Victor takes a moment to peer into the thick fog and swallows. "Perhaps we were remembering this... in a way in our dreams. I hope we're not in that city I was dreaming of."
gm roll
While Amy has no idea what or where the sickly yellow fog came from, it was clearly not natural and otherworldly.
A brief examination of the shed reveals little. It had totally collapsed, sinking into the ground below. The rubble totally blocked off passage through the walls of the courtyard. Even if there was space beyond, it was impossible to tell with so much rock and plaster in the way. Nothing useful was to be found.
Ragnar's eyes move to the gloomy sight above them and he half mutters "I'd rather get through that door... I can't shake the feeling of something watching us while we are out here."
Amalthia dusts off her hands and hurries back over to the others. "There's nothing useful in there."
She eyes the yellow fog again. "That's clearly not natural. It's... otherworldly." she shivers and rubs her hands over her arms. She nods at Ragnar. "You're right. Let's get inside."
Perturbed at the fog, Toad huffs and turns to follow the others as they approach the door. He looks it over to determine if it seems safe to open.
As Victor moves to open the door, an explosive crack of thunder reverberates through the air
gm rolls
The thunder, which sounds like a baby crying out in terror, is so loud it leaves Victor momentarily deafened by the sound
gm roll
Toad finds nothing strange about the door
Viktor peers at the sky and his head swivels around expecting an attack. Once his hearing come back he opens the door. "Lets get out of here."
Toad steps aside to allow Victor to enter the doorway. He's a brave man. He must have been a fighter or soldier of some sort. What could he have done to wind up imprisoned here? Any of us?
He ruminates on the dark possibilities as they step inside.
Amalthia jumps at the sound, then looks around panicked.
"My baby! My baby! That's my baby!" suddenly she shakes her head. "Wait.. I don't... Do I have a baby...? Oh, gods, I don't know!" Amalthia clutches at her stomach, and squats down on the ground, as if she's lost something that should be there.
After a moment she wails in frustration and stands up, hurrying through the door as soon as it's open.
"We need to get out of here," she mutters angrily. "I don't know what real..."
At the peal of thunder Shirrin instinctively ducks and looses an arrow at the thunder. Not surprisingly, he fails to bring it down :-).
He looks a little embarrassed by his action for a second.
"Amy, its ok. We'll find your baby if he's here. We're not going to leave anybody behind"
He joins the rest through the door
The door opens to a wide hallway. Several doors line the walls and a few lanterns, their glass casings broken, provide some flickering light. At the north end of the hallway, a collection of collapsed rubble impedes further passage, leaving only a small room with a few doors that are viable in that direction. To the south, a hastily created barricade of broken doors and furniture block the passage. The hallways can be seen curving to the east past the barricade.
On the far side of the barricade are three human males, dressed in cheap leather armor over white, button up shirts, clearly guarding the rest of the hallway. As the party filters out into the hall, one of the guards notices them and trains his crossbow on them.
"Whoa there, we got more of them!" he shouts in warning to his comrades. Startled, all three guards ready themselves and aim their crossbows through the makeshift barricade.
"Stay back, monsters, if you know what's good for ya!" one of the bolder guards shouts.
Toad squeaks in unison with Toothy when the crossbows level on them. It's an odd mix of terror and relief, for it's so, so good to find someone not wielding a scalpel.
He puts his hands up, knowing he has much better weapons at his disposal. "Please, wait! We're not monsters."
We're prisoners. No, choose your words carefully, lest they'll think you dangerous.
"We were trapped down below. There was a creature of some kind. I'm not sure what. We slayed it. We're looking for safety, for a way out. We can offer to help you, if you need it. What can we do to prove it to you?"
These men might be monsters, too. But it was telling that they didn't fire immediately.
Shirren keeps hold of his bow but is very careful to not point it at anybody
"My friend here is right. We are NOT monsters, we are NOT your enemies. We woke up below. As far as we know, there are no more monsters below except the one that we killed. We have NO idea what is going on. Please, tell us what is happening"
"We're just trying to figure out what is going on. We're not trying to hurt you."
Amalthia lets out a panicked scream when the men aim their crossbows at her.
"Don't!" she exclaims when they hesitate. "Please! We just to get out of here!"
The guards look at each other in confusion before one motions to the other.
"Go grab the Captain, he'll want to know about this."
A few seconds later, a tall man with greying hair and a stern expression entered the hallway from a room on the other side of the barricade. He had a brief whispered conversation with one of the guards before addressing the party.
"ALright, alright, I think I understand. I'm Vaustin York, the one who more or less acts of the captain of this lot. It sounds like you all just got here and are confused. Now, normally, we'd be happy to help, but things here have gotten to hell. The whole bloody place has been taken over by monsters and lunatics. It sounds like you all already met one of those monsters, the ones that can change into other people. Well there's the rub. I don't know you, so I can't trust you. If you can bring me back some dead monster bodies as proof you're not of them, I'll let you pass and we can get you all inside. They're camped out in the north end of the hall you're in. Come back with proof and we can talk."
"If you give us a few minutes to go back we can drag the thing we fought's body up here." 'Viktor' calls out to York, trying not to expose himself too much.
Thinking back on the ramp of corpses and the yellow fog between here and there Amalthia shivers. She glances towards the north end of the hall.
Slowly, the fear in her eyes turns to determination. Drawing her friends aside she tells them: "Those things back there are abominations. Evil, horrible, monsters. I..." She pauses for a moment, thinking, but then continues with conviction. "I have this feeling, deep inside, that whatever I've forgotten... It wasn't good. I've done things." she looks at her hands in horror. "I don't know what, but... I feel like--" she pauses, clearly composing herself. She takes a deep breath. "I can't leave things like that--foul things--loose to wreak havoc on others."
"We need to stop them. I need to stop them." After a moment she adds, "I know it won't fix what I've done, but it can stop what's going on here from happening to others."
"There was only the one monster down below. Is bringing back just that one corpse enough? Or do you have something else in mind? I don't want to climb down there only to be told that one isn't enough"
"Ya want us to fight more of those things? Surely you can see we're not monsters." He gives a sideways look at Toothy.
York shakes his head at Shirrin's question.
" I'll need more than just one! I wouldn't put it last those monsters to kill one of their own just to win me over. And I know we killed a couple of them. How do I know that one will be New? No you get me at least two others and I'll let you in. I'd prefer to see this other one you killed if you can get up here too."
"Just where are we supposed to find these monsters? There is nothing left below or in the courtyard."
I think he means that way, Toad says glumly, pointing up the north hall. Alright, we'll try to find two of these, these things, and then you'll help us...
And then they'd know they denied help to innocent people, the bastards. Can't they see the woman is nearly hysterical?
Were they really going to do this? Were they really going to explore this , this what? Prison? Hospital? Asylum? And kill monsters that seem to want nothing more than to torture them to death?
The idea of hunting sends a perverse excitement through him. It seems almost... thrilling. He wonders if he'd done it before.
With a nod to Victor he turns north. Let's go. The sooner we start the sooner we're somewhere safe.
Victor nods in return to Toad and draws his sword before heading north slong the corridor. He'll stop to go through the first door they enter favouring ones to the left if there are ones directly opposite each other.
He grips the scimitar firmly,there could be monsters hidding in the next corner or pool of shadow.
Amalthia turns to follow Victor. Her conviction holds for now, but the further she walks the more it fades.
I don't want to die!
But... I have to try!
There were two doors on each side of the hallway before the hallway opened to the north. One door on the west side was clearly being guarded by the barricade, and any movement in that direction brought the guard's crossbows back up. The rubble at the north end of the hallway obstructed view but, two other doors could be vaguely seen, one on either side of the hallway, just inside the rubble before the hallway became blocked off.
Toad looks at the doors just north. "Maybe check these first, since they're so close, we might find what we're after. At least if--something--is hiding in them it won't catch us from behind." He readies his axe, his hands shaking slightly.
Shirrin turns toward the people behind the barricade, opens his mouth as if to say something, then shrugs and turns away
"So these scum want us to die for them do they? And maybe take some of their enemies with them. There is nothing much to do about this right now but I WILL NOT forget that, in our time of need, they treated us like this. I hope I get the chance to repay them for their "kindness" and "mercy""
"I agree. Lets take the door closest to the barricade first"
"Maybe we can direct any monster there at these bastards"
"They are scared, I think going the other way is a better idea. Leave them alone until we can put them at ease. Given the only other people we have found are dead and one of them was a monster who wanted to torture us a little paranoia might be justified."
Toad points to the door on the west side of the hall right in front of them. He allows Victor to step in front of him, patting him on the shoulder for good luck. His axe also glows to life, casting a pale blue light like a swamplight wisp.
Victor moves up to the door indicate by Toad and proceeds to open it. The sooner they could deal with the monsters the sooner they might get some kind of answers.
Shirrin walks up behind them, ready to support his allies. He does whisper to them in a very low voice
"Be careful if we see anybody who looks human. I don't trust those bastards behind the barricade at all. Lets NOT assume that people out here are enemies and the ones behind the barricade are allies. It could easily be the other way around"
Victor opens the door to a boiler room. Great iron boilers fill the room, with pipes leading to both the ceiling and the floor of the room. Dust and cobwebs hang between the cold boilers. One of the boiler doors was partially open.
gm roll
Toad and Shirrin noticed a faint yellow glow under one of the boilers in the rear of the room.
What's that? Careful, Victor. Toad points to the yellow glow under the furnace. He gulps and looks back behind them, waiting for a mad creature with a scalpel to jump out from every corner.
"I'm not here to harm people, George. I can't. ...Not again. I mean-- I feel like I've--" Amalthia shakes her head and talks a deep, frantic breath. "Only the monsters... Just..." Her voice trails off into silence.
As Victor opens the door, Amalthia peeks around him, glancing into the boiler room.
Viktor moves towards the glow careful to invsstigate it. He keeps his eyes peeled for traps and ambushers.
Shirrin heads into the room a little and tries to see what is making the glow.
As the others move into the boiler room, Amalthia follows behind, eyes darting about nervously.
As Victor and Shirrin look under the broiler to find the source of the glow, they catch a brief glimpse of glowing yellow eyes above a mass of face tendrils before a strange, tiny creature and two massive rats jump out from under the broiler and attack.
The creature was almost doesn't like, with white fur and primate-like hands. It's glow eyes had no pupials and sat on an apparently mouthless face. Bellow the small nose was a nest of tendrils that almost touched the floor. Bat-like ears and a thin rat tail rounded the strange physiology of the creature.
Gm roll
The tiny creature ran forward and jumped at Shirrin. An unseen mouth, hidden bellow the trendrils and full of sharp teeth, attempted to bite at him.
The small wound bleed unnaturally heavy, soon coating Shirrin and the creature.
Victor moves up and swings his scimitar down on the small creature assaulintg Shirrin but misses the minute creature and it clangs against the flagstone on the floor.
Shirrin tries to determine what the creature is
15 for arcane and dungeoneering, 10 otherwise.
If he can take a 5ft step and flank the creature he will do so. Otherwise, he'll strike it and 5ft step somewhere that might let Ragnar or another fank it
He then whacks at it with his sword
Cold iron slashing in case it matters
Malugar grunts in surprise, horror, and disgust, lifting his ax over his head and cleaving it down in a great arc toward the unidentifiable horror that scitters across the floor.
Please let it die, please let it die!
Amalthia shrieks in horror as the creature attacks Shirren. She throws her arms out in front of her, defensively, causing a glob of sizzling acid to fly from her hands at the scurrying rats.
She looks at her hands in horror, and shrieks again.
Shirrin managed to remember the creature as a zoog, a denizen of The Dreamlands, another plane full of unnatural horrors and strange beasts. Zoogs have a fondness for magical items, and the light that shine from their eyes allow them to see magical auras. While tiny, they are vicious creatures, who's bite causes unnatural bleeding and who's touch can harm incorporeal creatures.
The two rats attack Victor, being closest too them.
Initiative order
1. Zoog
2. Shirrin
3. Victor
4. Toad
5. Amy
6. Rats (2)
The zoog changes it's attention to Toad, bitting and claw at the half-orc. It attacked with fury, grievously injured.
"That thing is from the Dreamlands. Maybe things are starting to make sense. A little"
Shirren steps up and tries to bring the foul beast down
13 with flank
Cold iron slashing