Six strangers find themselves in an alien city landscape. All around is a wall of sickly yellow fog, tumbling through the alley's canyon of crumbling, gray brick walls like some jaundiced flash flood. Ahead, the unfamiliar alley splits, curving to the left and right. Behind, from the silent swell of mist, emanates the sound of footsteps - slow, but somehow keeping pace with the careening hungry wave. The characters do not even know their own names, or their past, only that they have some skills. None of them recognize any of the other five characters.
Looking around a red headed, green eyed human takes off running away from the billowing yellow fog. An older weathered looking blonde human finds one arrow in his quiver along with a bow and turns to face the fog. A brown haired, brown eyed human suddenly vanishes. The pleasantly plump, blonde woman searches for her Quarterstaff but to no avail while turning to face the fog with a wand in hand. A thin half-elf with blonde hair moves directly into the fog and finds she is essentially blind and the fog blocks even her low light vision. The dark headed, even thinner quasi human follows up trying to stay behind the tall thin blonde.
Each of the characters find that some of their equipment is missing, some have only one weapon, no armor or anything else. The alley walls sag, battered brick slumping over the path, nearly blotting out the bruised twilight sky. Again the grimy cobblestone path splits. This time one route curves uphill, while the other recklessly descends. Behind, the yellow fog and the relentless sound of pursuit grow closer.
The bowman and the wand user stood their ground waiting for something to come out of the yellow fog. They had seen the two characters step into the fog and disappear. As they watched the bodies of the two females dropped from the sky next to them. As the inert bodies hit the cobblestones, blood splattered across the brick walls. One word spelled out "me" while the other spelled "up".
The dagger wielding human continued up the alley hill while the brown haired fellow appeared suddenly a short distance behind. The fog was unexpectedly a few inches away from the wand wielder and the bowman. The mists parted, now mere steps behind a mask of gray rags emerges, strips of something fleshier than fabric, worming and constricting across a body that's almost human-like - but too lean, and far too flexible. Gauzy gray ribbons reach out like tendrils, each grasping for less doubtful flesh to claim.
A bolt of magic missiles flew to the ragged creature and an arrow embedded itself in its torso? At the same time the two corpses mouths gaped open and a voice echoes forth, as if from down a long hall. The words "me" and "up" resonate and repeat from deep within. Now the creature attacks the bowman with claws extended, as the claws rend his flesh the bowman falls to the ground and the word "t" appears in a puddle of blood on the cobblestones. Another magic missile bolt hits the ragged creature as the woman backs away trying to find a way to climb the walls to no avail as the bricks are like putty in her hands.
The dagger wielder runs smack into a wall, that wasn't their a second before and turns around with maniacal laughter echoing forth. The other man draws a mace and also find his passage blocked by a new wall from nowhere. The dead bowman's mouth lolled open and the work "it" echoed gutterally. Two swift claws finish the wand wielding woman and her body is thrown upwards and lands near the mace carrier. Her blood splatters to form the word "save" on the wall.
To the horror and surprise of the mace holder and the laughing man, the wall of yellow fog and the dirty gray ragged monster is right next them. This can't be real exclaims the mace holder as he feels the claws rend deep into his flesh and his body falls while his blood floats in the air spelling the word "damn". At the same instant the female corpse utters the work "save" in a voice that comes from beyond the grave.
The manically laughing man now screams "Come and get me! I want to fell my flesh torn to shreds!" and continues to laugh at length. Suddenly his nose starts to bleed and he sees the word "Wake" spelled by the stream of blood extending therefrom. He starts uttering the words, Wake, save, damn, me, it, up. He modifies the sequence as the too thin and flexible creatures move toward him. "Wake up damn it, Save me!"
The strangers groggily awake in a grimy cell in a dungeon they don't recognize. They are spread two each among three cells. They do not know the other cell occupant or their own name or history.
"Wake up, damn it" a man roped to table screams, his panic cutting through the claustrophobic near dark. Bars separate the characters form the stranger, a struggling human with split lips and skin covered in a mapwork of fresh red lines. Another figure, unsettlingly thin and wearing a blood-smeared doctor’s coat, circles the table casually— stopping every so often to scrutinize one of the man’s wounds. She spins one blade of a broken pair of pruning shears, which glints in the dull light of the lamp suspended overhead. With careless cruelty, the doctor draws the blade across the bound man’s bare thigh, releasing a tortured wail.
All the characters recall the dream they just awoke from, but there are no negative side effects short of the bloody nose of the red head. To their unease they have NONE of their equipment with them. The rest of the dungeon is nondescript, there is a sack next to a door to the east(?), hile a pile of discarded clothes is piled in an alcove to the west(?). There is a smaller table next to the splintery table holding the man. That table displays an array of instruments, none designed for use on human flesh: a gardening trowel, forks, several long pieces of broken glass and metal and the other blade of the tormentor's shears.
The cell doors and bars are made of sturdy metal, the locks appear to be upgraded. None of the characters finds a set of thieves tools or weapon to attack the door. The half-elf kicks the door with all her might barely moving the structure. The dark haired faintly human woman strikes at the lock with claws to no avail. The man with the mace notes that the "doctor" has a ring of keys dangling from a hook on her waist, though she keeps well out of the reach of the characters.
The man with the bloody nose starts to yell at her to stop attacking the man on the table. She wheels around to look at him, surprised, and demands "Pipe down. You'll get your turn soon enough." She then goes back to her business, agonizing over where to make her next incision on her patient.
The red head starts to scream, "I want my turn now. Take me next, I want my turn!"
Clearly frustrated the "doctor" turns to him screaming "Quiet!" at the same time transforming her face to look perfectly like the screaming man. She then move to the table picking up the forks and as she does the man on the table struggles against his blood-soaked bindings and manages to free one leg. Desperately he kicks the woman in the back, throwing her against the cell of the screamer and the brown haired figure. A mage hand appears and grabs the ring of keys from her waist. In the chaos she does not notice losing the keys and she rushes to the table, violently stabbing and murdering the man as the blood and gore flies through the air.
The inhabitants of the first cell unlock the door and move to the second cell handing the key ring through. The mage hand brushed the implements off the table scattering them among the other cells. Magic missiles flew to the doctor as she ministered to her patient. The half-elf unlocked her cell and picked up the broken shears and rushed to attack the doctor. The bowman unlocked the last cell and headed toward the pile of discarded clothes as did the blonde human. Laughing man moved to flank the doctor and attacked unarmed trying to knock her out.. The brown haired man headed for the sack by the eastern door which contained some potions, a wand, two spellbooks, and a set of thieves tools. Opening the door the brown haired man saw a room with a pile of dead bodies below a chute in the wall and a set of stairs going up. The smell of rot and decay was nearly overwhelming, and the buzz of flies hung in the air.
The clawed woman moved up behind the laughing man and yelled out of the way. The laughing man rolled up on the table, carelessly treading upon the vivisected dead prisoner. The brown haired man started to orate on the particulars of the Doppelganger that he identified. The blonde woman found some weapons and armor among the discarded clothes pile. The bowman came upon a large cold iron box with a four-foot square door gaping half open. Inside he thought he saw dozens of scorched human bones amid the ashes. There also appeared to be small vents leading up and out of the iron box.
At the battle, ultiple attacks followed from the characters and the doctor. A kick from the laughing man knocked her out and the clawed woman slit her throat. At this point the characters individually began rummaging among the sack and the heap of gory clothes and dubiously flammable trash. After several minutes the characters had found and identifies all of their mundane armor and equipment. The blonde spell caster found a fine viol, sans bow, among the trash.
There was a little disagreement regarding the potions secured from the sack but eventually all personal items were recovered. The laughing man headed through the door into the room with stairs. A broad chute extends diagonally through one of this cellar’s half-crumbled stone walls. Beneath it lies heaped
more than a three dozen mutilated humanoid bodies. Nearby, a flight of rickety, wooden steps climbs toward the high ceiling which he quickly ascended to the first landing. Thereupon he could see about ten feet higher up a collapsed wall or some other stone object blocked further movement. To the north a tunnel extended about ten feet before ending in a heap of rock and stone that offered no hope of escape.
The orator entered the furnace searching the ashes for any other items of interest and while he thought he might be able to squeeze into a vent, he had no idea where it may lead. He reluctantly headed back to the cellar room where the laughing man had climbed the pile of corpses and pulled himself up into the chute. Climbing the chute was found to be easy and each character followed suit, some using masks to cover their faces to reduce the odor of the decaying bodies.
The strangers emerged into a small room barely large enough to hold them all. There was a single door to the south(?).
DM's Notes: A total of 533 XP were gained by the characters for the night. The opening which had the players questioning whether the DM had started on the correct page was the highlight of the night.
No comments:
Post a Comment