A few sensations are all you comprehend first. Muted voices. A humid breeze. Rocking motions. A clinical smell. Then nothing once more. Then, a dull yellow light, as if through a dense fog, begins to glow from nowhere in particular all around you.
You look around. A roiling yellow fog obscures most of your vision, but as you adjust you see more. Shadows, at first. Things just beyond your vision. Some appear humanoid, their gait stiff. Some are low to the ground, skittering on too many legs. Some tower above, every lumbering movement a creaking roar in your ears.
You notice four others then, standing around you. They too look around in the fog, lost. Two are taking note of the few details. One bears a look of guilt. One is watching the movements of those things in the fog. The last one seems to not notice the dense mist surrounding the group. At your feet, scattered amidst the cobblestone, broken glass and pottery, are hundreds of pages bearing sketches of some alien city.
Whether it is a moment or an eternity, you cannot say, but the roiling mists reveal the five of you are in the middle of some street. The buildings are strange, blackened and ruinous, with no windows or doors. Ziggurats, minaretes, and stranger structures loom in the distance. An iron lattice tower stands beneath two black suns in one direction. A pyramid standing on its point dominates the opposite horizon. These sights fade in and out as the curtains of mist are drawn and reveal new wonders. You realize the countless sketches are of this city.
[The five of you come to consciousness here. Roll a d4 to determine how much of your gear you start play with. Post with your characters’ gut reactions to their environs.]
Iosif, above all else, is confused. He is, above all else, a man of reason and innovation.. yet everything here defies all that unabashedly. Pyramids, in all likelihood, denote somewhere close to Osirion, and the papers are likely a map if they designate the city that they are currently in. He looks down, can barely see what he has aside from his ornately decorated musket, and looks around him to take in the surroundings better.
He then realizes the pyramid is standing on its point, which should be impossible with no support structures... and such a building would require a lot of support structures. Perhaps they are invisible by some solution of the arcane? How on Golarion and Abaddon did he not notice that?!
He starts to hyperventilate, but he calms himself down as a he grips his firearm close to his chest. He doesn't even remember if he loaded the thing, so it does very little to calm him down. He looks around to see if there's any verifiable life forms he can communicated to see if anyone knows anything, rather than... vague shapes in the mist, which could be some machinations of a hallucinating mind. There are reports of the mind hallucinating entire people and conversation, but they were much more rare than reports of nebulous shapes.
This is not home. Where is? Do we even have one? They know that much. Alvar shakes their head, trying their best to pierce the fog. There are others here? People... or threats? They carefully examine the others in the fog, trying to make out their forms, but... no details are immediately obvious.
They take a few steps back from the other figures, drinking in the scene that surrounds them, this wondrous city beyond any they've seen in the past. No. Focus. Study later. They grip their amulet, then release it. Instead, they draw a five-pointed star with the inner three fingers of their hand and, with their outer three fingers, draw a flaming eye inside of it, invoking the Seventh Defense against Weapons Natural and Unnatural.
As the protective field settles around them, Alvar fights through the foggy recesses of their mind to try to determine where they are.
Ethyl regards the passel of monstrosities just beyond her vision with a mix of detachment and dread. "Run! Escape!", an urgent part of her mind screams at her. "I'm hallucinating, this can't be real," the calm part of her mind asserts itself over her base reaction. She grips her dagger and holds it in a defensive position looking for a way to escape and then the xanthic fog fades. She finds herself humming a queer tune.
Ethyl observes the strange city and the strangers around her. "Is this normal? No," she answers herself. "What is normal?" she wonders. Again another part of her mind answers, "I don't know, but it isn't this."
She grips her dagger hard enough that her hand begins to shake and tries to place her back to a wall while also leaving room for her to dart to the right or the left. She asks, "Who are you?"
"One ball, one dose of black powder...," Iosif says as he goes through the motions to load his firearm. Ideally, he'd have his cache of alchemical cartridges composed of paper, bullet, and powder... which is making him uneasy. He always has the quick-loading cartridges.
"Iosif Formicidescu, having trouble recalling anything else," he says as he tries to swallow down his fear. Fear is illogical and pointless, faith in Cixyron and black powder are this man's currency. "You?"
He's still unsure if he can actually see people, but hearing clearly identifiable voices is at least somewhat reassuring. On the bright side, he doesn't seem to have his unholy symbol on him, so there's no need to scare the planar-knowledgeable with the fact that he worships a literal Daemonic Harbinger.
A pair of hands emerge from the fog, followed by a face. A young-ish-looking, pale woman with short black hair stumbles into the vicinity. Her breathing is shallow and fast. She leans against the nearest wall as her eyes race to find some semblance of normalcy in the situation. She eyes you curiously, not sure what to make of the presence of others in this place. Not that she seems to make sense of her being here to begin with, but she looks startled nonetheless.
"Is this it?" she asks sheepishly, her voice barely audible amongst the odd sounds produced by whatever is hiding in the fog. She looks at her clothes. She feels the sleeves with her fingers and palms. She stretches the clothing. While it seems to fit her size, she clearly does not recognise it. Few things seem to make sense to her or reassure her in any way, shape or form. "Where are we? -Who- are we?"
She keeps looking about frantically, her eyes and face showing confusion and fear. For a brief moment, she seems like she is going ot be sick, but manages to swallow it down. For now.
"My name...?" The tiefling pauses, wondering, even as they keep their eyes on the other people, if that's what they truly are, warily examining them for any sign of threats. What is my name? More importantly, who am I?
A word comes slowly to them, drifting out through the fog without within. Wanderer? No, no, that's not it. Sojourner? Explorer? Those aren't right either. Their left hand drifts up to touch their amulet, feeling the uncomfortably familiar ridges of the symbol engraved on it. The item gives them a sense of security, but no hint to the answer.
Each thought feels like molasses clings to each word, each concept, while simultaneously racing through their mind like a maddened horse, all direction unheeded.
But none of those are names. They're titles, nicknames, sobriquets. So what is their name...? Iosif's words catch them off-guard. That one knows his name. Is it his? It sounds like a man. These things can be so confusing. They force the thought aside. More importantly, like the... lady(?) says, where are we? The wizard forces their attention back to the task at hand.
As these chaotic thoughts pass through their mind, a word - a name - does indeed come to the tiefling's consciousness. A word that brings both wonder and horror: the Dreamlands. A dimension as chaotic as the First World, overlaying the Ethereal Plane, but more sinister than either. Ruled by gods older than any other known to civilization - even older perhaps than Pharasma or Asmodeus - and formed from the dreams of countless sentient beings.
"Although I don't know how I got here, or basically anything about myself but my name. We are in the Dreamlands. Even though I have memory loss, I do not seem to be a petitioner -- since I know very well where my soul will end up. You... you don't just end up in the Dreamlands with other people."
Iosif is starting to panic. Could he be here after death? This is decidedly not Abaddon, so that mustn't be the case... but logic is starting to fail the man.
Ethyl's mind races at her own question before dredging up from the depths her name, "You may call me Ethyl, spelled like the type of alcohol. Ugh my parents must be awful people. Correction, Dr. Ethyl Ermengarde."
She smells the air as Iosif messes with his musket and wonders out loud, "Black powder?" She needlessly explains to the man, "A mixture of sulfur, charcoal, and saltpeter. Careful that could be quite explosive if it were exposed to an open flame." She doesn't say, Clearly I am a doctor of alchemistry..
As the others hesitate, "Well, I surmise that none of us know anything particularly substantive about who we are, other than what we claim our names to be."
As the group tries to make sense of their surrounds and precious few memories - even their own names now slipping away from them - they begin to notice it is unnaturally silent in this abandoned street. No wind, no clattering shutters, no creaking hinges, nothing.
That is, until a noise like a nail on chalkboard draws their attention in separate directions. Another grating noise. Another. Like the unnerving footfalls of someone - or something - drawing closer. As this sound draws closer, you all feel a terrible dread. You cannot seem to tell where this noise is coming from, the sound echoes like broken glass off the alien urban landscape. However, as your mind slips away from you, a single thought remains:
YOU ARE BEING HUNTED
The fog, which had thinned enough for you to identify those here with you, begins to close in once more. A thick orpiment curtain that reaches out for you as that infernal footfall grows louder. Something is coming for you.
The girl finally stirs from the cobblestone ground her first feeling is one of utterly confusion. She remembers... nothing. Not how she got her nor why she came to such a unnerving place. Fear grips her young heart immediately and her hands go to cradle her body as if they could provide her some kind of protection from the strange mists or daunting shadows that seem to twist and fade at the corners of your eye. "Where... where are we?" she asks. More to herself than to the others, as if some facet of her mind could provide an answer.
Before it can one of the strangers supplies the answer, a dark-haired man with a fierce looking weapon. "The Dreamlands?" It is not a question or denial. The moment the man says it, Elyssa, or perhaps something at the back of her mind, knows it to be the truth.
"I-I think know about them. Or at least read about them. Maybe?" She shakes her head as if that could help with her confusion. It doesn't really. "You're right we shouldn't be here together. This is wrong. This must be wrong."
Panic starts to creep into her thoughts. They shouldn't be here. They shouldn't here. They shouldn't be-
Stop your whining. It is unbecoming. You will make them know us. You will make them know of our Blood and Flesh.
And with that Elyssa shoot up straight and made her formal introduction without so much thinking of the act. "I'm Lady Elyssa Volgori, of the House Volgori. I am of noble Ustalavic blood and... that's all I remember," her voice trailing off. What just happened?
Before Elyssa has anytime to think on that the feeling of being watched, no, pursued overtakes her. Something is out here!
On instinct, Elyssa manages to call forth something deep within her to protect her and soon a skin of energy covers her fragile form.
Iosif turns to Dr. Ethyl, remembering two things, one of which being the formula for blackpowder. "Yes, I know that formula well. I am not -- most of the time -- surrounded by blackpowder. Thus, I need to make my own. I see no firearm by your side, so I am to surmise you are some form of alchemist?"
Before he has long to do anything, the words appear in the man's mind as he nearly panics. Firearms are far more likely to hit their target, yes, but that does not change the fact that that he only has one shot left.
So, he raises his ornately decorated musket to face whatevee thrat lies ahead, the man's hair standing on edge. Oh for the Furious Thunder's sake, let this be over quickly.
Ethyl stops talking and cocks her head around trying to locate the source of the noise.
If she determines the direction she attempts to find a corner to hide behind.
The eyes of the confused woman dart around the area. And then she stops, her brow furrows. She tilts her head to the left and then to the right in confusion, then presses her palms against her ears. She clicks her tongue, producing a sound that echoes through the deafening silence. And she is visibly confused by this. And as the strange sounds of something else pierce the silence, she starts panicking, keeping her back to the wall. An instinct kicks in, and she quickly starts looking for a place to hide. "Something's coming. We need to run. To hide."
She starts patting the walls, looking for doors or openings that should be there but are not, getting more frantic by the moment, vocalising her frustration by suppressed whimpers as she scratches at the walls.
She eventually resorts to cowering near what she believes to be a corner.
Iosif tries to hide as well, behind what he believes to be a corner, keeping an eye out.
The wanderer's eyes narrow as they realize where they most likely are. The Dreamlands? Am I asleep then? Are these people also sleeping, or are they mere dreams? Not locals. Still, they weren't certain until two others spoke aloud to agree with their assessment of the location - Iosif and a young woman. Ustalavic nobility? We're in esteemed company indeed- No, they have to focus.
"Yes," they begin, "I think-"
The wizard's eyes widen as the sudden overwhelming sensation suffocates the life out of the words. They take several steps back. "Stay close! My-" The swelling dread chokes them for a moment, but they force themselves to continue, though each syllable feels like it is being forced through a vice. "My magic will protect you if you do!"
They chant another spell, their hands dancing through complex ritual gestures long-ago memorized and drilled into them. A field of force sheathes itself around their body, protecting them further from any harm.
As the group casts spells and claim corners, that horrid sound of something approaching grows ever louder.
As Nyarai takes her hiding place, the fog shifts and she can no longer see the others. Those footfalls turn from nails on a chalkboard to the heavy armored march of mailed knights. She hears them from further down the alley she hid in, and looking behind her she sees a towering knight standing over her, wearing the greens and blues of Taldor.
"WITCH" A hollow echoing voice rattles in her ears as the knight raises his longsword and strikes her repeatedly, cutting her down.
The others had also lost sight of Nyarai, but they hear her cries of shock and pain, and from the direction she had fled they see blood stream into the cobblestones. Any seeing the blood watch as the red liquid form letters in the cobble: UP
Elyssa's hands rush to her mouth to suppress a scream as she hears one Nyarai be violently cut down. The sight of the dead woman's blood does little to help with the shock and soon Elyssa feels a wave of nausea come over her.
Blood, she thinks, trying desperately not to start dry heaving. If there is one thing I know is that I hate the sight of blood.
The desire to run away into the mists and escape the sight of the red ichor is overwhelming but Elyssa's body does not obey her instincts. Her feet stay rooted to where she is, defying her. "Why can't I... why can't I move?"
Silence. You dishonor our Blood, our Flesh, with your cowardice. Act. Fight. Destroy.
"How? I can't even see what I'm facing," she says aloud before realizing that she is quite literally talking to herself. I'm mad. I must be. How else do you explain it?
Before Elyssa has time to try and answer that, the voice in her head is already making new demands.
Foolish, sheath. We have eyes. And ears. And a tongue to taste the blood in the air. Use them. Now.
And so she does. To the best her ability anyway.
"The alley," she says, her tongue and nose overwhelmed with the musk and taste of blood. It's a disturbingly familiar sensation.
Shaking off that foul feeling, Elyssa repeats herself to the others and points. "The thing that killed her is in the alley."
Those words must have awakened the... thing inside her to act as the moment Elyssa confirms her finding her legs are on the move without her consent pressing forward to the blood-reeking alley.
Ethyl's eyes trasfix on the copious amount of blood running through the cobble forming the strange word. She doesn’t trust the word, It's a trick. She nods slightly at Elyssa'a words and then motions towards the north while ducking from alley to alley making her way north.
Iosif goes to investigate the sound to the south, also sneaking along a whole 30 feet while holding his musket up, ready to fire. I am unsure how they knew she was a witch. If she is a witch. Hopefully they do not have access to all our identities, or I am not safe, he thinks to himself. He doesn't even know what his identity is, but he has the sinking feeling not everyone would like it if it got out.
The wizard's eyes shoot wide as Nyarai disappears from their sight, and a low yelp of surprise bursts out of their lips. "By his black heart..." The blood flowing out in the distance catches their attention, and they frown. Something teleported her? They fight to think of what could've caused something like that so suddenly, or if it is just another aspect of the Dimension of Dreams.
No, there's no time. Or perhaps there's too much? No, that makes no sense. We don't have time to think this through! Elyssa's words bring them back to the present, and they stride forwards, readying a minor cantrip to throw at anything that appears threatening. Whatever the case, I'm not going to go down without at least attempting a fight.
As they arrive nearby to Iosif, their magic whirls up around him, guarding him against attack.
Ethyl looses sight of the others as they move southwards deeper into the mists. She finds she can barely see her hand in front of her face till the fog parts to the west, revealing a street covered not in parchments and sketches but Harrow cards. At the end of that street is a coffin chained shut.
Ethyl blinks and finds herself standing over this coffin, where a spread of Harrow cards is set across the lid.
The Beating. The Uprising. The Demon’s Lantern. The Vision. The Carnival. The Liar.
Before Ethyl can begin to comprehend the message, the chains latch onto her limbs and pull her towards the coffin. The lid, now loose, creaks open to reveal a tangle of three male corpses reaching up for her.
“Ethyl!” They croaked, grasping her arms and neck. “Till death do us part!”
Unable to escape the chains and the corpses, Ethyl is dragged into the coffin, the lid slamming shut. She tries to cry out, to shout an alarm, but a withered hand clamps over her mouth as the chains and limbs crush her within the blackness.
Alvar, Iosif, and Elyssa arrive at the alley Nyarai disappeared into, the fog parting to see the witch seemingly lashed to the statue of a Taldan knight, her skin and clothing charred nearly beyond recognition. The last echos of a bloodthirsty crowd could be heard as the fog once again swallows the alley.
"This does not seem to be a unified effort. So there is bound to not be teamwork. Nyarai, Ethyl, if you can hear my voice, respond!" Iosif is, externally, resolute and fearless... internally he is very much beginning to panic, as logic has no explanation for the occurrences, and everything is happening so quickly. His shaky hands clutch at his musket, still ready to fire.
He refuses to address the elephant in the room that is seeing their demise with his own eyes, but he is not letting any possibility by him. Illusion spells exist, and this could be a case of one of those... but in his gut, he doubts it.
Hooves clattering softly on the ground, the crimson-skinned wayfarer approaches the alleyway, and stops, staring. They feel a smile slide across their lips as they survey the burnt corpse of the woman who'd first disappeared. Their heart pounds in their ears, their blood's excitement warring with their mind and soul's horror. She smells of home- No, that's wrong. We don't have a home! Do we?
Forcing the grin off of their face, they look at the word writ in blood. Up? They glance upwards, trusting their magic to shield them from mundane sources of harm. "A Taldan knight, a hungry crowd..." Taldan? How do I know that? I've never been to Taldor. Have I? I don't-
Iosif's voice pulls them out of the dream-distracted musings, reminding them of the increasingly present terror that threatened to bring ice out of their bones and into their flesh. "They're dead." They say, forcing their voice to remain somewhat steady, though a thread of stress shimmers through. "And unless something changes dramatically, I suspect we're about to face the same fate."
Still, that is no excuse to give up. They chant a soft spell, one six-fingered hand sculpting the arcane forces to their whim as they open their gaze to the magical nature of this place.
The sight of the charred corpse sends a chill through Elyssa's very bones. It is to foul to bear but her body stubbornly refuses to look away. It won't let her.
Find the enemy. Find the enemy! FIND THE ENEMY!!!
Quickly running out of options but desperately needing to get the incessant voice in her head to quiet, Elyssa on some deep instinct attempts to see without seeing and tries to detect any magical force that could explain what has happened to her two compatriots.
"Illusion magic and teleportation magic both exist. I... I wanted to have a little hope," he says, fear finally seeping through in his voice.
Maybe its the fear, maybe there is no magic here, maybe whatever is doing this is beyond your comprehension. However, neither Alvar nor Elyssa can detect anything with their spells.
Iosif, looking down the sights of his handcrafted musket, sees the fog to the south fade away. He stands on the threshold of a street that turns from obsidian stone to the mahogany shelves of a library. He blinks, and finds himself amidst the tomes and scrolls, feeling like he recognizes the collection but cannot recall who's library this belongs to.
None of the tomes can be read, the words smudged and shifting into spidery glyphs and gibberish. However, as Iosif reaches out to pick a book, the tome leaps at him and strikes his face before falling to the cobblestone floor. The gunslinger gingerly touches his nose, feeling blood flow from his broken nostrils, then looks down at the open book.
The image takes up both pages, a raven-headed fiend with wings of a thunderous storm. He hears voices whisper in his mind, hectic and morose. Images flash in his sight, designs for tools of mass destruction and death. The power to kill made so much easier.
More book fall from the shelves, landing with the sound of black powder weapons, and as they fall they open and the pages tear themselves loose from the binding. The pages swirl around Iosif like a cyclone, cutting into his flesh with small cuts in the dozens to the hundreds to the thousands in seconds. He is reduced to bloody paper mache and scratched bones in what felt like an eternity.
While Alvar and Elyssa focused on finding signs of the arcane amidst them, they loose Iosif in the fog. They hear strange noises like muted thunder to the south, and looking they see flashes of Iosif's silhouette firing his musket in rapid succession before something swoops in from behind him and envelops him in shadowy wings.
At Alvar's cloven feet blood bubbles up from the north to form the word: SAVE and at Elyssa's feet a thick splatter of blood is flung from the south and spells the word: ME
"Save whom?" The tiefling gazes down at the blood at their feet and then to the message by the increasingly panicked woman. That's a message. Someone is here and in great distress... other than us, I suppose. Or this is our fears making themselves manifest.
They spare the woman a glance before continue to scan the vicinity for any signs of further attacks - or attackers.
No magical auras? How is this even happening? What in Hell's name is happening? Hell indeed. Are we going home? Quiet, I need to focus. That was a troubling thought, one that had haunted them quite often in the past. Did it? They realize they aren't quite so certain now that they've thought that.
"Stay calm." They say to their sole remaining (living) companion. "Control your fear." Easy to say, but difficult to do, even for the wizard. They shift a few steps back, words of magic on their lips once more.
Elyssa tries to internalize the counsel of her sole remaining compatriot but it a trying endeavor. The aggrieved screaming in her mind has not been abated and the feeling of being watched by... something keeps on the very tips of a shaky edge.
And yet...
"Ok... I'll... I'll try," she manages to get out, partially to her companion but largely to herself and her frayed nerves.
Rallying her strange internal strength, Elyssa manages to lift a cobblestone from the ground and to her side. She hardly knows how she managed it but all the same the brick is waiting to be projected with her full force if someone or something nears them.
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Elyssa arms herself and looks for an enemy, finding instead the fog parting to reveal another street leading to an altar of some kind. Fashioned not unlike a ziggurat, it does not tower like the rest of the city, but it is no less ominous.
It's pale stone base is stained red from the top down in rivulets towards its base, with the stairs leading to its crown being the most stained. Upon this altar is a circular arch, within which an unstable reflective surface shimmers with countless colors.
Elyssa sees things in the shimmer, shapes, thoughts, sounds. She finds herself at the last few steps up the altar, her projectile still armed, and she looks into the shimmering. She marvels at the sights within, at first not even considering how she can see sounds, smells, tastes, thoughts.
As she peers within, the shimmering colors turn angry shades of red and splash out of the arch like spilled and splattered blood, dripping down the top of the altar and staining it further. A dark shape emerges from the roiling surface, and as excess liquid sloshes off, Elyssa is horrified to see a blood-soaked mirror of herself manifest before her.
It smiles too widely, more blood spilling from its crooked bared teeth. "Find the enemy? My poor, deluded, WEAK vessel ... WE ARE THE ENEMY."
Elyssa cries out in fear and denial, launching her projectile into the face of the thing. It caves in its face, leaving a crater that didn't reform properly. Instead, more teeth form around the gaping hole in its head, lamprey like, and a horrid, wet voice laughs at Elyssa.
Its mouth grows large enough to swallow Elyssa's head whole, and as it grabs Elyssa it does so. A sickening crunch is the last thing Elyssa is conscious of before she too departs this nightmare.
Alvar could have sworn only a moment past after they heard Elyssa's attempt at a confirmation, but as they survey the street they still stand in they realize she is gone too. They are alone now.
From the street to the west, blood flows slowly to spell yet another word: ME
As Alvar is no doubt panicking, spinning in place and breathing shakily, they hear those infernal footsteps approach from every direction. However, it is from their own shadow that a figure appears. It is tall and lean, with petrified-grey skin wrapped in stained yellow bandages. Its face - what little is exposed - is dominated by a lamprey-like mouth, smiling with a predator's confidence. In its long claw-tipped hands it wields a rusty war razor dripping with fresh blood.
"Five for five. This was a good night to hunt." It speaks in Alvar's voice, raising its weapon to strike as Alvar's shield is activated. However, the weapon passes right through the arcane defense and digs deeply into Alvar's crimson skin, carving a path from shoulder to opposite hip.
As Alvar bleeds out far faster than should have been possible, they cry out in a voice not their own, screaming the words: "WAKE UP! SAVE ME!"
As you each die, what little of your memories slip away. You do not know who you are, what your name was, how you came to be here. All you can recall is that there were four others that shared your fate. Oblivion holds you close, extinguishing all fear and other sensations. Then, you are ripped into a dim yellow light by the scream: "Wake up, you idiots! Someone, anyone, save me!"
The five of you wake with a start, sweating and shaking from some kind of nightmare. Looking around, you are sitting in three cells, two of which are doubled up. You are wearing stained, white, simple clothes with nothing else on your person. Blinking you see a few candles and torches illuminating your cells, but what draws your attention is the scene in the center of the room.
A table had been set up in the room's center, with a small cart covered in broken glass, bent eating utensils, rusty gardening equipment, and other things that could hold an edge should the wielder be sadistic enough. A woman wearing a bloody doctor's coat over her nude body paces around the table, onto which is strapped a male human wearing the remnants of a loincloth and whose skin is covered in a maze of crude, talentless wounds that all bleed profusely.
The "doctor" is engrossed in the man's pain, and so doesn't seem to notice as the man struggles. He looks up and sees you wake up, and he cries out in shaky panic.
"Bloody finally! Someone do something!"
Doubtful anyone remembers but, without weaponry, without innovation, Iosif is a very, very different man to the calm, logical man that the Dreamlands experienced.
Then, barely restrained panic grips the man. He is missing something. He does not know who he even is beyond the vague recollection of... ants of all things. He is missing something -- perhaps even someone -- that's more important to him than his literal identity and memories. He is missing multiple things and he doesn't know what they are. Panic. Panic. And more panic. No means to defend himself except bare fists that are atrophied and weak. He then begins to speak in Common, even though for some odd reason his initial instinct upon waking up was to speak in a mix of Abyssal and Infernal of all things?!
"What?! what in all the planes do you expect us to do"
He does not know what to do. Whatsoever. He is in utter panic. pacing around trying desperately to remember what he is even missing. To remember who he's missing. To remember who even is.
Alvar jolts awake, a low moan erupting from their mouth. Their tail lashes out, slapping against the cell wall. Ow! The pain helps clear their mind, however, and they frown as their situation sinks in. Something horrific has happened, they are certain, even as they cannot recall what it is. Never again. I will not surrender to the Outside. How could they, when the darkness inside them is just as vile?
With that resolve firm in their mind, the wizard takes in their surroundings. "A cell?" The words escape their lips unconsciously, and then something occurs to them. Wait. Where am I? I don't remember getting jailed. When no answer manifests from within their mind, they realize something else. Moreover, who am I? That has at least something of an answer. Alvar. Short for something, but I don't remember what... Hell, I don't remember much of anything other than the name...
Despite their earlier resolve, dread slowly begins to build in their stomach. How much have I lost to-
Their thought is interrupted when they hear words in a language that echoes in their blood. Infernal? Alvar looks to the world without again and their eyes widen as they see the man begging for aid, and more importantly, the woman bent over him.
Instinctively, they pull away from the light of the candles, one hand groping at their throat. Gone! It's gone. Where is it?! They've lost something important, some possession that would protect them. Fear clenches its icy grip around their throat and they grope for a hood to cover their face, their horns, but there isn't one to grab ahold of.
What the hell's going on?! I'm not wearing my own clothes, I've lost whatever it is that would've protected me, and now there's a woman vivisecting someone just beyond my cell! Taking a deep, quiet breath, remind themselves that the danger isn't immediate. First, gather information.
They sidle over to the bars, glancing around the area in the hopes of learning something more from the vicinity. Another cell across from their own, with two uncannily familiar faces imprisoned. A man, strapped to a table and covered in sour-looking wounds. Despite their poor viewpoint, they attempt to discern any patterns in the cuts that might tell them what's going on.
"Quiet." They hiss to the man - Iosif? - across from them. "Don't draw her attention yet. We need a plan."
The blonde half-elf chuckles as she rouses from her sleep, "It was a nightmare?!" Her mirth was marred by something inside her, It wasn't just a nightmare. She takes in her surroundings.
The black haired woman from her dream was in the cell with her, Do I know her? She gazes out and sees the brown haired woman and the man with the scar... She lingers on the man. His apparent panic triggered something in her mind, What was it about him? She pushed the thought aside and broke her reverie.
He'll make a good distraction, he's probably next after the man on the table. Why were they all in my dream? I must know them somehow but I can't remember. She mumbles, ”No matter”
The cell was in the way, if she had any chance of living she needed to escape.
She looks around for some sort of tool and then she whispers to the black haired woman, "Do you have anything I can pick the lock with? A pin or other long piece of metal?" The words came out naturally, she was confident she could do it with the right tools, and enough time. She couldn't remember how she knew she could do it but she knew she could.
Elyssa awakens from her nightmare with her heart pounding in her chest. She looks around trying to catch her bearings and center herself on something, anything, familiar or safe but finds little of comfort in the cell she finds yourself in. The only thing that does marginally put her at ease is the fact that's not alone.
(Alone? You are never gone, sheath. I am always here. I will always be here. But you? Haha. You won't survive for long. Not if you don't accept MY power.)
"Quiet, quiet, quiet. Just leave me alone! Elyssa screams out in a rush, as if that alone could push the voice back into the dark places of her mind. Suffice to say, it doesn't. Moreover, it doesn't exactly help the nearby tiefling man's decree that they stay quiet.
"I'm sorry. My mind is still... reeling. Forgive the outburst, good ser," she says with the utmost politeness and courtesy, a strange contrast to her current situation and attire.
"What should we do? That man over there needs our help, yes? There must be some way to aid him and ourselves?" The question is for all of them even as she looks around for some kind of solution to their predicament.
Iosif tries to remain calm. Emphasis on tries. He's missing so many memories. So many important memories. And the nightmare-turned-slightly-more-pleasant-nightmare he just woke from does not help things. Everyone in the cells look vaguely familiar, but he's more focused on trying to find some advanced weapon to feel secure with than anything, and barely manages to calm down.
Okay. That needs to be fixed. Those aren't the right languages, he thinks to himself as the wrong languages come out of his mouth for the second time today.
"perhaps someone has a keyring somewhere? i'm certainly not powerful enough to brute-force my way through," he whispers to Elyssa besides him.
Maybe I could snatch the keys while they're distracted near my cell. Then this gaping mmetaphorical hole needs to be fixed, he thinks.
"No! I'm not..." the sylph wakes up screaming and sweating. If the confusion during the shared experience was not enough, she looks around the place she finds herself in. Her eyes focus on the area - a room made of stone, with metal bars.
She furrows her brow further. A half-elf with her in the... cell? Asking her questions? No. Asking for things. The sylph pushes her back against the wall, as if wanting to gain distance from the half-elf, and gives the other woman a frightened look as she offers a few quick silent nods of understanding. She stands up and pats her thighs, but finds no pockets. Failing to produce what the half-elf is asking for, the sylph starts looking around for something she can use as a tool.
Instinctively, she puts her palm above her sternum and attempts to grip something. But her hand clasps nothing but air. And the sylph goes pale.
"No..." she whispers and gradually raises her voice as she follows up with "No, no, no, no..."
She starts spinning, looking around the room frantically and reverting back to whispers. "Where are you? Where is it?"
She puts her back against the wall again, facing the half-elf and lashes out in frustration. "You took it!" she accuses the woman before stepping down, with almost an apologetic look on her face. She breaks eye contact and instead looks at the floor under the half-elf's feet.
You all notice that the cells, while old, are kept well enough to not be easily broken. There are bits and pieces of things on the cell floors that might serve a purpose to a creative mind, the sylph notes.
"Keep quiet, little duckies." The woman pacing around the bound man mutters in a sing-song voice. "You'll have your turn to quack and cry in due time."
The woman picks up half of a gardener's shear and tests its edge. Seeing little sharpness in it, she smiles and digs it's point into the bound man's thigh. He howls in pain, shaking the table in his throes of agony. As she moves around the table, you see hanging from a button on her coat a ring with four keys on it.
"Just kill me, Scaen!" The man screams. "Why toy with me? Are you that sick?"
"We are all sick, dear Campre. Pain is sickness leaving the body."
The tiefling sees little arcane or planar reference in the markings, they seem random and cruel, like the Abyss and its residents but nothing distinct. The human man watches as the doctor passes him to retrieve the shear, and realizes should she pass by again he could try and reach for the keys. The half-elf sees a nail protruding from a wall of her cell, perhaps a remnant from manacles that once hung there, that might be able to be worked out.
Iosif tries to grab a hold of the keys... emphasis on he tries, his hands shaking, weak, and unwilling to do so, however, do not cooperate in the sleightest. He curses in his head, fluttering between Taldane, Varisian, and the mix of Infernal and Abyssal so common among Daemons.
"Keys," she whispers, managing to get her head to focus on the ailing man soon close to her. "If I get the keys we might be able save him."
The voice in her head laughs at that but made no attempt to stop or control her movements. Elyssa counted that as a dear blessing and reached out with her mind. At first nothing seems to happen but soon invisible psychic energies begin to convalesce into something capable of grasping something light and nearby.
So engrossed in her current project, the "doctor" Scaen doesn't seem to notice the psychic's theft of her keys. Campre notices and lets out a groan to mask any other noise the keys may have made as they float into Elyssa's waiting hands.
Scaen hums as she places the shear on the tray of tools and agonizes over which one to use next, seeming torn between a bent fork and a large syringe.
As her cellmate slowly shows how completely barmy she is, Ethyl puts her hands up in a gesture that she hoped was placating. With only a hint of condescension Ethyl demands as quietly as she can manage, "Calm down. I don't know what it is you think I took."
Then Ethyl sees it, a nail in the wall, a glimmer of hope rose in her mind and she grasped at it desperately trying to work it out of the wall.
Once she was able to pull it from the wall she moves to the cell door as quietly and quickly as possible. She began to try to open the lock.