John steps forward and punches the smoke-spitter with the hilt of Red Destiny.
(non-lethal, power attack)
Reine, having lost John in the fog, despite being only a few feet away, managed not to jump when he called out. She started working her way into the more dense fog and towards his voice.
Her bow was useless in the haze, so she put it away, keeping her hands free.
Desdemona had been trailing after the others, more than reluctant to enter the yellow mist as they so blithely had - but her shadow apparently had no such compunctions. It was slowly stretching ahead, longer and longer.
That didn't encourage her to go after it in the fog at all. She was actively trying to think of reasons not to.
But the shadow seemed to be dragging her along. Her feet unwillingly took one step, then another, and another. Slow, but steadily entering the fog.
To Broom and Desdemona, the eerie silence from their friends deeper in the fog was louder than any words.
"John? Reine? Broom? Are... are you still there?" Desdemona called, her attention finally torn from the shadow dragging her into the mist.
Alarmed by the sudden silence, Broom clutched Nipper tightly and stumbled through the yellow fog towards Desdemona's voice. "What happened? We need to go help them!"
She stood close by Des, not wanting to lose sight of her and took a couple of tentative steps forward making sure that Des was following.
Reine had heard John's voice. She knew it. She moved carefully through the yellow fog, and, despite fighting off a sudden wave of light-headedness, she was sure she had managed to move closer to him. But she still couldn't see him. Her foot struck something. She looked down. Was that... Was it someone sleeping? Here? Now?
Reine blinked her eyes. She squeezed them shut, trying to clear the haze.
With her eyes closed, Reine felt better. Lighter. A little woozy, maybe, but definitely calmer. A peace came over her. For just a moment. She took in a deep breath.
When she opened her eyes again, she was no longer in the yellow mists. She was in a swamp. The swamp.
A cold that had nothing to do with the watery muck in which she lay hidden washed over her. Dread overwhelmed her. The were coming! She could hear them. As terror overwhelmed her, Reine jerked up to run, to flee further into the swamp!
As Reine jerked awake, she found herself on the hard floor of the tower, surrounded by yellow smoke again.
In her ears, she heard the faint strains of a haunting melody.
As John started to hit the Oneoneirogen he became woozy from inhaling the smoke and slumped to the ground, unconscious.
A moment later he began to snore....
"Broom, stay where you are! I see a body on the floor!" Desdemona whispered as loudly as she dared. Was there some murderer lurking in the mist? Was it... him?
Bending down, she squinted at the body. It looked like John?!?
Grabbing him by an ankle, she tried to pull him out of the fog, eyes darting everywhere for what had felled him.
"I've got John! Be careful, there's something in there! Maybe Reine is fallen, too!"
Her shadow remained stretched out, exploring the fog.
I don't know that you guys will be able to use that information, though. Des guesses that killing it would also probably work.
Special Qualities: Veil of Mists (Su) Within the obscuring fog that cloaks an oneirogen lie denser eddies of planar potentiality. This fog is charged with extraplanar energies that manifest in a variety of ways depending on the plane to which the oneirogen is linked. While an oneirogen is immune to the effects of these vapors, any creature that enters the mists within 5 feet of the oneirogen is affected (see below). These fumes don’t impede vision any more than the oneirogen’s obscuring fog ability already does. They can also be blown or burnt away (and recover) in the same manner.
Many oneirogens are linked to the Dimension of Dreams—they spew a sour, yellow fog. Creatures that enter this fog must succeed at a DC 12 Will save or fall asleep. Additionally, they do not receive natural healing from resting for the next 24 hours. The creature can attempt another Will save every round to wake up and can be woken up as if it had been affected by the spell sleep. Creatures that succeed at the save to resist this effect are immune to that oneirogen’s veil of mists for 24 hours. The save DC is Charisma-based.
Desdemona's shadow slithered past John's sleeping form and found Reine on the floor, too, though she was getting up. There was another man on the floor, this one ensconced in a nest of pilfered bedding and linens and with yellow mist pouring out of his mouth.
All around was a wall of sickly yellow fog, tumbling through the alley’s canyon of crumbling, gray brick walls like some jaundiced flash flood. Ahead, the unfamiliar alley split, curving to the left and right. Behind, from the silent swell of mist, emanated the sound of footsteps—slow, but somehow keeping pace with the careening, hungry wave.
"The oneirogen - it's there! And Reine! I think we may have to kill... whomever the oneirogen once was," Desdemona whispered to Broom, still trying to haul John out. Once he was sufficiently free of the yellow vapor, She bent down and smacked his cheeks. "John - wake up!" she hissed urgently.
Broom stood there paralyzed with indecision as she looked at John's still form. At least he was snoring which probably meant he wasn't dead, but what should she do? Run? Try to help John? Find Reine in the fog? Attack the mist spewer?
"What in the hells!" Reine's curse came from out of the yellow fog - somewhat lower than usual, perhaps. The anger in her voice could almost have been reassuring to those who knew her.
"Who is this?"
Des woke up John with a smack on the cheek.
Closing her eyes for courage, Desdemona ventured back into the mist to see if she could pull out Reine, as well. Though, from the sound of it, she might have a time convincing the woman to come...
The shadow, lurking in the mist, abruptly swirled around the oneirogen, like it was draining from the air and into his smokespewing mouth.
Uh oh...
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 (3 AOOs).
Reine looked down at the smoke-spewing... thing that lay before her. She watched as the now-familiar shadow-creature uncoiled out of the mist and did... something to the oneirogen.
She really didn't know what else to do, and this thing was apparently contributing to the cause of everyone's fear and suffering. So she gathered all of that rage and fear into herself, leaned down, and reached her hand out towards the thing's head, intending to allow those emotions to flow out of her and into it.
Unfortunately, whether it was the smoke, or some effect of the shadow-creature, or perhaps some defense of the oneirogen itself she would probably never know, but in the end, Reine's hand came down not on a humanoid forehead, but instead on a handful of dirty sheets.
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John grabs his sword and stands up, then falls back over ... unconscious in the smoke.
Broom tucked Nipper under one arm and grabbed John's ankle with her free hand. She wished she still had her invisible friend around so that she could ask it to go and pick up John's sword.
With a heave, she tried pulling John back, away from whatever it was in the mist that was doing this.
The shadow swirled around the slumbering form but was unable to hurt the fog-spewing figure. It remained blissfully asleep, or whatever it was, and apparently still unaware of the group's presence.
Nipper squirmed in Broom's arm but remained where he was, though he started barking up a storm at the indignity of his precarious location.
John wakes up from a terrible dream to the sounds of a dog barking.
He grabs his sword and stands up, only to collapse back to the floor.
Broom watched in alarm as John fell down again. She put the squirming Nipper down and once again grabbed John's leg, pulling him with all her strength all the way out of the yellow miasma.
"Reine, Des!" she called out "Are you OK? Get out of the fog before something terrible happens to you!"
As John began to stir she stopped him from going back into the fog a third time. "You can't keep doing that! What if something happens to you before We can pull you out again? We need to think of something different, but first we need to make sure the others are safe and get them out of the fog too."
Recovering her balance, Reine took a moment to focus in the swirling mist, and again tried to place her hand on the recumbent figure's forehead.
Even as her fingers touched flesh, and Reine felt the rage and terror flow from her and into the creature, she readied herself to take the thing down if it did anything other than continue to lie there. "I'm here," Reine called out. "This thing might be on the move soon!" She didn't bother to explain further.
Des grimaced as knowledge of the oneirogen poured into her - what source could it have but the dark? But for once, she was grateful.
Throwing out an arm, she pleaded with the dark. Take his life, not ours.
The darkness, rather than gathering, seemed to flow away from where she pointed. Confused, she kept pleading. Was... was there something there?
Her own shadow, however, did not flee. It continued to swirl above the oneirogen's head, faster and faster. It fought against the smoke spewing out of his mouth, rushing inside him. Desdemona shuddered, wondering if it had done the same to her, once.
WHEW
dammit
Reine touched the recumbent... thing on the floor and it jerked awake, spasming and twitching as it rose off the floor. There was something wrong with it, something unnatural. The human body just couldn't do that, rising straight up in fits and starts like a puppet on a string.
Desdemona's shadow swirled and drained the animating energy down into the shadows, but the two women's attacks were not enough to stop the thing from flailing at Reine.
It moved in horrible, hard to predict, insect-like twitches, and hit very hard, yet Reine would swear that through the mists the man's face still looked asleep!
Nipper, shockingly, ran straight into the mist right at the thing attacking Reine.
It bit right at the twitching, lurching figure's calf, though no one was close enough to see through the swirling yellow mist.
John shakes himself awake a third time, grabs his sword, and stands up.
Reine grunted at the force of the blow. She winced, feeling what was likely a few cracked ribs. But she punched right back.
"Nipper! No!" Broom cried out as she watched nipper disappear into the thick mists.
She didn't want to go into the fog, but whit Nipper in there somewhere and the sudden sound of a thud followed by a grunt she knew she had to do something. John looked like he was about to charge back in once more despite her plea so since everyone including the dog charging into the fog to face an unknown foe, she did likewise with much trepidation.
Holding her breath she rushed into the mist, drawing her sickle as she did.
Inside, she muffled a gasp at the twitching monstrosity and flailed at it with the sharp instrument.
Despite the roiling vapours, she managed to slightly nick the strange thing as she glanced about for Nipper and anyone else.
Desdemona stared in astonishment as a flaming insect the size of a small child popped out of the aether where the shadows had fled.
In such situations, her colder, more calculating mind took over.
She turned her pointing hand to face the dim figure in the yellow mist. "Stop it, please!" she implored the darkness, a hard edge to her voice that hadn't been there before.
The shadows gathered around the figure, darkening the yellow fog, but what they were doing, she couldn't tell.
Gah.
Her own shadow continued to try to circle the lurching marionette that had once been human, like an eddying whirlpool in the air. Had this been its plan for her downfall, all along?!
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 (3 AOOs).
The survivors rained a hail of blows down on the sleeper's vague form. Between Broom's sickle, Reine's hate-filled blows, and Desdemona's magic, the momentarily animated figure was soon once again prone on the floor, the yellow mist no longer pouring from its mouth.
"I don't understand what came over me. That mist just kept knocking me off my feet." John says.
He steps over to examine the body and see if he's dead.
"We came over here at the doctor's suggestion that we might learn something from this guy. That'll be hard if it's dead."
Reine winced again at the pain in her ribs. Then she looked down at the unmoving creature on the ground.
"We learned that it was blowing smoke," she said, "and that if you beat it enough, it stops doing that. I'd guess that's not a bad thing."
She looked around the room. "I don't suppose they'd have left this stuff here if it was useful." Still, she began rummaging through the crates and other things in the room, looking for anything that might help their situation.
"But we already knew those two things from dealing with the doctor" Broom piped up as she looked around making sure that everyone was there, including Nipper.
She knelt down beside the thing and tried to figure out if it was still alive, and if so whether she could save it. She had watched Xander a lot and thought that maybe she knew what to look for.
"The doctor's smoke was purple," Reine pointed out. "This one was yellow - the same yellow that's all over the place. I wonder if that's the problem. Maybe we need to find everyone that's blowing yellow smoke and..." Reine paused, giving Broom a thoughtful look. "Well, stop them from smoking any more."
Desdemona considered Reine's words, and found herself less upset by them than she'd been expecting. In fact, she was hardly bothered at all - more by her own lack of response than by the idea.
Looking around to ascertain if the yellow mist was actually dispersing, she knelt by Broom and the unfortunate man that had been the oneirogen, and began to search his pockets, her mind busily dissecting her own thoughts.
Her shadow lay on the floor, innocuous and innocent.
"Maybe the different colored smoke does mean something, but who's going to have the answer to that question." John says.
He helps dig around the room.
(+1 for traps)
As the group investigated the corpse and the room, the mist outside the windows began to fade. While the surrounding region was still awash in the deadly fog, much of the immediate area now appeared clear.
Even from an external examination, Broom could tell that most of the corpse’s organs had been ripped away, though there were no surgical scars to indicate they had been removed by mortal hands.
As Reine had predicted, nothing of immediate value was left around the landing, though the stairs upward beckoned.
John will investigate the stairs while the others look at the corpse.
"He... he was linked to another realm. Another dimension. As though there was a portal within him," Desdemona said, suddenly a bit concerned about their proximity to the man, despite the lack of otherworldly mist spewing out of him now. After all, what else might have crawled through such a portal, other than the mist that had poured through?
Could such portals link to other worlds? Perhaps one not caught in nightmares? Were they one-way doors?
She hesitated to bring it up, but gazed thoughtfully in the direction of the chapel, where the purple mist-spewer presumably still lived.
"Did they cut out his organs to make him this way, or did he lose the organs to something that came through this portal?" John asks.
As Broom examined the corpse, she let her mind wander once more. Perhaps it was because they had already encountered one that she had a better idea of the information she was looking for, but this time she found a mind that was relatively sane and knowledgeable on the subject. Was it possible that her mind had bumped into Xander's? Or even one of her closer companions?
Whatever the case, the fact that she actually found memories that helped was a little exciting after the constant stream of horrible minds she had touched up until now.
"We think that they got dissolved by the mist, or maybe sucked through to the other side? Maybe they are lying around somewhere on another plane? But how did he still live without them? Hmmm."
John found that the stairs up looked sturdy enough. If they had been this sturdy, it seemed as though the stairs down from the landing to the floor had to have been deliberately removed.
Desdemona was sure that she had heard of oneirogens that linked to other planes instead of the Dimension of Dreams.
Broom couldn't think of any reason a living person would be able to move around with so many organs missing. But undead, golems, and other creatures animated by magical energy were certainly able to do without things mortal creatures considered necessary.
"I think they must have put that poor soul up here and then collapsed the stairs so no one could get to him. Those ghouls would have probably tried to eat him if they hadn't."
John will proceed up the stairs quietly, listening for trouble.
(+1 for traps)
Broom did a quick look around to make sure Nipper was still ok before neatly arranging the corpse and doing a quick tidy up of the scene. A cantrip or two and the bed was cleaned and sheets and clothing mended as best she could given their condition. She then moved over to take up a position behind John.
Reine gave the room a flat glare. It had failed to positively surprise her. Then she sighed, shrugged, and moved to follow the others, as quietly as she could, alert for the next ambush.
Taking her cue from Reine and John, Desdemona also attempted utmost quiet as she followed.
However, her shadow had other plans. It rummaged through crates as it slid over them, knocking some aside.
Thoroughly distracted, Desdemona winced and begged desperately in her mind for the shadow to stop. But it was already ahead of her, stretching out up the stairs...
The party attempted to advance stealthily up the stairs but the rubble and general disrepair as they ascended made that difficult.
The chanting was the first thing they noticed. Somewhere off to the west, someone was chanting loudly enough that they could hear it even halfway up the stairs.
It was hard to make out over the low drone, but John, Reine, and Desdemona's shadow could all hear the sound of conversation from the room at the top of the stairs. A number of people were just above, chatting and moving around.
John motions for quiet to the others.
He looks at them and with his head and eye gestures either up the stairs, or back down the way they came as a question.
He waits for their answer.