Internal Bleeding is Nothing to Worry About

That's where all of the blood's supposed to be. (Semi-Dependent Plague Doctor RP Blog, from the strategy game Darkest Dungeon)

[furtho]

[devotiontodisease-blog]

thelightprevails:

Toustain tries to listen more with her heart than with her head. Her head says that whatever woman dwelled on the other side of the partition, she was saying all the things she ought to say. That the Sister was right, that she will pay penance, that she will be more thoughtful.

But does she mean it? Does her heart feel it?

The vestal folds her hands in her lap, poring over the words, turning them over in her mind like a shiny bauble to be admired at all angles. “…You are a woman of sharp mind, as I assume you are one of medicine. You believe very much in the results that you can see for yourself… and much less in those that people like me champion.” It’s the truth, she can’t forgo that. “I cannot ask you to stop your work, as you said. But to be careful, when you go about your duties. To treat every body remembering that it once held a soul… that it is cherished by a family, that happiness once flooded its heart, and rapture in its soul. Consideration is, yes… what I am asking of you. But when you leave this place - this booth, this sanctuary. I want you to commit, to what you have said. Any promise made in vain to the Light is twice remembered.

Now this, curiously enough, got a brash laugh. Short, not a hair of malice, and, because it was her - a little loud.  “Ah, now shame on me thinking I could withhold anything from you, in here of all places. That’s another sin and I haven’t even left. You’ve a sharp mind yourself, reading me like that.” Fetti realized only too late she had forgotten to contextualize any of her actions. Coming in here talking about buying up stolen corpses. Really, this conversation could have been quite a mess. 

“Alright, alright.” There was an unseen nod. “You’re asking for awareness.” She put forth the word and seemed satisfied. “Awareness and respect.” Even more satisfactory. “And, as healers ourselves, you and I both know that’s the very least I can do. The job would be impossible without it.” In truth, she had always thought of them more as... husks. Empty things abandoned for the earth and whatever living things could feasibly benefit from them. Like her. None of this falderal about souls. 

Would she hesitate, then, at the cold table, scalpel in hand, if she really let this awareness follow her out? Out in the Weald? Would she be afraid? “Both these things, I must commit to.“ Bah! Medical school made her into sterner stuff than that. What was there to be afraid of? “I thank you, then, for the opportunity to renew and strengthen my commitment.”

[aph-0tic]

[devotiontodisease-blog]

 thelightprevails: She bites back her immediate question of “why the hell have you been buying corpses” in favor of something that pleases the Light more. Likely… experimentation, since she was likely a plague doctor. But she can’t go around casting judgment on civilians, they need to repent and do what they must themselves, on their own. Confessional was absolution, it was turning toward the Light. She was doing her part, she tells herself.

“…Desecrating the grave is certainly a sin,” she starts. “As is experimenting on human remains, or cutting them up, or further putting them in a state of unrest. In order to repent from this sin fully, you will have to stop your behavior. It is unlikely that you would be able to put what you have done back… but reflect on this. Each person deserves a resting place… they should not be tools for others. Their existence itself is holy - we are all holy. And when we do such things to others, we are affronting their inherent dignity.”

There was a pause after the voice’s diagnosis that was long enough to have stretched between them like an ocean. There was no more fidgeting of the mask or any other garment. The only clear sound was the one syllable that could be heavy-laden with the begrudging, disappointed acceptance one has in looking over their broken wagon wheel. “Ah.” She tried again. “I see.” Two syllables, now, with the same result. She knew this tone. This was for arguing at a roundable of other doctors at an open lecture hall on the validity of the humors when, really, the evidence was clearly there and the bile duct was-

She took a breath. “This place is your domain, so obviously what you say goes here.” If her job was a sin here, then it was. If dead things were more than just dead things here, then they were. “It’s a difficult request to get me to stop my job entirely, but you sound grave.” Hardy har. “Really, I do again apologize for having turned a blind eye to the ways my work is forwarded. And I do resolve, to you and myself, to be more conscious in the future. And, of course, I resolve to take what you have put forth under more consideration.“ This said with the confidence of knowing all these statements were true and golden. All that was missing was ‘and bless this food and bless all of our good friends forever and ever amen.’

[devotiontodisease-blog]

thelightprevails:

She settles into her space as the woman talks, warbling a bit to herself as she tries to decide precisely what her sins are. A plague doctor, Toustain figures. Healing knowledge, the smell of dirt, using tools. “To be aware of one’s shortcomings would be considered a boon,” she says in reply. “If that is all you wish to confess, then I believe penance for your sins is apparent. To take careful reflection upon what you have done, with thought to the future.” It was not enough simply to be wiped clean, after all. One must progress. If they were stagnant, they would just collect mold.

“Your actions beyond the Hamlet are not tainted inherently with sin,” she adds. “As a Hero of Light… you fight against the spread of corruption. Disease, darkness… you rile against it. That is not something you should feel guilt for, flame.”

Well, that was pretty painless! There wasn’t even a tiny sermon or anything. The only thing prescribed to her was some more thought on how one could conduct themselves better in battle. That wasn’t bad at all. ”I suppose I’m just not used to bein’ a blood and vinegar fighter. But you’re right, if it’s really for the best...” Maybe she’d even stop yelling at her compatriots to preserve her projected specimens better. Maybe. It wasn’t a sin to want to work with a blighted monster that was in salvageable pieces for once.

However, there must have been something more. She smoothed out her uniform. This was a little too easy. “Ah. I also want to apologize for having told jokes about syphilis when it wasn’t appropriate.” Mostly because two people in her party had it. They’re fine now. “And also for having purchased cadavers from...” Well, you weren’t supposed to rat other people out in confessionals. The Light surely did not appreciate a snitch. “From people who I’m aware did not obtain them legally. It might be a bit of a gray area because I’m not doing anything but I’m sure its a sin by association. I know you can be very strict with these things.” The air of penitence had since dissipated, perhaps encouraged by how well the first response was.

[devotiontodisease-blog]

@thelightprevails

A figure enters, the strange smell of earth and flora seeping through the confessional’s grate. Toustain smiles to herself at the voice - it was their (her?) first confessional in a long time.

“Light be with you, dear flame,” she says, a soft lilt to her own voice as she prepares to listen. “As a Vestal, I will invoke the Flame, the Goddess, to listen through me. Then you will list your sins, and then I will absolve you as a vessel of the Goddess. So… let us begin, dear flame.”

She clears her throat. “In the eyes of the Goddess, may this act be seen as holy and right. In the hands of the Goddess, may we be cradled, as flickering fires are shielded from the winds of storms. In the ears of the Goddess, may I hear for her, her vestal, and may these words be blessed.”

A breath, a pause. “You may confess your sins, flame… the Goddess listens.”

Fetti knew these things had a bit of dressing to them but she had forgotten how much dressing there was. Cradles and ears and storms. She listened to the voice. Somehow, in this confined space, it felt more - real. Not to say outright true, but more true than sitting in a cathedral pew like in one sits in a canoe floating aimlessly in an enormous ocean among voices that echoed like waves. But here there was just one and it was plain. Nice, even. There was a pause. A fidget of the mask. “I’m thinking.” She announced. There was no harm in trying. That was her logic. Though there may have been harm in walking in without a clear idea of the wrongs she had committed. Some deed or other that was bothering her.

“I don’t always use my knowledge to ah, heal.” That was a mild way of putting it. “I didn’t go to school to hurt people. Or things. And I suppose that’s what they are. Things. Those things and people out there. It can blur. But I’ve gotten to use my tools and wits to do a lot of harm. I just...”

Another pause. Another small adjustment.

“Some of the harm was necessary for protection and all that. But probably not all of it was. So, really my sins,” She broached cautiously “I suppose, are for the times I couldn’t make that discernment.” 

[makeshiftcenser]

Outbreak

[devotiontodisease-blog]

makeshiftcenser:

“I understand perfectly, Doctor. This isn’t the first time I’ve had a check up. And… realize there may be others, but. For obvious reasons there’s probably a bit of a need to keep quite about it.” Vesci takes a deep breath, and after a moment, begins to regale the story of her… infection.

It’s a fairly straightforward one, all in all. An expedition into the Ruins, looking for capital for the Manor, the skeletons, the brigands, all the expected fiends and fighting that an expedition is full of. Vesci doesn’t seem all that bothered as she glosses over that part, but her face does fall as she gets to a particular encounter. Insectoid men, and flurries of horrid bloodsucking insects. She describes the fall of her team by the beasts, if perhaps only for flavor text.

“… I suppose it was just horror and that deafening insect whine, but… I didn’t move, when they lunged for me, and I got bitten. Nothing big, I’d thought, everyone gets bitten by mosquitoes, right? But… My veins felt like they were on fire, worse than that blight the swinemen are so fond of.” She sighs, clasping and unclasping her hands slowly as she considers how to tell the rest of it. “After it subsided, however, I felt fine for… most of the expedition. Perturbed, but fine. The blood cravings set in a few hours later.” Vesci pauses, and ruffles through a small wicker basket, pulling out a handful of vials on a silver chain. Blood vials, all of them, miraculously still liquid  as she holds them up.

“I’ve been collecting these, since then, off of enemies. It’s been about three, maybe four weeks? And if I don’t… forget, that this is something I have to do every couple of days, I feel fine. Better than fine, actually; I daresay I feel fantastic”

She looks to Fetti, as if attempting to gauge her reaction through the mask before continuing.

“I tried to talk to the Nurses at the Santarium, and they tried to inter me for delusions. We aren’t getting along.” She unties her scarf, and smiles - a warm smile, if not for the decidedly predatory bent that the new fangs lent her.

“Delusions don’t do this, after all.”

Fetti listened quietly, outwardly nodding but inwardly cursing over her inability to record this. The description of the insect-like men could hold some answers. It certainly didn’t help that she herself had never seen them and could only go on secondhand stories. It may be noted that if Fetti were fully aware of what they looked like, she may have noticed the odd coincidental similarities between the ‘beak’ of her mask and the strange proboscis of the creatures. Not to mention those round, round eyes. Under non-epidemic circumstances, she would have openly found it all very charming.    

She nevertheless tried not to interrupt too frequently. Vesci must have secretly ruminated on this a good while and it was crucial not to derail a train of thought. If she wanted to see these bestial mosquitoes alive she’d have to get an even better team than before. Very few would tolerate a researcher. And if she wanted to see one dead? The price tag on that may have been impossibly steep, even for her. Vesci herself would most likely never part with this presumed vial of medicinal blood. 

When it was presented, held so that the light was catching the shifting hues of scarlet, there was just enough to suggest there was... There was..? Everything in Fetti’s body language suggested she was holding back from snatching the vial. Not now. It would be obtained some other time. The way her head quickly snapped back to Vesci upon the word ‘fine’ suggested she was shocked and, while part of that was true, it was more or less to really see, really study, that this was the case. Fine? That quickly? Only because of the blood? She needed it, then, no question. One way or another.

“No, they don’t.“ Fetti nodded. “That’s a diagnosis that only comes from having no idea what this is or what to do about it and not having any idea how to tell you that.“ Well, that was one way to do it quickly. 

“But!“  She spoke up as if it rapidly occurred to her how distressing that was. “That doesn’t mean we can’t get you out of this. I have full confidence. After all, every curable affliction was once a total mystery.”   

“I’m afraid I can’t do much for you like this after I’ve seen so little, but meet me in a few days, wherever you’d like. Wherever draws the least attention.” It was clear whatever gears were turning were gaining momentum at the same pace as her speech. There still was hardly any room to pace at all.

“In the meantime I need you to bring back anyone you see with similar symptoms. I suppose it’s helpful that they’re are so singular that this affliction can’t be confused for anything else. But if anyone else gets bitten and lives, bring them to me. Actually, it would be great if you brought someone who got bitten and died. But that.. ah, just focus on what you can. Keeping to your system is more important.“

A lightbulb. Or, era-appropriate, a sudden spark.

“Oh! And just to be safe, whatever you do,” She pointed abruptly. “Do not bite anyone. Under any reason. That’s the only direct action I can prescribe but it’s absolutely the most important.” 

[thunderstruck9]

Gustaf Fjaestad (Swedish, 1868-1948), Skymningslandskap [Twilight Landscape]. Oil on panel, 80 x 94.5 cm.

[littlepennydreadful]

[devotiontodisease-blog]

littlepennydreadful:

Today’s super gothy shot @YosemiteNPS … A Raven calling to the moon. 

[makeshiftcenser]

Outbreak

[devotiontodisease-blog]

makeshiftcenser:   

Vesci pauses, looking around. She can’t discuss this in the open. Holding a finger for one minute, she sets everything Fetti picked out in a separate box, handing it to her before throwing a heavy cloth over everything set out. Closed. Nobody would dare steal from her, not here. Between the rumors spreading and her connections with some of the more… brutal, members of the Hamlet, her wares remaining intact is all but certain. 

She taps open her cart, and gestures back, usherign Fetti inside without a single word. Suspicious, but necessary, she assures herself, looking at the concealed basket she’s taken to hiding those damnable vials in. The fuel for a rather unfortunate addiction.

“Pardon my behavior, I simply don’t want to frighten the townsfolk. But… lately, there’s been quite the outbreak of… I want to call them a deficiency, with the, well blood cravings they chatter on about, but it strikes too quickly, and the results are too… well. Fatal.” She thinks of the people on her adventuring teams, they ones that get caught and waste away in a week, bodies becoming frail as if they’d been starving for years, dying in the night. “And deficiencies don’t happen when one is attacked by monsters.”

She sighs. There’s no polite way to say this, and no way to avoid saying it. 

“In fact, the only person I know who’s contracted whatever it and survived the expedition, is… well. Myself.” She takes off her scarf, shoulders lowering in something akin to defeat. “I was hoping you might have some insight.”

Silence? Sneakery? It appeared Fetti had no choice but to mutely follow along in whatever precautions Vesci felt it necessary to adhere to. Normally that would have invited more interest but if one was going to slowly, slowly reel in their fishing line, they should have put more bait on it than a discount and a few panicked glances. She felt foolish standing in this cart. Was this was her compatriots felt like when she had fallen victim to paranoia, out past the estate? Nonsense. Her suspicions were perfectly sensible.

Before another second of grousing, the word outbreak struck like a bolt of lightning. Blood? Fatal? Only one surviving patient? Fetti took those words and ran with each of them like they were kites and this was the first majestic crest of wind in what would soon be a hurricane. There was enough in this bit of news to start forming a mental report without a moment’s hesitation.

“Right, right, well, let me work through the possibilities.” Already the unmistakable tone of someone excited to start a puzzle. “There are a lot.” A palm opening and closing. Ready to speak and yet - not. There actually weren’t that many at all, but Vesci didn’t need to know that.

In her workings, only a few phrases were distinguishable. Not for being inaudible but for speed. No hushed tones for her. Possible iron deficiency. Cannot be immediate. Only by severe neglect. Typically in dirt. Certainly not purely by the power of suggestion. Possibly combative bloodlust? But that would be a craving for violence, with blood as a subsequent reward. To be consumed? Consumed, is it? Multiple victims? Transmittable consumption?

“I... I, ah..”     She adjusts, boarding on fidgets with, her mask. An excellent day for lavender. “I’m still going to need more, I’m afraid. Where, when, and how you’ve been faring, of course. Both, I mean, in how you’ve been able to and how you’ve been feeling. You look like you’ve been holding up superbly.” Given the circumstances.

“This doesn’t resemble anything I know. At least, not yet. As far as an investigation goes, this might be just the beginning.”

How could that not come out eagerly as all hell? 

[makeshiftcenser]

Outbreak

[devotiontodisease-blog]

makeshiftcenser:

“We’re having a disagreement, to say the least. Which, honestly, is why I’ve been waiting for you to come back into town.” She pauses, thinking, careful not to bite her lip again. She’d already spent days trying not to agitate the last cut she gave herself doing that, tearing through flesh with too much ease for her own ease. “I figure if I can ask any doctor for their opinion, it’d be the ones that are nice enough to patron my stall.” Her brow furrows, and she reaches under the table, pulling out a skull, sharp toothed but otherwise normal. 

She runs a cloth over it, cleaning it off from the time it must have spent on the ground, and places it in the crate, nodding. An Occultist she knew brought it in days prior, says despite his cleaning it, it had no use, and she may as well take it.

Vesci figures it might, at least, frighten medical students, if Doctor Sutton wanted to go back into teaching.

“I realize that is an odd thing to ask, but. Consider it a trade, perhaps? I’ll give you whatever you purchase for much cheaper, if you’re willing to be my consult on a… problem I’ve been noticing.” Noticing. Yes, she’s just been seeing it, she travels a lot, this is plausible, it doesn’t draw too much attention to herself. 

At that, she goes to polishing something on the table, distractedly, content to let Fetti browses. The doctor isn’t someone she feels the need to monitor every second.

“There’s more in the cart behind me, too, if you don’t see anything you like.”

Disagreement? Her blank visage hid any hint of a furrowing brow that her voice suggested. What kind of tiff could a nurse and merchant be in? Fetti held a vial up to her goggle, inspecting the amber liquid as she continued to think. If it involved Vesci, the disagreement had to do with money. The staff probably doubted the legitimacy of her wares and turned her away. Fetti knew that she sadly would have been skeptical too, back when the academy spoiled her and her students rotten. But now wasn’t the time to turn up noses.

She picks up the skull a moment, clacking the jaw open and shut. It’s teeth were all barbed. Was this a hoax? Were fox teeth carefully plastered into the maw of a man? It was rather charming. It made its home quickly among the other vials she had claimed. Why not?

The offer of a trade only intensified Fetti’s interest. And yet that didn’t clear anything up. This hamlet was nothing but problems. Every step was another personal invitation for filth, disease, and calamity. These were the perks, here. She was only left to puzzle over the possibilities while picking apart the wares and, eventually, gathering together quite the haul. Seems she was being spoiled rotten again.

“Well, this will be all if I’d like to keep my meals for this week. I really must thank you again for such a generous offer! Your work will pay in spades for my patients, I assure you. ”

With a breath, she steepled her fingers. Business, business.

“But this problem? Been seeing it frequently, have you?” She nods definitively over her own words, as though liking the sound of them. “Why don’t you start from the beginning, then, and I’ll see what I can do. The more thorough you are, the more I can work with.”       

[roadkillandcrows]

Springbok skull.

[ottomensch]

the long awaited sequel

[scaoveri-deactivated20181213]

When you find out all of the terrible shit the Ancestor has done

[makeshiftcenser]

Outbreak

[devotiontodisease-blog]

makeshiftcenser:

“Many a thing, my friend, many a thing!” She responds, warmly. “Though I do have a few curios for those of medical persuasion, hence my waving you over.” Pulling out a box and clearing out a space on the table, Vesci sets down an entire crate of things that seem to have been so much as set aside for the Doctor alone. Curious plants, all tied together with small silk ribbons and labelled according to supposed use, unusual bones, some of which already set into small glass and metal displays for the usual troubling lab, and a couple of anatomical diagrams, not all of which for humans.

“I always set these things aside when they come in,” she explains,, nose wrinkling slightly at some impossibly faint scent, “since I know it is of interest to individuals such as you. I would take them to the Sanitarium, of course, but… the nurses there and I aren’t currently seeing seeing eye to eye.” Namely, they wanted to subject her to their supposed mental treatments until her delusions were cured. 

Vesci is not delusional. Crooked old hags, those, awfully eager to stick needles filled with nonsense in anyone with so much as a running nose. 

She wouldn’t have any of it. 

“As always, pick out anything you like. Don’t worry about crowding anyone either, I’m in the mood to play favorites.”

Fetti wastes no time in taking a closer look at such carefully chosen wares as soon as they’re in eyesight. It’s clear by the way she holds herself - the unabashed lean forward, the way her index finger hovers over certain labels as though already marking a definite mental purchase, even the nodding - that she’s hooked. It didn’t matter that the mask concealed any change in expression. She was still riddled with the marks of a wooed customer for life. In fact, the mask may have added an even greater air of having caught the attention of a magpie with something glittery.

While Vesci talked, Fetti slowly began sliding containers calculatingly, as though she were moving pieces across a chess board. Little bits of hoof and horn, bone and beak, fin and feather. Their placement seemed purposeful. Apparently she knew not only what was most potent but what materials could be used best in tandem. It wasn’t clear if any of this idle talk was reaching her ears or if she was genuinely lost in inspecting the molars of an ox. 

 Favorite? She looked up. “Oh, aha, you spoil me! Really, you do.”

It was a bit odd for that to have cheerily resounded from an unmoving face. In fact, even with a cheery tone it was unclear if these round glass plates were now scrutinizing the merchant in front of her just as closely as the merchandise.

“Which really makes it all the more puzzling that the nurses are giving you trouble. You don’t know why, do you? You’re clearly a friend of the medical profession. I can’t imagine what there would be to disagree about....“

[laclefdescoeurs]

Saint Jerome writing by candlelight in a gothic chapel, Hendrik van Steenwyck the Younger

[makeshiftcenser]

Outbreak

Good deed are all well and nice. But Vesci still needs to keep a profit, and a presence, in this town. So she takes her cart out, and she sets up her table, and she waits. There were always unsavory young adventurers, raring to find something to keep them alive in those hellish labyrinths, and she had suppliers she needed to be around for when they peeled back into down. So she dons her brightest, most cheerful seeming silks, and she waits more.

Business is a little better today. Desperate fresh bloods, mostly, one or two.

Not enough.

She’s about to pack back up, wrap everything back into their sheets and back into her cart, when the smell of rot and damp earth hits her nose - that’s sharper, now, her sense of smell, she doesn’t think about it - from across the square. The Weald, leather, sickness…

Doctor Sutton. Vesci cannot fight the grin that spreads across her face under the sunny golden scarf, sticking a hand up to wave the good Doctor over as she roots around under the table. She’d come across a very curious speciment the other day, strange herbs and stranger bones, surely of interest.

She might make a good profit today after all.

@devotiontodisease

[devotiontodisease-blog]

Another hazy, humid afternoon was entering its final stretches before dusk. The butcher had seen their day of carved beasts and the baker had seen their day of bitter bread (along with a record amount of danishes ever sold to one man).Time droned on just as steadily as the insects beginning to dredge themselves out of the haze and into the ears of the hamlet. Perhaps it was their season. 

The sanitarium had also seen its day of unfortunate patients. By now, Fetti had grown accustomed to the hamlet’s constant want for resources, as well as the rickety tricks meant to pacify it just long enough to make it through the week. Even just through the day. That meant that her knowledge of unusual herbs came into play but it also meant that she needed a steady supply of them.

Seek and ye shall find. Or stumble across them, whatever worked.

She sees the motion first only to then hurriedly realize that, yes, that was actually meant for her and, yes, deals were sure to be in store. That was all that was needed to send Fetti trotting over to the curio table. 

A gloved hand was already hovering over the very edge, fingers just between a twitch and a drum.

“Ah! I should have known you’d have something for me! What’ve your travels brought you, then?”