"Hello, my name is Mara, and this is Sara," Mara said, encouraging the little girl to come forward. "She found me wandering in a daze and helped me hide, didn't you Sara?"
Mara looked around the room at the survivors and the shrines.
When Winter asked what she could do to help, Mara replied, "I can treat the sick and injured. I can also create water for washing with; I'm afraid I can't help with soap, but at least I could rinse some of the sheets and hang them up to dry. Do you have any buckets?"
Dervak happily smashes furniture into firewood.
This day has been long and tiring, but it is not his limbs that feel fatigue; it is his mind. Trying to understand what is happening, who these strange people are, why it feels so familiar yet different, and who might be a shapeshifter.
This is a straightforward and simple task, and he is grateful for it.
Julius murmurs quietly to Oscar. "Uhh...what do we do well besides knowing stuff?"
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Julius murmurs quietly to Oscar. "Uhh...what do we do well besides knowing stuff?"
"Well, if you can't think of anything there are a few things you could TRY." She begins walking around the chapel pointing out problems that need sorted. "Let's see, Airwynn and Bates are both pretty banged up. I'd take care of it but with those things around my spells where always needed elsewhere, if you could help them in any way that would be amazing." Airwynn and Bates are both lying on their back, sweating and groaning, they appear to have multiple fractures and are clearly badly wounded.
Winter turns around and points to a corner covered in curtains. "That's where we've been keeping Loic. He has some pretty bad halucinations and needs constant supervision because of the tole recent events have taken on his nerves. If you could find a way to calm him down so the nurse can take a break that would be great."
Winter is walking past Dervak as he works when one of the guards walks in through the double doors. "Winter, they really did it! We went and checked and couldn't find any more of those things. The body's where there too." As the guard makes his way over he notices Dervak work at a pace only a man of his stature could. "Damn! Keep that up for an hour and we'll have enough for three f~*#in days!" Winter shoots a look at the guard and motions to the children in the room. "Language Denman." The guard gulps, smiles and heads back towards the door to the sounds of children snickering.
Winter then makes her way to the makeshift fire pit in the center of the room, most of the children are gathered around it throwing wood scraps in the fire, all the while looking rather bored. "Lastly there's cooking. Nobody here can do it beyond boiling the dried meat so the kids can eat it. If you can make do with what we have I'm sure moral would go way up." She clasps her hands together and looks each of you in the eye for a moment. "Help with what you can and we can talk over dinner."
Oscar scratches his head.
"I have the ability to read auras." Oscar offers. "And I know what how bad it's been out there. I could try talking to him."
"Though if worse comes to worse I could try my hand at cooking. I'm not sure if I was any good at it but it won't hurt to see."
Mara went over to examine Airwynn and Bates. She talked to each one for a few minutes and healed some of their wounds.
Afterwards, she went to the corner where Loic resting, and stepped through the curtain. "Hello Loic, I'm Mara. How are you feeling today?" She talked to him in a calm, gentle voice, all the while observing him to get a sense of his current state of mind. Based on her instincts, she narrated the tale of "The Fisherman and the Djinn", a story that her father had told her when she was a little girl.
Dervak pauses in his task.
"Did you all manage to find any armor, or any reach weapons like longspears or glaives? If we have to fight more shapechangers, I would not want it to be both close up and in this light armor."
With your work with Bates and Airwynn being quite expedient you have plenty of time to spend with Loic. His nurse introduces herself as Naysa Walika and takes you aside to explain Loic's condition. "He hear's his sister whispering to him when its quite. His medication helps but he's refusing to take it because of... current events. I'll be back in a while, just sit with him and try to keep him calm." With that she strolls out of the curtained off area, probably to go lay down if the bags under her eyes mean anything. Loic is easy enough for you to calm down however, he enjoys the story, informing you that he's something of a storyteller himself.
Oscar and Julias are pulled aside by the survivors and are put to work with menial tasks until dinner, stitching up fabrics and the like. At which point Winter makes way to each of you with a stack of ceramic bowls in her arms. "Dinner time, get you butts to the fire." If everyone complies and sits down for dinner Winter crosses her legs, folds her arm and say's. "Okay then, you've done a lot for us. Time for me to pay it forward, wha'dya wanna know?"
"First thing's first" Oscar says calmly before breaking into a deluge of questions. " Where are we? What happened here? Why are there shapeshifters every where? Why are parts and of the building ruined? Why haven't you trued to leave?"
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"I'd like to hear one of your stories, Loic," Mara said. "Maybe tomorrow you could tell me one."
After talking to Loic, Mara went to see what Sara was up to, and if she had made some friends.
Later, Mara joined the others for dinner. She listened to Oscar's torrent of questions. After giving Winter a chance to speak, she added. "Like my friends, I can't remember how I came to this place. I grew up in Qadira. I remember setting out to travel to Numeria, and then there's a big gap in my memories. I don't remember anything else before waking up here a few hours ago. I'd really like to know what happened in that gap, and how much time has passed."
Sara isn't with the other children, in fact, she's nowhere to be found. The children haven't seen here, when you ask Loic he stares at you with a horrified look on his face. "H-how do you know her name?
Is this a joke?
Winter hears the questions coming from both Oscar and Mara, after they finish she takes moment and speaks. "You're in Briarstone asylum, a hospice on a rock plopped right in the middle of the Danver river. Its a convenient place to forget about inconvenient people..." She looks over her shoulder at Loic, Mara's comforting having made him calm enough to take his medicine and join the other survivors. "As for what happened and why the shifters are running the halls I have no clue. They showed up soon after the patients revolted and started taking people, though, apparently some of the survivors had been having nightmares about a situation exactly like this for a few day before the revolt happened."
"The isles where shaken with an earth quake during the revolt, the entire top floor caved in, as did some of the lower floors. As to why we haven't tried leaving, well, I'm sure you saw it. My men said you came from the courtyard, the swirling fog and the things that lurk within... I'm sure venturing into it would be a death sentence. But aside from that we have another problem keeping us here, I'll show you after dinner. As Mara inquires about her identity Winter sighs. "If you can't remember who you are then you where probably patients here, that also means there are probably records of who you are around the asylum, you wouldn't be the first person to lose a piece of themselves in this place. So, anything else?"
"We're in an asylum... and we're patients?" Oscar asks, looking worried. "This does not bode well, not well at all."
He shudders. "I had a nightmare too. That fog was in it, and some kind of thing was pursuing me. The rest of my group was in it too."
"I haven't seen the yellow fog, a least not since I woke up," Mara said. "I had a dream about a horrible man in rags, chasing me in some yellow fog. When did the fog appear? Was in before or after the revolt?"
"The yellow fog. I had that dream. At least twice. I think I know why I was put in here. Still I would like to find the records. I can read and write."
Dervak sounds particularly proud of this fact, then looks a bit forlorn.
Mulgar, I have not forgotten everything you taught me. But my path to atonement has not gone as I hoped.
Winter drinks the remaining dried beef and onion stew from her bowl as you all recount your dream. "Well, that's certainly disconcerting. The yellow fog showed up just shortly after the uprising a few days ago but no ones had any dreams like that."
Winter puts her bowl on the slowly growing stack of bowls by the fire as she stands. "Well, less anyone wants to lick the pot it's about time I show you that which traps us." She leads you through the double doors once again, going straight ahead to the curtains you saw earlier "This." She flings the curtains back "Is the culprit."
Growing on what seems to be a door is a fungal representation of a weeping eye. It moves slowly between you all, staring deep into your eyes, filling you with a feeling indescribable. Faint whispers can be heard coming from the eye.
"Reflecting the hearts of men... Distortion... Coruption... What am I become."
It repeats these words verbatim over and over again.
"By the... eye!" Oscar exclaims. "That... thing... it's alive? dead? Well it certainly is talking." he comments. He looks to Winter. "I'll work on this, mayhaps it is a puzzle?"
Mara looked in horror at the fungal weeping eye. "What is that...thing?"
Dervak looks at the alien thing, horrified and a bit mesmerized. It feels oddly familiar in its unearthly nature.
Is that what you look like, voice? This one isn't you, it sounds different. And the others can hear it. They can't hear you. I think. I hope. But is this one like you?
The voice in his head laughs.
Winter closes the curtains back up again as the double doors open and a guard exits the chapel. "Hope you got some ideas" Winter says, clasping Oscar on the shoulder as she walks past the group. "Cause we got no idea what to do." Winter then walks through the door to the chapel and closes it.
"Reflecting the hearts of men, distorting, corrupting, what have i become?" Oscar repeats the whisper factually. "Was this a person at one point? Fascinating. But he doesn't reflect anything... An eyeball doesnt reflect. It sees."
He ponders for a bit. "Anyone have a large mirror? I wonder if its reflection is different. It may hold clues to this problem. Maybe it shows what it really is?"
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"I'm going to see what Sara is up to," Mara said. Sara hadn't joined them for dinner.
After a few minutes, she returned. "Does anyone know where Sara has gone?, she asked anxiously. "No one seems to have seen her."
A mirror is simple enough to find, not a good one mind you, but polished metal is workable. The eye seems to dart around as the mirror draws closer, growing more erratic as it draws closer. Upon seeing its own reflection, it's iris becomes and indistinct blur, it lets loose a scream as it begins to thrash around out of its socket.
The eye seems to melt after a few moments of convulsing, sloping into a quivering pile on the ground. It does however leave behind something on the door. A bloodshot glass eye. Dug right into the wood.
Oscar just falls to his butt and stares in abject horror at whats left of the eye.
Slowly he turns his head to see his ally, taking great effort to close his mouth and swallow dryly. "That... Was not what I expected." he whispers.
If no one pries the eye out of the door by the time he recovers, he will rise back to his feet and see if he can gingerly get the eye out.
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Did you count Dervak's additional +4 vs fear (racial and trait)? If so, he runs away screaming before recovering. Even if not Frightened, he still regards this thing with confused horror. Before making a tenuous connection in his mind.
"Mala, do you have something to do with this? Is this glass eye yours?"
Preoccupied with what had happened to Sara, Mara went to ask Loic if he had seen her. He reacted badly, and ran off in considerable distress. From talking to Naysa, she learned that Loic had a younger sister called Sara, who died twenty years ago.
Loic having a sister named Sara is probably a coincidence. "Do you know anything about the circumstances surrounding her death?" she asked Naysa.
Julius stands transfixed, staring at the door with his mouth agape. He eventually tears his gaze away from it with a shudder. "So I've been thinking about it, and I've decided that we need to just burn this thing to the ground. Have you guys tried that yet? It seems like fire is the only thing that could work."
"Julius, I think Oscar made it go away with the mirror. He is prying the eye out now. After that the door is just a door I think. The eye maybe is a problem. But I don't hear the whispers anymore."
"Yeah, I...I know. Still though. Fire. Definitely something to think about."
"True. I think this whole place should be burned down, once we have all the people out of here. I think it is haunted."
Oscar is able to gently pry the bloodshot glass eye out of wood with just his fingers, he feels a pulse of energy coming from the eye as he holds it. However Mala shakes his head at Oscar's question. "I HAVE both of my eyes Oscar." He taps spie in his socket. "A glass one would be like trying to replace my little socket squatter here, and I could never do that."
A moment after everyone has had a chance to speak, winter come's tearing through the curtain. "WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT! There was a scream and everyone freaked out! The kids are crying , it even woke the sleeper up!"
Mara returned to her friends, just as Winter burst in.
"Oscar fixed your problem with the moldy eye. It turned into a glass eye and it stopped whispering. That was what made the scream."
Winter smile's, while at the same time rubbing the bridge of her nose. "So we're not trapped anymore? Good. Winter runs her hands through her hair and sighs once again. "Let's get everything settled down in there, then you brave amnesiacs can go do what you seem to do best. Solve problems of the nightmarish variety." She smiles at you all then motions for you to follow her to the chapel.
It really is rather chaotic, the kids are bawling, the patients are rocking back and for and there's a disoriented looking old woman sitting up in one of the beds farther back in the room. "I'll help take care of the patients, You guys just... find... something to do. Talk to the old lady maybe, she just came out of a coma, probably really confused."
Mara walked over to the old woman and introduced herself. "Hello, my name is Mara. How are you feeling?"
With a painful brusqueness, N'Dateh's eyes open and take in a world that she thought she had left behind.
Her body sits and her mind surrenders to it. It feels like she is peeling herself off of the bed. Blood shifts in her body sluggishly as it adjusts to the new gravity.
Slowly, the fog lifts from her head and she can focus on things external, one by one. She looks at her toes and makes them twitch. Her fingers she balls into small fists. Her eyes take in her frail corpse. The pain is absurd.
Thoughts start to dance in her head, pushing through the fog, leaving pain in their wake. She was not dead, but she was old. Her shrivelled and paper-thin skin was proof enough.
She was not dead? It felt as though she had been asleep for an eternity. Surely that was what death felt like, no? Had she just been brought back from the dead?
She was not dead, and yet, she was not old. She looked old, but she did feel old...
A voice rises above the din and she finally takes notice. N'Dateh looks back at the Half-Orc and gives her a warm smile of cracked thin lips: "Water?" she begs despite herself.
Mara offered the elderly woman a drink from her waterskin. "Can you tell me your name?", she asked.
N'Dateh takes the proffered water with fragile hands. She faints a little, and as Mara gets closer to help her, she sneaks a hand in an available pocket and hides whatever she's found in the folds of her white canvas gown.
She smiles at Mara, eyes locked in hers: "Bless you for your generosity! My name is N'Dateh. Are you the one that pulled me from the Boneyard? I was sure my time was done on this realm..."
"Pleased to meet you , N'Datah," Mara said. "I can't take credit for your awakening — that was something else. Do remember how you came to this place? I don't; the last thing I remember, before waking up here a few hours ago was leaving Qadira for Numeria. I'm not even sure where 'here' is, exactly. I gather that we're patients in an insane asylum.
N'Dateh remains silent for a long while as she takes it all in. Slowly, her lips start to fumble with words that are painful to pronounce. Finally, she manages to nod, indicating that she too does not remember, then adds: "But- but why?!" Her eyes are pleading, but she also understands Mara does not have the answers. With some pain, she gets up, but then she realizes:
She feels much younger, not older... She looks at her hand, eyes wide.
N'Dateh walks over to the mirror, surprised at the way she walks. She looks for a long moment at her reflection in the mirror, touching her face, then shrugs as if it did not matter after all.
She turns to Mara: "Last I remember, I was celebrating my 100th birthday in Caliphas. It was a grandiose affair..." she seems to look at some memory then adds: "Actually, it's quite murky. I don't remember too much about my previous life. I think I was collecting and selling old books."
"You say this is an asylum? So we had some kind of episode and were put there for treatment?"
"I really don't know," Mara said. " Winter — she's the one in charge — said that this is an asylum. I have no idea how or why we came to be here. All I know is that something bad has happened, and shape-changing monsters have been attacking people. Apparently, there's a weird yellow fog outside, with dangerous things lurking in it."
N’Dateh nods,thinkimg, then whispers to Mara: “If it’s an asylum, then I suggest we try to escape...” and gives her a knowing wink.
"I had a dream about a terrible man, wrapped in cloth bandages, chasing me in a thick, yellow fog," Mara said, shuddering. "Maybe that's all it was: a dream. But maybe ... maybe it's safer in here than outside in the fog."
"I had a dream about a terrible man, wrapped in cloth bandages, chasing me in a thick, yellow fog," Mara said, shuddering. "Maybe that's all it was: a dream. But maybe ... maybe it's safer in here than outside in the fog."