All around you is a wall of sickly yellow fog, tumbling through the alley’s (an alley, of course, you’re in an alley) through the alley’s canyon of crumbling, gray brick walls like some jaundiced flash flood, a fulminating tide of fetid, thick air.
Ahead, the unfamiliar alley (an alley, of course, you’re in an alley) the unfamiliar alley splits, curving to the left and right. You aren’t alone, there are others with you (the others, of course, you know them {wait, who are they?}) others with you. Some of you are leaning against the rotten brickwork of the alley, others kneel on the peddle-pocked cobblestoned street, recovering as if from some ferocious exertion.
Behind, from the silent swell of mist, emanates the sound of footsteps (you aren’t alone) the sound of footsteps—slow, but somehow keeping pace with the careening, hungry wave (you are not alone) hungry wave…
A small figure--maybe a child?--with a cloak pulled tight over their face, kneels on the cobblestoned street, panting slightly. Through bedraggled breaths, the figure pulls their hood down. If anyone might have mistaken him for one of the tall ones' children, it's now quite clear that this is a halfling. Thick chestnut hair falls in ringlets around his head, covering ears that jut out. But his face is marred by several healed-over scars. His skin looks almost more like cracked porcelain, and his eyes are vaguely glassy, giving him a somewhat unnerving doll-like appearance. And yet, there is something almost kind about the otherwise-creepy face, or at least curious.
The halfling does not hear the footsteps. Instead, he just stares nervously at the roiling miasma with his glassy eyes.
He had never particularly liked fog. It made it hard to see, harder to keep track of who you were with.
Who am I with?
But besides that...
Fog shouldn't be this color...right?
The halfling fumbles with a whistle around his neck and clears his throat to try to get the attention of some of the others around him.
"Um, hello?" he tries in verbal Taldane. "What's going on?" His voice is loud--louder than he intends. His head pans around, trying to keep the others in his field of vision so that he could see when they started to speak--if they started to speak.
Fear? Of what? So ready to run. Wait. On the ground? Pressure on back and butt, but bent. Sitting. Cold, moist seat. Ground? She opens her eyes. Familiar but unknown people? Doesn't help. Pursuers in the mist? Don't vanish like Petra! Need to get away. Which way is away?
"What...where?" Vano stands frozen in shock, his mind spiraling out in a hundred directions for an explanation that doesn't come.
Finding himself leaning against the crumbling wall, he grits his massive jaw as his fingers crumble the weak mortar between the bricks...
~WEAK!...WEAKNESS!~
'No. Stop...the smell? Not smoke...mist...the smell...sulphurous maybe? '
~PATHETIC HALF-BREED! DO YOU NEED...HELP?!!~
Biting his lip fiercely, the pain and taste of blood helps him to focus. He looks at the others...
~YOU DO NOT NEED OTHERS! OTHERS ARE WEAKNESS!~
He takes a little pride in not having fallen down like some of the others...
~WEAKNESS IS DEATH!...DEATH!!! ~
He focuses on the deep fire, the anger...the rage. Warmth comes to him!
'My name...what's MY NAME? Who are these others...? '
One of the others speaks. Appearing as a human male...
~HA! PATHETIC! YOU LOOK TO THE HUMANS FOR AID! YOU NEED OTHERS? YOU ARE WEAK! YOU WILL DIE...IF YOU RELY ON OTHERS!~
Shaking his head in another attempt to clear his head more, he remembers the sound...footsteps! LOTS of footsteps...
He glances in the direction of the sound as he speaks, a croaking noise both unfamiliar and familiar at the same time.
"We...WE HAVE TO MOVE. Something is coming..."
~BURN!...BURN...IT...ALL! ~
Choking... its... hard to breathe...
Allera seemed to awake from some stupor with ragged breath trying to suck in what oxygen still existed within the stagnant air as she leaned on all fours. Her head would tilt up as she tried to place the others in the alley. Familiar, but incredibly foreign. The greater worry at the moment being where she was, what the... fog was.
A pain shooting through her arm would distract her thought, as she'd push herself to her feet. The others speaking would at least manage to register. The confusion amongst them at least seemed mutual. The footsteps though... didn't seem right. She'd stumble forward as she tried to make sure she had her things. A search for some small solace as the pained arm instinctively reached for something about her neck.
I... this isn't right. Its... this place s-surely.
"We should... move yes... but where?"
Where? What is this? This can not be real...
Dumrakas raises his forearm to his mouth and stifles a cough, disoriented as the sickly-yellow fog rolls around him. The monk blinks away tears brought on by the smoke, and tries to shake off whatever mallady was overwhelming him. The others move past him in the alley...
Who are these people? Do I know them? I should know them...I do know them...
...and Demrakas hears the sounds of pursuit. He...they...were being followed.
No! We must escape! This is all wrong! Must...Focus.
The monk clenches his teeth, angry with himself for not being more in control. For not being able to understand what was happening.
"Keep moving. Forward. Go!"
The following does not appear unusual to the Slip; reading lips works as usual for him, of course, but he can hear the others speaking; even as he can hear the footsteps. But there’s a weirdness to it, a muffled sense, as though there’s an added layer of distance, and the voices of the others has a ‘wah-wah-wah-wah’ element to it, a simulacrum of speech that isn’t speech, which nonetheless manages to convey information to Erebus via some unknown (yet entirely unsurprising) mechanism.
The sallow brickwork rises above them all, vanishing vertically into the fog. Behind you, down the alley, are the ominous footfalls, growing closer. Ahead, more alley, its end hidden in the same, dirty mustard fog.
"Must move, get away. This way, go!" Simza tries to coherently warn the others as she prepares her scarf, before moving away from the footfalls as quickly as she is able.
Spitting blood on the wall in from of him, Cole pushes himself away from the decaying edifice, forcing himself to stand straight.
~WEAK!~
He then draws his heavy blade with his right hand from its old cracked leather sheathe on his left hip. The simplicity and familiarity of the movement, as well as the weight of the blade in his hand, seems to quiet his mind and focus his sight.
Cole points after the woman with his blade casually.
"YES. The gypsy is right. Go. MOVE. I will...follow but cover the retreat as well...as best I can."
~YES. CHALLENGE YOURSELF! BURN THEM! EAT THEIR HEARTS!~
Pulling a fire from his heart, he lights the tip of his blade with a simple touch non-dramatically, as if he was just lighting a leaf-pipe.
Demrakas considers arguing with the half-orc for a moment, before realizing that it was time for action and not discussion. He gives the swordsman a nod...
Falcata. Is that his name? I should know...no. It's his weapon...that blade he's wielding. Why can't I remember anything?
...he gives the half-orc a quick nod, "Don't tarry long..." before he hurries off after the young woman with the scarf.
Leaving someone behind somehow... didn't feel right to Allera, but who knew if what lay ahead of them wasn't equally as ominous and worrisome. A toss up for a decision, but she wasn't in the position to try to catch up if she stayed behind.
He... has a light at least? I'm sure he could catch up. Surely...
"Keep us in your vision at least, this fog..." She'd call out before shaking herself off and running up behind the others, attempting to cover the front, blade at the ready.
Vano presses his back against a wall and digs his fingers into the crumbling bricks. Not a dream: It's too vivid. What is going on? Why can't I remember? Is it this damned fog, or some spell?
His eyes grow wide with alarm as Cole sets his blade burning. He feels the menace from the footsteps too, and yet...with this disorientation, can they trust their feelings? Their senses? What if the steps behind them are some passing innocent or a member of the city watch imbued with menace by whatever has bewildered them?
On the other hand, what if it's not?
"Stay your blade a moment, friend! We don't truly know what is behind us. Don't rush off into this eerie fog either! Give me a moment to figure out what is going on."
Vano closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, trying to thrust aside the turmoil in his mind while he concentrates on feeling out the presence approaching. Before he loses himself in the trance, he whispers a command to Luneca: "Guard us."
Vano uses the Menhir Savant class ability Spirit Sense, which works like Detect Undead except it can detect the presence of undead; fey; outsiders; and astral, ethereal, or incorporeal creatures, and detects all of these creatures rather than trying to detect one kind. He directs the cone of detection in the direction of the footsteps this round.
Luneca unwinds her scaly bulk from under Vano's mantle and drops to the ground, placing herself between her companion and the approaching sounds. She seems uninterested in the others--perhaps they seem familiar to her, too?
Luneca readies an action to attack anyone who attacks the party.
The halfling hears--hears!--some sort of padding, echoing on this strange street. But how is he hearing? And how does he hear and understand the others talking here? He hadn't heard anything since...
Since...
...
He doesn't remember. And then his own voice. Is that what I sound like?
But there was no time to think on any of that.
Three of them--the two women and one of the men--seem to want to leave. The other two men--the half-orc and a man with a snake--want to stay. For reasons that the halfling doesn't fully understand, he would rather go with the larger group. He eyes the half-orc in particular with nervousness.
Footsteps or fog? Neither was particularly appealing.
"I'm coming with you," he says to the group moving into the fog-laden alley. He moves to keep up with Simza, Demrakas, and Allera , instinctively making a hand gesture near his eyes. The sclera of his eyes glow indigo as he opens his vision to magical auras.
Allera, Demrakas, Erebus, and Simza
With great haste, shaking uncertainty from their heads, you hurry away from the sounds of pursuit down the confusing, and yet unsurprising, alleyway. Dull surprise continues to be the degree of strangeness here, the awareness that this all isn't right, but eliciting a 'huh' more than anything else. The ochre fog, which remains extremely thick in the near distance both in front and behind your group of four, while remaining relatively clear in a pocket around you; this provides the uncanny sensation that you are remaining still despite hustling down the alleyway.
Behind you, however, Cole, Vano and Luneca the shake vanish into the murky wall of fog.
Cole and Vano
As you stand your ground, you're rapidly enveloped in the sickly, mustard colored fog. It billows, flowing past you as it chases after the quad that hastened away, blocking sight of the other four completely. You lose clear sight of even each other, being reduced to vague outlines in the murk.
You are not alone. There's something moving in the fog. The footfalls are there, of course, and nearly upon you, and added to them is the low, menacing chorus of ominous rustling sounds.
The halfling continues to try to look for any magical auras around them--maybe this fog?--while hustling with the others. Hearing was still strange. He continues fiddling with a whistle hanging around his neck while looking up at the other three. Who were these people, and why did they seem familiar?
And why did it seem like his little legs weren't carrying him anywhere?
Illusion and misdirection being old familiar friends, Simza focuses not on the fog and pursuer, but on the wall and street, seeing the bricks and stones pass behind her as she continues to move away from the pursuer.
Illusion and misdirection being old familiar friends, Simza focuses not on the fog and pursuer, but on the wall and street, seeing the bricks and stones pass behind her as she continues to move away from the pursuer.
Seeing the snake fall on the feet of the man next to him Cole startles a little...
'Did that guys just dump a snake from his pants..?'
Grimacing, he then shakes his head again and focuses on the approaching...whatevers.
"Time to go..."
Holding his lit sword at the ready, he raises his left hand and spreads his fingers..
"...NOW!"
Cole turns and takes off quickly...
~ COWARD! TURN BACK!! FIGHT!! ~
If his senses had touched some undead thing, some cruel fey spirit, some beast of the pit...one of those, perhaps, Vano could have faced. To touch instead this unknown, unknowable menace...
"Heel, Luneca! Quickly now!" The tall druid rushes into the fog after the others, trusting that the constrictor will follow.
Continuing forward, Allera would finally properly strap the shield to her hand as the grip on the longsword tightened. The uncertainty of everything still gripped her, worried eyes darting side to side at the seemingly endless alley of brick. Their legs had to be moving forward.
"Normally there'd be shops or houses or... something at least right?
A look would pass over trying to read the unknown acquaintances before returning her attention to the edges of the fog.
Slip looks up at the heavily-armored woman as she asks her question, stumbling on an uneven cobblestone. He cries out an involuntary gasp as he loses his footing. "Should be. Might be. But, um," he points back in the direction from whence they were running. "There's something magical behind us."
Simza's eye shift back to the others and then to the wall and street once again. "Yes, there should have been something here by now. But we are moving forward!"
Cole and Vano
The fire of Cole briefly brings clarity for the two in the fog, revealing the lurking shape that they start to flee from to an extent. It is tall (at least twelve feet), looming over them. Its mouth is lipless, and filled with rows of curved, razor sharp teeth. Either its eyes are covered, or it has no eyes. Its skin is lacerated, possibly burnt, and it is covered in rags.
No. Not rags. Rags don’t move like that. The torn and layered fabric of ragged strips whips and curls around the lanky giant, each strip of cloth moving and swaying like a hungry serpent, tasting the air, searching for prey. Dozens of the strips key off the fiery blast, and come about to face the duo which dared venture the fog.
And they strike.
Allera, Demrakas, Erebus, and Simza
There is a flash of light from within the dense fog behind you, briefly showing the outlines of three humanoids in the miasma which you are running away from. Scant seconds after, there is a susurration that multiplies rapidly into the snapping, whipping violence of flags being blown in a gale force storm.
From the fog comes hurtling a shape, which hits the cobblestones in the fogless clearing with such force that it spatters the grimy walls with streaks of blood.
It is the body of Cole. He’s covered in hideous cutting wounds, and he lies motionless, unmoving and obviously dead. Perhaps it is just a trick of the light, or the shock of the sudden death, but the spattered blood on the wall seems to form an uncanny similarity to the word ME daubed in a hasty, shaking hand.
Another shape comes hurtling, and another body hits the surface of the alleyway, skipping twice, again splattering blood on the alleyway walls. This body is Vano’s, just as mauled, just as dead. And just as Cole’s blood spelled out one word, Vano’s blood seems to spell out the word HELP.
Cole and Vano
Pain. A symphony of pain. You can feel your skin break, and your body lashed as you are battered by a series of lightning fast blows, struck with such force that your bodies fly out of the fog bank, crashing to the cobblestones of the alleyway.
You are dead.
… and yet, you remain very much in your bodies. Your souls do not fly to any afterlife, glorious or grave. You don’t even have the satisfaction of being ectoplasmic vapors, drifting out of your slack, lifeless mouths. Your consciousnesses remain, locked inside prisons of dead, unresponsive meat.
RAGE.
Rage is the only thing keeping him sane-ish.
Hatred.
PAIN.
DEATH is supposed to be an end and a new beginning! Not...THIS!!!
This existence was like some really bad six hour long Chelish opera, written to show the watchers how pathetic and painful their own existence is...
And he knows...like how he knows how to break a neck...that...
HE...HATES...OPERA!!
~ SOMETHING WILL BURN. ~
Who...who said that?
A nightmare, then, thinks Vano. But if so...why can't I wake up?
Fear grips him, but his dead heart stays still.
That... the two who stayed back i-isn't it?
The scars on Allera's arms pulsed as her eyes passed over the cuts into each mans flesh. Something about the words made from their blood tore at her from the inside. Could dead men really ask for help like that? But... how could a beast write words simply by tossing bodies aside? Her feet would drag.
If we stay, we die... but why can't we seem to leave? Why... can't I leave them?
Out of an unknowing compulsion, she would (stow/drop) her blade as she rushed to pick up and carry the lifeless Vano. Silent curses followed as it seemed to do little to ease what she felt. No good explanation came to mind as to why she would do this, but it beat the first instinct to face the fog itself.
I know not of what magic could be behind us but... forgive my foolishness, keep going! Roads have to end right!? Allera would call from the definite back of the pack at this point, still rushing to keep in sight in their pocket of air. Asking others to potentially sacrifice themselves for her odd inner conflict was thankfully more than she could reasonably ask.
As the bodies come flying out of the fog, all reason leaves the halfling. He doesn't even stay around to listen to the scarred woman's words, his voice quickly rising into an unmitigated shriek. Half-stumbling, he turns around and starts running as fast as his little legs will carry him, his hysterical ululation pealing through the fog-laden street. Most people, when they scream, seem at least somewhat conscious of how they sound, whether they are aware of the slight modulations that they perform or not. The halfling's scream, however, gives the distinct impression of someone unpracticed at hearing and adjusting the shape of his throat or the outpouring of his lungs. There is only madness and instinct, harsh ragged breaths pumping out with no sense of timing or decorum: only terror.
The first body hits the pavement and slides, and Simza stops in shock, motionless as she realizes the blood spatter is a word . . .. The second body squelches as it lands. Simza isn't there anymore to read the second word, as her feet are working again, and she's moving away as quickly as she can manage.
"Roads have to end right!?"
When she hears the question from behind her, she starts laughing. The laughter is broken and quieter because she's trying to breath while both running and laughing, and the human body's just not built to do that.
Demrakas, Erebus and Simza
Again, the eerie sound of rising whispers that crescendo into a split-second of fabric whipping in gale-force winds.
One end of the visible alleyway is now anchored with three mangled bodies, as Allera withers under the onslaught of the ragged pursuer as a snowball would beneath the regard of a dragon’s flame. As she crumples to the ground under the force of the blows and the weight of Vano’s body, blood spatter once again onto the alley wall, and once again the splatter spells out a world; there can be no mistaking it for anything other than a plaintive PLEASE.
‘Anchoring’ is not just a metaphor, either, as the presence of the bodies seems to define that end of the alley, a place in the confusing miasma of soupy, yellow fog. As the three survivors continue to run away from the grim spectacle behind them, though they clearly (clearly!) are putting distance between themselves and their pursuer, in the same moment, it feels like they’ve barely moved at all. Space is stree-eee-eeetching behind them, like taffy being pulled long and thin, drooping down in the middle; this isn’t possible of course. It can’t be true.
Allera, Cole and Vano
The experience of being the focal point of the monster’s wrath is so horrible that it doesn’t precisely register in Allera’s mind, your psyche editing incoming sensation on the fly to avoid being driven mad from the pain. Allera is dead, and crumples to the ground, her now-corpse tangled with the body of the already-corpse she had tried to save.
You each can still see out of your unblinking, unresponsive eyes, and though the living trio keep running, they don’t seem to be getting any further away.
This can't be happening, this shouldn't be happening, this can't be happening, this shouldn't be happening, this can't be happening, this shouldn't be happening, this can't be happening, this shouldn't be happening, this can't be happening...
The halfling's little legs continue pumping on the cobblestones and he sees the blood splatters out of the corner of his eye. How, after he had been running so hard, could he still see that? Help me? Please?
Yes, the halfling wants help. They all do. Tears begin streaming down his face, mixed with sweat and spit and drainage and dirt as he continues running. Hearing the wind and the fabric and the blood and the crunch was worse. If it was only one or two senses being assaulted, that would be one thing. But he was learning what it sounded like when someone died.
He stumbles on an upraised brick, tumbling and skinning his knee, but rolls with it and continues running through the pain. Maybe he just had to get far enough, run fast enough, and he could break free. Please let that be the case.
The woman's eyes open wider, the whites showing around her irises as she realizes she's still close enough to read the blood-spattered words, despite all the cobblestones and bricks she has sped across. Even so, the off-kilter laughter about how roads have to end hasn't faded, though there's no hint of humor to it. The road only ends when you die. It has always been so, and always will be so. The quote runs through her mind, in her mother's voice, as she slowly fails to find a way to convince herself she can survive this chase. Am I PETRA?!? stomps across her mind as she recalls the traditional warning story of the Varisian girl murdered in town.
Who is that voice?
~ I AM! YOU are a coward! Everything will be BURNING when judgement falls INTO the HELLs!! ~
Who...? Who are you? What is this place... WHO AM I!?
~ That is all obvious! This is OUR glorious DEATH! Beautiful IS IT NOT!? Yet YOU deserve no answers from ME! HALF-BLOOD! ~
Vano's mind roils, ricocheting between two repellant thoughts.
Is it madness? Or is it death? Which would be worse?
Surely it could not be both.
The pain would be immense, or would it? The feeling seemed to stop as soon as it started. Or more aptly, all feeling, as her body hitting the bricks had a surprising lack of sensation.
Was... was I paralyzed? Allera's immediate thought went to the lack of sensation and her inability to control her limbs. Her eyes would manage to see the crimson flow leaving where the strange... creature had landed its blows.
Oh thats... thats far too much for... If she could, this is where one would expect an obligatory throat swallow as the situation and fear started to sink in.
Too much for... for what?
Demrakas, Erebus, Simza
Footfalls as the surviving trio keep running, a sound echoed by the implacable hunter behind them. A soundscape filled with the sound of the chase, their own labored breathing, and then it is amplified by voices, voices from beyond the grave.
The trio of corpses behind them groans out a sepulchral,“ Plee-ease. He-elp mee-eee.”
Once again, Erebus can hear this, impossibly, though muted, through cotton. The corpses repeat this wheezing entreaty, and halfway through the repetition, Erebus can no longer hear; the brief presence of auditory perception snapped away like a cheap magician snatching away a tablecloth. As a consequence, the halfling is completely unaware of the torrent of slashing, tentacular rag strips which lunge up from the yellow fog; they only feel them strike home.
Once again; the splashes of blood as Erebus falls, brutally murdered. Once again; the words written in the crimson ichor of life. This time, the word is UP.
Allera, Cole, Vano
Words leak out from your slack, dead mouths, words that you do not speak, words only partially in your voice. The words clearly once were infected with the madness of frantic terror, but this tone is muted, leeched of its intensity as your dead throats give it voice.
Demrakas, Simza
d never ends. The road never ends. The road never ends. The road never ends. The road never ends. The road never ends. The road never ends. The road never ends. The road never ends. The road never ends. The road never ends. The road never ends. The road never ends. The road never ends. The road never ends. The road never ends.The roa
Erebus
You’ve fallen face down on the grimy cobblestones. You are once again deaf. You can neither see, nor hear, anything. You are trapped in a prison of unmoving, inert flesh.
The dead don't speak. The dead don't hear. The dead don't listen. The dead don't see. The dead don't feel. The dead don't know.
And Erebus is dead. Dead. Dead.
Why? Why? Why?
up. up. up.
A sense of madness grips him, trapped and yet aware.
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The woman's eyes seem to grow even wider, though it doesn't seem possible, as the situation continues to deteriorate deeper into nightmarish territory.
Demrakas and Simza
Something… something… there’s something... Simza strains to catch the threads of a thought that was almost there, but gone, gone, gone. Her nose starts to bleed. An inconvenience that is forgotten almost immediately as the implacable hunter behind them chooses her as its next victim.
The strikes snap at her, dealing grievous injuries, and spattering the walls of the alleyway with her blood.
Allera, Cole, Erebus, Simza and Vano
As Simza’s body collapses, and she joins the others in the trapped non-oblivion of this half-death, she watches as… Demrakas reaches the end of the alleyway.
The dead end of the alleyway. A third wall of crumbling brick rises, blocking any exit from this corridor of death and despair. Demrakas stops, turns around to face the ragged, looming specter of pursuit, and as he does so the blood spattered on the walls of the alleyway from Simza’s injuries finish running down the brickwork, spelling out the word WAKE. In this moment, from each of your dead throats rises the screamed,” HELP ME PLEASE! WAKE UP!”
—-----------------------
You each start awake, catapulted from a horrible nightmare, exiting the gripping tendrils of rag and fog into a reality only incrementally less horrid. You are unarmed, without armor, instrument or device other than the tattered and stained clothing you wear; the same clothing you were wearing in your dreams, only obviously uncared for for a long span of time. You are confined to a cell, the walls around you made of bars of metal, all six of you together; or is that five? The form of Demrakas remains unmoving, unwaking; vacant.
Simza’s nose is bleeding, a steady pulse of blood with each beat of her heart.
Movement, however, is happening in spades immediately outside your shared cell. A figure dressed in the manner of a doctor is circling a makeshift operating table in the room outside of your cell, her raiment spattered with sprays of blood both dried and distressingly fresh, as well as the sort of stains that suggest close contact with gore even more grim than jetting blood. Her hands are in constant motion, waving back and forth as though she were conducting an unheard symphony. In place of a conductor’s baton, in one hand she holds a wicked knife, and in the other a mason’s trowel; both of these are also stained with blood.
Strapped to the table, and the focus of the “doctor’s” attention is a young woman, brown hair, brown eyes, dressed like the rest of you in tattered clothing. She is bound to the table, but poorly, as the attending physician clearly has more of a passion for surgery than knotwork. A single, long slice marks her face, tracing a path of glittering crimson from her left temple down to just above her chin.
”HELP ME PLEASE! WAKE UP!” the young woman screams out one last time before lapsing back into rapid, rasping, vocal pants.
It seems impossible to her that the doctor thing could have moved her to the table and tied her down without resistance. But she doesn’t remember any of it. She was already on the table when she became aware of anything. Maybe she was like the people in the cell at the time. They don’t seem to rouse for anything.
She keeps her eyes on the doctor, terrified and desperate. Specifically she watches the scalpel in the doctor’s hand as it flits around. She had screamed when the doctor sliced her face, but not because of pain. With such a sharp blade she had merely felt a hot sting that she knew might not be at all proportional to the harm done to her.
She writhes on the table, pulling and pushing her bound arms and legs, looking for some sign she can slip a limb free of the rope holding it. Taking each limb in turn, she tries to free it, doing her best to brace with her other limbs for the pulling and wiggling. All the while she keeps her eyes on the scalpel. Her teeth are clenched and her face is a grimace.
Then her eye catches a hint of movement from within the cell. With that new sign there might be some hope of help, she starts screaming again. No words this time, just the loudest screams she can muster while struggling against her bonds. When she feels the knot around her left ankle give way, the woman keeps her wits about her. She leaves her leg still where it lays while continuing to fight against her other bonds.
She continues to watch as the doctor dances and preens about, waiting for her moment. There will only be one chance. Finally, when the doctor has circled around to stand by the right portion of the table and the doctor’s attention is directed elsewhere, she takes her chance. Pulling her leg up to her chest swiftly, the young woman kicks out, driving the sole of her foot into the doctor’s face. The force of the blow sends the doctor reeling back into the bars of the cell for a complimentary banged head.
The young woman starts to use words again.
”Help me! Get up! Get up! Get up! Help!”
Jumping to his feet…
~ LAZY! SLOW! ~
Cole moves to the bars and grabs the ‘doctor’ by his smock…
There, jingling on the belt of the 'doctor' is a keychain, tempting and beguiling with its clanking siren call of freedom.
Erebus wakes with a gasp--silent to him. Around him, he sees people that he recognizes from a dream. So strange, to recognize people from a dream. Wasn't it strange?
And what a dream. A nightmare. He hopes to never experience something like that again.
He doesn't hear the screaming, but his eyes quickly adjust as he sits up and sees the horror show happening beyond these bars. Bars? Why? Am I in jail?
Recollections do not come, but Erebus tries to process the situation. Jail or not, someone was being tortured out there. His little fingers fumble about for something he expects to find on his chest--but it is not there. Nothing is. But then he looks ahead and sees keys.
Maybe he could help that person struggling on the table. Gods there was so much blood.
When the half-orc in the cell tries to grab the "doctor", Slip tries to move ahead to grab at the keys, using his small body to push as far through the bars as he can.
A moment of panic crosses as Allera would wake, breath sucking down her throat as there was now a need to breathe. Hands instinctively going to her arms, finding them oddly dry.
A... nightmare?
The immediate thought would go through her head as there was now a ceiling denoting things had definitely at least changed. The screams sounding off shook her to jump to her feet and properly take in her scenery. The glint of blood catching her eye as the would be doctor hit the cell bars. Many questions would race through ones mind in the moment, but instinct would force one to act.
Seeing a would be companion reaching for the foe, she'd quickly rush to the bars to help restrain them, trying to get their arms trapped behind the bars. The last thing the group needed was for them to be thrashing about with their implements.
"The blood stays in. The blood stays in..." Allera would chant oddly, seemingly in a self-soothing manner.
Simza's eyes pop open, but it takes an instant before she stops seeing the blood-soaked cobblestones and brick wall super-imposed over the almost equally bizarre setting actually (?) before her. So, not dead? As the strange doctorish figure moves up against the cage and the others that she recognizes from that nightmare attempt to grab him, Simza simply joins the pack as a first instinct.
As a splotch of blood lands on one of her outstretched arms, she realizes she's bleeding. Still bleeding? From being shredded? "Looks like a cage. Can anyone reach those keys? Or even a slim bit of metal?"