Hazel was hard at work trying to tease out a cure for the Ooze from its many symptoms. In a little wicker cage at her side was an infected fox who would be the recipient of her next attempt. For the last several days she'd taken samples of ooze from its ears, eyes and sores and mixed them in various concoctions to 'see' what became of them. She'd cut off mushrooms, sawed off crystals, and probed abscesses all in the name of witchcraft. Or science, whatever you wanted to call it. So far her success had been minimal unless you considered death with resurrection a successful outcome, in which case she had been very successful. She'd discovered no solutions for the living, however.

Presently she lay on the ground with a bowl pressed between her paws and a pestle clamped between her teeth. Hazel was hard at work grinding today's version of the cure. Any second now she'd be ready to test it...

"Speech"

It had been with tentative paws that she stepped her way into this... intriguing forest, with its thick vegetation and damp mossy floor. The silence was eerie, and not a single bird in the branches or rabbit in the ferns was to be found. It made her want to explore why. She sniffed curiously at the fungi the sprouted up in the damp, teal eyes narrowed scrutinisingly to inspect it. Her tongue gave the top a quick lick. It tasted of nothing, but it was a little moist. Inoki moved on, distracted by a strip of lichen growing over a piece of rotting wood. It seemed... ridiculously normal, and she let out a soft huff. This place had looked so promising for plants to grow that had much more nefarious uses as a poison, but maybe she just needed to look harder? Inoki continued onwards, eyes and ears on a swivel for anything brightly coloured or strong-smelling that may give away the location of something that was just screaming out I'm poisonous!. Her attention was grabbed by the scent of, well, death, but there was something strange about it. Something she could not quite place, and so with a grin she set off at a brisk pace, nose in the air to guide her. What she came across pleased her greatly. A sick fox locked up in some sort of cage, and a wolf grinding away with a bowl and pestle, clearly hard at working making something. "Want any help?" She offered with a curious glint in her eye, desperately wanting to know what this wolf was up to, and if she could maybe get something out of it if she assisted.

A hoot from Barnabas alerted Hazel to the presence of another. She stopped grinding just as a voice reached her ears and turned sightless eyes in the stranger's direction. The stranger sounded young, the voice markedly feminine, but Hazel could get nothing else as the breeze wasn't in her favor and the spirits were unhelpfully silent. But an offer of help, eh? There had been no mention of that in the whispers this morning nor in the bones the other night, but she wasn't about to turn away help.

Hazel blinked serenely in the stranger's direction and then tipped her head to the side in thought. "Are you infected?" She could use another test subject. A willing one would be even better as Barnabas' arthritis was prone to flaring up in these cold times and the poor fellow could use a break from wrangling.


"Speech"

Her gaze raised to look at the creature that had made the noise, eyeing it curiously. She was not aware that monkeys got along so well with wolves, but perhaps it was some type of assistant? It seemed this wolf was doing some type of experimentation, and if the captive fox was anything to go, she could only assume it was something to do with its sickness. It did not take Inoki long to realise there was something strange about the other female, her gaze seemed... unfocused? It would be rude to assume anything, so she kept her thoughts to herself. For now. "No," she simply stated, wondering what infection the female was talking about. "What is this infection you're referring to? I have some knowledge in medicines and potions, so I may be able to assist you." She left out the part of striking some sort of deal, wanting to know first if the other female was even receptive to the idea of help.

"Hm" she hummed after the woman admitted to not being infected. "That's unfortunate." It really would have been nice to have a willing test subject. Oh well, maybe the woman could still be help in other ways. Hazel gestured to the fox, who was showing signs of the 3rd variation of the Ooze. "Wolves are calling it 'The Ooze' because no matter the variation something is sick with they all produce that glowing slime. This fox has the 3rd kind. Nasty business, this one. The abscesses can run to the bone and their mind leaves them in the end." All of this was said in an airy, matter-of-fact tone.

Hazel took a deep breath and considered the woman's offer. "I could use your help," she said finally. "There are more herbs to grind in this bag here," she pushed her satchel forward and caused the bells on her wrist to jingle loudly. "And a mortar and pestle in one of the outer pockets."

She almost picked up her pestle again when it occurred to her to share the game plan. "When we are done we'll give them to our friend here and see what happens." Her last three subjects had died in the end, but two had promptly come back in spirit form so she liked to think she was on the right track. Either she would progress enough to save their bodies or she would just keep collecting souls. Either way she came out ahead.

"Speech"

She moved closer as the other woman began to explain what the infection was, curiously sniffed at the fox trapped in the cage. Her nose wrinkled at the smell of the ooze, but the glowing nature of it was hard to resist. If she was sure the fox would not attack her for getting too close, she might have tried touching the ooze. Tasting it was out of the question, as it was evident by the other woman's explanation that it was contagious of some sort, but alas, at least she could inspect it with her eyes. "How long does it take from the first sign of infection to when they go mad?" Her gaze was still on the fox, squinting at it as she looked over the oozing abscesses. They looked painful, enough to drive a creature insane trying to get rid of it, and she could understand why the infection was so dangerous. She took a step back, deciding that maybe she didn't want to risk getting sick after all. It pleased her to hear the other woman agreed to her offer to help, and without question Inoki began rummaging through the bag for the herbs and the mortar and pestle. Regardless of if she got something out of this or not, she wanted to see this through just in case something interesting happened. She set everything on the ground and lay down in a similar position to the other female, facing her and the fox so she could keep an eye on everything. "How many trials have you done with an infected creature and a concoction of herbs?" She asked the question, but then promptly picked up the pestle in her maw and began carefully grinding away at the herbs in the bowl. She could listen and work at the same time.

An old hat at this sort of thing, Hazel finished grinding the contents of her bowl quickly. She then set her pestle down and began to mix pinches of this and that from various other containers into a larger bowl. To that bowl she added a dirty, thick liquid before handing it off to Barnabas who got a spoon and began mixing it. "It varies. No two creatures are the same. Some take weeks while others are sickened and struck down in a matter of hours. I've dealt with both; it's a terrible illness." She sniffed. "The power behind it is quite formidable. I dealt with it once weeks ago." The cloaked figured that Barnabas had described to him was quite something indeed. Hazel had half a mind to switch patrons.

After mixing briefly Barnabas shuffled over to Inoki and scooped some of the crushed leaves out of her mortar. He then added it to his bowl and shuffled back to Hazel. "A dozen or more if you count the wee ones." Infected birds and mice were easy to come by and those she'd collected from and experimented with by the handful. Hazel turned her attention to Barnabas, who was no longer mixing. "We're ready, yes?" The capuchin nodded.

Hazel got to her paws. Barnabas would be doing the heavy lifting here, but she could hold the cage.

The little monkey stuck a stick through the bars of the fox's cage and after some wrangling managed to pin its neck to the bottom. He tied the ends of the stick firmly to the cage and then tipped the whole thing on end so that the fox stood on its hind legs with its mouth pointed upwards. Another stick was poked into the cage. This one he inserted into the corner of the fox's mouth and after a moment of fighting a biting frenzy, managed to lay it across the fox's back teeth. Working quickly as he knew the fox would chew throough the stick, Barbans then poured the 'cure' down its throat. The fox gagged and spit, but was unable to avoid most of the concoction.

Hazel took a deep breath when everything was said and done, and set the cage back down. "Now we wait."

"Speech"

Inoki listened as she ground up the herbs, hmming softly as a response to the knowledge that the timeline of the sickness varied greatly between creatures. That was absolutely fascinating. She had never heard of such a sickness before, usually the progression of symptoms happened quite linearly in her experience, except for a few more extreme cases here and there. However, it seemed the sickness was not fatal in all cases, if she heard the other female correctly. If it wasn't obvious that her fellow healer had already extensively investigated this sickness, Inoki would have likely taken closer investigations of it herself, even with the risk of getting sick. She stopped grinding with the pestle as the monkey grabbed some from her bowl, figuring she had enough there if more was required, and carefully set it down on the ground. "Have you made much progress?" No doubt the other female was trying to find a cure, and if the sickness had spread as much as she assumed it had, a cure was likely sorely needed, lest the surrounding lands be filled with oozing corpses. Stepping back to give the woman and her monkey friend some space, she watched intently at the process of giving the fox the concoction without the risk of losing a limb. It was quick and efficient, and she was just a little jealous that she did not have an assistant of her own, especially one that had hands with thumbs. Inoki slowly moved closer to the cage, glancing sideways at the other woman. "Does it take long for the remedy to take effect?" She had nowhere to be that was more interesting than this, and so was content to sit and wait as long as it would take.

Hazelle

You can't quit shivering, even though you aren't cold.



You gain:

• Crystals (5x)- Used in Firefly's Shoppe, and perhaps elsewhere...