sixthiterationlogs | [PLOT MINGLE] The Specimen Room

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[PLOT MINGLE] The Specimen Room

WHO: Jude Sullivan
WHERE: The fields (behind the Town Hall)
WHEN: August 18, Afternoon
OPEN TO: ALL, Mingle style post for the Specimen Room plot
WARNINGS: See the Plot Post for details of the Specimen Room and its contents

Jude's glad to have the meeting out of doors, with or without the illness to prompt it. The cave-in hadn't scared him out of the canyon's cracks and crevices, but the room he'd found with Margaery might, and he needs every helping factor he can get to keep himself steady through the meeting. Public speaking is less a great fear than a thing he's never cared to do, but public speaking on a subject like this might prove too much, and if he pitches over again in front of someone, he's going to throw himself in the fountain and never come back out.

He'd gotten some help to carry the board out of the inn, tacking up fresh sheets of paper to the back of it. While others gathered those villagers well enough to come out to the fields, he'd done his best to recreate his and Margaery's view of the room through the glass, the layout of the coolers, the shape of the machinery at its center. Next to that, he'd tried to draw a rough overview of the room--what shape it might have from above, the placement of the door, the curve of the tunnel that Margaery had led him down.

As far as he'd noticed, there was no way around the rest of the cave to get at the door, but he hadn't been very inclined to look. When he pulls back from the board, charcoal staining his fingers, his brow where he'd wiped back his hair, he turns to find a crowd gathering behind him.

When it comes to the actual explanations, he struggles a bit to project his voice, but the words are there when he looks for them. He sticks to using the drawings to present the information, pointing to each element in turn. "There're electrical lights, florescent ones, in the room and the coolers, so I guess they're working too. And the glass was--uh, well, it was thick enough that knocking into it didn't break anything." He drops his gaze to his feet, hiding behind his hair at the memory.

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"I'll go in first. You shout if something happens out here. I'll let you know when it's clear and then stay with you and guard the entrance." It sounded great in theory though Clary felt her nerves rise and her skin prickle as she turned to head into the cave that Jude had described. She walked slowly, careful not to trip. Her blades where in her hands and after the longest five minutes of her life she called back to Ravi.

"It's clear."

She hoped that it stayed that way though she didn't feel comfortable relaxing just yet. They still had whatever animals happened to be out here.

Ravi won't just shout, he'll start screaming up and down this whole village. Screaming in panic and terror is not something that Ravi will have trouble with, is what he's getting at. He watches anxiously for her signal and then heads inside, breathing out slowly.

"So, this is it?" He's not sure what he'd expected, but this is definitely not what fits his imagination. Then again, there's no clear evidence of foul play. The screen that separates them looks extremely thick, though, and he knocks on it, glancing to Clary.

"Do you think you can break that?"

Clary walked up to the glass and tapped it with the tip of her dagger. She wasn't sure if it would act like glass but it didn't to anything when poke with the pointy object. Things in this world were generally misleading and she hadn't ruled out magic yet.

"No idea. Maybe with one of those things that they tell you to keep in your car in case you drive into a river." She looked over at Ravi. "The ice pick looking tool that's meant to shatter glass."

The short answer was no. She had no idea how to break this.

Ravi squints at what she's doing, sort of like he can almost see how he can mimic it and become a super action-hero himself, instead of just the plucky sidekick, even though he suspects he's doomed to that life forever. Not that he minds, truly, because it is still entertaining.

"Let me look," he says, drifting closer and pressing his hands to the glass so he can stare inside, trying to make out any writing. There's definitely vials of blood in there, there's no question about that. "It looks like they've got enough to at least have some from all of us."

Clary's brows furrowed together. "How?"

She didn't remember anyone taking blood from her. Then again, she also didn't remember how she had managed to wake up in the fountain. "Is this like some alien thing where they kidnap us and run tests on us?" She didn't think the Fea or Downworlders would do that which meant didn't exactly narrow down what could have took her. It was beginning to sound like her father which sent uncomfortable chills down her spine.

"That's messed up." She knew it would be but seeing it was very different than hearing it.

"I think it must be before we come through that fountain," Ravi insists, since that's been his theory since he heard about this room. "What if that's where they take everything, put us in those clothes, sort of a staging room of sorts." He gives her a look of disbelief because there's nothing about this place that's normal, as far as he's concerned about.

"Honestly, after everything, this almost makes more sense," he says, though he's not sure that he entirely believes that. "A strange room of our blood? It's sort of proof of experimentation, right?"

"Yeah but it doesn't answer why." She can't shake the fact that this was eerily similar to something that her father might do. She didn't want to believe that he was somehow in cahoots with the people who had brought them here.

Vibrant green eyes looked over at Ravi.

"Would it be absolutely ridiculous to keep taps on this room. Like see if we see someone in here before they arrive at the fountain?" Saying that out loud made it sound more crazy than she initially thought it might.

"Why not?" It's pert and clever, but it's also true. "If this is all some big experiment, they need a baseline. Then they need additional tests. If the weather or the strange events are something they're putting us through, I'd take blood and other samples too." He has been, is what he doesn't say, given that this is exactly what he's been doing with the rats.

"I wish we had some sort of video camera," he says. "We tried watching the fountain for arrivals too, but then, when someone does, you fall asleep or something distracts you. I suspect that something similar might happen here, with human watching." Sometimes, he wonders if that's why there's no actual technology. It would rat out their captors, if they had it.

Clary turned towards Ravi with a frown. "Are you saying that they not only took blood from us before they dumped us in this canyon but they've been taking samples of us since then? How? When?" She paused as another thought entered her mind. "They put us through the weather? and the earthquakes, that lead us to this."

This was too confusing.

She took a step back and slipped one of her blades through a belt loop so she had a free hand. Her palm pressed against the rocks before her finger nails began to dig into the stone. "That can't be it. There has to be more to it somehow."

Clary was looking for any indication that this wasn't similar to her fathers experiments; so far she's had no luck and it was starting to annoy her.

"Maybe?" It's all a theory in his mind, truthfully, but he figures that it's the best one he's got. "If they can somehow get us to arrive here without our memory of why, it's not outside the realm of possibility that they can somehow affect us," he says, because is they have that ability, then what about when they sleep? To be fair, anyone can also have that ability with enough alcohol or roofies, but you usually feel that the next morning.

"Wouldn't it at least help explain how everything gets taken away? Why we don't remember things? Why we're in medical scrubs," he points out, plucking at the top in question.

"Yeah." She agreed with a bit of a huff. "Let me know when we're done here." She still wasn't going to leave him alone but she didn't like it here. It made her feel weird and there was nothing she could do to chase away the feeling.

"Oh another but totally not as crazy as everything else note." Clary began as she leaned against the cave wall, crossing her arms over her chest with the two blades now wedged into her boots; they wouldn't cut through her clothing there. "What about something like magic? And don't tell me that it doesn't exist. This isn't the first time I've been to another world and last time had been through a one way door too. I had to find something to open the other door. Is it possible for that to be the case here to?"

She knew she wasn't supposed to talk about it but at this point she wanted to know if it was a completely crazy idea or not. It wasn't as if they were coming up with better ideas.

Ravi keeps working his hands over the glass like he's looking for weak spaces when she comments about magic, scoffing in disbelief even though she's already reprimanded him to say that it exists (which, it doesn't, come on), but still, he gives her a wary look because he's not entirely sure how to make his brain work with the fact that she could be right.

For all his long-held beliefs, why couldn't there be magic? After all, this place has been doing some very strange things. "Maybe," he allows, "but those vials in there are blood, and that's not magic, that's needles and science and results."

"Us being kept out," he admits, knocking on the glass and realizing that short of a rocket launcher, he's not getting in, "or kept in, rather, that's possibly magic."

"Yes but who says that magic and science can't mix." Clary was trying not to think of her father and his experiments but it was difficult considering that it was relevant to the conversation. He'd been trying to make himself and his warriors stronger. Clary didn't think that there captors were trying to make them stronger but it wasn't a completely outlandish theory either.

"It'd make sense." It's also explain why she felt weaker and slower here and why everyone could see the rune marks burned into her skin.

"As much sense as anything else going on here."

"I do, I say that, all the time," Ravi replies instantly, raising his hand with a serious look on his face. He might even be on record as having said that, though Liv never did write down those things, so maybe it's not a record at all. "It's not that I don't believe in magic or the supernatural, but I think there's still a scientific explanation behind it all, thus, it's science, it's all science, there's no hocus pocus, no fribbery-jibbery magic, it's hard science."

"Honestly, at this point, I don't think we're getting in there, but they've definitely got something," he says. "I'm not sure if that makes me feel better or worse."

Clary exhaled a slow breath. What Ravi believed wouldn't change the facts. "Why does magic have to be something that you can't explain?" Just because he'd never gotten the chance to study it and assumed it was outside of the realm of possibility.

She'd love to see Ravi and Magnus go at it.

"Anyway. We done here? Unless you know someone who can phase through glass."

Ravi stares at the glass for another long moment, pressing his lips together as he realizes that there's nothing helpful about this, that it's good to know, but it's useless as far as actually doing anything. "Yes," he agrees glumly, "I'm done. I can't do anything here, other than stare forlornly at a bunch of vials."

"Let's go then."

Clary turned, pausing only to make sure that Ravi was following. When they were far enough away she turned and headed towards the peach trees. He didn't have to come with her, they were away from the creepy vials of blood and it was probably save enough but she wanted to grab some peaches before heading back to the inn.

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[PLOT MINGLE] The Specimen Room

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