outer_divide | [Video: Week 21, Friday]

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[Video: Week 21, Friday]

Right, well fun as it was to go off to that dead desert [Briar's face clearly indicates that he didn't like that desert at all], now that I'm back if I don't do anything useful Rosethorn'll hang me in the well the next time she sees me. [now Briar grins]

I can make medicines, and I'm good at growing things. [Briar grins again, amused at the sheer understatement of that sentence] Somebody around here's gotta need a gardener.

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[A response comes in the form of a slim and smiling redhead, as Pepper looks businesslike but friendly amongst a backdrop of the shelves and piles of the Stores.]

People who are looking for something useful to do are my favourite kind of people.

I can think of two things you might enjoy doing with that skillset, right off the bat. Do you have a preference for one over the other?

[Briar's response is immediate]

Gardening.

Besides, the medicines I make are usually from my own plants anyway.

A workman should know his own tools. [Pepper quotes with the air of an old aphorism, and a smile for someone not present.]

Fair enough. It's the wrong season to send you out to assist the farmers with the fields, although I imagine you're going to be their new best friend come the spring. A Major Alenko has set up a greenhouse of sorts, though, and some of the local farmers have some vegetables going down there. Talk to him and he can get you set up with a space, I'm sure.

[She looks considering then, lower lip caught between her teeth.]

If I was to get you a supply of some more exotic seeds, could you do anything with them? Granted, it takes about two years for a coffee bush to be ready for harvest, but I wouldn't mind starting something.

[Briar perks up] You have a greenhouse? How'd you afford the glass here?
[Not that Briar's complaining. For all that his teacher Rosethorn dislikes greenhouses, Briar's always found them fascinating]

But a greenhouse will definitely help - you can grow most things with one of those. And I can magic your coffee to grow fast, but plants need to grow slow to be at their best. I can do it, but it won't taste the same.

It's underground, actually. I'm not up on the technology behind it, but Tony -- that would be Tony Stark -- set up a system to collect sunlight aboveground and filter it below ground with reflective dishes in the ceiling, which means that they get their light while taking advantage of the stable temperatures down there.

It's really pretty interesting, and I'm sure either Major Alenko or one of the farmers would be happy to show it to you.

[Her plug for the technology of necessity made, she focuses on her own interests, accepting 'magic' as a linguistic construct for some unknown advanced technology, if nothing else. ]

I can understand the impact of cutting corners. Still, I'll have to see about bringing something in -- I imagine you could at least help with the germination rate, even if the actual growth has to be hands off. Medicinal plants could be huge, though.

[Briar's eyes widen] You have a glasshouse underground?!

Where can I find Major Alenko? How soon can I see this? How big is it? Can you reeally get enough light, just from reflections? [Briar had thought that a building that could grow plants inside was amazing enough - but that was nothing to growing them underground]

I didn't say the growth had to be hands off. I can still do plenty to help it along, but it'll work much better if I just shorten the growth a bit rather than have them sprout up in a day. Medicinal's easier though, some of the plants growing around here are good for healing.

We do -- a prototype, at least. But it keeps the temperature constant and, more importantly, makes it harder for the Authorities to destroy it.

[Pepper looks quietly and restrainedly angry at that bit of history. Torching crops may be a long-accepted tactic of evil oppressors everywhere, but that doesn't mean she has to approve of it. But... to business:]

You can reach Major Alenko via communicator, like this, or you can probably ask around -- he keeps a workshop in town and seems to get along pretty well with the locals although we don't interact much ourselves. Different spheres, I guess.

[Briar scowls at the mention of people destroying crops. He's no stranger to those kind of tactics either, but he'll never like anyone going around killing plants]

I'm keeping out of the city for now. I'm not walking into a plague-infested city unless I really need to.

[Paradoxically, the mention of plague-infested cities and avoiding them seems to perk Pepper up a bit. The reason comes clear in her answer.]

If that's your worry, don't be -- go to the hospital and get yourself vaccinated. If that's not something your world has, the simplest explanation is that it's a treatment that will prevent you from getting sick. It's just recently been made up specifically for this disease, which is why it wasn't rolled out earlier.

Keep it quiet -- it will take them a few days to roll out enough for everyone -- but keeping people healthy who've never been sick is a priority.

[Briar looks surprised that they have a vaccine already, and he cheers up considerably] Course my world has vaccines! My teacher, she's one of the experts on 'em. She helped make the magicked samples that they use for testing, and whenever a new plague comes round they always get her to help figure it out.

[He nodded, understanded the need to not cause a riot in the rush for the vaccine] You got a cure, too?

As much as there's a cure for any communicable disease, at least. I'm not a doctor, so I can't give exact details, but there's an effective treatment for both stages of the disease, so any individual catching it needn't get too sick.

[She looks a little wry as she reflects that ] I could wish they'd gotten it sooner. It's pretty nasty, and my own case of it was moreso. But while it's still active, I would say that it's safe to come in and get a vaccination. And then you don't have to worry about it and can focus on other things.

I'll be making sure to get myself down to that hospital then, quick as I can. [Briar grinned, feeling very happy to finally be able to go into the city. It's not that he minded being out with the plants, but he still didn't like sleeping on his own. In the city at least, there would be people around.]

You must've been lucky though, to get it so bad and still recover. Not everyone's so lucky. [A mournful expression flashed across his face for a moment, as he remembered his friend Flick, who'd died during the Blue Pox]

[And then there's an amphibian appearing on the video feed. In the background, the constant activity of a hospital in a plague zone continues to buzz.]

Medicines of proven efficacy?

[Excuse Briar for a moment, he's just going to gape at the...whatever it is that's just appeared. You might need to remind him of your question later, Mordin]

What are you?!

[Giant talking lizards, dragon people...Briar was getting a headache from it all.]

[He's getting used to this]

Salarian. Amphibious species native to Sur'Kesh. Should make pamphlet.

...You're like a frog? [Well, that Briar didn't expect]

In broad sense. No common genetic material. Separate planets.

[Briar had heard a little of this before - this whole idea of different planets and worlds. He still didn't quite understand it, but then, how else to explain how different all the places everyone else here came from? How else to explain worlds that didn't even have magic?]

Just how many...[Briar frowns at how odd saying this feels] planets have people living on them?

Hundred. More colonies founded on a regular basis. Humans newcomers, determined to expand.

[And dammit, he's not letting the Reapers stop that.]

But how could anyone actually get to other planets? People talk about these 'flying ships', but...

Flying ships for initial orbital escape. Mass relays for interstellar transfer. FTL sub-optimal option.

...What?

[That madde absolutely no sense to Briar, so he's just going to stare at you. Is it too much to ask that people actually talk normally?]

growingwild - 2013-01-03 00:15 (UTC) - Expand

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