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Prologue: This Dim, Forgotten City
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Die though, unsung, as tears unshed
Shall dry and die in
Lost Carcosa”
- Robert W. Chambers, The King in Yellow
Five men and women marched mutely over the cracked cobblestone streets that carved through buildings abandoned by all but time. None lead the march, all knew the way. They’d all been here before, they all swore it, yet walked aimless, allowing vague memories to return with each passing step.
First was a handsome man. He nervously spun a dagger in his fingers, a practiced motion. He looked at the others, though his gaze fell elsewhere when they tried to meet his eyes.
The second was a scrawny, ragged man with unpolished charm. He was Varisian, with tan skin and brown locks. He kept looking over his shoulders, avoiding eye contact, monitoring those that walked with him.
A strong woman walked rather triumphantly. She had dark skin, black hair, and gripped a Lucerne Hammer. The weapon seems well used, blade somewhat bent, hammer worn and dented. She wielded it with an unsettling comfort.
The second woman had pale skin and short, blonde hair. She seemed almost starved, yet maintained a frail beauty. Her left eye had a black tattoo over it, and she knew the others were staring at it.
Lastly, a brunette woman. The only among them who wasn't human. The Changeling had striking eyes, green and blue. She wrapped both arms around a starknife, as if it was all that held her together.
The two men attempted to speak, breaking the group’s silence. Despite their best efforts, Rivas and Ember couldn’t communicate. They’d forget what they were saying a word into their speech, and would trail off before attempting once more to say something they couldn’t remember. The three women were quiet, either mystified by this strange place, or seeing no value in a conversation they could not maintain.
The five of them walked together, and though paused at the same moment. Their hearts beat, quick and thunderous, tugged at by forces unknown. Their blood pounded, their hands trembled with each raging beat. Their minds ached with each deafening throb.
But the throbs were not just within their minds, as louder and louder, footsteps echoed the forgotten city. A fear, a choking fear, crawled up their throats, palpable and thick as the sickly yellow fog that curled into the alley.
The cloud tumbled through the street, swelling towards them, quickened as it was funneled by the towering, gray brick buildings. The footsteps grew louder, keeping pace with the careening, hungry wave.
Behind the yellow fog, a figure took shape. A thin, contorted outline of a twisted human. As the sounds of its steps grew louder, the mist crawled closer, advancing. The yellow fog parted as it battered against Ember and Gladiola, a mask of gray, leathery rags emerged, constricting a face not quite human.
Gladiola did not wait for creature to attack, and acted with the same defiant violence that she had in a life now forgotten. A swing of her polearm had the mist swirling, and she lunged into battle. Her attacks often connected, and her assault pushed it back deeper into the yellow mist from whence it came.
With each stab, with each blow of her hammer, Gladiola stretched a smile. She was winning, she thought. She turned back, wondering if the others had seen what she had accomplished, yet so deep into the fog, it was only herself and the Man in Tatters.
Another strike to the creature. This time, and for the first time, she noticed something. Over the course of seconds, faster than she could inflict more damage, the creature’s wounds healed. Cuts from the weapon’s blade sealed before blood could draw. Mangled limbs battered by her hammer snapped back in place. The tall, crooked creature was no worse for wear.
The creature didn't wait for another attack against it. It reached it's arm out, curling it's long, clawed fingers around Gladiola’s forearm. With a crushing snap, the bone seemed to crack, and Gladiola’ hammer fell from her hands. As quickly as she looked to her wound, the Man in Tatters vanished.
Gladiola reached down for her weapon, though she could not find it. As her eyes flickered to the cobbled streets, she swore she heard a raspy chortling hidden in the mists. She made a step backwards before her foe appeared before her.
The contorted, bound figure did not return visible all at once. First it's wicked smile stretched mere inches in front of the paladin. Then, it's long, thin body revealed to be almost wrapping around her, like a snake to constrict it’s prey. Lastly, it's arm appeared, coiled muscle leading to the broken iron shackles at it's wrists, leading to the open, clawed hand hovering just over Gladiola’s throat.
The creature dug its fingers into her neck, and lifted her into the air. Four nails tore into her neck, while a sharp, ragged thumb nail pierced her throat.
As the blood trickled down her chest, the creature brought it's second hand to her neck. Blood filling her lungs, the only sounds Ember heard just outside the fog were the hopeless kicking of Gladiola’s feet against her assailant, and the low gurgling of blood welling in her throat. Ember made his first, uneasy steps within the fog, dagger drawn.
Though her eyes bulged, Gladiola’s vision slipped away, the Man in Tatters reduced to a blurred figment until nothing. Her thrashing calmed, she was slow outside the occasional, slow twitch.
As Ember searched the fog for either friend or foe, Gladiola awoke sitting slumped over, legs dangling over a flat rooftop. Her senses returned as she coughed out the blood she nearly choked on. Heavy, frantic breaths for air were accompanied by quick gulps of welling blood. She looked up.
From atop this building, this city seemed endless. Thousands of gray-brick buildings stretched into the horizon, slowly morphing into the twilit sky. In a way, it was strangely beautiful. A smile curled on her face once more.
She felt something press against her back, softly pushing her off of the ledge. Limply, her body tumbles off the building, hurled to the fog waiting below.
Before Ember could make sense of the scene, the thin man warped by ribboned bandages returned. Though less confident than the warrior before him, the rogue fought the fear gnawing at his insides, slashing several quick cuts onto the creature.
The Man in Tatters did not strike back, avoiding most of the attack, bending in ways to render lethal strikes to mere grazes. More than anything else, it studied Ember. After a pause in Ember’s slashes, it cocked its head to the side, and changed it’s shape.
The gaunt, inhuman being took on a familiar shapes, though could not quite settle on a single form. First, it took a vague, feminine body, shrinking slender, face framed by long swirling, brown curls. The body features prominent brown eyes, eyes that Ember couldn’t quite place, though filled him with a warm feeling of family, of home.
The face twisted in anger, showing teeth in her fury. “Why don't you -” she cried out, though changed once more, voice contorting as she did.
Again, it became something incomplete. A man, this time, stocky, somewhat unkempt, somewhat charming, but otherwise a blur. Again, he was familiar to Ember, though still he couldn’t quite recall who this was. A friend? A friend of a friend?
In this new body, with his new voice, it continued to scream."- Remember anything, you -”
Another man, Ember thought. The morphing figure swelled in size, doubling in the very least. His eyes became shrouded, black, and his beard grew large. Ember felt a strange feeling of loyalty, yet also a strong repulsion, a visceral hatred to this new shape.
"-Pitiful person!?” it finished. The creature changed several times more, each shape more featureless and less distinct than the last. Furious, it returned to it's original shape: lean, tall, bound in yellow-gray tattered bandages. It breathed in and out sharply, through gritted, sharpened teeth.
Ember’s fear festered, growing as the man in tatters’ anger peaked. The rogue fell backward, dropping his dagger as he began to crawl away from the now-howling shapeshifter.
Ember rose to his feet, sprinting away as the creature threw it's tantrum. He sprinted, and while at first the fog felt endless, inescapable, he peeked through the mustard cloud. Once more, he saw the towering brick buildings that tore at the twilit sky. Once more, he could fully make out the bends and twists of the cobbled roads.
Though the swirling cloud rolled forward after him, Ember was faster, fueled by adrenaline and fear. With the yellow fog behind him, so faded his horror. The fog seemed to disappear, though Ember gave hardly a moment to turn back to see if that was the case until he keeled over to catch his breath.
Footsteps began to pound the empty city, the same as they had before. The yellow fog, and the creature that lurked within, were nowhere to be seen. Yet, the footsteps grew louder.
Louder and louder still, until Ember felt something press against the back of his spine. In an instant, his energy vanished, consumed by the touch of the creature behind him. Sluggish now, Ember turned to the Man in Tatters as it enclosed two hands over his face.
Though devoid of most humanly features, Ember could tell the creature was now composed. Holding Ember by the head, it pushed against his skin, bending the man’s face with a strange, almost analytical curiosity. For several seconds it held him, until unceremoniously, it ended it's investigation with a cruel snap to Ember’s neck.
It tossed the body to the floor, though curled down close, almost as though it awaited hopefully for another surprise. With his neck broken, Ember could not breathe and could not move. His eyes flicked in panic, searching for something, anything that could save him. The figure rose, and walked through the cobbled roads, leaving Ember to expire on his lonesome.
Seconds after his last breath, Ember’s mouth slowly opened, lifelessly repeating words that were not his own, though no one was alive nearby to hear them.
Eponine was the first to slow her pace. After several minutes of jogging alone, she arrived at a street with something she had yet to see: windows.
At first, she paid them no mind. Most of the glass was cracked or warped, and within, every building was empty short of faded, chipped paint. But as she ran, she gave more attention to the person in the reflection. Though distorted, she saw her own eyes for the first time, beautiful in their asymmetry, lovely shades of green and blue. She stopped walking entirely as the windows became more whole, less distorted. Peeking over her shoulder, she was alone.
Eponine realized she couldn't quite remember her very own appearance up until this moment. The way her grin curled. How her hair bounced as she moved. How a dusk’s dim light lit both her eyes in different, yet equally fascinating ways. There was an unmistakable glee in her interaction with her reflection, a rediscovery of self.
Eponine didn’t hear the figure approach, only noticing as it appeared behind the woman in the glass. A contorted humanoid shape haunted the glass-Eponine, it's twisted body bound by gray-yellow bandages, wearing a face marked only by a smile of sharp, craggy teeth.
Before she could react, it wrapped it's long fingers over the back of Eponine’s skull. She was helpless as she watched her head met with her reflection's. Through the glass, she tumbled into the building.
Eponine’s forehead bled profusely, and shattered glass shards on the floor cut into her hands when she tried to break her fall. She pressed her body against the wall, holding her starknife with a nervous, trembling grip.
She waited, catching her breath a blood streamed down her brow, passing over her emerald eye. Eponine wiped the blood from her head, but the deep cut gave no indication of closing. Smearing it a second time, she peeked through the window.
There was nothing: no yellow fog, no creature, only shattered fragments of glass on the street gave evidence that something was once here. Warily, the Changeling returned to the street, holding tightly to her weapon.
Eponine stepped slowly into the street, checking over her shoulder with each step. Faintly, she heard something. She heard the faint rustling of clothes and a creeping, sluggish breathing under her quick, panicked ones. No matter how she moved, or where she looked, the sounds haunted her, and at one point, she thought it was accompanied by a low laughter.
Dragging her feet, Eponine kicked a piece of glass over the cobbles, piercing the streets with the shrill sound its shattering. The splintered shards reflected what was above.
Eponine spied a sickly, golden cloud, light dancing on it’s curls in a strange, foreign manner, as if even the sun did not function normally in this city. She spied a plain purple sky, where a flickering, black star drained nearby light. She spied her own frantic visage, but behind it, floating against the gray brick walls, the Man in Tatters loomed.
It grew larger in the small shard, until it fell atop Eponine, clawed hands outstretched, maw open revealing jagged, bloody teeth. After knocking her to the ground in a bruising tumble, it rose to its feet, and waited for the Changeling to do the same.
The Man in Tatters swayed strangely as she lifted herself up. She pointed a single blade of her starknife at it, following it's leans and lurches. It jerked forward abruptly, bringing three clawed fingers over her face, one tearing across Eponine’s blue eye.
Instinctively, she covered her damaged eye as she recoiled away from the creature. Blood poured from a gash stretching across the bridge of her nose, and a cut across her cheek carved a permanent bloody smirk onto the Changeling’s face.
Once more, it waited for her to recover. One eye closed, Eponine held her weapon defensively at the Man in Tatters. It cocked it's head to the side. Blood dripped from it's long, clawed fingers onto the cobbled road. The creature let out a growl.
Eponine swung her weapon, and cut across the creature's trailing bandages as it encircled her right side. Struggling to keep up with it’s movements, the Changeling flung her bladed chakram, though the lean, twisted man dipped beneath the spinning blades. Unarmed, Eponine attempted to make an escape, though the creature rose it's arm, cutting her from chin to brow with a crooked nail before she could leave.
The Man in Tatters did not hesitate for the Changeling to gain composure this time. Tiring of it's game, it lunged forward, and brought a claw to her throat. It sliced deeply, spraying blood over the shards that littered the cobblestone road.
Her attempts to close the wound were fruitless, Eponine gasps for airs as she chokes for blood. As all turned numb, mustard wisps began to form around the creature. Soon, all was consumed by the gathering fog. Eponine could see nothing but the warped outline of her murderer, until it faded into the haze, and her vision vanished altogether.
When her blood became still, her mouth opened, and spilled words yet unheard.
When the fog rolled in once more, Pasiune ran. Through countless nearly identical streets and alley, the yellow fog matched her pace, expanding endlessly in it’s quest to consume her. She ran, disregarding the bloody corpse of Eponine surrounded by broken glass, hardly hearing what the body said as she sprinted by it. “Save… Save… S-Save...”
But Pasiune kept running. As she grew exhausted, each breath pained, feet numb, she slowed, and the cloud grew closer. It licked at her heels, danced faintly ahead of her, until Pasiune stopped altogether to catch her breath, ready to collapse.
The crooked, contorted figure greeted Pasiune with silence. As it stepped ahead, shrouded in it’s fog, the blonde woman feebly stabbed her spear forward. Attacks growing desperate, Pasiune lost any composure as the creature avoided her attacks, or merely swept them sway. It came closer, fully visible now, gaunt face wrapped in bandages save for bloody mouth.
Looming over her, it paused, giving Pasiune enough time to drive her spear through the creature’s stomach. Unlike all her other blows, this strike seemed to hurt the Man in Tatters. It took a step back, gripping it’s stomach in pain, mouth grit as it let out a whimper.
With a shudder, it changed shape. The gaunt, featureless face was replaced by a handsome, young man's. His clothing was stained in blood, and he looked at Pasiune in disbelief, as though he'd been betrayed. The young man was one of those Pasiune had walked with earlier, Ember, and again he took a step back, holding his wound closed. "W-Why would - why would you do this?" he asked, finding words he earlier could not.
Ember fell to his knees, now spitting out blood. "Why? Didn't - Didn't you feel we were, were all connected?” He appeared on the brink of tears. “Didn't you, you feel it?” Pasiune’s spear slips from her hands as her grip loosens. She began to stammer an apology, trying to voice that there was something, a monster within the fog.
Ember looked up to Pasiune. He appeared afraid now, terrified of the woman. “Y-You're a monster." It brought Ember incredible pain to scramble backwards. His hand fell off his wound, and he whimpered as he retreated deeper into the fog. "Stay- Stay away... Let me go, please... Don't, don't harm the others, please…" As Ember crawled and disappeared into the hanging yellow fog, a trail of blood traced his path. His pleas faded to weak whispers, until they ended altogether.
Pasiune followed the bloody trail through the yellow fog. Ember didn't seem to get too far, only a few dozen paces. In a pool of his own blood, he was face-down on the cobbled road. Breathing sporadic, Pasiune placed a trembling hand onto the neck of Ember. He hadn’t a pulse. He was dead. She held the body close to her own, wondering what she had done.
She certainly felt it, the strange, connection that Ember spoke of. There was something that bound Ember, herself, and the others together. Had she broken that? She told herself that she didn’t mean to do it, that it was all the fault of a trick played my that murderous creature. It had used her, she told herself again and again.
Through sniffles, Pasiune spoke. “No, it wasn’t an accident,” she admitted somberly, “I am a monster.” Unmistakably, it was her voice, though Pasiune herself said nothing. The voice came from your chest, rather, the body pressed against it “You’ve forgotten so much, but don’t forget that.” Ember shook slightly as he began to laugh.
Pasiune looked at the body, though it was no longer the person she had slain. Instead, they now had short blonde hair, and a tattoo over their eye. Pasiune, a second one, wiped away gleeful tears and wore a wide, thin smile. Before Pasiune could push off their double, the doppelgänger twisted her to her back, and pinned her.
The other-Pasiune dug their knees into Pasiune legs, and stabbed their elbows into her arms. Their hands wrapped her Pasiune’s head, and they placed their brow onto her’s. Staring at their original, wearing her smile sinisterly, the doppelganger whispered as Pasiune-prime squirmed underneath, still weak from her earlier chase.
“Don’t forget who we are,” they said softly, raising their head and tightening their grip over the Pasiune’s hair and head. The other-Pasiune slammed the original’s head into the cobblestone street. The doppelganger’s face twisted in anger as they pounded Pasiune’s skull into the stones over and over. Quickly, her attempts to push her copy off had stopped, her body still, her consciousness faded.
Still gripping Pasiune’s face, her other-self reverts in shape. It grew leaner, longer each time her skull crashed into the stones. It's hair and features faded away, and the fingers that gripped Pasiune’s head sprouted claws that cut into her face. As the bloody pool around her head grew, so did the creature's fury, continuing to slam the woman’s head into the ground until little remained.
The creature rose, and walked away from the grisly remains of it's victim. Though much of Pasiune’s skull was gone, spewed out on the street, her mouth opened, repeating words endlessly in a voice not her own.
When the golden-rod fog rolled in the direction he had been walking, Rivas once more ran away. Though the steps grew no fainter as he sprinted, Rivas did not stop. Even as he grew exhausted, he pushed himself further, ignoring his pains and cramps, listening to fear more than his own body.
He ran past Pasiune’s hardly recognizable body speaking an unfitting voice. “Up… Up… Up...” the corpse called to him, yet still he ran.
He ran past Eponine’s body, slipping on her blood, falling to face the woman. With a lifeless green eye staring at him, she repeated her line. “Save… Save… ” He rose, stained crimson now, and continued to run as the cloud advanced.
He ran past Gladiola’s mangled, crushed body. While the blood from her mouth had now since dried, she still said the same word that only Ember had heard before. “Mee… Me… Me...” Still, he ran.
Though Rivas ran, the yellow fog never slowed its pace. With each turn Rivas took too late, it gained an inch. With each of Rivas’ stumbles it gained a foot. As he slowed as exhaustion took him, the yellow cloud crawled closer, until, as it had almost all those before, it consumed him.
When the Man in Tatters appeared in the fog, Rivas could hardly muster the strength to swing his dagger. After a few failed attempts to hurt his to-be assailant, Rivas slams his body against the creature, collapsing onto it, dropping his weapon to the ground as he recovered his breath.
The Man in Tatters waited a moment. Did it feel pity, or was it merely bored with it’s last toy? The creature grabbed Rivas by the throat, and lifted him off of his feet. Then, the Man in Tatters rose as well, slowly floating off the ground as he gripped Rivas by the throat. Soon, they rose above the yellow fog, and though Rivas was limp in his exhaustion, he was all too conscious.
Dropped upon the top of a building, Rivas rolled to his back, facing the clouds above. The creature produce a wicked razor from its clothes, flicking out a barbed, curved blade that seemed more designed to inflict pain than anything else.
Black stars twinkled on an endless violet sky. The peach orange clouds hung still, as they always had, though now spelt a single, clear word into the sky above: “Wake.” A small stream of blood streamed from Rivas’ nose. He looked at the word, silent in thought, catching his breath, until the Man in Tatters stepped over him, blocking out the word from view.
It leaned in, pressing the razor to Rivas’ throat. At first, it appeared as if the creature was to take it’s time, have it’s fun with the exhausted man laid out before it. But then, peering to the setting suns on the horizon, the Man in Tatters simply dragged it’s blade over Rivas’ neck.
Rivas writhed in pain as the creature looked on, folding the blade back into the war razor’s handle. It grabbed Rivas once more, and tossed the limp body to the road many floors below. Rivas fell in such a way that the last thing he ever saw was the sky. His final thoughts focused not on his death, but the word placed in the sky for him to see.
Wake.
Wake.
WAKE!
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Chapter One: Prison of the Mind
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- H.P. Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu
MAP: Briarstone Asylum Furnace Rooms
The five stirred from their sleep, finding themselves in dimly lit cells in a place that must be beneath the ground.
A man tied to a table in thick ropes howls in pain, harsh shadows forming over his pain-riddled face in the dim light. He struggled vainly, and by the countless cuts along his arms, legs, face and chest, seemed to have endured his torture for quite a while. “WAKE UP, DAMNIT, GET UP, S-SAVE ME, YOU NEED TO - ”
The voice was interrupted by the man’s shrieks, as a woman, a doctor it seemed, dragged a scalpel over his thigh, and observed the skin splitting apart. She was unsettlingly thin, in blood soaked doctor’s robes once as white. She nodded slowly to herself, placing her instrument on a tray beside many tools like it, all coated in blood. Forks, a twisting wine screw, a trowel, broken glass, and hedge shears, though she decided to next use a pair of pliers.
While the doctor had yet to notice the five that awakened, another did. Propped against the eastern wall, barely within the light provided by the hanging lantern above the operating table, a man stared at the waking party in silence. He wore plain brown clothes, and had vivid blue eye. As they all woke, he approached the cells that they were locked within, outside arm’s reach, and sized them up like a butcher to cattle.
In the northern cells, he cared only for Pasiune, while both specimen in the southern cells kept his interest. The man smiled to himself, though kept his giddiness quiet.
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The woman awoke with a start. Where am I? What's going on? Who am I? Everything seemed slightly out of focus. Her almost bald head hurt slightly, causing her to raise a hand and run it through her short, almost nonexistent blonde hair. She was in a terrible mood from a combination of the headache and the awful nightmare she had awoken from. The scene playing out in front of her was almost like she was watching a grisly performance, put on just her for her macabre pleasure. She tried to wrap her head around the scene. Looking around, she saw she was in a cell, but she had no idea why. There were two people with her that she recognized, but didn't actually know. There was nothing in the cell that appeared useful to helping them escape.
As the sick Doctor tortured her patient, the prisoner turned toward the male who was overseeing the bloody scene. "Let us out of here! Or stop her. Or do something!"
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The scrawny varisian man awoke with a start, he looked about with alarm before scrambling to the back of the cell on his hands and knees and cowered. Where am I?!? How did? I know these people I think? WHAT IN THE NINE HELLS IS THAT!?! "N-n-n-no. No please... W-w-wake up. S-s-save me. SAVE ME."
His hands pawed at his face as he continued looking about before locking on to the man staring at them. "Go away! Leave us be! No... Let us out! W-w-who are you!" he shouted nearing full panic.
The doctor paused, sighing as she placed her pliers on her operating table. She appeared in her late-forties or early-fifties, face lined with sharp contours, hair in a symmetrical bob. The doctor would appear motherly if not covered in blood. Her smile faded as her experiment was interrupted by the louder prisoners.
"Hold your tongue!" she screeched at Pasiune. "And you," she turned to Rivas, "you'll have your turn soon enough! Quiet!" She inhaled sharply, breathed out deeply, calming as she grabbed her pliers once more. "Your skin cuts so easily," she remarked softly to her patient, "what of your bones, dear?"
The man took a step closer to the southern cell. He squatted to be at eye level with Rivas. "She won't touch you," he said with conviction, "that's my promise to you, boy." His grin stretched wider as he rose to his feet. "I want the blonde, the hag-child, and the skinny man. The others have feeble minds."
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Gladiola began to rouse slowly. As she heard the screams finally, she darted up. She glanced at the gory proceedings in tight-jawed disgust, her hand reflexively covering her mouth. Eyes widening at something, she turned back around, hiding her face. She ripped a section of her shirt off, tying it around the lower half of face like a bandana mask. She stood to her full height, easily six feet tall, and surged to the bars, her dreadlocks flaring behind her. She grasped one of the bars as she stretched out her other arm through them, pointing towards the blue eyed man. Her own bright eyes raged against him.
"I will show you a feeble mind, you brazen KNAVE. You are nothing but the composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pandar, and the son and heir of a mongrel B$!$#."
She struck the "doctor" with her gaze next, accompanying it with a full-body cutting motion.
"I will cleave you through from scalp to ankle if you do not release us all this very moment, you disgusting craven."
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She woke with a start, gasping for air. One hand slapped to her throat, as though to staunch a wound where there was none. She sat up, and, without knowing why, thought Who did I fail? It was only slowly that additional thoughts came regarding her whereabouts and those around her.
Her clothes, Varisian leggings and blouse, with scarves tied about her. The garments are soiled and shabby, and soaked with her sweat. Her curly black hair, filthy and wet, hangs heavily around her shoulders and face.
When the man looks in the cell, she scrambles to her feet and away from the door. Looking at the man in the cell with her, she recognizes him, but yet doesn't know him.
"How- how did we get here?"
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Ember woke from his dream, the transition feeling as if he died in one world and came back to life in another. It reminded him of an actor dying in a dramatic death scene and then rising after the curtain fell to stand ready to bow to the audience. The curtain rose, but ...
Ember let his eyes slowly open just enough to see what was around him. He was slumped against a wall. He heard a man crying in pain, then yelling at someone to wake up. An emaciated woman with close cropped hair sat opposite him, evidently also just waking up, demanding to be released.
His eyes shifted slightly, taking in the bars that kept them locked up. Beyond the bars, more bars, more people. A Varisian over there was babbling, obviously disoriented.
He was cut off by a woman's voice, harsh, shrill, cold. He shifted his body slightly, still faking sleep. He saw the owner of the cold voice, saw her handiwork, making his blood curdle in his stomach.
Another figure, between the cells, spoke quietly to the Varisian. Something moved near Ember, brushing one of his leg that stretched across the cell floor. A tall woman stood and began to hurl insults and threats. "That's my cue," Ember thought.
He stretched languidly, like a cat getting up after a nap by the fire. He pointedly ignored his cellmates as he bent his neck from side to side, letting his joints pop softly, rubbing the back of his neck. He leaned back against the wall again as he brought his legs under him to support his weight, ready for action but appearing relaxed.
"How's a man supposed to get any sleep with all this caterwauling?"
Rivas curled into a ball in the back of the cell and whimpered, "n-n-n-no. Leave me alone. I-I don't want to be here. How did I get here? Who are you?"
The man was dressed in clothes suited to a beggar on the streets of Kaer Maga, dirty, disheveled and worn. His blue eyes shot around the room still, refusing to land in one place too long lest he miss any threat. He rolled a hand through short and coarse brown hair and had skin that seemed to match the condition of his clothes, worn and tanned.
As the other woman in his cell huddled back with him it was one of the few things that he did not fear, though he wasn't quite sure why.
While the doctor grew more and more agitated by Gladiola’s outburst, something the paladin said calmed her. She turned her back to those in the cages. “Hmm..." she pondered. "Scalp,” she repeated, “to ankle...” She placed the pliers back onto her tray, and took the long bladed hedge shears. "Creative for a feeble-one."
The tied-down man continued to scream as the doctor pressed both blades onto his head, rotating them against his skull like one would use a bow compass. “Where even to begin...”
She paused her torture. When the doctor pulled back the shears and stepped away from her shouting victim, she wore a different face: Gladiola's. Though the caged paladin hid her mouth behind cloth, the doctor curved a grin. She spoke in the same proud voice as the Mwangi woman. "Scalp to ankle! Scalp to ankle! How twisted! How macabre!" Doctor Gladiola skipped back to her patient, brandishing the shears once more. "Now, quiet!" she screeched.
The man with blue eyes ignored Gladiola's righteous rant, and seemed to not even hear Ember's quip. Instead, he approached the cell containing Rivas and Eponine, attempting to comfort them like a parent to a child. "Don't be afraid, don't be afraid. Your nightmares are over, just mind your voices." He cocked his head to the doctor about to resume surgery, rolling his eyes. "She's serious about her research, let her get it over with. They called me Davian, what of your names?"
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: To hear the words of the man near the other cell.
Ember's mind raced as he tried to take in the situation and deal with it while keeping outwardly calm. He couldn't remember how he had gotten here. Perhaps one of his schemes had gone wrong. What schemes? He'd get back to that. He looked at the people in the cells with him. Vague flashes of them flickered, like a candle trying to stay lit in a growing breeze. Faces in a yellow fog. Had he gotten them in trouble too or had they involved him in something awful?
The woman at the table seemed to be in charge. The woman standing and yelling seemed to be someone he'd like as an ally. She was awfully attractive, especially with a bit of her well-muscled midriff showing. He wished he could see her face better. He heard the man at the other cell saying soothing words, like he cared about us. Davian, hmmm.
Too many questions. One thing at a time. Just before getting up, he noticed that he had done an awful lot of thinking in a very short time, as if the world paused to let him get up to speed. O-kaaay.
Ember stood and dusted some of the dirt that he'd picked up lying on the floor. As he did this, he noticed he was without his dagger. His right thumb reflexively rubbed against his right ring finger, noticing the absence of a ring. He took a spot next to the self-righteous chick hurling threats as if she could carry them out locked up in a cell without a weapon. He leaned forward, arms resting on an iron crossbeam.
He spoke in a conversational tone once the woman stopped her threats for a moment. "Hey, babe, glad you're okay. Don't worry. I know people who will know I'm missing. They know people. People with influence ... and mercenaries, if necessary. They'll be busting us out any moment now." He said the word mercenaries louder, to make sure the man and woman out there could hear. Then he noticed the Varisian couple in the cell across the way looking at him. He winked.
He looked over at the other woman in the cell with him, the one with the short hair. "You okay? It'll be all right. Ember's here." He walked over to her and offered a hand to help her up, giving her an appraising look as he did so.
He doesn't (yet) have any ranks in sleight of hand, but if he can make a default roll to see how well concealed his items are in his outfit, here it is: . If he is doing the hiding when he is alone and getting dressed, I would assume he can take 20, which would give him a result of 20 + 2 + 2 = 24.
Also, when you said we do not have any equipment, I assumed that meant his signet ring was missing. Let me know if he still has that, perhaps in one of the pockets of his outfit.
Rhade stared at Ember, delaying before taking his hand. That face! Where do I know...oh gods, she realized that she'd seen him in her dream, as she finally extended her shaking palm. She didn't remember anything about Either his or her background, but she remembered the grisly fate that happened to the man in her dream. She made a mental note to find out more about him, if they lived.
"I think my name is Pas, Pas, uh. I think my name is Rhade. Are those mercenaries coming soon? We need them now, I'm afraid!". She leaned in closer. That doctor has a keyring on her. It might be to our cell doors," she whispered.
Eponine choked back the fear and the confusion. Despite tremors pulsing through her, she tried to muster her courage.
When the man with the blue eyes asked for their names, Eponine struggled to conjure it up. Pony? Is it Pony? Unsure of her name, but certain of her one desire she begged "P-Please. Just let us go." Her voice trailed, because she instinctively knew it wouldn't be that easy.
Despite the terror and the throbbing in her head, still the feeling pervaded her: Who did I betray?
"Shhh, in time, in time," the blue eyed man cooed to Eponine. He pressed his hand on the iron bars in front of the cleric, attempting to reassure her.
As the doctor began her operation once more, Ember's reassuring lies were drowned by the screaming patient. Evidently, the doctor heard but one of Ember's words. "Mercenaries!" Doctor Gladiola chimed, "What a treat!" The shapeshifter started her cut above the man's ear, and dragged the shears to the back of his neck.
As the man struggled to free himself of his bloodied bonds, he managed to slip a leg free. The doctor appeared too engrossed in her surgery to notice.
But I will make the rolls under this spoiler and not look at the results.
Ember will begin to check his pockets for anything that could be used for a lock-pick.
Ember whispered to Gladiola, "Got anything I can use as a lock pick?"
While the doctor is distracted with the shears and Davian is facing the other cell, Ember will attempt to pick the lock, if there is a lock to pick. He winks at Pas Pas. "Who needs keys when you have me?"
Rivas continued to shake in fear even with Davian's "soothing". Ember's nonchalant attitude did little to calm the shaken varisian.
He looked at Davian, "Where are we? W-What is this place?"
Gladiola's eyes widened as the "Doctor" twisted her words into a new torture. Her hands tightened around the bars.
"YOU WILL PAY A THOUSAND TIMES FOR YOUR DEPRAVITY, KNAVE."
She ripped herself away from the bars and she stomped around the cell, looking for something, anything to use to extricate herself. She paused at Ember's comment,
"Do not presume to condescend to me. I am not your 'babe.' We don't have time to wait around! There's someone out there...."
She halted her tirade as she heard his whispered question and began chewing over the answer, trying to not look too conspicuous.
Rhade stands and pulls her two cell mates close together. "I see a key ring on the doctor. Woman, if you make her mad enough to approach, maybe our boy here can take those keys from her and we can get out of this box to make things a little more fair," she whispers to them. "And I think I can hurt her with my mind, whatever that's worth. I don't remember much else,but I can do things somehow. We can't just wait here like pigs to slaughter."
You can’t quite determine Davian’s motives or character, but judging by the fact he is not stopping the doctor and has claimed three of you as his own, you doubt he is friendly. He does seem to be ignoring you.
Though Ember felt as though things should be stored in his pockets, he couldn’t procure anything. Instead, he fiddled with the lock as he spoke, attempting to open the door without any tools whatsoever. Though somewhat skilled, even with the proper tools it would be a difficult task for the rogue.
Davian gave his first clear answer. He spoke low, sorry almost, maybe mournful. “Briarstone Asylum, boy. You are not well. You don’t remember how you were acting?”
As Gladiola yelled, the doctor was silent. Her cut into her patient slowed, though she carved the shears’ blade deeper into the skin. Her patient writhed and shrieked out more pained screams. The doctor stopped her incision at his shoulder, waiting for the man’s cries to stop before facing Gladiola.
The doctor spoke with her teeth grit, eyes widened as Gladiola just were. She stared directly at the woman whose face she shared. “I think I’ll save you for last, you miserable, wretched c-”
With his leg now free, the tortured, bound man delivered a strong kick to the shapeshifter. Striking her in the back, Doctor Gladiola topped forward, slamming into the northern cell. Her face twisted in anger as she voiced countless curses. Her neck snapped to the bound man, knuckles pale on the shears' grip, intent to exact her revenge.
Davian rose to his feet, turning to face the commotion, back to Eponine and Rivas.
Eponine continued to press against the back wall, but when she spoke again, her tone was more defiant, and tinged with anger.
"What am I doing here? There's nothing wrong with me!" But who did I betray, and how?
The waves of guilt for an unknown reason continue to assault her, even though she does not know why.
"I'm better at picking locks than pockets, but looks like I'll need the key for this baby," Ember murmured in response to Rhade, tapping the lock with a knuckle.
When the doctor was kicked into reach, Ember was quick to react, saying to Gladiola, "Grab her! I'll get the keys." Then to Rhade he added, "See if you can get those shears."
As Ember's hand began to reach for the keys, everything seemed to be moving in slow motion, and he saw in a flash in which direction she was going to move in the next instant, allowing him to move his had toward where he now knew the keys would be.
"H-how I was acting? No no no. What happened?" Had it happened again? What have I done this time? I-I can't remember. Oh gods
Rivas's pupils dilated a bit as his eyes stopped really looking around. His mind searching for what might have happened and for ways out of here.
Almost as if responding to his unconscious thought, the tray with torture implements flew into the opposing cell with Ember, Gladiola, and Pas.
Knowing this is her chance, Rhade rushes forward, trying to aid Ember. She considered trying to grab the shears, but she was afraid she would take a vicious cut while trying to do so. No, she decided she would go for broke and try one of those abilities she told Ember about previously. She'd either die in his cage or kill this awful doctor and get out. The decision was easy. She focused her mind, reached out and attacked the mental faculties with all her might.
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The doctor did not notice Ember yanking the keys from her hips. Her hands rushed to her head, she let go of her shears, dug her sharp nails into her scalp, and a scream slipped from her mouth amidst Pasiune's assault.
As the tray of tool toppled to the floor, most of the doctor's wicked instruments hit against the barred cell walls, just within reach to those locked with the northern cells
First Round, bolded are up!
- Rivas
- Eponine
- The Doctor (15 lethal)
- Pasiune
- Ember
- Gladiola
- Davian
Rivas continued mentally searching for options as objects seemed to do his unconscious bidding.
The shears the doctor was holding slid to his cell.
Eponine's fear started to turn to indignant rage. She tried to focus, to gain control of herself. She laid one hand over her heart, and whispered "Please, please help me escape." With a glance at the poor soul sharing the cell with her, she added "Help us escape." She did not know to whom she pleaded, only that her plight and plea were genuine.
The bloody shears rattled against the floor, pulled to Rivas by innate powers he had never known . With Eponine's prayer, the Changeling found herself blessed with a familiar, uplifting energy.
As the doctor recovered, her face returned to her original, then to something resembling the creature from the five prisoners' nightmare. Its skin turned pale and hairless, flesh tightly wrapping a gaunt skull. The creature's eyes were white, blank. Were it not for a fanged grimace, its face would be emotionless.
The doctor, rather, the monster in a doctor's uniform, attacked those closest to it, reaching its clawed hands through the bars, slashing wildly. It still appeared unaware who had assaulted it.
for
The clawed hand cut deeply through Ember's black shirt, dark, crimson blood welling from his new gashes just above his heart. The creature growled, drippin blood and spit from its mouth as a thin, crimson river streamed from it's half-formed nostrils. "YOU RETCHED, TERRIBLE THINGS!"
The tortured victim freed another leg, only bound by his stomach and chest. Ember fell to the floor, his new keys falling beside him.
First Round, Bolded are up!
- Rivas
- Eponine
- The Doctor (15 lethal)
- Pasiune
- Ember (12 lethal) (Unconscious, Dying)
- Gladiola
- Ember (12 lethal) (Unconscious, Dying)
- Davian
Seeing the vicious claws the doctor creature had, Rhade instinctively took a step back from it. She knew this was the only chance she and the group had. The thoughts from her dream haunted her, as she saw Ember bleeding out on the nasty floor of the cell. All she could do was to reach out with her own mind and again try to rend the doctor's brain from the inside of its mind.
Rhade thought of those very shears she had contemplated grabbing before, and framed a mental picture of them. She used her mind to jab out with her mental shears again at the doctor.
"Not again!" Ember said and looked over at the woman now retreating to the back of the cell, as the beast masquerading as a doctor ripped into his chest with claws more frightening than any of the implements on the table. A jumble of images tumbled out of his dusty memory closet. "W-Why would - why would you ...?" Did he say that or was that a memory. All then faded to black.
Blood continued to pour from the creature's nostrils. While the doctor-garbed thing curled inward in pain, it seemed to feel little compared to Pasiune's first assault. It's white, pupil-less eyes flicked back and forth between those that remained standing in the northern cells. Its eyes stopped, though it was unclear who of the two it glared at.
-----
First Round, Bolded are up!
- Rivas
- Eponine
- The Doctor (18 lethal)
- Pasiune
- Ember (13 lethal) (Unconscious, Dying)
- Gladiola
- Davian
Gladiola grabbed the trowel off the floor, the grip and wedged metal head looking passable for combat.
Eyes burning, Gladiola threw out a swing.
Her rage did her few favors though, as her swing dully tinged against the bars.
Davian watched the doctor for a moment, assessing the situation. A smile formed on his face, staring at Pasiune. "So full of surprises," he said softly.
The blue-eyed man dipped deeper into the darkness, only the Changeling could follow him as he walked into a corridor to the east. "Scaen," Davian rang out, "leave them for later." An unseen door screeched open.
- Rivas
- Eponine
- The Doctor (15 lethal)
- Pasiune
- Ember (12 lethal) (Unconscious, Dying)
- Gladiola
- Davian
- Rivas
- Eponine
- The Doctor (15 lethal)
- Pasiune
- Ember (12 lethal) (Unconscious, Dying)
- Gladiola
- Davian
Rivas' head twitched as Davian moved out of his way and he could see the creature doing battle against the others... His friends? Mine? I... I don't know. I just want top be gone...
With that thought, the keys that lay beside an unconscious Ember, shot towards his cell.
Again, objects were pulled towards Rivas, this time a ring of keys jingled. He pulled the keys to the iron bars of his cell.
- Rivas
- Eponine
- The Doctor (15 lethal)
- Pasiune
- Ember (12 lethal) (Unconscious, Dying)
- Gladiola
- Davian
- Rivas
- Eponine
- The Doctor (18 lethal)
- Pasiune
- Ember (12 lethal) (Unconscious, Dying)
- Gladiola
- Davian
Eponine noticed the keys on the ground, not remembering seeing them there just moments before. And were they moving on their own? She didn't question her good luck; for some reason, it seemed appropriate that luck would favor her. She squatted and reached, hoping her arm would be long enough to collect them before their captors noticed.
Eponine snatched the key ring. From where he was, she could not see Davian, and the doctor was focused on those in the northern cells.
Blood dripped from the doppelgangers chin, fresh blood on the white, ribbon bow at her collar. Though Gladiola was now armed and thrashed against the iron bars, the doctor-creature stood close, shoulders shrunk, blank white eyes still.
- Rivas
- Eponine
- The Doctor (15 lethal)
- Pasiune
- Ember (12 lethal) (Unconscious, Dying)
- Gladiola
- Davian
- Rivas
- Eponine
- The Doctor (18 lethal)
- Pasiune
- Ember (12 lethal) (Unconscious, Dying)
- Gladiola
- Ember (12 lethal) (Unconscious, Dying)
- Davian
Rhade waits to see if the human could take down the strange doctor, as she again tris to focus her mind to damage the alien thoughts of the doctor creature. She wasn't sure what it was, but it didn't appear to be human.
Gladiola growled beneath her bandana mask. She felt a deep hatred, a need to harm this vile creature. She quashed her concerns about such feelings for the moment. They were useful now.
Inspired by the fresh blood on the creature's collar, she slashed with the trowel straight for the neck.
She had no choice. As she tore again and again at the doctor's mind, she felt more tired and more tired. She could only muster the strength to do this attack a couple more times. She had to keep hammering away, as long as she could. She felt panic and rage beginning to take over her thoughts as she cast another spell.
With a forceful push, the trowel struck true, landing directly on the creature's neck by it's shoulder. Was its skin like the humans it once disguised itself as, perhaps it would've drawn blood. Despite the rage growing in the paladin, her attack hardly affected the hardened skin of the doppelganger.
The creature reached out quickly as Pasiune began to gesture for her third spell. "Enough, freak!" it shrieked, tugging the psychic's arm, yanking her into the cold, metal bars. As the creature's mind tingled, it brought a claw across the woman's stomach.
Davian called once more from the darkness. "Scaen! Now!" He paused briefly. "Damnit." A half-dozen steps were heard from the darkness, then, nothing.
- Rivas
- Eponine
- The Doctor (15 lethal)
- Pasiune
- Ember (12 lethal) (Unconscious, Dying)
- Gladiola
- Davian
- Rivas
- Eponine
- Pasiune (9 lethal) (Unconscious, Dying)
- Ember (12 lethal) (Unconscious, Dying)
- Gladiola
- The Doctor (18 lethal) (modified turn order via readied action)
- Davian
- Rivas
- Eponine
- Pasiune (9 lethal) (Unconscious, Dying)
- Ember (12 lethal) (Unconscious, Dying)
- Gladiola
- Eponine
- The Doctor (18 lethal) (modified turn order via readied action)
Davian(fled)
Eponine worked with the keys, trying to swallow down the panic she was feeling. Oh, gods. Oh, gods. We have to get out of here! she thought. Then she realized she was thinking of these... strangers, for lack of a better word, as "we." How did she know them? And despite the panic and the puzzlement, she still could not shake the sense that she betrayed someone. But who, and how?
Eponine tries to open the door with the key(s). I'm not sure if that is a move, standard or full round action. If she does, she won't interfere with Rivas leaving the cell.
DC 10: