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Used (2) potions of cure light wounds
Pearl of Power (level 1) (in Uldin's possession)
Uldin chased what little sleep he could, lying on the floor of the strange chapel and surrounded by strangers, all trapped inside an even stranger prison of yellow mist. He ate with the other survivors, though none had much to say. After a sparse but strangely flavorful meal, he felt some of his strength returning, though his body protested where the claw wounds had not yet healed. He looked over his companions as they prepared to search for the way out once more. "Winter, can you spare any healing for the elf before we head back to the hunt?", he asked the priest. "Yes, I suppose it's the least I can do," Winter accedes after a moment's consideration. The priest moved to Cerovyren’s side and prayed, healing his body so that the flesh looked nearly unblemished, save for the ruined eye. Uldin thanked the priest while the elf merely nodded his appreciation. While they finished their meals or tended to their equipment, Uldin tended to Gavrelu’s wounds, which still looked significant. He stitched what he could stitch and applied poultices to reduce the inflammation, but the man still looked like he had been trampled by a mastadon. Winter moved over to tend to the man. “I'll do what I can, but this is the last of the spells I can spare outside an emergency." "Thank you, again. I hope that we will fare better this hunt,” Uldin replied. Uldin considered his own wounds, and then called on Pulura’s power to heal. He had hoped to save it for the inevitable battle that they would find themselves in, but it would be a short battle if they encountered those iron-clawed facechangers in their current condition. Vaduk stood, saying, “Right. Let's do this exploration a little more orderly this time. We move forward quietly. Assume danger everywhere. Don't rush in. Everyone in agreement?" The gnome eyed the dwarf and the rest of the party for a moment before blinking, "Wait. What are we talking about?" "Mhm. I'm fully in favor of exploring, yes. This place is pretty awesome. Horrible face doorways that are creepy, face shifting people, living nightmares ... who could resist that?" The gnome nudged Cerovyren and beamed at the dour elf. "It's an adventure! Haha." Cerovyren pulled away slightly when Thim nudged him. He then straightened his tattered, blood splattered attire. The elf shrugged in response to Vaduk's strategy. "That is as good an approach as any. You first, of course." The gnome became more serious. "Still, you should try not to get murdered so easily next fight. It would be irresponsible. We're all these people have." "When we get into another fight, what's our order of attack?" the dwarf asked. "If we have forwarning, I can strengthen my club, but either way, I should probably engage any threat directly," Uldin replied, hefting his shield and club. "Is that better than letting them come to us while we shoot them full of arrows?" Vaduk posited. "That depends on how many arrows we have and how good a shot you are" he considered. "We're malnourished amnesiacs. None of us are very good at anything," the dwarf countered. "Mhm. We can do both?” Thim asked, “Uldin can make his club all spiffly. And then you can shoot them while they run at us. Then he can club them." "Weeeeeeeelll ... I'm pretty great at helping people." The gnome swayed his head somewhat, thinking as he padded quietly down the hallway after the rest of the group. "Also, cooking apparently." The elf was clearly making an effort to steer clear of the gnome's overly familiar hands. "I am dubious as to the truth of both of those claims,” Cerovyren said. "S'probably just because you don't know me very well." Thim confided in the elf, nodding reassuringly. "No worries, I'll do my best to keep you alive." "We should probably use our eyes more than our mouths,” Uldin cautioned the chattering gnome. Thim nodded at Uldin, "Also, I am the *best* at spotting things." Gavrelu looked to the dwarf as he returned. "What did you find? More whispers?" "Door's wedged shut," Vaduk reported quietly. "Can clear away the rubble, but it'll take time and make noise. Sounds like something's behind it, but hard to tell in this place." Uldin steeled himself and stated, “Nothing to do about that. Our only way is forward." Gavrelu says "I agree. We need to clear the way." The gnome, who had snuck past them to listen at the door, crept back to the group, looking mildly puzzled. "He's right, I think there's something on the other side. Mhm. Might have been scratching, moving about. I'm inclined to think it's not friendly, though." "Well, nothing for it. Let's start clearing," the dwarf concedes.
Vaduk said, "Good, you learn." The door rattles and shakes noisily as the party moves away the rubble blocking its entryway. Once they can get it loose, they see the crushed corpse of a half-orc mostly buried in the rocks just beyond the doorway, with the rest of the room stretching into shadow to the south. The half-orc's cloudy-eyed head lifts up as the door comes down, and it hisses at them through obviously dead lips. Vaduk opens the door, axe ready. "Oo. I think he might be undead. That's really fascinating,” the gnome observed. "We should probably shoot him now. Just saying." Uldin called upon Pulura’s illumination and the hall was bathed in light. To the south, manacled figures cry out weakly as the light blossoms into existence. These figures include: one gaunt woman wearing yellow-stained rags; an obviously dead corpse that is half devoured in its chains; and, to the side of the corpse, an apparent ghoul that twists and writhes hungrily as it tries to get at more of the corpse it's clearly been eating. Vaduk instead whips out his crossbow and fires a quarrel at the head as Uldin moves into the room, trying to avoid the broken remains of the undead. As passed, one of the dismembered hands scuttles toward him, straining to claw at him. Under the rubble, something heaves and moves. "Hmph!" Vaduk complained as his bolt soars inches over the trapped head. He loads another quarrel and fires again. He hits the head with a second shot. It snarls and rips itself free from the rotting stub of its spine, heaving its way toward him with ungainly leaps across the rubble. The dwarf drops the crossbow on the rubble and pulls his axe out. The hands also tear themselves loose from their rotting sinews and scramble at Vaduk. Underneath the stone that pins down the remainder of their corpse, sudden tentacles of rotting viscera lunge up, grabbing at anything nearby. Thim strains to get a clean shot with his crossbow, sighing after a bit. "Can't get a clean shot ... " He settles for using a free hand to send a corruscating dart of force at the hand. The head laboriously bounces and strains to reach Vaduk as well. Uldin strikes at the hand before it can get within reach and backs away. Cerovyren stands with his hands folded across his chest, irritation written plainly on his face as he waits for the others to clear the doorway. The battle was quick, but the dismembered claws and head together injured Vaduk. When the last piece of reanimated flesh is stilled, the rubble suddenly stops heaving. The ropes of emerging viscera vanish in puffs of moldering yellow spores, and the hands and head collapse into bones covered with rags of yellow-dusted skin. All of it looks like something that died decades ago, not mere days. Uldin goes to the wounded dwarf and prays over his body, restoring his flesh. "Praise, praise, praise," a whispery voice cries from the south. The yellow-ragged figure in the chamber to the south rattles frantically in her chains. "Praise! Praise! Zandalus sees!" "Shut up," the ghoul hisses at the ragged figure. "Shut up, shut up. I'll eat you next. You'll be quiet then. Shut up!" Gavrelu says "You both speak, but only one of you makes sense." The snarling ghoul squints angrily at the light and tries to attack, but remains restrained by its manacles. The ragged figure whispers and occasionally screams: "Praise! Praise! Zandalus sees!" "She's mad," the ghoul spits at Gavrelu. "Useless, broken, mad. Let me eat her. That's all she'll ever be good for." "What are you good for?" Gavrelu asks, largely rhetorically. "What?" The ghoul blinks in confusion at the question, then snarls. "I'm fine. I'm just hungry. You'd be hungry too, chained up like this. Can't fault a fellow for trying to survive." Gavrelu approaches the woman and tries to fish the sack off of her head with the tip of his longspear. He eventually pushes it off to reveal a disheveled, haggard-looking woman with stark madness in her eyes and yellow dust in her stringy, otherwise colorless hair. She might be anywhere from her late twenties to her early forties. Her skin is bad, with an unhealthy cast that suggests she wasn't in the best of health before whatever misfortunes befell her more recently. Her only reaction to having the bag removed is to blink, shake her head groggily, and then cry again: "Praise!" Cerovyren raises the collar of his coat over his face and nose to avoid inhaling any of the yellow dust. He regards the talking ghoul and the raving woman with a deeply disgusted look. Uldin says "They are both beyond my power to redeem. We should leave them and continue." "Leave them both?" the dwarf askes. "You can't leave me," the ghoul gasps, outraged. "I need help! I'm a very sick man!"
"Who chained you up?" Vaduk asks to neither prisoner in particular. "I'll tell you if you let me out," the ghoul wheedles, kicking uselessly in his manacles. "You'll tell us now or not at all,” the dwarf negotiated. "Fine, then." The ghoul sniffs, not very convincingly. "You'll be sorry. Sorry, I say. You can't frighten me," the ghoul snaps, kicking at Vaduk and then adding, in tones of enormous self-pity, "I might as well already be dead, chained up like this." Cerovyren chuckles darkly under his breath. "Yes, might as well..." "I do not see how he would know more than the survivors,” Uldin argues. "Woe, woe -- wait, I *am* a survivor, what are you saying? You have to rescue me, it's the... the only right thing to do." The ghoul points an accusing finger at Vaduk, his wrist rattling the manacle. "He's threatening me! Here I took you lot for heroes, and he's threatening poor chained helpless me. Awful. Just awful. You'll end up right here, chained, and I'll have no choice but to eat you, and you'll deserve it." "You did not survive, I am sorry to inform you,” Uldin tells the ghoul. "I'm alive. I'm here talking to you, aren't I? Unless this is a dream. This might be a dream." The ghoul gnaws its lip, unconsciously chewing it right off and leaving its bottom teeth permanently exposed behind a tattered fringe of flesh. Cerovyren says "Charming conversation. Well, dispatch them or ignore them, either way let us continue onward." Uldin moves on and listens at the door in the south wall. On the other side, he hears the sound of dripping water. "Something different, here. I do not hear the whispers. Only dripping water," he informs the others. "I think we're circling back around toward the shrine... hopefully there's a stairway before we dead-end,” Vaduk worries. Gavrelu leaves the prisoners with disdain. "Praise, praise," the woman babbles at Thim as the gnome leaves to listen at the door himself. "Uh. Water dripping? Chains ... and, this is just a guess mind you. But like ... a sort of, mhm. Not a good word for it, gibbering, I guess. But like someone's hurt." Uldin steps forward and opens the door. Several wide tables and gargantuan wash basins fill a laundry equipped to service hundreds. The place looks like it was repurposed as a failed surgery, though, with one table heaped with human remains while corpses lie discarded in corners. A stained sheet hangs between two of the basins, dividing the room roughly in half. A lantern shines near the southern end, illumining a semi-conscious woman's body apparently chained to the farthest table. Uldin reaches out and touches the woman's arm. "Easy. Easy. We are here to help." Vaduk says in warning, “Uldin... caution..." The woman groans groggily as Uldin approaches. She emits another piteous groan and twitches slightly in her bonds. He noticed something odd: her wounds were made-up, painted bruises and superficial abrasions. "Let me get my tools so that I can help this poor woman,” Uldin said, trying to buy time to retreat to his allies and inform them. He whispers "Go back." Gavrelu heeds the Kellid's warning. "The injuries are false. Mocked,” the shaman tries to explain what he saw to the others. After a brief discussion, they decide to try to coax information out of the woman. Uldin moves forward to carefully release the woman from her bindings. "Can you hear me?" "Uh?" the woman mumbles, rolling around semi-consciously as Uldin unties and unchains her. "What is your name?" "Iza... Iza Weeds," the woman mumbles feebly, her eyes fluttering open for the briefest of instants. "Which faction chained you here? The tatterman's or the ghouls'?" "I... I don't know. Faceless monsters dragged me from my bed. I was a patient here, before all this." Uldin backs away from the woman, waving Gavrelu back as well. "Why are your injuries painted?" "I don't know what you mean. I don't know anything about that," the woman whimpers, lying.
"Facechanger!" Vaduk accuses as he fires his crossbow. Thim follows suit. The woman drops her facade with a snarl, coming off the table with a lunge. "You little idiots," the doctor snarls. "You couldn't have trotted along and made this all easy?" Uldin says "Try to take her alive. But do not take too many risks." The doppelganger charges Uldin, ignoring the deep wound that Gavrelu manages to score. The shaman raises his shield too slow, and the creature practically climbs over it to rend his chest with its claws and bite deeply into his neck. He sees the dwarf approaching with his axe and Gavrelu moving for a better position as his vision fades to darkness. When he wakes, he finds himself in the chapel again.
Uldin moved slowly through the sanctuary. His body was sore and stiff, true, but so was his mind. The warriors of the Night Hunt following knew that sleep was important to keep the mind sharp. They also knew that too much sleep could be nearly as bad as too little. That is how he felt: as though he had overslept and his mind was trying to remember skills that it had lost in the long night. He tended to what wounds and ailments he could, assisting the priest, Winter. Something nagged at the shaman’s mind--he should be able to do more with Pulura’s blessings than he had--but that thought was not helpful, and so he put it away to focus on more immediate tasks. He recognized the features of a kinsman in the woman as she lay there, cradling her arm. She hailed from the lands ruled by the Mammoth Lords or close to them--maybe the Skaldlands or Baba-Yaga’s kingdom or the place of the Iron Gods. Uldin knelt down as he pulled several supplies from the healer’s kit he had scrounged together and spoke softly in Hallit, “Odoo khyalbar. Bi ene gart khandakh bolno. Bi khudlaa yarikhgüi, ene ni gemtekh bolno.” Hallit:
”Easy now. I will tend to this arm. I will not lie, it will hurt.” The woman’s eyes flutter briefly, barely acknowledging Uldin’s presence. She would soon, though. He felt around the woman’s bruised and bent arm. She winced and murmured in response. He did not like the color of her hand. Uldin tied a board to her shoulder and then tied a bandage around her elbow. Standing, the priest rested his foot on her chest and pulled on her arm with his considerable strength. Those patients nearby could almost hear the snapping of the bone back into line through her scream. Uldin quickly tied off the distal end of her arm to the board and wrapped it in a sling. Reexamining her hand, he nodded in approval. “I am sorry,” the Kellid healer apologized to the other Kellid. “I am using what I have, and what I have provides little mercy.” Panting, the woman stared at Uldin for several long moments. “Pain is fleeting,” she said. “If it saves my arm, you have my thanks. I am Airwynn.” “Uldin of the Night Hunt,” he replied with a grim smile. Airwynn continues to stare at him. “You are a great deal more--how should I say--lively than the last time I saw you or those you arrived with.” “So I have heard,” he said as he turned to see a boy rocking himself in a the corner not far away. His arms and ankles were covered in bite marks and more than a few of them looked significantly infected. “Do you know any more about us?” “No, not really,” she said as her guarded stare slowly shifted to one of wary curiosity. Uldin moved toward the bite-riddled boy, who tried to shrink even deeper into the corner. “It’s alright, Bates,” Airwynn said in a gentle voice, “He’s big, but he’s friendly. He’s here to help. My arm already feels better.” Directing her attention back to Uldin, she said, “Bates was attacked by the madmen who followed Zandalus. He hasn’t said a word since.” Uldin took his time getting closer to the boy and letting the boy get used to him touching him. He started cleaning the least injured looking foot and slowly, very slowly, made his way to the more serious wounds. Treating the boy like he would a wild animal in the mountains, he was able to keep him calm and finish what needed to be done. Airwynn did what she could to keep the boy calm as well, dragging herself over and cradling his head on her lap. He would have liked to debrided some of the wounds more thoroughly, but it would have to do for now. What alertness pain had awoken in Airwynn had fled, and her body rested now. Her head fallen onto her chest and snoring with every inhalation. The healer held up one finger to his lips, signaling the boy to let the woman sleep. Uldin wanted to sleep, too, but there was still more that he could do for the injured.
Restores 2 HP/level and 2 ability score points of ability damage (such as from disease or poison).
"Whatever the nature of the beast, there is nothing natural about these deaths," Uldin says in response to the dwarf's question. He heads into the corpse filled room. His movement causes the shows to shift eerily. "Come. The way out is through."
"Yes, we did," Uldin reassures Gavrelu. "There is nothing distinguished about what has been happening here." He whispers a prayer and brushes his hand across the wooden club. It begins to glow with a clear light. "If we follow the--" The man breaks off and looks back at the pile of random belongings. "I should have had an astrolabe. It is not here." He shakes off his sudden reverie and looks into the charnel house. He steps to the doorway and holds the glowing rod over his head, swaying it back and forth slowly. "I think that it is safe, but be wary."
The shaggy-maned Kellid tries to shake the cobwebs from his mind. When a wreath of mistletoe and holly woven together with dark, iridescent grackle feathers and tiny amber beads falls out of the backs during the gnome's scavenging, a sense of familiarity tickles Uldin's mind. He slides the makeshift knife into the front of his ruined pants and takes the wreath. "Pulura--" He raises his eyes and clenches his jaw. The man steps over to the sacks and, with brisk efficiency, searches through the collected items of the lost. He takes a suit of hide armor that requires letting the straps out to fit comfortably, someone's waterskin, and several other utilitarian items from the pile and around the room. "My name is Uldin, priest of Pulura. If you let me, I will get all of us out of here."
Uldin raises his eyebrows in surprise as the dwarf swipes th e keys from the woman and manages to unlock his own cell. He readies himself to reach through the bars to grapple with the woman should the opportunity present itself, but it never does as she seems too obsessed with killing the victim in as violent a way as possible. When the woman's appearance changes, he nearly misses it as the dwarf unlocks his cell. He exits the cell just in time to see the changeling woman dive through a break in the wall. The marked Kellid looks around the dungeon. "I do not know this place or what is happening, but it is clearly evil, and I am prepared to stop it." He takes a sharp piece of metal from the table and break off a wooden beam with a loud snap to use as a cudgel.
Uldin starts at the sudden noise of the woman being kicked into the opposing cell door. "Well, maybe I will not need to kill you after all." The broad shouldered Kellid moves to the door of his own cell, watching for an opportunity of his own.
"I had thought about that," Uldin whispers back. "Then I thought they would feel more in control and less ready for me if I was the one being strangled. But you are probably right. Hopefully, you can mime choking well enough to fool them." The large man pulls off the tattered remains of his shirt and twists it into a short rope. "Before I kill you, at least know my name is Uldin. Reasonably certain that it is, at least."
Uldin bobs his head in acknowledgement of the gnome, then he shakes his head in answer to the pantomimed question, "Maybe if you tried to kill me," he suggests to Gavrelu.
"That coat is too big for him," Uldin replies, trying to bolster his companion's courage. "I do not think it belongs to him." He sidles back to the edge of the gate and peers around the wall at the sadistic man in the doctor's coat. "And that is no physician's tool."
"I don't know," the Kellid replies in a whisper, "But we can't stay here." He growls softly in frustration as he sinks back down to the floor. When he turns and look back at the macabre ritual taking place in the hall, he catches sight of the doctor's belt and, more significantly, the ring of keys there. Uldin scuttles back towards his still prone cell mate. "The doctor's got the keys to the cells. If we can get him close to the bars, I can probably rip them away. Better if he comes in here. Then I can crack his neck," he says in a hushed if impassioned voice.
Uldin groans weakly as the blackness parts to the cold and grimy reality around him. He touches his chest and feels the tacky blood over the shallow wound. Stiff muscles protesting, he rolls onto his side and pushes himself up by one arm. He watches the doctor's legs move around the table and then looks past them to the strangers held in the cage across the hall. The Tatterman. "You still alive?" he quietly asks his cell mate. "I ask because I'm getting us out of here and anyone strong enough to move before that dream-vampire returns." He slowly drags himself toward the cell's door and examines the bars, looking for any weakness.
The ritually scarred man turns his gaze and wild mane of black hair toward the sudden appearance of the gnome. "Eh? Another?" he frowns thoughtfully, "Strength in numbers, then." There was another mental flash of men and women in furs working in a snowy camp. It was gone as swiftly as the others.
Uldin was slow to follow the others inside. Leaving the blue light of the candle was a difficult as leaving a newborn child behind in a blizzard. Do I have a child? No, I don't think-- What was I thinking about? He looks at the back of the dwarf trying to enter the dark inn. With one last look of longing towards the candlelight, he moves to follow the others.
Uldin turns his gaze--eyes the color of a untarnished steel appearing a dull gray in eerie glow of the mist--to the newcomer. His right hand reaches for something at his waist, but he forgets what he was seeking faster than he realizes that there is nothing there. "It does not need to scare," he growls. The man looks into the dark of the ruined inn and then back to the older man. "It looks no safer in there than here." He looks at the candle and its reassuring light. His mind is momentarily filled with the image of the starry sky and a constellation whose name escapes him. He looks back to the bloodied man, forgetting about the stars.
The hulking Kellid stumbles over a cobblestone as he walks through the yellow mist. He turns on instinct, fists raised defensively, only to find nothing there but more of the foul mist. Uldin, you've got to--Is that my name? Uldin? He rubs his bare chest where it is exposed to the night air, half of his tunic torn to rags and now serving as bandages around each of his forearms. His fingers pass over artistic scars long since healed. He feels like they should have meaning, but it escapes him like he is trying to grab fish with his bare hands in a cold, mountain stream. An image of a starry sky over just such a cold, mountain stream flashes in his mind and fades too fast to realize what he has imagined: a memory or a daydream? The dread trapped in his throat like a fishbone frustrates him. The sickening sensation of the yellow mist frustrates him. His shadowy, dogged, and inhuman pursuer frustrates him. He runs a hand through his long, untamed black beard and over his face, pressing his closed eye with the heel of his palm. His fingers feel scars on his face--old and intentional like the ones on his chest. "No!" the man shouts defiantly as he opens eyes. The blue flame of the candle appears before him. The fear inside of him snaps like an icicle falling from a roof under the light of the sun. I will not go down without a fight. "Chase me if you dare! Run if you want! Either way, I will end you!" he shouts at the vague shapes in the mist. |