Nothing in the room that is in range detects as magic.
"So can we try and burn the place down now?", Lia suggests pleadingly, urgency in her voice.
Karmid sighs, his attitude evidently on edge as he steps forward.
"I'm right there with you Lia, but we can't assume anything. He might not even be here. I hate to say this, but he could have other hostages here he's turning into ghouls too...or just plans to eat them later..and if we burn down his house, where is he going for revenge? I would rather not have an angry ghast rampaging through Sandpoint either. Let's look for him, then if needed, trap him here...THEN burn the house down around him to be sure we catch him in it."
"He told me to come here. He is waiting for me. If all of this was a ruse, we should not have come in the first place. I think he knows we are here, too. With a house that evil, you don't need others to watch. And no hostages - not here. I...the fire is just to call him out...but..."
Lia casts her eyes down, then lets her gaze linger on Rojava, clearly expecting her to make a call.
"Burning him out would be an act of cowardice. We should face him openly, though I agree his deeds do merit... caution." Edgar feels uneasy. The house has an aura so strong that not even he can ignore it, and he wasn't particularly sensitive to that sort of thing.
Ro guesses to complete Jiliana's sentence. "... a trap." The same thought is on her mind as well.
"Yeah, I'm wondering the same thing Jiliana."
Ro doesn't stop t look at anyone as she talks, continuing to scan the room as she moves through it looking for clues or danger.
"I'm not saying you're wrong Lia, it'll probably end being a sucker's move, but we can't just burn the place down. We don't know for sure people aren't being held here. We can't risk killing people just to make this easier."
"They are all dead. Only the dead linger here. And everybody who stays, dies. The curse is real.", Lia responds, poutingly, "But have it your way. Glorious and Heroic and all that."
She takes off her backpack full of lamp-oil-soaked twigs and rags, and places it on the floor nearby.
"If we want to face him openly, why not just shout for him to come meet us? Why do we sneak around and risk running into a trap?"
Growling a bit, Karmid then chuckles resignedly.
"Because there is the slightest chance...we could sneak up on him unawares...IF we stopped talking."
With the rest in tow, Karmid moves ahead cautiously, stepping into the small corridor between the two rooms that seem to run the length of the house. A rather gruesome antique–what appears to be a mummified monkey head—hangs on the northern wall here, its tiny mouth gaping. 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.
Jili follows Ro further into the room. Her weapon out and ready.
Frowning at the stain on the floor and ignoring the monkey head, Karmid keeps going, leading the way further into the mansion of potential horrors.
Karmid moves through the monkey corridor and enters the dining room at the end of the hallway. A mahogany table surrounded by chairs sits in this room. Twin fireplaces loom to the west, while to the east, stained-glass windows obscure what could have been a breathtaking view of the Lost Coast. Each window depicts a monster rising out of smoke pouring from a seven-sided box. There are strange runes depicted on each of these boxes. From north to south are depicted a gnarled tree with an enraged face, an immense hook-beaked bird with sky-blue and gold plumage, a winged centaurlike creature with a lion’s lower body and a snarling woman’s upper torso, and a deep blue squidlike creature with evil red eyes.
They don't want to go back into their boxes., Lia thinks to herself as she glances at the windows. Can't really blame them. The boxes look tiny and uncomfortable.
Chuckling again, Karmid points to each creature in turn.
"A treant, a roc, a sphinx, and a kraken. Some of the more wonderous of Golarion's creatures."
"Shhhh", Lia whispers, "it's a trap to get us to talk so we cannot sneak up on him unaware!"
Ro takes a moment to look about and make sure she's facing the direction she almost sure she is. She is.
"Covering up the windows with stained glass is a weird thing to do. Why would anybody build a house overlooking the ocean and then block off the best way to see the ocean?"
A better look at the images reveals something disturbing.
"Those boxes have glyphs related to necromancy..."
Frowning, Karmid nods.
"So...necromancy? That explains a lot. Its a family thing then? His ancestor built this place. Right? Cursed it? This could be part of the cause. Right?"
"What, so it's okay if you talk? They can't hear you?", Lia whispers, more confused than annoyed.
"Yeah, family home so I guess" Ro responds to Karmid. She ignores Lia's question, but no so much she doesn't start whispering as well.
Animal necromancy?....
Ro goes back over to take another look at the monkey head on the wall. She peers very closely and carefully at it before touching the creepy thing.
Ro touches the mummified monkey head, jerking her hand back reflexively, but it seems her cautious approach is unwarranted as nothing happens. The monkey's head is dusty as if it hadn't been cleaned in a while, but that is true for the rest of the house as well.
Karmid, fascinated with all things animal and monstrous takes a closer look at the stuffed manticore.
"Is this thing real?"
The stuffed manticore does indeed seem to be a real, stuffed manticore.
Lia silently considers the flammability of a stuffed Manticore.
Drasven decapitates it.
Once can't be too sure after all.....
An undead Manticore would be unpleasant.....
Seeing the manticore's stuffed head land on the floor, Karmid kicks it towards the back of the group near the door.
"I may want to keep that for later. Souvenir of our victory here."
He then moves deeper into the house. checking the nearest door to the left that he can see.
Karmid listens at the door, but hears nothing out of the ordinary, and quickly checks it for hidden traps. Convinced that it is safe, he opens it and finds a staircase going down into the basement. The staircase descends for about 15 feet before opening into a darkened room.
"Basement. Last?"
Quietly closing that door for now, Karmid moves on to the next closest door on the left.
"There may be tunnels, allowing to come and go without notice. Evil tunnels. Ones that don't burn.", Lia comments, not seeing the point in whispering if Karmid talks loudly all the time.
Although it probably wasn't Drasven's smartest decision ever, Ro can't help but titter when the manticore' head rolls. It's nerves not genuine amusement.
Keeping in mind the sounds from upstairs, Ro agrees with Karmid. "Yeah, basement last."
Ro checks the next door for problems and unlocks it if needed.
Ro checks the door to the north (the one closest to the front door) and finds it opens easily (i.e. it is not locked) onto a dark, dingy corridor with multiple doors. It smells deeply of rot and mold, much like the rest of the house.
Proceeding ahead, Ro checks the door immediately opposite the one she just opened () and fails to find it locked or trapped. Karmid opens it to reveal a much larger, oak-paneled chamber that must have once been breathtaking, but is a sad sight now—the floorboards are warped with moisture and the paneling scratched and spotted with mold. A grand piano, its surface splotchy and keys warped, leans tiredly in the southeast corner. Dark black-out curtains have been pulled over all the windows, preventing nearly any light from leaking into this room, and large double doors on the far side of the room lead outside. The only other visible exit is a single door to the east.
Drasven invokes the ability to Detect Poison as he joins the party in their search around the mansion.
"Music room? Ugh. Mold everywhere. Keep your eyes on where you step. The last thing we want is rotting floors to drop us below the house."
Unless something seems to need further investigation, Karmid will move further down the hall to the next door.
Ro will move about the room employing Detect Magic.
Drasven does not detect any poison around the room, and Ro does not detect magic, but while scanning the room notices something out of the ordinary. According to local history, the mansion was abandoned for several years, but the decay of the piano looks as if it has been left to rot for a much longer time, even decades.
Given the out of place appearance of the piano, Ro decides to give it a closer look.
"I don't think this piano was actually used for playing. It's been a wreck for a long time, even back to when the house was occupied. Maybe it's some kind of family heirloom or antique, but it also might be a clever place to build secret storage."
She tries opening the piano anywhere it seems like there might be a way to do so. She also tries the keys and pedals to see if any of them work as a release for a compartment or something of the sort.
Jili peeks into the room. Why would someone leave a piano to rot. They are expensive."
"These are the same sort of people who are creating undead, they may be abnormal, leaving a piano to rot seems the least of their concerns," Edgar adds, a hint of irritation in his voice at the nonchalance of some of the other party members.
Lia sits down next to the Piano and attempts to start playing.
"I think this was left to rot before they did that undead stuff. Which begs the question: Why get it in the first place? It must have been costly getting it here. And most rich people we met are stingy about money, not wasteful."
As Ro climbs around the piano to try to find some hidden mechanism, Lia sits down on the piano to play. Miraculously, despite its decrepit condition, the piano is in perfect tune. Within seconds, however, Lia notices that something feels wrong and a few moments later, the piano keys begin to play by themselves. The song that is played is a dance tune, and those of you with a passing understanding of local culture and music can identify it as a Varisian dance tune.
Hu, I didn't know I played that good.
"It sounds a lot better than it looks...", Lias fingers keep flying across the piano, joining the melody it plays by itself with a second tune that is somewhat harmonic.
"Everybody steel yourself! Entity-Spirits will assail you! Mind your body and soul!"
"Why are you touching things, I fail to understand the sense of that!" Edgar tries to distance himself from the piano, hoping to avoid the effect, seeing as he has no way of harming a spirit.
Ro, busy rooting around the bottom and underside of the piano, stops when the extra tune comes in. She pops up and tells Lia with urgency "that's not you just playing. It's time to leave it alone and back away."
"And here I thought we have learnt something." he can't help but huff as the old dwarf realizes what's happening.
He tries to identify the haunt.
He tries to identify the haunt.
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Ro is a little aggravated while she makes her check on the low, harder to reach portions of the piano. She’s ruminating on how the simplest of things seemed to require so much management, and explanation, and cat herding.
Yes, Ro had plinked each of the piano keys, but she was not playing the piano. She was checking to see if any of them were dead, or noticeably more out of key, things that might happen if it was used as a release for a compartment in the piano.
And Lia decides that's an invitation for a recital. Meanwhile everyone else is standing around gawking, or wandering in circles, or beheading taxidermies. Just about any friggin’ permutation of ‘not useful’ possible, which means I have to either do everything myself or specifically direct someone to do every little thing, which means I might as well be doing it myself…
Ro continues her internal muttering until she notices a change in what Lia is playing. At first she thinks Lia is simply starting to really hit her full stride with the piano. Huh, I think I’ve heard that tune before, what is it?
It only takes a few more bars though for Ro to realize a couple of things. I know I’ve heard that song many times before and all that can’t be played with just two hands. Lia hasn’t changed what she’s doing at all!
The second thing prickles Ro’s flesh. She very much doubts anyone else in the room plays piano, much less that well, and even less at this time and place. Something’s here! What is that song? I’ve heard it a million times before.
Ro gets to her feet and moves back from the instrument, but with that song playing she can’t help but add some sashay to her steps back. "That's not just you playing. It's time to leave it alone and back away." And listen to the song.
Ro realizes she can’t catch what the song is because Lia is playing through it and everyone else is gabbing on over it. ’Do this’, ‘don’t do this do that’, ‘look at that’, nag nag, blah blah
”GET AWAY FROM THE DAMN PIANO LIA! EVERYONE JUST SHUT THE F*$! UP! LISTEN TO THE MUSIC!” Ro screams.
By the time Ro's outburst comes, she's moving much more vigorously, not just swaying to the tune but finding its rhythm, finding steps to a dance she knows she doesn't know. This scares her. She isn't dancing, her body is dancing her, moving of its own accord.
It's frightening, but that feeling is dulled by her anger. Edgar is fairly close so she turns to him to vent. A double twirl takes her right to him, but once she's there all she can utter is to him is "Listen to the music." as she pulls herself onto him and shimmies up and down his body.
Ro knows in the back of her mind this is completely mortifying, but she realizes she simply can't fight against what her body is doing as she swirls away from Edgar and onward. She manages to find a moment of clarity, pushing back the song and her anger long enough to think of something she might be able to do.
She can't fight against her body but maybe she can help it too much. Ro ceases her resistance to the dancing, even as it intensifies. Instead she joins with the dance, pushing even more. Then when she sees her moment, she pushes as hard as she can into the dancing, moving her body a little farther in the direction she must go. It's just enough more to put her over a chair she have otherwise skirted.
Ro goes down in a tumble, tripped by the chair. But the hard crash into the floor breaks her from the grip of the song and dance.