18th Shard

Emily finished examining Poller. "Based on what I've tested, you don't have a concussion. I don't have any explanation for the Cognitive symptoms you described, but since they don't seem to have impaired your mental or physical abilities right now, I think it'd be best to just keep an eye on it for a week or so. If it happens again, definitely come back in, but right now I think you're going to be just fine." She unlocked the cabinet and pulled out a prescription pad from the shelf. She filled out Poller's information, scribbled a note on it (20mg fAu, fNi req., 20m obs.), signed it, and handed it to Poller. "This is a prescription for a single 20 milligram dose of feruchemical Gold. It'll take care of some of the bruising and should catch any other little physical problems. I'll have someone show you where the pharmacy is, but they'll give you a small sugar pill with the gold embedded in it. One of the pharmacy techs will help you with a metalmind that will allow you to tap the gold, and then they'll have you sit in an observation room for about twenty minutes. If you don't have any reactions after then, you'll be good to head home." Emily pulled her gloves off and tossed them in the trash, opening the door for the pair to exit. She caught Sam's attention and explained Poller needed directed to the pharmacy in the Physical Ward. Sam nodded and started leading the two down the hall. Emily rubbed some hand sanitizer on her hands, then went back to the desk to check on the schedule. @Ashbringer @mathiau

@ZincAboutIt I had Xanas ask Counterintelligence for a report on Sanax's room from the hospital. Right now, I'm assuming just some random Denizen would get the request and send for the info, but if Lita want Lita to notice it, go ahead.

Xanas sat at his desk, papers on the oaken top meticulously organized into piles of related information: one stack contained intelligence reports from the city, another contained test results from his department, and another contained personnel incident reports. This last pile had been growing faster than Xanas would have liked - the volatility of the Alleys was increasing, and stable perpendicularities were becoming more and more unreliable. A small spanreed sat blinking on the edge of his desk, next to the chair Tsarik sat in. Xanax sighed and nodded at Tsarik, who shut off the spanreed with a careful twist. The inkspren carefully skimmed the report before placing it on the incident report pile. “Too many incidents are, Xanas,” the spren remarked. “This cannot be coincidence. An unknown variable is.” Xanax nodded wearily. “The reports are coming in more frequently. I am not yet sure if this is a polynomial or an exponential increase, but either way, safety measures are in order. Tell the sub-heads to suspend any tests which require level four approval unless they are conducted in the central facility, and to create an updated map of safe Alleyways.” Tsarik’s long black fingers began to twirl a simple silver pen with a red spinel embedded in the end. Xanas followed the patterns for a moment, trying to find a pattern to the odd happenings in the Alleys. To make matters worse, an entire fortnight had passed without making any progress on finding the origin of the falsified HR report. His blackouts were coming far more often as well, and try as he might, he hadn’t found a single strand of his Spiritweb which had been altered. Too many unusual events, all occurring at the same time. When the vinebuds hide, the highstorm approaches, as Dnah used to say. Xanas drummed his fingers along the table unconsciously for a second before noticing the motion and folding his hands together. It was a nervous habit of his, one he’d thought he’d broken a century ago. A tightening sensation rippled through his forehead, and he reflexively breathed in a measure of Stormlight. When the sensation worsened, his eyes unfocusing, he knew he was about to blackout. He picked up a copper and nicrosil coin from his desk, holding it tightly in his hand on the desktop. “Tsarik.” His spren looked up, noting the position Xanas was in. He stood, walked over and held Xanas’ hand closed with his own. “I will hold it until you regain consciousness,” Tsarik said. “Start storing.” Xanas leaned back in his chair, his hand remaining on the desk. Xanas started storing memory in the coin as darkness gathered around the edges of his vision. The world faded away, and Xanas caught a glimpse of a white room for an instant before everything went black. He awoke in his chair, arm sore from its extension. He shook his head, sitting up. “How long was I out?” Tsarik let go of his hand, standing upright. “Three-quarters of an hour.” Tsarik’s long sword floated behind him, and Tsarik grabbed it with his left hand and sheathed it quickly. Xanas opened his hand and stopped storing in the coppermind. The coin had left a faint red imprint on his palm. He rubbed his hand, pushing feeling back into the numb fingers. “Let’s see if our little experiment worked, shall we?” Xanas held the coppermind out and set it gently into a fabrial on the wall. The fabrial absorbed Stormlight from a few nearby broams before projecting a small illusion of the room onto his desk. Xanas rolled a dial on the fabrial back, and the projection turned black. As he continued to twist the dial, the blackness stayed constant, until just a moment before returning to his office, a flash of white appeared. Xanas rolled a smaller dial until he caught the memory of the white flash, then swapped a pewter switch. The projection expanded until the Lightweaving filled the whole room. Xanas looked around at the white walls, the small, locked window, and the medical equipment. “The city hospital, it seems. Odd that this is what I should see in a blackout. He walked around the bed and curtain, looking for clues as to the room’s significance. “Xanas, look here.” Tsarik motioned him over to the edges of the Lightweaving. Xanas hadn’t been able to turn and look behind him, so the edges of the illusion became blurry as they stretched further to his side, but Tsarik had found a small corner of a sticker on the underside of the table. Xanas knelt to look at it. C180. A room number. Xanas smiled. “Good eye.” He stood up, switching off the Lightweaving fabrial. “Send a message to Counterintelligence. See if they can have a contact at the hospital forward this room’s recent history to me - say, six months back to the present.” Tsarik grabbed the silver pen and began sending an Alleycant message. Xanas smiled. Finally, something he could study.

I was thinking the monsters resetting memory actually. Should've been more clear about that.

If you want, Folorian and Emily can leave to go talk to Sanax, and in that time Poller's memories are altered back. They could break through again later, but that let's you leave Poller out of the plot. Just let me know what direction you want to head and I'll start thinking about how to write it from my characters' end. I had the exact same reaction. I appreciate the adherence to the plot line in spite of the torture you are causing us, @Voidus.

Sanax is in the Cognitive Ward, yeah. Emily, my nurse character, is also there and she knows Sanax pretty well. Her last post she was checking Poller out with Folorian there, but I can wrap that up if wanted. @mathiau @Voidus @ZincAboutIt If you want Xanas to get anything from the Alleys involved, just let me know.

I am currently a bit busy with schoolwork, but I am happy to take a break to get short bits from Sanax or Xanas up if that helps out! In a month or so things should have calmed down a bit more for me to write more. I started chipping away at a novel for NaNoWriMo when the Alleys slowed down, but I haven't been able to write any really weird characters or worlds like those here in it, so that will be fun.

Narcolepsy combined with being a Sentry? That would be an interesting combination. Somewhat self regulating, assuming he could store enough wakefulness. Emily wasn’t sure how circadian rhythms would work with that scenario though. And a head injury too - lots of issues that might affect each other. A head injury leading to hallucinations of another world? That’s … oddly specific. Emily pulled out a penlight. “Are you on any medications or other Investiture right now?” Poller said no. “Any previous head or eye injuries?” Poller shook his head again. Emily held up the penlight and explained, “I’m going to use this light to determine if your eyes are focusing properly. First, I’ll check your pupils’ reaction to light by shining it in your eyes. Then, I’ll have you look at the pen and then the wall in front of you.” She clicked the light on, moving it closer to each of his eyes, watching his pupils dilate. Everything seemed normal there. “Could you cover one of your eyes with a hand?” Poller covered his left eye. Emily held the light on the far side of his head. “Tell me when you can see this.” She began moving the light closer to the center of his face. “There,” Poller said. “Alright, now follow the light with your eyes.” Emily moved the light across his vision, watching his eye follow it normally. She checked the other eye, which also seemed average. “Okay, I’m going to put my hand in between your eyes to block the other one from seeing the light. I’m going to check the far eye’s response when I shine the light in the close eye, okay?” Emily moved the light toward Poller’s right eye, which constricted as expected. She checked with the other eye - same reaction. Emily noted down that his eyes were reacting normally, with no issues. Emily asked Poller to flex and then relax his hand. She finished the notation for his GCS: GCS 14-15, E4 V4-5, M6. So far, the head injury seems to have been mild, with no side effects or causes for concern. “Have you had any pain or headaches? Any bruising where you hit your head?” @Ashbringer @mathiau

Emily looked over the forms quickly. Poller, adult male, ethnically Scadrian. Bronze ferring. Narcolepsy. Came in because he had passed out and injured his head. The receptionist had dashed a mark on the side indicating he was having hallucinations, hence why he was checking into the Cognitive ward. Emily sighed. Hopefully, this wouldn't be too complicated; they only had so many open beds. Emily washed her hands again, activated the chromium medallion at the door to clear any Investiture from her body, and then opened the door to the waiting room. "Poller!" she called out. A young man, early twenties, with bronze earrings and a cane, walked up toward her, accompanied by another man who was probably in his thirties. The second was dressed like a Terrisman, with shining earrings. Probably Poller's emergency contact - she glanced down at her clipboard - Folorian? She vaguely remembered hearing about him from another nurse, John. He'd said Folorian had come in due to a unique bane from Roshar - no peripheral vision or something like that. “Hi, come on back,” she said. She led the two to an examination room, where Poller sat on the exam chair, Folorian sitting on a chair off to the side. Emily began a basic orientation check. “Alright, so I just have some basic information to get from you. What’s your full name?” Poller answered, “Poller. No surname.” Emily made a checkmark, then asked, “Ok, and could you tell me where you are right now?” “Einladung Hopsital.” Another check. “Alright, and could you tell me what the date and time is right now?” “4th of Scholus... not sure the exact time. ...Like 9:00 or 10:00 or so?" “Okay. Could you tell me what’s brought you in today?” Poller started telling his story. As he spoke, Emily made a note on the clipboard: A&O x4. Poller seemed fairly aware; he was speaking clearly with no slurring and only a little stumbling. His eyes seemed to be focusing on her correctly, with regularly shaped pupils. Emily made another couple of notes: GCS E4, V4-5. She’d check on his motor skills after he finished talking. @Ashbringer @mathiau

Yeah, that is short. I'd forgotten Primary classes were that short now.

Emily downed another cup of coffee, glancing at her watch. 3:30. Another two and a half hours til I’m off. Hopefully, the caffeine would last that long. She’d already had to grab more cups from storage. Today was her fourth 12-hour this week, and she was one of the lucky ones. Most the other nurses were already on their fifth or sixth. They’d given Emily a day off after her second shift to make sure she was over the concussion, but she knew that was a luxury she wasn’t going to get again. Emily checked the information for the next patient’s room. Callan Tekiel, age 43. No Investiture or abilities. Reported hallucinations of his office collapsing in on itself before passing out. On coming to, he began trying to scratch out his left eye, screaming about getting ‘them’ out of him. He was sedated currently, and restraints had been tied around his limbs to prevent him from injuring himself in the event he came to again. She Read his pulse and temperature - 36.9°C and 65 BPM. There didn’t seem to be anything wrong, and Callan wouldn’t be a danger to anyone, so she marked the room okay to move a second patient into. The upsurge of patients over the past week was forcing them to put patients two to a room. Another call light went off from down the hall. Josie’s room. Emily ducked her head in to see Josie hiding in the corner, sobbing into a pillow. Josie’s glasses lay on the far side of the bed, like the pink frames had been tossed aside. “Nurse Emily, make them go away, please.” Josie rocked her head back and forth, hands cupped around her eyes as if to shield her vision from a bright light. “What do you see, Josie?” “The monsters, make them go away. I don’t like them, they’re scary.” The six-year-old kept crying. Emily looked around, trying to find something to do to help. There didn’t seem to be anything she could do. Normally, Emily would just mark this down as a normal night terror, but the amount of hallucinations and nightmares incoming patients were reporting was too high for them to all be coincidences. She gently picked Josie up and laid her down in bed. She asked the charge nurse to call Josie’s mom. “Emily!” A nurse a room over called urgently. The patient was an elderly woman, her eyes closed and body limp. “She’s not hooked up to a monitor! What’s her pulse doing?” Emily grabbed the woman’s wrist, Reading her pulse. Her heart beat irregularly, as if there were two pulses beating on differing frequencies, making it impossible for Emily’s powers to give her a number, then stopped altogether. “She’s flatlining!” Emily immediately started chest compressions, but her heart was sinking. CPR wasn’t likely to resuscitate someone with this frail of health. Emily kept going until the emergency team arrived to take over. Emily left the room, checking distractedly on the next patient. About 25 minutes later, the code team finally called time of death. Emily ducked into the bathroom for the first time for the afternoon. She closed the stall door and took a few heavy breaths. She’d had a couple patients die on her before, but it never got easier to handle. She breathed deeply, trying to keep her emotions in check. She rinsed her face off while washing her hands. Dark circles underscored the exhaustion in her eyes. Back out for the next few hours. Her headaches were getting worse again. More frequent. Just another couple hours, and then you can sleep, Emily. You’ve got this. She grimaced, pushing the growing headaches to the back of her head, trying to keep a clear mind. She rubbed her forehead, then went back to work. Sanax sat in the darkness. There were too many people around, too many screams and talkings and words. Too much light, tangled in mangled knots instead of tranquil language. Too much forging and gorging for hordlings. Eyes watching and seeing and seeking and peeking and tweaking, minds breaking and faking and shaking. Sanax’s eyes darkened a shade, and he saw into Shadesmar. Where normally rivers flowed and bent and twisted around walls spun and bent in tesseracting shapes, now that flow diverged like hydrophobic water, fragments of stone labyrinths suspended in inexorable stasis. And under and around it all, strings. Invisible strings, no less tangled because the people couldn’t see them. Tangled in mangled knots instead of tranquil language. Sanax didn’t touch the cords, shining in colors that human minds couldn’t see. The cords shone of course, not Sanax. The light didn’t like him. The void pulsing in his mind beat a counter-rhythm, like a note ever so slightly offtune. Like a bad alloy pulsing in bronze or a tonedeaf listener singing a chorus. Weathered metal studs pierced the blood flowing around him like buoys, floating like leaves lost on a tide. It fell up and then down. And beneath it all, strings. Tangled strings of light. Sanax hated the light. He grasped one of the threads and broke it with a dark smile. Heartbeats, pounding in his hand, like crickets chirping in reply. Then silence. No more lies and light and life and listening and limbs limply lying in this line. A tear fell down his cheek. In shame or relief? And then the screams came again. Other screams crowding and digging and waving and pounding. Sanax closed his eyes, praying into an abyss that his ears could close and shut out the screams. He could hear them even when he tried not to now. The screams wouldn’t go away. Even Emily couldn’t hear them, but Sanax could hear them. Words, screaming in his head. He wouldn’t listen. They were lies. But wouldn’t the lies tell him who was lying? No, he wouldn’t listen. He wanted the darkness. He wouldn’t listen to the light. Pressure, building, spilling, cascading, dancing. The lies were too loud to ignore now, screaming into the only part of Sanax with any Connections left. Sanax slumped in his chair, clenched fists falling back into open hands. He saw the lies. Xanas paced an office, alone save for Tsarik. The inkspren sat, legs crossed, in a chair, sword laying delicately across his lap, armor glinting with a gentle sheen. “Their minds are not, yes?” The inkspren gestured to the report laying on Xanas’s oak desk. Another Denizen had broken. It was not an uncommon fate among Denizens - there were Alleyways off limits to all but the most senior department heads to prevent unnecessary insanity - but these were particularly troubling. Spikes failing. Stable ones, with millenia left before they would have mutated into other invested isotopes. Even pure metalled spikes had failed. Wiped as cleanly as a Leecher could clean them, cleaner even. That was the fifth Denizen this month. The beasts of the Alleys were more active as well. The Thurain alleys had had to be closed, before anyone else was eaten. And throughout it all, Cam’s letter sat threateningly on his desk, unanswered. The other forms had long since been sent to HR, but this remained. His agents were still scouring the city for leads, but so far, nothing. Xanas felt a pressure in his neck, a tightness of some darkness closing in around the Alleys. It had been centuries since Xanas had had so many unanswered questions on his plate. And the headaches were growing more frequent, the blackouts far longer. During the last, he’d seen windows like those of old Alleycity buildings, fracturing, and within the pieces, darkness. A deep void, swallowing him. As the thought crossed his mind, pain flashed across his vision like lightning, and he felt his eyes closing. Lightheaded, he stumbled toward Tsarik. Then the darkness captured him, and he fell into oblivion.

Yep, that is true. Although I was gone on a mission the whole Alleyverse's Era 1 creation, so I came home and there were hundreds of pages of a universe that I didn't know about before. Xanas himself is old but he is from Roshar and human, so he does have an actual in-Cosmere beginning, unlike a lot of the other old DA members who are essentially cosmic beings. Xanas just got into the DA before it was cool.

Oh, I'm aware. I'm one of those ancient DA members who dabble in Lovecraftian experiments. Most of the ones my character, Xanas, deals with are less tentacle-y and more insect-related though. I was just saying I liked snickerdoodle, for reference information. Snickerdoodle, cadmium, and blood sacrifices always put the DA's Testing & Analysis Department in good moods. Sacrifices separate from the cookies, the hemoglobin doesn't mix with cadmium nicely.

I don't have too much going on for the next little bit, I'd love to be involved. (Amen. DAHR phone calls are the worst. So many souls are stuck on hold there, the hold music just doesn't sound the same. We need a good conductor to keep the screams on tempo; I just hate when someone ruins the oratorio).

... You do realize the DA is the preeminent bakers of the Alleyverse, right? The oldest of us DA members have tasted cookies that pre-date creation, and feast on baked goods with senses amplified a thousand-fold. In other words, could you please make them snickerdoodle and cadmium? Those are my favorite.

Sounds good. The boon would probably still work on others unless he touched her, but not on him then (probably).

I would say yes, but it might be a little harder to attune to any particular one. It would be harder for her to hear the Rhythm another person spoke to, but I don't think anyone else speaks to them so that shouldn't come up. Sanax would definitely not be affected at all. Treat him like aluminum. Byron would probably feel a 'drag' on the bubble, and if Sanax starts Voidmaking or removes his gloves while in the bubble, it would start draining his metal like Nightblood would if he were wielding it (though generally less severe).

Not really. I haven't had any posts on his end since Cam visited. Sanax could be helpful-ish. Everything will come heavily filtered through his insanity, but somewhere in there he understands what's happening. He doesn't know the Stranger did it, but Sanax was there when the Worldspike was placed, so he would understand its workings.

Sounds good. What's the end result we are going for with these interactions? So Sanax's powers are ... complicated. He is technically Voidmaking. This means he is an Investiture sink. Actively using investiture on him is going to open oneself up to having all of their Stormlight/actively burning metals vanish. Using it near him is probably fine unless he removes the aluminum lined gloves he is using. His abilities don't affect the Spiritweb until much more exposure occurs, so boons/banes might kind of flicker but would probably still work (if I understand how these work - I need to read through a little more of both of your posts to make sure). If Sanax removes the gloves and starts actively Voidmaking, his eyes would go black, and the Void he summons would start destroying most investiture far more potently - Breaths, invested metals, etc, - but Spiritwebs would probably remain intact. In terms of non-burning metals, they are totally unaffected. Burning metals would probably dampen some of the effects around him, but wouldn't Leech the metal unless he touched them gloveless. As far as the WorldForgery goes, Sanax isn't destroying anything - he merely has a slight dampening of its affects around him that allows an individual's other memories to be slightly more accessible, but anyone who isn't already aware of it would be unaffected without long-term exposure. ROW Spoilers Sanax does follow his Oaths - kind of. He is still the same person who swore them and they are an integral part of who he is. However, Sanax was essentially unbonded to his spren Tsarik, resulting in Tsarik's deadeye status, when he returned from the Void. Sanax's soul is no longer capable of being bonded to the spren, as that is a bit of investiture. Sanax still has (had) Tsarik's blade - it is currently in storage at the hospital since no one trusts a mental patient with it - but he has to wear gloves to touch it if he doesn't want to destroy it. Xanas - the alternate timeline Sanax who still is in the Dark Alley - is actively an Elsecaller bonded to a different Tsarik. Sanax's Oaths: Xanas has not progressed at all for a while - everyone (me included) in that plan went on somewhat of a hiatus, so that plotline is still hanging.

Emily checked the tin… spike - I guess that’s what it is now - into the hospital invested storage room. Unlike many hospitals back on her Earth, this one routinely needed to store items that were invested. Patients’ personal items, like Sanax’s Shardblade, that were deemed too dangerous to allow the patients to keep, or items removed in surgery. There was a whole box of items with half-broken Forgeries on the back shelf - usually something that had had multiple Forgeries changing it from one object or shape to another before one failed painfully. There was another bin full of metalminds that no one could figure out who they belonged to. Once a year, they emptied out that bin and had the metalminds melted down and sold for scrap. Emily opened one of the aluminum lined lockers on the right wall, sliding the tin spike into a small bag of blood. Dr. Shultz had said he was unsure if they could restore Dalomin’s hearing without simply placing the spike Hemalurgically, and even that was risky until Dalomin stabilized. The channeler had been driven insane through his excessive channeling, and so far, hadn’t shown any signs of being curable. None of the channelers in the hospital were powerful enough to heal his madness, so they kept him shielded and dosed with forkroot to prevent any outbursts. Dr. Schultz wasn’t sure if spiking him would provide a way for him to bypass a shield. There was a lot they didn’t know about Hemalurgy. Emily closed the door and engaged the lock. That’s why it is so odd for a mental patient to be able to spike out a sense in a few minutes perfectly, without damaging the other patient very much. Sanax was a mystery to her. He’d mentioned spikes before, but that was common enough among the mental patients. Actually spiking someone - that was new. She walked to the staff break room, since she probably wouldn’t be back on this side of the hospital for another few hours, and grabbed a cup of coffee. She’d been having really odd dreams the past week - although she couldn’t remember them once waking, the feeling of wrongness persisted. She kept having headaches too - they’d start small but then grow until she had difficulty focusing her eyes. She’d had a CAT scan, but the technician said there wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. That seemed to be the theme in her life since her concussion. All symptoms, nothing “out of the ordinary” to cause it. Emily stirred a couple extra packets of sugar into it. Caffeine did seem to help with the headaches a little bit, keeping her up and awake longer before she’d have to take a nap. She’d converted a spare room in the mental ward to a makeshift bedroom where she could crash when the headaches got bad. Emily checked in on Josie once she got back to the mental ward. “How’s it going, Josie?” The little girl dropped her notebook and pencil and looked up at the corner nearest the door. It took a little getting used to talking to Josie - she could only see from her peripheral vision, so she usually looked to the side of you instead of right at you - but the six-year-old was adorably energetic. “Look, look, look! I got my glasses today!” Josie jumped up and grabbed the pink frames from the table. “They didn’t put the glass part in yet, but look at how pretty these are!” Josie put the frames on and gestured excitedly at them. “Mom is worried I’m gonna break them if I keep wearing them, but I’m gonna wear them every day once they work, so I wanna get used to them now!” Josie grabbed Emily’s hands. “What do you think? Aren’t they awesome?” Emily smiled. “Super awesome. Almost as awesome as the little girl wearing them.” Josie laughed, and then pulled Emily over to her notebook. “Look, here’s me and Mom going back home, and here’s my glasses. And I colored them really good, I didn’t get outside the lines almost at all!” She pointed all over the picture, pointing out the details of the drawing. “Mom drew the trees for me before she left for work today, cause mine didn’t look very good, but I colored them! And I drew a momma bird in her nest here with a couple of eggs and a baby bird.” Emily sat and listened as Josie showed her some of the other pictures she’d drawn.

Emily's an employee in the mental ward, yes. Sanax also is one of the patients she would know who seems more sane at some points that he should be. I've also been playing with Sanax dampening the Forgery slightly due to the fact his powers negate Investiture - hence why Emily had any minor memory return at one point. That might be an interesting mechanic, with your group's powers failing at the same time as memories strengthening. Sanax was also a member of the Dark Alley, but he was gone since before most anyone Aln might have met existed, so she probably wouldn't recognize him. However, he has an understanding of pretty much any investiture/magic system hidden inside his psyche at the moment, so Aln might find it interesting to talk to him, though he might be tougher to talk with coherently than even Folorian.

So as far as the two listed above: Sanax is aware (somewhat) of the memory-thing going on - his personal memory was unaffected but the divergence between his actual memories and the memories of the new world have essentially driven him insane. So he might be helpful tangentially but not intentionally. Aln would probably find him intriguing, partially because underneath the insanity is a genius level intellect. Emily on the other hand, is coherent, but unaware of memory changes at large. She has some faint phantom memories of a daughter from the other timeline that have been . She is essentially just a good person in a world much bigger than she is. As far as plans - I also don't know the overall endgame, but character-wise - Emily is mostly open, while Sanax eventually will regain sanity and have an interesting relationship with Xanas, but that's farther off.

I imagined it more like a magnetic orientation - suppose being in Roshar orients Voidlight "north", but by putting it in a vacuum, Navani removed the Voidlight from a Intent "magnetic" orientation, which allowed her to re-orient it to a "south" pole. The substance didn't change, but the effect is equal and opposite.

Medicine also tends to be a single substance in many cases, whereas jam is a mixture of the fruit and sugar.