Thim regains some of his earlier cheer, returning to his kit and finishes stuffing a small backpack full of traveling gear and the journal. "Ah. Thimble Percival Remaerd, at your service. I am a sorcerer of that most esoteric of lineages, for in my blood runs the stuff DREAMS! Ahahaha! Ahah. But I digress." The gnome shoulders the small pack, considering the group. "Mhm. I am a scholar of the planes, I'm studying ..." he frowns, considering the statement. "Well, I was studying the interplay of magical trauma upon our connection with the realm of sleep, I have to say, our recent experiences are fascinating."
Vaduk stands silently as his fellow escapees mill around him. Their conversation washes over him as only so many sounds. Crisis gone, the dwarf allows his mind to relax and finally come to grips with the broader situation.
He is in some kind of prison, hospital or asylum. Not a very pleasant one, though Vaduk had been in his share of dungeons before and "pleasant" was not a word he often associated with them.
All things considered, though, where he is was a pretty simple mystery. The bigger question is why he was here, and for that, Vaduk sees no obvious answers. He had been arrested before, of course — occupational hazard — but has no memory of being hauled off here.
What does he remember? Anything that feels recent is hazy — hard to piece together.
Vaduk lowers himself down a rope into a dry well, something far below gleaming in the light of his lantern.
Shouts and barks echo behind him and he sprints down a wooded path.
He quietly rummages through a bookshelf, a fire crackling beside him on a stone hearth, and the storm outside almost but not quite drowning out the noise of copulation in the next room.
A smug man in a red waistcoat offers a too-small bag of gold. Vaduk snatches a small black chest back to his body as he stares the fool down.
Any job can go wrong. Vaduk knows it. But which one went wrong to end up here? And how could any bungled heist leave his mind so jumbled? Unless...
His mind shoves a forming thought aside of its own volition as he returns his awareness to the room.
"None of you know anything about how you got here either," he says flatly, only a hint of question in his voice.
Vaduk doesn't stand around waiting for responses, but turns to the sacks near where the doctor-creature fled. It's only a moment's rummaging before he pulls out an oversized crossbow, plain but well-cared-for.
"That's better," he murmurs, then turns to face the others. "Someone said something about getting out of here?"
With the doctor now gone, those who wish to look around the dungeon are free to do so. It's a damp and dingy place, utterly cheerless. Old soot and fresher blood streak the crumbling stone walls, which bulge and sag unevenly as though recently disturbed by some great upheaval.
To the west, the wall has collapsed outright, smashing a vacant cell beneath a massive tumble of stone and broken mortar. The damage is plainly recent, so much so that one might still expect to feel aftershocks quivering underfoot.
Just north of the collapsed cell stand a pair of half-filled water barrels. Murky oil spots swim across the water's surface, and judging from the odor, the "doctor" might have been rinsing her used torture instruments in them. A dented drinking ladle hung from the rim of one barrel suggests that wasn't their original purpose, however.
Past the water barrels is a large wooden cabinet, its doors ajar. It's plain but sturdy, and its style suggests bland institutional practicality without any of the personal touches one might expect of home furniture. Inside the cabinet are neatly folded stacks of loose-fitting muslin tunics similar to the ones you wear, although these are clean and undamaged. They bear the words "Briarstone Asylum" stamped across the backs in faded purplish ink. The cabinet also holds spare bedsheets, towels, and two clean, empty bedpans. All of the linens are stamped "Briarstone Asylum" in the same manner as the clothes.
South of the collapsed cell is a furnace room. The large iron furnace sits cold and empty, its belly full of ashes. Piled up beside the furnace is a heap of gore-smeared clothes, broken furniture, and other garbage apparently destined for the fires.
To the east -- the direction that the doctor fled -- is an open door, through which one can glimpse a dark room crowded with motionless shapes heaped upon the floor. Beyond the heap of bodies, about eight feet up from the floor, is a chute opening; that, too, is where the doctor fled. The foul smell of three-day-old corpses hangs heavy in the air, and what can be seen of the other walls in this room suggests that they, too, were badly damaged by a recent earthquake.
"Yes, we did," Uldin reassures Gavrelu. "There is nothing distinguished about what has been happening here."
He whispers a prayer and brushes his hand across the wooden club. It begins to glow with a clear light. "If we follow the--"
The man breaks off and looks back at the pile of random belongings. "I should have had an astrolabe. It is not here."
He shakes off his sudden reverie and looks into the charnel house. He steps to the doorway and holds the glowing rod over his head, swaying it back and forth slowly. "I think that it is safe, but be wary."
As the two humans talk, Vaduk kneels back down among the bags. Buried among the burlap he finds a sturdy leather backpack, its surface festooned by loops and hooks. With a smile, the dwarf sets it down and dumps the remaining sacks onto the ground, then quickly sorts them into two piles. The closer of the two piles to him contains an assortment of odds and ends: flasks, a lantern, some rope, a bedroll, a grappling hook and more.
"At least this stuff's still here," he mutters, packing most of it expertly into the backpack. The lantern he hangs from a long hook on one side, the rope he ties to the grappling hook, coils and straps to the other side. What remains he eyes with some skepticism, before grabbing a worn leather cuirass and strapping it on.
Vaduk completes his methodical work by laying out a mid-sized axe, a small hammer and a quiver of bolts, then strapping on a belt and hanging the three items from loops around it. He then hooks the crossbow onto the backpack and pulls the laden bag onto his back.
"Alright, that should suffice for now," the dwarf declares, sorting through a wallet with an array of picks, hooks and wires in it, before sliding that into a belt pouch.
Thus encumbered, he pokes his head through the door into the charnel house.
"Well, that looks... about what I expected, honestly. Pile full of corpses not exactly out of place here." The dwarf gets a little closer. "What is odd, though, is that these don't look like patients. More like... the asylum's original employees?"
The dwarf looks back at the others near the doorway.
"Think we should give the bodies a once-over before we move onward?"
Thim peers past the dwarf at the pile of corpses, goggle-eyed. "Oooh ... lot of them, aren't there? Mhm. Hospitals are big buildings, lots of doors. Maybe one of them has keys?"
"Looks like I'm our lucky volunteer," Vaduk deadpans, looking from the group to the corpses. "Anyone got a pole or spear or anything that might make this easier?"
"Thanks," the dwarf grunts, taking the weapon. "Gavru, was it?"
He moves closer to the pile of corpses, first inspecting it from a half-dozen feet out.
"Stay close in case these things animate," he says over his shoulder.
After completing an initial inspection, if Vaduk sees nothing that would lead him to stop, he begins using the spear to roll corpses off the pile and onto the ground, where they can be seen more clearly. At this point, he avoids physical contact and keeps as much distance as he can using the longspear.
The corpses remain inert as Vaduk prods at them, and he can push the bodies apart as he likes. They're all badly mutilated, and some appear to have been chewed by savage beasts before and after death, with a wide variety of tooth marks torn into their lifeless flesh. Some of the corpses appear to have been tortured in the same manner as the doctor's prisoner in this room, while others have their throats torn out or have been disemboweled by vicious claws, the rake marks plainly evident on their skin.
All but three of the bodies are dressed in white coats with silver buttons, evidently the uniform for doctors and orderlies in this place. Two of the other bodies wear simple tunics with the "Briarstone Asylum" stamps on the back, identical to those in the cabinet. Those two have been treated as savagely as the rest.
The third corpse is dressed in loose, fluttering bandages and scraps of cloth that have been knotted together to form a tattered robe of rags. The rags are stained ochre with paint and powder -- an obviously amateur job using makeshift dyes -- and are tied directly to the corpse's body, rather than hanging over him like ordinary clothing. The mark of a dancing flame is chalked onto his forehead in yellow. This corpse is one of several that appears to have been attacked and slain by some ravaging beast, and the body is partially eaten.
"No loot," is Vaduk's first report from his lonely search through the bodies.
His second report takes a few more minutes of body-handling before it's voiced. "Some of these have been mauled. Anyone have any idea if this was a natural beast or... unnatural?"
As he waits for others to investigate, Vaduk rolls the most unusual corpse out into an open space on the floor, and begins to examine the body and its robe of rags more closely.
"Also, anyone recognize this flame mark?"
"Whatever the nature of the beast, there is nothing natural about these deaths," Uldin says in response to the dwarf's question. He heads into the corpse filled room. His movement causes the shows to shift eerily. "Come. The way out is through."
Gavrelu calls back to those behind him, "Facechangers!" As the gnomish sorcerer scampered around behind the group to put the party between himself and the threat. Gavrelu looked back at Thim, "They seem a kind of doppelganger, so don't bother with any dream magic." The gnome looked blankly at Gavrelu in response, "Dopplewhat? Nevermind, I get the living nightmare bit. Hit them with something heavy!"
Vaduk is implacable in the face of said nightmare. As the woman turns into a monster; he draws his battle axe and maneuvers into position. However, the dwarf’s first swing is ungainly and tentative, doing little more than pushing the monster back. Cerovyren sneers as he shoulders past Thim. Just as he runs into range of the facechanger, he draws the foreign blade and slashes down on the creature, giving the old woman a shallow cut.
Both of the old women hiss and snarl, any pretense of humanity gone from them now. Their faces flicker like wind-whipped smoke, shifting from a semblance of smiling grand motherliness to something alien and cruel.
The druid moved to flank the first threat, stepping up behind the snarling nightmare and striking it hard with his wooden cudgel as Gavrelu drove at it with a spear. Their efforts to harry the creature were working, but too slowly.
"Meat, meat, just walking meat. Fall into the dreamless sleep," the wizened old grandmother cackles, ripping at Uldin with hideous claws. Her compatriot bounds over the rubble, attacking the staggered man mercilessly. The druid dropped to the floor, bleeding profusely, as the gnome’s incantations reached a brief crescendo and a kaleidoscope dart of magical force flew unerringly out of the press of adventurers to strike the old woman again.
"It will all be over soon," the faceless crone crooned, licking blood from its claws. "Though death's no mercy here, no, not for you. No, then the nightmare never ends."
Vaduk continues maneuvering deeper into the ruined room, then cuts deeply into the faceless woman's back with his axe, while Cerovyren’s blade dived in for another shallow slash on the horrid creature, distracting it as Gavrelu finished the job by driving his spear home. Vaduk snorted and muttered, "It'll be over soon for one of us, anyway. What happens when YOU die here?" The elf grunted in grim amusement at the dwarf’s question, although it is short lived when the other changeling leaves the dwarf bloody.
"Why, we've already met the tattered one," the remaining creature giggle-hisses, evidently unperturbed by its companion's demise. It rips into Vaduk relentlessly, slamming the dwarf back into the wall. The creature's claws had little difficulty in tearing through his ill-fitting leather armor with ease. Another dart of force struck the second creature, giving Vaduk a brief moment to try and catch his fading strength.
As Cerovyren cut the ghoulish doppleganger once more, Vaduk gathers his final reserves of strength and launches himself at the fake doctor with his axe, swinging futilely. The exhausted dwarf collapsed to the floor with the effort, the toll of his wounds too great to ignore. Gavrelu stabs it again with his long spear as the dwarf topples, but the nightmarish creature is supernaturally resilient.
With Uldin swiftly dying and Vaduk at least temporarily out of its way, the faceless creature turns its nightmarish visage and bloody claws on Cerovyren next. Its terrible claws raked the stoic elven warrior, drawing terrible furrows in his flesh as it claimed another victim among the group. Cerovyren dropped to the floor, bleeding profusely.
Thim backed away from the group, preparing to put distance between himself and the terror as the big people fell one by one. Incanting again, the gnome fired off another coruscating dart of force on what sounded like the horrid doctor they had met earlier, but looked like a nightmare. Thim began to quietly load his crossbow, having reached the end of his magical arsenal at the monster tore through his companions.
Gavrelu calls down the hall, "We need healing!" There was no response to Gavrelu's call, though his words echoed down the rubble-littered hall.
Gavrelu stabs at the faceless horror again, drawing blood but not felling the creature as it leaps over the bleeding and broken bodies of Gavrelu's companions to tear at him. From some distance behind the embattled pair, though, there is a sudden and sharp “THWOCK” and Gavrelu watches in relief as the doppleganger topple forward with a quarrel sticking from its back, a delighted Thim whooping in the distance.
The gnome keeps his celebration short-lived though, shouting to the human. "Quickly, Gav! The fallen!" Gavrelu acts with haste though, wasting no time trying to staunch Uldin’s wounds as he remains far and away the worst of the lost. Thim rushes over to help, but apparently knows absolutely nothing about actually stopping living creatures from bleeding.
Gavrelu finally manages to staunch Uldin's wounds, then sits back, hands shaking. Once the initial panic over saving Uldin has died down, Thim and Gavrelu -- being the only two people presently conscious -- can watch as the two facechangers' bodies wither to stained scraps of yellow, powdery-looking skin wrapped around misshapen bones. Within less than a minute, nothing is left of either of them except the clothes they'd been wearing and those tattered rags of yellow skin on bone.
Thim proceeds to poke the corpses with some degree of fascinated curiosity. "What were they, you think?" The gnome prods one of the corpses with a quarrel, nudging the skull of the 'doctor' a bit. "The people at the barricade seemed to think staying here long enough could change you. Maybe their dreams took a dark turn." He continues prodding the corpse for a bit while watching the process of decomposition.
In poking at the corpses, Thim finds that the deceased "grandmother" had a few bottles tucked into her ragged clothes, and the "doctor" had a curiously shaped metal rod that looks like some kind of wand. Thim happily scoops up the potions and wand, examining them both with glee.
Gavrelu shakes his head. "A kind of doppelganger," he murmurs distractedly, grabbing the two skeletons and beginning to drag them back to the barricade.
Gavrelu says, "Keep watch over the others." Taking the remnant skeletons of the dopplegangers in hand, the human drags them to the barricade.
Thim nods at Gavrelu while eyeing the potions and murmuring to himself. "Hehee. It's a bit like presents, isn't it? Only with more murder. Mhm ....“ The gnome shakes one of the vials, examining it in the dim light, he seems remarkably unbothered by the corpses at the moment. Thim realizes he's alone after a moment, shrugging and nudging the unconscious Uldin. "It'd be funnier if you were awake."
Gavrelu flings the skeletons over the barricade. "That's the first load," he says, turning back up the hall. "I'll be back with my companions in a moment." He can see the two guards watching warily from their barricade.
Gavrelu returns to grab Uldin first, slinging the Kellid over his shoulder and marching him red-faced down the hall, finally depositing him as gently as he can atop the barricade. Thim is perfectly content to observe this with a bemused expression, occasionally providing helpful suggestions as Gavrelu does this, without actually offering to help or move. He sits next to the fallen elf, prodding him in the face with the wand. “Hm.”
Gavrelu sighs upon returning to the scene of the fight. "There's never any good way of carrying a dwarf," he grumbles, finally settling on dragging Vaduk by his feet.
The guards look at the wounded people apprehensively, stopping Gavrelu just short of putting them on the barricade. "Bring us the facechangers' bodies too, or we can't let you in. Your friends don't look like they're dying, not just yet."
Gavrelu gestures at the skeletons. "That's all they leave behind. Weren't you aware?"
"We had to know you were," the female guard answers, while the man beside her pulls away a chunk of rubble and an overturned table to clear an easier path across the barricade. "Bring them through."
Gavrelu snorts, then goes back for Cerovyren, having an easier time with him. "They've let us through," he informs Thim on his way back.
Thim follows Gavrelu back to the barricade, waving enthusiastically at the two guards. "We killed two of them! At first it was all ... 'We're two old women, woe is us!' And then it was like, 'Rawr, we're going to eat you flesh and bones and teeth and all!' And they pretty much did, because big people are way more fragile than I thought, did you know that? But then *I* shot one in the back and saved us." Thim waves the crossbow with cheer. "That last part is especially true. Also, magic."
"Come on, then," the woman says distractedly, waving the garrulous Thim through and watching anxiously past them into the hall's darkened reaches. South of the barricade, lanterns illumine a somewhat more intact part of the asylum. The hall crooks toward the east, where the end of it is covered under a makeshift curtain of dirty blankets hastily nailed up on boards.
Gavrelu drags his companions through one by one, getting them at least to the proper side of the barricade. "They'll need a place to rest."
Once everyone is through, the male guard pushes the displaced parts of the barricade back into place. "I'm Vaustin. She's Salar. We'll show you to the chapel. You can rest there. Don't go poking behind that curtain, not if you know what's good for you."
Thim peers at the curtain, clearly curious about what is, in fact, behind it.
Gavrelu notes, "I see you've never talked to a gnome before." Thim nods agreeably along with Gavrelu, before asking. "Still … what *is* behind the curtain?" The gnome blithely adds to those assembled, "My first guess *was* puppets. But ... I don't think that would be appropriate considering the setting ..."
Vaustin the guard looks at the gnome, then Gavrelu, before responding. "Not puppets. Another fragment of nightmare. As long as you don't disturb the curtain, it won't cause trouble. But if you do..."
Salar leads the others to a pair of large chapel doors, while Vaustin helps manage the unconscious. Gavrelu hoists Uldin over his shoulders again, carrying him to the chapel.
This chapel has become a sanctuary for bodies as well as souls. Improvised pallets line the floors beneath the faces of sculpted divinities, and cookfires burn beneath the cracked stained-glass windows. The few intact windows show spirals of violet and blue: Pharasma’s sign, though the emblems of other powers stand above smaller, candle-lit alcoves along the walls.
Huddled survivors occupy many of the pallets. Some are sleeping, some working to create or repair makeshift weapons, a few just muttering to themselves or staring into space. They appear to be a mix of asylum employees, orderlies, and patients. One of them, a woman garbed in gray and black, moves toward the wounded as they enter the chapel. Vaustin nods to her, then returns to the barricade. Salar says: "Newcomers. They're safe. They killed two of the facechangers to prove it. Cost them, as you can see."
"So I can," the new woman says. She looks over the injured, then to Thim and Gavrelu. "Is there anything you can do for them?"
Gavrelu shakes his head. "I only just managed to staunch his wounds," he says, indicating Uldin. Thim debates telling Salar that it's possible they *are* the shapechangers, just using the unconscious bodies of adventurers to get access to the hospital, but thinks the better of it.
She responds to the pair, "I can only spare a little magic of my own. Where is that best directed?" the woman asks.
Thim looks at the woman in gray and black before responding to her and the group. "Hm. I found some healing potions on one of the dopplegangers. And a wand of some sort!" He holds the wand up to Gavrelu and the priestess and shakes it. "I don’t know what it does, though. *But* if we're going to heal anyone, I'd start with him." He indicates Uldin.
Gavrelu says, "The Kellid is the worst off. I believe the dwarf is in the best condition. However, the Kellid is a priest. He may be able to help with the others." Thim adds helpfully, "... he *can* heal people and I think the dwarf will just grumble about it."
Uldin rouses groggily as the woman prays over him. She steps back once she sees he's conscious again. "I'll let you do what you can from here."
"Urgh," Uldin mutters upon being brought back to the land of the wakeful. Rousing himself and rubbing at his wounds, the Kellid druid is confused at first. "The face changers?" But upon having the situation explained to him, he uses what healing he has on the dwarf.
Vaduk comes to in the chapel, opening his eyes, then immediately narrowing them, "This another dream?" Gavrelu responds quietly but with emphasis, "It is not." The human turns to regard the priestess uncertainly. "Have you... seen any of us before?"
The dwarf quips, "That's exactly what a dream-monster would say." In the background, Uldin uses the last of his healing magics to bring Cerovyren to wakefulness. "I am done," he adds.
The woman eyes the assembled party, "No. But I'm a newcomer to this place, and have had no occasion to see most of its inhabitants before the... recent trouble," the woman answers carefully. "My name is Winter."
Gavrelu nods politely. "Gavrelu," he offers in response. "How did you come here?"
Winter replies to the man, "I was sent here by my church to inquire after certain patients, but I had no opportunity to interview them before all of this began."
Satisfied for now that he is among friends, Vaduk pulls himself upright while Cerovyren gritted his teeth against the lingering pain in his chest as he looks around slowly to bring everyone into his single-eyed frame.
"No sooner did I and my companions arrive than an earthquake shook the isle, this strange mist rose, and monstrosities began to happen. My companions were slaughtered by ghouls -- former patients and doctors alike -- and I sought refuge here with some of the survivors."
Gavrelu says "Which patients, might I ask?"
Winter responds, "I do not know their names. They were in the service of Count Haserton Lowls IV, and were sent here for reasons unknown. I was to find them and ask questions. But I never had the opportunity to look."
Cerovyren comes to with a gasping start. The haggard look he gives everyone would suggest that the nightmares he suffered while unconscious were no better than the wounds he suffered when awake.
For his part, Thim is delighted that Cerovyren is back among the waking world, "... hahaha.” He spins in a circle, arms outstretched, “Congratulations, Cero! You’re alive! I was kinda wondering earlier if that was the case, so I poked you with the wand but you looked, 'Eh', and I figured, "He'll probably make it," and then you did. Hehe. So, cheer up, it can only go up from here, right?" The gnome crouches to claps Cerovyren on the shoulder before scampering back to the conversation. For his part, Cerovyren glares balefully at Thim through his entire explanation. After the gnome pats him on the shoulder and then moves away, the elf shakes his head and mutters, "Do not touch me. *Please*."
Winter notes, "Administrator Losandro, who oversees the asylum, was to help me. She did show me her records, and said she could find their names given time. But we were not given time."
Vaduk asked, "So this happened right after you arrived?" While Gavrelu followed it up with, "Do you know why your church wanted them questioned?"
"Yes," Winter tells Vaduk. She shakes her head at Gavrelu. "I was merely to find out whether they were here, and what they remembered of certain past events. Administrator Losandro said I'd likely be disappointed, but she did agree to allow me to conduct the interviews."
"Mhm." Thim considers the woman. "Why would your church need you to check in on the Count's retainers?"
"I was not told why," Winter informs Thim with a shrug. "It hardly matters now, does it? We have more immediate concerns. There's no way out of this mist, and our supplies are dwindling quickly."
Thim blinks for a moment before nodding along quickly, "Oh. No, you're entirely right. We probably need to focus on surviving for a moment. And killing things. So that we can survive. So that we can kill more things. To survive ..." Thim loses his focus for a bit, following that thread.
“Is the administrator among you?” Cerovyren says as he struggles to sit up.
Winter eyes the gnome dubiously before answering Cerovyren. "No. I haven't seen her since the mist rose. Things happened very quickly, and I lost sight of her amid the confusion."
Vaduk asked, "Where were the records?" Gavrelu nods at the dwarf’s question.
Winter replies, "In her office. It's at the very heart of the asylum. I didn't have a chance to examine them, I'm sorry. We never made it that far.” She continued, “If you can find some way out of here, some way to escape the mist safely, I'm sure my church would see you rewarded. It's all I can do to keep people safe here, and I don't know how much longer we have."
Cerovyren looks around at those still coherent, "And could any among you draw a map of this place?"
Winter notes, "I don't know the ground well enough to draw a map, and most of the others..." She looks over the survivors and shakes her head. "Everything is changed, anyway, with the earthquake and the mist and the monsters roaming the halls. There are unreal things everywhere, but they'll kill you easily enough."
Gavrelu asks, "Have you heard of a... thing... called the Tatterman?"
Cerovyren struggles slowly to his feet. Seeing the borrowed blade in his hand, he slides it into the sheath over his shoulder. "Then a rough idea of what should be where. *Anything* descriptive may be of use."
Winter starts to speak. "No. But..." the woman frowns. "Some of the patients have said they've seen such things in their dreams. And there are some -- they had some kind of an uprising, almost a religious awakening. They dressed themselves in yellow rags and pledged themselves to one of the other patients."
Vaduk grunts and asks, "Some here? Or elsewhere in the asylum?" While Gavrelu frowned and queried, "Which patient was that?"
Winter considered the dwarf and man before replying. "It's like some collective madness befell them. Perhaps it was a response to all the other strangenesses." She shakes her head. "None here. The yellow ones call themselves the Apostles. Apostles in Orpiment, I believe, or something like that. They pledged themselves to Ulver Zandalus. He was a patient here, before... all this. A painter, as I understand it."
"That's really all I know about him,” Winter admitted. “That and he was of particular interest to Administrator Losandro, who thought him a most unusual case. But I don't know why, exactly."
"Mhm. Interesting." Thim stops trying to get Cerovyren to lie down by comforting him, stepping forward. "Ah. How was the uprising, I guess I mean, was it linked to the dreams?"
Winter looks uncertain, "I don't know. I've had no such dreams myself. It happened around the same time that the quake shook the asylum, that's all I can tell you."
Rather than look discouraged, the gnome stares at Winter with suddenly keen eyed interest. "Hm. And are there any here who have had strange dreams of late?"
Winter nods and adds, "Yes, nearly everyone. The only ones who haven't had such dreams are outsiders, like myself, who happened to be in the halls when the trouble struck. And no one has such dreams in the chapel, which is why we all sleep here." For his part, Thim looks absolutely delighted by this.
"Does anyone here recognize us, from before?" Vaduk asked, looking around at the assembled patients, orderlies and other refugees.
"I don't, of course. You could ask the other survivors, I suppose." Winter gestures to the huddled survivors in the room, a few of whom dart suspicious or worried glances at the group.
Thim eyed the survivors, curious. "Eenteresting. Is ... would it be alright for me to talk to them about them?" Winter eyed him for a moment before responding, "Yes, if you like. Don't agitate anyone. Everyone's been through enough already."
Cerovyren flexes his hands in self appraisal. There is a fidget to his hands that suggests some maneuver half-remembered, but when he focuses on it the memory disappears just as all else does.
Gavrelu turns his attention to Salar. "Is there anyone else roaming about here who seems to have retained his sanity?"
Cerovyren says, "They said that death would not free us here. That it was only the beginning of the nightmare..."
Among the survivors are several injured humans, mostly Varisian but with one Kellid woman among them. There are a handful of children and teenagers, a twitchy-looking halfling with unfocused eyes, and a young Garundi man with a gentle, worried manner. A plump, kindly-looking woman with a sort of faded beauty is trying to distract the children with shadow puppets on the wall.
"Not too many of the people we see roaming, no," Salar replies. "Most are demented by fear, or worse. They tend to die quickly. We don't see many faces twice."
Gavrelu says "Are there any supplies here that you were cut off from?"
Salar looked uncertain, "I don't know. I don't know what's intact and what's been corrupted. We scavenged what we could from this part of the asylum, but there may be food or medicine elsewhere. If so, we could use it."
Thim wonders, almost lost in thought. "Hm. The faceshifters ... we asked them what happened if they died here and they replied, 'We've already met the tattered one.' Or something like that. Maybe they were speaking of the Tatterman." He shook his head and considered the gathered injured in the room.
Thim spent some time while the others recover taking notes on the dreams and experiences of those patients willing to talk to him. The gnome is able to ascertain that nearly everyone, other than Winter and one of the children (who, like her, was merely visiting the asylum when the trouble struck), have had dreams of wandering through an empty city shrouded in yellow mist, and of seeing strange figures wandering through that fog. Some have glimpsed the Tatterman from afar, but none has had a direct interaction with the figure. All who have seen him speak of him with dread.
The Garundi man, who turns out to be a former guard named Tolman, says that he began working at the asylum about a month ago, and he recognizes the party members as patients who were there when he started. He knows they all came in together, and that all reported the same malady of catatonic amnesia.
The dwarf queried Tolman, "We all came in together? As in, about the same time? Or as a group?"
"I wasn't here when you arrived," Tolman explains apologetically, "but my understanding is that you all came in on the same boat, and that your care was paid for by the Count. All of you, together, on the same bill."
Vaduk relays this to Winter, "Were we the ones you were sent to check on?"
Cerovyren snaps his head up in attention when the guard mentions that they were admitted as a group.
Gavrelu "As far as you know, did we remain catatonic during your time here?" he asks the Garundian.
Winter shrugs. "I don't know. It seems probable, but I can't say for sure. Administrator Losandro would know. There might have been more than one group, so I can't be certain without talking to her or seeing the records."
Thim blinked and added, "The Count? As in Count Lowls IV? Huh. Weird that we were all catatonic together ... "
"Yes, as far as I ever saw," Tolman says. "This is the first time I've seen any of you speak."
Vaduk nods, "What events were you told to see if we remembered?"
Cerovyren says "And is it standard for the Count to personally pay for a patient's stay?"
"If you are the ones I was sent to find," Winter says, "then my orders were to ask what you remembered of the count, what you did in his service, and what preceded your arrivals here."
"Not generally," Tolman tells Cerovyren. "Mostly people only pay for their own families, and I don't believe you're related to the Count."
Vaduk shrugged, "If I did meet him, can't remember."
Cerovyren looks from the orderly to Winter. "Our stay personally paid for by Lowls the IV and you sent to account for patients formerly in the Count's employ. Curious."
"There are a lot of curious things happening right now," Winter replies dryly, "but yes." Winter added, “Do any of the rest of you remember anything?"
Cerovyren rolls his eye at Winter's glib reply. "No. Nothing pertinent to our situation, at any rate."
"I have... seen the Count," Gavrelu murmurs, rubbing his forehead. "At least, I think. At... one of my lectures." Thim peeked around the human’s side before trying to contribute, "Ah. About the count? No. Never much cared for human nobility. No sense of humor. Actually, that's pretty true of dwarven and elven nobility as well ... hm. Anyhow."
Gavrelu says "If we can get out of this place, we should be able to seek an audience with him in Thrushmoor." Winter sighs. "Well, my supervisor won't be thrilled, but I doubt she'll be surprised either. If I ever make it back to report, anyway."
The gnome pipes up, looking thoughtful. "Hey, cheer up. Maybe we'll find something if we search the place. Though, it's a little doubtful, someone was very careful to wipe both Gavrelu and my journals of the events of the preceding years. It's very troubling, actually."
"That is... perplexing, yes. A mystery to investigate if we get out of here alive," Winter responded to the gnome.
The gnome blinks wide eyed at her. "Mhm. True. But this whole nightmare asylum thing? It speaks of sloppy work somewhere. Hmhm.” The gnome ruminates, “I think there's a chance there's clues to this whole situation to be found."
Vaduk queries Winter again, "All the companions you came here with died in the initially attack?"
"Yes. I'm the last of my company," Winter answers gravely.
"Did this cult begin before or after the earthquake?" The dwarf followed up his question with another.
"It was nearly the same time," Winter answers the dwarf. "Perhaps a little after, perhaps a little before. But they didn't have the yellow rags or the devotion until the earthquake had already struck."
Gavrelu says "And those patients all... went somewhere? After the earthquake?" Salar nodded, "Yes. The ones in yellow flocked to Ulver Zandalus, and he took them... elsewhere. We're in no condition to send scouting parties out to look for more trouble."
Cerovyren looks at the others to gauge their responses before he replies. "We can venture out... after recover some, of course."
The gnome piped up, "Er. How many of these cultists in yellow, anyhow?" After some hesitation, Salar responded, "There might be a dozen or more of them. But the facechangers and the ghouls are no kinder to the apostles than they are to us. They've likely lost some of their number to the hazards in the asylum."
Gavrelu says "I take it you've seen none of them since." Salar responded, "No. Well, we saw two of them before -- the thing in the curtain appeared. That used to be a door, where the thing is now. But we can't go through it anymore."
Vaduk asks, “What can you say about that?"
“The thing behind the curtain? That it's best not disturbed," Salar mutters. Winter adds, after a moment: "It's evil. A manifestation of concentrated evil and magic. And it's a riddle, I think. What I mean is that there's... some answer to it, something you might do to dispel it."
Winter continued, "Do you know what a haunt is? An uneasy fragment of a ghost, which can be laid to rest if you find what's binding it here? I believe the thing behind the curtain is... akin to those, but different. It isn't a true haunt, but it has that same -- there's a *knot* to it, I don't know how else to describe it. A knot that binds it to this world, something that anchors its fragment of dream. Answer the riddle, untie the knot, and it'll vanish."
"Do you suppose that's the way out, then?" Gavrelu wondered aloud.
Winter frowns, “Every attempt awakens its evil, and I dare not risk myself, not with so many people depending on me." Winter frowns thoughtfully at Gavrelu. "I know it blocks the way to the main entrance, where I came in. That's the door it covers. It might lead out."
Cerovyren pitches in to asks Winter questions. "How does it manifest itself? As a creature? Disturbing illusions?""It's a... wall, a wall fashioned from nightmares. It weeps. It has an eye."
Gavrelu says "It is awakened by the parting of the curtain?"
"It's awakened when it sees a person. Or at least I think that's what does it," Winter answers cautiously. "I haven't exactly had the opportunity to make a detailed study of it. But the curtain prevents it from seeing anyone, and then it sleeps."
Thim looks dubious, "Hm. Well, that sounds kinda icky. But it's a way out, so we should probably check it out at some point. Preferably when we're healthy. Well, when they're bleeding less."
Vaduk rumbles, "Agreed."
Gavrelu says "Has it caused any harm? Apart from blocking the door."
The gnome turns to Cerovyren and beams. "You just need to rest some, you can get stabbed some more when you're better."
Winter reluctantly admits, "No, but we've been cautious not to get too close to it. I can't say what it would do if you disturbed it now."
Cerovyren responds to Thim's cheerfulness with a silently baleful glare. The gnome blithely ignores it.
Vaduk grunts, "What about the other doors here?"
Gavrelu scratches his chin. "We should rest, then."
Vaduk says, "There's a few other doors behind the barricade."
"You're welcome to rest here if you like," Salar says. "What's between the barricade and the curtain is safe. Poke around if you want, but you won't find much."
Vaduk began a systematic search the remaining rooms. Gavrelu shrugged at him, venturing a guess, "I presume it's only their supplies." The wounded Cerovyren called a dire warning after Vaduk the departing dwarf, "Thieve nothing from them while we're here dwarf! We are their guests!"
Thim cheerfully at the elf before trying to comfort him. "Shh. You need your sleep, Cerovyren." The gnome pats the elf on the leg while asking Winter, "Could we get him onto a cot if you have one open? Almost dying seems to make him cranky." Cerovyren stares down at the gnome's hand where it collides with Cerov's thigh, and then up at the gnome’s back as he scampers off. "How has no one murdered you yet?"
As Vaduk investigated he noted that the two small rooms were once clearly separated, but the brick wall between them has been reduced to rubble, leaving an open passageway between the rooms. The northern room appears to have been used to store cleaning supplies and maintenance equipment, though it’s been ransacked and only odds and ends remain. A small desk, overturned, and two broken chairs have been pushed up against a wall in the other room. The northern door is plainly damaged. It totters on its hinges and seems halfway to collapse already. This does not appear to be earthquake damage, but rather the result of an unsuccessful assault that attempted to bash the door down.
A makeshift nest of cushions and bed linens squeezes in between this room’s rear wall and a battered desk covered in folded paper animals and childish scribbles. Upon the wall, a plaster sculpture of a spiraling comet overlooks the rest of the room.
Two small children and their caretaker, who had been entertaining them by helping them do drawings, look up in mild startlement as Vaduk opens the door. Thim, having gotten bored, peers with interest from behind the dwarf.
This small room seems to have served as a private shrine and a file storage room, with its two halves bisected by a wall of steel bars. The plaster sculpture of a spiraling comet adorns the shrine side, while the side enclosed by bars holds a filing cabinet. A squat door of swinging bars appears to be the entrance to the filing-cabinet side.
Gavrelu grunted, "Satisfied now?" he asks the dwarf. "As satisfied as can be," Vaduk responded.
Uldin moved slowly through the sanctuary. His body was sore and stiff, true, but so was his mind. The warriors of the Night Hunt following knew that sleep was important to keep the mind sharp. They also knew that too much sleep could be nearly as bad as too little. That is how he felt: as though he had overslept and his mind was trying to remember skills that it had lost in the long night. He tended to what wounds and ailments he could, assisting the priest, Winter. Something nagged at the shaman’s mind--he should be able to do more with Pulura’s blessings than he had--but that thought was not helpful, and so he put it away to focus on more immediate tasks.
He recognized the features of a kinsman in the woman as she lay there, cradling her arm. She hailed from the lands ruled by the Mammoth Lords or close to them--maybe the Skaldlands or Baba-Yaga’s kingdom or the place of the Iron Gods. Uldin knelt down as he pulled several supplies from the healer’s kit he had scrounged together and spoke softly in Hallit, “Odoo khyalbar. Bi ene gart khandakh bolno. Bi khudlaa yarikhgüi, ene ni gemtekh bolno.”
The woman’s eyes flutter briefly, barely acknowledging Uldin’s presence. She would soon, though. He felt around the woman’s bruised and bent arm. She winced and murmured in response. He did not like the color of her hand. Uldin tied a board to her shoulder and then tied a bandage around her elbow. Standing, the priest rested his foot on her chest and pulled on her arm with his considerable strength. Those patients nearby could almost hear the snapping of the bone back into line through her scream. Uldin quickly tied off the distal end of her arm to the board and wrapped it in a sling. Reexamining her hand, he nodded in approval.
“I am sorry,” the Kellid healer apologized to the other Kellid. “I am using what I have, and what I have provides little mercy.”
Panting, the woman stared at Uldin for several long moments. “Pain is fleeting,” she said. “If it saves my arm, you have my thanks. I am Airwynn.”
“Uldin of the Night Hunt,” he replied with a grim smile.
Airwynn continues to stare at him. “You are a great deal more--how should I say--lively than the last time I saw you or those you arrived with.”
“So I have heard,” he said as he turned to see a boy rocking himself in a the corner not far away. His arms and ankles were covered in bite marks and more than a few of them looked significantly infected. “Do you know any more about us?”
“No, not really,” she said as her guarded stare slowly shifted to one of wary curiosity. Uldin moved toward the bite-riddled boy, who tried to shrink even deeper into the corner. “It’s alright, Bates,” Airwynn said in a gentle voice, “He’s big, but he’s friendly. He’s here to help. My arm already feels better.” Directing her attention back to Uldin, she said, “Bates was attacked by the madmen who followed Zandalus. He hasn’t said a word since.”
Uldin took his time getting closer to the boy and letting the boy get used to him touching him. He started cleaning the least injured looking foot and slowly, very slowly, made his way to the more serious wounds. Treating the boy like he would a wild animal in the mountains, he was able to keep him calm and finish what needed to be done. Airwynn did what she could to keep the boy calm as well, dragging herself over and cradling his head on her lap. He would have liked to debrided some of the wounds more thoroughly, but it would have to do for now.
What alertness pain had awoken in Airwynn had fled, and her body rested now. Her head fallen onto her chest and snoring with every inhalation. The healer held up one finger to his lips, signaling the boy to let the woman sleep. Uldin wanted to sleep, too, but there was still more that he could do for the injured.
Vaduk returns to the shrine, his investigation of their corner of the compound complete. For some time, the dwarf sits in silence, observing and brooding.
Something had gone wrong — much more wrong than he could remember fearing. A dark artifact? Some sort of trap? Wrack his brain though he might, he can't remember anything since a year or two after he arrived in Karcau.
But this count had something to do with it. Seems like all of them had been working together for the count. Or possibly against him — the scraps of information he had were far too unstable a foundation to build any trust on. For good or ill, though, this count was some of the reason why he's here. And Vaduk intends to get answers.
And those answers, it seems, lay deeper in this nightmarish asylum. Something had caused it to go haywire — and not long after that, whatever affliction had affected the five of them had lifted. Coincidence? Vaduk is skeptical. All of those answers may be connected.
As he ponders, he notices several of the refugees huddled around a tiny fire. Not 10 feet away is a pile of wooden pews pushed against the wall.
"Hey," the dwarf calls. "Hey, you lot."
A few look toward him — a plump woman, a twitchy man, a terrified child. The child begins to cry.
"What is it?" the woman asks. "You're scaring Brenton."
"S'ry," Vaduk grunts, half-inaudible. "There a reason your fire's so small?"
The woman glances toward the pile of furniture. "It's all the wood we've got in a fit state to burn," she replies. "No one has had time to chop up more firewood."
The dwarf sighs, and pushes himself to his feet. He grabs his looted battleaxe and strides toward the pile of furniture. With a single swing he hews a leg off one of the pews, sending it teetering. A few more chops of the weapon leave its right side as so much kindling. Vaduk gathers it and carries it over to the fire. The flames begin to greedily eat away at the fresh fuel as the dwarf lays the wood in.
"Better?" he asks. Naysa nods, so Vaduk returns to the pews and resumes his chopping.
The gnome was peeling potatoes for the stew he was cooking over a small fire. He lifted one up and examined it critically. The ragged assembly of survivors had possibly not been thinking straight when they'd agreed to let him cook, Gnomes sometimes had strange ideas about the culinary arts.
Idly, as he peeled, he watched the human Loic talk to himself in the corner, scratches ran along the length of his arms. One of the other survivors had told him that Loic was off the tinctures that he needed to keep himself healthy, he thought his sister wanted him to join her in the afterlife, urging him on from the other side.
Thim was troubled by that, but also cheered by the opportunity to do something. Sometimes people just needed a nudge to get back on track, both the camp and Loic just needed something to bring them out of their doldrums. The gnome murmured a few incantations and finished slicing the now chocolate flavored potato into the pot. Thim's face split momentarily into a huge grin as he reached for another potato. He liked people and liked helping them, though they didn't always appreciate it.
Later, the gnome walked about the small gathering of refugees handing out bowls of vegetable stew flavored to taste of chocolate and fruit. For as bizarre as it was, the food was a relatively successful experiment. Thim was pleased, he'd also been thinking of trying the flavors of chocolate and a Vudrani hot sauce he'd once had, but sometimes humans didn't appreciate variety the way gnomish folk did. It was unfortunate.
Loic got the last bowl, as Thim had quietly flavored the tincture the man needed to taste like chocolate as well and added it into the stew. Thim sat down next to him, humming an off-kilter song softly and rocking his head back. Loic yawned softly, murmuring something to his sister. "Here you go, Loic." The gnome beamed personably at him. "It's delicious." And it was, the gnome figured, though he still wanted to try flavoring it with some hot sauce.
Uldin chased what little sleep he could, lying on the floor of the strange chapel and surrounded by strangers, all trapped inside an even stranger prison of yellow mist. He ate with the other survivors, though none had much to say. After a sparse but strangely flavorful meal, he felt some of his strength returning, though his body protested where the claw wounds had not yet healed. He looked over his companions as they prepared to search for the way out once more.
"Winter, can you spare any healing for the elf before we head back to the hunt?", he asked the priest.
"Yes, I suppose it's the least I can do," Winter accedes after a moment's consideration. The priest moved to Cerovyren’s side and prayed, healing his body so that the flesh looked nearly unblemished, save for the ruined eye. Uldin thanked the priest while the elf merely nodded his appreciation.
While they finished their meals or tended to their equipment, Uldin tended to Gavrelu’s wounds, which still looked significant. He stitched what he could stitch and applied poultices to reduce the inflammation, but the man still looked like he had been trampled by a mastadon. Winter moved over to tend to the man. “I'll do what I can, but this is the last of the spells I can spare outside an emergency."
"Thank you, again. I hope that we will fare better this hunt,” Uldin replied.
Uldin considered his own wounds, and then called on Pulura’s power to heal. He had hoped to save it for the inevitable battle that they would find themselves in, but it would be a short battle if they encountered those iron-clawed facechangers in their current condition.
Vaduk stood, saying, “Right. Let's do this exploration a little more orderly this time. We move forward quietly. Assume danger everywhere. Don't rush in. Everyone in agreement?"
The gnome eyed the dwarf and the rest of the party for a moment before blinking, "Wait. What are we talking about?"
"Mhm. I'm fully in favor of exploring, yes. This place is pretty awesome. Horrible face doorways that are creepy, face shifting people, living nightmares ... who could resist that?" The gnome nudged Cerovyren and beamed at the dour elf. "It's an adventure! Haha."
Cerovyren pulled away slightly when Thim nudged him. He then straightened his tattered, blood splattered attire. The elf shrugged in response to Vaduk's strategy. "That is as good an approach as any. You first, of course."
The gnome became more serious. "Still, you should try not to get murdered so easily next fight. It would be irresponsible. We're all these people have."
"When we get into another fight, what's our order of attack?" the dwarf asked.
"If we have forwarning, I can strengthen my club, but either way, I should probably engage any threat directly," Uldin replied, hefting his shield and club.
"Is that better than letting them come to us while we shoot them full of arrows?" Vaduk posited.
"That depends on how many arrows we have and how good a shot you are" he considered.
"We're malnourished amnesiacs. None of us are very good at anything," the dwarf countered.
"Mhm. We can do both?” Thim asked, “Uldin can make his club all spiffly. And then you can shoot them while they run at us. Then he can club them."
"Weeeeeeeelll ... I'm pretty great at helping people." The gnome swayed his head somewhat, thinking as he padded quietly down the hallway after the rest of the group. "Also, cooking apparently."
The elf was clearly making an effort to steer clear of the gnome's overly familiar hands. "I am dubious as to the truth of both of those claims,” Cerovyren said.
"S'probably just because you don't know me very well." Thim confided in the elf, nodding reassuringly. "No worries, I'll do my best to keep you alive."
"We should probably use our eyes more than our mouths,” Uldin cautioned the chattering gnome.
Thim nodded at Uldin, "Also, I am the *best* at spotting things."
Gavrelu looked to the dwarf as he returned. "What did you find? More whispers?"
"Door's wedged shut," Vaduk reported quietly. "Can clear away the rubble, but it'll take time and make noise. Sounds like something's behind it, but hard to tell in this place."
Uldin steeled himself and stated, “Nothing to do about that. Our only way is forward."
Gavrelu says "I agree. We need to clear the way."
The gnome, who had snuck past them to listen at the door, crept back to the group, looking mildly puzzled. "He's right, I think there's something on the other side. Mhm. Might have been scratching, moving about. I'm inclined to think it's not friendly, though."
"Well, nothing for it. Let's start clearing," the dwarf concedes.
"Best to expect anything in front of us wants to kill us,” Uldin stated the obvious.
Vaduk said, "Good, you learn."
The door rattles and shakes noisily as the party moves away the rubble blocking its entryway. Once they can get it loose, they see the crushed corpse of a half-orc mostly buried in the rocks just beyond the doorway, with the rest of the room stretching into shadow to the south. The half-orc's cloudy-eyed head lifts up as the door comes down, and it hisses at them through obviously dead lips.
Vaduk opens the door, axe ready.
"Oo. I think he might be undead. That's really fascinating,” the gnome observed. "We should probably shoot him now. Just saying."
Uldin called upon Pulura’s illumination and the hall was bathed in light. To the south, manacled figures cry out weakly as the light blossoms into existence. These figures include: one gaunt woman wearing yellow-stained rags; an obviously dead corpse that is half devoured in its chains; and, to the side of the corpse, an apparent ghoul that twists and writhes hungrily as it tries to get at more of the corpse it's clearly been eating.
Vaduk instead whips out his crossbow and fires a quarrel at the head as Uldin moves into the room, trying to avoid the broken remains of the undead. As passed, one of the dismembered hands scuttles toward him, straining to claw at him. Under the rubble, something heaves and moves.
"Hmph!" Vaduk complained as his bolt soars inches over the trapped head. He loads another quarrel and fires again. He hits the head with a second shot. It snarls and rips itself free from the rotting stub of its spine, heaving its way toward him with ungainly leaps across the rubble. The dwarf drops the crossbow on the rubble and pulls his axe out.
The hands also tear themselves loose from their rotting sinews and scramble at Vaduk. Underneath the stone that pins down the remainder of their corpse, sudden tentacles of rotting viscera lunge up, grabbing at anything nearby.
Thim strains to get a clean shot with his crossbow, sighing after a bit. "Can't get a clean shot ... " He settles for using a free hand to send a corruscating dart of force at the hand.
The head laboriously bounces and strains to reach Vaduk as well.
Uldin strikes at the hand before it can get within reach and backs away.
Cerovyren stands with his hands folded across his chest, irritation written plainly on his face as he waits for the others to clear the doorway.
The battle was quick, but the dismembered claws and head together injured Vaduk. When the last piece of reanimated flesh is stilled, the rubble suddenly stops heaving. The ropes of emerging viscera vanish in puffs of moldering yellow spores, and the hands and head collapse into bones covered with rags of yellow-dusted skin. All of it looks like something that died decades ago, not mere days. Uldin goes to the wounded dwarf and prays over his body, restoring his flesh.
"Praise, praise, praise," a whispery voice cries from the south. The yellow-ragged figure in the chamber to the south rattles frantically in her chains. "Praise! Praise! Zandalus sees!"
"Shut up," the ghoul hisses at the ragged figure. "Shut up, shut up. I'll eat you next. You'll be quiet then. Shut up!"
Gavrelu says "You both speak, but only one of you makes sense."
The snarling ghoul squints angrily at the light and tries to attack, but remains restrained by its manacles. The ragged figure whispers and occasionally screams: "Praise! Praise! Zandalus sees!"
"She's mad," the ghoul spits at Gavrelu. "Useless, broken, mad. Let me eat her. That's all she'll ever be good for."
"What are you good for?" Gavrelu asks, largely rhetorically.
"What?" The ghoul blinks in confusion at the question, then snarls. "I'm fine. I'm just hungry. You'd be hungry too, chained up like this. Can't fault a fellow for trying to survive."
Gavrelu approaches the woman and tries to fish the sack off of her head with the tip of his longspear. He eventually pushes it off to reveal a disheveled, haggard-looking woman with stark madness in her eyes and yellow dust in her stringy, otherwise colorless hair. She might be anywhere from her late twenties to her early forties. Her skin is bad, with an unhealthy cast that suggests she wasn't in the best of health before whatever misfortunes befell her more recently. Her only reaction to having the bag removed is to blink, shake her head groggily, and then cry again: "Praise!"
Cerovyren raises the collar of his coat over his face and nose to avoid inhaling any of the yellow dust. He regards the talking ghoul and the raving woman with a deeply disgusted look.
Uldin says "They are both beyond my power to redeem. We should leave them and continue."
"Leave them both?" the dwarf askes.
"You can't leave me," the ghoul gasps, outraged. "I need help! I'm a very sick man!"
Thim considers both of the figures before him for a moment. "Ah. I think you're dead. So effectively, yes, very sick."
"Who chained you up?" Vaduk asks to neither prisoner in particular.
"I'll tell you if you let me out," the ghoul wheedles, kicking uselessly in his manacles.
"You'll tell us now or not at all,” the dwarf negotiated.
"Fine, then." The ghoul sniffs, not very convincingly. "You'll be sorry. Sorry, I say. You can't frighten me," the ghoul snaps, kicking at Vaduk and then adding, in tones of enormous self-pity, "I might as well already be dead, chained up like this."
Cerovyren chuckles darkly under his breath. "Yes, might as well..."
"I do not see how he would know more than the survivors,” Uldin argues.
"Woe, woe -- wait, I *am* a survivor, what are you saying? You have to rescue me, it's the... the only right thing to do." The ghoul points an accusing finger at Vaduk, his wrist rattling the manacle. "He's threatening me! Here I took you lot for heroes, and he's threatening poor chained helpless me. Awful. Just awful. You'll end up right here, chained, and I'll have no choice but to eat you, and you'll deserve it."
"You did not survive, I am sorry to inform you,” Uldin tells the ghoul.
"I'm alive. I'm here talking to you, aren't I? Unless this is a dream. This might be a dream." The ghoul gnaws its lip, unconsciously chewing it right off and leaving its bottom teeth permanently exposed behind a tattered fringe of flesh.
Cerovyren says "Charming conversation. Well, dispatch them or ignore them, either way let us continue onward."
Uldin moves on and listens at the door in the south wall. On the other side, he hears the sound of dripping water. "Something different, here. I do not hear the whispers. Only dripping water," he informs the others.
"I think we're circling back around toward the shrine... hopefully there's a stairway before we dead-end,” Vaduk worries.
Gavrelu leaves the prisoners with disdain.
"Praise, praise," the woman babbles at Thim as the gnome leaves to listen at the door himself. "Uh. Water dripping? Chains ... and, this is just a guess mind you. But like ... a sort of, mhm. Not a good word for it, gibbering, I guess. But like someone's hurt."
Uldin steps forward and opens the door. Several wide tables and gargantuan wash basins fill a laundry equipped to service hundreds. The place looks like it was repurposed as a failed surgery, though, with one table heaped with human remains while corpses lie discarded in corners. A stained sheet hangs between two of the basins, dividing the room roughly in half. A lantern shines near the southern end, illumining a semi-conscious woman's body apparently chained to the farthest table.
Uldin reaches out and touches the woman's arm. "Easy. Easy. We are here to help."
Vaduk says in warning, “Uldin... caution..."
The woman groans groggily as Uldin approaches. She emits another piteous groan and twitches slightly in her bonds. He noticed something odd: her wounds were made-up, painted bruises and superficial abrasions.
"Let me get my tools so that I can help this poor woman,” Uldin said, trying to buy time to retreat to his allies and inform them. He whispers "Go back."
Gavrelu heeds the Kellid's warning.
"The injuries are false. Mocked,” the shaman tries to explain what he saw to the others. After a brief discussion, they decide to try to coax information out of the woman.
Uldin moves forward to carefully release the woman from her bindings. "Can you hear me?"
"Uh?" the woman mumbles, rolling around semi-consciously as Uldin unties and unchains her.
"What is your name?"
"Iza... Iza Weeds," the woman mumbles feebly, her eyes fluttering open for the briefest of instants.
"Which faction chained you here? The tatterman's or the ghouls'?"
"I... I don't know. Faceless monsters dragged me from my bed. I was a patient here, before all this."
Uldin backs away from the woman, waving Gavrelu back as well. "Why are your injuries painted?"
"I don't know what you mean. I don't know anything about that," the woman whimpers, lying.
Clear that the woman is lying and aware that she has been caught in her lie, Uldin steps behind the reach of Gavrelu’s spear and shouts to the others, “Take her down!"
"Facechanger!" Vaduk accuses as he fires his crossbow. Thim follows suit.
The woman drops her facade with a snarl, coming off the table with a lunge. "You little idiots," the doctor snarls. "You couldn't have trotted along and made this all easy?"
Uldin says "Try to take her alive. But do not take too many risks."
The doppelganger charges Uldin, ignoring the deep wound that Gavrelu manages to score. The shaman raises his shield too slow, and the creature practically climbs over it to rend his chest with its claws and bite deeply into his neck. He sees the dwarf approaching with his axe and Gavrelu moving for a better position as his vision fades to darkness.
When he wakes, he finds himself in the chapel again.
"If you're certain," Winter replies, uncertainty creasing her brow. She leads the way toward the dingy curtain that blocks off the end of the hall heading back toward the asylum's main entrance. "I'd warn you that it isn't safe, but that's a silly thing to say here. What is?"
About five feet away from the curtain, she stops, waving whoever wishes to proceed to go ahead. The sound of faint, choking sobs can be heard from the hall beyond. Winter grimaces. "If you can help it, try not to make too much noise, and... put the curtain back if there's anything left. The children can't stand the sight of that thing, and they've been through enough."
Beyond the curtain is a stone wall largely covered, and disfigured, by an immense growth of yellow fungus. Its stringy tendrils crawl over the blocks, thickening in the center to a pulsating mass of spongy flesh. An enormous pink-rimmed eye, easily the size of a wagon wheel, blinks and weeps at the heart of the main mass. The sound of sobbing seems to emanate from the fungus's depths, though it has no apparent mouth or vocal apparatus.
-- some time later --
With the death of the final oneirogen, and the Tatterman's defeat soon after, the choking yellow fog that had buried Briarstone Asylum begins to lift. At first the sky is a murky, tainted gray, its blue vault still suffused with the last gasps of fog. Then there seems to be almost a twisting in the world, as if two misaligned lenses had been snapped back into focus and the image in a battered old telescope were once again allowed to come clear.
The sky is blue. The sun shines. Somewhere, a cicada thrums and is answered by another. The creased brightness of Lake Encarthan is almost dazzling to look upon, and seems vast and free as the open sea after so long trapped in the asylum's crumbling walls.
In the courtyard, a ghoul seizes up and collapses into decrepit, yellow-stained bones as the sun touches it. The ragged, yellow-painted cultists it had been pursuing freeze as well, then drop to their knees, one wailing inconsolably, the other evidently catatonic. Whatever drove the asylum's supernatural miseries, it seems to have vanished with the mist. The ghoul's bones remain in the yard, however, a grisly and undeniable proof that what happened here was no dream.
Only a single rowboat lies on Briarstone Isle's muddy shore. Tattered ropes, trailing off the isle's lone pier, suggest that the others might have been hacked loose and perhaps even deliberately sabotaged to keep anyone from escaping. The sole remaining boat, having been washed onto thick mud, appears to be undamaged. However, it looks capable of carrying eight to ten passengers at most, and might be precarious with that heavy a load.
"We'll have to split up and go in groups," Winter Klazcka says, emerging from the asylum. The black-haired woman looks exhausted, but also elated to see the world restored. She gazes at the river's flow and the open bay in wonder, rubbing unconsciously at a blood smear on her wrist. "You're welcome to go first if you like. Tell Thrushmoor what to expect. I'll need some time to gather up the survivors, and to find whoever's left of the cultists. They seem to have come back to their old selves, so they should be harmless, but at least some of them are likely to wander around in confusion until someone comes to get them. It might keep me busy for a while.
"Once all that's taken care of, though, I'd like to go with you back to Thrushmoor. I'll want to make a full report to my superiors, and they may be interested in hearing your accounts as well. You saw much more of it than I did, after all.
"I'd be glad to meet you in town later, or you can stay and help me here until we're all ready to go."