After tending to their wounds, the group starts exploring this eerie place. Although the sign said it was an asylum, it seems hard to believe that this could be intended as a place of healing. The dark coridoors are damp and mouldy, lit only by flickering torches that give off an oppressive, red-orange light.
The screams of the patients who are tied to the ground in the entraceway recede a little after the battle is over, turning to more mournful wails that put you on edge as you explore.
Our intrepid heroes are no strangers to disquieting dungeons however, and quickly set up a routine for exploring where the whole group gathers at each door, quietly assesses it, then silently nods their assent before it is swiftly and quietly opened by Drusilla. The rooms are then thoroughly but carefully searched before the process begins again at the next room.
This is what they find.
1. The first room the group looks in contains numerous sets of armour and clubs, in better condition than the ones on the orderlies, but little else of interest.
2. Moving around the building clockwise, the next room contains bathtubs, caked with grime and bloodstains. It smells of chemical cleaners, and has a palpable air of misery
3. This room has a well kept bed, as well as a bedside table and an empty cupboard. Presumably some sort of guest room for visitors.
4. A little-used laundy lies in this room, and a quick search of the clothing and wash baskets turns up nothing of interest
5. The kitchens have a rat problem, and there appears to be nothing more nutritious than stale bread and cloudy water in here. A repulsive smell leads you to investigate a trapdoor, which when opened has a funnel shaped opening to somewhere below. The pipe does not go straight down so Grunyak's darkvision is not able to see all the way down. If it weren't for the smell of the black sludge at the ruined house yesterday you'd swear the fumes coming from this pipe were the worst thing you'd ever smelled. Drusilla hears something faint from wherever it leads, the distant sounds of something shuffling, grunting, and slobbering somewhere below
Walking past the dining table, down back to the central coridoor, an ornate set of doors to the right bear a brass plaque that says "Waldur Crove". To the left, the doors to two stairwells hang open, and inmates are chained to the walls at the top of the stairs. They are languidly pulling at their restraints, wordless moans escaping their lips along with a steady stream of spittle.
Cautiously pushing open the door to Waldur Crove's office, you're met with a much more richly appointed room, filled with the comforts of rich leather upholstry, a varnished mahogany desk, and shelves lined with books.
Opening the door to a side room reveals a private louge with more comfortable seating and a cabinet filled with decanters of Taldan brandy, and in the adjoining chamber to that is a small personal library specialising in cults and savage practices from around the world. Finally a door leading from the main office opens on to another staircase leading down.
Leaving Crove's office, you turn right before the stairs and follow the coridoor down, passing a door to your left and facing a door head on.
As Angoldir moves up to do his customary pass on the doors, a faint sound reaches his elven ears through the thick wooden door to your left; laughter. The group quietens to listen, and you can just about hear some dialogue at the edge of hearing.
"I play queen of hearts"
"That's not queen of hearts, that's the pilgrim"
"Pilgrim's worth two ribs I'd say. Ribs are ribbons! Double your money"
"Hahahah. HAHAHAHA"
The conversation doesn't get any more lucid as you listen, but there are some disturbing squelching sounds breaking up the dialogue. Listening at the door straight ahead it sounds at first like someone is giving a lecture, but listening in you can hear that it doesn't make sense, and it sounds like it's being given to a bunch of unruly children. Jeering, heckles and something like grunting can be heard.
Opening the door to what is evidently a storage room of some kind with mops and tools strewn around, you a greeted with a grisly tableau. Two patients whose straitjackets are not tied are playing some sort of card game over the corpse of a third. The cards appear to be imaginary, and the currency freshly harvested body parts as you can see blood and viscera covering the hands of the players, along with piles of bones and organs in front of each player.
When Angoldir opens the door they look up at him in unison.
"NO WE WON'T GO BACK!"
They move to attack, though they appear to be unarmed. One starts reaching for a rib, and the other a mop.
Dru moves in and knocks her target out with a single blow, followed shortly by Taariik doing the same to the other, before either have acted on their clearly homicidal impulses.
With Grunyak on hand to prevent them from slipping into death, the asylum becomes quiet once again. The nonsensical lecture appears to be continuing behind the other door, its presenter either having not heard, or not caring about the sounds of combat.
None of the three patients here have any gear, and the only items in the rooms are cleaning supplies, more straitjackets, ropes and manacles and so forth.
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Angoldir puts a hand on Grunyak's shoulder. "Your kindness speaks volumes about your character," he says gently. "Not to mention the kindness of getting these folks out of this man's hands. Given what we have already heard of him, it seems quite likely he is not only involved in the mistreatment of his charges, but of putting more patients in his own care." Stepping to the nearby door, he waits once more for his companions to signal their readiness before opening it.
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Arranging yourselves before the door, you share confirming nods before Drusilla opens the door with a flourish. You find a lecture hall, and a lecture in progress. To the left is a raised stage, where a patient in an unfastened straitjacket is standing in front of a podium speaking earnestly about a global conspiracy to replace world-leaders with teapots from the dark spaces between the stars.
To the right as you enter are four other patients, also in unfastened straitjackets, sat on wooden chairs and staring in rapt attention at the speaker. All eyes turn to you as you open the door. The speaker behind the podium cries out.
"Here they are, pawns of Big Teapot come to silence us! Fight for your lives!"
from nowhere they produce crude improvised knives made from broken chair legs and sharpened bones, and they attack with reckless abandon.
Two of the patients move to flank Angoldir, cruel grins on their face as they stab at him.
Despite being a very well placed strike, the first patient's stab just doesn't have enough force behind it to pierce Angoldir's shield, but the second takes advantage of his distraction to strike from behind and the jagged edge of the bone knife he's using gives him a nasty cut.
another patient picks up a book from the floor as he stands up, then throws it at Drusilla's face as hard as he can.
Drusilla doesn't see it coming, but it bounces harmlessly off her thick armour.
Taariik enters the room, and despite his reluctance strikes with so much force the speaker at the podium is knocked immediately unconcscious. They crumple into a heap and hit their head on the edge of the podium, appearing to die on impact.
Grunyak and Drusilla are a little softer in their approach, perhaps too soft as the inmates dodge their attacks and snarl and jibber angrily in response. One strikes at Drusilla, but she barely feels their clumsy attack.
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”She is correct, Taariik.” Angoldir’s quiet voice carries no judgement in its statement of fact as he taps one of the inmates on the ankle. ”They are no threat to us, but we cannot allow them to wander into danger when we find this last Keeper. For their own safety, we should make sure they remain here.”
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Finishing reading his spell book, Eldrin focuses on the centre of the room and begins speaking the words of a spell. The words have a strange rhythm and for a moment everyone feels a little sleepy. Raising his hand Eldrin gestures in an arc in front of him sprinkling rose petals onto the ground.
DC 17 will save to negate teh effect.
Angoldir attempts to aid but catches his cane on one of the wooden chairs, while Eldrin begins casting a lengthy spell.
Completely ignoring the danger and the plight of their fellows, the two inmates attacking Angoldir continue to do so, their incoherent babbling seeming turning into more hooting and screaming as they work themselves up
One almost hits, but his magical shield gets in the way. Cackling like an old woman, the inmate that Grunyak and Drusilla both miraculously missed steps toward Angoldir as well, but strikes at Drusilla in retaliation
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Taariik looks around and is clearly not coping well with the stress and the terror of the situation.
”I ... I am so ... I ... this ... “ and he cannot continue. and
He almost seems paralyzed. You see regret, confusion and maybe a little fear in his eyes ... his Greatsword slips from his fingers and he steps to the door clumsily, trying to withdraw from the situation.
At the sight of his accidentally slaying the inmate, Taariik is overcome with guilt and moves away. Drusilla taps one of the inmates menacing Angoldir as delicately she can, but he still drops painfully to the floor and begins bleeding.
Meanwhile, hoping for some of Eldrin's magic to knock them out, Grunyak takes a defensive stance.
One of the inmates becomes frantic when Drusilla knocks out their friend, they start screaming and stab at her face.
She manages to move her head just in time to avoid the worst of the attack which seemed to be on a direct course for her eye, instead getting a cut on her check. They then step toward Grunyak perhaps hoping for easier prey.
Eldrin's spell finishes and all the remaining inmates fall unconscious. The one Drusilla hit is easily stabilized by Grunyak, and the eerie asylum is quiet once again.
Looking around the room there is very little of interest. Nothing on the inmates other than improvised weapons, and there's not much to indicate what type of lecture this room might have been used to deliver. Not much that is, until Angoldir notices a spiral motif worked into the wood of the podium; very reminiscent of the spiral you found smeared onto the alley wall yesterday morning; the one associated with the dark tapestry.
Taariik attempts to revive the inmate that he attacked, but inexpert as he is even he can tell the poor man has died.
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You did a mistake. I won't say that's all, because a man died from it, a man you could easily have simply stunned instead. Learn from your mistake, so that he didn't die in vain. I won't judge you, because I too used more force than would have sufficed, in my haste to bring them down. I could have land gentler blows, if I may say so. The place reeks of evilness, and we have to find the root of all evil and destroy it. After that, maybe you will find a way to atone, to seek forgiveness. And I hope you will be able to forgive yourself, after a time. But now we need you into the fight, and it will surely be a tough fight.From now on, we stun the patients, who are out of their minds, literally, and can't do much harm to us, unless they are truly lucky. The ordelies are bullies who needs to get on the wrong side of the beating. And the big boss... Well, there won't probably be mercy asked or given.
She hugs Taarik a while, then
Thank you for your spell, Eldrin.It brings as peaceful an end to this fight as can be. Lets go before they wake up.
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With the remaining inmates asleep Eldrin says "We should restrain them while they are asleep, the magic wont hold for more than a couple of minutes."
"Let's finish clearing this level before we descend to the lower floors. We should evacuate all the innocents when we leave. Lest that creature attacks here as it did the church."
Grunyak ensures that no more troubled minds perish, and Angoldir takes the precaution of tieing their straitjackets again to prevent them from further mischief.
The group continues to explore this level, resuming their careful exploration procedure. They find many more rooms.
9. A library with a focused theme, specifically ancient history, astrology, astronomy, portals, and other eldritch topics.
10. Some kind of bare laboratory. There is a central table which would accommodate a person, as well as cupboards with medical equipment, but very little else.
11. When you open this door, you see another orderly sat on a chair by the door, his bloody club propped against it. There is an external door, as well as an open door to a storage area with more manacles and restraints in. The orderly looks very confused before eventually saying.
"I'm guarding the door, if you go through it I'll have to kill you."
Just like the others, you can see some sort of scar on his head. He grabs his club and appears to think very hard, as if unsure what to do.
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Haven't you heard the good news? It's your day off today! You've done such a tremendous job guarding that door that the big boss said you can take the rest of the day to rest! We'll keep the door safe, don't worry. Doctor's orders. Can't say no to the big man, I guess? Have a few drinks till you get drunk and sleep all the day.
Worth trying! Enough blood has been spilled, and Cayden will forgive me if a few drinks are spilled instead!
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"Hmmph, if he doesn't leave in the next few moments, say we will go get the Boss and the boss can tell him." "We will leave by the inner door to our left. I think he is guarding an exit." Grunyak adds all this in a whisper just loud enough for Drusilla, Taariik, Angoldir and Eldrin.
"We don't want to use that door anyway." More Whispers.
He looks skeptical at first, but Taariik's interjection seems to convince him, and he snaps to attention at the mention of the doctor.
"Did the special guest arrive? Boss did say everything would change when the special guest arrived, he must have meant we'd get days off now! That means you can put the lunatics back in their cells, he said we had to leave them out there until the special guest"
With that he starts whistling and off-key tune to himself and leaves via the external door, unlocking and locking it again behind him. With him gone you're free to explore the remaining rooms.
Another library, this one larger than the previous one, but with more mundane topics, covering madness, its causes and treatments, and many other grisly topics like anatomy, necrology, and studies of deformity and disease. A single patient is under a table ogling an anatomy book, but he's easily knocked out by Drusilla when he screams and tries to batter her with his book.
14. Off the entrance hall is this meeting room, where a chair with restraining straps stands before a blackboard. Nothing else of interest is in here, and the chalk on the blackboard has been thoroughly rubbed off. A small side office is similarly bare.
15. Another bare room, almost completely empty save for the stores of delousing powder in the side room