Winchester/Fairfield Expedition - The Town of Fairfield

[winfield]

[You saw the towns some time ago, but it still took a good couple hours of treading past the farmland around it before you actually reached it. They have a distinctly "old western" type of feel to them, with their dusty, unpaved dirt roads and the collection of buildings-- most of them obviously wooden-- sitting side-by-side along either side of the road.

More observant residents may notice that the nearer they come to the town, the more people that look up and notice, and subsequently hurry off or head inside. And even if you didn't notice it as you closed in, it sure becomes apparent once you step under the archway of the town; there's no one around. The tumbleweed that rolls by almost seems to be mocking the residents.

Another thing that becomes apparent is the state of the town. Besides having gone eerily quiet, some of the buildings have been wrecked. There are gouges in the wood, where it hasn't been punched through or torn apart. Rails are broken, and a few of them even have damaged or missing doors.

Are they too late?]

DR. BREWER | HEATH | RECONSTRUCTION

((ooc: No sections this time. Comment freely and make your own! There will be a section by the mods soon~ Sections updated!))

Comments

[vesania]

Not for a long time. As for Lente...well, we didn't really want to be split up and she has that issue with the menfolk. It doesn't make visiting easy.

[hard_talker]

Split up? ... Okay, I'm gonna hold on to my questions 'till I get this rolling, or I'm gonna get ahead of myself.

[popping the tape into the deck, he gets comfortable at one of the tables and starts while Brewer does the same]

This is Mark Hunter, here in Fairfield with Dr. Brewer, September 3rd, Year ... Six? Screw it. I'll label the tape when I get back and can check. Anyway. We've come out to the town in answer to a distress call sent via radio, and the good Doc here was cool enough to let me interview him. [he clears his throat]

Thanks for doing this, Dr. Brewer. And I'm just gonna say right now that if there's anythin' you feel like you can't answer in the interest of the safety of the people you're with, you don't hafta. I'm not gonna be a jackass about it.

[vesania]

[He seems perfectly comfortable with the recording, in fact, he seems to relax even more. Memories of home come flooding back, sitting down in his office, talking to a man who claimed to be from a whole different planet, recording tapes just like this to try to figure out the mystery inside that man's head]

It's not a problem, Mr. Hunter. I've got nothing I need to hide.

[hard_talker]

I 'ppreciate that. ... Now, just t' sum up what you've already told me, so we're not repeating ourselves ... you said that the Collectors showed up and attacked you just a few months ago. And that kid, Heath, he says you guys are from Cair Draconis, the one that got infected with the virus based off sins, right?

[vesania]

That's absolutely right. Draconis was a safe place to stay, aside form the occasional change of setting, it never did anything to try to harm us...right until that virus was unleashed on us.

[hard_talker]

Do you know where it came from, originally? I mean, we found your notes, we know you're the one who was able to actually figure out how to cure it...

[vesania]

I didn't figure it out, a resident before me did, I just deciphered her notes.

[He leans forward, steepling his hands together and letting out a slow breath]

For what I managed to determine, Draconis fed on its residents in a different way to Paradisa. Where your castle feeds on you constantly, it seems Draconis lets its resident number raise to a high level, before releasing the virus. lot of people died, or succumbed to the virus, it seems that's when the castle fed. En masse, like a python eating an antelope. After such a big meal, all it needed to do was bide its time, let it's resident number grow again before repeating the process.

[He moves to sit back in his seat] I think we might be the first people to escape out of that, and we lost so many of our residents to that in the process.

[hard_talker]

.... Oh, that's just fucking creepy. [he shudders - then remembers something creepier] Almost as bad as what I heard happened to Libet ... do you know anything about that one?

[vesania]

From what I understand, Libet tried to kill it's people with kindness. Unlike us, I don't believe anyone survived it.

[hard_talker]

Kill 'em with ... but ... they said they drained it, and that's why they were dying ... they wanted to stay with it because--

[the words die in his mouth. "because it had been so good to them". his eyes widen]

So that was ... it was on purpose. It wanted them to use it up like that. Like ... like some crazy suicide pact. [he chokes on the words, feeling ill. to him, something like that is even worse than what happened at Draconis, or what Paradisa does to them]

[vesania]

It's entirely possible. Libet fell long before Draconis did, so all I'm running on is rumours and conjecture. Given the complete lack of surviours, we may never know. But one thing for certain is that all the castles feed differently.

[hard_talker]

Wow. ... Do you know about how the others work, or is that just conjecture, too?

[as he speaks, he's flipping through his journal, looking at what it picked up of others' conversations. he doesn't want to be repetitive, after all.]

[vesania]

Conjecture. I've not even come across anyone from the other two. I recall one has some sort of force field...no one at all has ever been near it.

[hard_talker]

Huh. Do you know which one it is? The name of it, or even the symbol? Anything new would be good, we barely know anything about the other castles. We only really knew about the Insolitus passage connecting Paradisa and Libet 'cuz the Doctor found it pretty much by accident while he was out there...

[he sighs. Dr. Brewer and Eleven probably would have talked about everything until the cows come home, and it's moments like this, the big moments of discovery where he's reminded of just how much is OUT there, that he misses his old friend the most. it's almost like a phantom limb pain for a second heart he doesn't have. but he's not about to change the subject and say how much they would have gotten along, as much as he wishes he could. they may not have much time, and he doesn't know how long the crystals will keep his precious boombox going - oh hey, there's a thought]

Have you seen these before?

[he turns the radio around briefly so that Brewer can see the crystals wired to the back]

Lente said something about a "mother crystal" they could get charged off of...

[vesania]

That's called Ivera. [He'll reach over to grab a pen, drawing as he continues to speak]

I've heard about them, but I've not been lucky enough to own one. The people with them tend to be very...possessive of them. After all, they give power out there. [He gives a shrug] I've never seen one, but we haven't seen everything in this world yet, if it's anywhere, it's probably hidden well.

[He turns the paper to Mark, an ornamental flower-like image now on the page] That's Ivera's door. All of them need keys, of course, but you might find it one day, who knows?

[hard_talker]

Looks kinda like a peacock feather. [he tilts his head at the page]

As for the crystals ... I dunno, when you said you had tech out here, but no magic or anything else, I thought maybe that master crystal might be around here somewhere, or there was some cache you guys might've found. I mean, this is a Western town, right? It'd just be kind of funny in a "it fuckin' figures" way that they could be down in a mine or something.

[he chuckles] I watched too many John Wayne movies with my Dad when I was little, I guess. ... Anyway. It was worth a shot. ... What about other groups? Lente mentioned that there are a lot of 'em traveling around out there. Have you run into any?

[vesania]

It's possible there's a pile of them here. We set up camp quickly here, there could be some hidden stash in one of the buildings or on one of the farms. Or...well, yeah, a mine.

We came across the Giovani, not long after we arrived on the mainland. Bird people, they're very good medics, helped patch up a few of our injured. [There#s a pause here] Shame about their thing against redheads.

[hard_talker]

Giovanni! That's the other name I wanted to ask you about! ... But wait a second. [he frowns. there's something about that redhead thing he knows is important, something old, something from Lois' original notes. he goes skimming through the pages again]

The one our people met tried to kill 'em all, not just the redheads. It turned into this ... creepy monster thing ... You're sayin' they're not all like that?

[vesania]

They're mostly good people, healers. But they will not tolerate redheads anywhere near them. They think they're disease carriers. Our red heads had to stay a good mile out of their camp before they'd heal our other people. It wasn't ideal y any stretch, but we were desperate.

[hard_talker]

... [he scans the notes on the plague doctor in Paradisa Town one more time] Yeah, says here the one guy might've just been a bad seed. There's no way we'll know - one of Ironette's people came and blew him up. That's when it changed - after the first time it got attacked.

[he sighs] Fuck. What if we burned a bridge, there, and they could've helped us, too? ... I feel like there are so many chances to figure this place out that we might've lost just because we don't know anything.

[vesania]

If it helps any, they seem a largely forgiving people. If you run into them again, just keep your carrot tops at a fair distance and they'll probably still help you. It seems the Hippocratic Oath is still worth something.

[He chuckles wryly] That's hardly helped. You haven't had anyone willing to give your the information you need, and I doubt your castle will be willing to tell you what's going on. If it's anything like Draconis all it will talk about is how it wants you to stay with it.

[hard_talker]

Hippocratic - that's that one about "do no harm", right? [he thinks he's getting that right.]

We haven't been able to really get anyone to talk to the castle at all, but I know we've got a couple psychic people who've tried. It ... doesn't usually go well if anything happens at all. And most of the people we've met didn't want to tell us what they knew. They act like it's better for us if we don't know, which is -- [he catches himself. he's on tape. this is for the records] -- unfair.

[vesania]

That's the one. Never reveal patent-doctor confidentiality, and generally do everything for the best of your patients.

Unfair, nice catch kid. [He sighs] So Paradisa doesn't speak to you. You're not missing much, the castle voices are... well they're deeply disturbing to put it mildly.