The Drowned Wizard
2018-11-17 15:03![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mosaic_archiveMikoto's first warning of the impending portal was a stagnant briny scent... not that of the seaside itself, but that of, perhaps, a lake fed by ocean water. It was an unpleasant coppery smell, saltwater mingled with the scent of blood. The second warning was a drop of water, so cold it almost seemed to burn, hitting her cheek... and the sense of some sort of magic nearby. All of this in the split second before something heavy, cold, and wet fell on her. She struggled to push off the limp and clammy shape and get a closer look at it.
What had fallen on her appeared to be a corpse... male, dark haired with blue-grey eyes staring blankly, icy cold, pale and cyanotic from lack of blood, wearing some sort of black clothing that now hung in torn rags. There seemed to be a deep bite on one wrist, another on his shoulder, and she could see where his throat had been torn open, a jagged wound possibly caused by claws. It was as she moved his head to examine that injury further that she noticed something surprising - pupil contraction in response to the change in light. Whatever had happened to him had happened quickly, and not that long ago. There was still time... and she would learn more from a living subject than a dead one.
She cast Life without a second thought on the matter, and then quickly had to roll the young man onto his side so he wouldn't choke on the bloody water forcibly expelled from his lungs. She quickly glanced over his injuries again as he lay there, gasping for breath. Some of them had not completely healed, bleeding again rather sluggishly. She cast Cura rather than risk the stranger quickly dying again from blood loss. From the look of him, it was hard to tell if that or the water had been the primary cause of clinical death before. She quickly amended her thoughts to include the even more likely possibility of hypothermic shock from the icy water.
She was more certain of the source of unfamiliar magic now. It came both from this stranger and from a curious wooden object that had fallen nearby. She gave it a cursory examination as she considered her options. She had no decent lab... and with the blood loss and hypothermia she doubted she would get any useful answers out of the new arrival any time soon. Perhaps the best option would be to see if anyone in the Nexus proper could identify him. Curious or not, she didn't want to be stuck caring for him, and could just as easily find out about him and his type of unfamiliar magic by using him as bait for others of his own reality.
She decided that first, however, she should remove his damp clothing and check for any further injuries. As she started on the first task, she soon realized there was something else wrong. Despite the clear signs of hypovolemia from blood loss, he didn't seem as unconscious as he should, reacting both as if in pain and as if trying, weakly, to struggle against some nightmare. Casting Scan revealed some sort of poison, Panacea eliminated it, and the stranger slipped into deeper unconsciousness. Checking his pulse, she found it rapid and weak, but steady. Signs of cyanosis were fading, though he still looked far too pale to her.
But his condition was stable, and that was enough for the moment. Pulling a dry blanket from a nearby Nexus couch, she resumed stripping off the unconscious boy's soaked and ruined clothing.
What had fallen on her appeared to be a corpse... male, dark haired with blue-grey eyes staring blankly, icy cold, pale and cyanotic from lack of blood, wearing some sort of black clothing that now hung in torn rags. There seemed to be a deep bite on one wrist, another on his shoulder, and she could see where his throat had been torn open, a jagged wound possibly caused by claws. It was as she moved his head to examine that injury further that she noticed something surprising - pupil contraction in response to the change in light. Whatever had happened to him had happened quickly, and not that long ago. There was still time... and she would learn more from a living subject than a dead one.
She cast Life without a second thought on the matter, and then quickly had to roll the young man onto his side so he wouldn't choke on the bloody water forcibly expelled from his lungs. She quickly glanced over his injuries again as he lay there, gasping for breath. Some of them had not completely healed, bleeding again rather sluggishly. She cast Cura rather than risk the stranger quickly dying again from blood loss. From the look of him, it was hard to tell if that or the water had been the primary cause of clinical death before. She quickly amended her thoughts to include the even more likely possibility of hypothermic shock from the icy water.
She was more certain of the source of unfamiliar magic now. It came both from this stranger and from a curious wooden object that had fallen nearby. She gave it a cursory examination as she considered her options. She had no decent lab... and with the blood loss and hypothermia she doubted she would get any useful answers out of the new arrival any time soon. Perhaps the best option would be to see if anyone in the Nexus proper could identify him. Curious or not, she didn't want to be stuck caring for him, and could just as easily find out about him and his type of unfamiliar magic by using him as bait for others of his own reality.
She decided that first, however, she should remove his damp clothing and check for any further injuries. As she started on the first task, she soon realized there was something else wrong. Despite the clear signs of hypovolemia from blood loss, he didn't seem as unconscious as he should, reacting both as if in pain and as if trying, weakly, to struggle against some nightmare. Casting Scan revealed some sort of poison, Panacea eliminated it, and the stranger slipped into deeper unconsciousness. Checking his pulse, she found it rapid and weak, but steady. Signs of cyanosis were fading, though he still looked far too pale to her.
But his condition was stable, and that was enough for the moment. Pulling a dry blanket from a nearby Nexus couch, she resumed stripping off the unconscious boy's soaked and ruined clothing.