That did it.
It was bad enough that Astraden was dead. It was bad enough that Gattel was dead.
Now Cuetzpalli was slain.
"No more sacrifices. You're all going to die screaming." She growls as she pulls two bombs from her belt.
She aims them at Doppelanith's head.
And lets them fly.
Carina's bombs glance off of Zalamandra's arm and Farrukh's own head, landing off-target. One lands directly south of Doppeltanith, the other lands to the east of Fake Eben/Ixiaxian.
They dodge most of the blasts, but it's just barely too much for the false Tanith, who collapses. Doppelfather/"Elaxan" yelps as well, looking irritated. Only Ixiaxian shows no reaction, aside from grimacing slightly.
He isn't sure how long he's been walking. He remembers clearly what was happening before—a great battle, his part in which cut short by a pair of traitors.
He walks upon a river of earth, flowing through the sky. Many more rivers flow here, forming vast arches in the air. On their undersides burn fire and molten rock.
Miles down below, he sees great oceans and continents. He can faintly make out some glorious battle being fought between scores of enormous giants and thousands of smaller creatures, but it's too far to see who is winning.
"Hello!" says a voice. Cuetzpalli looks around, and spots an enormous humanoid on an arch of earth right above him.
The giant has chiseled, muscular features and a flat, forward-sloping head, looking almost as if she were carved of stone. She is roughly Spiny's size. She jumps down to stand on the same arch as Cuetzpalli and offers her enormous hand to shake.
"Welcome to Ysgard," she says. "Home of Kord."
With no time to scoop up his fallen poleaxe Tanith spins on his heels and barrels into the other room. He squeezes in next to Farrukh and spots Cuetzpalli's unmoving form.
"No more!" he roars before decking the false Eben.
Tanith swings at the doppelganger, but the cover from the wall causes his swing to miss.
"Damn it! STOP KILLING MY FRIENDS! And stop moving! Just die!"
Seeing the stranger who was with his friends brutally murdered seconds ago had been upsetting, but Eben had still been more focused on getting free and... doing something. But seeing Cuetzpalli killed by the exact same doppelgangers broke something inside him. "Mmmmm! Mm mm mm mm mm mm..." Cuetz! No no no no no no... The anger and panic he felt gave him the strength to get to his feet from where he was lying, still chained to the chair, and then throw himself and the solid, heavy wooden set to the floor.
It splinters to bits, and with a bit of wriggling, his hands slip from the wooden backing they were bound behind. With what is clearly a familiar move, the street performer jacknifes his lower body and slips his manacled hands underneath his feet and around to the front of his body. They still remain bound in front of him, but he has at least a bit more physical mobility now. He manages to bring his hands to his mouth and pull the gag out from between his teeth.
Of course, that still left him unarmed, unarmored, hands bound and without spell components, and with a gang of gangers between him and his allies...
"Damn it! STOP KILLING MY FRIENDS! And stop moving! Just die!"
5d20
5d6+55
Farrukh slashes into "Zalamandra"/Zaross, cutting a very deep slice in her belly. She looks up, stunned, unable to stop the klar as it cuts straight through her open mouth, nearly cutting her head in two. She falls to the ground, turning into another gray-blooded monster, as Farrukh then steps over and slashbashes Ixiaxian in the face. Twice.
Turns out, he's considerably less good at dodging than his allies. He screams in pain as Farrukh cuts brutally past his (Eben's) mithral chain shirt and into the soft Eben-like flesh beneath.
Ixiaxian stumbles back, glaring. "Okay. I liked Zaross. He was the cook. You are going to regret that."
Spiny has had enough. This s&~! is whack, and I'M HUNGRY G+* D!&MIT! He shoves his way past Tanith and Farruk, and through the doorway into the room. Then, standing over the corpses of the doppelgangers, he brings death to Evileben .
Ixiaxian is dropping the bow and reaching for his sword when Spiny jams his huge (but narrow) frame through the doorway and latches on to the doppelganger. Ixiaxian screams as he's practically crushed beneath the raging beast. His arm is nearly bitten off, and then his throat is slashed into. Twice.
Ixiaxian's Eben form fades away as he collapses in a mess of gray blood and translucent flesh.
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While it's a relief to watch the (presumed) lead doppelganger be slaughtered, it's very, very disturbing to see it done at Spiny's hands. Well, claws. And teeth. Eben feels the need to pipe up, "You know I'm not him, right boy?"
Fake Carina snarls, darting forward towards Spiny and lashing out with her fists. "Well, see you on the other side, Elaxan!"
She socks Spiny in the nose twice. The dinosaur is unaffected.
Elaxan backs away. Its head tilts to one side, tensing for a moment before relaxing—almost like it's resisting an urge. "Uh...actually, y'know what, uh, yeah. You go. Don't wait up." The doppelganger draws out the godfather's sword and throws it down, turning to give Eben a wide smile. "I surrender."
"G%! d$$n it, Elaxan."
Part of her can't help but be impressed at her fake's tenacity. She's willing to throw her life away for this?
"...okay, my hat's off to you, Fake Me. That takes guts." Carina says in a rare moment of respect. "I guess you'd make a pretty good Other Me after all."
It's small consolation as she throws another bomb at her, this time one rigged to engulf her in flames.
Spiny doesn't understand surrender. He only understands blood. He steps further into the room and attacks the Godfather, should the doppelganger fall, he switches to attacking Fauxrina.
"You surrender. That's very interesting..." Eben says, speaking in a low, even voice. You're clearly the smartest doppelganger in the room, why I was just thinking if only one of these guys would surrender we'd find that we have common ground to work from, just like the lizardfolk in the swamp. I know you studied us, did you know about that adventure? Let me tell you about it..."
And then a tsunami of blood explodes from the 'godfather' as a dinosaur makes it clear that it doesn't believe in debriefing enemies.
Carina's bomb almost hits—
But the dinosaur gets in the way. As do Farrukh, Tanith, a pile of bodies, the open door, and the wall.
The blast catches Spiny as he starts to move forward.
He nimbly dodges it, showing surprising agility for his great girth. Probably that fortunate narrowness of his. The doppelganger likewise dodges most of the blast.
Spiny doesn't understand surrender. He only understands blood. He steps further into the room and attacks the Godfather, should the doppelganger fall, he switches to attacking Fauxrina.
Eben starts to speak, and Elaxan starts to slow down, her eyes developing a misty quality—
RIIIIP
She gives a scream of anger as Spiny rips a bloody gash in her chest.
"You've killed two of my friends, and an acquaintance I was starting to like. I'm not going to let you live."
"Spiny seems to agree." he adds.
Farrukh moves in on the Godfoppelganger and slashes his sword at him.
Unfortunately, he slips on THE BLOOD OF ALL THOSE WHO STOOD BEFORE HIM and misses completely.
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"Well, I was gonna shake it down for information, but... I can how this could be more cathartic..." Then the full impact of Farrukh's words hit him. "Wait... two friends? The old guy with the syringe was the acquaintance, right, so... where's Astraden!?" His eyes settle on the blanket-bundled shape tied to Spiny's back. "Aw, no, no, no..."
"You lied to us and killed our friends. You can surrender to my fist", Tanith growls as he comes in swinging.
Elaxan surrenders to Tanith's fist, collapsing in a broken heap. She dissolves into another slim grayish shape.
The last doppelganger lashes out clumsily at Spiny, giving a panicky laugh. "Just wait 'til you meet Telakin. You'll wish you'd known what was coming."
She is immediately dispatched in turn by the raging dinosaur. The room is now full of dead doppelgangers...and two dead friends.
** spoiler omitted **
Ever since he'd been abducted and told by cackling doppelgangers that an impostor was infiltrating the group, Eben had been promising himself that when his friends finally got around to rescuing him, he'd give them grief about being deceived. But now, with a third of those same friends dead... he finds that he doesn't have the heart to joke about his own misfortunes. "How long has it been?" he asks instead. "They fed me a couple of times, but I've still lost track of time. Can't be more than a couple of days, right? They nabbed me when I went out shopping." He gives a bitter laugh. "Met with some thieves guild representatives. They asked me if I knew anything about these guys. I was coming back to the Crooked House to tell Astraden that we had to let you guys know about the doppelgangers. And then... they ambushed me. They planned for it, like they knew exactly what I was going to do. Had scrolls of web, so I couldn't get out of the alley. Had scrolls of glitterdust, so I couldn't go invisible and hide. Tried illusions, but they knew to look out for them. And then I tried to bail, drank a potion that turned me into mist, and they whipped out paralyzing wands. I never had a chance."
Tanith's broad shoulder's slump as he lowers his fists. Gattel wasn't moving - likely dead - but it was Cuetzpalli that had his attention. The Olman had been a comrade and more than that... a brother in Kord.
The big man kneels near Cuetzpalli's body and mutters a short prayer.
"You were brought low by coward's magic but you fought like a champion until your last breath. I know you'll have an honored place in the Brawler's Halls"
Hearing Eben speak up distracts him from his last rites.
"I'm just glad you're alive and whole", he says half-heartedly. "Any clue how many more of these damned things are down here?"
First, Telakin is the gang's boss. He's somehow different from the rest—everyone else seemed to regard him with a mix of reverence and fear.
Second, nobody seemed fully certain why they were going after the party. A few just said it was "Telakin's orders", but Eben got the impression Telakin was taking directions from a third party. This particularly irritated Elaxan, who was there during this discussion, and Eben got the sense this was an old complaint of hers. Eben, being an excellent judge of people, is pretty sure they were all under the effects of some form of mind control. Elaxan might have been less affected because she was hardly ever around. This isn't to say they weren't still unpleasant people, but their motivation in targeting the party is more incidental.
Third, Eben is almost certain there's a second door somewhere in this room.
And fourth, Astraden's godfather and Smenk have both been abducted by the creatures. The doppelgangers didn't really care about Smenk, and freely admitted he'd been "shipped off by Telakin" to an "old friend" after he'd worn out his use. That seemed to be all they knew. As for the godfather, they never said a word.
As for numbers, it's very hard to be sure, since sometimes the doppelgangers took on different forms when they dealt with him. It didn't sound like a huge gang, though—more than a dozen members would be surprising.
Eben is able to find all his possessions on Ixiaxian's corpse, save three shock arrows, his feather token (which is currently making a nuisance of itself by still trying to grapple Farrukh, though it can't really do more than hold him for a round or so and isn't too hard to destroy), and his old longsword. In addition, his gravity bow wand has lost a charge, and his coin purse is a tad lighter.
Ixiaxian and Elaxan also have numerous items they never got around to using.
Elaxan:
** spoiler omitted **** spoiler omitted **
Kolvant leads Cuetzpalli down off of the arch. They march through a field of wheat, passing by an enormous building that seems to draw near and then grow distant in mere seconds.
"Kord's hall. You can go there soon and talk to the big man, but this is important."
The great stone giant leads Cuetzpalli off, through more fields and into a somewhat more woodsy area. The trees here are gnarled and twisted, almost unreal. Like they were drawn by a young child. Over the treetops, Cuetzpalli sees a huge manor that seems to have been built from dozens of other buildings haphazardly reconstructed into a single building.
"Winesong," Kolvant says. She sounds a tad distasteful. "That's Olidammara's den of performers and thieves. The two gods share this realm, you see."
They keep walking, edging around the manor. Occasionally, riders happen upon them—not many hunters, just folk enjoying a brisk ride. One of them is riding a somewhat warped-looking terror bird, and he salutes the Olman as he goes by. None of them seem interested in chatting.
At last, they come to a pool. This pool, too, looks a tad wrong—the water looks like air, perfectly clear, and doesn't soak into cloth or cling to skin if touched.
More interesting to Cuetzpalli, however, is the young woman on the other side of it.
Inside Winesong, one finds an endless number of banquet halls, ballrooms, and boudoirs, filled with the revelry of countless bards, entertainers, and of course rogues. Not precisely an endless party, for at times it does slow to but a trickle (the followers of this god aren't hedonists, after all, merely folks that enjoy a good time), it's still a rare day when no performances can be seen by the power's guests. These events are usually left to be hosted by Olidammara's proxies, as the god himself prefers to spend his time in mortal form wandering the lands of Oerth. Every so often, though, he does return to make a personal appearance, either blatantly or in disguise as merely another guest.
As he talks, Eben holds out his manacled hands, in case any of the bodies have a key on them or else if Farrukh wants to do his thing. "How many... that's hard to say. Different voices, different faces... I'd guess there's maybe a dozen or so? But their leader... he's not one of the dead here. He? It?" He shakes his head in confusion. "Whatever. Just gonna go with 'he'. Telakin is his name. The others were scared of him, like he's somehow different. And even he's working for someone else, I think... it's weird. None of them even really knew why they were targetting us, just said 'Telakin's orders' whenever I tried to reason with them." A memory occurs to him. "Back when they originally took me, they said we'd raised 'their master's intentions'. I thought they meant Ilthane- you know, the dragon- and they said 'Ilthane's a small player'. Which gave me massive shudders, but then they bagged me and started beating me unconscious, so, you know... kind of stopped thinking about that."
"So yeah, there's something scarier out there, and... I don't know. It was almost like they weren't even able to think too much about why they were doing this. Like they were being controlled. Mind control, not just 'under threats' control." He nods down at the 'godfather' doppelganger's mashed form. "That one, Elaxan? Didn't spend as much time here. I don't think it was as strongly controlled, and it was always kind of pissed that so many of the gang were so... unquestioning about where Telakin's orders came from." He blinks. "Oh, and another thing... supposedly Astraden's godfather... her real godfather... was abducted by them too." As an aside, he mutters to himself, "Wonder if I ever met the real guy..." Then, a brief smirk, "Oh, and another abductee. Balabar Smenk, supposedly." He kneels down and starts rooting through Ixiaxian's corpse, retrieving as many of his old supplies as he can. "And one more thing... that's not the only door to this room." He points, perhaps a bit unnecessarily, at the northwestern entrance. "I could hear them come in one and leave another. Must be something else in here..."
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Having finished his prayer, Tanith picks up Cuetzpalli's body and bundles it up alongside Astraden's on Spiny's back. After a second thought he grabs Gattel too.
"A dozen. We killed two outside and six in here. So four more?" the big kordite maths aloud.
"We're not going anywhere until the last four are dead - including this Telakin. I don't know what part these bastards are playing in everything and I don't much care anymore. Cuetzpalli and Astraden aren't going to have died for nothing. By Kord I swear it."
Tanith gives Eben a nod. "You strong enough to help? I've never seen your hair that mussed."
Farrukh goes to work on Eben's manacles as he begins to explain what happened.
"For once, I agree with Tanith. Every last one of these things needs to die. I'll admit, up to this point, I've been a bit amused by this place, its tricks and traps. Even when Astraden died I thought 'You know, it's okay, we can undo this'. But this? I'm not sure if we can fix this. Nearly half of us are dead, and I'm not sure if Spiny is going to be willing to come along either, with Cuetzpalli dead."
He rubs the bridge of his nose.
"It's all just a mess."
"How did you end up here?" she asks, hugging the Olman tightly. "Are you okay?"
Carina looks at the carnage, her face blank.
She feels numb inside as she walks up to Spiny.
"I'm sorry, Spiny." Is all she can say. She strokes Spiny's muzzle.
Now, it seems like her smile is feigned, and she looks suspiciously up at the stone giant. "What about everyone else?" she asks Cuetzpalli. "Are they dead too? Will we be pulled back in?"
Eben massages his wrists. "Yeah, I'm in." he replies. He begins putting his gear back on. "I think I can help. i've had nothing to do but sit here and think. And what I've done is think up a few new spells. Bastards needed my brain intact, so they had to leave me conscious. I could feel this one rooting around and fishing out thoughts from time to time. Well, let's make them regret that." He pauses when sorting through Ixiaixian's gear. "Huh. He's got my bow but not my sword." He reads the draconic script off the blade. "Memory. Anyone mind if I use it for now?" And then he turns up the glowing sapphire, tucked deeply into a belt pouch and concealed beneath some cloth rags. "Oh. That's..." his hands reach out and pick the gem up. "Pretty, but... does anyone else feel that?" Then from his backpack, he pulls out his ivory wand. "With Astraden... gone. This could get rough... anyone need some healing?" He makes a pass of the wand over those who do. (Including himself.)
Eben mutters over the broken arrow. "Ixassian is more like it..." but takes the sole remaining one and puts it away in his quiver.
Twisted Life Earns A Straight Death.
Spoiler:"What about everyone else? Are they dead too? Will we be pulled back in?"
Having detected them while moving the bodies, Tanith retrieves the late Gattel's last few extracts.
"Do you think these are still safe to drink Red? Gattel was nuts but he was on our side. I wish I'd treated him a bit better before he was killed."
"And do you know what all that stuff is?" he asks Eben while the bard sorts through the fake him's gear.
Carina takes a look at the late Gattel's extracts. "As long as there aren't any worms in them, I think I'd say they're safe."
She closes her eyes and sighs. "He was... odd, definitely. But he didn't deserve this."