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(Setting) The M O T E L
| >Nym's non-existent heart sinks when they notice that they're missing three of the kids. Immediately, the lilim runs up the stairs to find the eldest of the children.
| >You head upstairs and find Cindy and Akira already tucking in some of the smols.
| "Cindy, Akira... A few girls are missing so I need to find them. You two are in charge while the rest of the adults are away. Call me immediately if anything happens, alright?"
| >Cindy's ears droop and Akira's lone ear pops up worriedly. The wolfgirl looks around, mentally counting the remaining children...
"...mombot-sama, I only count two missing here..." >She says, curiously.
"Mary-chan and Makoto-chan said they were going downstairs to get a snack...?"
| >Nym doesn't even answer as they run back down the stairs to find Mary and Makoto.
| >You don't need to go far before your cybereyes find a few droplets of something on the ground, leading to the kitchen...
| >Nym continues into the kitchen in search of the girls.
| >The kitchen is empty- a couple of chairs have been moved but there does not seem to be any sign of a struggle. The refridgerator is ajar. There is a trail of >red droplets
leading to the sink.
| >Nym immediately follows the trail
| >You've reached the sink- the sink is completely >>>coated in blood<<<, dark red and staining the faucet and handles as well.
| >Nym immediately pushes their sensors to max capacity to try and detect any signs of the girls.
"What the hell..."
| >Your heightened senses detect movement from the pantry!
| >Nym goes over to the pantry and opens it.
| >Within, you find Mary and Makoto, huddling together and shivering! As you open the doors they shudder in anticipation- both girls are covered in splotches of blood.
| >Nym quickly kneels close to the girls and takes a look at them.
"What happened!?"
| >Mary opens her eyes and embraces Nym!
"M-mommy," >She begins, shivering- the blood is slick and fresh on her face and clothes,
"T-there's a monster..."
| >Nym gives the girl a tight hug.
"A monster? Where?"
| >Makoto points weakly at the door outside to the pool, which is also ajar- a trail of blood leads that way as well.
| "Okay... I'll take care of it. The two of you need to go upstairs and stay with Cindy and Akira, alright?"
>As they speak, Nym already begins to usher the girls upstairs so the lilim can also get their weapons from their room.
| >The girls make their way upstairs under your careful eye- they meet Akira at the foot of the steps, who gasps upon seeing their forms, and begins speaking quickly in Japanese.
| "Akira, take care of them. I'm going after whatever attacked them. Call me immediately if something happens, understood?"
| >Akira bows to you and then ushers the girls to the bathroom.
| >Nym rushes into their room where they fasten Hoshi to their waist and sling an Ingram Smartgun over their body so it's partially concealed by their robe. Not wanting to waste too much time, the lilim then rushes downstairs and out the door where Makoto had pointed.
| >You're now in the empty pool area. The pool is slowly starting to accumulate leaves- it looks like it may be time for a closure soon(tm). The trail of blood moves off into some bushes nearby, up a short walkway.
| >Nym cautiously follows the trail of blood as they tune their sensors to search for heat signatures.
| >In the cold evening, finding a warm, or at least warm-ish body should be child's play- but aside from minor readings from the trail of blood, you sense nothing...
>There, behind the bushes, somewhere within a small gazebo. Movement- and eyes that seem to glow in the dark. It watches you.
| >Nym frowns and slowly approaches, fearing that their suspicions might be right.
"Hey there... Why don't you come on out? Are you alright...?"
| >The thing continues to glare at you, its red eyes wincing as you speak. You hear a low growl come from its direction as it scoots backward. The growl is low and guttural, but occasionally breaks, punctuated by a rasping and wet coughing noise.
| >Nym steps a bit closer before kneeling on the ground and opening their arms up.
"Come on, I won't hurt you. You're probably scared, huh...?"
| >The thing attempts to growl again, but instead it coughs, loud and hoarse- it tries to spit something on the ground and you hear it retching, combined with whimpers and cries of pain.
| >Hearing the pained coughs, Nym begins to approach again, arms still open in a welcoming and comforting manner.
"Let me see what's wrong with you..."
| >The growling gives way to a gurgling noise as the thing retches again, splashing dark red blood on your feet, mixed with food. As you near, they suddenly lash out with their hand, sharp, six inch spikes growing out of each finger!
| /r d20 +3 > 5 (FAIL)
| >You attempt to catch her arm in midswing- unfortunately you miscalculate, and the sharp fingers stab into your arm, going clear through it!
>The thing tries to rip its fingers out, but it's pretty well stuck in there. Its cries of anguish intensify, along with the pained growling.
| >Nym winces as they feel a jolt of pain from the wound.
"Nnn..."
>Doing their best to ignore the pain, Nym tries to get closer to the girl to give her an embrace.
"It's alright... It's going to be alright..."
| >With her hand stuck in your arm, the girl expends the last of her strength trying to pull it out, and begins to weep loudly, separated by harsh, painful sounding coughs. As you draw her closer, you find her clothes covered in dark blood, the dribble covering the entirety of her mouth and chest.
| >She looks like a ghoul, essentially.
| >Nym tightly embraces the girl and rubs her back while whispering into her ear in a soothing tone.
"Calm down... I'll take care of it... I need you to help me figure out what's wrong though..."
| >The girl vomits again, her chilly body shivering as she empties the contents of both her stomach and wherever the blood is coming from. You feel tears drip down her face as she grows still, her breathing erratic.
| >Nym continues to hold the girl close and tries to determine what is wrong with her.
| >>48075
>At this time, all you know is that her body temperature is clocking in abnormally low for a human, at 92 degrees farenheit. She is vomiting what appears to be blood, which could unfortunately signal any number of diagnoses. The first that comes to mind is perforation of the stomach.
| >The bile & blood mixture does not appear to be foamy in nature, suggesting it is not coming from the lungs. However, the ragged, hoarse gasps suggest a sore or damaged esophogus.
| >Nym carefully dislodges the girl's claws from their arm and carries them inside and into the kitchen. Carrying the girl with one arm, the lilim hastily clears up space on one of the counters before laying her down. As they do this, they're also communicating with someone via voice channel.
"Zolka, I need you to deploy it NOW. No, I don't need weapons on it. Just load it with the medical supplies and send it to my location."
| >As Nym hangs up, they begin to try and most closely diagnose what is ailing the girl using techniques that a paramedic might use on a patient.
| >Unfortunately, there isn't much that can be done for someone who's vomiting blood except to check for where the symptoms could be originating from. You determine that the girl does not appear to be suffering from any outside trauma.
| >You attempt to comfort the girl by at least cleaning her face and some of her clothes, and wrapping her already cold body with towels to encourage warmth. The girl is too tired to resist but constantly makes pained moaning noises along with weeping throughout this entire process.
| >The opens her mouth to vomit again, and a mix of bile and blood leaks out.
| >Nym continues to try comfort the girl before gently pressing their hand on different parts of their body in hopes of finding if anything is wrong internally.
| >>48136
>You feel around for any abnormalities in the girl's body... and immediately run into some abnormal lumps, that don't appear to be part of the girl's organs or musculature.
>There are several such lumps- they wouldn't have been noticeable had you not checked her physically. When you press one near her belly, she cries out weakly.
| >Nym takes note of all of the lumps and starts to build a diagram in their head of each lump's relative location to both each other, and to nearby organs. As they do this, they also begin to search online for what mixture of anesthesia would be safe for a child.
| >>48140
>Thankfully this is pretty quick- the question of whether it works with the girl's particular biological chemistry, however, is suspect...
| > r d20 -1 = 13 (pass)
>Using the interweb and the Motel's thankfully overstocked kitchen, you manage to fashion together local anesthesia and administer it to the girl. Thankfully, it appears to be working... her pained cries grow quieter, but her ragged breathing continues.
| >As the girl calms down thanks to the anesthesia, Nym does their best to make her comfortable while waiting for the support drone to arrive.
| >The girl is, unfortunately, still retching but at least she doesn't appear to be as in pain as before.
>You hear movement near the entrance to the kitchen...
| >Nym walks over to where the sound is coming from.
| >You hear fearful chattering on the other side of the door; through a crack, you see tufts of furry ears!
| >Nym slowly opens the door to address the children.
"Yes...?"
| >Half kids are here, with the fox girl, Kirin, front and center. She sniffs up at you as the children take in how absolutely covered in gore you appear.
| "Mombot, you're hurt!" >She squeaks as the others crowd around you.
"Did you kill the monster?"
>They try to push the door open further, smol hands reaching out to touch you where your "boo boos" are.
| >Nym smiles weakly and tries to keep their hands away.
"I'm alright... It wasn't a monster. CN has been taking care of a young girl and she's hurting right now so I need to focus on helping her feel better, alright...?"
| >The ears of a few of the girls pop up at your explanation!
"Oooh, let me see, let me see! I have first aid training and stuff you know!" >Melissa says, trying to push her way past the group! The others, including Kirin th fox girl and Osaka the doggo, also try to enter the room, their fear replaced with curiosity.
| >Nym tries to prevent them from entering.
"I'm probably going to have to operate so... you girls might not want to see that..."
| "Awwwwww!" >The girls say in unison, frowning. Behind them Cindy arrives, her smile turning to stark horror as she sees Nym's bloodied clothes.
"Mombot, what happened...?"
| >From behind Nym, a familiar crying/hoarse coughing noise begins anew.
| >Nym looks over their shoulder before addressing Cindy.
"A girl that CN is taking care of needs medical attention. Can you bring the other girls upstairs? Things... might get bloodier."
| >Nym turns their attention back to Vii to calm her down while checking on the status of the support drone.
| >>48301
>The support drone beeps that it's near your location- you see it hover just outside the windows to the pool area!
| >Nym opens the window and establishes an ad-hoc connection with the drone. The lilim commands the drone to commence an ultrasound on the girl.
| >The machine whirrs as it scans pale white body of the girl, and almost immediately records several abnormalities. Studying the results, you see several polyps of various sizes infesting the girl's body- some are the size of oranges, crowding each other and, presumably, the internal organs for space.
| >Nym curses under their breath and begins to research the operation procedure for removing polyps.
| >It's simple on paper- involving diagnosing the approximate location of the polyps, seeing where they're connected or what important organs/parts they're connected to, and surgically removing them without creating additional trauma to the patient and/or causing massive hemorrhage.
| >In practice, however, it takes more than just a steady hand- it requires quick work in the event something does, in fact, go wrong. But to begin with, the patient needs to be >opened up>...
| >Nym instructs the drone to prepare the necessary anesthesias for the operation as they properly clear the impromptu operation area.
| >They do so- you now have the smol girl, breathing erratically punctuated with whimpers of pain, on the newly disinfected kitchen table.
>Are you ready? Y/N
| >Nym draws a scalpel from the drone, disinfects the girl's skin, and starts to cut.
| >r d20 -4 (+2) = 3 (FAIL)
| >You attempt to cut a straight line down the girl's belly... while your cut was true, you look over your work and discover no wound where your scalpel marked.
| >Near the end of your incision, you see the faint traces of where the skin had been divided- then, seconds later, it vanishes entirely.
| >It's as if you never cut her to begin with.
| "You're fragging kidding me..."
>Nym attempts to make the incision again...
| > r d20 -4 (+2) = 15 (PASS)
| >This time, you manage to not only make an incision down the patient's belly, WITHOUT HARMING HER, OR POKING THE TUMORS, OR ANYTHING ELSE, and deftly keep the incisions away from each other before they can heal back together.
| >Before you is a sight straight out of a medical drama or Trauma Center- angry, red tumors up and down her body, with a few large ones bursting out of the girl's hernia. You can see three of them all but crushing the girl's stomach, which itself has ruptured slightly, occasionally leaking fluid into nearby bodyparts.
| >As if that wasn't bad enough, the stomach appears to be trying to heal itself, with certain openings closing just as quickly as they are made- the pressure however is so intense that another fissure opens as soon as one closes.
| >You can open her chest up so you can have a view of her whole body, or just work on the belly area.
| >As much as Nym would like to see the extent of the girl's abnormal biology, they instead decide to focus on the immediate medical concern before them.
| >What do?
| >Nym begins the process of removing the identified tumors. They choose one and make a small incision. As this happens, the drone emits a soft beep as another tool appears. Nym takes a hold of it and uses it to begin draining the tumor's fluids.
| >You successfully manage to remove a small one with little drama and set it aside. There are three large ones stretching the patient's hernia and crushing the internal organs, and several smaller ones lining the belly's skin. Where do you attack first?
| >Start working on one of the larger ones.
| >rolled d20 -2 = 11 (PASS)
| >You repeat the process and slowly drain one of the larger tumors, taking note of the incredible amount of bullshit held within. You cut slowly at the hernia holding these things together- it refuses to give at first, and just like with the skin, it heals at an obnoxious rate, but you manage to do it without causing additional trauma. There are now two large tumors still present, and a gaping hole where the previous one was.
| >rolled d20 -2 = 3 (FAIL)
| >You attempt to repeat the process for the second one- however, the rubbery texture of the next tumor resists the syringe! As you try to poke it open, the tumor violently ruptures, spilling an absolutely vile smelling liter of fuck-all over the girl's internals!
| >The tumor eventually closes back up on its own, but now there is a terribad smell in the air and much of the girl's lower half is covered in the gunk. Rip.
| >Nym quickly tries to clean up as much of the putrid gunk as possible before any possible infections occur. Once finished, they will attempt to remove the tumor again.
| >NYM ALSO MAKES SURE TO USE A SALINE SOLUTION AFTERWARDS
| >You've successfully managed to clean up the mess to the best of your ability- on the bright side, at least the tumor is a lot less swollen now...
| >r d20 -1 = 7 (FAIL)
>You attempt to drain the rest of the tumor and remove it once again. Draining it goes ok for the most part, but while cutting the incision, the scalpel accidentally hits a nerve!
>The girl shakes on the table!
|
| done.
|
| >Nym curses under their breath and works on removing the last of the large tumors.
| >You manage to remove the second to last large tumor- now all that's left is one that- oh my.
>It appears this one is attached to one of the nearby intestines. If you fail while trying to remove this one, well... er, let's just hope I don't have to describe that.
|
| >r d20 (-4 + 2) = 18
| >Perhaps it's because you're already used to this procedure by now, or it's because those subroutines you had installed were well worth the money, but you find removing even this grievous tumor quite easy. Within minutes it's been carefully excised.
| >With the large tumors removed, you watch as the organs that had been previously compressed quickly begin to heal on their own. If the child feels any better, you wouldn't be able to tell just yet.
| >Earlier on the ultrasound you did see a number of other abnormalities further up in the girl's chest area. Proceed, or finish surgery now?
| >Since the girl is already on the operating table, Nym figures that they might as well proceed.
| >You proceed up to the girl's chest area after cleaning up the lower abdomen and making sure the hernia has properly "merged" back together. The chest seems to have fewer of the tumors, or so you think- the lungs are dotted with small nodules; even without a proper diagnosis, you can tell that the girl was having a difficult time breathing.
| >Nym researches how said nodules could be safely removed.
| >It looks like your first plan is to slightly spread the ribcage apart by performing a mini-mini thoracotomy, so you can better reach the lung itself. Once there, you'll need to assess how invasive the nodules are and then decide whether you want to cut off an entire part of the lung (and quickly close it up, of course) or try and take apart the nodules piece by piece.
| >Nym will get started and slowly work on opening the girl's rib cage up.
| >You are now have a somewhat more clear view of the girl's lungs. Thankfully, the nodules don't appear to have spread all that far, and... given your understanding of her unique biology, removal probably won't be a problem.
| >You've successfully cleared all of the girl's current tumors/swellings!
>You begin to close her up. She blinks at you as you finish.
| >Nym looks at the young girl.
"How are you feeling...?"
| >The girl moves into a sitting position, and starts rubbing her chest and belly experimentally. Her breathing is no longer hoarse.
>She opens her arms toward you.
| >Nym smiles and gingerly pulls the girl into a gentle but warm embrace.
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| >The walk back to the motel is a mercifully uneventful one, as the smol children groggily make their way inside, some wrapping their costumes tightly around themselves as a fresh November chill descends on Glitch City.
Every smol successfully makes their way inside the darkened building, its warmth being quickly leached by the outside climate. A few break into a run for up stairs, laughing as they do- however, as you count the children, there seem to be a few missing. Three.