Mavro did not know what Milo had seen in the room, and he did not really care to. All he knew was that the moment the lunatic attacked Milo, his life was fair game. To be deprived of intellect was a terrible thing.
If the first lunatic survives Milo's attack, Mavro will attempt to finish the job - otherwise he will move further in and attack the other.
After a quick trust from Milo, Mavro's staff crushes the lunatic's cranium in a gory and messy fashion. The body collapses on the ground instantly, like a rag doll.
In the far corner of the room, the second lunatic holds tight to his chest the severed foot and fingers he won at "cards" and screams in panic "Nooo! I won fairensquare! Don't take my winnings!"
Xander didn't look horrified. He looked sad. He knew these men were beyond hope, the victims of something terrible. Still, he couldn't bring himself to strike them.
As Xander watches the pitiful being cry in a grotesque way, Mavro step forward and puts an end to the poor madman’s misery. A heavy hit with the staff upon the man’s neck, a loud CRACK! and he is no more among the living. He collapses on the ground, with his previous partner and the man they both killed.
The room the old Pathfinder find himself in is most likely a laundry room. The awful stench of blood, corpses and loose bowels can’t fully cover the smell of cheap chemical soap, and in a corner can be seen a huge pile of bedsheets and simple beige scrubs.
The rest of the Asylum awaits the heroes, an Asylum that seems to get more horrific with every room that gets opened.
"Madmen," Mavro mutters, shaking his head while wrinkling his nose from the stench. He could not count the number of foul things they had smelled that day if he tried. "Madmen everywhere."
Evidently unshaken by the encounter, the Pathfinder steps over the dead bodies toward the next door, and opens it.
Varta follows close behind the old man.
Xander shakes his head and sighs, following the others.
Armed with determination and courage, the dwarven maiden, the young rascal from Ustalav, the old and grumpy Pathfinder, the stormtouched halfling and the haunted nobleman keep exploring the ground floor of the Asylum. Rain keeps drumming on the barred windows, and the flickering light of candles does little to cheer up the pale, mold-stained green walls. The steps of the five adventur-ers are covered by the noise of the escaped lunatics: every once in a while, a room hosts a small group of these deranged souls, who either hide in panic under the furniture or carelessly hurl them-selves at the adventurers, armed with chair legs or broken glass, and inevitably meet their end. A medical library, a lecture room, a guest room are some of the chambers encoutered: nothing out of place in a medical facility.
Other than these madmen, the asylum seems desert: the dormitory of the orderlies reveals eight beds, just enough for the eight brutes who met you at the entrance. Searching through their posses-sions you can see they lived barely better than the inmates: and the smell that comes from the kitchen is revolting.
After a good half-hour spent searching through the place, only two doors are left: Crove’s study, where the brass plaque makes a good show of itself, and the twin doors leading downstairs, where the madmen have been chained.
"Do you think we'll be lucky enough to find the madman at the helm of this ship, waiting quietly for us within his office? No? Well, I suppose we should check, just in case, before finding out what horrors have been reserved for the dungeon, given the degree of what is on display in the hospice proper."
The lithe halfling maneuvers her canine companion over to the office doors, and brings a few choice spells to mind for when the portal is flung open.
The heavy double doors softly open, revealing the interior of Crove’s office. This is perhaps the first pleasant room of the building. The walls, painted of a somber beige, are free of humidity stains and mold. A fireplace still holds a few red-hot embers sleeping under a thick crust of ash, and a few chandeliers light the room almost properly.
A heavy wooden desk with many drawers is covered by books and sheets of paper left in disarray; a quill is now glued into the solidified content of the inkpot.
The desk sits in the middle of the room, over an old carpet depicting a quite gruesome scene of war from Carrion Hill’s troubled past. There are five cushioned chairs, one behind the desk and four in front. A series of shelves on the left wall hold many volumes, and the few titles you can see at a glance give you goosebumps: most are eldritch tomes, talking about outer planes and interstellar horrors. A few references to the Old Cults seem to be here and there, as well as many volumes of astronomy and astrology.
Varta looks at the books.
and if needed,
and
Xander shakes his head and opens his pack. "Just the relevant ones, please." he said as he slowly walked the rook taking a careful look at everything.
Books began pulling themselves off the shelves and floating over to tuck themselves away.
With a veritable grunt, Mavro hobbles toward the dying fireplace and sticks the bottom end of his magical staff into it, stoking its embers.
"Bah. Blasted madman. This room and those buffoons could hardly have kept him safe... he must be hiding elsewhere."
"We did spend a fair bit of time securing the rest of the building," Milo says with a frown. "Could he have sneaked out behind us, like the cowardly dog he is?"
Milo is disinclined to be charitable after the last half-hour or so seeing Crove's handiwork and 'patients'. Poor wretches.
"Or perhaps he's lurking here invisibly, like a loathsome ghost."
Milo moves around the room tugging on candlesticks and the like to see if anything triggers a handy secret door.
"Invisible?"
Tempest slides down off her mount, in order to grant him more freedom of movement.
"Stormcloud? Seek."
She points around the room, conveying the idea that he is to look for any hidden enemies or surprises.
While Stormcloud is thoroughly puzzled by the flacon of herbal antiseptic shattered on the floor, which is seriously messing with his sense of smell, the adventurers’ research fares better.
The books are in the veins of those found in the dungeon below the site of the first attack: and several holes in the library reveal that those books once resided here. In particular, a glass display case is empty, the dust upon it showing signs of fingertips: it seems likely that this was the place for the Pnakotic Manuscripts. Some volumes are about eldritch portals and eerie beings supposedly living beyond the stars; others are simple astronomy tomes, but you get the feeling that, should you need more information about what’s going on, the best source is already in your possession.
Xander discovers another secret in the room: a false bottom in one of the drawers hides a polished and slender tube, about a foot long and less than an inch thick. It seems to be made of hematite, and there is a fine chiseled motive uncoiling down the length of the cylinder, depicting an overtly long serpent’s tongue.
It is a wand of suggestion (CL 5th, DC 14, 9/50 charges), activated by the Aklo words for “listen carefully”
"Tempest, would you mind taking a look at this?" Xander said, pulling a drawer out of the desk and displaying the false bottom and it's hidden prize. He knew better that to touch it, especially considering the forces they were dealing with. Instead he gently raised a hand and the tube drifted up out of the drawer to hover in the air.
Varta Detects Evil.
"Perhaps it's about time we looked at that damned book," Mavro suggests, falling into the comfort of what is presumably Crove's chair. "With all these raving lunatics around, I am starting to wonder if there even is a monster."
"Dangerous. It could very well be that the book is what caused the lunatics in the first place. The relics of the Dark Tapestry are well known for the strain they put on the minds of mortals." Xander says, concerned.
"That being said, learning more about what we face could be worth the risk. If I had to guess, I'd say that Varta is probably the best candidate among us to understand and resist the ideas the book holds."
Tempest eyes Xander a bit when he requests she look the item over, checking his face to see if he is being sarcastic or patronizing. Seeing what appears to be a genuine request there, she moves over to the drawer, and its false bottom.
"I'm a sorceress; not a scholar. I'll take a look, but no guarantee I'll know anything more than you..."
"It's a wand of Suggestion. No doubt used to manipulate those who hadn't yet volunteered to have their brains cut open. It appears to have some uses left, though not many."
Given that she can use it, Tempest picks up the wand and slides it into her robes, near her others.
To Mavro's comment she responds, "Seems clear there is a monster, unless all that destruction was caused by someone deliberately to make people think it was real. Seems like too much effort, for the trouble. No, I'm pretty sure it's real, the real question is whether we should bother confronting it before it wipes out the idiots who summoned it, or wait until after."
"Hmph. Well, the stout folk are certainly reputable for having stubborn minds," Mavro says in agreement, stroking his beard. His tone certainly makes it sound like a compliment, blunt as his words are. He glances at Varta, frowning thoughtfully. "But it is her choice to make. Of course."
The frown bends into a crooked smile when he hears Tempest's words. "Aha. The real question indeed. As much as it would please me to see the rest of those fools torn asunder by their own doing, I would sooner knock them down myself. But yes, you are correct - the creature must be real. We know who summoned it, and where. But the question that remains is what."
While Varta sifts through the room, vigilant to every possible evil emanation, nothing gets outlined to her vision. Given the nature of the place you are, it is likely something shady has been done here, but nothing so powerful to leave a lingering aura. Luckily or not, it there were aligned items, they have been removed.
Milo looks frustrated at no sign of their quarry, and no convenient secret door, either.
He walks to Crove's desk and drops into the comfortable chair, popping his booted feet up onto the desk and lacing his hands behind his head.
"Well, I'm not reading the book. First rule of living to a ripe old age in Ustalav, my friends: don't read strange otherworldly books, eh. We can poke in that book, or we can try to track down the beast, or..."
"Hmph. Growing old is not all that it is cracked up to be," Mavro says with a scowl, eying Milo's muddy boots. "If the dwarf will not do it, then I would sooner read the book myself than leave it to some young whelp."
"Should we burn the book?" Varta asks Lovecraftily.
Mavro blinks. "Just hand me the damn book. If I turn into a raving lunatic I expect you to put me out of my misery just like the rest of them."
Xander shakes his head and hands it to Mavro. "Hopefully it won't come to that."
Mavro carefully takes the tome and sets it down on the desk. He runs a his fingers along the sides of its pages, perhaps hesitating. After just a moment's pause he scowls, pulling the book open to a random page. As his eye full upon the page, they suddenly widen.
"I... this is...! I cannot read this incoherent babble!"
Incoherent babble, indeed. The Aklo language does not share the Taldan nor the Thassilonian alphabet, and Mavro is unable to undertand even where the sentences start and end.
Even the names of the five Keepers scribbled inside the cover are unreadable: they have been translittered into Aklo graphemes.
Tempest raises her hands, "Don't look at me; I don't even recognize the characters. Is that an alphabet? Ideograms? I don't think I could even get that far..."
"We probably need to acquire a magical means of deciphering this, or enough luck to find a 'Gibbrish to Common' dictionary in the official library."
"Do you mind if I give it a look? At the very least I might discern what language it is written in."
Xander closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. "It's Aklo."
Xander took the book and opened it. "If I start acting strange- strangeer, I suppose, someone please knock me out."
And he delved into the tome.
"Happily!" Milo says with a grin, offering a wave from where he's still occupying the chair.
Humor aside, though, he draws his club and keeps it in his lap... just in case.
As Xander reads, Milo gets up and paces the office, restlessly. He makes sure the office door is open so that he can hear and see any signs of further trouble coming, and lounges in the doorway, tapping the club against his leg absently.
He mislikes this entire business. If worms start erupting out of Xander's skull, he makes a solemn promise to himself to just run like hell.
Mavro seems content to stay put in Crove's chair, finding it to be the damn near closest thing to comfort he had felt all night. A few times the elderly Pathfinder seems to nod off, his head bowing against his staff. If it were not for his occasional incoherent grumbling, he might have been thought to have died in his sleep.
Varta looks relieved that someone other than her can read the book. She looks around warily.
Minute slowly follows minute for the four of you, keeping watch in the creepy and sinister Asylum while Xander buries his head in the Manuscripts, with a little help from some texts in Crove’s library to better understand the knowledge within.
During this hour, nothing comes to disturb the five heroes: from time to time a lunatic can be heard running in the halls screaming madly, or singing a terrifyingly gory and graphic nursery rhyme. Still, the unfortunate madmen aren’t a real threat, and provide no inconvenience other than the occasional startling scream in the silence.
Meanwhile, Xander is thoroughly sifting through the book, absorbing the knowledge. The focus of the book itself does not concern anything too maddening or scary: mostly, it talks about eldritch travel, portals, and conjuration magic in general. Incredibly complex schemes and formulae are dis-seminated through the text, formulae could probably be sold to a skilled wizard for a good amount. All of these spells seem to concern magical travel, both planar and mundane.
Several red silk bookmarks can be found in different sections which, read and put together, provide a lengthy analysis about how some rituals can be performed to open portals to key locations. The Keepers of the Oldest (most annotations are in the same thin, spidery handwriting that can be seen on Crove’s documents in the office) planned on using this rituals in the Sunless Grove, to contact a “spawn of the Dark Tapestry” and further enhance their knowledge of forbidden magic and arcane secrets.
A section near the end cautions those who would attempt this ritual, warning that forcing open such portals draws forth the spiritual essence of the casters, and that any entity contacted by the portal can make
“hideous use of this essence by consuming it, growing
more powerful in the bargain, such that only the end of
such essence can challenge the intruder’s rights upon
your world.”
This sends a shiver down Xander’s spine as he beings to make sense of what’s happening: the creature’s essence is bound to that of its summoners. By consuming them, it grows stronger. Still, should the summoners be killed by an external source, the beast's link to this world would weaken, and its strength wane.
Shaking his head, he says "These spells are outside my understanding, but they seem to all have to do with planar transportation and bindings."
"It looks like they used themselves as the tethers to bind the creature they summoned. The creature is hunting them. If it eats them, it frees itself a little and gains control over the teathering magic, strengthening the bonds that hold it to this world."
"If something else kills them, the creature's tethers will weaken and it will be cast back to where it came from."
"The fact that they would do that is sheer lunacy."
Milo's automatic smile drifts into an unhappy, slightly-perplexed line as Xander explains the book's message.
"Lunacy, indeed," he says darkly. "Why call up a creature that has everything to gain from destroying you? Surely they must have had some sort of plan to protect themselves from it?"
The young man shakes his head. "But if this is true, then our course seems clear, if not pleasant: that wretch we left back at the jail must be killed, by our own hand."
Milo's tone speaks of his utter lack of enthusiasm for such a killing, but he takes a deep breath. "While we hunt down the others, the beast may be making its way to him even now... if it is not already there. It has taken some time to read that book, after all."
"Have we seen any sign of such bindings or protections?"
"Yes, yes, we have already established that these wretches had to have been foolish or stupid or insane," Mavro states with unreasonable impatience, leaning forward heavily on his staff. The question nagged at him as well, but speculation was not in his nature.
"We are here, we should find Crove. Then we can return to the jail. No sense in leaving just to have to come back again."
Milo spreads his hands at Xander's words. "Sure. We should find Crove. Where do you suggest we look that we haven't yet?"
Milo spreads his hands at Xander's words. "Sure. We should find Crove. Where do you suggest we look that we haven't yet?"
"Downstairs." Xander says standing up. The book stuffed itself into his pack as he walked.
"Aye," says Milo. "Let's go."
He moves with the group towards the stairs.
Varta heads downstairs, engrouped.