soulping | CUDDLY SNAKES

CUDDLY SNAKES

[ In this isolated chamber, there are enough chairs around the rickety, rotten wooden desk to seat everybody. Some sunlight streams through the boarded windows to give enough light. You have pencils, pens, some scrap paper to brainstorm with, and a formal test sheet to put your final answers on. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Hmm...It doesn't seem as though many of these can be simply reasoned out, so we'll have to answer based on whatever knowledge we have.

She probably wants the creepiest and most disgusting answers.

That would certainly fit the...feel of this place.

Number three: make a hole in their skull to let the pain out. Number four: scoop out their brain; she probably wants to hear things like that.

I'd like to say, "Don't give her what she wants," but we haven't won in some time.

[ looking absolutely horrified by his last suggestion ]

We are absolutely not saying "scoop out their brain".

Why not?

Well, I suppose there's a possibility that this is just "round one," and she'll actually put our answers into practice. You know--

I had better check.

[Walking out of the room.]

[ w-waiting for him to come back ]

[Returning.]

She says she's just "giving us a harmless test," because she couldn't clean up enough to do anything else. That's a little alarming, but she didn't seem to be lying.

Then, I guess it's fine to say "scoop out their brain".

Yeah, we'll surprise her with our bold answers that way.

I bet she isn't expecting answers like ours!

We'll prove we're not as predictable as anyone thinks.

Right!

All right, let's see what we've got.

[Reading off his scrap paper, pausing here and there to add things.]

One: the Hippocratic Oath is a promise doctors make to help people in need and not hurt anyone.
Two: the Four Humors are what ancient doctors called bodily fluids.
Three: you could drill a hole in the skull to let the pain out. If that doesn't work, an extreme option is chopping off the head to end the pain once and for all, although that would violate the Hippocratic Oath.
Four: you could scoop out the faulty parts of the patient's brain. If you needed to follow the Hippocratic Oath even so, you would have to make new brains first to replace them with.
Five: it's sepsis.

Edited 2014-02-08 22:23 (UTC)

Re: DISCUSSION

barrette - 2014-02-08 22:26 (UTC) - Expand

Re: DISCUSSION

swordedpast - 2014-02-08 22:29 (UTC) - Expand

Re: DISCUSSION

saburai - 2014-02-08 22:28 (UTC) - Expand

Seeing as how answering in an awful manner does not seem to pose any harm to others, I think aiming for victory is worth it.

For three, you could even remove the head altogether, as you wouldn't have a headache after that.

[Returning from going to question Sepsis on whether that is in fact the case!]

Yeah, it seems this is the whole game, and she's not planning to hurt us afterwards. So let's not hold ourselves back.

[Settling down to make some more notes on scrap paper.]

Then, three and four we can come up with extreme answers for...and since Sparrow already answered five and you've got an idea for two, all that leaves is one.

Is that when you make an oath to someone else, but then turn around and break it when they're not looking?

That's got nothing to do with medicine, though.