Oscar blinks at the body. "Uhm... when in doubt, throw rocks?" he says. "I think we should rest, I have rat bites I want to wash out."
"Nice shot, Oscar. Let's make sure it's dead."
Dervak decapitates the creature.
"We just left the chapel. I hate to go back and sleep after only fifteen minutes and two rooms. Can we use the wand? We can at least explore the courtyard here."
N'Dateh nods at Dervak: "And you can have my potion as well." She can hardly believe she escaped without so much as a scratch.
"I could dress Dervak and Oscar's wounds in the sanctuary, which might help a bit. We could resume our exploration after that," Mara offered.
After examining the dead beast, Mara looked around the courtyard.
Mara finds that the only things of interest in the court yard are yet another collapsed wall and a tool shed that looks in shambles the creature doesn't seem to have had anything at all. Inside the tool shed you find quite a few gardening tools as well as a staircase labeled "Morgue".
Oscar notes the staircase and a strange thought crosses his mind. He starts chuckling to himself, eventually breaking into a laugh.
"Well... I guess there was someplace worse we could have woken up in!" he extorts, shaking his head at his own sense of humor.
The pain of his wounds really starts sinking in for Dervak.
"Perhaps we should go back to the sanctuary and tend to our wounds."
"Yes, I think that's a good idea," Mara replied to Dervak. "Let's go."
N'Dateh shrugs at Oscar's dark humour. She wonders what kind of place she is in. It seems like the others do not much more than she does. Best to take it slow. It's already much better than yesterday. At least now she knows what mess she's in.
As they head back, she asks Oscar: "So why are avoiding the mist?"
"There's... things in the mist. I've only seen shapes. But probably more of those black bat-winged things too." he says. "And we can't see them coming with all that fog. It's a deathtrap."
"But it's also the only way out, no?"
"Uhh... Maybe? It seems to be connected to what's going on in the asylum, so maybe if we resolve that, then we can deal with the fog."
With this formerly being a house of medicine, kits and even people to use them on you are in ample supply. You get patched up, Winter even giving you 3 cure spells, though everyone seems on edge at the fact you came back so soon and with so many wounds.
"We fought a terrible bat-thing, but we slew it in the end," Mara told Winter. "You know, I dreamt about that monster before I awoke in the asylum. At least, I think it was a dream."
Mara bandaged her own wounds, as well as Dervak's residual wounds.
Once everyone was feeling better, Mara turned to her companions. "Where do you want to explore next?", she asked them. "I'm a bit dubious about finding the answers we seek in the morgue, and worry about what creatures might be attracted to such a place. We could try the outside path; I'm nervous about the closeness of the fog, but perhaps we'd be OK if we moved quickly to the door at the other end."
Ignoring her bandaging attempts, N'Dateh gives Mara an enigmatic look: "I want to leave this place. That's my goal. My only goal. Then I want to find out what has happened to me and who did it. Then I'll destroy that person."
"So for me, the first question is: How do we get out? Have we figured it out yet?" she asks. She wished she knew, but it had been but a few hours since she had awakened from the terrible slumber she was in. Perhaps the others knew.
"Thank you, Winter. There are many dangers out there. While we go back to explore, can you have some people here start stitching clothes into a sort of armor of clothing? With many layers to keep out rats and spiders? I heard of such a thing in Ustalav, they called it a swarm suit."
"Mara, if something dangerous waits in the morgue, we should go there to destroy it. Take the battle to the enemy in its lair rather than let it hunt us."
Dervak is feeling much better. Clearing out rooms and killing enemies is something he understands.
"I want to find my memories." Oscar replies to N'Dateh. "And searching the asylum will yield clues to who we were and how we got here. That will give us the trail we need to follow to find the person responsible."
"We wouldn't be still here if we'd figured that out," Mara replied to N'Dateh. "I don't want to head out into the unnatural fog unless there's no other way. In any case, the key to the mystery could well lie within the asylum walls. Also, like Oscar says, I want to find out how I got here. There ought to be patient records somewhere in this place."
She donned her armor again, put on her backpack and grabbed her spear. "OK, Dervak, let's go and check out the morgue. Be on the lookout — whatever is doing on may have affected the dead as well!"
N’Dateh listens carefully to her fellow inmates and nods her agreement: ”Well then, it is fairly straightforward after all. Let’s go see that morgue!”
The way to the morgue seems to have stayed clear as you're unassailed on your way there.
The stairs to the morgue run deep, it takes almost a minute of walking before the hallway at the bottom comes into view. After a few moments of walking through the hallway you see the end... as in... it just ends. The hallway falls into a void abruptly, you see nothing beyond the drop, just darkness.
Mara renewed the light spell on her spearhead before descending the stairs. When the reached the end of the hallway, she remarked, "This seems like very strange construction for an asylum." She stood motionless at the edge of the stygian abyss, and listened.
After that, she cast a spell and scanned the area for magic auras.
Dervak stares into the void and listens.
Not... A... Sound.
Any commentary from the thing beyond reality that lurks in his soul?
"Aaaahaha. I see, wouldn't it be great if THAT woke up... I'd dare say it's more beast than you."
Mara gazed uneasily on the silent black gulf before her. "I have no desire to venture into that rift," she said to her companions.
"We should get away from here. Now."
Dervak sounds more scared than you have heard him up to this point.
N'Dateh purses her lip. The frail woman looks at the massive bloodrager: "If you're worried, then I guess I'm worried too... But we're getting nowhere. every room, there's resistance. This is darkness. It might be worse, but it might just be darkness?"
She looks at the others, wondering what they're thinking.
As the group stands discussing how to proceed, the ground shakes. The edge of the hallway crumbles ever so slightly and a Worm like appendage that you cannot see the beginning nor end of rises and falls. Causing tremors as it does so.
"Time to leave!", Mara hissed urgently. She started to walk briskly back the way they had come.
"I agree," Dervak says in a low voice. He backs away, then turns and walks briskly up the stairs.
"Well I'll be." Oscar observes, adjusting his goggles when he sees the worm. "That must be the source of the earthquakes that ruined the asylum."
He pauses to make some observations that literally fall on deaf ears as he realizes he's the last one in the tunnel. Sighing, he walks back, trying to conjecture out exactly HOW BIG the creature would have to be.
N'Dateh's eyes grow wide at the sight of the giant worm. Unable to speak, she walks backward, slowly, very slowly, silent as a mouse, her heart pounding in her ears.
Once far enough, she hurries back up the stairs, despite the pain in her knees.
"Don't leave me behind!"
Once she had climbed the stairs, Mara paused to rest in the tool shed. After her companions had joined her, she said, "I suggest that we keep the knowledge of that thing to ourselves for now. The information would just cause panic among the other survivors."
After a moment she turned to the subject of where to go next: "Shall we check the outside path leading from the birdcage room?" She went back to the chamber with the taxidermy display and opened the glass door, looking out to see if it was safe to proceed.
Mara sees no obvious threats, though the fog has not made this an easy task in the past. The stomach churning sound can still be heard.
N'Dateh nods at Mara, her daggers out, she follows behind Dervak.
"I'll soon find out if the door to the far room is locked," Mara said. After entreating her father's spirit for guidance, she nervously stepped outside and walked quickly to the door at other end of the pathway. She tried to open it and look inside.
As Mara draws closer to the door a misty figure begins to take shape the closer she gets, it looks like a tall, lanky man. In the distance however is a large shadowy form, seemingly many times larger than the asylum itself, moving towards the group at an incredibly slow speed.
Dervak walks a short distance behind Mara, sword drawn.
He doesn't even need to listen for the voice of the Dark Whisper. He knows that the giant shadowy form is something from its realm, or perhaps the Whisper itself.
The misty tall man is a different matter, though.
"Mara, is it a spirit?"
"I would... suggest moving at haste!" Oscar offers, considering if running back the way they came would be a more effective option.
N’Dateh, as is now her habit, remains in the shadow of the towering bloodrager.
”Yes, let us hurry...”
The figure stands between Mara and the door, arms at its side and its features indistinct. Mara know nothing of what, if anything it might be.
Mara retreated to the room with the taxidermy display. "Maybe we should try excavating the rubble," she said, her heart racing. "That way doesn't seem safe!"
N'Dateh nods: "I'm with you. However, it seems like danger awaits in every direction we try. What should be done about it? Perhaps it is time not to escape, but to attack, with all we've got, in particular a safe strategy?" She seems resolute, though her small and frail allure seems to disagree with her words.
"If we're to fight our way through the library, I'd prefer to do that tomorrow," Mara replied. "That way, I could memorize something similar to the burst of flame that Oscar used earlier. The only drawback is the potential for setting the books on fire. We could try talking to the rat creatures before I memorize that spell, and see if we could persuade them to let us pass through."
"One more day..." N'Dateh mutters, but she summons an encouraging smile and adds "Well, what's another day, really, as long as we get out of this little Hell! But don't we want to confront that creature in the mist? Or perhaps you have fought it before and know you're no match?"
"I am not a scholar or a shaman. But I do know that some things you can fight and some things you cannot. That... thing... down below where the morgue was, we should leave it asleep. The mist-man we might have to fight but maybe we should learn about it.
Would the library help? Then we have to deal with the rats. If we can get them to leave us alone, that is good. But if we have to fight, I think a swarm suit is better than burning everything down. I asked the survivors in the chapel to start making some out of clothes and sheets. They might as well do something to help their own survival."
After some discussion, it was decided to return to the library. "N'Dateh, you understand their language," Mara said. "Hopefully you can convince them to let us pass through the library. If they act aggressively, retreat immediately." She clutched her male doll, saying, "Daddy, help N'Dateh speak with eloquence."
When N'Dateh indicated that she was ready, Mara opened the door for her elderly friend, and waited.