Book 1, Part 3, Side Thread: A Corpse's Questions

[Mister Doctor]

Dead Guy - Character Sheet

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KAC: 20/19 Fort: +11 Ref: +6 Will: +7
HP: 51/59 THP: 0/7 Hero: 1/3 | Perception: +7

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No doubt there were many things Zea would like to have show up at her door. Fancy chocolates sent by an admirer, a sorely missed friend, a letter stating a previously unknown rich relation had kicked the bucket and left all of their worldly wealth to her. Any number of good and rewarding things to help salve her wounds and speed her recovery.

The corpse was probably fairly low on that list.

Even so, it loomed in her door like some horrid reminder of every mortal's impending death. It was a small mercy that it's face was not twisted in the expression of rage that so often guided its hands in their bloody work. Instead, it wore the awkward look of consternation that seemed so common when it was trying to articulate something its ruined voice and half-rotted brain were poorly suited for.

While the corpse was more than capable of ambling it was singularly incapable of managing anything like preamble. Reaching up to crush its throat into something like proper shape, it drew in a ragged breath and thrust a hand towards Zea. Clutched in the pallid grip of the corpse was a pair of letters.

"Hhherk-hh-help?" It managed. The letters were of some kind of fancy cardstock, though now heavily crumpled from the corpse's less than careful grip, with burns and water damage in places. The designs embossed into the cards were different but both were of a type. It was the sort of frippery middle-class people sent out to friends and relations to inform them of important events and maintain connections.

The first was inscribed in a flowery script that was almost illegible due to embellishments, with the following:

Guy-Arist and Elena Lavigne

would like to cordially

announce the joyous addition of

Isolde Rose Lavigne

to their family on the 23rd day of Sola, 4710 AR

The second card read much as the first with a few differences:

Elena and Guy-Arist Lavigne

would like to cordially (and somewhat tiredly)

announce the joyous addition of

Henri Armand Lavigne

to their loving family on the 9th day of Joya, 4714 AR

Edited April 15 by Mister Doctor (see edit history)

[ripleycat]

"Oh gods! Um, h-hey there." Zea is indeed not thrilled to have the dead man darkening her door, and bolts upright, fumbling for the nearest thing that could pass as a weapon, which turns out to an almost hilariously inadequate letter opener, but she's pretty quick on the uptake. If the corpse were there to cause violence, she'd have found out rather quickly. "...I-Is something wrong? Did those assholes come back?" The look of concern on the zombie's face leads to worries of a different kind of trouble. Whatever her misgivings might be, this thing had defended the Nursery with all its ferocity. The dead man was as much a hero as the rest of the Silver Ravens. Besides, the defacto leader of the Cloven Hoof had scores to settle with the CCG.

A personal plea for help, though, leaves her somewhat adrift.

"What've you got there? Let's see... Huh." She accepts the crumpled cards and gives them a read-over, but knowledgeable as Zea might be about matters on the street, a middle-class family from the other side of the city rings no bells. "Ah, I don't know any of these people, big guy. Do you want help finding them? I-I can try. I know who to talk to, at least." She waits cautiously for the zombie's response, hopeful it can provide at least a little more guidance.

[Mister Doctor]

Dead Guy - Character Sheet

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KAC: 20/19 Fort: +11 Ref: +6 Will: +7
HP: 51/59 THP: 0/7 Hero: 1/3 | Perception: +7

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It took more than a few moments for Zea's response to fully penetrate the corpse's awareness. She had used a lot of words and was not used to navigating the corpse's particular brand of limitations. It chewed over the words in a quite literal way, single eye sliding off Zea's face to stare into the middle distance as it picked over what she had said.

Still, the dead thing was nothing if not implacable as it settled on the idea that 'finding' someone did not always mean that they were going to be subject to the sort of attentions it frequently paid the people it 'found'.

"Ffff-find... Khhk-keep sssafe," was what it settled on. It was not practiced at giving other people directions, much less asking for help. After another awkward pause of other considerations slowly fitting into place, it jabbed a finger at the first card. "Buh-brown hair. Hhh-horns. Tail." Each detail seemed like it was being hauled up from some unimaginable depth, the corpse's limited vocabulary and fragmented memories fighting it every step of the way. It gestured at its face vaguely, not having the right words. "Sss-spots all over. Khh-feet make... clop sound."

Another pause before it pointed to the other card. "Sss-small," was all the corpse could manage to describe what was, judging by the date, a baby.

[ripleycat]

As the corpse manages to add "horns" to the description of Isolde Lavigne, Zea's eyes go wide as she realizes why the dead man came to the Cloven Hoof for help, and she's galvanized into immediate action. She grabs the nearest scrap of paper and a pencil, so the laboring corpse isn't forced to repeat himself. "Brown hair, spots, hooves, horns, a tail... about five years old... A babe of about a year..."

"That's an unusual look. It doesn't match any kids I've seen in the Nursery lately. I will ask everyone who comes in. I will add her to list of the missing. If-if anyone has seen her, I will let you know."

"Is the baby a tiefling?" Zea asks, slowing down for the zombie's benefit, carefully pantomiming rocking a child in her arms at "baby" and tapping her horns at "tiefling".

 

[Mister Doctor]

Dead Guy - Character Sheet

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KAC: 20/19 Fort: +11 Ref: +6 Will: +7
HP: 51/59 THP: 0/7 Hero: 1/3 | Perception: +7

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The corpse shook its head a little unsteadily, "Nnn-no."

There was a long pause, the single eyelid twitching as a detail tried to sort itself in the corpse's mind. It painstakingly reviewed the limited exchange with its limited attention trying to identify the thing that was standing out as wrong to some fragment of its scattered awareness. "Hrrk-nn-not spots, not... Fff-freckles, has freckles."

Another long pause as the expression shifted and, for a fleeting moment and despite the dreadful damage to its face, the corpse almost looked human again. The voice that came out of it sounded almost whole, coming from somewhere unimaginably far away. "Freckles, like her mother."

But that glimmer of what it might have once been was gone almost immediately and there was just the corpse standing before Zea, a plaintive look upon those ruined features. It could shrug off clubs and blades, stride towards armed and armored enemies with a single-minded determination that did not care about danger or numbers but here the abomination was worse than helpless. "Puh-please?"

[ripleycat]

Zea wrestles with her thoughts, how much to share, and how much the corpse would even understand if she did. The worries common to all who lived in the Devil’s Nursery. How often the cruelties of life in Cheliax intruded on the supposedly “better”, “hopeful” Kintargo. How often the bodies of urchins and beggars turned up, how rare understanding or justice or simple closure could be. What she feared became of those who vanished into Thrune’s dungeons, what she knew became of those who fell victim to the back-alley diabolists and the street-corner demagogues and the hateful mobs. The broken child the corpse himself had retrieved from the tooth fairies, the black atrocity Star hid so well. Had she told the other Silver Ravens that horrible tale yet?

The plaintive voice that barely belongs to the dead man shakes her loose like the Devil’s Bells had chimed, and she understood the heartrending truth behind what had seemed a very strange request. “They’re yours…”

With well-warranted caution, Zea stands and reaches out with what she hopes will be understood as a gentle, comforting hand, a soft touch on the creature’s charred shoulder.

“Yes.”

“We will do everything we can to find them, and if we do, they will be the safest children in Kintargo. I can promise that, at least.”

[Mister Doctor]

Dead Guy - Character Sheet

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KAC: 20/19 Fort: +11 Ref: +6 Will: +7
HP: 51/59 THP: 0/7 Hero: 1/3 | Perception: +7

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The dead man sagged under Zea's light touch, as though it legs might give way and it would collapse. Its shoulder trembled as its face screwed up in a difficult expression As with any expression on the corpse's visage save for the clarion creases of a furious mask, reading the details took a bit of creative interpretation. Was it trying to cry through tear ducts long since seared closed?

"Hhh-hurts... less... Hope hurts less," It rasped to Zea. It was a vain hope, about as hollow as the creature itself. Even so, much like the kindness it had been shown by the Ravens, it could not afford to let go of anything that gave it even fleeting relief from the rage and pain that propped it up and let it continue to put one foot in front of the other. There was no telling what would happen to the corpse if that internal metaphysical chemistry tipped over too far in the other direction but denying it what little relief it could find was a greater cruelty still.