AS ABOVE (game thread)

Fact: This scene is not a pretty one. Upon the table lies one (1) corpse. On the ground, there are two (2).

- The one on the table is split open, mid-autopsy. This is ostensibly the departed doctor. He appears to be somewhat bloated, a stage of decomposition more advanced than a chilled cadaver would have reached by now. His belly is split open and empty.
- The first on the ground looks to be the coroner. Their neck is almost certainly broken. Their eyes are rolled back into their head, and whitish-yellow froth spills from their lips.
- The third is something fetal in nature. Its skin is translucent, its face unformed and vaguely human, with round black orbs still sealed behind transparent eyelids. Its limbs twist and bend and out of its body, too thick and trunklike for anything at that stage of development. Its fingers are fat and stubby, like a child's but still clearly powerful. It has been torn to pieces by something feral, and leaks the same substance that drips from ORION's body. It seems to be disintegrating.

The scene is of a familiar nature to Bonham. The blood and guts, the flies (or the lack thereof). The smell, by the absent gods, the smell. Bonham doesn't move much. The scene is composed differently, but the style of it is the same. Like an artist aping the style of the greats.

The clock ticks closer to midnight. Or high noon, as it were.

Bonham steps back and moves alongside Lycaon, addressing everyone else in the outer section. "Everyone make way, do not approach this room. We have a fresh crime scene. Stay calm."

They also give Erasmus a nod as he remains by the door. "Agent Plant, examine the bodies. Cause and time of death first."

AND THE DEVIL SHALL DANCE WITH A THOUSAND LITTLE EVILS. THAT LARVAL CORPSE IS NOT THE ONE YOU'RE LOOKING FOR - ADMIN.

xxx0962
8:04am
As above, so below

As Erasmus stepped in, Orion snarled contemptuously at the fetal corpse, hackles raised and teeth bared. Erasmus' own lips briefly peeled back before he resumed examination.

Clicking his fingers softly, Erasmus slipped on a pair of latex gloves purloined from a table in the autopsy room, beginning to do his own autopsy, with Orion helping him along, nosing through the corpses and sniffing for any traces of the signature rot that betokened how their lives had ended.

GOD, CAN'T YOU FEEL IT CURL INTO YOUR NOSTRILS? ISN'T IT FUCKING AWFUL? DOESN'T IT MAKE YOU WANT TO SCREAM? THAT'S GOOD STUFF.

A COUPLE THINGS. THE FUCKER ON THE TABLE? WAY TOO ROTTEN. SOMETHING'S GOT ITS WAY INTO HIM, PUTREFIED HIM. AND HIS STOMACH? WHY, THERE'S SUPPOSED TO BE SOME LOVELY RED PEARLS IN THERE, SHINY BITS AND BOBS AND SPLEENS AND LIVERS, BUT HE'S ALL SWOLLEN UP AND HOLLOWED OUT. YOU MIGHT THINK IT WAS THE CORONER'S FAULT, BUT... WHERE'D THEY GO, THEN?

SNIFF AROUND THE WOUND. TIL ABOUT HALFWAY DOWN, IT'S A CLEAN CUT, BUT THE LAST BIT... LIKE PULLING OPEN A TEAR IN FABRIC: SOMETHING PUSHED ITS WAY OUT, WAS BORN OUT OF THIS POOR FUCK'S STOMACH, AND IT DOESN'T TAKE A DETECTIVE TO FIGURE OUT EXACTLY WHAT.

THAT BRINGS US TO THE BABY-THING. IT'S NOT A SIN. YOU THINK YOUR LITTLE PUPPY COULD GUT A SIN, HAMSTRINGED AS IT IS? IT'S SOMETHING MORE PATHETIC: A SHAMBLER. A SHAPE IN THE MIST, A LESSER SIN-MANIFESTATION FOUND WITHIN AN OGRE'S MIASMA. IT'S DISINTEGRATING NOW, AS THESE THINGS DO OUTSIDE THE MIASMA, BUT IT SHOULDN'T HAVE BEEN ABLE TO MAKE ITS WAY OUT. UNLESS IT HAD SOMETHING TO HANG AROUND IN, THAT IS. CONNECT THE DOTS, SHERLOCK.

AS FOR THE GUY ON THE FLOOR, THE TWISTED FOETAL OBSCENITY DID THEM IN, TWISTED THEIR NECK HALFWAY 'ROUND AND LEFT THEM THERE. NOT MUCH MORE TO IT.

"Good job." Bonham notes, to whatever reactions and insights Erasmus and Orion are able to yield. "Fun." They think dryly, but they'd never say that word out loud. "Jones, on me. We'll let the officers at the psych ward know they can bag and tag here. With your help. Once they're here, you two regroup with us, third floor." That remark in the middle is directed at the medical staff. With that, they nod to Salem and hurry up to the third floor where the cops are as fast as possible, accompanied by Lycaon.

Lycaon does his best to suppress a grin as he follows Bonham. Getting closer to the good shit!

"The subject has made a lesser manifestation. That would indicate that their miasma was here in the recent past." Erasmus muttered into Bonham's ear, following them along with Orion in tow. The dog whined softly in hunger as they left the free human meat behind.

Salem's face shifts from taut anticipation to disgust. He turns to the other exorcists. "...Does this hospital have a maternity ward, by chance?"

👁 Research indicates that a previously seen directory listed a maternity ward.

20XX-03-12 08:07:31 | Exorcists depart from scene, heading to third floor. Hospital staff remains, and word begins to spread.
20XX-03-12 08:07:59 | Exorcists reach elevator, and begin to proceed to third floor.
20XX-03-12 08:09:02 | Exorcists reach third floor, encountering two police officers attempting to enter the same elevator they exited from.