Vanishing Point - Wake of the Plague - Episode 4 - The Plague Doctors

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==Episode 4: The Plague Doctors==
Still deep in the Twistings they rested up and Albrecht instructed Andrew on how to help him patch up Albrecht's wounds.
They searched around the area and there was nothing but useless debris in the ruins. However Andrew did find a large stone mural. In the wall was a solid iron javelin that had been embedded nearly 40cm into the rock, apparently having been propelled at excessive speed. Although he wasn't able to remove it.
Albrecht identified the historical ruins as having elements of Victorian, Chin era China, Roman, Bronze age Greek, Bronze age Egyptian and several other older civilisations. Although they were carved into the caverns and in some cases were at odd orientations to the rest of the structures.
Thankfully Andrew's experience with navigating cramped alleyways in London served him well and they were able to retrace their steps on their way back to the cavern where they met the Major.
On the way they were ambushed by a terrible creature, like a brown fur-covered frog about the size of an average dog. It leapt down and tried to eat Andrew's head, but Albrecht fended it off, Amelia blocked it and they finished it off together. Although they weren't certain if it was edible. So carried the corpse on to the cavern where they first me Major McBeth, where as promised, there was a camp site.
He offered to skin and cook the beast and share the meat if he was able to keep the fur. With his psychic powers he skinned it with ease. Whilst doing this he asked about their plans. Amelia wasn't sure, but Albrecht wanted medical treatment and to raid his shop for things to sell in the Vanishing Point.
The Major offered to send them back, but said that if they spoke to some of his associates first, they might have something that could earn them work permits and potentially more money and employment in the long-term. He also explained a bit about Navigation in the unusual 3-dimensional Vanishing Point navigation and the cardinal directions of: fore, aft, port starboard, dorsal and ventral. Which were much more useful that concepts like up and down or North and East in a place like this. 
He explained that there's a Cavern village called Alberta a day or so away. In that village is a place called St Mark's Charitable Hospice, some of the people there need the help of people who will be visiting the mundane world. He offered to let them share his camp site but in the morning he was gone before they awoke.
They agreed to at least hear this hospital out and travelled up to Alberta.
Making their way up, they spotted a strange cat that seemed to have several parallel after-images, but which left them alone and passed a large fat dodo that came up to their waists in height.
They also discovered a strange door in the wall of a cavern with a lock saying "vacant" and a symbol of a finger pressed against pursed lips.
Albrecht went inside and closed the door behind him, after about a minute a voice asked him if he was there to buy or sell. The voice explained at this was a confessional booth of the Whisperers and that for a fee they could buy or sell useful information that they did not already have. Albrecht thanked them and left but explained it to the others. Andrew went in next and offered to sell information about the attack on the Victorians. The voice was interested, but only in specific verifiable facts and Andrew was not willing to give up Major McBeth's name, so the declined to purchase. So he too left.
Leaving the confessional booth behind they made their way up to Alberta, but as they approached they found walls with old painted signs on them that said "Quarantine", beside collapsed tunnels. When they got into the village it was very quiet with only a few houses inhabited. In the distance was a large ornate hospital building.
Heading to the main entrance and knocking they were greeted by a trio of Faceless nurses who welcomed them inside and wanted to know who the patient was. This freaked Andrew out, he tried to punch one of the nurses but Amelia caught the punch and stopped him. He decided to wait outside after that and go looking for some drugs to score.
Inside the nurses treated Albrecht's wounds and cleaned him up with instructions to take it easy and change and wash the wound regularly. They explained that whilst the hospital was a charitable foundation and they would treat him for free, they would strongly request that he make a donation when and if he comes into money, so that they can continue to treat others.
Once they were done, he mentioned that the Major sent them to help and the nurses called in a human doctor named Dr Lee Wang, a woman originally from Hong Kong.
She introduced them to some of the other people there:
*Drs James and Jane Lundell - who appeared as a back to back pair of conjoined twins, except that their joints turned both ways.
*Dr Watts - A Fetch crackling with electrical energy, just like Vanessa from Vanessa's Vanities.
*They also introduced one of the Hospital's patrons, Lord Birtie Fitzsimons-Thorebourne, a young and well dressed victorian man with the same golden eyes as the Huntresses.
She explained that this hospital and the surrounding caves were used to help address the plague that hit the Vanishing Point a few years ago. Whilst the Victorians and other elites had access to medicine from the mundane world, the rest of the population was left without any sort of vaccine.
Instead the Victorian scientists developed a new genus, derived from the Gaunt called Plague Doctors. Where the Gaunt can detect imminent death, the Plague Doctors can detect sickness, although not the type or severity.
They used the Plague Doctors to weed out the sick and have them transported to caverns around Alberta to protect the rest of the population. When there was no progress on a cure, they simply sealed the caves shut with the sick inside and left them to suffocate. The army was even called in to enforce the quarantine and put down any riots. The Hospital however was kept intact, although officially abandoned, it was purchased by a charitable foundation, supported in part by Whig supporting philanthropists. It today acts as a charitable hospital, although direly under-funded, it provides genuine care and asks only for donations from the families of the sick.
However this was not the end of the plague. When Fantasts, a type of lucid dreamer from the Mundane World, slept and appeared in the Vanishing Point, those who were sick and facing fever dreams would manifest dreams of their plagues in the Vanishing Point. These dream plagues went on to infect the other genera of peoples who would normally be immune to COVID-19. Now the threat has largely passed for the Lost (Humans), but persists for other genera. 
Andrew meanwhile had gone to explore. He found much of the village abandoned with buildings thoroughly scavenged or occupied by patients from the hospital. He eventually found his way around to the rear of the hospital where a Scrounger was having a quick smoke break. He offered "swapsies" for a vial of Laudanum (An Opium derived drug mixed with alcohol) for one of his golf clubs which Andrew happily accepted.
Dr Wang offered to show them around the ward and introduce her patients. But hearing about Andrew's Phobia suggested he come in and she would ensure the nurses kept their distance. 
She then showed the group four of their current patients:
*A Scrounger called Polyester dealing with a rotting variant of the disease called Drop Leg, which causes limbs and fingers to fall off over time.
*A Sanguine man named Adam Shelly suffering from Hakihari disease which causes the sick to violently cough up flowers, which cause damage and bleeding to the respiratory system in the process.
*One of their own staff, Doctor Dexter, a Bladekin made entirely of surgical scalpels and other sharp medical instruments. The blades that made up his body were covered in reddish green pustules of rusk rising across the surface of the blades. Dr Wang described the disease as "The Rusting.
*She mentioned that there were other variants for other genera:
**The Shivers
**Shadow Consumption
**Bronze Disease
**Polymelia
**The Melting
**Sleeping Sickness
**As well as others that they haven't yet seen.
Whilst she was loathed to discuss it openly, she even suggested that a disease called the Red Death might exist in Victorians, although it was only a rumour, kept quiet by the Government.
She also explained about a drug called PGF (Psychological Governing Fluid) and how it could allow people to stay in the mundane world a little bit longer. The group mentioned the events that led them to the Vanishing Point. She assured them that Vanities should not be in the hands of random mobsters and that it was very strange that this would be the case. They mentioned Tall Dave, but she knew nothing about him and the fight with the Russians and the clock-hand blade that seemed to drive the Russians crazy.
She took them into Dr Dexter's room and he mentioned through a terrible rusted sawing voice that when Bladekin such as himself transit to the Mundane world, they can't go as they are, but arrive there as a single blade. They can then possess people who pick them up, which would explain what they saw. But Dr Wang didn't want to stress Dr Dexter any further and so took them back out.
The Hospital and its limited resources represents one of the best medical institutions in the Vanishing Point for treating such diseases, but they are horribly underfunded and lack the resources and expertise to even begin to investigate vaccines for the other genera.
Dr Wang suggested that the Major may have directed them to her to help, but he might not have understood the magnitude of the problem. To properly treat these people she would need the help of an expert in immunology and vaccine design. She does get periodicals imported from Mundane Earth and there were two such individuals mentioned. The heads of the team responsible for the Oxford Astra-Zenica vaccine. With the help of one or both of them, she might be able to start work on such a cure, but even then it would be a difficult thing and would involve sentencing them both to a lifetime in the Vanishing Point.
There were some alternatives, rare people are able to lucidly dream their way to the Vanishing Point, often just as phantoms, but if they came across a pool of Liquidream, they could form a body for themselves and communicate. It's sometimes possible to induce such Lucid dreaming, but certainly not easy, requiring either training, drugs or luck that they already have a knack for such things. The other problem is that seeing impossible things, like a person transiting to the Vanishing Point, will drag others along with them. So they can't show the immunologists too much proof or it might transport them to the Vanishing Point anyway.
There are also the Insane, who are humans that exist in both worlds who could drop , but since their condition 100% coincides with mental illness, they are highly unreliable.
With this in mind the group were doubtful that they would be able to help, especially as it would probably take about 2 hours to reach Oxford and they didn't know how long they might have in the Mundane world. Dr Wang said the hospital might be able to spare some PGF if they thought that they could help with the immunologists.
If nothing else, they are in desperate need of certain modern drugs which are very rare in the Vanishing Point. She provided them with a long list.
*Sedatives like; Naproxen and Dihydrocodeine
*Antiarrhythmics like; Bisoprolol and Atenolol
*Advanced Antibiotics like; Clarithromycin, Ciprofloxacin and Trimethoprim
*Anticoagulants like; Warfarin and Rivaroxaban
*Anticonvulsants like; Sodium valproate and Phenytoin
*Antidepressants like; Citalopram. Fluoxetine and Amitriptyline
*Antiemetics like: Cyclizine, Ondansetron and Metoclopramide
*Antihypertensives like; Ramipril, Doxazosin and Candesartan
*Antihyperglycemics, particularly Insulin
*Bronchodilators; like Ipratropium and Tiotropium
*Diuretics like; Furosemide, Bumetanide and Spironolactone
*IV solutions like; Hartmann’s solution, Geloplasma / Plasmalyte (Although these are bulky)
*Sedatives like: Chlordiazepoxide and Temazepam
*Statins like; Simvastatin, Atorvastatin and Pravastatin
*Protein Pump Inhibitors like; Lansoprazole. Esomeprazole and Ranitidine
Armed with this list of needed resources the group were allowed to plan their next move. 
Amelia wanted to help the hospital, Albrecht wanted to return to his shop and loot it for things to sell in the Vanishing point so that they had funds and Andrew wanted to go back to New London and see if he could make contacts with the criminal underworld there. 
But the Hospital were able to put them to work for a modest wage of a couple of schillings for a days work, less the cost of food obviously, but they were able to stay in one of the abandoned houses. 
During this time Amelia realised something very relevant. From what Dr Dexter had said, the bladekin woman they had seen riding through the caverns in a carriage a few days ago, may well have been the same Bladekin they encountered in a knife-form back in London. The people who had sent them here, were very much active in the Vanishing Point. 
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