A Forbidden Visitor

A Forbidden Visitor
Date of Scene:	17 February 2014
Location:	Mullonde
Synopsis:	Within Mullonde, a visitor visits the restricted dungeons to tend to a captive experiment locked away from society.
Cast of Characters:	Sanel, Arkham Fisher

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Sanel has posed:
Mullonde is the holy city, the official headquarters of Glabados Church. It is a place of great beauty ranging from the outer structure to the courtyard. People come by to pray and to give honor to their higher power. God is worshipped in this place. The devout members are about to ensure everything runs smoothly and to tend to the lost and needy.

Where there is great beauty on the outside... The truth and the horrible nature of the Church is hidden from prying eyes. Templars and many of the church devouts are not privy to the information. In fact, many of the higher members have been privy to the information below.

This particular area... is a dungeon. In fact, it is beyond the dungeon. This facility is the alchemist laboratory. Strange vials runs along while flasks bubble. The course of liquid run along the cords, leading to more flasks.

Within this very lab is a small cage with a dog bowl, the cage is meant for someone. However, it is rather empty. The walls, however, is covered with blood and writings. Scratches have been left along the wall, formed to those writings.

There is instead someone on the lab table. With his back on the table, his body is facing up towards the ceiling. Top off, the upper body reveals old scars that have etched his body, man-made from what is assessed to be whip markings. However, he is still wearing those loose blue pants.

Wrapped around the blue-haired boy's neck is a collar. That collar is pulsating, as if it is alive. With no one around, that 'thing' creepily moves about, breathing and exercising its lifeforce. There is a gaping wound at the boy's chest, revealing what is to be his heart covered by something. It looks to be part of the collar.

Yet, the boy lies motionless. His eye is opened. He can only stare at the sky.

This is Winter Dusk, the Frigid Executor. This is the greatest experiment of the inquisitor, Professor Sagrath.

Arkham Fisher has posed:
This is an outrage. An affront to Ajora. An affront to /sanity/. The scribe is no longer sure what she was expecting, being sent to attend on a patient in the deep dungeons; nothing godly goes on down there, that much she knows, and any doubts she ever harbored have been driven clean from her mind by the sight of it.

Okay, but, there'll be time to moralize later; she has a patient, now. A patient, and as clean an operating theater as she's ever had, unnervingly enough. Still struck speechless, she approaches the boy on the table cautiously, and examines her task.

Is there bleeding? There's certainly blood, and the wound looks fresh and ragged, but he isn't dead, or even dying... That's almost sicker than anything else. Arkham lifts a wrist to search out a pulse, and passes a hand before the boy's eyes. He can't be conscious, surely. There must be at least that much mercy in the world.

Sanel has posed:
This is a section forbidden from anyone from accessing. However, with the assistance of Louis, Arkham likely got the location of the boy's whereabouts. This leads her to the place. This place of twisted science. This is merely the section where man attempts to become God.

The resident of the laboratory is away, likely attending to other matters. This leaves Arkham to enter uninterrupted to do her work as the nurse.

As Arkham reaches out a hand to touch the boy's body, she will find that the youth emits a pulse. That pulse is coming from the exposed chest where the heart rests. It pumps, pulsating itself. Then, the collar at the center has an eyeball open, the head twisting to her direction.

The collar's eye sees her.

A hissing sound emits from the eldritch horror before the inky black material around it lashes out a tendril at short distance in warning.

The eye uncovered by his hair opens to see someone before him. He stares at her, uncertain as to what to do. The gaze becomes curious.

"...Not the master."

Arkham Fisher has posed:
No place is forbidden to a healer. Arkham was sent here by Templar LeBlue, yes, to see to the health and comfort of this captive. Comfort is a distant concern at this point; she isn't even sure how to address the boy's condition.

"No master, no. His servant, humbly." He's /speaking/? The mind boggles... still, a responsive patient is always helpful. May as well just ask him.

She sets his wrist aside, and turns a gentle eye to Sanel. Her face, half-shadowed by an old scar, is kind nonetheless. "Do you hurt?" She can scarce imagine that he doesn't.

Sanel has posed:
Any intruders, should he had been in an active role, would had been targetted for execution. However, the presence of the nurse is appraised once more. He continues to examine her, trying to process what he is supposed to do. Given that he is not to kill, he is just watching.

It is all that he can do. Whether or not he will remember this encounter is unknown. Finally, the strange boy speaks. "A servant. Another member of the church. However, no one is allowed here save for a few. It was the master's words."

The visible eye glance carefully onto her face, trying to process her features. "No. I am not hurt. ... I am unable to feel pain." The strange collar keeps a watch of the woman, it vibrates while a hiss stirs from it. It's likely warning her threateningly.

"I am in a statis state until I am given further instructions by the master."

Arkham Fisher has posed:
Arkham will not be cowed by some strip of eldritch jewelry; her cause is sacred, and will not be impeded. "That's... good, I think. Are you..." How was she expected to deal with this? What /is/ this, even, that she should deal with?

She puts it from her mind. She'll do her job, and think no more of it. From her kit, she extracts a curved needle and a spool of silk. "This won't hurt, then. I'm going to close that. Stay still, please."

It's a task she's familiar with, one normally worked on screaming soldiers in trenches; Sanel's stoicism is appreciated.

"What sort of master leaves a boy to wait on a table with his heart bare?"

Sanel has posed:
"Alive. Yes." Pause. "Alive as noted." The boy no longer looks at her, but instead keeps the eyes gazed at the ceiling. He looks contemplative as he listens carefully to her. He slowly breathes in and out.

The moment that the woman is starting to extract the spool and needle, she will find that the area where the heart is exposed is starting to become covered with a protective skin. The strange thing about this skin is that it is the same inky black 'skin' as the collar around his neck.

"A wound long ago. It is never completely bear. It keeps me alive. As long as it exists, I can never die. ... Wounds can never remain."

"...The master likely knows that you have come."

Arkham Fisher has posed:
If a needle pierces it, then Arkham will sew through it, blackened flesh or no. "Wounds enough remain, or so it seems to me." The boy has enough scars to fit out half a division.

If the flesh resists her, as she suspects it might, she won't press the issue far; its horrible nature is fast wearing through her professional detachment. "The, the master can scarce object if I, if I attend to his servant's health."

With a deep breath, she regains her composure. "What is your name, brave servant? I am Arkham, of the School of the Word."

Sanel has posed:
As Arkham starts to press the needle towards the skin, the inky black substance bubbles a bit. She will find that the needle is slowly melting away, as if the acidic substance was eating against the metal.

Suddenly, the hiss is a violent one as the inky skin now stretches out towards her. A blade protrudes from the flesh towards her neck in warning. It's a tendril, waving and moving around. It lashes out near her, threatening its final threat for her to come closer.

"Agent Winter Dusk. However, those that have encountered me have called me the Frigid Executor."

"Those that my master brand a Heretic, I am to slay."

Arkham Fisher has posed:
Arkham drops the needle on its spot; this is too much even for her. She steps carefully clear of the lashing blade, her hand dropping to the knife at her belt in spite of herself.

"Call, call, call off your hound, then. Your master has, has nothing to fear from me." Shaken, she steps further back from the table, uncertain of the foul tendril's reach.

Somewhere below hearing she mutters the beginnings of a prayer, watching the Frigid Executor fearfully.

Sanel has posed:
As Arkham is on high alert, so is the eldritch horror that exists around him. That symbiote continues to coil aroind the boy, melding itself along where the hole that exposed his heart was at. And yet, the blade continues to wave along the sights of the woman. It's like a serpent, awaiting an opportunity for the threat to come closer.

The boy finally admits..

"I do not control it."

The boy remains gazing at the sky, "...I have no control over it. It acts all on its own." Instead, it controls the boy. The tendril slowly recoils back now that Arkham is no longer considered a threat of getting closer to the boy.


And the sound of footsteps slap the earth as a man steps in from the entrance. The man looks to be within his late-thirties. He has a pair of small glasses along his eyes; his face maintains a friendly demeanor.

"Ahhh... an unexpected guest."

Inquisitor Sagrath's eyes open, looking towards Arkham, "I do hope you have enjoyed the sightings of my workplace."

Arkham Fisher has posed:
Scribe Arkham meets the gaze of Inquisitor Sagrath, paling still from the mounting horror that Sanel is.

"Grace," she greets, unable even to remember the man's proper style. Fear takes her words from her, but she knows far better than to dissemble with such as him.

"It, it, it is not for me to wonder at your purpose. I was asked to, asked to see to the comfort of, of..." She indicates the boy on the table. "But there is, is nothing for me to do, it seems."

Sanel has posed:
Sagrath keeps a very disarming smile towards Arkham, "Ah, I see that you have met my greatest creature." The man starts to walk past the woman, slowly approaching the boy before he places a hand to the boy's chest.

Someone asked her to tend to the comfort of the boy? His lips purse. Louis LeBlue likely led her here. However, the emotions are pushed away.

"Good." The man turns to direct his gaze at the woman before him. "Scribe, isn't it?" He tries to familiarize himself with her place.

"There is no need to worry about its condition. Winter Dusk is able to recover on its own." The smile twists slightly, "Since there is no need for you to work on the boy, there is no more of a reason for you to be within these labs." He maintains a smile.

"...Is there?"

Arkham Fisher has posed:
Now, some toolbag from high command is always wandering through the hospital tents trying to dictate life and death to the medics. It's a fact of life. And Arkham is well practiced at driving the true facts of life through the heads of who tries it; nobody tells the medic her business.

There are horrors in this hall beyond the reek of any battlefield, though, horrors which the scribe did not come prepared to face.

Still, she clings to what dignity she has. "If, if not his body, his soul wants for comfort, but I expect that, that I can grant him neither." It seems she should take her leave, but she hesitates. Somehow.

Sanel has posed:
There is a glance over towards the woman as she comments about the boy's soul. That is where the man twitches. If there was anything that betrayed his emotions, it was the instance that his body flinched. He slowly turns to face the medic, a glance is now a hardened one.

"It is true that a medic must see to the needs of men in pain." The eyes narrow towards her.

"With this one, there is no soul to comfort. It is a weapon. My greatest weapon. In the end, it is a weapon with no soul left."

Now, he is no longer in the mood to draw hints. A smile forms, a restrained, patient smile that looks like it is on the verge of breaking.

"You may take leave, Scribe. After all, this place is not safe for those not familiar with the ...research here."

Arkham Fisher has posed:
Dangerous thoughts to fill the mind of the inquisitive with, Inquisitor. Some color returns to Arkham's face, and some strength to her spine. If Sagrath needs to play it this way, so be it.

"Then, then by your leave, Inquisitor, I'll see myself out."

She must pass the man to exit, but he's hardly likely to slow her up. At the door, she pauses, to bow low. "Save some threats for the accused, do."

That's the full extent of her nerve. There may be someone who knows where she is, and Sagrath /may/ not wish to draw their further ire, but he also /may/ have her struck down where she stands. Or try.

She isn't standing there, in any case. She's making as brisk an exit as decorum permits.

Sanel has posed:
"...Hrm."

The professor watches the scribe take leave, a bemused smile forms at the meantime. However, as she makes her way out of the area.

A scowl falls upon his face as a tendril erupts from his back, "...Unwanted visitors." Then, he turns to face the boy, "...It is a pity that Sister Lilliana was the last visitor that you had." A thoughtful smile forms, "...Such a great devout."

"...I have plans for you, Winter Dusk..." It is the matter of getting the boy sent out... to be found once more.

"You have a mission to perform and I've taken care of everything..." The tendril that had threaten the outsider coils along the man's hand. His eye drifts back to see the exit.