M Human Wizard (Elder Mythos Scholar) 2|Init:+7;Per:+4|HP: 11/11;San: 36/39; AC:12(T:12,FF:10)| Fort:+1, Ref:+2, Will+5|
Mrakala nods at Yordan. "That is not a bad idea. It may be wise to check each door to see if they are locked and trapped. We can also listen at each to see if we can hear something, anything."
Perception:1d20 + 4 ⇒ (3) + 4 = 7
The disgustingly warm rain doesn't seem to alert Mrakala to anything wrong other than the uncomfortable feeling. He will follow the others quickly, wanting to get out of it.
"On second thought, let's just get inside. I do not want to spend much time in this rain."
He'll move to the small door Yordan referred to and listen to it, but he won't touch the handle to see if its locked. That's for younger, more perceptive people.
He'll move to the small door Yordan referred to and listen to it, but he won't touch the handle to see if its locked. That's for younger, more perceptive people.
[dice=Perception]1d20+4
Most of the courtyard was garden, with a graveled path looping around it. However, there was a paved "patio" area in front of the big double doors to the west. Both the double doors and the smaller door open on this paved area. A lot of mud has been tracked over the patio.You don't need to be a ranger to see that there's been coming and going, particularly between the two doors.
Just in front of the small door, a wheeled bin -- of the sort used to collect trash -- lies tipped over on its side.
M Human (Ustalavian) Ranger (infiltrator) 2 -- HP 13/16, AC 16, init +5, Per +8 Fort +5 Refl +6 Will +2, San 32/34, distracted (-4 CHA), sickened (-2 to all)
Yordan squats down by the tracks and examines them. "These are recent, or this heavy rain would have washed them away. I would expect someone soon based on this rate of traffic."
What else can he make of the tracks?
Survival: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (4) + 7 = 11
He'll check the wheeled bin too, but I'm guessing that there's a lot of blood trails in it...
M Human Wizard (Elder Mythos Scholar) 2|Init:+7;Per:+4|HP: 11/11;San: 36/39; AC:12(T:12,FF:10)| Fort:+1, Ref:+2, Will+5|
Any worthwhile Knowledge rolls for Geography, Local, Nature, or Dungeoneering helpful for identifying any of the following: Where the PC's are based off of the sky (probably not helpful with no stars) or the construction/architecture of the building (or is that engineering? Help! Bard!)?
Lost in thoughts of pollen-laden blooms and bountiful harvests, Nameless stands in the rain, staring at the ruined, rotten remains of the vegetation. I think I used to like these. Plants. Eating them and looking at them. Maybe not in that order?
"Can we please get out of this rain? It's annoying."
"ArE yOu SeRiOuS? yOu CaNnOt Be SeRiOuS."
"Of course I am. Just look at the mess!"
Blinking as if waking up, she joins the group gathered near the chosen door.
Any worthwhile Knowledge rolls for Geography, Local, Nature, or Dungeoneering helpful for identifying any of the following: Where the PC's are based off of the sky (probably not helpful with no stars) or the construction/architecture of the building (or is that engineering? Help! Bard!)?
The construction isn't terribly distinctive, but a sufficiently high Local roll might do it. Otherwise, nope.
It is locked? If so he attempts to pick it.
disable devise 1d20+9
The door is not locked. It opens outward, towards you. (A chunk of stone sitting on the patio looks just the right size, and is in just the right place, to hold it open.)
M Human (Ustalavian) Ranger (infiltrator) 2 -- HP 13/16, AC 16, init +5, Per +8 Fort +5 Refl +6 Will +2, San 32/34, distracted (-4 CHA), sickened (-2 to all)
"Can we fool them long enough to matter?" Yordan moves out from behind the overturned cart, putting it betwen him and the door. "How many of them are there? A few? Tens? Hundreds?" His tone rises in despair for a minute before he cuts it off; the warm rain falling on his face looks like tears.
"I think we should try to hunt them to the death. If we leave any of them alive, they'll come after us and drag us back -- back down there! Down there!" He chokes. "Wherever we are, no one outside knows, or they would have come already to investigate. We have to get them, before they can steal someone else's face and we'll never know who they are till they come back for us!"
It's not paranoia if they really are out to torture you to death.
"Fool them if you can, long enough for the rest of us to get the drop on them. Maybe they aren't alert, yet. Maybe they don't know we're the hunters now!"
M Human (Ustalavian) Ranger (infiltrator) 2 -- HP 13/16, AC 16, init +5, Per +8 Fort +5 Refl +6 Will +2, San 32/34, distracted (-4 CHA), sickened (-2 to all)
I think Vitae (disguised as a prisoner) was going in with Ghelik (disguised as a doctor)
But we're still thinking about it, haven't opened the door yet.
I think Vitae (disguised as a prisoner) was going in with Ghelik (disguised as a doctor)
But we're still thinking about it, haven't opened the door yet.
Will fast forward just a little bit:
The small door opens into a windowless 10' x 20' room that was obviously used for storage. A closet to to one side holds some simple lawn games -- lawn bowls, croquet, and the like. There is some wooden patio furniture in the back corner.
The room had one other function. A handle on the wall pulls open a large chute. The stench from below is distinctive. Yes, this leads down to the pile of bodies below. If you'd climbed up the chute, you would have ended up in this room. The floor of the room is stained with old blood. A large glass jug of some unknown fluid sits on the floor by the chute, nearly empty; it's the source of the vaguely medicinal reek that you smelled downstairs.
M Human (Ustalavian) Ranger (infiltrator) 2 -- HP 13/16, AC 16, init +5, Per +8 Fort +5 Refl +6 Will +2, San 32/34, distracted (-4 CHA), sickened (-2 to all)
"Oh, great, another storeroom. They were just tipping bodies down the shaft. I guess we have to use the other doors."
Quick check around the room to see if there are any useful items here: Perception: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (1) + 7 = 8
M Human (Ustalavian) Ranger (infiltrator) 2 -- HP 13/16, AC 16, init +5, Per +8 Fort +5 Refl +6 Will +2, San 32/34, distracted (-4 CHA), sickened (-2 to all)
Does Yordan know what that stuff is?
Heal check: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (16) + 6 = 22
"Wait... the shaft our bodies were dumped down should have been off to the east. This must be another of them -- how many people have they killed? Or... or are we turned around and confused?"
DM_DM said this small door was NW from the garden shed, and the body chute was probably E, so lacking any ranks in Knowledge (architecture & engineering) Yordan struggles to comprehend the alien geometry of this place.
Male Aasimar Mesmerist 1 (HP 11/11; AC 17/13/14; CMD 12 Fort +2; Ref +5 Will +3/+4, Init +3; Perception +7; Darkvision 60 ft)
'Those who have an affinity for it, is this area well travelled? Are there more than a few sets of footprints? Perhaps we can determine how many others are here. Surely it took more than a few to best all of us.'
M Human (Ustalavian) Ranger (infiltrator) 2 -- HP 13/16, AC 16, init +5, Per +8 Fort +5 Refl +6 Will +2, San 32/34, distracted (-4 CHA), sickened (-2 to all)
"Hard to tell in this rain. Many prints -- but more likely one person making many trips. Wearing shoes or boots rather than barefoot, which tells us very little. "
Kyleen listens to the others:
Perhaps we should hide in here and surprise whoever this is when they come back next. Did we determine how long ago the most recent corpse below appeared to have been dropped?
As she says this, she looks at the croquet equipment seeing whether any of the mallets might function as a club.
two things. First, although you don't hear any sounds through the double doors, you notice a faint light from under the door. It's yellowish -- the color of a candle flame or a lamp.
Second, something just went by overhead. In the driving rain, you didn't get a good look at it, but it was big. At least as big as a man. You have a momentary impression of black, membranous wings, and then whatever-it-was is gone. For now.
(Nobody else saw anything. They're all gathered around the double doors. You're kneeling by the doors, examining them, and you just happened to turn around to whisper something to the rest of the group as whatever-it-was flapped overhead.)
In other news, just the brief walk across the courtyard has left you all soaking wet.
Perhaps we should hide in here and surprise whoever this is when they come back next. Did we determine how long ago the most recent corpse below appeared to have been dropped?
You did not. Too busy trying to escape.
Quote:
As she says this, she looks at the croquet equipment seeing whether any of the mallets might function as a club.
Heeeeere's Johnny... but no. The mallets are light and flimsy. There's nothing here that could hurt anyone.
HP 13/16 Sanity 38/42 Init +6; Per +4AC 15/10/15 Fort +0, Ref +1, Will +2
Oh. Oh good. This room is inviting. The oracle begins to pace from chute to lawn furniture, back and forth. Back and forth. Couldn't they have at least mopped up the place? Nameless stops and scuffs at the floor a bit, trying to scrape off the blood from the area at one end of her pacing circuit. Then turns around and scuffs a little towards the other end. And a little more, slowly clearing and scuffing the floor. Looking up with a smile and dripping hair plastered to her head. Better to walk on a clean path, wouldn't you say?
Male Human Rogue (Swindler) 2 AC:14 HP 10/10 Perc:+5 Init: +3 F:+1 R:+5 W:+1 SAN: 37/40
Let's move in, I just caught me a glimpse of somthin' flying around ere.
He puts away his weapons, shifts into doctors mode, moves the rest of the group to either side so they are out of direct view, and opens the door with with his "patient" in tow.
The double doors open outward. Inside, they open into a long hallway that runs north-south. To the north, the hallway stretches away into darkness. The hall has a vaguely institutional look to it: the walls are painted a neutral pale green. A small sign across the hall from you says Chapel (with an arrow pointing south, to your left) and Laundry -- Boiler Room -- Staff Office (with an arrow pointing north, to your right).
The hall is not in good condition; a lot of mud has been tracked in, and there's what looks like a large bloodstain on the floor just north you you.
To the south, just a few feet from the double doors, someone has drawn or painted a line across the corridor. Just on the other side of the line, a few inches to the south, a lantern sits on the floor of the hall. It is turned down low, casting about as much light as a candle.
A moment after you step through the door a voice calls, "Look out! We've got more here!"
20' to the south, there used to be an archway in the hall. It had half a dozen different holy symbols marked around it, and the words All Are Welcome inscribed on it. Above it, a large sign says PEA. It looks like it once said PEACE, but the end of the word is so damaged as to be unreadable now -- it looks like it was burned or melted away.
The archway is filled to chest height with furniture, an amateur barricade made of a large desk, some chairs, and whatever odd items were at hand. Behind the barricade are two men pointing crossbows at you. A moment later, a third scrambles up from behind to join them.
Raising her hands and showing that she is carrying no weapons, Kyleen steps forward, up to, but not past the line, her prison rags soaked and sticking to her body.
We mean you no harm if you are real. We just escaped the prison below, killing a shapeshifter who was torturing one of us while in the form of a female physician. If you are one of the dopplegangers, then you might as well start shooting.
M Human (Ustalavian) Ranger (infiltrator) 2 -- HP 13/16, AC 16, init +5, Per +8 Fort +5 Refl +6 Will +2, San 32/34, distracted (-4 CHA), sickened (-2 to all)
Male Aasimar Mesmerist 1 (HP 11/11; AC 17/13/14; CMD 12 Fort +2; Ref +5 Will +3/+4, Init +3; Perception +7; Darkvision 60 ft)
No sand trials the pale thin 'man' and he tries to make his voice heard.
'Be at peace! We seek no quarrels nor fight! We have seen ... vile things. Please, we are few in number and near death, we seek parley and safety only! What meager things we have we will share.'
Vitæ hands are upright and thrown wide. He's eyes try to show truth.
We mean you no harm if you are real. We just escaped the prison below, killing a shapeshifter who was torturing one of us while in the form of a female physician.
"Sure you did. Just like the last one."
The guard gestures with his crossbow. "Crawl away, skinwalker. We've heard it all before."
DMDM we skipped ahead in the small room with a chute, can we take 10 for a quick search?
Sure. You found nothing of interest in the small room (unless you feel like a brisk game of lawn bowling).
Quote:
In this new room what are the people wearing?
and [dice=Sense Motive] d20 + 5
Two guards in leather armor, the one who just came up behind has a chain shirt. A roll of 8 doesn't give you much, but at a casual glance they seem frightened but determined.
'Be at peace! We seek no quarrels nor fight! We have seen ... vile things. Please, we are few in number and near death, we seek parley and safety only! What meager things we have we will share.'
HP 13/16 Sanity 38/42 Init +6; Per +4AC 15/10/15 Fort +0, Ref +1, Will +2
Nameless pokes her head around the corner, looking down the hall. What if we could bring you the corpse of the last shifter who crossed us? It bled well. It bled thoroughly.
Any proof that the bloody traffic on the floor leads to or beyond the barricade?
Nameless pokes her head around the corner, looking down the hall. What if we could bring you the corpse of the last shifter who crossed us? It bled well. It bled thoroughly.
The guard in the chain shirt -- who seems to be the one in authority -- shakes his head. "Nice try, but we know we've hit a couple of you. Who's to say you're the ones who killed that one?"
Quote:
Any proof that the bloody traffic on the floor leads to or beyond the barricade?
It doesn't appear so -- the tracks mostly seem to go north, not south. But you'd need someone who can roll higher than a 1 on Survival checks to be sure.
When did we wake in the cells? About 10 minutes before we got above ground? If that's the case how long can these guys been free? Same amount of time?
Why would you assume that?
Quote:
'We have a gifted Healer with us, she has but to rest then she can help ALL of us. Let us speak to your ... leader.'
Chain Shirt Guard does not look impressed. "We know some of you have tricks. You 'help' someone, we let you in... as soon as everyone's asleep, you change and start cutting our throats." He shakes his head grimly. "Not on my watch."
