Erevel was covered in liquid and started to scratch at a rash that appeared on her face. Then the deformed humanoid fetus jumped down from the shelf and attached itself to Erevel's face with a bite. From the closet a second fetus moved out and attached itself to Ursina's leg.
Ursina belted the creature with her book, but this did little damage as the creature was more squishy.
Gavril jumped up on the table to attack the creature on Ursina and Paullus fired a arrow at the creature on Erevel. Erevel's attack was more effective using her greatsword.
Suddenly a ratling appeared at the door and fired magic missiles at Armania who alerted the rest of the group to his presence. Ciprian was using his mace to attack the Pickled Punk on Ursina. Paullus fired an arrow at the ratling, although he had a strange look on his face.
Three Dire Rats came scurrying out of the rubble and attacked Paullus, Ciprian and Armania inflicting limited damage. The characters were concerned about contacting a disease as rats are notorious for carry plagues around.
Defeating the punks was a mixed blessing as they discorporated into a sludge on dying. Both Ursina and Erevel were now free of creatures. Ursina and Ciprian jumped onto the table to avoid the rats while Gavril ran to attack the ratling.
The ratling disappeared as a Dire Rat bit Armania and dropped her to the floor and it scurried over to Erevel. Between Ciprian and Paullus two rats were killed and Erevel killed the last. Ursina rebuked the death of Armania as she sat on the floor recovering.
The ratling appeared next to Erevel and touched her with a Shocking Grasp. Erevel smacked the ratling who then raised its paws into the air and screamed in a high pitched squeal.
“I’ll tell you all his secrets! Whatever you want!"
Ciprian moved closer and demanded "Get on your knees and sit on your paws, NOW!"
He replied "Don't hurt me, I can tell you things. I'm Ratch Mamby, I can help!"
"Tell us what you know," Ciprian forcefully stated.
"We live in warrens deep in the rocks below Briarstone Isle, but those tunnels are far too small for big folk to traverse. The recent tremors have collapsed many of the tunnels, leaving us separated from our den. We came up here to find a way to get back to our den," Ratch related.
"Why did you attack us?" queried Paullus.
"We have been attacked by those yellow colored humans, how can we know you wouldn't kill us?" said Ratch. "Once the Shredman has turned his malevolent eye upon a victim, he hounds her to her death. Many of the patients who passed away in their sleep were victims of the Every-All. The Tatterman has been on Briarstone Isle for a long, long time. He was once the servent of the Briarstone Witch."
Ratch was content to keep rattling of this information it was difficult to get him to slow down or answer specific questions.
"Hold on, Hold, on," ordered Ciprian. "How do you know all these things?"
"I read books and papers in the library. I listened to the yellow folks in the halls. I'm a good spy. Do you want me to spy for you?" answered Ratch.
"You have thrown out several names, Shredman, Tatterman, Every All. Who are these people or are they one person? asked Gavril.
"Oh, Oh those are just different names for the Final Dream, the Tatterman," said Ratch.
Armania asked "Is he really thin, with long arms and wearing rags?"
"Yes, that's him. You know," and Ratch glanced over his shoulders warily and in a hushed whisper said "The Tatterman is a servant of the Great Old One Hastur!"
"How did you learn spells? Do you have a book with spells in it?" queried Armania.
"You mean like this." answered Ratch as he disappeared and reappeared out in the hallway.
"Get back in here," Ciprian demanded. Ratch moved back into the room but stayed far from Ciprian.
By this time Ciprian was questioning all the answer he had heard from Ratch and asked how he knew that the Tatterman was working with a Great Old One.
"I heard that crazy man with the white pony tail talking about it," Ratch replied.
Ursina used Detect Alignment to determine that Ratch was Chaotic Evil. The group asked Ratch to provide a map but he demurred noting that he went around through tunnels and didn't know much of the actual layout. "I could go spy on the white haired guy for you."
More queried about which books he read or what papers led in circles as Ursina finally got fed up and struck Ratch with her holy book. The Ratling fell dead upon the floor.
Meanwhile Erevel had been scrounging in the closet, smashing the glass jars that were filled with fetuses with extreme hydrocephalus and sagacious-looking corpses. He found the remains of a human in a white lab coat. In the pocket of the lab coat were 6 vials of Alchemist's fire. Seven other lab coats were now soaked with the fluids from the jars, and lay upon the floor of the closet.
The group then spent a hour looking for secret passages, hidden hallways, magical items anyway to get around the blood but staying away from the swarms outside. Gavril complained mightily about not wanting to go anywhere near the swarms again.
Erevel suggested going out into the courtyard that Gavril had found. When the group arrived and opened the door the rain seemed to be the color of green bile and when it hit it did damage. At this point Ciprian recalled that he had a set of keys from Losandro's office, maybe one of them would open the door at the end of the stone walkway outside the Vistor's room.
When the group opened the door to the garden path, they saw rain, regular rain not green bile. Ciprian used mage hand to try the keys in the lock and was rewarded on the 4th key, he used the mage hand to push the door open, it was mostly dark inside and no monsters appeared in the doorway. Ursina and Erevel ran down the path to the door and inside where they say a lobby area, rags piles in some places and a curtained area to the southeast. A dim light shown through the 7 foot tall curtained panels.
Gavril and Ciprian came across next noting awful, unnatural figures moving through the mist—gangly hunchbacked giants, lurching tumorheaps, and spiders scuttling upon forests of legs. Horrifying noises, some that echo weirdly, others loud enough to be uncomfortable, accompanied the shapes.
Last across were Paullus and Armania, who beheld a large quivering pile of tumorous flesh slouching toward them. It left a trail of slime behind as it moved toward the pair. Paullus entered the room at a full run, slamming the door behind him.
Pale paint was peeling like scabs from the walls of the spacious chamber. A bent desk guarded a broad hall stretching away to the north. The place smelled intensely of rubbing alcohol. Erevel peered up the hallway and saw several doors on the west side. Gavril started to poke at a pile of rags laying on the floor.
From out of the rags a taut pustule, ready to burst, scuttled on a bristle of slick hairs the floor toward Gavril. Another exited a pile of rags by Ciprian, Paullus. Erevel and Armania. The pustules moved slowly but attacked with a small slam. Ciprian and Gavril immediately attacked their creatures.
The Boilborns attacked back but were ultimately defeated by the party but in the creatures death throe they popped spraying all within 10 feet with a blast of acid. Erevel fell to the floor after the first burst and then took more damage from the second.
Again Ursina was busy Rebuking Death on Erevel this time. Gavril was rifling the desk where he found blank admission forms to Briarstone Asylum.
Once Erevel was on her feet, Ursina and Paullus moved a frame of curtains and found another pile of rags along with a stool inside the area. On the stool was a lamp with a faint flame glowing inside. Ursina moved closer and noticed that the flame did not flicker at all, it seemed frozen. She reached out to knock the lantern off the stool and as she did the flame blinked out. The lantern was at room temperature as she picked it up, and there appeared to be no fuel in it either.
Gavril noted a door to the west but trying to open it proved nearly impossible as it would barely move, blocked by fallen rubble on the far side. "We can't get back to the chapel from here, and I think we need to rest," he moaned.
"And here we may not get the rest we need," agreed Armania.
The rest of the party agreed that they needed to rest soon but no one wanted to go back outside with that tumorous flesh waiting on the other side of the door. The group decided to move to the north and Gavril listened at the first door to the west, hearing no noises he opened the door to reveal a small room containing a bed and a low table partially smashed by bricks from the collapsed tiled ceiling. The accommodations hardly look comfortable but perhaps that is all that is required for a patient to convalesce here.
The next room opened onto a horrific scene, two dead, yellow robed bodies lie slumped on the floor, having suffered repeated vicious blows to the face. A third body -- an old man easily in his eighties and wearing a light cloth dressing gown -- had fallen back across the bed. He had a satisfied smirk on his face and still gripped a sturdy leather boot with blood on its heel. The other boot lay on the floor.
Gavril moved in and saw that the boots were well worn, but excellently fashioned. It occurred to him that the boots were from Angier's -- a famed shop that holds a royal warrant for leatherworking. He collected the boots after removing the blood from the heel.
The third room revealed A shapeless mess of sheets and pillows piles atop two plain beds. Bold chalk letters high on the opposite wall proclaim this to be “Brenton and Debis’s Room” in childish script.
Erevel recalled that one of the children in the chapel was named Brenton. Paullus said he recalled that the boy was always clutching a lantern and seemed very afraid. Ciprian searched the room finding a pair of carved wooden knights in the tangle of sheets at the foot a bed.
As Erevel moved further north in the hallway she came upon a area where Two hallways met beneath a lofty ceiling. High windows, alive with the nauseating fog beyond, gave the space an airy feel. A portion of the western hallway had collapsed, blocking it with tons of rubble. Digging in the rubble was a ghoul facing away from Erevel. The ghoul was engrossed in her attempt to clear the passage and didn't note the arrival of the group.
As quickly and quietly as possible the group moved forward and from range attacked the ghoul before she could respond. The ghoul collapsed dead just as she turned after being attacked. Gavril moved to the area the ghoul was digging. There was no evidence of a body, or anything else in the rubble. Perhaps she was trying to break through to the other side of the rubble pile. From the groups position Erevel presumed that the far side could be the courtyard with the green bile colored rain.
The hallway continued north with more doors on the west, but Gavril checked the fourth door before the group first. This door opened onto human-shaped carnage covering on the bed. Remains that appear to have to savaged by a ghoul. Ciprian found a gold signet ring with a holly and hawk emblem which he recalled symbolized the Millair family of Redleaf Lake.
Ursina and Erevel moved further north and Ursina could see that the hallway opened into a larger room at its north end. Gavril checked the next door to the west which opened into a room with chipped white paint peeling from the battered frames of a row of identical beds. Dingy white curtains separate each bed, but offer only the illusion of privacy.
Ursina moved north for a better view of the larger room, she noted first a stream of blood trailing across the floor ending at a red wall in the west. Double doors were visible directly north across the trail of blood. To the east she saw worn old chairs arranged around a small table. Part of the room was blocked still by the wall to the east.
Ciprian moved into the Communal Ward and headed north to the another door visible to the east. As he approached the last few beds he was surprised by a screaming voice.
“No! Not again!”, “Keep away!”, “I don’t want anything from you!”, “Get away from me, bastard!” in an increasingly panicked human male voice.
Ciprian tried to calm the man but the screaming kept increasing in volume in and panic. At the next to last bed Ciprian saw man manacled with five restraints to the bed, both arms, both legs and waist. Suddenly the man shrieked and ceased thrashing. A wisp of yellow vapor escaped along with his final breath. The man was clearly dead but one minute later, though, he convulsed again and transformed into a ghoul. The ghoul tried mightily to rise from the bed but the restraints held him in place.
DM's Notes: The party earned 767 XP for the evening and now need 570 to reach 3rd level.
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