"Those you see before you also came to this sanitarium without our memories, fighting ungodly horrors", the dwarf said frankly. "My name is Belrim..and that's about all I know..oh! And I think the leader of the resistance of the horrors is also a stinking shapeshifter, so watch out for her!"
"Yes, I think I saw...her? I would have thought it was male, but I guess it's hard to tell with all those bandages on it. ...and I guess if it were a shapeshifter, it wouldn't really matter. But should we not go figure out what is making that noise?"
Seeing nobody stopping him, Granite opens the cabinet where the noise was coming from, doing his best to step out of the way of anything that wanted to jump out at him and to use the opening door as a shield/obstacle.
Granite opens the cabinet, finding a dozen or more jars with conserved brains, tumors and medical oddities.
There's the corpse of a doctor in the middle of them, and some creatures seemed to have been using it's remains as a nest, having hollowed out the abdominal cavity.
A small apparatus in a corner seems to be operational - some fluid in a closed circle soundlessly drips into a containment unit - before being siphoned away into a different tank that feeds into the drip unit, keeping the cycle running.
Careful not to disturb the rats, Granite carefully examines the setup.
"Interesting. It appears whomever was here was distilling something. It's probably quite strong now. I suppose it's too much to ask for it to have been a nice scotch?" Wait, do I even like scotch? I suppose either way, it's alcohol, and I could use a stiff drink about now. His stomach turns in protest of the idea of consuming anything and he resists the urge to retch. Ok, maybe not then.
The dwarf looks on in quiet apprehension, not trusting ANY damn thing in this place to be what is it.
Granite takes a closer look at the doctor - it's hard to say how long he has been dead - certainly a while ago, that much you see - but he seems to have died from blunt trauma to the head...the large cavity seems to have been gnawed post-mortem.
Belrim looks on silently, letting his gaze wander through the things stored away in the cabinet. Certainly, many of these...oddities could be just random...others seem as if they've been cultivated. There's a mouse with tentacles for feet, an eyeless rabbit with bat wings, a humanoid fetus with 3 faces - all around the head.
You awaken. In a tube filled with liquid, suspended. You breath the liquid. The tube seems made of glass, but everything beyond seems dark and hazy. Some light shines up from below. You are naked. There seem to be other tubes like the one you are in.
You realize the liquid level is lowering, causing you to cough and sputter when your nose and mouth are no longer submersed, coughing and vomitting up large amounts of the liquid and having your lungs burn when they make contact with air again.
By the time you regain control over your muscles, respiratory system, and vision, the liquid has almost completely drained, and a moment later, the glass containers start rising up.
There seems to be a set of controls, dead center from the 4 tubes arranged in a half-circle, and a few tiny, malformed humanoid creatures can be seen there, but hide quickly when they realize they have been noticed.
But a moment later, a low growl draws your attention to one of the other tubes. A grotesque mixture between a wolf and a muscular man howls at you angrily. In the fourth cylinder, for a moment, you see a being that seems half woman, half snake, but she seems to become transparent over a few seconds, then disappears from view completely.
The creature lunges at Kolaiah, biting into him despite the Scaly Armor his body has formed, and pulling him off-balance, then releasing the bite only to grawl at Lothalian, clearly not planning to let any prey flee.
The room you are in is about 40x60 feet, there are 2 doors on the far side, but both seem closed. Lothalian is about 10 feet from Kolaiah, 15 feet from the creature.
Kolaiah falls to the ground grievously wounded.
He doesn’t know much, but he knows he is in a fight for his life, and fighting this creature from his back isn’t going to do him any good. His primal senses kick in. He scrambles to his feet , and swings at the creature with his fist.
Lothalian hopes he is still asleep for a nightmare would account for the terror of being submerged in a confined space. He starts to bang on the glass when the liquid drains and the glass retracts. It is then that he realizes he is naked and his trusty bow is nowhere to be found. He sees a creature in a similar situation and before he can ask the creature what happened, they are attacked by another creature. Seeing the attacking creature begin eyeing him malevolently, Lothalian will come to the aid of the creature that is bleeding profusely.
He will try to flank with the bleeding creature and likewise punch the attacking creature.
The creatures head focused on Lothalian, it attempts to claw at Kolaiah as he starts to stand up. Only, instead of claws, it has slightly deformed human hands hardly as efficient at shredding people.
Being punched seems to be something it did not expect, probably it had planned for you to run like rabbits as it hunts you down. Whatever the reason, when it did snap at Lothalian, the bite had a lot less power behind it and Lothalian easily remained standing.
Kolaiah’s brain couldn’t figure out what was going on, he was wet and naked and being attacked by some crazy creature. He struck out again with his fist...
nonlethal
It sucks, here we are, the two rogues, but we can't get flanking bonuses, or sneak attack, since neither of us threaten with our fists..
Still not fully grasping what is going on, Lothalian again tries to punch the creature trying to eat him!
Belrim looks around in astonished disgust. "By the Creation Father, who would collect such things?"
Granite shrugs, grabbing the powered up alchemist's fire. Hopefully he wouldn't have to use it, but given his current state of undress, it would serve him better than his fists. "No idea mate. By the by, don't suppose you've seen any clothes lying about in about this size? I suppose my old stuff wouldn't really fit me anymore..." He trails off lost in thought briefly before shrugging. "Well, maybe not so much in here. In the next room perhaps? Gotta be somewhere..." Granite then heads through a random door.
Belrim is astonished by the collection, but then, he suddenly is overwhelmed by a sudden awareness that what he sees here will not remain the strangest things he will encounter. As the precognition passes, he turns around, to see Granite exit the door - the other thing he sees is shadowy wavy forms slowly turning into vapor where before, Thral and Randee stood near the Sarcophagus.
Granite sees nothing of the sort, no shadowy forms, no vapors, and finds himself on a corridor.
Since this was the only exit beside the closet door, his companion must have been coming through here before. The path leads to a door straight ahead, with one door branching off to the left two thirds of the way. There's also some slimy trail on the floor.
The creature snapped at Kolaiah this time, making use of his opening, but seemingly too confused to try and pull him of his feet, simply letting go instead.
A moment later, the fangs lash out in the direction of Lothalian, but the jaw snaps shut a good feet away from the Elf - the creatures breath smells, perhaps unsurprisingly, like the fluid from the tanks.
The punches it had taken were certainly not delivered with lethal force, but still, the creature clearly had not expected resistance, and it's will to continue fighting wavered.
Nervously looking around, it started moving towards one of the exits.
I’m staggered! I lean against the wall and wince in agony.
What was that thing? Where are we? Who are you? Where are my clothes?
The elf barrages Kolaiah with questions as he reaches out and touches Kolaiah too rattled to ask for permission.
Healing magic flows through his fingertips.
And I hope you are friendly? The elf asks wondering if he just healed the next thing that will try to eat him.
”I am afraid that I do not know the answer to any of your questions. Even my own name escapes me. I can almost taste it like a remembered meal, yet I cannot speak it. I am thankful for your help. Who be you?”
Naked and unarmed save for a tightly held vial of alchemists fire, Granite peers curiously at the slime trail, attempting to determine either where it came from or where it was heading to. Without turning back to see people disappearing, he silently raises a hand to get Belrim's attention and points at the slime trail.
Belrim follows the naked human, trying to both keep watch over the unarmed man and see if his eyes were deceiving him.
As the two of you take a moment to recover and regroup, the creature that had assaulted tou before continues it's flight. Rushing through the southern door, which closes again behind it, it exits the room. A few moments later, the northern door opens for a moment, as well. It would seem both of the creatures in the other tube left - but the small creatures that had hidden near the controls in the center of the room seem to grow more bold, not trying to stay out of sight any longer - they look both humanoid, and grotesqely deformed, not bigger than a baby or toddler would be. They also seem sharp-toothed, and hungry - but not quite brave enough to attack - but judging by their increased boldness compared to moments before that seemed a likely near-future scenario if you simply stayed where you are.
The slime smells anti-septic, and leads to several doors...some of which are already opened and seem to have been searched recently. But before Granite has time to take a more detailed look trying to TRACK the slime, a door in front, beyond the end of the corridor, flies open, with a naked man-wolf hybrid storming out of it, looking around hastily, seeing you, then turning to it's right and running off to the north.
Belrim follows Granite...the slime trail definitely was there before, too. So some things definitely were persistent, stayed the same, but then, this whole place seemed slightly surreal, did it not? I mean, that right there was a naked wolf-man hybrid, was it not?
Kolaiah looks at the elf, with another thought, ”you asked if I was friendly. I don’t know! I feel friendly, of course, compared to that thing that attacked, just about everything else would be seen as friendly.” He glanced at the approaching creatures, their ire rising up, and he felt a primal response to climb to safety. Images flashed across his mind’s eye. Small furry hands, climbing a tree. When? What tree? Whose hands? Who knew what he was feeling and seeing. He shook his head to get rid of the images, ”come. Let us get out of here, before those things become less friendly.”
Agreed! Lothalian nods. He does seem friendly enough at least he wasn't trying to eat the elf! It was then that Lotalian remembered the ancient elf playing a game he liked to call 'Which one was the lie?' with the young elf children in which he would make five statements about his life-he was a very old elf after all-And the children would guess, obviously, which one was the lie. The winner would get a sugary concoction. Lothalian would study the aged elf for any sign of the lie. He eventually got good at discovering what the gamblers would call a 'tell'. Why he remembered that now he had no idea!
Granite blinks at the odd slime spell. Was it some kind of experiment meant to aid in surgery? Given what we've seen thus far, it's probably turned into some kind of killer acid monster that wants to disinfect us. He's just about to try to figure out which trail is the newest when the naked man-wolf runs out. The creature looks...vaguely injured? There's a sudden flash of white light and Granite sees a badly injured dwarf in front of him. Much of the man is already covered in blood-stained bandages, making it difficult to tell what the cause of the injuries were. Between the bandages it looks like the dwarf is wearing some kind of uniform, though he can't recognize what it's a uniform for. Granite's hands are covered in blood as he attempts to treat the groaning man, though it's unclear how effective he's being.
There's a stab of pain in his head as Granite's brought back into the present just in time to see the wolf-man run down a hallway. He shakes his head, trying to clear out the sudden, incessant throbbing. He dashes to the end of the hallway the naked man dashed down. "Hey, come back here! We mean you no harm. Do you know what's going on?" He looks down both the corridor the wolf-man came from and the one he dashed down.
Belrim follows the naked man, unsure what exactly is real and what is not, and content to remain in a passive role, just observing, until such time as he can be sure his senses can be trusted. Or finding himself in a situation where he is unwilling to risk not trusting them - either way, he simply follows Granite - who attempts to rush forward, finding himself in the hallway he saw the wolf-man in - quite a bit to the north, a door just swings closed, probably where the creature...or person was headed.
Almost at the same time, the door the wolf-man appeared from swung open again, revealing 2 more unclothed males - one tall elf with white hair and piercing blue eyes, and a gray-eyed, gray-haired and gray-skinned being that moves with the grace of a sickly cat that intends to beat illness through sheer ego.
As you ask questions neither has answers for of each other, you notice the small creatures becoming bolder, exiting their hiding place and playfully snapping in your direction.
Deciding that not waiting for what else they decide to do will be an imperative step in getting answers to the aforementioned questions, by staying alive, you head towards one of the doors, not turning your backs to the small creatures. One or two start moving towards you just as you reach the door.
Pushing it open, you rush out of the room, then turn to get your bearings - those small beasts certainly won't be stopped by the door for long.
You find yourself in a dirty corridor leading off into two directions, with several doors, but have little time to notice any more details about your surroundings before you take notice of 2 more people - a fully clothed, silent Dwarf standing in the passageway towards one direction the corridor takes, and a naked human almost outside the Door, looking down the corridor in the other direction.
"WHAT THE F#<K IS GOING ON AND WHO ARE YOU 'PEOPLE'?!!" the dwarf bellowed behind the naked human. "Gods-damn! I hate this place!!"
Kolaiah growls back at the dwarf, ”we might very well ask you the same question!”
[b]You hate this place. I hate it too. Do you know what this place is? We woke up here and it seems everything is trying to kill us![b] Lothalian asks hoping that the dwarf and human are allies.
The dwarf sighs. "I'm Belgrim." Pointing to the naked human, Belgrim adds, "I can't remember his name."
"You are in a sanitarium overun with shapechangers and other weird $#|+. I wouldn't trust me either."
Granite spins around when he hears Belrim shout, brandishing his carefully concocted brew that was really his only means of defense. He spends a moment being torn between continuing to follow the strange wolf-man and talking with more naked people, who at the very least seemed more chatty than one who fled. He pats Belrim on the shoulder when he says he can't remember his name. "It's ok. I know you've been having memory issues. But then, that seems to be going around. I'm Granite and these silent fellow..." He looks around, only now finally noticing that lack of the other two of Belrim's companions. "Hey, where's the lizard and other guy run off to?" He frowns before continuing. "But, if you think about it, I don't think the shapechangers did this to us. After all, how can they pretend to be our friends and family if we don't remember who our friends and family are? This just puts us all on our guard and makes us suspicious of everybody." He nods his head in a knowing fashion.
"Say new guys, what's up with that wolf-man who went running past. He a pal of yours? Looked like he was running from something. Or to something?"
He was running from us..er...rather..my friend here. He thaought we would make a good dinner, but we showed we weren't going to be an easy meal. Say, you haven't see any spare clothes around have you?
”He was trying to eat me it was!”
Say, you haven't see any spare clothes around have you?
Granite stares silently at the elf for a moment. Then, without breaking his serious expression, he begins unbuttoning an invisible shirt and pants and hands them over. "They were good enough for an emperor, so I hope they are good enough for you, friend elf." A moment more passes before his stony expression cracks, causing his lips to twitch upwards in a slight smile as he waggles his eyebrows.
"But anyway, oh great masters with no names, it sounds like we shouldn't follow the wolf fellow. He didn't seem super interested in talking with me anyway. Before he ran through, I was looking at some odd slime trail on the floor. If you're feeling exposed though, we could make a detour and look for your clothes. Though probably they're back the way you came? Where did you see them last? There's something about retracing your steps to find lost objects, is there not?"
For his part, Granite seems fairly comfortable in his unclothed state. Even if he does look pink and squishy and vulnerable without any armor.
When Granite starts to take off his 'invisible clothes', Lothalian begins to wonder if they all really belong in an asylum. When Granite smiles, Lothalian realizes it was a joke, and returns the laugh. He holds out his hand. Well met. I'll tell you my name once I remember it.
When Granite asks where he saw his clothes last, Lothalian starts to say, Why I had them..uh...I had them...uh...I don't remember when I had them last, but I am sure I had them. Some elves like to dance naked under the stars but I'm not one of them, or I don't think I am one of them. My brain is so scrambled. He says with a sigh.
"Memory problems, eh? You're in good company then; it seems to be going around. You'd almost think it was contagious. But it's good you think you were an elf before and you're one now. Say, are either of you good at tracking? I can't really tell which of these slime trails is the most recent." Granite points out the slime trails he had noticed on the ground before he had been distracted by the wolfman.
Belgrim shakes his head 'no'.
Kolaiah runs his hands over his fur, ”clothes are fine, but my natural covering will do as well.”
I don't remember much, but I don't think tracking is something I know how to do. He examines the slime trails. Yes, I do not know which of these are fresher. I guess we are just going to have to pick one and follow it. Lothalian says with a shrug.
Granite shrugs. "Oh well. It was worth a shot." With that, he randomly picks one of the doors that has slime in front of it, stopping to listen at it before opening it.
Granite looks at the floor, checking carefully - it would seem the freshest and most numerous trail is leading towards the very door their two new friends emerged from.
The other door leading into that same area, if they are to be believed, slightly to the north, has a few slime trails as well.
On the opposite side of the corridor, there is another door, with a plaque that reads "Storage".
About to head in to a randomly slimed door, Granite does a 180 and instead decides to check out the storage in the hopes of find a weapon that's less of a 1 time use object than the vial of alchemist's fire. He once again listens at the door before seeing if it's locked (and if it's unlocked with no suspicious sounds on the other side, opening it).
Lothalian balls his fists and prepares for whatever is behind the door.
The room is, as one would expect, a storage department. There are open shelves on most of the walls, some with boxes or sacks, others with jars or vials.
One desk sits straight across the entrance, with an open journal on top. Ink has flown on the left side of the book, making the pages unreadable, but on the right side, the last entry can be deciphered: "They refuse to let me use the new Numerian specimen. But the board approved a third test of the Chimaera machine. I managed to aquire a set of interesting specimen for this one...I wonder which sides will turn out dominant on the participants of set 3."
After a short time looking, you find one set of Shelves labelled as "Chimaera-Test Set 3". In it, there are boxes
"Tube 1.1: Giant Chameleon"&"Tube 1.2: Vishkanya Patient: Lorelai -redacted-",
"Tube 2.1: Dire Wolf, Pup"&"Tube 2.2: Half-Orc Patient: Gurrak -Tribal-",
"Tube 3.1: Tiefling Volunteer(Burglar) - name unknown." & Tube 3.2: "Aasimar Patient: Kolaiah -redacted-",
"Tube 4.1: Half-Elf Volunteer(Burglar) - Lothalian -redacted-"&"Tube 4.2: Elven Patient: Sybellus -redacted-"
In the named boxes and some others, there's clothing, objects you remember, and new things that you feel may be useful taking along.
Kolaiah retrieves the items in the box, and after some trial and error, combined with muscle memory, he manages to hitch buckles and splice lines appropriately to get everything to hold fast where he feels it belongs.
Lothalian picks up the bow and pulls back on the string and releases. a TWANG fills the air. The bow is somehow familiar to him and comforting. He quickly dresses.
What do you think they did to us? he asks of mo one in particular.
”By the looks of you, I would say that you lot got shaved!”