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Post by The Gloaming Meadow on Jul 8, 2019 7:11:08 GMT -8
It's almost placid at first, entirely benign. An open field that runs for miles, veiled in a deep, billowing curtain of fog that never seems to relent, regardless of the weather. This is all anyone can see of Gloaming Meadows from the outside anymore, an insignificant, mundane, downright boring little farming community tucked away in the middle of nowhere. An unnatural silence permeates the place, as if the trees are unshaken by the gentle winds that roll over the field, the birds silenced, no song nor caw heard, even the trickle of rain when clouds roll in overhead seems muted here. The plain is dotted only by withered trees, piles of hay, rotting crops, and that stark, scarlet line. The line, the line on the grass that runs all the way along the field's edge, a deep crimson, black in some places, one could mistake it easily for paint, if it didn't stink of that ferric stench, like rusting iron: the smell of blood. The closer you get, the more sinister it seems. The breath in your lungs fighting to find it's way up your throat, a tingling in your finger tips, the hairs on your body bristled as goosebumps cascade across your skin. Something is wrong with that unsettling, though seemingly innocuous trail of blood. As you pace the unnatural barrier, it quickly becomes apparent that overwhelming sense of dread is far from ill founded. The line is littered with refuse. Abandoned carts, carriages, and plow equipment, some of it clearly quite expensive and exquisite in craft. Clothes, tattered, torn, as if something snatched the wearer right out from underneath them. Weapons, left shattered, and splintered, useless, sinking into the mud. Then there are the bodies. Corpses, animal, human...dozens of them. Cows which like once roamed these green pastures, stomachs sloughed open, guts spilling out to stain the earth that malevolent red. Deer, wandering off from the sparse forest lands just beyond the border, bisected, dismembered, in all stages of decay. A leaf-litter of feathers, like the birds were plucked right out of the sky. Some of the corpses seem fresh, barely days old, others are nothing more than bone and tendon, one can rarely even find a creature or poor soul still gasping their final breaths, strewn about the field, crying out for help, but if they've passed that line....it's too late. Sometimes you can see it, them. The things that paint this crimson line and adorn it with the corpses of anything that wanders too close. Shapes in the fog, standing upright, like people, but with too many limbs, or legs that bend one too many times, or looming figures that stand far too tall for any man, or creatures on all fours...or six...eight...more limbs, animals with shapes that don't match anything, mundane or mythical, you've seen before. Then there are the bumps in the earth, these unnatural bulges, bubbles beneath the dirt that zoom across the field, tossing up dirt and stones as they go, burrowing mounds that patrol the line, waiting for something or someone to wander just a little too far. Sometimes they try to lure you in, the sounds of cries for help or sobbing, or friendly voices....familiar voices, people from the outside, people you know couldn't possibly be in that fog, screaming out for help, screaming your name. Is there a way past? If you're insane enough to have some reason to try and get beyond the line, then there's only one person who could help you: The Vivisectionist. Wandering the line, staring into the fog, scrawling notes in a leatherbound book, sampling the soil and the plants, sometimes collecting the corpses just beyond the line to be brought back to their lab set up in a little shack just a short walk from the border line. Dressed head to toe in unusual black robes and a frightening bird like mask, this questionable character is the only person to ever escape Gloaming Meadow. It seems almost unnatural the coincidental timing of the doctor's appearance at the border and adventurers approaching it's edge, as if they always seem to know when someone is trying to enter the isolated villages. Their identity is a mystery, much like the land they patrol, if you're looking to find a way past the line, they serve as your only hope. Though happy to help, expect if you ask them for their aid, they are more than likely to ask of you a 'small favor' once you're within the isolated township. Before you agree to anything, make sure you understand the terms clearly, or you might just end up agreeing to something far more grueling than you guessed, and the eccentric doctor is very particular about upholding deals, you wouldn't want to make an enemy of your only hope of ever returning to the safe side of the line. Proceed cautiously, do not cross the line. |
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The Vivisectionist
New
Roleplay posts: 1
Physical Description: No one can say what The Vivisectionist truly looks like outside of former patients, all of whom are trapped within the unnatural borders of The Festerland. The doctor is quite careful about their appearance, precise in ensuring nothing slips through the black fabric of their protective garb. Whether this is instinct from years in the craft of medicine, or a more insidious preoccupation with remaining anonymous, can't be said for sure.
The Vivisectionist stands at a slumped 5'7", their frame wire thin, limbs sickly and sallow, body hunched over and looming, posture formed from years of leering over a table top. They stink something foul, the sweet sour stench of rotting meat masked in a thick miasma of herbal odors, no doubt permanently stained by years of working with corpses, the sick, and the dying.
The only other indicative aspect of the doctor's presentation is their voice, and yet it remains as paradoxical as the rest of their attire. Their words come out in croaks, a mid tone voice that seems to rise and fall through octaves to accentuate points, with a hoarseness at the back of the throat, like the caw of a crow. Each word is precisely picked, though the eccentric augur behind what drives these speech patterns is wholly unchartable to the listener. Ultimately, the identity of the unsettling doctor remains a mystery to most, gender, age, and intent all obscured behind that long nosed, boney mask and shadow-silk garb.
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Clothes and Equipment: The pale mask of the plague doctor's garb has become the new face of The Vivisectionist. Cloaked in black robes of fraying cloth and burlap, with long elbow length leather gloves and splitting leather boots, this shady doctor stalks around like a living shadow. A brimmed hat with a flat top rests squarely upon their head. A silver chained rosary dangles from the doctor's neck, though the brooch itself is the symbol of a God wholly unfamiliar to those who come across it, a simple circle of threaded braids, like a halo of writhing tentacles.
The Vivisectionist rarely leaves their lab, but when they do, they can always be found carrying in tow a small black leather bag which jingles and clatters with every motion, presumably packed to the brim with glass bottle tinctures and surgical instruments. In their other hand, a simple wooden cane with a curved, talon like handle, used to prod corpses for the vestiges of life.
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Registered: Jul 6, 2019 23:16:43 GMT -8
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Post by The Vivisectionist on Jul 9, 2019 9:33:46 GMT -8
Looming like a specter in the fog, The Vivisectionist stands, their ichorous robes and garb in stark contrast to the sweeping wall of white fog that flanks them in the field just beyond. They stand with shifting, gangly posture, always fidgeting, shifting weight from foot to foot, the long curved beak of that avian mask craning around, watching, waiting. A slender gloved finger impatiently taps the handle of the cane they rest their wiry body upon, as though every passing second is an agonizing eternity spent standing at the border to Gloaming Meadow. It's clear the doctor has little patience for squandered time, or perhaps the anticipation of some real progress on their 'project' has brought with it a neurotic anxiousness to begin the task. There they have stood as the days since the job listings were distributed, like a restless spirit, waiting for the arrival of adventurers, mercenaries, and craftsmen to answer the call. Periodically they reach for a leatherbound journal hanging from a belt wrapped around their sickly waist and flip it open to a seemingly random page, desperate for a distraction from the monotony of waiting. If one were to approach, the book would snap shut with striking speed, their head craning around like a curious crow, inspecting their prospective new employee. The attire and aura of the doctor does little to assuage the concerns of suspicion or ominous undertones that came with the letters outlining the job, if anything, they've only be amplified by the appearance of this unsettling character.
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