Fenthon Quill

[lonnarin]

http://forums.layonara.com/recent-approvals/225612-character-submission-fenthon-quill.html

----------------------------------------

My arrival in this areas is a godsend.  Many lucrative deals to be made in every town.  I have already completed every courier mission to be had via Kit's mail services, and Jursen's footwork in re-arming the guard.  My first great endeavor however was a disposal service.  In the sewers of Hempstead there lurked a sahaugin menace which clogged the pipes, dwelling within a den of fetid vermin.  The rats were simple enough... creep up slowly behind and stab directly above the vertebrae of the neck, severing the spinal column and medulla ombligada, depriving the subject of all motor function and respiratory and circulatory function.  Death is imminent within 130 seconds, and debilitation instant.

The chieftain however was a different matter.  He had haphazardly set up an obstacle to himself, a locked gate armed with a simple trap.  Resetting the tumblers, I reconfigured the lock for my own means and I easily retrieved and rearmed the trap on the ground outside the gate.  Skipping over the trap I laid, I then crept up quietly behind his guards and dispatched them one by one.  With only the leader left, I let fly a bullet into hi temple, disorientating and severely injuring him.  I then fled back to the gate and relocked it.  He howled in rage sprinting towards me, only to have his feet slashed with his own trap and to come up to a locked gate which his own key would not fit.  Furious, he pounded on the bars, but then the rapid blows of my sling wreaked havok across his skull, fracturing it.  As he lay gurgling on the floor and quite unable to move his limbs, I unlocked the door and strode in to end his misery with a blade across the gullet.  The sewer master was quite pleased with my performance and paid me well.

I have met numerous contacts in these new lands.  First was a dark knight with an eyepatch known as Cassius, who assisted me in a few minor bounties and told me tales of his exploits across the lands.  I could hardly imagine that this virulent swordsman be the age he indicated... perhaps the healing spells of the clerics are some adventurer's fountain of youth?  

Next I assisted the dwarf Gimli in his weaponcrafting, digging copper and tin ore in the mine near Hlint.  He even instructed me in the arts of dwarven metallurgy and introduced me to his friend Stygian, a scholarly type with a good sense for business.  I do hope to increase the strength of these relations and embark on some business partnership with them, as they seem quite lucrative.  

And just not long ago I met an elven mage named Mirren and assisted her in the research of her new tentacle spell.  Her friend (and perhaps lover) Brian interested me more though, as he seemed to command the very shadows about him as he crept in stealth.  We met in the arena where he showed me his abilities, as well as some hypnotic dazing pattern and some advanced anatomy tips on how to bleed out a foe and render them crippled.  Hopefully he shall offer more training.

Only time will tell...

[lonnarin]

I am currently now on the case of a murder mystery.  It seems as though somebody murdered a Lucindite scholar, stole his research and set fire to his library.  I saved as many books as I could, the filthy peasants berating me for not wasting my time trying to save the cadaver.  A lot of good that would do him!  

After putting the fire out, we followed the clues to a Necromancer's abode.  Traps and mechanisms abounded this place, truly this was a complex and well studied mind we face.  The clockwork golems came in all forms, gyrocopters, spikerollers, tanks, catapaults.  The traps were quite the nuisance as well... I had accidentally sprung one on a chest which almost obliterated the entire party.  Ooops.  They really should have listened to me when I told them to step back.  Then, much to my amusement, one of them attempted to open a chest not much later... and exploded into a pile of gore.  More gold to split for us!

We managed to deal with the necromancer swiftly, impaling him with the blades and beating down the minions with ease.  After pillaging his belongings and reading a letter addressed to an accomplice regarding the clockwork army and that which was stolen.  The artifact was the "Light of Toran" and was somehow used as a fuel source.  This took us to a portal, which led to Hlint...

[lonnarin]

After hopping through the portal we immediately could hear screams and smell the thick smoke of burning bodies.  It is a most unique smell, and once the wafts of buning hair are over, begins to cook sweetly pleasant, like ham.  This is likely due to how fatty the typical human body is, sizzling like bacon.  I wonder if Strauss and his men tasted as good as they smelled?  In any case, we came to the town to see both the local guard and foreign soldiers defending the town from droves of undead, while ruins of large constructs lay all about.  We assisted the guards in their defense of the town, as good public relations are good for getting their guard down, and reported to the guard.

A prisoner transport had gone awry, and the suspect was liberated from legal incarceration by an accomplice, the invasion merely being a diversion.  Now the crypts were being haunted by a great dangerous beast of light corrupted from the Light of Toran.  We fought our way through the army of the dead and grabbed whatever there was of value from them, delving several levels deeper than I had ever imagined Hlint's cemetary to span.

In the crypts we came across an awakened spirit who seemed ready to kill us, angered at having been awoken.  Only I was able to convince him that our goals were the same, we sought to kill the very same necromancer.  He agreed to help us, channeling his rage into our blade so that they might burn hot with ghostly flame.  This was all we needed to battle the shambling marches.

The corrupted Light of Toran floated within a magic circle which pulsed with deafening blasts of thunder which bowled us over, but still we persisted.  Most blades bounced with futility from its skin, but then I noticed something.  The energy beast was pulsing, as if respirating or pumping life's blood, so I had to take the chance.  I thrust my blade deep into its center along with my whole forearm with it and felt arond inside, and there it was!  The frail fleshy little morsel was swiftly dissected from its body and the beast faded into a final rest.  Whatever it was, wisp, spirit or beast of al'noth, there is now one less in the world to worry about.

We ascended the levels back to the guard commander of the Sun forces and told him what we found inside.  A letter, mocking us.  The entire invasion and infestation of the city was merely a diversion so that the prisoner and her accomplices could get as far away from us as they possibly could, into the desert.  To make matters worse, it appears we do not get paid unless she is brought in alive enough to stand trial.  They did not however say how many pieces she must be in... and I have so wanted to find a suitable subject for a full four-limb amputation.  Let her try to escape as a screaming torso... she wont get far.

[lonnarin]

Rules to live by...

1.  Always be polite, no matter your intent.  So many guildsmen try to act tough and put on an act, frowning, insulting, being altogether boorish for "street cred".  This only serves to bite them in the arse in the end.  Even if you utterly hate a person, smiling and being polite puts them at a disadvantage; they think they can trust you, or at least they bush you off as being harmless.  This will help you to get close enough to stick a blade through their spine.  You can always insult them as they lay dying on the floor and paralyzed.

2. If the party doesn't listen to you when you tell them the boxes are trapped, stand back and watch a few of them die.  This will make the others listen to you and make your own cut of the gold larger.

3. If you challenge a dwarf to the arena, be sure to bring a hold person scroll or at least a tanglefoot bag.  For mages, use the Dust of Corath.

4. Always pretend to ponder everything people say in depth and comment that it is "interesting".  People love to think they are interesting, even if they are gibbering idiots.  Besides, even the most boorish or moronic of people know something useful, somewhere in that thick skull of theirs.  Never underestimate the osmotic learning of an imbecile.  They don't even know the value of what they know.

5. When the bounty says "Wanted Alive" it doesn't specify in just how many pieces.

7. Torture might be useless in extracting information if the subject is fanatical or has a high pain tolerance.  Instead, torture their loved ones in front of them.  The body can bear wounds that the heart cannot.

8. Always keep a good reputable resume from honest work on hand.  Save a few princesses, rescue an orphan, protect a farmer's prized cow.  This will make the peasants think you a hero and you can rob them blind.

9. If a paladin detects your evil intentions and confronts you, tell him you can detect chastity and blackmail him.  If it is a female paladin, simply smack that arse and run.

10. And above all, do not divulge what langueages you can read unless you are specifically trying to gain a target's trust.  Instead, sit back and pretend not to understand when they talk to others to hear what they say behind your back.

[lonnarin]

Little do they know that whenever I stitch them back up, I am really studying them.  Helpful little specimens, so trusting and so willing to stand in harm's way for me.  Everybody wants to save the field medic!  I have operated on humans, elves, dwarves, gnomes, halflings, and even goblins poorly masquerading as gnomes and halflings.  What, they thought I'd sew up their skin but not notice what color it is?  Still, these ones seems useful.  Mangle-Or is an utter beast on the field of battle, and Nonac and I see eye-to-eye on so many levels.

I have begun to branch out from the simple stitching of flesh and have begun to examine the underlying muscle and ligaments binding them, the bones they latch upon and those prescious little organs encased in the abdomen, ribcage and most importantly of all the brain within the skull.  I am beginning to see a locality of function with each part of the whole responsible for various alchemical processes which create life.  In essence, the body is no more than the sum of its parts, each of those facilitating some greater elemental process.  This need for air to breathe, water to drink, food to eat, only to be decomposed in the stomach by acids and then taken... I suspect, into these little microfilial vessels and distributed into the blood stream.  For what use has blood other than to redistribute this air, liquid and solid?

It seems fitting, almost magical that all three states of matter need be consumed in some fashion in order to sustain life.  I suppose some forms of matter like energy of a lightning bolt or magical focus must exist in some quasi-state of matter, between the substantial and the ethereal.  Like any other form of matter, it cannot be created or destroyed, merely transformed.  And so if energy of the undead moves them, and positive energy grants us life, then the base elements within food, drink and air must be somehow alchemically processed within the digestive system in order to convert into energy, with waste byproducts passing through the system.

The implications of these reasonings are phenomenal, and would negate any need for gods or magic of any sort as we know it.  Through empirical research the very building blocks of life and substance could be deconstructed and reformed in the same manner as a stream of Alnoth could be transformed into a summoned creature, spark of lightning or a fireball.  Agitation and manipulation of matter and energy.

But I may be wasting my time putting so much effort into the theoretical, without a suitable alchemy lab to put my suspicions tot he test.  Until then I remain focused on the inner workings of the humanoid body, and most notably the best methods to incapacitate it.  I find that not only clipping muscles, but severing the nerves themselves are invaluable to make limbs go limp and organs cease function quicker than even a direct blow to them.  Using a set of magnifying glasses I can catalog every route in so much detail.

I find that the goblins of the Red Light Caves make the most suitable subjects of all.  Using stealth, I can creep up on them and stab any part I so chose with the severity I need and just stand back and watch the results.  The lungs really do not like having blood in them and they drown as if by water, and adding air directly to the bloodstream via an empty waterskin topped with a sea urchins needle appears to cause a heart attack shortly.  The same seems to occur when I add samples of finely ground gravel to the bloodstream, it creates a blockage and a heart attack occurs.  This shows the importance of the state of matter and the organ it occupies...one cannot expect a rock to flow as a river or a cloud to smash into the ground with a thud.  So too one must not stick an apple in a lung or swallow a pint of air, the body will reject such mismatches entirely.

The brain I find to be the most factinating of all, as it appears to be the king commander of all that are touched by nerves.  I surmise that some take commands from the brain and other deliver data into it... take the optic nerve for example.  One can remove an eye from the skull and the subject can see himself, but once that one little nerve is severed, every common speaking orc screams of being blinded.  Then when one severs the spine, all organs down the chain are nullified.  One can even paralyze selectively... lower for the legs, midway for the inner organs, right between the shoulder blades for the points where those nerves converge.  Base of the skull does the full job almost every time.  

I do most of my work on the stone table in the Red Light Caves at night, setting up traps so that nobody gets the drop on me.  So far the alibi that I am simply hunting goblins seems convincing enough, and if they see the table, I simply imply that the goblins were just having supper.  I of course act happy to see them and join them for field study.  They are doing much the same thing I am doing, even paladins.  For what do they learn but the most effective places to strike and how to do so with more accuracy.  I simply take their violent ambition to the next level...

[lonnarin]

We have tracked Sashka to the desert past Hlint on a rather treacherous journey. Coming to a cliffside we found that she had burned the bridge behind her in order to thwart our efforts.  Using teamwork, some oak logs and much physical effort we managed to put together a makeshift bridge to get to a land mass in the center of the canyon, and then climbed the tree there to tie a zip line to it, with Martlet flying over the other end in pixie form and securing the line to a tree on the other end... my idea entirely.  How ironic it was that I, the most agile in the party, was the only one to fall off the line into the chasm below.  I managed to heal my crushed ribs with the huge supply of potions I had brought, luckily which were stored in a magic bag that kept the glass from shattering, and climbed up the rope to the other side.

On the other side we fought through many a construct.  Eventually, we came across a wounded man of the Sun Guards and a ranger who was protecting him by a campfire who helped give us directions towards the desert.  I set the man's leg in a brace and healed his bones with potions, it should be tender for a few more days, and hopefully he will return the favor one day.  (it never hurts to have friends in law enforcement with the wrong impression of you in my line of business!)  Even more of these constructs thwarted us until we eventually came across a man camping there named Conner... who had a very impressive overcoat which almost matched the quality of my own fashion sense.  Even stranger, when he pulled back his hood I could not deny that he looked strikingly similar to myself...  perhaps he spent some time and money in Kartharian's docks 24 years ago?  No matter, even in the off chance that he was the unlucky one who impregnated my mother, he owes me nothing, nor do I owe him.  I would rather not dwell on such wild mysteries which have no bearing on my ultimate goals.  Besides, I doubt fancy overcoats and brown hair are evidence enough of genetic traits.

His directions were highly useful as they brought us to, as I had suspected, a series of caves in the desert.  I had known this all along, since bandits on the run typically avoid topside settlements for fear of tracking hawks, and the sandstorms and desert sun would cause them to seek shelter.  The caves sat in the side of a mountain cliff accessible by some stairs, and the inside seemed to have been expertly carved by dwarven hands long ago.  This time around there weren't very many traps or locked items... perhaps the chests left behind in the last two locations were red herrings designed to slow us down or kill us with traps?  If so, all the thanks to her.

Even more constructs attempted to stop us as we cleaved our way through into the inner sanctum of her hideout.  Therein we found strange circle stones which would periodically emit sharp sonic screams that deafened and stunned us in place.  Finally, we found her on a platform with an unidentified wizard who was intent on protecting her.  Unfortunately he did not provide much information as my hirelings attacked them on sight, allowing her to escape through a portal and ripping him apart before he could cast a single spell.  I surely hope they practice restraint the next time, lest we be out some significant bounty money... though perhaps the items and equipment this Sashka possesses will more than make up for the sum the Sun Kingdom is offering, and they have a lesser bounty for her severed head.  I'm sure the families of those guards killed by her forces may have some reward for us, assuming their pensions cover the costs of their funerals.  Also, it would behoove many of us to make an effort to attend these funerals for "honor's sake", this will give me an opportunity to see where they are buried and with how many of their mortal possessions.  Even simpler than stealing candy from a baby; at least the baby can fight back.  I hate children.

[lonnarin]

The mission was a success.  Though we never did find Sashka herself, we managed to kill two of her lieutenants.  I kept the pretty little head of one of them as proof of our deeds.  While inside their compound, we liberated many gnome slaves of Goran and sabotaged the facility in key areas as to halt production.  We have since explored and studied the ruins with a colleague of Gimli's, and I have lifted several pages of notes on golem construction.  Tinkering has become a favorite hobby of mine, with Gimli and Mangle-Or helping me mine the prescious metals needed to experiment.

We were paid well for the job, each of us recieved 5000 true for our troubles.  Needless to say, I quickly upgraded most of my equipment, purchased new surgical tools and spent nearly a year vacationing on the beaches of sunny Hurm.  Bad place to be a ship's merchant, but the tropical climate, pristine jungles and sandy shores make it a wonderful spot to relax.  Given that many of the clientele are drunkards, murderers and pirates, I have very little problems with law enforcement there, allowing me to step up my research.  I have taken to kidnapping the undesireables with a paralytic poison and taking them back to my cavern laboratory where I have performed extensive psychological and anatomical experiments.  Dissections, amputations, exposure to biological contaminants and curing them again and again.  While many might find my work to be morally repugnant, one must understand that these people were some of the most ruthless and cut-throat pirates in all the seas.  They will not be missed, and the knowledge I have learned from their sacrifice has the potential of healing thousands.

I have since exhausted my funds down to a mere pittance, less than 500 true currently.  As such, I am returning to Mistone in order to find more work.  Adventuring pays well enough, but it is becoming very clear to me that something must be done for a much higher paying job with less hands in the reward.  Perhaps assassination? Surely my skills in medical science shall make this an easy profession.  The secret is to make it look like an accident, or perhaps a mild poison which could induce a heart attack.  I tire of these smash and grab adventures and the heavy handed tactics of my compatriots.  Killing is an art, a science.  Not some haphazard firestorm of bloodlust.

[lonnarin]

Heads heads heads!  Everybody wants heads these days.  I have already turned in several for payment.  Firstly the Zamin's.  What a remarkable creature that was.  It appears to be some variant of minotaur or similar beastman.  Though decidedly primitive in structure, he had mastery over the undead arts enough to command a minor legion of undead in the Gloom Woods.  I suppose he must have been a highly trained and intelligent necromancer, as his spells did not appear to stem from divine faith.  Dissecting him was most interesting, as he seems as much different from the average minotaur as he is similar, which would lead me to conclude that he may very well be related to the beastmen of the Thunder Peaks.  His frontal lobe was most perplexing, as never before have I seen such development among any form of minotaur or beastman.  For my efforts I was awarded a nice little cloak from Riam, one which skirts about when turning or dodging incoming attacks to make one appear to be in a different place.  I find it very useful in dodging fireballs and vines.

Then there were the 10 heads of the fire giants and the one head of the forrest giant chieftain.  While I had collected all of them necessary to complete the bounties, the charlitain guards simply mocked my references and refused to pay me!  Perhaps I shall have to start collecting town guard heads, hmmmm?  After some cranial exploratory research, I disposed of the medical waste by feeding them to Mangle-Or.  He even showed me a few recipes for some home-style goblin cooking which weren't half bad... after omitting the guano chunks and xorn-flakes of course.  I tried a little bit of it, and it was delicious, even with a little too much nutmeg.  He assures me that he has other such wonderful recipes, especially those which have dwarves, elves and human as the main ingredients.  Dare I try it?  Hmmm, perhaps.  I surely hope the rumors of ghoulification via cannibalism prove to be false.

Mangle and Nonac also assisted me in a job of a personal matter.  Ronus already had his 4000 true bounty on the Red Light goblin chieftain, yet for these two the slaying was mostly personal.  When they were young, they were nearly devoured by their own family during cold winters, and Nonac's ambitions to be chieftain of all goblinkind surely clash with this one's goals.  We fought our way through his formidable guards, most notably some paragon axe-swingers of great fortitude and some form of goblin druid that could cast spells while in bear form.  Dissecting this one, I found that the pineal gland was axtraordinarily larger than that of his peers, by at least a factor of 2 to 1, with a much more complex variety of ganglions and nerves within.  Could this indicate a connection between physiology and magical capacity?  In any case, Nonac considered these to be the tastiest parts of the shaman, while Mangle had preferance towards heart and liver.  Ronus was rather pleased when we returned the chieftain's head to him, though tried to fast-talk me into accepting a lesser bounty as it had been "damaged" in my studies.  As I pointed out to him, he did not specify in how many pieces the head was to be delivered, and I had clearly diagrammed, labeled and cataloged all parts, with every hemisphere, cortex, ventricle and meninges accounted for.  The old dwarf simply scoffed and called me one of those "fancy pants pansy book-learnin types" paid me and I was on my way.  The rest of the corpse we cooked on a spit over an open flame after marinating it with citrus juices, (apple, pear, pineapple), heavily salted and smoked with the finest of hickory and sage seasoning.  Who would have thought that it would taste so well, coming from such a notoriously smelly and unhygienic species?

Now I seem to have exhausted most of the bounties readily available.  I go from town to town asking the huntsmen and the local guards, yet everything is either already delivered, or they claim I do not have enough references to qualify for the bounty.  It is rather infuriating, being too experienced for some, and not experienced enough for others.  Perhaps Rael has some work to do, else I must start looking towards less reputable bounties.  Even asking around for jobs such at these are dangerous business.  One townguard overhears you and it's a conspiracy charge.

[lonnarin]

Reconstruction is merely destruction in reverse, and visa-versa.  As I find more and more adventurers trusting enough to hire me on for my medical services, I acquire much needed training in the field of anatomical study.  This has led to an increased proficiency in my skills with the blade during combat.  It is no longer a swing of the sword haphazardly but rather a slice of the blade here, a quick puncture wound there and the subjects literally fall apart as they stand before me.  It isn't a fight so much as it is an autopsy!

I have been studying the finesse of another skilled cutter in the field, Willy Catpaw.  Though I much suspected him to be a goblin akin to the others I have met, Mangle and Nonac, he is actually a very rare sub-species of gnome that dwells in the forest instead of the rocky burrows popular with his kind.  He sold me some very useful gloves which breathe easily on my hands, masking the prints of my fingers, granting camouflage and protecting them from harm in combat.  What good is a surgeon without a steady pair of hands, after all?  He too is highly knowledgeable in anatomy, to the point where he has shown me just the right nerve clusters and tendons to sever in order to make a limb fall limb or a foe double over in pain.  These debilitating instructions I haven't quite mastered yet, though already I can see ways I could improve upon even his skills.  He does not study the medical sciences, simply killing with stealth and locksmithing.  Though he is decidedly better than myself in both those respects, I aim to become a specialist in my desired field.

Recently I have noticed a marked improvement in my skills, particularly in the use of my chosen weapon, the short sword.  While small razors still have their uses in dealing minute blows, I need at least a good foot and a half of blade surface in order to make a sinking impression on the internal organs.  Longswords are simply too cumbersome and deft to find the right spots with any accuracy, and my arms tire, growing wobbly which has a negative effect on my accuracy.  Short quick stabs and a twist in the desired area makes for the best effect.  For ranged weapons, I simply keep a small supply of sling bullets and use my custom stitched necktie.  A townguard might ask a newcomer for their blade or their bow, but they would soon find themselves in the local dungeon if they asked every well-dressed merchant, noble or magistrate to defrock themselves in the name of security.  Should anyone ask for my stones as well, they are simple enough to find as it is.  A cobbled road or cavern floor makes for a nearly infinite supply of ammunition.

I have also begun training in using coins and gemstones as ammunition not only out of adaptive practicality, but the sheer irony of the death.  It never ceased to amuse me, the look on some street urchin's face when I plant an opal in their skull, killing them instantly.  And usually, the first one along to find the body incriminates themselves getting blood on their hands as they dig the prized item out of the wound.  The idiot guardsman in Prantz felt he had an open and shut case as he dragged the weeping and pleading suspect to the gallows, confiscating my murder weapon as "evidence".  (no doubt keeping it as a bonus)  Two brutal deaths with one coin; surely a better bargain than dinner and a theater!

Now I suppose I shall research the poisonous glands of some rare spiders as my next project.  Entomology always has its uses.  The poisons that simply kill a man are no fun, I would rather focus on paralytics such as the desert snake or the scorpion.  Instant death robs one of the intrinsic joy of fully explaining to them the step by step process it took when designing their fall, and the horrid little expression in their eyes as you sharpen the blade for autopsy.  Truly, it is far more educational to study the internal components as they are still working.  In small enough quantities applied to an area, they may also be useful as a minor anesthetic, keeping one from fidgeting as I apply needle and thread to the wound.

To this effect, The goblins of the Red Lights have been very useful in my cranial experiments.  One need only set a trap to entangle them, or paralyze them with a dart and bind their hands and feet, peel back the scalp and take a bonesaw around the circumference of the skull, and it all just pops off like peeling a hard-boiled egg!  Using my scalpel, forceps and tweezers, I have found that I can even extract different portions of the brain with varying effects, and only a few key areas seem entirely vital to support life.  Particularly the medulla omblingata at the base near the spine, once I take that out, the subject's heart and lungs cease almost instantly.  Good for a quick clean death; I must remember that for silent kills of infiltration.  The frontal lobe seems to be responsible for logic and reasoning, as once extracted the subject begins to gibber in nonsensical madness.  And there also appear to be different locations for the visual, auditory and speech centers.  This would indicate that the brain itself has a series of sub-components, a localization of function, if you will.  Remove this here, a little of that there, and they can be stricken blind, deaf or mute with ease.  I wonder how much Rael would pay me in silencing political dissidents?  His method works well enough, but to kill makes a martyr.  I could turn such symbols into insane, rambling buffoons that could easily discredit their compatriots, and he could seem to show mercy in letting them out of their death sentences to walk among the people.  Two birds, one stone.

*hundreds of pages follow with detailed and labeled diagrams of the brain and body, and case studies of the victims emotional & physical states as they have pieces separated from them.  many of these are also sickeningly accompanied by supplemental cooking recipes*

[lonnarin]

I am currently entering the study of poisons, and what a lengthy, mind-numbing chore it is.  I can only attempt the tiny ones thus far, and they are few and far in between.  I can typically find mating pairs in the sewers of Hempstead every hour or so, after cutting through a legion of rats each time.  In the interests of science, their thousandfold squeaking deaths shall not go in vain, as I have dissected each and every one of them in the hopes of finding a suitable cure for rodent-borne plagues.  The liver, kidneys and digestive tracts are key, as these seem to suffer the effects of disease foremost.  I have also begun sacrificing my own well-being to this end, having been poisoned and infected no less than 5 times per day, alleviating the symptoms with anesthetics, poultices, antibiotic salves and heavy use of street narcotics.  The sensations have been most enjoyable.  

I suspect that I will need no less than 18 more prime examples of arachnoid glands in order to make progress in the field of venomology, and this is only assuming an idealistic 100% success rate.  This is most often not the case, as the glands have either been damaged or too young of a specimen to provide any real substantial data.  I shall endeavor to continue my experiments on both arachnoids and rodentia, as if I have not the patience to see this through, then surely I have no stomach for research.  It is meticulous and tiresome, but it simply must be done before I can progress to more toxic and virulent enlightenment.  I have also been salvaging the bio-matter of the most heavily infected rodents along the way, and keeping the samples in glass, airtight beakers for further use as a biological weapon.  Indeed, I have gathered enough infectious matter to bring a large city down too its knees, embroiled in plague, enough to rival a veritable legion of lepers.  Though devastating, this will be necessary in order to study its effects on sentient bipedal subjects in order to find greater curative measures, thus immortalizing my place in medical history.