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Not so fast Fearless, let the rest of us take a look at these books. I have an eye for evaluating things and might be able to give solid judgement on the net worth of things. This journal that you were about to stuff into your Haversack - for instance - has writings in the margins. These writings are embossed by the deceased doctor's sister. I don't know where the city of Katheer is, but any decent sized city would have medical institutions that would pay a pretty penny for the knowledge and research in this journal. I'd guess anywhere from five hundred gp's to a thousand!
So, let others see it, but put it in your sack for safekeeping. This is the most valuable thing we have found thus far and we all have an equal share.
He looks at the vial and instantly recalls the FaceStealers using it on Fearless during the "supplycloset betrayal" right before he lost all consciousness.
As for the vial -- It looks like a sleeping poison to me. Didn't the Doctor Doppleganger inject you when they first captured us right before we awoke in the cells? That's poison for certain. Laying you out for days or maybe even killing you outright
"Maybe they got some real medicines hidden somewhere", the Mariner rummages through corners and edges of the room.
Fearless holds the book out for BB. "Just want to read it later is all."
It looks like a sleeping poison to me.
The little halfling grins. "This could definitely come in handy. Someone could sneak up on Doctor Losandro in the other room and knock her out real quick." He holds the syringe out.
Cats keeps out of sight while others explore, a bit worried about being the pincushion again. He waits and watches, keeping guard.
A further search of the room reveals nothing, even after Brother Butterfly takes a moment to scan the area with Desna's magic spell of detection. His spell does however notice that the syringe the group found under the desk radiates a faint magical aura.
Taking a closer look at the display case, the Mariner notices some broken glass within and a pool of pungent green liquid that spills out onto the floor, leaving a faint trail leading back out into the hallway and to the next door.
"Looks like someone hittin the bottle...You fellas ready? Let's go." the Mariner nods to the doctor-in-waiting room. "I thought there was another door to the south end of this hallway. Brother wanna take a look?"
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Finding the southern door unlocked, the Mariner cracks it open. Inside, two desks are crammed into a small office. More space has been dedicated to filing cabinets, bookshelves, and stacks of loose research than for occupants.
Despite the cramped nature of this office, there is enough room for two nurses to work closely here. This is evidenced by two bodies slumped over the desks.
The two larger men block the view from the doorway as they cram into the small, narrow doorjam.
"what goo?"
Fearless drops low to the ground, catching fleeting glances of the room.
"Get in there and see what it is then. Don't just block the door!"
Cats peeks in.
Perception
"Hey wait! Can't you looksee?! Look!" Cats points to the heads. "Them nurses were killed by boots to the back of the head! Be careful! Watch your heads!"
Cats looks around.
"Send the halfling in, any head attack will go right over him."
"Nah...what's so special about goo." the Mariner waits for the others before giving the coffin-stripers a poke from a distance.
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The Mariner prods one of the corpses. Nothing happens.
Cats keeps an eye out for danger.
No reaction of the bodies, the Mariner looks back for some encouragement, only to see everyone brushing him on with thumbs-up - You're good - go on! Surely a surprise was waiting in the arms of the dead and molested ladies. Another poke to the head to ensure there isn't a pulse or spasm, then the Mariner rolls them over with the spatula. What the heck, you only live once. Or like more things in here,..twice.
>>
The Mariner uses his polearm to inspect the corpses from a distance, rolling them off the desks and onto the floor. As their bodies settle he raises the bill prepares for an attack, but nothing happens. Both seem to be very dead.
The Mariner steps over the corpses and turns the cots over, looking for anything useful. Given the cataracts on his eyes, he probably couldn't discern a bed roll from a bread roll.
"Send the halfling in, any head attack will go right over him."
Fearless glares at Cats, but ultimately lets out a resounding and deep sigh as he sees no one else moving into the room. Standing up he pushes Mariner out of the way and scurries into the room to get a better look at the pair of nurses.
"Outta the way. Let me get a look."
He grabs the nurses by the shoulders and turns the over while his eyes search the rest of the room.
Most of the documents and files here are related to mundane asylum duties and unremarkable psychological evaluations. Looking further, Fearless finds a thick yew wand etched with the symbol of Sarenrae hidden in the back of the eastern desk. A piece of twine is wrapped around it, connecting to a note that reads, “Mr. Lantz, this is a place of science, not faith. Please keep your religion at home.”
Cats keeps a careful eye out as the fearless Fearless enters the room and seems to keep a hole from appearing in the back of his head. Which is good.
"What did you find, Fearless?" Cats asks, wondering where the party might go next.
"A stick, apparently..." the Mariner mumbles pass and takes a long look at the door at the end of the hallway. "I get the feeling that it's not going to be a sit down kinda meeting with the doc..." He girds up and heads to the door, turns the handle and looks in, pole arm ready as he enters.
"Ehh, what's up doc?"
Fearless runs hands along the twine before tossing the wand to BB. "Looks like Sarenrae blessed this wand. You can probably use it to bless us if you continue to feel like trying to convert us."
Grabbing his crossbow from the table Fearless smiles. "Shall we visit this room full of nightmares?" He follows Cats to the good Doctor's room.
Cats moves up and hides by the door as Mariner opens it.
"Don't worry. Nothing cat go wrong," Cats bravely informs Mariner from his hidden position.
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Well Alright! Let's see how this Blessing Maker thing really works. I know how to ask for and invoke a spiritual blessing, it will be nice to have a holy relic help to empower my actions. Thank you Fearless for your adroit mind and crafty eyes found a useful item to help the party.
BB concentrates on the wand and moves to a spot to catch everyone in it's aura of blessing.
Okay Watchmen, Mariner and I and Super Snake will make our way into the room. Mariner and Supersnake, go after and kill that remnant of Doctor Losandro. Mariner hitting it high, and snake going low. I will support. Fearless, shoot that thing right before we get there. We want to see a crossbow bolt sticking out of it, as Mariner slices through it's Fog-hole.
On my count ----
saying a quick prayer to Desna and touching Mariner.
Desna, May blades, bites, and bolts go break it's bones.
Okay, One, Two Three. Go.
With a plan and tactics in mind the group returns to the northern door in the hall. Leading the way, the Mariner opens the door...
Yellow fog roils against the cathedral-like windows of this opulent, two-story office. The room combines the features of a alienist's study and a royal lounge. The ground floor features overstuffed furnishings, elegant side tables, and an altar-like desk of dark marble. A delicate spiral staircase and balcony of dark iron rises to a lofty library overhead. The place has quite a collection of books, art, and curios.
At the room’s center, Doctor Losandro kneels in a pool of her own blood, her back straight, her mouth gaping at the ceiling. From her mouth an unsteady torrent of colored mist spurts like a fountain, spreading out around her like in a hazy veil.
The Mariner tosses a question at the Doctor, but there is no initial response.
INITIATIVE
Effects: bless 1/10 rounds
INITIATIVE
Cats (17/17)
Pinkie (17/17)
Fearless (16/16)
The Twin (17/17)
Eidolon (11/11)
The Mariner (27/27)
Brother Butterfly (19/19)
Doctor Losandro
What...tha...hell? prepared as he was with BBs narrative, his mind wasn't quite ready at the unearthly sight. The red stuff pooling around the the doctor wasn't gong to get back in and bring her back to life. "Let's end her misery." With all the heave he can muster, the Mariner lays in with the polearm.
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Cats delays, waiting to see what happens with Mariner's strike. He's not even sure that there is a threat, let alone what it might be, but appreciates the Mariner's ferocity.
Fearless darts into the room, placing his back up against the table as his raises his crossbow and fires a shot. "Watch out for that mist!"
HP 16/16
AC 22
Spells 1st 0/2
Inspiration 0/3
Tactician 1/1
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In an quasi-whisper, BB advances with him to support. Giving verbal encouragement and instruction - when really, he's not much of a fighter.
Swing through with the hips! Blade and forearms extended. Put a polearm stopper on that cloud-cano.
His eyes bulge out of their sockets as he thinks to himself, "
Monarch Butterfly! He really did swing through. That would have stopped a real volcano! "
Doctor Losandro doesn't move a muscle as the Mariner moves in and swings his polearm with deadly accuracy. The fire-blackened blade comes down and cleaves her head in two. Blood and brains spray like a fountain, splattering all over The Mariner. Doctor Losandro stays kneeling for a moment, the colorful mists disrupted, pouring out in stuttering waves before sputtering out. As the last glowing breath spills out the corpse of the doctor collapses into the pool of blood.
Cats looks in, watching the blood splatter and deciding again that he made the right decision to stay outside.
"Did you cat that?" Cats elbows Fearless. "I told you. I catting told you."
"Brother, do you think that's it? Is it safe?"
"YYYyyyyaahhhhhgg!!" the Mariner screams in horror as the doctor explodes like a bloated whale. "Who's next!!"
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Fearless' jaw drops as the woman's head explodes. He hadn't realized the man held such strength.
"Holy crap! So it takes unmoving, kneeling, and unsuspecting creepy women for you to hit something huh? Don't make this one angry Shapeshifters."
Though he is snarky, Fearless truly is amazed as he scans and searches the Doctor's bloody corpse and the room for anything of interest.
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Still a look of surprise on his face.
Nothing to worry about Cats. With The Mariner here, we are all safe.
Brother Butterfly moves gingerly around the gore. So as not to get anything more on his high class red boots. He grabs a bunch of easy to reach books and plops his big butt down in the opulent chair that is attached to the beautiful marbled desk. He looks around and rummages through the desk. Reading anything he finds -in depth. Partially to figure things out and partially to rest his legs and knees. He likes lounging and a 60 foot room is a classic place to lounge - minus the blood and gore.
Almost to himself. Fine tastes. This is REALLY nice. Dr. Losandro lived large.
Okay people, keep eyes peeled but let's spend some quality time really going through this room.
Cats moves in, slowly taking a look around for things of interest.
Perception
"This could have been a nice catting place. A good place for a catnap," Cats agrees with Brother Butterfly.
The Mariner suddenly appreciates Brother's clean clothes as his own has been washed in two loads of blood bath and rat filth. Once calmed down, he grabs the hem of this cloak and wipes the bits-o-brain from his bald pate, "Is there something is my teeth?"
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When The Mariner moves closer to the desk that BB is occupying, Brother Butterfly squirms. Seeing a Carrie-esque sight getting close to him, he moves faster than his body should. The Preacher gets caught a bit on one of the legs of the desk and almost does a header into the floor. Barely keeping his body upright, but looking like an uncoordinated child, he studders out. RRRrright Mariner! Ggot - Got to get you cleaned up. I could use a nice scrubbing and bubbling myself. I got just the solution. Pun intended!
He moves to a chest of drawers away from the oppulent desk .Opens the bottom one. Looks at the craftsmanship and decides that the seams should hold "well enough" he takes the contents of the drawer out and puts them in a safe spot.
Then, he puts his hand inside the cavity of the drawer and creates some water to clean by. Checking to see that the water doesn't leak too bad, he fills up the drawer above that one. He pulls out his drinking horn of Ammonia cleaner and shares some with The Mariner. Making certain not to get The Mariner's "contaminated drawer" mixed or sullied with his "super clean" drawer.
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Watching as the group tears through the remains of the Asylum, the Twin follows behind the group, oddly quiet and reserved as he flips the dagger around in his hand. The Snake slithers along side him as the Twin watches the crazies butcher the Doctor and then worry about blood.
"Perhaps you should have considered the blood spray before you hacked off her head, Mariner." the Twin says dourly as Brother and the Butcher fumble around with pitchers of water.
Seeing a staircase in the corner, the Twin edges around the blood as the Snake's tongue flicks out, lightly tasting the pool before they reach the base of the spiral stairs. "Check it out, friend." Twin says as the Snake nods and slithers silently up the steps to investigate the lofted library.
As the Snake investigates the staircase, the Twin will take the time to examine the door nearby. "Once you all finish your collective sponge bath, perhaps we should keep moving. The roiling yellow fog outside the windows is probably not going to be kept at bay by simple glass for long." he says in an effort to get them to focus.
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"Ahh thank you." the Mariner turns the godly clean water into the devil's menstrual in seconds, plopping out the brain goop that was half deafening his ear, as a few specks of cranium bone bounces off the edge of the drawers. "Anyone else? -Alright then, agree with the Twin, let's not sit idle. Look at this garden out here - there's a couple of doors on the other side. But yea, lets not break the glass yet."
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As the Mariner and Brother Butterfly set up a wash station in the office, the others spread out to search it.
Fearless' quick search of Losandro's corpse turns up a ring of keys. Some are labeled with numbers or letters, but others are plain. Scanning the room for magic, he detects auras within the large marble desk and soon narrows them down to one locked drawer. Using the keys found on Doctor Losandro's body, Fearless finds one on the ring that opens it. Inside are a handful of magical and mundane objects , plus Doctor Losandro's personal journal.
It takes some time to peruse the journal. It is largely mundane—filled with notes from staff meetings and interviews with the families of would-be patients—but in entries written during the last year, the names Haserton Lowls and Count Lowls appear with increasing regularity. The final entries prove to be of particular interest...
****
JOURNAL ENTRIES
Oathday: Another unexpected call from Count Lowls. These have become so common and Lowls’s focus is so singular that they no longer leave me apprehensive. This time, however, he requested to see me after his usual visit with Zandalus. He claims to have a theoretical solution for the poor man’s condition. I don’t know what the count and my prized patient have been discussing, and Lowls again refused to share, but I doubt that an amateur alienist such as he has truly hit upon anything of worth. Regardless, I’d be a fool not to humor my liege.
Starday: Lowls’s ”solution” was not at all what I expected. I have no clue where he turned it up, but on his most recent visit he brought along a copy of Valhadis’s The Chain of Nights, a near-legendary collection of psycho-arcane studies and treatments focused on dreaming. While I abhor arcane tampering, if there’s a permanent solution to Zandalus’s nightmares, it could be here. Lowls allowed me to study the text for the duration of his visit, but staunchly refused to leave it in my possession.
Moonday: Lowls has made me an offer: his copy of The Chain of Nights. All I must do in return is accept a handful of new patients, former associates of his that have suffered some unprecedented manner of group amnesia. I might accept this as charity on the count’s behalf, but he insists that I keep no record of their committal. The terms make me suspicious, but if it means the possibility of a cure for Zandalus and others, I welcome the bargain.
Toilday: The Chain of Nights is a marvel. It will take years of study to unravel all its possibilities, but already I’ve discovered a process by which chronic dreams might be drawn forth and disposed of like so much psychic gristle. Tomorrow our experiment begins.
****
Pinkie takes his time, talking to himself as he reads the spines on books, pulls at drawers, rifles loose papers, and sorts through the curios.
"Yes, I heard you. I think they look familiar too. And not in a good way." Pinkie says, holding up a set of six small but powerful images sketched with coal upon torn parchment and set in fine frames. They depict eerie vistas of an endless, empty city under a sky of whirling mist. In the corner of each, a delicate copperplate records a year from 4708 to 4715 and the name Ulver Zandalus. Everyone who studies the images find that they feel familiar too - they are quite similar to the city of your nightmares.
The room contains a number of interesting and modestly valuable curios, the most valuable being a brain-shaped sculpted wooden box, bookends depicting twin screaming and crying figures, and a brass sculpture of an Osirian pyramid. Brother Butterfly appraises each of the three items at 50 gold pieces. Zandalus’s art is also valuable and might fetch up to 100 gp for the set.
You recognize a number of mundane but remarkable texts:
On the Treatment of Ambitions, Disappointments, and Regrets by Doctor Beaurigmand Trice, On Violent Sands by Doctor Henri Meirtmane, and a signed copy of Ailson Kindler’s Galdyce’s Guest: Feast of the Nosferatu. Each book weighs 2 pounds and is worth 100 gp.
Treasure:
A magnifying glass
2 vials of alchemist’s kindness
a vial of smelling salts
2 vials of soothe syrup
4 doses of antitoxin
2 doses of opium
a scroll of fox’s cunning
2 scrolls of remove paralysis
a candle
a small tin filled with incense
a talisman on a thin silver chain - inscribed with four symbols
a talisman on a braided leather cord - inscribed with the names and symbols, one of which represents Desna
a talisman bearing symbols of power and martial prowess and inscribed with the word "Maximo"
a candle of spirit protection
a small tin filled with incense of open thoughts
a greater talisman of beneficial winds on a thin silver chain
a braided leather cord holding a lesser talisman of healing power
a lesser talisman of warrior’s courage
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Cats keeps a lookout as others catalogue and identify things. He realizes that he's pretty comfortable keeping a watch, an arrow notched and waiting quietly.
Perception - listening for trouble
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See Gentlemen, there's no need for us to rush through the next doorway or crash through the floor to ceiling windows. We need to take a prolonged pause and properly rifle through this treasure trove of information and valuables.
Now clean, he plops right back down on his new favorite chair and puts his feet up. Reading, reading, and beckoning for items to be placed on the desk so he can appraise or marvel at their quirkiness.
Fearless takes his time and slowly flips through Losandro's journal. Seeing something a bit interesting he places his thick finger on the page. "Huh. Both Haserton Lowls and Count Lowls refers to Count Haserton Pragmus Lowls IV, who rules of the County of Versex in Ustalav from the town of Thrushmoor."
Done with the journal the small halfling grabs a chair and drags it loudly across the table as he peruses the remainder of the blood-spattered books on the shelf.
"Somehow I recognize several of these books, On the Treatment of Ambitions, Disappointments, and Regrets by Doctor Beaurigmand Trice, On Violent Sands by Doctor Henri Meirtmane, and a signed copy of Ailson Kindler’s Galdyce’s Guest: Feast of the Nosferatu."
Seeing several items of magical importance Fearless is only able to identify one of them.
he holds up one of the talisman's in the air. "This is what is known as a Greater Talisman of beneficial winds. You can hold up to three of these on your neck. If you are to fall from any distance this talisman will slow your fall so you can land uninjured. This is one of the stronger Talismans as it can be used once per day. Some of the lesser talisman's are only able to be used once before they turn to dust."
The Twin looks over from his thorough investigation of the door and says concretely. "The door appears to be a door. We should be safe." he advises as he sees the group assembling a bevvy of magical treasures that he cannot identify.
Closing his eyes, the Twin contacts the Hidden Snake in the library above and tries to see what he sees.
The Twin finds the other door unlocked and completely safe to open. Contacting his Snake, he sees it looking at shelves of books.
Fearless and Brother Butteffly take some time to go through some books, finding a few valuable editions among them.
Cats stands guard. Nothing attacks, so he must be good at his job.
When everyone looks to be wrapping up their searching, Cats moves to follow the Twin.
"Another door, huh?" Cats quips. "Yeah, let's cat this one open, huh?"
Cats hides, waiting for a chance to shoot at something untoward when the door is opened.
"Let's take a look, is it locked?" With everyone relaxed, the Mariner casually walks up to the door as if the door was a closet in a home, expecting nothing more than coats.
You sure about that buddy?, the little cockroach in the corner gowers at him.
"Umm,... just a second", he takes a moment to strap on a shield to his left arm, then opens the door.
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