Slip aids Vex in her attack on the ghoul in the doorway, and the attack lands. Vex throws his shiny new dagger and it catches the ghoul in the throat, and it drops it.
Having the group bottlenecked in the door, the ghoul continues to attack out. With only a single claw attack landing, Vex takes her first damage of the combat
Initiative: Round 2
Chatty
Ghouls
Rook
Slip
Angry
Vex
Slip watches as Chatty takes care of the second of three goals and feels cheered that he had been able to help. But now he watches the rogue round the party and move closer into position.
"Chatty, I'll make room for you!" he says.
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Vex gets slashed across the face by the dire claws of the last ghoul and winces, but lashes back with her own blade.
Blow for blow traded, she steps to the side, hoping the ghoul's fool enough to come into their side and get attacked by all of them. Or that at the least she opens a free attack for another.
Slip moves and makes room and Vex slides in and with her blade she makes the killing blow against the final Ghoul. Rook moves up and lays a healing hand on Angry and himself. Angry begins to notices that feeling is coming back to his arms and legs and is able to move himself.
Looking around the room, you don’t find anything of use. But, you do see the stairs that go up.
"So we're getting better coordinated," Slip comments as the chaos of battle dies down. "That's good, right?" He sheathes his dagger and checks over his still-loaded crossbow. He was getting better with that as well.
He looks over at the stairs. "Maybe these are the ones that lead to the old equipment. Are we ready to move up? Or should we rest?"
Chatty retrieves his dagger.
"It seems like the ghouls are getting thicker the further we push in this direction. Perhaps, if we go far enough, we'll discover the source."
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Vex grimaces at the spot on her face, touching it gingerly and using a strip of torn dress from one of the dead monsters to blot the bleeding.
"Angry, you alright there, man? Rotten feeling, getting froze up like that, isn't it. Right, I'm ready to proceed if everyone else is. I'll take point up those stairs."
The partially clinging stairwell seems as it could be difficult at first, but as you approach you realize that there are enough studs and holes in the wall to make it easy enough to get to the stable portion of the stairs.
You make your way up the stairs and you see broken windows that look out across a sea of churning saffron fog. Inside, dusty crates of every size crowd the room.
You see a vague, humanoid figure spewing the saffron colored fog from its mouth, but does not seem to pay attention to the group.
This thing is known as a Oneirogen. Not evil in nature, but is something that once started as a normal mortal but have suffered from a rare but terrible curse.
You know that the corpse was exposed to extraplanar energies, and that the fog emanating from the body came from another realm, as if the individual somehow had a small portal inside of him.
Slip offers a hand to Angry as they travel up the stairs, passing a light burst of healing energy to help him out as they go.
But the top of the stairs shows something that Slip is unprepared for. The crates, yes, based on the descriptions of others. But he didn't expect to find someone--at least he thinks it's someone--here...much less with that...is the fog coming from him?!
"Oneirogen," Slip intones hollowly. Now how in the the Cerulean Void did he know that? He shakes his head and continues to speak, trying not to let his own internal uncertainty of the source of knowledge color the assumed veracity of the information. "He...it used to be mortal. It's not a creature of innate evil like the esipil was. But I think...well, that creature is the source of the fog." He shakes his head and tries to explain more. "I mean, I know you can all see that, but I mean it more like...it's a conduit. It's connected to wherever the fog is coming from, like it has a portal in its lungs."
”Shye, really? Does it bleed? Can we kill it?”! The dwarf asked with evident anticipation.
Seeing that the figure doesn't seem to notice the group, Chatty sneaks closer to get a better look.
"So you are saying, if we kill this man, the fog will clear and we can escape? What are we waiting for then?"
Slip blinks at Angry a few times. Then he grins. "Everything bleeds."
It wasn't undead, so Slip wasn't sure if its soul or mind was trapped in its body or not. But it could be. "Right. We should put it to rest."
You know that Oneirogens are Immune to Mind-Affecting effects. Though you can see the man through the fog, the fog does grant it concealment . You know that there are ways to disconnect the Planar Split which is through Dimensional Anchor.
Slip frowns as he ponders more. There was a way that they might even be able to save this man, but it required far more power than he, or anyone else he had met in Briarstone, had available to them. It seemed like false hope to even offer. No, let him shoulder the burden of knowledge.
"Careful. Just because it's not reacting now doesn't mean that it won't. We'll surround it first. Rook, maybe you guard the stairs?" Slip checks the tension string on his crossbow as he strides further into the room. "And the fog might play tricks on you besides. Just because you think you see it somewhere within the fog doesn't mean that is where it will stay."
Slip sneaks around to the north, squeezing through some of the crates and trying to wave Vex to go around the south side.
With Chatty and Slip beginning to surround this… thing, it still is releasing the dark yellowish fog from its mouth. Though it is similar to the fog that is surrounding the Asylum and what was in your dreams, the fog coming from this man seems to be contained to this room only.
Slip frowns as they all get into position but no one seems to want to take the first move. So he tests the tension on the bow, steadies his aim, and fires into the fog.
With the snap of the bowstring the bolt flies from Slip’s crossbow. It strikes the man, and the man collapses while simultaneously the fog stops coming out from his mouth. The group might look out the windows, but you still see the fog outside. Waiting for a minute, the fog does not dissipate any. The man lays lifelessly on the ground.
"Well that was disappointing." Chatty pokes the corpse with his rapier. "Are we sure it's dead?"
"Maybe there are more of these out there..."
Chatty will search the boxes in the room for anything of value.
Slip stares dumbfounded at the oneirogen falls after one shot. He hadn't expected that at all. He loads another bolt into the crossbow and waits from his relatively safe vantage point while Chatty makes sure that it's dead.
The dwarf walked forward, cautiously. Once to the corpse, he planned to stomp on it's neck to ensure that the thing was well and truly dead.
Chatty moves up and looks over the corpse and discovers something disturbing. The man’s robes fall open and you can see that all his internal organs have been ripped away and he was just a shell. Whatever was happening to him was keeping him “alive.”
As you look around the room, for others or for anything usable, you find that this is the storage area for outdated supplies. There are no consumable supplies, but you find a haul of things that you might believe those in the Refuge of Believers would find useful. You have no problem filling your bags with supplies.
You also think that once you fully explore this area, clearing out the horrors of the hall, that the people of the Refuge could come down with armed guard and filter through what is available here.
The only way to go from here is back downstairs.
While people are looking around, Rook notices that most of the group is still injured and channels positive energy
Slip grimaces as he creeps forward towards the corpse. So they wouldn't have been able to save him after all. All the better than that they had released his body from this torment.
The halfling helps to shovel supplies into the bag, and then nods back down the stairs. "We're being productive today," he says. "I don't think I necessarily need another bath yet, but our bag is full and we may as well return before another outing."
Angry nodded, quiet after seeing the horrific fate of that thing. He prayed to whomever would listen that he would not fall prey to such an outcome.
"If reducing oneself to a pack mule is what is required, this most humble servant is at your service, as always."
"Do you think this gas bag is another person that Winter cares about? She seems to be a bleeding heart for anything with a pulse."
Slip shoots Chatty a dirty look at his crude comment, but otherwise decides to pretend like he didn't hear it. He does look, however, for any sign of identification that the person might have had on him.