milliways_bar | (no subject)

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CURRENT vicarialVisitor [CVV] RIGHT NOW posted a memo on board MAGICAL MYSTERY BAR VIRTUAL BULLETIN BOARD:

CVV: I have a bill to pay.
CVV: Not here.
CVV: Back in my world one of the people under my command (oh God that's such a weird thought) was badly injured.
CVV: He's being treated, but the doctor treating him has a very particular fee.
CVV: I've already paid what he wants in caps.
CVV: The rest of the fee is, and I quote, 'a previously unfamiliar work of science, invention, education, governance, music, or philosophy, something we can take apart and keep'.
CVV: Ideally, two such works.
CVV: I have a friend working on one of these for me, but if anyone else reading this has an option or a suggestion- ideally from some version of Earth prior to the year 2077 AD- I'd appreciate hearing about it.
CVV: Thank you.

Once the T-minus message is up, Ellen posts something similar to the Bar's more mundane message board and goes in search of breakfast. She (and Dogmeat)'s available one way or the other.

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Oh, something new on the notice board! Bahorel reads the note over, looks for someone in the bar who looks like they might "command" anyone, and walks over. He nods to her,smiling, not overly polite but friendly. "Are you the person with the very particular medical bills?"

Ellen looks up from her... well, it's probably meat, even if it looks awfully squishy... and smiles. "That would be me," she says. "Ellen Park, Paladin 101 of the Capital Wasteland Brotherhood of Steel, at your service."

She took the opportunity to change into clothes instead of her armor when she got to the Bar, so she's wearing a dark green uniform that looks like something out of an Irving Berlin movie; there are no national flags, only a silver emblem involving wings and gears and a sword stitched over one pocket, and a nametape reading '101' attached to the other. They save fancy for more permanent things than cloth, on her side of the door.

Hell, she even sounds like she means it. Bahorel smile turns into a grin. "Bahorel, of Lyon, through Paris. I've heard of you from some friends. I can guess how your man was injured. He'll be all right?"

Bahorel's clothes are entirely and increasingly made of Fancy; he's managed to fall into a game of sartorial Chicken with Madame Bar, and every suit is a little more daring and ostentatious than the last. But the overall effect on anyone not from his era is probably still just of nice period clothing.

It would, truth be told, have a bit more of an impact on her if she hadn't just come from the House of Franklin. That particular sartorial experience was enough to leave anyone stunned. "Oh- yes, as far as I know," she says. "I watched Knight Conklin's initial evaluation and treatment. I'm no physician myself, but my father taught me to read using one of his medical texts, so I know what to expect. If nothing takes a turn for the unexpected, he should come out of this just fine."

She nudges the black-and-grey dog away from the table with one foot and indicates the chair he'd been blocking.

"Sit down if you like. I'm not saving it for anyone."

Bahorel nods to the dog. "He doesn't take a place at the table?" It's not an entirely nonsensical question; he knows some patrons of Milliways happen to look canine-- or lupine, at least. "Good luck to your Knight, then. Your sign said you need works from before 2077; it didn't say what sort. I could write down a few things from my own era-- it's well before 2077, I promise that!--but they aren't the things many of the more respectable physicians of my day would be interested in. But then historical curiosities are another matter."

Edited 2015-03-16 21:18 (UTC)

Ellen exhales, and interlaces her fingers on the table in front of her.

"Respectable, um.... Might be pushing it," she finally says, eyes fixed on her hands. "Doctor D runs a ... Museum. Of sorts. Dedicated to the memory of Benjamin Franklin. If it's anything Mr. Franklin might conceivably have been interested in, other people's opinions of its respectability don't matter."

Bahorel absolutely crows laughing. " Franklin! Evadnisme it is, then, he'd have loved it. It has everything I've heard he believed in: liberty, science, and --everything else. Will you be in the Bar a day or so? I can transcribe the philosophy from memory, no fear of forgetting that, but it will take a few hours."

"Sure, I can do that," says Ellen. "Time doesn't pass for my side of the Door while I'm in here, so it won't do any harm. I appreciate the effort- what can I do for you in return?"

A debt's a debt, even when incurred to pay off a different debt.

"I'm a dead man, and Madame Bar sees to my unexpectedly ongoing expenses. There's little left to ask for." He laughs again. "And believe me, knowing the word of the Mahpah is going into new worlds is its own reward. But-- does your door let you take people into your world?"

"Oh, yes," Ellen says. "We've actually had a friend or two of yours come to visit, in fact. Although not until after they'd been warned about the place in some detail, since it's on the unpleasant and dangerous side even by Milliways standards."

He nods. "I've heard it has its own character, yes." Enough frustratingly second-hand accounts to make him more curious even than usual about a world that makes people like Ellen Park. "What's your part of your world like right now?"

Ellen rubs at the back of her neck. "At the moment I'm in the ruins of what used to be Philadelphia," she says, "hence the doctor operating out of the House of Franklin. The city's ruled by warring ice gangs who've managed to get the worst of their violent impulses down to fighting for control of the city once a year in tournaments, but they still do gladiatorial combat for their own entertainment when they're not at war with slavers from the Pitt or something similar. They've got a good number of people who can read, but only compared to small communities and the Pitt. There's not much agriculture going on in the area, but the Blood Prince keeps his particular gang busy hunting particularly dangerous creatures from the river and trades the meat and hide and bones for other food when they're successful. Most of the electrical power's being used to keep the ice arena running, though. Other people have to make do with battery powered sources of light, or candles or such."

Bahorel's smile turns bitter for a moment. "Candlelight, wars in the street, and a ruler entertaining himself off the blood of his people? Your world doesn't sound so very alien at that."

And because it does sound familiar, the anger is already turning to consideration. "You're in Philadelphia at-the-moment. Is it rare for people to go there?"

"I suspect you probably don't have-" She frowns a little. "Well, a lot of the animals we've got to deal with these days, but in this case the gigantic mutant river beasts they call 'hippos' are the big thing... there's other stuff too but I'm not going to dump all of that on you unless you really want to know. I have a bad habit of telling people more than they asked for."

She rubs at her nose. "To be honest, it's rare that anybody in the Capital area travels more than a mile or so from their homes at all- if that. The Capital Wasteland is starting to become a little more civilized these days, since we've wiped out a lot of the raiders and put an end to Lord Ashur's slave markets in the Pitt. Vault 87's been destroyed, too, so people aren't getting dragged off to the western Wasteland and mutated or eaten, but it's still a pretty ingrained habit for most people who aren't actively scavenging or who aren't traders with mercenary protection to stay as close to home as possible. The Capital hasn't had direct contact with Philadelphia in decades, partly because of the danger of travel within the Capital area itself and partly because the area that used to be Baltimore is one giant exclusion zone. Anything that dies there stays where it falls for years- it's so irradiated and poisoned that the corpses don't rot."

Ellen doesn't need to worry about losing her audience right now; Bahorel is openly fascinated. "Ah, but I don't know what to ask after, so your habit is an advantage here. --And that's an impressive poison. That radiation, that's what destroyed your country, isn't it? If it's still in the land like that, is it in the people and animals too? To say it directly: does it come through the door with people from your world, and would I be carrying it back myself? Because I know not everyone here shares my kind of health."

"It is," Ellen confirms. "I'm not sure- I'm afraid I've forgotten what year Becquerel and Curie made the discovery, but sometime in the late 1800s or early 1900s scientists first became familiar with it. It's present in the ground and in the water, unless the water is specially purified. I make a point of giving people who come to my world the appropriate medicines to help their bodies block absorption of the stuff, and of checking them with a Geiger counter to make sure they haven't picked up enough of it to pose a hazard to themselves or other people before they go back."

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