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Annie is on her trike on her way to school.
This van labeled HAZARDOUS MATERIALS is also on its way to school.
The van hits a patch of black ice. It goes spinning, it turns over, it slices itself open on a wrought-iron fence with spikes, and it disgorges boxes which smash open on the pavement. Some of them skitter clear into the slush.
Some of them - along with most of the van - land on Annie.
There is a whirl of bewildering pain and confusion -
- and she falls to the ground, injured and in more kinds of discomfort beyond that and moaning.
She slowly starts to heal before the eyes of her sole witness.
six artifact pileup annie in thedas
keep_busy
first-and-final
"I'm really starting to wish you'd been able to take a look at me before I got - purified," he says. "I wonder what I was like then."
first-and-final
Stalas laughs. "I'm not complaining, mind you! Being a purified Stalas is very convenient on a number of levels!"
iwillgetyou
"It certainly seems that way..."
Metella gazes thoughtfully at the drop of blood on her dish, now inert, its power expended.
"I want to have six months uninterrupted to study this. With multiple other samples to compare it to. Humans, elves, dwarves, qunari, mages and non-mages, Grey Wardens and non-Grey Wardens, you and Tev. I want to know what happens if you purify Tev, too, but there simply aren't enough Grey Wardens available to risk losing one..."
Metella gazes thoughtfully at the drop of blood on her dish, now inert, its power expended.
"I want to have six months uninterrupted to study this. With multiple other samples to compare it to. Humans, elves, dwarves, qunari, mages and non-mages, Grey Wardens and non-Grey Wardens, you and Tev. I want to know what happens if you purify Tev, too, but there simply aren't enough Grey Wardens available to risk losing one..."
all-the-thoughts
"I want to know what happens if you put Stalas's blood in someone else's blood," says Dagna. "Or like, in someone else? That's probably dangerous. But we could learn so much!"
keep_busy
"That's really dangerous even when there's no lyrium involved!" exclaims Annie, diving for her notebook to scribble blood typing on a list. "People have different kinds of blood and you can only use blood that's the same kind as yours and I have no idea how blood type testing works!"
all-the-thoughts
"Really?" says Dagna, fascinated. "Is it different for different species of people? I guess you wouldn't know... but it would be safe to just put Stalas's blood and someone else's blood together outside of both of them and see what happened, wouldn't it?"
keep_busy
"Yes, I suppose. I mean, unless the answer to what happens is 'it explodes' or something, but it wouldn't have the standard blood typing problem."
all-the-thoughts
"So we could do that! With - well - each of our blood, I guess?" she says, looking around at the available test subjects. "Unless somebody doesn't want to."
keep_busy
Annie flinched only very slightly when Metella took Stalas's sample and has no qualms about offering her own. "Sure."
first-and-final
So Stalas lets Metella poke him again and produces enough drops of blood to combine with drops of Annie's, Metella's, Dagna's, and Tev's.
all-the-thoughts
"So your blood with Annie's doesn't glow, yours with mine glows a little bit, yours with Tev's glows a little more, yours with Metella's glows a little more... we should do it again to see if the same combinations glow the same amount!"
iwillgetyou
She tests them. Four brilliant flares of light ensue, some more brilliant than others.
"Annie's blood seems to dilute yours. Dagna's blood... seems to turn into yours, almost. Tev's blood and mine... I'm not sure what I'm looking at in either case, but I can tell that they're different."
"Annie's blood seems to dilute yours. Dagna's blood... seems to turn into yours, almost. Tev's blood and mine... I'm not sure what I'm looking at in either case, but I can tell that they're different."
all-the-thoughts
"So, wait," says Dagna, "if you had a little bit of Stalas's blood and a bunch of regular dwarf blood, could you make lots and lots of super-lyrium?"
iwillgetyou
"Technically it does not. It might still encourage people to acquire large quantities of dwarf blood unethically if the source of 'super-lyrium' was widely known... and I wouldn't want to mention to a templar that I was carrying blood to use as a power source regardless of the technicalities."
keep_busy
"I don't actually know how my regen handles blood loss, but it might be entirely possible to get large quantities of dwarf blood ethically. Maybe some of the Legionnaires have found this out in the field already."
first-and-final
"We can ask!"
A second blood-combination experiment is set up and run. The results are consistent with the first.
A second blood-combination experiment is set up and run. The results are consistent with the first.
all-the-thoughts
"If my blood turns into Stalas's blood does that mean if I put his blood in my blood not outside of me I'd turn into a Stalas? I sort of want to try it. Even though it's horribly dangerous. Maybe if I had Annie's healing magic...? Or maybe if somebody tried it who already had Annie's healing magic?"
first-and-final
"I bet we could find a Legionnaire volunteer. They're the Legion of the Dead, after all, not the Legion of the Risk-Averse."
keep_busy
"I guess if they volunteer it's all right... and being able to produce more glowy super-strong people would probably be useful for various reasons."
first-and-final
"I will happily go look for someone. And ask the Legion how the magic handles blood loss. But maybe I will do these things tomorrow. Are we done with my blood for now?"