Adam caught the men by the scruff of their collars and drug them out back into the sunlight. He is careful to keep himself as concealed as possible while outside.

Harry follows Adam out back, fishing a small round tin from the pocket of her squall jacket as she converses with the doctor. "Dare I ask how'd ye end up here, doc?" She opens the tin, takes a small plug of dark fibrous material from it, and inserts it between her cheek and gum. "Strange experiment gone awry or some such?"

"You could say that," Elihu responds with a snort.  "I take it you're another time traveler, accidental or otherwise.  How did you get here?  Maybe our current circumstances are somehow connected."

Adam did not understand what they were talking about so he tuned them out.

Harry grunts in reply. "Charity Collins, née Trask, held a séance. Whatever we contacted pulled a few of us here. At least two are currently missing. Another stumbled through some sorta portal he found whilst roaming Collinwood. He's missing too. Been here 'bouta month. Folk ain't used t' seein' a gal dressed like a fella or near as tall as me, so they think I'm a young man on account of me bein' pretty. Prefer t' keep it that way. More than a little superstitious hereabouts, folk are."

Adam turned at the mention of a seance. "I believe that might have been a mistake." This is clearly an understatement, so perhaps he is thinking something else? He moved back out of the sun. He halted, turning to Elihu, "I am not a vampire. I honestly do not know exactly what I am." He pulled back his hood once inside so that his myriad of scars are at least somewhat obvious. "I blame the Colins family. I mean to have revenge before my death."
This message was last edited by the player at 03:29, Wed 07 Dec 2022.

The two, ah, patients don't like the sunlight.

One is a man, maybe around 30 years of age, dressed like a sailor-- although his clothes are torn and blood-stained and they look like he's been sleeping in them day-in-day-out for a week. Even though he's not quite conscious (yet-- looks like it might come soon), he is clearly uncomfortable in the sunlight, squirming, wincing (squeezing his eyes shut tighter). He wiggles in his tied-up-ness.

The other man, darker, longer hair, wearing only underclothes (and tied and gagged), is, on one hand, having less-active symptoms, but he's also clearly uncomfortable. He doesn't look as much like he's waking up-- he looks more like he's fading fast health-wise. It's probably the big, fresh wound in his gut. (Elihu feels a bit of regret that he didn't look these patients over a little more closely when they first arrived.)

"Clearly.  We're currently in a year closer to the times when they burned witches than our own.  Or at least my own.  What year are you from, if I may ask."



Elihu was taken aback in surprise by Adam's countenence, but that was quickly overtaken by a scientist's curiosity.  "That must have been some accident...but it wasn't an accident.  Your skin, those aren't grafts. or at least not purely dermatological.  And those are scars from surgical stapling.  You're not from this time either, or at least you weren't when your surgery was done.  This is absolutely fascinating.  Do you know how this all happened to you?"



Interrupted from his new scientific mystery by the previous one, Elihu returns his attention to the two vampires.  Or pre-vampires, whatever they're called.  Finally spotting the guys wound, he curses his sloppiness.  "Watch them.  I need to go grab some sutures to sew him up." he can't help but make a quick mental note to observe how his patient's vampiric turning will affect this serious wound.

Harry answers the doctor in a matter-of-fact tone. "Nineteen sixty-six. Collinsport native. Captain of my own boat. Ran a charter service. You?"

(Elihu, roll INT, please.)

07:11, Today: Elihu Cromwell rolled 18 using 1d20.  INT vs 13.
This message was last edited by the player at 12:21, Tue 20 Dec 2022.

Responding to the doctor, "Cyrus Collins is responsible. I was not this, I was a regular man, though with an irregular occupation. When he had no more need of me he disposed of me in this way. He should have killed me."

Harry spits to one side. "Always a Collins at th' heart of any trouble hereabouts. Earnin' my keep and findin' a way home preoccupied me these past months, but pieces of the current puzzle started comin' together recently. Ain't got th' big picture yet, and may never. And goin' home ain't all that simple. Any change we make'll cause ripples in th' time-bands, like tossin' a stone in a pond. Like as not, home ain't necessarily gonna be what ye remember of it."
This message was last edited by the player at 17:28, Mon 19 Dec 2022.

Elihu's hurried medical work... well, if the wounded man dies, it won't be from his actual recent wounds.

Both patients continue to squirm and keep their eyes squeezed shut against the daylight, though (even though clouds are increasingly drifting in from the south).

Elihu suspects that either of them might wake up soon... if he had to guess, he'd guess it would be the other, less-wounded man first... (Both are still bound and gagged.)

"Unless what we do here and now is what created our future in the first place.  Free will versus predestination and all that."

Elihu returns his attention to the patchwork man.  "You, sir, are a medical impossibility in my time, let alone in this one.  Skin grafting like this looks crude on the surface, but at an immunological level?  Collins has done in reality what Mary Shelley hasn't even imagined yet."

 Could Cyrus Collins be the original Frankenstein?  Even with just skin.  But what if it isn't just skin?  What if this man is just what the Monster was, different body parts stitched together and brought back to life?

Time travel.  Vampires.  Frankenstein's Monster.  These past few months has totally turned science as Elihu understood it on its head.

The groaning of his two patients brings Ekihu out of his thoughts.  "Well, they haven't burst into flame, so that's something.  How did you cone by these two?

Harry considers the doctor for moment. "Heard 'bout th' missin' folk? Three are folk from my time, two pulled here by th' same séance as me and th' third stumbling across someplace in Collinwood that bridged th' two time-bands. Three others were folk whose paths I only crossed here in 1795. Had a dream 'bout two of those three. Stockbridge family had a house not far from town. Me and Adam here went lookin' fer clues related to th' missing, found these gents instead. Beheaded and staked another who'd already turned. Goes without sayin' that a lone vampire walkin' the streets is a bad thing . More'n one don't bode 'specially well fer Collinsport's continued existence."

"But why would a vampire make three more vampires but then leave them?" Elihu wonders.  "That'd be asking for trouble."

"Any idea who these two are?  Maybe their identities are a clue as to what our vampire is planning.  There must a reason he turned them instead of killing them outright."

Harry indicated the man without fresh injuries. "Figured he's a sailor, from his clothing. The fellow whose head we parted from his shoulders looked t' be a navy cadet or ensign." She idly scratches her cheek. "Maybe they're lonely for others of their kind. Dracula always seemed t' have his brides." Harry muses aloud. "We've yet t' see aught but male victims. Could be our vampire is a woman."

Adam scoffed, "The restless dead are a plague. They spread as mindless vermine, like a rabid animal. Tis best to destroy them."

Harry nods once. "Vampires create progeny t' distract and identify those who'd destroy 'em. New-made vampires are more likely t' attract th' attention of them as like t' hunt 'em down and stake 'em."

"I would think it better not to be noticed at all than to have to set out decoys," Elihu muses.  "Unless, his or her cover has already been blown.  How many strange deaths and disappearances have there been in the past few, I don't know, weeks?  Months?  There are my two predecessors, the three that came with you, these two -- though technically they haven't disappeared yet.  maybe if we can figure out where and when this all started and the circumstances behind the first disappearance, we may have the loose thread to pull."

Harry spits to one side. "Only one strange death I'm aware of. Abigail Collins, sister of family patriarch Isaac Collins. Died with a look of stark terror on her face. Witness responding t' her scream saw something that called t' mind an imp from Hell. We're callin' it a wild monkey escaped from a ship recently arrived from the tropics t' keep folk from panicking." She scratches her cheek again. "As fer disappearances, I count six in total: Professor Willoughby, Doctor McKenzie, and Bigby Macintyre are the three from my time-band. The other three I only know from here: Reverend Trask, Deputy Gallow, and a woman named Regina. Gallow was last seen in her company. Her sister was attacked a few weeks ago. Trask arrived at the behest of Miss Abigail, and disappeared around the time of her death as far as I can determine. He's a witchfinder of some repute, I'm told."

The first, less-wounded man (the one who didn't fall from the edge of the rotted upstairs floor when it collapsed) groans a little, opens his eyes just a crack-- slams his lids shut again in pain, squirms... tests his bonds... they hold 'im just fine.

He's awake.

At the same time, Elihu sees someone pass by behind the nearest fence. They show zero sign of having been eavesdropping-- between the fence-slats, he saw them come flickering by, and continue onward, giving no sign of seeing nor hearing anything amiss nor unusual... but it strikes him suddenly that we are literally (if it weren't for the cloud cover) doing this in broad daylight. (Anxiousness increases)

Elihu grimaces at the sudden thought of someone overhearing.  He could see them changing from valiant detectives to prime suspects from just a misunderstanding and a word with the constable.

"We should probably save this discussion for later in case some passerby gets the wrong idea.  I think I can convince passers-by that this scene is a legitimate medical treatment but the other things?  We probably should keep until we get back inside."

"Do the two of you want to clean up?  The sink is -- I mean the well -- ah! I've only been here for a day.  You two can probably find your way around the house better than I."

Harry shrugs. "May as well. Might wanna check Adam fer injuries while I fetch water. Had a couple close calls in th' Stockbridge place and he got th' worst of it."