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Posted: Tue Mar 20, 2007 2:49 am
The following bridges the events of Ring Of Fire, a certain dialogue by a certain desk and the respective long disappearance of Arco, the Bard of questionable racial background.
----------------
Entering, your eyes are drawn first to a table which appears, alarmingly, infinitely long, but that is only when you realize that it is flanked on either side by two large, clean mirrors that give the laboratory table a never-ending kind of look. On the table sits a deeply contrasting variety of artifacts... closest to you, there is a complicated network of vials containing brightly colored and vibrantly bubbling liquids on a variety of burners, and beside it there appears to be a heavy, metallic board with a hundreds of tiny magical sigils set into it--they seem to glow, briefly, as your eyes pass over them. And beside those is a large, untidy family of molding jars, each containing a different herb or paste of an herb, whose disturbing colors and stenches are ousted only by the disturbing collection of small idols and religious artifacts next to them. Followed by a stack of thick books, which are in turn followed by a bucket of jeweled wands which vibrate ever so slightly, and then several animal (you hope) skins which hang from the ceiling. And so the table stretches on, with endless categories of healing items and methodologies.
And then you see what you actually did expect to see, and that would be the Doctor indicated by the "The Doctor is In" sign outside. Only you hadn't quite braced yourself for his tastelessness in fashion: his everything has everything! More specifically, his beard seems to have a beard, his pockets have pockets, his glasses have another pair of glasses over them (and then another over those), and the same goes for the way his body seems to move: his elbows have elbows, and all of him, it, whatever, creaks. And he is dressed up from there with what seemed to be a portable, condensed version of the contents of his lab table, with herbs, wands, books, and bottles hanging out of his coat-robes at every possible angle, even with a handy skin of some sort draped on one shoulder and a tool belt stuffed to the nines with wicked, shiny things. He stands, looking a bit sideways, by a lower table, on which lies his only patient, who is in fact not visible, being under a sheet. Presently the doctor speaks.
"Recovery... overovery... it goes well... whawhawhat of hiiiis training with you, you, youse?"
The shadow on the chair across the room detaches from the wall as it shifts to a standing position, and you realize that it's a person dressed all in form fitting and unending dark, dark green, which is so dark it's almost black, but not quite. In this light you can barely tell the difference, but it does allow you to see that her figure is somewhat female... you think. It's hard to say. Her--probably a her--words are concise.
"Dwebstbt, ttvil..."
The robed man looks a little alarmed at this, and says so. They bicker for a moment:
"I don't, don't don't, no, I don't see whatttt you mean..."
"Havtribt... Gakk..."
"Yes, but that doesn't, usn'tusn't explain why he'dddddd be violinlinlint in in in intentionsss..."
"Gakk. Bigwo, caaw..."
"Well... I g-g-g-guess that's... whawhawat's important..."
"Gakk."
-----------------------
And then time passes, as it likes to do, and the hues in the room exhibit different shades of gray as said time passes, days to nights to days to nights... until one day the patient is no longer present. He is not out retraining his physical functions with the assassin-like woman, or receiving treatment from the religious doctor-like man, either, which he has been doing for months, as you understand, but finally gone, and away. He had spent a long time in this place... but where is he now? You get the story from the probably-woman, because at least you can sort of understand her unlike her counterpart.
"Iwagsw... gakk... [etc.]..."
As you understand it, what had happened was they had had a patient for a while--some almost-naked man who'd stumbled into the sort-of-dermatologist office a good while ago--the subject of unbelievable burns which covered his entire body. Hot like a furnace from the core of his being, the doctor had his first appointment, ever... and armed with a massive variety of resuscitating forms, he was able to save the man's life--barely. Her job, as a sort of therapist, was to help him to regain muscle function, among other things... she could not help, you see, but teach him some other tricks... because he was a fighter, and so was she, and she had so much to pass on... and by their joint efforts he made progress, until the point where he could go out into sunlight and not collapse from overheating; that is, as long as he was covered in bandages and a full-body robe.
But then when his healing was almost, but not quite done, and she'd actually, well, only sort of, well... taught him some quite interesting techniques with a lightweight weapon--she was a quite interesting fighter, you see--then he disappeared. Him and his effects--a little money, a charred-to-black musical instrument which squawked when played, and an odd half of a stone pendant--disappeared together, a few weeks ago. And they weren't sure what to think of it all. The two of them had come to feel a bit like parents to their odd, dark patient, but then again he was... odd, and growing odder by the day.
She ends the story here, unless you have any questions, probably. But you have most of what you need to know, though, because all of this confirms your suspicions. That is, there have been murmurings out, in, and around the castle, rumors of a freak of a man clothed all in bandages and a loose, wide cloak, moving about in flashes of black and white, like a skeleton in the night, accompanied by the sound of crackling, like fire. Some have even been confronted by this creature as he seeks information and gets his bearings; they speak of a voice like a choked animal, eyes alternating from pale to dark to bloodshot, and skin--of which you can see little--dark, dark purple, almost black... they say that sometimes, in the night, there is a woosh, then a flash, an arc of fire, spinning, wheeling through the brittle air, and then a whump, where the fire goes out, and then a rough, rough laughter.
Of course, these tales are just rumors, just superstitions of a dead man who refused to be dead, and who the afterlife wouldn't have; superstitions of a man sent him back from the grave, armed with the soul of a dragon. But the thing about superstitions is that they can be right every now and then...
----------------
Entering, your eyes are drawn first to a table which appears, alarmingly, infinitely long, but that is only when you realize that it is flanked on either side by two large, clean mirrors that give the laboratory table a never-ending kind of look. On the table sits a deeply contrasting variety of artifacts... closest to you, there is a complicated network of vials containing brightly colored and vibrantly bubbling liquids on a variety of burners, and beside it there appears to be a heavy, metallic board with a hundreds of tiny magical sigils set into it--they seem to glow, briefly, as your eyes pass over them. And beside those is a large, untidy family of molding jars, each containing a different herb or paste of an herb, whose disturbing colors and stenches are ousted only by the disturbing collection of small idols and religious artifacts next to them. Followed by a stack of thick books, which are in turn followed by a bucket of jeweled wands which vibrate ever so slightly, and then several animal (you hope) skins which hang from the ceiling. And so the table stretches on, with endless categories of healing items and methodologies.
And then you see what you actually did expect to see, and that would be the Doctor indicated by the "The Doctor is In" sign outside. Only you hadn't quite braced yourself for his tastelessness in fashion: his everything has everything! More specifically, his beard seems to have a beard, his pockets have pockets, his glasses have another pair of glasses over them (and then another over those), and the same goes for the way his body seems to move: his elbows have elbows, and all of him, it, whatever, creaks. And he is dressed up from there with what seemed to be a portable, condensed version of the contents of his lab table, with herbs, wands, books, and bottles hanging out of his coat-robes at every possible angle, even with a handy skin of some sort draped on one shoulder and a tool belt stuffed to the nines with wicked, shiny things. He stands, looking a bit sideways, by a lower table, on which lies his only patient, who is in fact not visible, being under a sheet. Presently the doctor speaks.
"Recovery... overovery... it goes well... whawhawhat of hiiiis training with you, you, youse?"
The shadow on the chair across the room detaches from the wall as it shifts to a standing position, and you realize that it's a person dressed all in form fitting and unending dark, dark green, which is so dark it's almost black, but not quite. In this light you can barely tell the difference, but it does allow you to see that her figure is somewhat female... you think. It's hard to say. Her--probably a her--words are concise.
"Dwebstbt, ttvil..."
The robed man looks a little alarmed at this, and says so. They bicker for a moment:
"I don't, don't don't, no, I don't see whatttt you mean..."
"Havtribt... Gakk..."
"Yes, but that doesn't, usn'tusn't explain why he'dddddd be violinlinlint in in in intentionsss..."
"Gakk. Bigwo, caaw..."
"Well... I g-g-g-guess that's... whawhawat's important..."
"Gakk."
-----------------------
And then time passes, as it likes to do, and the hues in the room exhibit different shades of gray as said time passes, days to nights to days to nights... until one day the patient is no longer present. He is not out retraining his physical functions with the assassin-like woman, or receiving treatment from the religious doctor-like man, either, which he has been doing for months, as you understand, but finally gone, and away. He had spent a long time in this place... but where is he now? You get the story from the probably-woman, because at least you can sort of understand her unlike her counterpart.
"Iwagsw... gakk... [etc.]..."
As you understand it, what had happened was they had had a patient for a while--some almost-naked man who'd stumbled into the sort-of-dermatologist office a good while ago--the subject of unbelievable burns which covered his entire body. Hot like a furnace from the core of his being, the doctor had his first appointment, ever... and armed with a massive variety of resuscitating forms, he was able to save the man's life--barely. Her job, as a sort of therapist, was to help him to regain muscle function, among other things... she could not help, you see, but teach him some other tricks... because he was a fighter, and so was she, and she had so much to pass on... and by their joint efforts he made progress, until the point where he could go out into sunlight and not collapse from overheating; that is, as long as he was covered in bandages and a full-body robe.
But then when his healing was almost, but not quite done, and she'd actually, well, only sort of, well... taught him some quite interesting techniques with a lightweight weapon--she was a quite interesting fighter, you see--then he disappeared. Him and his effects--a little money, a charred-to-black musical instrument which squawked when played, and an odd half of a stone pendant--disappeared together, a few weeks ago. And they weren't sure what to think of it all. The two of them had come to feel a bit like parents to their odd, dark patient, but then again he was... odd, and growing odder by the day.
She ends the story here, unless you have any questions, probably. But you have most of what you need to know, though, because all of this confirms your suspicions. That is, there have been murmurings out, in, and around the castle, rumors of a freak of a man clothed all in bandages and a loose, wide cloak, moving about in flashes of black and white, like a skeleton in the night, accompanied by the sound of crackling, like fire. Some have even been confronted by this creature as he seeks information and gets his bearings; they speak of a voice like a choked animal, eyes alternating from pale to dark to bloodshot, and skin--of which you can see little--dark, dark purple, almost black... they say that sometimes, in the night, there is a woosh, then a flash, an arc of fire, spinning, wheeling through the brittle air, and then a whump, where the fire goes out, and then a rough, rough laughter.
Of course, these tales are just rumors, just superstitions of a dead man who refused to be dead, and who the afterlife wouldn't have; superstitions of a man sent him back from the grave, armed with the soul of a dragon. But the thing about superstitions is that they can be right every now and then...