Session 4: Searching the Second Floor

The party pressed deeper into the abandoned facility, its silent halls marked with faded arrows and defunct elevators. Cautiously, they scavenged what they could—tools, scraps for tinkering and carpentry, scraps of clothing, even palm anchors that would require surgery to install, and a battered deck of playing cards. Burdened with loot, they puzzled over how best to carry and use their finds.

Strange signs of life—or death—soon revealed themselves: blood embedded in the tile, dust disturbed by old footprints, layers upon layers of incidents written into the floor itself. The stains could have been human or something else, the party could not decide. Anatomy of the Eternal Vessel continued to mock them and continued to attempt to lure Liam into its cult.

The group examined medical devices still intact but powerless. The machines hummed faintly with potential, but without a safe source of energy, activating them risked ruin. With restraint, they left the puzzle for another day. Instead, they turned to locked doors. A keycard won them entry to supply closets rich with mundane medical treasures.

Danger was not long in coming. In a server room, the greedy touch of curiosity set loose a surge of wild electricity, stunning them and serving as a crackling warning. With no engineer among them, the machines remained unstable and untouchable, humming with an ominous light.

The next chambers stank of mold. Thick, furry growths clung to walls and air alike, choking the rooms with spores. They forced another desk open by brute strength, drawing forth more reports and fragments of the same grim story. Doors yielded to keycards and effort, and with each one opened, the halls seemed to grow darker, leading them deeper into the bowels of the hospital. They uncovered a folder titled Anatomy of the Internal Vessel and a strange eye-marked token—objects heavy with mystery and steeped in the lore of the eternal vessel.

It was there the beast awaited them—a robotic dog, feral in its hostility, lunging for the goatman. The battle was sharp and brutal. The sniper’s rifle cracked, a perfect critical strike that nearly destroyed the machine outright. Chain and bullets followed, the mechanical hound tearing and thrashing before the party brought it down in shards of steel and sparks.

Still, the facility fought them not with claws alone but with rot and decay. Mold gnawed at their lungs, and though the automaton among them might be immune, the rest debated desperate measures—cloth for masks, makeshift precautions. Nano healers promised some respite, though batteries and nanites alike brought questions of scarcity.

Through halls lined with surgical chambers, they walked the maze of the hospital. With each step the promise of another locked chamber, another lurking horror, lay ahead. Finally, at the edge of exhaustion, they pried open one last door. Beyond waited the unknown, danger certain. What will happen in the up coming combat?