Fighting to stay awake, Broom none the less pushed forward trying to get close enough to do something against the Tatterman.
Despite all the people in the way, she decided to try tossing at least a little acid at the tattered terror.
Just as she flicked the little splash of acid, someone stepped in the way and she was forced to fling the little drops high to avoid hitting anyone.
She looked with dismay as the particularly potent liquid etched and indelible mark into the wall.
She hated damaging stuff with her acid. Although she could clean up the mess and make it look better after the fact, it was something she could fix with neither magic nor talent.
The Tatterman turned to sneer at Reine, grabbing an Apostle by the hair and half throwing, half pushing her in John's direction before running through the southern doors. The crowd melted away from the terrifying specter's path as he pelted through the doors.
Doctor Elbourne ran after the action as well, though the guards predictably stayed right where they were.
Attack of Opportunity for him leaving a threatened square?
John slashes at the Tatterman as it moves away.
(two handed, power attack)
and then stomps after it into the next room.
"No you don't," Reine muttered. "You do not get away that easily, you bastard."
She ducked into the gap in the crowd that John's passage had created, through the double doors, and immediately threw herself to one side. Seeing her prey, Reine's eyes flared with eagerness, and she lunged forward, her hand reaching towards the Tatterman, even as the power of her own fear and terror coursed through her.
The shadow flowed like molasses after the Tatterman, the zero-eyed Desdemona stalking slowly after him as well, as though drawn on a string. The shadow, however, reached out to curl around the Tatterman's shadow, its serpent-body coiling tighter and tighter.
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).
"Come back here, little scarecrow!" John yells at the Tatterman as he pursues him through the doors and into the room.
John slashes at the Tatterman as it moves away and then stomps after it into the next room.
Giant John slashed another chunk out of the Tatterman's back as the monster turned to run.
The shadow flowed like molasses after the Tatterman, the zero-eyed Desdemona stalking slowly after him as well, as though drawn on a string. The shadow, however, reached out to curl around the Tatterman's shadow, its serpent-body coiling tighter and tighter.
The shadow wrapped around the Tatterman's shadow, somehow managing to choke the monster himself.
"No you don't," Reine muttered. "You do not get away that easily, you bastard."
She ducked into the gap in the crowd that John's passage had created, through the double doors, and immediately threw herself to one side. Seeing her prey, Reine's eyes flared with eagerness, and she lunged forward, her hand reaching towards the Tatterman, even as the power of her own fear and terror coursed through her.
This time the Tatterman didn't dodge her claws. In spite of the giant John and the shadow choking its shadow, the Tatterman's actually seemed most unsettled at Reine's nearness.
"I'll eat your brain, little pretender," he snarled at Reine. But instead of attacking her, the Tatterman gestured at John again, spitting out another brain-twisting phrase.
Taking advantage of the Tatterman's momentary distraction as he cast his spell, the shadow twisted and choked even tighter.
The Tatterman managed to choke out its spell in spite of the shadow's efforts.
"In your dreams, Tatter-man," Reine sneered back at the creature's taunt. When he started to cast, her arm flashed out, reaching to squeeze his throat, her claws poised to pierce.
As Desdemona strode forward after the others, she raised her arms to the sides, and the darkness seemed to congeal in every corner. As she stepped through the door, they flowed into the serpent-shadow, seeming to bulk it up further.
There was a lot of yelling and shouting and running around. Giant creatures were swinging wildly and taking up all the space in the other room leaving Broom a little bewildered about what was going on.
She approached the door, but was confronted by the mass of undulating shadows that was Des'... companion?
Broom could only get the briefest of glimpses of the tatterman looking terribly wounded beyond.
She wished there was something more significant that she could do to help, but stuck outside as she was, flicking some more acid in the tatterman's general direction was the best she could hope for.
The attempt was half hearted and accomplished little more than do some more damage to the asylum walls.
Broom and Des threw acid and hungry shadows at the Tatterman, burning away at his robes but doing little else.
Non-silver damage= 10+4+3+16+1+10 (44)
"You'll eat my brain?" Reine laughed in the Tatterman's face. "In your dreams, you cowardly little worm."
Focusing all the rage and terror and hate and fear that had built up within her during their time in this place, running from and afraid of this... thing, and all that it had created and destroyed, Reine reached for the Tatterman's throat, her fingernails like claws as she did so.
"Die," She told him, even as her nails scraped at his flesh, "Die alone, and in terror, like every poor soul you've destroyed.
"I just want a decent night's sleep!" John bellows.
His enlarged silvery sword slices out and through the Tatterman's neck.
(two handed, power attack, inspired)
(two handed, power attack, inspired)
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John the Giant chopped and Reine the Terrifying sliced, and in a matter of moments the Tatterman lay dead at their feet.
Non-silver damage= 10+4+3+16+1+10+15+1 (60)
"And stay down .... you fricken' nightmare!" John yells at the fallen foe.
As the noise of combat died down, Broom tentatively peeked around the shadow to see the outcome.
"So, what happens now? Should we go check out Zandalus' room? We still don't know how to get out of here.
Oh! And there are all those pages that need to be sorted too."
Reine had ridden the body to the floor, her nails buried in the sides of the Tatterman's neck. How she hadn't managed to rip out her enemy's throat, she wasn't sure, but she saw the corpse to the floor, where it stopped moving, and that was good enough.
She spat on the corpse, then she picked up the wicked blade the Tatterman had used to cut the throat of the cook. That was going in a pocket. Next, she began taking whatever she could find of value. It wouldn't be enough to pay for the Tatterman's crimes, but it would be a start.
Seeing Reine down next to the Tatterman, John says "Search him, see if there's some clue to his dark magic."
to the others he says: "Do you think it's over? The Oneirogens, Zandulus, the Tatterman ... is there anything else?"
The darkness around the fallen Tatterman seemed to intensify for a moment, growing thick about anything of interest to it; then it withdrew, draining back to normalcy around Desdemona, who staggered, then dropped to her knees.
Putting a hand to her forehead, she stammered, "Wh-what...?" Her storm-grey gaze instinctively turned to Broom as a port, pleading for some sense in this madness.
bleh
Desdemona's nulled eyes rested on the Tatterman. "Diiiiiiiieeeeeee." They rose to John, and her voice deepened. "KILL."
Desdemona's nulled eyes rested on the Tatterman. "Diiiiiiiieeeeeee." They rose to John, and her voice deepened. "KILL."
"What?" Reine looked at Desdemona, wondering if the shadow that seemed to have taken her over was now encouraging John to betray and kill her along with the Tatterman, and she lurched to her feet, one hand raised reflexively to ward off John's massive sword, even as she gathered and focused her anger and fear, if she survived long enough to strike back.
But then she saw the shadow-creature slamming shadowy claws into the body of the Tatterman, and she looked again.
"How in the hells?" Reine felt the touch of panic at the back of her mind. "How are you not dead?" She almost shrieked at what should have been a corpse on the ground in front of her. Was this truly a nightmare, after all? Were they trapped here forever, doomed to eventually die at the hands of an immortal and indestructible foe?
"No," Reine whispered, then repeated, in a stronger voice, "NO! You will die! John, kill him! Use your sword!"
She spat on the corpse, then she picked up the wicked blade the Tatterman had used to cut the throat of the cook. That was going in a pocket. Next, she began taking whatever she could find of value. It wouldn't be enough to pay for the Tatterman's crimes, but it would be a start.
The Tatterman's corpse was already starting to cool as Reine went through its robes. Its flayed skin was disgustingly squishy to the touch and other than the war razor, the only thing Reine found of value was a gold ring with a perfect red ruby set in a symbol that gave her a headache if she looked at too long.
Desdemona's shadow suddenly reared up and smashed its huge fists down on the Tatterman's head, connecting with a sickening crunch.
John will take his sivered longsword and cut the Tatterman's head off its neck.
"Should be dead now."
"Wait, don't the what?" was all Broom cold stutter out as she was taken by surprise at the sudden and senseless smashing of the Tatterman's corpse. Yes, he was a terrifying evil entity that sought to slay them all, but that wasn't a reason to damage him more than was already necessary to kill him.
The sight of Des' transformation and the savagery of her shadow was appalling enough, but what the shadow did to the corpse's head? She couldn't fix that. And what a mess.
"Are you all right Des?" she looked worriedly at Desdemona before catching the flash of a sword out of the corner of her eye. "John!" Broom exhaled sharply and shook her head in disappointment as John further decapitated the already smashed head from the body. "I think Des needs help."
The decapitated corpse of the monster from their nightmares lay at their feet. Through the doors and the crumbled wall to the north, the party could see the yellow mist dissipating and the ever-present clouds starting to clear.
The panicked crowd of Apostles started to quiet as the first ray of sunshine in weeks hit the courtyard on the far side of the barricade. Elbourne spoke into the quiet. "I think they did it."
"Wh... what happened, Broom?" Desdemona asked plaintively, looking around in bewilderment. She caught sight of John beheading the Tatterman, and took a breath, the back of her hand over her lips. Her free hand groped for the glowing dagger hidden away in its sheath on her belt.
"We were in the camp..." she trailed off, averting her gaze. In her mind, all was frozen terror, her fears come true in crystal clarity, but outwardly she was merely discomfited by the confusion and gore.
Reine frowned down at the corpse, the ring she'd taken from it still in one hand. Idly, without thinking about it, one hand slipped the ring into a pocket.
Now what?
The source - and target - of her anger and fear lay dead at her feet. What was she supposed to do now? Some of her memories had begun to return, or perhaps that was just her mind grabbing desperately to the "facts" they had found in the files, and filling in what she imagined must be true, based on someone else's writings. But real or imagined, what was in her head was still incomplete. And she was still listed as a patient in this...place.
Was she - were they - supposed to simply settle back down into being patients now? Was the anger and fear she'd felt and begun to learn how to channel for her own use actually something they would try to take away from her now?
She shook her head.
"No," Reine whispered. "We don't stay here. We find Winter, and get the hells out of this place."
Broom stood beside Des and helped steady her. "You don't remember? Your eyes went all black and your voice became all hissy. But the tatterman is gone!" she pointed to the mutilated corpse and was immediately regretful for drawing attention to the mess.
"We agree that we should tell Winter and the others what happened, then see if she knows a way out of here. Shouldn't we help everyone here get out of the asylum as well?" Broom gestured to the other inmates. "What do you think Dr. Elbourne?"
"We would also like to finish gathering up those pages before we go. And there might still be clues about what Zandalus or the tatterman were trying to do up in his room. It might be a good idea to have a look to see if we can figure out what was going on."
"Uhhhh...." John starts his sentence roughly.
"Most of these people are in this place are hear for a reason."
"Maybe we shouldn't be working to hard to let them all out."
He cleans off his longsword and sheathes it.
"We're obviously leaving. Nobody is going to keep me in this place."
"Let's go make sure of Zandalus," Reine said, though she didn't clarify what, exactly they'd be "making sure of" with the dead "prophet." "Then we can go get Winter and let her start making decisions about the other people in here."
Broom looks at John quizzically "Aren't we in here for a reason?"
Desdemona took Broom's hand, getting back to her feet... and didn't release it. With a white-knuckled grip on the poor woman, she gave Broom a pleading look.
"I can't bear it here much longer. Please, let's go."
She did let herself be chivvied along without a fight to where they'd last seen Zandalus, however... and, no doubt to Broom's relief, she released the other woman after a few moments of desperate strength.
When her shadow moved, falling over the rubble and Zandalus himself, she brandished her rose-glowing dagger before her, her usual faint smile a frozen grimace on her face.
Reine pulled the short sword she'd had tucked into her pack out and held it out to John. It matched the empty sheath on his belt. Red Destiny.
"You did fine with the big one, but I thought you'd want this back."
Then, she turned her attention to searching the room.
"I don't know why we're here Broom. I wish I could remember it all." John says.
"I do know that we're leaving, and I plan on finding the man responsible for putting us in here with that Tatterman thing and getting even."
John seems pretty serious about that.
"Thanks Reine...." John says as he takes back the shortsword.
While the others collect the pages, John searches Zandulus's corpse.
As the sun came out for the first time in weeks and the mist disappeared, many Apostles just wandered outside the barricade to look up at the sky in wonder. Others broke down crying, or started talking about what to do now. Elbourne caught the heroes before they headed back to Zandalus's den.
"Thank you. I'll do what I can to organize these people and keep everyone calm. You go do whatever you need to do. You're heroes. We can't thank you enough."
The asylum halls were quiet on the way back to Zandalus's rooms, but it wasn't the eerie quiet of lurking monsters. Sunlight streamed in the windows and illuminated previously foreboding corners and long galleries, making the walk considerably less nerve wracking than before.
Additionally, searching the pallets about the room turns up a bag that contains 200 gp worth of various coins and jewelry, 12 bite-sized pieces of jerky, and a pearl tooth worth 18 gp.
A PC who searches Zandalus’s mattresses and succeeds at a DC 14 Perception check finds eight pouches each containing 50 gold coins, a Wand of Command (38 charges), an Elixir of Truth, a Scroll of Summon Monster III, and a book titled The Chain of Nights. Among the book’s numerous elaborate medical sketches of the brain, depictions of pressure points and chakras, meditative mantras, and methods of achieving lucid dreaming are spells and arcane rituals devoted to breaching the boundaries of dreams. This book is worth 1,100 gp to the right collector.
The Chain of Nights is first and foremost a text on the anatomy and workings of the brain, and the first several hundred pages concern themselves with diagnosing, analyzing, and treating—via therapy, drugs, and basic surgeries—numerous physiological and psychological afflictions. Only in the final third does the tome turn toward more esoteric topics, such as the source of nightmares, accounts of the Dimension of Dreams, and descriptions of the creatures that live there.
Any reader who spends 1 hour consulting The Chain of Nights can immediately after use the hypnotism occult skill unlock (Pathfinder RPG Occult Adventures 195) once per day even if that character isn’t capable of casting psychic spells or doesn’t possess the Psychic Sensitivity feat. Also, after 1 hour of consulting the tome, the reader gains a +2 bonus on a single Knowledge (planes) check related to the Dimension
of Dreams.
Additionally, the tome contains the spells dream, dream council, dream scan, dream travel, and nightmare. Most notoriously, it contains an elaborate—and some say flawed—ritual for releasing one’s dreams. While the rite functions, the side effects of failure can create dangerous
beings known as oneirogens (see below).
RELEASE NIGHTMARE
School conjuration (creation); Level 6
Casting Time 60 minutes
Components V, S, M, F (a candle flame flickering in a darkened room), SC (up to 12)
Skill Checks Heal DC 28, 4 successes; Knowledge (planes) DC 28, 2 successes
Range touch
Duration instantaneous
Saving Throw Will save; SR yes
Backlash The primary caster is targeted by the spell nightmare every day for the next 1d6 days. The effect has the same DC as this ritual.
Failure The target takes 2d10 points of damage. If this kills the target, the target becomes an oneirogen rather than dying.
EFFECT
This ritual creates a small rift between the Dimension of Dreams and the target’s mind. If the target suffers from natural, reoccurring nightmares, the ritual conjures them into a viscous, physical substance that boils forth from the target’s mouth and nose, then congeals into an inert, coal-like lump of dead dreamstuff. After this, the target has no natural nightmares for a year and never has those specific nightmares again. This ritual dispels the effect of the nightmare spell and makes the target immune to that spell for 1 week. If the target is the victim of an outsider that can cast nightmare as a supernatural or spell-like ability, this ritual attempts to conjure that outsider. The target must have been affected by the outsider’s nightmare ability within the last 3 days. In this case, upon the ritual’s completion, the outsider must succeed at a Will saving throw or be summoned into a space adjacent to the target. If the target has been affected by multiple outsiders’ nightmare ability, the outsider with the lowest Hit Dice is conjured. The outsider is in no way controlled by the target or the ritual’s casters, and likely either attacks those who conjured it or attempts to flee. Outsiders having an ability similar to nightmare—such as a night hag with its dream haunting ability—might also be conjured by this effect.
As the ruined asylum brightened up, so did Broom's mood. She stood for a few moments smiling and staring blankly off in the distance before a troubled look crossed her face. "We still don't think We remember anything more about who We are. Maybe Our old memories are lost forever?"
The only other thing that marred the occasion was finding out that the fate of the poor cook that she had helped earlier. Broom did the only thing she could do and cleaned up the cook's corpse and mend it to the best of her abilities to make it look presentable.
Upstairs, she once again summoned her invisible companion and happily set about gathering up all the pages to be sorted later while Reine and John did a more thorough search of the rooms. She asked Des to help her thinking that maybe having something to do might help settle her nerves and take her mind off the most recent events.
With the pages securely stowed in her magic pack, she started puttering around, tidying up random things here and there while she waited for everyone else to finish with their investigations. She couldn't wait to head back and tell Winter and the others the good news, and was even more excited to see what was outside the walls of the asylum.
"Hmph," That was about the only response Reine made at thumbing through the Harrow deck. She did pause a moment on one card, frowning. Then she pulled the ring from her pocket - the ring she'd taken from the Tatterman's finger. It hurt her head to look at it too long, so she tried to keep it quick, comparing the ruby in the ring to the ones in the picture on the Harrow card.
After a moment, she shook her head, and, without thinking about it, her hand slipped the ring into a pocket.
*****
Once everything was gathered, Reine looked at the pile and shrugged. "Part of me says we should try to give this stuff back to whoever Zandalus stole it from. Another part of me says we'll need it more than they will. I..." For the first time since this nightmare had begun, Reine was clearly unsure of herself. The anger wasn't driving her now, and she looked a little lost. "I don't know."
She pulled out the ring and the wicked razor she'd taken from the Tatterman, and dropped them both onto the pile.
"What do we do with this?"
"More questions than answers in this place, but what's new." John says with a tone of exasperation.
"Maybe somebody wants those scribbles back in Thrushmore."
After the search he says:
"I mean to get out of this place and find the man that stuck us in here. I'm going to persuade him"[b] (evil grin) [b]"to help me remember all the things I've forgotten, and then I'll be gettin' even with himleaving me in this place."
"You guys are welcome to come."
Back to Winter first.
Gratefully accepting the task Broom had given her, Desdemona worked not to think too hard about the future... or the past.
Especially the immediate past.
When Broom suggested they might never regain their memories, Desdemona felt a curious rush of relief. Odd, that... but this was no time to dwell on what might have been, she told herself firmly. John's offer was... well, the only offer in town, really.