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Ci Ci sees an aura of necromancy just as Saiya twists the door latch open. The door slams wide open as a wave of blood, chunky with bits of viscera, crashes into the hallway. In a frantic moment everyone tries to get out of the way. But everyone is washed down the hallway as the hemorrhagic river drenches the party. Vix and Lahrehn lose their footing as they’re coated in slick blood. Vix smashes into Ci Ci causing her to tumble to the ground with the brawler in a heap as they are pushed further. Jassminder lighter on her feet manages to leap to one side avoiding the pair and Lahrehn.
Coming to your senses after the flash flood the party sees a never ending river of blood defying gravity and flowing through the center of the door down the hallway. It pools vertically on the western wall at the end of the hall.
Through the door are worn old chairs and small tables set with the scattered pieces of simple games. Vast glass windows dominate the eastern walls, beyond which a jaundiced kaleidoscope swirls hypnotically. Slumped in a wheelchair facing the windows is a body with steel gray hair, the hemorrhagic stream flows from dead woman. A hallway leads south and a door coated in red leads north. Also to the north a serving hatch opens to darkness.
Badly battered by the wave of blood, as well as the beating from the cultist, Ci Ci calls upon her magic to protect her from any further bodily harm, lest she die.
With a series of gestures and muttered words, she encases her self in a shimmering, flexible garment of magical energy.
"Blood! A river of blood! What kind of Hellhole is this gods-forsaken place?!?"
Lahrehn stands up awkwardly, shaking her head and appendages in an unnatural way. She approaches the door from where the flow of blood came, and instinctively adopts a defensive position as she tries to assess the situation.
Get ready! I have a bad feeling about this. It feels as if every situation can always get a bit worse...
Miz, still standing after the river of blood, runs into the storage room to get out of the mess and calls to the others "Get in here so we can regroup!"
She takes up a defensive stance at the door upon hearing Lahrehn's warning.
Saiya had been expecting something to happen, and she's relatively quick. That's all that keeps her on her feet when a torrent of blood hits her directly in the chest.
"What the f+@~?!"
Her immediate thought, once she regains her bearings, is to close the door again. She pushes her way forward and tries to slam it shut.
Okay, think. Vertical river of blood, Jass is probably right that this is something like that damn eye from earlier, except this one isn't helpfully talking to us and telling us how to make it go away...
Taking in the utter strangeness of the blood river and gathering her thoughts about how the asylum is somehow mixing with the Dimension of Dreams Saiya postulates that the effect is someone's nightmare made real. She guesses that if the party can somehow alleviate the deep seated fear, the root cause of the nightmare, they can remove it.
Vix gets up, and does nothing for the KO’d guy washed from her arms. Unable to do anything about the door, she prepares for whatever might come out after her!
Jassminder reacts almost immediately when the door opens and the impossible flood of blood surges out - turning her back to it, she lifts her longbow above her head in an attempt to keep it from being drenched. The force of the surge rocks her on her feet, pushing her down the corridor, but she keeps her footing.
Once the deluge has subsided slightly, she whirls around, drawing an arrow and firing it straight at the source of this dark magic.
Caked in blood like some horror from someone's nightmare (although they all look like that so it doesn't really distinguish her right now), she fixes Saiya with a Look.
"I know, alright? I know that I'm ... different." Her free hand clutches at the air as she speaks, as if trying to physically grab the words that she needs. "I don't have..." The word she's looking for is empathy and she bangs her fist against her thigh in frustration when she can't find it - this is like trying to explain something from a textbook written in a language she's not familiar with.
"I don't... connect well. I know that. You get listened to better if you connect, and I don't."
"But I'm not stupid. I'm rational. I believe in order and doing things that make sense. It's not rational for doors to leak blood. They shouldn't do that. So the rational thing to do when you find a door like that, is to avoid it unless there's no other way, or to work out why it's doing that. Not to just... open it and assume that everything will be ok. That's not..." she trails off mid-sentence.
She takes a deep breath. "I don't understand why you did that. It doesn't make sense."
Jassminder's not angry (she can handle anger, she just stores it up until she finds an appropriate target for it, and there's never a shortage of those). This is much worse. She's upset.
Saiya doesn't immediately respond, busy forcing the door back shut again. Once it is, she continues facing it for a long moment. She doesn't look at Jass when she speaks.
"I agree with you. The rational thing to do with a door that leaks blood is to avoid it. Unfortunately, the rational thing to do with fog that contains monsters trying to kill us is also to avoid it. And that's the only other way to go."
She takes a deep breath of her own, running her fingers through her hair in an agitated manner. (Smearing blood through it in the process.) "It made sense to me. I'm not like you. I'm not a fighter. Monsters scare me more than weird doors. We saw a nightgaunt. We heard worse. That creature from our dreams? What if it's out there too? And I couldn't work out why it was leaking blood without more information. I didn't assume everything would be okay, I just...I thought whatever happened with the door, we could probably deal with it. I'm less confident of our ability to deal with the creatures in the fog."
She starts to run her fingers through her hair again, grimaces, and begins using Prestidigitation to clean herself off. (And anyone else who asks.)
"You keep saying this isn't a rational place. We could have opened this door and had absolutely nothing happen. We could take two steps outside and have the Tatterman show up and rip off someone's head. We don't know." Her voice softens. "Like I said, going through this door made more sense to me than risking the fog. It still does, actually, we know what the door does now and it's not that bad. Gross, but definitely survivable. Stick close to the walls and it would be easy enough to push our way through." Her voice drops even lower. Barely audible, she finishes, "But...I am sorry. For not listening."
Jassminder's arrow flies straight to the head poking out from behind the chair looking into the citrine miasma. The head explodes as the arrow finds its target and a moment later reforms as if nothing had happened. Saiya pushes the door as hard as she can against the horizontal waterfall of blood but it uncannily resists her. Meanwhile the blood flowing into the hallway has covered the door leading into Losandro's office completely.
Perhaps the blood takes offense at your obeyance of the laws of gravity because it twists its path to bodily hit everyone still in the hallway and pushes with a great pressure. Jassminder and Lahrehn are pushed wholly into the small lake forming on the western wall.
Jassminder narrows her eyes as she watches the (non-)results of her shot. "That hit would have killed a nightgaunt. Time for us to withdraw. I can't fight something that can't be killed."
The Vixen says, “Shouldn’t we at least work together and shut that damn door?!”
The Vixen says, “Shouldn’t we at least work together and shut that damn door?!”
Ci Ci does her best to help try and shut the door, but her willowy frame lacks much of the muscularity of her companions.
Vix tries to slam the door shut by putting her shoulder into it, but—“This river o’ blood’s slick as a snot on a doorknob on this gods-damned doooooooooooooorrrr—?!” She gargles a tirade of curses as her muscles prove as surprisingly ineffective as Jass’ bullseye shot.
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Miz sighs as the others are washed away again by the river of blood. She draws her blade and bolts into the room to see if she can't find a way to stop this from continuing.
Saiya hears Jass call for a retreat and glances behind her...only to see the exit is blocked by the ever-growing 'lake' of blood.
Think, think, there has to be a way to stop this...
She's not going to find it on this side of the door. She shoves herself against the wall and sidles past the river of blood to follow Miz into the new room.
Saiya and Mizuko make it clear of the hallway after Ci Ci and Vix fail again to close the door.
Miz calls out once she is inside and doesn't see any other direct threats. "Just leave the door for now and get in here so we can figure this out!"
Lahrehn stands up again, emotionless towards the river of blood - she isn’t pissed off, or scared, or even annoyed - she has a sort of blase attitude that can be better translated to “I didn’t know it was going to happen but it doesn’t surprise me”. The shifter then proceeds to move towards Saiya and Mizuko.
Ci Ci nods, and follows Miz into the room.
”What the Hell?!? Floating river of blood!! This is madness!!”
Once out of the blood's direct line it stops trying to force you further into the hallway.
Through the door are worn old chairs and small tables set with the scattered pieces of simple games. Vast glass windows dominate the eastern walls, beyond which a jaundiced kaleidoscope swirls hypnotically. Slumped in a wheelchair facing the windows is a body with steel gray hair, the hemorrhagic stream flows from dead woman. A hallway leads south and a door coated in red leads north. Also to the north a serving hatch opens to darkness.
Taking a closer look the stream flows from a gaping wound in the aging woman's chest, right where her heart should be. It looks like her heart exploded violently outward. A name tag on her patients robe says 'Freeling'.
Miz looks at the poor dead woman who is spilling blood out of her toward the door and shakes her head as she sighs heavily "This place is a mess... first someone with yellow mist spewing from their mouth and now this? What have we found our selves a part of?"
She turns to the others "With the blood stopped for now, maybe we check these other doors, unless someone has an idea how to put that poor soul to rest. It didn't seem like attacking her did much good..."
"I could try to call fire and burn her, like I did the cultists back there," Ci Ci offers, "but I can only do it a few times before I have to rest, and it may be better to save it for something or someone that's an immediate threat to us."
Miz smiles to Ci Ci and nods "I agree, probably best saved for a more immediate threat." When no one else proposes any ideas about the dead woman with a missing heart, Miz moves to the look down the southern hall to see what else might be down there.
"I don't think burning will have any effect. My arrow would have killed most things and it did nothing."
She examines the strange woman carefully.
"You should be dead, but you're still bleeding. Stop it."
Vix asks, “Do ye need magic? Or even a silver weapon?”
She glides her fingers down her leather boots. “I’ve two.”
She adds, “I don’t like hitting a woman, or an innocent, even if she’s dead. But sticking the mist-spewing corpse worked.
“That’s really all I got, logically. Brute force worked before.”
If Jass’ attempt works, Vix will be very relieved. She’d much prefer to use brute force on whoever took the woman’s life.
Miz sees two hallways that meet beneath a lofty ceiling. High windows, alive with the nauseating fog beyond, give the space an airy feel. A portion of the western hallway has collapsed, blocking it with tons of rubble. Miz hears a light scratching noise from around the corner by collapsed portion. Further down the hall glows a pale orange light. Miz cannot determine the light's source from her location.
As far as Jass can tell the woman in the chair was old, perhaps in her early to mid 70s. She's in patient's robes with a name tag Dolores Freeling. Other than the gaping chest wound the woman has no other injuries, she appears to have died from that wound. If Jass knew what she suffered from when Mrs. Freeling was alive it might give a clue as to her current condition.
Miz turns back to the others "There are a bunch more doors down this way and a glowing light at the end of the hall, but I'm not sure what is making it, also some scratching noise in the rubble. Any luck with the woman?"
She pauses a moment and then continues before anyone can answer "Since she isn't a threat right now, maybe we need to check these other doors, see if any lead to a way out?"
“Fine by me, Miz.”
Vix moves a little closer to where the scratching was heard.
“When I… er… broke the other dead woman’s head, I heard a pop. Same pop I heard from the rat people—ye’ll meet ’em later—when they teleported.”
Turning to Saiya, Vix says, “Maybe the thing that’s scratching can speak Rat-linglish. Wanna give talking a shot?”
Miz shrugs to Vix "Maybe, but we should probably check some of these doors first."
She looks back toward the bloody doors and shivers slightly then looks down the hall. "Let's start here and work our way down until we get to the scratching noise? Then we can always circle back to those other creepy doors if we don't find any way out."
She pauses a moment and then continues before anyone can answer "Since she isn't a threat right now, maybe we need to check these other doors, see if any lead to a way out?"
Jassminder frowns. "She's still spraying blood everywhere. If nothing else, it irritates me - and it's shut off our way back, as well." She points at the door to the doctor's office, now submerged under a sanguine tide. "I like to keep my line of retreat open. Her nametag says she's Dolores Freeling - if we go back to the patient records, maybe we can find something that will help solve this."
Turning to Saiya, Vix says, “Maybe the thing that’s scratching can speak Rat-linglish. Wanna give talking a shot?”
"Or the thing that's scratching is undead, like this one." Jassminder points to the annoying woman in the chair.
Miz turns to hear Jass's suggestion and nods "Fair point. If you think we can find something there to put this poor soul to rest, we can try that before proceeding."
When the others are ready to rush back into the record room she will follow behind hoping not to get washed in another violent river of blood. Once inside the records room she will help the others search for any records on Dolores Freeling.
"If we can't figure out a way to stop this, the amount of blood she's losing will eventually fill the whole damn place. Although I wonder...stay out of the way for a second." Saiya grasps the wheelchair and tries to turn it around so the blood will flow in the opposite direction. With luck, that will reopen their path back to the chapel.
On a whim she digs through her bag until she finds the gold ring she'd taken off a corpse earlier. "Maybe her heart was broken metaphorically and this place turned it literal? Here, uh...Mrs. Freeling. Were you missing a wedding ring?" She slips it onto the dead woman's finger, feeling very foolish. But hey, it's worth a try.
"I hope it does," Ci Ci replies. "None of us is an exorcist, by chance? That would be really useful right about now."
She shuffles a bit, making small, nervous gestures.
Saiya tries to maneuver the chair but the blood flow still follows a path down the hallway. It's like gravity pulls the blood in that direction only. After a second of being faced in the opposite direction the way the blood flows changes. It comes out in violent regular sprays as if it was now bleeding from an artery under great pressure. The ring has no effect.
"That's weird. Weirder, I mean." Saiya stares at the blood still desperately trying to get down the hallway they'd come from. "Guess it doesn't matter which way she's facing. And the ring was a longshot anyway." She quickly pockets it again.
"Searching the records will take a while, but looks like we don't have much choice if we want to stop this." Which Saiya most definitely does. If there was a way she wanted to die, drowning in a pool of blood would not be it. "Hopefully they're at least a little organized." She joins Miz in the records room and starts skimming through files.
”Um...what if we moved the body into the hall...in the direction the blood is flowing...um...would that help?” Ci Ci suggests.
Vix is willing to lug the body.
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The party sorts through the records for nearly eight hours, pulling out relevant patient records as they go. After bringing order to the chaos of this room you feel like it will be much easier finding more records if need be.
Patient Record: Dolores Freeling
Female, Human, Varisian, Age 73, Hometown: Thrushmoor, Versex County, Ustalav
Committed: 27 Calistril 4707
Circumstances: Committed by Mrs. Freeling’s daughter, Brandal Freeling
Attending Doctor: Dr. Ethyl Ermengarde
Mrs. Freeling suffers from a form of dementia often found in people of advanced age. She has trouble remembering. She didn’t recognize her own daughter when Mrs. Freeling was committed and she complained of being kidnapped by the strange woman. Mrs. Freeling often has trouble communicating and caring for herself.
Treatment: Observation. Addendum: Daily doses of essense of white willow, tincture of Thuvian pit viper, cabble-weed tea
Development 29 Lamashan 4709, Dr. Ermengarde, after consulting with her colleague Dr. West at the Sincomakti School of Sciences, has developed a medicinal regimen to help alleviate some of Mrs. Freeling’s symptoms.
Development 15 Erastus 4711, Note from Dr. Losandro: Dr. Ermengarde please advise the nurses under you to refrain from discussing the purpose of Mrs. Freeling’s daily tinctures in front of her. She somehow got the notion that her heart would explode if she didn’t receive her medications. Brandal Freeling threatened to move Mrs. Freeling’s care to a different institution for terrifying the poor woman.
Patient Record: The Vermillion Vixen (birth name unknown)
Female, Human, approximate age 27, unknown town of origin but mentioned a place called Rooftopolis during examination
Committed: 15 Gozarn 4715
Circumstances: Committed by Count Haserton Lowls IV, formerly under his employ.
Attending Doctor: Eliege Losandro
The Vermillion Vixen suffers from some form of Amnesia, similar to the rest of the people that Lowls committed, she remembers very little about himself and nothing of the others. She violently attacked an orderly trying to move her.
Treatment: Therapy, sedation, observation, for her safety and others she should be kept in a straight jacket.
Patient Record: Cerise Barchetta
Female, Human, age 24, unknown home
Committed: 15 Gozarn 4715
Circumstances: Committed by Count Haserton Lowls IV, formerly under his employ.
Attending Doctor: Eliege Losandro
Cerise suffers from Amnesia and a fugue state similar to the others committed by Lowls. During intake she manifested a searing ray of light from her palm. Luckily no one was hurt but it managed to slag a section of wall. It's possible that this magical talent is natural.
Treatment: Therapy, sedation, observation, for her safety and others she should be kept in a straight jacket and gagged when not eating or drinking.
Patient Record: Jassminder Shah
Female, Human, Keleshite, approximate Age mid to late twenties, Katapesh, unknown city
Committed: 15 Gozarn 4715
Circumstances: Committed by Count Haserton Lowls IV, formerly under his employ.
Attending Doctor: Eliege Losandro
Jassminder, like the rest of the people committed by Count Lowls, suffers from Amnesia. She’s even less responsive than the others. After an extensive interview I believe Jassminder also suffers from chronic emotional numbing. Out of all of Lowl’s people she is the easiest to work with.
Treatment: Therapy, observation
Patient Record: Lahrehn
Unknown gender, unknown race, unknown age, unknown origin
Committed: 15 Gozarn 4715
Circumstances: Committed by Count Haserton Lowls IV, formerly under his employ.
Attending Doctor: Eliege Losandro
Lowls insisted that ‘Lahrehn’ is a sentient being and under his employ, and that it’s suffering amnesia. It appears to be an ooze of some sort that mindlessly hunts in the Darklands. I haven’t been able to get an intelligible response from ‘Lahrehn.’ I’m referring its case to Dr. Arosh Chawaar, maybe he can figure something out. If nothing else he can add it to his collection of specimens.
Treatment: Observation
Patient Record: Mizuko Tagashi
Female, Human, approximate age late twenties to early thirties, Tien, unknown country of origin
Committed: 15 Gozarn 4715
Circumstances: Committed by Count Haserton Lowls IV, formerly under his employ.
Attending Doctor: Eliege Losandro
Mizuko suffers from some form of Amnesia, similar to the rest of the people that Lowls committed. Even in her fugue state she has a hard time staying still and might be suffering from a nervous disorder. We should find some sort of activity to keep her occupied as leaving her alone with nothing to do could exacerbate her condition.
Treatment: Therapy, sedation, observation
Patient Record: Saiya Atarangi
Female, unknown race, apparent age: mid thirties, unknown origin
Committed: 15 Gozarn 4715
Circumstances: Committed by Count Haserton Lowls IV, formerly under his employ.
Attending Doctor: Eliege Losandro
Saiya suffers from some form of Amnesia, similar to the rest of the people that Lowls committed. Unlike the others Saiya is the most mentally stable of the lot, seeming to suffer no additional symptoms. She remembers little of herself and her former associates.
Treatment: Observation
”A beam of searing light? From my palm? I hope I remember how to do that one soon. I’ll happily blast our way out of here!” Ci Ci says, after browsing the notes in her file. ”Do you think giving the injection of medicine to Mrs. Freelong might stop the bleeding?”