Dust and Shadow

[Pravus Zambrano]

Night crawled through the empty clinic like a stalking beast, hunting wounded prey. Pushing outward, with the recession of the low hanging light that pushed through the mountains of Maena, it was little to no time before the darkness consumed all but small portions of the facility, still lit with white florescent light. Because of the small allotment of expertise for the facility, there were only so many hours a day it could function. Beyond that, doctors were on call for house calls at exorbitant rates. One of the unspoken rules of this realm was that if you were going to get sick, do it during the day time.

As one entered the door, if they could bypass the security measures, they might hear a click in the distance. Followed by another. Everyone other one would carry the shadow of a whimper, floating lofted on the stagnant air. Like the rhythm of a defunct clock, batteries on the fritz, the clicking grew louder and louder as one descended into the facility.

"STOP FIDGETING, DARRON!"

"...I...I can't help it. It hurts."

"Toils of the mortal man, Darron! You will be so much more than that."

"I want to see my family."

"Soon enough, soon enough!"

He moved the needle and hammer to another spot, beginning on another line of ink. Archaic, perhaps, but he felt that it served as communion between sorcerer and ritual. The ritual being, of course, the ensnaring of a soul and binding it to body. Pravus had read a many book about the production of ghouls and wights from ancient lore of many civilizations. This was his attempt to marry fairy tale to sith spellcraft, conjuring magic through the application of force immune blood. Since the soul was inherently a component of the force, he believed he could trap it with runes and idolatry. And of course, it helped pass the time and hone his artistic abilities.

"Do you know why I chose you, Darron?"

"N..no." Darron's chains rattled as he shook against the application of the needle across his back.

"It's because of your skin." Pravus stopped to once more relish in the touch of it, placing his free hand upon exposed shoulder. "You have very little body fat and I can tell that you keep in shape. Your skin is taught, like a rope pulled tight. If an artist must scribe across surface, he'd much rather have granite than clay."

"Th-thank you, Dr. Toydaver."

"No, thank you Darron...Now." He pressed the needle back against the flesh. "STOP FIDGETING!"

~~~​

​

Darron was still sleeping from a night filled with art and pain, intertwined. If often felt, for Pravus, that the two must be combined to create a true masterpiece. One could not obtain greatness without sacrifice. But as consequence, he was forced to carry his own equipment. Which included his alchemic kit, hidden in an almost official looking briefcase, and his journal - which he hid within the folds of his elaborate gypsy cloak. While he considered wearing the garb of his doctor gear to the facility, he decided that it would be best to don the uniform particular to the facility. Either way, he was more than ecstatic when he entered the facility.

Everything was so clean.

Everything was...so...beautiful! He had never seen such a mixing of posh and medical aesthetic, as if a fashionista had taken to medical practices at a later stage in life. Where things were so often sharp and jagged and bland, this place was something else. He caught himself stroking the contours of the guard desk, the way it bent and warped beneath his hands, waiting for the Doctor to show up. His eyes drifted to the guards in their little uniforms, sitting there acting like they actually had purpose. Ha! He could give them true purpose with the simple permission of the attending doctor. Maybe he'd broach the subject at a future date.

Speaking of...

"Good morning, Doctor Ven. Yes yes, you have quite the facility here..." His eyes trailed towards the ceilings and beyond. "I very much look forward to assisting you with your work."

[member="Irajah Ven"]​

 

[Kuzo]

Irajah chuckled and shook her head.

"It's not *my* facility. But I have the pleasure of full access. I have my work space, and do some... odds and ends for them. It works out well for everyone involved."

She did not mention that the facility belonged to [member="Matsu Xiangu"]. Nor did she go into detail on the bits and bobs of their agreement. And even less so on their friendship.

She spoke as they headed toward the lift. Currently on ground level, the building plunged into the depths of the crust, as well as soaring to the heavens. But she was bringing them down.

"Come. I have two labs here, one in the upper levels. But the one I am working in today is at the bottom of the facility. This is the only place I have found with the necessary bio-security protocols to allow the work I am doing. I have been very impressed with their attention to detail in that regard."

The glass lift offered them a view of each level as they descended. More gleaming white and sweeping lines. It plunged through the center of the facility, every few levels opening up to a full panoramic of the floor below.

"You'll need to change into an isolation suit if you wish to enter any of the suites," she commented as the lift finally stopped. As the doors opened, a hiss of air escaped from it, and a faint wind tugged at their hair and clothes. The entire level was kept under negative pressure, just enough to prevent anything airborne from escaping.

They stepped into a crystalline hallway, all glass and chrome.

"The windows are mirror on the inside," she murmured softly. "So they can't see us."

Each suite was white and pristine through the glass. Each had it's own airlock and decontamination. Only three of the rooms were currently occupied. Two by the men she had taken from his clinic, both looking much as they had when they had left his care. She had not yet injected them with the Gideon virus. The third room, however.....

To say that the man within was dying would be too clean of a description. Blood seeped from his eyes, his nose, beading on his forehead like sweat. Eyes glassy with fever stared up at the ceiling. His lips were raw and chewed, Irajah knew from trying to keep a handle on the pain.

"Welcome, Doctor Toydaver.... to my workshop. Meet Gideon, the reason for all of this."

​She was not introducing him to the man- the label on the door clearly spelled out that his name was P. Korran. Gideon was the virus. And for Irajah, it was far more real than the man dying through the window.

[member="Pravus Zambrano"]

 

[Pravus Zambrano]

There was far more to ownership than simple name on the lease. In fact, Pravus recalled a moment in absence of rebuttal, where he laid claim to a young woman without ever having known her name. It was a rather easy mental recapitulation, as it occurred moments prior to him entering the facility. The way her her hair moved in the sunlight, the way it glistened auburn against a world of gray, and the way her eyes cast a vermillion glow. He promised he would have her, he would have his Rose once more.

Focus.

He looked around as the lift descended. They were being swallowed whole by Maena and if he listened intently, he would swear he could hear the gulping and chewing. There was a sickness that reveled somewhere below and like a mushroom swine on a hunt after a long famine, he was ravenous for what was in store. Of course, he composed himself as any godlike creature would. With grace and curiosity.

"Not your facility, Dr. Ven. Yet you obviously drive this vessel...it is as important, if not more so." He lifted a hand as he caught his reflection in the glass, the slowed descent of the lift obvious as the levels stopped blurring together. As the doors opened, he listened intently to the command of needing to wear an isolation suit. Inwardly celebrating the manifestation of some fortune telling psyche, he followed with hand raking over hand.

And then he was taken by the look of it.

CHrome...

ONE WAY mirrors!

GIDEON!!!

The beauty. The sterility. It was a shock to the senses with the world above, covered in feces and decay and the filth of the universe. Oh, sure, they claimed to be the best and the brightest but he had been into the Slums. He had seen the underbelly of this world and just like Coruscant, it rotted from within. This was something entirely different.

His hand pressed against the glass. His breath blossomed in steam as he neared, watching the man suffer. The way he bled, the way it boiled over through the pours. Pure...Art.

"Gideon..." He was hyper focused now. Dr. Ven might as well have not even existed for all he currently cared. "Elegant...yet brutal. Succinct...yet filled with suffering."

He looked up. His hands moved about the glass but there was no seam. Anticipation and frustration mixed as he turned back to Dr. Ven, a dark smile sprawling lazily across his face. "H-h-how do I get in there? I would like to wear the suit now." He looked back towards the bleeding man, not long for this world. "I would like to meet Gideon, in person."

[member="Irajah Ven"]​

 

[Kuzo]

Watching [member="Pravus Zambrano"] react to Gideon was no more horrifying than the first time she had met [member="Matsu Xiangu"]. If anything, since that day, the good doctor had become even more innured to such things. The majority of her time spent on Panatha, Maena, around the Sith had changed her in subtle ways, only some of which she was completely conscious of. These places, mired in the darkside as they were, had never disturbed her, the feeling almost familial in it's familiarity. But over the last eight months it had become simply common place. And the fact that it was no longer noteworthy should have mattered.

But here she was, in the basement levels of a state of the art facility, surrounded by the stench of the dark side.... and barely even noticing any longer.

She did watch him, with the same intensity he pressed himself against the window. This was, as he had said, her domain. One of the few places she could move and act with utter impunity. So knowing how others responded, how they viewed this space and the sights within, was of particular note to the petite woman.

"The airlock," she said, motioning and then leading the way.

The process of preparation to enter was less intense than the process of preparing to leave- but it was still exact. Precise. Suits were triple checked, and even then, Irajah did a final approval on his. If she had been alone, she would have walked in, unconcerned for herself.

After all, this man had been infected by her. And not simply in the expected, clinical manner. That, yes. But it went so much deeper than that, after all.

For now at least however, she had no intention of giving away her own relationship with the virus. His reaction to it, while it didn't particularly disturb her, did however reinforce that decision for the time being.

When the two finally entered the patient's room, Irajah hung back. She was intimately familiar with everything here, after all. And she was interested more in seeing Dr. Toydaver's response, and, if she was lucky, a fresh perspective.

"He is in the beginning of the fourth stage of the infection," she said, far more calm and assured than she had been in those first moments of their meeting. "His organs have started to fail. Liquefy. At this point the fever has started to abate. It is easy to mistake for an improvement, if you don't know what to look for. Many patients don't make it this far, stage three is typically standard for a healthy patient. So this is data that has been difficult to come by."

If she were concerned about him hearing this, there was no sign.