Denizen's Curse

"That would probably work." Adara nods. "The thunder comes about Five seconds after the lightning flash." Just as she says that another flash of lightning lights up the sky.

Delvet counts to five and readies himself. The moment he feels the thunder in his bones he slams into the door. The door buckles and falls into the closet. It comes to rest against a shelf as the room is too small for the door to fall directly on the floor.

The room is still dark but now at least a bit of light flutters in. Enough to confirm that there is no threat in there. Delvet would have to look closer to see if there is anything useful in there.

In the corner Amrille stirs and wakes up. She stretches and yawns. "Ugh, can't even get a proper rest with this storm going on." She complains.


Delvet CS

The Door knocks over some glass jars with dried veggies inside. Some of them remain on the shelves.

Now that Delvet can get a better look he sees a few different things. A dozen heavy bags of flour, some water containers, a skeleton of a raccoon holding a rainbow flag, some moldy cheese and a small empty wooden box.

Adara comes and takes a peek inside as well. "Is that a dead raccoon? Poor thing never made it out of the closet."

Amrille gets back on her feet and dusts herself off. "Anything useful in there? If not we should probably get back to finding a way out." She says, seemingly ready to get going. "And maybe we can find a toilet in here too." She whispers to herself.


Delvet CS

Amrille nods. "Yes that's likely our best option." She then looked at Onyll and Morivella on the bed. "This room is probably safe for now. You think it's okay if we leave them here? We could take Adara or Lyrn along. Or is it better if we stick with just us two for now?"

--

A bit later the party (whoever Delvet decides to take along or not) makes their way to the art room. Delvet carefully opens the door and looks inside. A lightning flash lights up the room just as he does so. For a moment it looks like there's a figure moving in there. But when the lightning stops it becomes clear it's just the bust of a statue casting shadows.

The party steps inside and looks around. The art room is large the bust of the statue seems to be the only one left. All around the room are pedestals where once similar statues must have stood. However the walls are not empty, they are filled with many paintings. Each one depicts a wildly different scene.

One however stands out. It is far larger than the other paintings. On it a medusa like figure is seen doing battle with a warrior. She is holding the severed head of another. Underneath the painting is a plaque with the following writing etched into it:









Delvet CS

Amrille walks up next to Delvet. They both look at the painting.

A closer look reveals some more details. The medusa figure is wielding a sword and charging towards the warrior. The warrior is hiding behind a reflective shield. Next to him on the ground is a decapitated body of another warrior. Most likely the same one the Medusa is holding the head of. Behind the warrior is a path that leads up. A light shines down from an opening up ahead.

Amrille nods. "This is most definitely a clue to the puzzle downstairs." She pauzes and reads the plaque. "There was a statue without a head down there right? The first line is probably about him. Which means the second is about the other warrior statue. The third implies our 'monster maiden' takes an active role in the death of her enemies." She pauzes again and looks at the painting. "That light is her way out. Which I guess means if we recreate the scene of her victory we'll get our own way out."

After a moment of silence she frowns. We could go try to solve the puzzle now but I think we're still missing something. I have no clue what though."

She turns her head to the door on the other side of the room. "According to the map there's only one hallway on this floor we've yet to explore. Aside from the locked room. There's also those stairs up to the third floor. So what's the plan?" She asks.


Delvet CS

"Im sure the keys are somewhere in this mansion. We'll find them eventually." Amrille answered.

Letting Delvet lead she gestured towards the door. Delvet walked over and carefully opened it.

The hallway was empty. Amrille nodded to Delvet and walked over to the door at the other end. She tried to open it but it wouldn't budge. "Another locked one." Her gaze shifted to the stairs. "Up we go?"



Delvet CS

Delvet and Amrille headed up the stairs.

Up there there was a single door which was slightly open. As they got closer they could hear sounds coming from the room. Amrille readied her crossbow.

When they reached the door they realize the sounds are gargling and crunching. Like a wild animal eating a carcass.

Peering inside they saw a zombie feasting on a dead body. Blood covered the floor and carpet. However they noticed something odd. The zombie looked different than the ones they had seen before. The skin was a greenish-grey, it's nails and teeth were long and it's eyes glowed a sickly green. While eating it snarled and growled.


It is too occupied with it's meal so it has not noticed Delvet and Amrille. Amrille looks at Delvet waiting for a signal on what to do.



Delvet CS

Delvet succesfully sneaks up on the zombie and strikes it through the heart. It screeches loud enough to shatter glass.

Amrille takes a deep breath and fires two bolts in quick succesion. Both hit the creatures throat. Ending it's screech abruptly.

The zombie is caught off guard and doesn't have time to retaliate. However, it's still moving and will attack if given the chance.


Delvet CS

(No that'd be two actions, only one action per turn allowed. However once you hit lv 20 you could make a skill that does exactly that in one action. But that's three levels away so.)

Delvet's strike goes clean through the corpse. It gurgles one last time before falling on the floor motionless.

Amrille enters the room, keeping her crossbow trained on the corpse. "We should ask Adara about this. She seems to know some things about zombies. Maybe she knows why this one looks like.. this."




(You get an EXP for quickly taking care of this creature. Either Blue Ki for good sneaking or Mind for good planning. Your choice. Reminder that this stat increase doesn't apply until you level up.)



Delvet CS

"Not a bad idea" Delvet looked over the strange corpse again. "Should we.. uh, bring it with us? Or bring Adara here?" He kept his blade drawn, worried about what the corpses strange physiology meant.


(blue ki)

"I was thinking we just describe it to her. But I guess it'd help if she could see the actual thing." She paused to think for a moment. "We don't know what's up with this thing. So I'm not sure we should be touching it. Or bring it into contact with the others."

She looked down at the corpse and frowned. "On the other hand I'm not sure we should leave it alone either. At least not unless we're sure it won't get back up. And the path back is clear so we won't have to worry about being ambushed."

She looked back up at Delvet, expecting him to decide.

The corpse remained unmoving.


Delvet CS

The corpse doesn't react to being bisected. A foul smell fills the room as the creature's guts spill out covered in black ooze.

"Good thinking." Amrille looks the room over quickly without moving from her spot. "Think we should search the room now or after we go to Adara? There might be something useful here." She asks.

The sound of rain crashing against the roof grows louder.


Delvet CS

Heading back to the others goes quickly and without issues. Once they get back Delvet and Amrille describe the creature to Adara.

Adara thinks for a moment. "Green skin, black blood that reeks horribly? Yeah, I think I've heard of that before. It's concerning though. If you encountered one of those then.."

Amrille interupts her. "What was that thing then?"

"Oh, right. When zombies are still fresh and they manage to eat a sizable amount of fresh meat, they begin to change. The end result of this process is a ghoul. Ghouls are much smarter and harder to kill than a zombie. From your description however I believe that zombie was still in the middle of it's mutation."

Amrille frowns. "That's disturbing.."

Adara nods. "The more concerning part is that the mutation process takes time. If this one was as far along as you described.. it would take at least a full day to get to that point. Which means this outbreak started much earlier than we thought."

Lyrn speaks up. "Does that mean the people in this mansion were going through this horror yesterday? While the rest of the town was completely unaware?"

Adara nods. "Most likely. That does raise the question, how did a zombie outbreak start in this somewhat secluded mansion? I had assumed the infection started with some poor bastard who died in his home without anyone knowing. But with all the information we've seen.. If a zombie was in this mansion long enough to mutate without the rest of the town knowing. Add in the scratch marks, blood trail and hidden exit.. I believe that the source of this outbreak might have been something older and more dangerous than a normal zombie."

Onyll sits up in the bed. "The cemetery."

A feeling of sadness and dread washes over the room.


(Out of game info: Delvet would know this as most people in Val would. Cemeteries are dangerous places. Ever since the first Undead invasion almost two thousand years ago people are no longer buried in Val. In order to avoid them becoming undead they are always cremated if possible. However some ancient cemeteries are still around because the locals are afraid of disturbing them an unleashing any undead creatures that might still be hidden in there. Any undead that has been existing for that long is extremely dangerous. And now Adara believes that such a creature is responsible for this entire outbreak._{(this is basically a repeat of the first post of this RP but it's been a while since then so I figured a refresher would be handy.)})


Delvet CS

Adara nods at Delvet. "The little bit I know about ghouls is that they're more than just upgraded zombies. The biggest difference is that they are smarter. While Zombies are mindless, ghouls have the intelligence of large animals. They tend to move in small groups. Then there is their regeneration abilities, whenever they eat flesh of the living they heal their own wounds. Something Zombies can't do. They also move much faster."

Amrille sighs. "So we'll be up against self healing, fast and smart zombies that move in packs? Great." She says with sarcasm heavy in her voice.

Adara shook her head. "Not quite. If there are ghouls out there it would only be one or two. As I said before the mutation process takes a while. It's unlikely that enough time has passed for more than one or two have made the full transformation. There is a good chance that we'll find more partially transformed zombies though."

"So how do we take them down?" Amrille asks.

"The head is still the weakpoint so destroy or cut it off. It'll be harder to do but it will still work." Adara answers.

"What about the cemetary? Would there be ghouls there?" Lyrn speaks up with a question.

"That's possible. But what we should really be worried about is the fact that ghouls don't stop mutating. I don't know how old that cemetery is but most of them are almost two thousand years old. That's a lot of time for a ghoul to mutate into something more dangerous."

"Like what?" Amrille asks.

"That's the worst part, I don't know. Ghouls can mutate into many different forms depending on different factors. If we're lucky it's a slightly more powerful ghoul, if we're less lucky it's a Ghast. Ghast's are stronger, faster, more beast like and have thick hides and long fangs."

"Could we fight that?" Lyrn asks.

"Yes, it'd be very difficult but they can be killed. However if we're dealing with a Draugr or something we're fucked."

"Draugr?" Amrille raises an eyebrow.

"All you need to know about them is that if we come face to face with one we're all dead. Any other information about them will just make you imagine all the ways it can kill you. So let's just hope that isn't what we're dealing with."

Onyll stands up, his legs still wobbly. "Are we still sure this secret passage is our best way out then? If it leads to the cemetery then it'll lead us straight to this thing, right?"

"We don't have a choice. The only other way out is back into town. The town that is crawling with hordes of zombies. We'd have to get a key from the guard captains quarters which last we saw was filled with zombies. Then we'd have to fight our way to the gates." Amrille counters.

"And run right into the arms of bandits who are probably waiting outside." Lyrn adds.

Morrivella moves over to support her father and make sure he doesn't fall. "What if we stay here? Isn't that the safest thing we can do?"

Adara shakes her head. "We don't have enough food here to last us another day. We need to move now while we're not suffering from starvation."

Delvet CS

Amrille nods. She then follows Delvet back up to the room.

They find the partially mutated zombie still lying unmoving on the floor and cut in half. Satisfied that the room is safe they begin to search the room.

Delvet finds an ornate key in a drawer.

Amrille also finds something. She speaks up "I think I found the Countess' diary. She must have forgotten to take it with her when she left the town." She holds up a worn velvet book.

Delvet notices sudden movement as the upper half of the corpse tries to grab on to his ankle. He manages to avoid being grabbed, the undead creature hisses up at him.

Delvet CS