The combined efforts of Narcisa's opening strikes, Helena's stab, and Smallest Sun's swing manages to overwhelm the doppelganger's defenses, sending it to the floor in a spray of pale blood.
Narcisa moves in to make sure the creature stays dead.
The doppelganger, despite it's best efforts, dies a terrible death.
Helena gives it a final stab where a heart should be, ensuring a quick death.
Helena will quickly look at the creatures experiment trying to decipher it's intention, then continue examining the rubble for anything useful, important clues, or insight on the buildings stability.
The doppelganger, now quite dead, is not going to cause anyone trouble. Smallest Sun and Elren'dor will go together to drag the body over to the other one, ensuring they see how you all killed it.
The experiment seemed to be a comparison of human vs. doppelganger rot. It was trying to see if human skin rotted faster than doppelgangers.
The walls between the hall and office have largely collapsed, exposing debris-cluttered desks, toppled lockers, and several bodies that look almost human. The doppelganger's coat is actually a doctor's coat, not an orderlies. A name is sewn into the left breast of it, the dark threads contrasting the pale blood soaked into the cloth: 'Latchke'
Helena, with 10 minutes of searching, clearing obstructing debris away from the desks, you find out that it's an office of some sort. There's plenty of paper and writing implements, as well as a few ink vials. All have been used to some degree, though, so they're not worth anything. You also find a locker containing a wooden holy symbol of Pharasma, a small steel mirror, and a pair of gaudy red leather boots with cat skin lining.
You almost miss it, but one of the nearly crushed lockers contains several sets of grass-stained hunter's clothes and a masterwork silver dagger.
The building appears to be, at the least, stable enough that it won't collapse anymore unless someone tries to dig through the rubble or there's another big earthquake.
The door to this room (which you can circumvent through the collapsed wall, like you have done already) is blocked by the collapse, but the one on the opposite side of the hallway looks like it can be used. You just have to walk over a body pinned by the debris to get to it.
Helena pockets the item, making a mental note to give the ink and paper to Elren'dor when he's back from dragging the body. The rest she'll ask the others if the have need of.
Carefully making her way across the rubble she heads to the door farther north, pausing to check the body. Either to see if someone lives, or a creature is dead, she's not entirely sure.
Narcisa follows after Helena quietly, looking around.
Elren'dor will help move the body, providing what help he can dragging it the dead doppleganger's body out to the hallway. He nods towards Smallest Sun, bringing the body close so the guards would see them bring another body in.
"One more left." He said grimly, his eyes looking over the barricade's guards and judging their reaction as best as he can.
He will take note of the guard's reaction or perhaps lack of a reaction before heading back to the others unless Smallest Sun said something to the guards.
"At least we can rid the world of a few monsters." Smallest Sun observes. "Whether or not they let us in after is something we've yet to see."
He will wipe the sweat of exertion from his bald pate, and shake his head as the two of you walk back to the rubble-blocked hallway.
"You don't... remember anything either, right?" he asks. "Like, what we were doing before we ended up here? or even... how we all met?"
Most of this area has collapsed into a heap of dense gray rubble. The occasional clattering pebble makes it sound as though the mound is not entirely settled, and more rubble could collapse at any moment. The surviving doors lead off the hall to the east and west. You've already seen what is on the east side.
Buried from the waist down, a woman in an orderly's coat lies amid the rubble. As Helena approaches, the woman's chest rises and falls. However, when she gets close enough, her head lifts up off the rubble and she opens her eyes to look at you. Her head lunges towards you, but strangely, she seems to be trying to bite you though you're definitely out of reach. It seems like though the head has reanimated, but the rest of the body hasn't followed the plan.
And then one of the now known to be dead woman's hands pushes off the debris with its fingers and claws at Helena. It's attempt fails, as the arm her hand is attached to drags it down with dead weight.
As Smallest Sun and Elren'dor return, the body is writhing, but only because of the movements of the two hands and her head. Whatever happened to this woman was reanimating her, but... not all of it.
Elren'dor will look back at the holy man beside him, his lips tightening as he shakes his head for a moment. "What I remember...is horrible. I remember you all in a dream, in some city I remember but cannot place. It smells of mushrooms, a smell I remember as well but cannot remember where. The sky was alien, unknown, and the city was empty. We heard the sound of music by a fountain, I remember the tales of bards and the names...Lomar..and Oriab... The elf would freeze for a moment, trying to remember what he could of those places.
"There was a sense of worry..." Elren'dor continued, his voice quiet enough to try and keep the guards or anyone else from hearing him as he whispered to the aasimar. "There was a fog, a yellow cloud that pursued us. We ran, we ran as fast as we could. Things were inside of it, terrible things, and footsteps." Elren'dor's voice seems to shake for a moment as the memory swells over his senses, the footsteps replaying once more in his mind. "You were all there, running beside me trying to escape. We fled through the city, the fog always behind us..." His eyes focused upon Smallest Sun, the color paling a little from the elf's face. "You died." He could still hear the twisting, ripping noises of flesh being torn as he shook his head. "We all died. We all were killed by this awful monster." The elf seems to gather his thoughts for a moment before looking back at the man, nodding. "When we were slaughtered by this nearly invincible beast, we each said a word. First you, then Helena, then myself, and lastly Narcisa who said no word. We said 'Me. Up. Save.'" The elf shrugs for a moment, shaking his head. "Perhaps that was Campre's shouts reaching us though. The words make sense for it." Elren'dor would mutter, seeming to be talking more in line to convince himself than Sun.
"I have fuzzy memories of childhood. My family is there, where I came from is murky but at least can be thought. Everything else..." Elren'dor simply shakes his head, unable to remember another thing. He seemed to instinctively reach for magic and there were vague memories of training, of studying. Yet there was nothing that explained what dark path led them here though.
Elren'dor had more questions for the man beside him, wanting to know what pieces he had that could put the puzzle back together, when he turned the corner and saw the writhing, twitching body. He looks the body over for a moment and lifts his hand, hoping to catch any merciful blows that may be coming. "Wait! Don't kill her!" If Elren'dor was successful, he hurriedly makes his way towards the body but remains out of reach. "This is strange. I've never seen reanimation that only partly affected a body." He begins to whisper in that hissing tongue, the words leaving him quickly as his hands move in ancient movements. "μαγεία αποκάλυψε" The spell is cast and he looks her over more intently now.
Elren'dor was quick to call out to the group, staying Helena and Narcisa's hands, at least for the moment. His study of the magical aura only reveals that there's strange necromancy magic contained in the body, but it seems unevenly distributed. You're pretty sure that the head and hands could, and would, operate independently from the body if they were to somehow get free, as gruesome as that would be.
"Ugh... Undead." Smallest Sun exclaims, his hand clasping the holy symbol at his neck. "Give me just a second and I'll send her on to the afterlife."
The cleric holds out his holy symbol and prepares to channel his holy light.
"สรรเสริญดวงอาทิตย์!" he shouts, raising his symbol up high.
"Fascinating. The energy resides in just her head and her hands. They have their own source of necrotic energy though, operating independently of each other." He ends the spell, dismissing the energies away before turning towards Sun and nodding. "Destroying her now will be best. We must stay aware of animated...parts. It seems this asylum has more nightmares to offer."
Each of the extremities shudders under the holy white light that radiates from Smallest Sun's holy symbol and his eyes. None of them are destroyed, but everyone is surprised when the dead woman's belly suddenly swells up like a balloon. Less than half a second later there's a messy, wet shredding sound as the poor orderlies body violently erupts, sending the hands and head tumbling around the room. The innards of the orderly shoot out like writhing tentacles, attempting to snag onto anyone nearby.
Narcisa makes a sound of disgust, attempting to jump away from the creature as its insides tries to grab her.
"Smallest Sun! Was that supposed to happen?!"
Smallest Sun spits some viscera out of his open mouth.
"Most certainly not!" he cries out, struggling to break free of the gore festooning the hallway.
Elren'dor listens to the words of power escape Smallest Sun's lips, feeling that wave of positive energy fill the air. Yet that reaction was not what the wizard was expecting, as the bodies seem to erupt and the gory entrails reach out for them.
Helena, just as she is about to end the woman's suffering, pauses at Elren'dor's shout.
Listening to Elren'dor analytic recitation, as Smallest Son mumbles about undead, Helena prepares to continue her strike once Smallest is done with his prayer.
Not prepared, however, for the corpse to explode, Helena suddenly finds herself much more wet and sticky then she was a second ago.
A quick expletive leaving her mouth, as she silently is grateful for not having her mouth open in the last few seconds. "КЕРЕГИ!"
Okay, Narcisa and Smallest Sun are entangled by ropey lengths of intestine, while the other two are only sprayed with clotting blood and offal.
The head, now torn free of the body, hovers in the air over Elren'dor instead of falling to the floor. The two hands, one landing in Narcisa's square, the other landing in Helena's, both scrabble around their legs for but a moment before leaping to attack.
The character is ensnared. Being entangled impedes movement, but does not entirely prevent it unless the bonds are anchored to an immobile object or tethered by an opposing force. An entangled creature moves at half speed, cannot run or charge, and takes a –2 penalty on all attack rolls and a –4 penalty to Dexterity. An entangled character who attempts to cast a spell must make a concentration check (DC 15 + spell level) or lose the spell.
Smallest Sun tries to channel his goddess' glory once more. "สรรเสริญดวงอาทิตย์!"
Another prayer by Smallest Sun releasing her out of her momentary stun of being pelted by goo, Helena swings at the nearest moving body part.
Blood and gore shower the area, coating the wizard in red as the bodies explode. He steps back away from the flailing intestines, trying to move to a location to escape the head's ravenous attacks.
There is again that momentary miasma of green around his hand before another dart is launched out at the head, the acidic magic hoping to render the flesh down to a sizzling, gory puddle.
Narcisa makes disgusted noises as she tries to free herself from the entrails.
She then slashes at the undead, moving hand near her.
The group's frantic reactions to the explosively gory situation managed to yield some fruits: Both the head and the hand in Helena's square have been destroyed, but the writhing viscera attempts to snag everyone yet again!
The crawling hand on Narcisa's square springs into the air and flies at her throat. The nails bite into her neck and it starts squeezing, cutting off her air supply!
Narcisa attempts to jump away from the writhing viscera.
She gags as the hand latches to her throat, starting to claw at it to get it off.
As the entrails lash out once more, Helena swing back in kind.
Elren'dor watches as the writhing intestine reach out again, trying to grab onto him and his comrades.
Grappled by the bloody insides that have unnaturally reached outside, he sees Narcisa being choked by that animated hand that leapt up upon her. Elren'dor showed his true power with his acidic darts, as the intestines slipped around him. If the spell was successfully conjured, it would fire out at the animated hand with dangerous accuracy.
The clerics channeled energy disintegrates the undead and the animated viscera, sending the poor woman into the afterlife.
-Posted with Wayfinder
Helena examines the remains and area to ensure it's re-dead. Then heads into room to left.
The wizard brushes off the dead flesh that was clinging to him, looking towards Smallest Sun with a quick smile and nod. "Thank you."
He follows Helena into the next room, his eyes looking it over for any danger or things of interest.
"You're welcome."Smallest Sun says humbly. "That was... not what I expected to happen, I hope there aren't more bodies like this; that took a lot of effort to destroy."
He will follow Helena into the room too.
You enter the room to the west.
Sturdy racks and toppled tables suggest this space once served as a sizable laundry. Much of the northern end of the room is filled with rubble. A wall of pipelike crossbeams fills the western alcove of the room. Three bodies are manacled to these beams. The northmost one is a ghoul, the middle one a partially eaten corpse, and the southern one a human man wearing stained yellow sheets wrapped around him like robes and a flame-shaped chalk mark on his forehead.
As the group enters the room, a task that takes some effort since debris makes opening the door a not-silent task in the slightest, the man in yellow sheets looks up at them and exclaims "Words Fail!".
The ghoul rolls his eyes and casually leans over to take a bite from the dead prisoner between them. "Please." it says, chewing with one side of his mouth so that he could still talk. "Can't you say anything else?" He looks over the group. "We have guests."
Elren'dor looks into the room that Helena helps force open, the blocked door creating more sound than he had ever hoped. When there was enough room, the elf's slender form would make its way into the room and he would gaze upon the disgusting sight within. For a moment, Elren'dor would freeze but not because of the ghoul that was noisily eating the flesh of the man that was chained beside him. It was the figure wrapped in stained, yellow sheets that reminded him of that thing from his dreams. It took him a moment to release that momentary tension, entering into the room and looking the three of them over. His eyebrows furrowed at the discussion between the two of them, his attention staying upon the ghoul.
"What...what happened here?" The elf asks the undead abomination. It was the chance learn a bit more of what happened here, a chance to get another perspective outside of the paranoid, fearful guards. "What is wrong with him?" Elren'dor would ask, looking towards the man with the strange symbol upon his head.
Helena is not sure which is more incredulous. The 3 'men' shackled to the pipe, or the elf thinking he could get reasonable answers from a ghoul.
Uncertain if this could be some form of ruse, Helena ensures she is between the shackled men and her group. Tensed and ready if they prove to be loose or otherwise armed.
"So it's true." Smallest Sun says. "Ghouls."
The ghoul swallows his bite and then takes another. "We're experiments." the ghoul answers plainly, rattling the shackles attached to the pipe the three are shackled to."He's a patient here." He looks around. "Well... was a patient. Now he's dinner... eventually."
"Zandalus sees!" The man pleads with you, tugging on his manacles. It's evident that, given enough time to get through the already dead patient, the ghoul will reach the man, but it would take at least a day, maybe more. "Zandalus sees!"
The ghoul gives the wizard a pained look. "I'm hoping he comes up with something better to say soon." He swallows the chunk of human flesh with a loud gulp. "Or else he's going to drive me mad."
"Expiraments?"Helena parrots,"By who?Helena asks, slightly in shock, of herself.
Now, I'm talking to a ghoul? Perhaps I belong in this asylum...
Elren'dor moves out of the way, letting Helena stand between them and the voracious creature that was feeding hungrily. The wizard took this time to study the man who continued to speak, his face showing a look of compassion upon it. "Isn't much of a fate to be stuck here and fated to be a meal..." Elren'dor says, studying the man intently.
Elren'dor looks at the ghoul with a cool stare, speaking in a low tone. "Answer the woman's question, undead. You have knowledge I may find useful." The distaste in the elf's voice is evident as he looks down upon the beast.
The ghoul treats himself to another bite of flesh. "Not sure." the ghoul says, looking up while he thinks, a strip of skin slowly disappearing into his maw as he chews. "If I say that all those grayskins look alike, would you get the joke?"
"Words Fail! Praise!" the man in yellow adds frantically.
"Good point." the ghoul replies to the man's nonsense. "Won't matter what kind of experiment it was if we aren't here. You... uh, gonna let us go or what?"
Helena takes a step back in order to speak with the others as quietly as possible, without turning her back on the ghoul.
"I'm not sure what more we can get out of the ghoul, unless you have some ideas. Helena can't hide the revulsion in her voice, even at this whispered tone.
Helena nods slightly to the man in yellow. "I don't think letting the other man free would be prudent, he's clearly mad. If he's a doppleganger, shackled will keep him from harming anyone. Still human, keep him from hurting himself. Perhaps leave him be until we can get to speak with those behind the barricade civilly? They may have a section for patients? Helena pauses to focus on the ghoul again. "After dispatching the ghoul of course, no man deserves that fate."
"I for one won't tolerate an undead to live." Smallest Sun whispers, stroking his beard. "But we'll need to kill it quick before it raises a ruckus and draws attention from their captor. Perhaps a ruse, Narcisa?"
Narcisa, having pried off the now re-dead hand, followed after the group, trying to wipe herself clean, muttering quietly to herself about wanting a hot bath.
They enter the room and she stops in her tracks, watching the exchange between the group and the ghoul and the human. She blinks a couple of times at the ghoul's articulation. She turns her attention to Smallest Sun as he speaks to her, "I.. I thought undead were mindless? Why does he talk as if he's normal?"
"Undead can sometimes be intelligent." The cleric apprises Narcisa. "Ghouls are one of them... though the ones most people find have gone mad or feral."
Helena nods. "Any final questions for it then? I'm getting tired of the chewing sounds."
Elren'dor watches the ghoul for only a moment more now, giving a quick nod before stepping back. "There seems to be nothing else to learn for it. Go and provide your mercy." The wizard says, watching carefully though. They were cunning creatures and he would not be surprised if it tried some kind of trick when Helena came closer to it.
"What were the experiments about? Did the dopplegangers have any specific plan for you?" He hoped to keep the ghoul interested enough, enough to provide a distraction for Narcisa to end it if she decided to go with Smallest Sun's plan.
Narcisa glances around at her companions, then shrugs, "Okay, I'll let him go."
She takes a wide path around to stand behind the ghoul, she then proceeds to stab the ghoul with her rapier in an attempt to put him out of his undead misery.