An Edificium Much Too Small

An Edificium Much Too Small

Postby Rattrap » Wed Apr 27, 2005 5:09 am

Doctor David D'Rael sat in his office, looking at his inked notes by the candlelight. There were people surrounding him - in just about every nook and cranny he could put them, in the Rememdium Edificium. He had known this was coming - he had felt it.

The notes remarked on the same things, over and over. This was an epidemic - no question about that. All who could speak remarked similiar sets of circumstances that previewed their time here.

Suffice to say, these were events David could not handle alone, nor did he - several of the sofar unaffected townsfolk had volunteered, either for just a few hours to move the sick or even stay to help tend them through the night.

One, a young man who had unfortunately just arrived in Myrkentown by the name of Auberon, was stepping over sleeping and moaning bodies in the room beyond, renewing the insect-repelling leaves that were burning on torches through the Edificium grounds.

The doc had not slept in the last day, and he didn't expect to for maybe another. Auberon and the other volunteers were by no means medically trained, but with the lack of variety of ailments, perhaps David could give the young man a crash course and catch an hour or two.

The Rememdium Edificium wasn't large enough to handle this sort of calamity. People were on borrowed cots on the front law, people were in the hallway...David had penned the governor and the council multiple times in the past to bring up the idea of funds for expansion, but had only received one reply concerning having patience for a dicision.

Now, that wait was costing lives.

Wearily, David tore aside a page of parchment, dipping his pen to write another letter. Normally, he'd write to the late Joseph O'Cynen, who had provided the most support for the doc and the Edificium. Instead, he wrote to Aloisius Treadwell, simply requesting that he pass on the doc's request of funds for expansion to the rest of the council. Before more lives could be lost.

David swept his lengthening brown hair from his weary, matching gaze. A sigh left him, and he stood to pass the letter on to Auberon and to tend to the sick.
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Postby Treadwell » Fri Apr 29, 2005 5:14 am

The note would arrive soon enough, of course, and Tready would read it with a grim look to his usually jolly face. He'd woken out of a good sleep recently with a strangling of breath and the knowledge that somewhere in Myrken Wood, a child had met his maker in a most unwilling, most useless fashion. A ritual sacrifice? Details were absent beyond that basic knowledge. All that might be said is Father Winter is naggingly, nervously disturbed.

Now, this letter from the doctor concerning an overflowing hospital and a need for funds for expansion. A request detailing a surplus of the sick, some sort of epidemic involving bleeding and the like. . . . No time to alert the Council or a missing--again!--Governor Bromn on any of this. The funds in the meetinghouse are checked. Two thousand shillings had been allocated recently as a required back-payment to the Order of Straka for improvements and hiring. That leaves. . . well, plenty, of course. Most Myrkenites were faithful in paying their shillings to the province every month, and Tready, too, was faithful in making regular and decent-sized deposits into the stash from his own toy shop. He kept enough for the very lavish and comfy support of his family, the upkeep of his toy store, and the purchase of new materials as needed. The rest would secretly go to the Council. Needless to say, by now the Myrken Council coffers were nearly Treadwellian in size, but for how long?

The request was granted and a reply penned in Tready's own fat, sloppy handwriting. He, of course, would make his own trip to the Edificium to take care of the giving of the shillings. Being a mythical entity has its advantages: staying healthy around the sick is definitely one of them. It's an advantage he shares with his wife. Rest assured he'll be keeping his children and his pets as far from the hospital as possible.
"Looks like a table to me. Do you think it could hold up someone as bulbous as Treadwell?" -- Dr. Brennan, Myrken Wood Rememdium Edificium
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Race for the Cure

Postby Rattrap » Fri Apr 29, 2005 5:35 am

David brought a vial of the bug blood up to the light of the window, shaking it gently. The doc had already begun several tests, running the substance through whatever processes he could think of - he burned some, dried some, mixed some with controlled powders to see how it responded in comparison with other known venoms and tainted blood. A venom, though, was much easier to work with than a disease.

The doc could only hope. People who he knew well had joined the sick, as those he knew only by name or face and even more he knew not at all. He could only imagine the numbers he couldn't see.

Help was dwindling, as well. Several volunteers quickly joined the sick, and his most notable volunteer, Auberon, simply didn't have the stomach to deal with this epidemic. David had to send him out for several hours around meals just to ensure the young man could keep them.

The Rememdium was just too small. Even though Treadwell's decisive action would be well appreciated and needed, it wouldn't do them much immediate good - construction would take months, and the workers would have to not be dying daily.

A cure had to be found.

And never before had David D'Rael, son of the great, master general Jonathon D'Rael of the Bolgardian forces, alive for the second time, and survivor of his demon brother's antics, felt such weight.

He set the vial down and joined the sick on the floor and meditated.
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Postby Rattrap » Fri Apr 29, 2005 8:40 am

"Uh...doc?"

David looked up from the puddle of blood in the small dish sitting ahead of him at his desk at the young, tanned skinned fellow who had so graciously volunteered his first days in Myrkenwood to helping the sick and dying, Auberon. "Yes?"

"...some people are...recovering."

David perked at this, brow becoming uneven. "What?"

"Yeah. It seems that...well, whatever this is...moved on. Two people just said they felt better and left."

David looked away from his temporary assistant down at the blood. Hmm. This discovery actually changed matters considerably, beyond the obvious good that it wasn't always fatal. People were still certainly dying, though. But...but...David stood, walking over to the shelves lined with all sorts of varying liquids and powders, all painstakingly acheived by David's or an assistant's own hands. His fingers went from vial to vial down one shelf before he found what he was looking for. "Take me to that young woman who just came in a few minutes ago."

Auberon blinked and nodded. He wasn't sure what his anecdote had done, but the doctor suddenly looked considerably more hopeful than he had before.
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Postby Suede » Fri Apr 29, 2005 8:50 am

The Edificium was was waxing in influence it could provide to the ill, and though the numbers of those that could help were shrinking as well, at least one new presence had arrived to titter about and provide aid.

A slight little bronzed man with greying hair. It was a horribly out of place mess (Which he rarely thought to comb), compared to the youth that still clung to the rest of him. Several noticable tattoos of simple black ink danced across his neck, and more ran down his arms as he pulled his sleeves aside. He seemed rather tribal rarely, if you ignored the peasant clothing of his. Though it was already disappearing behind bits of blood and various excrements.

Kish hadn't bothered to approach David about his presence, he didn't see the need really, then again he rarely understood the social etiquite people used, it just didn't seem.. necessary to him.

The entire epidemic bothered him, and like everyone else he knew the cause. And it caused no amount of aggrivation, where others were finding worry. This, as far as the fox was concerned, was his place, and he didn't like things killing off the people... they were entertainment, among other things.

But he was no healer, nor the sort to solve such calamities, and thus he merely tuttered about the ill, making the comfortable and ensuring they didn't choke on their own vomit.
"So, Lone Starr, now you see that evil will always triumph, because good is dumb."
~ Dark Helmet, Spaceballs
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The Return of the Heretic

Postby Tyralor » Fri Apr 29, 2005 7:29 pm

The Lieutenant watched quietly as the pair of wagons drew up to the Rememdium. Almost a dozen members of the Order all together. It was unfair to draw them off their usual duties for this task, but there had been precious little choice in the end. He was in no condition to provide assistance himself, and it was a task that needed to be done sooner, rather than later.

"Start unloading the spare cots we brought." The Lieutenant muttered, and edged back to take a seat on one of the nearby stumps that had never actually been removed. It took a second or two for his breath to recover again. "Then send someone inside and wake the doctor if he's not still up. Let him know we're removing the bodies. We'll be taking them to the outskirts of town and providing them with a proper funeral pyre."

Kilborn's eyes wandered over the area that was in close proximity to his current position. Were there bodies outside? Were there patients outside? Straka forbid if it rained. "Let him know that it's a directive I've issued" So many bodies. Bleeding and rotting in close proximity to the lake and a local tavern. It needed to be cleaned up and soon. Particularly if the disease was as contagious as people claimed. Having that in the water, or the carriers rising up as undead later, as the dead in Myrken were wont to do, could prove disasterous later.

"And let him know that there are a few new cots for any remaining patients." It wasn't much, but it wasn't as though Straka had been without their own pains recently. "Get it done before dawn sergeant. I would rather not have the townsfolk wailing over their lost ones and impeding the work. It'll be hard enough as it is."

He waited until he caught his breath again, then rose slowly to his feet. He needed to head into the town square, where the other corpse was likely arriving soon.
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Postby Rattrap » Sat Apr 30, 2005 6:46 am

"Doc, Straka's here to clean up bodies."

"See to them, would you? They'll be taking away three less people for the dead..."

Doctor David D'Rael stood over a young lad who had woken up alive today. Something of a small miracle, one may think. David's 'cure' had worked - it was saving lives. He wished, as every man in his position did, that he had considered it earlier. But alas - what is done, is done.

The doc smiled at the fellow, offering him a hand up and a welcome back to the land of the living. He wouldn't spend long with the boy; there was much to be done. Thankfully, the Order was helping with those unfortunate to have already passed, as well as those already too fargone for David to help them.


"...oh, and Auberon - let them know I've a means to get rid of the disease. Tell as many as you can find. This needn't be a problem anymore."
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