Dr. Deaglan Camp

**Dr. Deaglan Camp** was a scientist who worked for Zone Fifty on its Martian Base before it went defunct roughly 100 years prior to the start of the story. Through some chain of events, Dr. Camp became trapped in an area of the Mars base that was separate from the rest of the whole. He would eventually be found over a century later by Jane Doe and Caius in their exploration of the Mars base.

Dr. Camp was killed by an opiate overdose.

## Early Life

Not much is known about Dr. Camp's early life prior to his employment by Zone Fifty.

Dr. Camp was presumably part of an experiment testing the effects of an early stable prototype of Zone Fifty's control blood on plants, namely vegetables, being grown in a closed system separate from the rest of the Mars base, likely to avoid contaminating the pods that are currently linked to oxygen production within the bunker. Through some chain of events, Dr. Camp became trapped in his office when the spatial doorway was cut off and became unable to leave. It is unknown why he became trapped, but he would remain so for roughly a century. Eventually, as he began to experience starvation and dehydration, he became desperate enough to consume the plants that were growing as a part of the experiment. While he was uncomfortable with this prospect, it did seem to keep him alive.

### Transformation

As Dr. Camp continued to consume the plants that were growing in the room with him, he kept notes regarding his entrapment. In these notes, he claims to feel the plants sometimes "fighting their way back up" after he ate them. This was brushed off as paranoia, originally, but eventually it became something more. A mass of plant matter became rooted in his chest, refusing to move to his stomach. Slowly, and painfully, it began to grow throughout the rest of his body. He theorized that whatever the plant had become with the aid of the Mars blood, it was beginning to integrate itself into his own blood, as he wasn't dying. The plant seemed to be avoiding anything that would kill him outright, turning him, instead, into a vessel for itself.

One day, the plant broke skin and began growing out of him. He wrote in his notes that every time he slept, he would catch the plant trying to root him to the walls, or the floor. He claimed that he did not think the remnants of partly broken down blood in the plant were smart enough to do anything sinister, and instead were acting based on distorted insticts.

Eventually, the plant began to grow into his skull, simplifying his brain and leaving only enough to keep him alive. It would eventually root him to the wall of the room, growing into and drawing nutrients from the grow tank that stood in the same room, and beginning to stretch outside the doorway.

### Discovery and Death

Roughly one-hundred years after his entrapment, Dr. Camp was found by Jane Doe and Caius as they explored the area beyond the spatial doorway in the Mars bunker. Unsettlingly, he was found to still be alive, having been sustained by the plant growing through his body. He was conscious enough to realize that Jane had entered the room, and begged to be put out of his misery. After much deliberation over whether or not it would be possible to free him and restore any lost function, it was found that doing so would be impossible with what the group had at their current disposal. As such, Jane injected him with her blood and increased his body's natural production of opioid peptides in his body, essentially overdosing him on painkillers and allowing him a peaceful death.

Dr. Camp is buried on the surface of Mars, with a make-shift cross marking the location of his grave.