Yellow fog soundlessly roils against the cathedral-like windows of this opulent, two-story office. The ground floor features overstuffed furnishings, elegant side tables, and an altarlike desk of dark marble. A delicate spiral staircase and balcony of dark iron rises to a lofty library overhead. Both floors’ fixtures frame the lake of blood spread across the room’s center.
There is a mound strange of fog in the center of the room with a pool of blood nearby. feel free to make whatever checks you deem appropriate for this room
Yotnar looks at the blood with a grim expression. When the party discovered that the exterior of the asylum was flooded with abominations, he had done his best to keep everyone's spirits up. But now he himself was starting to have doubts.
The pool of blood in front of him almost seems like it was intentionally placed there, just to remind him how little he understands about his situation, and the dangers waiting in this wretched place.
Yotnar finds himself overcome with a combination of anger, frustration, despair, and fear. He voices those emotions all at once with a single utterance:
"B!!@&&$s."
Then, having said everything that needed saying, he starts to search the room, looking for clues to whose blood this is and who (or what) spilt it.
Andy's forked tongue flicks in and out as he paces the perimeter of the pool.
"Who left all this juice here? And why'd they take all the meat somewhere else?"
Silvia enters the room first, nestled under one arm is the recently slain body of a Dire Rat, given unlife by her power, She looks around the room the far eastern side of the room hidden from her sight due to her clouded vision.
She looks through the room attempting to wrestle out what is true and what are just shadows dancing at the edge of her perception.
If Sylvia doesn't notice anything of note, She carries her Rat Zombie with her and approaches the desk, attempting to search it by first scanning it with her eyes, then opening anything that seems safe
"This desk looks too important, there might be something inside."
Natalya shivers and stares longingly at the pool, licking her lips.
She hugs herself to try and stop the urge to just...throw herself in there and drink her fill.
(perception result) A set of six small but powerful images sketched with coal upon torn parchment and set in fine frames. They depict eerie vistas of an endless, empty city under a sky of whirling mist. In the corner of each, a delicate copperplate records a year from 4708 to 4715 and the name Ulver Zandalus. Any who study the images find that they feel familiar, finding them quite similar to the city from the shared nightmare you had experienced.
The desk does not appear to be trapped but there is a lock on the that you feel could be picked or even broken (Disable Device check). Other than the lock there are drawers filled with mundane writing and extensive but uninteresting documents.
Any who look around the room would notice the fog clear. At the room’s center, a figure kneels in a pool of blood, her back straight, her mouth gaping at the ceiling. From her soundlessly screaming mouth an unsteady torrent of colored mist spurts like a fountain of gritty sludge.
Kilara looks around pensively as she takes note of the fog clear before she blinks before she approaches the lone figure apprehensively and, keeping one hand on the mace on her hip just in case she need draw it or the axe on her back, she kneels just outside of the pool of blood across from the other figure. She cant be too sure but she wonders if the woman is still alive or if she has long sense expired and what exactly is coming from her mouth.
Takes note of the locked drawer.
"This desk has a locked drawer, It also has lots of papers.
Silvia takes her time to shuffle through the papers, skimming them for information, specifically patient details, focused mostly on herself. It takes a moment to determine these papers are probably not going to have any answers about her.
"Nothing except this drawer, Anyone think they can open it?"
Silvia hunts around the desk for a key, placing her Zombie on the desktop and getting on all fours to look under it.
Yotnar hasn't noticed the figure in the blood yet. He's been keeping his eyes on Silvia and her new pet as they inspect the desk. He seems convinced that the undead rat will go feral and bite its owner at any moment.
"Oh aye, I could...if ye don't care about leavin' the desk intact." He pointedly lifts his waraxe. "I could try ta angle it so I don't completely ruin the papers or whatever's in there. But this axe's meant for power, not precision."
And wouldn't it be a shame if I bisected your little monster by mistake... he thinks to himself.
Draws herself back up from the floor. Looking at Yotnar give her rat the stink eye.
"Destroying that vessel won't kill the entity inside it, it is an ally of sorts, Let it remain."
She said in a deadpan tone.
"Anyhow, I think a more delicate weapon will be better suited for this.
Silvia then pulls out a knife and wedges it into the seam between drawer and desk, trying to pry it open.
As Kilara gets close enough to make her examination, she passes through a small amount of the fog, and for just the briefest moment she feels her consciousness drift and her eyes close, but she catches herself before finding sleep. During her examination, she notes a few things, the first and most obvious, the blood does belong to the woman. The second is that she is still alive though that seems like a technicality. She seems locked in some kind of trance, spewing an endless week stream of rainbow fog from her mouth.
Kilara finds a number of interesting things on the body, a ring bearing a number of keys, to which she holds up to the sound of snapping as Silvia gets the drawer "unlocked".
Silvia finds quite a few things: What looks like a personal journal, a magnifying glass, two mysterious vials, a vial of salt(?), two vials of something with a syrup or honey-like consistancy, 4 pills of some kind, and 2 of another, 3 scrolls (two of which look similar.), a magical candle, a tin with something magical inside, a talisman eminating magical energy hanging off a silver chain, another talisman that is less magical hanging from a leather braided cord, and a final weaker talisman.
The rest of you who are looking around the room note a number of curios, the most valuable being a brain-shaped sculpted wooden box, bookends depicting twin screaming and crying figures, and a brass sculpture of an Osirian pyramid. Each of the three items is worth 50 gold pieces. Zandalus’s paintings can also be collected and might fetch up to 100 gp for the set. a number of mundane but remarkable texts: On the Treatment of Ambitions, Disappointments, and Regrets by Doctor Beaurigmand Trice, On Violent Sands by Doctor Henri Meirtmane, and a signed copy of Ailson Kindler’s Galdyce’s Guest: Feast of the Nosferatu. Each book weighs 2 pounds and is worth 100 gp.
Inside the journal there isnt much until the final page:
Oathday: Another unexpected call from Count Lowls. These have become so common and Lowls's focus is so singular that they no longer leave me apprehensive. He requests to see me after his visit with Zandalus though. He claims to have a theoretical solution for the poor man's condition. I don't know what the count and my prized patient have been discussing-and Lowl again refused to share-but I doubt that lordly amateur psychologist has truly hot upon anything of worth. Regardless, I'd be a fool not to humor my liege.
Starday: Lowls's "solution" was not at all what i expected. I have no clue where he turned it up, but on his most recent visit brought back a copy of Valhadi's 'The Chain of Nights, a near-legendary collection of psycho-arcane studies and treatments focused on dreaming. While I abhor arcane tampering, if there's a permanent solution to Zandalus's nightmares, it could be here. Lowls allowed me to study the text for the duration of his visit but staunchly refused to leave it in my possession.
Moonday: Lowls has made me an offer: his copy of 'The Chain of Nights'. All I must do in return is accept a handful of new patient-former associates of his that have suffered some unprecedented manner of group amnesia. I might accept this as a charity on the count's behalf, but he insists that I keep no record of their committal. The terms make me suspicious, but I can learn more of these curious strangers once they're in my care. If it means the possibility of a cure for Zandalus and others, I welcome the bargain.
Toilday: the Chain of Nights is a marvel. It will take years of study to unravel all its possibilities, but already I've discovered a process by which chronic dreams might be drawn forth and disposed of like so much psychic gristle. tomorrow our experiment begins.
Andy immediately picks up the brass pyramid and starts fiddling with it. He keeps glancing up at others who draw near and anyone who gets close to examine the pyramid, he snarls dangerously.
Yotnar eyes the loot with typical dwarven avarice, only for Andy to swoop in and steal the most shiny-looking artifact.
When the dragon snarls at him, he snorts in response. "Well fine, keep yer brass triangle, but I'm takin' some of the magic stuff!"
He scoops up the tin and the talisman with the strongest magical aura, before remembering something.
"Oh! Do any of ye remember studyin' about spells n' whatnot? We've gotta figure out what these doodads can do!"
"Annyweigh, it sounds like that journal's talkin' 'bout us, eh? So we used ta be associated wit' this Lowls, got amnesia, and then he sold us off? Guess we weren't great friends..."
icks up all the trinkets found in the drawer and spreads them out atop the desk.
"Look at all this stuff I found, Some of it seems magical."
Silvia lacks the knowlege to discern the magical nature of any of it, she then begins to skim the journal.
"Chain of the night? Is that a book? Or perhaps one of these necklaces."
Silvia holds up the most magically active one and gives it a look over. "Any of you able to figure this thing out?"
"Let me take a look at it..." Natalya says, then hesitates.
"Can we leave the room first?"
Once they've retreated outside of the room full of delicious, delicious food she takes a gander at the necklace.
Kilara simply watches Natalya over her shoulder, still kneeling before the figure in the center of the room.
"Hold on Natalya. There is still much to be discovered in this room first. Perhaps it best if we continue to investigate. I for one am curious to know if any of those books has a way to maybe tell us how to reverse whatever has happened to this poor girl."
She stands, ignoring the blood staining her clothes as she moves to the desk while pocketing the keys and picks up one of the other books, examining it with a careful eye as she listens to Yotnar before looking at the journal in question, having set the book down. But her curiosity fell onto the metal tin, opening it to see what is inside exactly.
Andy moans grumpily.
"I feel like I should know how to figure out magic stuff...but I can't remember where to get started."
"Well, mebbe that priestess can help us figure these things out later. But thar's one other way to find out, eh?"
Yotnar grabs the powerful silver-chained talisman and, before anyone can object, puts it on.
Flinches as Yotnar dons the unidentified item.
"Wait that wou~ Ohhh, Well it's too late now... How do you feel?"
She flinches from Yotnar as if he might explode once he donned the necklace, but pulls back in once it's clear there is no instant disastrous effect.
makes a choking moan like a proper zombie rat.
"Squeak... Brains..."