The doppleganger easily evades the grease spell, not even getting close to slipping at all.
Aoife feels a heated glare staring at her from somewhere in the room, and the doppleganger suddenly appears out of thin air, slashing wildly with her dagger at Aoife.
The dagger slashes across Aoife’s shoulder, slicing a deep cut into her flesh as the beast cackles gleefully, her eyes not leaving her target.
Veda draws on her luck as she moves towards the doppelgaenger with her thornblade, trying to slash them in revenge for her comrade.
In no condition to wade in herself, and seeing a tight melee forming, Prasitis isn't reckless enough to launch an arrow into the confusion, but she is willing to risk an icy cantrip.
Laura steps closer to surround the now-visible doppelganger, and takes a brief second to focus her aim before striking with her battleaxe.
Veda’s thornblade strikes true, stabbing into the side of the doppleganger and drawing out what sounds like a quick curse in an unfamiliar language. But Pras ice ray and Laura’s wild axe swing both miss, giving the beast another chance to strike.
Which it takes, violently yelling and stabbing out at Veda in anger.
Aoife feels more exhausted than angry, but still reaches within herself to strike out at the doppelganger, once, twice, to try and fell it so she can rest. Ultimately, though, she's too tired to hit it.
Aahhhhhhhhhhhrhgh!
Veda cries out in pain as the doppelgänger somehow finds a gap in her armor with their claws.
She tries to retaliate.
Prasitis tries again to land a ray of frost, watching for an opening in the brutal melee.
Heart racing, a lunatic idea crosses her thoughts, and a memory. She drops her bow, and readies her shield again.
Laura steps again to the opposite side and swings her axe, trying to make quick work of the horrible creature.
Most of the party’s attacks go wide, missing the nimble nurse as she flutters about the battlefield, taking swipes at different members of the group. The only exception to this is Pras’ Ray of Frost, as it strikes her arm and briefly throws the monster off balance.
This time, it’s Laura, the crimson of her outfit and demeanor attracting the wrong kind of attention.
Alas, the dagger misses the scarlet-clad woman, whizzing a safe distance past her face.
Encouraged by her bit of luck, Prasitis adjusts her arcane attack and closes cautiously, looking for another opening that will let her outflank the monster.
Laura growls and continues her attack, emboldened by being targeted by the creature.
With a tired cry, Aoife summons lightning to her fingertips, trying to finish off the fight, and lunges at the doppelganger, sword sinking into the creature's body at the same time lightning strikes.
Outrageous beast, take this!
Finally, after a round of beating and a well placed critical from the magus of the group, the doppleganger falls to the floor. Slumped up against one of the empty laundry tanks, her dagger clatters across the cool tile floor.
The combat over, most of the sounds in the room quiet down, all but the ghoul in the far tub. It continues to moan quietly all alone in its corner, nibbling absentmindedly on the strip of flesh in its hand.
Aoife leans against the wall, her magic spent and her exhaustion rising, "Now can we please, for tha love of all that is good, sleep now? Hells, I'll take first watch if that's what it takes." she asks the others.
Laura attempts to catch her breath, and looks between the rest of the party and the ghoul a few times, then shrugs. She examines the body of the doppelganger to see what it was doing.
Shouldn't we take care of the ghoul first? I would feel better...
Veda holds her hand over the injury she just suffered and mumbles a spell.
“Right,” Prasitis nods, unslinging her shield again and placing herself where she can see the ghoul but stay safely out of its reach. Like last time. The way her hands move over and over one another as she murmurs to herself would suggest that she’s trying to warm herself, if the gestures didn’t result in a sheen of frost spreading over her hands.
Eventually, she continues, her voice almost as cool as the water that now drips from her fingertips, “It’s not ideal, but do you think we should talk to those nonentities behind the barricade? If we can retrieve the one from the basement, we’ve got their three shapeshifters.”
“I wouldn’t trust my life to them outright, but…” The unspoken implication is clear: …the more bodies between us and whatever else is still wandering the asylum’s halls, the better.
Laura attempts to clear her throat, which only serves to make her normally raspy voice even raspier. "Retrieve one... from the basement?" she asks. "Can I help?"
“We woke up there,” Prasitis explains, “after some strange and frightful dreams…”
She drifts off for a second as if lost again in the haze that filled them, before continuing. “Another one of those things had just tortured a man to death and … yes, somehow he had been in our dreams. Or close to it.”
“It was already a slaughterhouse,” she feels obliged to warn, thinking of the staircase of corpses. “Expect to step on a lot of bodies.”
Veda gives Laura a questioning look.
Back to the basement? You must be nuts. It's out of question.
But now that i think of it, there might be more than 3 shapeshifters. How would they know the exact number? They didn't even have a chance to keep the whole area under surveillance. Doesn't add up. We shouldn't trust them either.
It’s a disturbing thought, and Prasitis is disoriented enough as it is that she’s afraid of what it will lead to if she gives it too much of its own head. Let’s not go down that rabbit hole. Who knows if we’d ever get out.
“We’ll have to confront them eventually,” she points out. “And I don’t think they meant to suggest there were only three shapechangers, as opposed to calculating what they could get away with demanding of us.”
“But you’re right – we needn’t rush back to them right away. We can barricade ourselves in here for now, try to get some rest.”
Aoife nods, "Aye. That ken work. Let's see wot we can block the door with." she looks around the room, "But let's get the bodies out first, ah'd say."
Veda nods.
Thank the gods or whatever i'm blessed with reasonable companions here.
She considers everyone a moment, then turns to Prasitis.
You look really bad, but you made quite the effort in all fights. Here, let me help you a bit.
She lays her hands over Prasitis and mumbles something.
Her hands begin to glow and a not especially pleasant tickling can be felt as the wounds close some.
The door to the inner washroom can easily be blocked by a multitude of furniture found inside the laundry rooms, and the group does so without effort.
As you all crowd around the proverbial campfire (or actual one, should you choose to chop up some furniture for an actual campfire), you finally begin to realize what a tiring day it has been. And eventually, one by one, you all decide it is time to rest.
And yet, the very last thought through each of your heads as you strangely fall asleep at exactly the same time, almost instantaneously, is that perhaps sleeping in the wild in this accursed place isn't the best idea.
Alas, by that point, it is far far too late, and the group of you descend into a deep slumber.
An all too familiar sound of rasping blade being dragged over brick echoes across the street.
You run and run and run and run and eventually, finally, you notice something out of the ordinary in the unending sea of identical yellow houses. A single wall has collapsed, and as you quickly dive through the hole in the wall, you find yourself inside of a well furnished office. A Keleshite woman sits on an opulent chair in front of a fancy writing desk. As she finishes one of her sentences, she sets the quill she had been using down and looks up at you.
"Your past was the sacrifice. I'm so sorry, my dear, but this is how it had to happen. It was necessary for the things to keep on rolling, as they say."
She picks the quill back up, before dipping inside what appears to be an inkwell full of a dark crimson liquid.
"And, oh, before you return. Beware the yellow walkers, and try not to sleep out in the open again. I am sure we will see each other once more, soon."
The next morning, or whatever passes for morning in this god forsaken place, the group of adventurers wakes up refreshed and ready for the next day of hell.
Except Aoife.
Aoife wakes up, her hair and clothing disheveled from her obviously unsettling sleep the previous night. She shudders as she looks around at the rest of the group, somewhat unaware of the visible and oh so horrendous claw and bite marks on the skin of both of her arms.
"Bloody ****ing hells." From there, Aoife just goes onto a semi-coherent rambling string of obscenities, drifting off half asleep before her head jolts awake again, "Le's not ever sleep somewhere haunted again, ye? Cool. Now, let's get to that settlement, prove our.... yawn.... humanity, and find some actual, soft beds that aren't being haunted by bloody yellow fog and scribes!" she kicks a chair, and grabs her sword, the metal faintly lighting up at her touch- something that Aoife completely fails to notice- "Wha'ever. Let's just go."
Veda nods.
Thank the gods or whatever i'm blessed with reasonable companions here.
She considers everyone a moment, then turns to Prasitis.
You look really bad, but you made quite the effort in all fights. Here, let me help you a bit.
She lays her hands over Prasitis and mumbles something.
Her hands begin to glow and a not especially pleasant tickling can be felt as the wounds close some.
“Thanks,” Prasitis nods. “I’ll see what I can do for more healing in the morning.”
Even as she speaks, she reaches out mentally to call Argyria to her from where she’s taken shelter, and before turning in the witch spends a longish time communing with her familiar in what looks rather like a strange, bird-like game.
The next morning, or whatever passes for morning in this god forsaken place, the group of adventurers wakes up refreshed and ready for the next day of hell.
Except Aoife.
Aoife wakes up, her hair and clothing disheveled from her obviously unsettling sleep the previous night. She shudders as she looks around at the rest of the group, somewhat unaware of the visible and oh so horrendous claw and bite marks on the skin of both of her arms.
Prasitis wakes surprisingly refreshed, but whatever satisfaction she feels evaporates on seeing that something seems to have - well, nibbled isn’t quite the word, on Aoife during the night.
How can that even be possible? She whirls, as if looking for some sort of small predator’s lair, but even as she does, realizing that there’s no sense in the swordswoman having been singled out.
“Wait! What happened?!” she says. “Let me see what I can do before I put my armour on.”
The blue glow she calls to her hand is cold, but soothing, rather than painful.
Laura remains awake as long as she can bear, and shakes her head as she feels herself fall into slumber, but cannot resist. Fortunately she soon wakes, and she gets up and goes behind the curtain to the corner they are using as a latrine. After relieving herself, she massages her stomach and the creature living inside her emerges through her skin. She studies it carefully, wondering what it signifies. The creature has a human head and torso, its eyes languid as it lolls. Its arms end in large pincers, looking almost like padded red gloves. It has eight long and spindly insectoid legs. It nuzzles her strangely, batting its forehead against her hand. She pats it comfortingly and stares into space, lost in thought.
After healing Aoife, Prasitis looks around to see how everyone else is doing before deciding whether to heal herself next before donning her armour and returning to the asylum’s horrors.
Not seeing or hearing anything from Laura, she asks gently, “Is everything alright back there?”
Laura starts, guiltily. "What? No!" she gasps. "I mean, yes." She beckons urgently to the creature, willing it with her thoughts to come back to her, but it moves slowly after being loose for the first time in ages. It turns to the sound of Prasitis's voice, and tentatively steps towards her with tiny click-click noises on the cold flagstone floor.
“Oh my goddess!” The soft exclamation escapes the witch’s lips before she can stop herself, but she is (just) able to keep her glance from flicking over to make sure her own familiar is safe – after all, Argyria should easily be able to fly out of reach.
Where did that come from? It’s – mercifully – nothing like anything Prasitis has seen before, and she grew up in a place where imps were reasonably fashionable familiars. That thought itself files away for reassessment through the fog clouding her more recent memories. First things first. She didn’t hear any ritual sort of sounds, though she wasn’t really paying attention for them, and she can’t see the sorts of rune that mark a summoner’s bond… Some of the possibilities are too dreadful to contemplate. A Lamashtan blessing, truly, whatever it is.
She recovers imperfectly, but as best as she can, under the circumstances. “Is that your familiar?” she inquires politely, firmly telling herself not to stare.
Laura stares dumbly at Prasitis, her face stricken, and she retreats back behind the curtain as her eyes flick to Aoife and Veda, confirming that they saw it. She crouches and beckons to the creature again, a desperate gesture that culminates with her patting on the empty folds of skin at her belly. Picking up on her fear, the creature swivels and returns to her reach. Laura looks back to Prasitis, and shrugs. "He is mine," she says hesitantly, as if that answers the elf woman's question.
The creature climbs up onto Laura's lap and seems to move through her skin, causing her stomach to grow around it and to once again appear full and distended. She watches Prasitis with narrowed eyes, perhaps afraid of what she will say or do in response.
Prasitis’ mind moves to protect what passes for such fragile sanity as it retains, and either refuses to process what she’s just seen, or carefully compartmentalizes it safely away.
Seeing the hurt in the other woman’s eyes, the elf chooses her words and tone even more carefully, though she stops short of apologizing outright. “I’m sure you’ll take good care of him. Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help?”
With that, the witch turns to her armour. As she makes the last adjustments, she announces to the group, “I’ve prepared a simple spell that will stop the worst of desperate bleeding, but I’ve one spell left for proper healing.”
“We still need to find the real Ms. Baisily, but maybe we can at least convince the guards we’re not doppelgangers ourselves?”
Laura stares after Prasitis, trying to process her reaction and puzzle out what it means. That woman felt so familiar to Laura, her regal bearing and her-- well, her Elven-ness. It was unsettling. She stands and returns to the impromptu camp as if nothing was amiss, and begins pulling on her mail to be ready for more battles.
Veda stands closeby, covering herself with a ragged bedsheet and sword in hand, looking what's going on.
Ew, this is gross. You sure you aren't possessed or something? Or did they some form of wicked experiment on you?
Unlike Prasitis she is staring openly, a mix of disgust and fascination on her face.
It's like you're pregnant with it? Did you gain something by it? That must have been one heck of a ritual and haggle i guess.
She nods to Laura in respect.
Oh Sitis, i can heal a bit as well. I'm not sure if all of it works on everyone though. Do you have a suggestion where we should search that woman? Are we sure she wasn't one of the ghouls?
Laura watches Veda without expression, her eyes flicking between her and Prasitis and alert for danger. When the woman is finished asking her questions, she shrugs and shakes her head. "I don't remember," she says in a dull tone.
She looks over at Aoife as the others continue talking, and frowns as she notes the wise woman's restless state. "We," she starts, but stops. Taking a breath, she continues. "We should find someplace safe to rest. Staying out here will wear us down. Where is this barricade?"
Prasitis cringes at Veda’s tactless questions, but the matter doesn’t seem to go any further, mercifully. She hopes she won’t be called upon to keep the peace any time soon, and gratefully accepts the change of subject.
“I don’t think she was one of the ghouls,” Prasitis muses, trying to recall the features of the other one too. “I imagine the doppelgangers are working together, and one of them was wearing her face, when there was no guarantee that someone wouldn’t run into the ghouls first…”
“I didn’t see any doors past the collapsed hallway, either. Unless they want to wait for us to dig it out, those empties-” she slips unawares into Korvosan slang “-will have to let us past to get around if we’re to find any other survivors.”
She wrinkles her nose at what has to be done next. She tells Laura, trying to put as cheerful a spin on things as the situation permits, “Fortunately, the guards are just down the hall from where we found you.”
With that, the witch gets a hold on the first dead shapeshifter and starts dragging it to the door. “Time to offer our letters of introduction.”
Aoife yawns and stares blankly into space, not seeming to listen to what's being discussed all that much.
Laura swivels and takes hold of the other corpse, hefting it into her well-muscled arms like a sack, and follows.
Halfway down the hall, Prasitis hands off her dead doppelganger to retrieve the last from the basement.
"One moment, please," she asks, covering her unease with politeness before popping off. I wonder if that unnatural rain has stopped?
She's quiet upon her return. Wrangling a corpse over a pile of others is as chastening a task as one might imagine.
The unnaturally hot rain has indeed stopped. Instead, the drizzling downpour seems to be regular old water.
As Pras steps out into the courtyard after retrieving the body, however, a tremendously loud clap of thunder shakes the entire area, making her almost stumble and trip under the weight of the vibrations in the air. A few seconds later, the thunderclap echoes through the courtyard again, only this time, a voice from way up in the sky screams one single bloodcurdling word.
”Prasitis!”
The thunder quits immediately after, and the rain continues to pour unabated.
When Pras is finally reunited with the group, she finds them in the middle of a conversation with a rather strange individual. She is not wearing the regular asylum’s clothes, instead being dressed in an unusually clean set of robes. Perhaps those of a nurse or doctor? The glaive strapped across her back however, shows she is neither.
I’m mad after all, Prasitis tentatively concludes, as she stumbles back inside to the others, shaken by thunder and voices that apparently no one else hears. Probably best not to mention that. Bad enough that I called out about the speaking thunder, but then, what could I?
She’s still even more pale than usual as she approaches the stranger and the barricade, but she does her best, a friendly smile curving her lips unconsciously. “Oh. I thought I heard somebody.”
Hopefully the others won’t press the point. She introduces herself, half-remembering, this time, that she no longer seems to have a liege as such. “Prasitis, of the Order of the Scarlet Rose.”
Dragging another dead doppelganger into the conversation isn’t helping. “I’m afraid you do not find us at our best,” she concedes, confidingly and self-deprecatingly.
Ah clean clothes! I envy you! My name is Veda. Veda Versade. Dame of House Versade. You were? How did you even get here?
She looks at Prasitis.
You fine? Talking to yourself? Or did you phase out for a moment there? Scarlet Rose suits you though. Maybe after a good bath you will smell like one too.
She smiles.
Prasitis’ hand waves in a gesture of humility. It’s a flattering thought, but the order is very much an ideal she wishes she could live up to rather than one she thinks she does at all. A sister would understand, she thinks, suddenly feeling very far indeed from a home she can remember tenuously at most and that she’s not sure she’ll ever see again.
Her smile is a bit strained, but she tries. “Don’t remind me. And - you mean the fashion this season isn’t essence of ghoul, with a hint of doppelganger fear? I should have known better than to trust that cat Pamila!”