![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
01. The microscopic section of this gland or organ is extremely beautiful.
[ The morgue and the coroner's office are in the basement of the Riverview Hospital, which would be depressing were it not for the fact that the coroner's office is placed so that it has a window. The basement also features a large storage room that has become a dumping ground for miscellaneous furniture and supplies. At times where Harry's been at loose ends and in need of something to do, he has reorganized that storage room ... and now he's found a new use for it.
The incursion of small pesky critters has a lot to do with it, as does the fact that his office is starting to overflow with items that he's collected around the quarantine in his time there. Soon the storage room starts slowly transforming into a distinctly 19th-century-flavoured laboratory, with tanks and cages for living creatures and jars for preserved specimens—not just of the pests, but also other interesting plants and insects. There's also an eyeball from one of the large predatory pterodactyl creatures, and feathers from the same are kept on his worktable.
It doesn't occur to him that it might be nice to mention this side project to the hospital administrators, but he doesn't exactly get a lot of visitors, so it's going to be a little while before anyone notices.
...well, once these messages go out, someone probably will. ]
To Captain Anali Apple and the Perimeter Guard
Greetings. I am Dr. Harry Goodsir, and I have the privilege to serve as Coroner to the Riverview Quarantine. I write in reference to the small Creatures that have been plaguing the city, and for which I understand you have offered a Bounty. As an Anatomist and Naturalist by training, I am very interested in these particular* Creatures, and would welcome the opportunity to acquire from the Guard any Specimens of these Pests*—living or dead—so that I may make a Study of them. Perhaps such a Study will yield results that are Relevant to the control of their Population and Range. Please advise how we may arrange Delivery.
Your obedient servant,
Dr. Harry Goodsir
Network text post | [Bad username or site: hds @ goodsir]
To my fellow Riverview citizens, greetings. I am Dr. Harry Goodsir, and I have the privilege to serve as Coroner to the Riverview Quarantine. I am also a Naturalist by training, and I have begun to collect Specimens of the local Flora and Fauna with the Intention of developing a systematic Catalogue of the life we encounter here in the Quarantine and without the walls. I should like to humbly request the Assistance of my fellow men and women in this Endeavour. I seek information about* Specimens for study, as well as any visual or written Reports of curious sightings that I may investigate further. You may write to me via the Network, or you may seek me in person in my Office at the Riverview Hospital.
Your obedient servant,
Dr. Harry Goodsir
[ Feel free to pop into his office with something awful in a cage or a jar. He'll (probably) be delighted. Post title is from the writings of the historical Harry D. S. Goodsir. ]
[ * These parts added after Nat sets him straight. ]
text
That's the thing about great undertakings, isn't it? If survival were guaranteed, it wouldn't be a great undertaking. It would be commonplace. It would be easy.
[ Yes, she is assuming quite a bit here, but he's not exactly been stingy with the clues. ]
text
That is so. Though I have begun to wonder where Courage ends and Hubris begins, in affairs such as these. I rather think it is far too easy to fall into the latter.
[ Erebus and Terror were equipped with the finest cutting-edge technology of the 1840s, after all, and look where it got them. ]
text
Look on the bright side. It's easier to fall into a hole, and you haven't done that yet.
text
If I may—what is your Background? What is it that you do here, and before you came to the Quarantine?
text
I would have thought it would be easy to guess. YOU are the one who contacted ME. I'm with the Perimeter Guard. Before I came here I did something similar.
text
I thank you for your Patience. There is much that I have to learn, about this place and the men and women within it.
text
I will use my considerable Means and Skill to defend you against the greater Dangers, provided you do what you're told.
[ Given her track record, she'll end up doing what she can to protect him even if he doesn't listen to her. Not that she's going to tell him that. He seems like an odd sort of guy, and she's not too proud to admit that she's curious. ]
text
If possible, I should like to attempt a venture in about a week's time?
Re: text
Re: text