[TCPDEX] TCP Research Initiative

[knux400]

To Whom It May Concern,

I am writing to report my findings regarding horror research. I believe I have adequately addressed three of your research topics.

HR-1-1: Where are the local horror vents?
During my travels through Precipice, I encountered a rural town near a large, uninhabited desert area. According to the locals, no one has ever attempted to inhabit the area due to strange monsters that lurk there at night. Interested, I decided to stop and ask around. The testimonies I received fit the descriptions of horrors. The place had even been nicknamed 'The Black Desert' after the pitch-black color of the monsters that lurked there. Digging deeper, I was able to find an old OBJ traveler named Perditus who had been to the desert, and was kind enough to sit and talk with me.

Perditus was... ragged in appearance. He showed me several scars on his chest, and his right arm was wrapped in cloth. He wore a glove on his right hand, but the glove didn't do much to conceal the fact that his right hand was much larger than his left. I inquired about it, and he removed the wrappings to reveal [CW: GORE, BODY HORROR]

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an old bite mark on his shoulder that looked as if it had been infected with horror radiation. The wound was still wide open, and the skin around it had blackened. The wound apparently refused to stay closed, and the black areas were numb to the touch. The rest of Perditus' arm from the shoulder down was enlarged, covered in thick black fur and ending in a horrible set of claws.

I asked him how he got such a wound, and he told me of the time he decided to explore the desert on his own. He was much younger then, and hung out with a rather unsavory group. This group of friends would always boast about how tough they were, and it escalated to the point of coming up with impossible feats that they could supposedly do. Perditus suggested he could go to the center of the Black Desert and find out where the monsters came from.

Perditus never had any intention of going through with it, but his friends dared him to, and a dare was a dare. So he gathered some supplies, and set off. The desert was empty at first (Perditus insisted on going during the day), but soon he came across a crack in the ground, half filled in by sand. He knelt down to get a closer look, his right arm leaning on the other side of the gap. [CW: GORE, VIOLENCE, DEATH]

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A shadow came out of nowhere and sunk its teeth into Perditus' arm. He scrambled backwards onto the sand, desperately trying to get it off. Even after he hit it with a rock until it oozed black slime, its jaws remained locked around his shoulder. He had to jam a stick into the dead creature's mouth just to lever it open.

He ran back to his usual hangout spot, hurriedly wrapping up his wound in cloth. When he showed his friends, they all cheered. But Perditus was done. He just went home and never came back. He realized how dangerous that bunch really was and moved past it all. He got a job, got a husband, and lived a full, happy life despite his injury.

HR-1-2: What mutations are most common?
I admit I did not dive too deeply into this subject, as I only had a sample size of one. Perditus' arm was the only instance of a mutation I could find, as the people of the town refused to go into the Black Desert under any circumstances, probably due to Perditus' warnings. Perditus' theory is that the mutations have something to do with personality- he has always been prone to hitting or kicking things when agitated, even before his injury. Because of that, he speculates that his mutation manifested itself as something with increased physical strength. He then picked up his coffee table with his mutated arm to accentuate his point. I would've preferred not to be sitting on it at that point, but the demonstration was appreciated nonetheless.

HR-1-3: How are mutations managed?
Perditus regularly cleans the wound to prevent it spreading to the rest of his body, but there's not much he can do for his arm. Medical technology out here is limited due to the rural nature of the town. And besides, he kind of enjoys the feeling of power and strength. The rest of his body is weakening due to old age, but his mutated arm can still throw someone clear across a room. He does keep it wrapped up most of the time, though- people tend to stare at it a lot.

[enclosed is a hand-drawn sketch of an older-looking OBJ, smiling and waving with a large, mutated arm.]

I hope this helps your research, and I hope to contribute more in the future.

-Brisk