5th Ymiden, 719
Following: this
Following: this
From the start of life
To my dying day
In the dark of night
And the burning light of day
It's a Bloody Fight
]But I can't walk away
I'm prime, for the front line
Unholy war. Unholy War.
I'll try. I'll fight until I die
It's an unholy war
It was there, again, that oil-like substance. In the blood which was seeping through the skin samples. This plague was vile, Faith considered, and it must be beyond terrifying. Sharila had, at best, hours to live and Faith prayed for the woman that it was less than that. She had done everything she could to make them all comfortable, but frankly that was a nonsense in itself. All they faced was degrees of horrifyingly uncomfortable and in pain, and Faith knew it.
She was going to damn well cure this, she promised herself.
The substance had adhered to the skin, Faith saw. It was gnawing away at it, slowly corroding and making it beyond paper-thin. It was like it was an acid, she thought. But she'd tested the blood and it was no more acidic than any blood, so it couldn't be that. Yet, it was actively eating the skin. There was more to this, Faith knew, and so she carefully started to make the records which detailed what she was doing and when. Every detail was recorded, along with careful measurements and diagrams. Faith didn't draw for a living, or for pleasure, but accurate renditions of detail was vital to what she did. She was learning that the thing to do was to draw what she saw, not what she didn't see, or assumed she saw. Observe, replicate, repeat.
She was going to damn well cure this, she promised herself.
The substance had adhered to the skin, Faith saw. It was gnawing away at it, slowly corroding and making it beyond paper-thin. It was like it was an acid, she thought. But she'd tested the blood and it was no more acidic than any blood, so it couldn't be that. Yet, it was actively eating the skin. There was more to this, Faith knew, and so she carefully started to make the records which detailed what she was doing and when. Every detail was recorded, along with careful measurements and diagrams. Faith didn't draw for a living, or for pleasure, but accurate renditions of detail was vital to what she did. She was learning that the thing to do was to draw what she saw, not what she didn't see, or assumed she saw. Observe, replicate, repeat.
Rynmere Plague
5th Ymiden, 719.
2nd bell past dawn.
Subject: A6: Female, human, aged 20. Trial 3, final stages.
Sample: Skin, blood.
The strange substance in the blood continues and is evident in the skin samples which I have taken from all over the body. However, close visual inspection and inspection under the magnifier are clear. The skin is aged, and closely resembles the skin of a human in their 80s - specifically one who has been dead for at least 30 trials.
Elasticity is non-existent, and the thinness of the skin is taken to an extreme. The blood which has seeped out is lacking the oily substance.
Current Hypothesis
Whatever this substance in the blood is, it both degrades, and rots, the skin. As it does that, it is 'used up' and therefore, there is a much lessened or non-existent in the blood outside the skin. I need to go to the corpses, with the aim of finding out if this is happening internally, as I suspect. It would explain the final stage and the means of death.
To Do
Investigate the joints - why do they seize?
Track the development of the oily substance - I've seen it now on Trial 3 and Trial 1. Track in more detail.
And it was in that attention to detail for the purpose of drawing that Faith noticed something. Recently, she had been working on her Licentiate - she was in her final season and she had been examining the corpses of people who had died while healthy - and those who had died after a long and wasting illness. Her work was about the impact of disease on the whole body and Faith frowned deeply as she realised what she was seeing here.
First, to make absolutely sure (although she already was), she looked under the magnifier once more and she sighed. This was impossible, however it was happening. Quickly, she lowered her head and began to write.
That was the next thing to do, she knew. To go and start on one of the corpses in here. Faith lifted her eyes from the parchment and she sighed. She knew what she had to do, but she really didn't want to. This war was changing her, there was no doubt about it - it was altering her at a fundamental level and she did not like some of the ways in which she was changing.
But, she didn't have to like it, after all. She had to get on and do Famula's will. More than that, Faith knew, she had to do this because it was the right thing to do. Another person ~ even someone like Carter ~ would be much more of a broad-stroke kind of person, but Faith did not believe in that. She'd come across people who had been initiated into magic as experiments, and come to that, they were using mages here, to aid the war effort. Faith had no doubt that it would be easier to make something which targeted mages, or even which targeted necromancers with the aim of killing them.
She was not that person, nor would she ever be.
So. This was going to be something - as she'd said to Carter and Jess - that they did the long, slow and hard way. But the right way. Whatever it was that oily substance was, there seemed to be none of it in her blood and, as such, she knew that she needed to identify it. Maybe she could attach a cure to it, see what it was that it actually was. If she had just the first idea it would be a good thing. She needed more information there was no doubt. Faith's brow furrowed and then she smiled slightly and she whispered to herself.
"If only I knew someone in Rynmere at the moment. If I had a brain, I'd be dangerous to myself and others."
But first, she knew that time was of the essence. So, she made her way to the morgue. "I need to be told, the moment one of them dies." Faith said and breathed in as the Zuuda here with her nodded. "Famula forgive me, what have I become?" The Zuuda hadn't seemed concerned, not at all, yet Faith knew that it wasn't like her. But this was something which she had to do, and do as quickly and efficiently as she could. Because this more important than the six people here, it was more important than Rynmere. If Ellasin released this plague into the world, Faith knew, then it was entirely possible that hundreds of thousands, even millions of people, would die.
And it would be on her hands.
