Apep looks curiously at the conversing party. "Beth wyt ti'n siarad amdano?"
"Wel, mae yna fwy o ellyllon y tu ôl i'r drws hwn. Dylai'r tiwbiau hynny a welsom yn ôl yno gyfleu dŵr poeth, a rhoi mantais inni ymosod arnynt. Ond nid ydyn nhw'n gweithio, ac er mwyn eu cychwyn byddai angen i ni fynd y tu hwnt i'r rwbel hwnnw yno" - Garrosh explains to Apep.
"I'll get him, then you'll get to watch and wait for your turn."
"You first" - Garrosh growls, unleashing an arrow at the opponent struck by Piotr, trying to take it down.
HP: 27/27
AC: 18
Effects: Bless
Garrosh shoots at the yellow ghoul but the arrow bounces off its leathery hide.
Caraid throws a segment of rusty pipe at the ghast. It slides across the floor and nudges the creatures ankle...
The wounded ghoul turns its fangs and claws onto Piotr, but finds no purchase on his armor.
The ghast also tries to savage Pitor with its fangs,but Piotr manages to get his shield in the way. "Oooh, a tough customer, aren't you," It taunts Piotr.
The ghoul at the back races forward, hungrily reaching out for Piotrs flesh, but Piotr just dodges niftly to the side.
Garrosh takes a moment to look more closely at the Ghast they are facing, studying his opponents' attack and defense routines. Then he firs his bom again.
HP: 27/27
AC: 18
Effects: Bless, Studied Target +1 on Ghast
Garrosh narrows his eyes and singles the ghast out, then coolly releases the arrow, striking the ghast on its shoulder.
"Get them, Kilarra!" Rozalia urges. She calls upon her powers to grant the tiefling good fortune.
This time the pipe slams firmly into the ghast's knee!
Piotr is stunned he managed to avoid getting gutted. That combined with the wretched smell has a hard time connecting to the ghoul in front of him.
"Is that one the only one that can talk? You! Are you mute as well as hideously ugly" failing to rile the ghast she focuses her attention on the one Piotr is swinging at.
Caraid shatters the knee cap of the ghast next to Piotr and it collapses onto the ground while Piotr cuts down the ghoul facing him with Anne trading insults with the remaining ghoul who growls at her, "Didn't your mama make you wash your mouth with soap?"
Kilarra comes in for the final swing
Kilarra cleaves the remaining ghoul from shoulder to hip and it falls to the ground.
With their foes eliminated, Garrosh offers an approving nod to the others - "Well done" - and peers around the area with more attention.
Garrosh does not find anything of value on the ghouls and ghasts and only sees heaps of viscera and organs piled in the bathtub.
Both the Tataru siblings shake their head at the corpses, Piotr still green at the horrible smell. "At least they won't be doing that to any more people."
Caraid stays well away from the bath-tubs, the reactions of his fellows are all he needs to realise that that's the sensible thing to do. Instead he stays with his mother and the strange alien being - far away from the gore.
"You good, Piotr? We got plenty more to go." Kilarra asks. She starts walking over to the double doors just south.
Piotr sighs. "Yeah. Good." then follows Kilarra.
Kilarra thinks about saying something, but decides against it and opens the door. With her hands this time, not her hooves.
"It is ok" - Garrosh nods at Caraid with a smile, then at Apep - "Come, stay close" - he follows after Kilarra and Piotr.
"There's more?" Ilki buries his head in his hands and groans at Kilarra's words.
Apep curious looks around the surroundings, occasionally poking a claw into the wall. "Pam ydych chi'n crwyn pinc yn byw mewn lleoedd fel hyn?"She asks.
Why do you pink skins live in places like this?
Several workbenches lie crushed beneath the room’s collapsed ceiling and the north wall looks cracked and unstable. There are also 3 hungry ghouls in the room that salivate on seeing the party, ”Fresh meat.”
Rozalia grants her son a bit of guidance.
With his mothers encouragement Caraid rips a chunk of masonry free and hurls it at the ghouls.
Caraid crushes one of the ghouls with his thrown block of masonry.
Apep curious looks around the surroundings, occasionally poking a claw into the wall. "Pam ydych chi'n crwyn pinc yn byw mewn lleoedd fel hyn?"She asks.
"Mae angen rhyw fath o gysgod ar y mwyafrif o ddynoidau rhag tywydd eithafol a pheryglon naturiol, efallai hyd yn oed ysglyfaethwyr mewn rhai ardaloedd. Nid oes gennych nyth, na lair?"
HP: 27/27
AC: 18
Effects: Studied Target +1 on Ghast
"Mae gennym nyth ond nid yw'n anodd a lliwgar fel hyn, wyddoch chi, twll a gloddiwyd o lan yr afon?" Apep answers.
We do have a nest but it's not hard and colourful like this, it's you know, a burrow dug from the river bank?
Garrosh's arrow strikes the ghoul in its abdomen but it still lurches forward, hungrily reaching for Kilarra.
The other ghoul also leaps over the rubble trying to bite Kilarra but its teeth do not penetrate her scales.
Kilarra looks down upon the ghoul, and hefts her greatsword over her head to slice it in two.
Kilarra cleanly cleaves one of the ghouls into two.
Piotr swings his sword at the other, while Ann moves up, willing a mental dagger in her hand, trying to slice away.
Piotr's clumsy strike is easily dodged by the remaining ghoul, but Anne viciously eviscerates with her knives. Searching among the rubble, and the ghoul bodies, Pitor finds nothing of value. He does notice that the northern wall is unstable to the point of collapsing when pushed.
"So, are we done yet?" Ilki asks from the back.
"We are not done yet" - Garrosh replies flatly.
"We aren't done til either everything's dead, or we're too tired to keep fighting."
Kilarra looks to Piotr and Garrosh while giving an upwards nod. She clasps her greatsword in one hand, the railing in the other, and proceeds up the rickety staircase.
Garrosh nods back at Kilarra - "We kill so others do not have to" - he growls a prayer.
Caraid follows the fighters as normal, staying close to his mother, whose attention keeps wandering.
Ann will slid back into etherealness, then lead the way up the stairs with Piotr following, slowly.
Broken windows look out across a sea of churning saffron fog. Inside, dusty crates of every size crowd the room. A humanoid shape appearing to be kneeling down seems to be the apparent cause of the fog, spewing it out of his mouth.
Rozalia recognizes the humanoid figure as an oneirogen, based on the party's description.
Oneirogens were once normal mortals who suffered a rare but terrible curse. Within them lies a sliver-sized tear between planes, a crack hardly larger than a pinprick that destroys everything they once were in an endless deluge of planar power. Created by magical mistakes and otherworldly conjunctions, oneirogens wander in a haze as living husks whose grip on any reality has been erased. What little remains of their minds is bent on self-preservation, even as they are locked at the center of storms of strange powers endlessly streaming from their mouths and nostrils. The death of their personalities might be a mercy, but what lingers on are primal beings, slaves of uncontrolled planar might.
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. This orinogen seems to be linked to the Dreamlands and anyone within 5 feet of the orinogen has to make a will save or fall asleep.
Kilarra hesitates. "I don't want to take a nap like that." So she leans her greatsword against the wall, draws her crossbow and loads it.
"Any suggestions?" Piotr asks "If we get near it, we can collapse helpless, but it is obvious we need to stop it. Sounds like Caraid and Garrosh try and take it out, while we..." looking at Kilarra and himself "... try and keep it away from them."
Ann sighs "And I go back in that brain of yours to help you from going to dream land" they have noticed a strength of will when she's in there.
"Yes, we must stop this - it is why we are here" - Garrosh nods at Kilarra and Piotr - "Tell me when ready" - he warns the others, fully focused on their mark.
Caraid nods, squeezes his way up the staircase and prepares to bombard the strange creature, mildly comforted by the knowledge that the creature is already dead.
As Garrosh puts a first arrow into his stomach, the orinogen looks about to stand up what Caraid crushes it's chest with a piece of rubble.
The the mists spewing from it stop, and the mist outside the windows look lighter.
Rozalia can tell that most of the corpse’s organs have been ripped away, consumed by some force that seems to be gone now and knows that the corpse was exposed to extraplanar energies, and that the fog emanating from the body came from another realm, as if the individual somehow had a small portal inside him.
Kilarra takes some time to sift through crates for anything of use, she also takes a look outside.
The crates contain several sets of brown patient robes, bed linens, pillows and mattresses as well as some laundry supplies. The foh outside of the windows looks lighter but Kilarra still can see some odd shapes in the distance.
"Did we just stop the fog?" Piotr asked, as Ann asks the same thing from inside his head. He'll step over to a window and look. "Does that mean we can get the others out of here?"
"It's better." Caraid agrees, looking past Piotr. "But not gone. Probably more of those... things... elsewhere." He shivers slightly, the whole 'empty inside' thing is clearly making the teen uncomfortable.
Piotr finds that the fog is lighter but still present and there are still ominous shapes lurching around in the fog.
"From what Wren told us, there should be more than one of these... And I am afraid I may have made the wrong decision in simply attacking it..." - Garrosh ponders, after looking over the creature once human - "He had told us we might be able to wring some information about Zandalus from this... One of his oneirogens, if we caught it alone... I guess that is not an option anymore, but that thing needed to be put down" - he grunts.