un: Bachelor | text

[thantagonist]

Attention Fellow People of Etraya,

I am Doctor Daniil Dankovsky, Bachelor of Medicine. As I understand it, few of you have seen a doctor lately. That simply won’t do! Please, don’t wait to get sick to establish care. I am situated in the hospital, ready to take consent forms and make updated medical histories. At least a few of you have unaddressed concerns, I just know it. The average person comes to see the doctor when it’s too late! Though we cannot die here, there is no reason to suffer unduly.

And if you are otherwise healthy, perhaps think of it as helping me out. In the event of an outbreak, it is far more helpful to have complete clinical pictures of the inhabitants. Especially, as I understand it, there are many biological differences in this population.

Please come visit me during my clinic hours, every day from 10am to 6pm.


[What Daniil really wants is to meet more of the unusual inhabitants of Etraya more quickly as well as conduct casual interviews of the sort of people who are slated to save the universe. But he can’t just say that completely outright.]

Comments

un: emet-selch | text;

[untsundered]

Do you truly believe the masses in such dire need of medical observation? Or is there something more to all this? I admit it makes for a clever ruse, should that prove the case, Doctor.

[thantagonist]

I spoke with the only other doctor here. Apparently, he only treats a handful of people occasionally. I spoke to a man who has left his leg untreated for who-knows-how-long. How can I know the answer to whether or not it is necessary without investigation?

[Don’t you sniff him out! He may be a doctor, but he really identifies more as a researcher!]

[untsundered]

Thus my line of questioning. I knew not the state of those Etrayans, and I know not you. Should I not have cause for concern when a proclaimed professional takes to the metaphorical agora to announce his desire to examine the masses with naught but vague assertions?

Worry not, with such specific examples you may now consider my concerns quelled. It is clear you are driven only by the purity of your heroic heart to service those in need—if your claims are to be believed.

[thantagonist]

[Daniil immediately latches onto the use of Greek.]

[Well. Obviously he is quite educated. I might be suspicious too in his shoes.]

And here I thought I was free of Inquisitors. Perhaps you would like to conduct an inspection yourself?

[Inviting them in was the last thing he wanted, but these types only got more insufferable the more you denied them.]

[untsundered]

Less an inquisitor and more inquisitive, though the veracity of your claims will only prove themselves in time. Unless you are under the misapprehension that I believe I might find some manifesto detailing your deviant ends in your laboratory, but that would be foolish in the extreme. I should like to think my years have afforded me departure from such naivete.

[thantagonist]

You’re right, I don’t need to write things down.

[As backhanded as that observation was, he refuses to let it pass him by.]

But surely you could make a little time in your very busy schedule of being generally inquisitive to come by the hospital. Would that not be the most efficient way to lay your paranoid suspicions to rest? Paranoia can be a symptom, you know.

[untsundered]

Oh? You believe you possess the insight to know what may ail me, do you? Well, perhaps I shall pay you a visit then. Let us put to rest all our preconceptions at once.

[thantagonist]

Excellent. I have open time now. I await your arrival at the hospital.

[Daniil sighs, flipping through his case book. He managed to find a polaroid camera earlier sitting around, gathering dust. He looks himself in the mirror and fusses with his hair. It was warm enough in the hospital to be too hot for his coat, but he managed to find a lab coat in a closet downstairs. He’d have to get it embroidered with his name.]

[He considers going downstairs for a coffee, then takes a coffee bean out of a drawer on his desk and crushes it between his teeth.]

[The ceilings are high in this hospital, which was nice to let in plenty of natural light through the windows.]

→action

[untsundered]

[Emet-Selch leaves Daniil on read, mostly because there is little point in replying when he will be there instantaneously. Though, as high as those ceilings may be, they're still rather crowded for one that boasts Emet's height of nearly 17ft, and while he could resize himself, he is most assuredly here to make a point.

Which is why when the roiling of teleportation magics sounds not too far from where the good doctor has holed himself up, chewing on his little coffee bean, it is an intimidatingly large body that manifests from that sudden expansion of darkness. The energies breathe and waver as much as they undulate before collapse, leaving behind a towering man adorned in black robes and a red and white half-mask.

There is a faintly golden glow to the eyes behind the mask and a coy curl of his lips as he regards him.]

Do excuse the use of teleportation magicks, I care little for the other modes of transportation here.

[He will give Daniil a moment, then he shall properly introduce himself.]

[thantagonist]

[Suddenly, terror fills Daniil’s breast. Was he hallucinating? Dreaming? Every day had presented him with stranger and stranger things.]

[Daniil doesn’t even register his words at first. He backs up, hand reaching for- For what? His gun? His scalpel? But this towering man comes no closer, and his words reach him at last. And he realizes this was who he was just speaking to. Fear and mania grip him, and he fails to speak.]

[untsundered]

Oh, so dramatic. I have no intention to harm you.

[He says with an eye roll, dismissing how horribly intimidating he knows he truly is in this moment. With a snap of his fingers, light flashes and sparkles around him, and just as quickly as the sound can be heard and the light receed, Emet-Selch is man-sized.

Well, he's still rather tall, standing at around 6'7, but far more manageable now!]

But I believe my point has been made. Though, in the event the shock has made it too difficult to extract it from the presentation: we are a varied group, and you would do well to cast off your assumptions ere you make a fool of yourself.

[thantagonist]

I’m dramatic? You’re wearing a theater mask and dressed like the grim reaper. There’s a door to this room, you know. I would have appreciated a knock.

[Though if I could teleport, I’d never walk again, either.]

[Daniil squeezes his eyes shut for a moment. What would go really good right now would be a little splash of morphine. His heart pounds in his chest.]

[Are you really going to be scared of a man just because he’s big? ]

[Big, huge more like. Was that his true size, or just to intimidate me?]

[Get it together, Dankovsky. Show no weakness. Even if it’s a bit late.]

I’ve had quite enough of… [He almost says “being stalked by enormous monsters” but then he’d have to start talking about the Shabnak.] surprises.

Please understand that I know the inhabitants here are varied. And it would do well for me to understand these variances for the good of all of us. And you’re here, so shall we begin? [Daniil sits, crosses one leg over the other and opens his case book.]

[untsundered]

[Emet's eyebrows raise behind his mask and that coy curling of his lips only grows, but he allows Daniil this moment to regain himself. In so doing, he gives him his own examination, his aether sight activating in the subtle way it does as he takes in all the details of Daniil's form.

And what a rough state it is. His soul is about what he expects, given how most of the other little creatures here are, but most of them aren't so full of... substances.]

We shall begin with proper introductions. I am Emet-Selch, Third Seat of the Convocation of Fourteen, Overseer of the Underworld. And what I wear is not some costume, but my cultural garb. You look more the part of a child playing dress-up with your flamboyant singularity. But such myopic assumptions are beneath a learned man—of which you claim to be, yes?

[He crosses his arms over his chest as he stares down at Daniil.]

Perhaps evidence of such will soon reveal itself.

[thantagonist]

[I am likewise wearing my “cultural garb”.]

[He wasn’t even in the snakeskin coat. But it was hanging up on a hook on the back of the door.]

But yes. I am Daniil Dankovsky. [Oh, we’re just listing all the shit we do, are we?] Bachelor of Medicine, Chief Thanatologist of Thanatica at the Academy in the Capital.

[He didn’t know what the convocation of fourteen was. Some council surely. But the overseer of the underworld? While beyond belief, was anything really that anymore? He had seen the man. Why the fuck not, apparently? Elves and vampires were all real. Apparently.]

Yes, of course. Do you consent to an exam?

[untsundered]

A Thanatologist of Thanatica? How very quaint. Have you made much progress in understanding death, or is this a newly budded area of research for you?

[Every words is dripping with condescension but there's also a bit of curiosity laced through it as well. Not unlike a teacher asking a small child about their interest in a subject that the former knows all the answers for.

He is also, notably, ignoring the question about consenting to an exam. Or he's merely avoiding answering him about it just yet.]

[thantagonist]

I’ve been conducting my research with my assistants as of my graduation three years ago. We plan to defeat death.

[He is grossly aware of how far behind his research is in relation to available knowledge. Sure it is very quaint for whatever this being was.]

You must have some thoughts about that, as the apparent Overseer of the Underworld?

[What, is he Hades? ]

[untsundered]

Defeat it? My, what a grand burden you've saddled yourself with.

[Emet-Selch tilts his head slightly in thought, a smirk curling his lips.]

I suppose I am curious why you wish you put an end to such a crucial and balancing force. Do you believe it unnecessary?

[thantagonist]

[Daniil gets very serious, he starts to pace. But before picking up his case book and flipping through his notes and photographs on diseases]

Life expectancy back home is twenty-six. When I was born it was thirty-three. Putting aside infant mortality and rampant disease, there is no confirmed documented person who has lived more than one hundred and five years of age.

This stunts people, knowledge is lost, research cut off, perspective and wisdom builds, only to be buried in the dirt like it were dung.

I trained as a doctor, it’s impossible to defeat every illness before it has amassed casualties, including the lives of those seeking to cure it.

I am currently twenty-eight. If I am incredibly lucky, I have perhaps seventy-seven years left to find what I am able. Putting aside war and disease and accidents… I have to hope I don’t go senile. It’s all downhill after forty. Mental agility, muscle mass, dexterity, all decline.

It’s a race against time.

[untsundered]

[For all his condescension before, as Daniil explains and paces, he earns Emet's full attention. He watches him in earnest and listens just as closely, weighing his words upon his own internal scale for consideration. In truth, he can understand the desperate attempt to defeat the abstract concept of death over that which causes it, so numerous as they seem to be for being as fragile as what Daniil belongs to.

Yet, if one cannot prevent fractures, what hope have they against closing the chasm?]

I see. It is an honorable endeavor, though every action will have their reactions, their lingering effects. Have you considered what might come from the vanquishment of death? What the world might become with its total eradication?

[As Emet-Selch speaks, he gestures lightly with a hand.]

Imagine, if you will, one seeks to eliminate evaporation, for all they know is drought and such a process has served to perpetuate this miserable state. But what of the rain that shall then never fall? Will this end the drought, or will it only cause it to spread?

[thantagonist]

I don’t know. But perhaps the immortal man will have the benefit of perspective to make that choice, rather than merely breeding and praying that his offspring can fix what he failed to.

[How refreshing to have someone not just call him insane and brush him off.]

I envision that immortal people would live in harmony and seek benevolence. It would be terrible if they did not.

[untsundered]

Indeed, the fear of a death not chosen does seem to have its unfortunate affects on you more ephemeral beings. Those that can live until they are content, well... my people have long since known harmony and order, for we strive for the good of all, and scant know a death we do not choose.

[So what if they axe a bunch of creations that don't pass the sniff test? Can't get paradise without cracking a few magical animals!]

Perhaps what you seek is not the elimination of what we Amaurotines name retiring, but a choice in it.

[thantagonist]

[Daniil is not sure he should really be so surprised with the sort of entrance this man made. But he is. It’s a shock, his head swims for the second time, but this time it is as if his heart feels it will burst with glee. He steps forward, slightly closer than he ever ordinarily would in his excitement.]

You choose when you die?