Desdemona's shadow shot out long, going after John. Immediately terrified of what it might do to him, Desdemona shouted, "No! Stop!" But it paid her no heed... but its goal was not John, as she had feared, but the wall itself. It piled into his own oversized shadow, which slammed into the wall with him.
The wall didn't fall as easily as John had thought it would, but when Desdemona's shadow slammed into it, the oversized pair was able to knock it down. The bricks fell into the room south of the hallway, revealing what looked like a ruined workroom with another collapsed ceiling.
Of more interest was probably the trio of ghouls in the room, two of whom had managed to jump out of the way and one unfortunate who was caught under a pile of bricks.
"Corpse eaters!!!" Big John shouts to the others.
He steps 5' to the west to clear the hallway.
In a hurry to get his guard up, he quickdraws Red Destiny and makes a wild stab at ghoul number 3.
(defensive, twf)
He follows up with a left hook to #3.
Then, Red Destiny and his gauntlet come up into guard positions.
Broom watched with dismay as the wall came down, unhappy with the further destruction of the already battered building.
Reine blinked as John took her seriously and launched himself against the wall. She blinked again as the wall fell and revealed the ghouls behind it.
"Damn," she muttered. John and the shadow were already in among the undead things, so she didn't feel the need to push into the melee herself. With ghouls, it was vital to kill them as quickly as possible, before they got to you.
So instead of rushing in beside John, she summoned her will. All sources of light seemed to flare for a second, and a Harrow card appeared in Reine's hand. She dropped it, even as she brought up her bow and stepped forward, looking for a clear shot.
On the ground behind her, The Avalanche tore through the mountain village on the card, before the card faded out of existence.
On seeing the ghouls, Desdemona's normally genial, if distant, face hardened. She stabbed a hand toward them, fingers curled into claws as she fell into strange tongues once more. She drew forth the darkness that so terrified her, conscious of it for the first time, and sent it hurtling toward the ghouls.
<"Take them instead,"> she entreated in Aklo, and the shadows descended on the living dead.
Where they touched, the substance of the ghouls was eaten away, as though it never was.
Her shadow looped slowly into a maned serpent once more, slithering around the ghouls slowly, so slowly.
Until it struck.
Defense:20% miss chance in normal light, 50% miss in darkness. Immunity to death effects, disease, and poison. Evasion.
Offense:
Slam reach 10', bite reach 5', increased by 5' each when Large. Melee attacks affect incorporeal creatures as if it had the ghost touch weapon property. The eidolon’s melee attacks deal only half damage to corporeal creatures. All attacks are treated as magic. Combat reflexes (2 AOOs).
John the Giant pounded through the billowing cloud of brick dust and smashed one ghoul's skull flat with a fist the size of a ham. It twitched and died as John's fellows followed up.
The other ghoul dashed across the rubble to bite at John's huge, exposed flank.
But its sharp teeth couldn't pierce John's chain shirt.
Des splashed shadows onto the other surprised ghoul, melting some of its dead flesh and keeping its attention as her serpentine shadow flanked the monster. Once it decided it was in place, the shade loomed up behind the ghoul and bit it in half with its ghostly jaws.
As suddenly as John had identified the threat, the highly efficient survivors had ended it. There was some suspicious scrabbling noise under a pile of rubble in between where the two ghouls had been standing, though.
John stamps on the rubble until any noise stops.
Broom was relieved when the fight ended without her being expected to do anything. However she reacted with alarm when she saw John lifting his foot to stomp on the rubble.
"No!" she yelled as she rushed forward to stop him "We don't know who is under there! What if it is someone that needs help?"
John looks at Broom with some exasperation.
"They're ghouls, Broom. They eat people. They don't need help, they need a boot to the head."
The serpent-shadow seeped down through the rubble like water, draining away... then finally sliding out and slithering back to Desdemona, who closed her eyes so she didn't have to see it.
"I think he's right, Broom - that was another ghoul, down there," she said with a brightness that was a bit out of place. "They're the ones responsible for a lot of this mess, I think. It seems only fair that the mess be brought down on them."
"Let's see if the bodies have anything of use," she finished briskly, striding over to where the mutilated corpses lay, and she did a quick search of them. She didn't seem to find them as unnerving as John's great shadow, which she took care to avoid.
John will help look around once the movement in the rubble has ceased.
(+1 for traps)
Reine saw everything unfold in front of her - twice. Her vision kept jumping ahead in time and then back again, in brief, stuttery flashes. For some reason, it didn't bother her sense of balance or temporal placement.
She was intrigued by the fact that the vision jumps seemed to call her attention to a particular theme. The fact that every time John lifted his leg to stomp on the rubble the hamstring of his opposite leg tightened, for example, which made that hamstring more vulnerable. Or how Desdemona's brief flinches away from shadows left her neck exposed at the opposite shoulder for just an instant. Or how Broom's moments of distraction caused her chin to elevate a half-inch - just enough to make her throat visible...
Had any of them been enemies, that information would have been useful. As it was, some part of Reine's mind merely took note, and she turned her attention to scanning the rubble and the room beyond it.
"We got lucky with the wall," Reine said, as she stepped over the fallen rubble to stand guard over Desdemona while the smaller woman searched the bodies. Reine's bow swept the room along with her eyes. "If they'd dropped it on us..." she let the thought go unfinished.
John mercilessly exterminated the trapped ghoul while Des went through the other ghouls' pockets. Unfortunately, these poor souls seemed to have been patients rather than orderlies and didn't have anything of value on them.
The hallway south was completely blocked with another collapsed ceiling, leaving the only obvious path west to a large open area. Just beyond a set of double doors leading south into another room, another collapsed wall revealed an intricate series of pipes, valves, and chains running through the wall. Investigation found the pipes to be hot to the touch.
"I don't know anything about devices like this. Do any of you?"
Desdemona looked up, startled out of some inner introspection. "I don't seem to know anything at all, really, except..."
Except what the darkness tells me.
"I've no recollection of anything like this," she continued hurriedly.
Broom watched with unease as John finished off the last ghoul. Just the thought of being crushed while being helplessly trapped disturbed her. At least the ghoul they had found in the wash basin was afforded a last meal before being quickly dispatched. This seemed unusually cruel.
"They were just patients like us." she sadly muttered to nobody in particular.
Her thoughts dwelt on the ghoul's fate as the group proceeded down the hall. She brightened up when John presented something to take her mind off such dark thoughts.
"Oh! Lets see, We might be able to find out." Her gaze wandered off into the distance as she cast her mind out looking for thoughts from others that might help deduce the function of the devices.
Touching strange and alien minds here and there she cast about for anything that resembled what was before her. Unfortunately she found nothing that resembled the tangle of pipes, valves and chains. But on the bright side, she didn't encounter any thoughts that were overly traumatizing this time.
"No, sorry. We can't find thoughts about anything like this."
"No idea," Reine said with a shrug. "Which way next?"
Not having any idea what the strange mechanisms in the room do, John surveys the possible exits.
He sheaths Red Destiny, runs his right hand through his dark hair, and blows his breath out in a sigh.
"Gotta get out of this place and rest. I don't think I've ever been so tired."
He moves over to the double doors to the south and listens for danger or some sense of what lies on the other side.
(+1 for traps)
"Oh, don't be cross with John, Broom. They really weren't patients like us. I'm quite certain no one could persuade me to become a cannibal, and hopefully the same can be said of you," Desdemona said, having caught Broom's murmur as they walked behind Reine and John.
She watched Broom with growing curiosity as the other woman pondered. "Do you really sense other people's thoughts? Even if they aren't present, and without the incense you used before? Are the thoughts dreamlike - nonsensical, I mean, even if there's truth to them - or are they quite awake? Or are they all your thoughts, or memories, really, only available to you like this?"
On the floor, Desdemona's shadow stretched out, and out, merging with John's as he leaned against the door.
Broom thought about it for a moment before replying "Its not like the incense, we don't hear other people thinking. Its more like we remember other people's memories.
Think of a place filled with bubbles where the bubbles are minds. If We just let our mind wander, it bumps into other bubbles and when it does We remember some memory from the other bubble. We don't let our mind wander often though, a lot of memories are not nice ones. Like the Octopus Xander talked about.
Broom shivered involuntarily.
"But, if We concentrate on a certain thing, like those pipes, We can sort of choose to bump into bubbles that have something to do with what We want, but it isn't always useful. A lot of the time We don't understand the memory.
We are pretty sure that they aren't Our memories because a lot of the time the memories are ummm..."
Broom struggled for a moment to find a good way to describe the sensation.
"The memories are not like us. Like when We were thinking about those pipes, one of the memories was of being in a strange tunnel that looked alive. It had these tube like things on the walls. Some of the tubes were connected by a strange lump.
Whoever the memory was from had four tentacle arms with three fingers each. We remember squishing a lump and whatever was in the tube changed direction.
We are sure that We have never had four tentacle arms and the strange squishy tube things was kind of like the pipes We were looking at, but it didn't really make sense to us."
Broom looked at Desdemona quizzically.
Desdemona, who had been absorbed imagining the strange sights Broom described, started as though she'd been shocked when the other woman spoke in Aklo, and turned wide eyes on her. It took her a moment to answer; when she did, it was carefully, and in Taldane. "I... I hadn't realized anyone else spoke it. Any of us, I mean. I understood that rat-man. I don't know, but I think... I thought it was a legacy of... of the darkness." She whispered the last words, as though that might prevent the darkness from hearing her.
She shook her head, amazed. "If you speak it as well, though, that can't be right. How... how do you know this language, this... strangeness? How do you do... any of it? And these memories... do you think they are from the waking world?"
John couldn't hear anything through the door, but after a moment's consideration, Desdemona's shadow slithered back across the floor to whisper in her ear that it heard voices on the other side of the door. It couldn't make out what they were saying, but there were at least a couple of people talking in there.
Distracted by what Broom is saying, John doesn't hear anything.
"Please stop talking to the rats. Rats aren't supposed to talk."
John waits for the Shadow's report.
Desdemona closed her eyes and shivered. Why did it always sound as though the dark were gloating?
"I quite agree, sir, but it certainly wasn't my intent. Particularly after the wretched creature blasted me with its occult powers. ...I think there must be people in the next room, the one past the door you're standing by. The... the dark suggests it," she ventured, greatly daring.
"Great....the rats talk...the dark talks....everything in this madhouse talks." John mutters to himself.
He shakes his head and speaks up to the others.
"I'll kick open these double doors and hold my position on guard. If the room has more ghouls, you can stand behind me and attack past."
Reine nodded, taking up position beside the door, her vision still jumping back and forth into the future.
Broom was about to answer Desdemona's question, but fell silent at John's request. As everyone got ready around the door she whispered
She then took up a spot near the door in case she needed to do something to help.
Desdemona nodded to Broom jerkily, distracted again - this time by her shadow lengthening before her, stretching toward the door.
Don't harm John, she implored it, but was met with mocking laughter in her mind as it stretched, and stretched, until it was no longer the shadow of a woman, but of a great maned serpent once more, with bulging arms that reached forward impossibly far.
John checks his weapons and looks to make sure the others are ready.
Then he kicks open the door.
John kicked the double doors open with one huge foot. Inside, cracked, river-green tiles covered the walls and floors of this communal shower in wavy patterns. Dry metal spouts jutted from several walls, overlooking grates in the tile floor. High windows showed more swirling yellow mist and lit the scene of an atrocity.
A sizable portion of the floor dropped into a shallow pool, filled with something other than water: a vile stew of corpses and blood. The smell of rot and copper filled wafted out of the room as soon as the doors swung open.
Three alcoves, providing minimal privacy, ran along the south wall. In the center, a simple chair sat looming over the carnage, a gruesome throne covered with draped viscera and gnawed bones.
A pair of ghouls looked up from where they were playing some kind of games with what looked like small bones, and a one armed ghoul sat on the throne, lounging with one leg thrown lazily over the arm. All three looked up in alarm as the explorers burst into the room.
The one on the throne squinted at John and gestured at the two ghouls to hold their position. "You look like trouble. Are you going to be trouble?" Its phlegmy voice sounded like it might still be in the middle of digesting its last meal.
"Blasted corpse-eater .... where's the smoke spewer?" John barks out.
He will ready an action to quickdraw a dagger and throw it at any ghoul that approaches within 20', then quickdraw Red Destiny.
(Defensively, 1 range increment)
Reine did her best not to gag at the smell, and took a quick peek around the corner before pulling her head back out of sight. She wasn't sure her bow was going to be terribly useful here, but she kept it ready just the same.
Broom recoiled at the sight and smell from the room, quickly raising her arm to cover her nose. It wasn't just the mess that was disturbing, it was the nature of the mess.
She had seen piles of corpses, but those at least had the decency to be somewhat stacked. The dismembered bodies in the doppledoctor's place were passably organized, but here the pure filth and gore smeared across the room and floating in the pool was almost too much. She fought an overwhelming compulsion to do something about the mess.
But first, there were the occupants that needed to be handled. Despite her revulsion, she drew her sickle and held it at the ready waiting to see how John handled the negotiations.
The one-handed ghoul sat up straighter and leaned forward, a confused expression on its monstrous face. "The what?"
The two gaming ghouls looked like wolves eyeing lambs. They both wore the same disgusting combination of hunger and lust on their faces and they crouched, unnaturally limber, at first away from John but then starting to edge toward the door. The one on the throne didn't motion them back just yet.
John's frustration at being locked up in the madhouse, trapped by the fog, starts to boils over.
"You don't have to die today, just tell me where the Onerigineon-thing is and we'll leave you to your filth." John replies to the one-armed ghoul.
"If you want to do it the hard way, then I'll kill two of you and beat the answer out of the one that's left over."
Broom doesn't know anything about the foes, but she looks at John with concern over the sudden anger in his voice.
Desdemona froze, staring, appalled by the reek and horror of the scene. It didn't frighten her as much as the darkness lurking in the corners, but it was truly disgusting.
Her shadow slowly oozed forward, slowly slowly, the whispers in her mind gone predatory.
As though through molasses, and without taking her eyes off the ghouls, Desdemona reached for the dagger she had tucked into her belt pouch.
"Don't they know? Or did that man lie to us?" she whispered.
"Don't let the talking distract you," Reine warned the others. She kept her bow ready.
"A what? I have no idea what you're talking about." The two lesser ghouls on the floor bared their teeth at John, only barely under control. The small sounds they were making as they edged toward the door were utterly inhuman, more animal than man.
The thing on the throne shook its head. "If you think it's here, we can help you find it. You just need to do something for us in exchange."
"Look, I told you what you'd get. Tell me where Zandalus hid the thing making the smoke and I won't punch you to death...."
"The voonith thing is trying to sneak up on us again," Reine said softly to the others. She kept her eyes on the six-legged creature and pointed her arrow in its direction so that the others could follow, without making a big display of it. She wasn't quite ready to let it know she knew it was there.
"Maybe you can offer it ghouls to eat," Reine said to Des and Broom, "It seemed to understand you when you yelled at it in your weird language," she pointed out.
"Or," Reine said even more softly, to John, "maybe you can offer it to the ghouls as a trade more...er...appetizing than just you not punching them to death?" If she had to pick a side, Reine would rather pick any side that didn't involve working with ghouls, but in this nightmare place, choices seemed limited.
The ghoul on the throne growled and stood up. "I don't know what you're talking about!" It seemed obvious the conversation was not going to come to an amicable resolution.
"Kill them!" The trio of ghouls surged toward John like a stinking tidal wave of teeth and claws.
"Deal with the Voonth." John barks without taking his eyes off the corpse eaters.
He growls and his hand flashes down to grab a dagger that he throws at number 2 ghoul.
(fighting defensively)
Quick as a snake, his right hand grabs Red Destiny and pulls it out into a high guard.
He will use his reach to hit the first ghoul to approach.
(fighting defensively, power attack, enlarged)
Broom was getting mad at John. "John, why are you being so angry when he is trying to ask us for help?" she asked, but her words were drowned out by the sudden flurry of violence.
Reine was pointing to the lizard thing behind them and John had just thrown a dagger at one of the ghouls. She didn't know what she was supposed to do, but she did know the lizard thing could shriek really loudly.
She cupped her hand and a viscous purple-black liquid pooled within. The mass gelled into a glob as she tossed it at the lizard thing in front of her.
Shaken by the sudden chaos her aim was off. The blob splattered across the floor and the air suddenly filled with the smell of strong vinegar as the black material corrodes the surface.
Broom winced at the damage she had done.
"$#!t," Reine said, but she was moving before John had finished talking. Running past him, being careful to stay clear of his backswing, Reine let her bow and arrow hang in her left hand. As she ran, her eyes seemed to absorb the light around her, making it seem almost as if she was surrounded by a corona of shadow. "Help John," Reine told the smaller women.
She skidded to a stop in front of the voonith (and just behind Broom and Desdemona), swinging her empty right hand at the strange creature.
"I told you, leave us alone!"
"Aurtov klath! Jhugb-" Desdemona choked on the Aklo words telling the voonith to take the ghouls instead when she saw shadow envelop Reine's head. Turning away so she didn't have to see it, she flung out her hand - and just as Broom had said, the shadows obeyed her, flocking toward the ghoul she had targeted.
Just as before, they dragged the flesh of the ghoul away into some far nether realm, the nature of which Desdemona did not care to consider.
Her own shadow had already been oozing forward, and now it snaked out to coil around the ghoul John hadn't butchered.
Shadow-coils wrapped around the thing, not crushing, but sapping the thing's unnatural life away.
Defense:20% miss chance in normal light, 50% miss in darkness. Immunity to death effects, disease, and poison. Evasion.
Offense:
Slam reach 10', bite reach 5', increased by 5' each when Large. Melee attacks affect incorporeal creatures as if it had the ghost touch weapon property. The eidolon’s melee attacks deal only half damage to corporeal creatures. All attacks are treated as magic. Combat reflexes (2 AOOs).