[Loot] | [Maps] Toilsday the 13th of Pharast, around 11:30 p.m.
Really sorry to hear that, Maritine - sending you positive vibes and strength. If you're in a tough situation, there's no need to push things forward. Take care of yourself, obviously, first and foremost.
With Kolthis posting about once a week or less, Mihaela long gone, and Maritine signaling that she's not in the best of places, I'm going to call the game here.
Alas! We came so close, but times being what they are, I completely understand folks struggling to find the energy/time/desire to play. I've wrestled with it myself.
I also want to say that I don't think I've ever played with such a fantastic group of writers. I could single each of you out for your own paragraph of praise, but in short you all made running this module an absolute pleasure. Excellent intra-party rp, lots of great backstory, and all round brilliance.
I'll check in with everybody again down the line some day when things are better. Perhaps we'll be able to rally the group for the final showdown. But until then, I hope to see you all around the boards, and thank you so much for taking part in the game!
[Loot] | [Maps] Toilsday the 13th of Pharast, around 11:30 p.m.
Crove's snarl is a near permanent fixture on his face, and he continuously darts nervous looks up at the ceiling.
Kolthis wrote:
"If you could have done anything to this thing, why didn't you do it before? What do you know that we don't? Tell me, right now - give me a reason - and I won't turn you into food for the worms."
"You poor, pathetic, deluded fool! This divine elegance is from beyond the stars! It is so beyond our - but never mind. I have laid a trap for it. A chamber that shall strip it of its invisbility, and allow us to strike at it while it is weak! Work with me, and I shall both show you this room, act as the bait to draw the entity to the chamber, and help in its destruction."
At Walter's words, Crove snarls again, fair rolling his eyes in an agony of frustration. "Your petty morality will get us all killed!"
"Very well," he says to Maritine, and snaps his fingers, dispersing the noxious cloud in instants. "See? I have done my part! Now, hurry!"
So saying, (and unless anyone stops him) he leads the group south, casting spells as he goes (mage armor, shield of faith, delay poison), into a large chamber whose floors are inscribed with a great runic circle. The air feels greasy and wretched, and all of you find yourself laboring as you enter the chamber, as if your very will were being sapped.
Knowledge Arcana DC 25:
This is an Unhallow spell, with a focus on Invisibility Purge.
Everyone who enters the chamber is under the effects of a Protection from Good spell.
"Here we shall await it," says Crove, striding into the center of the room and looking up at the ceiling once more from whence dust sifts down. "When it arrives, you shall engage it in battle. I shall effect magics to destroy it. Are we agreed?"
Sense Motivation DC 11:
Crove Bluff:1d20 + 8 ⇒ (3) + 8 = 11
Crove is clearly hiding some facet of his plan; from the way he smiles as he speaks it, you get the sense he doesn't plan to destroy the entity.[/spoiler]
Just as he finishes speaking, the ceiling wrenches, cracks, and for a moment you think you will all be buried. Then an avalanche of rocks cascades into the hallway beyond, as something vast and malefic begins its imminent descent into the hallway. Only the swirls of dust give its presence away - it's clearly still invisible.
You can take advantage of the walk south to cast spells or otherwise prepare. There's effectively one round to go before the entity approaches/enters the chamber! We're not yet in initiative, but I'll roll it anyway in case anyone decides to do something violent.
[Loot] | [Maps] Toilsday the 13th of Pharast, around 11:30 p.m.
@Yelena: it's hard to tell with any sense of exactitude - the creature burrows, after all, so it could burst through at any moment. Right now, it just sounds like a minor earthquake going on above. One round? Ten? Twenty? Impossible to say.
@Maritine: No alignment hit! Crove has earned his fate.
[Loot] | [Maps] Toilsday the 13th of Pharast, around 11:30 p.m.
Kolthis runs like the wind, scything through the noxious fumes as he pounds down the hallways, bursts into the secret study, turns sharply to slam past Lys into the next small chamber - an office? - and then runs back south to explode out another door, only to see Yelena directly before him.
He's run in a full circle.
But Crove is there, having done the same and slipped out the door to the west, standing in the elbow of the hallway, breathing heavily and patting his pockets as he searches for some tool.
The dwarf's hammer cracks into his side, crushing ribs, and throwing the old man against the wall. Blood spurts from between his liver-colored lips, but despite the grievous wound and the bolt still sticking out from his side, he doesn't fall.
Instead, the turns to glare at the dwarf with a malice that is inhuman for all its intensity.
More thunderous steps sound from the floor above, as if great trees were pounding down on the asylum's stone hallways.
"It's here!" hisses Crove, eyes lighting up with something akin to manic delight even as his eye develops a tic and the last of the blood drains from his face. "It's here! If you've any desire to live, stay your hand! We must work together to destroy it! Agree, and I shall dispel my cloud!"
Top of the round! Crove is holding his action to see how the others respond. Order of initiative:
Crove (holding action, will attack if attacked in turn.)
Lys
Martine
Kolthis
Yelena
Mihaela
Walter
Lys is up, in the original study in which she ambushed Crove. Everyone can orient on Crove's location, as his hiss carries through the hallway.
[Loot] | [Maps] Toilsday the 13th of Pharast, around 11:30 p.m.
Nobody need apologize for anything! This has been a really rough time in so many ways that it's a wonder we're showing up at all, much less having the creative energy to push through to the end. I've obviously been struggling myself to move the game forward, so I think it's absolutely OK for people to take time to take care of themselves.
That said, the finish line really is within sight. I'm going to make a push to get there, and with a little luck we can end the module in grand style.
[Loot] | [Maps] Toilsday the 13th of Pharast, around 11:30 p.m.
Anybody up for botting Kolthis?
Can everybody please double check the map and make sure you're positioned where you should be?
Also, Maritine, I'm confused about your line of sight with the Tanglefoot. I don't see how you'd have had a line of sight on Crove, especially since he went before you and left the room. Unless I'm missing something on how you'd hit him with the Tanglefoot bag?
[Loot] | [Maps] Toilsday the 13th of Pharast, around 11:30 p.m.
My apologies. I've run into a dry spell. The chaos of the final round, the complexity of the fight, combined with the silence of a couple of players ran me to ground.
However.
We're almost there. I'll get a post up tomorrow, and we'll sprint toward the finish line - it's just in sight!
Opening his mouth, he exhales a vast and torrid stench into the air, visible in the form of swirling vapors of horrific green.
Stinking cloud; Lys and Yelena must make a DC 18 Fort save or be nauseated. Anyone entering the cloud must do likewise.
That done, he flees the chamber to the west (left door), even as thunderous steps sound from the floor above, causing dust to filter down from numerous cracks in the stone ceiling.
[Loot] | [Maps] Toilsday the 13th of Pharast, around 11:30 p.m.
It is.
Against all odds, you guys have walked the sole path that avoids all traps and battles and found your way right into the heart of his domain. Pretty incredible.
[Loot] | [Maps] Toilsday the 13th of Pharast, around 11:30 p.m.
Lys carefully examines the door, peers and inspects, and declares it safe; that done, she cracks it open and peers into the dark hallway beyond. Their light illuminates a left-turn elbow bend some twenty or so feet down; the party makes their way stealthily down this length of cramped corridor and turn to see a blank wall in which a second door stands open.
A second secret door, that leads out into an open and warmly illuminated chamber.
Stealth Lys:1d20 + 15 ⇒ (10) + 15 = 25
Perception:1d20 + 11 ⇒ (2) + 11 = 13
A large circular table in this study is cluttered with scrolls, books, and an eclectic mix of strange devices that could be surgical instruments, weapons, or writing implements. A human skull bearing horn-like growths along one side and with a malformed jaw sits on one corner of the desk.
A tall, cadaverous human man of advanced years sits at this table, pouring over a large tome, quill in hand as he takes notes. Wispy white hair hangs from the edges of his balding pate, and he wears a leather apron over a long-sleeved white shirt. Countless instruments are secreted in loops and pockets before his apron, many of them hideous in appearance.
[Loot] | [Maps] Toilsday the 13th of Pharast, around 11:30 p.m.
Taking the narrow stairs, the party descends into the asylum's lower levels, the thick stone of the walls and the no doubt infinite density of the earth or rock beyond muffling all sound but that of their breath.
The stairwell doubles back once, and then spills out into an equally cramped corridor that terminates at a narrow wooden door without a lock.
Listening intently, the group hears nothing beyond, and cracking open the door reveals a second narrow hallway, with a door immediately to the right, and a second a short ways down the left.
[Loot] | [Maps] Toilsday the 13th of Pharast, around 11:30 p.m.
A quick, wizardly shake elicits a shower of golden sparks. It seems to be running low on charges, but have somewhere around a baker's dozen or so left.
[Loot] | [Maps] Toilsday the 13th of Pharast, around 11:30 p.m.
The study is empty, and reveals itself to be well-appointed, with multiple doors leading off its irregular shape, and a heavy desk whose surface is scrupulously bare.
Many in the group notice a hidden panel in the front of the desk, however, which upon activation reveals a worn wand of suggestion.
A set of double doors leads - from the elf's description - to the main hall with the stairways leading down to the basement level, while the southernmost door leads to what the elf described as Crove's private lounge.
A fourth door, set flush with the northern one they just opened, is a mystery.
Peering into the private library reveals no occupants. The books here are universally about ancient history, astrology and astronomy, portals, and other eldritch (but not necessarily forbidden) topics.
To retrace Lys' footsteps and head north, or to go through Crove's office and use one of the other doors?
The party proceeds down to the Asylum, leaving the crushed gravel road to circle around back, following Lys as she leads the way. The dawn is just breaking, with the first rosy fingers of light probing over the far eastern horizon of Ustalav, casting smears of pastel light over the fog enshrouded glens and swamps that surround Carrion Hill, so that for a moment the sight is lovely; a benediction of color and softness that masks the horrors that squirm and writhe in the muck below.
Lys reaches the door first, and finds it closed as before. The lock, however, has been badly battered, half-moon dents ringing its mechanism as if someone had gone at it with a hammer, rendering it inoperative.
A push, and the iron door swings open, allowing a breath of stale, foul air to emerge like an exhalation from a dying man.
Within, the gloomy confines of the familiar hallway. All hard stone painted a dispiriting pale green, the closed doors, the clinging cold.
Lys leads the way inside, and is confronted by the four doors as before; two on her left, leading to the study and the private library; one on her immediate right, behind which the lecturer had held forth; and then the passageway and the slender door to that despicable square room.
Kolthis, Mihaela, and Lys all hear the soft clink of chains and muttering coming from down the passageway and around the corner, as if some doleful ghost were manacled just out of sight.
But Lys sees no signs of the violence and madness that had spilled out into the hallway before, no splashes of blood, no hint of the terrors she'd witnessed.
I'm going to go with our regular marching order. Where to, oh brave adventurers?
[Loot] | [Maps] Toilsday the 13th of Pharast, around 11:30 p.m.
The next dawn.
Following an early breakfast and several steaming mugs of coffee, the group heads out into the light drizzle that blankets the Stone Circle and its environs.
Jarvis just catches them before they begin making their way toward the Asylum.
"Ah! Almost missed you. I've news, and it's dour stuff. The beast - the monster - whatever it is - has not been idle. Both Rupman's vats and Aroden's temple have been destroyed - swallowed whole."
He runs his fingers through his soaked hair, clearly shocked. "Saw the sights myself. There's little left but gaping tunnels where they once stood. Looks like you're but one step ahead of it. The mayor ordered you to hurry up and deal with the aslyum before the beast reaches it."
He grimaces apologetically.
Tag?
Your party proceed through the near deserted town, the only signs of life being other refugees still making their way out of Carrion Hill. You reach the cliffs of the town's east side, and descend by a torturous path to where the asylum rises on the last bluff, overlooking the foggy plain that sweeps out, seemingly, into eternity.
The low cloud cover and general gloom are such that the lights are on in Crove's asylum, and as you draw closer, you hears the harrowing, spiraling laugh of an insane man rising like a howl to the moon.
The building is one story tall, without windows, and the doors - of which there are four besides the main double doored entry, are made of iron. The building has a terrible aura to it, seeming to loom over where you all skulks in the near distance, seemingly aware of your somehow, possessed of its own terrible intelligence, bearing down on you, and for all the world the only word that seems to fit is hungry. As if the building itself desires you to enter.
To descend into its madness-infused bowels and there be devoured forevermore.
Description above corrected to reflect what the building actually looks like, and not how I mistakenly described it. Map is in the maps tab, and I've revealed what the elf described so you can be aware of what lies before you.
[Loot] | [Maps] Toilsday the 13th of Pharast, around 11:30 p.m.
Sorry everyone, been a bit overwhelmed with the virus over here in North Carolina - not affected personally, but staying at home and wrangling the kids. Also... been just kind of generally bummed out, you know? It's been hard to muster much enthusiasm for my writing, much less my rp. But! That said, I think I'm coming out the other side. If everyone's game, I'll move things forward to the asylum today.
[Loot] | [Maps] Toilsday the 13th of Pharast, around 11:30 p.m.
The elf bows his head gratefully to Yelena, clasping the now half-empty cup of tea to her breast.
"Thank you. Thank all of you. To think such horrors can take place for years in the heart of a community such as this. It makes one shudder as to our capacity to turn a blind eye to the darkness amongst us."
She rises unsteadily to her feet. "If you will excuse me, I would bathe and rest. It has been a... difficult past few weeks. I've need to meditate and restore myself. I'll await here at the inn for your return, however. And - perhaps? If I've not heard of you before midday, I shall send word to the mayor once more?"
[Loot] | [Maps] Toilsday the 13th of Pharast, around 11:30 p.m.
Sense Motive Maritine/Mihaela:
You both get the sense that what the elf is sharing is largely true; she might be hiding some details, but you intuit that these are if anything quite minor and don't change the overall narrative of what she's shared.
[Loot] | [Maps] Toilsday the 13th of Pharast, around 11:30 p.m.
Hang in there, Mihaela :(
OK, well it sounds like we should move things forward to the next morning, when folks are ready to assault the asylum. I'll let folks get in any wrap-up posts (especially Lys, as she's yet to post a report from her return to the asylum) and then I'll move things along.
[Loot] | [Maps] Toilsday the 13th of Pharast, around 11:30 p.m.
Just checking in. Things have slowed down in the game a lot since my last post. How do you guys want to proceed? I'm happy to continue with rp posts, but if so, we're gonna need folks to pick up the ball and run with it.
Then again, both Yelena and Lys have stated they won't be posting frequently. Is this just a good time to take it slow?
[Loot] | [Maps] Toilsday the 13th of Pharast, around 11:30 p.m.
Aneltherien gratefully accepts being herded into her chair, where she sits gazing into the fire, drinking in the light and warmth as if her very soul had hungered for such things.
It's with some surprise and appreciation that she considers Walter and his offer, and a rush of emotions flicker through her face, almost faster than can be caught.
Sense Motivation DC 20:
Surprise which leads to happiness which immediately unlocks doors behind which grief, pain, and guilt lurk. All of which is then smoothed back down over her elfen mien.
"Gillyflower tea would be an unexpected blessing, Master..." She looks to Lys as her rescuer makes the introductions. "Master Walter. Yes. Thank you."
The brew placed in her hand, she inhales deeply, and seems to derive strength from the scent and first sip. She doesn't quite settle back into the armchair so much as relax a fraction of a degree, as if the taste itself were grounding.
"I was indeed an unwilling guest of Crove in his charnel house of an asylum. And would be glad to share all that I learned during my stay, though I fear it will prove insufficient; there are depths to that place that I did not plumb, and doubt I would have returned from if I had."
Her voice grows more confident as she speaks, her posture at once elegant, relaxed, and ineffably poised; she sits with an erect spine, not through effort or tension, but with the natural grace of a dancer.
"My brother, Ebelliaris Belonderias, was a dreamer, a sage, and attuned to currents of magic beyond my understanding. A year ago he said that a grave danger was manifesting here in Carrion Hill, and asked for support in coming forth to quench it. Grave dangers, said our grovekeeper, are always manifesting across all of Golarian; his request was denied. Still, he disappeared one night, and I know he came here of his own accord. It is my shame that I did not take his warnings with greater urgency, and failed to accompany him."
A sip, to steady her voice anew.
"Three months ago I set out after him. Upon arriving here I sought to unearth his trail, a trail which led to Crove's asylum. Fearing that his studies had led him down too dark a path and that his mind might have snapped, hence his going to an asylum, I approached Crove directly, asking him if he had seen or met my brother, having taken the precaution of registering both my presence and intent with the local mayor for protection. Crove denied doing so, but I could tell he was much taken with me; he asked me numerous times to come visit, to dine with him, and other such importunities. I turned him down as graciously as I could, but didn't realize my peril. Crove finally revealed his fascination with the Old Ones quite purposefully to me; I flew to the mayor, not knowing that Crove had laid his groundwork ahead of time. The mayor, hearing me rant, agreed that I had lost my mind, and consigned me to Crove's care. That was... two weeks ago."
The elf shudders and turns away for a spell, gazing once more into the fire.
"I was kept by Crove in an isolation cell in the sublevel. He would come by each night and offer my freedom if I agreed to entertain his... advances. I refused. After the fourth night, he had me escorted to... to a torture chamber. It is operated by a derro called Zhezzek." Aneltherien's voice trembles. "Crove instructed him to break my will without harming my body, as that was what he was most interested in. Zhezzek... failed, I suppose, though some nights..."
She takes a hasty sip of gillytea.
"Regardless. I don't know what my fate would have been if Crove hadn't returned in a panic a night ago. All order and routine was thrown into chaos. He acted as if he expected to be attacked. I was placed in my isolation cell and there ignored, but was fetched just an hour before Lys saved me by an orderly. I was told... that I was to be used as bait. That perhaps my... 'immortal nature,' as Crove called it, would lure what he feared toward me. I was to be mentally broken in the chamber Lys saw, and then brought below to a special trap Crove was laying for his foe."
"Crove is terrified of what's coming for him. He's turned out the worst of his inmates and scattered them throughout the asylum as warning signs for any trespassers, counting on their shrieks to alert the orderlies and himself as to the approach of intruders. Here. I can draw you a map of the ground floor and indicate what I know of each room, as well as what I saw below ground."
When someone fetches her charcoal and paper, she sketches in quick, brisk lines, though occasional a tremor in her hand ruins the cleanliness of her diagram.
Maps:
Maps updated. The following are the rooms that Aneltherien has seen:
D1. Main Entrance hall: "An empty space, but I saw some three inmates bound in straitjackets there as I was dragged past, left tied up on the floor."
D2. Cloak Room: "Where Crove hung my cloak when I first visited."
D4: Meeting Room: "Where he first heard my questions - it's also where he processes new patients. A ghastly little room."
D5: Main Hall: "The doors to the stairwells are off this hall, both were unlocked and open when I last saw them, with an inmate bound at the top of each - they scream when one approaches."
D7: Library: "I spent time here in the beginning when awaiting Crove to be available, and it's filled with books on madness anatomy, necrology, and studies of deformity."
D8: North Entrance: "Usually attended to by an orderly."
D9: Examination Room: "I don't want to speak of this place."
D11: Lecture Room: "I only glanced inside a few times when passing by, but it's a large lecture hall."
D12: Library: "Crove's smaller library. Just before our relationship soured he would allow me to browse in there while waiting for him instead of the main library. The books are on ancient history, astrology, astronomy, portals, and other eldritch topics."
D13: Crove's Office: "We never spent time here; he would invite me through this space to his private lounge."
D14: Private Lounge: "I shudder with revulsion to think of how he feigned interest in my situation in that room."
D16: Dining Room: "I only glimpsed this as well - it's where the orderlies dine."
D22: Guest Room: "Crove invited me to stay at the asylum, and insisted I visit this small room in the hopes of enticing me. I politely refused."
Lower level map.
D23: The Green Walk: "The sounds of screams, laughter, and pain filled this area, the main hallways that seemed to connect everything below ground. It opens to what used to be a common room of sorts for the orderlies, but Crove was busy casting magical spells upon this chamber when I was dragged out earlier tonight. I know not what kind of spells."
D24: The Interrogation Room: "Here is where Zhezzek sought to break me."
D27: "This was my private cell."
[Loot] | [Maps] Toilsday the 13th of Pharast, around 11:30 p.m.
And the band's back together again! Well done, Lys. Things were indeed looking hairy for a second there, but you pulled through in fine heroic fashion.
Btw, I also want to give kudos to everyone rping at the inn - excellent, excellent stuff all round. I feel a distinct need to traumatize you all further so that more amazing rp can result.
[Loot] | [Maps] Toilsday the 13th of Pharast, around 11:30 p.m.
At the Stone Circle
The courtyard door receives a hammering that jolts those yet awake back to their fullest senses, and Old Bosworth huffs and heaves himself out of his chair in the corner in which he'd retired to whittle at a hunk of wood and slowly polish away a small bottle of muddy brown liquor.
"Hold your hammers, hold your hammers," he mutters as he walks up, and then slides back the slat to peer out into the night. "Who goes... ah, tis you, lass."
He unbolts and unbars the door, then throws it open wide to allow both women to enter.
For a second lady follows Lys, a slender elf maiden dressed in filthy tunic and drawstring pants, her feet filthy and bare, her face marked by privation and exhaustion, her eyes made wild with linger fear.
And yet there still clings to her that alien, noble grace inherent in her kind, that ethereal air that makes it seem as if she is but only partly in the inn, and somehow another part of her exists in a realm beyond this own. Her silver hair glimmers like spun silver, and her eyes shift hues so that depending on when you glance at them they shimmer from coppery green to cobalt blue to a rich, vibrant hazel.
It's clear, however, that she's suffered in more ways than one; despite herself, she glances nervously around the common room, the rapid glances of someone expecting trouble or an attack, and hugs herself tightly as she looms behind Lys, as if the shorter woman were a bulwark against all the ills this world could throw at her.
[Loot] | [Maps] Toilsday the 13th of Pharast, around 11:30 p.m.
The Previous Night:
"We were indeed a little pre-occupied," says the elf self-consciously, curling a strand of silver hair behind her elongated ear. A crack sounds from a street over, a shutter being forced shut, perhaps, and she flinches violently, shoulders immediately hunching.
A moment, then she catches herself and straightens. "An honor to meet you, Lys the Inquisitor. I am Aneltherien Belonderias, come to Carrion Hill two months ago from Kynonin in search of my lost brother. It's... not a pleasant tale, seeing as it brought me to Crove's hive of insanity and abuse, but..."
She trails off, biting her lower lip as she stares down and away at some memory. Then she gathers herself and forces a smile. "Food, a drink, and if Calistria wills it, a hot, hot bath. That sounds divine, and so far from what I thought my night held for me."
Her smile becomes more brittle. "You didn't go to the asylum for me, but I'm all you left with. Which... I assume... means you intend to return. If so, I would be happy to tell you what I've learned of Crove and his asylum. But preferably with your friends, on the other side of town."
[Loot] | [Maps] Toilsday the 13th of Pharast, around 11:30 p.m.
The Previous Night:
With bells clanging and bodies splitting in the halls, with the sounds of brassy bellows and the pounding of heavy leather boots behind them, Lys and the elf maiden flee into the darkness, out into the Carrion Hill night, which, for once, is free of rain.
Along the rough and rambling edges of the eastern cliffs they run, the drop precipitous and falling away into the darkness and marshes below. They race, the elf fleet-footed and sure, leading Lys a few times away from sudden drops or hidden chasms, her superior vision guiding them back around the asylum and into Carrion Hill proper once more, so that the pair race into a narrow street, turn down an alley, out into a broader street and finally into a blind court where the elf staggers to a stop, stands as if struck dumb for a moment, then turns, wonder writ large across her face.
"You... you saved me. I'm...free." This said in a tone of near disbelief. Then the elf studies Lys' face with growing confusion. It's as if the moonlight itself is nourishing her, the the night air invigorating her, bringing her back to herself moment by moment; already she stands with greater dignity, with more self-possession, her beauty marked and ethereal. "But who are you? Why did you risk so much for my sake?"
[Loot] | [Maps] Toilsday the 13th of Pharast, around 11:30 p.m.
The Previous Night:
Orderly AoO:1d20 + 8 ⇒ (2) + 8 = 10
The orderly swings with all the finesse of a landslide, and his studded club clacks into the wall, sending chips of stone stinging into Lys' cheek.
But both bolts hit, striking through the bars of his helm to drop the brutish man down atop his compatriot.
The elf is near hyperventilating, but she half-climbs up the wall, scrabbling against the green-painted walls to gain her feet, and with the natural grace of her kind glides forward, a grace that is only partially undone by the way she keeps ducking her head and looking behind her as if searching for a new source of pain. She slips neatly past Lys, and hurries down the hall to pause at the door and there crouch as bellows and shouts echo from seemingly everywhere - all of it accompanied by the alarum of more cattle bells.
Lys Perception:1d20 + 13 ⇒ (4) + 13 = 17
Lys can't be completely sure, but it sounds like enough voices and bells - and the stamp of running feet echoing from around the corner ahead of her - to indicate perhaps a half dozen if not more orderlies barreling down on her location from the south end of the building.
Closing very, very quickly.
And yet, and yet.
Dear Pharasma.
The body of the first orderly she slew lies not still. Even as its fellow collapses across its broad chest, it jerks, it heaves, it seems to metastasize as the flesh within the leathers pushes, stretches, and tears.
The words that stem from the body grate upon the ears, are more akin to shards of glass being dragged along the inner curves of Lys' skull than words, mere vocalizations made by vocal cords. Enough to make her skin creep, her teeth go on edge, and her stomach fill with acid.
Will Save:1d20 + 5 ⇒ (10) + 5 = 15
A half-dozen insectile legs burst forth in a welter of gore, each looking somewhere between a hair spider or a crab's limb, their tips however culminating in snapping maws filled with shard-like teeth. The way they sway and jerk in the air is nauseating, but Lys manages to keep her gorge down - even as a number of them lash out at her.
Protection from Evil Vs. Spell Resistance:1d20 + 1 ⇒ (5) + 1 = 6
[Loot] | [Maps] Toilsday the 13th of Pharast, around 11:30 p.m.
The Previous Night:
Lys' bolt slips between the bars of the orderly's cage helm, and the man staggers back and collapses heavily to the ground, to lie and drum his heels on the stone floor before going still.
"He's... he's dead..." whispers the elf maiden in disbelief, rising to her feet. "He's... he's actually dead..."
She takes a step toward Lys, still in a state of shock, when a door slams open from down the small hallway; an second orderly, as brutish and large as the first, comes hurrying into view - he takes in his fallen comrade, snarls wetly in the depths of his throat, and lunges for Lys, shouting all the while, "INTRUDER! INTRUDER GONNA DIE!"
