Back in the room with Lavinia and Randall, a pale leathery
face peered out form the hole in the floor. It stared with it gaping mouths
that whispered and chattered and giggled. Randall could see the face in the corner of his eye. He slowly
forced Lavinia out of the room as so they would not attract attention. Without
any clear intent, Randall shoved her into a room full of mirrors. Some of the
mirrors were freestanding, some were mounted on the wall while others were
frameless. There were also a few rare mirrors with ornate scrawled frames, much
like the paintings in the house. It was these mirrors that showed signs of
cracking. By the light from the chandelier above them, the hairline fractures that spread out from
the frames were easily seen.
There was a dart of red in one of the mirrors that caused
Randall to look back behind him. He saw nothing but part of his reflection in
another mirror. As he looked however, he slowly saw the reflection of what of
in front of himself. There was another dash of red before blood started to ooze
out from the fracture that the blob had passed over. Without even turning his
head, he decided it was time to prove to Lavinia that these things were not
real and took out his rapier. He thrust it forward towards into the glass expecting
it to pass right through; in fact the mirror shattered, causing Lavinia to jump
out her skin.
The red blob was soon spotted again and again by Randall,
jumping from mirror to mirror. It seemed to catch itself on the cracks, causing
itself to bleed. One by one, each mirror was frantically smashed down as
Randall gave chase. The last mirror refused to crack however. The red blob was
now more distinct. It was a writhing mass of flesh that lashed out with
bloodied growths at the glass and at the reflection of Randall. Before it
darted away, Randall could make out a singular giant orange eye. He was prepared
to not tell Lavinia for fear of causing her to panic even further but she had
already witnessed it and had fallen to her knees in sobs.
Randall now took the bow from his back and desperately fired
at the last mirror. He shot again and again with each arrow only slightly
cracking the mirror before bouncing off. It took almost his entire remaining ammunition
to destroy the mirror. When it was achieved however, it accompanied by the
sounds of children's laughter. As the laughter fell silent, the candles of the chandelier
were blown out and both felt their eyes and head becoming heavy as stone.
Upon hearing the laughter and seeing nothing happening to
himself, Danton rushed to where thought Lavina and Randall would be. He saw the
door to the room down the hall to where they had just been swing shut. He quickly
ran for it, and desperately grabbed onto the handle. Xera could only watch on
as the metal from it quickly covered his entire body, swallowing him like a serpent
until all that remained was the handle. As Xera looked on in stunned dismay, he
he felt a sharp sting in his neck before
a leathery hand covered his face and eyes.
***
The group eventually
awoke to find themselves all around a
dining table. Eryn, Zeigev and Chail were all still unconscious for any number
of reasons. Lavinia cried out to Randall while Xera noticed there were four
pale leathery skinned creatures sat with them. Just as Danton had seen, they
were hairless and featureless creatures, save for mouths that adorned the
surface of their head. Chance pleaded with them to let the group go before he
saw that they too were retrained like he was. This fact now left group
squirming in their seats as they had on some level expected these creatures to
be their assailants. The restraints themselves that bound them all seemed to be
like serpents to Danton, and although he looked high and low for fuzzy neon
lights, there were none and panic set in.
The pressure in the air changed for a second, causing
everyone's ears to pop, that was apart from Randall and Chance. Within seconds
Lavinia was screaming again, pointing wildly around the room and accusing
everyone of being less worthy and therefore should be eaten. Danton yelled out
for Jarvan expecting to be freed by his butler. Xera looked confused, and
before acknowledging his restraints, asked the group when he had left his
laboratory in Auspar.
Randall now with a broken heart, tried to mend Lavinia's
memories as she lashed out at him. His words however were experienced,
carefully chosen and honeyed. She was slowly calmed down and was brought around
to his way of thinking, which caused the memories she had lost to be regained. With
those memories, she also now saw her stuffed Seskii from her childhood on the
plate in front of her. A voice, licked her ear and asked her if she was hungry.
Without questioning, she leant her head over the toy and tore into it with her teeth,
revealing flesh and bone underneath the fake fur, rather than the stuffing she
expected. Although she initially thought to recoil she forced herself to
continue.
On Danton's plate molten gold, dripped over cases of pills
and vials of drugs and needles, Lavinia's head was served up to Randall, while
Chance saw a pair of hands with bloodied carved
designs in the flesh. Chance turned towards Danton and Randall, who were
at the other end of the table and who both had both refused their meal, and saw
something unexpected. There were Three purple skinned humanoids, around three
foot tall, with no facial features save for what looked like their brains protruding
the surface of their skulls. Both their feet and hands had tapered into a points
and the end of their limbs but they were still able to operate what looked like
medical equipment.
Chance shouted to group about their existence, to which
Randall, who had consciously been trying to see through any illusion, now also
saw. This fact now also ended the illusion of memory loss within the group. As
both Randall and Chance's eyes fixed on the creatures, the creatures themselves
seemed startled and the room went black. The candles were somehow quickly
relit, only to illuminate the now un-restrained creatures, bearing teeth and
claw.
Lavina stared intently at the creature coming for her. Some
of its lips were salivating, while others chattered of her death. She forced an
image into the creatures mind that caused it so much pain that it collapsed and
curled up in to a ball on the floor, muttering incoherently. Chance, only two
seats away, had managed for free himself, much like Randall had now done.
Another leather faced creature lunged at Xera but he managed to dodge by
falling over while still restrained in his chair. The distraction of him
falling over, had allowed Danton to free himself before he ran to the double
doors and into the hallway.
Chance upon noticing Xera on the floor, ignored the hostile
creatures and went to his aid, freeing him and helping him out of the room. In
the chaos, Randall was setting up what had attacked Lavinia upstairs. He had no
real clue what to do apart from what he understood from Xera's loud and frantic
instructions. Time was needed to change it from a large perimeter to one of
close quarters and time was running out. Chance saw an opportunity to distract
their enemies with a violin and dancers, who now twirled around the room
keeping the attention of the creatures.
The apt distraction allowed Chance to grab Chail in his
arms, for Danton to throw Eryn over his shoulder and for Xera to hobble out
while propping up Zeigev. Danton however quickly pointed out that the door in
the ground floor corridor, as they already knew, had had gone and had yet to
return. He told them that the only other door they hadn't tried was back in the
room they had just left. Randall at the same time had noticed that the dancers
were slowing down, and alerted Chance. He knew this meant that the creatures
were soon to have their wits again and told the group of this fact. Danton
broadened his shoulders before picking up Eryn again and charged into the room
and out the other door.
Randall took this as a sign to activate the device and ran
out of the room following the others. The device let off salvo after salvo of
red light that blasted into the creatures again and again. Discharge after
blast was heard thudding into the creatures as their many voices cried out in
pain. As soon as everyone was in the room Danton slammed the door shut and kept
it held fast, waiting for the desperate scratching of the creatures to stop. Lavinia
hurried to the other door in the room, to which Danton was thankful for its existence.
She let out an audible scream as she breathed in the fresh air and fell to the
ground, clutching the grass in her hands.
***
A few hours later the group returned. Chial was handed over
to Jarvan, who was still attending the wounded after the Iron Wind had ripped
through the caravan. Eryn was put laid on his bed in his room to rest while the
others waited downstairs in the bar while Mavis went to fetch Froge.
Zeigev had taken quite a few shots of some of the strongest
stuff behind the bar, which made the rest of them a little nervous. None of
them were huge enthusiasts of alcohol and they knew that those that drank that
much at taverns had deep running reasons to. It wasn't long before they were
given their answer as Mavis returned with Froge.
The second Froge's wheelchair had moved past the threshold of
the Drunken Tallon, Zeigev launched at him with a knife and incoherent rage. Froge
instinctively stood up from his chair and darted for the door while Zeigev
screamed about Froge leaving him for dead, for discrediting him, and for penning
atrocities under his name to promote
his own work.
The group was left stunned as Froge ran out of the inn. The
fight had now spilled out in to main road. Froge was forced to doge around a
few carts and a large boulder. It afforded Randall enough time to take aim at
his leg and to pin his leg to impair him. Danton, taking Randall's lead, shot
Frog with a Khatt-Nipp dosed dart. Froge's eyes widened as he could hear
adulation and adoration for his novels. It distracted him long enough for the
poison Lavina and just infected him with to work. A third arm burst from his
chest, causing him to shout out in pain as the third first started pummelling
into him, eventually leaving him bloodied, bruised and lifeless.
Zeigev could only look on in horror to what had just
happened, He turned to the group to ask why but was instead hit with a tranquiliser
by Xera and fell to the floor before anything more could be asked. Danton
instructed Jarvan to take both bodies inside while he offering Lavinia and
Randall a means to contact him. Although Ren had been an odorous creature, he
had at least been able to pick mostly capable mercenaries.
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