video | un: dollhouse

[thedreamer]

Hello, gang! ...Gang? No, not the right word. Team? Better. Do we have a name? Those of us displaced and trapped here. Well, there we are.

[ As if the semantics are really important. Moving on. ]

I'm the Doctor, if we haven't spoken yet. And if we haven't - first of all, why haven't we? Second of all, I'm very glad we are now.

[ He's moving around a lot as he talks, walking in slow circles, just restless. ]

Hearing what everyone's uncovered recently has been helpful and I believe I can add something of value to the mix.

In conversation with our caretaker in the Mouse House, Ma'am Mariol, I learned more about the plague that swept through. When the sickness struck, it fractured Serthica. Those up here believed it came from down below, the Mouse House; the first to touch anything imported, anything crossing the sea, they assumed. Prior to that, it was easier for those down below to come and go up here. Much more difficult now, nearly impossible, and so the people down there, the children, they suffer.

[ He has to note that for a moment because he will remain displeased until he can fix their situation. ]

The children we've met in the Mouse House were orphaned as a result of the sickness. All of them. To anyone's knowledge, not a single person who was infected survived. They referred to it as the coal sick; called that because an infected person's hands, toes, face would go dark, like coal dust and rot. Rot - familiar word, that one, eh?

What else - right - it infected quickly. Someone could be healthy one day and then nearly dead the next. Coughing up blood, teeth chattering, wandering back and forth to keep warm.

I hoped to ascertain how the splitting of Serthica was decided, how people were sorted, if some were exiled down below who'd previously lived in the citadels, simply for fear of spreading illness. There's at least one woman that I know of in the Mouse House, who used to live in the citadels. She receives letters from her daughter, who lives up here. Evidently, this woman ended up in the Mouse House around the time the sickness swept through, yet her daughter remains here.

Don't worry, that won't be the end of what I learn. I'm still working it out. [ He gets a bit more restless, impatient almost, pacing more urgently. ] Brain isn't working fast enough. Thinking and thinking and more thinking. I have to be careful how often I go down there, so I'm told - not that I've ever listened to that sort of thing - but if there are other questions I've missed, tell me. Maybe I'm standing too close to see everything.

Many heads are better than one, so the saying goes. Unless it's a multi-headed predator of some sort. Not the best odds, in that case, if you're the prey, though very good if you're the predator. All creatures have a right to it, though, of course, so can't judge that one. Survival of the fittest. You'd be surprised, though! A very good friend of mine, his name was Bertram; a beautiful, tiny Snorclax with a rainbow shell. He told me once he faced down a three-headed serpent wielding nothing but a pencil. [ This has nothing to do with anything at all, but that hardly matters. He just likes to tell stories and he has a captive audience. Unfortunately for the audience. ]

Comments

un : dappled peals of the parted seas (voice)

[beitangmoran]

That seems in keeping with what little information I managed to tease out of one of those Remembrance fighter. I didn't get much about the sickness, but he did mention people seems to just drop like flies with no warning and that bodies piled in the streets.

I could not get any information about how the authorities reacted. It seems to be common knowledge here and he thought me stupid for asking.

[thedreamer]

An illness that was, by all indication, completely unsurvivable, well it begs the question. As others have wondered and asked, did anyone actually survive? Death may have taken a different form, a different course. There were those that clearly rotted and dropped to their final death. And those perhaps infected, perhaps even dead yet, seemingly alive. Varying degrees of death rather than life, maybe.

[ Like others, he is certain of nothing at all. He needs to talk it out and consider everything, even something completely outlandish, to mark it off as completely a dead-end in his mind. ]

[beitangmoran]

According to our more sensitive companions, it's very likely no one in the city did. The problem is, if they are dead, do they know that they are?

[thedreamer]

It wouldn't occur to them. The citadel halves are a contrast to each other: Minaras wants to remember so vividly, to the extreme. Everything is watched, monitored, the rot has to be seen and dealt with, nothing can be ignored or overlooked. Then the other extreme, in Eidris; all is well, generally, and their memories are questionable at best. They've chosen to forget. Remember, and forget, remember, and forget. And the point between them, below them, the Mouse House. Those at fault, they all believe. Banished, disregarded, less than.

un: yiling laozu

[weifinder]

With this woman, did she mention if there were ever a break in her daughter's letters? During the course of the plague.

( he rubs at his temple, just for a moment. headaches and headaches, all working with figuring out what he can't feel most the time. )

I'd want to ask Kaneki, but I feel as if the dead he's seeing may be showing similar signs as if they died from the plague, not from whatever most recently lead to their... ceasing. Speaking with a doctor who was here at the time for the internal signs... that's fast, but disease can strike fast. Or curses, as disease, but I have to wonder. If it killed so fast, how swift was the infecting? Were the dead contagious?

[thedreamer]

A good question. I haven't had a private audience with her yet myself, but I hope to.

It's possible they were all infected from the outset and something activated it. The young lad I spoke with in the Mouse House, he came from across the sea with his parents. The sickness took them, but not him. It orphaned many of the children, yet they seem to be well.

[ As of yet, still more questions than answers. ]

[weifinder]

Were the children resistant? I know some illnesses strike those of a certain age hardest, and appear to do little for those outside that age. If the adults were killed, and the children not, did they also suffer the illness but fight it off? Is there any way to test for that, I wish I had a direct idea.

Still doesn't say if it was natural, introduced but natural, cursed, or thralled into being. Was it the same for the children of the citadel? Were they moved into the Mouse House upon orphaning? All questions I find myself asking now.

( which is the problem. more questions, fewer answers multiplying to keep up with them. )

[thedreamer]

Not precisely a way to test, but a way to sense something possibly. Memories. This place has taken away many of my abilities, but I'll find out what I can in my journeys back and forth to the Mouse House.

un: Black Prince; text

[blackscales]

So she avoided the plague by remaining at the Mouse House. Does her daughter ever visit her there? It's been some years, I believe, since the plague.

[thedreamer]

I spoke with a young lad who'd met her daughter, said she smelled nice. He's met her, but where I can't be sure. With the difficulties they have in coming up here now, likely it was down below. He may have also met her when the sickness first began spreading and they separated.

[blackscales]

[ This is:

1) Useless
2) Peculiar. ]

One, or the other, or both?

[ Below, before the sickness, or both? ]

It would be beneficial to know.

[thedreamer]

If she'll speak with me next time I'm there, I'll ask her specifically. Not only to determine the frequency of their visits, if it all, but why her daughter's remained up here. The danger's passed seemingly.

un: headless ragdoll (written)

[matermali]

[ This news isn't exceptionally shocking, but it does help in forming a clearer picture of what really happened before they arrived. Vanessa is glad to hear that The Doctor hasn't let his fears keep him from pursuing the truth. They must drive him forward. She can understand.

She doesn't even know what to make of what a 'Snorclax' is, but she can garner from context that it's meant to be a tale of David and Goliath. Charming. ]

You have been quite busy.

[thedreamer]

Not busy enough in fact. More questions than answers. Should be the other way around.

[ He's been diligent in reading through previous communications so her assigned name on this network isn't new to him, yet he still thinks it to be overly morbid and yet inventive, if nothing else.

She's been on his mind since the incident at the summit, though as with most things that unsettle him, he prefers to avoid thinking too much about it. His avoidance could easily be construed for lack of care, though it's quite the opposite. He's worried over her well-being since their first meeting in the Mouse House. ]

[matermali]

Should it? To have more answers than questions would mean the end, wouldn't it?

[thedreamer]

Answers get us to the end of one mystery and the beginning of another. Nothing really ends at all. There's always something.

[ For him, at least. He's always seeking out the next adventure. When you don't like and refuse to accept endings, you become quite good at that. ]

un: nah | video

[growlies]

I don't know. I feel like coming up with a Team name's pretty important. I'm just spitballing here, but-

The Beacon Hunters, The Troublemakers, The Displaced and Confused, The Assholes, Ghostbusters.

There's possibilities.

But sounds like you learned a lot of real important stuff, Ace. ( the nickname's sticking. cozy blanket doesn't have the same ring to it. ) So we can't just go back to the Mouse House when we want?

[thedreamer]

Yes, excellent, I knew I could count on you. Ghostbusters has a certain charm to it. We're in the middle of a ghost story of sorts, aren't we? Ghostbusters. It's settled.

[ If it were anyone else, he'd probably insist otherwise on the nickname. But he also doesn't mind that flicker of nostalgia every time he hears it, the memory of an old and dear friend, one who also had her own nickname for him. Professor. ]

We can, to a point. I was warned that going back and forth too often might raise suspicions with customs. Not that I mind, particularly, myself, but we should be cautious. Well, I say we, I mean everyone else, you and the others. Be careful.

[ He generally assumes he's going to be fine in any situation. He just worries about the others. ]

[growlies]

Here to answer the questions that count the most, and you're right. Ghostbusters has the nicest ring to it. When there's something strange in the neighborhood, they're gonna call... probably not us, but we'll insert ourselves anyway.

( Kinda seems how this group rolls really.

Uh. Time Lord or not, she's not having that. )

Wait, no.

You have to be careful too.

[thedreamer]

Anywhere and everywhere, that's us! Even when they don't want us around, we'll be there. Actually, especially when they don't want us around.

[ That's his modus operandi anyway. Generally be bothersome and in everyone's business always. And follow the trouble and chaos, wherever it may be. ]

And I am careful! Always careful, promise. I'm the King of Careful, in fact. Five years running now.

[ Not a great track record for a 1,000-year old Time Lord, if he were actually being serious at all. ]

Were you planning to go back soon?

video ► un: girl on top

[unas]

What happened to Betram?

( the story has her interested. more interested than watching ships )

[thedreamer]

[ Oh, yes, very good. He likes her already. Well, he likes everyone generally, but extra points to the one who asks about his travels. He loves sharing his stories, after all. ]

Oh, that dear fellow! Miss him. He was still a young lad when he faced down that serpent. He'd worked out even then, you don't need a weapon to win a fight. [ At least, that's how the Doctor's approached dire situations. Avoid weapons at all costs. ] Distracted the serpent with a pencil and managed to hide himself under a leaf until that old thing got bored and left. And my friend, he grew up into a bigger, beautiful Snorclax, living in the mountain forests of Adalexia with his wife and their many, many children. I haven't been back there in a long time, but it's a beauty, that planet. The clouds change color every hour, the seas sing a song when the tides change.

[unas]

Is it weather patterns that make the clouds change colour or the time of the day?

( because the planet sounds beautiful and she wishes she could see it )

un: white pawn; video

[chosenbylight]

[The Doctor is certainly quite the character. Anduin can't help but be bemused by him and his rambling sort of narrative. What, exactly, is a Snorclax anyway? He can't help but be reminded of a certain pirate captain of his acquaintance, even if the Doctor and Flynn Fairwind are absolutely nothing like each other in any way.

He hopes that everyone back home is safe and well...]

I have done some digging of my own and learned much the same from the streets of Minaras.

As of yet I have not been able to ascertain how the disease itself arrived in Serthica. But when it did, it spread very quickly through the citadel, from what I have heard. There were some who came to believe it was spread by the poor, though it is more likely that they were simply less able to find the care they needed than the more fortunate.

[Anduin's expression tightens. This is a sore spot, for someone with a soft heart, born into nobility, and now a king.]

There seems to be a fairly broad class divide, here in Serthica.

[thedreamer]

[ Oh, good, very good. More knowledge is helpful. All of them pulling together. ]

You're right about that. A class divide, an inequity that runs quite deep. I haven't been able to work out yet why so many were exiled to the Mouse House specifically, and why they've been so poorly treated. Except that, as you said, those living here above believe those below us harbored the disease and spread it. They have no real answers themselves, just fear, yet they've used that fear like a weapon, withholding basic necessities.

I've been doing what I can to bring them more resources down below, though it's not enough, not nearly.