"Want to work left and back to get to the balcony from the inside?"
A worthwile course of action, Wood. Gkirkhan, open that door!
Vertielle points in a seriffed fashion to the door on the left.
Gkirkhan opens the door on the left (western) wall. You see a long hallway lit by light streming in through one lone barred window set into the outer wall of the building. You also see four doors along the northern wall and one door at the end of the hall, where it apparently turns north.
Suddenly the room fills with shrieking humanoid forms, all with badly burned faces,rushing out through all of the doors. The door Gkirkhan is holding is snatched out of his hands as all three of the inner doors suddenly swing wide open and then slam tightly shut.
[ooc]Thanks[/b]
"What the...
Que backs away from the doors, looking around in surprise and also nervousness.
@Vertielle: this must be a haunt. Haunts are places or things corrupted by events or beings. They can often be destroyed by finding and removing the cause. This seems to be a fairly harmless slamming portal haunt, though other types of haunts are far more malevolent and dangerous.
Well I'm not sure what these poor souls are railing against, specifically, but for the moment it would be helpful to have full control of the doors here...
Vertielle rustles in her pack as she speaks, her facade of calm betrayed by her shaking hands. She manages to extract a haunt siphon from her tangle of gear, and opens it. With a muffled pop and a whoosh...
@Vertielle: are you sure you want to do that? The haunt siphons are one use only items. You also think holy water might be effective against it.
@group: my bad, there are five doors here. The one on the south wall you entered through, one on the west wall, one one the north wall, and two on the east wall.
Wood grabs the trusty Necronomicon and sees if these haunts are from another plane and if there are any arcane remedies to combat them.
@Wood: you arefairly certaon this Bantu is not related to the Dark Tapestry in any way. This, and probably other haunts, are powered more by cursed spiritual energy.
"Sumbody owes me a drink. A goot strong drink vit a couple ov luverly gorls on mein arms."
Gkirkhan rubs his temple with a free hand, his other still holding the hammer.
A serene smile spreads across his face at that thought.
As the doors slam shut, Vertielle brings out one of the haunt siphons and pops it open. Immediately the gas inside starts to glow green and the tube reseals itself.
Which door do you want to open?
Wood backs Vertielle up as she obviously has a plan, I think we are back to the left door again.
Wood nods and opens his door on cue.
"Hokay. Hold op! Vhy exactly are ve doink dis? Von't de spooky, screamy tings go avay vhen ve keel de nekky-manserz? Aren't dey de vuns causink all ov dis?"
Vertielle explains patiently as she rips up debris covering the floor, gazing about expectantly.
The necromancers may have animated or disturbed the spirits, Gkirkhan, but they have nonetheless suffered a grave injustice. Some of these men were simply thieves, or conmen, or even drunkards. Some may have been children- Burned to death in a cage. You remember your dream? They may have been reaching out. They deserve to move on, to rest easy, in the ground, not in these cells. The magic has been spent; we must deal with the repercussion now, the source later.
Her head pokes out of the cell, her hair slightly askew.
It is like treating the fever of a wound, while waiting for it to heal.
Teaching the basics of necromancy and spiritual manifestation seems to relax her, if only slightly.
I just hope I don't find myself in melee combat again.
Gkirkhan slaps a hand to his forehead.
"Götterdämmerung, Und dot is vhy I hate vizards. Especially covardly vizards."
Gkirkhan gives Wood a look from under his hand.
"Hyu, Hy like dough."
@Vertielle: you are in main foyer to Harrowstone (the room marked S2 on the map). As there is only one western door, I will assume you ment for Wood to open the northern door. Are you opening the northernmost eastern door (to S15 on the map) or the southernmost eastern door?
Gkirkhan reopens the door to the western hallway,once again revealing the western hall (S3) lit by light streming in through one lone barred window set into the outer wall of the building. He can see four doors along the northern wall and one door at the end of the hall, where it apparently turns north.
Wood opens the northern door to reveal a long, dark hallway.
Whoever opens the door to S15 sees a large room fading into darkenss, with benches set up facing a stage direclty across from the door. The stage itself is walled off from the rest of the room by iron bars.
The last door leads to a short hallway ending in another wooden door.
All of the rooms are dark, dank, and reak of mold and mildew. You see no indication of remains in any of the areas.
@Wood: you arefairly certaon this Bantu is not related to the Dark Tapestry in any way. This, and probably other haunts, are powered more by cursed spiritual energy.
What I ment to say: You are quite certain this haunt is not related to the Dark Tapistry in any way.
INT
@Wood: from the map Gibs gave the group, this first floor contained no cells. It seemd to be the control and reception area for the prison. The only prisoners here would have been being admitted or on some form of work shift. Still, it might contain more information about the prison and any changes to the blueprints you now possess.
@Vertielle: what room are you searching?
As Vertielle opens one of the northern doors, she realizes that this is not a cell block, but rather a set of offices. Though the doors to each are im poor shape, each also has a small plaque on it.
Office a: Records
Office b: Housekeping
Office c: Staff
Office d: Quartermaster
Watching the haunt siphon in action, Wood is impressed. He rushes to help Vertielle search the offices.
How long you wish to take examining the offices? If you take hours, you can assemble all of the paperwork into a coherent whole, giving you a clearer picture of Harrowstone at the time of the fire.
I admit, that is not what I expected... Oh well, I suppose we'll locate the restless soon enough. In the meantime, I will peruse these records. Gkirkhan, be a dear and search the quartermaster's office for useful items or information?
Vertielle enters the records room, dust billowing into the hallway along with the sound of rustling papers.
A muffled sneeze can be heard in the hallway.
Oh, dear.
Info dump:
At the time of the fire the prison held 67 prisoners, 9 of them women. The prison was divided into 6 cell block sections, each with an evocative name. The two cell blocks on the upper floor were for the less dangerous prisoners, while the more dangerous of them were incarcerated in one of the four underground cell blocks.
The cell blocks on the upper floors were named The Crypt and the Nunnery.
The Nunnery held female prisoners and at the time of the fire held 5, three of whom had been condemned to death. In that section, you find a note reflecting a transfer of the 'so-called Piper if Illmarsh' from that block to a cell in Calistria's Cave and of the confiscation of her pipe as she was using it to somehow summon stirges which attacked the guards and the other prisoners.
The Crypt held 17 regular prisoners, 10 of whom were under a death sentence. You also find a note for this cell block stating that the guard captain’s office on that level had been converted to a cell for one Sefick Corvin, in accordance with his sentence.
The five cell blocks in the dungeon area are described as Calistria's Cave (a women's cell block), Hell's Basement (described as being situated under the prison graveyard), The Nevermore (for prisoners sentenced to life and torture due to the severity of their crimes), Reaper's Hold (described as the interrogation block) and The Oubiette.
The records show four prisoners (including the Piper) in Calistria's Cave, 22 prisoners in Hell's Basement, one only (Heath Feramin) in The Nevermore, 15 in Reaper's Hold, and The Oubiette held the remaining eight (including Ispin Onyxcudgel and Vance Saetressle)
The staff records show a total of 71 staff including 40 guards and 4 guard captains split among 4 shifts, the Warden, the Quartermaster, the Recorder, the executioner, the medical officer, 6 cooks, the Housekeeper, Superintendent, a Priest and 3 acolytes, and 10 general workers.
Oh, and there's a locked safe in the Quartermaster's office.
"Yez, Mizz Vertielle."
Gkirkhan doesn't seem to happy and you can hear him grumbling about how he should have brought some liquor as he stomps off. He half-heartedly gathers some papers and files, until he sees the safe.
"Vell, vell, vell. Vot have ve here?"
He pulls out his greatsword and wedges it into the crack between the door and the frame. Then he pushes, hard.
"Dem." He tries again.
"Vot de hell?" Again.
"RARRRRRGH!"
At Gkirkhan's roar and the obvious shearing of metal, Vertielle calls out from her nest of various papers. Let Que have a go, Gkirkhan!
Gkirkhan manages to pry open the door to the safe.
It holds financial records and 500 gp, the prison's monthly operating budget.
It also contains a receipt, signed by Warden Hawkran, for the monthly payroll of 500g, apparently counted seperately from the operations budget.
"Ah, vot iz dis? A bag ov gold? Vot's dot, hyu have been lonely all ov dis time? Shush, dot iz hokay, Papa Gkirkhan iz here to makes sure dot hyu iz never lonely again."
Gkirkhan gently picks up the bag of gold and strokes it much like one would a kitten or puppy.
Vertielle, who has been standing by the door with curiosity since the safe was opened, sighs deeply.
I believe this is the property of the townfolk, the families of the guards, and the council- but, since you two seem to have bonded so... Her eyebrows meet for a moment as she tries not to laugh at the sight.
intimately, I suppose we should keep it.
The ladies and the results with the ioun stone have been having an effect on me. I have been truly warmed by the great attitude of the town--as one often distrusted, it is nice to be trusted.
"Gkirkan, I think we may want to see if that gold counts as salvage during exploration of a dangerous ruin. Every time we do something nice for the town we are rewarded. Maybe we should not be so quick to keep the gold. The two baubles you have are a result of open and honest dealings with these people we are helping."
I am glad the safe distracted Gkirkan while we did boring book and research stuff.
*sigh*"Hokay, if dot iz de vay hyu vant to go about et."
Gkirkhan hands the gold over to Wood. His eyes go wide and watery.
"Save that look for the townspeople when we tell them about the skeletons, the vines, and the haunts. I am hoping we keep this loot too."
"No vun tells about de plant."
Gkirkhan's eyes go from bright shining orbs to sunken pits that open up into the deepest reaches of hell.
Needless to say, getting knocked out by a garden weed tends to weaken your credibility to deliver pain.
Vertielle laughs out of hand, then covers her mouth with her hand, an apologetic, if mirthful, look in her eyes.
Let me finish up with these documents, then we can continue through the southwestern door. I think it may lead to the outside wall, and windows...
She shivers, looking about at the dank dungeon.
After Vertielle finishes examing the documents, you head to the door at the end of the hall. Here the hallway bends, leading to another side door and a dead end. While the norternmost door does not have a sign, the southermost door does have one reading:
Office of the Lord Warden of Harrowstone
Warden Lyvar Hawkram
The door opens easily into a spacious room, which, like the rest of the prison so far, smells of mildew and rot. There is a long desk and chair sitting in the southern end of the room, whike the nortwester alcove contains a clsoed safe. Thick layaers of dust cover everything in sight. Somehow, though, this room feels clean, less opressive than the rest of the prison so far, as if a burden you hadn't evn realized you were carrying has been lifted.
Searching the warden's room following others of course.