Enoch prods the body, seeing clearly that it was a corpse. However, as the tip of the blade prodded the corpse something inside it writhed. The hands lunged up at Enoch and Nyarai, the head shrieking and trying to bite at them. Enoch notices that the hands and head are acting on their own, the corpse is being dragged by the three body parts. The corpse is pulled slightly from under the rubble, not far but it might come loose.
"Undead?" Alvar scowls. "If I'd known we were going to be faced with undead, I'd've... No matter." They lift their hands, chanting a quick spell to hurl a burst of acid at the head, but the splatter goes wide.
Iosif takes careful aim to avoid sending someone to their afterlife (none of them are destined for Abaddon, so it'd be pointless), and fires a shot at the head.
Ethyl picks her way around the rubble, getting into an optimal position and then strikes.
The obviously emotionally stable Tortured Crusader barely lets out a shard....
Enoch places two shaking hands on his battered longsword and positions into a Flank with Ethyl by purely honest reflexes.
One may purely think that the close vicinity that a rather loud musket sounded would be the cause for his....state...but...
A hand emerges from nowhere and slashes the sylph. In return, she yelps and retreats further back, her eyes wide in terror. "No... Stay away! At least let us have a name to mark the grave properly!"
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You would be correct. Edited.
Alvar's acid splash misses due to melee, and as Ethyl moves into position Iosif's musket obliterates the head. Ethyl instead strikes at the [green] hand with flanking, barely striking it as Enoch holds its "attention" while he misses even with the flanking bonus.
From the cavity that was the head sprouts a mass of writhing viscera that lashes out at Ethyl attempting to entangle her.
The hands come loose from the corpse's wrist and now crawl about freely. The [green] one crawls at Enoch, attempting to claw his unarmored leg while the [red] one dashes at Iosif to do the same.
Sputtering and spitting as the creepy green hand crawls and scratches away, Enoch attempts to swing!
Fumbling into a further severed hand, the Tortured Crusader pukes.
Ethyl tries cut away the entrails as they wrap around her legs. She yells, "Damnit!" both being bound by the disgusting undead organs and being scratched by the crawling claw.
Ethyl gripped by undead organs. Crawling hands... they can try to suffocate even creatures larger than them. Not a good thing... but they have to get very close. Makes it even harder to hit them with a spell... and risks hitting my fellows. They grimace, summoning their warding magic and advancing to allow it to protect their close-fighting counterparts. A jolt of pain surges up their leg as they step onto the rubble, but they force their way past it, focusing as best they can.
Ethyl sees an opening when the hand tries to move and she presses the advantage.
Iosif tries to bat the hand that missed at him back... and fails miserably.
Iosif takes a five foot step back, fires at the (green) hand in front of him, then shoves another alchemical cartridge down his musket as fast as he possibly can.
It was a mad scramble, shouts of pain and alarm, the fire of the musket, the beheaded's shrieking. However, it was a brief scramble as all the undead moving about are slain. Ethyl remains entangled in the foul bloody entrails of the corpse, but anyone can move and cut her free once the combat is over.
Enoch, as he first observed the corpse, noticed a string of pearls around the woman's neck. Now the jewelry is slick with stale blood, painting the once ivory necklace ruby.
All that remains at this end of the hall seems to be the western door.
Iosif decidedly doesn't cut the entrails, he has nothing sharp enough to cut them with, and instead begins to check the collapse... before realizing what a horrible idea it is to investigate it. "This... we best not move any of this collapse right here. It will only worsen unless done very specifically, and we don't have the time to puzzle out the exact physics and engineering needed to clear it."
Serendipitously wiping his mouth on his not as clean as it formally once was (one hopes) sleeve, Enoch swallows.
Nightmares while awake really are unnerving. Let me help you, Ethyl.
With the precision of Edward Scissorshands, the Tortured Crusader easily prunes the Doctor's restraints.
Enoch's blue eyes fall on the stained necklace with only sorrow before he turns them to the group.
We have a few injuries adding up to our being less effective in the likelihood of further....encounters. Is there a Doctor in this madhouse? I feel like I may have some skill in First Aid, but, I lack the tools.
Ethyl picks up the necklace from the corpse without consideration for the dead or a proper owner, "Delightful! Just need to wash them and they will sparkle." She turns on her heels while holding them to her neck and says with a wink, "What do you think Iosif? Do they suit me?"
She turns to Enoch, "Sorry my dear. I'm not that kind of doctor. Although maybe I could stitch some of those wounds together if I had proper disinfectant, a needle, and decent thread." She gazes at Nyarai expectantly.
"I'm in the same boat as the Wanderer, lacking tools other than ripping clothes to stop bleeding." Oddly enough, Iosif isn't really opposed to people... dying, it's just the thought of people dying by swords and shields and sticks and stones that causes him to want to heal others. That... unnerves him slightly.
Iosif says somewhat unenthusiastically, but it's hard to tell behind the man's normal tone of voice. "They look fine on you. They... remind me of something, though I'm unsure what"
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"What?" the sylph meets Ethyl's gaze. "What's with the glare?" She looks at the now inanimate body parts on the floor, then back to Ethyl, to Enoch, and at her scratched foot. "We're not a bottomless pit of magics, you know." she snaps in an abrupt burst of spite, then deflates again, lowering her gaze to the floor.
"Apologies. It's just fear and frustration. We will try to help."
Alvar looks over the newly re-dead, sighing. "Calm, please. We're all, as the young lady says, under a great deal of stress." They scan their surroundings thoughtfully. "Unfortunately, there wasn't a doppelgänger here... and there was an undead. Or several, I suppose." The wizard considers for a few moments. "It seems strange that the corpse wouldn't animate as a whole, but rather in four pieces... but the significance of that, if any, escapes me."
They take a single wary glance at the door, then fold their hands. A zoog, doppelgängers, and undead, to say nothing of the giant rats. This seems a very unlikely set of creatures, save for the last, which could simply indicate the sanitarium staff were ill-suited to cleaning up... Given our treatment, that wouldn't surprise me. However, setting those aside, there's... no real connection - wait. Perhaps... nightmares? No. Still not enough pieces of the puzzle to make any conclusions. Infuriating.
"How much do you injures hinder you, Ethyl, Wanderer?" Something about the title bothers them - it feels nigglingly familiar, but not quite right. "The rest of us are better off further away from the battle, but you two are oft in the thick of things."
Ethyl makes a sour face at Nyarai's comment but wisely doesn't escalate. Careful. Stay on that one's good side.
Ethyl looks at herself in her new mirror, "Nothing a bath and some rest won't clear up my dear." She mumbles while picking at her hair, "Wish that bleach wasn't spilled."
"Just a momentary lapse. We shall be fine." the sylph grips her shawl, looking around the group as she does mental math.
Enoch stands silently while his new peers converse about supplies, limited use abilities and hair style trends.
The sylph sighs. "Alright. You." she points at Enoch. "New guy. Come here."
Clutching her scarf, she waits for Enoch to come closer and reaches for his wounds. Some of the wounds close, but barely. She seems frustrated at the result. "We only have one more of these. Are there any potions from the basement left?"
Enoch smiles shyly at the sylph, as he saunters closer. Watching her as she manifests healing, the Tortured Crusader sighs.
Yes. That does bring me a memory. I used to be able to perform similar results. I have not that ability currently. Probably lost with my memories. Thank you.
"The envy is building up. Slowly." the sylph comments on Enoch's words. "May we try to locate an archive here? We would really like to know who and what we are."
Ethyl heads to the nearest door, looks it over, and then enters.
Ethyl tries the western door, finding it unlocked, and opens it. Before her is the remains of the drying area for a large laundry room. The floor is littered with broken tables, dirty cloths, and puddles of dark water. The northern end of the room is covered in rubble. The western alcove is crisscrossed with copper pipelike beams, with three figures manacled to them.
The southern most one has pushed himself all the way to the southern ends of the pipes, watching with horror as the middle one seems to have buried its head in the bloody torso of the northern figure. Ethyl can hear the sounds of wet chewing and drinking, the middle figure moving to get as close to the corpse as possible.
No one seems to have noticed you enter yet.
Enoch graciously accepts the offered the Potion of Cure light wounds.
Takes like grape!
Joining Ethyl at the western door, the warrior readies to repel any undead, vermin, or miscreants that show themselves!
Blue eyes roam the inside of this disturbing laundry room with disgust and despair. Resting his sad gaze on the forms of the manacled victims, the Tortured Crusader absently breathes a prayer for the dead.
Finally noticing the sloppy sounds of sipping and slurping coming from one of the corpses , the Warrior's blue eyes turn red with rage!
Striding towards the perversion, he Strikes!
Pharasma deal with you!
Iosif winces as if driven back by the prayer to Pharasma, he's been trying his best to hide it but... it's coming out. He grits his teeth, and fires his cartridge, reloading it once again as quickly as possible.
Ethyl regards the scene passionlessly and comments to Enoch and Iosif, "Perhaps that trucidation isn't strictly necessary, they are manacled to the pipes there. On the other hand there have been precious few moments of safety." She keeps a dagger ready to throw.
The sylph walks into the room, and she sets her sights on the scene unraveling before them. "Heavens..." she gasps and covers her mouth as if it could stop the sound.
Alvar is given pause as they enter the room and spy the creature. A faint, twisted grin briefly crosses their face, a reflex from a time gone by, perhaps, but then they grow serious. What is-
Their thought is cut short by the two men's attempt to be rid of it. "Damn it, you two, do you not appreciate the value of stealth?" They ask, annoyed, but only raise their hands. Manacled? The wizard takes another second to survey the cannibal creature's status and realizes that Ethyl is correct. "If it's chained here, that means someone or something chained it." They say urgently, glancing back and forth so as to scan for any signs of a trap.
The swift action of Enoch and Iosif is blindingly fast, slaying the creature before it could withdraw its head to response. Enoch's sword carved deeply into its neck and Iosif's bullet blew its shoulder apart, leaving a bloody stump to slump to the tile floor. Its head remained inside the ribs of the northern most creature.
The southern most man shrieks at the paladin's righteous charge and the gunslinger's roaring musket. However, once he sees the feaster slain and not himself, he almost weeps for joy, tears and sweat smudging the yellow chalk symbols drawn on his face.
"Praise praise! Zandalus sees! Words fail, Zandalus sees!" His babbling voice is raspy and dry, and his yellow robes are stained from blood and filth. Who knows how long the three had been chained here?
There are short narrow windows in this room just below the ceiling, allowing in dim yellow light. Alvar notices nothing else in this room save a door to the south.
Ethyl seems a little blasé about the sight and she wonders why that is.
She says to herself, "No matter." She approaches the remaining manacled man and looms next to him with a syringe in one hand, "I'm going to take a sample of your blood and skin. It won't hurt as much if you cooperate."
If she is able she attempts to compare his blood and skin to known doppelganger samples and samples taken from the party.
"Alright. Assuming that was three, that's all the doppelgangers we need to prove our innocence, unless the price was upped for the Wanderer."
Enoch's blue eyes don't even blink at the sudden familiarity of the act. The Tortured Crusader turns said cold eyes to the boisterous body still hung, strung, and apparently not quite done.
Before he can reply, he watches the good Doctor doing her trade with a nod of understanding.
The warrior does then close also to keep an eye on him, while Ethyl does what Ethyl does...
Petrified in place, the sylph remains where she is, her hand seemingly involuntarily being lowered down, away her mouth. Her eyes remain fixated on the head (or the equivalent of it) still lodged in the ribcage of the most recent victim. She doesn't even pay attention to what the manacled man is saying.
And then she looks up, seeing the yellow light emanating from the slits. She moves forward, ignoring the gruesome scene, and attempts to ascend to the windows via the copper piping.