Ven will nods his thanks to Nasya. "You are right of course. You worked here then? Or were you a patient? What started the uprising? What's going on outside?"
Ven will attempt to befriend the child. "Its all yours kid - I just wanted to look at it. Can you show me how it works?" He offers the kid some food.
Ven will try to get to know DeNae better. "You must be scared of something to be armed like that. What's going on around here?"
When he has a spare moment Ven will approach Captain York. "Sir, you and your men have done admirable job of securing this area and protecting the innocents. But, we need to get these people out of here. Can we get to an exit?"
"I'll try and keep an eye out for something when we head back out. A real log splitter of some sort, yeah? " Aenian smiles.
"So, you apparently weren't a woodsman "before", how did you end up here?"
"What ward was that? Regardless, that means you're familiar with the Asylum? Can you help us sketch out a map?"
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Nasya shakes her head, "I can't really tell you. No one here knows, just that things went crazy here a couple days ago. The tremors collapsed walls, blocking off parts of the asylum. I think most of the upper floor is gone. When the uprising broke, most of us tried to escape, but that... yellow mist surrounds everything. I saw a man pulled in by... something." She shudders at the memory. "Winter led us, a gaggle of survivors, here to the chapel. The madness that reins through the rest of the asylum didn't seem to reach here. Maybe the gods are protecting us."
"I could sketch out the general layout of the asylum, major wards and such, but there's been so much destruction. It may not be very useful."
***
The boy shakes his head, running to his guardian, but appears somewhat less hostile. The woman gives you a shrug and half-smile of apology.
***
Denman nods his agreement, "Anything would be better."
"Ehh, I worked in the kitchens," he explains with a shrug. "Mixing, cutting, ya know... prep stuff."
***
DeNae shakes her head. "Not really. After we holed up here in the chapel, Vaustin needed people to help guard the entrance, so I volunteered. I can point and shoot a crossbow, but... who can't?"
"Nobody knows what happened. Went to bed one night, everything's fine. Woke up to a nightmare -- people are suddenly ghouls, doppelgangers, everyone's lost it -- and then the tremors, yellow fog." She sighs loudly. "I came to Briarstone to get my mind straight. But this place is nuts."
***
Vaustin York nods in thanks as he chews on his meal. "We have no exit right now. Besides those damn doppelgangers, I think the way north is blocked by collapse. The way east, that weeping wall thing. We could climb out the windows, sure, but that mist... it's everywhere."
"As things are right now, we've got maybe a week's worth of food supplies. We need to find a way out of Briarstone soon, but as of now we have no prospects, and several here aren't too mobile. I'm doing all I can to hold down the fort, as it were. Once you clear the threats to the north, maybe we can start scouting a bit further out."
"So you worked here? Live in the local area? Have family?"
"Briar stone is the name of this hospital we are in or rather an asylum, primarily? What town are we in? Or even what country for that matter?"
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Ven nods at Nasya, "Yes, any sort of map that you could provide would be helpful - thank you."
Ven looks Vaustin in the eye "Captain, we'll clear the threats to the north, but we could use some help. Could you spare one of your guards to accompany us?"
DeNae shakes her head. "No, I admitted myself a few weeks ago. Nervous breakdown. Needed to get my head straight." She shrugs and adds, "I'm feeling much better now."
"I have no family here. My son moved to Caliphas years ago."
***
"Briarstone is a hospital on an island in the middle of the Danver River, not far from the town of Thrushmoor in Ustalav. It's a convenient place to forget inconvenient people."
Nasya grabs a scrap of cloth and makes some rough marks with a wax pencil. It lays out the main floor of the asylum, with areas depicted as internal courtyards. "I cannot say what still stands and what has collapsed, but this is what I remember."
Ven will thank Nasya for the map and will then find a place to sleep for the evening.
Vaustin pulls you aside to a corner and speaks quietly. "Eh, most of my guards here are barely trained. I've got a few orderlies, but they're used to subduing restless patients, not killing things. Anyone can shoot a crossbow, but up in a close fight, I'm not sure how any of them might react."
After a moment's pause, he nods to himself then adds, "I'll go with you. As long as we aren't gone too long, or wander too far. I can have Tolman keep things ordered here while I'm away."
Ven nods and smiles at Vaustin. "You're a good man Captain. I'm sure that together we can get to the bottom of this. Let's plan to set off tomorrow at dawn."
Vaustin flashes a grin, "Well, might be tough to tell when dawn is with all this fog and rain, but get some rest and we'll head out when you're ready to go."
"Talk to us again aftwr we wake, Captain. I need a real sleep this time. Pray for no nightmares, eh? Don't suppose the priestess can give us a heal?"
Aenian makes an awkward sign of Pharasma.
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Ven looks at the bite marks on his arm. "Yes, we could definitely use some healing before we head back out."
He will ask Winter to assist.
As the survivors wind down after dinner and prepare for sleep, you find Winter attending a woman of Kellid descent with a broken leg and arm. She groans in pain as Winter checks the splints, slowly turning bandages to relieve hot spots.
Winter looks up when you approach, and you can clearly see the exhaustion in her eyes. "Vaustin says you will be going out again tomorrow.
She checks over your wounds. For Aenian, she applies some unguent and a dressing. [b]"Leave this. I will check on you while you sleep, but when you wake, it should be mostly healed."
For Ven's nasty bite wounds, she frowns upon seeing the many needle-tooth marks. "I haven't much power left for magical healing, but I'll do what I can." She holds one hand over the wound, with the other grasping her symbol of Pharasma. She exhales slowly, focusing her energy, and whispers a prayer to her goddess. Her lips twitch for a moment, betraying the hint of a smile. The positive energy flows from Winter into Ven, completely binding his wounds.
Winter sighs heavily, her shoulders sagging. "I must get some sleep. Pharasma's blessing go with you tomorrow." She stands and turns, but just before she leaves, she adds, "And thank you for helping out around the camp. We're in dire straits here, and every last bit helps."
"Thanks, much! Question for you: how did you screen for the doppelgangers? What's the giveaway that let you know the folks in here are safe? We have more to kill and I certainly don't want to get caught in a scenario where we either attack someone who isn't one or bring back someone who is."
Winter shakes her head tiredly. "Nothing really. Doppelgangers can read thoughts, so passwords are not very useful. Any suggestions?"
"I'm struggling to recall things that I'm sure I knew at one point. Are doppelgangers creatures of magic? Perhaps divining magic combined with a gear strip check point would work?"
Aenian tries of sort through the cobwebs in his mind, "Also, we could stick a knife in them and see if they fight back," He grins looking for a laugh and then adds lamely, "Bad joke, I'm sorry."
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Ven thanks Winter for the healing as he marvels at the woman's mismatched eyes. A changeling. Is that a good or bad omen?
He then shrugs as he wearily listens to her conversation with Aenian. "I fear I have little experience with dopplegangers. The one thing I can say is that they seem strangely immune to my mental control. Perhaps we will learn more tomorrow."
After Winter leaves, you settle down to rest using bedrolls and blankets provided by the survivors. Sleep comes quickly, and as things quiet down, you sense a collective calm throughout the chapel.
Inside, an ancient Keleshite woman sits on a stool before a simple table. She looks up at you, her dark eyes like pools of infinite void. "The past sleeps in the doctor's tome..." she says cryptically.
You awake immediately after.
You round a corner, facing a true mirror for the first time. Now, you see that you are the monster: a hideous twisted mass of yellow fungus with a single eye that holds a fanged maw in its iris. "Who am I become?!" you scream just before the mirror shatters.
You awake immediately after.
The chapel is quiet but stirring as the survivors rise to the morning's duties. Through the stained glass windows, you see the weather outside remains unchanged -- overcast, raining and banks of yellow-tinted mist.
Aenian wakes with a bit of a start, "Huh, that was weird ... gotta start paying attention to these dreams. Chick in my dreams mentioned something about the past written in one of the doctors' books ... doppelganger or real doctor I wonder. Should keep an eye out for books regardless."
He kits up and grabs something for breakfast (if there's anything available) and then connects with Venn. Time to grab the Captain and move out, eh?
There are some basic food supplies, but unless you want to spend some time preparing them again, they're fairly course and bland.
Aenian throws something together quickly and wolfs it down not caring how it tastes.
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Ven wakes gasping from his nightmare. "What have I become?". He looks down at his sweaty, trembling hands. "No, it was just a nightmare. I dreamed that I was trapped in a maze of glass panes and dopplegangers. I fear the lines between dreams and reality are blurring. Who's to say where one ends and the other begins?"
He turns to Aenian. "It's strange that we both dreamed of dopplegangers. Yes, perhaps we need to seek out the good doctor."
He helps cooks the food for the others and then prepares himself for the coming expedition. In his sleep deprived state the food turns out tasting a bit off.
Ven manages to somehow turn last night's success into a smoking fiasco. Several makes jokes about it, especially in light of the previous culinary attempt, but you notice a handful are visibly sickened by this morning's food.
After the meal, Vaustin meets you in the hallway by the guard post. "I'm ready when you are," he says, hefting a padded shield and light mace. "Not much to write home about, but it's the best we have on hand. It'll do in a pinch."
"Let's be off then,"
Aenian unlimbers his crossbow, counting his bolts and then loads it and sets out past the barricade and moves ahead of the other two about 30 feet, stealthily to where they encountered the second doppelganger
.. and kicks a ton of rubble on his way.
Ven loads his crossbow and follows behind Aenian and Vaustin.
You load up and move out, walking up to the end of the hallway uneventfully, if not quietly. To your right is the rubble-strewn staff office where you encountered the doppelganger. Straight ahead is a pile of collapsed wreckage with a tight gap leading into darkness. Lastly, there is a door on the left side, mostly cleared of the rubble.
Staff offices first.
"let's see what he was looking for"
Several bodies lie amidst the debris. The two that the doppelganger doctor was experimenting on when you found it have long sections of flesh peeled away. One is human, and the other is a doppelganger.
Searching around the rubble and debris, you find broken desks containing paper and basic writing implements. One of the crushed bodies wears a wooden holy symbol of Pharasma's spiral, carries a small steel mirror, and has a pair of red leather boots with cat-skin lining.
Aenian's keen eye also spots a small locker amid the ruin. After prying it free, you discover a set of grass-stained hunters clothes inside, folded on top of a masterwork silver dagger.
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Ven detects magic on the area and then carefully examines each object for anything of significance. He examines the papers for any information.
No magic detected. The paper are blank pieces, most of which are slightly damaged.
Aenian gathers up the loot and distributes it appropriately.
He holds up the holy.symbol and the boots and shows them to their new companion, "These look familiar to you? Id think someone wearing these would stand out."
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Vaustin shakes his head, "You're right, but I don't recall seeing them. Winter said she came here with some people. Maybe she would know him."
Aenian holds out the mirror to Venn or Vaustin as needed, "Here keep this, we can use it to signal each other as required when separated. I have one already."
Vaustin defers the mirror to Ven.
Ven will peer down the north passage and will listen at the door for any sign of danger.
He turns to the others. "I would just assume clear the door so we're not leaving anything behind us."
Ven hears a slow, non-rhythmic metallic clanking from within, like chains moving. It is pretty faint, likely a good distance from the door.
Ven tells the others what he hears and then opens the door with his crossbow ready.
Ven pulls the door open, resisted slightly by the debris on the floor. Inside is a large room sectioned into two parts. Sturdy racks and toppled tables suggest this space once served as a sizable laundry. Much of the northern end of the room is filled with rubble. A closed door leads south.
A wall of pipe-like crossbeams fills the western alcove of this room. Three figures are manacled to the rack here, from south to north: a human wearing stained yellow sheets as robes and bearing a flame-shaped chalk mark upon his forehead, the corpse of a partially-eaten patient, and a ghoul. Each of them have both hands bound by manacles to the pipes.
When the man sees you, he jumps up excitedly, clanging his restraints. "Praise!" he shouts.
The corpse is that of a woman, dressed in a patient's smock. Her left arm has been completely stripped of flesh. The ghoul also wears patient's garb, but it is shredded and filthy. The ghoul glances at you, snarls defensively, and says, "Mine... keep away." He then resumes his grisly meal. With both his hands bound, you can tell it is slow going.
Ven will move in and fire on the ghoul with his crossbow.
Aenian will move into the room swiftly, his crossbow pulled up and will not fire on the ghoul just yet, regardless if Ven hits it or not.
"Who are you and how did you end up here?"
The two are separated by a couple feet, mainly just the corpse hanging between them.
Ven's crossbow bolt thuds into the wall a few inches from the ghoul's head. He turns up from his meal and faces you again, "Why you shooting at me?" he asks, mouth half-full.
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The man's robe-sheet appears to be dyed, not urine-stained. He looks at Aenian, nodding his head, "Words fail."
The ghoul growls, "He keeps saying that stuff, over and over and over."
"Why haven't you eaten him, then? It's what you do, right?" Aenian turns to the ghoul.
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"Can't reach him, through this one," he replies, nodding to the corpse. "Gimme a bit, I'll get there."
Vaustin steps forward, a disgusted look on his face. "The man, I recognize him -- Juglan Rivercane. I can't remember what he was in here for."
At the mention of his name, Juglan perks up. "Zandalus sees," he explains. "Praise!"
The ghoul groans, then starts chewing on the corpse again as if unable to control his hunger.
Ven sighs and lowers his crossbow and looks around the room for a way to unlock the yellow-robed man's manacles. "Who did this to you? Where is the key to the manacles?"
If he is unable to find a key, he will take a large chunk of debris and see if he can break the manacle chain. Ven is careful to stay clear of the ghoul's reach.