She could hardly see over the crates barricading the terrace lab, much less find her sample charts, and it was certainly harder doing it one-handed while lecturing her apprentices through the comm. 

“No, no, no, aetheric crystals need a dampening medium between them, save the hex panels for those and stop wasting them on the resonators.” 

That was it, somewhere here...some things just shouldn’t be trusted to apprentices, but they should hardly be left in open air labs on LITERAL PAPER where they could blow over into the SEA, what were you thinking? I really need a good stimcup and three more hands. Neither of those things seem out of reach or ludicrous just now. She leafed through the records, rolled them up awkwardly with her right hand, and jammed the roll in her belt. 

“Yes. Just chuck them in a box if they’re not plugged in. Of COURSE they can’t go in the same shipment, are you volunteering to sign off on the transport insurance? I’m not paying for limb replacement on another delivery crew.” 

“Indrii!” 

She turned, raising a hand to scratch self-consciously at the cool air brushing over the sides of her scalp in place of the expected smack in the face from her dreadlocks. 

“Bixx, fractals above, I’m glad someone with a competency in basic materials handing showed up. Where have you been!” She marched up the steps to the prime lab, scrolling down the docket on her datapad impatiently, dragging Bixx behind haplessly in her wake.

“With respect, Commodore...please excuse the uhh, there’s a, uh, two Peacekeepers are at the gate, they uhhh-”

Indrii huffed in exasperation and spun on her heel, nearly toppling the poor asura behind her down the steps.

“Since when are you intimidated by a few peacekeepers sniffing around, Bixx?” Bixx flushed pink down to the spots on the tips of her ears in consternation as Indrii handed off another pad from her belt. “I’ll deal with them. You’re in charge of making sure these get to Mrot Boru before someone poaches the free lab space. I have a lot of capital investment riding on this, if you’d like to continue on up the grant ladder we need this expansion!”

“Yes, Commodore! Right away, Commodore!”

Indrii squared her shoulders, brushing back the twist of hair falling over her shoulder in the unlikely event they’d come loose. She brushed the packing dust off her skirts and set off briskly toward the two scowling guards by the gate. She swept past them without gracing them a single glance, forcing them to trot to the Gate behind her like Bixx. 

“Hello ladies. I presume you are here to escort me to my hearing. Carry on.”

Indrii’s skin glows an unearthly blue in the chloro-lites as she dips her head beneath them, adjusting her goggles carefully. The trays beneath her glow back in cracked fractals of deep green etched over black. She yawns slightly, the humming and the warmth always makes her sleepy, especially in the cold mountain air, but she shakes the the hair falling over her shoulders back out of her way and continues with the methodical tics on her datapad.

She looks over her shoulder to be certain Datura has left the lab in earnest before straightening and moving to the cabinets below the sylvari sample gels. Another set of sample plates greets her, hidden away behind a false shelf of beakers and saline solutions, this one bathed in a deep red light. Tiny blossoms erupt from crackled and twisted black bark, some red and thriving, some lavender and wilting into sickly brown sludge. She frowns, cruising through the encrypted files of her pad to make another rapid sequence of marks. Looking over her shoulder all the while she pulls on thick non-porous gloves and adds a slender pipette’s-worth of fluid from the smoked glass beaker at the back of the cabinet. 

Footsteps sound at the base of the steps. He’s close. In the old lab the sound of the waves on the shore often covered the approach of her lab assistants and startled her, but here, this far up the barren mountainside the cool dry air carries any sounds not muffled by the recent snowfall. The gloves are thrown to the back of the cabinet in a rush, the shelf replaced, the hidden door swung shut, seconds before what she’s come to call her son enters the room. 

She turns and meets the glow in his eyes, the same brilliant green as the cracked skin in her petri dishes.  She gives him a tight smile she hopes carries more affection than uneasy fear. “We’re making progress.” 

Beautiful and terrible. What’s to be done about you? My son. 

Calling Cards

Indrii blinked groggily, raising her forehead from her crossed arms, stiff and aching from pressing against the desk. Automatically she checked the monitors in Datura’s quarters, noting the readouts without even being fully aware of it. Sleeping. As a sensible person should be at this hour. She pressed the heels of her hands against her eyesockets. Can’t even get a precious few moments rest at my desk without... She shot a withering glare at the obnoxious mosaic gecko loudly chirruping in the corner and halfheartedly tossed an empty sweet wrapper at it to send it scurrying from the room. The hovering anxiety descended without fuss back onto her shoulders as she sat silently at her desk. With a sigh she rose, tied her robes on, and shuffled out onto the terrace in her robes, assuring herself she wasn’t at all leaving to check on her various troublesome charges. Where is Nili sleeping these days? I hope she’s not back in a hammock. I suppose I’d know if I’d get to bed one of these evenings.

She couldn’t help glancing toward the perimeter wall as she scuffed through the lab, breathing an inward sigh of relief at the absence of shadowy figures climbing over it. She passed Datura’s room, stalwartly avoiding looking in on him, and eventually found her feet reluctantly pointed toward Mae’s rooms. She’d made up her mind to turn back and avoid awkward questions about what she might be doing there when she noticed the shadow by the door. 

Reluctantly and very, very quietly she tiptoed closer, squinting to see in the ambient city lights. A package, wrapped gently in thorned vines, set carefully at her door like a gift. Feeling a weight in the pit of her stomach, she unwound the vine, pricking her fingers awkwardly. The cloth fell open and a sharp spike of fear set her back on her heels, looking over her shoulder abruptly. Silence. She sat there for a long moment on the damp stone before noticing the flowers bound up in the vine. Her shaking fingers picked them out gingerly. Hellebore.

Nili is the only one I can trust now.

Personal Logs

ENCRYPTED FILE >>> Security Code 9;Use Key 705

It isn’t a toxicological reaction. It’s an immune reaction. 

Subject Red’s cells show no appreciable response to compounds found in the plants, and the same compounds occur in varying strengths within his own tissue. Presented directly with live cultures from the garden, strong immunological response follows. Sylvari response to anaphylactic exposures vary and rarely mimic known symptoms in mammals. Increased aggression attributable to vascular and neural tissue inflammation and self-generated stress compounds. 

The growths weren’t Ruby’s attempt to dominate the host. They were Violet’s attempt to expel him. 

Incident Report

Subject Ruby exposed to high levels of cultivated progenitor tissue last night. Side effects including but not limited to heightened aggression, paranoia, ataxia, tracheal irritation and weakness. Strong dermatological reaction mid-ventral torso despite lack of physical contact. Safe-handling recommendations updated to include Envirohaz equipment and protective clothing, despite my suspicions that this was an isolated reaction specific to the subject. Recovery is steady, patient is stable and responsive. Currently monitoring for disproportionate emotional response as this seems to be the most likely holdover effect.

Personal Logs

Datura found the plants last night. I’d like to blame Drimm, but the poor wretch was in a bind of my own making. It was disastrous.

Research Logs

Progress on hellebore toxin slow; no trained botanists or horticulturists on staff. Strain is extremely drought resistant. Cut blooms seal within five to ten minutes of severing, cuttings propagate with little to no substrate or moisture. Entire plant contains toxin, most unusually even surface contact may be deleterious over periods of long exposure. (Consider providing subject Red with gloves.) The plant itself is easily bruised and produces copious sap. This would seem a more reasonable expectation about toxin delivery than an oil such as ivy might produce. Very preliminary investigations suggest a variant on the wild variety that may include a mild neurotoxin causing ataxia (see case file Blue).

Personal Logs

My enthusiasm for this project is waning. The only thing truly keeping me here is the lack of staff to take it over in my absence. Certainly Datura is competent for the task, even suited for it with his possible immunity to the substance, but I won’t chance his exposure to the garden given his last reaction. I’ve become a little wary about letting him touch me given what I’ve gathered about the flowers, but I’m reluctant to hurt his feelings. He’s acting a little excitable. Talking about what he’s ‘earned,’ and other things he isn’t ready to disclose. I should ask Nili. She’s better at reading people. (I also wish people would stop wandering around in states of undress about the lab, I’m beginning to think it’s some kind of test. Note to Drimm: requisition proper living quarters for him.)

Went to Lion’s Arch with Naphtali last night.

[The time stamp reflects a gap of several minutes.]

Stepping through the gate into her home territory, Indrii finally slowed her furious pace and looked up from her feet at the brilliant night sky. “Perfect evening,” she said, glaring at it. “Starry. Peaceful. Warm. ‘Magical’ if you’re listening to some second-rate lute-playing cockatiel warbling about it in the remains of your favorite bar.”

She kicked a stone out of the way and scuffed angrily up the steps to the bedroom, stumbling into bed and wrapping herself tightly in a cocoon of tangled sheets, careful not to uncover her bedmate. Anger smoldered out into gnawing anxiety as she reviewed over and over her every word and action leading up to where the evening went wrong. At length she gave up and rolled over, quietly confessing whether or not her friend heard, if only to get it out of the way and find sleep.

“That was the most foolish thing I’ve ever done.”

Transmission on Termination

Three years ago I carried an emergency black-book with me everywhere. On my death all the instructions remained for running the company, which bribes to send to whom, what volatile assets were stashed where. Once it saved my life. Since then I’ve moved on to rather more domestic and technologically advanced journaling, but today is a bit of a throwback. 

I may well be paranoid (as other captains were fond of pointing out), but this vacation is set up to culminate in insurance fraud, shipwreck, mutiny or drowning, and if that’s to be the way of it, I’m not going out silently or unprepared. Pragmatism is the soul of Statics.

Yesterday after a fairly uneventful start we encountered a storm and spent the day in a sheltered cave harbor in the Bloodtide Coast. While there we discovered a slightly injured sylvari. Mae, Acanthae and Adair pursued it into the cave when it ran from us, and it’s not clear what happened inside, but Adair sustained a grave sword wound and on capture the sylvari appeared hostile and mostly feral. In addition, the crew is smuggling highly reactive unlabeled chemicals out in broad daylight. It is at least possible that they intend to destroy the ship for recompense from the company, in which case witnesses will accompany it. 

Datura, this entry was coded for your datapad specifically. It may sound like an odd, cold thing to say, but your sister and yourself are my greatest achievement. I’m very fond of you both. I’m afraid, based on what I’ve seen and what the three of them aren’t telling me, that she might not be trustworthy. She may even be dangerous. It was my mistake assuming free rein and not careful in-house observation was the best choice for her, and if anyone dies here tonight, it will be on my shoulders. 

If the worst should happen, my estate is current and will revert to you. Everything you need to know is there. Please watch out for your sister. She still needs you, but I’m afraid this time it isn’t because she’s defenseless.

If it doesn’t, well, this message will not activate and you won’t be reading this, will you? 

Personal Logs

I didn’t really think I’d have time to write while out here, but I’m trying to look busy while everyone makes the ship...shipshape. After all this excitement I’m very much looking forward to another drink at the Crow’s Nest and a follow up psychology lecture. Here’s to living to see it. I hope Drimm isn’t disturbing the garden. I really should have left a note.

Good RP friends support and encourage your character’s growth. Best RP friends torture them. <3

“Height has nothing to do with presence, dear. You are as tall as you act.”

Optimization is Boring.

Research Logs

Excellent progress with the cellular regrowth project. After a few initial setbacks in perfecting the growth medium (note: anti-fungal agar substrate MUCH more essential than typical anti-bacterial substrate), have now produced with great success sylvari cambium grafts. Post-application, bark regrowth progresses as normal with minimal scarring. Continuing forward with organ and vascular growth trials under full disclosure to Ethics Committee (may they perish in the Mists); first transplant attempts to begin next month. Hopefully this will provide a viable alternative for those sylvari with injuries beyond the repair of natural regrowth: burns, illness, amputation, etc.

Personal Logs

This vacation couldn’t come at a better time. I thought Adair was touched in the head, acting almost disappointed that the separation went smoothly, and yet the last few weeks I’ve wanted to tear my hair out and kick an apprentice more than ever. I hadn’t really stopped to consider where my irritation was coming from until I had another...’meeting’ with the doctor. (I suppose I ought to start calling him by his name at some point, or at least practice doing so until I can stop acting so obscenely formal when we meet. I actually shook his hand when we parted ways last night. I don’t know where my mind was, but I expect it left sometime between telling him I used to be a privateer accountant and remembering he had an ex-lover in a coma at home.) I was a nervous wreck half the afternoon and most of the next morning worrying about it despite his usual gentlemanly conduct, but afterward I felt revived. Without stress, without setbacks, without a challenge, I’m simply not happy. And of course with Datura in charge, there are fewer complications than ever. Damn this smoothly operating machine. 

I hope we’re shipwrecked.

If not I may have to attempt another ‘date,’ even if it’s simply for the rush.

“So, how was your date?”

“I had an existential debate about the perils of salmon spawning. With myself. The highlight was probably when my roommate asked if he’d ever killed anyone and how that made him feel.”

Two Hours Until Date

You’re a veteran pirate genius. You’ve blown apart a shark with a lightning bolt. You’ve lived through two mutinies and an assassination plot. You survived on bugs and leaves hidden in an Inquest lab for a WEEK. 

It’s just conversation. You know how to do that. Yeah. Yeah, alright. I can probably do this. Where did Nili leave her flask?