Day 66: Breakfast

[nobleman]

What Guy had seen on that scan resulted in some mixed feelings. While he had expected to find something in Claude, seeing how he was sick, it hadn't been quite the same as what they'd seen when they had scanned that other ill patient two nights ago. What did that mean? It was possible that the shape of it just looked different because of where it was in Claude's stomach, but Guy couldn't help but feel that there was a deeper meaning to it.

Yet another thing that he didn't understand, then. With a sigh, he got himself up out of bed and went searching immediately for the single leaf that he'd taken from the X-ray room last night. It was stored carefully in his possessions box, which meant that he didn't have to worry too much about that.

While he wanted to quickly sketch the leaf's general shape to post on the bulletin, Guy wasn't given that chance, as his nurse showed up before he could even grab for his journal. He had to relent and let her lead him to the cafeteria for breakfast. While Guy considered stopping by the bulletin to leave a note, that could wait until after he ate. He suspected that Anise or Luke would try to find him as soon as possible to tell him about their findings, so leaving a note for them would be redundant.

He did need to ask about the clue from last night and see if anyone else had further insight on it, but that might be something Claude wanted to do, seeing how he had a better idea of who that baptist was and what it all might signify.

After collecting a small amount of food onto a plate, Guy took a seat near the cafeteria's entrance, keeping an eye out for any of his friends so he could flag them down as they walked in.

[For Anise and Claude.]

Comments

[nobleman]

It was hard to explain, and so Guy took a few bites of his food as he thought it over. For one thing, he wasn't a doctor. For another, it wasn't like they had copies of the scans to compare, so he was only going off of memory.

"Well, with the first patient... Barnaby was his name, right? It looked like a butterfly. You could see the wings, and the body. With Claude, whatever was in him was more cylindrical. It may have just been that it was positioned differently inside of him, but..." He paused and shrugged. It was only a small detail and it might mean nothing, but it had been worth noting.

Of course, talking about his friend's guts was enough to almost ruin his appetite, and Guy was left to stare down at his food for a moment. But he had to remind himself that he wasn't sick, that his stomach wasn't rebelling against him and making it impossible to eat. That thought spurred him to take another bite.

[earthling]

The next morning didn't find Claude in very high spirits. After the trouble of heading to the X-Ray room again, he'd been hoping to discover a more concrete direction toward the cure. Even if he and Guy thought they might have stumbled across some medicinal herbs, Claude wasn't convinced they hadn't just found a couple of plain old leaves. He could only hope they would manage to find what they were looking for before it was too late.

Today was a new day, though, and Claude understood that he couldn't go into this with a defeated attitude. He wasn't the only one dealing with this. They could all work through this together. Besides, if he gave up, how could he expect everyone else to stay positive?

Thankfully, it didn't take long for him to find Guy and Anise. Tray in hand, he approached their table with straightened shoulders and a smile that didn't betray the anxiety eating away at the pit of his stomach. As he reached his seat, he caught the last part of Guy's explanation.

"Hey," he greeted as he took a seat. Getting a closer look at Anise, Claude was relieved to find she didn't look injured. "I guess you heard a little bit about what we found. Did you and Luke have any luck?"

[gald_digger]

No wings? Guy was right in that it could be the same. If they looked at a butterfly-shaped object directly from the side, maybe they wouldn't see the wings. But what were the chances of that?

"I wonder what it means..." Anise murmured, staring down at the yet-untouched plate in front of her. Did no wings mean the illness had progressed? Or that it hadn't progressed that far yet? Or was it a different sickness entirely? And what kind of object was in her stomach now? She wished she knew... though maybe they didn't have to be in the dark about all those questions. "Hey, maybe I could talk to Barnaby again. If there's some kind of big difference between him and Claude, it might tell us what that butterfly-thing is about."

Speaking of Claude, Anise looked up to see he'd made his way over to join them. He managed a smile for the two of them, and Anise made an effort to return it, even if it wasn't her brightest smile. It wouldn't do if she were to start looking all gloomy in front of her friends.

"Yep!" she promptly replied. "I think we have all the tools we'll need. Oh, and we found, like, medicine for putting people to sleep. I don't really know how to use it, but if we could figure it out, it'd be pretty handy. I have some painkillers and stuff too, if that doesn't work."

[nobleman]

When Anise mentioned that she could speak with the other sick patient -- whose name was Barnaby, and Guy would have to commit that to memory -- he nodded along in agreement. It wasn't a bad idea. While comparing notes might not give them any new information, it very well might reveal something, or explain the difference between Claude's illness and Barnaby's.

As he was about to encourage Anise to try that, though, Claude showed up. Of course, he was hardly unwanted, and Guy shot his friend a smile as he sat down. They'd just been working together, so it wasn't as much of a relief to see Claude looking like his normal self (more or less), but Guy was still glad to see him.

It was good to hear that Anise and Luke had made some progress too. "So it sounds like we have what we need if we have to take that last resort," he said. "Though did you find a place where we could actually do the operation? Someplace clean and well-equipped, where we won't be interrupted?" That would be ideal, especially since none of them were trained for surgery in any way. Looking for a healer was still on Guy's to-do list.

[earthling]

While it was good to know Anise and Luke hadn't come up empty-handed, being reminded of the possibility that they would have to cut themselves open chased what little of his appetite he had left. Even though everyone was pretty calm about the whole thing, several worries gnawed at the back of Claude's mind. What if they bled to death? What if they caught an infection and died from that?

Those inner questions made their conversation all the more surreal, and though Claude did his best to stay composed, he couldn't help the way the color began to drain from his face when Guy asked about a suitable location for an operation.

Of course, they had to discuss their options. They couldn't bank everything on the cryptic clues they'd found last night. There was a real chance they would have to take matters into their own hands, but that didn't mean he had to be happy about it. As he grew quiet, Claude focused his attention on Anise and waited for her answer. If there was any room that fit that criteria, he imagined it would be somewhere in the med wing. Maybe she and Luke had found a place like that too.

[gald_digger]

Looked like talking to Barnaby was a good idea, then. Anise was going to have to find him as soon as she could.

As for Guy's next question, Anise had a few ideas. "Well, the operating rooms in the Medical Wing would probably work. There's a storage room next door too, if we needed anything extra. Although, we grabbed a lot of stuff, so we could probably even use a patient room if we need to." It wasn't as clean, but it was at least an option in case they started running out of time, or if something kept them from entering the Medical Wing.

And from what she could remember, there was a laboratory and the autopsy rooms upstairs, if they really needed a place to fall back on... but considering the original purposes of those rooms, those could be left as a last resort.

"By the way, what was the next clue?" she asked, suddenly remembering. Guy said they couldn't make much out of it, but she still wanted to know what they found.

[nobleman]

So there was an operating room (or more than one, from the sound of it) that they could use in the Medical Wing. That sounded like their best bet, though the patient rooms could stand in as a back-up if they weren't able to make it that far for some reason. "All right, so we have that worked out just in case," he said with a nod.

It wasn't as if he wanted to try and operate on either of his friends, seeing how it might go horribly wrong and then he'd be the one with blood on his hands, but he also realized that it would be stupid to not work out every option they had.

As for the clue, it wasn't exactly easy to explain, and he didn't want to make Anise panic either. Guy paused for a moment. "There was a painting. It was something from an Earth religion, about a baptist, but there were also some stray leaves underneath the painting." He could probably leave the rest of the details to Claude, who understood it all a bit better.

[earthling]

Yeah, just in case was all well and good, but Claude still had to hope that things wouldn't come to that. It was for that reason that he didn't pursue that line of conversation, and he was content to let it rest in favor of discussing other ways to put a stop to this madness.

"Basically, it depicted the death of a man known as John the Baptist," Claude elaborated. "You remember that movie about Jesus Christ, right? The story goes that John baptized him in a river, and he was eventually killed for challenging the Romans' authority."

Rubbing his chin, he thought back on that night, and he wondered what to make of what else they found. "We weren't sure whether the leaves were medicinal herbs, or if whoever left them behind was trying to tell us to look outside. Isn't there a river outside of the grounds? Maybe it has to do with that, I don't know..." At this point, he was just rambling to himself, hoping that he would think of something useful.

"But we held onto a few leaves in case they became important later," he added with a small smile. They did their best to have all their bases covered, so that could only help, right?

[gald_digger]

A picture of someone's death? That sounded more like a threat than a clue. What were they supposed to get out of that? Anise was starting to understand why her friends hadn't learned much from it.

The leaves, however, at least seemed like they ought to have a use. "So you don't know what kind of plant it is?" That made it really hard to figure out what it meant. "Maybe someone else in the institute would know... like if someone made a sketch and put it on the bulletin board?" There were experts of all kinds of weird things around them, from what Anise had experienced. It couldn't hurt to ask.

It was just a suggestion, and maybe making a sketch wouldn't be feasible. But if they were supposed to take those leaves as some kind of hint, figuring out what the heck they were seemed like a good way to start.

[nobleman]

So Guy wasn't the only one who'd thought of sketching one of the leaves for the other patients to see. If they could just identify that plant, it really might help them get to the bottom of this.

"I wanted to do that," he told Anise, "but I didn't get a chance before the nurse came and got me this morning. I didn't get a very good look at the leaves last night, so I'm not sure I could just draw it from memory." Or at least not with the accuracy that would be needed to identify a plant like that.

There was a small chance that one of the nurses would let him return to his room for a brief moment and he could do it then, but Guy didn't want to rely on that. Which left...

"We'll have to keep an eye on the bulletin, too. I bet other patients saw the clue, so people will probably be talking about it." It was frustrating that so much of this relied on the knowledge of others. Guy would have rather taken it all into his own hands, but Landel wasn't making it that easy. No surprise there, really.