"Oh, that̬̦͍̀'̖s͇̺̳ ̭̫̖̝̣͝ͅj̷̞͍̟͙̤͖͓u̴̱̥̝s͚̣͇͜ ̣͕͍ট̎ি̼̭͈ ͦͬব͎͓̯͓̼̍̈̅͗ͥি͍̣̫̣̄র̶͎̳͕̘͍̮̹̓͑̎̐̈́ক̽̋̎ͦ҉্̯̝͖͇̘̮̕ͅতͤͨ̇̃ͫ̆͞ি̷̠͇̣̦̉̀̇ͅক̶̰̊̊ͫͬ͐ র̳̻͕̩̘̪̌͋̾," Carter said, noticing his speech had changed again by the time he finished speaking. His shoulders slumped and he rolled his eyes.
He looked around for more of those strange dog-things. He whistled in three short bursts, hoping to call one. He sighed when none came to his bidding.
At a loss at what to do, he stepped forward and tried to help Dhamis ward off the severed head.
But he didn't help much.
Without fully understanding the reason, Nova sees the entrails burst out before they even move, giving her more than enough time to dodge.
In retaliation, she takes out her sling, loads a stone into it, and launches it at the writhing corpse.
Beast claws at the flying head, playing with it like it was a toy.
Round 1
Nova easily avoids the whipping intestines while the flying head easily bobs around the pitiful attempts of Beast to bat in down. Carter tries to help his companions, but is too distracted by the ghostly cat.
Round 2
The severed head moves towards Beast, who finally manages to land a solid whack, in an attempt to bash into the phantom; however, the attack is thrown off!
Bold May Post
Beheaded: 3 DMG
Dhamis:
Crawling Hand:
Writhing Entrails:
Nova/Beast:
Carter:
Drafton:
Stunned and surprised at the partial success of his order caught Dhamiskeanus off guard. He really wasn't expecting it to work. To be honest he had no idea what to expect. This whole place had a way of confounding all expectations. Still, as he processed the reactions to his command, he wondered.
Did that really just work? Interesting. This will require more testing.
"Uhm, yes, of course. Now, come over here" he ordered as he snapped his fingers in a feeble attempt to order to the crawling hand to his side.
While he waited for the small hand to crawl across the floor, he looked back at the battle before him. He waved his finger at the flying head, chastising it for not obeying. Caught off guard by the ray that fired out of his finger, he nearly jumped out of his shoes.
After seeing the strange results of whatever Dhamis had done, Drafton nodded. "Whatever you did, try that again." he called to the large man.
Turning to the flying figure and the writhing tentacles he backed away.
"Watch out, that body-less head will try to rush and smash into you. It's not living. Those entrails, they are the source of this somehow. They can be neutralized by positively infused magic."
As he said this he lifted his arm back and threw his dagger out at the flying head.
Round 2
The hand crawls over next to Dhamis and waits for further instructions while the entrails continue to whip around violently, seeking out Nova once more!
Bold May Post
Beheaded: 3 DMG
Dhamis:
Crawling Hand:
Writhing Entrails:
Nova/Beast:
Carter:
Drafton:
After another neat dodge, Nova steps a ways back to protect herself, then launches her sling bullet. Meanwhile, Beast begins writhing in anger and focuses at the flying head with everything he's got.
Carter continued ineffectually trying to help, mostly getting in the way and hoping not to die.
Aiming towards the flying head, Drafton stepped forward and hurled his dagger upwards at it.
Beast rips the beheaded out of the air and proceeds to shred the undead thing into pieces.
Drafton halted his attack and looked back at Dhamis. "You can control that thing? ... interesting ability. Right, the immediate danger has passed. But as I said, those entrails are a haunt and they need to be dealt with by positively charged energy."
"Might as well hit it enough times that it will have a harder time reforming." Carter grumbled, angry about his fairly pathetic performance in the fight.
"Positively infused magic you say? Hmm, I wonder" the big man said. He looked at his finger again and waggled it at the waving tentacles.
As Draft on stared, he realized that he may have been mistaken about what he'd thought. "No wait, I was wrong. We can hit it with physical attack after all."
Drafton then ran up and swung his dagger to prove his point.
Not to be outdone by the smaller man, Dhamiskeanus hustled forward as fast as his bulk would allow. He followed Drafton's lead and using his own dagger, stabbed at the flailing entrails.
Unfortunately the entrails triggered a deep hunger with Dhamiskeanus, one in which he never really realized. As strange as it was, the entrails actually looked...tasty to the large man.
With their small weapons the group falls upon the flailing entails, a few of them find themselves wrapped up and entangled in the sticky, decaying intestine, but eventually their knives and claws slice and stab the haunt into oblivion... You are all left breathing heavily and covered in foul-smelling viscera... The dismembered hand sits next to Dhamis, waiting for his orders.
"That was a good chase! Where's the next ones?"
Reaching down to examine the crawling hand, Dhamiskeanus at first poked it once or twice. Then he slowly drug his finger across it feeling the flesh of the hand. Eventually he picked it up, cradling it like a small cat.
"Boy, you might just turn out to be handy."
Drafton paused. His mind was getting cloudy again. He'd made a mistake in identifying that haunt for what it had been. Perhaps it had been all of the strange things going on, or maybe his lingering wounds.
"Well that's done with now. I remember that haunts have a way of coming back after a while. But not immediately. So we should be okay and just be wary if we're here too long.
That's an interesting power you have there. Commanding that... crawling hand."
He looked over at the dead body of the shapechanger.
So we have to kill one more of these things. Then we'll be able to rest more safely behind that barricade... unless...
Drafton clenched his hands and hoped that things might just be that easy.
"Come on..." If he found a dead Doppleganger, Drafton would lie as best he could that they had killed it too. Lying didn't really strike him as something he liked to do, but it seemed an easy enough concept to grasp.
"Handy? Really?" Carter deadpanned, letting out a sigh of exasperation. he smiled just a bit, in spite of himself.
He was feeling useless and scared. His chest still hurt. As much as he was loathe to admit it, the terrible, macabre joke helped.
Drafton does indeed find two other dead doppelganger's in the room, although they are pincushioned with crossbow bolts. It seemed that they fled into this room and from the amount of congealed blood beneath them, bled to death here.
"Well, two less to worry about, unless they're undead too. Think we should cut their heads off, just in case?" Carter said, looking at the grey corpses with worry and disgust.
"That," Drafton said with an expression that showed he didn't find the idea entirely unappealing "may well be what we need to do." The scene was perfect.
"Yes." he said looking to Carter with a determined expression "We couldn't take any chances. We Made sure they were dead and stayed that way."
He looked hard at the others. "We killed them remember. The crossbows made them weak but we finished the job. We show the heads to the guards at the barricade and then we can rest safely."
"...assuming none of the guards are dopplegangers." Carter said bitterly.
Drafton shook his head. "While I don't enjoy that prospect, that line of thinking is overly paranoid at best. The fact that we've seen not one but two living Doppelgangers, who were crazed and two other dead Doppelgangers, which both had multiple crossbow shot wounds, have help to confirm a theory I've come up with.
Something happened to the Doppelgangers or perhaps all Shape-changers in this area. They have all lost their minds. Thus what should be a foe who could under normal circumstances easily infiltrate just about anywhere, have instead become noticeable. While I find the captain and his subordinates choices and actions disagreeable, they are not doppelgangers. Also they are quite skilled marksmen."
"Ingenious! That would explain a great deal actually. Well, maybe not the nightmare with that mist, but it certainly goes towards explaining the nature of our current environment. Bravo I say. Well done."
Holding his dagger in hand, Dhamiskeanus offered up "shall I remove their heads then? The sooner it's done, the sooner we can rest safely, correct?"
"The nightmare mist or the awful foulness falling from the sky, I still have no working theory on. But as for the task ahead of us, yes. That's the hope anyway. Now let's get this done." Drafton said with a grimace as he moved over to the slain Doppelgangers.
Carter grimaced, glad that he wasn't the one about to saw heads off with a knife.
"Why shapeshifters?"
"Well like I said, it's just a theory based off of what we've seen so far. The four of us don't seem crazy. That... talking beast of her's isn't crazy. The man we were with who was being operated on when we were in the cages wasn't crazed. The four guardsman at the barricades aren't crazed.
So far the only one's we've seen that can speak that have been crazy are the Doppelgangers. Given the little bit we got from the captain at the barricade, there are others they're guarding that aren't. Then you have to take what else he said into account. He had us go after and kill 3 of them. There had to have been more and they're all crazy. Maybe I should have said Doppelgangers, as I won't be able to know for sure until we meet other shape changers."
"Alright, that ought to do it." Drafton said as they took the third head from the doppelgangers bodies. "Now... we just need to make these two look convincing."
Dhamis gets to work sawing the heads from the corpses with his knife. Blood oozes freely and pools around the floor as he works down to the spinal column of the freshly killed 'Doctor'. It takes some time and effort to cut through the bones and tendons that keep the head attached, but the job it done and while Dhamis is sweating profusely by that time... he holds up the still dripping head by the hair.
The other two prove to be even more disgusting... As Dhamis slices into the purplish skin, a foul stench of rotting meat and decomposition gases fills the room. As Dhamis sets about his grisly task of severing the heads from rotting corpses, Drafton begins to doll up the heads in an attempt to them appear more... fresh? Suddenly you all begin to feel something inside of your minds railing against this plan are you able to fight back the urge? Or will you slip further into the insanity that threatens to overwhelm this entire place...?
Despite the idea being his, Drafton simply could not withstand the horrid sensations assaulting his body. He became immediately ill and soon found himself having to turn away from his work as he lost what little food he had.
Even with his shaky nature, the gruesome work proved to be a solid undertaking. Certainly not his best work as he was interrupted by occasional bouts of bodily revulsion but he managed to get through with what he considered quite passable.
Despite the unwholesome details of his work, the smell was by far the worst part of it for him. The goal was more important than the journey for him. Whatever it took.
Carter's stomach lurched and he ran for the doorway, breathing into the hall and refusing to come back in.
"I'll just.. urk.. be over here."
Smiling as he worked was an unusual phenomon for Dhamiskeanus. Then again, it was unusual work in an unusual place. He was unaccustomed to such exertion but he trusted Drafton's logic so he continued to saw. He wanted to contribute. They had all worked together so far. Fought together, spilled blood together, perhaps even started to trust each other... well maybe a little. Their survival seemed dependent upon each other. Besides, it couldn't have been much different from being a butcher. At least that's what he kept telling himself.
The young woman could not seem to deal with the awful work they were doing as the miasma suddenly overwhelms her. Nova rushes out of the room and begins to vomit what little food she once had in her stomach all over the rubble pile outside. Once she finally regains control of her innards, she begins to shake as she spots Drafton staring intently at one of the heads while he works to make it appear more lifelike. This place and the depths of which they are having to stoop to survive are beginning to take their toll upon Nova as her flesh turns clammy and pale with cool sweat appearing upon her brow.
While the witch hunkers down and shakes, Beast watches Drafton's work with fascination.
"It's watching me. That head. It's eyes are watching me."
Drafton eyed the woman with a dubious sidelong glance.
This does not bode well for later.
"Well if it bothers you that much... then don't look at it. Either way, our work here is done." He looked over at Dhamis.
"You seem to be holding together better than these other two. Let's take these back to those guards."
"Why don't you take the doctor's head. I'll carry the other two."
The heavy set man nodded excitedly, happy to receive such praise. He was unaccustomed it and it served to re-energize him. At the suggestion of carrying the doctor's head, he simple shrugged and nodded again with a smile on his face.
"We should hurry though. The thought of a rest is rather appealing. Maybe they'll even have some food to share..."
Nova follows Dhamis and Drafton at a bit of a distance. With Beast at her side, she tries to pet him. He snarls and says "Wimp"