Like a layer of magic on the skin that gets petrified instead the person themselves. This can apply with your take on petrification- that it effects the whole rather than a part only it effects the barrier instead of the body. The barrier itself could be a thin topical layer of magic.
Hi, What about some sort of ward, but tattooed on the victim's skin. Because the Medusa's gaze is so powerful the victim turns to stone, but the ward slowly reverses the spell. It's just a matter of time. However it can be faster or slower depending on how far the victim gets in activating the ward - speaking the word perhaps. If he doesn'tget enough time to speak it out loud beforebeing stoned, maybe he is aware as a statue and can try simply concentrating on the words. Cheers, Greg.
The being or talisman that is responsible for the petrification being destroyed could be the mechanism for reversing the petrification. Some other things that came to my mind... when the target of petrification is petrified, what happens to their mind/soul? This is something to explore as it can add an extra-dimensional aspect to the actual state of petrification. What happens to the mind/soul if the resulting statue is destroyed? There could also be some lingering undoable damage caused by the petrification that could become worse as time goes on.
I think we need to get this thing straight: What does the petrification actually do? Does it turn the being into stone, or simply encase it in stone? The latter makes more sense from the predatory nature's standpoint. A cockatrice doesn't use its stone gaze just for the sake of it. It hunts this way. It's - in fact - a failure-free hunting method. The stone gaze turns the victim helpless, unable to move, to breathe, to do anything. ...well, maybe not breathe, because it would put us in a very tight window to counteract. But let's say that once a creature is petrified, it's ripe for the cockatrice in around 1 week or so - when the victim is too weak to fight back. (Dehydration isn't likely to happen. Stoneskin provides a shell through which it's quite hard for the organism to lose its water.) A nice precautionary petrification treatment would be a specially prepared bath, with herbs and all this funky stuff. The goal - infuse your MC's skin with sorts of minerals. This, in turn, will weaken the effect of the stone gaze. The stoneskin would still take place, but it would be a whole lot easier to break free from it. Repeated baths further improve the protection from stoneskin. The former seems more interesting to me. If the one subjected to the process of petrification was to have his whole body turned into stone, that would make use of any element-related treatments problematic. Why? Erosion. Water and wind would cut through the body, making it brittle, leaving nasty scars and weakening the muscles. If one was to be un-petrified in such a state, it could turn quite nasty even without a big amount of time passed. With this in mind, the only cure/precaution which I can think of involves the way in which the petrified organism retains the information as to what was the chemical composition of itself prior to the petrification process. In short: how does it remember what it was in the first place. As in: if one was to un-petrify a racoon, it would turn into a racoon, and not - let us say - a racoon-sized buffalo or other racoon-sized monstrosity. My precaution idea: a certain type of food, maybe an acorn of some tree with magical properties. The goal - to eat the 'acorn' and let it be digested. After 86 hours and 32 minutes (or whichever strikes your fancy), it will - in a process as rapid as petrification itself - revert the eater's organism back to the state at the moment of consumption - effectively ridding one of any non-poison bodily ailments, petrification being one of them. That's all that comes to my mind. EDIT: That's, of course, if you want to take more "realistic" approach to the idea. For some kind of writing it won't come off as right to make it this way.
Can't see why no one mentioned "Pygmalion" Petrification and love are always great pair. I immediately made up a story in my mind about some guy finding or buying incredibly realistic statue and then falling in love with it not knowing it is actually petrified human being that can still hear and see him. And they live together for a long life: unaware master and aware statue. Then he becomes old and dies of old age and statue begins to weep because she will lack his talks and attention. Damn, I wish I had better English to write this story.
See I'm a classical girl, and I love it when a monster is murdered and their victims return to their natural state.
