robbed you of your foresight. So you look at me and all you see is some… upstart… threatening the safety of this house."
As she spoke, Langley had set about mixing fluids and powders. Saline, salts, potassium, iron, and sugar were all mixed together while she prattled on. And that mixture in turn would then have a variety of tinctures and essences added to it. Langley could only imagine the look upon her so-called sire's face as she worked while she spoke, the unspoken suggestion that this potion was far more important than the elder and tradition.
In truth, that drought was far more important than any one house. Langley had spent days in a sleepless frenzy, studying to glean the necessary information that would make it possible. But it was still just a theory… the hypothesis still needed testing.
Lyetta Markan was troubled. True, this could be said of her mindset, given the research she often engaged in- and the fact that she had slowly depleted her own fledgelings, and vassals in the pursuit of true knowledge. But her current ills were more grounded in nature, for she was faced with a fledgeling whose will had only grown stronger with time. Something had changed in Yurielle, that had seen that ember of determination harden into something unpleasent to deal with. Which saw her weathering tirades where others in her shoes were quailed.
It infuriated the Markan alchemist, saw her chewing on her own lips until scarlet blossoms crept through violet lipstick, the canines grinding well past the point of rawness. How had the girl forgotten how to be afraid so quickly. And not just of her, but the house itself. "Fear? We look beyond the pale of what others dare see. It's not your findings, your research that I find fault with." She takes a moment, adjusting the cravat of her labcoat, to both dab at her lap, and then readjust it, even as she takes a step closer, "What I fear is your lack of understanding of your place in things. You trade agreements with another house as though you speak for it, as though you are so privileged as to speak for all of us. The only reason you're not dead-" was not Lyetta. She'd even offered up the life of her vassal for the insult the exchange had represented to Lord Alexander. But it was not on Yurielles head the blame had fallen. Faced with the House Azakhaers acceptance of the lowly vampire as their liaison- she'd been obliged to take on the onus of responsibility.
The gloves on her hands still sit uncomfortably, a certain sense of rawness coming from where manicured-fingernails once rested. "You traded what wasn't yours- without even daring to look back at those who had offered you a place to stay. And you have the gall to hold your head up high." The bitterness within Lyetta's voice is unmistakeable, as a commanding edge creeps into her voice- tugging on the bonds which should mark them as sire and fledgeling, "If your research is so important to you, why don't you do us the courtesy of testing it yourself. Go ahead and drink it."
Langley || "The only reason I'm not dead?" Langley asked in a musing tone as she pricked the tip of a finger with a scalpel, a bead of black blood forming there. She let the umbral liquid drip into the beaker, where it dissolved readily into the cloudy red serum and darkened it ever so slightly. "The only reason I'm not dead is because, if we are being honest with ourselves, is because of your precious traditions. Your… hierarchy." She did not bother to turn around just yet. Her lady liege would bear the insult of looking at Langley's back just a while longer.
And then all that poise broke at once as Langley let wrath seep forward. All that anger that had been bottled away at what Larewen had done to this city. All that rage at the state of things that Langley had returned to. The fury at the audacity of this vampire to speak to her as such. Sure, Lyetta had no way of knowing that it was partly through Langley's machinations that Larewen did not reduce this house to cinders but that did not make the taste of Lyetta's words any less sour. She spun around suddenly, her yellow eyes seething with a foul energy. Something writhed beneath her skin like so many worms threatening to explode outward. It was all that Langley could do to resist lunging at Lyetta outright.
"For all your supposed brilliance, not a single one of you is possessed of a single scrap of worthwhile vision. You squander your collective potential in favor of personal ambition, ignoring that out there a city burns." Langley spat. There was malice in her voice, a pure contempt for this person who thought herself Langley's superior. "And for what, exactly? What has that ambition gotten you? The city burns in pointless wars every year. Your city starves while a fake god threatens to tear all of your precious tradition to shreds. And you…" That last word was spoken with a mocking laugh.
"Did it hurt when they tortured you? Did you scream or did you hold it all in, playing your part. The dutiful master accepting her punishment with dignity over her minion's indiscretions." Langley asked before holding up a vial of the concoction that she had made. The smell of it was likely undeniably familiar. That rich, sickly sweet aroma. Langley held that vial out to Lyetta.
"Oh, certainly, I could drink it." And Langley was honest about that. Her voice had softened again, her features relaxed. It would very likely not have much of an effect on Langley. Her body did not need or crave what it was. At best, it would do nothing. And at worst, it might make her a bit nauseous. Either way though, Langley drinking the potion would yield no valuable information. "But somehow, I think that you need it more than I do. Those nails, they don't seem to be healing as fast as they should." She held the vial out to this person that thought herself Langley's master.
Lyetta's pallour plunges to something beyond the corpselike porcelain she already mainteined, even as the vestiges of blood that trickled through her veins set her cheek ablaze with a mingled sense of rage and shame.If even a vestige of the sires bond still existed within Langley, what swam through was a toxic indignation.
And yet, whatever rage might burgeon within her breast, it pales next to the -thing- that snarled back at her. -it- did not heed the compulsion of her commands as a sire. -It- did not quail at the tone of her voice. What -It- did, was rage, quiver, and shift beneath her sanguine gaze- a shifting nightmare wearing a familiar face that had once been so pliable.
It leaves the inside of her mouth dry, and her stomach churning- the things accusations sounding off in the distance. "No No, we remain." Until they don't. Until their flesh is borrowed, and yellow eyes stare back malignly. "And you need to stop." Whatever steel managed to enter her voice -shatters- upon speaking, as the thing inhabiting Yurielle continues to speak, To taunt, to mock. Even when those features were no longer nightmarish- no longer carrying a rage that belied the thing within the flesh- she'd seen it for what it was.
When her voice next emerges, it is a whisper, a cracked caricature of the strength it had held when she'd first admonished 'Yurielle'- as she sought, perhaps in desperation, to call upon some thrall that yet remained hers. That was not some 'thing' wearing a familiar face. "...Drink that." came the quavering command, the elder setting the odious task upon the remnants of her line.
Langley let out a sigh. Truly, she had hoped this would be just a touch easier. She had hoped that she could appeal to Lyetta's hunger or perhaps that fear would have disarmed her enough. But instead Lyetta doubled down. Langley tried very hard not to laugh at the feeling that plucked at the corners of her mind, where those little shreds of Yurielle still dwelled. There was not enough of the former owner of this body left for it to be much more than the slightest of tingles. Such a shame that it would have to come to this. Langley so abhorred violence.
"We… remain?" Langley asked incredulously as if the notion left her completely baffled. "Remain for what? To be kings and queens of cinders? To lord over scraps? You can't even keep control of your own minions. She came to me willingly, Lyetta. She chose this. She decided of her own volition that this was better than standing around, watching you do nothing."
Langley let out a sigh as she undid the buttons of her blouse. It would not do to ruin a perfectly good shirt for what was to come next. Langley had no love for it, this brutish and uncivilized method. It was the sort of thing best left to thugs and Langley was no thug. The tentacles burst forth from her chest, six of them. They lashed forward, their black flesh shiny with some unknown and unspeakable fluid. They sought to bind Lyetta, seeking purchase on limbs and throat. They writhed towards them with single-minded efficiency.
"You knew that I was not her, Lyetta…" Langley hissed as her tendrils twitched and spasmed. "But I must commend you. A scientist always tests their hypothesis, I suppose."
Lyetta may have held pretensions towards being nobility, to being above what the rabble of the house indulged in- but when that sickening mass of flash encroached upon her space, it was the primal elements of her mind which ignited into action. Her eyes rolled wildly towards the door, measuring the distance of the alchemy lab and setting her legs into the beginning of motion- and yet, it was far too late.
Already, one leg had been ensnared within that bilious tendril, sending her into a sliding stumble across the floor. She scrabbles all the same, one leg kicking into the tissue with all the strength an elder vampire can muster- even as the mangled tips of her fingers press against the floor. A fresh indignity that only serves to remind her- of the simple reality of her situation.
Even outside the room she would not be safe- for she had brought this thing inside, had sought to flee from something 'beneath' her. There was nothing save for her anymore, and it stymied the scream building in her throat, even before another tendril coiled about her throat and crushed her Larynx.
The only thing left to her, was to fight- was to desperately conserve the strength she had so that when Langley dragged her over to partake of the abominations experiment- that she could unleash an indignant fist aimed to pierce 'Yurielle's chest, and vent every iota of fury she could muster upon the other woman. There were no more words to be had, her only argument savagery.
Langley had not anticipated that a scientist would be so scrappy. Her clothes were still bloodies and tattered when she sat down at her desk to begin writing the experiment log. Not a single point of data could be forgotten. Her work was entirely too important so dignity would have to wait. Quill in hand, Langley began to write…
|Despite efforts to convince the subject to imbibe Serum AB-2A, force was required in order to ensure the experiment's success. The subject was subdued under great amounts of duress. While much of this duress was for reasons personal to the subject, it does suggest that the serum in its present form is not enticing enough to convince people afflicted with vampirism to drink it willingly. Expanding experimentation to take take and smell into consideration is being made a priority.|
Lyetta had indeed put up a fight. That punch had met its mark, connecting not with Langley's chest but the flesh of the horror that lived within her. Langley had been reckless and it almost ruined the experiment. There was still a throbbing soreness at the core of her being to remind her that overestimating the willfulness of vampires was ill-advised. But letting herself come that close too Langley had been Lyetta's undoing. A reckless choice vastly more devastating to Lyetta than Langley's recklessness had been to her. More tentacles with significantly less distance to travel subdued the woman, coiling about her limbs.
Langley paused in her writing to flex her hand, now missing its index and middle finger. That too had been reckless but a worthwhile price to pay for progress. In attempting to pry Lyetta's mouth open, the vampire had taken those two fingers clean off. They would have to be seen back on but writing this experiment log was vastly more important. They were presently floating in a jar of preservative fluids until Langley could dedicate time to the surgical process. The pain was… tolerable.
|There is not enough data present to determine whether the subject found the serum palatable due to the aforementioned duress. However, initial results did show that the serum was at least partially effective. A slight increase in strength was noted during the experiment, indicating that the serum has the desired effect of being able to feed vampires. This effect is, unfortunately, temporary.|
Lyetta's strength had returned to her when Langley forced that vial down the woman's throat. But Langley could not relish in success. That returned strength cost Langley two tentacles. They would grow back. But it was certainly not a pleasant experience to have them so violence ripped off. It had staggered Langley enough to earn her a black eye for her mistake. Even now, her eye was still swollen shut. It would heal but it meant carrying around the shame of a sullied face for a time.
|At this time, it is recommended that subjects be subdued and secured prior to future experimentation if the subjects are unwilling to cooperate. The risk of personal injury is too high.|
It was only fortuitous timing that spared Langley from a prolonged fight. And she could not run the risk of future serums being more effective or future subjects having more robust fortitudes. Lyetta had almost taken out Langley's eyes with a scalpel. It was still lodged deep in her shoulder even now, a lucky dodge that saw the scalpel end up there rather than somewhere much more unpleasant and hard to heal.
|At roughly the two minute mark, the subject's body appears to have rejected the serum. Subject showed signs of rapid toxification. Autopsy results suggest that critical mass organ degradation and failure was also a factor in the subject's death.|
The seizures and vomiting had saved Langley from having to fight Lyetta. While she was sure she could have taken the vampire, to do so would have very likely resulted in significantly more bodily hard to herself. It would have also sullied the experiment entirely if she was forced to kill Lyetta. Results inconclusive was one of Langley's least favorite phrases. The autopsy was sloppy. With one eye swollen shut and two missing fingers, it ended up being more of a butchering than a medical procedure. Lyetta's organs showed signs of decay and collapse.
|Serum AB-2A is able to feed vampires effectively. However, it appears that the serum begins to rapidly break down in the body and becomes caustic. More research is required.|