[As promised, Viktor gathers his notes and prepares to meet Jayce down in their basement lab. He's slightly irritated at having to wait when there's apparently a breakthrough to be described, but he begrudgingly understands that their communications are monitored. Jayce was being as discreet as he could, given the circumstances.
Still, Viktor expects to beat him there. It's a surprise, when he makes his way to the lab only to find a familiar silhouette already waiting. Another moment, and Viktor realizes that said silhouette is strangely-shaped, slumped against a wall and motionless.
Viktor is at his side quickly, trying to rouse him, though it becomes apparent from one touch that Jayce has, somehow, become inanimate. He won't give up so easily, but other, increasingly forceful attempts are similarly fruitless. Viktor finds himself on the edge of panic, unsure what's happened or how to solve this. He doesn't want to ask for help, but, well. She'll discover this soon enough. Viktor sends a hasty message, not trusting himself to explain this fully over the Syntrofos.]
[ She's only just gotten home herself. In fact, she's come through the door only a minute before her device buzzes, and she sets down her things to pull it out.
Viktor doesn't get a response in text. He'll hear footsteps, a door opening, and the quick clicking of claws as she all but thunders down the stairs to the basement, eyes wide as she takes in the scene. At no point does Mel slow down. When her feet hit the concrete flooring, she's moving towards Jayce and Viktor. ]
[And when Viktor openly admits that he doesn't know, well. It's truly uncharted waters. He looks frazzled, like he's been at this for some time--and that calling Mel was a last resort. There's equipment out on the table, like he's been trying several ways to rouse him, all unsuccessful.]
I found him like this. I haven't been able to wake him.
[ It only hits her then, somewhere between the 'I don't know' and 'I found him like this' that Mel realizes Jayce isn't moving. And as he hasn't been breathing regularly for some time now, long before today, she has no idea if he's alive. Viktor is eerily calm in tone despite looking haggard, and Mel goes down on her knees, reaching for Jayce's face. ]
Jayce? Jayce.
[ Her tone is steady and even despite the rising panic. Where her fingers touch him, she can see his body lights up as it normally does at contact. It's the only positive sign she sees that he isn't dead but...how can she even be certain of that? Her fingers touch his face, slide down his neck to his shoulders, pressing anywhere she can find. But the stone is unyielding, Jayce unmoving.
She looks over Jayce's body towards Viktor. To the equipment on the table. ]
[Viktor never knows what to do when Mel breaks her composure--watching this happen twists something in the pit of his stomach (or what used to be his stomach). The lights are what indicates that Jayce is still alive, but for all intents and purposes he seems entirely inanimate. He gestures to the tools cast aside on the worktable, defeated.]
Various stimuli. Heat, cold. I tried to run an electrical current.
[All of this sounds fairly painful, but Jayce is currently a rock, so.]
[ Her eyes roam the table, listening to him. Her gaze flicks back on those words, electrical current, but Viktor is calm enough that she wants to hope with all desperation that it did not cause Jayce pain, even if he hasn't responded yet. Perhaps it's just delayed? Maybe he's resting, as she needed rest after using so much of herself in the tree attack.
Mel's magic lights up before she even thinks to call for it, and she moves to his arm to try and push it into him, to see if anything may happen. Viktor's flowers wake up along Jayce's body, leaning toward the bright sun she embodies. Sluices of gold ricochet and fracture in the multitudes of angles in the stone, a kaleidoscope of color within the crystal of his body...and nothing else besides, utterly useless and impotent.
The line of her shoulders shows more of her emotion than her expression, even if it briefly crumples beneath the weight of realizing that here, again, she can do nothing.
(What is the point of having a magic that cannot help?)
Mel swallows, allowing the light to fade. ]
There is... There is likely some kind of literature somewhere about golems. There has to be. We should try to find it and see if it mentions anything like this.
[ Slowly, she rises from the concrete, her hand lingering on Jayce's shoulder for a time. The lights continue, the only hope she can cling to that he still lives despite no action on his part. Her attention swivels to Viktor, her voice quiet when she speaks. ]
I assume nothing like this has happened at the cabin before? He's... I've seen him fall more and more into rote responses lately, seeming more stone than man in his tone.
[Viktor has already tried all this, except the magic--perhaps he's hoping that will wake him up, that Mel's inherent light will succeed where he fails. He watches intently, the way the flowers turn towards the warmth of it not unnoticed. Jayce himself, however, remains unmoving, even as the light scatters through his form, across the walls and ceiling.
He wonders, briefly, if this is just the final push of Jayce's corruption. A hibernation, while the last organic parts of his body make their conversion. He shakes his head.]
No. But this does seem like some kind of defense mechanism. Like his body is trying to protect him from something.
[Too much Katalyth exposure, in the lab. Viktor should have stopped him, made him take some time away.]
[ Of course she's watched Jayce clamp down on his emotions. She's watched him try to retreat into the safety of that other form. He'd done it in front of Pom, had done it at other times, but... Her throat goes dry and when she swallows her worry, it's with a roughened edge. ]
Is this because of what's happening at the cabin? The song he's spoken about?
[ He said there was a breakthrough. But with this in context, what exactly have they been doing? Mel's kept away from much of it and now she's regretting not checking more often, better understanding-- ]
[They've been studying Katalyth all this time, and this hasn't happened yet. Perhaps Jayce was just pushing himself too hard. Perhaps it has something to do with whatever he and Bricks were doing.]
We're all supposed to be on a schedule. I don't know what it was that he and Bricks were working on, what the breakthrough was. If it has something to do with this.
'Supposed to be.' You know very well not all of you are following that.
[ She's caught Jayce overworking himself at least a handful of times. Now that Palamedes is discussing stepping away, it means there will be fewer people working on it. And if Jayce and Bricks were doing something... ]
You don't know what they were working on?
[ It's not said in condemnation. It's a worry, that something else has been happening with no one's full knowledge. ]
[There's no sense in denying it. Viktor is careful about the time he spends with Katalyth given his extra sensitivity, but by this point they've all overexposed themselves. Maybe this has nothing to do with what he was working on at all, rather, just a build-up of trauma until his body shut down.]
More efforts to attempt to...communicate, with the Katalyth. This time with music.
With... This is why he's been talking about hearing music?
[ Trying to communicate with the Katalyth when the exposure has already been potentially dangerous... She should have paid more attention to what was going on. Mel's gaze wanders once more to Jayce, her frown deepening. For a moment, she simply presses her forehead into her hand and closes her eyes. How much more will this world continue to take? Is there even anything they can do without falling into the trap of sacrifice?
...She supposes those are thoughts for another time. Mel lifts her head, looking Viktor's way once more. ]
And you? Are you all right?
[ If he's not involved in what Bricks and Jayce were working on... ]
Do you feel any different? Have you encountered any changes?
[Viktor confesses it softly. He's kept it to himself, until now, as he does with most things. Of course Jayce has confided this in her, but Viktor handles things different--everything is internal, everything is something he should be able to struggle through on his own. Anything not to appear weak, or compromised.]
It's manageable. And it's brought us closer to understanding what Katalyth is. What it wants.
[ The emotions that arrest her are too many to name, some amalgamation of grief and anger and fear that boils potently enough that she thinks it will burn through her bones. In her darker moments, she's wondered if there would be a different outcome if she had kept a closer eye on them years ago, if she had paid more attention, if she had tried to actually befriend them...
Here, she thought she'd done better. And yet nothing has changed. ]
At what cost?
[ It's said quietly as she watches him. She shakes her head. She knows there's meaning behind the work; she knows it's necessary and better to be doing something than to wait for the chaos that's occurred these past several months or to let Patho-Gen decide what they do. But Jayce, Palamedes, now Viktor, probably Brickston... Hubert, too, she imagines. ]
[Viktor removes his gaze from Jayce for a moment to look at Mel--there's a sadness in his eyes as he reminds himself that she doesn't know. She doesn't know about the true nature of the Hexcore, or what it did, or the price he paid in his selfish bid to save his own life. Perhaps he's already decided that the anguish of the Katalyth is what he deserves, a penance he must pay.
Instead, he offers simply--]
I'm already doomed. If I can use what time I have to heal this world, I want to try.
[That does not offer Mel a reason for the rest of them, but Viktor can only speak for himself.]
The others have made their own calculations. About what amount of risk they find acceptable.
[ Something's here. She can see it in his expression, in the shift of what seems like pain in his eyes. And she...doesn't understand. Doesn't know where it's coming from, and it bothers her. Viktor has always been a private man, as she is private herself, with their overlap being Jayce. If Jayce is goneβ
No. She can't linger on that. But she hasn't conceptualized until this moment just how little she knows of Viktor's heart beyond what she's gleaned from Jayce and in their minimal interactions in private. ]
If what Patho-Gen has done has extended your life even by months, then those months may very well be in agony. You don't deserve that. No one does.
[ So they've made their own calculations. But considering what Palamedes has told her... ]
And I don't imagine any of you knew the ramifications until now. How high of a cost are you all willing to pay? [ It's not right. It's not fair. ] When all of you have given so much already with the exposure... Is this really acceptable to you?
[There's something unkind to say, here, something about how she has no idea what he does or doesn't deserve. But that might force an explanation on his part, and he's still too cowardly to speak openly about what he's done to anyone but Jayce.
Another failing of his.]
I can only speak for myself.
[And he would say this is acceptable. They're making some progress, it seems, learning more as they go.]
[ And there's the wall, the line where Viktor won't budge. She feels a spike of irritation around it, though she keeps her peace for the time being. It would be unkind to push him here, when the situation is potentially untenable. Viktor isn't the focus; Jayce is. ]
Then what do you suggest is the next step?
[ He would know better what they should do at this juncture. They can argue about cost of the work another time. ]
[ She's about to speak up and say she can go to the library, ask around with what few contacts she has, even reach out to Eleanor to get an opinion from another Golem Augmented. But when Viktor speaks of Patho-Gen, she tenses. What Pom told her flits back into her thoughts. Quietly, but firmly, she murmurs: ]
Only if we must. I don't want them taking him away.
[ To take him where they can't follow and can't help. She can't. She can't abide that. ]
If they were concerned...they would come. If this was something about the Augmenter or a real problem, then they would come to take him, and they haven't.
[ Not yet, anyway. So it's slightly good news, something she can work with. It means Jayce isn't totally lost to them for now. ]
[Patho-Gen was willing to help him, but they all know they can't be trusted. Better the two of them try to solve this first, and go to them only as a last resort. And maybe Mel is on to something, that it's not the Augmenter. If it was, Patho-Gen would already be here, and the two of them wouldn't have a choice in the matter.]
We should see what we're able to uncover, first. About the nature of Golems. Patho-Gen should be a last resort.
It may come to pass that we need their assistance. For now, however...I'd like to see how far we can manage before we determine how much of an emergency it is. I fear that allowing them access to him without us, without our support, we will have no way of knowing what they will or will not do.
[ If it was as simple as doing what they did with Viktor, that would be one thing. But they cannot guarantee it will stop there. That's the factor that's too unknown for her. She folds her arms around herself, considering. ]
...Let me try to get information. Do we know of a doctor on standby? [ A pause. ] Besides Brickston.
[ Not that she doesn't trust him but the memory of Pom's extra appendages is still fresh in her mind. She'd like to avoid drastic measures until they're called for. ]
[He nods, deferential. Viktor wishes he had more to offer, but he lacks both the social clout and necessary connections. He can't even offer a real doctor. Viktor's gaze drops to the floor.]
There is the clinic. [The one organized by some of their number.] They'd have to make a house call.
[ The clinic, right. She'd forgotten about that; she hasn't met anyone there yet. No time like the present, though. With another look at Jayce, she turns back to Viktor. ]
I'll be back, then. Call if anything changes, please, so I can at least give them an understanding of what's going on.
[ Though she doesn't know that anyone will be able to help, if Jayce's condition is unique to him and not towards Golems in general. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
september rock nap
Still, Viktor expects to beat him there. It's a surprise, when he makes his way to the lab only to find a familiar silhouette already waiting. Another moment, and Viktor realizes that said silhouette is strangely-shaped, slumped against a wall and motionless.
Viktor is at his side quickly, trying to rouse him, though it becomes apparent from one touch that Jayce has, somehow, become inanimate. He won't give up so easily, but other, increasingly forceful attempts are similarly fruitless. Viktor finds himself on the edge of panic, unsure what's happened or how to solve this. He doesn't want to ask for help, but, well. She'll discover this soon enough. Viktor sends a hasty message, not trusting himself to explain this fully over the Syntrofos.]
Come downstairs. It's Jayce.
no subject
Viktor doesn't get a response in text. He'll hear footsteps, a door opening, and the quick clicking of claws as she all but thunders down the stairs to the basement, eyes wide as she takes in the scene. At no point does Mel slow down. When her feet hit the concrete flooring, she's moving towards Jayce and Viktor. ]
What is it, what's happened?
no subject
[And when Viktor openly admits that he doesn't know, well. It's truly uncharted waters. He looks frazzled, like he's been at this for some time--and that calling Mel was a last resort. There's equipment out on the table, like he's been trying several ways to rouse him, all unsuccessful.]
I found him like this. I haven't been able to wake him.
no subject
Jayce? Jayce.
[ Her tone is steady and even despite the rising panic. Where her fingers touch him, she can see his body lights up as it normally does at contact. It's the only positive sign she sees that he isn't dead but...how can she even be certain of that? Her fingers touch his face, slide down his neck to his shoulders, pressing anywhere she can find. But the stone is unyielding, Jayce unmoving.
She looks over Jayce's body towards Viktor. To the equipment on the table. ]
What were you able to try?
no subject
Various stimuli. Heat, cold. I tried to run an electrical current.
[All of this sounds fairly painful, but Jayce is currently a rock, so.]
He's unresponsive.
woops this got away from me
Mel's magic lights up before she even thinks to call for it, and she moves to his arm to try and push it into him, to see if anything may happen. Viktor's flowers wake up along Jayce's body, leaning toward the bright sun she embodies. Sluices of gold ricochet and fracture in the multitudes of angles in the stone, a kaleidoscope of color within the crystal of his body...and nothing else besides, utterly useless and impotent.
The line of her shoulders shows more of her emotion than her expression, even if it briefly crumples beneath the weight of realizing that here, again, she can do nothing.
(What is the point of having a magic that cannot help?)
Mel swallows, allowing the light to fade. ]
There is... There is likely some kind of literature somewhere about golems. There has to be. We should try to find it and see if it mentions anything like this.
[ Slowly, she rises from the concrete, her hand lingering on Jayce's shoulder for a time. The lights continue, the only hope she can cling to that he still lives despite no action on his part. Her attention swivels to Viktor, her voice quiet when she speaks. ]
I assume nothing like this has happened at the cabin before? He's... I've seen him fall more and more into rote responses lately, seeming more stone than man in his tone.
no subject
He wonders, briefly, if this is just the final push of Jayce's corruption. A hibernation, while the last organic parts of his body make their conversion. He shakes his head.]
No. But this does seem like some kind of defense mechanism. Like his body is trying to protect him from something.
[Too much Katalyth exposure, in the lab. Viktor should have stopped him, made him take some time away.]
no subject
[ Of course she's watched Jayce clamp down on his emotions. She's watched him try to retreat into the safety of that other form. He'd done it in front of Pom, had done it at other times, but... Her throat goes dry and when she swallows her worry, it's with a roughened edge. ]
Is this because of what's happening at the cabin? The song he's spoken about?
[ He said there was a breakthrough. But with this in context, what exactly have they been doing? Mel's kept away from much of it and now she's regretting not checking more often, better understanding-- ]
no subject
[They've been studying Katalyth all this time, and this hasn't happened yet. Perhaps Jayce was just pushing himself too hard. Perhaps it has something to do with whatever he and Bricks were doing.]
We're all supposed to be on a schedule. I don't know what it was that he and Bricks were working on, what the breakthrough was. If it has something to do with this.
no subject
[ She's caught Jayce overworking himself at least a handful of times. Now that Palamedes is discussing stepping away, it means there will be fewer people working on it. And if Jayce and Bricks were doing something... ]
You don't know what they were working on?
[ It's not said in condemnation. It's a worry, that something else has been happening with no one's full knowledge. ]
no subject
[There's no sense in denying it. Viktor is careful about the time he spends with Katalyth given his extra sensitivity, but by this point they've all overexposed themselves. Maybe this has nothing to do with what he was working on at all, rather, just a build-up of trauma until his body shut down.]
More efforts to attempt to...communicate, with the Katalyth. This time with music.
no subject
[ Trying to communicate with the Katalyth when the exposure has already been potentially dangerous... She should have paid more attention to what was going on. Mel's gaze wanders once more to Jayce, her frown deepening. For a moment, she simply presses her forehead into her hand and closes her eyes. How much more will this world continue to take? Is there even anything they can do without falling into the trap of sacrifice?
...She supposes those are thoughts for another time. Mel lifts her head, looking Viktor's way once more. ]
And you? Are you all right?
[ If he's not involved in what Bricks and Jayce were working on... ]
Do you feel any different? Have you encountered any changes?
no subject
[Viktor confesses it softly. He's kept it to himself, until now, as he does with most things. Of course Jayce has confided this in her, but Viktor handles things different--everything is internal, everything is something he should be able to struggle through on his own. Anything not to appear weak, or compromised.]
It's manageable. And it's brought us closer to understanding what Katalyth is. What it wants.
no subject
Here, she thought she'd done better. And yet nothing has changed. ]
At what cost?
[ It's said quietly as she watches him. She shakes her head. She knows there's meaning behind the work; she knows it's necessary and better to be doing something than to wait for the chaos that's occurred these past several months or to let Patho-Gen decide what they do. But Jayce, Palamedes, now Viktor, probably Brickston... Hubert, too, she imagines. ]
If all of you end up this way too, what then?
no subject
Instead, he offers simply--]
I'm already doomed. If I can use what time I have to heal this world, I want to try.
[That does not offer Mel a reason for the rest of them, but Viktor can only speak for himself.]
The others have made their own calculations. About what amount of risk they find acceptable.
no subject
No. She can't linger on that. But she hasn't conceptualized until this moment just how little she knows of Viktor's heart beyond what she's gleaned from Jayce and in their minimal interactions in private. ]
If what Patho-Gen has done has extended your life even by months, then those months may very well be in agony. You don't deserve that. No one does.
[ So they've made their own calculations. But considering what Palamedes has told her... ]
And I don't imagine any of you knew the ramifications until now. How high of a cost are you all willing to pay? [ It's not right. It's not fair. ] When all of you have given so much already with the exposure... Is this really acceptable to you?
no subject
Another failing of his.]
I can only speak for myself.
[And he would say this is acceptable. They're making some progress, it seems, learning more as they go.]
no subject
Then what do you suggest is the next step?
[ He would know better what they should do at this juncture. They can argue about cost of the work another time. ]
no subject
[She's right that they need to do research. Viktor knows less about all this than he'd like.]
We could...talk to Patho-Gen.
[Though that seems like it should be a last resort.]
no subject
Only if we must. I don't want them taking him away.
[ To take him where they can't follow and can't help. She can't. She can't abide that. ]
If they were concerned...they would come. If this was something about the Augmenter or a real problem, then they would come to take him, and they haven't.
[ Not yet, anyway. So it's slightly good news, something she can work with. It means Jayce isn't totally lost to them for now. ]
no subject
[Patho-Gen was willing to help him, but they all know they can't be trusted. Better the two of them try to solve this first, and go to them only as a last resort. And maybe Mel is on to something, that it's not the Augmenter. If it was, Patho-Gen would already be here, and the two of them wouldn't have a choice in the matter.]
We should see what we're able to uncover, first. About the nature of Golems. Patho-Gen should be a last resort.
no subject
[ If it was as simple as doing what they did with Viktor, that would be one thing. But they cannot guarantee it will stop there. That's the factor that's too unknown for her. She folds her arms around herself, considering. ]
...Let me try to get information. Do we know of a doctor on standby? [ A pause. ] Besides Brickston.
[ Not that she doesn't trust him but the memory of Pom's extra appendages is still fresh in her mind. She'd like to avoid drastic measures until they're called for. ]
no subject
There is the clinic. [The one organized by some of their number.] They'd have to make a house call.
[Still better than Patho-Gen.]
I can wait with him.
wrap up here?
I'll be back, then. Call if anything changes, please, so I can at least give them an understanding of what's going on.
[ Though she doesn't know that anyone will be able to help, if Jayce's condition is unique to him and not towards Golems in general. ]