Post by Uathach Blackmantle on Apr 20, 2008 22:53:22 GMT -5
[The following assumes the Abyssal Pertussis plague is still going around on the above date; and Wraith was able to obtain a corpse for examination
Slow footsteps penetrated the cold silence, clicking on the scuffed black marble, and echoed off the equally dark walls. Wheels squealed in the overhead track-system, coupled by the irregular clang of rusty chains. The place is deserted, tomb-like, amplifying the sounds that echo in the eerie silence. Not a single being, living or otherwise, stirs in the Mortuary on this particular misty night.
Hunched over the examination table, pushed laboriously before her, Uathach slowly enters the Embalming Chamber, and stops near a shelf cluttered with surgical tools, and rolls of bleached linen. The stench of formalin and other harsh chemicals, blended with pitch and a faint whiff of eucalyptus, permeates the frigid air.
Uathach sets to work immediately, pulling back the sheet from the deader, rolling it down to his pubic bone, and arranges the tools neatly on the trays beside her. She scrubs her hands, meticulously cleaning under her nails, pulls on a pair of surgical gloves, and dons a mask and heavy apron; after all, she was dealing with a corpse that was, purportedly, infected with Abyssal Pertussis... until the disease were purged from the body.
Uathach wasn't one to leave anything up to chance; not when she had a child who needed her.
Setting up her writing materials on the table - papyrus, quill pen, a bottle of ink, and a small jar of sand - she takes notes of his race, apparent age, where he was found, probable cause of death, and more specifically, physical appearance; a y-incision had already been performed, not forty eight hours hence. The deader wasn't contracted, so he was due to be sent to the furnaces tomorrow morning.
If she was going to examine the corpse, and learn what she could of the disease, it was now or never. Picking up the scalpel, Uathach bends to her task, cutting away the uneven sutures, and peels back the layers of mottled skin. As she expected, the ribcage was broken lateral to the sternum on either side, and recently wired shut. There was no evidence of any internal organs being removed prior to the deader's reconstitution.
An irregular shuffling, broken by thumping noises, as of something shambling or stumbling along, breaks the dead silence, and interrupts her work. Scalpel in hand, she looks up in time to see a small knot of contracted workers - zombies mostly - and a straggling ghoul, amble into the empty chamber. None of them were burdened with buckets, or mops, or any other trappings that might suggest they were sent here on cleaning duties.
So why were they here, and who summoned them?
Slow footsteps penetrated the cold silence, clicking on the scuffed black marble, and echoed off the equally dark walls. Wheels squealed in the overhead track-system, coupled by the irregular clang of rusty chains. The place is deserted, tomb-like, amplifying the sounds that echo in the eerie silence. Not a single being, living or otherwise, stirs in the Mortuary on this particular misty night.
Hunched over the examination table, pushed laboriously before her, Uathach slowly enters the Embalming Chamber, and stops near a shelf cluttered with surgical tools, and rolls of bleached linen. The stench of formalin and other harsh chemicals, blended with pitch and a faint whiff of eucalyptus, permeates the frigid air.
Uathach sets to work immediately, pulling back the sheet from the deader, rolling it down to his pubic bone, and arranges the tools neatly on the trays beside her. She scrubs her hands, meticulously cleaning under her nails, pulls on a pair of surgical gloves, and dons a mask and heavy apron; after all, she was dealing with a corpse that was, purportedly, infected with Abyssal Pertussis... until the disease were purged from the body.
Uathach wasn't one to leave anything up to chance; not when she had a child who needed her.
Setting up her writing materials on the table - papyrus, quill pen, a bottle of ink, and a small jar of sand - she takes notes of his race, apparent age, where he was found, probable cause of death, and more specifically, physical appearance; a y-incision had already been performed, not forty eight hours hence. The deader wasn't contracted, so he was due to be sent to the furnaces tomorrow morning.
If she was going to examine the corpse, and learn what she could of the disease, it was now or never. Picking up the scalpel, Uathach bends to her task, cutting away the uneven sutures, and peels back the layers of mottled skin. As she expected, the ribcage was broken lateral to the sternum on either side, and recently wired shut. There was no evidence of any internal organs being removed prior to the deader's reconstitution.
An irregular shuffling, broken by thumping noises, as of something shambling or stumbling along, breaks the dead silence, and interrupts her work. Scalpel in hand, she looks up in time to see a small knot of contracted workers - zombies mostly - and a straggling ghoul, amble into the empty chamber. None of them were burdened with buckets, or mops, or any other trappings that might suggest they were sent here on cleaning duties.
So why were they here, and who summoned them?