Res attempts to clear the rats with his sword, but finds that he has the wrong tool for the job, and does not effectively clear very many.
Leandro is able to squish a great many of the vile creatures, and Andrzej sweeps his scimitar across the swarm, annihilating many more.
Sufficietly scattered, the few surviving rats scurry back into the walls.
The room grows quiet but for the eerie sound of dripping water, which comes from no apparent source.
"Gah, foul creatures! Thank you, friends." Leandro kicks charred rat bodies out of his vicinity, then says a swift prayer to Shelyn.
"Is everyone all right? What happened to the blue man?"
"Spirits go and spirits come. It will return when it realises how minor my magic is. I did not suffer a wound but what of rats and diseases. Their bites carry filth."
Leandro nods. "I hope nobody else was bitten, for I am protected by the grace of the goddess from foul disease. Is everyone else free of bites?"
Andrzej purses his lips smiling a little at the holy warrior.
Eliva comes slowly back into the room, rubbing her arms to calm the goosebumps from her cold brush with the spirit. "These things are not harmless. Some truly awful things have happened here in the past." She shakily begins casting a spell on herself, and seems relieved as healing magics take away the damage the haunt dealt her.
"So, lovely ladies," Leandro bows to Angalia, Eliva, and Tiffana, "Can you see any indication of the way the good sister was taken, or have the vermin and water sadly obliterated all trace of their tracks?"
Leandro looks around the floor of the room, trying to shake the hair-raising feeling of being crawled over by a pack of clawing rats.
"Rats ... it had to be rats."
Angalia looks more worried by the rodents than she did by the haunt.
"Let's find out a little more ..." She scans the room rapidly, looking for clues.
Res studies each of the doors closely to see if there are any that indicate that they have been used recently.
The slow drip of water continues, echoing faintly throughout the chamber, although there is no source. The wet footprints remain from where the apparition stood, but the basins are dry.
All of the equipment and shelving in the room has been fouled by the rats, and their leavings are evident everywhere. Still, remnants remain of the room's original purpose. Clearly, these frigid baths were seen as a type of therapy, but no sane doctor would expect them to have any curative purpose.
The door to the right has every indication of not having been opened in many years. It seems firmly settled in place. The other two seem more serviceable, but the commotion of the rats has made the tracks too difficult to follow.
Eliva will open one of the two doors that doesn't look stuck, and try to determine if anyone's been that way recently.
The door to the left opens into a small, dark closet. While the shelves along the far wall sag with age and rot, many items of more recent provenance have been stashed here.
Clothes, bags, and other personal items have been heaped carelessly on the floor, some looking old, others looking much newer. No care or concern seems to be attached to the items here; it more closely resembles a heap of unwanted supplies that someone has discarded over the years.
Of greater concern, however, is a human skeleton crumpled on the floor. No doubt this soul met its end several years ago.
This chamber has no other exits.
"Is there a proper prayer for the dead?"
Angalia looks, but doesn't move closer.
Leantro breathes a swift prayer for the dead, then tries to gently move the skeleton from the closet, laying it out on the floor of the tub room. He will examine it and the contents closet.
"This poor soul... I wonder if this is the man who haunts this room?"
The bones are probably only 10 years old, maybe even less. They show signs of having been picked clean by scavengers. They are not old enough to date from the time when this hospital was run by the nefarious Doctor.
Likewise, the heap of personal effects is generally more recent. You see hospital gowns of the sort still worn by the patients.
On the shelves behind the pile, there are remnants of records and supplies from an earlier time. Much of it is worthless, but a few of the documents actually turn out to be magical scrolls.
"I cannot describe how much I hope we don't have to use those."
"I can use the restorative spell, but neither of the others. It matters not to me who carries them, only that they are around when... if... we need them."
"If he was a patient, we should take him back to the sisters. He might have family."
"Or it might be one of the sisters," Leandro says softly and sadly.
At Leandro's words, Eliva tried to determine if the skeleton could be long to a sister, and how the poor person died. She also hunts for any further information about the body in the chamber.
"We can take this person with us when we go. In the meantime, we have the living to seek."
Leandro sets his hand on the latch of the other door, glaive at the ready, and pulls it open.
"Yes. Let's try to stop anyone else dying here."
Eliva turns and begins to make her way to the other door. "I don't think that was a sister. The skeleton is a little large to be female, but I couldn't say for sure. The neck looks to be broken, but I can't say for sure whether that caused the poor soul's death or happened after. I don't see that they came this way, however. Let's examine the other door."
Eliva steps forward and peers through the other door Leandro opened, trying to take in everything, bow held ready.
Er, yeah, Leandro looks through the door too, sending his dancing lights forward for as long as they last (4 minutes tops).
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Angalia gently touches Leandro and Eliva on the shoulders, urging the pair to stop for a moment while she looks around.
The door pulls open revealing another large room. Like the last, it is lit by sickly-colored lamps which cast long shadows across the floor.
The central feature of the chamber is a large wooden table streaked with ominous stains. It is fitted with several rotting restraints. Along the walls, shelves are lined with tools, instruments, and canvas straps. Additional straps and restraints are piled in a corner. The tools have a sinister look about them, including blades, screws, and vices of every description. You cannot help but imagine to what ghastly uses they were put at one time, probably to subjects upon this very table.
The room is quiet, but the musty air makes your skin crawl. It is an unwholesome place.
Did someone record those scrolls?
"Another chamber of horrors in the name of healing?" Leandro carefully steps into the room to look around for other doors.
Res follows closely behind Leandro, his greatsword ready for anything. He scans the room for possible threats as he enters.
The only other exit is a rough, wooden door on the other side of the room.
From the wall beside you, you begin to hear a faint knocking, slow and steady.
Tiffana and Andrzej also being to slowly file into the room behind the rest of you.
"Alive or dead?" Angalia gestures at the tapping wall.
Andrzej similarly notices that something is amiss and is on his guard.
Angalia's daggers slide instinctively into her hands, even if her responses are less alert than normal.
Andrzej stands poised on the balls of his feet with a scimitar pointed forwards and down a little towards the tapping noises. He freezes and slowly turns in one move scanning the area for signs of attack.
"Watch that jacket!" swordpoints Andrzej as he steps to the forefront of the party ten feet from the rising straitjacket.
"Moving straitjacket. Try to immobilise it."
Angalia notes that this is one of the odder battle orders she's ever given.
Thoroughly disturbed by the unusual foe, Angalia's dagger clatters to the floor.
Angalia reacts quickly to movement among the items on the floor, but in her haste, fails to strike the target. Andrzej moves forward to protect the party and just in time, for as he does so the moldy garment hurls itself at him, trying to entangle the magus in its long sleeves and straps.
Andrzej stands his ground and rebuffs the flailing jacket.
Suddenly, the rattling lamp upon the shelf shoots across the room, aimed at Angalia's head. She ducks out of the way and the lamp smashes to pieces on the wall behind you.
With a loud bang, the door you entered through slams shut while a cool draft raises the hairs on your arms and the back of your neck.
Andrzej
Res
Tiffana
Leandro
Angalia
Eliva
Foe 1
Straitjacket