Momijii and Luxina having scrambled up the top of the rubble pile can see another gloom filled hall to the north. Most of this area has collapsed into a heap of dense gray rubble. The occasional clattering pebble makes it sound as though the mound is not entirely settled, and more rubble could collapse at any moment. Surviving doors lead off the hall to the west and east.
Lizzie softly pokes the doppelganger with her mace, for good measure's check.
"Phew..that was one freaky thing, you've got that right.
And it seems my shield and mace could use some cleaning. As soon as i find a cloth or some half-decent water, i'm cleaning them."
Crystal grimaces. "The way things are going, I think we're going to be knee-deep in blood and death before we make it out of here..."
Especially if we've been down here for a week. Let's just focus on one thing at a time--we can wonder about how we lasted this long later.
It's faint, but there is something scratching in the debris! It could be a survivor! Agrippa moves carefully to where the scratching can be heard and begins tentatively digging.
Lizzie stays near Heinrich, for it could be yet another evil tentacle rat.
Momijii was relieved that the...thing, was dead now. She just needed her wounds tended too...and a tailor. "I could use the help of those guards in treating these wound. You'd think that they'd surely have something, or someone, who could help. Cursed stuck up fools...I guess I can't blame them for being paranoid now, not after that...thing tricked us so well. We'd best move along and collect another couple of those so we can get those guards to let us in." She scrambled to the top of the rubble pile with Luxina and took a look into the gloom beyond. She didn't notice anything else as she noticed a spatter of gore from the creature sliding down her chest and about to slip between her breasts. She scooped it off and flung out into the darkness.
Crystal starts climbing the rubble behind Momijii, her bow still readied for trouble.
She points her bow at the rock pile Heinrich pointed out, an arrow nocked in case something else jumps out and tries to attack them.
Heinrich clambers over the mounds of debris. On the other side of a slight clearing he finds the body of an orderly, face down, half buried from the waist down by rubble. The smell of decay is strong and the buzzing of flies incessant.
Crystal keeps her bow trained on the body Heinrich uncovers.
Luxina feels as blind as a bat without any light of her own to illuminate the darkness that's all around.
She lights a torch and a shiver crawls down her spine.
Something feels amiss, but I'm not sure what... Well of course this place is amiss, but something else... Like something is about to jump out at you.. yeah that kind of feeling...
Filbert remains at a distance but gets within range to pick up smaller pieces of rubble and move them away as Heinrich tris to uncover the body he has found.
A sound catches his attention causing the rock he was moving to fall on Heinrich's foot. A voice, from in that room Suddenly remembering the rock he was moving "Sorry Agrippa, but someone is in that room nearest Lizzie, I heard them say, um, Zan-da-las, I think. Something about he see's???"
Getting a better view of the body "Back away Agrippa, that thing is unnatural. We all need to go, this place isn't safe, perhaps we should return to the boiler room. We could fire them up and have somewhere safe for the night if we barricade the door."
Agrippa nods at the Gnome Filbert Indeed. he says as he backs away, sunrod in hand.
Agrippa says I've not ever heard of this Zandalus fellow, but maybe he knows the way out of here.
Agrippa moves to the door and throws it open
Sees what exactly?
Luxina follows Heinrich closely, torch in her hand, shield in the other, illuminating any new rooms the duo encounters.
Crystal keeps her head on a swivel as she advances with her bow readied.
Filbert watches as Agrippa moves towards the door "Are you sure about..." is all he manages before the tall man throws open the door. Watching him on one side, backed up by Lizzie, and the un-natural thing thet were digging up on the right. The jewelers feet of their own accord slowly back towards the barricade.
Heinrich throws open the door to find what was once the sanatorium's laundry judging from the sturdy drying racks and toppled tables. Much of the northern end of the room is filled with rubble. Inexorably his eyes are drawn to the macabre tableau in the western alcove. Hung up like so much meat from the pipelike crossbeams are three manacled figures. The first closest to you is a clearly terrified human wearing stained yellow sheets as robes and bearing a flame-shaped chalk mark upon his forehead, what appears to be a partially corpse being eaten by the sickly looking fellow to the south. The stench is indescribable.
The wild eyed man to the north struggles vainly with manacles trying to tear himself away, he looks at the ghoul and shrieks, "Words fail!" He looks plaintively at you and babbles, "Praise!"
The full horror of what you're seeing starts to sink in, along with the sneaking suspicion whatever you're witnessing here is deliberate.
---> PASS
---> FAIL
---> FAIL
---> PASS
---> PASS
---> FAIL
Filbert, Heinrich & Momijii this place is seriously starting to get under your skin and you are getting a phobia of opening doors which invariably seem to reveal horrific things. Until you get proper rest you are shaken for 5 rounds after opening any previously unopened doors.
"...well." Crystal purses her lips and takes aim at the man eating a corpse. "Hey! Step away from the alcove! Now!"
The man stops munching a thigh bone for a moment, glances at you and turns back to his meal and carries on chewing. He grinds the bone in his teeth and with a loud crack the top section shatters. He gleefully levers that off and scoups out marrow, hindered by the shackles attaching him to the same crossbeam as the other two.
Agrippa shys back and says Dear gods! The man is eating the other one!
He drops his sunrod and picks up his crossbow, his aim is shaky and his voice quavers a bit
Prepare to meet thy end cannibal!
"Don't get too close to that... man?"
Luxina grabs ahold of a flask of acid from her pack and moves closer.
"What Heinrich said. Begone of this earth."
Lizzie follows the look of Heinrich, as he opened the door.
Seeing the figure eating a fellow prisoner, fills her with both surprise and disgust of the figure.
"You sick...perversion of a person.
There is no redemption for this."
When Heinrich opens fire, Crystal does the same.
Heinrich's quarrel lodges deep in the man's chest, piercing his heart. He carries on eating unperturbed. Crystal's arrow takes him in the eye and the arrow exists the back of the skull in a shower of gore. He slumps down and moves no longer.
The other terrified man watches this with huge eyes, and mumbles, "Praise! Praise! Praise!" like a mantra.
"Praise? Praise? Praise whom?"
Luxina asks as she gets closer to the raving man.
From the hallway,catching sight of the spectacle hanging beyond Heinrich blocking form Filbert cocks his head a bit. No that can't be... removing his goggles, he wipes his face, especially his eyes.
A second look, surely I was mistaken such as a tree looking human within the morning mist. adjusting right and then left to get a better view, a shiver crawls slowly down the gnomes back as his eyes truly are not deceiving him.
how do you just stand there?" Slowly step by step he backs further away from them, away from the thing Agrippa had been uncovering, away from the Nurse turned 'Dr' turned homicidal maniac.
The jeweler backs into the corner, the cool stone comforting against his back. A maelstrom of debris beginning to form; unbeknownst to him as he struggled with questions of how to press forward within this madhouse.
"Praise? Praise? Praise whom?"
Luxina asks as she gets closer to the raving man.
He stills for a moment before barking, "Zandalus sees!" He resumes his futile attempts to escape the manacles.
Crystal approaches the manacled prisoner. "Sir, please, stay calm. I'm going to try to get you out of here, okay?" She says in as soothing a voice as she can muster, given the circumstances.
He starts to calm down and mumbles, "No words." before falling silent.
"Alright. That's alright, sir. You've been through a lot." Crystal says as she starts fiddling with the man's manacles.
"Do you have a name, sir? My name is Crystal."
The man nods slightly and whispers, "No words..."
Crystal glances at the prisoner's neck. "Juglan Rivercane?" She reads the tag around his neck aloud. "Well, just hold still, Mr. Rivercane--I'll see if I can get these manacles off..."
Crystal tries tugging at the manacles, but they're entirely secure.
"Luxina?" She looks back over at the elven lady. "Could you come over here and take these manacles off, please?"
Lizzie tries to yank it, but she fails in her attempt.
"Aw man...this thing is tight."
"I can. They'll be off in a jiffy."
Luxina inspects the locks and sighs.
"These locks remind me of my past. They're quite easy to crack with the proper tools, not so much without."
Luxina mentions as she picks out the tools from her belt and goes to work.
"And I had only one hand free at the most to work with."
Master Rivercane is obviously a guest of this...establishment. He is quite likely insane, perhaps even homicidally so. Agrippa says, he reloads his crossbow and puts it away.
Agrippa inspects the man's flame shaped chalk mark Is this familiar to me?
Agrippa moves towards the southern door, and then he thinks twice and says Maybe you should open it? to Lizzie.
With a clatter, the maelstrom surrounding Filbert fades and the bits of debris resume their place upon the floor. His internal conflict for the moment decided, he looks around the corner to see the others of his group setting loose one of the ones they were just shooting at.
"Are you sure that's wise? so far nothing in this place has been friendly, including the people on the other side of the barricade. If they are even what they say...how do we know?"
Crystal starts helping Mr. Rivercane free of his manacles. "There's six of us and one of him. And even disregarding that, the man's clearly traumatized. I doubt he's going to pose a threat to us."
Agrippa moves towards the southern door, and then he thinks twice and says Maybe you should open it? to Lizzie.
"I don't mind, you keep your bolt launcher ready, okay?"
I doubt he's going to pose a threat to us.
"So far, whenever we've fought something 6 vs 1, it was a monster that actually did pose a sort of danger to us."
The sight beyond the door was horrifying, Momijii was starting to wish she'd never left her homeland, that she and her Master and never taave...Master? This was knew...but it served no purpose so she put it aside for now as the horror of one man eating another washed over her. She was to shaken by what was happening and knew she needed to rest soon. She stayed back as they pelted the...monster with projectiles from range, killing it, and barely listened as they tried to talk with the man. She was completely unwilling to enter than room, it just wasn't going to happen, "I-i-i'll be right out here keeping watch," she said shakily.
Most of the time Juglan seems pretty despondent but he grows distressed when you discuss opening the door to the south, muttering over and over, "No words. No words. No words."
Well, as the man seems agitated. Perhaps we forgo opening that one Lizzie. Didn't someone mention a bit of rest, I think perhaps we could all do with bit of rest yes? Someone said the Boiler room? Ah, my vertically restricted gemologist friend, Yes Smashing idea. Let's do that. And, stay away from that nasty bit of business there yes. Agrippa says as he passes wide of the rotting corpse in the rubble.
"Something about that man's stammering changes when we mention that door over there. More cannibals perhaps? Or something worse that frightens him? Should we try and put it to rest whatever he's scared of?"
"Well if you put it that way... Yes.. perhaps a rest is in order. Should we perhaps also drop that shapeshifter corpse off at those guards before we go have a nap? Maybe one is enough for them to trust us."
Crystal nods. "Yes--we're going to need rest if we're to succeed."
Besides, we've already spent a week in this place. What's another day, right?
Ok so I guess you want to rest.
@Heinrich did you intend to retreat to the furnace room where you woke up (that's fine, although you're going to have to deal with the corpse mound) or in the nearby boiler room?
@Luxina you can certainly drop the shapeshifter corpse off, in fact now you think about it you could retrieve the corpse of the one you killed in the furnace room area too.
@All, what if anything are you doing with Juglan?