Rowan gives an odd look to Dervak, but then shrugs an moves up to the nearest punk.
”They’re called Pickle Punks. I don’t know a lot about them, but they are created by necromancers, and they are undead.
Rowan attacks with a flurry of fists!
Theophilus seems to notice that his curiosity has gotten the better of him, and he moves away from them (5').
Julius strikes at the undead Pickle with his rapier.
Julius jabs the tiny foul smelling undead through the eye but his rapier meets unexpected resistance.
Undeterred the terrible tot screams in an almost adorable voice, "Protect family!" and attempts to ankle bite Julius.
His twin jumps off the shelf and at Mara, "Leave alone!"
Mara backed away from the undead thing lunging at her face. "Starbright!", she cried, as she reached out with her glowing finger to touch the creature.
Dervak feels bad attacking these pathetic outcast things, but he regretfully thinks They're already dead, better off this way. He takes another 5' step back and stabs at the one fighting Julius.
At Mara's touch the punk stops motionless, cracks form all along it's skin and smoke rises from the tiny creature as it falls over motionless.
Dervak impales the one attacking Julius, deftly striking between his companions and stopping just short of Julius. The tiny undead thing goes limp stuck on the longspear.
Searching the closet, other than the collected specimen jars there are 6 alchemist fires scattered amid the ruined lab coats and viscera.
"Those were disturbing!", Mara said, as the last undead was dispatched. "I guess they're what killed the people in the lab coats."
"Daddy, show me if there's magic auras here," she said, casting a spell.
She looked around the closet, and took an alchemist's fire for herself. "These will be useful if we come across more rats."
Once everyone had finished examining the area, she said, "Let's check the rest of the slime trail; I wonder what else the Pickle Punks were up to?" She followed the trail back into the hallway, and around the corner. She stopped to listen at the door on the left.
Ever one for etiquette, the finely dressed gentleman doffs his hat to the group.
A fine performance tis was!
"Yes. None of us got hurt - a nice change."
Dervak admires the magical light on the falchion he has loaned Mara. He takes a flask of Alchemist's Fire.
As Mara opens the door to the next room he looks inside and prepares to move in.
”Could I get one of those too?” Rowan says, gesturing toward the alchemist fire containers.
Mare detects no magic in the room and closet, other than the expected auras.
Dervak opens the door. The ceiling of this room has collapsed, crushing a table and well-worn couch.
Everyone sees a pale hand extending from the rubble. It might be possible to extract the body but it would take some time.
Mara picked her way forward in the rubble, calling out,"Anyone alive in here? Say something if you can hear me!" She tried to determine whether there was any hope that the owner of the hand was still alive.
You hear nothing but the rubble settling a little. The hand feels cold to the touch and does not move, it is quite dead.
Mara saw something out of the corner of her eye. "Did you guys see that? It looked like a shadow, moving towards the northern door!"
After checking the hand, she said, "Whoever this belongs to is beyond our help, I'm afraid. I think we should wait to clear the rubble, and check the other doors first. Let's try the one across the hall, before we go to the northern one."
She went back out into the corridor, and checked the opposite door, listening for activity beyond.
Julius looks sadly at the hand. "Poor guy...what a way to go. It's one thing to be eaten by the doppelgangers, but being buried alive?" He shudders, clearly uncomfortable.
"Yeah, I don't want to spend time digging somebody out when there are still shapechangers and ghouls running around here. Time for proper burials later."
Dervak looks around.
"But Mara, if you saw something moving towards the northern door, don't you want to check that one first?"
Dervak listens at the northern door.
Theo follows along; his hand constantly on Dervak's shoulder.
Neither Mara nor Dervak hear anything behind their respective doors. Mara opens the door to the left, she finds what would look like a typical physician's office if it weren't for the preponderance of grotesque anatomical sketches, most depicting traumas and deformities of the head and brain. A sturdy display case stands open and completely empty, a now dried slime trail leading from it.
The desk and bookshelves are in fine repair. Spending a few minutes looking through the drawers you find notes that belong to Doctor Arosh Chawaar, who pursued new treatments for hydrocephalus. Many of the notes bear marginalia from Doctor Anya Chawaar of Katheer. Additionally there is a rust-colored notebook.
Mara regarded the empty display case. "You don't suppose the undead punks came from here, do you?", she asked to no one in particular.
She looked though the journal. "This would be valuable, for the right buyer. I would think a medical institution would find it useful. How good the research is — who knows?"
After scanning the area for magic auras, Mara said, "Shall we tackle the northern door now?"
"Seems like. He was studying the dead big-head baby-things and then they came alive when everything went crazy here."
Dervak opens the northern door.
Yellow fog soundlessly roils against the cathedral-like windows of this opulent, two-story office. The ground floor features overstuffed furnishings, elegant side tables, and an altarlike desk of dark marble. A delicate spiral staircase and balcony of desk iron rises to a lofty library overhead. Both floors' fixtures frame the lake of blood spread across the room's center. A woman kneels in the pool of blood, her back straight, her mouth gaping at the ceiling. From her soundlessly screaming mouth an unsteady torrent of pearlescent mist spurts like a fountain of gritty sludge.
Standing in the mist surrounding the woman is a familiar (to some) child. Sara looks at the party and asks, "What am I?" Sara's shadow flits about as if she was standing next to a guttering flame. "I... I saw Loic but couldn't reach him. The fog was too thick and he stopped hearing me after he drank that medicine." Tears begin to well up in her eyes.
"Sara!", Mara cried out, moving forward. "I can still hear you! I was so worried; I didn't know where you had gone!"
Rowan blinks several times, taking in the details of the room and tries to convince himself it is all real. He takes a long drink from his wine flask, but says nothing.
"Julius? Mara? Theophilus? What is going on?"
Dervak stays near Mara, holding the longspear.
"Sara, I don't know. Did you see what happened to this woman?"
His voice is gruff, but he is trying to be gentle towards the child.
Julius's eyes widen as he takes in the scene. He murmurs in a low voice to Dervak. "Don't let Mara get too close. Nothing about this seems right. Look at her shadow..."
Standing in the doorway, blue eyes wide and staring; Theophilus mutters a few arcane words. The Witch scans the chamber from there.
Sara stares at Mara tears rolling down her cheeks, sniffling she says ”I followed you, but you didn’t listen. Then I was drawn here.” As she stands there wisps of the multi-colored fog emanating from the woman trail into Sara’s nose and mouth, Sara doesn’t seem to notice. At Dervak’s question it seems like Sara sees the woman for the first time and her eyes go wide. She stumbles backwards towards the party, ”No…” fear creeps into Sara’s face.
The woman's aura is unreadable.
One on Sara is unreadable.
The rest of the auras are in the desk
unreadable aura.
faint conjuration
faint conjuration
unreadable aura
faint transmutation
moderate conjuration
faint abjuration
I couldn't hear her? "What is this place?", Mara asked Sara. When the little girl showed fear, Mara moved forwards. "I'll protect you, Sara; please tell me what's happening!" She couldn't bear the thought of something bad happening to Sara.
Dervak does not follow Mara at this time.
I hope she knows what she is doing... she says is a shaman, so she must know better than me.
Theophilus points at all the magical auras.
That particular woman emanates the strongest magical aura; just saying.
Zandalus...the name shoots through Julius's head with a strange familiarity. When he tries to concentrate on the memories stirring just below the surface, they go away. Julius shakes his head. "Guys, does the name Ulver Zandalus ring a bell to any of you?"
He stays by Dervak and Theo, not sure if he trusts Sara at this point.
Mara replied to Julius, "One of the Doppelgangers mentioned Zandalus; something about promising them flesh!"
Sara falls into Mara's arms, "I don't know. After we went into the fog you stopped listening. Loic heard me but then you told him to drink something and he stopped. I followed you out of the fog. I didn't feel right until now, and you could hear me again."
When the topic shifts to Zandalus Sara's eyes fixate on a set of six small but powerful images sketched with coal upon torn parchment and set in fine frames. Anyone who takes the time to examine them sees 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. They feel familiar, you find them quite similar to the city from the shared nightmare that you experienced.
Theophilus points at all the magical auras.
That particular woman emanates the strongest magical aura; just saying.
Auras on the woman, Sara, and more than several in the desk.
Mara held Sara tightly in her arms, trying to comfort her. "My dear Sara; I don't understand what happened. Do you know who or what this woman is?" she asked the girl, pointing at the unmoving figure.
She shakes her head no hugging Mara tightly.
Theophilus notices Sara staring at the drwaings. The Witch takes a closer look at them.
By gosh, clues! It seems he may have been a patient here too. Oh, the patients are running the asylum now!
Je then wonders over to the desk. Theo casts Guidance, prior to searching it for traps.
"This Zandalous was here having those dreams for a long time. Longer than we were here, I think. And now the monsters follow him?"
The desk drawers contain mundane writing supplies and extensive but uninteresting documents. Theo does determine that this was the office of Administrator Eliege Losandro. It seems she ran the asylum. There is a locked drawer , which contains all the magical auras. Theo also notices no traps.
Anyone able to unlock this drawer? I am afraid that I forgotten my key.
Theo smiles.
"Uh, what about her?"
Dervak points to the kneeling woman with mist seeping out of her mouth.
"Is she alive? Dead? In between? Just sort of asleep? What should we do?"
Has she moved since we came in?
Theophilus looks up from the desk at Dervak. He then turns his gaze upon the kneeling woman (surrounded by a pool of blood). He seems surprised to see her.
The woman has not moved since you entered.
Julius kneels by the drawer. "Man, this would be so much easier if I had some sort of lockpick...just another thing to add to the list of stuff we need. Right after our memories and a way out of here."
After a few moments of fiddling, he grunts in frustration and smacks the desk, immediately wincing as he hurts his hand.
Dervak, wary of the creepy woman, looks around for a key.