"This is bad. This is so bad..." Toad says with worry as he watches Victor from the perceived safety of the doorway...
George whispers back to Toad
"Why should THIS be any different from everything else? Its ALL bad!"
Victor rushes out onto the garden path. The fog along the path seemed thinner, though the fog on either side of the path looked so much like the walls of an immense sea. The fog tasted sick, as if the earth itself threw it up from some monstrous cavern deep in its gut. Gritting his teeth, Victor reaches the other door and twists the knob.
Locked.
While the crazy beast circling ahead and the lumbering steps of abominations in the fog gave Victor pause, a new sound was of more immediate concern: digging. And there, bits of earth convulsing. Something was burrowing through the earth around him.
Amy waits in tense silence, worried over Victor...
Victor just runs back to the others. "Get ready to slam the door shut, something is out here!" He's making a lot more noise this time but speed is his only hope of avoiding a fruitless fight. He would not squander their resources on pointless endeavours.
Not needing to be told twice, Toad slams the door shut once Victor is back inside. "Maybe not that way..."
Amy let's out a shriek of fear as Victor runs back into the room in a panic. Once the door is shut she asks, wide-eyed, "What is it?"
"I don't know the door was locked but there was something beneath the ground. I think we have enough trouble on our plate without finding out more about it right now."
"Which leaves the question, now where? I think that we've run out of easy options. We either have to brave the burrower or make it past the ratlings somehow"
Amy suppresses a shudder, clearly not liking either option...
"George want to call through and just tell them we're only passing through the room... hopefully they'll take it well."
Amy nods nervously.
"Worth a try"
When we get to the library
"Hello there. It is George again. We would like permission to pass throught the library please. We promise not to take any of your books and not to attack you in any way. Is this acceptable to you?"
Toad tries to smile reassuringly, but he doubts his incisors, small but pointed, are helping.
"Fine, fine!" came the shrill response from Genny Two-Tails, clearly annoyed to be bothered again so soon. "Do what you want!"
"Well, lets go in before they change their mind. Lets be ready for them to break their word but lets NOT overreact if they do something that isn't immediately threatening"
As he says the latter George is looking directly at Amy
As the party enter the library, the three ratlings eye them suspiciously from the atop the shelves, but make no aggressive moves, simply crouching idle.
Amy nervously slinks after her companions, trying not to make contact with the rats monsters.
She lets out a squeak of fear when one of them gets too close, "Eeek!"
But quickly crosses her arms across her chest in an attempt to prevent herself from accidentally shooting that weird goo at anything.
Toad carries Toothy on his shoulder, petting him and chittering at him, making a show of the fact that his rat is regarded as a friend.
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Victor considers telling them about Saranrae... but decides it would be best to wait until they are headed in the other direction.
George heads across with the others, careful to make no threatening gestures. As they get to the other side of the room
"Thank you. We appreciate it."
Genny sniffs the air, nods and returns to her nest-making.
Victor opens the door at the far side of the room.
The door opens to an L-shaped hallway.
Toad and Victor notice a muscuslike smear along the floor of the hallway, which Toad can track between different doors. Next to double doors at the north end of the hallway is a nameplate that says "Administrator Eliege Losandro”
Amy curls up her lip in disgust.
"What is it?" she asks.
She jumps at every stage sound, periodically letting out a tiny shriek.
"I'm not sure... but if it's a threat I'd rather we track it down than let it find us." He moves towards the double doors, ready to move in unless someone objects.
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"It's vile..." Toad remarks, though secretly he finds there's something familiar, almost comforting, about the slime. He thinks of Amy and her strange, cold goo. He glances back and forth between her and the smear, but ultimately decides there's no relationship.
"I'm ready when you are," he calls behind Victor, his axe ready.
"Ready here. Lets proceed"
Victor opens to double doors.
Yellow fog soundlessly roils against the cathedral-like windows of this opulent, two-story office. The ground floor features overstuffed furnishings, elegant side tables, and an
altar like desk of dark marble. A delicate spiral staircase and balcony of dark iron rises to a lofty library overhead. Both floors’ fixtures frame the lake of blood spread across the room’s center.
In the center of the blood, a women kneels with her back straight and head thrown back in a silent scream. Her eyes are pure white, her pupils having far back they can't be seen. Out of her mouth streams a constant torrent of multicolored mist that swirls and pools around her body like fountain of gritty sludge.
A small door rests in the south east wall.
"What the heck is that???"
(Pretty much all knowledge skills).
"Uh, hello. Can you hear me?"
Victor keeps his voice low "Lets not get too close, I don't think getting a good lungful of that stuff will be good for us."
Toad puts a finger to Toothy's face, reminding him to be quiet, as he waits to see if the...woman?...reacts to George.
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Amy lets out a shriek of terror.
"Eeeeek!"
The women is entirely unresponsive, both to George's question and Amy's shriek. George recognizes her as a possible oneirgon, a cursed mortal that has a had a literal portal another plane torn open within them. These portals destroy the personality of the the mortal, leaving husks that swiftly succumb to the planar energies that spill out of them in hazy mists, affecting all who get near. While these portals could be linked to any plan, oneirgons linked to the Dimensions of Dreams are by far the most common.
"She seems to be at the center of the portal."
Does George have any clue how to close the portal? Would killing her/destroying her body do anything?
(I'm guessing planes)
The process of making an oneirgon more or less destroys the host, leaving only the husk that is the portal. Killing her would close the portal.
"I hate to say it but I think that she is already dead and killing her will close the portal. Even though she is an innocent, I think that is what we have to do"
"Close it? Maybe it's a way out of here!"
Amy goes from panicking to looking confused.
"Portals? What? What are we even talking about? That woman's a portal to... To where?"
At Toads words Amy shakes her head. "No way! I'm not going through there! Her! Whatever!"
A shiver runs down her back, causing her yo cross her arms over her chest and rub her hands along her arms, as if fighting off the cold.
She looks around nervously...
"It's not yellow, maybe it's the only thing holding back the fog?" Victor suggests but isn't confident in the hypothesis.
"I'm guessing that the fog is CAUSED by the gate. If we close it maybe thing s will go back to normal. Maybe"
Does it seem at least plausible that closing the gate would revert things back to normal?
Brash, Toad searches for a piece of debris and throws it at the portal.
Finding a stray books, Toad hurls it at the woman, striking her square in the forehead. She crumples backwards with the force of the blow, landing in a heap. She doesn't respond to either the blow or her new position, simply laying there as the multi-coloured fog rolls out of her.
While there is logic in killing her would close the portal, whither or not that would revert things to normal is up in the air.
"I don't like it but I don't see a lot of alternatives"
"You're sure she's already dead... the book hitting her forehead was fairly convincing but..." Victor looks at George for confirmation. "If we're going to try it we should use ranged weapons. I don't like the idea of anyone getting into the fog."