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As you make your way down this street, you start to run into other Lepers heading to the plaza for breakfast, which is a bit of a relief, as you were starting to worry that the curfew was still in effect or something. Unfortunately, that relief is undercut when you get close enough for Strange-Staining to show that the boots of many of the Lepers that you are passing have Strange Stains on them. None of them are spreading, at least, but it is enough to turn your stomach all the same.
On your way into the plaza, there are more and more Stains – it is to the point where the scarification glyph itself is starting to ache, which almost never happens. Hide-Eyes aches and heats up, but Strange-Staining is a much less intensive bit of magic. Still, when you are talking to the Overseer, you do not want to be distracted, so as you pick your way towards the central platform, you try to temporarily dispel the scarification glyph.
Emphasis on ‘try’. Unlike the rest of your magic, the Strange-Staining glyph is always on – to temporarily dispel it, you have to seriously concentrate on the shifting white and gray and black Stains. The issue is that there are so many in the six-foot activation radius of the glyph that you cannot focus on them all at once, which in turn means that you cannot dispel all of them. By the time that you make to the platform, you have basically given up on dispelling, instead angling your head and relying on the blind spots of your mask to keep any potentially distracting Stains out of your sight.
The Overseer on duty is an especially reedy looking man named Chramnesid, who along with a clerk is examining the Roll Call – the ledger of all of the Lepers that have ever been in the Midden. You get a real bad feeling seeing that tome sitting there. Typically, it is only taken out for Musters – which are rare – and for intakes, deaths, exemptions, and the Census. But it this is the second day that you have seen the thing in a row. Plotinus, the Sergeant of the Middenguard had it out yesterday. You can only hope that its presence here again today does not mean that there is going to be another tightening down of the Midden.
It suddenly occurs to you that you do not know if the Guard have told any of the Lepers about … what happened last night. Either at the palisade, or at the Oiler’s Wharf. Something to remember! Chramnesid catches sight of you and looks up from the Roll Call. From on top of the platform, he stares down at you evenly. You know that he is a real stickler for decorum, so you wait for him to address you – otherwise you would be speaking out of turn. Honestly, you do not even know why he makes such a big deal about such things, the man is not titled, patented, or celebrated – Hell, he is not even a Citizen. Still, he has made examples of Lepers before, nothing too serious, not even corporal, just petty. Really, really petty. A whole minute passes as you just stand there. Then another.
