Whoever stands at the door can, with a Perception 7, detect a foul, dank odor coming from the room on the other side. It is not overwhelming but it certainly isn't pleasant.
There otherwise does not appear to be any detectable sound coming from the room behind the door, and no light is bleeding out underneath the door.
Oscar sniffs, then turns away from the door. "Smells terrible in there, but I think I heard something like a breeze... pipes?" he observes. "Maybe they lead out."
"Can anybody else see the ghost?
Ghost! What do you want? Why are you still here?"
::Stiiiill:: echoes the phantasm, as it turns toward Dervak. It extends what might be a hand, a blurry ectoplasmic appendage, but as it does its features begin to articulate, a nose, two eyes, a head of hair. After a moment, the ghostly mirror of the white-haired man himself sends to stand before them.
::Heeere:: it drawls.
Reaper shrugs. "Beats me. Seems t'be sorta creepy, but helpin' us all th' same. Figure if he listens and don't get ornery, may's well leave'm be. 'Sides, we got other fish t'fry. Unless they already been cooked..."
Dervak looks at Cerio as if the man is mad.
"Sorta creepy? It is of the realm of the dead! The spirits of the restless dead are dangerous. It is known. This spirit listens to you? Are you a necromancer? If Gorum wills that we be allies, so be it, but do not raise my corpse if I should fall."
He makes a Kellid sign to ward off the evil eye and takes up position near the back of the group.
Julius quickly turns away from the door as his senses are briefly overloaded, covering his nose. "Oh god, what is that smell? I hear that sound too, Oscar. I think you might be right, even if they don't lead outside they'll still bring us out of here."
He turns back to Dervak and Reaper. "Hey, Reaper? Does that thing follow you around? Maybe you could have it scout ahead a bit? I just don't want anything like that doctor over there jumping us again, and it seems that a ghost would be able to scout ahead better than any of us."
Reaper and the phantom seem to have a silent discussion between themselves, gesturing, nodding their heads, shaking their heads furiously, and shrugging helplessly.
"Well, I figure he can do his slimin' through a wall t'see what lay on t'other side. If'n there's danger, he can pop back int' th'wall, elsewise I can try to pull 'im back inside m'head. Figure if he done move real careful like, he won't draw too much attention. Oh, and there's another thing he wants t'show us..."
The phantom's "body" begins to melt, but he doesn't evaporate. His "skin" sloughs off, landing wetly on the ground below him before fading quickly. His body, however, remains hovering in the air, now a translucent portrait of Reaper himself, albeit cloaked in a melancholic, shadowed relief.
"...Cool," whispers Reaper.
Spie, who has been content to perch atop Mala's top hat until now, floats over to the Phantom as it begins to change, circling it slowly. When it is fully incorporeal, Spie zooms through it, spins an excited little circle and zooms back through, before going back to perch on the top hat.
Julius rubs his eyes, trying to get rid of the headache that's been forming. "Hoo boy. Okay, so this day cannot get any weirder. Thanks for showing us that, Mr. Phantom? I guess?"
"Huh. Neat." Oscar responds to the phantom's change.
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It has Reaper's face and he says he can put it in his head? It is his own ghost? Is he a spirit-walker like that shaman? Or is he dead already? Perhaps it is all a trick.
Dervak is confused, but decides against speaking up. He waits for the spirit-thing to do its scouting and ponders the situation.
I'm a monster. Reaper seems to be one. Mala, I think, also. Julius and Oscar look normal... but maybe they are monsters too and that is why we are all here together?
::Hmmmm....the phantom moans in an echoey, ethereal whisper, and brushes through the door. It is gone for a short time, approximately 30 seconds, before it wisps back into the narrow hallway everyone is waiting in.
::Deaaaatthhh:: it whispers, and oddly enough a sad smile seems to form on it's translucent face.
Julius sighs, exasperated. "Okay, so it seems he's limited to one word at a time. What's with the smile? Death's there, cool. Is it, and I cannot believe I'm saying this, the good kind of death or the bad kind? Good for us, I mean."
He looks at the others. "What? Maybe there's a whole squad of ghosts like this guy on the other side who're all on our side. Wouldn't even top my list of weird things that've happened today."
"That's the smell of dead bodies. I know it well. That's what the ghost saw."
Dervak shudders. A memory or a dream...
The bodies moving, looking at me...
Yes, beast, your victims. Every soul you have ever killed, waiting for you on the other side of that door. So what? Guilt and remorse are for lesser beings! Bodies are just meat!
"Let us go through the door. If Julius and Oscar are right there may be a way out. I am wounded but will take the lead if nobody else wants to."
Dervak opens the door.
Oscar gestures with his bow. "Seems I'm better suited to hanging back and aiding from range." he says, pulling an arrow and preparing for trouble.
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Mala digs in right behind dervak. "I dont imagine anything being able too assail us from behind right now. Not unless it was in here with is the whole time." Mala pulls his Sword cane from its sheath and takes a few practice cuts at the air. He then shoves past dervak. "If you're hurt I'll take point. I'll have no one dying on my watch."
Upon opening the door, the stench intensifies for a moment, threatening to overwhelm the senses. It eventually dissipates to something approaching tolerable, but it is a... Memorable smell. And it's cause is immediately obvious: a mound of corpses has been piled up underneath the opening end of what appears to be a metal chute on the wall directly opposite the doorway. The chute entrance would normally be unreachable, 8 feet off the ground, but the mound of bodies crest just under it. To the left, the collapsed remains of a cave-in have rendered impassable a set of stone stairs that would have led up. Occasionally, the wailing sound of a breeze can be heard as it wafts across the unseen entrance of the metal chute.
Exploring the room reveals a small alcove to the left of the doorway entrance, across from the pile of bodies, that has two sets of empty manacled hanging from them, and a pile of clothing and junk on a table similar to the one in the previous room.
Oscar looks around the room as he enters.
"Damn, nothing but corpses." he observes. Looking at the ramp.
"the fresh air is coming from up there... Though I find clamboring over that pile a bit too gristly for me. Perhaps the other direction might have a way out?"
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"Might be something still on these bodies, but you could get a disease digging for it. That pile on the table is a better place to look."
He looks at the bodies.
Did that one just move? Are its eyes following me? That's the man I killed in...
No. It can't be. Can it?
"I don't like the idea of climbing over them. Feels wrong. If we moved them out of the way we could get in the chute. I could lift you all up, then jump and grab the lip and pull myself up."
"You are indeed right that it feels wrong to just walk over them. But wouldn't moving them just open us up to even more disease?" Mala shrugs "I'll follow any course of action the majority of us decide to take." Mala says this while stepping over to the table too rummage around for anything interesting.
"You are probably right, Mala. With gloves it might be okay. I don't want to be cursed by the dead for walking on them but I also don't want the plague."
"Or. Maybe theres another way out." Oscar offers. "We havent searched everywhere else yet."
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The various items of clothing on the table do in fact include 2 mismatched pairs of gloves. On that table is also a few pieces of jewellery, some loose coins totalling 10gp, and a wodden stick, finely carved with vines and flowers. .
Julius turns his nose up at the jewellery. "Eh. That stuff's really poor quality, wouldn't get us more than a few coins. No idea what's with that stick though, it's a weird thing to have here in a pile of corpses."
"Ah, a wand of wound curing. Weak magic, and there's not much left in it, but it will be of great assistance to us." Oscar observes.
Oscar gives the wand a flick, and nothing happens.
Frowning, he adjusts his goggles and gives it a few more attempts to figure it out.
And with an "Ah-HAH!" of satisfaction, he taps Dervak with it.
Frowning, he shakes the wand a few times after. "Well, I did say there wasn't much oomph left in it." he explains.
"Thank you, Oscar. Let me know if you find anything else in your searching; I will work on this."
Dervak puts on a pair of gloves and begins dragging bodies aside so he can get to the chute without having to walk on the dead.
Why do you care? They are just meat!
Go away, voice! I will not be any more of a monster than I am.
As he moves each one, he is heard to say "Sorry."
The process of moving the bodies is indeed a grizzly task, and while many of them have signs of trauma, many do not appear to have anything physically wrong with them at all. As the bodies get moved, a few more items of jewellery, worth about 15gp and loose coins totalling another 10gp fall out as the bodies shift around.
As you clear space it becomes apparent that the chute ends about 8 feet off the ground; the chute itself seems to angle upwards gently enough that climbing it would not be terribly difficult, though it would be awkward as it would be a tight fit
"Good work Dervak! Now, boost me up first. If there's anything on the other side I'll give it a taste of my steel before it can hurt the others." Mala sets himself up near the opening of the vent and waits on dervak. He jestures at Oscar before he goes and says. "Try and get that thing to work a few more times. I don't want Dervak here to get knocked over by a light breeze."
At the comment about the healing wand, Dervak looks back and forth at Mala and Oscar but doesn't say anything.
Then he boosts Mala up into the chute.
"Sure. While I'm at it, how about a bit more advice?" Oscar says, pulling the wand back out. "Drag the table from the other room up to the chute. Easiest way to get everyone up without jumping."
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"Good idea, Oscar. I'll go up last, and watch our backs just in case there's anything still down here."
Julius goes back to the table and tries to move it into the room of corpses.
Dervak successfully and rather unceremoniously shoves Mala into the chute. Mala begins to attempt to crawl up the gentle but slick metal incline on his belly, using his hands and feet.
He manages to shuffle up to the top and emerges into a small closet. The entrance to the tube is on the floor in a corner. To the left, 5 feet away is an open door swinging gently on it's hinges that leads to what appears to be a courtyard.
Meanwhile, Dervak attempts to stand on the table and just manages to stand up fully on top of it when **CRACK!!** it collapses suddeny in a dusty cloud of splinters.
It is at this point the party might notice that Cerio and the phantom did not join them in this room.
Dervak lands on his feet.
He boosts Oscar up and then (assuming Oscar doesn't fall on him) pulls himself up.
"Hup!" he clambers up the chute easily enough, but when he gets up top, he checks to make sure the room is clear before he steps to the side.
"Anyone seen Cerio?" he calls down the chute.
"Easy enough." Mala jests to himself as he helps oscar out of the chute. "I honestly have not. He seem's too have just up and vanished from my eye." Jumping at the loud crack that can be heard from back through the chute, Mala sticks his head back in and half yells hald whispers. "Need any help back there?"
Julius shoots easily up the shaft after Oscar, looking back as he does so to check for Cerio. "Uh, I thought he went up already. I went up last...I thought. What the hell?"
He rubs his head, trying to massage away the migraine that's forming. "Okay then, so people are now randomly disappearing on us. Fantaaastic."
"Was he dead all along? Was the ghost real and the sick man an illusion?"
Dervak is completely confused about the phantom and its disappearing owner.
The closet you are all in is cramped and clearly not designed to hold more than 2 or so people at one time. Outside the creaking door is a bleak and uninspired courtyard, drenched in a dancing yellow mist, approximately 30 feet to the wall from the door you are looking at. There is well beaten path that travels around the perimeter of the courtyard and disappears to the left of where you are looking, where you can assume the courtyard continues. Just outside the door, on the wall to the right about 10 feet from where the closet door is, is a closed door leading into the facility.
And also, the sky.
If you look up, you will see a terrible swirl of yellow clouds, backlit by what you guess is a setting sun. Huge shapes seem to form in the ugly mass up above, and your minds cannot decide if they are tricks of the light or nightmarish creatures seeking pray. The most in the courtyard is not quite the soupy yellow fog of your nightmare, but the resemblance is uncanny enough to give you chills.
"Oh, what. The. HELL..." Julius murmurs for the umpteenth time that day, looking at the sky. "What is that?! Where the hell are we?!"
He takes a deep breath, steadying himself. "Okay, so this is just awful."
Dervak looks around.
This is unfamiliar. He does not recall any specific dreams of this place. Still, the yellow clouds remind him of the recent nightmare. The air somehow recalls a feeling from a time, years ago, when he gave in to his demon and unleashed its power. He feels a small surge of ecstacy and hates himself for it.
"The door or the path?"
Oscar stares up at the sky, internally screaming at the absurdity of it all. Externally, the corner of his mouth twitches.
"Well that's... terrible." he observes plainly. "We should make room for the rest."
Stepping out into the courtyard, he draws his bow and arrow, and walks around a little bit. Julius can see him hopping on the balls of his feet, doing a leg lunge or two as he stretches. He likely hasn't exercised often, considering the pudge in his gut.
"The air feels wrong. I would like to try avoiding breathing it as much as possible." he observes.