RP:What Ails the Queen pt 2

Part of the Larketian Fault Lines Arc

Note: All of this remains an IC secret. Do not assume knowledge icly.

Summary: Despite agreeing to stop self-medicating to solve her fertility, Josleen poisons herself with false medicine and just barely gets herself to Muzo’s secret laboratory to be treated. Muzo chastises the Queen in his acceptable way for this nonsense and offers his services to fix her fertility problem instead.

Secret Royal Laboratory

Muzo stands at his desk, holding a test tube up to the light and shaking it gently. Every so often he'll pause to take notes in a folder, then set the vial back in a 10x10 array of glassware, identical in form but varied in contents. Beside him, Formulae lays open. Not very far away, one of the flasks used for collecting the king's rage sits empty or, well, mostly empty. A thin film of inky rage concentrate barely clings to the sides and bottom.

Josleen has never entered the laboratory without advising Muzo that she will do so in advance. In a way, Muzo gets advance warning now, albeit very short. In the gardens above his lab there is a commotion as a weak, pale Queen bullies a young guard into abandoning his post and swearing not to tell a soul the condition in which she is in. Alone, she grips onto every bench, branch, and wall for support as she inches her way to the cellar door. Just before descending the stairs, she retches loudly into bushes. Too weak to remain standing, she drops onto the ground in her fancy, soiled dress and bangs feebly for Muzo to let her in. She’s far too weak to open the door herself. Her pupils are dilated, skin ashen, hair dull. She looks like she has lost weight, and her vomit is all bile, no food. She carries two knee high boots with her, cradled in the crook of her left elbow.

Muzo pauses and perks up. Had he heard something? Dismissing it as his imagination, he turns back to resume working. No, but there it is again. There's some sort of commotion outside. Curiosity getting the better of him, the naga slithers over toward the cellar door to see if he can perhaps better hear, Knocking answers him! "Well then!" Muzo mutters to himself, shocked, and lays the pads of his fingers to the tip of his snout. This is a peculiar predicament. And here he stands, curator of a forbidden laboratory with someone knocking at his door. "Surely, my duty dictates," Muzo silently reasons, "that I allow no entry. After all, whoever has business here should have a key to begin with." The reasons feel sound enough, yes, but then why doesn't he return to his business? Hesitant and unsure, he lays his hand on the door handle and keeps it there as he listens intently.

Josleen knocks again, as loud as she can, which in her present state isn’t very loud. “Muzo,” she croaks. “It’s me, Josleen. I’m unwell.” She rummages in her dress’s pocket for the laboratory key and manages to insert it in the lock and turn it. She tugs once on the door, but is too weak to lift it. The boots drop out of her arms with a far-too-loud thud, suggesting they’re not empty inside.

Muzo straightens suddenly. Josleen? Before he has much time even to doubt, the key is clicking in the lock, and when the door doesn't open, he opens it for her. Her condition elicits a gasp. "Your highness!" For a few seconds, he fumbles over himself, flailing briefly as he struggles to process what he's seeing and adequately find his role therein. "Get you inside!" Bending down, he does his best to scoop her off the ground and get under her shoulder to try and walk her inside. The boots catch his eye, and he sweeps them through the doorway with his tail. "What happened?"

Josleen does her best to stand, but the bulk of her weight leans on Muzo to spare her weak legs. The boots tumble down the stairs and lose some of their contents in the process: a wad of pamphlets, a cloth bag with clinking objects like marbles inside, and two small glass jars with droppers in their lids. Once inside, Josleen sits at Muzo’s desk and breathes heavily to steady her racing heart and power through the pain. “I’m sick. That…” She gestures at the boots. “All of that.” Inside the boots there’s more salves, essential oils, floral extracts, ‘medicinal crystals’, dried herbs, fringe-cure instruction manuals and other quackery, mysterious fungi, and rubber cups for cupping, etc. The wad of pamphlets give away the story. Each pamphlet is an advertisement for a cure for the halfling curse of sterility. Most are accompanied with testimonials of half-elves who happily conceived after trying this miracle cure! Josleen pants at the desk, forehead in hand, elbow on table. Her eyes are shut tight in pain and swallows hard and often as if she may retch again at any moment.

Muzo finds Josleen a clean bucket the moment she's seated and offers it for her to hug. Next, the boots and their questionable contents. A cursory glance through the pamphlets has Muzo's eyes widening in horror. The queen's in the hands of the quacks! "Deplorable..." He breathlessly mutters, gaze racing over the phony testimonies, and he rushes to match pamphlets to substances. "Suggest, most humbly, your highness," he picks a jar of salve and gives it a sniff, shuddering at the odor, "that you discontinue these treatments immediately." Soon, he's laid out the absurd array of faux medicine. It covers an alarmingly substantial portion of the floor.

Josleen nods at Muzo’s recommendation then retches again into the bucket. There’s a little bit of blood in the bile. “…Water?” She indicates one mostly full bottle. “Most recent,” she gasps, suggesting she suspects that one is most at fault for her present condition. If Muzo were to run a rudimentary test, he’d detect it’s a fairly common poison meant to induce nausea and vomiting, perhaps to imitate early signs of pregnancy. It can also kill a person in a larger dose than suggested in the con man’s manual, but Josleen has been dosing herself for the past few days and the poison needs several weeks to be fully flushed out from the body. Thus, she’s reaching that lethal threshold now as the poison accrues in her body. But this poison aside, the other medicines can also have side effects when used in conjunction with each other, and a few of them are dangerous on their own if taken for prolonged periods of time. What more, should Muzo run a few tests, almost none are labeled honesty. For example, pure scorpion’s weed extract (the common tongue name, the naga word for the weed roughly translates to eel tongue) is labeled as Barba Spores, which is gibberish. There is no such thing as Barba Spores! Josleen cannot talk much and trusts Muzo to do whatever is necessary.

Muzo whips his head around to look at the water, and he swallows. "Soon, yes." If he wasn't struggling to address such a dizzying array of toxins, it would be much more easy to tell if water is what she needs. "Mercy mercy mercy..." Muzo mutters, running a hand down his face. No time to wonder. No time to ponder. Purposefully, and unhurriedly as so not to knock over any bottles and compound their troubles with loose reagents, he opens a simple cabinet and takes out a green glass bottle, pinched slightly in the middle, stopped with a cork and sealed with a simple paper strip. A thick layer of sediment sits at the bottom. "Urge you to drink this first." Vigorously, Muzo shakes the bottle, clouding its contents. Popping off the top, he offers it to her, but makes sure to keep one hand on the precious elixir, should she prove too weak to hold it herself, and he does his best to guide it to her lips. "Fight to keep it down," he urges her. It's something like drinking very thin mud, sandy to the taste and too thick to make Josleen feel any less thirsty.

Josleen , too weak and lightheaded to think, doesn’t question the potion. She forces herself to drink it in big gulps. It’s a good thing Muzo keeps a hand on the elixir, as she seems likely to drop it at any moment. She gags and coughs at the taste, and the medicine almost comes back up the way it went, but Josleen tips her own head back and strokes her throat to keep it down. Once it feels settled in her stomach, she asks again for, “...Water?” She leans forward on her elbows, face in hands, and breathes deeply. “How long?” she asks, meaning how long until the elixir takes effect.

Muzo nearly gasps when Josleen's grip falters, and he almost knocks his notes off the table when he catches himself. It's plain he's here to make sure she can get the whole bottle down. How long, she asks? "Seconds? Minutes?" He leaves out the possibility of hours. "Usually right away." Usually. His eyes swing again to the condemning heap of faux-fertility drugs, and his ophidian face bends in a scowl most disapproving. No matter. He quickly shakes his head and rights his expression, looking placid and neutral as he can (it's a pretty good shtick, he's had enough time to practice that one) before he takes the bottle of water and offers some to the queen, pouring a few mouthfuls in a simple tin cup. "Just a little for now," he offers it to her, trusting her to manage it on her own. "Who else knows you are here?" His glossy black eyes sweep her ashen face, skip down to the blood in the vomit.

Josleen accepts the cup and drinks half the water in one swig. The first thing the elixir settles is her stomach. Her head still aches and will take a little longer to recover. It takes her longer than usual to answer Muzo. She notices his scorn for the quack cures, and she can’t blame him. Were she able to be rational about her sterility, she never would have taken any of this, but her desperation has robbed her of reason. Her voice, like everything else, is weak. “No one. Not even the King. He cannot know, Muzo. No one can know.”

Muzo pulls open a desk drawer and roots around until he finds "aha" a wax paper parcel. He unwraps it to reveal a bit of hardtack. This, he sets within Josleen's reach. "Trust you are aware," Muzo goes on, "that if you are to die, here, in my care, I would be the primary suspect." Even the quack mixtures, the smoking gun (or perhaps, less anachronistically, the bloody dagger), sit neatly on his lab floor. Anyway, it's the closest thing the queen will be getting to a reproach. "Encourage you, in the future, to let me first inspect any pharmaceuticals. Happily insist that I offer my opinion before," the snake man takes the cleanest rag he can spot within arm's reach, "not after," and wipes a thin string of vomit off her cheek, "you place yourself on any medicinal routine."

Josleen‘s heart races as Muzo’s choice of words force her to confront the idea that she could have, and may yet still die. The fact Josleen does not flinch when Muzo wipes her cheek is a testament to how quickly Muzo has been able to wriggle himself into the Royal’s good graces. She nods stiffly at his reproach. “You are right. I had hoped one of these promises would work. Surely you can appreciate that--” Her voices pinches a bit with sadness. It’s difficult for her to admit she is infertile, even if that much is obvious to Muzo, and even more difficult to speak of her soul-wringing desire to have a child. She speaks with a pathetic whinge to her voice, as if at any moment she will cry. Queen or not, the desire to be a mother is primal and does not distinguish rank. “I just want a ch-iild.” She sniffs loudly. She gestures helplessly towards the heavens. “I don’t know what to do anymore.” She wipes away a tear before it rolls down her cheek. “I’ve tried everything.”

Muzo tries his best to be unobtrusive as he gathers some bloody bile samples from the queen's dress, swabbing and scraping around with his lab spatula, gathering it up as best he can into a test tube. "You are infertile," he mutters aloud, putting her plight into plain, clinical terms. Carefully, still struggling to wipe the last bits of clingy slime from the spatula on the the glass rim of the vial, Muzo does a bit of hasty analysis. He talks while he works. "Will insist, again, that you allow me first bid in addressing your procreative deficiencies." There's a clink of glass, a flash of pipettes, some fizzing, and a sharp odor. When he returns, it's with another potion, something red and fizzy in a simple flask. "Should do the trick." He tips it into her water cup, and a sour, fruity smell wafts up to greet her. "Antidote for poison, not for, well..." Muzo clears his throat. "No simple antidote for offspring. Will take time and study. Closely parallels my dissertation work. Falls neatly within my field."

Josleen allows Muzo to treat her like a laboratory experiment. It’s as expected, and there will be more of this if he is to treat her infertility. She sips the fruity antidote without fear of retching, thanks to the initial elixir. Her headache persists, but she powers through it. Her limbs weigh heavily and energy sags. She still isn’t out of the woods, but Muzo’s treatments may go far in saving the Queen’s life. Saving her life and giving her hope of an heir? How could she not adore him? “So you think it’s possible?” She perks up a little, and briefly, quickly sinking into a hunched position again due to the pain. “The King knows of my troubles, but he asked me to stop self medicating.” The King did not ‘ask’ so much as ‘order’. “I couldn’t… I… If there was any hope… I was willing to try it. He can’t know about this.” She indicates the poisons and pamphlets. “But I’ll tell him you’re working on the issue. How likely is it that you’ll succeed?”

Muzo watches Josleen overtly as she sips the antidote, making sure that the first few sips go alright he allows his mind to wander onward. "Would not yet rule it *im*possible," he tilts his head to and fro as he slithers over to his bank of equipment again. Formulae gives a flap and flutters up to follow him, it's butterfly-like movements carrying it lazily to and fro behind the naga. "Time. Study. Twiddling. A lot of disclosure and cooperation." He pulls down a few binders, dropping them haphazardly on the floor before he flips one open to peruse. "Can virtually guarantee success in... some degree. Depends on your deviation tolerance." What manner of "deviations" he refers to, one can only guess.

Josleen’s brows knit as she tries to follow Muzo’s muttering. It’s a difficult task without a headache, and much harder when she is sapped of her faculties. “Disclosure? About what?” Does he need to know when and how often she and the king attempt? She reddens at the thought and buries her face in the tin cup. “Deviations? What types of deviations?” Her head shakes preemptively, rejecting the macabre deviations conjured by her bardic imagination. Her tolerance is low, it would seem, but reality may recalibrate her expectations in the near future. For now, she remains stubbornly fixed on the dream. “I want a healthy baby conceived by the King and I.”

Muzo runs his scaly, claw-tipped finger along several lines of text as he reads. "...intracocombobulation as requisite by omnibiocodex exegesis..." Frowning, the snakeman begins slithering back toward the queen, Formulae orbiting in tow. Muzo arrives at the Queen's side, opens his mouth to say something, then double takes at her, the bucket, the poisons. He closes the binder. "Will have time to implement all this later. Can't get any useful samples today anyway. Contaminated. You," he chuckles and tips a little more water into her cup, "are contaminated. Get you well. Tidied up. Can't start until I've gotten an honest look at what we're working with." Hopefully none of the quacks have made his job permanently more difficult. A pity the king can't be told; he'd certainly order the men killed. Muzo sighs at opportunities lost. Right. Josleen. He clears his throat. "Feeling any improvement yet?"

Josleen | Muzo’s scientific mutterings drift above Josleen’s head beyond the reach of her comprehension. Whenever he mutters Science Jargon (™), she feels acutely her vulnerability. She understands nothing of what he is doing, and takes it on faith that Muzo is helping her, never harming her, and will make her wildest dreams come true. It’s the promise of the gods, and while Josleen considers herself a woman of faith (in that she believes, but does not attend church, purely because of her hedonism, and not because of any religious critique or heartfelt belief), her faith in the gods has never been as tested as her faith in Muzo’s skill and intentions. And indeed, she is feeling better thanks to his antidote which he brewed before her eyes in a matter of minutes. Who can’t have faith in that? She nods at his question. “Thank you, Muzo.” Grateful for divine intervention, she makes a donation to the church. “This lab could use some creature comforts. You spend so much time down here. I’ll open a spending stipend under one of my maid’s names, ostensibly for shopping for my needs. This will be for you to use in secret to purchase whatever material things make this laboratory feel more welcoming for you.” She smiles at her own generosity.

Muzo blinks and snaps his head up to look around the laboratory. The monastic dungeon aesthetic had been perfectly pleasing to the naga, but, but the sound of it, the queen would prefer he make some changes. Because she herself will be spending more time here now that she's entering into treatment? So the snake infers. "Very well. Will see to it. Thank you, your highness." He bows a little, though it's clear his mind is preoccupied with visions of what "creature comforts" might look like. It's a peculiar test, and one he dearly hopes to pass.

Josleen recognizes the faraway look in Muzo’s beady eyes, but is oblivious to his anxiety over guessing which creature comforts to adorn the laboratory with. She assumes he is preoccupied with science, a safe guess which is true 90% of the time (other 10% is split between food, vore pit, and a certain snake lady). She stands, and though her legs buckle a little at the knees, she looks strong enough to walk out at a slow pace. She’ll be spending the rest of the day in bed recovering and takes the antidote with her. “No, thank you. I’ll be in touch. Take care, and I appreciate your discretion.” She slowly ascends the stairs, stopping once to steady her spinning head, and in that moment remembers one more thing. “Oh,” she turns to face him but remains on the steps. “Regardin the King, yor treatment worked well for some time, but recently the rage magic returned with a very low potency, not yet a nuisance. If it grows worse, the King may return to see what can be done.”

Muzo straightens out of his bow, and he's about to dive in and try to catch Josleen when she manages to steady out on her own. "Of course," he answers, pleased, genuinely, but still concerned about how things may yet develop. "Hmm? Ah, yes. Strongly advise he continue treatment. Suggest more thorough extraction on his next visit. No great hurry. Get well first." Their dealings come to a close, and Muzo slithers back to his desk and begins organizing his notes. Half-breed infertility, eh? Muzo turns to one of his anatomy charts and flicks his tongue. The other projects can wait. Patrons mustn't be kept waiting.}