"SEE, CLEARLY THE SPELL NEEDED BLOOD! PUTTING THE LOST BLOOD BACK INTO YOUR BODY IS A BAD IDEA - YOU DON'T WANT WHAT'S ON HIS FLOOR TO BE IN YOUR BLOODSTREAM - BUT IF YOU'RE BLEEDING SOMETHING THAT'LL BREAK THE CIRCLE INSTEAD OF ENHANCING IT ..."
Bill drifts off into mutters and turns around to start drawing glowing symbols in the air, checking some complicated math.
"In that case, there's no need to change all of my blood into a caustic chemical," Ford says, stepping up to look over Bill's shoulder at the math. "Just the bit I've already bled out. If we can control the reaction so it only happens when exposed to the open air..."
It would also be a very convenient solution when out of household cleaner. Just drop some blood in a spray bottle and dilute it and he'd be set.
Bill sees no reason to stop this train of logic. All of that sounds fine.
"HUHHH."
Bill rubs under his eye where a chin would be - this is actually a borrowed gesture, he's just doing it without thinking.
"YEAH, I CAN DO THAT! HERE - "
He tosses a whiteboard marker over his shoulder for Ford to catch.
"WRITE OUT THE CHEMICAL FORMULAS FOR BOTH, WE'RE GONNA NEED 'EM TO REFER TO. I THINK I CAN GIVE YOU SOMETHING THAT UNBINDS ROPES AND LOCKS, BUT IT'S NOT GONNA WORK ON ANYTHING MAGICAL OR MANUFACTURED AFTER 2100 OR SO."
There's no actual reason it wouldn't work on those, but if Ford doesn't think it'll work on them, that'll give Bill a way to imprison him again. Never know when he's gonna need another bubble-breaking equation!
Ford catches it and gets to work, scribbling glowing numbers and letters in the air. As he goes, he says, "Yes, yes. That'll be useful. Hmm, how potent should the transformed ammonia be?" he asks, taking a step back and rubbing his own chin, looking the chemical formulas over. "If we make it too strong, it might burn my skin and aggravate the wound it's bleeding from, something I'd like to avoid. Then again, a more concentrated solution might serve as a deterrent for breaking my skin at all."
He's completely serious.
"Luckily, Tesla draws blood intravenously, so this shouldn't affect our arrangement."
"WELL, IF YOU WANT WE CAN MAKE IT SO YOU GOTTA SAY A SPELL TO MAKE IT CHANGE! BUT THAT WON'T WORK IF THEY KNOCK YOU OUT. OOH, HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT MAKING IT HIGH-PRESSURE SO IT SHOOTS OUT REALLY FAST?"
Bill dashes off a fast PSI measurement into the spell that is truly, truly overkill and might just kill Ford with fire hose blood loss if he gets a cut.
"Gah!" Ford says with a grimace as he looks at the PSI measurement and has a vivid flash of just what that would be like. "No! I'd lose far too much blood. At that rate I might as well deal with the ammonia burns, because at least those won't kill me!"
Ford pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs. "Unless we find a way to get around the chemical burns that doesn't lead to my untimely death, I'm not sure the ammonia idea is viable."
Listen, the ammonia was a good joke, but if Ford's not going to stop him he actually gets nothing out of messing with what little trust he's already managed to eke out. It's not a hard judgement call even with completely cold logic.
"DOESN'T MATTER! THE IMPORTANT PART IS THAT IT'S SOMETHING MAGICALLY USELESS AND WILL MESS UP SOMEONE'S CIRCLE! WHAT ABOUT INK? YOU'D GET A KICK OUT OF THAT, I BET."
Joking with Ford Pines is hard. When it isn't a joke, he will often assume it is, and when it actually is one, he'll take it without blinking. Especially in this case, because the man's become positively blase about injury and death.
And, apparently, turning his blood to ink.
There's a spark of irritation about the fact that Bill knows him well enough to predict that yes, yes he thinks that bleeding ink would be cool. His eyes narrow and he looks at Bill sideways. He's considering it, but irked that Bill nailed it.
"It's still not an ideal substance to have sitting around in an open wound," Ford says slowly, "but if most of it could be kept safely out of my bloodstream, it just might work."
The funny part of the joke would have been Ford getting mad at him for suggesting it. Oh well.
Ford writes more than he cleans, if he's anything like he used to be. It's not a hard leap to ink.
"NOTHING IS IDEAL TO HAVE SITTING IN AN OPEN WOUND!"
Except literally nothing -
Bill's eye brightens.
"GOT IT! THIS'LL WORK."
He shoos away the divided circle and point symbol of alkali volatile and draws in a simpler one: upwards triangle, split by a line. The rest of the spell squiggles around. Bill has made the process much more complicated and fiddly trying to get a liquid to turn to air for no reason.
"JUST MAKE IT DISSOLVE TO HYDROGEN. OF COURSE, IF THEY THINK YOU'RE JUST NOT BLEEDING THEY MIGHT STAB YOU SOMEWHERE ELSE..."
But that's a sacrifice Bill is willing to make. Most sacrifices involving Ford getting injured he's just dandy with.
This is a man who set his face on fire instead of shaving even before the other Bill messed with his ideas about dying horribly and how it really isn't so bad once you get used to it.
"Perfect!" he exclaims, placing his hands on his hips and looking the formula over. "That'll render all attempts at blood magic completely useless, and won't give me a case of ink poisoning."
Ford nods, committing the pattern to memory. He'll find somewhere suitable to put it. Somewhere less obvious than the lining of his coat, since this is a last-resort kind of deal rather than the first line of defense. Inside the clothes, maybe inside a pocket or on a sock.
"Let's see. There's the magic nullification runes, the blood-to-ammonia spell, the blood-to-hydrogen glyph, and an unlocking spell," Ford rattles off, counting them on his fingers. "Is there anything else I should know that will help me stop your enemies from killing me to get to you?"
Obviously not, he can't turn his blood into both at once. They're a one at a time deal.
The little buckler appears, and Ford starts: he looks at it in surprise, then turns his arm around to examine it from a few more angles. He's still trying to figure it out when Bill mentions DD&MD, and he answers half-distracted by the mechanics of the magic shield. "Mm, hard to say. There's plenty of spells I used to use back in the day -- Generic Magic Blast, Prestochangatation, Raise Undead -- I've always been fond of Mallefluvius's Rope Trick. But what does that have to do with this?" Look man, give him the opportunity to nerd out and he'll nerd first and ask questions later.
"That was a disaster," Ford argues, making a sweeping one-handed gesture like he's clearing a pile of his own missteps off an invisible table. "If it hasn't been for that barbershop quartet, I'd have been done for!"
Sure is lucky no one else is listening to this, or else that would have sounded humorously random and certainly have piqued a listener's curiosity about just what kind of story could possibly be behind a statement like that.
"THAT WAS GREAT. ...ANYWAY, I CAN'T GIVE YOU ROPE TRICK. IF IT WAS THAT EASY TO KNOCK A HOLE BETWEEN DIMENSIONS I'D HAVE DONE IT ALREADY! GENERIC BLAST COULD BE DONE... YOU MIGHT NEED TO MAKE A WAND!"
Prestochangination he's straight up not getting. You've already killed Bill with a sleight of hand illusion once. Fuck you guys.
"Wait, wait, wait. You're asking me for Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons spells so that you can give me the real-life edition versions?"
Ford's smelling something suspicious. The nerd spells, the shield, all of it is starting to feel like overkill. It's too much; he doesn't trust it.
"Bill, I got killed once. The effect on you wasn't even fatal! We've already worked out precautions against blood sorcery. That's fine. But if you're trying to put me in your debt by giving me more magic than I need, I'm not interested in owing you a favor."
Ford dispels the arm-shield with a quick outward jerk of the arm. "I don't need you handing me weapons, Cipher, I'm perfectly capable of building my own! I'll take it from here."
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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Bill drifts off into mutters and turns around to start drawing glowing symbols in the air, checking some complicated math.
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It would also be a very convenient solution when out of household cleaner. Just drop some blood in a spray bottle and dilute it and he'd be set.
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"HUHHH."
Bill rubs under his eye where a chin would be - this is actually a borrowed gesture, he's just doing it without thinking.
"YEAH, I CAN DO THAT! HERE - "
He tosses a whiteboard marker over his shoulder for Ford to catch.
"WRITE OUT THE CHEMICAL FORMULAS FOR BOTH, WE'RE GONNA NEED 'EM TO REFER TO. I THINK I CAN GIVE YOU SOMETHING THAT UNBINDS ROPES AND LOCKS, BUT IT'S NOT GONNA WORK ON ANYTHING MAGICAL OR MANUFACTURED AFTER 2100 OR SO."
There's no actual reason it wouldn't work on those, but if Ford doesn't think it'll work on them, that'll give Bill a way to imprison him again. Never know when he's gonna need another bubble-breaking equation!
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He's completely serious.
"Luckily, Tesla draws blood intravenously, so this shouldn't affect our arrangement."
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"WELL, IF YOU WANT WE CAN MAKE IT SO YOU GOTTA SAY A SPELL TO MAKE IT CHANGE! BUT THAT WON'T WORK IF THEY KNOCK YOU OUT. OOH, HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT MAKING IT HIGH-PRESSURE SO IT SHOOTS OUT REALLY FAST?"
Bill dashes off a fast PSI measurement into the spell that is truly, truly overkill and might just kill Ford with fire hose blood loss if he gets a cut.
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Ford pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs. "Unless we find a way to get around the chemical burns that doesn't lead to my untimely death, I'm not sure the ammonia idea is viable."
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He considers the glowing math a moment, thinking it all over. Then, he crooks his hand at Bill.
"Give me the spell to change it myself. Without the pressurization."
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"LISTEN, IT'S GOTTA BE SOMETHING THAT'LL WORK WHILE YOU'RE KNOCKED OUT! WHAT ABOUT SOMETHING OTHER THAN AMMONIA, CAN I TALK YOU INTO THAT?"
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"DOESN'T MATTER! THE IMPORTANT PART IS THAT IT'S SOMETHING MAGICALLY USELESS AND WILL MESS UP SOMEONE'S CIRCLE! WHAT ABOUT INK? YOU'D GET A KICK OUT OF THAT, I BET."
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And, apparently, turning his blood to ink.
There's a spark of irritation about the fact that Bill knows him well enough to predict that yes, yes he thinks that bleeding ink would be cool. His eyes narrow and he looks at Bill sideways. He's considering it, but irked that Bill nailed it.
"It's still not an ideal substance to have sitting around in an open wound," Ford says slowly, "but if most of it could be kept safely out of my bloodstream, it just might work."
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Ford writes more than he cleans, if he's anything like he used to be. It's not a hard leap to ink.
"NOTHING IS IDEAL TO HAVE SITTING IN AN OPEN WOUND!"
Except literally nothing -
Bill's eye brightens.
"GOT IT! THIS'LL WORK."
He shoos away the divided circle and point symbol of alkali volatile and draws in a simpler one: upwards triangle, split by a line. The rest of the spell squiggles around. Bill has made the process much more complicated and fiddly trying to get a liquid to turn to air for no reason.
"JUST MAKE IT DISSOLVE TO HYDROGEN. OF COURSE, IF THEY THINK YOU'RE JUST NOT BLEEDING THEY MIGHT STAB YOU SOMEWHERE ELSE..."
But that's a sacrifice Bill is willing to make. Most sacrifices involving Ford getting injured he's just dandy with.
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"Perfect!" he exclaims, placing his hands on his hips and looking the formula over. "That'll render all attempts at blood magic completely useless, and won't give me a case of ink poisoning."
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Bill sits back and examines the spell.
"...THIS ONE'S ALSO GOTTA BE WORN OR INKED ON YOU. PUT IT WHEREVER YOU THINK IT'LL BE SAFE - SOMETHING NOT TOO OBVIOUS."
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"Let's see. There's the magic nullification runes, the blood-to-ammonia spell, the blood-to-hydrogen glyph, and an unlocking spell," Ford rattles off, counting them on his fingers. "Is there anything else I should know that will help me stop your enemies from killing me to get to you?"
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Hmm. Is there anything else?
"WELL, I'M GONNA GIVE YOU ONE OF THESE -"
Bill shoots finger-guns at Ford and gives him a little glowy blocking shield over his forearm.
"AND ...WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE SPELL OUT OF DUNGEONS, DUNGEONS, AND MORE DUNGEONS?"
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The little buckler appears, and Ford starts: he looks at it in surprise, then turns his arm around to examine it from a few more angles. He's still trying to figure it out when Bill mentions DD&MD, and he answers half-distracted by the mechanics of the magic shield. "Mm, hard to say. There's plenty of spells I used to use back in the day -- Generic Magic Blast, Prestochangatation, Raise Undead -- I've always been fond of Mallefluvius's Rope Trick. But what does that have to do with this?" Look man, give him the opportunity to nerd out and he'll nerd first and ask questions later.
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Really well = someone almost died.
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Sure is lucky no one else is listening to this, or else that would have sounded humorously random and certainly have piqued a listener's curiosity about just what kind of story could possibly be behind a statement like that.
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Prestochangination he's straight up not getting. You've already killed Bill with a sleight of hand illusion once. Fuck you guys.
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Ford's smelling something suspicious. The nerd spells, the shield, all of it is starting to feel like overkill. It's too much; he doesn't trust it.
"Bill, I got killed once. The effect on you wasn't even fatal! We've already worked out precautions against blood sorcery. That's fine. But if you're trying to put me in your debt by giving me more magic than I need, I'm not interested in owing you a favor."
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Ford dispels the arm-shield with a quick outward jerk of the arm. "I don't need you handing me weapons, Cipher, I'm perfectly capable of building my own! I'll take it from here."
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