Donovan is hesitant to stab his friend, and he pays for it.
Archer Carrionette 2
Archer Carrionette 3
MALIGNO
Artegal manages to keep his hold on Donovan and Nicu gloms onto him as well as the Archer Carrionettes use their strings to swing down to the floor and advance on Donovan with their needles in hand. One of them crosses dangerously near Ylva's snapping jaws as they move to attack Donovan's legs from each side with vicious accuracy.
Maligno dances forward with a fluid grace toward Ylva and delivers the same touch attack, sending the wolf in a twirling gambol again.
"Hello again, pup. May I have this dance?" The puppet cackles with evil glee, watching the spectacle. "Pull him down, boys. I mean to try this one myself."
Round 8 Summary / Initiative Order
Olivia - Tied up by Artegal under the table @ E7
Ninefingers - Failed Grapple
Artegal - Grappling Donovan
Nicu- Grappling Donovan
CARRIONETTES – Attacked
MALIGNO - Inflicts Irresistable Dance on Ylva
Donovan –
Dimitrio - Wakes carrionette-possessed and stands up from prone.
Rannveig - Wakes carrionette-possessed and stands up from prone.
Ylva -
Gregorio -
1)Dimitrio: 19 / 19 HP
2)Artegal: 10 / 19 HP
3)Donovan: 13 / 20 HP
4)Ninefingers: 20 / 20 HP
5)Rannveig: 17 / 17 HP
6)Ylva: 24 / 24 HP
7)Nicu: 15 / 15 HP
8)Olivia: 10 / 10 HP
9)Gregorio 8 / 15 HP
K1: Prone
K2: Laying in pieces
M1: Laying in pieces
M2: Prone
M3: Prone
A1: Laying in pieces
A2: Attacked Donovan @ E6
A3: Attacked Donovan @ F5
Ylva yelps as her limbs begin to move without her volition.
Moving in a strange parody of dance, the wolf's movement is grotesque, jerky. Her eyes fill with impotent fury, promising unleashed rage when her body is hers to control again.
"Get. Off."
Donovan tries to break free from the arms of his former comrades. The Artegal-thing shakes loose from him, but the Nicu-thing maintains his grip on the man. Rannveig and Dimitrio rise from the floorboards, looking themselves over with a look of awe. Don notices that though Dimitrio appeared seriously weakened before he fell, he now looks to be fully recovered. Or at least the thing in control of Dimitrio's body now looks to be operating at 100%.
The Gregorio-thing huddles near the stairs, readying a bullet in his sling. Olivia can be heard struggling against her bonds, still as Artgal moves to sweep the legs out from underneath Donovan.
Round 8 Summary / Initiative Order
Olivia - Tied up by Artegal under the table @ E7
Ninefingers - Failed Grapple
Artegal - Grappling Donovan
Nicu- Grappling Donovan
CARRIONETTES – Attacked
MALIGNO - Inflicts Irresistable Dance on Ylva
Donovan – Failed to break Nicu's Grapple.
Dimitrio - Wakes carrionette-possessed and stands up from prone.
Rannveig - Wakes carrionette-possessed and stands up from prone.
Ylva - Dancing
Gregorio - Readying sling.
Round 9 Summary / Initiative Order
Olivia - Tied up by Artegal under the table @ E7
Ninefingers -
Artegal - Tripped Donovan
Nicu- Grappling Donovan and
CARRIONETTES –
MALIGNO -
Donovan –
Dimitrio -
Rannveig -
Ylva - Dancing
Gregorio -
Nicu continues grappling his friend, attempting to pin his arms to his side. "Join us, be free!"
Nine fingers will try to move and grapple donovan, "yes join us...why fight."
Still hopping and jerking with the terrible dance, Ylva snarls into the air as her perceptions grow confused. Her senses told her that her pack-sister was on her feet again, but something felt...off, and the she-wolf was confused. Even had her body been under her own control, it was unlikely she would know what to do with it.
Archer Carrionette 2
Archer Carrionette 3
MALIGNO
Donovan’s valiant fight is finally ended as the hands of his friends pull him to the floorboards and pin him there.
Maligno approaches, twiddling his wooden fingers together before him nervously. Donovan is struck by how much the puppet truly does resemble a small boy. The illusion is spoiled only by the fine joints and seams and the eyes which burn with a fierce hope laced with pained desperation.
”Not from here, no. That might be good, though.
A kiss for my Lady and away we go!”
The puppet looks up and presses his wooden fingers to his mouth and makes a motion like blowing a kiss. Then he reaches into his jacket and draws forth a needle and plunges it into the base of Donovan’s neck…
…but other than a slight stinging sensation from the needle stick, Don feels nothing. Except another stick, and another as Maligno flies into a blind rage and begins to scream.
”No! NOOOO!!! Why won’t it work?!! Why have you forsaken me, my Lady!”
Enraged, the creature’s resemblance to a child fades entirely as it’s face twists into some horrific countenance. In a whirl of motion, the tiny monster holds an opened straight razor and looks ready to separate Donovan’s head from his body with it. But as Ylva leaps and spins, she makes a snap at Maligno and draws his attention and his rage for a moment. One of the Archer Carrionettes quickly steps in and sinks another needle into Donovan’s neck. The dark energy seizes them for a moment and then both slump, unconscious.
Artegal is the first to awaken, feeling much like he’d had too much to drink the night before. His senses both dulled and strangely heightened at the same time. He hears voices first, the gruff, gravelly voice of the Dwarf and another that sounds much like his own father. For a moment, he wonders if he has somehow found himself back home. But as he opens his eyes, he finds himself in a large, round wooden cage. Resembling a bird cage, it is suspended from the ceiling by a massive brass chain. As he sits up, the movement makes the cage sway slightly. As he moves to the nearby bars and peers out, the sight that greets his eyes chills him to the bone. He sees a giant sized doppelganger of himself that looks to be roughly 15 feet tall, with the others upwards of 20 and 30 feet tall! The room must be 40 feet at the ceiling where his cage hangs. He gasps aloud and draws the eyes of the giants that look so like his friends. The Artegal giant laughs and points at the gawker and waves goodbye as the group shuffles out of the enormous door, locking it behind them.
As they depart, Artegal’s perceptions correct themselves. He feels as though he is looking at an inverted, flat, line drawing of a three dimensional object. The doppleganger bodies were normal size—it's him who has shrunk!
As the truth sinks in, Artegal looks down at his hands. His wooden hands. He was trapped in the body of a puppet!
He looks around again and finds other puppets sleeping in cages like his nearby. Six cages in all.
I pieced these together from my pdf, so forgive the seams, but here are some maps for reference as you consider your predicament and an image for scene flavor.
Giuseppe's Toyshop, First Floor Map
Toyshop Reference Map
Locked Away
Gradually, the other puppets begin to stir and look around at one another in shock. Two among them look nearly identical, monkey twins with needle-like teeth and claws. One is a silver-painted caricature of a knight in armor and one dressed in a green tunic and cap like the merry highwaymen of the stories. Another looks to be a grass-stained coverall wearing scarecrow, with bits of straw protruding from his shabby clothes. The last looks to be the self-same pirate puppet that the mayor's niece gifted to Dimitrio. Each of them have a short length of marionette string attached to each limb.
As they silently take in their new circumstances, they start to notice familiar expressions of worry and frustration on the painted faces around them and begin to suspect they are among their fellows, at least.
The knight puppet sits up and holds it's head, then stares at it's hands for a few moments before looking around.
"You've got to be kidding me." it says in a high pitched voice that sounds quite a bit like a five year old doing an impression of Sir Donovan.
It focuses on the lock on the birdcage and the loop of metal at the top of the cage for a moment, then shakes it's head.
My head is spinning, I cannot process everything that has happened, but I try to understand what I can see, hear, and touch
Where's me cigar..ugh, I need an ale.
His weary eyes open and his head is throbbing, "'ello?" His dry voice cracks.
One of the monkey puppets gets up to all fours, shaking itself like a weary dog trying to shed water. After a moment, it repeats the motion. Apparently not getting the results it wanted, it makes a whining sound and climbs to its feet, looking around with obvious, though silent, confusion and distress.
With quiet resolve I climb (or reach) to the top of the cage, take a deep breath (do I even know that I do not breath, old habits are hard to break) and push up on the cage with my shoulders while I try desperately to hold the "S" hook in place so that the cage will come free of the chain, and then I let go.
I look at the other "puppets" in the cages and say,
If I am free -
"My friends, if you are my friends and you can hear me, free yourselves. We have to work together now. Whatever it is that has happened, I promise you now that I will die trying to undo it, for all of you. For all of us."
And then I remeber Olivia, and I frantically look from one cage to another, afraid to call her name for the fear that she is not here, but I force myself to be strong. I lower my head, expecting the owrse, and say, clearly, but softly,
"Olivia, can you hear me?"
"Yes, Sir Artegal" a squeaky voice answers, "We'll find our way free from this, or die trying." Nicu the carrionette struggles to stand on little wooden legs and investigate the cage. "Maybe we can find a way out and make a ladder down of ourselves, instead of crashing to the floor and alerting anyone to our escape?"
"How about a role-call? Donovan here." the knight-puppet says, standing up and looking for a way to help the Artegal-puppet
Artegallio reaches up through the wooden dowels of his cage and grasps the s-hook attached to the chain. He pulls against it to confirm his hands is actually gripping the thing, disconcerted by the lack of sensation that his hand is actually touching the metal. No sense of pressure, temperature, not even the sensation of flexing the fingers.
He strains his wooden shoulders against the top of the cage, trying to command muscles that simply are not there. Finally giving up the futile endeavor, he looks at the problem again. No sensation means... no pain! He looks again at his wooden hand with it's pointed fingers and inspiration strikes him. He reaches up again and drives his wooden hand like a wedge between the hook and loop and with a quick twist, the cage falls freely from the now dangling chain and crashes to the floor below. One of the dowels breaks from the impact and Artegallio crawls free from the wreckage.
He looks around anxiously for signs of guards on alert from the commotion, but nothing other than themselves appears to be stirring in the toyshop. A quick search confirms that Olivia is nowhere to be found. Her whip still lies abandoned on the floor under the table, where she dropped it. Otherwise the toyshop appears to have been cleaned up and restored to it's innocuous appearance. A rolling fire now burns in the grate casting sinister shadows on the wall.
Trying to time the impact with the floor as best I can
"I am here, I mean, it is me Natha- I mean Artegal. Artegal Boote, here."
Artegallio leaps into the air and wraps himself into a ball just as the cage crashes to the floor and suffers only minor scuffing as he bounces against the cages wooden bars.
Giuseppe's Toyshop, First Floor Map
Toyshop Reference Map
Locked Away
"Donovan..dat you? Luc 'ere."
Suddenly startled by the swinging cage that crashes to the floor.
"Boote ya ok down there? How'd ya git there?" Still a bit confused with what's happening, "Anyone see my cigars?" His brain starts to unfog a bit, "What happened to us...w..w...wh...why am I so small?"
Nicarrionette notices that there are a number of tools and supplies nearby that Giuseppe obviously uses to make his puppets and toys. There is a box of straw and a pile of rags nearby that might serve to cushion the fall and saws that look small enough for the puppets to handle. Artegal can see balls of twine and coils of fine cord in a nearby box that could be used as well.
The monkey puppet making the whimpering noises curls into a ball, but after a moment, something like language can be heard, muffled by its own body. "R'nvig."
The whimpering does not start up again, but there is an odd, reedy noise and a rhythmic creaking; the pathetic sounds of a creature that no longer has lungs attempting to weep.
"Master Rockborn, Sir Constine, Sir Ravencourt, and Miss Packbound, I think we are all her, it is I , Artegal, in the form of this scarecrow. I am alright, the fall was hard, but it would seem these forms we are trapped in are able to take a degree of punishment. That may be helpful to us. Do any of you have any experience with this form of sorcery? I am afraid I do not, but it would also seem that this is the first thing we need to discover. What we are and how it is accomplished, this may give us insight into how it can be undone. My cage was broken when I managed to undo the connection between the cage and the supporting chain, it is an option, but if you find another way to free yourself, do so quickly."
"Suppose I can rock meself off hook." With that Luc-ie the puppet begins to rock form side to side. Tossing his body agaisn the bars, then back the other way, until he gets his cage moving. 'Don't ya worry Boote, yer buddy's on 'is way." His once deep voice is quite a bit higher now.
Luc-ie
"Yipeeeeee!" the squeal of the dwarf toys voice yells.
"I will try to help you saw through the bars, but, as you are a dwarf and twice as big as I am, It might be difficult to manage a saw with a Halfling on the other end."
Following Luc-ie, Nicarrionette sets his cage to swinging as he aims for the soft landing.
"Take care, Luc, double cage crash is imminent!"
yes, I am not processing that correctly, yet. You spend you life half the size of your friends, and its hard to forget that.
Nicarrionette's swing goes wide and his cage rebounds off the wall and crashes to the floor, splintering one of the bars so he can escape.
As Luc-ie looks upward for what seems like a mile he shivers a bit, "That sure is a long way up." His attention quickly returns to the toyshop surroundings, "Any other tools to help ups out...how 'bout a hammer." More of a statement than a question. He begins to mumble under his breath, "So self respectin' dwarf would be caught witout a hammer."
Dimitrio taps his foot at the bottom of the cage one more time and shakes his head. Again. "OK 'nough is enough. Whoever is messing with Dimitrio's mind better stop it. This isn't funny no more.
He raises one hand in front of his eyes and cringes at his wooden form. The vain dancer touches his chest and gasps. "OK, whoever you are you could have done a much better job with my body. No mustache? Really now, I probably look like a baby boy with no hairs on his chest."
Not one to wait around, Dimitrio starts swinging to try and get out of his cage.
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After landing heavily, Nicarrionette bounds to his little wooden feet and starts rummaging through the tools, looking for items that will be useful to the party's new stature. "Look, Dimitrio, a charcoal pencil, we can draw you a new mustache!" Finding a saw and hammer, he delivers the latter to the 'dwarf' and sets to work sawing at the bars of Luc's cage.
Let's use the Reference Map as you begin to explore the toyshop. Here is what you'll find when looking over the tools on the wall:
upon which are hung the tools of a toy maker.
There are saws, knives, chisels, hammers, tongs,
drills, pliers, T-squares, clamps, and myriad other
tools. Most are small, delicate devices suitable for
making tiny items. Underneath the tools is a box
of straw. The straw is used to stuff dolls and to
pad small chairs or other such items.
Giuseppe's Toyshop, First Floor Map
Toyshop Reference Map
Locked Away
"Yeah, Luc. It's me." The Donovan-puppet said with a shrug, apparently processing the situation surprisingly well, with more resignation than fear or surprise.
"Boote, toss me up some of that twine and a chisel."
Luc begins to assess the tool/weapon situation taking the small hammer that Nicarrionette hands him. "This is a powerful curse." Apparently believing its a curse.
He paces around in small circle trying to figure out the dilemma. "Where is wolfy maybe we could ride out of here?"
I take a spool of twine and a chisel, and try to throw them, one at a time up to Donovanocchio, what kind of roll should I be trying for?
Luc makes sure that he is out of the way of the projectiles.
Is it more of a combat type roll, or an ability score roll?
"Boote maybe tie the twine to the chisel end like a grapplin' hook."
The puppet rogue mutters a curse as he starts swining the cage. A moment later and the cage crashes into the floor and Dimitrio into a somewhat safe landing.
Donovanocchio lays flat on the bottom of the cage and reaches out with his wooden arms through the bars. The strings attached to his arms dangle beneath him. Artegallio tosses the ball of twine which flies easily, spiraling it's line behind it. With a flick of the wrist, Don whips his arm string out, wrapping around the twine and pulls it up. Once this is accomplished, the group easily conveys tools up to the cages and the captives work to free themselves and repel down the twine to reach the floor safely.
The toyshop is only dimly lit by the fireplace, but it is easy to see that nothing living appears to be occupying at least the first floor of the toyshop. The realization that this now includes yourselves resonates like a hollow echo through your chest. It seems that your ability to feel despair is intact. But hope is there as well... You have escaped your individual cages and that is one step closer to true freedom. But though the toyshop may appear to be a child's paradise, you sense danger in this place. Your gazes feel drawn to the table, where you see another puppet body, lying still. It looks as yet unfinished, still only bare wood.
This was his birthplace... the thought seems to whisper and for a moment you look around for a speaker and notice that your companions are doing the same. The very air around you seems laced with malice. You feel watched by a hundred eyes at once as you look around the room. But the stillness remains unbroken, though the feeling does not abate.
Something else tickles your now dulled memory, you can't be certain as you've been unconscious for an unknown amount of time... But you feel strongly that the sun should be up by now. But as you can clearly see through the windows, it remains dark and foggy outside.
Giuseppe's Toyshop, First Floor Map
Toyshop Reference Map
Donovan's first order of business now that he was out of the cage was to equip himself. Taking the twine he wound it around himself in a makeshift harness. The rest he coiled and spent a bit of time twisting some wire into a grappling hook. Then he looked for something he could use as a weapon.
"No use getting upset. This is the situation we're in, and we already know how to get out of it. They did something to switch bodies with us. We need to figure out how they did it, and do it back."