Anor, Oliver at her side and the others close behind, knocks at the door. There is no response, and as she knocks, Anor realises that the mouldering door has all but rotted off its hinges.
"Doesn't look like anyone's been home for a while." Anor will push the door open and take a tentative step inside.
"Hello?"
Despite being half rotten and almost falling apart, the door is warped and swollen and subsequently stuck.
Oliver puts a hand on her shoulder, "Maybe we should do a once around the place for any signs of life before we force our way into the house. Maybe she just has a stuck door, and doesn't much want visitors enough to bother answering." At his own suggestion, he starts to head to the side to circle around the house, looking for either windows, or any activity nearby.
Adalwin shudders as Jasper recounts his story, looking at the thatch figures with a sense of foreboding. " This place just gets better and better doesn't it?" He mutters to no one in particular.
He makes ready to follow Anor into the cottage.
Oliver limps around the cottage. There are no windows, but here and there are gaps in the walls where the daub has sloughed off and the half elf can peer through the gaps in the woven lattice beneath.
It is dim and shadowy inside; a human would probably make out little peering through such cracks, but Oliver’s elven vision allows him to see a little.
He can see crooked shelves attached to the walls, filled with clutter, a large cauldron in the centre of the room, and several other items of furniture, including a large, ominous looking chair which seems to have some sort of figure sitting in it, unmoving.
The small twig and fibre effigies in the yard sway in the breeze, almost seeming to bend towards Oliver as he makes his way around the cottage.
Anor nods at Oliver's suggestion, but leaves the inspection to him.
Oliver returns to the others, trying his best to avoid a 'told you so' tone to enter his speech, "It appears that there is someone within, seated and unmoving." He takes the front, to step up and rap on the door with the spear butt harder than he could by fist,
As Jasper says, these figurines very much have a rough and 'home-made' look to them, being constructed of bound and woven together twigs and thatch.
There is one that looks a bit like Jasper.
The little fellow goes a lighter shade of green than normal.
There is no reply to Oliver's knock or his loud but polite hail.
The hanging fetishes and the standing effigies twist and creak in the breeze.
"This is creeeeepy...."
Reekis nervously puts his hand on the butt of the crossbow hanging from his belt.
"I think we need to force the issue. There's a chance she could be dead in there."
Oliver nods begrudgingly with Anor's assessment, With his warning administered, he indicates the go ahead to force the door. He does issue one last warning, "Keep your weapons sheathed, in case she is also deaf, we don't want to force our way in while armed a give a wrong impression."
Adalwin is about to disagree with Oliver, but stops himself. Oliver knows all kind of stuff, he's probably right
The boy sheathes his sword, and then positions his shield to help absorb the impact of the door, before rushing at it.
He hits the door, which doesn't budge. Red faced, he steps back, trying not to make eye contact with anyone. "Probably didn't take a big enough run off"
Adalwin rushes at the door again, this time with more promise.
Adalwin pushes at the door with his shield – it shudders, and he hears something crack, but it doesn’t open. Hitting it a second time – this time with far more force - causes the door to splinter and practically burst apart, easily allowing entry to the interior of the hut.
Inside, the windowless cottage is dank, reeking, and filled with shadows. Haphazardly hung shelves line the walls, covered in all manner of clay jugs, clouded bottles, strangely cut rocks, rotted bunches of herbs, and a museum of other crude curios and remnants of a bone grinder’s artifice. A big, rusty iron cauldron, with a body nearly 5 feet round, dominates the hut’s single room, its ash-covered surface shaped with a relief of capering fiends and leering devils. Across from the door, against the far walls, stands a high-backed chair made of wicker, the gigantic curved tusks of some monstrous beast, and thousands of human teeth. With the interior of the hut now better illuminated by the sunlight coming in through the broken door, the figure sitting in the chair can be more clearly discerned - what looks like a corpse wrapped in filthy burial linens and torn rags, its surface sprouting patches of thick white mould.
"Well, that explains why there was no answer. Should we search for some rats tail?"
"So... it's a root that looks like the tail of a rat, right? That's why it is called so?"
He peers from the doorway, looking for any kind of organization. Entering seems unwise, but he looks back at the fetishes nervously. ShadowWing perches on a shelf within.
Adalwin holds his hand over his nose. "Lets search this place quickly so we can get out of here." He starts looking around the room.
Jasper’s keen senses detect no signs of life or movement within the cottage … neither does a quick scan reveal anything resembling a rat’s tail. There are scores of jars, bottles, urns (many of the opaque or dust shrouded), bundles of dried or rotten herbs and other objects on the shelves or stacked on the floor around the edges of the room. A visual examination would take at least twenty minutes to half an hour to catalogue everything, given the dis-order; physically searching (moving things around, opening up jars etc.) might actually hasten the search if you choose.
Additionally, seeing is one thing; understanding what you are seeing is another. Various knowledge skill checks, skills like Appraise, and various spells may help you better catalogue what is contained here.
Turning away from the sight of the fetishes in the front yard and focusing on the cottage, Jasper suggests, "This is going to be a task. Maybe we can each take a shelf and search it for items of interest. If we find something potentially valuable, especially to the herbalist Laurel, it doesn't appear that the old witch will mind if we take it back to town. Mind if I take a low shelf?" Moving to his left, he looks for a shelf low enough for him to peruse or one he can reach with a chair, perhaps.
"This might help." He summons a set of magical torches to increase the lighting conditions in the room for those lacking his darkvision. As he searches, he hums a little tune. When he touches different items on the shelf, the dust and grime simply disappears, making it somewhat easier to identify what lies within.
After a scan Adalwin starts to work on the shelf above Jasper, marvelling at the magical talents of his friend. "Your a useful fellow to have around!"
He looks again in distaste at the mouldering shroud. "Is it safe to be in here? My mother used to say some moulds could be quite harmful to breath in. Anyone know if this one is ok? Should we bury her or something?"
The boy doesn't really know what to look for, but points out anything of interest to the others who may know more about these things.
As Jasper and Adalwin search through the contents of the cottage, the large black cauldron suddenly lurches into movement, scuttling about on its three stubby tripod legs, its iron walls twisted in a strangely malleable way as it opens and closes its ‘mouth’ in an ominous fashion. Its intent is obviously not friendly ….
"Agh! Look out!"
Anor tries to think of a way of dispelling, or disabling whatever effect has caused this....
Jasper attempts to locate a higher vantage point from which to fling acid at the oversized animated pot.
Anor tries to think of a way of dispelling, or disabling whatever effect has caused this....
[dice=Spellcraft]1d20+8
Jasper attempts to locate a higher vantage point from which to fling acid at the oversized animated pot.
Jasper looks around in a panic and realizes there's nowhere for him to go. Hoping to surprise the animated kettle, he tries to rush out of the hut before it can attack him.
Once he's outside (if he makes it), he digs his precious flask of acid from his pouch for use in casting a spell next round.
Jasper flees outside the hut.
Adalwin draws his sword and strikes at the cauldron, unsure of where to hit the thing. Not having his shield to hand anyway, he grips his sword with both hands, swinging as hard as he can.
There is an almighty ~clang~ as Adalwin’s sword strikes the heavy iron cauldron with enough force to sever a limb of a living opponent. The cauldron is left badly dented, but it is difficult to tell how much the blow actually ‘wounded’ the unusual opponent.
Eljoy rushes into the hut and chops at the animate cauldron, but his axe skids awkwardly off its curved iron side.
The cauldron lurches at Adalwin, its oversized mouth snapping.
The big pot closes its mouth around Adalwin's midriff, bruising and breaking ribs. It then rocks back on its tripod legs, swinging Adalwin up into the air.
Oliver is both confused and worried by the notion of being attacked by a big iron pot. He is even more aghast when it grabs and crushes into Adalwin hard. "Hold on, Adalwin, I'll help however I can."