Joshua 🔥 Rosfield (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
phoenixdominant) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
shellphones2025-09-01 05:43 pm
phoenixdominant) wrote in shellphones2025-09-01 05:43 pm
Entry tags:
[open] 🔥 a research project of sorts
Type: Text
Sender ID: phoenixdominant (Joshua Rosfield)
To: Open
Subject: Research into medical conditions, sicknesses and diseases.
Warnings: Tba.
Hello, I am Joshua Rosfield. I fly under the corsair's banner with The Hideaway.
Of late, I have set myself to the task of compiling a reference, a compendium, if you will, of the many maladies, curses, afflictions, and fevers known to manifest upon this star. My concern lies not with ailments familiar to our home worlds, but rather with those that are native to this star alone. Born of its soil, sky, and magics.
This work will encompass all that is known. Recorded symptoms, confirmed cases, and such cures or countermeasures devised by learned minds or discovered through hard-won experience.
Here are a few of those examples that I've gathered:
While there remains much yet to study regarding the myriad of ailments afflicting this realm, I pen these entries in hopes they may one day form the foundation of a true medical compendium, for the benefit of others.
On that note, my current inquiries lie with the nature of petrification in all its varied and vexing forms. I seek not only to understand its onset, but to uncover means by which to slow its advance, or better yet, reverse it. Should you possess notes, I would be most grateful for your shared insight.
And, as I am aware, this is hardly the most uplifting or interesting fare for one's morning coffee ... do share instead tales of your most recent voyages across the seas? I love a tale.
[And that concludes this giant nerd post.]
Sender ID: phoenixdominant (Joshua Rosfield)
To: Open
Subject: Research into medical conditions, sicknesses and diseases.
Warnings: Tba.
Hello, I am Joshua Rosfield. I fly under the corsair's banner with The Hideaway.
Of late, I have set myself to the task of compiling a reference, a compendium, if you will, of the many maladies, curses, afflictions, and fevers known to manifest upon this star. My concern lies not with ailments familiar to our home worlds, but rather with those that are native to this star alone. Born of its soil, sky, and magics.
This work will encompass all that is known. Recorded symptoms, confirmed cases, and such cures or countermeasures devised by learned minds or discovered through hard-won experience.
Here are a few of those examples that I've gathered:
The Drowning Sickness:
📌 A rare and insidious illness, marked first by the appearance of a deep black bruise upon the skin. Often on the hands, at the base of the neck, spine, or over the heart. The bruise is tender to the touch and slowly grows in size and intensity, becoming inflamed as the affliction progresses.
While waking symptoms are troubling, it is during sleep that the sickness reveals its true nature. Those afflicted are haunted by vivid, suffocating dreams. Visions of drowning in dark, endless seas. With each sleep, the dreams deepen. Patients note the sensation of lungs filling with water, of being pulled under by unseen hands, or of sinking into deep, endless water.
Upon waking, the sufferer experiences acute breathlessness, as though having truly emerged from drowning. Over time, rousing from sleep becomes increasingly difficult, and some fall into a slumber from which they never wake. Death comes quietly, the body showing signs of asphyxiation. Lungs filled not with water, but with nothing at all.
If untreated, it is always fatal. The interval from first bruise to death varies. Between three to nine nights, depending on the patient's strength and resistance.
📌 Treatment: While no universal cure is known, skilled healers have reported partial success through use of aetheric purgatives combined with dreambinding incantations. Removal or destruction of the bruise by mundane means (burning, lancing) has no effect and may hasten decline. Smelling salts or ingesting powerful angelic jellyfish have shown some success in staving off deeper stages of the dreams, though their effect is temporary, offering only reprieve rather than remedy. What appears to be definitive is surviving the drowning dream, itself.The Crystal Affliction:
📌 A rare condition said to be contracted by those who venture too deep into the forgotten caverns and shadowed mountains of remote, uncharted isles. Victims first notice sharp, painful growths erupting upon the skin. Jagged shards of crystal or glass-like rock, as though the land itself seeks to reclaim their flesh.
Left untreated, the affliction progresses. The crystalline formations spread, encumbering movement, disrupting vital functions, and slowly petrifying the body from within. In time, the victim is left encased in a gleaming, translucent prison. A statue of living crystal, robbed of will and warmth.
Those in the later stages suffer from extreme lethargy, dulled senses, and an emotional emptiness that renders them pliable, easily manipulated and easily controlled.
📌 Treatment: Healers across all the Leviathans have developed a method to remove the crystalline growths through careful surgery, thanks to a local riftfarer’s extensive knowledge of crystal. The procedure is long and taxing, requiring potent sedatives or enchantments to ease the pain. Even so, few emerge unscarred and this procedure has yet to be mastered.The Thornbind Curse:
📌 A highly contagious, creeping ailment marked by vine-like growths that first appear upon the hand. Over time, these thorned tendrils thicken and climb the body, binding tighter with each passing day. The afflicted are left with painful welts, bruises, and skin pierced by sharp thorns.
Evidently, the vines seem to grow faster in those weighed down by deep, unmet desires, as if the affliction feeds upon longing that is left to fester.
📌 Treatment: A medicinal cure was created that can be taken topically to cure the affliction completely. Trials have proved extremely successful. A full entry on the cure can be found here.
While there remains much yet to study regarding the myriad of ailments afflicting this realm, I pen these entries in hopes they may one day form the foundation of a true medical compendium, for the benefit of others.
On that note, my current inquiries lie with the nature of petrification in all its varied and vexing forms. I seek not only to understand its onset, but to uncover means by which to slow its advance, or better yet, reverse it. Should you possess notes, I would be most grateful for your shared insight.
And, as I am aware, this is hardly the most uplifting or interesting fare for one's morning coffee ... do share instead tales of your most recent voyages across the seas? I love a tale.
[And that concludes this giant nerd post.]
un: octoblot (text)
If you had any other questions regarding the Thornbind Curse in particular that has come up since we last discussed it, let me know and I will do my best to answer, Joshua-san. I'll also be keeping an ear out if I hear of anything else that should be added to your compendium should the need to arise, of course.
no subject
As it stands, I consider my research into the thornbind curse to be largely concluded. Of course, I would welcome any further insights you might uncover. In the meantime, I shall see that those in need of your supplies are directed to you?
no subject
[... and, you know, keep his business up and running...]
no subject
I had been hoping to offer this information freely. Would you consider offering the supplies to those in need free of charge as well?
[Just asking.]
no subject
If I am needed for something entirely different, however... well, then I would need to hear out what it is that a guest is in need of, and what kind of potion I will need to craft for that purpose to determine what kind of cost would be needed to pay for the ingredients and the like.
no subject
[Joshua still has a few reservations but mostly that makes sense to him. He understands Azul needs to make money and it's his business. But these sicknesses are so, so dangerous.]
On that note, what do you know of potions for ... petrification?
no subject
[HMMM]
I think I would need a clarification on what type of petrification we are talking about here. Are we talking about a person being turned to stone/marble/etc other substance, or being petrified as in simply paralyzed and unable to move?
no subject
no subject
[It takes a moment before Azul answers again.]
There are some petrification potions that exist in Twisted Wonderland that can be administered to victims that appear to be suffering from petrification, provided that there is a part of their body that is still exposed enough to allow the victim to drink the potion, or through a medical injection or procedure otherwise.
If they are already completely petrified, then it depends entirely on if it was done via a fellow mage's actions or by something else entirely, and whether or not it can be reversed either by having the original mage undo the curse, or by more drastic measures.
no subject
[It's him that's slowly petrifying. It's him.]
And if I were born with this slow curse? I would be willing to try your potions or any medical injections, might you have any to try?
[He'll literally try anything on his own body.]
no subject
I may need more details about this curse that you were born with and what it entails in full, but yes, there are several potions I know how to make that I can brew and have you try.
[... Though, he should probably hold off on asking for some kind of payment in return until after they try a few or even a cure, as it might be tasteless otherwise to say something otherwise this instant...]
no subject
Of course. In short...
Within me dwells what the scholars would call an Eikon. The essence of the Phoenix itself. Its flame courses through my very being, granting me dominion over fire and, when necessity demands, the power to assume its exalted form.
To bear a might so near to the divine is the very problem. Each time I call upon my flame, my Aether... or magic as most would call it, wanes. Leaving naught but the searing ache of what has been spent.
That is because... on my star, the use of magicks is no trivial matter. The use of Aether is a rare thing and causes the body to deteriorate, and to wield it carelessly is to hasten one's own death. Thus, the very power that I carry also slowly petrifies me.
[But no, he won't stop using the Phoenix. :)]
So... it is mostly a magical based curse.
no subject
Because while his own true signature spell is considered "taboo" and has its own risk for using that risks his own life if he expends his magic for it too much... it's still his. He worked so hard to discover that magic deep inside of him, and even found ways to keep it in check with his contracts... surely there must be something that can be done for Joshua in that regard as well.
Or at least, Azul is willing to try to find that type of solution, for as long as Joshua is willing to work for that kind of solution as well... and pay the price that may come with it. As such, he'd better check here--]
... If there was a cure that involved having to give up this "Eikon" you speak of, would you take it? Or would you instead be looking for a solution that allows you to live without having to sacrifice your magic as a price to pay for it?
no subject
Joshua has had this power since he was born, including the crippling petrification. Therefore, he might be running out of time to stop the petrification process soon. He needs to stop it soon. Not only for himself but for the other Dominants as well.]
In truth, and perhaps in idealism, I would see my bond with the Eikon endure, unmarred by the curse of petrification. If there exists a path that allows me to retain it, I am determined to find it.
If there is no other solution but to sacrifice my Eikon... I will revisit that answer, then. But not a moment sooner.
no subject
[..........]
In that case, I can will do my upmost best to find a solution that does not involve sacrificing your Eikon using the methods I have at my disposal. I'll ask again in the future if it turns out that it is a necessary means of ridding this curse you speak of, but not until then.
no subject
If I find anything that might be of use, I'll be sure to tell you. The only other lead that I've gotten thus far is that basilisk oil can be effective in treating some types of petrification.
no subject
no subject
[This means a great deal to him...]