Heinrich leads you all back to the boiler room where you fought the Zoog. Your rational mind knows this is a good idea, the door is three inches of solid oak and Luxina is able to lock the door from the inside in a way that prevents it from being being unlocked from the outside. Good, anything crazy outside can't get in.
Unfortunately your subconsciousness's aren't so easily convinced, every little sound sets you on edge and during the long dark night there are many. Several of you awake bolt upright in a cold sweat convinced you heard scratching from under the boiler, only for you to realize you're still dreaming and then you're falling, falling falling, swallowed up whole. The ground is suffocating you! Sinner sinner! You'll pay for what you've done, you stinking... ARGH!
As one you wake with a start, the scream from your lips fading. Some of you got at least some sleep, Crystal, Heinrich and Luxaina only have small bags under their eyes. Filbert and Lizzie look like they've barely slept with bloodshot eyes and undergarments damp from sweat. It's what happened to poor Momijii that really catches your breath, the poor Monk who badly needed sleep wakes up with tears in her eyes. During the night something had scratched her repeatedly, drawing blood, yet the door seems undisturbed, no footprints other than your own in the dust. To cap it off, a number of you report unsettling dreams...
---> NO
---> PASS
---> FAIL
---> PASS
---> FAIL
---> PASS
---> FAIL, oh dear...
Yes the AP really does say that, it's bad to fail this save. If you fail you don't regain any HP and if you fail badly something particularly unpleasant happens. Also none of you slept well enough to regain any sanity points.
There's nothing you could have done to avoided this, at least not yet. Don't loose faith you're on the right track.
Crystal winces as she awakens first, and grips her holy symbol of Pharasma in her hands. She kneels down and bows her head...
"For suffering, salvation.
For endurance, strength.
For ignorance, knowledge.
For repentance, absolution.
For a beginning, an end."
She takes a breath.
"This, too, shall pass and fade.
Stand strong, and the Lady shall guide you."
She feels a sense of completion as Pharasma's symbol glows in response to her prayer. It's cut short by the rousing of her companions...
...and the wounds that appeared on Momijii.
"Momijii? Momijii, are you alright?"
Oh. Well. That was unpleasant. Agrippa says as he wakes.
He prepares some new tinctures and ointments from the supplies in his pack.
Bavk to our investigation then? Perhaps the good Captain might be more effusive now that we have proven ourselves?
Agrippa will go and try to conversate with the Guards.
Luxina moves towards the shapeshifter's corpse and attempts to drag it touwards the area with the guards.
"Can someone give me a hand with this? O! And we also have that one where we woke up. With some rope we could hoist it up the tube and bring it also to the guards. Two is better than one."
When she's done she bars the door by jamming the lock and puts down a torch around the center of the room and lays close to it, before falling into an uneasy sleep.
The dark-skinned elf looks around instantly at the sound of a scream, rubbing her eyes, she notices the scratch marks on Momijii's face and bolts upright.
"Who... Who did this?"
Immediately her eyes find the door and her feet follow. No one's touched this. Unless someone must have opened it and rearranged the lock afterwards. But that's impossible... That would mean whoever did this must still be here. But we're all already here.
Luxina looks around inquisitively and her eyes rest on the insane man they rescued the day before.
"You! Did you do this? Do you know of anything that has done this?!"
Lizzie was restless in her sleep. Strange events were in her sleep.
When she wakes up, she feels pretty tired.
"Oioioi....what was that all about?"
She's sobered by the scream of Momiji next to her.
She quickly turns to her, and tries to shake her awake.
"Momiji, Momiji....wake up Momiji!"
After the exhausting and disgusting task of dragging the corpse of Oathday to the survivors only to be told, "That's a good start." Luxina's heart sinks, she tries to rally her companions to fetch the other corpse but the thought of that seems too morbid and they demur.
It takes her many hours and she is forced to traverse the horrific mound of decomposing corpses twice but eventually through grim determination the corpse is dragged in front of the guards.
With a certain grudging admiration York notes, "Well that's two. Bring us another one, freshly killed mind, and we can talk."
He seems serious about that as far as you can tell.
Crystal shakes her head. "These don't look like human scratch marks--more like a large cat's."
If two does not prove our mettle and intentions, what would another do, besides make us repetitive as well. Agrippa snarks Surely another corpse means nothing more or less.
Regarding the man Juglan Agrippa says He's obviously insane. Best to find a room to stick him in, before he does far worse to us...
With a heavy sigh, York replies "Every one you kill is one less to hunt the women and children. Assuming you did actually kill that last one, it was pretty far gone
... Anyway there should be at least another two or three wandering about. I'd be mighty obliged if ye did something about that." When the subject of the mad man is raised York sighs again and mutters, "Seven more mouths is a lot to feed."
"Aiiiaa!" Filbert calls out in pain reaching for his midriff to hold his insides where thy should be; quieting quickly as he realizes his middle is still in one piece. Looking at his dry somewhat clean hands That was crazy, I could have sworn that crazy witch cut me open."
Hearing the others around him calling out Momijii's name, Filbert wipes the grit from his eyes and moves to check on her, the scratches upon here face opening a pit within his stomach. [i]Could that have been me?!?
"Momiji, are you ok?"
Even to Filberts normally poor ability to read people it's clear the captain isn't going to budge on this.
"Repetitive or not Agrippa, don't think he's gonna change his mind on this, and he does have a point. Anything we kill off the women and children, we've yet to see any of I might add, won't have to fight."
"Well we had to fight it with any weapons we could muster. Not like we had much choice. It looks far gone because I've dragged it all over here, through heaps of stuff you don't wanna know, just for you to see. So cut us some slack when it comes to the 'freshness' okay?"
Luxina says, her voice slightly raised and angry as she didn't do all this just to get questioned by the man.
"Luckily we want to get to the bottom of whatever is happening here as much as to get out. 'We' will explore for you and get rid of those shapeshifters."
She leaves the man by briskly walking away using large strides.
Urgh... Not even a thank you for taking out two of those buggers. Without us they would be in even more trouble.... Come to think of it... Would they be?...
The thought gnawing at the back of Luxina's mind sends more shivers down her spine and she doubts herself for more than one second. There is a feeling... something akin to ... remorse? Guilt? Responsibility? Her hands experience a tingling sense of flaring pain and a pulsating feeling.
What happened to me? I remember my youth, my troubles, my first exploration, not much more. What have I done these last weeks, months years?
The pulsating feeling continues for a while after she finished the conversation. Luxina retreated to just outside the room, sitting down against the wall, stretching and bending her fingers to try and alleviate the stinging sensation.
Crystal grits her teeth and holds her holy symbol close as she prays for a healing spell...
...then he lays a hand on Momijii's trembling shoulder. The claw marks that appeared on her pale and fade to shallow scars.
I wish I could do more.
Momijii awoke with a scream of terror, her fists swinging out and nearly clocking Lizzie in the face. Fortunately the foreign woman realized at the last second that it was Lizzie before her and checked her punch, missing by the merest fraction of an inch. She looked around with panic in her eyes and finally registered where she was. She remembered coming back down on the pile of corpses to rest in the relative safety of the boiler room, not that she could call what she had rested. She felt even more tired than before, and not a bit better physically. Her injuries still hurt severely and she wasn't sure if she was in the shape for more of this place. Still, she rose and gave the small woman an apologetic look as she said, "I'm sorry Lizzie, I didn't hurt you any did I?"
As they went back to the guards with both corpses Momijii couldn't help but show her displeasure at this fool in her expression. Still, she managed to hold her tongue as a fight with these people was the last thing they needed. With a sigh of disgust she said, "Fine, but I don't know that we can survive a fight with them again."
Crystal nods once. "Very well."
"We should get moving." She says with a glance over at Mr. Rivercane & Momijii.
"Do you need another healing spell?"
With Momiji out of her nightmare and coming back to the team, Lizzie is relieved.
"No you didn't, welcome back. :)
It seems yours was worse than mine."
Agrippa says Well. Then we should be about our business then.
Ungrateful wretches... he thinks as he turns away from the barricaded guards.
Let's begin where we ended last, best way to continue an investigation.
Filbert follows Agrippa inside the room where the zombie feast occured, beginning to physically shake as The investigator reaches for it.
this is ridiculous, to leave we have to go through the doors but a cold chill travels my spine to see what might be beyond it...
Logically Heinrich knows opening the door is indeed the beat way to continue the investigation. Yet nobody told his primitive lizard brain, and he found himself unaccountably nervous as he approached the door. Juglan wasn't exactly helping matters, with no where else to go he followed the group around like a puppy. When he realized Heinrich's intent he started babbling incoherently and wedged himself into the corner of the room, the smell of his fear was palpable.
Holding themselves together rather better than Juglan but still not having a good day, Filbert and Momijii where equally apprehensive. Sometimes you just had to do things, unpleasant things. Somehow you knew it was best to get it over and done with. So with his heart in his throat, Heinrich opened the thick oak door having heard nothing from the other side.
He stepped through to find a laundry equipped to service hundreds. The room is filled with several wide tables and gigantic washbasins. Bizarrely the place looks as though it has been repurposed as a failed surgery, with at least one table heaped with remains while corpses lie discarded in corners. Lying on top of the makeshift surgery table is the motionless form of Briarstone patient. Behind that a stained sheet hangs between two of the basins, dividing the room roughly in half. A lantern shines on the far side revealing a sinister dagger wielding shadow!
Crystal Delphi <----- WE ARE HERE
Filbert Springbit
Lizzie "beads" Tamar'
Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa
Luxina Tenebris
Momijii
Crystal levels her bow at the shadow behind the sheet. "Who's there? Come out, and no tricks!"
Sighting the dagger wielding shadow behind the curtain, Filbert moves to place Agrippa between himself and the shadowed sheet.
Lizzie raises her shield in total defense.
She looks over her shoulder, to look what the others are doing.
"Uhm... Guys. I think we should prepare ourselves for something horrible. Maybe some walking dead or something. That shadow over there is certainly a person behind it and I think there is something moving on that 'surgery' table over there."
Luxina draws her club and assumes a fighting stance.
Agrippa stands there, frozen with fear and trembling at what he "thinks" might be behind the curtain. Luxina's words don't help him...
Filberts mind tells him to run but afraid the dream with the fog will happen again; he needs as way to slow this thing. Looking at the sheet separating them. Dust and debris beginning to cycle up around him.
After the sheet is ripped down, maybe and hopefully wrapped around it, Filbert looks for another way out of the room, not seeing one and the others coming through the only door Filbert moves into the corner
Filbert's haunts fling jagged debris with lethal force into the sheet. casing a great section of it to rip and flutter down to the ground, to reveal nothing but the rest of the room.
Crystal blinks. "What...?"
"Erm...hold on guys, the body on the table, it's not so dead as we think. Yepthatthingdefinitelymovedjustnow."
Agrippa grabs his crossbow with shaking hands "Somethings not as it seems here.."
-Posted with Wayfinder
"The shadow at the curtain, it's also not right...it didn't move an inch. I swear i saw it a second or two after the curtain fell.
Does anybody know of any magic like that?"
"Hmm... perhaps no living dead then. I think that shadow is a magical projection, it looks similar to a silent image spell to me. Perhaps the body is actually the one tricking us." Luxina says before she approaches the table more closely, club firmly grasped and buckler held up high.
"Also, someone should take a look at that washtub over there. I think something else is living in there."
Filbert sees the shadow linger after his haunts tear down the the sheet but blinking his eyes and it's gone.
Looking around for the shadow he spots movement at the table and further down in the last washbasin.
"S-somethings m-moving down there also" Pointing at the washbasin as Lizzie points out the nearby table.
A door, why did it have to be another door? Momijii felt her sense of paranoia rising and while normally her reaction to such things was to hit whatever was scaring her, she had no idea what was behind there. It could be another changeling, it could be a walking dead like the last one, or it could be far worse. These thoughts went spinning inside her head and left her feeling almost dazed as she fought back the urge to flee from here. She decided that, unless there was an imminent threat in that room, that she'd wait out her and just keep watch, in case anything approached them from behind of course.