Desdemona was listening to the others with half an ear as she tried to keep an eye on the encroaching shadows... and then Rostam walked in.
Despite herself, she turned towards him and stared, mouth open. She had seen him die!
*You all die, sooner or later,* the darkness whispered to her, unhelpfully.
But it had a point, though perhaps not the one it had intended. They all did die once before. Was the Tatterman some mass delusion? Was the rest of their sorry group out there, wandering somewhere?
She looked between Rostam and Winter, mind churning with questions. But in the end, her manners won out. She hurried over to meet Rostam.
"Rostam, I'm so pleased to find you're alive! ...You do know us, don't you? It is I, Desdemona - and Reine is over there."
She felt a ripple of unease as her shadow slid over the floor toward Rostam, and brandished her lantern before her, banishing it back behind her. Keeping her lantern between them, she half-turned to indicate Reine. "You shan't believe what has happened! Or do you know these people, and not us? The dream has its own logic, it seems, as dreams do."
Rostam blinked. "Desdemona. Reine. Win...Winter, yes, that's it."
"I had crossed the courtyard," he said, wonderingly. "We got to a room--there were birds. I don't remember much else." His halo waxed and waned. "I went to the Tatterman again."
"But now, I'm here." He raised a hand, uncertainly, first facing her, then to look at his own palm. "I am here, yes?...well, then, what did happen, since I was...away?"
Xander notices the new guy and how he seems to remember some of the other folks. Was he also in Okeno? He doesn't remember being there himself. If he hadn't seen it in his own mind, he wouldn't have believed it. As it is, he's beginning to wonder if it was a real or illusory experience. After all, the decapus could have manipulated our perceptions.
At least the new guy looks pretty strong. They may need more muscle if there are any more of those shape-shifters around. He goes back to studying the journal of the administrator, trying to figure out if there's anyway to reverse what was done to her (or what she did to herself).
"The Tatterman came. We ran. Almost everyone died. Again. You were one of them. But apparently not. This isn't..." Reine's matter-of-fact recitation of events chugged to a halt.
"The dreams seem to be overlapping somehow. This place isn't like it was before. These folks seem familiar, but different."
The exploration party made up of dangerous amnesiacs rested in the chapel with the refugees. At some point during their rest time- it was impossible to call it night, since the wan, sickly yellow light coming through the windows never changed- Winter came over and said a prayer over the wounded, healing the worst of their hurts.
Rested and ready to explore again, the group finally files back out into the main foyer. White tile, spiderwebbed with cracks, lines the walls of a cathedral-like hall. A prominent, oval desk faces staunch double doors, while hard benches and portraits of somber doctors line the walls. Regal stairs ascend toward a second floor, but rubble has crushed the upper flights, blocking any passage. Lofty windows, gridded by bars, reveals even more yellow mist seething just outside.
The space looks like it has been designed to inspire a sense of reliability and prominence, but now its marble floor was broken, the path to the observation halls above crumbled, and the admitting nurses fled. A number of paths lead from the hall, with the library and teh administrator's office to the north, the stairs, a broad hall stretching east, and a pair of imposing doors to the south.
The vaulted ceilings here are 20 feet tall and the stairs could be climbed up to the landing, approximately 10 feet off the ground, but rubble blocks the flight of steps leading higher.
"Nothing for it but to see what's behind some of these doors." John says.
He listens at the door in the north-east corner of the entry hall and then checks to see if it is locked.
John finds that the door isn't locked but does seem to be barricaded from the inside. Something heavy is keeping the door shut.
Desdemona found herself near John with no clear recollection of how she had gotten there - gathering wool while she moved about, her gaze distant. Turning, she confirmed her suspicion - her shadow was lying along the door, no doubt prepared to drain into the first crack it found.
"John!" she exclaimed with slightly desperate cheeriness, trying to draw his attention away from the vicinity of her disobedient shadow. "I never did ask what the cages you carry are for? Do you expect to do any... er, trapping?" She reached out gingerly to touch one of the cages, stepping between him and the door.
Reine looked around, confusion on her face. As seemed typical for her, the confusion didn't last long before it was replaced by a look of irritation that seemed ready to ignite into full-blown anger, given the proper justification.
"I don't..." she closed her eyes for a moment, brow furrowed in thought. "I think we've been in parts of this place, but I don't remember it! It's like it's dancing just out of reach, taunting me!" She took in a deep breath, held it for a second, and then let it go. If the breathing exercise had calmed her, it didn't show.
"Someone is going to pay for this," she muttered.
Where the breathing hadn't seemed helpful, the thought and promise of vengeance for her suffering appeared to work wonders. Reine nodded, as if settling onto some agreement or decision. Then she almost smiled, as she looked around at the others.
"So, where to?"
"Just a second Desdemona, this door seems to be stuck."
John throws a shoulder into the door.
but it doesn't seem to budge.
Following the others in her familiar terse form of introspection, Laura watches John push at the door with no success. Quirking an eyebrow as if to say "Should I give it a try?" she steps forward and sets her own body against the obstruction.
Shaking her head, she shrugs.
Broom was confused by the presence of the newcomer. She had watched him come into camp and everyone reacted as if they knew him, but she was certain this was the first time she had seen him. Well, that wasn't true. She remembered him in the dream at the slave auction, but she was certain he hadn't really been at the camp the day before.
Or was she?
If everyone else knew him, maybe she was the one that wasn't thinking straight. Could she have just overlooked or forgotten him? Ever since encountering the doctor with the purple mist coming out of her Broom had felt wrong. Was it her that was not remembering things properly or was the world around changing?
After preparing breakfast for everyone she followed the group out of the chapel. As she did so she kept looking at the newcomer.
As John and Laura attempted to force the door open, Broom asked "Who are you? You aren't a doppleganger, are you?" She peered at him as if she would be able to tell the difference just by staring hard enough.
As she did so she also offhandedly commented to no one in particular "If we open that door, aren't we going to let the yellow mist inside? There were other doors around the administrator's office"
Rostam blinked at the rather sturdy looking woman. "An excellent question. How to prove I am not a doppelganger? I don't believe they can produce light, though." He pointed to the halo above his head, an actinic torus of light that he dimmed so as not to blind the eyes.
He observed the group pounding on the door with some bemusement. "Desdemona, can you not send your...friend...under the door?"
"You could just knock," Xander said wryly. "Someone might still be behind whatever barricade is blocking the door. The odds seem against it as this point, but you never know."
"Broom, perhaps you could use your wonderful acidic abilities to burn a hole in the door that would allow us to look inside."
Desdemona took a few steps toward Rostam, making hushing motions with her hands - then stopped and glanced back.
Her shadow had detached from her heels, and was now plastered against the door with no stretching between them.
With a sickly smile, she edged back again, hoping no one else had noticed. "Yes! Broom, what a lovely idea, she can burn holes with a black liquid, terribly impressive," she babbled, shooting Rostam an imploring look.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
In spite of her attempts to hide it, Desdemona's shadow plasters itself to the door and slides past John, disappearing into the room beyond. It comes back out a few seconds later and slithers along the floor back to Desdemona.
On the other side of the door, she knows, there's a long desk, several chairs, a sideboard, and numerous once-stately landscape paintings barricade stacked up against the the door of this somber conference room. A toppled wall opposite the barrier makes a mockery of the room’s defenses, a point driven home by the half dozen masked bodies littering the ground.
Broom paused at Rostam's reply. She looks pensive for a moment "We don't know. Can a doppleganger make light?" she asked.
...
At the door she watched as John and Laura tried forcing the portal open. When asked to burn a hole in the door she looked shocked for a moment
"Burn a hole through the door on purpose? Can we fix something that has been burned by Us?"
She stammered a bit as she glanced over at the slight discoloration on the wall where she had accidentally flicked acid the other day.
"Uh.. We guess We could do that. If you want us to." she glanced over at Xander before taking a deep breath and staring at the door, steeling herself for what she was about to do. Suddenly Desdemona's shadow was on the door. "Oh! We don't want to hurt her shadow. We will have to wait for it to move" The relief at the temporary reprieve was audible in Broom's voice.
She waited for the shadow's return. "So, do we still want to go inside?"
Confusions and Damnations, Adelar thought to himself. Another new person. Others seemed to know Rostam, but he was unfamiliar to the Galtan paladin. He felt horrendously lost, feeling more as if shuffling along the twisting paths of a dream than truly in control of his actions.
Maybe it truly was a dream. Maybe dying would have woken him up.
He shook off the thought. He had been standing guard while the others worked on the locked door, his holy blade lightly balanced in his hands. Adelar swore he would not be taken unawares again.
Broom's voice was the one that finally shone through the fog of his clouded mind.
" Inside, I'd say," Adelar said, clearing his throat after coughing out the words. He felt dry, unbearably dry.
" Best to leave no stone unturned."
It was with a soldier's confidence he spoke, but his knees wavered slightly.
The world was not Right, Adelar knew. He just wasn't sure if that was because of how it was or how he perceived it.
Suddenly Desdemona's shadow was on the door. "Oh! We don't want to hurt her shadow. We will have to wait for it to move" The relief at the temporary reprieve was audible in Broom's voice.
Desdemona's face at Broom's words was priceless. Recovering from her shock after a moment, she "casually" leaned against the door in an attempt to hide her missing shadow, until the darkness invaded her mind once more, whispering.
"Perhaps we don't need to break down the door," Desdemona said brightly, trying hard to ignore the malicious giggling and whispering of the darkness. Glancing back, ostensibly at the door, she was relieved to find her shadow was back in place.
"I mean... I'm only saying, there might be another way in. Perhaps an easier way. Shouldn't we at least look, before we go to great lengths here?"
She tried to forget the faces of the dead that the darkness showed her. Yet, the harder she tried, the more clear they became.
"I think if anyone was still alive in there, they would have signaled us by now," she finished quietly, dropping her gaze.
Xander can hardly believe what he's hearing. The ability to melt through almost any material, to access potential caches and fortunes untold, and she doesn't want to BREAK A DOOR?! I see why she didn't release us from our cage earlier. I also understand what's going on now. I'm in Hell. I've clearly done something cosmically wrong and am being punished for it. Fortunately, his face betrays little of his internal monologue. Sighing deeply, he says, "I suppose there could be another entrance. And they most likely would have signaled back if they could." He waves his hand dismissively. "Fine, let's check the library door then."
Broom felt she had done something wrong. Desdemona had asked her not to talk about the shadow and she had anyway. Broom regretted that she had brought up the subject and resolved to apologize later.
Still, she couldn't help feel that there was something wrong between Dedemona and her shadow.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Miniel has been keeping watch in the hall as the others try to break into a room. "There were a couple other doors on the way to the administrator's office; maybe we could try those?"
"Broom, when I transform into a doppelganger, kill me," said Rostam, then chuckled. "I do feel something moving upon my person--it's hard to explain--but it has been feeling more...internal...of late. I may just transform yet."
He slung up his spear. "Let's go inside, then. Help me open the door."
Rostam began pushing on the wrong side of the door, near the hinges.
John starts as he notices Desdemona's shadow's strange behavior.
"Whoa..." he says as he stares a little.
John takes a look down at the east end of the entrance hall.
Laura stares quizzically at Desdemona, then with what looks like a comforting hand on her own belly, she nods and looks around for another means of entry. She follows John, not close enough to cramp his style, but close enough to rush to his aid if anything should appear.
...who are these other people? I am Rostam..." His eyes bulge slightly. "Is she with child?" he asks to the air.
Happy that she didn't have to break down the door, Broom readily agrees to move on to the East. "We can open this door for you if you want" she said, moving towards the door a short distance around the corner from the one that was blocked. Without waiting for any further permission she reached towards the doorknob, intent on opening it to make up for her hesitation at helping with the previous door.
To the east, John sees that the tremors have collapsed part of the ceiling, blocking what should be an interior hallway leading to the northeast. Closer at hand, there is a door to the north, a pair of double doors to the south, and a set of doors facing each other a little further down near the rubble. John doesn't see anything moving down the hallway.
While he's looking, Broom opens the closest door, opening it onto a room with an only partially collapsed ceiling. The debris destroyed most of the shelves with cleaning equipment and the buckets, mops, and feather dusters that were stored here. A portion of the western wall has fallen away, opening into a larger room to the west. From where the group is standing, that larger room is probably the one with the blocked door.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
"Look Broom, a treasure-trove of cleaning supplies." John says as she opens the closet door.
The staring faces of the dead.
Desdemona had hung back as the others rounded the corner to open the door there, but when John spoke, she was spurred to action.
"No, wait! Broom, don't go in there!" she exclaimed, rushing forward to stop the cheery woman from encountering the horror the darkness had shown her within.
Realizing her outburst had drawn eyes, she abruptly came to a halt. "I mean... ah... it could be dangerous. Do be careful - perhaps one of the more martial among us should take a look, first?" she hedged, thinking that the warriors would not find the splayed dead as horrific as she did. For some reason, Broom's happy helpfulness had sparked in her a bit of protectiveness.
Fool, she derided herself. She may have seen HEAPS of the dead before. Still, she came up beside Broom, trying to think of a way to shield her.
Laura follows John through the corridor, ready to fight if enemies should appear but still strangely distant, as if her thoughts are occupied by something far, far away.
"Desdemona...did your friend see something else in the room?"
Rostam looks at the doors to the right. "Let's go that way. We need to keep moving."
Just as Broom turns the knob and pushes the door open she is startled by Desdemona's exclamation.
Confused she steps back before she has a chance to see what was inside. She had felt a little guilty about not breaking the other door, and now she felt a little guilty about opening this one without explicit instructions.
The feeling quickly passed though; John's statement rapidly changed her concern about doing something wrong into curiosity about what was behind the door.
She stood aside and fidgeted a bit. "Ok, We can wait if someone else is supposed to go first."
"Desdemona...did your friend see something else in the room?"
"No, she hasn't..." Desdemona began, distracted, then paused as she realized what Rostam was referring to.
She shot him an oblique glance. The darkness is already inside him. It's probably calling to the shadow right now.
She hovered near Broom, giving the rest of the group a pleading look.
"Yes, that's... that's probably best," she murmured, trying to think of how to warn the others of the grotesque piled dead without referring to how she knew about them.
"I'll go," Adelar chimed in, blade held in front of him like a ward from whatever it was that had frightened Desdemona so. That's what it was, wasn't it? Fear. Fear of what, though? The entirety of the Asylum permeated him with dread. What more was one door?
He gave a small nod towards Rostam as he passed, his silver sword of Iomedae hanging from his neck.
" Pardonne-moi, but our time has left little thought towards common courtesy," he apologized, his Galtan accent thick and flowing, " I am Adelar, Rostam."
Adelar. He was positive of that. While so many other memories slipped and tumbled when he tried to grab them, his name rang true and clear.
" Now let's see what this is all about," the swordsman muttered, body language asking the leave of Broom and Desdemona that he might head past the door and see that which had been forbidden.
While John and Laura walk further down the hallway toward the obstructing debris, Adelar advances through the supply closet into the next room. It looks like the room was once a place where the staff would have meetings. A long desk, several chairs, a sideboard, and numerous once-stately landscape paintings barricade the door of this somber conference room. The toppled wall Adelar had just walked through undermines the room’s defenses, a point driven home by the masked bodies littering the ground.
It looks like a handful of staffers and patients had done their best to keep the rioters out of this room but hadn't been ready to defend themselves when the wall came down. Six bodies lie in this room, including an orderly in his padded armor, other staff, and a couple of patients, all battered to death by a variety of blunt implements. Strangely, all of the corpses have had their faces wrapped in sheets, shirts, or grain bags and cinched tight around the neck.
"Hmmm...faces covered to disorient them, or so they didn't know their attacker...or..."
Rostam chooses one with a sheet and unties it.
"And why have we not found the attackers, I wonder...or did you all, while I was away?"
" We were ... We were chased," Adelar informed Rostam, " Myself, Reine, and Des. Desdemona, that is."
He recalled her insistence on her Full Name and made the correction swiftly.
" That's how we stumbled into the rest. A monster pursued us, it ... We only barely got away. Others were not so lucky."
Looking from the broken wall back to the bodies, Adelar sighed.
" Something broke through into here. Something powerful."
He didn't want to say The Tatterman. Fear gripped his throat, and for it he felt a burning shame. Adelar focused instead on the items they had found, noting the slight sheen to the stones. Useful, he thought. He pocketed them for the moment before returning to the entryway to inform the others.
" It's, ah ... not pretty in there," he confessed quietly, " Six. Nothing we can do for them."
Frowning dourly, he added on for the more veteran members amongst the survivors.
" They've ... There are bags on their heads. Cloths, Covers. Their faces are covered. I don't know what that means but I can only guess ..."
He looked back over his shoulder towards Rostam as he made to reveal a victim's face.
" How does it look?"
Xander peeks in, but doesn't bother to inspect the bodies. "Hmm, perhaps who, or what, ever assaulted them didn't want to see their faces in death. Gods know, that's the least of the questions we have so far." He closes the closet door. "We don't want anyone stumbling in there by accident."
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
On hearing that the faces of the dead were covered, Desdemona sagged with relief. Wasn't that just like the darkness, to show her the truth, but to twist it?
Though, it was odd... Did she have memories of such things? Or were they merely glimpses of madness? She couldn't tell, didn't want to think too deeply about it in case the darkness gave her an answer she didn't like.
She smiled at those near her, and raised her lantern. "Come, let's not tarry near the... let's not be left behind." She followed those who had moved on, doing her best to chase her shadow from the path of the others with her light.
Looking at the faces of the dead, Rostam isn't sure now exactly what happened. He is pretty sure everyone in the room was beaten with blunt instruments, but the sheet wrapped around the armored orderly's neck is tied so tight it leaves an impression in the skin and a dark line on his throat when Rostam pulls it off. The orderly's eyes bulge from his face and there are purple-red blotches just under his skin.
Rostam doesn't know what, exactly, happened to the man but he's pretty sure he didn't die from the beating.
John will check the double doors to the south-east.
If nothing looks hinky, he will try to open them.
"Can We look before we move on? John said there was stuff We could use in there. We will be quick." Broom asked while standing away from the door as the others investigated the room.
Reine followed along. Without being obvious about it, she seemed to instinctively stay within 10-15 feet of Desdemona, though she didn't ever seem to be consciously tracking the smaller woman.
The bodies, predictably, elicited an angry frown, but no comment. Reine simply continued to scan the area for threats.
While the others look around, Miniel carefully kneels down by each of the dead and says a prayer, beseeching her goddess to forgive any wrongdoing the dead may have committed. When she's done, she moves on with John.
Laura examines the dead with an air of unconcern, though her eyes narrow with suspicion as she helps remove the sheets that hide the faces of the unfortunate dead. She regards each corpse for a moment, as if memorizing its features.
She leans closer, feeling sure she has noticed something unusual about the corpses, and motions to those nearby to hear her explain her discovery.