Dubhaine Family/Moira/Roleplays/2008/May

May 12th - Krimml

Moira paced back and forth in her tent, once more listening to the torrent of abuse that her bondsman had spewed forth. Could any doubt, reading the threats of murder and claims of persecution that he must be one of those poor souls tormented by the Gods for some unknown slight or passing whim?

"What do you think Helion?"

"It's clearly the taint at work milady. In each of us there is a careful balance of humours, in lay terms the vital forces which regulate the body and give it life. Poisons work by disrupting this balance such that a single humour such as the black bile or the phlegm becomes ascendant and the connection between flesh and spirit weakened leading to death or severe disability."

"In the case of red shade it would appear that the elixir amplifies the effect of the bile leading to unpredictable changes in mood, such that at one moment the black bile dominates and there is irritability, at another the yellow bile and the afflicted is prone to violent and irrational outbursts."

"As if this were not bad enough - and do not worry Countess if details seem difficult to grasp, for this is a very subtle point of medicine - the phlegm is completely suppressed during one of these incidents. This leaves only the humour of blood in its natural condition, leading to a desperate longing for physical exertion as a soporific for the deeper hurts, and the artistic passions of the individual becoming completely predominant over the rational faculties."

"During these episodes it is essential that the patient be restrained from any kind of physical or mental exertion, which is why the City physicians prescribed that course of action. In the event of early treatment this alone would have been sufficient to rebalance the humours and with a course of emetics and bleeding to purge the taint. Now alas more radical treatment would be required."

The physician placed a folio of vellum on the trestle campaign table, opening it to a number of gruesome hand-drawn images of sufferers in various states of distress and the contraptions which could be used for rebalancing the competing biles.

"Well I cannot punish him for words of which he is not culpable," Moira lent forward to look at the images and read the accompanying text, written in an impenetrable hand and peppered with alchemical symbols. "Are you certain this treatment would work?"

"According to the learned Areoscarbus, a physician of considerable authority in this matter, trepanation and extended bleeding with leeches is the most effective treatment in severe cases. But even then perhaps one in three long-term victims will still experience minor relapses subsequently, although the violence is generally diminished."

"And of course if the affliction is as far advanced as these ravings suggest then there may not be much more time before the taint either becomes untreatable, leaving Sir Louis a danger to all," the physician turned serious eyes to meet hers.

"I know Helion, but until he presents himself to a physician for examination there is nothing that can be done. He has after all already once escaped from the most secure prison in Fontan, not to mention those of our enemies," and she sighed a deep sigh, pained that the protege of the noble Duke Aeneas should be so utterly undone by those who - for whatever reasons - had conspired against hi that night, long ago in Krimml.