As silly as it is, this garden ooze can definitely lay waste to the whole of them. It moves rapidly about and is hard to spot.
"My apologies, but the only thing to handle a pie fungus like this is one of these." She taps one of her flasks. Alkali certainly would make short work of it.
Unfortunately, it would also burn all of you in such a small space. Best to shoot it!"
Her hand lingers over the flask in her pack and wonders if she will need to use it.
+1 splash
The pie, and the mold growing on it, burst at the impact of bullets from Higgins' and Maverick's attacks. This appears to be a typical garden ooze, a sort of fungus that diseases plants, and, in this case, plant derived products.
This is silly, but it doesn't appear to be anything supernatural, just an intrusive fungus taking advantage of the abandoned house. There is nothing especially haunted about this kitchen.
"Don't think it's a threat anymore--we shot up the pie good," says Wes, as he gingerly touches the arm where he'd taken some acidic burns.
With the immediate threat neutralized, Wes starts seeing what else might be in this cursed oven and the rest of the room.
"Ah...good. Quickly handled. Great shots. That was quite the wild pie," she smirks. "Are you alright Wes, darlin'?" Observing the wound, she winces. "Acid damage. As I suspected. Does anyone here have healing powers they can use on him?"
She will let one of the others heal him as she leaves his side and searches out the room.
Clearly, she does not have healing, or doesn't wish to use her items on him at this moment. However, looking at the equipment on the fashionable belt that cinches in her waist delectably, a potion of healing doesn't appear to be there. Her wand, while it could contain healing, looks more offensive in design than those seen in stores that are for healing. Typically, crafters try to make the healing wands look more elegant and appealing than twisted and gnarled or dark and brooding. Her own wand is beautiful and sleek, but not of the bright elegance seen in a typical healing wand. It shares a brilliance but definitely looks offensive with its blood-red carnelian precious stone and black oak branch. Plus, down the side of it, etched in elven, it states "death comes to those I can see".
Myrandya steps forward. "Shtand aside, let me haff a good look at him. Vis shome of my powders and ointments I should be able to patch you up, my friend." She pokes and squeezes Wes's limbs while sprinkling a pinch of what looks like red salt on the wound.
A moldering sofa sits along the south wall of this room, and once-comfortable chairs sit in front of mold-covered windows. A spectral child sits on the knee of a spectral man who fits the description of Captain Roderic (or looks like him if you knew him). Two other children sit on the floor around him, listening to him read. A woman sits next to him in another chair doing needlepoint.
As you watch, the skin of the children and the woman sloughs away in wisps of shadows to reveal skeletal faces. Roderic turns to you and points accusingly with an outstretched finger. "Get out!" he says in a long raspy whisper.
Maverick was again leading the group into the next room, which from location and size could and should be the family room. "Now let's see in - WHOA!" He jumpes back startled, after kicking the door open and seeing a ghostly family, playing. His hand still shaking a little he steppes forward and observes the scene.
Is this the old man, we're looking for?
"I'm sorry for intruding..., Sir. But may we have a moment with, aehm, you? " Maverick makes room for others to also enter, but not intrude.
"Thanks, Myrandya!" says Wes as his wounds are healed.
;
"Aaaaah!!" Entering into the next room, for the second time in as many days, Wes sees a ghost and is completely terrified. He runs straight out of the house. His stallion Midnight snorts in disappointment.
Fears and insecurities are all too common for the sea elf due to living a life of shame. Oftentimes, she would be far more susceptible to effects that shed fear or dread upon her, but given that she knows the Captain, or knew him, she is steeled in response. That doesn't mean she doesn't feel dread inside the core of her.
She watches Wes and how the others react without judgment before responding to the captain.
"He's right," she refers to John with a gesture. "If you can hear us in this state you are in, Captain Roderick, do you remember me? Little Nempura?" She was the only blue-skinned sea elf in these many years. Surely he would remember her, at least in sight, if not knowing her adoptive father more. "I've grown up. Please don't be angry with us. We are friends. Citizens in the cove. I remember your children..." It saddens her to see them slough away into their skeletal forms, as for a moment it brought back memories of her own childhood; now replaced with the horrific vision before her.
Myrandya's eyes widen, but she manages to keep it together. She looks hesitantly at Nempura and nods to her, as if to say it is perfectly fine with her if the elven woman speaks on her behalf. She looks sadly after Wes, unsure if she should give chase.
Eunice gets only a glimpse of the skeletal family, but nonetheless Roderic's words close like a vise around her chest. She backs away quickly, looking frantically for an exit.
The spectral image of the Captain looks confusedly at Nempura, then upward, then back at the sea elf as his spectral form seems almost to evaporate from the feet upward until finally he and the family fade away. The energy pools like glowing water or fire against the ceiling before fading away completely.
"Hmpf. Catching a ghost would be difficult, I presume. But I didn't think getting him to talk would be." Maverick resigned. Then he looked down the hall where the others ran and slowly walks towards the building entrance that 4hey came through.
"Hey big guy, you sure, you're up for the job?" He shouts jokingly after Wes with a smile. But he quickly recovers and tries to sound not too much like a jerk.
It seems Wes isn't the one one who ran, and as the Captain indicates where he wants them to search, she smirks to John's comment.
"He said what he had to say...in less words than I'd have liked, but he looked up and went into the ceiling. Surely we'll encounter his spirit once more upstairs..., and perhaps he will be more helpful than terrifying" She also looks down the hallway where the others ran. "I hope they are up for it."
She will move to comfort those who fled, as she understands the fear the specters can cause, but then when they have recovered, will work to search the living room for more information. If she finds nothing further, she will head to the base of the stairwell at the back of the house, ready to climb them if they are safe enough.
"Was that Roderic, the same spirit that appeared yesterday? Eunice asks, sheepishly, as she rejoins the others. "I'd have thought he'd seem less … menacing … here; we're no threat to him or the town. I'm less inclined to have the boy stay here after all; he might flee into the water or something."
"Yes. it is him. Perhaps we can calm his spirit though, or even send it on to rest, making this a safe place for the boy and his father to stay for the time being. It may not be the safest place, but it's heaps better than living on the streets."
Wes eventually comes back, tail between his legs. "Stupid ghost, double pay ain't worth it," he mutters. He then looks around as the party discusses. "Seems like the man's got a secret if ya ask me, and he ain't sure if he wants us ta find it."
Having cleared the ground floor , Wes also heads toward the stairs, though he's a bit too shaken up to look closely at anything.
Somewhat unusually, both staircases essentially lead to a central gallery. The lighting here is dim because the only light that seeps in is what comes through a few open doors. In the northeast corner room, the same blue light flickers across the floor, up the walls, and across the ceiling.
"Sure is dark here.". Knowing a bit of magic, Wes conjures light from his hat as he looks around some more. He's particularly interested in any signs of passage through this level.
"Ah...I see you have things handled yourself."
The sea elf could, of course, see perfectly, but has been utilizing a dancing lights spell. Now that Wes shows he can handle the lighting for the humans, she focuses on the task at hand rather than worrying about the others.
She will follow the others until they get to the northeast side of the room, seeing that there is a reactive quality with the blue light there.
"Captain?" she asks again into the (now) brighter light filling the darkness of the room.
Wes can see several tracks of small footprints that likely belong to the boy you know has been lurking up here. No sign of anyone else as far as you can tell.
In the northeast room, a moldering mattress lies amid a bowed wooden frame, flanked on either side by ruined tables. A dresser in the northwest corner of the room has seen most of its drawers pulled out and discarded on the floor. Remnants of moldy and animal-gnawed clothes spill from them. A hole has been hacked into the floor, near a long, slender wooden case that is open and tipped over on the floor.
Although she doesn't say it, Nempura is filled with rage that a boy should be forced to live in such conditions. She may not see his footprints, but she does see the moldy mattress and can only guess. No doubt his father stays up here too, and she looks for his slimy trail of bottles and lazy waste. If she doesn't find it, it's likely because he either throws it into the river, or because his son cleans up after him.
She inches forward toward the northeast side of the room. The wizard will move up closer to the hole. Not to the edge of it, but after examining the floorboards around it, tries to peer to where the hole drops. She will need the illumination of Wes to see into such darkness.
Wes points out the boy's tracks, then heads with Nempura to the northeast room. He checks around for as well, deciding to examine the dresser for anything of interest. He then follows Nempura to help her see down the hole.
Eunice shakes her head sadly as she enters the room. [b]"This place is feeling less suitable tor a child all the time,"[b] she says quietly. As the others move toward the hole, she examines the tipped-over wooden case and dresser.
Most of the wear in this room is years old. You find a pile of dirty straw under an old blanket that looks like it might be a bed.
The hole has been hacked and pried in the floor, and that damage is pretty new, not more than a couple weeks. The wooden case is heavily laquered and shows no signs of water damage. Inside it is lined in padded silk and the clear impression of a sabre with what looks to have been an ornate hilt.
If there was any finery in the dresser, it has long been stolen. What is left is mostly undergarments. Even the buttons have been cut off of most everything.
"I mirror your concern," she simply states in response to Eunice. "Hardly surprisin' giving his father."
With the light, she tries to see the bottom of the hole, and being capable to see further in dim light than humans, she should see the bottom.
"Is this a toilet? Where is this letting out? I didn't see a hole in the roof of the floor below...did I?"
She will direct her detect magic spell on the case and the hole.
The hole isn't deep, just some floorboards hacked and pulled up. Like the case was hidden in there.
. "Nice sword there," says Wes, as Eunice checks out the wooden case. "Think it belonged ta the Cap'n?"
"Yes, perhaps a sword with a 'fancy handle and an unseen blade.'" she adds to Wes's comment about it being a nice sword. As to whether it was the captain's or not she shrugs. "He built this place. Anything under the floorboards I'd imagine would be put there by the person living in the home. And done so in secret."
With a flighty, dismissive wave of her hand, she will attempt to gather Eunice's attention in regard to the case she investigates as she moves from the hole to the dresser. "We may want to take that down with us. Ask the boy to picture the handle of the sword he saw in his mind and then ask if it matches that indentation."
"I am thinking from the damage to that wood...and with the rain and moisture in the air on the edges of it, that damage was done before the boy and his father came here. I don't think they fished it out of there."
She tugs at the drawer and chuckles at the sight.
"Some thief, at some point, even took the buttons off his old clothes. No wonder he's pissed at us wanderin' about. Poor Roderick."
Silence falls over the elf as she considers her own mortality and end. Not long after her death, she will be just a short-lived memory and then nothing. Will she be forced to linger in hatred or protection? Will she find rest after what she's done? A shake of the head later, she is ready to depart the home when the others are.
"Okay, so someone came 'ere a fortnight ago and dug out Roderic's sword--and soon after, the Order of Resplendence folk use a weird sword ta kill a bunch o' Horn Fangs? Gettin' weirder 'n weirder. Probably best not to tell anyone that the boy saw what he saw--let's try ta keep his name outta this."
"Smart." she states simply concerning keeping the boy out of things. "Right, let's go back to the sheriff. We can tell her and see what she has to say about this and the other location found as well."
A moment before they head down, she will cast her prestidigitation spell on the moldy bed, on the old and moldy clothing in the drawers, and on anything else that the boy could possibly use while staying there. When cleaned of the offending foreign material, she will go with the party.
When they get to the child, she will ask whether or not he thinks the blade with the unique handle looked similar to the depression in the case.
"I intend to finish that transaction too...and perhaps in the deal, I can manage to secure the property rights to this land as well. Then I can restore it with magic and aid. Make a place for that boy while they live," she considers, thinking in terms of thousands of years rather than the potential 40 or less that a human in squalor will live.
soon after, the Order of Resplendence folk use a weird sword ta kill a bunch o' Horn Fangs?
"It's the same sword, you think? If Roderic had a sword with no blade that could kill five men at a time, There'd be stories about it. Unless he didn't use it, I suppose, or didn't know how …" she follows the others downstairs.
"Can't be very skilled craftsmanship if the blade got loose and separated. Just saying..."
Wes rubs his beard in contemplation of the strangeness of the whole situation. "All I know is that Roderic is mad, his sword is gone, and we have a lead on a cult who's takin' gang fights to a whole new level."
As he heads down and meets the boy, he was no longer sure if they should try to spruce up the place or if they should just get the hell out. Having been scared twice, Wes was feeling more like moving on right about now.
As the lot of you begin to descend the stairs, you hear a wailing behind you. Turning, you see the spectral figure of Captain Roderic. His clothes and hair float and move in the air as if he is under water.
In the tired, labored voice of a man who's been gut shot, he moans, [b]"“Myyyyy map. They tooooook my map. It holds the key...to the vault. Baraket will control them. It will control you! I should have taken the gauntlets, but I fled. I was a coward. You must be...brave. You must endure where I did not. The Gauntlets lie in the vault...still in the vault. You must save my Cove. Save... My... Cove!”
Your mind feels no fear this time.
Nempura doesn't say anything to the ghost. She is certain he only speaks to them in what he can see, and likely has no true connection so that they could ask him questions. Also, for some reason, seeing him as though he were sinking to his death makes her feel all the more sorry for him, and being an old soul herself, she has some concept of the time that has passed. She understands how long his spirit has rested here and not been free to go to Pharasma. She knows if they can right this wrong, it is likely his haunting this location over the evils done to him will end. Perhaps the others can ask him a question and he will respond, but she will not and will walk outside.
Once outside, she will look for the child and will make sure he is alright before asking him their question.
Myrandya nods in satisfaction and confirms for herself all of the observations and theories the others have developed. She gapes in astonishment at the appearance of the ghost and seems strangely cowed even when he disappears. Zhe fault, she thinks. Zhe map has zhe key? I shupposhe zhere ish no vay ve could puzzhle it out by ourshelfs vissout it... fery vell, ve musht recover zhat map!
Higgins almost instinctively wants to flee at the third sighting of Roderic. And yet he doesn't. The third time around, Roderic looks not fearsome but wounded, like someone giving his dying wish. "Baraket? Gauntlets? Vault? Whadda yer talkin' bout, partner? Where's the Vault?" He hopes for an answer, even as he sees that Bella does not find such an outcome likely.
"We'll do what we can, Captain," Eunice says cautiously, worried that the spirit will turn angry and terrifying again. "Some of us are from your Cove, too. Let us know how we can help."
At the words of Wes and Eunice, the ghost seems to hear something puzzling at a distance. He cocks his head as though listening intently. "Yes, the Vault. I found it. I took the sword, but I left the gauntlets. The heat was intense and I grew afeard. But the gauntlets. I left the gauntlets. Go to the stone house and take them up. She who took the sword...she will be overwhelmed. The sword is more than a mortal can bear."
The boy Kynae is standing on the lowest rail of the fence of the corral in which you put the horses. One of them has come over to him and he is rubbing its nose. In the light of day, it is striking how thin the boy is, his head sitting on a narrow neck, his hair matted and filthy. In despite of all of that he looks strong, and happy to have made the acquaintance of such a fine animal.
Myrandya snaps her fingers. "Zhe map zhat Frau Babblebrook found earlier on zhe undershide of zhe drawer!" she says with embarrassment. "Zhere vas an X in vhat is probably zhe Churlvood, marked 'Shtone Houshe'. Zhat musht be vhere zhe Fault is located, and vhere ve vill find zhese gauntlets zhat Roderick shpeaks off!"
"Baraket is likely the name of the sword...as it is written there on the box." Naturally, Thassilonian doesn't look anything like how it sounds. If it did, it would be easy to learn.
As Myrandya makes the connection to the map, she nods, "Head of the class." It is a true compliment, coming from a kind-hearted meaning, despite the fact she had already figured out as much. Most wouldn't be able to draw such a conclusion.
Once outside, she approaches the boy and gathers his attention. Her bluish skin now is less spectacular than when he saw it wet and in the dim light of the room. She looks almost elven now were it not for the blue tint.
"Kynae, darlin'...is this the shape of the fancy-handled blade you saw? And did you hear any words related to something called Baraket?" she pronounces in proper Thassilonian.
As she looks at the boy, she thinks to herself, "He should fatten up after eating so much fish. He'll have all he can handle. Not to mention some coin, if he can hide it from his father."
It takes a moment of concentration, but Higgins figures out what Myrandya is saying and nods in agreement. "Let's mosey on back to the sheriff then, after we check in on the boy."
Kynae shakes his head on his spindly neck, "Yess'm, the sword handle might fit in there, I guess. But I didn't hear nothing about Baraket. What happened in there? Did you see the ghost?"
"Yup. Don't go opening that closet under the stairs. Least not until we deal with this gang business and put said ghosts to rest. As for Roderick, sure, we saw him, but he just tried to scare us away. He wasn't violent. Then he also saw we were here to help him. I think you should be safe here...at least more than most places now...," she answers, like it wasn't a big deal. "We cleared out some dangerous critters and I cleaned up those old clothes with some magic. While I we were at it, I made that bed upstairs clean if you are wanting to sleep there."
She gestures off to the side, "And now...to fulfill our deal." She will pull out another ration for him to snack on while they discuss secrets of fishing. She will pull the boy off to the side and will cover her mouth, whispering what she knows about fish. He will now know how to find them, how to manage them properly to grow in numbers, and how many to pull out without thinning them too quickly. The conversation won't likely take long, but the next time she'll see him, he may be so full of fish he might actually be a little chubby.
After all is said and done, she will return to the group.
"Shall we return to the sheriff?"
Before leaving, she will plant a kiss on the boy's dirty cheek and will give him a wink.
"That's for being sweet and helpin' us out. Now there's nothing else you are keepin' from us about that night, this sword, or anything surrounding it, right?"