Merrifield

Merrifield is a character in The Vivacious Deadlock.

Description:
A glance at Merrifield is enough to calculate how strange and consequently creepy she looks. She has a thin, almost anorexic body that resembles a cross between a feline and a humanoid. This horrible anatomy allows her to switch between a quadrupled and a bipedal stance. Her weak hands and her pathetic excuse of hindlegs uncannily resemble a human’s, particularly that of a baby. Since her limbs are useless other than the support of her frail body, strange fleshy limbs resembling the cartilaginous flippers of a whale decorate each side of her head. These limbs have fine motor controls and can pick up things. On top of each of those particular limbs is a teal-ish barb on the “knuckles.”

Merrifield looks more human than cat, but even then, a person knows how inaccurate that comparison is. Although she has a head full of hair, her face is swollen like a newborn, nose nearly nonexistent, mouth full of weak teeth, so small an observer barely notices it. However, the worst part is her eyes. So undeveloped, so black -like those of a lifeless embryo.

The most noteworthy feature is the patterns on her hairless skin- blotchy, sickly patches of purple-red - almost resembling disgusting hemorrhages. This metaphor is further reinforced by her noticeable astringent smell. Merrifield smells like a sickly hospital - she reeks of antibiotics and rotting flesh.

Although she is mentally on par of an adult human being, Merrifield is somewhat childish. She is incredibly shy and modest. However, this is the same person who takes glee in watching people melting into fleshy-colored goo. Thankfully for the rest of world, she tries her best to be the sweetest genetic abomination on this plane of existence. Unsurprisingly though, her ethics and morality can use some work.

Weapons and Abililities:
Merrifield definitely is not a physical fighter. Although she has the barbed limbs on her head that can cause severe injuries if she is lucky, she simply does not have the stamina and strength to endure a physical fight. Her head limbs (the strongest parts of her body) are roughly at par with as a starving human beaten nearly to death and shoved into a nearby trash can. In short, her body, however strange, is physically pathetic.

However, she has other tricks up her nonexistent sleeves. To put short, she has the unearthly power of biokinesis. The application of these powers are various and sadistic. She can regenerate, heal, necrotize flesh, cause life-sucking cancer, set beings on metabolic fire, cause spontaneous births, control beings, mutate lifeforms, induce heart attacks, to give a few examples. Merrifield tends to get, um, creative with these powers.

Although she can toy around with her foe's body like a cat with her prey, she cannot barely do much biokinetic augments to her own. other than passive regeneration, healing, and removal of status ailments. There is a good reason for this limitation. Her body is simply too frail to handle these boosts and she intends to live the full extent of her short existence.

These powers are not without its caveats though. For one thing, biokinesis is also how she keeps her body together. If she carelessly strains herself, she may degenerate into a loose pile of cells, essentially “dying.” This may explain why she is more eager to flee than to stand her ground.

Biokinetic attacks also have to take people’s wills into consideration. A person who expects her attack has a much better chance at surviving her assault than a person who was caught by surprise. Intelligent, developed creatures are much harder to control than a nonsapient creature (though not possible). Also biokinetic attacks require her full concentration. If she is attempting to induce a heart attack on a person and is interrupted, the person will not suffer a heart attack.

Biography:
Once in another plane of the universe, there existed a society. This society in particular was vaguely advanced enough to have mastery over the discipline of biochemistry, molecular biology, genetics, and other studies of life. Like our society, one of their previous problems that once plagued them was the organ donation and blood transfusions - necessary but often clunky procedures. The problem laid in the matter of convenience. There are too many factors that could ruin these risky procedures. Among the problems that could ruin these precious blood and organs are supply, rejection, and price. What could they do?

Fortunately for them, they were masters of the code of life (well, biological life). Not surprisingly, they had put their knowledge and methods from research into good use to attempt to fix this important problem. After years and years of research, they finally found an unique but efficient way to this problem: the Zivanka Mechanism. The Zivanka Mechanism was a contraption where various siphons and needle were fed into a chamber filled with loose embryonic cells. The use will inject a cocktail of reagents and various organic molecules into the machine and after a couple of hours, viola, an organ or a blood type of their choosing! How convenient!

Despite the moral cries and concerns of ethics, the Zivanka Mechanism swept through their world like wildfire and pretty soon, every hospital and research center had that machine in their laboratories. There was no question that Zivanka Mechanism managed to improved their health care and quality of life. Save for a vocal but small minority, complaints had quelled and most people accepted the existence of such a machine. Thus, all was well

until the "Merrifield Incident."

No one knew what happened. Merrifield Hospital was a normal hospital and like all normal hospitals, had a Zivanka Mechanism tucked away in their laboratories. Suddenly, that incident came along. The hospital itself was intact, no broken walls or collapsed rooms. However, to the patients' confusion, a good portion of the staff had disappeared. A more courageous patient entered the supply room and discovered to his shock the fate of his practitioners. Relaying to the newspapers, the patient claimed that there were puddle of fleshy goop lain around in the laboratory, disconcertingly surrounded by the clothes of the staff. He also told that the Zivanka Mechanism, that crucial machine, was completely shattered! The government claimed it was a biological terrorist attack, but people, however ignorant they are of that incident, knew there was something else was going on...

Development
Merrifield was like a little kid, doing what she wanted without thinking about the impact her actions had on others. She turned a person into a horse and rode her all over town.

Death
Tired from her biokinetic exertions, she was attacked by a furious NPC. He carved her up and she sort of dissolved into an icky slurry of grossness.