* ___----___ Where last we left our heroes, they attempted to find the rared of all treasures: A Reliant Robin with no Rollover Damage. Just kidding, the group was on an assignment to the capital and with a task in mind. They were heading to Miranda's capital to try to take down Doctor Masters, believed to be the man responsible behind the ghouls and zombies overrunning parts of the
* ___----___ city. Intel had suggested he was last seen at Miranda's central hospital, which loomed in the distance. Despite considerable damage to the city, it seemed to be in relatively good shape. There was comparatively few undead around, however, which was a bit unnerving.
<Kid_Icarus> ...
<___----___> * Jacquinette swordforms, sheaths herself, and stows herself in Marcel's inventory.
* Israkan "Well now what."
<Marcel> "We need to head into the hospital.  I'm still leaning towards going into the hole in the wall.
<___----___> * The group has four entrances: One via the upper floors, that could be accessed via a fire escape or via flight. A second one, an emergency exit on the back of the hospital. A massive hole in the south wall, where an Ambulence has crashed through it. And the front door, which is heavily protected by what looks to be any random crap they could find as a barricade - mostly furniture
<___----___> - but which clearly has open gaps and probably isn't keeping the local undead out, let alone the group or anything with punch.
<___----___> * Decide you must, which way will serve your task best.
* Israkan quietly rubs his chin and ponders
<Marcel> "I feel like the doors would be too risky, and trying to get through the roof sounds extra dangerous.  I think the hole's the quietest way in."
<Marcel> "Any other thoughts from you guys?"
* Angelika is now known as Ophelia
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<Israkan> Probably the fire exit.
<Israkan> We don't know what we got on our hands here.
* Marcel nod.
<Kid_Icarus> Hmm. 6.6
<Rajani> "I can work with whatever entrance we decide on. Just don't spend too long discussing, for fuck's sake."
<Marcel> "Hm."
<Marcel> "Alright.  Let's go with the fire escape then."
<Rajani> "Hmmmph. Well, you do that" Rajani cast's a spell and is whisked through the air to the top of it.
* Marcel sneaks in through his own zombies and starts climbing his way up the fire escape.
* ___----___ Unfortunately, ladders are beyond the ken of these animate corpses. Marcel will need to leave them behind.
* Marcel is fine with that. He instead is mostly gonna be using them to patrol on his behalf.
* Israkan peers around and takes a look as he tries getting to work with his own methods
* ___----___ The fire escape door is stuck - at first. It takes several attempts, but soon with some elbow grease, comes open, causing a large stack of Empty Cold Storage units to tumble over; why they were stacked near the door is an enigma. Heading inside however, the group is a little shocked; the hospital's second floor looks almost nothing like how they saw it last. The layout is
* ___----___ similar, but the original furnishings are gone, the walls resplandant with a new coat of paint arrayed in swirls of reds and blacks. Furniture is piled high in some of the treatment rooms, while others seem to be empty. There's no power and curiously, no enemies visible, but the whole place gives a creepy, unnerving vibe.
* Marcel moves in quickly to try and catch as many cold storage units as possible, to keep from causing a racket.
<Kid_Icarus> .oO(The fire escape is probably the best route.)
<Rajani> "Ugh. This is tacky."
<___----___> 6* Deeper past the initial hallway, the group can see the big statue of Brooke from the academy tied to the central pillar of the entryway, with its arms and legs removed and a sizable hole bored in its chest. Some sort of socket has been set in the hollow, which has a five-sided hole. The initial left and right treatment wings both seem unbarred and unguarded on the first floor,
<___----___> 6with their counterparts on the second floor also available. The cafeteria seems to also be available, as does the nurse's station. Each seems to have some sort of emergency lighting on, so someone was here recently.
<Marcel> "Tacky doesn't begin to describe it."
<Israkan> Oh for fucks sake....
<Rajani> "I swear, if we need to hunt down some emblem and stick it in the statue to progress, I'm going to laugh."
<Israkan> The hell did they do to my wife's statue? This is...fucking disgusting
<Rajani> "Dismemberment."
<Israkan> I'll dismember their fucking faces
* Marcel creeps closer to the statue
<___----___> * In the basin in front of the statue, is a scrap of paper.
* Israkan takes a look at it
* Marcel picks it up and inspects.
<___----___> 11,2R: Power has been going out in the east wing since last week after we re-routed the power through the cafeteria. My need for increased security here necessitates some roundabout procedures in order to ensure I can keep working without interruption. I've given your adjutant one of the spare keys to the ICU in the event of an emergency, so make sure you use that if for some
<___----___> 11,2reason you need to get in touch.
<___----___> 11,- M.                      P.S. Get better at destroying these memos. Just last week that annoying little girl of theirs with the rabite managed to find like seven pages of communication logs, and successfully screwed up about a month of preparation time. If that happens again, I'll be telling the boss we have you to thank for it.
<Ophelia> "...Disgusting things they've done to this place."
<Marcel> "..Y'know there's something ironic about us finding a left behind communication that includes a postscript about destroying these memos."
<Marcel> "Guess we have to find R's adjutant then."
<Rajani> "It'd help if we'd found these memos BEFORE everything went to hell."
* Israkan arches a brow a little
* Dr_Callista_Penelope_Brighton (~docarcade@cpe-184-57-161-255.cinci.res.rr.com) Quit
<___----___> * The room itself is dominated by the statue and display. From this room the group can head to the Nurse's Station, Waiting Area, Treatment Wing East, Treatment Wing West, Upstairs, or Cafeteria.
<Kid_Icarus> .oO(...?)
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<Rajani> "Hmmm. Given the note..."
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<Ophelia> "You know, you'd think they'd have more in the way of defenses, as well..."
<Marcel> "So Masters is probably in the East Wing, and the power's out in the cafeteria. Shame this doesn't tell us which way to go otherwise."
<___----___> 6* Actually, that is something the group would note: The complete lack of enemy presence.
<Dr_Callista_Penelope_Brighton> ...
<Israkan> Little too quiet to be frank.
<Israkan> Uncomfortably so
<Rajani> "Let's go to the cafeteria."
<Rajani> "They're routing power through there, so there's clearly something to work with there."
* Marcel nods. "It's a start."
<Rajani> "I suspect we're being observed. Just a guess."
<Ophelia> "It's best to sweep the place, just to be sure of everything."
* Ophelia attempts to use her powers to scry out any sources of death in the area...
<Kabuki_Quantum_Fighter> Agreed.
* Marcel starts making his way towards the cafeteria. Also using his magic to try to find the undead
<Ophelia> "...The cafeteria, the western treatment room and the ICU...all have very strong auras of death nearby. Be on guard."
<Israkan> Whats the worst that could happen
<Dr_Callista_Penelope_Brighton> ...you jinxed it. :|
<Israkan> It was getting boring anyway
<Marcel> "Let's start with the cafeteria then."
<___----___> * The cafeteria has all its furniture barricaded against the windows. A huge number of power cables jut out of the wall, sending electrical current god-knows-where. A body is here, skewered on the wall, in one of the blue uniforms seen used by Morden's troops. It's hanging from a sharpened piece of steel gas piping shoved rudely into a wall. Something is held in a deathgrip in the
<___----___> corpse's hands.
<Ophelia> "...stand back for a moment!"
* Ophelia investigates the corpse, just in case...
* Marcel holds back. "Could try to animate the thing."
<Ophelia> "I...doubt it would work easily. The flesh of this body is completely calcified, almost like stone."
<Ophelia> "Which means..."
* Ophelia pulls out a flask of acid from her belt and pours it on the body's hand to try and release its grip...
<Marcel> "Ah.  Yeah, you're right.  Rigor's set in and hard."
<Rajani> "... But why is one of Morden's troops dead here?"
<___----___> 6* In a rather disturbing display, the hand tissue melts away in a natter of seconds, causing a set of keys to fall to the floor.
<Kabuki_Quantum_Fighter> !!!
<Marcel> "...Oddly anticlimactic."
* Kabuki_Quantum_Fighter looks to Callie who looks back.
<Rajani> "Hmmm" Rajani retrieves the keys. "I don't like any of this."
<Ophelia> "It's a set of keys, it seems. Well then, let's go find what they open..."
<Rajani> "The ICU, I'll bet. This seems like a constructed situation."
<Marcel> "Wonder if that's the adjutant the note meant."
<___----___> 6* Still no hostile presences. The keys have a tag listed for the ICU.
<Rajani> "Called it."
<Israkan> Did you really need to melt it?
<Rajani> "I think we're walking into a trap." Rajani mutters.
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* Kid_Icarus narrows his eyes.
<Marcel> "Even if it's a trap, not sure what other choice we have."
<Rajani> "Short of just blowing our way through walls, you're correct, sadly."
<___----___> * The group can head to the ICU, or check out one of the other areas.
<Dr_Callista_Penelope_Brighton> {I vote for the I.C.U.}
<Rajani> "Part of me wants to explore around a bit, because the I.C.U. is so blatantly somewhere to check out..." Rajani mutters. "But we're not splitting the group."
<___----___> * Any objections to heading there?
<Marcel> "I say we go for the ICU... but I don't want to go through the front if we can avoid it.  Maybe some side routes like a vent or something?"
<Ophelia> "...Proceed slowly, then. The last thing we want is to awaken some kind of horde."
<___----___> * The group heads to the ICU; the door has been reinforced, with several metal bed-frames welded to the door exterior to shore up its defense. It has a large, flat lock, which the key fits. A loud rattling is heard far off.
<Marcel> "Hmm.  There's definitely st<Ophelia> "I sense corpses, but there isn't much sign of the undead. Just...bodies, littered all over this area."
<Marcel> "You're right.  If this is where they're making the ghouls... where the hell are the ghouls?"
<Ophelia> "...probably, either elsewhere, or we're dealing with a different breed of ghoul."
<___----___> * Opening the door, the group can hear the rattling louder and louder, coming from a storage room halfway up the ICU. There are three other rooms here, which look like minor treatment rooms, and a pair of double-doors at the end.
* Marcel inspects around the area, trying to get a measure of how scuttled this place is.
<Rajani> "I mean, ideally, the bastard's been eaten by his own ghouls, wouldn't that be nice?"
<Marcel> "I doubt we'd be that lucky."
<Rajani> "... This is creepy as hell though... Something familiar about it..."
<___----___> * This part's in good condition, though there seems to be bloodstains on the floor. The noise seems to be coming from the storeroom; a locker in it has its door violently shaking. Several corpses, wrapped in bodybags, are laying on the ground in one of the treatment rooms, and a faint mist seems to be seeping in under the door at the end of the hall.
* Marcel is mostly seeing how cleaned out the supplies are.
<Rajani> "Ophelia, check the corpses."
<___----___> * The storeroom does actually have a surprisingly decent amount of medicine left. Mostly disinfectants and hemostatic medicines.
<Dr_Callista_Penelope_Brighton> --.-
<Dr_Callista_Penelope_Brighton> -.-
* Marcel pilfers, seeing how abandoned this place seems. They could be better used for the people currently fighting, rather than just sitting here.
* Ophelia immediately starts checking the bodies!
<Marcel> "Bit surprising finding all this stuff just sitting here, really."
<Ophelia> "...That's because our enemies are toying with us again, clearly."
<Ophelia> "Either that, or they've packed up and changed locales."
<Rajani> "Or they just plan on killing us too rapidly for infected wounds or blood loss to be major issues"
<Marcel> "Sure the undead don't need them, but Morden's troops could work.  And maybe the demons too?"
<Rajani> "Well, we've seen how much they seem to care about the safety of Morden's troups."
<Rajani> *troops
<___----___> * Whatever is inside the locker keeps battering away at the interior.
<Marcel> "I guess, but aren't they ostensibly allies?"
<Rajani> "... Hey Marcel, open it."
* Marcel uses life-sight to see if the occupant is alive or dead. And also works at picking the lock
<Rajani> "And yes, but they seem to be perfectly happy to murder them, even prior to the invasion."
* Marcel shrugs, keeps on picking the lock.
<Ophelia> "...Oh dear."
<___----___> * Marcel gets the door open, only for the occupant to spill out!
* ___----___ is now known as Barb
* Marcel ducks aside and draws arms...
<Barb> Chuuu. @.@
<Marcel> "A rabite?"
<Ophelia> "Many of these bodies aren't undead-...most of them are stripped and autopsied in a manner I'd find unspeakably barbarous."
<Ophelia> "Our friend has hardly any respect for the dead, it seems."
<Rajani> "A rabite!" Rajani chucckles. "That's good luck." She offers it a candy.
<Kid_Icarus> :o
* Marcel squats down and pets Barb, looking it over her for injuries.
<Marcel> [Also, we appear to have lost Isra]
<Ophelia> ((;w;))
<Rajani> ((;w;))
<Barb> [We gonna savepoint shortly]
<Israkan> "Really these things are good luck? Interestng."
<Marcel> [Oh good there he is]
<Rajani> "Well, I've never had them be bad luck."
<Marcel> "I have.  But this one's helpful at least."
<Barb> * Barb is a mildly spikey red rabite. Lesser Chaos Rabite. He nuzzles Marcel's hand.
<Rajani> "Also, Rabite feet are supposed to be lucky. On the other hand I'm not sure where the feet are, and I'm pretty sure if they were so lucky they'd still be on the Rabite."
<Rajani> "So I assume whole rabites are far luckier.
<Marcel> "Josquin doesn't exactly like chaos rabites.  But Barb's okay in my eyes."
* Rajani wrinkles her nose. "There's something..." She clenches her fist and sniffs. "What is going on here....?"
<Marcel> ?
<Marcel> "Something?"
* Rajani strides to the end of the hall and kicks the doors open. "Something... nostalgic. In a bad way."
<Ophelia> "...Rajani, pull back for a moment. I need to...make sure of something."
<Rajani> "..."
* Ophelia looks around for a minute, checks to see if they aren't being followed...
* Marcel also starts scouting a bit
* Dr_Callista_Penelope_Brighton seems extremely dubious about her surroundings. <_< >_>
<Dr_Callista_Penelope_Brighton> >:|
* Rajani scowls. "Tch..."
* Dr_Callista_Penelope_Brighton reads Dr_Callista_Penelope_Brighton's mind!
* Dr_Callista_Penelope_Brighton fires Drill Wall! A cluster of 16 drill missiles packed tightly together fire forth from the cannon. In midair they unfold into a matrix of 4 x 4 drill missiles joined by cross-beams and press into its target until they run out of power!
<Dr_Callista_Penelope_Brighton> [Strike that]
* Dr_Callista_Penelope_Brighton rather attempts to read the aura of the surrounding area.
<Rajani> "Sorry, this place isn't doing much for my temperment. It just fucking SCREAMS 'bad shit."
<Marcel> "Yeah.  Bad shit alright."
<Dr_Callista_Penelope_Brighton> ...you may be more right than you know... >:|
* Marcel steps back from one of the doors, gesturing to a mist starting to seep in.
<Dr_Callista_Penelope_Brighton> I don't have proof...
<Dr_Callista_Penelope_Brighton> ...but I suspect this entire wing may be illusionary.
<Marcel> "An illusion?"
<Dr_Callista_Penelope_Brighton> Something about it is out of sync with what should be our reality.
* Marcel tries some Dispel Magic.
<Rajani> "... I see."
<Rajani> "... Which is nostalgic in an entirely different way."
<Rajani> "... Is the Rabite real then? D:"
<Marcel> "I wouldn't put illusions or hallucinations past Masters.  He's pulled that crap before."
<Kid_Icarus> He was no doubt hoping for the Major to show up where she'd have a distinct disadvantage against his vastly greater psionic abilities.
<Barb> * Nothing dispels, curiously.
<Kid_Icarus> ...but perhaps Dr. Brighton might be closer to his level.
<Marcel> "Well... it's not magic."
<Barb> * Closer inspection reveals that next to the door, there's an elevator, but it seems to be offline.
<Rajani> "..." Rajani tries the doors.
* Antipothis (~Antipothi@c-73-78-211-178.hsd1.co.comcast.net) has joined #Commercial_District
<Kid_Icarus> We also know an alpha class viera psionic, do we not? <_<
<Marcel> "I mean, yeah, there's Lulu.  But she's not here right now."
<Kabuki_Quantum_Fighter> Pit may mean Lulu's mother.
* Marcel gives Rajani a hand with the doors.
<Marcel> "...She's not here either?  Let's focus on what we can do rather than what we cn't."
<Barb> * The door resists, but soon gives way with a rusty creak of protest. Inside the main operating theatre is thick clouds of purplish haze, around waist-depth, all centered around a fair-sized central tree of some sort.
<Kabuki_Quantum_Fighter> Indeed.  But it may be a resource we may want to fall back on in post-mission times.
<Marcel> "Not... quite what I expected."
<Rajani> "... What the hell is that purple crap?"
<Marcel> "Doesn't seem toxic."
<Kid_Icarus> I do not trust it.
* Kid_Icarus lights up Hephestas' Torch! This torch burns with a pure bright white flame and cannot be extinguished by water, wind, earth, or the elements. It is however a magic item and consumes MP over time.
<Rajani> "... It's charging me with magic? What is this..." Rajani mutters. "Why?"
<Marcel> "Eh?"
<Barb> * Pit's torch immediately causes much of the mist to move away from the group. The tree in the center of the room is warped and red-barked; closer inspection shows the tree is growing through a corpse.
* Marcel moves a bit closer to the bizarre tree
<Rajani> "Oh, now that's pleasant."
<Rajani> "... What was this for...?" Rajani mutters "I've seen it... what were they trying to do..."
<Marcel> "Something you've seen?
<Marcel> "Can't tell you what it is, but I can tell you it is otherworldly."
<Kid_Icarus> I'm tempted to see if it can be ignited.
<Rajani> "This business with the tree. I've seen it before."
<Barb> * Light it ablaze? (Y/N)
* Kid_Icarus narrows his eyes...and quite literally..."torches" it.
<Rajani> "Wait, I'm not sure that's a go-" Rajani calls out too late.
<Barb> * The tree burns, withering and scorching away, and causing the tree to collapse, the purple fog fading with it.
<Marcel> "...Well we burned it."
<Barb> 6* However, as it does, a distinct impression of something very wrong with this area sets in, as if a veil had been lifted. Vines encrust every surface of this room, and the whole thing looks a lot more delapidated than it did before.
<Rajani> "... Well then."
<Barb> * Back out in the hallway, it's almost like the entire place has shifted around. Additionally, the doors out seem to be shut and barricaded, despite the fact that the group just came through them. Curiously, the elevator seems intact.
<Barb> * In fact, the elevator has power now and the light inside is on.
<Barb> * There are buttons for a first, second, and third floor.
<Rajani> "... Well, we're trapped now."
<Marcel> "...Wait."
<Marcel> "This is a two floor building."
<Barb> [And it is here we save. L:3]
<Rajani> "Yes, and the elevator wasn't functional a moment ago. I think reality has taken a leave of abscence..."
<Kabuki_Quantum_Fighter> :|
<Marcel> [Gonna get self to bed]