Solo Hear No Evil Part IV

[Switch]

Hear No Evil Part IV

Calendar NoteThe 17th of Fall is the date the first shipment of dead bodies arrives on the shores of Sahova for the season.

17th Fall, 514AV

Switch found himself at the docks, he had heard that there was suppose to be a shipment of the dead coming today and it was the only viable option the pycon could come up with that would get him inside the morgue and up close and personal with a body of the dead without the undead petchers going all 'No that's our vessel petch off.' The ship with it's masts breaking the dull horizon of the Nuit's citadel showed that the mainland's deceased have arrived, far earlier than Switch had hoped for cause he now had to hurry along and find some way to get into the morgue with the bodies, and not get caught...


Scampering hard to reach the unloading spot, Switch was force to dive headfirst behind the pylon that kept boat tethered to the dock so it wouldn't float away as the ship's living unloaded the dead, watcher golems were the only beings around the dock from the citadel. The Nuits didn't spend any time here, just their damnable golems. Those to shall fall to my clay hands. Yet first, he needed to slip between the dock and the storerooms of the dead – The Citadel's morgue. Crouched low he waited, watching booted sea-salted feet tramp up the plank and a few ticks later a second set of boots come down.

It was this second set of boots that Switch saw what he hoped was his access point. It was a box, a crate worn from travel and the salt of the sea, within was the dead body of some poor sap that would end up being turned into the new home of one of these dead bastards. The pycon paused, he had no skill in clearing the jump needed to make a moving object, so he decided the best way to fix this situation was to wait for them to pause at the bottom.

C'mon c'mon... Stop stop...

The pair of shipmates came down, a slight pause at the bottom of the plank and the men sat their precious cargo down. It appears that they were a bit... Tired from the heavy load they were forced to carry onto the dock's solid surface. With a quick glance of the side available to Switch he could see there were small gaps between wood slats, some were more crooked and open than others.

I think I can fit into one of them... And the animator pushed away from his hiding spot, as poorly done as it was, and squeezed his small body into one of the large holes close to the ground. He was halfway into the hole when the two shipmates returned to their task of carrying the object... The box was hoisted into the air, mere inches off the ground, but the ground was unseen by Switch and therefore beyond his reach of understanding (not to mention beyond the placement of his feet). So hanging there the pycon was forced to fight, squeeze, and forcefully rely on his upper body to bring the remaining bit of his body up and into the hole.

The dropping of the crate though helped, and Switch found himself thrown into the body's cold embrace. Well, that was easy... When he heard the creaking of golem wheels nearby the pycon gulped and had to find someplace to hide... All there was in his immediate location was the dead body and the crate – not much else was available for him currently. Crate not available to hide in... He could hear the tinny sound of the golems asking to see the contents to his thoughts became reality and therefore he had to hide...

So pushing himself underneath the body and then up into the being's body through the first available hole he could find. Switch found himself entering the deeper portions of the body, it was cold... Clammy, a bit tight, but fortunately it was how he was able to hide from view.

[Switch]

Unfortunately the hole Switch found himself having crawled into was originally an exit only sort of placement and therefore the place he found himself stuck in was a bit cramped and uncomfortable... Room was needed to move about if he was to survive, or even exit the body once it was taken into the morgue. He could hear nothing nor see nothing, which was surprising for sound, as he knew, was amplified in darkness. Here Switch was, surrounded by darkness, and he heard nothing – not a muffle or sound emerged from his velvety hiding place.

So, instead of waiting for the body to lifted, for as far as the pycon knew it was already been examined and found fit for the use that was intended for it and taken to the morgue. So he had to become creative with the time he knew he had available and therefore had to shuffle and pull limbs in and re-arrange his body to make due with the situation at hand. Several moments passed by as he did this until the pycon was able to use one of his hands to unclasp his pack, reach in and remove his eating knife. The blade was never sharpened as it wasn't meant for cutting as much as it was meant for consuming food with, but it worked well enough for... Well, for what a knife was used for... In this case, he lifted it up and started once more to rearrange his body so that the bladed 'weapon' came around to the front of his body via groping hands slowly moving it from back to front.

With knife in hand though, Switch pressed it against the wall of the organ before him and felt the wall resist before the blade finally pierced through. The smell was atrocious and the gel that flooded the opening he was in was only pooling around his body. Using the knife as a pry tool the results was disgustingly vile. What was once the life fluid of this body was a thick, unforgiving gel that threatened to end the life of the only living creature to have felt it in any number of days or seasons. Luckily the hole was getting wider and the gelatinous fluid wasn't flowing any faster, so the threatening of his life was lessened as Switch was now able to stand up more.

Prying the hole wider allowed for the pycon to stand even more, sadly he had more sacks of unknown masses between him and fresh air, as this stuff was really starting to stink badly. Pushing those sacks aside he was able to poke as another membrane, this one was a bit like a thick bit of elastic, something that once may have had some give to it but now, now it was stiffened and what give it has was simply leftover. Thrusting knife once more upward Switch grunted as he tried to shift the knife back and forth, slowly working his way into the thicker mass of tissue before he came to a thinner membrane that he was able to see a murkiness, almost like twilight.

Outside of the body perhaps? Switch tilted his head and then pushed the blade of his eating utensil up and through the final membrane, it punched through it like it was paper, the air rushed into, whistling past his blade and filling his face with the heavy scent of the sea and home. Sighing in relief Switch realized he could almost see beyond the body. The crate had been sealed shut again it appeared and that means the Pycon's plan to hide amongst the dead was successful...

Sticky, but successful.

[Switch]

The time of day was still unknown to Switch, he could safely assume that he was within the deceased person's physical body for less than a bell, but with the crate still sealed he had no idea how long he was truly within. Not pushing his way through the whole being he instead placed himself in between the layer of muscle and bones and the layer of organs and mush. The cause of death was unknown, and therefore not necessary to complete the task Switch had in mind, as long as the body's head and ears were intact.

Using his knife as a tool to separate the layers from one another Switch pulled, pushed, and dragged himself slowly up the internal length of the dead until he was wedged in between what appeared to be the ribcage and the heart and lungs. It was a tight spot and it didn't bode well with the Pycon at all. He grimaced as the realization of being snagged between the dead's once beating heart and the cage of bone that protected it he used his free hand to locate a the top end of the ribcage. It wasn't easy with the muscle between him and the organs but he could feel the curved end after some time of trying and using his knife he punched a hole up through the layer of muscle, over the top lip of the ribcage and out through the skin of the deceased. Forcing the hole larger Switch pulled himself out of the body and set his knife down on the chest of the deceased. It was a male, younger than most, and clearly a human.

Head was intact, as were both ears... For now. Judging from the lack of movement the body, crate, and pycon have made it to the morgue and therefore the pycon would be able to continue his work without worrying about a lack of light... He just had to get the crate open or get more light in...

The crate's top was ajar, meaning it must have been recently opened again and not lowered back down fully and that allowed for Switch to weasel his way up and out of the box to take a look at his surroundings. It was clear of golems and Nuit alike and it was lit quite nicely. Nodding to himself the Pycon leaned down and took hold of the crate's lid. With a series of heavy grunting and forceful pushing the animator was able to slide the lid off further and therefore gain himself more light on his subject. The ear was fully visible in the light now and Switch jumped back into the crate and looked closely at the ear.

It was a fleshy thing that sort of curved In towards a hole that was set into the side of the head. All around the hole was the flesh, meaning it was a conical shape almost. Yet the larger portion was on the part further from the head. Climbing back onto the chest he picked up his knife. It was coated in a black jelly like substance that when the light hit it shined a lovely purple-red color. It was congealing blood that was devoid of oxygen. Wiping the blade off on the man's hair Switch placed the blade against the side of the head, using the dull cutting edge he started to saw at the ear.

Removing the outer ear was no easy task, with such a dull edge to cut with the Pycon had to pull hard at the flesh to stretch the skin tight enough to get the blade to pierce through it. So the resulting removal was more of a hard tearing and ripping than it was any sort of loving surgical procedure.

Two Chimes Later

The ear was removed, finally after much struggling and Switch was able to look within the hole itself. It was a narrow opening and Switch wasn't entirely sure what he was seeing, The solution, he felt, was to remove more of the outside of the face, providing more access to the inner workings.

[Switch]

Using his knife the Pycon cut away chucks of flesh, muscle, fat, and cracked and pried away at the bits of bone that he could break off. The process was not an easy one, yet he had managed to open the side of the man's face up more therefore giving him more access to see within and around the ear. During the process Switch had dug around around the ear, realizing then that the ear had an outer fleshy part, that connected to a narrow tube. The tube wasn't very long but it too was a curved item, nearly cylindrical, much like the drum he crudely made several days prior. He paused, stood back up straight and took the time to look around for some sort of object to draw upon. The pycon didn't think to bring paper or a quill, yet he had a full canvas to work with...

Climbing back onto the chest of the deceased he scanned his vicinity and located the hole he tore open from the inside to get out, there was a large flap of skin that curled onto the body and was as clean a canvas he was going to have access to currently. Grabbing a hold of it the Pycon stared at the swatch of flesh before he held up a gore covered hand and smeared an even cruder image upon it.

It had a curved almost funnel cone shape that fed into set of parallel lines connecting to it, using his fingers he wrote the words 'flesh cone' and 'tube' within the current drawing. Bringing his diagram with him Switch dropped backed own beside the head and went back to work. Using his hand he dug and tore away more of the man's skull, muscle, and flesh to reveal a small bubble within the skull that connected to the tube and apparently some sort of organic string that fed inward.

Pulling himself back out Switch turned to his diagram and drew more, a deformed bubble shape with a line coming from the back. Using his finger once more he scribbled the words 'bone bubble' and 'organic string' Setting diagram back down Switch turned his gaze at the hole on one side. It wasn't very big but he could see the whole of one side, it was time to check the other sides out and see if his diagram would work for it.

A Chime Later

The digging out was done, his current diagram would be effective but he wanted to know what was within the bubble and to do that he needed more room to work with. The whole physical object was supported by the 'string' and he wanted to know what it was attached to, yet that was fed through a thick shell of bone. Thinking about it Switch looked at the pack on his back it was covered in a lovely mingling of bone bits, flesh, muscle, and blood...

He knew he had nothing to with he could break the bone apart with so with a gulp he removed it and balled up his hands. It was time to get primitive and use his hands to break open the man's skull. Gulping once more Switch started to punch the skull repeatedly. It wasn't at all forgiving and the pain of each strike was ungodly annoying but the pycon continued with it. It was in the name of research after all.

Another Chime Later

Switch had busted the skull up as best as he could around the ear with his own hands. Bits of bone were now embedded in his flesh and the pycon paused to remove as much as he could before he returned to pry out the bits of bone he had created but wouldn't just fall out. As soon he was able to remove all of the shards the Pycon could see the strand he wanted to get a hold of led to a mushy pile of strands encased in a sort of sack. That must be their nexus... He climbed out of his head hole and drew the remaining bit.

Once he drew the crude side of it, just a curved line, he wrote next to it 'string sack'.

[Switch]

OOC NOTEI know my explanations for the human ear and it's anatomy are poor. I am not a medical student and am basing them off of poor adaptions of the ear is a 2D spatial perspective via images from google. PLus I am going with Switch here, who lacks medical knowledge. Please be gentle. LOL his drawings are below.

Once the pycon has finished up his crude diagram of the setup he pulled the nerve from the brain, severing the connection and lifted the whole construct of organic materials in his hands. It was a massively heavy object for the little clay man, yet it was important for him to understand. Grunting Switch lifted the object onto a shoulder, letting it hang and drag about on both his front and back. Dragging it out and away from the body he paused and stooped to grab his morbid sketch before stuffing that into his chest and heading towards the fastest route out of the box.

Tossing the ear so it drooped over the upper corner of the box Switch climbed after it and dropped back down on the other side, pulling the lovely bit of human organs along with him, sliding himself back under it so he was once more shouldering it Switch took to scurrying as fast as he could, ignoring (or forgetting) the trail of sticky blood that snaked behind him.

It took the pycon a few bells to get from morgue to the docks, from the docks to the citadel where he came out at, and then from there to Lab 22A, once there though Switch dropped the ear on the floor and pushed the door shut. Turning his attention once more to the ear he dragged it to the workbench, climbing and pulling the ear up the stool once he got to it.

Once Switch and the ear were on the flat surface of the stool did Switch lift it over his head and toss it with both hands over to the actual bench itself with a mighty grunt. As the ear landed with a sticky thud the pycon landed as well with a heavier more solid thud. Standing after a few seconds Switch looked at the ear closer, he had to know what was contained with that bone bubble... What is so special about it? Leaning close to it the animator frowned as he stared at it, it seemed so fragile sitting there.. And fragile things break easy... Looking around the pycon knew he left his brush here a few days ago.

There it was! Still sitting as a brace for the upturned bowl. Switch moved to it, pausing a bit as he looked at the bone bubble and then nodded, “It must happen...” Grabbing a hold of his brush he pulled it hard, with a falling on his arse the bowl's weight shifted off the brush handled and clattered noisily to the bench's top, trembling the little animator as he gripped his brush dearly. Once he felt he could stand Switch did so, heading once more to his ear that sat there.

Raising the brush high above his head though Switch brought it down against the bubble, cracking it open immediately. Inside was a mess of things, and Switch was already dreading the task ahead. Dropping the brush he stopped slow, reaching into his chest to pull out his morbid gore drawn diagram and drew an arrow from the bubble to a large circle and immediately started making drawings of what he saw.

The side that had the tube that connected to the flesh cone was a small thin membrane, it was an odd looking shape, but it appeared to be close, if not connected to a small set of bone fragments. Reaching a finger in he tapped the membrane, it trembled slightly, the bones that was next to it rattled. Unfortunately he struck it too hard and the membrane tore.

Turning his attention though away from the ruined membrane Switch took in that there was an odd shape that spiraled, almost like a shell, between the bones and the funny string he noticed when into the human's nexus.

Grabbing a hold of the shell Switch tried to pull it up, but realized he would have to tear it away from the structure around it. Grunting and groaning that is exactly with the pycon did. Tearing the shell from its location he noticed immediately that the string tore on one side and on the other side the bits of bones clatter and fell away from one another. There seemed to be a second membrane on the opening that was close to the bones.

Wait a tick... Leaning closer he saw two membranes, lines up near one another, yet their shapes were slightly different. Realizing that his diagram was full he flipped over the flap of skin and using his fingers dug out his second diagram, gently so he didn't remove the skin on the other side. This diagram started to be drawn with a flat face and two roundish circles on it. Drawing lines to the two circles he marked them as thin membranes that can be punctured.

Against one of the membranes Switch was able to make out the jelly like substance in the inside, rotating the shell he saw the same jelly film on the other membrane as well. This he noted as well.

“Hmm...” He sit the thing down and proceeded to puncture and then tear apart the whole flat surface, revealing more gelled over liquid before his hands. Switch frowned and reached a hand into the object, reaching another thin membrane the pycon nodded and using his free hand made sure to extend the shell like shape around and then made mention of another membrane.

It did him no good to keep just using his hands, he needed to see. So pushing more of his body into his arm he bulged it wider until it cracked the sides apart and allowed Switch to pull apart the side of the shell. What he found was amazing, beyond the larger membrane inside the shell he saw small thin hairs, these seemed to feed into the wall and it was here that Switch found that the whole shell had a thin gap, almost like an air pocket, and that was where the string he saw earlier was located. In this pocket he could see that the little hairs had roots that seemed to dance around the string.

Switch let go of the shell is looked at his diagrams, somehow this all related to his drum he made earlier in the season... And the blasted golems.

Diagram 1 || Diagram 2

Artistic CreditI used paint.net, drawn by my own hand and mouse...

[Switch]

Sitting down on his buttocks, or at least what bit of clay one could call such a location, Switch frowned and put gore coated hands on chin. It was a puzzle he had given himself and he had to connect the dots and make sense of it all.

“Okay...” He stood and pointed at his original full image diagram that had the flesh cone. “Funny cone shape some how brings sound into the tube.” Switch's finger hovered over the cone and as he spoke he 'traced' the tube towards the bubble.

“Once it goes through the tube it reaches the bubble's membrane...” His finger followed the arrow down to his inner bubble image and hovered on the membrane right by the tube. “Cone. Tube. Membrane... Cone. Tube. Membrane...” The pycon muttered the words repeatedly as he thought on them.

“What else had a cone shape that made sound?” He looked over at the bowl, “Of course! The bowl is almost like the cone of the ear. It brought noises back at the sender when I stood in the middle of it...The tube is like my drum's body, the sound travels down it and makes itself present on the membrane. That must be how it works. I wonder...” It wasn't too surprising that Switch left his toys out for others to see them, there was so much junk around that they probably were ignored anyway.

“Hmm.” He tipped the poorly designed drum on its side and rested a foot on it. Before dropping his pack down on the side of the drum away from him. Once that was done the pycon removed his foot from the instrument and looked around. Switch wanted to see how well his thoughts worked if he could attach a funnel shape to his makeshift drum if it will be a good resemblance of what he concluded from his dissection... Yet Switch had no funnel, nor anything to pull from to make one, at least... Not in his possession currently.

“Funnels are cone shaped, yet have holes on both ends. One larger then the other, hence the cone shape. This one must be stiffer than normal, as I want to test it using my own voice and a floppy bit of cloth just wouldn't due.” Looking around the lab from his 'vantage point' the pycon was able to see bits of junk and odds and ends all about. It was in this scattering that he saw what looked to be an abandoned inkwell just discarded.

He had to hurry down the bench and fetch the object. Luckily he found it easily enough just thrown on the floor by the door. Racing across the open floor plan was easy enough. Once the object was in his hands Switch saw why it was discard, it's bottom had been broken off and the cork that the scribes used to seal the wells was gone, probably discarded somewhere in this very lab. Yet in the condition it was currently in, this well was perfect for Switch's experiment.

Carefully carrying the broken inkwell Switch made his way back to his drum and the current plan in mind. His spool of a drum was too thick for the well's neck, but the neck had a slight lip that made if just thick enough to slip into the drum's non-coat covered side (originally the bottom) and fit snugly at that.

Laying down next to his hard replica of the flesh cone, tube, and first membrane of the ear Switch called into the well, it was just a rumbling yelp really... Yet the results was astounding, his feet could feel the membrane bulge slightly as his voice went through the funnel, up the tube, and made connection with the tube.

“Excellent!” Excited Switch stood and ran to his diagram, tracing fingers along it's length he found the next bit... There were three odd bone shapes, well Switch didn't have bones laying around... But he did have small objects all about. There still remained bits of charred wood from his golem's creation still sitting mere inches from his body. A simple scoop up of them and he laid them real close to the membrane in a single file line moving away:

OOC ASCII Image Representation :

>====] - - -

> is the inkwell
==== drum body
] membrane
--- charred wood

When he laid down again, this time he had a foot near, but not touching, the last bit of wood from the trio of bits. This time he called into the funnel and his foot couldn't feel anything. Frowning Switch nudged the three closer together and tried again...

Success! His foot felt the slightest movement from the bit of wood and laughed to himself.

“Sound traveled down my funnel, into the drum's body... It interacted with the membrane and the membrane's movement nudged the wood bits. Now.. What if I put them just barely touching the membrane?” And he moved all three even closer to the membrane and repeated the process, this time his foot moved with the final wood chuck tapped it. It wasn't a large move, but it was there.

[Switch]

So sound moved down the tube after being brought in by the funnel, the tubed sound made the membrane react and then the membrane's movement cause the stuff on the other side of it to move, in this instance it was bits of wood... Yet Switch had a feeling that if he was able to seal them all into a small object and then repeat the process he would have the better results.

Too anxious though to test that bit, when he prototyped a more fitting item Switch knew he would test that, right now he wanted to make sure he could create the whole system. The shell was the next part, and that was going to prove the hardest...

Once again he had to sit down and think on that. He didn't have anything that could resemble the shell and yet he knew what he needed. A suitable outer container for the item, a membrane or two for the outside, a second membrane inside, some sort of liquid between the two sets of membranes, with more space between them and the end of the object, but not a whole lot as Switch wasn't going to make the little hair bits in it, and then something that could connect to a nexus.

My nexus that is. Inside my bag I have a three inch bit of wire, that will work perfectly... Maybe I can use a bit of my own body... Nodding the pycon turned his attention to the next big step in his plans... Procuring the necessary materials to create the fully designed prototype. But first, the Pycon needed to wash and rest his little body... Maybe eat a little and find some materials to do a real diagram.

Measurements, a list of the required materials, then and only then, would he make the prototype... After all, he wasn't going to use junk in his own body...

[Ink]

Fate has dictated the conclusion to your journey...

...And now, only Fortune awaits you.

I am Ink, Mistress of Sahova; and it is my pleasure to award you with this bounty of XP and Lore. If you have any questions regarding this Grade, please do not hesitate to send me a PM. Fret not, I tend not to smite...often.

 

Switch

XP

• Stealth 1
• Observation 3
• Acrobatics 1
• Climbing 1
• Escape Artist 1
• Dissection 3
• Unarmed 1
• Drawing 2
• Medicine 1
• Logic 1

LORES

• Hiding in Hollowed Nuit Vessel
• The Ear and The Drum
• Anatomy of a Human Ear
• Human Brain ie ‘String Sack’

With Regards,
Ink