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Despite the heap of burnt human corpses, the fetid hot air of the cellar and the flies that buzz incessantlly, the group manage to get themselves up the 8ft out of the cellar into the chute. The rough walls of the chute make it easy for you all to scale up 15ft inside chute to the rusty metal door, that is easily pushed open allowing entry into a bare service room.
Once in the room, you see outside through the open door to the south, your eyes see trampled flowerbeds that lie smeared and squashed across the muddy courtyard. On all sides, stark gray walls climb toward a narrow gap of sunless sky.
A mist clings to the walls outside, that coalesces into strange shapes that you can't identify from within the service room. Just as the yellow cloud changes denisity, the shapes change their form, they disappear into nothing only to appear further around the grey walls. The air, almost living, seems malleable in the mind of some greater evil.
You notice scabby stains amid the mud puddles, faintly leading from the door to the west before entering the service room containing the chute you have just climbed.
Weather
Era has filth fever ...
Onset days; Frequency 1/day
Effect 1d3 Dex damage and 1d3 Con damage; Cure 2 consecutive saves
Regina squirmed slightly, still feeling uncomfortably exposed... which may have had at least a little to do with her current dress. It wasn't even close to as covering as she would have liked, but... well, there hadn't been much choice here. Little bits of ether flickered around her fingers as she considered hiding, but she did scoot over to the door. "...Head south, I guess?" she suggested, having no intention of going first unless she ended up scouting. Her natural talents made her slow - but fairly effective - at that sort of thing.
With a simple flick of her wrist, Jacqueline once again summons her flaming blade, and with the free hand, she imperceptibility straightens her tricorn hat. "Right! Well, then, tally-ho!" As she gets one foot out the door, the eccentric young woman takes a closer look at the mist. "Fascinating. And finally not in a horrifying, morbid way, although it is vaguely unsettling." Jac continues her foray into the outside world.
At the first sight of putrid yellow, brown, and gray, Era sighs. She was breathing a little heavily from even the small climb, which made the sigh a mistake. "Damnable mist." she announces. To which the sundered and torn flowers seem to respond - in a flutter of petals, one of the flowers takes flight towards the door, even as the others are approaching it. It flies high overhead, through the door, and near to the ceiling, before dropping into a dive towards Era.
Once the strangely pastel blur lands, with much bemusement from Era, upon the woman's head, it becomes much more clearly a bird. A small owl, with feathers all in the colors of the torn up flowers outside. Era furrows her brow as she looks up at the thing, and starts to dig her notebook out of her bag, but thinks better of it.
As the owl preens itself, each feather that it preens changes color, but always an unsaturated tone. The bird seems to be keeping at least one eye on Jacqueline. "Tally..." Era mutters, brow furrowing further in thought and causing the bird's head to half-turn round, then go back to preening. She follows absent-mindedly, though quite lost in thought, as her magic once more returns to cleaning those within the group.
The cleaner she got, the better she felt - which wasn't as helpful as the words implied, actually, given the situation they were still stuck in. Part of her wanted to go ahead and just shoot a bit of flame into the smoke and see if she could burn it away, but that might draw the exact kind of attention they were trying to avoid. Best to stick with something a little less... flashy... for now. Instead, she slowly crept out after Jacqueline, keeping one hand pointed towards the fog as she began to slide over to the door. Inside was safer, right? Safe was good. Safe was very good.
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The foliage and grass that grows in this courtyard, glistens as though it has just rained. Above you hear the roll of thunder that accompanied the rain.
The courtyard is has not been maintained for some while, the sandstone paving stones are broken with weeds fighting through the cracks to grasp any light that falls. Even the plants seem to have forgotten how to add colour to the scene, and look pale and yellow.
You see the exterior of the building for the first time, and see how it has fallen into decay, the second floor has mainly collapsed cutting off any access to the north. A wall of rubble and detritus is a barrier to any progress that way.
The rest of the courtyard is enclosed by walls, the few windows are locked and barred and most of those have jagged or broken glass in placeof the once protective panels.
A shedlike structure to the southeast lies largely collapsed; it looks as though at one time it could have connected the ground floor to some rooms below ground level.
There is a single door that gives access to the internal portions of the building, the door on the west.
The yellow mists seem to form into the shape of hand, the yellow index finger beckons you towards the collapsed shed.
You touch the foliage to feel the rain, but remnents of the rain water that glistens on the foliage is warm, very warm.... As the thunder comes to an end you hear it whisper ... Saturday...
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Jacqueline raises an eyebrow. "Oh, come now, Sad. You know that mysterious voices beckoning you to dilapidated buildings mean nothing but trouble. At least that's what I've apparently learned from the novels I don't remember reading." Jacqueline takes another look around the courtyard, before her eyes alight upon the door to the inside.
"Seeming as the only other option is to investigate the strange voice leading our only good man here to some dark, terrible fate-I'm not terribly interested in his relevant parts, but the same may not be said for the rest of you-I say we head inside. Oh, and also, it appears that the rain may be a near-boiling point when it falls, so we don't want to get caught out in any storms." With that, Jacqueline promptly throws the door open and heads inside.
After a moment, Regina moved after Jacqueline. "I think she's right." Regina said quietly. "Let's just leave that alone and try to find someone - anyone - who knows what's going on around here." Little flecks of fire and ice flickered around her fingertips as she nervously clutched her connection to the ether.
"We need to focus on distance for now, getting as far away from here as possible is our best bet to avoid ending up back in the cell. The idea that a building was 'calling to' someone put Quinn on edge, she'd need to keep an eye on Saturday just in case."If something wants you to stay here I doubt it's friendly."
Maybe he wasn't just hearing things or maybe they were both losing it already.
Era shakes her head, "I don't think we really want to find anyone who knows what's going on. We just climbed out of a chute they used to dispose of bodies, which were apparently being toyed with by that... thing. Even still. Forward really is the only way. If we run into another lock, I'll try my hands with it, barring us finding the actual keys." she says, motioning. "Otherwise... I'll just be out of the way."
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Jacqueline promptly throws the door open and heads inside, the sound of rusted metal hinges grinding and echo down a dark dim long hallway. Even as she marches into the darkness, her footstep echo up and down the corridor. The light from the open door gives a good look at the internal state of the hallway, white paint peels off from the unmaintained walls and the 10ft high ceiling.
Broken lanterns and the outline of several battered doors line this cold, rubble-strewn hall. To the south, a pair of swinging doors lies shattered upon a 4-foot-high heap of wrecked furniture clogging a broad doorframe across the hallway, making a barrier for easy progress.
To the north several shafts of light piece through the darkness, from gaps in the walls or from a misfitting door, but the silent darkness is only broken by the sounds of a rat scurrying across the hard stone floor.
From the south a gruff and determined voice calls, "Whoa, there! We got more here." Two eyes from behind the crossbow of a steely faced man look at you from behind the barrier and continue. "Come no nearer."
You hear the sounds of other warriors cocking their crossbows behind the barrier.
The man's words and voice seem to indicate that he is being defensive and protective, but on edge....
Regina wasted no time at all hiding behind Saturday, whose larger body and armor was much more reassuring to her than simply standing out in the corridor. She peeked out at the speakers a moment later, thinking about the emotions she'd heard in their voices... and the weapons she'd heard behind the barrier. Gulp. Even hiding from sight wouldn't do much if they simply peppered the hallway.
"W-we'd really rather not fight you." she stammered out. "What's going on around here?"
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Jacqueline quickly puts her hands up, her blade disappearing in a swirl of aether. "Now, please, would you not be too hasty with those crossbows? I've just been born, relatively speaking, as this iteration of 'my' consciousness has no memories, and as such, is essentially newborn-although it does have a few lingering skills, most likely from previous experience, making that postulation somewhat shakier than I thought at first. Nonetheless, I would love to kiss my first girl, get a stable job, maybe fight a few more monsters before I get filled full of crossbow bolts. Oh, I'm Jacqueline Artorias, by the way, of some province and country or another. What are yours? It's only polite to at least introduce yourself before you kill someone." Beat. "I believe so, anyways."
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"Thank you, Sad."
Era stayed out of sight, and hopefully out of mind, by not entering the hallway, yet, instead focusing her attention on the area outside and nearby, as Tally continued to preen. The others seemed to have the situation at least marginally covered, so she tugs her spellbook out, relying more on her hearing, to begin studying Color Spray.
Quinn steps into the hall with the others once she hears the voices. The strangers would either be just as crazy as the rest of this place and she'd need to be there to help or they'd be a welcome relief, both cases it was best she made herself known.
"We're fleeing from a murderer and we're unarmed, If you allow us to explain ourselves surely we can come to an understanding? Just to be safe Quinn made sure to give the man a quick overlook for any sort of edge she could use in case a fight did start.
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Footsteps are heard running from behind the barrier away into another room, as they echo down the corridor. The light, brighter in that area allows you to see a young man scamper into another room.
The man's brow furrows at Jacqueline's words, the confusion on his face grows, "What you say you are newborn!!" it seems to alarm the man even more. His voice quivers a little "Newborn or not you don't come any closer, Miss Artorias. You can all go the other way." The man appears even more tense and nervous, "We got no girls that need kissing here, best you go the other way to find them, all of you." as he emphasises the 'all'. He casts a quick glance with his blue eyes towards others that hide behind the barrier as though seeking their confirmation and reassurance.
The open door to the right of the man, (as you look at it), darkens in shadow as another another crossbow is readied and a head is seen peering round. The head nods at he man.
The man continues, "We saw no murderers come this way before you, I only have your word for that. So don't come closer." He stands his ground determined, but nervous, not giving any information away. The man moves his weight from foot to foot as a bead of sweat appears on his forehead.
The man looks like he's not a leader, merely carrying out his orders.
"My current conjecture is that creatures similar to the one we fought are stalking this place. Their ability to change appearance in a whim and their depravity would certainly foster paranoia." Jacqueline muses.
Regina had come to the same conclusion as Jacqueline. The fact that such a creature had been in a position of power was certainly a point in favor of the possibility of there being others, and she could understand the fear of not knowing who people really were.
<Pain, across her cheek. Terror. Loss. Her whole world crashing down around her.>
Regina staggered slightly, then shook her head a few times to clear her thoughts. "...Is there anything we can do to convince you that we're not those... those things?" Regina asked, looking at the crossbowman and trying to put her natural charm to use. She wasn't especially practiced at it - or at least couldn't remember if she was - but...
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You hear the sounds of steps approaching, heavy steps, quick marching towards the barrier. The man you were talking too sighs a huge sigh of relief as he turns towards the sounds of the boots. A clear voice speaks, "Well done Jamie, you kept the strangers out ." and a hand claps the guard on the back. The round and weather-worn face of the new man picks his crossbow and swings it up, as if practising getting his targets in range and sight, going from one to the other quickly and efficiently.
He returns his attention to you, his crossbow lowered but ready. "Now leaving and not coming any closer like my good friend here said, that's what I hope you'll do. We offer no shelter for you here. And not to those who call us 'cheating bastards...'" He spits on the floor, showing his disgust.
However he catches the words from Regina, and his brown leather glove on his left hand, leaves the crossbow a moment to scratch the black stubble on his chin. "Interesting young lady, you want to prove your not them impostors, them shapeshifting creatures." He thinks a moment, then comes up with: “Bring back a few dead doppelgangers, then maybe we’ll rethink whose side you’re on.”
"Will the charred corpse of one suffice for one of the three? It'll be a tad difficult to get it up the chute, but there's one for you."
So they... had to kill some living creature in order to get protection and safety? Regina's stomach churned for a few moments as she thought about that.
Then she thought about what they'd seen down below - the cruelty, the torture, the pain, and the high chance that they would have been next. She could have been next, and her all-too-vivid imagination had plenty of ideas about what that might have been like as what little control she had was ripped away for agony and abuse. It was a little too vivid, really, and she flinched again.
...
Hurting an innocent person would still have been a problem for her, but she was finding that she didn't actually have any objections to getting rid of any other shapeshifters that might have been running around. "We'll be back soon, then. ...Please don't shoot anyone that looks like us until we at least have a chance to show the bodies." she said. She tugged on Saturday's arm a moment later, then pointed to the door next to her. "Might as well start here...?"
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Snapping him out of his focus on the men with crossbows leveled at them, Saturday turns to Regina and offers her a soft smile. "Works for me, Regi." he happily said before marching down to the door to open it.
Hunting down evil wherever it took hold, breaking it, slaughtering it, that was what he was built for after all. After what he witnessed down below he had no sympathy to offer for the creatures they were sent after. "And let the hunt begin..." he murmurs as he opens the door.
"Indeed. Let us go!"
While Era's intentions were good, her question wound up being more matter-of-fact than actually helpful in adjusting demeanor. She still hadn't entered the hallway, and was mostly focused on her book... but there were certainly important questions to be asked.
"And how do we tell a Doppelganger from a real person, precisely? We can't just go around killing everything we see, lest we become more of a monster than a monster that doesn't know any better, right? Do they stay dead when we kill them? Are they even all evil?"
"That seems like a sound strategy. Although they may be clever enough to wait until we let our guards down, then murder us."
Quinn felt a ting of anger rising up at these people so stuck in their ways they would let others die to keep them, even if it was likely born from fear. Quinn would follow into the door Saturday was being pulled to and start their hunt, "If those people are that paranoid we should likely come up with some way of telling each other apart in case we get separated."
Regina held up one hand, and little bits of flame surrounded it, shifting to ice, then little glass-like shards. "...I don't think they can imitate this." she noted. So there was that, at least...
"My unique ability would be somewhat difficult to imitate as well." To demonstrate, Jacqueline once again manifests her blade.
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Saturday opens the wooden down with a quick turn of the handle, despite being a little stiff the door opens into a large room, that seems slightly lighter than the corridor, despite not seeming to have any windows. Mighty iron boilers crowd here, their pipes piercing the walls and ceiling. Shadows and rust fill the narrow gaps between the cold tanks. The room is cold now that the boilers lay dormant.
Outside in the courtyard, Era's attention is taken by the yellow fog, that seems to be slowing seeping towards her. Looking down she is suddenly aware that the mist is wrapping itself around her ankles. The yellow mist, is cold and hot against her skin at the same time, as it jerks and pulls at her feet. Era is sent sprawling on the floor and the mist retreats back and starts to flow around the walls as it did before. It retreats so quickly Era quetsions if it was her mind or it really was the mist that made her loose her balance and fall.
CMB Trip
This appears to be a boiler room providing hot water to other parts of the building. There is usually a furnace or furnace room close by, very often under the boiler room.
The boilers could be made to work again, if the furnace was started and kept going for several hours, probably around 6 hours to get the tempreture of the water high enough.
You notice a faint glow emanating from beneath a boiler toward the rear of the room.
Regina slipped inside, noting the glow by the boiler and carefully raising one hand to point at it. After a moment of thought, the flickers of ether around her hand turned into ice again - boilers tended to be hot, so anything there probably wouldn't be as fond of the cold.