Cards and Hearts:Carl Ericsson

My Name Is

Carl Ericsson.

What Am I?

A business consultant and baseball enthusiast suffering from a rare and fatal disease.

What's Been Keeping Me Awake?

One of the disease's symptoms is insomnia. I can no longer sleep without being utterly exhausted or on some very strong medications.

What Just Happened to Me?

I can hear the viruses in my blood speaking to me. They want to be spread. I try to ignore it, because it's crazy, but... yesterday I got mad at one of the nurses, and suddenly she was coughing up blood. That's one of the first symptoms of what I've got, but it's not supposed to be airborn, so there should have been no way that she could have caught it off me!

What's On the Surface?

Your standard boring business guy, who really only comes alive when I get to play baseball. Watching is okay, but I want to play - I was never good enough to go pro, but I still love it more than anything. Of course, my playing days might just be over.

What Lies Beneath?

I'm angry. Not so much at the fact that I'm going to die, but at the fact that my body has betrayed me. I've always been a health freak, I've been living better than anyone I know, so where's the justice in me getting struck down in my prime? Someone else should have gotten this shit, not me.

What Is My Path?

To either find a way to pass the disease on, in its totality, to other people and thereby make myself well. Alternatively, to reconcile myself with the fact that life isn't fair and that I don't have the right to wish this on anyone else.

What Brought Me to the Mad City?

I played hookie from the hospital to go catch a game at the stadium. Somehow, that... was not where I ended up.

Exhaustion Talent: The Vanishing Act

Baseball. If it can be done by running, throwing, catching or swinging, I can exceed all human boundaries on it.

Madness Talent: Princess

The virus speaks to me. I can spread it to other people, speed it up, turn it dormant again. Maybe even get it to tell me people's secrets by infecting them.

I is for Illness A cough or a sneeze Unleash the contagion Wherever you please

The black Fae come when I call. Fight for me. Work for me. Dance with me. Guide my way. But when I call, tentacles start growing out of my flesh. The more I call the more tentacles grow, the longer they grow, the stronger.

(1-2 Madness Dice) A few Fae appear, usually unseen by anyone else, they point the way, give warning, do small things for me, act as a distraction, lead me to one of the Ways. [I grow one or two tentacles the length of an arm with the strength of a grasping hand].

(3-4 Madness Dice) Hundreds of Fae appear. They can accomplish quite a bit, or destroy quite a bit. They are a clever workforce. Or a terrible little army. This many of them are capable of keeping my companions on the path when we traverse the Ways, even if those I lead are blind to the path. [I grow three to four tentacles thrice the length of an arm with the strength of gorrillas].

(5-6 Madness Dice) Thousands of Fae scramble out of the cobbles and the paving stones, the sewer grates and cracks in the walls, laying their little hands to whatever chaos or destruction I have dreamed for them. I'm not often fast enough to keep them from wreaking their own mayhem as well when this many are to hand. In such numbers they can lead us through the longest Way in an instant. [I grow five to six tentacles the length of tall trees with the strength of giant yellow construction machines].