Out of Character (OOC):
Venue: Mage: The Awakening 2nd Edition
Chronicle: Mage 2: The Dethroned Queen
Story: The Asylum
Chapter 3 – Scene 5 "The Lost Nurse"
Storyteller: Jerad Sayler
North Dakota State Hospital
Patient Case Study #3 The Lost Nurse
The following is an excerpt is from an active play-by-post Story Plot starring Chimera (Hannah Nyland), Jack Bismuth (Alex Van Belkum), Overwatch (Andrew Buchman) & Eos (Jerad Sayler). The Story is called The Asylum and involves the supernatural badness of the Jamestown State Hospital in Jamestown, North Dakota. Now that the Malus Loci is closed and several months has gone by, Chimera shifts her attention to some of the peripheral oddities at the NDSH. She sends her familiar Azazel to interface with STARK, a highly advanced magically created Virtual Intelligence, to plum the depths of the hospital records looking for anything odd.
Azazel: Boss... I have found another set of anomalies surrounding a patient. Her records have enormous gaps in them and there are several inconsistencies. It might be worth checking into... STARK has been very thorough at nesting in the hospital's database servers.
Care Plan
Woronov receives very few scheduled sessions with psychiatric professionals, and much of the allotted time is spent working on her cocktail. Scheduled sessions with clinical psychologists take place twice a month. Presently, the plan is to continue with group therapy and place her with patients who are lucid and almost ready to be released. Hopefully, this will entice her to recognize her own situation and become serious about her own therapy.
Resolution:
Since Victor and Hubert will most likely never return, someone needs to track them and start surveillance on the Seers themselves. They pass all the tracking data to the respective Caucuses that wanted to start following these two Seers and seeing what else they can find out.
Additionally, the Guardians of the Veil are now going to start spying on Arkham Asylum (aka among Seers as the Danver's Site). Turns out they use it for political prisoners and other nefarious purposes.
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Patient: Lara Woronov
Attending Physician: Yee Lin, M.D.
Attending Physician: Yee Lin, M.D.
Case Number: BG-0002
Date Entered: 17 Dec 2016
Date Entered: 17 Dec 2016
Description & History
Lara Woronov is a white female, age 45, admitted to NDSH approximately 10 years ago (date on file illegible). Diagnosis is paranoid schizophrenia characterized by delusions of grandeur and persecution. Specifically, Woronov believes that she was once an employee of the hospital. The fact that other patients occasionally agree with her doesn’t help any treatment that we have tried to provide, but even when she is kept separate from other patients she remains obstinate. In fact, she has been here longer than any other patient currently in in-patient care; she predates my own time here by at least three years.
Woronov occasionally tries to act in the capacity of a psychiatric nurse. She is, in fact, no longer allowed to dress in anything other than a patient’s gown, because families of patients, in addition to the patients themselves, believed her to be a nurse once too often. She even helped subdue a particularly hysteric patient once, and removed an orderly’s keys before he realized what had happened.
Woronov’s medical files are a disgrace. It isn’t uncommon for a form or two to go missing, but so much of her medical history is missing that we have to be very careful what medications to administer since we don’t know if she has any allergies (she refuses to tell us or claims she doesn’t know). Woronov claims to be a registered nurse, but there are no records of anyone by that name in the state’s registry files. Note, though, that she also sometimes claims that “Woronov” isn’t her real name, but she refuses to give any other name, so no verification could be made. She claims that she was employed by NDSH “for almost eight years,” but given that she became a patient here more than 10 years ago, that would mean that she was hired nearly 20 years ago. Unfortunately, the North Dakota State Hospital suffered a fire that destroyed most of the employee records not long after that, so even in the extremely unlikely event that Woronov’s story is anything more than delusion, it is impossible to verify.
Her medical records do indicate, however, than she has a history of drug abuse (mostly hallucinogens and narcotics) and might have come from an abusive home environment. She has no living family, according to her medical file, and her medical care is provided by the state. Her coverage is minimal, and she is listed as a “potential threat to herself or others.” It is unlikely that Woronov will be released to out-patient care anytime soon.
Treatments and Results
During her long time at NDSH, Woronov has been under the care of no fewer than seven different doctors and five different clinical psychologists. She has been given many different prescriptions as new drugs become available, but she is notoriously uncooperative about taking her meds and often has to be given them IM or IV rather than orally. She responds badly to antipsychotics, but we have hope that atypical or second-gen antipsychotics will work better for her. Antidepressants help with her mood, but do nothing to lessen her delusions, and, given the difficulty she gives us with taking them, she receives this medication only infrequently. She is, however, on a strict regimen of mild tranquilizers and anti-anxiety medication in order to keep her compliant. See attached drug schedule and history (but again, the history is incomplete).
Woronov occasionally tries to act in the capacity of a psychiatric nurse. She is, in fact, no longer allowed to dress in anything other than a patient’s gown, because families of patients, in addition to the patients themselves, believed her to be a nurse once too often. She even helped subdue a particularly hysteric patient once, and removed an orderly’s keys before he realized what had happened.
Woronov’s medical files are a disgrace. It isn’t uncommon for a form or two to go missing, but so much of her medical history is missing that we have to be very careful what medications to administer since we don’t know if she has any allergies (she refuses to tell us or claims she doesn’t know). Woronov claims to be a registered nurse, but there are no records of anyone by that name in the state’s registry files. Note, though, that she also sometimes claims that “Woronov” isn’t her real name, but she refuses to give any other name, so no verification could be made. She claims that she was employed by NDSH “for almost eight years,” but given that she became a patient here more than 10 years ago, that would mean that she was hired nearly 20 years ago. Unfortunately, the North Dakota State Hospital suffered a fire that destroyed most of the employee records not long after that, so even in the extremely unlikely event that Woronov’s story is anything more than delusion, it is impossible to verify.
Her medical records do indicate, however, than she has a history of drug abuse (mostly hallucinogens and narcotics) and might have come from an abusive home environment. She has no living family, according to her medical file, and her medical care is provided by the state. Her coverage is minimal, and she is listed as a “potential threat to herself or others.” It is unlikely that Woronov will be released to out-patient care anytime soon.
Treatments and Results
During her long time at NDSH, Woronov has been under the care of no fewer than seven different doctors and five different clinical psychologists. She has been given many different prescriptions as new drugs become available, but she is notoriously uncooperative about taking her meds and often has to be given them IM or IV rather than orally. She responds badly to antipsychotics, but we have hope that atypical or second-gen antipsychotics will work better for her. Antidepressants help with her mood, but do nothing to lessen her delusions, and, given the difficulty she gives us with taking them, she receives this medication only infrequently. She is, however, on a strict regimen of mild tranquilizers and anti-anxiety medication in order to keep her compliant. See attached drug schedule and history (but again, the history is incomplete).
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| 2010 Brain Scan |
Psychotherapy has mixed results at best. Woronov demonstrates considerable knowledge of psychiatric medicine; whether or not she ever truly was a nurse, she has certainly received schooling from somewhere. She understands different behavioral and therapeutic techniques and has a habit of playing along for months, fooling her providers into thinking she is making great strides, only to fall back into her old patterns of believing she is an employee and trying to act in that capacity. She has no interest in expressive therapy, cognitive therapy, behavioral therapy or any other modality that requires her to examine her own thoughts or consider the possibility that she might not be what she thinks she is.
Care Plan
Woronov receives very few scheduled sessions with psychiatric professionals, and much of the allotted time is spent working on her cocktail. Scheduled sessions with clinical psychologists take place twice a month. Presently, the plan is to continue with group therapy and place her with patients who are lucid and almost ready to be released. Hopefully, this will entice her to recognize her own situation and become serious about her own therapy.
Azazel: What I and STARK have found interesting relates to some of the statements in this file regarding her identity.
First, The local fire department has no record of a fire at the North Dakota State Hospital within 10 years of the one that supposedly destroyed any record of Woronov’s employment. It appears that none of her doctors followed up on this, perhaps this is because no one really believes she was ever an employee and no one who might have worked with her at the time remembers her.Next, from an online search for preliminary information on "Lara Woronov," or "Laura Woronov"• I discovered that several years back, there was a small but persistent drive on the Internet to “find Laura Woronov.” The email stated that she disappeared while going to work “at the hospital” one day (location not specified or lost to time). But, no permutation of Lara is listed as a missing person, and the email has since been declared a hoax by an online encyclopedia of urban legends.
Lastly, I found a very interesting correlation that no one at the hospital has connected. One therapeutic technique that has been used on Woronov before is hypnotic regression, the act of retrieving repressed memories in a hypnotic state. But, every single doctor or psychologist
who has tried hypnotic memory regression has died within a week. The deaths are never mysterious, though: heart attacks, strokes, car accidents, household accidents and other completely understandable occurrences claim their lives.
Lastly, I found a very interesting correlation that no one at the hospital has connected. One therapeutic technique that has been used on Woronov before is hypnotic regression, the act of retrieving repressed memories in a hypnotic state. But, every single doctor or psychologist
who has tried hypnotic memory regression has died within a week. The deaths are never mysterious, though: heart attacks, strokes, car accidents, household accidents and other completely understandable occurrences claim their lives.
Interested yet? I thought you might be.
Resolution:
Chimera and her fellow Guardian Panoptes investigated the nurse and determined that she was in-fact a former nurse at the North Dakota State Hospital. Her name was changed from Lauren Woronovski to Lara Woronov. The former Administration were Hegemonic Seers and they erased all memory of Lauren from the staff. The Seers left town when the site starting having the larger problems that Chimera has been trying to deal with.
Furthermore, mental probes into Lauren's mind lead to the discovery that she has a large and regimented database of encrypted information in her brain. Seems that Seer couriers were using her as a dead drop to securely pass information from one regional Hegemonic Tetrach to another.
Laying in wait, Chimera and Panoptes witness a Seer by the name of Hubert Farlowe arrive for his monthly data dump and collection of new information. They are able to copy the passphrase he used to get into her mind and see the totality of everything the Seers ever shoved into her head. It also looks like they have noticed mage activity in Jamestown and need to set up another Dead Drop. They planned to liquidate her as soon as they set up another means of secure communication. Lara's mind was unstable and fragile. Every month when a Seer would visit and access the database it would set her back in her recovery and reduce her to a drooling idiot for a week afterwards.
After some serious moral discussions, they agree that they need to wait to see if they can get in the middle of whatever new communications they set up. When Dr. Victor Kureze arrives he violently ripped the entire database out of her head at once, apparently they had set up alternate communications through other means. Chimera's back-up plan goes into effect, Lauren appears to die from the shock of the extraction.
Once the Seer leaves Chimera and Panoptes swaps Lauren's body with one that looks like her and has a consistent cause of death that matches the story. Then Chimera used a powerful Mind and Time spell to restore her mind from total catatonia to its state before the extraction. She lives but she has been declared legally dead (at least her identity as Lara is dead).
Once the Seer leaves Chimera and Panoptes swaps Lauren's body with one that looks like her and has a consistent cause of death that matches the story. Then Chimera used a powerful Mind and Time spell to restore her mind from total catatonia to its state before the extraction. She lives but she has been declared legally dead (at least her identity as Lara is dead).
Chimera and Panoptes safely remove the data and restore Lauren to a functional cognitive state. They information she had in her head was absolutely vital.
Guardians have also beefed up security at the Blackwing Institute. The Seers were planning a intrusion or attack on the facility.
Thanks to Chimera's data, the agents at the Institute are now spying on the spies and are getting good information on the primary cabal responsible. COUNTER-INTELLIGENCE! The increase in security at Blackwing has to be done slowly and subtly... you never want to let on to your enemies that you know what they know. So the security increase is very subtle.... if the Seers try to make an overt move they will think they are successfully subverting the place when in fact they will be studied in every move (spy term: Honeypot).
It's extremely important that the patients at the Institute don't escape... especially Else Jarrow "Old Marrow Bones" and many other Mad that are in treatment. Some can't be treated by remain alive because they are already dead, can't be killed, or prior agreements... Langford and Dr. Hush are appreciative of the head's up.
The Hegemony seems to now be in rapid decline, a decline that started with the Great Refusal. Many loyal agents of the Unity are defecting to lesser Ministries, most prominently the Ministry of Mammon and the Pantechnicon.
Lauren seemed to have the ability to sense some of the corruption at the hospital and made several unsettling things about what might be lurking in the cave system under the complex...
The restored Lauren Woronovski checked out of the hospital and is working to pick up the pieces of her life after a decade of being dead to the world, memory erased by time and magic for the last decade.
As a result of this success in the small town of Jamestown North Dakota, Panoptes is promoted to the rank of Famulus in the Guardians of the Veil. Additionally, Chimera is appointed by the White Lady of San Diego as a Suspector, an elite spy of the Order.
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