It had been 12 hours since Charlie and Mornington arrived in Underwick, the small mining villiage west of Falun that was mostly inside a massive cavern. Charlie was already complaining of the damp as Mornington poked around the old stone formations of the cavern wall looking for signs of fossils.
Just as they both started heading to the small tavern nestled in the middle of a bunch of mining huts old Roderick called them both over.
“So Mornington, i’ve taken a look at the blood sample you gave me, you realise your poast the point of no return, youve been past it for almost 90 years by the looks of it”
Mornington nodded.
“There will be no full out cure to lift the problem you have, not even a geneticist can unwrap what happened to your family a millennia ago, but this might help…”
Old Roderick held over a small vial of a glowing green liquid, Mornington popped the top off and had a smell and then a look of shock came across his face…
“but…but this smells the same as the plague cure i concocted last year for that virus in New Babbage!”
“Yeah” Roderick smiled “kind of ironic isnt it? The ‘Curse’ on your family was probably brought down on you by a geneticist…and by the looks of it the person was dabbling in other things as well, you do have the mythical ‘Varcolac’ gene which is really a throw back to another time in the evolutionary history of this plant”
Charlie started to yawn…
“but..the point is Mornington, some of that plague virus, just a small section of its DNA strand, is mixed in with the Varcolac gene…not enough to turn you into a brain eating rotting corpse, but enough to mean that afull out cure is practically impossible.
It was at this point that Charlie started to chuckle.
“Heh…yeah thats irony alright”
Mornington took a swig of the foul tasting green liquid, placed the stopper back on the bottle and thanked old Roderick, just as him and charlie started walking to the Underwick cave entrance Roderick had one last comment to make…
“Ohhhhh and by the way mornington, youll need to keep drinking that dogs blood, about half a pint a week”
“Ohhhhhhhhhhhh lovley, just sodding lovley you mean i’ll need to spend my entire time smelling like a wet dog?!”
“Nah…the concoction i gave ya will mask it…well…it will mask most of it. Normal cats will curl up on your lap and fall asleep just fine, but those humanoids of the cat persuasion might smell something…strange about you, been nice seeing you again Mornington!”
Mornington walked out with Charlie and headed back to New Babbage.
He would have to contact someone in the city to start getting a regular small suply of dog blood, the good thing was, since it was a small amount he could use the age old excuse of ‘experiments’ to cover up the fact that he was actually drinking it.
((Welcome back Mr. Morington. I hope everything went well.))
::holds his hands up defensively:: Not my doing, I swear it..! Though it certainly does sound like my old work.. ((Welcome back! Hope you’re feeling fine))