The Sanitarium

[Bloodtrailkiller]

|HLOKK|

She slowly closes the door behind her comrades, halfly, as Talea is left with the nurses and surgeons. She offers a small smile and chuckle at Elohim's remarks, it was good to hear more voices agreeing to hers. Though she was hardly inclined to a short rest. She was confident her wounds would heal by themselves, in good time.
She forced herself to straighten and seem more confident than she aught.

"Aye, you're welcome, comrade." Hlokk nodded in agreement to Ezekiel's own appreciation, "I thank you for your healing hands on the girl. And... whatever wet work you got into during the raid." She opened her other eye and vaguely motioned to the odd blood stains on the mans hands and jacket.
In some small retrospect, the jacket seemed curiously familiar. But on the measure of bandits, there was still work to do.

"But yes, I wish to be off quickly. Before my blood settles, and theirs." She offered a wicked grin, nodding, she opened the Sanitarium door before pausing,
"We left someone in the Guild Hall; I am going to ask them where they came from..." Hlokk's fist was already curled in violent anticipation.

[EloHim]

[Elohim]
"A survivor,eh? Good. I wouldn't mind hearing what he or she has to say. I'm coming with you." -he says, ready to follow the red-head swordswoman.
They needed to strike back, quickly and precisely. Elohim waited once, and the enemy came right to his doorstep in numbers he couldn't beat. That time he ended up with a dagger in his lungs. This time must be different, else the Hamlet might suffer the fate worse than a simple ransacking.
Talea would be fine, he did all he could to save her from some mighty bad consequences. He could only hope she would see the value of rest and healing, though even that will not save her from a good thrashing later. For people like them - self-preservation was a necessity. Even he would never use that much power in an instant,  for it would be akin to suicide in his case.

[rosallora]

[Ezekiel]

"I will stand guard." Hlokk seemed wanting for information, and the man would go with her. She needed no protection, of course! But there was strength in numbers. Ezekiel looks past to where Talea had been taken, curious but concerned. It wasn't right for a woman to wake without someone to guard. To think of that! To be alone when awoken, like ancient Matias! To be abandoned by the crew... or was that Jacob? Jason? Jacob, no, surely. He thinks to himself as he takes a seat, ready to wait it out.

He falls asleep shortly after, snoring softly as the maiden rests.

[Bloodtrailkiller]

|HLOKK|

She would have preferred her shieldbrother to have joined her in her vengeful interrogation, but the man had a point. If the bandits could have snuck into the Hamlet with such numbers, they would certainly try to cull the few wounded with their surely greater numbers. The Last Man would not have run if he had no where to go.
The prospect of having her throat slit in the dead of night was nauseating; to die a shameful death would be the greatest defeat. To her, and her people; her eyes idly looked about the yet blood stained blade of her Hassemesser and sighed.

Hlokk gave a solemn nod to Ezekiel before beckoning the ratty fellow to follow.
"Come, then. You look unsettling... you can look scary over my shoulder while I punch." She mused idly as she slipped back into the frigid air, her fingers flexing idly to keep the blood and mud from caking.
"I would hate to see you break your fingers." She chuckled breathily, and winced as she brought the hand to rest over her side again. The crudely wrapped towels doing well enough to staunch the bloodflow, with due pressure. Though she did her best to look resolute in her trek to the Guild Hall...

[DEPARTING SANITARIUM TO GUILD HALL : HLOKK, ELOHIM]

[EtherealNoire]

Talea descended into the darkness, first with resentment, then repose as her anguish ebbed into fatigue. Serenity washed o’er her battered form, soothing away the crimson scars that marred her flesh, and bringing ice to quell each breath that blazed in her lungs. At last, she had found solace. Yet somewhere yonder her perpetual void, a voice called to her. It tormented her. ‘Twas mortal once, yet scarlet threads had corrupted its essence, painting a mural of deception across the man’s body like his macabre life-force had painted across her own. She knew not what he was. She only knew her caution could not outweigh her desire to understand. Like a toxin, it seeped into her veins, alighting her blood with fire and her mind with queries she could not contain. Nay could her hunt be abandoned, not anew.
Nevertheless, as the darkness drifted about her weightless figure, coaxing swirling patterns in her tresses like smoke dancing with flames, Talea knew her time for answers had not yet come to pass. 



SPOILER: Click to show

“Thy presence here is fortuitous. Had thy soma perished amidst their verglas and stone, even I could nay preserve thy soul from peril.”

His voice smoothed over her body, rich and luxurious in its ebony bass till her eyes fluttered open to meet his. They were falling. Clouds of violet hues sifted past her, floating upwards as she descended through their gathered ranks, and the plumes collected around Night like a cloak. Her hand lifted towards his claws, in need of him. Her fingers and wrist settled into his palm while his fingers curled about her hand and pulled her lightly against him. Quaking, she buried her face against his chest, the ivory of his ribs cool against her stinging cheeks.
Talea found her will crumbling and her anger melting into a warmth that spilled from her lashes into his twilight fur. No longer could she fight it, not when her heart ached beneath the weight of her debts and her wounds. Let the air carry it far away. Its breeze coiled upwards in agreement, twining his thorns and shadows with her hair into the inky expanse. Ne’er a sound passed between their lips as she wept. Still, he held her close, shielding her from the gale’s wayward song, harboring his tender flame in the dark.

“I cannot bear these sins alone,” Her cries choked against the winds. “I beseech thee. Speak to me as thou once had, when our paths were first joined as one.”
She feared his answer, feared her uncertainty, yet scarcely had her pleas tumbled from her lips before his claw tilted her chin upwards and his kiss stole away her words.

“My Talea, what need have you of fear?” His hand brushed against her roseate visage, banishing her tears while the rest held her close against him till corporeal melded with shadows. “Though our enemies grow stronger, so too does our will. I shall not abandon you. Each passing dawn that you command my thorns, our powers unify. Verily shall the time arise when we are made one. This you know. Tis my blood that laces through your veins and yours on my tongue.”
She did not withdraw when his chill traced the lacuna punctured through her arm, where alloy had mated with bone, rather her hands settled against the curve of his skull. Lapis gleamed within his hollowed sockets to acknowledge her caress as she drifted further along his horns. Mere few breaths were exchanged before the pain and his embrace subsided, leaving behind but an echo of the rogue’s ire. Her gaze traced the scar, intercepted only by his touch.

His thorns wound about her arms and waist, and tangled in her locks with sudden longing. They tore against her clothes, while his claws burrowed into the softness of her flesh, even as the ground rushed upwards to devour them.
No! They could not part like this. She yearned for it not to end. She dared not to return. Not to the fires of the living realm. Let him consume her. Please!
Talea reached for him, her hands catching in a snare of briars while his own traced one last time over her veins.

“There are answers we must find when you awake, secrets harbored by the lord of their forsaken plane. Go to them, find respite and entreat their knowledge—“

“No, please!” The winds were howling past her, louder, the ground inches below. “Please!”

“I shall call for you when the times for our communion draws near again.”

She could not stop it. He was fading into the darkness above her. The winds were screaming and her own screams tore silent from her throat. The ground loomed beneath her, about to consume her when with a desperate cry and a flurry of tears, she awoke.

[rosallora]

[Ezekiel]

He's launched into waking by the sound of a screech and then the flurried pounding of footsteps as a pair of nurses rush towards one of the cots in the back. "Whuh?" The old man clanks in his armor like a statue coming to life, old eyes peering out at the dim, candle-lit realm of the Sanitarium. The light of day has just begun to filter in through the windows, dawn banishing out the night and the blood it had held.

But Ezekiel has no time for admiring the rays of light that have begun to sneak into the space. No, he has an investigation to launch! Because that was certainly the cry of a maiden in distress, and though he's unsure whether or not it was his certain maiden that he said he would watch over (did he make that vow to the other two, or only to himself?) it was a situation that might call for his strength and sincerity.

The nurses come to the woman's side, one of them bringing a syringe and the other a more concerned expression.

"Be calm," one says, "or we'll be sure you are."

Ezekiel's face contorts downwards with displeasure. "Hoh! Oh hoh, fine ladies! Fine mistresses of medicine! There's no need for such words as this!" He gestures outwards from himself greatly, drawing their gazes from Talea for a scant moment. "The fine lady had quite the ordeal! Bandits, you know. Bandits! All about, crawling around-"

"Her screaming was awful," one of the nurses deadpans.

"Ah yes, the screaming. It used to be from the outside! But! The time for screaming is over - here, Miss Talea-" the man, with an aged and beleaguered huff, takes a knee at her side "-there is no need for such things. You are certainly safe now." He has no kerchief to offer her, and so he merely picks up the wan fabric blanket that had been draped over her armored body to put in her pale hand. He raises a finger. "Sweet nurses, I have vowed by the night of no-moon to see to this woman and ensure her utmost safety, at least until the moon comes again. Fear not. I have traveled many days and nights and days again, I have ventured over..."

The nurses were quickly losing interest as he showed signs of going on and on. They look to each other and to him, and cast one final glance at Talea before stepping away.

"-And the battles, oh! And the blood!" He calls after them, and, upon their departure, lets out a warm laugh. "Ah. Yes. Ahem."

[EtherealNoire]

[Talea]

Though grief gripped her heart and her sight danced between fog and contentious menders, Talea could sense comfort in the elder's voice. He admonished their disdain, from which her dismal cries had condemned her, with a fervor that drove even the most obstinate to falter. As their echoes faded into the coming dawn, Talea's gaze settled on the textile clutched within her fingers, not knowing when she had accepted such a token. Yet it was valued still. Reticent, she wiped the sorrow from her eyes, and offered the elder lightdweller an elfin smile, as rare as the trailing lights of stars.

"I grant thee my gratitude, for I know not what fate may have befallen me, had I not been harbored here."

The wounds that plagued her had subsided in their bitter sting, and her eyes drifted o'er the violet mark that remained upon her arm in place of the bullet's wrath. Night had allayed her afflictions, leaving with her the memory of what must surely follow.

"Dost thou know thy whereabouts within this borough? I seek rest and to lave away the taint of flames." Nay could Talea ignore the need to cleanse herself from battle's rust, and with a roseate blush, she could also not dismiss the miasma of smoke that clung to her like an aura of decimation.

[rosallora]

[Ezekiel]

"What spirit! You yourself sound an orator, my fair lady. And your gratitude! is much appreciated but unneeded! Do not fret. I am here solely to ensure your wellbeing, as I said to the uh. Very. Kind. Nurses." He laughs, fullheartedly. "I admit I may have fell asleep during my vigil but it was a very long journey, my lady. And then after that, what fun! Bandits and blood and all sorts of clamour. And then of course, I found yourself, and Elorit - I hope the name is familiar to you, because that is where I got yours." He stands, clunking a bit. His knees pop. He sniffs, wondering if the hearth was lit nearby.

"Though I don't know my way around, fair maid, I will escort you where's you need to go! Perhaps you can tell me what kind of place I've found myself in."

[EtherealNoire]

Talea gave a soft fleeting laugh, enamored by his maunder tongue, and slipped from the bed's rigid hold to alight on the bare and brumal floor. Nay a meander appeared to chastise her, nor had they removed what trifling wares she had possessed, granting her leave from such a wretched haunt. Its emptiness reeked of despair, strewn with toxins in pointed vials and beds that had paid silent vigil to both the living and dead. She kept her lids shuttered against the souls still trailing about them, bewailing their coming demise, for what solace could her melodies offer those that still clung to the precipice of life? Save she capture their final breaths, she could do nay more than pass amongst, knowing they too could glimpse the ethereal tendrils of her life forgone.

"I fear my knowledge shall be no virtue to thee. Scarcely hath I ventured beyond quietus' gates into the hamlet's heart."
Her head tipped to the side, spilling corporeal flames about her shoulders to lap further down to her knees. The warmth of her tresses shielded her from the brisk rays of dawn that nipped at evening's frost and her pale visage as she faltered at the door, a stranger to such a malignant glow. What dwelling did she seek in the glinting roofs and weeping wood? Night's command worried at her chest, persistent with each breath it stole from her lungs, for she knew she must hasten before the encroaching morn.

"If thou desires to accompany me, nay shall I spurn thee. Nevertheless I must depart, lest in tarrying, I befall a prisoner to the sun's torrid ire."

[rosallora]

[Ezekiel]

He follows after her, such a difference from her graceful gait. He can't help to look at the poor ones around them, suffering and in treatment, or dead. Which was better? He knows in his heart that of course it was better to be under the surgeon's knife than the undertaker's, but their ways were so brusque, if the nurses he'd witnessed and heard were anything to judge by.

The sweet woman mentions the sun and he lifts his eyebrows high enough to reveal honey-brown eyes. "The sun? Don't tell me you're also some form of unholy demon that would find herself easily scorched? No! No no, merely delicate and fine," he insists. "Regardless of your fair condition, Miss Talea, do not let worry settle on your head or the strange decor atop it!" The man grunts and, with a display of strength and a gesture that communicates many years of practice, holds his shield above her and tilts it, protecting her from the rays of the sun. "We will travel together and find a place for you to rest yourself! Away from the prying eyes of those with such pursed lips. Yes?" He smiles brightly, little condensed clouds of frost puffing through his beard.

Together, they move out, him ensuring that she is protected from the terrible sun.

[To streets!]

[speakeroftruths]

[Andy]

The inquisitor arrives, almost in a daze, following the directions given by people around town. The building is... strange. It seems like a place for medicine, but this is now hospital, not like one might find in a civilized location. No, this place is frightening. They crinkle their nose at the vaguely septic odor coming off of the place. It seems seared into the the very stones of the building. Like so much else here, it feels as though the building were created by someone who had read about safe practices once, years ago, and worked off of memory. No place for preserving health this, but one of prolonged dying.

"Excuse me," they say as the push in the front door. "Is there anyone here trained in quarantine?"

[black379]

Adeney had been passing the entrance as Andy came inside. In his arms, a bundle of bedcloths, for Audrey's comfort. He knew the abandoned hovel's basement was no place for her, but he couldn't move her from there, not yet.

The doctor cocked his head at Andy's request. If it weren't for the mass of sheets he carried, he might have instinctively donned his mask at the mention of quarantine. There were no nurses currently in the foyer, and the only other practitioners seemed to stroll past without notice of Andy.

"What... What need is there for quarantine?" Adeney probed, approaching - not too close. He rolled the sheets into a tighter bundle, stuffing them under one arm. It seemed he would have to detour.

[speakeroftruths]

[Andy]

Finally.

They turn to face the doctor, dark bruises under their eyes from the stress of the day causing them to blink for a moment before fully acknowledging the person before them.

"There's a body," they state listlessly, tone bearing the terrible neutrality that can only come from complete emotional exhaustion. "At the camp by the old mill. Some kind of supernatural wasting sickness. No one touched it, but it needs burning."

[black379]

A scowl formed on Adeney's face as he listened. At least no one had been fool enough to move the corpse, though he was concerned how the contagion might have started. A sickness was would crowd the sanitarium with patients worse than any battle.

"There's a furnace in the basement. We can bring the body here. We'll... wrap it in this." He sighed, raising the sheets he had meant for Audrey.

"As you lead me, tell me what's happened. This person died from the sickness?"

[speakeroftruths]

[Andy]

"No... from a crossbow bolt. An act of mercy. To hear the vestal tell of it, the sickness had come on and progressed in a matter of days."

They nod carelessly and turn, walking through the door to wait in the street.

[To Miscellaneous Buildings]