etraya | un: Bachelor

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.]

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[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?

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.]

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? ]

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?

Edited 2026-05-02 23:32 (UTC)

[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.

[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?

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.

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.

[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?

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