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Chapter 19 by Zingiber Zingiber

What's your next Move?

Time and life are wasting! Revive the Headmistress.

The Headmistress doesn't respond. She lies naked and unmoving on the Infirmary's examination table, her pouting vulva slick with herbal salve and glazed with your seed. Her eyes are rolled back, showing the whites. Her hands are clenched in fists, her toes are curled and every muscle is tense.

She isn't breathing.

You stand naked in terribly compromising circumstances, but the Headmistress is in dire danger.

"Miss Wormwood, Miss Wormwood, help!" you call out again.

No answer.

You close your eyes and visit your Memory Palace, a dream-castle in the form of Aberdean House, remembering where you've left your cues to the basic lifesaving charms all members of the Aberdean family learn. The kitchen, in the porcelain Bowl of Hygieia, its stem wrapped with a brass serpent. There. Your lessons flood back, and the charms spring to your lips.

"Apo pontos, kakodaimonos!" you cry out, clearing away any malign influences. Your next tests reveal little, so you choose to take on the symptom directly.

She isn't breathing.

You touch your wand to the Headmistress' chest, between her bosoms, and incant, "Pneuma, Pneuma, Pneuma!" putting your heart into it.

She coughs and pulls in one ragged whoop of a breath.

One breath. Again.

"Pneuma, Pneuma, Pneuma!" you cry out, willing the breath into her body.

Another ragged breath. Well, there's direct action.

You tilt her chin up, pinch her nostrils, and bend your lips to hers, blowing air into her lungs. Breathe, breathe, breathe! you will.

Your breath fills her lungs. Her limbs jerk, then loosen. An emission of wind arises from her nethers with an unladylike sound. You persist.

After several minutes of tiring artificial respiration, the Headmistress is breathing on her own. You stagger back from the table, short of breath and drained of magical reserve.

The Headmistress coughs and sits up unsteadily. She looks pale, with an unnatural flush on her cheeks and ears.

"My WORD, Aberdean," she says. "I'm feeling rather out of SORTS. Where is Miss Wormwood?"

"I called out and she didn't come," you say.

"This will not DO," she says. "Help me UP, Aberdean." She holds out her hand. Her hand is cool and damp in yours.


Take a CONSEQUENCE: Drained. You have -1 on Move rolls until you remove the CONSEQUENCE.

You have 2 XP.
Your FRIEND who owes you a FAVOR is your sister Anastasia.
Headmistress Pernilla Porcinilla is your HANGER-ON and owes you a FAVOR.

Roll +AMBITION(0) (+2 Ambition, -1 Hanger-On, -1 CONSEQUENCE) to APPEASE YOUR HANGER-ON. You're too much of a gentleman to PUT OFF or DISCOURAGE a lady in distress.

Roll +AMBITION(+0) to APPEASE the Headmistress

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