damned_institute | Day 30: Staff, Morning

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Day 30: Staff, Morning

Burly orderlies and agile Calm Effect nurses flooded the cafeteria from the Courtyard while regular hall nurses filed in from the Sun Room and ushered out those not involved in the rebellion. It indeed seemed as if Landel was sending out all the cavalry, and an effective cavalry they were: The riot didn't continue for much longer after the alarm sounded, though it seemed strange just how quickly all of the mutinous patients fell, even the ones who hadn't been injected with anything.

The hall nurses were quick to escort their well-behaved charges back to their rooms, praising those who hadn't joined in and chiding those who muttered under their breath in response. There were some exceptions, of course: One nice young man had even defended one of the nurses from the violent patients! Now, wasn't that exemplary behavior? Dr. Landel would be so proud to hear about it...

Within half an hour, all of the so-called "loyal" patients had been safely deposited in their rooms, and it was then that the alarm finally stopped and the true difficulty of the situation was tackled. There certainly weren't enough rooms in solitary to accommodate such rampant disobedience, and yet measures would have to be taken to ensure proper consequences for each and every patient involved. After all, something like this couldn't be allowed to happen again!

Different options were considered. Perhaps they should make an example out of the girl who had sparked the riot, but then again, perhaps not. This certainly wasn't the first case of patients attacking nurses or their peers in a crowded area, but what had been different this time was the sheer support that the other patients had shown for her. Should the staff then make examples of all those who had tried to "protect" her from the well-meaning nurses? No, there were too many for that...

In the end, it was decided that the best immediate solution would be to treat the rebellious patients in the Medical Wing while they were unconscious and then move them back to their rooms to await punishment. To ensure the safety of both their roommates and the patients themselves, however, the staff decided to securely fasten their limbs to their beds and keep them heavily drugged. Such a sad sight they were to see, but... it was necessary.

Finally, when each and every patient had been escorted back to their respective rooms, the staff hurried off to an emergency meeting upstairs. Strangely, Head Nurse Lydia was the one taking care of the proceedings in the Head Doctor's stead. She calmly told them that he was preoccupied with more urgent matters, and as she began to speak to the crowd, the staff could only wonder what could possibly be more important than an unprecedented patient riot...

[ Comment to this post with separate threads for each patient room, and please put your character's room number in the subject line. Thank you! ]

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Nami blinked. It was obvious from her body language that Argilla really, really didn't want her to know what was going on, and Nami could respect that. What she didn't expect was Argilla to tell her in a few moments what was actually wrong.

She raised an eyebrow. They were just at breakfast, so unless Argilla despised cinnamon rolls - and was there anyone in the world that hated cinnamon rolls? - she had to be talking about something different.

The navigator took a few moments to ponder. "Hm, if you did happen to tell me that was what it was, then I might believe you. Unfortunately, while I wish I could sympathize with such a plight, I can't begin to understand." She shrugged. "Unless you're a vampire or something."

Well, she seemed to be accepting enough, which was a good start, although Argilla still didn't want to have to explain everything if she could avoid it. She remembered how mistrustful the Lokapala had been when they'd first arrived. Humans didn't like to think that they might be prey.

She blinked in confusion, the unfamiliar word distracting her from her hunger for a moment. "A vampire?" she asked curiously.

She shook her head, forcing herself to get back on track. "I'm hungry and there is nothing here that can satisfy until night falls and that makes me dangerous."

Nami glanced down at her maps for a moment (to her own too-high standards, shoddily drawn without measuring tools) and then back at Argilla. Wholly uninformed to the situation, she explained what she could. "A vampire, you know? A walking corpse that drinks blood, et cetera et cetera? ..Never mind." Everyone had heard of vampires, but it could have just been a legend in her own world.

She tapped her foot on the floor a couple times, studying Argilla's face. "Do you.. eat monsters or something?" She was a little bit repulsed by that thought, but she restrained herself from making a face. "Wish I could help."

"I've never heard of them," Argilla explained gently. Although they sounded like some of the demons she'd fought, but they all fed on flesh, not just blood.

She sighed softly and nodded. What else was there specifically at night that she could eat? "I eat demons. It's... it's complicated, but the monsters here are the only thing that will be satisfying, even if I eat anything else. And I haven't managed more than a mouthful since I arrived. I need to eat soon." Otherwise she might as well let something kill her because she'd become a mindless monster.

"A demon, huh? Like the one in the kitchen last night, and the other night when I went?" She nodded. 'Demons' seemed to gather around in the kitchen, from what she had gathered. Which made it a lot more difficult to go down to the basement, but... oh well.

Now, if Argilla could be used as a decoy to get down into the basement, that'd be a different thing. But could she really take a demon on herself? ...Well, the way she was talking, she probably knew how.

"...Well, why don't you try going and looking for one tonight?" She yawned perfunctorily. "I mean, it couldn't be too hard to find something for you. ...Are the other people - your friends who're also here - like that, too?"

Argilla stifled a wince at the mention of the demon in the kitchen. Damn Heat, getting into trouble like that. Okay, Roland had told her it had happened to him too, but that had been Indra. Heat would actually go around trying to eat people even without this place messing with them. She nodded. "Yes. Like that. There's a lot of them where I come from. Whole armies of them." She just didn't need to mention that she was one of them.

She smiled weakly and nodded. "I intend to. Before I end up hurting someone." Or going insane. It wasn't a bright prospect. "And yes, my friends here are like me. We're kind of living on a knife edge here. We don't know how this bit of information about us will be received. People might think we're working for this place or something."

"Whole armies," Nami repeated. The world Argilla came from - it didn't seem very fun, to be perfectly honest. Not that Nami cared incredibly much about the availability of fun - her crewmates supplied that most of the time, but a girl did have to look for some sometimes. No sea, huge armies of demons... how could anyone fight back against that sort of thing? "Is there a war going on?"

To the next bit of information she received, she blinked. "Well... all right. But I don't think anyone's going to think you're working for this place if you eat monsters. Honestly, I think most people would pat you on the back and tell you that you're doing all right." It didn't add up completely, but Nami wasn't really expecting to be told the whole story. It wasn't as if she and Argilla were great friends, anyway.

Argilla nodded solemnly. "The surface of the planet is uninhabitable to all but those infected with the demon virus because God... the Sun's data is corrupted. It turns humans into stone. But a group called he Karma Society has a special dome which filters the malignant data from God. They have an army of soldiers infected with the demon virus, but they hunt the humans who don't live within the dome, the Lokapal, for food. My tribe, the Embryon, was working with the Lokapala against the Karma Society because they had one of ours held captive and she is the only one who can talk to God and stop him destroying the world." Not a war in the normal sense of the word, but their Tribe could be seen as warring with them.

She gave Nami a brighter smile and nodded. "I hope so." It would be nice to think so. "As long as people don't get in my way when I'm too hungry, I'm not planning on hurting anyone here." She sagged a little in relief that Nami at least hadn't seemed horrified or disgusted. It kmeant a lot, actually.

Nami was able to understand most of that, except for certain parts. "Data is corrupted?" She blinked. She supposed that meant that something was wrong with the sun. Then again, perhaps Argilla's world was more scientifically advanced than her own. 'Data' could be a feature of the sun that the greatest scientists of the Grand Line couldn't figure out.

Then she paused, her eyes widening as she realized what Argilla was saying. "They hunt the humans for food, hm? That must be rather tough for you guys, then."

Finally, Nami nodded, and pointed at herself. "Ha ha, well, if you don't get food tonight.. I must be in the greatest danger of all. I don't honestly imagine I look that appetizing, though," she chuckled, though there was a little part of her that was absolutely terrified. Her eyebrow twitched a little bit. What if Argilla snapped right here and decided that Nami would be a delicious mid-morning snack!?

Argilla nodded solemnly. "Yes. That's why the sun in the world I came from is black. And the corrupt data corrupts human data, giving them the Cuvier Syndrome which turns their bodies into stone." Even the Junkyard hadn't been as bad as that, even with the endless rain. It had had its own odd kind of beauty.

"They capture them and imprison them before turning them into food. Until we killed the jailkeeper and destroyed the processing plant anyway." Ugh, that had been disgusting. Even hunting food was better than that.

She looked up sharply at Nami, a horrified expression crossing her face. "No! I won't lose control like that!" she said sharply, her expression pleading. Damn, she hadn't meant to make Nami scared of her. She could remember the faces of the Lokapala after they'd discovered what they were. She didn't want to see it again. "I was a little thrown by the blood spilled in the riot, but I'll be fine, I promise."

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Day 30: Staff, Morning

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