The next door opens as easily as it looked like it would, and reveals another store room full of discarded equipment such as shovels and ropes and the like.
What most certainly shouldn’t be here is the trio of giant centipedes currently eating away at a large pallet of rations. As the door opens, the three abnormally large insects emit a terrifying screech and launch themselves at you!
Kioku
Aoife
Veda
Them
Pras
Opening the door and seeing the large centipedes charge out, Kioku raises her crossbow and takes aim at the closest of the creatures and lets loose a bolt.
Aoife readies her blade, pushing magic down its length and causing it to glow with arcane power, then prepares to strike at whichever centipide comes into range first, positioning herself to strike at any that try to come after them.
As the insects screech, Veda winces, but joins the fight quickly, making an indistinct gesture evoking fortunes favor.
She circles into position and tries to skewer one of the centipedes.
Crush those vermin! The food might still be good and we can give them to the guards to eat!
Even though you gained the element of surprise on them, the first swing from Aoife and the crossbow bolt from Kioku miss. Veda, on the other hand, feels her spear stab into the skin of the centipede, wounding it.
The two centipedes then launch themselves at the two nearest women (Aoife and Veda), what passes as a mouth on each of them opening wide in an attempt to get a bite of fresh food for once.
As the nasty things scurry horribly out the door to the storage space, Prasitis tries to stay out of the way of the others who are quicker on their toes – and out of the way of their weapons. Still, as she drops back, with a hurried word and a swift gesture she calls up a cold, thin blue ray that she sends racing through the air towards the bug Veda’s wounded.
Veda cries put in pain as one of the centipedes bytes her.
Prasitis’ ray strikes one of the two centipedes, clearly wounding it, as it cries out in surprise at the cold touch.
Veda, upon being bitten by one of the creatures, feels the skin around the wound tighten and begin to burn, the venom of the bite inflicting its pain upon her arm.
Aoife takes the bite with a grimace, then strikes back with her glowing blade, slicing cleanly into the carapace of the one that just bit her.
Aoife doesn't feel the same burning sensation, and quickly deals a swift retaliation in the form of a deep cut into the closest centipede.
The two centipedes, somehow surviving the onslaught of blades from the group, attempt to bite Aoife and Veda once more!
Aoife takes the blow, but feels unsteady on her feet as the wounds continue to mount, striking back, hoping to kill it before she fell.
Seeing the centipedes pushing hard against the others even as their flashing swords strike solid blows, Prasitis tries to find room to do the same, and to take some of the weight of the bugs’ attentions.
Despite their example, she soons finds herself with her heavier blade in hand. That's strange, she thinks, the thought floating by as if to distract her from the unpleasant situation, I could have sworn I was reaching for my thorn...
Veda, feeling the poison run through her arm, still attacks again to get rid of them.
The three successive attacks from the party finish one of the centipedes off, and as it falls to the floor dead, the other quickly burrows through the floor and makes its exit.
The room is yours to search!
Those centipedes clearly showed some extraplanar influence. Something foul is going on here. Veda mutters, rubbing her hurting arm, as she looks through the room.
Prasitis nudges a boot against one of the packages of rations as she tries to see how much might still be secure from the centipedes’ predations. “Ugh! Hopefully some of this can still be salvaged, either for us or for our 'friends' behind the barricade. Even if we can find a way out, I’m not sure where we could go until that unnatural rain stops, so we might have to worry about another night here.”
Her eyes flutter closed for a second as she tries not to panic at the thought, and the lack of a clear memory of the layout of the sanitarium. All she can remember is a sense of the massive, cold, dark edifice, even as it’s divided within into the cells she saw the most of. Boiling rain pelting down from a lurid sky and shapechanging murderers on the prowl are not an improvement.
Aoife raises her sword, letting the violet light fill the room as she surveys the surroundings, looking for any hidden areas or doors that might reveal themselves.
Besides the mundane tools described earlier (shovels and ropes and what not), there isn’t much of interest in this store room.
However, discarded next to one of the barrels full of cloth sheets lies a small sack, and inside you find three potions and a small red stick, perhaps a wand?
Aoife picks up the potions and the wand and studies them, eyes flashing with magic as she does so.
The three potions are all of Endure Elements, and the wand is a wand of Burning Hands at caster level 2 with 4 charges left.
Down the hallway it is!
Down the hallway they go, one after the other...
As Aoife sorts out the cache of potions, Prasitis assesses the lighter-armed mage’s wounds with a soldierly eye.
“Any joy of that other wand, still?” she asks Veda. “Aoife looks like she might need it. I’ll be able to prepare some more healing after tonight, but for now…”
The corner of her mouth twitches visibly at the report of the spell the new wand contains, something like how a smile might react, if it could jump back from being burned, like a hand. She has no idea why, exactly – she can’t be sure it’s even the result of the fog that seems to have clouded her memory – but Prasitis is able to report, “And I’ve never been able to sort out fire magic.”
With that, the cold elf takes point, keeping an eye out for the next opening off the hallway in an attempt to forestall a surprise from any lurking shapechangers.
What?
Veda looks at Prasitis in surprise untill she remembers.
Oh yeah, of course. I have to check how much is left, but there should be at least some.
She takes out the wand speaking its command word silently to touch Prasitis.
Aoife nods in thanks as the positive energy floods her system, feeling and enjoying the moment of perfect health that came along with the overflow.
"Thanks. Who wants tha wand?" she asks, "I cen use it, but I suspect I'm better with a sword."
After the party has settled the distribution of healing and other such things and take a look down the hallway, it becomes apparent that some sort of cave in has partially filled up the far end of this hallway, where it opens into a room to the right.
The wall of the hallway has broken apart in the collapse, leaving the door in the wall further north useless. Opposite this irrelevant door is another closed door.
As the group of women approaches the collapsed rumble, a weak voice can be heard from inside the collapsed room.
"H-hello...?" the woman cries out, obviously with a strained voice. "Is there anyone there?"
Hello? Are you inside this room? Who are you?
looking at the rubble...
“Thank goodness! We thought we were the only ones left after … whatever this is. We’ve found a bit of help, hold on!” Prasitis says, choosing her words carefully. If there are doppelgangers running around, drawing them out by a show of vulnerability – or at least trust – might be preferable to letting them get close enough to strike at a turned back.
With her spells, she’s never entirely unarmed, so she sheathes her sword and peers cautiously into the collapsed room, extending a hand ready to help.
Aoife touches the tip of her sword to a small stone, transferring the light emanating from her blade to the pebble, and picks up the rock, using it to peer inside the collapsed area and get an idea of what's inside.
The feeble voice comes from on the other side of the pile of rubble in the hallway, from inside the room off to the left.
The rubble doesn’t appear to be hazardous, Veda notices, instead just a sign of a previous event, most likely last.
”Y-yes...I’m in here! There’s a table on my leg and I can’t get up! Help!”
As the party moves in, they see exactly what the voice had described. An older lady, with gray hairs spread across her unkempt hair, lays on the floor, one half of a broken office desk laid across her waist.
Oh that must hurt. How long have you been lying here?
Veda kneels down next to the woman to see how badly she is injured.
What was your name again?
Maybe someone else is better at this than me.
Prasitis gives the pinned woman a look over, but shakes her head in response to Veda. “I’m an herbalist, not a chirurgeon, I’m afraid. But maybe those guards will be able to help.”
She quickly unstraps her shield and offers her best reassuring smile. “First things first. Let’s get that desk off you, shall we?”
With that, she sets to.
The panicked woman’s voice lowers in volume as you approach, not trying to yell at you when you’re so close.
”I’ve been here for...several hours I think. Maybe more. I’m Baisily, did the captain send you? I’ve been waiting on him to come find me like he always does...”
The elderly woman seems to trail off, her eyes losing focus as she stares off into the distance.
Bracing herself, Prasitis pushes against the top of the desk, only to narrowly avoid knocking herself off her own feet. She struggles to maintain any dignity whatsoever - obviously the desk is heavier than it looks, and besides, she was recruited as a different sort of knight than a sword-slinger as such, and ...
Blushing ever so faintly, she turns to the others. "How mortifying. I obviously need some help, please?"
Veda tries to move the table as well.
Prasitis; attempt to move the table barely even budges it, but Veda easily lifts the table off of the older woman.
As soon as the table lifts up, the form of the injured woman twists and changes, stretching and morphing into what you now know to be a doppleganger.
It screams in pleasure at finally being free, and lashes a claw out at Veda, the closest one to it.
“^?&!@inum!” A most unladylike snarl falls from Prasitis’ lips, an Infernal curse that would appear to be a less felicitous component of the inheritance of her hazy past. Something acquired from whatever soldiers or battlefield first saw her in armour?
“They know who we’re looking for!” she cries out, trivially, as she scrabbles to get into a more defensive position, reaching back for where she left her shield… Of course they do, girl! Or why not? Whatever happened here was bound to be more dangerous than brainless imps, if it’s manipulating shapeshifters!
Gauging the distance behind her, Prasitis decides she can’t just leave the others to fend for themselves as she scrabbles for her own defenses. Calling up a politer, but no less sharp, invocation, she lunges at the doppleganger instead, a cantrip in one hand, as she draws her sword in the other.
What? How? Nooo!
Veda, taken by surprise stutters a bit but then comes to her senses and draws her sword.
The creature on the ground lashes out with its claws once more before standing, attempting to slice the legs off of the women standing around it.
The doppleganger recoils in pain as Prasitis reaches out to touch the things’ skin, flesh turning to blue as it seems to slow down.
Watching with grim satisfaction as the shapechanger wriggles from her grasp not unscathed, Prasitis raises her sword to watch for an opening, her eyes grim.
Kioku is next, followed by Veda
Veda will take the opportunity to step up and strike at the doppleganger with her thorn blade.
Her swipe unfortunately misses, however, leaving the creature still standing.
Runes etch themselves along Aoife's blade, casting the room in a violet light as she thrusts the blade towards the doppelganger.