Roscoe is grateful, and immediately looks much improved by the spell.
"Thank you, Brother Vaclav," he says. "I'll make my way to Sandpoint and tell the Sheriff what's happened. I guess I'll see if he has a job, too - I'll need one with the Sanatorium gone.If any of you need a strong pair of hands that can find their way around a sword, let me know." He heads off north, axe over his shoulder.
With a column of smoke from the farm rising behind you into an overcast sky, you press on toward Misgivings, following the Foxglove River. In less than an hour's walk the sea-wind picks up, and the river empties into a cliff-flanked rocky bay, with Misgivings located on the southern headland that forms a high peninsular pointing North. The well-trod path leads around the bay behind the low cliff and you follow it.
The strangely cold sea wind rises to a keening shriek as Foxglove Manor comes into view. The place has earned its local nickname of the "Misgivings" well, for it almost appears to loathe its perch high above the ocean, as if the entire house were poised for a suicide leap. The roof sags in many places, and mold and mildew cake the crumbling walls. Vines of diseased-looking gray wisteria strangle the structure in several places, hanging down over the precipitous cliff edge almost like tangled braids of hair. The house is crooked, its gables angling sharply and breached in at least three places, hastily repaired by planks of sodden wood. Chimneys rise from various points among the rooftops, leaning like old men in a storm, and grinning gargoyle faces leer from under the eaves. That the manor clings to the cliff is remarkable, as the whole far side is nothing more than a sheer drop down to the ocean below, a fall of over three hundred feet. Out front, the foundation stones of a long-burnt outbuilding stand sentinel astride the weed-choked approach; a low stone well squats morosely amid these ruins.
Vaclav bids Roscoe farewell and urges him to look up Hollis and Father Zantus in Sandpoint. They may know someone looking to hire help. And he can join the Erastil-scouts if he has a mind to.
***
"An accursed looking place. No wonder Foxglove's mad."
"Caw!" a Raven sitting on the ruins eyes you speculatively, as if patiently waiting for you to turn into it's next meal.
Aylmora wordlessly eyes the desolate manor for several moments, a pensive expression on her face.
Suddenly, she bursts into a fit of giggles that soon grow into gales of laughter. The young woman bends over and struggles to regain enough breath to speak, tears streaming down her face. "I just realized... I was having misgivings... about entering 'Misgivings'!" she exclaims, her laughter easing any nervous tension that had been building among the group.
"Miss Aylmora, you got to be careful. There's still some crazy guy out there thinking of you. But if he's in here, we'll get him, that's for sure," Gornak says, trying to reassure her.
Thanadros walks up towards the door.
Perception (Searching the door)
Once the door looks safe, Thanadros turns to Gornak. "Do you want to do the honors, or shall I?" He says gesturing towards the door.
Gob manifests force screen and uses detect magic and detect psionics on the way up. His crossbow is readied. "If anyone wants to become giant-sized for the coming confrontation, I can accomodate." (Gob has enlarge person prepped.)
For when needed:
If possible, Gob remains as quiet and hidden as possible once they enter.
Stealth
Init
"If you think it's safe, Thanadros, I'm ready to bust in!" Gornak replies, his hammer at the ready.
There are actually two sets of large, strongly built doors, one set facing directly south and the other facing south-west. Each is a double set, closed fast with an ornate lock engraved with the Foxglove crest.
Int
"I'll bet that key we grabbed is for this door. Remember the crest? We may be able to surprise him..."
"Okay, are we doing this the sneaky way, or the fast 'n' furious way? Because I'm better at one than the other!" Gornak chuckles.
"I can be silent as a cat, if need be. I do not think splitting up is a good idea. If these ghouls paralyses one of us while we are alone..." Thanadros lets the statement linger. "We should stay together, let us do it 'fast and furious' as Gornak says. These vile creatures have caught us off guard more than enough. It is time for them to reap what they sow." Thanadros takes the key and unlocks the door and then gets his bow out to cover Gornak.
"Miss Aylmora, you got to be careful. There's still some crazy guy out there thinking of you. But if he's in here, we'll get him, that's for sure," Gornak says, trying to reassure her.
Aylmora smiles at Gornak and reaches up to give him a reassuring pat on the shoulder. "Don't worry about me, Gornak. I'm not losing my mind. And I'm not afraid of Aldern Foxglove or 'His Lordship' or whatever he wants to call himself. No, I'm going to make him pay for what he's done to poor Katrine and Banny and all of the other innocents he's hurt - and then I'm going to bring that ugly house down on his head and burn it to cinders!" she says with grim determination as she reaches into her magical pack and withdraws two wands.
Murmuring the trigger word for one of the wands, she uses its magic to surround herself with a field of invisible mystic force before stowing it back in her pack. With the other wand in-hand, she nods to her companions to signal her readiness.
"Storm the place," Vaclav agrees. "We'll hit them hard and fast, but remember the living scarecrows. They may have live captives here."
Anticipating close combat and undead, Vaclav readies his mace and makes sure his holy symbol is freely available.
"Okay -- since we're going in rough, you can cast your embiggening spell on me, Gob!" Gornak gets ready to hunch over and squeeze himself into the house.
Gob grins. "I've been waiting to see if this spell will work...Granny only taught it to me recently..." Gob casts the spell before Gornak can protest.
(Enlarge person, CL 2)
Gornak rises and swells until he can barely fit through the doors. They crash open as he shoulders his way through.
The sound of the house straining and creaking gives this long, high ceilinged room an additional sense of age and decay. The place smells damp, the unpleasant tinge of mold lacing the air as surely as it stains the wooden floor, walls, and furniture in pallid patches. A curving flight of stairs to the south winds up to the upper floor, while a pair of large stone fireplaces brood to the north and south. Heavy dark-blue curtains hang over the windows, and the frames above each of the two doors are carved with dancing gargoyles and skeletons. Trophies hang on the wall to the northeast: a boar, a bear, a firepelt cougar, and a stag, their glassy eyes staring from fur crusted with mold and cobwebs, yet they pale in comparison to the monster on display in the center of the room. Here crouches a twelve-foot-long creature with the body of a lion, a scorpion’s tail fitted with dozens of razor barbs, huge bat-like wings, and a deformed humanoid face. The stuffed beast’s poorly maintained fur has fallen away in places, allowing the sawdust filling it to sift out into tiny mounds on the platform below.
You get a momentary whiff of burning hair and meat...
Vaclav snorts, "This place smells like no one's been here a long time. Let's go left to cut off the other door. Then we can sweep that side of the building."
"Then lets go while Gornak is still big...er."
Gob casts light on the taxidermied centerpiece in the main room before they go through the door. "So we have a solid fall-back point; remember one of the ghouls had magical darkness." He then casts it on his crossbow if there is time.
Perception:
Vaclav casts light on his holy symbol. Then he casts resistance on Gornak before the big man goes through the door.
Perception (Door)
Perception (Listening to other side of door)
If everything checks out good, Thanadros gets into position to cover Gornak as he opens the door.
Gornak enters, the floor creaking under his heavy tread. There is silence in the halls. The Manticore looks threadbare, as Gob makes it's tail glow. There is a dank smell in the air, but not the stink of rotting meat that you associate with ghouls.
"Looks like we'll see this thing at the dump some time soon," Gornak comments.
Gornak advances to where the room narrows. A rather gruesome antique—what appears to be a mummified monkey head—hangs on the northern wall here. A bellpull extends from the monkey’s gaping mouth. A ratty throw rug partially obscures a foul stain of dark-colored mold on the floor.
He can see further forward into the room at the end of the house, clearly a dinning room as a large mahogany table surrounded by high-backed chairs sits in this room. The table is covered by a moldy white cloth, and a cobweb-choked chandelier hangs from the ceiling above. Twin fireplaces loom to the west, while to the east, a bank of stained glass windows obscures what could have been a breathtaking view of the Lost Coast. Each of the windows depicts a stylized monster rising out of smoke pouring from an intricate seven-sided box covered with spiky runes. From north to south are depicted a gnarled and tangled tree with an enraged face, an immense hook-beaked bird with sky-blue and gold plumage, a winged centaur-like creature with a lion’s lower body and a snarling woman’s upper torso, and a deep blue squid-like creature with evil red eyes.
Thanadros looks around the room. "What strange... taste."
"Why don't we search the place from the top down," Gornak suggests, pointing towards the stairs. "That is, if the second floor can even support my weight!"
Gob attempts to glean meaning from the symbols and pictures, thinking back to all he's read with Me. Parooh.
Know (arcana)
Know (history)
Know (religion)
Gob doesn't know exactly what the symbols mean though some are hauntingly familiar, but he does realise that to obscure such a view with windows you cannot see through is a bizarre architectural choice. Whatever it means, it must be important to the person who built it to be placed in such a key position.
Aylmora looks about the rooms, her face twisting into an expression of bemused disgust at the sight of the mummified monkey-head and the bizarre stained-glass windows.
"No wonder Aldern Foxglove's off his rocker - living in a place like this!" she exclaims.
"I like Gornak's suggestion to search this madhouse from the top down. I can just imagine crazy old 'His Lordship' watching the entire countryside from a top-floor window, thinking he's the ruler of all he surveys."
Thanadros nods and looks to Gornak. "Lead the way, big man.
There is a staircase on the right as you entered the hallway. Gornak has to squeeze to get through in his enlarged state, with the mouldy carpet muffling his footsteps. The stairs lead up into gloom, the landing above has no windows and what light there is filters around the door-jambs of the rooms opening onto it, until your light spells disperse the shadows
Gornak squeezes through the hall until he reaches the 10' wide corridor.
"That's better. I guess we'll start with this one," he says as he points to the door closest to the stairs. He listens for any movement inside.
Perception:
The door opens to an empty landing, with a flight of stairs leading down presumably to the central hall. The stairs are bare and uncarpeted, probably a servant's staircase.
"Let's try one of the sets of double doors while Gornak's still giant-sized," Aylmora suggests, pointing to the two sets of double doors that face each other further down the hallway. "The doors on the left, perhaps?"
Thanadros nods and walks up to the door and listens to the other side.
Perception
He lets the others know of anything he hears, readies his bow, and then backs up to let Gornak lead the way.
There is no sound from beyond the doors that Thanadros can hear...
Gornak will open the door.
A stone fireplace sits in the northwestern portion of this chamber. Paintings hang on the walls to the north and south, each covered over with a thick sheet of dusty cobwebs that obscures its subject from view. At the far end a little light leaks under another set of double doors.
Aylmora slowly and carefully moves about the room, clearing the cobwebs from the paintings so she can see their subjects.
Gob stays in the hallway unless needed.
Wiping away the dusty cobwebs over the paintings reveals them to be portraits of the previous occupants of Foxglove Manor. The three to the north depict Vorel and Kasanda Foxglove and their daughter Lorey. Vorel is a tall, middle-aged man with long dark hair, a clean-shaven face, and dark blue noble’s clothes, while Kasanda is a stern-faced brunette woman with wisps of gray in her short hair and a flowing blue dress. The five to the south show Traver and Cyralie Foxglove, their young son Aldern, and their two daughters Sendeli and Zeeva. Traver, like Vorel, is tall and thin, but with an even narrower face and a thin mustache. Cyralie is a young woman with long red hair and an impish smile. Each painting bears a plaque that identifies those pictured within.
As Aylmora finishes wiping away the last of the dust and cobwebs, a chill passes into the room...
Sendeli and Zeeva’s portraits frost over but otherwise remain unchanged.
Traver grows pale as a long cut opens in his throat and blood washes down over his chest.
Cyralie blackens and chars, and her arms, legs, and back twist as if broken in dozens of places.
Aldern’s flesh darkens with rot, his hair falls out, and he deforms into a ghoul-like monster.
To the north...
Kasanda and Lorey slump into misshapen tumor-ridden corpses.
Vorel’s entire portrait, frame and all, erupts into a sudden explosion of fungus and tumorous growth. These spread out across the room at terrible speed, cutting you off from the exit, surrounding you and closing in...
...and as quickly as it came, the vision passes.