"Immortal, no. Very well-armoured, yes."

"Does the armor help by video game logic or in the usual way?"

"I suspect the answer is video game logic."

"So it's more like, which hat in Runaround is it, the light blue one -?"

"More or less. Most good armour has other effects too, though."

"Sort of like my new tail?"

"Yeah. Not specifically, but yeah."

"Do you want to try the painkillers now?" Cam asks.

"Sure."

"Okay. I'm going to start you on very low doses so you'll be okay even if you're allergic. Let me know if you feel anything that isn't on the listed safe side effects list per painkiller and I've got a handy flowchart," he brandishes his computer, "that will tell me what to do if you wind up with anaphylaxis or something; conversely let me know if the ground discomfort gets even slightly better so I can zero in on what if anything helps. If we get to list item number six there is a flowchart item in case of a bad reaction that does involve me touching you, so we can skip that one altogether if you don't want to risk the touching-a-live-thing... thing. Number one -" He has a list and flowcharts; he rattles off some things that are to be expected with this substance. "Say when."

"Go ahead."

Low dose of item one, administered directly to the bloodstream. "Done."

"...Doesn't seem to be doing anything to my ground," she says after a moment. "And was there anything in that list about... everything starting to look slightly purple? Because everything is starting to look slightly purple."

"...There is, uh, absolutely nothing on my list about everything starting to look slightly purple."

"So much for your flowcharts."

"Indeed. So much for them. Let's, uh, wait and see if everything stops looking purple, while I search my medical demonology textbooks with slightly more refined search terms than 'what the fuck'."

Sable giggles.

"Seems reasonable to me."

"Let's not add anything else on top of it for at least an hour or two, which should be long enough for this amount to wear off. And tell me when your purple recedes."

"Sure."

"How do you want to pass the purple time?"

"Are there any movies that won't suffer for being purplish?"

"Sure, anything not too heavily visual. Let's see... Oh, do you want your own television or do you want to watch at my house?"

"I don't know where you'd put a television, doesn't it need electricity?"