can't get the blood out [karen]

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The call had come in from Gringotts that they had an item suspected of being cursed with werewolf blood. The risk of contaminating the curse workings or contagion when they couldn't prove its origin in the moon cycle wasn't worth it, so they had floo'd Saint Mungo's looking for someone to provide them with support. It was a slow day, so Antonia was available and had volunteered to go. Curiosity, naturally.

She Apparated into Diagon Alley with a bag of sampling equipment, gloves - both plastic and dragon-hide, and a few masks. She wasn't quite sure what to expect, but she knew how to handle werewolf blood just fine. She found one of the goblins, and started, "I'm Antonia Rookwood, from Saint Mungo's. Someone requested support on a cursed item." The goblin - she didn't bother to catch the name - nodded and she waited while he fetched her contact.

@karen

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Karen was dealing with some pretty heavy stuff today. Someone had cursed a stone with the blood of some magical creature that Karen had still not been able to identify. She was worried, especially, because blood was a powerful magical source. She had found the item, a seemingly regular looking stone, in Austria. Once she had contained the area enough to bring the object back she returned home, but another curse-breaker was set out to keep an eye on things for a little while longer in the area. The animals nearby the location she and the others had discovered it, were acting very strangely. Not like themselves. Herbivores and grazers were behaving as if they were aggressive, their behavior almost more like a carnivore that anything else. As far as she was told and as far as she noticed they hadn't actually tried to eat any other animals, but there were signs of struggle and violence.

The stone was discovered by a wizard, who had heard the rumors through the Muggle news that the animals were behaving aggressively in the forest. The wizard called his ministry immediately upon hearing the news, hoping that they could send someone to investigate the situation. It turned out, the stone had a radius of about 200 feet that was affected by its curse. Within that radius there were several digging sites, not official ones, but by the looks of it the works of someone who is trying to find something. Gringotts was notified, because it was assumed that something valuable was buried there. Karen's job was to deal with the curse, not to dig for treasure, so she took the cursed item back to her office to investigate. Her office was surrounded with a series of magical protections, mostly to keep the cursed objects she had in it from getting out, rather than anyone getting in.

When she discovered that the curse was being caused because of some sort of blood laced through the stone, she realized that she needed someone with a higher specialty in that area. She called in for a consult, and today the consult arrived. The goblin came to fetch her from her office, and she stepped out quickly locking things up, as she always did even if she left the office for only a minute or two. She walked into the main hall, following the goblin, until she found herself being gesture to a woman. She gave her short nod and held out a hand in greeting. "Hello, thank you for coming. My name is Karen Dunstan, and I'm the one who requested your help. Please follow me," she gestured turning back to go towards her office once again.


@antonia

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The goblin returned promptly with a young woman on his heel. She held out her hand and introduced herself, and Antonia replied in kind. "Pleasure to meet you," she said as she shook Karen's hand. "I'm Antonia Rookwood."

She didn't so much as nod her head in acknowledgement to the goblin as they left towards Karen's office. Instead, she started to ask questions of Karen. "What can you tell me about the stone and situation?"

@karen

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"Antonia," she repeated with a nod. They started to walk and Antonia asked about the situation. "We found it in Austria, cursed with some blood embedded in it. Since then, the animals in the area had been acting very strange. I'm not sure what creature it's from, or what kind of curse embedded it in the stone," she explained. They made it to her office rather quickly, considering it really wasn't that far from the entrance and she stepped inside, holding the door open for Antonia before crossing to the table. She opened the box on the table and reveal a three inch by three inch, approximately, stone. It looked like a regular stone but the color was speckled with red. She put on dragon hide gloves and turned it over, revealing the bottom, where the red looked like veins, as if the rock had it's own blood vessels.

"There's a pair for you," she said, pointing to the other set of gloves.

@antonia

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Karen explained the situation as she lead Antonia to her office. She wondered why they'd called her, if it wasn't werewolf blood like the hospital'd told her - surely it should have gone to Spell Damage - but the location was probably answer enough. Dark magic in Austria probably had Durmstrang connections, and as an alumna, she'd have a higher chance of recognising it. She'd deal with the hospital's manipulations or incompetence later though - for now, this was interesting.

"I've brought my own, thank you," she said as she cracked open her bag, pulling on her dragon hide gloves and searching for her swabbing kit.

"Were there any other pieces like this?" she asked. It looked like there might be, with those vein-like shapes, and while they could still work out a fair bit from just the one stone, if there were more pieces, they'd probably need all of them to fully break the curse.

@karen

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Antonia said she'd brought her own, while pulling out a swabbing kit as well, which was fine by Karen. She probably would have done the same thing. "Not that we found, but we left a cursebreaker there to keep an eye on things, he said he'd report if he found anything," in all honesty, she didn't actually think about there being other pieces. That could, very possibly, make this whole thing a lot more solvable. "I'm sure I'll have to make another trip back to investigate that..." she said, leaning over just a little to watch the woman work, but not getting close enough to be annoying. Hopefully.

"I've used everything to my knowledge to try and identify it, but my American and United Kingdom training isn't enough for this one, it seems," she lamented. Truly curses could be very universal but... some were special.

@antonia

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Karen was safely handling the stone, so Antonia delicately swabbed the blood-covered side of the stone, and pulled it away. There was a hint of the red on the swab, and she smiled. That would work perfectly. She dipped it into the potion that would identify the blood sample in a moment, and set herself a timer.

"That would be for the best," she agreed. "And as for training, well, I studied at Durmstrang, so perhaps that will provide a different perspective." It seemed it already had, if she was the first one to suspect there might be multiple pieces of this stone. She smiled, and her timer pinged. She turned to read the results, spiraling up like smoke to spell out Blood origin: Veela, pure.

She turned to see what Karen's reaction would be, because to Antonia, it made quite a lot of sense.

@karen

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Antonia spoke of her having studied at Durmstrang and how it could offer a different perspective and Karen nodded. That was precisely what she was hoping for. Then, Antonia dipped the blood in a special potion and Karen leaned forward, waiting for the results to arrive. And so they did, and Karens jaw dropped slightly. "So... somehow someone is using the blood of a veela to control these animals..." she knew Veelas had strong powers of persuasion, so that made sense. Karens brow furrowed, "that may mean there's a veela that needs rescuing, too," she added. She looked over at Antonia and found herself slightly smiling. It was nice to do this kind of work instead of alone as she usually did.

@antonia

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"That's what it looks like. And it makes sense, doesn't it?" Plus then if the result was linked to the blood, then that might change what the spell was actually trying to do. "Was it all the animals, or only male animals who were going crazy, did they mention?" Veela persuasion was often linked to sexual attraction after all, which might lend support to her theory.

Antonia didn't want to spoil Karen's smile, but as much fun as this was, she doubted there was a living victim to the curse. "It might, but I'd hazard it actually means there's a Veela that's dead somewhere. It's a single blood source or the potion would have said, and if it's been causing significant effects for a while, that's a lot of... power, for lack of a better term." Which meant they'd probably need to contact the appropriate Ministry for a murder investigation. Not Antonia's problem, at least.

@karen

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Karen nodded as Antonia said that it made sense. "You know, I am not sure if it was the males or all of them... I'll check on that," she said firmly. That would have been a good thing to know. Antonia then went on to say that the Veela in question was probably dead and Karens brow furrowed. That meant they had a murder on their hands and had to get the department for creatures involved. "Well, I sense this will soon be out of Gringotts and mines hands completely, and therefore yours," she straightened up. "Thank you for getting us this far. Your payment for your consultation is with desk five out front," she explained.

@antonia

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Karen said that she'd have to check on the sex of the crazed animals, which didn't surprise Antonia. It was a natural consideration when Veela were invloved, but if that wasn't known - and it hadn't been - it wasn't something she'd have expected them to check for. And as for the fate of the investigation if Antonia was right, Karen was almost certainly correct. "I'm inclined to agree. Unless, of course, the Veela was the one who cast the curse..." She trailed off. It was unlikely, but if Karen's investigations took a turn for the unsuccessful, it would be a useful alternative to pursue.

Antonia nodded simply at the thanks from Karen as she straightened and prepared to see her out. "Of course. Don't hesitate to contact me again if there's anything else that comes up. This was... interesting." The smile on her face as she packed up her tools demonstrated quite clearly that interesting was an excellent thing and that she hoped that Karen would take her up on it.

@karen

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Antonia suggested that perhaps the Veela cast the curse, which made Karens eyes furrow as she considered. That would have to be something she looked into as well. This woman was incredibly smart, and Karen was finding herself looking up to her a lot. It would be interesting to work with her again, to say the least. Antonia said Karen could contact her again, and that the research was interesting. Karen smiled, starting to lead her way toward the door. "I won't hesitate. I'll also let you know what the findings are, since you helped up out. Hopefully we won't require any intense back up," she chuckled, opening the door and gesturing out. "If you need help with anything either, please let me know."

@antonia
(wrap this up in your post? :>)

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Karen agreed to ask for help and offered her own, as well as promising to let her know about the results. “I’ll appreciate that, if it won't be an inconvenience. I'm going to be thinking about it all day, I’ve no doubt. And I'll hope you don't need to grace St. Mungo's with your presence as a result.” That Karen would figure it out, she didn't doubt, not with how quickly she had put together the things Antonia was leading to even as she was finishing the thought herself. Hopefully she was just as quick in the field.

With a brief final nod and smile, Antonia headed to the front desk to collect her fee.

@karen

~done~