Elren'dor shakes his head, looking back towards the chaplain's office. "Sadly no, not all of us slept well at all. It seem to be expected, given the nightmare we're in."
When she asks him about the files, the wizard's face turns to a frown and he shakes his head. "Unfortunately...there is a folder for every patient that was kept here for treatment. To sort through them all would takes hours, even with my knowledge of catalogs and organization of books and paper. That...and I have a strange feeling that the answers that myself and the others seek will not be there. At least...not adequately..."
The frown soon evaporates into a tired smile upon Elren'dor's face as he tries to stand up a bit straighter. "The drawers are unlocked for your perusal, I shall look them over when we return later. We're going to delve in further today, see if we can secure an exit for these people."
Helena doesn't move when the cat tries to comfort her, and she seems to not even acknowledge the elf's questions, leaving Narcisa speak about her dream first. Smallest Sun's examination is met with more silence, Helena's only movements when she begins to softly pet the cat's head and a barely imperceptible nod to the cleric's questioning.
It is the nurse's mentioning of the children that finally has Helena's attention. The yellow fog clouding her mind burning off by a red haze of anger. I'll be damned to the Abyss before I let him get those children. I'll kill him first or die trying. She reaches for her belongings.
"We will be out shortly, sorry for the delay."
To the other's once the nurse leaves, "I'll tell you latter. Let's get moving."
+++++++++++++++++++++++
Helena listens to Elren'dor speak to Winter, her anger keeping her sanity as whole as it can be.
"Any suggestion where we should begin? If we can't find a way out today I'll finish fixing the furnaces when we head back to sleep. Should only need a bit more work, but I'd rather get to exploring first."
Narcisa looks around at the group, having discarded her leather piece back onto the pile. She shivers a bit, "I was running from the fog, then I found a body. Pretty sure it was my own.. but as I got closer an elf ran past me screaming, asking himself what had he done. Seemed terrified enough. I woke up, then started checking my armor, trying to confirm if it was the same in my dream, when I must have drifted off again, because there appeared to be scratches in the leather that started bleeding when I woke up again."
She looks over at the nurse who enters the room.
She nods a little to herself.
She then speaks up to him, "Is it alright if I remain to look around the records area? I didn't get much progress in before I realized how exhausted I was. I can take what I'm looking for elsewhere to review."
To Narcisa, the nurse shrugs "That's the room right there... but half of it is locked off" "So I guess?"
With Elren'dor's astounding knowledge of the Dewey Decimal system, you manage to quickly scan through the multiple drawers of files. You'll find the admittance files for ever patient in the asylum. There aren't any for the orderlies or Winter, who was a visitor, and to your surprise, you four. It's as if you had been here, but there's no record made of your admittance.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Winter nods. "I have little need for them now; I have to report to the Royal Accuser as soon as we get out of here. But getting out of here is what I need you to help me with. You're all reasonably competent and have reasons of your own to explore this place. I cannot afford to devote my people to searching; we have little enough as it is to risk losing anyone."
She gestures at the general area. "If you can find a way for us to escape, some route that doesn't take us into that terrible fog, I'll see that the Royal Accusers reward you well."
She points to the curtained off area. "I think I know where you can start looking, but I don't think you'll like it. That thing growing at the end of the hall... Well, there was a door there once. If you dispose of what's there now, the asylum's entry hall is just beyond. Lady be with you."
With that, she says some things to York and leaves you to your tasks.
Helena watches Winter walk off, "That was....ominous."
"Of course Winter, we'll ensure that everyone can get out." His confident demeanor seems shaken when words such as "thing" and "what" are used. He grimaces and gives a nod, turning away from her and towards the others.
"Quite. Then again, this seems to be a place of nightmares. The sooner we get to this dirty work, the sooner we can be free of it."
He waits until they are out of earshot of survivor or guard, looking at the others. "Helping the others are important but I believe it is paramount to find this doctor's tome. I believe these nightmare could be visions even, though I am unsure how helpful they can be. We should do whatever we can to find it and learn about what happened to us...and whether we should share it with the others." There was another ominous tone in the way he spoke, though it was honest as well. Elren'dor still couldn't shake that feeling that he had done something wrong, something terribly foul before he arrived here in the state he was in.
"Well, no putting off the inevitable horror. Let's go find out what's behind the curtain."
Narcisa glowers at the lack of paperwork, "Calistira's f+#~ing taut nipples! Were we admitted under different names?! Who the hell brought us here?! What caused us to be in such a state that we would need to be brought here?!" She tosses a pile of paperwork off to the side, "We had to be brought here under false names. Unless someone bribed someone to get us in here without any paperwork, but then, where are the records of how we were being treated?" She drops her hands on her hips and then growls, "She said something about a thing growing that we need to get rid, lets go stab it."
Elren'dor looks at the woman as she loses her temper, almost shocked out of the grim mood that was lowering down upon him. A small smile comes to his face as he watches her reaction. "One of the reasons I like having her around." The wizard thinks for a moment, before realizing that he remembered something. Yet the moment is gone, anything else lost in the thick fog of his amnesia.
His face sobers up as he gives a nod, moving alongside his companions. "I'll be here behind you, both Keymys and I." The white, cleaned cat meows loudly, sitting at his feet before following along as they made their way to the where this -thing- was growing. Elren'dor moved to the back, motivated but not feeling particularly suicidal enough to get in front.
The first thing that anyone notices is twofold: The strong smell of ammonia and the sounds of sobbing coming from the other side of the curtain. The guard who normally stands watch here gives you all a grim nod and pulls the curtain aside for you, looking away.
The hall ends just beyond the dingy curtain, but the wall here suffers some sort of otherworldly parasitism. A mass of stringy, yellow fungus stretches across the stone blocks. At its heart bulges and blinks a watery eye the size of a wagon wheel. The fungus is a sickly yellow color, but the iris of the eye is green. There are white nubs inside the pupil along the top and bottom, almost as if the pupil had teeth. The floor around the fungal growth is damp with ammonia.
As you look at the thing in terror, you realize the pupil is in fact sobbing. It blinks, and a thick tear of pure ammonia drips slowly down to the floor.
"Some kind of mold? With a big ass crying eye?" Helena turns to Elren'dor, "Got any big fire spells?"
All the confidence seems to drain from Elren'dor's face as he stares at this monstrosity, his eyes widening as he takes in all of it. The sobbing grows louder as that tear of ammonia seeps downwards to the floor. His mouth opens to speak but no words really form, nothing that would really help solidify what he was seeing there.
It is only after a moment, he clears his throat and turns his head to speak to the guard behind them. "W...when did this thing come into being? And...is it dangerous?" He whisper unconsciously. Even Keymys sits and stares, the cat's hackles rising upwards.
He looks back towards Helena, shaking his head. "I'm not that kind of wizard. I bring things into being. That...and my learning is still beginning, it seems. I only remember a few workings of magic..."
"That is... disturbing. To say the least." Smallest Sun comments, pinching his nose.
"So stabbing it is."
Helena is trying her best to seem nonchalant, while her bite marks scream at the sight of the giant eye with teeth. And what is with the sobbing?
Holding her breath, she steps in to take a swing, using her shield to block the tears.
Your sword bites into it, and to your surprise, it seems as hard as wood. Your sword barely manages to cut a gouge out of the eye, which responds to your attack by shrieking and sprouting fangs, biting at you.
Your shield was already raised, but you worry that if you hadn't been prepared for that it would have really hurt.
the eye shrieks in three overlapping voices. A fresh pint of ammonia pours from its tear ducts.
Elren'dor tries to speak up before the fighter engages into it, striking at the eye. It is too late though and the fighter stabs at it. Elren'dor tries to look over the strange creature, wracking his mind to try and identify more of what it could be. That and the screams, what could they mean? Mindless babble or more?
Denman, the guard from before, still won't look at you since that'd put the eye in his line of sight. "Been there since everything went to hell." he exclaims to be heard over the wailing. You can see several of the survivors looking at you four with pained looks on their faces. "Never tried to chop it down, and never saw it try to bite no one either."
Elren'dor will nod, turning his attention to the door. Since they were already attacking it, it seemed prudent to at least test the resistance of it. A cloud of green would form before firing off into the eye.
Narcisa winces at the creature, then looking disgusted as it tries to bite at Helena. Rather than spouting an expletive, she launches into the offensive, slashing out at the creature.
Smallest Sun will stand behind Narcisa and Helena, trying to gauge the effectiveness of the attacks, but since there's limited space, he can't get in there to fight it.
Elren'dor's bolt of acid does barely anything to it, and Narcisa's rapier can't seem to penetrate it. The wall/eye/thing shrieks again, trying to bite one of you.
And it misses you too. Perhaps it can't see right when it's biting?
the thing laments again. As it does so, the gouge in the surprisingly hard fungus seems to heal up a little.
Elren'dor, upon seeing the fizzle of his acid against the eye and the minimal damage it seems to have taken, moves further away towards the guard whose head is turned away.
The wizard yells as it continues to bite at people and Elren'dor's mind begins to look at alternatives. That mouth was bound to get someone if they didn't really start making progress of some sort against it.
"Steel doesn't seem to be harming it much. Any ideas?"
The eye fungus seems to fill the whole section of wall from end to end, and there are even yellow fungal tendrils extending down the hallway.
Denman shakes his head. "It only says that!" he said. "Please! Make it stop!"
Helena continues to hack at it, inflicting a similar nick in the fungus. The eye screams again, and wells out another pint of ammonia tears. The prior damage Helena made is now completely gone, and some of the damage she just inflicted melds together.
It's biting, while freakish, is ultimately futile.
it shrieks again.
"I don't think cutting through it is going to work..." Elren'dor mumbles, looking over the eye. There is a momentary whisper before the wizard's eyes flash blue, a quick spell cast to analyze the wall.
Narcisa steps back away from the creature, looking to her rapier and then sheathing it. She switches to one of her daggers.
She then snarls back at the creature, "You're not a who anymore! We don't even know what you are now! Can you even see what you've become?!"
It appears to be a part of the wall. In fact, looking at your longsword edge, youd bet it is just as hard as the wall. Your weapon seems to be worse for wear because of it.
Elren'dor gets a faded transmutation aura on the wall, and with detect magic and careful scrutiny, you see wisps of yellow mist seeping from the eye. Perhaps violence isn't the best way to solve this issue. An intellectual approach to solve this?
-Posted with Wayfinder
"This isn't working!" the cleric shouts. "What does it want?!"
-Posted with Wayfinder
"Is it a riddle?"
It keeps trying to bite whoever's close to it, repeating the same phrase every time.
Ammonia is a base chemical that usually is a gas when at room temperature, but can be mixed with water or frozen and used as a chemical foundation. It's not suggested you drink or eat pure ammonia, and it smells like kitty piss... The amount of stuff it's crying, you could bottle up a few pints and it would be very useful for making potions in the future, once you've purified it.
"Got an idea." Helena heads off to the laundry room.
She comes back a minute later with the 6ft standing mirror.
"You want to know what you become? Here, feast your eye on this."
"Oh..." The eye whispers.
You your surprise, nearly silently, the eye withers away, shrinking until nothing remains but ammonia-stained stone and an empty doorway.
"Oh thank you." Denman says. "Glad that shut up. Everyone's already messed up as it is."
Beyond that doorway lies (potentially) the entry hall for Briarstone Asylum. How do you four proceed?
Elren'dor ponders the aura and the power leaking from it, noticing the waft of yellow mist coming from it. This thing was linked to the fogs outside and it seemed to operate outside the understanding of both arcane and natural workings.
When Helena returned with the mirror in hand and the thing seemed to collapse in on itself, Elren'dor's smile seemed to appear.
"Brilliant Helena." The elf said, stepping in closer now that it was gone. There was another quick chant and a sheen of shimmering blue coated the elf before fading from view. "Let us delve into the halls and get our answers."
Helena repositions her shield and redraws her sword. "Be ready for anything. But hopefully no more eye-walls. Or some worse body part." She steps thru the doorway.
Smallest Sun will move alongside Helena, his sword and shield also held at the ready. "I'd hope..." he starts, trailing off as he thinks. "That we can secure some means of escape soon. Those people in the chapel won't last long once their supplies run out."
White tile, spiderwebbed with cracks, lines the walls of this cathedral-like hall. A prominent, oval desk faces staunch double doors, while hard benches and portraits of somber doctors line the walls. Regal stairs ascent toward a second floor, but rubble has crushed the upper flights, blocking passage. Lofty windows, gridded by bars, reveal yellow mist seething just beyond.
Anyone can see that this room is the first one a visiting loved one would see of Briarstone, and it would exude reliability and somber respect for the job, were it not for the damage the quakes have caused and the yellow mist seething at the windows.
To the south of the desk is the aforementioned pair of double doors. To the north is a set of interior double doors. Directly across from you to your left (north) is a single door with a small placard that says "Consultation" on it, and to the right is hallway that seems to lead to an area filled with rubble and some doors to the right.
Elren'dor will walk in behind the others, marveling at the construction of the asylum and the feeling it may have exuded at one point. What was once respect and assurance has been twisted into something dark and terrible, halls full of nightmares and stranger things.
The elf first approaches the desk, looking it over for anything of use to him or his comrades.
Not seeing anything immediately of importance, he catches the sight of the words "Consultation" hanging above one of the doors.
"Perhaps...there are extra records in there? We would've gone through there, I think."
Narcisa rubs the bridge of her nose as the silence returns, the eye no longer a threat or in existence. She follows after the group, muttering to herself in response to Helena's statement, something to the effect of walls, male genitalia and being slightly amused. She looks over at the consultation room at Elren'dor's suggestion. She shrugs, then heads in that direction, "Doesn't hurt to look."
You try the door to the consultation room, and while it's not locked, the door only opens half an inch before coming up against something and stopping. Peeking through the crack, you can see someone piled all the furniture in the room up against the door.
Helena listens at the door, trying to heear if anyone is behind it. Someone had to pile up the things.
If not hearing anything, she tries to shoulder the door open.
There are no sounds on the other side, except perhaps the sound of rain against the windows above you. Your shove against the door yields no results; something on the other side is wedged tightly against it.
Elren'dor stays behind as Helena tries to force the door open, keeping an eye out for any danger the sound might be creating. Keymys stays nearby, the miscolored eyes watching the blind spots of his master.
"I suppose heading deeper in then. Outside seems rather hazardous..." Elren'dor says, gesturing to the double doors that lead deeper into the asylum.
Narcisa looks thoughtful, then tries knocking on the door, "Hello? If someone's in there, we apologize if we've scared you. We've just gotten past the crazy eye wall and we're trying to figure out what's going on and how to escape. So, as long as you're not planning on trying to kill us, we won't hurt you. We're going to go looking around, so please don't mind us." Narcisa gestures for the group to continue.
The consultation room appears to remain silent, but Keymys' perception check picks up the faint smell of decay coming from the room. She will also notice that the smell seems to be coming from both the cracked open door and down the hallway to the east, each from the same source.
Narcisa doesn't hear a response, which is actually somewhat comforting since the last time there wasn't anyone there, a literal wall was screaming at her.
"Doesn't look like this door going to budge. Perhaps we can find another way in. With the quake shocks, maybe a wall came down."
Helena heads towards the main front door. "I am curious though..."