"Any sign out the window? Blood maybe?" Tenebrynn pokes around the broken window, looking for signs of passage.
The glass -- from the window in the door -- is mostly inside the room. You suspect it was broken by whatever caused the human-shaped carnage.
Tenebrynn shrugs. "Not sure where to look now. Maybe down deep hole we found? Haven't looked there. Need rope though. Lots."
You move back north, past the caved-in intersection, stopping at a door in the long hallway.
Inside, chipped white paint peels from the battered frames of a row of identical beds. Dingy white curtains separate each bed, but offer only the illusion of privacy.
As you enter, you hear screams from a bed in the far north of the long room: “No! Not again!” It's followed up a moment later with the man's voice calling out “Keep away!”
Tristain looks around and thinks things.
Know (Local)
Perception
Perception
Know (Local)
He doesn't find anything but is happy to explain the things that others have found.
"...so yeah, both those things are pretty interesting. I think. It's neat that whatever entity created this demi-plane thought there was an outside world beyond this one to leave trinkets and reminders of things that probably don't exist."
Tristain follows the party, longspear in hand.
Tristain pauses near the long room.
"Did you guys hear that? Seems like there might be more conscious actors within this plane as well. Should we investigate?" Tristain points his spear toward the room and nearly jabs Kyffin in the elbow.
"Ain't no one telling me to keep away when there's a lost boy to find." Albert boldly marches forward and uses his bardiche to sweep aside the dingy curtain.
Kyffin helps to carry the items the party is finding, but the voice chills him to his very core.
Scimitar out, he follows close behind Albert, intent on stopping whatever some crazed doctor may be doing.
As Albert approaches, more screams come from behind the curtain: “I don’t want anything from you!” and “Get away from me, bastard!” in an increasingly panicked voice.
Pulling back the curtain, you discover a man who's tied to the bed at each arm, leg and waist. As you do so, he shrieks, convulses and then lays still, no longer breathing!
You notice a wisp of yellow vapor escape along with his final breath.
Perception
Tristain keeps his distance, wanting no trouble. He does lower his longspear and, in doing so, narrowly misses BK's ear.
Kyffin charges forth, eager to attack whatever menace is doing this thing. When he sees the man lying there, dead or dying, he immediately casts Stabilize.
Seeing no one, he then rushes to his side to see what he can do to help.
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He is no more. He has ceased to be. He is bereft of life. He is, you could say, an ex-man.
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"Dead men do not traditionally expire with such dramatic intent. What is this place, what holds it in such thrall, that even the dead must give speeches before dying?!?"
"Hmm, just another crazy I suppose, sad that we didn't get here a day earlier, maybe we could have saved him. Let's keep that in mind as we look for the boy, we wasted enough days already and his life might depend on us finding him now and not tomorrow." When Kyffin is done with the dead man, Albert is ready to press forward.
Kyffin nods, "I'm done. I cannot help the dead." he grunts, somewhat frustrated.
He's ready to move on further down the hallway, unless this is the end? If so, he'll start looking for a large table the group can shove under the wall of blood to try and bypass it - or at least get a sense of further depth.
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If it seems safe, Tristain will answer the room and cast Detect Magic. He will look around assuming the body is still tied to the bed.
Perception
"I wonder if it is dead because of something that happened to it or because the conscious mind that created this plane simply choose to stop believing in him...so the animus behind that body was no more," Tristain wonders aloud.
As Tristain looks around, he doesn't notice any magical auras, though he does see a straightjacket and a hoodwink cowl sitting in the corner of the room.
Before he can even point them out, though, the dead man suddenly convulses again. The flesh seems to melt away as he begins to thrash and you realize that where once was a man, now there is only a ghoul.
He snaps at Kyffin, standing nearby, but remains trapped by the restraints.
Weapon Equipped = None
Silver Blanch, Cold Iron Bolts = 6/10
Conditions = None
Melee: Attack: BAB +1, Str +3 Damage: Str +3
Ranged: Attack: BAB +1, Dex +1 Damage: +0 (Str +3 thrown)
Blessings (4/4) (DC 13) (Holy Strike or Powerful Healer)
Fervor (3/3) (1d6)
Spells (Caster Level 2, Concentration +4)
Once Per Day (12): Prestidigitation
Zero (12): Create Water, Detect Magic, Light, Stabilize
First (13): Divine Favor, Divine Favor, Shield of Faith
Kyffin, as the creature is pinned, performs a coupe de grace, hoping that will end it.
(+2 is fire)
"What the hell! This place is unnatural. Unnatural!"
Know (Religion)
"It's another ghoul! When people die here...do they all become ghouls?!" Tristain asks.
He also jabs at the pinned ghoul, trying to help...
to hit;
damage.
...off balance, he nearly impales Kyffin's foot with his longspear, missing the toes by inches.
Tristain's help is more dangerous than Kyffin's blade, which quickly dispatches the newly undead.
Tenebrynn shakes her head. "Did you see that yellow mist leaving him? What if the big man who was with us first turned into one of these after we left?"
"So we should burn the dead from here on out?"
"Boy I don't like that idea at all. I know pyro here could pull it off." he gestures to Tristain, "But I'd be concerned the fire might get out of hand. Yet undead..." he shudders unhappily.
"What if we cut off their heads? Would that do the trick? I didn't see the yellow mist, but maybe that did it. We just have to watch for mist maybe, though it seems hard to see."
He shrugs, not happy with the array of options.
"Yes, we should cut off their heads," Tristain looks at his longspear, then Kyffin's blade and wonders who should be doing the cutting.
"Well, he don't need it now, that's for sure." With a heavy chop Al brings his bardiche down on the neck of the twice dead ghoul. "Now, let's keep looking for that boy."
"What about all the not-doctors? Did they come back like that too? Very troubling thought. 'Not-dead not-doctors?' Very bad." She shakes her head, trying to banish the idea, then seems surprised to find herself standing by the straightjacket and cowl, the latter in her hands. "Did we wear things like this before we woke up in the cells and starting-corner? Hmmmm."
Moving cautiously forward, you arrive in the dayroom, where worn old chairs and small tables set with the scattered pieces of simple games lay scattered. A serving hatch in the north wall opens into a darkened space beyond. Vast glass windows dominate the eastern walls, beyond which a jaundiced kaleidoscope swirls hypnotically. A coppery smell permeates the room, and to the west stands a wall of red.
Sitting in a wheelchair before the bay windows is the body of a rotund old woman in a faded housecoat. A gaping wound covers her chest, gore pooling beneath her. From beneath her chair runs a stream of red liquid, which pools in the area you earlier tried to enter.
Tristain clutches his longspear in one hand, causing the tip to land on shoulder as he prepares to draw and use the wand of bless.
"Let's go down and check out those rooms on our right as we walk south down this passage," Tristain says, thinking that this is a good idea.
"Just remember that the further we move from the Starting Corner, the less stable this reality will be, so we should expect the worst within."
Kyffin warily peers into the serving hatch. "I wonder where this goes?"
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Heinrich gawks at the woman's body. "Did this JUST happen? How is it that she's so fresh?!?"
Tenebrynn shrugs at Heinrich's question. "Unsure. But then we also found that woman earlier with the yellow fog spilling out of her. Seems similar in some ways." She turns then to Kyffin, drawing his attention from the hatch back to the ever-flowing woman, "Could some of your magic help?"
Tristain looks at the blood wall from a distance (15' or so) and the woman as well, trusting none of it.
Know (Religion)
"See? This is how we know things are bad. We're too far from the starting corner and things like this exist."
Tristain, you think like the scary eye, it is probably something similar to a haunt (and considering the body in this case, may actually be a real haunt). If you're right, positive energy should ameliorate it, at least for a little while.
Though the window, Kyffin sees a low desk. Behind it is an empty doorframe that opens into a ransacked storage room, its floor covered in broken glass and opalescent stains. Three yellow-clad humans, two men and one woman, are in the room. Two sit on the floor, while one of the men paces anxiously back and forth. They don't seem to have noticed you yet.
Kyffin turns to the group and puts his finger to his lips in a whisper, "Quiet, there are more people in here."
He points to the hatch. He then looks for the passage that will lead into that room, assuming the serving hatch is too small to easily slip through.
"People? Can you be more specific? Are they not-doctors? Missing people? Yellow-robes? Does one of them look small enough to be Debis? 'People' can mean a lot here." Tenebrynn then slips over beside Kyffin, all thought of the spilled-guts woman seemingly evaporated as she looks through the window. "Oh. More yellow-robes. That's not good."
She then glances at the serving hatch, "Hey! I could fit through here easy!" She hisses her observation, taking the half-orc's warning of quiet to heart, before slipping inside.
Tristain whispers what he thinks he knows about the haunt/not-haunt, but adds "...but really, anything could be true this far from the Starting Corner. She could be anything."
Tristain waits to see what happens with Tenebrynn but draws the wand of bless, hoping he doesn't have to use it.
HP: 21/21
Nonlethal:
AC: 15 (13 T / 12 FF)
Fort: +6 // Ref: +6 // Will: +1 (+2 vs illusion)
Burn Accrued: 0/6
SLAs: dancing lights [ ], ghost sound [ ], prestidigitation [ ], speak with animals [ ]
Ongoing Effects:
Warden of Nature: +1 to hit/+2 dodge bonus vs aberrations, oozes, vermin
Foe of the Strange: +1 to saves vs aberrations, -10 to confusion results
Point Blank Shot: +1/+1
None of the yellow-clad folks seem to notice as Tenebrynn slips through the window.
Kyffin, worried the little gnome is going to get into more trouble than she can handle, quickly sheathes his blade and squeezes through behind her.
Albert prepares to leap through the window at the first sign of trouble. The hatch seems too difficult for his long weapon.
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Tristain holds his spear and wand, waiting to see what happens. He doesn't trust people, let alone people this far from the Cell with the Starting Corner.
Those people could be anything. I wonder if they are flumphs. They are probably flumphs.
Tenebrynn looks back through the window at her companions and mimes the a-ok sign before slipping to the left of the open door and spying what she might.
Distracted by the three potential enemies, Tenebrynn realizes there's a door to her left as she watches Kyffin squeeze through the window, realizing there's no more room for anyone else until they move on.
Unfortunately, that problem seems to be solved as two of the yellow-clad figures' heads whip around when Kyffin's blade clatters against the window frame.
"Hey!" one yells. "Who are you? Where did you come from?"
They clamber to their feet, raising makeshift weapons in case they need to defend themselves.
Tenebrynn slaps Kyffin lightly, "You're noisy!" She then turns back to the trio and answers their questions quite plainly before offering one in return. "Tenebrynn. That room there, through the window. What about you?" The gnome slips into a guarded stance, and to her companions' eyes seems quite ready to leap into another one of her spinning kicks to blast at least one of the yellowrobes from his or her feet.
"Tenebrynn! Ask if they are real or just mental projections of the mind that created this plane!" Tristain whispers forward, trying to gain more information. "If they say they are real, ask them about the outside and what exists beyond"
Tristain bonks his head, wondering what else to relate to Tenebrynn to ask about.
"Also, ask if they know the entity who has created this Demi-space. That would be keen, thanks."
Tristain bonks his head while waiting for Tene to ask.
*bonk*
*bonk*
*bonk*
Kyffin straightens up, apologizing under his breath. "Sorry, yes, I'm Kyffin, apparently. We came in through there where there's a horrible woman in quite a state."
"How are you lot? How are you doing? We're with a group of survivors from another wing, trying to find a small boy who has wandered off. Have you seen him?"
Kyffin tries to ask calmly, but his hand rests on his scimitar and he's edging on the balls of his feet. He expects the worst.
He ignores the strange questions from Tristain. At least for now...
They exchange wild glances, one of them seeming to twitch, more than Tristain even.
"She talks!" one of the others says, "so noisy, like glass on the skin!"
"It's the hair," the second whispers back.
The more lucid one narrows his eyes at the gnome. "We have been here for so long. The dead keep us here!"