Scowling through the door, Christoph shakes his head, "Yea, it wouldn't surprise me that's there worse growing in there that we can't see. As for burning them, I don't have any alchemist's fire prepared and making it would take too long. Never mind that my portable lab is back with Jitters."
He mulls over the options before then a moment before opining, "I'd say let's check the other doors first. Honestly if we can avoid any other dangers that'd be preferable. We have bigger monsters to tackle."
Istivan nods, "Ah, I thought the scratching was important, that we were going into areas you didn't go last" he pauses, rubbing at an ear, "So... which door next?"
"The bigger monsters are likely to be found on the path less traveled no?"
"Oh, like, just Zel, Naught and I were here before," Aliseya chimes in, in response to Istivan. "Unfortunately..."
"We didn't explore the whole place, though. We found this hall from that door," she points to the southwest door, "and made our way to the Count's main tower there," she points to the eastern door.
"I mean, if we go that way," she points at the east door again, the sound of light wrist jewels jingling each time she points, "I think there's a final bridge leading to the other shore, and we can probably make our way to the trail Judge Daramid..." she chokes up a bit, "told us about. But, like, those poor horses!" She reminds the group that their several horses are still at the entry foyer to this place. "I think we should, like, find Count Creepo and see if there's another way to cross, and with our horses."
"But, like... who knows where he is..." Shrugging, she looks around at the others to decide which way to go next.
Istivan inspects the flasks, pointing to the one and saying, "Hrm, this seems to hold a Displacement potion, while that one..." he finishes with a shrug.
"I don't have a horse, so I would lean towards moving on towards the exit."
He smiles, "However I fully support looking for a way to bring your mounts along"
"I would like to find him myself, though his safety might not be my top concern." Rhia says a bit seriously.
Istivan walks towards the eastern door, casting Open/Close to attempt to open it from a distance.
"Basilisk blood? Of course..." Taking a moment, Christoph casts his own spell and studies the flask. After a moment, he shrugs, "I'm afraid I haven't seen something quite like this."
"I'd suggest we don't try that fungus infested room unless we must. It's finally returned to me that the other slimy looking one is violet fungi. It can move and it releases a particularly awful poison that can rot flesh it touches. If we can burn it from a distance, that's a possibility. The other one, basidrond, that Rhia identified has a hallucinogen and can cause a nasty disease if you breath it in."
Looking from one to another option, he opines, "I don't care to leave Jitters here nor the rest of my equipment. I'd say the count's tower is our best bet if the ascent isn't too perilous. Otherwise we could try that black goo. Maybe try and knock it free?"
Sookie nods her agreement. "As much as I detest the dotard's bridges, I rather like the idea of getting on with it even more."
Ali nods her agreement as well.
"Are you... alright?" she asks Naught, who has been rather quiet. Looking through the closed southwest door where she and Zelda found her, locked in a hanging cage, surrounded by vargouilles, she gives her a comforting embrace.
"Cum... ai ajuns acolo?" she gently asks her, rhetorically perhaps.
The eastern door opens with Istivan's magical gesture.
The night sky greets you beyond. You see a grand stone bridge in the moonlight, some fifty feet across, arching over the gorge below. As you approach the doorway towards the bridge, you see it leads to a great stone tower perched atop a sheer stack of rock above the river. The tower climbs to an elaborate iron steeple, from which a huge lightning conductor calls out to the skies. The distant sound of the falls further downstream become more audible near the doorway, the calmer waters below this bridge flowing towards them.
The bridge is about three feet wide and, in character with Caromarc's bridges, has no handrails. But this bridge is neither icy nor does it appear to be otherwise dangerous.
Greeting you at the opposite side of the bridge, you find twin stout doors of iron.
Istivan nods, "Right, if nothing in the tower, we can try to knock that thing loose" he says to Cristoph. Moving slowly and steadily, he sets off across the bridge to the tower.
Istivan faces the great doors, casting a spell and inspecting for magic. If he finds none, he will try the handles to see if they are locked, if not, he will cautiously open them a crack.
Istivan finds no magical auras upon the doors. However, he does spot a faint glimmer on the door's surface in the dim moon's light. Upon closer examination, the substance appears to be a finely pulverized dust of gold.
With a moderate push, he pushes one door a crack. Peering inside, Istivan makes out a curving stone staircase that winds along the wall of this circular chamber, up to a trapdoor in the ceiling some thirty feet above. The room is in chaos, with books, alchemical equipment, and curiously twisted metal everywhere. A huge, broken cage stands in the center of the room, its bars bent and door smashed open.
And a vaguely humanoid creature flutters about inside. It's about the size of a cat, but looks more like a toothy, winged devil. It carries a silver spoon in one hand, and has a stump where one of its legs must have once been. It uses the spoon as a crutch upon landing atop the cage to have a look around at the mess.
Suddenly, it freezes in place. Slowly, it turns its head to gaze at the cracked-open door. After reaching into a very tiny waist pocket, it then disappears.
Istivan opens the door the rest of the way and steps inside to the side, making room for others to come in behind him.
Hrm, someone had magically sealed that door at some point
"There was a homunculus in here. If it is still here and belongs to the count, he will hear and see what it sees."
Istivan covers his eyes briefly chanting, then lowers his hand
As Istivan begins to examine the doors of the final tower, Zelda swiftly crosses the narrow bridge after him next. The sure-footed snoop peers over his shoulder. She's just in time to see something blink out of sight, though she couldn't quite make out what it looked like, other than being pretty small.
After the intriguing arcanist opens his eyes, Istivan (and he alone) now spots the crippled homunculus once again. The translucent manikin flies to a tiny alcove under the stairs. After landing, it peers back at him, Zelda, and any others who are next to peer in and enter.
"Ah, a homunculus...the quintessential arcane assistant....who seems to have just...vanished!" Rhia says in surprise
At the mention of a homunculus, Rhia gets the feeling she's met this creature before. She did not fully recognize what it was then. But Rhia now makes the connection with the devilish creature she'd met earlier this day, when she met the Count. It sounds like the very same creature which handed her the drink at the Count's behest. The "drink" which apparently caused her to pass out...
Istivan says, "Look here count, we mean you no harm. Just trying to find a way to bring mounts across the river here. I think some of these companions you know" he gestures behind him "And they wished to check in on you as well." There, that's a peaceful enough message he thinks, with some satisfaction.
With his armor and myriad weapons, Christoph opts to take the more cautious route and makes his methodical approach to the new door. Entering with the others, he has only the briefest glimpse of the diminutive figure before it disappears. Eyes narrowing, he adds to the others observations, "Be wary. It's bite is poisonous and it's quick in the air. It might also be reporting to someone without us hearing."
Never great to see one of those about. Only a potent mage could manage to make one.
The faint sound reaches the sensitive ears of the Voice and his eyes pivot to its source in a brief flicker. He returns to his source of the room and waits for further indication that the little creature has moved further. As a hunter of monsters, not a diplomat, he waits silently to see the results of Istivan's attempt.
For a long moment, nothing seems to happen. Even Istivan's special sight enables him to merely see the winged creature take on a pensive expression.
Eventually, the peacemaker's words seem to have an effect after all. Istivan alone sees the homunculus remove something from its little hand - a tiny ring. As it does so, everyone now sees the devilish winged creature appear once again from across the room, placing something into its tiny pocket.
With hand gestures, the homunculus urges the companions to follow it. It takes flight again, and heads for the stairs...
...halting to hover midway, it turns to look back at the companions. Its tiny, beady, charcoal eyes seem to stare for a moment in recognition at Zelda first, and then at Rhia. The creature... sighs. Retrieving a drawing pad and an inkpen, it begins to jot something down quickly.
Giving the entire group one more cautious scan, it flies slowly forward, and hands Rhia the tiny written note.
As she has a look at the note, the homunculus nods at her, nods at Zelda, and then darts up the stairs, opens the hatch in the ceiling, and flies up into the second story.
"Sorry about earlier. Between us, Master's getting more forgetful these days. Mixed up some of his potions and drinks again. Very concerning. I fear the day I find him having a drink of aqua regia. Anyway, I trust you're feeling better.
- Waxwood"
Meanwhile, Aliseya and Naught accompanied Sookie along the bridge, keeping a slow pace with her. You know. Just in case...
As they reach the doors behind the others:
"...no need for all this fuss, really..."
"Please, I'm quite fine. Thank you."
Peering inside, longspear at the ready, "So what do we have in here? A giant cockroach with bat's wings? Or a slimy fish-frog with three heads and a slithering serpent's tail for good measure?"
"Ew!"
Aliseya shivers at Sookie's imagination, appearing to control the urge to vomit.
Rhia frowns as she reads the note, some of the sudden anger that appeared on her face shifting to skepticism. "I've met it before as well...handed me a drink that turned out to be the last thing I remember before you all found me." she says with a dark expression. "It claims that it was an accident, involving a potion mix-up."
Aliseya peers around the room as she enters.
"Yeah Zel..."
She nods to Zelda absent-mindedly, while staring at a certain place on the floor of the room. A tear comes to her eye...
Blinking, her attention shifts to Rhia. "Huh. Well, I can't say it's not believable, actually. The Count was pretty wacky in the head when we met him the other night. I mean, he was, like, tortured and all by the Way for days before we found him. But I sensed that wasn't it for him: I think he's been losing his marbles for a while now. He couldn't really stay totally focused while answering our questions. He'd start new trains of thought mid-sentence sometimes. I know we, like, speak with spirits that others can't see and all. But, a few times, he'd randomly start yelling at someone who really really wasn't there..." She make a "he's nuts" hand gesture here, "And then he just fell asleep on us."
Peering around at the room, Sookie is pleased to not have to deal with yet another of the Count's creations.
But, something's missing here...
"I wonder what was in there." She points to the large, battered and empty cage in the middle of the room.
Ali just turns to look at Zelda and Naught, shaking her head.
"We won't need to deal with it any more..." is all she can muster. More tears stream down her face now. She wipes her eyes, and seems ready to move on.
Picking up on the fact that the memories of this place were unsettling, Istivan decided moving forward would be better than lingering, nodding at Zelda, he says "Certainly seems to be our best lead at the moment." before following her up the stairs.
Ali nods her agreement as well.
"Are you... alright?" she asks Naught, who has been rather quiet. Looking through the closed southwest door where she and Zelda found her, locked in a hanging cage, surrounded by vargouilles, she gives her a comforting embrace.
"Cum... ai ajuns acolo?" she gently asks her, rhetorically perhaps.
** spoiler omitted **
The welcome hug breaks the storyteller out of her morbid reverie, but only after she had reflexively returned the hug. "Hmm? Oh, sorry, got lost in my thoughts, how I got here and... what all happened here."
Naught tilts her head at the second question, slightly smiling as she hears Aliseya speak in her original tongue. Putting genuine though into her memories she begins "I don't really know, I remember way back then I, well, when we're escaping that place I fell through the path we were talking, or it led me through a different door, but I ended up being in that world and this one, seeing so many things, waking and dreaming it all blurring together. All the while I heard a song I hadn't in awhile, though it was warped, I was trying my best to listen, but nothing made sense... and then I suddenly came to, two sets of thoughts shoved back into one body, no longer separate, no longer dreaming when I got tossed in that cage."
She switches from her daydreaming to alert as they make their way across the bridge and the nightmare it led to. Upon entering Naught ignores another of the tiny fleshcrafted creatures as her eyes go to where Ali's does. "Be on your guard, everyone. I don't want to lose any more friends." is all she can hoarsely force herself to say.
Christoph is suspicious of the little creature as it reappears. His instinctive reaction is not helped by the news of the possible potion mix-up. Seeing the others leaving, and seeing the room is particularly distressing to them, he nods in agreement and says, "Yes, upwards. Let's see this count."
The companions ascend the spiral stone stairs, following Waxwood the homunculus up through the trapdoor in the ceiling to the tower's second story. The stone staircase continues to curve around the wall this circular room, leading to another ceiling trapdoor.
This room is choked with webs. A path has been cut through them along the stairs.
The small winged creature continues to fly upwards around the stairs, entering the next trapdoor to the third story above.
Naught cautiously follows the homunculus up with the others, trying her best to keep n eye out for anything that would like to murder anyone to follow such a creature into what is most likely a trap.
"Hey, wait," she says immediately on getting distracted. "I think something was written with chalk here." she adds as she wanders over to the eastern wall.
Aliseya follows Naught's finger-pointing and, after several seconds...
"Oh... yeah. Good eye."
She squints at the faint markings, but clearly has no idea what it could mean. She'll steps away from the markings for anyone else to try.
"Hrm, indeed, sharp eyes. As to what it means... I'm at a loss." Istivan admits with a shrug.
Istivan gestures for a moment
Then studies the writing anew.
Christoph spots the script a moment later then Naught as he performs his duty as rearguard. He lingers a moment, trying to make sense of it, before shrugging and sourly opines, "Insane ramblings or a formula for one of the monstrosities we encountered, probably."
The remaining markings that do not glow for you appear too incomprehensible to discern. Without help...