As soon as she has the door open, Arberie scoots around the far side of the table heading for the door. She doesn't see any use for trying to insert herself into the scrum with their captor, but blocking the door out might be a good idea.
She does pause for a moment to look over the tools, and thus possible weapons, on the table.
Mya leaves the room, watching the scene unfold and gets close enough to the fight, so she can concentrate on helping the woman who is attacking the surgeon. She remembers the woman from the 'dream' she had and this makes her the best choice in this situation.
Mya chants a few words and sees the occult tethering from each person in the room to the tapestry of time itself. She tugs the one connected to the strange woman, accelerating her vibrations.
Tassa leaps out of her cell, grabs the nurse, and bites her!
She quickly breaks free but appears weakened from the bite. She clearly wasn't expecting opponents capable of fighting back, as instead of retaliating, she begins retreating toward the apparently weakest enemy: the gnome.
Mya sees the strange creature approaching. She keeps concentrating her spell on the one that has spilled blood from the nurse and steps back five feet. "Your time is running out." she says almost to convince herself it is the case.
Tassa feels the gnome's magic quickening her, but it isn't enough to keep odd nurse contained long.
As she breaks free, Tassa licks her lip and realizes that she's tasted the nurse's blood...and it was good.
Suddenly the hunger inside her explodes forth, and--with a wince of pain that she manages to shrug off--where she had had arms, she instead has a mass of black, oily, rubbery tentacles, covered with eyes and small mouths.
"WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO ME?!?"
She stares down at the way her limbs have given way to tentacles that seem to have a mind of their own, but finds herself slithering toward the nurse, leaving a trail of mucus in her wake.
Arberie thinks the pruning shear blade is the best choice for meetiing her combined needs. Unlikely to hurt her by just holding it (unlike the glass and random strips of metal), balance (unlike the trowel), and potential to do harm (unlike the forks).
She grabs it, and for the briefest of moments considers changing directions to better hem in the "doctor". However, at about that time the woman from the other cell suddenly sprouts bunches of tentacles where her arms should be, screams some, and runs up the wall to hang from the ceiling.
Arberie is left slack-jawed in the wake of that performance. "The f&!!?..."
Arberie doesn't know where she is or why. The torture doctor has turned into whatever it is now. Arberia's dreams have been shit, and the woman from them has now popped tentacles from arms as she runs about screaming on the ceiling. And Arberie is completely f**~ing done with the whole scene.
"Nope. F+$% this, I'm out."
She turns around and walks straight for the door. She still has the keys after all, so she is f@$#ing gone. If for some reason the key to the door isn't among the ones she has, she will figure something out, and grabs an extra couple of strips of metal off the table for just that contingency. But the point is she the the hell out and gone. None of her business and goodbye.
"Moorrninge lighte, what iin heell zat?" And the strange girl was far more creepy than he had anticipate.
Shit, it was hard enough to fight against monsters, but it was even harder to fight that on top of your instincts to run. "Yoou arre leavinge girrl?" He could not but agree to the other one for wanting to get lost, but they had tried each one for themselves in the nightmare and it did not turn great. "Fuucke, at leeaste leave ze beste blaade!" He wanted the pruning blade as well, but he also wanted to be safe at his home drinking some tea.
Grabbing a piece of the sharp metal, Baldrek curses himself for the bad decisions he did not remember making and moves behind the enemy monster to give flank to so far friendly monster.
As one of her prisoners transforms into something truly nightmarish and begins slithering across the ceiling, the nurse decides that discretion is the greater part of valor and attempts to sidestep the Keleshite ... only to be stopped dead in her tracks.
Mya keeps concentrating on her magic and circles around the table to stop the nurse if she tries to escape that way. She is not very fond of the idea they may call for reinforcements. She talks just loud enough for the escaping woman to hear.
"Hey, stay put. Who knows how many more of those you'll run into alone when you get out of this room." there was no judgement in her voice, only the cold analysis and a bit of gratitude, after all the human did unlock their cells with the keys.
When the man complains, Arberie offers him the best advice she has at the moment.
"Nobody's forcing you to stay here."
She hustles on over to the door and, if it's locked, she starts trying the keys to get it open.
"Noo, I'm beettinge oon heelbinge eache ooserr. Yoou flee, you on yourr own!" Selfish b$&+*. No, he was being unfair. He could not blame her for saving herself when fighting monsters, but his treat was real. If she was on her own now, she'd also be later.
With the monsters between him and the creepy girl, Baldrek thrusts, hoping to impale the monster!
”Yesssss,” Tassa says (finding herself surprised by the raspiness of her own voice), ”I may not know you, but I know you are fighting the one that f*&~ed with us. For now, that’s plenty. Even if I don’t understand what’s happening to me.” ...not to mention why it feels strangely…pleasurable…
Dangling from above, she shifts across from the Kelishite and lashes out with glistening tentacles covered with eyes and sharp-toothed mouths.
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The tentacle woman's words are just what Arberie needs to induce her to work faster at getting the door open.
Working together, the Keleshite and the tentacle monster finish off the other shapeshifter as Arberie opens the door to reveal the room beyond.
A broad chute extends diagonally through one of this cellar’s half-crumbled stone walls. Beneath it lies heaped more than a dozen mutilated humanoid bodies. Nearby, a flight of rickety, wooden steps climbs toward the high ceiling — an escape none of the room’s current occupants seem capable of employing. The smell of rot and decay in the room is nearly overwhelming, and the buzz of flies hangs in the air.
Arberie opens the door and takes a look beyond. "Oh." is all she can get out in response to what she sees. She steps back from the entrance and turns around, walking back a few steps to the main part of the room.
"It's no better outside" she says in a weak, trembling voice. "Lots of bodies, it's a massacre."
Mya immediately stops concentrating on her time dilation on the woman that just became partially a mass of tentacles.
D-did my magic do that? No. It did not do that against the creature in the dream. Was that even a dream? If it were, does it matter that it did not do that to the creature? It was just a dream, right? But we were all there and... the thoughts race and the heartbeat grows louder but suddenly the perpetual stillness of a bleachling catches up and the heightened emotions just fade away.
"Good job, everyone." she says, nodding to the two that engaged the creature.
Mya looks over the nurse's corpse to check if there was anything beyond the keys that they stole. She hears to what the previously fleeing woman says, steels her heart and walks to the other room. Are the corpses there victims of the nurse or something else?
Baldrek crouches by the nurse to check if it was still alive. "Goode worrke yoou twoo." It would be unreasonable to include the fleeing woman in his praise.
F#@@, that stench. His mouth was watering and his stomach was turning, clear signs that sooner or later he'd be puking. "Doo yoou carre cloose zee doorr?" Better to walk on the opposite direction. Seeing a cupboard, he looks for something useful.
"Hhhhssssss ssshhhhhkkkk"
Tassa realizes, belatedly, that the people around her can't understand her at all--that she is perhaps no longer capable of speech.
With an effort, she wills the tentacles back inside her, and she's once again a (more or less) normal looking human. In fact, now she seems to have a healthier flush to what were previously unusually pale cheeks.
Unconsciously licking her lip, she says, "Good work indeed. I don't suppose any of you has a clue what the f^&$ we're doing here? No? Well, I don't know if that should make me feel better or worse.
"Either way, I guess we may as well search this room for any advantage--or ways out that don't involve piles of corpses."
She walks toward the sacks by the eastern wall, and starts to open them up.
With the appeal of the next room now very much soured for Arberie, she also begins to look around the room with the cells. She hopes there's maybe an alternative escape route.
While she's subtle about it, Arberie keeps the shears blade ready for use, and doesn't turn her back on the dark haired woman. As badly as she wants to ask just what in the bloody hell happened to her, she's convinced it's best not to say anything that could potentially upset the woman.
She does mention her name. "I'm Arberie by the way."
Inside the cabinet, Baldrek finds a few articles of clothing . Against the western wall sprawls a heap of dubiously flammable items - likely intended as fuel for the cold, iron furnace hunkering in the southern corner.
Mya notices that many of the bodies are wearing the same thing: a plain, white uniform with buttons in the front. This looks very similar to the outfit the nurse was wearing before she transformed.
Inside the sacks, Tassa finds some potentially familiar valuables.
Mya goes back to the room, watching as the group finds some of their belongings: "The bodies over there use clothes like the nurse. Previous victims, perhaps?
She follows along Arderie's introduction, speaking to no one in particular "I'm Mya. I assume we all shared the same dream?"
"Baaldrrek." He croaks while opening the cabinet. "Soome clooses heerre."
"Oh! Zeerre soome veabons heerre too! Aande arrmorr aande oozerr stuff." That was a strange sensation rummaging through those things for while he could not remember shit about himself, some of those were familiar. There was a large scale mail which would only fit him, so he takes it and dons with patience. From the arsenal of weapons, he grabs a pair of daggers, the javelins, a bolas, a sturdy trident and a pair of nets. "I vass a fisherrman? Ha, doubte ite, buute ziis vill doo juuste fiine..."
Arberie rummages for the sack containing her stuff, then rearms. Her belt holds a rapier on the left side and kukri on the right. Two wrist sheaths contain a kunai each. A dagger slides into her boot, and a switchblade disappears into a pocket of the scarf she wraps around her neck. A thin cloth wrap holding some small tools goes into the other boot.
She takes a couple of flasks from her pack, which go into a pouch on her belt. A buckler is hung on a clip beside her sword. Finally, Arberie takes a necklace with a small iron pendant shaped like a drinking tankard and slips it over her head to rest around her neck and under her shirt.
Arberie looks young, not a kid but barely an adult. She's average in her height and skinny, with very dark brown hair long enough to fall over her shoulders and halfway down her back. Her complexion has a dusky bronze touch to it, suggesting some amount of Taldan ancestry. Arberie's eyes are hazel, with flecks of green. She wears several pieces of cheap silver jewelry, a ring through her septum, small hoops in each of her ears, and three plain rings total on both her hands.
"The name's Tassa. I'd say it's a pleasure, but..." she shudders. "Still, I'd hate to have fought that thing alone." Tassa decides not to say anything about how she's turned into something equally grotesque, briefly. Best not to thing about that at all...
As they sort through the gear she finds spear and crossbow that seem familiar, and a backpack containing a variety of things.
At the same time, she looks over at the girl who kept running away and realizes how young she really is.
Can't be too hard on her then, I guess. How did she end up in here? How did any of us?
Once they've grabbed what they recall, she goes over to check out the part of the room she hasn't looked into yet.
Mya looks upon all the equipment they have found.
Well, the ones that are mine are not that hard to figure out...
She grabs the small-sized leather armor, dagger and a light crossbow, A small backpack also calls to her, seeming very familiar.
Opening it up, she finds supplies such as ink, which thankfully was not spilled, inkpens, sheets of paper and, more importantly, two journals, both with identical black covers featuring a drawing of a broken hourglass. Mya quickly flips through the pages, in hopes of some information but alas, they are all blank.
The gnome sighs and heads near the pile of corpses, to see where the wooden steps lead to.
The steps are sturdy enough to climb ... but only up to the landing. Past that point, the way up is blocked by heaps of rubble.
Scorched humanoid bones can be seen amid the ashes inside the furnace, easily from a half-dozen bodies. You also notice that the vents leading up and out of the furnace are particularly wide. It would be a tight fit, but you could probably fit inside the furnace duct.
Mya returns to the first room to inform the rest. "Passage is blocked. Unless we can move a lot of rubble, it's a no go. Makes me wonder how the nurse got here."
She approaches the center of the room to analyze the person who was being operated on by the nurse. Is the body in any way recognizable?
"I'm starting to wonder exactly the same thing Mya. There must be something we're not seeing yet, maybe a secret passage in the walls?"
Arberie steels herself, and covers her mouth and nose with handkerchief before she steps back into the room full of bodies to have a longer, more careful look around.
The body is that of a human male in his early thirties. Arberie realizes that he's of Ustalavic origin.
Arberie notices the chute above the pile of bodies is probably wide enough to squeeze through. It's eight feet off the ground, though, so you'd have to climb on the corpses to reach it.
Tassa frowns. "Hmmm. I suspect I could fit up that furnace vent. Perhaps I climb up, and see if I could hang a rope down? I don't love it, but it doesn't seem worse than crawling over corpses to that chute...or just waiting here."
Since Arberie really doesn't want to trek up a pile of corpses, she's liking Tassa's idea. Maybe she can improve on it too.
"I have rope, and also a grappling hook. That should make it easier to find a place to attach the rope."
"I'd rather not climb the pile of corpses, but regardless of our choice, I'm no climber." Mya extends her arms to enphasize her small stature.
"Yoou a smaalle wooman, Taassa." He then looks at Arberie. "Yoou baarrely biggerr zan a girrl." And then finally to Mya. "Aande you buubby-sized. Yoou caan'aall fiite."
"Buute mee? I zee siize of yoou srree combiinede. Leete mee taake a loooke..."
"Ah! Veerry eaasy too cliimbe... coome coome eeverryone." His voice is mettalic as he speaks from within the furnace. Baldrek covers his face with his scarf, not willing to breath and swallow the ashes of the dead, and bundles his weapons. They'd be covered in ash and soot, but he'd take those over blood and gore and shit any day. Just a little squeeze...
"U! 'Ote 'ate ea'y..." His words are barely understandable between his accent, the echo, the scarf and him holding his breath.
It sure seems easy enough for the tall people, but not for Mya. Not wanting to be a burden, however, and risking being an even bigger burden if she falls down, she decides to try to climb as well.
Mya stretches her small arms on opposite walls of the furnace and pushes her body with all her strength upward. Her arms starts shaking from the effort, she feels the weight of her body on her shoulders... and suddenly realized her feet haven't even left the ground.
Is that shame? she thinks to herself, once again surprised by a spurt of emotion. Mya decides to take her time and climb again.
Since the big guy Baldrek is going to go on up first, Arberie hands off her grappling hook to him after tying rope on and knotting it for climbing.
"Just in case it's needed later on. It's easier to give it to you now than to try and pass it up later during the climb."
"Take care of it" she adds, as if it's a prized possession.
Arberie is willing to wait and take up the rear if nobody else wants to.
Tassa follows Mya up. As she does, she feels a flash of pain, followed by several insectoid legs bursting from her abdomen, and her eyes filling with an oily blackness.
She grunts, but finds that she can now climb as easily as walk, and scurries up behind the greying gnome.
"Let me know if you need any help, little one."
Mighty iron boilers crowd here, their pipes piercing the walls and ceiling. Shadows and rust fill the narrow gaps between the cold tanks.
As you emerge from the pipe, you realize that you're not alone. A pair of large rodents growl hungrily, and a glowing-eyed creature lurks under one of the boiler tanks.
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Arborie's jaw clenches and she feels a chill run up her spine when she sees Tassa transform again. She knew it was a good idea to go up last; she wouldn't want that happening behind her where she couldn't keep an eye on what's going on.
She decides to wait a little longer to start up the pipe than she would have otherwise, to make some extra room between herself and the woman. It's just too unsettling. Regular people don't change like that. It doesn't help in the least that Tassa appears to be unable or unwilling to explain what's happening to her.
"Soome rraats and soome gloowinge eeyes." He tells the others as he secures the grappling hook, then fishes for his gear and readies the trident in hand. "I gooinge ooute!"
Badlrek kicks the door of the furnace open and steps outside, following quickly by a swift stab of his trident. Still alone in the room and suspicious about the glowing-eyed creature, he fights defensively.
"Thanks a lot, Tassa, I think I can handle this for now, but catch me if I fall." Mya says to the now half-insectoid. The transformation was strange but Mya was trying to simply not bring it up. It's not like she isn't herself dealing with unknown changes to her body.
Emerging on the other side, she readies herself after Baldrek's warning and moves behind him. She spends some of her magic, once again, hastens one of her allies, this time Baldrek, by tugging on his tether to time, this time investing some of her own magic into this.
Tassa glides up the tube with ease, thanks to the insectoid limbs protruding from her abdomen.
When she sees the rats and the...other thing, the wave of hunger grows within her again, and soon she is once more a writhing mass of rubbery tentacles, covered with eyes and teeth. This time the pain is easy to ignore.
"Ssssss Hhhhsssssss"
Baldrek emerges from the pipe and immediately stabs one of the giant rats before Mya accelerates him and Tassa transforms into a terrifying monster.
Arberie draws the kunai from her right wrist sheath before emerging from the pipe into the room, just in case. Once she's free and clear, She moves around Baldrek and down along the wall to the far corner, where she draws her rapier as well.
The other rat skitters towards Baldrek and attempts to bite him!
Strangely unperturbed by the horror that Tassa has become, the glowing-eyed creature attacks with sharp teeth and claws.
"Ha! Siilly veerrmin!" With a spin of his trident, Baldrek throws the large rodent away, blood flying towards one of the vats.
With no trouble dodging other rat, Baldrek brings his trident down again, kicking the dead animal from his weapon before turning to the glowing-eyed creature. "Whaate ziis crreeaturre?" It was attacking though, so there wasn't much thinking involved nevertheless. He strikes again and feeling himself specially fast, he strikes yet again!