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The White Wolf:
All around is a wall of sickly yellow fog, tumbling through the alley's canyon of crumbling, gray brick walls like some jaundiced flash flood. Ahead, the unfamiliar alley splits, curving to the left and right. Behind, from the silent swell of mist, emanates the sound of footsteps - slow, but somehow keeping pace with the careening, hungry wave.
A chill runs down your spine - something is in that fog, something terrible and beyond your imagining. And yet, you hold your ground; courage is one of your finest attributes after all. Though perhaps, not among your wisest.
The mist parts, now mere steps behind. A mask of gray rags emerges, strips of something fleshier than fabric worming and constricting across a body that's almost humanlike - but too lean, and far too flexible. Gauzy gray ribbons reach out like tendrils, each grasping for less doubtful flesh to claim.
You stand tall in front of your friends, whoever they are, ready to face down the monster. It approaches with slow, creaking steps, the fog lingering at its footsteps. With each step closer it takes, you feel smaller and smaller, until it is towering over you. You stand trembling, dropping your blade with a clatter onto the alley's cobblestone. The creature raises its right hand, and with a mere flick of the wrist slices your throat clean. You are dead before you even hit the floor. As the blood oozes onto the cobblestone, it moves and shifts to write out a single word: "ME."
Morvan Fellis:
You look on in horror as your burly companion is slain. You have to get organized, you have to fight back; you shout out at your remaining companions to hold their positions, to be ready to defend themselves.
You have no time to see if they comply before the creeping fog surrounds you. Your vision is blurred with yellow, and you are blinded to the others, to the buildings around you, to the cobblestone below... All you can see is the masked horror, mere inches from your face. Long, bony fingers rise to meet your face, and its wretched claws pluck out your eyes. You scream in anguish and horror, writhing on the ground as blood drains from your head. Finally you still, the streaks of blood scribing out a word: "UP."
Feimramdem:
You cackle madly as the monster slays your compatriots one by one. The creature stands over its latest kill, its back turned to you, and you see the opportunity to strike; what pleasure it will be to best such a cruel beast.
You charge it with a warrior's cry, your weapon aimed for the nape of its neck. Mere moments before you strike, the beast's arm impossibly contorts behind its back and seizes your neck. The shock causes you to drop your blade as the beast turns to look upon its quarry face to face, squeezing your fragile neck harder and harder. Just as you feel your last breath on the horizon a horrible pain enters your gut, the creature's claw embedding itself into your stomach. Blood drips from the wound as you fade away, suspended and helpless, and it spells the following: "SAVE."
Rakheet:
They're dead. Everyone is dead. Your friends, so much bigger and stronger than you, rendered helpless against this... this beast. You have to run, you think, run away as fast and as far as you can. So you run. You run as far as your little legs will take you, scurrying away with a completely understandable cowardice. The yellow fog surrounds you, but you do not care, because you know that every step takes you away from that monster, every step is one step towards salvation from The -
You come to a careening stop as you see a figure in front of you. It wears a mask of gray rags, with strips of something fleshier than fabric worming and constricting across a body that's almost humanlike. You fall prone as you stumble and roll in shock, down and vulnerable in front of the monster. It places a ragged foot on your head, and steps down. As blood drips from its foot, it spells out one final word: "WAKE."
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All four of you awake in a grimy, unfamilar dungeon. The two humans share a cell, with Feimramdem and Rakheet in their own individual cells, all secured with heavy iron bars. None of you recognize anyone else. You all notice that you have nothing with you except the clothes on your back.
"Wake up, damn it!" An unfamiliar man strapped to a table in the center of the room screams, his panic cutting through the claustrophobic near dark. Another figure stands above him, unsettlingly thin and wearing a blood-smeared doctor's coat. She circles the table casually, spinning one blade of a broken pair of pruning shears, which glints in the dull light of the lamp suspended overhead. With careless cruelty, the doctor draws the blade across the bound man's bare thigh, releasing a tortured wail. A smaller table sits by the larger one carrying a variety of implements useful for cutting flesh.
What do you do?
Feimramdem breaths in deep with her awakening, her hand on her dirty, sweaty shirt. She idly scratched at her stomach, before she sat up and drew her hands down her rough cheeks, "Oh, if only. What beautiful dreams." Yawning deeply, she swung her legs over the side of the bed and held her face for a bit. Everything is so blank..
Then there came the wailing which interrupted her attempts of drifting back to sleep. Standing to her full height and setting her horns on the metal bars, she slowly wraps her fingers around the cold metal. Her eyes were drawn to the tools and to the delightful show. All she needed was breakfast and this would be perfect.
Swaying gently, "Cut him, cut him deep! Cut him for me, my good doctor. Yes, do it for me." If only she could reach between these bars, how it would slip between her fingers and taste! What privilege the doctor must have..
Rakheet wakes up with a scream, takes in his surroundings and screams again. Hands and nose twitching, he scrambles to the corners of the cell, swiftly realizing how dire his situation is, before forcing his mind to work.
Fact: I have no idea why I'm here. Fact: I'm unarmed. Fact: there is a mad woman torturing a man. Fact: the fiendspawn in the other cell is likely crazy and dangerous as well. Fact: those are keys. Fact: as a roach, I survive.
Twisting and turning, Rakheet tries to force his tiny body through the door of the cell, as stealthily as possible.
"Mistress! Mistress!" he squeaks, picking a pebble off the floor and hiding it in a paw as if it was a diamond. "Come look at this thing I found, please? It might be treasure, it sure is shiny!"
The large man on one bunk of the humans' cell wakes with a start, rolling as if to his feet. He doesn't quite stick the landing, though, and with a shout and a heavy thud he slams down onto the floor. He's large, although not obscenely so, and his clothing looks as though it was once quite fine and brightly colored--although now they're faded, tattered, and covered in dirt and grime. The man himself pushes to his knees and looks around, his eyes wide with surprise and confusion. His hair is chopped short enough to avoid his eyes, and again looks as though it once might have been a fashionable style, but is now ragged-ended and matted across his forehead. Across his jaw is a rough and dirty beard.
He stumbles to his feet and looks around the room, noting the other inhabitants of the cells, as well as the man on the table and the woman carving his leg. Seeing the rat creature trying to break free, he slams his hands against the bars and rattles them back and forth as hard as he can. "Hey!" he calls, his voice hoarse; he coughs, and it takes on a deeper, less rasping tone. "What'd he do? Hope nothing I did."
Marius jumps up from his bunk with a scream, and finds himself a cage. A dream?.. He looks around his surroundings, noticing the others.
"Yeah! Why are we here?! And where?"
He unsteadily takes a few steps from his bunk, and jerks the bars to understand how firm are they.
Feimramdem let her eyes note the others. Both male, both human, and both trying to steal the doctor's attention from her. She wrung the bars in her hands as a pale, white flame billowed the sides of her eyes, "Look into my gaze!" Her voice was loud, commanding, "The others are nothing but animals trapped in cages and they cry out worthless things. They cry out if you cut them and offer you the idea of greed, but I know what spurs you."
Smiling and letting her cheek press against the bars, "Pain and pleasure..with that man there, you have tasted both, but I will ruin your senses them." She drops her eyes to the cage door and then back to the doctor, "This cage isn't for keeping me in, it's for keeping you out. For your own protection; your mind would be forever changed if you were to unlock me." She motioned for the doctor with her spaded tail, "Now come, unlock me. My bed was meant for two."
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The woman seems pleased by the tiefling's commentary. "Ah, it's so nice to have a test subject who appreciates my work. I'll save you for last so you can watch everyone else!" She appears to have a very odd definition of the word "friendly".
Rakheet can see the bars are too close together even for his small frame; him and the other men barking at the doctor seems to get her flustered.
"All of you, shut up! I'm trying to work here!" She turns around to shout at you, and for a brief moment her face looks strangely ratlike. It lasts for a moment, but that brief moment is enough for the man on the table to land a heavy kick on her backside, sending her flying forward towards Rakheet's cell.
what was that on her face don't think about it Rakheet oh gods I'm going to die what was that why am I here where is here...
Trained by years of pickpocketing, Rakheet's hand moves swiftly, instinctively, towards the keys, hoping that the horrible woman will be too distracted by the kick to notice their disappearance.
Fey-fey frowned slightly, her shoulders shrugging nonchalantly, "That's how it always is. But obviously, I could have done a better job." Turning about and going to lay on her back on the bed, she folded her arms behind her neck and contemplated the ceiling, "You didn't even tie his legs to the table. So amateur."
Perking up, she lightened her tone with, "Which is perfectly fine. We can't be good at everything and amateurs are kinda cute. I was hoping for something else though." Her tail snaked around and scratched her nose for her, settling on her stomach, "If you're done being manhandled out there, my offer still stands. This bed needs to be broken."
Feyeyramadan lifted her tail and her head as the doctor began to talk back. She let her eyes light up in flames again, but settled on a cool, disinterested scowl. Slowly, she got up off of the bed and neared the bars and shifted her weight about, "Say that to my face, I da--"
Then the doctor came sprawling towards her, so Feyadan grabbed the doctor's hair and butt naturally, with just the bars between the two, "You speak too much, your mouth is mine now." Her hand went to the doctor's weapon and split the doc's fingers with hers. The weapon most likely clattered to the floor and they, uh, they were...they were locked in combat. Those bars were getting offly warm. If there ever was a distracting moment, it was this one.
Taking advantage of the distraction, Rakheet quickly tries the keys until he manages to open the door, then scurries through.
Allies. Need human shields. That's how I do, don't I?
Valuing speed over stealth, he rushes to the humans and goes over the keys until he finds the right one, slamming the door open. "The doctor is insane, the tiefling likely more so! Let's run away, yes, away from here! Rakheet can help you if you keep him safe from danger!"
Freya hisses against the doc's neck. If her eyes could kill people alone, that rat would be d-e-d, dead, "You don't trust in my ability? For someone so small, you sure do make a lot of noise. I'm sure you and your bumbling friends can make it just fine." Wow, sarcasm! "Unlock my cage or I let this doctor go and help her instead of you. You have a much better chance of surviving with me around." She went back to smooching, then, "Obviously." Numbers, duh.
Squealing, the ratfolk flattens against the wall, body instinctively twisting away from the scary women. "Those words won't help Rakheet trust you, demonspawn! You were egging her on! You were enjoying bloodshed! You said the cage was for protecting us from you! And now you threaten Rakheet! You surely sound like you want to kill us all after you're done with her!"
Why am I speaking in third person about myself?
Fyryer set her chin on the doctor's shoulder, eyeing the rat, "Quickly now, rat. I want to get out of here too, wherever this is. My fingers are slipping, oh! Slipping.." She smiled, delightfully teasing the rat, before she rolled her eyes, "And if I said I was a flying, giant animal, you would believe me. I bet none of you know how to work a person over and make it sound true." Turning back to her business, "Well, what will it be, rat?"
"Uhm, Rakheet will go with no. Rakheet believes you would murder him in his sleep just for the fun of it, and Rakheet does not like being murdered in his sleep. And saying that you are a good liar is not good for Rakheet trusting you."
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The woman tastes disgusting, even by Feimramdem's standards. Her appearance shifts so many times to so many random people that it becomes pretty clear that what you saw earlier was not a mistake; whatever she is isn't natural.
Fayer can't remember any of her standards, so this is pretty normal, whatever normal is. But at least the doctor isn't moving! She breaks her kissing with some handling, "Rakheet, you are a fool to think you can have less and accomplish more. I don't have to murder fools, they'll die of their own accord." A little bite here, a little tongue there, "But I bet you'll lose your two human allies and doom us both to rot in this place. They'll look towards you, a fool, for guidance and die terribly."
She lifts one of the doctor's legs up as she works, "For one of those reasons, I haven't released this one from my hands. I need you to be alive, as I don't know what's outside these cells and would like to escape them in greater numbers. Just like you would. We're very similar in that regard" She laughs, cruelly, "Except one of us can't tell the difference between truth and lies."
"Rakheet can sure as hells have less enemies and accomplish more! And by your own words, how could Rakheet believe what you say is the truth? No, no, you are dangerous and I am afraid of you! And you would want to lead us?"
Feyarami made a pouting face, "Enemies? I'm talking about allies, but if you want to run around making enemies, you be my guest." She cracks up into the shape-changing lady's lips, pulling away, "How can you believe those two you're going to unlock are going to help you? I stand by my words; you really can't tell truth from lies." Laughing more, "Lead you? You are a craven and the others would just blame me for your eventual death. I would help you, more than you will ever know, but I'm sure one of those burly humans will lead you."
She shrugged in a comfortable manner, "I'd rather not risk my pleasure in killing your worthless hide. Go about your business, but leave the doctor with me. That's all I ask."
The man tries to follow the conversation between rat and tiefling, but it moves quickly back and forth. As he's released from his cell, he steps out and settles on prudence. "She's right," he rumbles, looking at Rakheet. "Rakheet, right? Sounds like none of us know where we are or what we're doing here. The more of us we've got, the better our chances of finding out what's going on."
He turns to Feimramdem's cell and steps forward. "Can't say I love what she's said, but the woman's helped to, er..." He opens his mouth in thought, and then shrugs and gestures at the scene. "She's helped incapacitate that thing. Let's have done with it and get out of here." With that, he moves to pick up the knife the doctor dropped when she was grabbed.
"But she's a sadist! And she boasted about being a liar! How are we to trust her?" Not too shabby on fast-talking myself either, I believe.
The man's voice gets Rakheet's attention. The ratfolk cuts the restraints with his sharp fingernails, then tries to patch him up with whatever's scattered around. "Who are you? How did you get here, no, wait, I'm more curious about how Rakheet got here. He doesn't remember anything."
Oh, now I see. Referring to me in third person creates the illusion of a dumb, sniveling, servile half-wit. People let their guard down, and then I can take advantage of that. Very useful.
Fireyar licked the blood off of her lip, a little bit of it on her teeth, "Oops, I bit a little too hard." She watched the doctor run away with a cruel laugh, "Wait, please, come back. I was just getting started." She sat in the middle of her room and crossed her arms over her knees, cheek laying flat against her elbow. She watched the others argue, "How rude. I'm also a masochist, I'm pretty sure. How about you release me and we'll find out, hmm?" She lifts her eyebrows suggestively, her eyes no longer burning.
She let's her tail rise up and waiver like a scorpion's stinger, "I'm just so lonely now. Someone better find that doctor and bring her back for me...before she brings something dangerous to you, little rat." She shows her teeth at the last two words, but resumes her wait. Nothing to do except taunt the rat, one of her brand new hobbies!
Marius is happy to be outside the cell and doesn't pay too much attention to the tiefling and rat squabbling.
"Just free her already, will you?" he grumbles. "The more the merrier."
Since the bleeding man is taken care of, Marius starts rummaging the place for anything that looks like a weapon. The bigger the better.
The other human chuckles as the doctor runs off, and he flips the knife in the air. Then it clatters to the ground, and he quickly scoops it up with a nervous grin. "Well, guess that's not what I'm best at." He turns to the table, where Rakheet is helping the captive. "You holding up there? Looks like you took quite the cutting at some point. Rakheet, give me the keys, will you?"
If the ratfolk offers protestation, the man folds his arms and gives a determined grin. "We need all the hands we can get. I mislike the looks of this place, and I've a feeling even a sadist-mass...isist will be good to have along. And I swear to make sure she doesn't hurt you."
Though hesitantly, the ratfolk hands the keys to the White Wolf. "Rakheet will trust you on that. He doesn't like people trying to kill him in his sleep. And if he is alive, Rakheet can make himself useful, he's good and with his hands, good at making trinkets and many other things. What are your names?"
Nice. Already he thinks me weak, feels like protecting me. Although I wish I could drop this stupid third person act, it's getting old fast.
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The man gets up with a groan and gives Rakheet a nod. "Thanks for the help, uh... Rakheet, was it? Name's Campre Linweigh. I'm an orderly here at the hospital. 'Fraid I can't tell you much about what's happened. I was off duty and asleep, and when I woke up a bunch of the patients had turned into monsters. The 'doctor' you managed to scare off was one of the patients - Ilesi something? She sure wasn't like that before I woke up, I can assure you that."
Campre manages to stand up on his own but you don't need medical training to tell he can't do much else.
Now that you're free and have full access to the room, you can see two exits: one is the door to the east that Ilesi ran out of - a quartet of large sacks lie sitting next to it.
The opposite direction is blocked by rubble, but there appears to be a smaller adjacent room in that direction and to the south.
Faremadan lifted her eyes to the keys being handed over. She stands slowly, with a winning smile, "That's right, you better open that door." Walking over to the door, she places her hand on the metal and spins outside her cell. Looking the others over with the minimal amount of interest, she shrugs to the rat's question, finding her way to those sacks.
She tosses things about out of them, "There has to be something sharp in one of these sacks." During her search, she was looking over strange things, "Monsters? That sounds exciting." With mentioning of the doctor's name, Freemaden smiles, "I can still feel her on my hands, tossing and turning, ughhh.." She let's her eyes flutter and she draws her fingernails down her face.
Keeping ready to leap away from the fiend, Rakheet skitters towards the sacks, checking their content.
"What's in the sacks?"
Marius joins to the tiefling and Rakheet, and is soon pleased to find some equipment that feels strangely familiar. Especially comforting feeling is caused by a heavy club studded with iron.
He makes a couple of swings with it.
"Now we're talking! Let's catch that crazy torturer!"
Fefedem pulled a long metal hook attached to a metal chain out of a bag and then a blade with a ring in its handle where another chain was threaded through, "Oh..these must be mine." Then this wicked sharp hand axe that had a hook on the back of the blade. Bit by bit, she pulled her armor out of the bag and each piece smelled strongly of blood and sweat.
Standing up, she hooked her axe into her belt and idly spun her chained blade around her finger, "It'll be a shame to lose her. Maybe we can kill her slowly, wouldn't that be fun?"
"Hmm?" The big man goes to the sacks as well, and soon enough he finds a bulky bag with familiar equipment. Armor, a buckler, and several weapons lie within--the most fascinating a massive sword, with large quillons and parrying hooks above the ricasso. Its pommel has an ivory decoration, carved into the shape of a wolf's head. The man lifts it up and looks at it curiously. "I believe this was mine. I was called by this, I think. The White Wolf?" He looks at the others, then shrugs. "I guess that's me."
The Wolf spends a brief while donning his gear, and when he's finished, he lifts the sword and sets it on his shoulder. "So, we're off to catch our captor, eh? Sounds like a jolly time."
"Hmmm, tinker's tools and simple weapons, yes, they look appropriate for Rakheet. He is not a fighter, no, Rakheet is canny and crafty."
The rat puts on his armor and loads the tools into his backpack.
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Moving into the room your captor escaped through...
A broad chute extends diagonally through one of this cellar's half-crumbled stone walls. Beneath it lies heaped more than a dozen mutilated humanoid bodies. Nearby, a flight of rickety, wooden steps climbs toward the high ceiling - an escape none of the room's current occupants seem capable of employing. The smell of rot and decay in the room is nearly overwhelming, and the buzz of flies hangs in the air.
A cursory glance around the room reveals that the two most obvious exits - the stairs, and a tunnel to the north - have been blocked off by rubble. Campre comments that there have been a lot of nasty tremors since he woke up and it looks like the hospital's infrastructure has not taken it too well; his statement is punctuated by another, thankfully minor tremor.
The last available exit and the one the "doctor" must have left through is the chute, but you would have to climb over the pile of rotting corpses to get into it; this is a fairly trivial task, other than the "rotting corpses" part, which would likely bother you a lot more than it bothered the doppelganger.
Rakheet's sensitive nose is offended by the smell of the corpses. "Agh! Foul! Horrible sight, horrible smell! What may have caused this massacre? And why are they all wearing white like that woman...thing?"
Surreptitiously, the ratfolk moves behind the White Wolf.
Famalam didn't even notice the clothes on the bodies and planted her foot firmly into the bodies beneath her, hooking her weapons into her armor. She clambered over the dead bodies. And she smiled. Distant, she heard the cries of the bloodthirsty crowd, those dying around her. She killed them to advance herself, pushing her opponent down in their blood and hacking into his face with her--
She reached the shoot, and looked up it, "I would have. Kicking them down a chute sounds like fun. They would make all these sounds.." She pulled the rope from her armor loop and fastened it around a grappling hook. Tossing it up the shoot, she pulled on it to make certain it was fastened and began her ascent.
Rakheet whispers at the Wolf. "Great idea, let's free the murderous psychopath and give her a weapon, Rakheet can't see any way this could go wrong. As soon as we reach the ones responsible for this, if it's not herself, Rakheet bets she'll join them and tear us into tiny little pieces."
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Feimramdem makes it through the bodies and up the chute with ease. The top of the chute is closed, but can be pushed open with little effort.
Once up and out of the chute, Feimramdem finds herself in a small courtyard. Trampled flowerbeds lie smeared and squashed across the muddy courtyard. On all sides, stark gray walls climb towards a narrow gap of sunless sky. It's raining heavily, the precipitation unnaturally warm as as thunder booms regularly.
More rubble blocks exits to the southeast and the north; the only remaining exit is a door on the western wall.
Meanwhile, back in the basement, Campre looks like he might vomit. "She can't expect us to follow 'er up that way..." He shakes his head, looking away from the rotting corpses. Still, knowing he's far too weak to lead the group in a direction he looks to the other men in hopes they might agree.
Marius doesn't care what the bodies are wearing. It's a good thing he hasn't eaten, as far as he knows. He barely keeps himself from vomiting when he gets close to the bodies.
"No way..." he gulps. "No way I'm going there."
"I've got a pick and a hammer, but they're for war, not mining." The Wolf sets his hands on his hips and screws up his face in thought, staring after Feimramdem. Finally, he nods and steps forward. "I don't think we've got a choice, gents. That went for freeing our fearless leader, and it goes for this. Way I see it, we've gotta get out of here."
He steps onto the first of the corpses and winces slightly, then glances back with a forced grin. "Just pretend they're, uh... mushrooms. Big ones." He shrugs and turns back to clamber up the pile and the chute.
Feyfey slams her forearm against the grate a few times, feeling it give way with a final hit. Her chains dangled beneath her as she pulled herself up into the courtyard. Pulling them up and having a look around, she sat on the grass, "What a strange place to dump bodies. Well whatever." She was just about to pull up her rope when there was one of the humans on it, and instead waited a minute sitting and watching him climb up.
Her boot instinctively wanted to crush its heel into the man's face and send him back into the pit of bodies...but she only wiggled her fingers as he neared the top, but quickly frowned and didn't offer her hand to him. She was obviously re-focusing and didn't have that kind of time!
Firade shouted down the chute after the human was done using her rope, "If you don't hurry it up, I'm pulling my rope up. You can rot with your friends down there; I'm looking for a way out."
The Wolf retches as he crosses the bodies, but he takes hold of the rope and does his best to haul himself up the chute. At the top, he takes a moment to breath the fresh(er) air before forcing a grin and calling back down. "See, it's safe. She didn't even cut the rope, or hit me, or anything!"
He sits back and smiles sidelong at the tiefling. "I told them you were fine enough."
"Mushrooms..." All right, I can probably do that.
Marius takes a first step on the bodies, fighting off the vomiting. Squishing doesn't really help with that. Juuust big mushrooms. He avoid looking down from the rope, and as steadily as he can climbs up to the chute.
"Well, I can definitely say that's not something I'd like to do again."
His eyes closed, Rakheet clutches Marius' backpack, following the strong man upwards, trying to ignore what he is stepping on.
Fei-Fei stood up as the man arrived at the top, "I wouldn't cut my own rope, even with you on it. How lucky you are to still lay eyes on me." She returned the man's smile with a cruel mockery that quickly evaporated, "My thanks." As the others started their climb, Fre-Fre watched them with her blade swinging idly at her side in a slow, menacing circle. But she was soon bundling up the rope and hook once they were done, hoisting it over her shoulder, "About time. Too busy rolling in dead things?"