Strange Aeons: In Search of Sanity II [IC - Group #1]

[Swami Monsoon]

Akbar finds a patch of floor that's especially thick with dust and grime and sketches a rough map...

"This isn't going to be perfect, but... over here by the kitchens there were the people in yellow robes. They looked normal but were very violent and oddly good at fighting. In the rooms across the hall and north from here there were more of the zombie guys. 'Tribals,' somebody called them. There was at least one other creature mixed in with them that could change shape and impersonate an ordinary animal like a dog. Between those rooms and the kitchens there's a hole in the wall, where something really big tried to get at us from outside. Near the north end of this hall there are stairs up to the top of some kind of tower. The top floor is open to the outside, and there was a large creature up there that was breathing out more of the yellow mist. Hostile, because f#@k you, that's why. The motto of this place. If we ever find the front door, I'm sure that's what will be carved in the wall above it..."

He marks the location of landmarks and creatures on his map.

[lostsole31]

Now that you've been given pre-intel by Akbar, how do you want to proceed?

[pfm1995]

"First, we should check those rooms - we can do so quickly. Then we keep moving until we've gone a circle. Jean says.

[lostsole31]

Dorn nods and says, "Sure, checking the sets of rooms here ... then the north section, and as Akbar guides us (hopefully from the rear, so he doesn't get hurt)."

[lostsole31]

The group moves out. First, they double check the Work Room (E7), where several workbenches lie buried underneath rubble. As the "new" group expected, there are three Tribal corpses in here. The group then moves forward to the group therapy room, and sure enough, the cages are still there, though the man that was tied to the wall seems to have been killed, not saved. Three more Tribal corpses in here. What the new group doesn't see is the dead puppy-monster that they discovered and killed right away in here!

How do you deal with the fact there is an evil outer-puppy-of-doom possibly roaming around?

[Blackhawk101]

BJ looks concerned. “Akbar, did your group dispatch the dog creature in this room? Or think you had?”

[Swami Monsoon]

"They actually brought it back to camp as a dog... and then had to kill it later when they found out what it was. But that one might not have been the only one..."

[lostsole31]

"I recognized it for what it was," speaks up Lord Hanley. "I, and another who is no longer in this current card hand of adventurers, were watching the children when I sensed something wrong with the puppy that the others foolishly brought back, for I sensed an evil aura from it. Once I and Corbin (don't ask) got the kids out of the room for meals, then we fell on the creature, a sahkil, a type of esipil, and destroyed it."

[pfm1995]

"Good." Jean says simply. "We can keep moving then."

[lostsole31]

The party moves north into the Tower Room (E10). A row of wicker rocking chairs faces this room’s tall windows, staring into the mist licking the outside of the glass. A heap of broken planks lies in one corner, the wreckage of a wooden stairwell that still partially clings to the wall above. The rotting, stinking bodies of three more killed Tribals in tattered patient gowns are in here.

Patients once spent hours here under the supervision of nurses and orderlies, reading, conversing, or gazing out into the kitchen gardens. A narrow wooden stairway once climbed to a platform 15 feet overhead, and then on to the tower heights. The lower potion has collapsed, though, leaving a rickety (but stable) flight of stairs hanging overhead. PCs can climb the wall to these stairs; a variety of studs and holes left in the walls makes this more easily possible than if they had to simply scale the wall. However, even then it would be a moderately difficult climb for everyone, since nobody in the party is an accomplished climber! Nadya and Javert, of course, would have no problem.

Do you try to make it into the Tower Heights, or just take Akbar's word for it that things are handled up there?

[Blackhawk101]

​“Akbar and Lord Hanley, is this as you remember it?”

[pfm1995]

"And does anyone have any rope?"

[lostsole31]

"Why do you feel the need to go where we've already been, killed the thing, and cleared the space? For your own sense of closure?" asks Lord Hanley.

[Swami Monsoon]

"This all looks pretty much right, but you should still be careful if you go up to the roof. That thing hit like a truck."

The expression still comes naturally to Akbar, but he realizes that it's harder now to visualize the object it refers to...

[pfm1995]

"Curiosity." Jean said simply. "Curiosity, and the knowledge that things here are not bound by what I think of as time and space. I was here, then I was not. Who is to say that we did not shift again in our sleep? That said, I can do without rope."

He looks to Javert. "Would you mind?"

[lostsole31]

Javert looks up at Jean curiously,

Spoiler: Jean

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"And....?"

[pfm1995]

Spoiler: Javert

Show

Exploring. Since you are as me and can fly, and these folk are impatient.

[lostsole31]

Javert gives a single, sharp knowing nod of his head and flies up to the area that once entered the Tower Room.

A minute later he flies back.

Spoiler: Javert >>> Jean

Show

"As Akbar expected, some haunted-looking corpse dead in the middle of the room above. I noticed that the yellow mist - while still prevalent outside, isn't quite as thick as I remember. Still thick enough, though. Nothing else of interest in the room that I could see."

[pfm1995]

Thank you.

"Shall we?" he says, gesturing towards the door.

[lostsole31]

"What did your bird learn?" asks Dorn, who was not privvy to the source of the satisfaction that Jean seems to possess.

[pfm1995]

"As they said." Jean replied. "A dead body. More interestingly, the yellow mist seems to be clearing slightly."

[Blackhawk101]

“Mayhap destroying the yellow mist spewing OnerIgon lessened the overall yellow mist. We should seek more of the creatures and destroy them. Perhaps then we can leave this place! Where to next?”

[lostsole31]

"We will ignore the exterior doors for now," says Dorn, "unless someone has a different opinion at this time."

Dorn leads the party out of the tower room to the main nexus of the northwest hallways and then east, ignoring the facing exterior doors and then northwards up the narrow hallway (5' wide, 35' long).

"Well?" Dorn looks to Akbar.

Spoiler: Akbar

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Beyond is E5 on the keyed map.

[Swami Monsoon]

"That's where the hole in the wall leading to the outside was... something big was out there in the mist and attacked when we entered the gap. If you don't want to go outdoors yet, maybe you should skip it."

[lostsole31]

"Was it out in the mist? Could it get through this crack? What was the room itself?" asks Dorn severally to Akbar.

[Swami Monsoon]

"The room was full of mist. It was hard to see anything. The creature was some kind of reptile... it tore several people up badly before it went down. If everything here really is the same, its body is in there somewhere. I'm not sure if it was the only one. It doesn't match any of the other things we've found in this place, so I'm guessing it came here from somewhere outside."

[lostsole31]

"We will dare assume the door untrapped," says Dorn, "and I will take the lead in this cramped corridor. Ready behind me!"

And with that he opens the door. The smell of dreadful death that washes outwards is gut-churning indeed. Inside, there is indeed a dead creature. It is a brightly-colored amphibian with a long neck, six legs, a fanged snout, and numerous finlets running down its spine.

Jean and Javert hold a mental conference to discuss what it might have been. Jean finally recognizes the corpse as a magical beast called a "voonith," an aquatic monster that is amphibious in nature. Despite its Small size, they are as fast as a man on land, and significanctly faster in the water. They use this speed to good effect as they can charge a man and pounce on him with teeth and up to four claws at once.

This room once served as a station (E5, North Orderly Station) where orderlies could watch over the patients in the Tower Room, and assure that none left the building or interfered with the kitchen staff. It is partially collapsed now and nothing of interest remains. The door in the north wall of this room is open to the outside grounds, and the room is filled with sickly yellow mist. However, the mist is greatly thinned, so that vision is not truly obscured in this room. Akbar remembers that when he was in here before, the mist was extremely strong, and made the fight more difficult than it probably needed to be.

Besides the outside door, which Dorn prudently shuts, there is one other door in this room ... to the east.

What do you do?

[Swami Monsoon]

"Hmm... I remembered that thing being much bigger... but past that door there's a big room. There's some kind of ghost or ghost-like thing in there, fading in and out. More importantly, there's a side room, and it had real people in it. More of the guys in yellow. Looked ordinary but fought like ninjas... They chased us off, so we never found out what was further east past those rooms."

[lostsole31]

"What danger does this ghost-thing represent?" asks Lord Hanley.

[Swami Monsoon]

"It didn't physically attack anybody, but it somehow made the closest people to it feel sick. Then it faded away. It looked like a guy in a chef's outfit... maybe it was one of the people who worked in the kitchens here. The rooms up ahead... at least what we saw of them... appear to be kitchens and dining rooms."