Tassa hisses with frustration at being tricked and scrambles back toward the real threat.
She thrusts with her spear, but finds it moves faster than she'd anticipated.
Arberie moves in behind the doppelganger and stabs it in what should be the kidney. This one's tougher than the one you fought in the basement, though, and the wound isn't enough to take it down. With a hiss, it retrieves a rusty blade from beneath its clothes, and slashes at Arberie before stepping down from the table.
Tassa stabs again, and again she goes wild.
With rage she yells, "Who are you? Where is this? WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO US?"
Baldrek closes in, angry for being tricked, and drawing a net as he does so.
As the doppelganger moves, Baldrek moves around, blocking its path and then waiting for Arberie to close in before trying to trip the monster.
The cut the thing inflicts on Arberie makes her want to cry out in pain, it seems bad. But instead, Arberie manages to muffle her outburst down to a hiss instead.
Since the thing is moving away from her, Arberie is tempted to do the same. She isn't a battler, and having played her hand and lost, or at least not won, Arberie is inclined to consider other options involving less immediate risk.
However, she sees Baldrek moving in on the thing. She takes another chance in case it can assist him in taking the thing down. She feints with her blade as she closes in, but instead of striking with it, her free hand darts out to deliver a hand smack instead. Almost as part of the same motion, Arberie veers off to the side, away from the thing, trying to both take herself out of its striking range and keep its attention on her.
Chaos erupts in the room, the creature fighting against Mya's allies but she still cannot take her eyes away from the beautiful transformation.
The sounds of battle finally break through Mya's magically induced fascination and she shakes her head slightly. Regaining her bearings, Mya focuses on the strands of time, this time focusing on Arberie. She made a good plan and they (but mostly Mya) ruined it all. She accelerates the young woman.
...As she tries to step away, Arberie aims a couple of rapier thrusts at the thing as a goodbye kiss. Somehow she suddenly seems able to do so much in barely any time.
Chaos ensues in the room as Baldrek trips the creature and throws a net over it before Arberie stabs it. It hisses and attempts to cut its way out.
Your Turns
Mya quickly retreats behind Arberie and keeps concentrating on the haste, breaking line of sight with the creature, now stuck in a net, in the hopes of not falling over their strange mind magics again.
With the shapeshifter trapped on the ground, Tassa stabs twice with her spear.
"Die in silence then, if you won't answer my questions!"
With his hands free, Baldrek thrusts his trident twice, impaling the enemy and then pulling the weapon to cause the wounds to bleed.
With the thing now netted and restrained, Arberie isn't shy about piling on to make sure it's put down quickly as possible.
Netted, bleeding, and repeatedly stabbed by a number of weapons, the creature swiftly expires.
Potential Loot
Dagger
Surgeon's Tools
handy haversack
phylactery of faithfulness
Ten-foot Pole x6
30gp
Mya walks up to the corpse and crouches, sifting through their belongings. She particularly picks up the phylactery in her hands.
"Are these creatures religious? I wonder." she puts it back down and points to the backpack. "We can go back to the previous room we went to and stuff whatever we can inside it. Anyways, wanna go back to the other survivors?
Her voice is monotone, but inside she is not really in the mood to possibly deal with their ungratefulness in such a short period of time.
Then again, strength in numbers. Hmmm... she puts a stop to this line of thought, willing to put it up for the group to decide.
Baldrek grabs the hanging sheets and cleans his weapon then collects and folds his net. That was easier than he had expected and the net worked great. Perhaps he was once a fisherman in the end. Unlikely though. "Honesstly? I rraazerr fiinde anoozerr waay ouute annd leaave zoose fuuckerrs too rrote heerre."
Now, what can they find around?
Tassa opens the backpack to look inside, and her eyes go wide as she realizes that it's bigger on the inside than the out.
She drops it at first, but then picks it back up and laughs nervously when she's able to poke one of the long poles into it and have it disappear almost entirely.
"That ain't normal either...but at least it's not normal in a kind of a cool way, I guess. Anyone need anything carries for them?"
Seeing not much left in the room, she says, "Well, there was a door behind this creeper. Let's see if we hear anything from it. If we don't, maybe check that way next?"
Tassa hears noises coming from the next room. It sounds like frantic mumbling and ... eating?
Sturdy racks and toppled tables suggest this space once served as a sizable laundry. Much of the northern area of the room is filled with rubble. A wall of pipelike crossbeams fills the room's western alcove. Three figures are manacled here: a ghoul, a partially-eaten human woman, and a human male wearing stained yellow sheets as robes and bearing a flame-shaped chalk mark on his forehead.
Mya enters the room after the group ascertains it is safe, not revealing the presence of the other party members in case an ambush is needed coming face-to-face with the three manacled figures. Is that a ghoul?
Mya stares at the possibly dead woman and the man with a strange mark on his forehead. Have I seen that before? she ponders.
"Hello...?" she says directed to the man.
Ghouls are sentient, ravenous undead who haunt graveyards and devour corpses. Their touch can paralyze the living (although elves are immune), and those slain by their fangs often rise again as a new ghoul.
"Praise!" responds the man in a relieved tone.
"Who're you praising, exactly?" Tassa asks. I'm not sure why, but the question seems strangely important.
Remembering that they've been tricked before by a creeper pretending to be a person, she asks, "Who are you? How did you come to be here?"
She takes care to keep away from the ghoul.
"Zandalus sees!"
"Words fail."
"Soo... yoou gooinge too taalke whiile zerre is a moonsterr eaatinge deaade boody?" That seemed insane, but if they were in hospice, it would actually fit. Nevertheless, he draws his javelins and gets ready to kill the monster from a safe distance.
Mya nods to Baldrek, ready to haste him: the ghoul has to die.
"The half-eaten person might also awake as a Ghoul, we should attack it as well, just in case."
The more pressing matter, however, is the man. He is not exactly acting normal, but who would be in such a situation? Also, it is not like they remember how they got here in the first place, a little understanding might be in order... which would be much easier if they hadn't been fooled just a moment before.
Mya sighs I was hoping we only found monsters to kill... This is complicated.
"Who is Zandalus? And what is your name?" she asks the man, hoping that making him talk would make their decision to free him or not easier. Maybe the shapechangers could slip up in their act?
"Praise!"
"Words fail."
Tassa's frown deepens. "What's with the mark on his forehead? And the robes? And he only speaks gibberish. I can just about guarantee that if we take him with us we'll regret it. but..." ...but if I believe I'm not beyond redemption, whatever's happened to me, maybe... "...then again I don't know how I'll sleep if we don't offer him a chance.
"At the very least, I suspect Baldrek has the right idea to finish off this ghoul first."
Tassa will keep stabbing as long as is needed.
With the fight over, Arberie leaves the looting to the others. She leans against the table and pops her shirt open to take a look at her wound. She's no doctor, but her best estimate is it won't kill her outright, but it sure ain't f@!@ing great. She does her best to get it covered tightly with some cloth so the bleeding will stop while thinking thanks for the concern a+*%$!~s and deciding she should dial back the degree of risk she should take on behalf of the people she's found herself stuck with.
As they move on to the next room of horrors, Arberia occupies herself with some concerns. We need shapeshifter bodies, so maybe we should hide the one we have so nobody steals it while it's left unattended?
Too bad that's a ghoul chained up instead of another shapeshifter. I wonder if the goons at the barricade would accept a ghoul in place of a shapeshifter? Why would anyone chain up a ghoul?
"Don't sinke he'll answerre any questions if he is wrrong of ze minde." He remarks. That place was harsh, with monsters, shapeshifters, and suspicion all over the place. "I don't knowe... berrhaps I will sleebe betterr with him still lockede herre."
The woman's left arm has been completely stripped of flesh at this point, but the rest of her body is intact. As long as it remains that way, the man is out of reach of the ghoul.
As Arberie examines her injuries and Mya attempts to interrogate the strange man, Tassa and Baldrek dispatch the ghoul.
Mya watches as her companions eviscerate the ghoul. Unfortunately that means the "obvious" course of action has been taken and the uncertain ones remain.
Should I be able to complain about the other survivors who did not trust us and immediately give in and leave a prisoner here? With that said, what Baldrek is saying is perfectly reasonable. If this man is all right, one more person to the group would be welcome and raise our chances of survival. the thoughts circulate, all appeals to emotion suddenly crushed by cold calculations. This did not mean, however, she would want to just kill him.
She starts thinking out loud - "Should we escort him with the manacles and see if, from a distance, the survivors know him? Well, that is a great way to never earn their trust if anything goes wrong, however..."
Mya sighs frustrated. "I don't know what to do. Words fail."
Arberie's eyes flick straight over at the shackled man to see how he reacts to hearing his words repeated by another.
"Verry welle, man, yourr worrds fail, bute do you underrstand whate wee arre saying?" Before the man gets to answer, again, with some nonsense and push Baldrek to strike him, he adds. "Shake yourr heade forr no and node forr yes."
The man nods his head vigorously in response to Baldrek's question. "Praise!"
Mya thinks she finally connected the dots.
"Oh! He was literal when saying "words fail". He cannot speak clearly for some reason. I'd say we release him, but keep a close eye."
If this is really a hospital, maybe he was a patient. Or this is exactly what a shapeshifter would want me to think...
Tassa looks at him suspiciously.
"If we release you, what'll you do? Will you help in a fight?"
What are the odds he says something useful this time? Slim...but if we're gonna free this guy I'd like to know a bit more.
"Goode." He says, pleased to himself, then fights the urge to hit Tassa for asking a question that can't be answered with a yes or no. "His worrds faile! He can only answerr 'yes' orr 'no'..."
"Now, one question ate time, yes orr no, ande he answerrs." He explains, before starting, leaving the man time to nod or shake his head. "Arre you batiente? Is zis hosbitale? Do you knowe wherre exite is?" And then, a better idea. "Oh, cane you wrrite?" He turns to Mya, pleased with himself. "Uh!? You have baberre ande inke, yes?"
The man doesn't appear to be hostile and seems to be no threat to you.
"Words fail."
*attempted shoulder shrug* "Words fail."
*attempted shrug* "Words fail."
*nods rapidly* "Zandalus sees!"
*vigorous nod* "Zandalus sees!"
Mya lights up at the prospect of getting her paper and ink again, but couldn't actually figure out why.
"Yes, actually! she quickly opens her bag and rummages through, getting a vial of ink, an inkpen and one sheet of paper. She hands it over to the manacled man.
In response to your questions, the man excitedly writes ... the same three phrases. He doesn't seem to realize they're nonsensical to you.
Mya shakes her head and turns to the others.
"He has clearly lost it but also seems to understand us to some degree. I'm willing to free him, but I will not take such actions if you disagree."
Tassa sighs.
"Will we regret it? Almost certainly. But I'm afraid it's the right thing to do anyway. Could we really Let him rot here?"
Unless anyone stops her, she sets about freeing him from the shackles.
Arberie doubts the man is any real danger to them. He seems more or less aware of his surroundings, mentally stable enough considering the circumstances of everyone in the place, and reasonably willing to cooperate. That leaves his inability to speak freely aside from his couple of rote lines as the only impediment to trusting him, at least some. On the other hand, she thinks he could be an obstacle to moving about discreetly and not drawing attention, which could be a problem for them.
She tries something a little different, since ideally they could leave him somewhere safe and be free from the burden he might impose on them.
"I have a couple of questions," she tells the man. "No need to speak, just shake your head 'yes' or 'no' to answer them."
"I think you were brought here, or came here from another place in this building. Is that right?"
"Were there other people at the place you were before?"
"Is the place you came here from safe?"
"Can you guide us back to the place you came from?"
*frightened nod* "Words fail."
*enthusiastic nod* "Zandalus sees!"
*nod* "Zandalus sees!"
*enthusiastic nod* "Praise!"
Baldrek considers Tassa's moral question... and quickly realizes he is not a good person. Not particularly evil, but if he had to choose letting the man to rot here just to keep himself safe, he'd do it. "I coulde leave him herre ande woulde note lose any sleebe."