A Little Down In The Mouth Pt 1

[fleurdesel]

WHO: Adelaide LeBlanc, Christine Delacroix, Eirlys Ancarrow, Maxwell Trevean
WHAT: Quest to find the source of the plague.
WHEN: Firstfall
WHERE: Fallow Mire
NOTES: Summery is Here.

Of all the possible sources of the plague considered, Adelaide honestly had not thought something so innocuous as a fishing hole free from the undead would be responsible. Somewhere mired in them, the wells full of rot, anything like that would have been her first guess. But with how prevalent the undead were in this place? Perhaps that any one spot didn't have them shambling about should have been an indication of a larger danger.

Or perhaps she was grasping at straws. Too much work and a rough time finding sleep left her slightly more irritable than usual. Any answer would be better than none and this? Was their best bet.

That the walk was so long through the bog and the undead tended to trail behind like macabre ducklings didn't help much either. "I think that is it."

She gestures to the map held by one of the soldiers- trying to find any landmarks in this place as difficult at best- but the rough sketch seemed to match.

Comments

[ancarrow]

"Then that's what we'll have to do." Eirlys glances around at the rotting wood of the dock - hardly an ideal place to start an autopsy. "Would it be wise to get him back to camp first?" Otherwise she supposes they could just drag him a little way, to somewhere it's easier for them all to gather round and not worry that he'll slip back into the water if the dock gives way.

[aceso]

"It's a long way to carry one so heavy," Christine reasons. "Perhaps we should try to learn what we can in the here and now, and if this seems worth further study, we can fetch more people, perhaps a cart to carry him in?" Poor man. Not only dead and left in the water, but now going to be cut open and possibly hauled around in a cart.

She shifts to stand and looks behind her. "Though this would be better on dry land. We could move him over there? I have a blade, if we wish to do this now."

[fleurdesel]

"If he is one of the first beplagued I would rather not see what it might do to the rest of the camp." Cutting corpses- she hasn't had to do that for a fair while; normally shew as able to treat patients before they died or the cause was plain enough further investigation isn't required. Adelaide allows frost to cover her fingers and flicks them along the dock, icing over a path from where the body is to the dry land Christine indicated- it'll make dragging him simpler.

With a grimace she resets the hook under the corpse's arm and nods to Max. "Help me drag him? Someone will need to take notes on what we find as well."

[dreadinquisitor]

"If you've parchment and ink, I think I manage that," Maxwell offered even as he stepped around to grip Adelaide's staff again. "My hands are the most expendable at the moment."

He could poke and squish with the best of them, but the actual healers would get more out of it than he would.

"One, two,... three," he counted down, and with a little grunt of effort, helped heave the body onto the new path and began to ease it away from the water.

[ancarrow]

Eirlys stands back and watches them drag the body, poking her toes in the abnormally deep marks he leaves in the ground and thinking he must be very heavy indeed. Once the corpse is settled she kneels down close, brushing some of the mud from the pallid skin of his face.

"How should we do this? A clean cut through the stomach?"

She knew a little about anatomy, but had never really cut up cadavers before.

[aceso]

"Mmm hmm," Christine replies, moving to kneel on the opposite side of the man and taking out her utility knife. First she cuts away his clothes to expose his chest and stomach. The skin there really doesn't look much better than his face.

"Maker, this is going to be unpleasant," she says, as if there was really any doubt of that. Starting at the sternum, she cuts a vertical line into him, lips pressed tightly together behind her mask. She has to go over her cut again and again, cutting down deeper until she starts to get somewhere because her knife isn't meant for this sort of job. And while she has no experience with cadavers either, from what she's read in books, something is really not right here, as she makes more cuts so they can get the skin pulled back. She can feel some sort of resistance that isn't the smooth line of his sternum or rib bones. It's something bumpy instead.

With help, she gets the skin pushed aside to reveal crystals of red lyrium seemingly growing along his bones.

"Merde!" she whispers harshly, quickly drawing back her hand so she doesn't touch any of it, not even with the protection of her gloves.

[fleurdesel]

The more Christine's cuts fail to go through neatly? The more concerned Adelaide becomes. She tugs her staff free and sets it aside to kneel across from her, pulling at the skin and flesh with gloved hands to free it from- something within that was preventing it from peeling back like an overripe peach as such bloated, rotten flesh ought. Something was wrong- and only when that odd, wet rending not entirely unlike ripping silk snaps through the air and they yank the skin and muscle back do they see the truth of it.

Red Lyrium.

Maker-

She grabs the corps's wrist, pressing along and- more of those bumps and ridges. A hand to his jaw and it was not only the bloat that had his face misshapen. His skull, his ribs, his fingers- she was willing to bet his legs and feet as well. "It is growing everywhere-"

[dreadinquisitor]

Maxwell knew nothing about how that sort of thing should go and so it wasn't until the skin was actually peeled away and the red shards - shining sinisterly amongst the flesh and bone - that he realized just how wrong what they'd found was. Jerking stiffly upright from where he'd been leaning closer he gaped at the lyrium.

"That's not--" No, no, certainly not. Even not being a mage he knew that wasn't normal. "An... an accident? Of some sort?" He glanced between the women, gaze lingering on Adelaide, knowing she was a mage and hoping she'd somehow have more insight. "Or do you think..."

How would have they managed it, and more importantly, why? Did it cause the plague, or what that incidental?