Seamus feels something about the room the door he just opened feels different.
"No! You don't know Brenton!You're lying. If you did he would have sent you with the shadow lantern. He knows I'm scared of the dark!" The child-like voice cries out.
Then Howard closes the door before Seamus can enter and search the room and light returns to the room.
As you enter the room to search for the child, you hear him sob, "Get away from me! I know you want to eat me up!" Then you feel a nip on your ankle.
You begin to feel lethargic after the bite.
Seamus hits only empty darkness.
”All you big bullies are all alike! You want to chop me into bits then cook me!” The child-like voice cries out. ”I’ve learnt to deal with likes like you. So go away before YOU get hurt!” Then he feels something nip his swordarm, and hears the sound of little pattering feet.
Seamus feels something draining his lifeforce but he manages to resist it.
The party hears the cries of a child, and Seamus's voice muffled behind the door and the sound of a sword hitting stone.
'Bullies?' feeling something nip at him he slashes at it with his sword, calling out to the child. "That's gross! Why would I want to cook you? I have cornbread. I'm here to help you. The only reason I have my sword out is something is nipping at me. How can you see me without your lantern? Why won't you let me help you?"
hearing Howard, Seamus calls back, "I'll be out in a minute, I need to rescue the little boy from whatever is nipping things in here."
Seamus hits empty air again.
”Do you know what it’s like to get ripped apart by ravening beasts? I’ve gone through that once. NEVER AGAIN! The child-like voice screams. ”I made them all pay!“
”And this is my domain. I see everything. Last warning…”
This time the little fangs do not penetrate Seamus's parade armor.
"I'd like to see Brenton...but he would not want to see what I've become."The child-like voice gives a sad sigh. "Leave and don't return without Brenton."Then Seamus hears the sound of little pattering feet move away, as well as the sound of sobbing.
Seamus is not nipped.
Seamus knocks on the door. "Hey Howard it's me. I'm coming out."
Opening the door he steps out and shuts the door behind him. "I think something bad happened to Brenton's brother. He was really upset and very defensive. He kept saying stuff about monsters tearing him up and people trying to eat him."
Seamus looks at his friends, "When does eating people get fun?"
He then goes on with his story. "I asked Debis why he called for Brenton and he started to sob and said he would like to see his brother again, but not to come back without him."
Pointing back the way they came, smiling. "So should we get Brenton or go someplace else?"
A rather nibbled Seamus comes out of the door and shuts it behind him.
Vincent crawls through the serving hatch.
A low desk sits behind a window that passes into a room beyond. Behind it an empty doorframe opens into a ransacked storage room, its floor covered in broken glass and opalescent stains. Three yellow robed humans are sniffing some white powder. Their pupils are dilated and their noses runny. They squint at the dancing lights Seamus sends in. On seeing Vincent they grab their clubs, yelling belligerenty, "Hoi you! You ain't takin any of our candy!"
"I don't know. What flavors do you have?"
Vincent skewers one of the cultists in the chest, badly wounding him, then backs off into a corner.
"Well our candy makes us feel soooo good! And its all OURS!"
The rest try to avoid his longspear as they go after him with clubs.
One of them manages to club him on his shoulder.
Howard scoots out of the way.
'What candy? I only see that odd powder that looks like.....oooohhhh, that sort of candy...' With the yellow robed cultists bunched up together, Seamus draws his fancy sword and stepping into the doorway slashes at the one nearest him. "That's not candy!"
Seamus manages to lop off the head of the badly injured cultist.
Dakash channels a bit of power to his staff, then crawls into the room and swings at the cultist in front of him.
The cultist manages to duck out of the way of the staff swing.
Vincent drops his longspear, then draws his rapier and tries to skewer the same cultist Dakash attacked, but he stumbles on the rough stone and manages to hit only empty air.
The cultists continue to club Vincent, one of them catching him on his side, cracking some ribs, while the other blow is absorbed by his leather armor.
'hope their too stoned to aim well.' Seamus slips behind Dakash, moving to his far left side, ducking and dodging the swings from the bad men, "Pardon me Dakash!" He maneuvers himself behind the nearest bad guy and tries to stab him in the back with the fancy shortsword.
Both of the cultists try to club Seamus as he attempts to tumble past. However they are too stoned to hit the agile bard and he manages to stab one in the back. "You must be after our candy!"
Vincent stabs again for the cultist.
Dakash casts touch of fatigue as he pummels the cultist in red.
Vincent stabs the cultist that Seamus stabbed and Dakash clubs him on the head and he falls over.
The remaining cultist clubs Vincent on his head while putting his back against the wall. "No! It's all MY candy!"
Vincent feels something hard strike against his head, and feels an explosion of stars and pain, then he blacks out.
You wander in an endless cloud of yellow vapor. Other shapes form and vanish in the mist, fleeting, unsettling things that refuse to be focused upon. After what seems like a lifetime, an exhausted-looking man with a ponytail of straight, white hair stumbles through, ranting, “What have I done? What have I done?" He tries to move past you.
"Stop hitting my friends!" Seeing Vincent drop to the ground his head split open, Seamus steps forward as he calls out and strikes at the remaining cultist.
Dakash attempts to cast again as he bludgeons the cultist.
The cultist twists away from Seamus's sword stroke but Dakash manages to poke him in the chest, cracking ribs.
Howard manages to drag an unconscious Vincent out of the room.
The wheezing cultist tries to club Seamus next, but Seamus ducks out of the way.
'Crap, now he's hitting me instead.' His eyes growing wide as the cultist tries to hit him, Seamus ducks under the club, and thrusts with his sword, "I didn't mean attack me!"
This time, Seamus does an admirable job of defending himself, riposting and running the cultist through his shoulder.
Dakash casts a spell with one hand and weilds his staff more like a sword with the other.
Dakash smashes his staff into the cultists ribs, shattering them and he collapses on the floor.
Howard finishes trickling the healing potion down Vincent's throat and he groans as he regains consciousness.
Then the man, looking nervously at the yellow fog suddenly changes direction and runs into you, knocking you to the ground. Your head hits the cobblestones and you pass out.
You awaken on the stone floor, your head throbbing, feeling weak and dizzy seeing two blurred Howards with Claudes perched on their shoulder, each holding an empty potion bottle.
Searching the cultist bodies,the party finds each of them is wearing a suit of padded armor, has a club and a sap.
The medicine cabinets in the northern portion of this room have been thoroughly ransacked. They once stored bandages, dried herbs, mundane tinctures, and chemical medications useful in treating a spectrum of ailments. Dakash spends 5 minutes searching to find some that survived the pillaging, discovering enough stray gear to effectively fashion a healer’s kit. Howard spots what Dakash did not, two vials of red liquid that he identifies as cure light wounds potions and bags them.
The party also find that the cultists "candy" that they were sniffing is a strange white powder which Vincent identifies as cocaine.
Cocaine
Type inhaled,injury; Addiction major, Fortitude DC 20
Effects 4 hours; +4 alchemical bonus on all checks and saves affected by endurance, pain and resisting the effects of altitude sickness.
Damage 1d4 Int and 1d4 Wis damage
Dakash finds that the door where he is at is not locked nor trapped and opens it.
The party sees a couch and small desks covered in paint flakes and thick dust fill this communal office. Remnants of the mundane work performed here remain amid the chaos of looting.
Dakash spots a book wrapped in butcher’s paper that bears the handwritten word “confiscated.” Inside is a Taldan quarto titled "Her Majesty’s Honorable Nightcap" by Charent. Vincent realizes the quarto is worth 10 gp due to its licentious contents.
Vincent stops and mixes a bit of herbs.
As he chews on them he looks about the room, pointing out the book's "value". He then moves to the back door to check it.
He hears the sound of child-like sobs, the same as he heard before behind the door. The door is neither locked nor trapped.
Vincent's little tentacled mongoose crawls out of his shirt and interposes himself between Vincent and the door,shaking his head.
Howard decides that the white stuff the cultists were sniffing made them feel good, so he scoups a nice load and sprinkles them on the gaping wound covering the old woman's chest. The chest wound closes, leaving behind the body of the rotund old woman in her faded house coat, finally at rest. The remaining blood sinks into the ground and vanishes.
Vincent checks the door previously blocked by the blood geyser and finds it not locked nor trapped. He does not hear anything from beyond the door.
He opens the door to find racks of cleaning supplies and bins of stained laundry stew here, filling the close space with a unique, acrid reek.
A female human, dressed in an orderly uniform, bearing multiple stab wounds, lies motionless, slumped against the walls, in a pool of blood.
Vincent has a vision of the spectral form of the woman yelling for the other patients to get out of here, while she makes a final stand against the yellow-robed cultists. Many patients escape – but bleeding from multiple stab wounds, the woman staggers into the room, shuts the door, then collapses against the wall.
On the body, Howard finds a suit of studded leather armor, a cloak of resistance +1, a potion of bulls strength and a potion of protection against evil. There is no sign of the shadow lantern.
Opening the other door leads to the corridor the party had previously visited.