Chatty is no longer chatty as a confrontation is about to begin. He presses himself up against the wall and waits in the shadows in dead silence.
With nobody else stepping forward, the dwarf did so. He called out "Oi! Hey! We need that body over there, or at least part of it. Ye seem like a reasonable sort. Mind sharing with us?"
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Looking down the hall, Chatty sees that this hall continues through the rubble and ends in a T leading left and right. Updated Map
As the group of you make your way, you suddenly hear the sound of rubble coming from down the north hall. As you get closer, you begin to smell of rotten flesh and decay.
Those who are stealthing do so as Angry rounds the corner and calls out to the person that Slip said he saw. The room is mostly empty outside of the two bodies that were being skinned. Angry, being in the front, hears whimpering coming from the southern corner of the room. Looking, you see an elderly woman on the ground with a broken leg.
“No… no… stay back!” her sobbing continues; “You’re… one of them? Aren’t you…” wincing in pain she holds her broken leg.
Chatty remains silent and still except for his grip tightening harder on the sap in his hand. Although, he can't yet see the woman, he hears her sobs and his thoughts wander to envisioning smashing the woman in the face and he finds it odd that he feels no reservation against doing so whether this is a human or a doppelganger. In fact, he has almost a blood-thirsty urge to do so.
From his position behind the dwarf and the black-haired woman, Rook cranes his neck to catch a glimpse of the injured woman. "Why don't we take her back to those guards?" he asks, "maybe they can help her get out of here..."
if she actually is an injured old woman, and if she's one of those things they'll make helpful allies...
Blue started rhythmically popping the knuckles of his left hand the moment Angry called out. “I assumed we were of the mindset,” he said to anyone listening,“that any person currently cutting up bodies is doing so out of sport and we were to be providing swift justice to any victims.”
Slip pads along pretty quietly. Not as surreptitious as before, but so many of the others are seemingly ready to charge in.
He is confused on entering the room and getting a better look. Where had the flaying man gone? And where has this woman come from? Was she another victim, or an impostor?
Although Slip can't hear her sobs, he scrutinizes her face and body language.
You believe that this woman is telling the truth. Slip might not have mentioned her because he couldn’t hear her.
Tears starting to well up in her eyes, she looks to Vex; “Those… those things. Those monsters. I’ve been here for days… please, do you have any food or water?” Anyone who looks at the woman’s leg can tell that her situation isn’t good. It looks swollen, infected, and red with feaver.
Looking around this room, you see that this must have been an office of some sort. Most of the furniture, desk, and supplies that was here is now in ruins, mostly destroyed. Besides the old woman and the two corpses that were being experimented on, there are several other bodies that lie among the debris. Three of which are doppelganger bodies that are riddled with crossbow bolts.
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Vex grimaces, rubbing at the back of her neck, and damning this complication silently to herself. "Was there someone else in here?" she asks the old woman tersely. "I don't know how much use we'll be to you, we're in a bad boat ourselves. Unless you want rat the food's scarce. Maybe your leg can be bound."
On the plus side, there's plenty of the doppelganger bodies, it appears. Vex gestures to them with her dagger. "Let's take those to those soldiers down the hall. Maybe they can deal with the old lady, seems more their job than ours."
She moves forward to the nearest doppelganger body, intending to grab it.
Chatty breaks his silence and snaps angrily. "Those rats are mine! I'm not sharing them with this outsider." He spits the word like poison. "Let's just put her out of her misery now! At worst, she is another doppelganger. At best, she is a liability. Those doppelganger bodies are all that we need to buy our passage past the guards."
The dwarf looked at the human coldly. ”And should I be injured, will I share the same fate? And how about ye? It is bad practice to be casually cruel, as the precedent can come back to bite ye in the arse.”
"I would never hurt an ally, my friend. And I would save you as long as I could. We are in this together. But it is survival of the fittest right now. Hard times call for hard choices. I am only looking out for our groups best interests."
”Aye. She could be a doppelgänger. Could not be. I…” The thought hit him that he had made a decision like this before, and with that realization a wave of guilt rolled over him. The noble words died in his mouth. He looked away, to focus on retrieving a body so that they might survive. Any will to argue was well and truly gone.
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Vex gives Chatty a cold glance as well. "You're quick to say what good friends we are when there's strength in numbers, and just as quick to say 'what's YOURS' soon as anything gets tough, 'friend.'"
Turning back to the woman, Vex says, "We've nothing to spare you, woman. And your words seem true to me, but my 'friend' is right that there's face-swapping creatures about. Stay back out of my way while I get that body, there, and if the stars smile on you mayhap the soldiers down the hall can give you something."
Vez moves to grab a body.
“that any person currently cutting up bodies is doing so out of sport and we were to be providing swift justice to any victims.”
Doc retorts to Blue, ”I take offense to that, why you saw me dissect that giant centipede within the last hour. That was purely for scientific inquiry, and while the results were not expected, they were useful nevertheless.”
She turns her eye to the old woman, ”I had hoped to find a fellow and perhaps collaborate. There are some tests I would like to run on doppelganger flesh myself. Since we have no way of knowing if you are in fact a doppelganger, perhaps we should put you to the test before we render assistance. In our prior encounter with a doppelganger, which I must add as an aside led to their untimely death, has led me to believe that they have trouble maintaining their shape while under extreme stress or excitement. So my proposal is that we break your other leg, the good one. You will be in no less of a predicament than you already are and render assistance after.”
"You're quick to say what good friends we are when there's strength in numbers, and just as quick to say 'what's YOURS' soon as anything gets tough, 'friend.'"
Chatty sticks his sap in his waistband and holds his arms out disarmed and offers a wide smile. "Yes, strength in numbers is the only way we'll survive to see sunlight. That is why we should make sure nothing happens to any of us seven by taking unnecessary risks. We're already down one from eight." Then he slips off his backpack and holds it out to Vex. "What's mine is yours. Just not hers." He sneers.
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"Bloody hell," Vex exclaims in disgust at Ethyl's proposal. "Just break her leg? And if she is just a human? You might as well really guarantee she does die. There's no need for this. Woman, just stay back and let me grab the body-- surely you can see there's no aid to come from us, and apparently a 'mercy killing' at best."
She shrugs once at Chatty's impassioned gesture. "It's chance luck you came to me with me in the room and not her."
Without flinching, "No one immediately died of a broken leg. And if her face doesn't waver in the pain, we will render first aid and heal her when we're able."
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"Immediately? No. But someone frail and old, already suffering injury-- pain takes its toll on the body. And you make it so she can't even limp one-legged in the meantime, so what, we'd be carrying her?
"You could do something like a damned finger if you have to hurt someone to prove things-- which we don't, to begin with, we just keep a bloody eye on her as we get what we came for. But no, you jump right to a major damned injury," Vex says with a shake of her head.
It's hard for Slip to keep up with the conversation spinning around the room. He is mostly concerned for the poor woman, and worried that the flying man could be hiding somewhere.
A queer thought stumbles into his mind.
There are ways to see that which is hidden from normal sight.
Normal sight?
Slip waves his hand around in a gesture both familiar and alien, and his eyes turn completely black as he begins to detect the presence of magical auras in the room.
Doc retorts to Blue, ”I take offense to that, why you saw me dissect that giant centipede within the last hour. That was purely for scientific inquiry, and while the results were not expected, they were useful nevertheless.”
“What a wonderful false equivalency.” Blue said flatly. “A sentient human, elf, dwarf, or what have you, is much different than an insect. And you’ll find it difficult to convince me otherwise.”
As the argument broke out among the others, Blue found himself wavering on the subject. True, Slip had not mentioned an elderly woman at all. And what were the chances that one of those things had left her alone? But if Doc was wrong...Had she been wrong about anything yet? ”Well, apart from her stance on vermin and people," he thought.
“I’m afraid I have to agree with the good doctor’s assessment,” Blue said. “Someone would have had to cross the hall to leave this room. And,” Blue’s gaze travelled from each of the others as he stepped through some of the rubble, “did any of us see anyone cross the hall?” His eyes narrowed on the old woman.
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As Chatty suggest Let’s just put her out of her misery now! as if she is livestock with a broken leg, the tears that were starting to well up in her eyes begin to flow down. “nn…. No… please no… I.. I… I won’t be a burden or… or a liability. I.. I… I…” and she just begins sobbing and recoils from the group as Doc suggest breaking her second leg; “You’re all monsters…”
She slumps in the rubble and continues to cry, helplessly. Unable to do anything at the hands of the group.
You begin Detecting Magic, as the group is talking to this helpless old lady and detect no magic. That is until you take in the rest of the room. Against the north wall there is a set of lockers that are partly buried under some rubble. You detect a faint glow of conjuration magics.
Doc regarded the sobbing woman. A part of her considered the possibility that she was being honest, however unlikely, and thought she was pathetic. She should be killed for such weakness. Another part of her thought, this is truly a convincing deception but it would be impossible or at least highly unlikely that the woman was speaking the truth. A third part observed the other two thought processes and asked herself, Am I a monster? A normal person would feel some sort of empathy for the woman, even if they weren’t convinced by the act.
With a sigh she suggested a more empathetic solution, ”Woman, we will help you if you consent to being bound.” She pulls out the manacles they found earlier.
Slip blinks a few times, his eyes returning to normal.
"While we're helping her," he begins, hoping that that's what the group decided while he was otherwise focused, "There is magic in those lockers." He points towards the rubble, and adds "Conjuration."
He looks up at the others and gets the distinct impression that they have been arguing, by the looks on their faces.
The dwarf felt sick to his stomach, and the arguments breaking out didn't do anything for his growing headache. Glad to have a reason to extricate himself, he walked over to the lockers, ready to open them. "Conjuration? Doesn't that mean that it makes something? Let's take a look and see what it is." If some monster was summoned, he reasoned that he'd just bonk it over the head. But, if it was some magical artifact that summoned food, water, or Gods be praised ale, then it was certainly worth the risk!
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Someone would have had to cross the hall to leave this room.
"Or the flesh-flayer used a secret passage or had a magically means of egress."
There is magic in those lockers. Conjuration.
"It's probably a healing potion then. Conjuration is the source of a priest's healing. They summon the flesh and blood of their deity into a consumable form that can make a holey man into a holy man." He says with some levity.
As the woman continues to sob, Chatty grits his teeth and squeezes his forehead as is suffering from a migraine. "Will somebody shut her up already!? We don't need her consent for anything."
He is thirsty to hit the miserable woman but senses some of his allies are less agreeable with his position on the dilemma and doesn't want to out himself by crossing a line. He still needs them to get out of here.
Doc shrugs and moves to manacle the woman at Chatty's suggestion.
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The sobbing of the woman makes Vex grit her teeth. You can't expect pity from us, human, we're barely surviving... She shakes her head to clear the thought away.
Vex rolls her eyes a bit feeling it's all unnecessary as hell-- manacling an injured, decrepit human, really-- but when Doc approaches to do it, Vex is standing there with her. Despite her sense that the woman isn't lying, too much doesn't add up... if Chatty's right and the 'examiner' fled via a secret passage, nothing is to say that the creature couldn't come right back while they're busy with the old woman....
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As Angry and Slip head over to the other side of the room where the rubble is, they begin looking through the debris and the lockers. After about 10 minutes of clearing the rubble away you find a small folder of 10 sheets of paper, an ink pen and a small bottle ink. You also find a wooden holy symbol of Pharasma, a small steel mirror, and a pair of red leather boots with cat skin lining. In another locker you find a masterwork silver dagger, clothing that looks to belong to an outdoorsman , and a chain shirt armor. Slip follows the aura and discovers a small blue potion.
This is a potion of Cure Light Wounds
The woman’s fearful face quickly transitions into panic as Doc begins to approach her with manacles. “No.. no.. Not again.. she screams and begins to crawl away. But, she suddenly doubles over in pain as the lower portion of the broken leg stays sill as the rest of her body movies.
The unkempt Ulfen man remains quiet for most of the discussion as he careful weighs all that is said. He opens his mouth as if to speak on the matter but then his forehead scrunches in incredulity at the sketchy man's comment. "I don't remember much about my abilities, but I'm pretty certain that I don't conjure the flesh and blood of any gods..." he answers, clearly distracted from what should be the more pressing matter.
"Oh, and I remember armor like that too..." he adds with a gesture towards the chain shirt, "is that my size? I think that might be mine, or one like it..."
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Rook spies the armor that is pulled from the locker by Slip and Anger. From the looks of it, it could probably fit anyone in this group besides Slip. That is unless he fashioned it in a way to hold up the bottom half from dragging.
Meanwhile…
Doc goes tries grapple the older woman to manacle her, but the woman swipes out to claw her hand away. As she does, a shimmer waves over the woman. Almost as if you were looking at the reflection of a person in a lake. With the swipe, the woman’s image begins to change and distort. He frail hands begin to extend and gnarled bloodied hands appear. Hands that dig into Doc’s arm that is holding the manacles. Quickly the rest of the woman’s form changes into one of those doppelganger creatures, but its appearance looks like that of what Slip was trying to explain.
Prone and cornered, this creature looks like it is willing to fight to the death and not flee like the one the group first encountered.
Initiative Round 1
Angry
Doc
Slip
Blue
Vex
Doppelganger
Chatty
Rook
Initiative
The group watches as Vex plunges her dagger into the creature. You can tell that there was some extra venom in her words as it appears to have critically wounded the doppelgänger, but its still "standing."
The dwarf had been looking over the chain shirt when another crisis happened. He tested his home-made flail out by striding over and swinging it in an overhead arc. The chain whipped down, striking the doppelgänger atop it’s head.
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Angry moves forward with his newly created flail and smashes it down upon the creature’s head. The impact causes the doppelganger to look around in worry as its wounds are adding up.
Initiative Round 1
Angry
Doc
Slip
Blue
Vex
Doppelganger
Chatty
Rook
Use this as Vex's crit die roll
There did not appear to be much room for Blue to squeeze in and he doubted his accuracy with the little ball of acid.
A voice whispered in the back of his mind.
Blue narrowed his eyes as the spell formed in his mind and he immediately began gesturing and chanting the incantation. He focused his will through the wooden symbol, and out into his allies.
Slip's eyes widen at the transformation. He had been so certain that the old woman's suffering was real! But now--this! His face darkens. Why the ruse?
Then again, someone flaying the bodies of others, both its own kind and not, would probably not expect mercy or understanding from others. No, this creature seemed to have a reason to try to fool this band of lunatics that Slip found himself among: saving his--her?--their own skin. But they had no issue sacrificing the skin of others. Whether they had killed the humans and doppelgangers in the room or merely discovered them and decided to experiment, they were not to be trusted.
Then again, the snippets of conversation that Slip had gathered from many in his own group led him to question how much he could trust them either. But they had accepted him. For now. And he had to prove himself useful.
As he comes back around the corner, he sees that everyone else has already gathered around the creature in the corner. He thinks about slinging a stone, but is more concerned that he would hit one of the others. There are just too many people in the way of his target. Instead he looks at the injuries around, and sees that Doc has a new wound. She was the one he trusted the least at this point, but...
He steps behind her and reaches his hand out. A pulse of energy glows from his hand, flowing into Doc as he touches her arm and mends it.
The smug satisfaction of showing Vex up is cut by the pain Doc feels as the doppelganger rips into her arm. A small part of Doc thought, Vex’s good with a blade, don’t antagonize her too much.
Doc took the small vial she took from the healer’s kit, now filled with a liquid with an unearthly hue of yellow, and drank the contents. She screamed as her body almost immediately contorted, growing so thin that the outline of her bones could be seen through her skin. Her features became more angular, almost alien and her eyes changed from dark black to blood red. Doc’s voice becomes raspy but somehow louder than before, ”I am a monster. You should have kept your secret, you almost had me convinced.”
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Blue touches his focus and recalls a familiar incantation. An aura burst forth from where he stands. Slip move up and heals the recently injured Doc, who drinks something as she draws her dagger.
The doppelganger stands and starts to lundge towards Angry and Vex, but not before its movement opens itself up for a few attacks. But only Doc finds an opening and lands a blow.
Still focused, the doppelganger remembers Vex’s words as it slashes out with one of its claws, but she is able to move her buckler in the way of the blow.
Initiative Round 1
Angry
Doc
Slip
Blue
Vex
Doppelganger
Chatty
Rook
Asrat steps next to Vex and waves his sap menacingly at the doppelganger and an attempt to aid the woman.
Rook steps up to join the crowd, and reaches out to touch the black-haired woman, Vex, with a minor blessing.
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Chatty’s attempt to aid seems ineffective, but Rook moves up and offers Vex some divine aid.
Initiative Round 2
Angry
Doc
Slip
Blue
Vex
Doppelganger
Chatty
Rook
Slip almost feels bad about cornering the doppelganger like this. What did it say about him that he was willing to participate in such a gang-up, even if the person was a bad person.
Does that mean I'm a bad person?
Slip quiets that inner voice down and focuses on how he can help keep the others alive. He watches as Doc manages a blow against the doppelganger.
Again.
Slip reaches under Rook's outstretched arm and offers a similar divine guidance to Doc.
Doc plunges her dagger into the doppelganger stomach knowing full well the unnecessary pain it would cause.
Bolkvar raised his flail, but hesitated, unwilling to swing it with full force when he was just as likely to hit his comrades as the enemy. By the time he finally did, the moment of opportunity was long past.
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Vex gave a short nod to Rook as she felt a little better, more accurate. The words of Blue seemed to somehow ring in her ears, as well... and what the hell was Doc up to-- what was she drinking?! No matter. Focus.
Her blade was swift and targeted the creature's gray, thin throat. For a moment an image flitted through her head-- hands, callused and weather-tanned, grabbing hold of.. antlers? Yes, antlers-- a deer. The head of a deer. A long arrow had pierced the animal's flank and its nostrils were frothed with pink from its struggling breaths. The pair of hands took hold, guided the head back firmly, and the other hand drew steel quickly and cleanly across the throat. There's no cause for making your quarry suffer, understand?
...who? Who was that? Her own breath caught in her throat a moment. Had that been-- a mother, a father, a mentor? Had she been student-- or teacher? Why the hell couldn't she remember?
A low growl of frustration ripped from 'Vex's' throat and the image faded under the new, fresh blood of the inhuman creature.
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With both Doc and Vex hitting critical arteries. Eventually the room goes silent from the doppelgangers last dance with death when it lays silently. Looking through its belongings, you find a scalpel, belt with a large component pouch. Inside of the pouch you see various items needed to aid in treating a patience.
Looking over the creatures outfit, you believe that when fully worn, mask included, that this is a Doctor’s Outfit and could provide protection against diseases.
You also think to yourself that the outfit, blood stains and all, could be better than the white gown and slippers that you are currently wearing.
”Well. Fook.” The dwarf said in a tired tone. ”Let’s just drag these upstairs and get out of here.” He wondered if the guards were also doppelgängers? He kept the thought to himself, lest his own paranoia effect the group.