Dr. Elias Conrad Coldwood (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
arcanegrasp) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
ph_logs2024-12-10 11:28 pm
arcanegrasp) wrote in ph_logs2024-12-10 11:28 pm
[Closed] Inner Sanctum
Who: Dr. Elias Coldwood (arcanegrasp) & Shen Qingqiu (xiaoxiuya)
What:The investigation of Dr. Coldwood's home
When:Early December
Where: The Lighthouse
Warning(s): [ Will add as they become relevant! ]
"...No, I understand completely, ma'am, but surely you can just tell them it's a bad idea, couldn't you?"
Dr. Elias Coldwood paces the living room of the lighthouse, sending stone in hand and brows furrowed so deeply that it looks as though it could give him a headache, growing more exasperated by the minute. Adventuring parties, goddesses mercy, he thought he'd be free of the scourge of adventuring parties getting tangled in anything they could find in such a small town, but apparently he'd have no such luck. It seems like the off-worlders have been inspiring the locals to take up arms and carve their own paths where they're able. Where there is danger, there are people who want to face it, and where those people are, there is a desperate need for information so they don't get themselves killed for no reason. Even in the evening hours, apparently.
"Right, of course. Yes, no, I understand," Elias sighs. "I'll be there shortly. ...Yes, yes, I'll bring the antivenom, just in case. Goodbye."
The sending stone dims, and Dr. Coldwood lets out a short groan that is nothing short of profoundly irritated.
"When it rains, it pours, does it not?" He half-jokes, tugging on his coat and collecting things off of a cluttered end-table, snagging a few journals off of the bookshelf. "First the roof leak, now the adventurers... I swear, they can't leave well enough alone with that goddesses-forsaken wyvern. I suppose that's what happens when a small town gets one, though. No one knows how to behave when megafauna get involved."
The ins and odds are stored in his satchel, which is slung over his shoulder. An apologetic smile back towards Shen Qingqiu follows it.
"Feel free to take the rest of the evening to yourself, if you'd like. We'll pick back up where we left off tomorrow. Just be certain to lock the door behind you, if you don't mind. Enjoy your night, my friend!"
And, in his great hurry, he barely waits for a response before he's out the door. Boot-clad footfalls fade distantly once they're off of that first stone step.
-
Without Dr. Coldwood's presence inside of it, flitting about to and fro amid all his work, the house seems shockingly still. A long couch and aged armchair sit before a fireplace, old embers hidden behind a short metal screen. The dining table, mostly cleared through the help of his assistants in organizing, sorting, and filing his collection of notes away, bears a single magically-lit lamp. To the far end of the room, round stairs begin to climb the wall upwards, towards the lighthouse, to Dr. Coldwood's private dwellings, then further up to the lighthouse's lamp itself. On the other end, a sloping stairwell to the basement descends into darkness, a lamp sitting on a short shelf to be taken down when something is needed.
The entire cluttered-but-comfortable home is, for one of the first times that isn't fleeting moments, left open to prying eyes. The only question is the same beckoned by an empty canvas to its artist: where to begin?
arcanegrasp) & Shen Qingqiu (xiaoxiuya)What:The investigation of Dr. Coldwood's home
When:Early December
Where: The Lighthouse
Warning(s): [ Will add as they become relevant! ]
"...No, I understand completely, ma'am, but surely you can just tell them it's a bad idea, couldn't you?"
Dr. Elias Coldwood paces the living room of the lighthouse, sending stone in hand and brows furrowed so deeply that it looks as though it could give him a headache, growing more exasperated by the minute. Adventuring parties, goddesses mercy, he thought he'd be free of the scourge of adventuring parties getting tangled in anything they could find in such a small town, but apparently he'd have no such luck. It seems like the off-worlders have been inspiring the locals to take up arms and carve their own paths where they're able. Where there is danger, there are people who want to face it, and where those people are, there is a desperate need for information so they don't get themselves killed for no reason. Even in the evening hours, apparently.
"Right, of course. Yes, no, I understand," Elias sighs. "I'll be there shortly. ...Yes, yes, I'll bring the antivenom, just in case. Goodbye."
The sending stone dims, and Dr. Coldwood lets out a short groan that is nothing short of profoundly irritated.
"When it rains, it pours, does it not?" He half-jokes, tugging on his coat and collecting things off of a cluttered end-table, snagging a few journals off of the bookshelf. "First the roof leak, now the adventurers... I swear, they can't leave well enough alone with that goddesses-forsaken wyvern. I suppose that's what happens when a small town gets one, though. No one knows how to behave when megafauna get involved."
The ins and odds are stored in his satchel, which is slung over his shoulder. An apologetic smile back towards Shen Qingqiu follows it.
"Feel free to take the rest of the evening to yourself, if you'd like. We'll pick back up where we left off tomorrow. Just be certain to lock the door behind you, if you don't mind. Enjoy your night, my friend!"
And, in his great hurry, he barely waits for a response before he's out the door. Boot-clad footfalls fade distantly once they're off of that first stone step.
-
Without Dr. Coldwood's presence inside of it, flitting about to and fro amid all his work, the house seems shockingly still. A long couch and aged armchair sit before a fireplace, old embers hidden behind a short metal screen. The dining table, mostly cleared through the help of his assistants in organizing, sorting, and filing his collection of notes away, bears a single magically-lit lamp. To the far end of the room, round stairs begin to climb the wall upwards, towards the lighthouse, to Dr. Coldwood's private dwellings, then further up to the lighthouse's lamp itself. On the other end, a sloping stairwell to the basement descends into darkness, a lamp sitting on a short shelf to be taken down when something is needed.
The entire cluttered-but-comfortable home is, for one of the first times that isn't fleeting moments, left open to prying eyes. The only question is the same beckoned by an empty canvas to its artist: where to begin?
no subject
He stows the newer journal once more, taking the time to consider that, his frown turning thoughtful.
"I assume you mean to think that I've got a lapse in time from finding the blade," Elias says, casting one more glance to it. "And while I admit I don't recall where it's come from, I don't find myself missing any time that I could have found such a thing. One day it was simply... there, in a stored box of my old things. As if it'd always been there. As it strains the mind to look at for any long period of time, I... saw to it that I wouldn't accidentally stumble upon it again."
no subject
Well, this just got a whole lot more complicated. They found someone with ties to the cult, all right, but the gaps in Elias's memory raise the possibility that he is only a mind-wiped stooge with planted evidence. But at the same time, a surviving cultist might have chosen to have their memories wiped, turning them into a sleeper agent...It's just not possible to be sure with the information they have.
"We may have more questions about the dagger and your journal later," he says quietly, returning the dagger to its bag. "But for now, why don't you tell me how to look after that creature of yours? It seemed rather volatile when I encountered it earlier."
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Her attention shifts to Elias when Shen asks about the creature.
"Before that, what is she?"
The creature didn't feel like something natural or normal, and based on Elias's ties to the cult, she's not certain it's capable of being a kind one.
no subject
It's written all over his face that he cannot find such a justification, though, save for the truth.
"...She's something entirely unique, in and of herself. I've never seen anything like her in all my life," Elias begins, quieter now. Almost somber. "I don't entirely recall how I came to find her. It's little more than a dream to me. A... seed, if you'd believe it. Almost a strange growth of something our world could not comprehend, and the promise that its potential far surpasses its meager current form, if given the time, space, and blood it requires to grow."
A beat. He takes in a slow breath, and lets out a shakier one.
"You two must understand, that--- that before you'd arrived, the people could not hear from the goddesses any longer. Not even the most devout among us could reach them. With the silence and the barrier, and everything I'd done to try to test it, it seemed as though the goddesses were simply... gone. That we were trapped at the focal point of a world-wide calamity, and that the Four Mothers would never be able to save their people from it again. Whatever contained us, many of us had come to understand that mortals could not surpass it."
He hesitates, but flips to the bloodied page of his journal on the table. His expression is grim when he raises his attention back to Shen Qingqiu and Valdis.
"When you are faced with an empty pantheon, a seemingly doomed world, and given a seed of divinity... what choice would you have but to plant it? To raise a godling all the way to its ascension, so that we might, someday, be free of this curse?"
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“Divinity? You wouldn’t know divinity if it kissed you.”
is not thrilled by this new information in the slightest.
“How is it that humans can’t ever do anything for themselves.”
She sighs heavily to cover the inhuman growl in her throat.
“You can’t create something from nothing and a creature fed exclusively on blood and sacrifice cannot understand the value of life. You haven’t created a god, you’ve created a predator.”
no subject
He lifts a hand, scratching gently over his beard, and lets out a sigh of his own.
"I had nowhere else that she could have feasibly been raised in, and--- and the nature of what she is, as I've been brought to understand it, needs blood to be sustained. She's... still just a fledgling, even after all this time. She understands little beyond her next meal, my face and voice, and the basement. I know it's not ideal. Do you---" He cuts himself off to let out a short laugh, torn between sarcastic and offended. "Do you honestly believe that I'd raise anything in a basement by choice? She's easily provoked! She's docile with me, but she's so--- skittish around others, so quick to answer threats with her teeth. Had she been found before, or goddesses forbid, attack someone, there's every chance she would have been killed. No, no, I--- I couldn't risk that. Not when the everything that's at stake is quite so high."
He catches himself, and settles, the bristling of his tangent sinking back into something solemn.
"Or everything that had been at stake. The goddesses are alive. We've known this for some time, now, and I haven't known how to proceed. I can't... I won't kill her, nor see her be killed. Surely the two of you must understand that much."
no subject
"She is innocent in your plotting to replace the goddesses, if that was genuinely your goal, no harm shall come to her unless she becomes an active, immediate threat to the residents of Pumpkin Hollow."
Valdis is not convinced Elias is within his full mind, there are too many gaps in his memory concerning the journal, the language, the dagger...no, it seems too similar to the reports from Cerrit and Leon.
"Shen, I'm putting you in charge of her."
It would likely be unwise for her to interact with the creature, who knew how their respective divinities would interact.
"Now, Elias, I want you to tell me this. Are you, or were you once, a member of the Cult of Nyarlathotep?"
no subject
Whatever it is, he hopes it's not focused on him.
no subject
"Wh--- what? No, of course not. I know her nature and that of the dagger lend itself to such an assumption, but--- I've no ties to such a cult, no. I know of its existence through rumors that have been passed around the town for some months now, but nothing more than that."
no subject
"You see, I don't believe you. I believe you think you are being truthful, but even you can't explain why you can speak and write the same language found within the book belonging to that very cult. I think someone messed with your head."
There is a way to check, to force the issue, maybe she's even angry enough to try, but such things shouldn't be done in anger, and Shen wouldn't understand the purpose of it. Indeed, no one even knows she can do such a thing, so perhaps now is not the time to play that card. Elias isn't currently a threat.
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Shen Qingqiu is right to try to smooth him over when he does, because he teeters dangerously on outrage - but he takes in a sharp breath, rubbing his face firmly to try to soothe his strained nerves. He takes a few moments, before he finally looks back to Shen Qingqiu, his expression torn somewhere strangely between indignant and very, very afraid.
"Tend to her, but know this--- she is not yours. If I must, I will make sure that your constables and Town Hall hear no end of it," he warns, but the desperation of it dampens any of the genuine threat he might have tried to make. "Integration and socialization, if possible, will need to happen under my watch, and no less. It isn't safe to try to perform any introductions without my being there, either. I say this not out of pride, but necessity. I won't have you place her in a situation where she will be put to death by negligence."
Elias swallows roughly at the thought, but, at last, gives a nod, slow and tense.
"I... can teach you, however. To speak with her. If you'll abide by what I ask, I'll teach you all that you need," he adds, gentler this time. "Please. She--- she may be a nascent god, and I'll reckon with that, should the day come, but for now... she's all I have left. I'll do all that I must, depriving her has never been my goal, but please--- do not take her from me."
no subject
Valdis will not allow this creature to suffer because people are afraid of her. In fact, she suspects that the creature will have more support than Elias believes.
Finally, far softer.
“One last thing. Does she have a name?”
no subject
He hesitates, but answers quietly, with a hushed sort of sentimentality a parent might reserve for a sleeping infant.
"...Glory. Her name is Glory."