Before heading out the door with the others, Erisa pokes her head around the corner in the southwest of the first room to see what the glow is coming from and to make certain there isn't anything back there of interest. Also, checking out the crumbled area to the west in the first room.
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There's nothing interesting in the crumbled area of the first room. However, peeking around the corner in the first room produces the following view:
A cold, iron furnace hunkers in the corner of the basement, its four-foot-square door gaping half open. Nearby sprawls a heap of gory clothes and other dubiously flammable trash.
The furnace currently lies cold. However, next to the furnace is a garbage pile of various discarded items, including all of the group's weapons and armor and mundane items. You now have full access to all starting equipment that you bought.
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Erisa chuckles to herself and imagines, I should put on my armor, grab my weapons, and then wander into the other room. Then look all innocent when people ask me where I got them.
She sighs and as she begins to put on her armor, "Hey everyone! I think you missed something! Back here, where no one thought to look before rushing ahead, has armor and weapons. Maybe some of you can use them."
"Thanks," the Vixen says. She lowers the man down and dons studded leather over her clothing. "Don't believe I caught yer name. Mine's Vix... the short version, I mean."
She decides to wait for everyone else to gather their gear before lifting the man.
When she sees the Tien girl she carried in her dream, she speaks the language to her:
在我的夢中，你使用了魔法。你真的是一個神奇的用戶嗎？
The drow woman, who had not gone that far, nods and returns. Finding armor that she thought matched what she remembered wearing in her dream, she put on the hexagonal plates over her vest but under her cloak. She then adjusted the black silk down over the plates, making the metalwork duller in the light. She then picked up the backpack with the initials M R sewn into it, searching within. She pulls out various things, all of them feeling vaguely familiar.
"Apparently I play an instrument." She muses to herself and the others as she pulls out a viola. "And cook." Shrugging, she shoulders the pack and returns to the room with the corpses. "I am not greedy, but we might want to see if any of these unfortunates had anything they will no longer need. Waste not, want not as... someone... said... ... probably."
The blue woman flips through the journal that looks slightly familiar and sees a name written on the inside cover, 'Property of Erisa.'
"I believe my name is Erisa," she says as she shows the book cover to the red haired woman, "Although, I could be misremembering that this book is mine."
"Ye seem to feel a connection with the book, so ye must be Erisa."
Inspecting the bag she's sure is her own, the Vixen says, "Seems I make fashionable attire. If I was good enough to make any coin from me craft, I must've spent it all. Or someone did."
Danior laces herself into a set of leather armor that seems to fit her like a glove, and grabs two wooden stakes off the floor, along with a strange potion that she feels sure is important somehow.
She also finds the reinforced mirror that she wielded in the nightmare, and as she gazes into it, barely recognizing her own face, a sliver of memory seems to come back to her. "My name is Danior," she announces matter-of-factly. Running her tongue over her inhumanly pointed incisors, she adds, "it means 'born with teeth'."
She tucks the mirror away, and recognizes a second item hanging out of a well-worn backpack; she lifts a small metal locket from the pile and opens it carefully. A tiny portrait of an unfamilar woman is stored within, and a flicker of something passes over Danior's face before she clicks it shut without a word and fastens it around her neck.
The Vixen sees the holy woman struggling. She offers, "If ye want that 'round yer neck, I'll help ye." VV's not sure why the woman can't move her arms up, but she is well aware that there's much a magic user can do that a physical type like herself can't. "We're gonna need each other if we don't wanna end up as a naked doctor's table scraps. I ain't shy about offering, and when I'm in need, I won't be shy about asking."
Jassminder shakes her head, without looking at the redhead. "If I can't get it round my neck, it shouldn't be there. And I don't trust anyone to stand that close behind me."
When Erisa announces her find, Jassminder clearly recognises the bow, arrows and armour as being hers. Donning the armour and fastening it causes her obvious physical discomfort, but it never occurs to her to ask for help. Finally she nocks an arrow to her bow, pulling the string back, testing what she can do. As she suspected, the movement is agonisingly painful. Oh, this is going to be fun. Not.
"Has anyone else been tortured recently? Like, within the last month or so, probably. I don't fully remember it, but my body does." Her tone is impassive, she might be asking if anyone has gone swimming lately.
Now that she has her medical kit, she makes a final check on the sleeping patient, who seems as well as can be expected. There's no sign of empathy, but a rare moment of self-awareness kicks in: "When he wakes up, someone else would be better to ask him questions. I am not...good with people. Assuming he is a person."
A broad chute extends diagonally through one of this cellar’s half-crumbled stone walls. Beneath it lies heaped more than a dozen mutilated humanoid bodies. Nearby, a flight of rickety, wooden steps climbs toward the high ceiling—an escape none of the room’s current occupants seem capable of employing. The smell of rot and decay in the room is nearly overwhelming, and the buzz of flies hangs in the air.
Jassminder looks at the rickety stairs, and then at the pile of corpses in front of the chute. Her face is devoid of expression. "It seems we have a choice of two ways out."
Xiao Hua shrinks back at Vixen´s words but then she remembers the kindness and her help in her dream.
She replies.
是的，有時候我希望......而且它們會發生。但我不是女巫
Looking around she adresses the others.
"You can call me Miyuki. I feel that name belongs to me. I do not know where I am, I do not know what this is. What I know is that I want to be somewhere else! And I think together we can maybe escape!"
Walking to the pile of items she looks arounds and finally selects some items.
As Saiya pokes her head into the other room, she hears a call from behind her. Glancing back, she sees the blue-skinned woman peeking out from around the corner. "Could've sworn somebody already checked that corner" she mutters as she heads back. Internally she berates herself.
A room isn't clear until you've personally cleared it. Sloppy. Careless.
Poking through the items, her mood improves somewhat as she finds a rapier and hide armor sized to fit her. She also finds a dark blue backpack and belt pouch that feel...familiar. Opening the backpack, her eyes widen as she sees a journal. Unfortunately, flipping through it, she finds it's completely blank. Great. Just when I was thinking I might get some answers.
"Has anyone else been tortured recently? Like, within the last month or so, probably."
Saiya shakes her head. "Don't think so. I'm not in any pain at least."
After dressing herself in the armor, she takes a look around the furnace area, including inside the furnace itself. Gotta make sure I don't miss anything else!
"Perhaps it is best if we head up the stairs? The chute might be an unconventional approach... but I somehow think that noise we make climbing it might be more revealing. And would likely ruin any surprise we would gain." Shifting the backpack so that it is comfortable on her shoulders, Malarra forms the shadows into a rapier once more, the grip comfortable and calming in her hands for reasons beyond her recollection.
"Stairs sound good. Let me just quickly check out the room first. Don't want to miss any other potential treasure troves."
Saiya heads into the eastern room, looking around to see if she notices anything potentially useful. She avoids touching the corpses if possible but isn't noticeably bothered by their presence.
"Strange. My sense of fashion isn't the greatest, but would you say they are wearing similar clothes as our former... host?"
She pokes one of the doctor's coats with her rapier to draw attention to what she is meaning.
"I just mean... none of us are dressed like this. Why should they all be?"
Miyuki looks closer and shrugs."Maybe they are employes of the same person? Like an entourage."
"A bunch of dead doctors? Was this a hospital or something?" Saiya glances down at her own clothes. "Pretty sure I'm not a doctor, and the fact that we all have weapons and armor...maybe something started killing everyone in a hospital and we were hired to check it out? Although, I don't think prison cells are normally present in hospitals..."
She shakes her head. "Pointless to speculate. Let's just get going." She starts cautiously heading toward the southern stairs.
Seeing nothing in the immediate vicinity, Saiya cautiously heads up the southern stairs. Checking for traps as she goes, due to a sudden strange feeling of paranoia.
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The steps here seem like the most obvious exit from the cellar, but a fallen wall above has blocked the way out. Anyone who climbs to the stair’s landing or higher can clearly see the heaps of rubble choking the passage above. Despite their unsteady appearance, the stairs are sturdy enough to climb.
The stairs are blocked by too much fallen debris to be cleared in a short timespan. You would have to spend weeks clearing the stairs to make them a viable exit.
Malarra calls up to Saiya softly, "Any luck?"
"Nope. Stairs are blocked." Saiya looks at the pile of corpses with distaste. "Looks like we'll have to climb the chute after all."
Milady pulls a scythe out of the pile of equipment, but that's all she takes. "I remember," she murmurs, "being called Milady. That can't be my name. But, maybe it is."
Completely unfazed by the bodies, Jassminder starts to clamber over them, up towards the chute. "Time to see what's out there." There's a *squish* as her booted foot squelches one of the older corpses. "Watch your step. Some of these are pretty decayed."
"The chute it is," Danior agrees. The bodies underfoot seem to hold little interest for her as she moves to follow the one called Jassminder into the chute.
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Despite the fact that the chute’s lowest point is 8 feet off the floor, the bodies heaped beneath make convenient -- if morbid -- stairs. Climbing the heap of bodies is simple enough (and does not require a skill check), but a climber must succeed at a DC 12 Fortitude saving throw or contract filth fever (see page 557 of the Core Rulebook).
So give me Fort checks everyone who goes to the chute.
Despite the foul stench of the flesh that is forming her stairway to the escape route, Jassminder doesn't flinch.
She looks back as she hears one of the others follow her, and sees it is the one who called herself Danior. Jassminder's eyes narrow slightly as she remembers how Danior awoke in the cell, hissing and baring her teeth.
"Do I need to worry about being bitten?" It's a direct question, even blunt, but Jassminder doesn't know any other way to ask them.
Her tone is of casual inquiry, rather than hostile accusation. She doesn't sound overly worried.
Looking down the chute Miyuki shakes her head.
"There... must be another way!"
The drow woman shrugs, clearly also not bothered by the thought of having to climb over bodies.
"If you can think of one let us know. Though I must admit, I find it odd that the... not human... that was holding us in these cells would have had to use this way to come down or up. Seems... inconvenient..." As she thinks on this, she walks over to the collapsed tunnel, examining it further to see if there is a faster way through it than first appears.
"I agree, I doubt the 'doctor' clambered over heaps of dead bodies each time up and down. Let's check a bit more thoroughly first before resorting to that route. I almost wish we would have let the 'doctor' make it a bit farther." comments Erisa.
While she's searching around, she occasionally eyes the pile of bodies, expecting at any moment for one of them to animate, I bet I've had nightmares of piles of bodies animating, lucky I can't remember them. That would make it worse."
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There doesn't appear to be any way to clear the collapsed passageway. It seems to be an unfixable dead end.
The chains in the alcove are indeed chains, but they don't provide any clues to better exit these chambers.
The walls of the stairs sound solid and like there's nothing concealed. Nothing helpful there.
Those who go over the bodies and into the chute: Once reaching the chute itself, the passage is 15 feet long but the rough walls make it easy enough to scale, requiring only a successful DC 5 Climb check.
Saiya looks up at the chute. Two people have already gone up there. I don't like splitting up too much, but if we're going to it seems like it should be more...even."
"I don't know how much stock we can put into wondering how the 'doctor' got in and out. For all we know the stairs only collapsed a couple hours ago. Tell you what. Since Jassminder and Danior are already climbing, I'll join them. We'll poke around a bit up there and see what we find. If you haven't found another path by the time we've reported back..." She shrugs. "Maybe we'll have found something to make it easier for you."
Grimacing, she starts climbing the corpse pile.
A body squelches underfoot, and for a second she thinks she might throw up. You can do this, you can do this, just keep going...
Not sure how much the two ahead of her heard of the discussion, she calls out, "Hey, I'm coming with you. The others are hanging back looking for another path."
The chute itself is pretty simple to climb, once she's in there. She follows the others into the new room.
She looks back as she hears one of the others follow her, and sees it is the one who called herself Danior. Jassminder's eyes narrow slightly as she remembers how Danior awoke in the cell, hissing and baring her teeth.
"Do I need to worry about being bitten?" It's a direct question, even blunt, but Jassminder doesn't know any other way to ask them.
Her tone is of casual inquiry, rather than hostile accusation. She doesn't sound overly worried.
"What?" Danior's eyes narrow, confused and troubled by the question. She glances over at 'Milady', the strange woman that had unhinged her jaw and killed the doctor with a bite. "Why are you asking me? No, I — I don't think so." She sounds worryingly unsure, and it doesn't help that her eyes roam over Jassminder's throat.
She frowns and pointedly looks away as she begins to pick her way up the pile of bodies.
The bodies may not have bothered the dhampir at first, but as she climbs she begins to feel increasingly ill. The rotting, stinking bodies assault her senses, nothing like the fresh blood that had so enticed her down below. The desire to get away from it is certainly motivating, and she quickly scrambles up the chute, tumbling out into the room above.
Thinking about what she is supposed to do, Miyuki sighs.
I can´t touch dead bodies, I will be unclean. But maybe with gloves...
Rummaging through her backpack she dons her leather gloves and wraps a shawl around her head, just leaving a small slit for her eyes.
Then she slowly starts climbing the chute, taking great care that no dead flesh touches her own.
Arriving at the top of the dead bodies she spends at least 5 minutes cleansing herself with prestidigation and prayers to Sun Wukong.
Milady tromps up the chute without much care or thought behind her actions. Her only immediate goal is to keep moving.
Jassminder does her usual mannerism of flicking her gaze up briefly to meet that of the person she's talking to, in this case Danior, then swiftly looking away. "When you woke up you looked ready to bite someone. I wondered if you suffer from bloodlust under stress. You're going to be climbing up behind me. It's a rational question."
Her climbing is nowhere near as confident as she knows it used to be. Her muscles and sinews scream their protest, and she's unable to prevent the occasional hiss of pain from escaping as she grits her teeth.
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For my own reference more than anything:
Jass: Fort success, Climb success
Saiya: Fort success, Climb success
Dani: Fort fail, Climb success <- filth fever
Miyuki: Fort success, Climb success
Milady: Fort success, Climb success
Malarra: examining collapsed passageway <- nada
Erisa: examining chained alcove <- nada
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Those who stayed below so far can either do what the others did and join them upstairs, or continue looking for another way out downstairs. Either is valid.
For those who moved upstairs, you emerge into a plain nondescript room with no windows. There's nothing of significance to examine there, and only a single exit, which leads to an outdoor area. I have updated the Google Slides with a new slide showing a bit of the upstairs surroundings.
The outdoor area is currently drenched in very heavy rain, and you cannot see the sky above, as there seems to be a thick very low lying cloud cover which obscures sight only a few dozen feet up.
The clouds are...a sickly citrine yellow.
Trampled flowerbeds lie smeared and squashed across this muddy courtyard. On all sides, stark gray walls climb toward a narrow gap of sunless sky.
The rain is unusually warm and there are constant sounds of rolling thunder in the distance.
Miyuki will wave her hands over the worst stains of the other clothes and cleans them.
She then discards the shawl and gauntlets in the corner.
"Yiik"
Taking inspiration from Miyuki, Saiya also quickly cleans her clothes using Prestidigitation. As she does so, she offers, "If anyone wants to be a bit cleaner, I can help with that."
Looking outside, her lips tighten. Those sickly yellow clouds...it reminds me too much of my dream.
"I don't see any other way to go. Slip into the courtyard then back into the building by the nearest door?" She fingers something in her spell component pouch for a minute. "Actually, if you all want to wait here for the others to climb up, I can scout ahead a bit. I'm pretty stealthy. And..." She considers the others, then makes a quick decision. "Jassminder, if you're willing, I can cast a spell that will let us communicate at a distance. Not too far, but it should be enough for me to let you know what I find."
She waits for Jassminder's acceptance (or refusal) before making any moves.
Malarra, not to be deterred just yet, decides to poke around under the stairs to see if there is any hidden doors or other passages (be they down, straight out, broom closets, or up.)
Growling to herself in a bit of frustration, she ensures her gloves, boots, and mask are all on tight and that her long white hair is tucked under her hat in an impromptu bun before attempting to climb the pile of bodies.
Reaching the top, she slowly attempts to shimmy up the shaft that had been used to deposit her grizzly walkway onto the ground as her companions had done before her.
... before falling back down upon it. Frustration seeps into the drow woman's eyes, but she does not express it vocally as she brushes off her backside and attempts the climb again.
Popping up at the top, and passing through the metal door, the drow nods to her companions.
"Anyone have a way of getting corpse goo out of clothing?"
Jassminder nods at the Fetchling's suggestion. "That's rational. Makes more sense for one of us to risk dying to the unknown than for all of us. If you don't make it back, please remember to pass as much information as you can before dying. It may help the rest of us to survive."
She wonders whether there's anything else she could add.
"But I hope you come back safely. That way you can do this next time as well. Losing somebody every time we explore would get tedious."
Saiya stares at Jassminder for a moment. "I was actually thinking the spell would be good for communicating stuff like 'Hey, I snuck past a monster, here's its location, be ready for it.' Not really planning on a suicide mission here. But, uh, sure. If I get caught and am in the process of dying horribly, I'll try to tell you what I can."
Well, I did pick her because she seemed the most practical.
Laughing a little at the absurdity of the situation, she tells Jassminder, "Okay. I'm going to cast the spell now. Once I do, I'll hear anything you say as if you were talking in my ear, no matter how quietly you whisper it. And vice versa. Just hold still a second." Fiddling with a small bit of copper from her pouch, she casts Message.
"Alright. You should be hearing an echo right now. I'll let you know what I see."
Taking a deep breath, (and hoping Jassminder's talk of dying hasn't jinxed her), she opens the door and slips quietly into the courtyard.
She looks around to see what she can. She also listens to hear if anything seems to be moving around.
Erisa struggles to climb the mountain of dead bodies, continuing to slip on the blood slick limbs before she makes it to the chute. Emerging from the chute, she tries to wipe the disgusting remains from her clothes and hearing the offers of the magicians of the party, she gratefully accepts their cleaning, "Thank you, that was truly awful."
"Did they get our bodies down there via the chute?" she asks.
Seeing the rain, unnatural cloud cover, and hearing the thunder she remarks, "This place just gets better and better all the time."
Saiya relays that back to Jassminder. "Don't see anything in the courtyard. Heading inside now."
She tries the door next to the one she came out of, and, assuming it's not locked, sneaks into the hallway. She continues keeping an eye and ear out for anything moving other than herself.
Malarra nods in appreciation to Saiya for the help cleaning the gunk off of her clothes and out of her armor. She reforms a shadow rapier and stands at the ready. "Assuming we can find our way out of this place and it isn't just another nightmare," she gestures up to the clouds and their sinisterly similar color to the fog in their previous dream, "and assuming I can remember how, I will have to make you a meal of some sort... perhaps play you a song, assuming I still can."