Strange Aeons: In Search of Sanity II [IC - Group #2]

[BuckGodot]

Björn will shout, "The foe is down in here!" as he moves towards the door where Gaye went.

[bcool999]

Bangs

Feeling the madness rebuffing his attempts, Bangs pulls back his mental probe and shakes his head as the man dies under Corbin's talons. What a waste of life, Bangs thinks as he once more brings Meani into the collective, while shooting her an apologetic glance.

Spoiler: OOC

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Taking my action now since I already know what I want to do, first priority is to get Meani back into the collective just in case something one shots her again.

[lostsole31]

R4T16: Haru follows into the room, only aware that there is combat in there, and assesses the situation in there, but takes his sweet time assessing the situation when he arrives.

R4T7: Björn will shout, "The foe is down in here!" as he moves towards the door where Gaye went. At the doorway outside, he sees the foe outside is down as well.

R4T4: Flair, what do you do?

Gaye on deck, Bangs in the hole (action posted, yet to occur), Maeni delaying ...

[digiman619]

Flair comes around the corner and checks for any additional baddies before lowering his crossbow. He turns to Zoo and puts an arm on his shoulder. "Zoo, I understand you wanting to avoid bloodshed, and if talking things through is a solution, I will generally seek it, but once combat is joined, as a general rule people are too concerned with not dying to want to listen to you. Unless they choose to surrender, we have to assume they mean to fight to the death to be free." He then turns and begins recovering his bolts as best as he can.

[lostsole31]

Combat Ends ...

Flair is able to recover both bolts and reloads his crossbow. Gaye releases her spell. What does the party do?

[SwordChucks]

Zoo sighs. " You're right of course, but it's so wasteful. The people we've been running into are probably just scared and hungry. If they'd stop trying to bash ma tête for just a moment they might realize we're trying to help."

With that said Zoo turns into small-dog again and begins to sniff out any hidden enemies still in the room.

Spoiler: OOC

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Shapeshift into small-dog using concentration and use scent to search the room AO1 was in.

[lostsole31]

So, as far as this new room itself ... racks cluttered with boxes and sprawling collections of haphazardjunk fill this dusty room.

Zoo doesn't sniff out any enemies. What does everyone else do?

[BuckGodot]

Björn will stand watch while waiting to move on...

[silphael]

Maeni takes her time to look around, trying to detect if there is anything magic hidden somewhere.

Spoiler: OOC

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I will cast and maintain detect magic to scan the room for magic stuff just in case.

[lostsole31]

Maeni doesn't detect anything magical in the room (other than anything the PCs brought with them).

Gaye checks the bodies of the two yellow-garbed folks. They each had a crowbar, a sap, and padded armor - nothing else. "This one's dead," she says of the one in the hallway. She then makes her way into the room and checks the other. "We have a live one here. Deep coma, but alive."

What else does the party do in here if anything?

[digiman619]

Flair turns to Gaye and inspects the insensate man. "Bangs, do you think you could wake this man up? Let's give him a choice. Either he can surrender his weapons and join us at the chapel, or we can agree to a non-aggression pact and he can go elsewhere." He sighed, as he found the next option more likely. "Or he can be stupid and try to attack and we finish him for our own safety, But the point being is we give him the opportunity."

[BuckGodot]

Björn watches with interest but readies his sword...

[bcool999]

Bangs

Nodding reluctantly to Flair, Bangs moves toward the unconscious foe and attempts to force him into the collective for healing.

[digiman619]

Before Bangs wakes the man up, Flair instructs everyone to give the man at least 5 of space, in which he puts the man's weapon. He instructs everyone to have their weapons out, but not to brandish them. But to be safe, he instructs Bangs to just give him enough healing to wake him up and get to his feet. If this went south, he didn't want them to be a problem to put down.

[lostsole31]

With Flair's instructions given, Bangs adds the man to the collective.

What now?

[digiman619]

Once Bangs revives the man, he addresses him as cheerfully as he can manage. "Hello. My name is Flair. As you recall, we had a bit of a tussle that you lost. As luck would have it, I'm in charge of this group rather than someone less merciful. So I've woken you up to give you a choice.

"Option 1 is you leave that", he says, gesturing to the weapon between them, "and come with us to the chapel. We've got food and healing and it's honestly your best shot of surviving this nightmare as it's well fortified as well. You probably won't be be armed unless you join with the defenders, which of course will mean that you'll be more at risk than the general population, but you'll be as well fed and safe as possible in these circumstances."

"Option 2 is that you pick that up", again gesturing to the weapon, "and run away. Swear that you'll do no harm to us and ours and we'll let you live. You'll be free to find your own way out or a place to hole up. If we cross paths again, don't raise arms against us; just let us pass and we'll all be copacetic. Of course, you're kinda beat up at the moment, so the chance of you finding a place to heal up before a ghoul nabs you isn't the best."

The cheerfulness in his voice had finally faded from it as he gets serious. "Finally, you have option 3. Option 3 is if you do something stupid. Like trying to hit us right now, or pretending to pick Options 1 or 2 but trying to double cross us. If you pick this option, we kill you. If you're lucky, it'll be in a place were we don't have the luxury of time and we'll just run you through. If we aren't rushed, let's just say it's not nice to say in mixed company but rest assured that you'll have the time deeply consider your mistake in messing with us."

Roughly half of the cheerfulness returns as he finishes. "So, those are you options. What's your pick?"

[bcool999]

Bangs

Bangs channels healing into the man a drop at a time until he regains consciousness.

Spoiler: OOC

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Manifest Natural Healing a 1 PP once a round (3 hp healed per 1 PP) until he is at positive HP then stop. If Bangs can bring him to exactly 1 hp and then redirect any excess healing to someone else I would.

[BuckGodot]

Björn snorts to himself and rolls his eyes as he hears Flair say he is the leader...

[lostsole31]

It actually takes Bangs four rounds (and 4 PP) to get the man awake and mobile.

Once Bangs revives the man, Flair addresses him as cheerfully as he can manage. "Hello. My name is Flair. As you recall, we had a bit of a tussle that you lost. As luck would have it, I'm in charge of this group rather than someone less merciful. So I've woken you up to give you a choice.

"Option 1 is you leave that", he says, gesturing to the weapon between them, "and come with us to the chapel. We've got food and healing and it's honestly your best shot of surviving this nightmare as it's well fortified as well. You probably won't be be armed unless you join with the defenders, which of course will mean that you'll be more at risk than the general population, but you'll be as well fed and safe as possible in these circumstances."

"Option 2 is that you pick that up", again gesturing to the weapon, "and run away. Swear that you'll do no harm to us and ours and we'll let you live. You'll be free to find your own way out or a place to hole up. If we cross paths again, don't raise arms against us; just let us pass and we'll all be copacetic. Of course, you're kinda beat up at the moment, so the chance of you finding a place to heal up before a ghoul nabs you isn't the best."

The cheerfulness in his voice had finally faded from it as he gets serious. "Finally, you have option 3. Option 3 is if you do something stupid. Like trying to hit us right now, or pretending to pick Options 1 or 2 but trying to double cross us. If you pick this option, we kill you. If you're lucky, it'll be in a place were we don't have the luxury of time and we'll just run you through. If we aren't rushed, let's just say it's not nice to say in mixed company but rest assured that you'll have the time deeply consider your mistake in messing with us."

Roughly half of the cheerfulness returns as he finishes. "So, those are you options. What's your pick?"

"Food and healing!" he says with a bit of a vacuous smile. He is not looking at Flair when he says this, nor even at the crowbar, but a "class" of mismatched dolls.

What now?

[digiman619]

Flair follows the man's eyes and sees the oddly arranged dolls. He gets the feeling that there's something off about them, but he can't put his finger on it. He raises a finger to the man in a "gimme a second"-style gesture and turns to his colleges. "There's something odd about those dolls, but I figure out what. Anyone got any insight?"

In fact, he realized he hadn't really looked around the room other than to determine there were no more hostiles, so he took a long hard look at the room around him as his colleges put their heads together to determine if the dolls had any significance other than just being generally creepy.

[lostsole31]

Flair's words, and perhaps some spurring from Gaye, get the party to actually look the room over carefully.

This is obviously some manner of Personal Effects Storage space, a room holding the personal effects of hundreds of Briarstone patients, present and past. Most are held in trust, awaiting the day when their owners will once again be fit enough to reclaim them and leave. Befitting the likelihood of such hopeful prospects, most of the items are covered in a thick layer of dust.

The storage room has been partially ransacked, with some of the shelves knocked over and their contents scattered across the floor. The group helps each and discusses this or that while Gaye watches the madman begin "instructing" his class in some totally imaginary .... whatever, he begins mumbling, you can't even tell. It soon becomes apparent that the two (arguably) best in the group at noticing this or that are Bangs and Corbin, with the latter perhaps deferring some to the former. Bangs, feeling like he's done a lot of work in arranging and searching things on shelves before ends up doing a fine job of searching and ends up noting two vials of a fluid behind a whole lot of other stuff. With Maeni on the magic-sensing trail again, Maeni determines that both are indeed magic. Both have faint auras, but she is unable to determine the school of either one of them.

Maeni and Haru discuss what they can from the physical clues of each vial and the fluid contained therein. They comes to a consensus that one is a vial of silversheen, and the other is a vial of oil of align weapon.

The rest of the room is searched with nothing else of value, and the dolls are best determined to be a collection of dolls and cuddlies appropriate for the standard races (and usually Varisian or Chelaxian ethnicities of human) that are given care here ... nothing magical or otherwise sinister about them (that you can tell, though you might have a hard time convincing Flair of that!).

Do you guys divvy the two vials, or put them in group treasure for now?

[BuckGodot]

Looking around at the others, Björn suggests that at least one of the vials go to him as he is one of the few physically armed people in the group.

[SwordChucks]

Zoo agrees with Björn "That makes sense."

Inspecting the cuddlies Zoo wonders aloud "I wonder if I'd get attacked as much if I looked like one of these stuffed animals?"

As he says this, he places a few of them in his backpack to take back to base and pockets a stuffed dog.

[digiman619]

Flair nodded to the rest of the party as they brought their new addition to the chapel. Flair makes sure to mention to Winter that as long as they keep him unarmed and allow him to "teach", he should be fine. I'm pretty sure this one isn't a an outsider in disguise, at least, he thought.

[lostsole31]

Gaye looks to Björn and the others. "If it's not a problem, Björn can have the oil and I'll take the silversheen."

Once you get back to the chapel (including the challenge you have to deal with at the chokepoint regarding the new human, who is finally admitted ... under guard for now), Winter asks if you'll be going back out today. For her part, Gaye used only one spell.

[digiman619]

Flair looks at his compatriots. Unless any of them object, he is in favor of heading back out.

[BuckGodot]

Björn nods his agreement that they should head back out...

[ClockworkCorvid]

Corbin has no objection with another outing.

[bcool999]

Bangs

"I used a lot of power restoring our new... resident, but I can keep going for now." Bangs says to the group with barely disguised disdain in his voice. "So do me and yourself a favor, don't get too hurt." Bangs warns.

Spoiler: OOC

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Bangs probably would have returned Flair to the collective after we returned Mr. Crazy to the chapel.

[silphael]

"If needed, I can still heal some wounds, and I still got a fair amount of magic available."

Maeni seems to agree with another outing.