"It is not a sword, you silly, it is a branch!" the kid says giggling.
"This branch is my weapon," the fencing lad says with diligence, "and I am preparing to fight a cave bear."
"Let's stay together."
Cellawyn stops and watches the exchange between Mirelinza and the boy.
"It is not a sword, you silly, it is a branch!" the kid says giggling.
"This branch is my weapon," the fencing lad says with diligence, "and I am preparing to fight a cave bear."
"Well make sure you keep your guard up - those cave bears can be tricky customers you know."
Mirelinza smiles and turns to return to the group. She shakes her head slightly as she walks. 'There's too much paranoia around here - that's for sure - and I'm a prime culprit.'
First the fire and now this boy. Reality is starting to blur.
"Strange. Why would a boy be playing by this prison? Could this be an apparition of some sort? Perhaps there is some truth to Harrowstone being haunted. We will have to be on guard."
Cellawyn turns back to prison, "Let's clear the perimeter first."
The lad simply lets Mirelinza go without responding to her advice, focusing on his practice instead.
As Mirelinza walks returns to the group, Cellawyn keeps intently staring at the boy, her brain at the verge of by itself making what must be an apparition vanish from sight and prove her right, Cellawyn's vision even plays split-second tricks on her, but after each and every blink the boy remains there.
Finally, Mirelinza arrives and Cellawyn's attention is turned back to the prison grounds. Presumably, all the women are now into Harrowstone.
- Surroundings (uncovered).
- Entrance (covered).
- Collapsed wall (uncovered).
- Pond (long margin) (uncovered).
- Main building, front (uncovered).
- Main building, right (west) (uncovered).
- Main building, left (east) (uncovered).
- Main building, back (uncovered).
- Secondary building (uncovered).
- Southwest tower (uncovered).
- West tower (uncovered).
Mirelinza shrugs as she reaches the group. "This place is making me jumpy. I saw a little boy playing with an imaginary foe and I automatically assumed it was something out of the ordinary."
She smiles ruefully. "Sorry if I slowed you all up - I don't usually wander off by myself."
Cellawyn surveys the prison grounds, "Let's check all of the areas around the main structure before we move in."
A guilty expression comes over Aliseya as the doors crash down. "Oops."
She looks around for somewhere safe for the horses' reins to be tied while responding to Cellawyn's suggestions, "Sounds good to me. Lets take care of these guys first, though."
Then, a puzzled look comes over her face. She looks to Naught, "Yewanda? Who is that?"
"Don't scare me like that." Naught will grumble towards Cellawyn as the regroup, trying her best to tidy up the flower crown she had been working on for Aliseya. "Lead on Boss lady." She'll finally say after appraising the crown to be satisfactory to the best of her abilities. Without asking she'll lift the crown above Aliseya's head and let it drop. A faint smile begins to intertwine with her sharp teeth as she sees the result. But as she is asked about the name she'll furrow her face and begin scratching the side of her head as she squeaks out a reply. "Um, well someone told me it was your name but truth be told IlikeAliseyabetterbutifyoulikeYewandabetterthenIlikeitbetter..."
Aliseya is surprised by her flowery crowning. She then adjusts her new hairpiece, smiling, "Oh, like, thanks. I do love flowers."
As Naught's voice increases in frequency and pitch, Aliseya looks amazed and blinks rapidly a few times. "Oh uhm," she suddenly interjects with raised hands, "like, really, calm down. You can call me Ali. Or Aliseya if you want. I don't know a Yewanda, but... that name, it does sound very familiar. Hmmm."
Naught's fretting is soon replaced back with her usual sly smile, or it would be sly if not for her teeth poking out between her lips. "Of course! Thank you, Miss Ali."
You circle around the outside of the prison grounds, a nearly-thousand-feet walk, without finding any reliable place to tie the horses on.
Though Mirelinza seems still distracted by her thoughts about paranoia, the others remain focused (Cellawyn in spite of the fire incident), but notice not outstanding all around the regularly-irregular wall and neighborhood, with one exception: a reek of rot to the north of prison. The foul stench clearly comes from the inside of the prison grounds.
After circling the prison wall starting from the southwest side and avoiding proximity with the precarious-looking watch towers, you arrive at the pond. This large body of murky aquamarine water spreads out along the eastern section of the prison grounds. Here and there, bits of ruined wall protrude from the water, and thick tangles of reeds and cattails grow along the muddy shores. The pond bank is steep and you cannot see very deep into the water (it is even hard to estimate from outside how deep you can see).
You do not see any source of water or any outlet for the water in the pond, which leads you to speculate that this area is a depression that accumulated rain water.
From where you are, again you can peer inside the prison grounds
and see the small house and the main building, where you can see black stains left by what the fire did not entirely consume.
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Zelda looks for a place to tie the horses as well and sighs.
"I think if we come back here again we should leave the horses at home!"
"We don't have much time before we should return, Kendra is expecting us. How about we look in that small house before we leave for the evening? Shall we?" Zelda asks
Mirelinza nods in response to Zelda's suggestion. "We don't want to hold anyone up for the reading of the will - so it sounds like a good plan."
Cellawyn nods, "Yes, let's investigate the small building."
"Let the snooping commence!"
You do not have much of a choice regarding the horses: if you bring them inside the grounds, you will notice they become restless, and realize that it is better to leave them outside, where there is nowhere nearby to tie them. You can either hope they will not run away, tie them to the fallen gates and hope they are heavy enough, or take them back a half a mile or so down the road where you can find a tree.
This small brick manor house is overgrown with thick sheets of gray-green ivy. The roof sags ominously, and the front door hangs askew.
Your eyes can almost see the structure in front of you collapsing, as if it is by sheer luck held altogether: the house is literally (though slowly) falling apart.
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Zelda looks over the building.
"well I think it would be safer to knock the building over and search the remains instead of going in and watching it collapse on our heads. I am afraid if someone breathes wrong this building will collapse.
Shaking her head Zelda will tries to look into the building without touching it.
Aliseya assists Zelda in looking around through any windows or other openings in the rickety small building.
Zelda and Aliseya peer into the house through the crevices and openings in the broken windows and ruined door, only to see that there is hardly anything left inside the once-modest living room but fallen or falling ceiling beams and tiles, dry leaves, dust.
Aliseya thinks out loud, "Well, it's a house. Did somebody, like, live here? Who would live in a house on a prison's grounds? Maybe it was here before the prison, and left standing to be used for processing or, like, something? Or maybe someone important lived here, like the warden and his wife?"
She then says, "Well, whatever. We'd best not go in there."
Going about inspecting the house Naught will mumble aloud to herself, "Maybe it was for conjugal visits."
Mirelinza isn't sure what they're looking for, so she glances here and there like the others but without any real purpose.
"It was built for some reason or another. Unless we ask someone it's all just guesswork."
Then as an afterthought. "Is it important what it used to be?"
"Well the conjugal room is probably less haunted than the torture room. Just saying."
Mirelinza suppresses a grin, but a smile still plays on her lips. "I guess Naught...that depends on your point of view."
Naught giggles slightly at Mirelinza's response. "Okay, I'm liking her.
Cellawyn will also peer inside the building. "It's too dangerous to enter. Perhaps we should return to town at this point. We can return when we have more time."
As soon Zelda goes in, a loose brick from the wall falls on her shoulder, and it is too fast for her to dodge.
After you hear a cry of surprise and another of pain coming from inside the house, silence remains suspended in the air, as there is no sign of movement inside.
In spite of the accident, you remain in and continues to sweep the house; so far, you see that the living room seems to have been repeatedly invaded and used as shelter by people and animals.
Hearing the sudden misplaced sound Naught will peer into the building's doorway. "What was that? Is everything okay in there Zelda? "
The kitchen is completely empty; even the metal oven has been taken, and light enters the room through an almost-completely missing roof.
You move very carefully across the kitchen to inspect the supply room, from where even the shelves were taken.
Some very small pieces of firewood remain scattered on the floor.
When you are stepping back into the living room, a stone suddenly feels loose, but it is too fast for you to react -- you have put too much weight on the stepping leg and the floor under your feet collapses into the basement!
You manage to roll yourself into safety from the fall, but a sharp piece of wood opens a long cut on your forearm.
You see that the basement has received no better treatment than the living room or the kitchen. As soon as you rise up, still experiencing the first pains from the cut on your arm, bats become agitated and start flying around, squeaking and dodging each other in their frantic movement -- they also avoid you, but you still instinctively duck and cover your blond hairs.
In spite of the chaos, you manage to see both a back-door exit of the house and the stairs ascending from the basement to the living room, so you can make your way to either.
You see Zelda disappear into a door at the back of the living room from where there seems to be more sunlight coming, then you see her come back.
As she is walking in the living room, suddenly the floor collapses under her feet, and she is dragged into a hole. It takes you a second or two to realize what just happened, and that she simply disappeared from your sight.
You see bats rising from the hole and filling the living room, circulating agitated, you see no sign of Zelda. You hope with all your heart that she is fine.
You hear a cry from Zelda, a sound of rubble moving and crashing on the ground, and a sudden commotion coming from inside the house, involving the squeaks of many bats.
For a second you feel like the whole house is going to collapse on Zelda and kill her, but, somehow, the construction remains standing.
The gypsy girl smiles slyly at the conjugal visit suggestion, "Oh, you're definitely naughty."
She becomes concerned as the locksmith makes her way into the rickety old house. "Zelda! Get out of there! Like, now!"
After spotting her fall into the hole, she screams out, "Zelda?! You okay?! Say something!"
To the others outside, "We have to help her! Who has rope?"
"Guilty." She'll reply with a grin towards Aliseya.
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Upon seeing the cute lockpocker disappear into the floor the only thing Naught's brain and mouth are able to form is "Well, that happened." before full realization of the situation kicks in. "Oh wait. Crap. Crap crap CRAPCRAPCRAPCRAP!"
Your impression on the house is that it has been abandoned for decades. The place was incessantly pilfered over the years, and it has been used as shelter by both humans and animals/humanoids, which suggests that whomever was there disputed Harrowstone's fame of being haunted.
No sign of Zelda...
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Zelda comes around the building not looking better than when she left. She is bushing the debris off as she approaches.
"It looks like the building has been striped of anything useful and has been used as a shelter in the past. Really nothing of interest in there. It might be better if we tried to knock it down. Anyone entering there now could get badly hurt."
Zelda apprears a little bruised but alive. she walks up to the building and pushes on the outside to see if she can easily cause the side of the building to cave in.
A sigh of relief overcomes naught as she sees the rogue appear from behind the building relatively okay, until she begins to push on the wall of the structure. "Are you a Locksmith or a Trapspringer?"
"Knocking the building may alert others to our presence. Let's keep moving."
Cellawyn will walk over to the main structure of the prison and will peer inside the collapsed wall.
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Mirelinza's immediate response to the crash was to rush in. 'But then Sarenrae teaches patience in all things. Perhaps I should wait and see. But then she preaches swift action when justified. Why did I end up with a deity that can't make its mind up?'
She wanted to think, 'Why did I chose this deity,' but before the words would form in her head she half-wondered if Sarenrae had chosen her.
The effect of this internal debate was to delay until Zelda appeared. 'Very funny, she muttered under her breath. "No, not you," she gestured to the group, "I was talking to her, you know..." She gestures skyward as if this explains all.
Her face flushes and she fiddles with a wooden holy symbol she wears around her neck.
Although Cellawyns's comment made obvious sense Naught wanted to see if the lithe rogue could actually collapse the building.