Mild warning this gets a little gross.

She closed her eyes and braced for the vulture's magic. She felt something touch the scales around her gem and cringed as the infected tissue stung. She groaned low, then, when a horrible prickling sensation began to spread across the top of her head. Her tiny claws dug into the dirt as the top layer of skin began to break down and, a second later, pus began to drip from the wound as the bacteria ate away the diseased scales. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried not to think about it as the infection was drained away.

She focused on her breathing as the rest of the fluid was drained off of her head and the redness began to vanish. The prickling sensation slowly faded, leaving her with a dull ache and a wound that still remained quite open. Instead of pus, there was now a bit of blood welling up from the skin. It was healthy skin, sure, the bacteria had destroyed the diseased skin, but that had just left it with an open wound.

"Did it work?" Amazon grimaced, quite unaware of the current situation.

@Doctor

Doctor watched with fascinated interest, and then took a few mental notes. First off, it had worked. At least, on the surface. The infection was gone, and to him (unaware of Amazon's stone's toxicity) this meant she was now free from her ailment.

But! ...It was bleeding. This wasn't the end of the world, of course; flesh would grow back. But it still made the vulture fidget, and had he been able to grimace past his beak, he might have. Note, in attempting this in future, find a method to regrow skin...
"Well, it worked," he answered aloud, and a bit slowly--trying to phrase this next bit delicately. "But it's left a wound, of course. I don't have a way to make it grow back faster, but if the infection is gone that should only be a matter of time."

He paused, thinking, and then added--"Do you know how you got sick?"

@Amazon

Curious, Amazon touched her head. It didn't hurt. The vulture was right - the infection was gone. When she pulled her claws back, she saw a little dribble of blood on them. Well, if she kept the wound open for very long, it would just get infected again. She closed her eyes and steeled herself for magic. She had cast this spell a lot since she'd learned it and, while it became less effective, she wasn't using it to rid of a rash or infection, just to close skin. As the wave of rejuvination washed through her body, she felt a sensation similar to tiny needles around her scales and, a moment later, the wound was healed. The scales hadn't fully grown back, but at least now there wasn't an open wound to just get infected all over again.

She sighed and poked at the scales again. They didn't hurt anymore. For now, at least. She considered if she should tell the vulture about her sickness - he still seemed very strange and a little too interested for her tastes, but she decided that it wouldn't hurt. She tapped her gem, feeling the sickly warmth on her claw as she did. "See this? It's my gem. You'd think that a gem would give you life but mine makes me sick. I don't know how, but it's the only explanation. I'm not sure if its curable either, since I can't exactly part with it."

@Doctor

The vulture tilted his head, inspecting the gem closely.

"Your gem makes you sick?" The gemstone itself? ...Well that was something new. Fascinated, the vulture looked it over.

He wondered if there were something--some bacteria--that might help in some way. On the other hand, she was right--she couldn't part with her gem. He'd seen what happened to small prey creatures who had that removed.

Alternatively, perhaps there was some opposing force that could be used? Something to cool, to soothe, where the stone heated and irritated, and infected?

"...What have you already tried, to try and fix it?" he asked, curiously.

As he spoke, after a moment's thought, he sent magicka tentatively flaring over the lizard. He had no way of knowing she'd just done the same, of course.

@Amazon

The bird waited, but the lizard did not respond.

For some time he prodded, and poked--only a little bit physically. Moreso, he tested with his magicka. Nothing seemed to have much effect.

Doctor eventually took wing, intending to procure some herbs--to clutch them tightly in his talons--and test them out on Amazon's wounds. Perhaps something would help; he knew little of the properties of the caves' plant life.

When he returned, however--either because he could not find the place again, or because she had left--Amazon was gone.

A shame, he thought; Think of how much we could have learned!

exit Doctor

She had meant to answer, but as she opened her mouth to speak, her voice caught. Her whole body seemed to freeze. Everything grew hazy for a moment as her headache took over and she became completely unresponsive, unperceptive to everything. By the time the small seizure was over, Doctor was gone.

Confused, Amazon turned to find him and picked a direction. Had she wandered away? Or had he gone somewhere? She wasn't just going to be here.

She decided to head back to Orion. It wasn't safe for her right now. She wouldn't find Doctor on the way, but she would be on her way home.

*exit