daybreakacademy

Entry tags:

open;

Who: Hieke & You
What: Infirmary catch-all & a call for help
Where: The infirmary & elsewhere on campus
When: February
Warnings: Potential discussions of injury, probably.

a; the necessities

[The infirmary has seen a lot in the first month of the quarter alone - friends were born here and eventually taken away, people have been sick and injured and that's not even including the injuries people didn't go to the infirmary for. But come February, Hieke is a little bit more prepared for things. The infirmary is kept as tidy as ever, and he's even decorated for the holiday!

There are vases filled with flowers on his desk, and he's awkwardly taped some heart shaped decor to the wall. There was an attempt and that accounts for everything, even if he doesn't know anything about Valentine's Day.

However, the infirmary isn't only for the sick or injured. Students taking Hieke's class are more than welcome to stop by to ask for help or ask general questions - there's an office set aside for him, but he spends all of his hours in the infirmary anyways. It's the best place to catch him.]

b; the network (un: hieke)

Good afternoon.

I'm sorry to bother everyone, but I'm looking for something. A mushroom - native to the Outlands - that's not dangerous or anything, just a little mischievous. It managed to find out how to open the windows in my room, and now it's loose and locate and summoning magic were something I never spent much time studying.

It's about a foot tall, with a pale orange cap, so it should be pretty distinct. If you see it, please let me know! And mind the spores.

c; the wildcard

[If you want anything else or need Hieke for anything, let me know!]

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[He lets the wastebasket drop and glares up at Val]

What was your first clue?

The violent retching, your disheveled appearance, and your grumpier than usual tone.

[He doesn't look even remotely sorry.]

Any word on how much longer you might be stuck in here?

Supposedly it'll be out of my system by tomorrow.

[He doesn't mean to sound as distrusting as he does. He'd actually be more than happy if it were true, looking forward to the day even. As it is, however, it feels like it's never going to end.]

[He never did take being sick well.]

Remind me to never so much as touch a cursed soul again.

...Don't tell me you actually tried to eat one.

[He'd heard that might be what it was, but that was just rumor as far as he was concerned.]

[Another glare.]

Look, I've played nice for YEARS, Val. As far as I was concerned, I deserved a little reward! I took what I could get!

Look who you are talking to. I understand that temptation more than you know.

[Avery's glare earns one back, though Val's is relatively empty of malice. If anything... to Val, it's more like looking at a reflection of some of his darker thoughts.]

...Leaving aside the obvious ethics issue, that was still incredibly foolish. If the soul had been too corrupt, it could've killed you.

[...Or perhaps worse. And believe it or not, that's something Val's concerned about for his colleague.]

[Of course. Of course the damn vampire would be getting on him for this too. And you know what sucked the most about that? It was that Avery actually knew that Val really was speaking from experience. That it couldn't be swept away out of hand.]

[Not that Gehring had been lying to him, but he doubted the bonehead had any idea what it was like to have a preference for the more esoteric delicacies in life.]

Yes, yes, so I've heard.

[He flops back onto the bed, arms folded over his chest.]

It just seemed like a win-win situation at the time. I get a snack and the Academy is down one less corrupted soul.

For someone as clever and practiced as you are, I'm surprised you didn't think there would be a catch.

[After Avery returned to the bed, Val moved to a chair near the wall in his room and sat down, resting a hand on one of his own knees.]

However... I can still see where you were coming from in that line of thought.

[Even he could admit that, on its face, sounded like a win-win. And hunger could make one do... irrational things at times. He tried not to think about what his hunger pangs centuries ago almost made him do, even if he had the will to suppress them.]

I just want to know where all these corrupted souls keep coming from. They've been sprouting like weeds around here lately. It's getting annoying.

[Especially since he now knows he can't even eat them. Before they had at least had that going for them, but now their usefulness was officially somewhere in the negatives.]

[and yes, he might be trying to escape a lecture by changing the subject]

[Oh, he knows Avery's attempting to dodge a lecture, but that's not why Val came down here in the first place. ...Or maybe it's a lecture about something else later, but he's not here to admonish him any further than he already has.

Besides, other people have doubtlessly already done that more effectively than he would.]

I've been trying to hunt down the source for quite some time now. Almost assuredly, it's an especially clever daemon warping them. Someone very, very good at covering their tracks. And someone with a vastly inflated opinion of themselves while knowing they're actually quite weak.

[After all, only the most foolishly brazen daemons would attempt something like this to Daybreak Academy of all places.]

Unfortunately, even I must admit... they're incredibly good at evading my eye. Every time I think I get close, I hit a dead end.

[Great. Not even Val could find the guy. How was he supposed to work out his aggression now?]

I suppose I could help with interrogation once I'm out of here. Whatever they've become, I'm sure they still have some sense of self-preservation left in their miserable, ghastly forms.

Edited 2019-02-12 19:42 (UTC)

That probably wouldn't hurt.

[A dark chuckle of humor follows the statement, and something of a knowing smile.]

Unfortunately, madness seems to take hold of them, so picking out truth from nonsense can be troublesome.

Get enough of them together and make them sing and I'm sure we can pick out the common details.

[He reaches up and rubs the bridge of his nose]

You can play good cop, I'll play bad cop.

Why is it that I always have to be the good cop when we have to interrogate someone?

Because I like breaking people's legs.

Yes! But you don't do nearly enough chair throwing or table flipping after knocking everything off the table with a well placed arm sweep!

[This is important, super serious business, after all.]

Though I will say your looming, threatening voicework is quite excellent.

That's because half the time the chairs are pretty nice. You don't waste a good chair, Val.

[he should know. He's tried to make off with a few of them. Rarely, he's managed to get one or two through customs. He still hasn't found one that's nearly as comfortable as the one he brought with him from his forest.]

At least someone around here appreciates a properly threatening performance. I spent a long time getting that right.

And that makes the point all the clearer you mean business! Are you going to mess with a man willing to throw a perfectly comfy chair around? No, because that man is crazy!!

[...Honestly, they might both be crazy without throwing chairs, but there you go.]

It's a lost art, being terrifying! Honestly, people today wouldn't know real terror if it came up and bit them in the face. Even daemons feel like they're merely phoning it in now!

Are you implying I don't know how to be properly terrifying just because I respect the comfort of proper furniture?

Preposterous. It's an important component of being the bad cop! You're otherwise perfectly capable of doing the whole "fear" routine in other contexts.

[Look, he takes the cop role thing very seriously.]

Unlike so many others, you actually have some appreciation for classical horror techniques. ...Ah, but such thoughts bring back quite a few memories from the past.

[He sure hopes he does. It's not like he has a pretty big collection of horror novels or anything.]

I probably shouldn't ask, but I'm curious as to what particular memory that brought to mind.

[He gives something of a small, nostalgic smile.]

Oh, just the time I caused a riot in a major settlement about 900 years ago. Emptied the city in panic just with a few well-timed scares and parlor tricks.

It was like tossing a match on a powder keg. I admit, I had fun that night.

[He may have changed and would never do that now, but he's not especially ashamed of his days of being an expert at spreading terror either.]

Edited 2019-02-14 02:27 (UTC)

[Avery sits up a little, looking positively delighted]

Why wouldn't you? That sounds hilarious! An entire town... Ha!

Oh, you would've enjoyed it just as much as I did, I'm sure.

[He chuckles, filled to the brim with a dark amusement.]

Ah, I could be quite a scamp back in my Tyrant days.

Scamp... That's one way to put it.

[Of the many, many things he didn't think he'd ever understand about the daemon, Valvatorez's humility was rather high on the list.]

I've gotta ask. Any particular reason you chose that group of people or did it just seem like an easy mark?

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arcadianvampire - 2019-02-14 02:58 (UTC) - Expand

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subconmodo - 2019-02-14 03:05 (UTC) - Expand

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