Also does Karmid's reactive attack hits her?
"No Karmid. She's going for the door. Don't attack her." She tries to grab his weapon and keep him from swinging. She jumps up and tries to grab the end of his earth breaker to break his swing.
"Wha...WhA?"
Drasven finds himself unable to reach Karmid in time and thus does the next best thing. He moves to the door and shuts it.
"Wait!" he calls out.
"We have companions who don't know about you, at least let us tell them and we can go find this Aldern together!"
Not wanting to hurt Jili, Karmid hesitates a moment, even if it does leave him vulnerable for a moment.
Blocked by Drasven from reaching the door, Iesha lashes out at the dwarf, attempting to destroy everything in her way. Her claws cut deep and latch onto him as she draws Drasven toward herself, twisting to deepen the wound.
, hit!
, success!
"Stand down, Drasven", Lia shouts, while retrieving the Scarf from her bag again, holding it out in the direction of Iesha.
"Look, here, Aldern murdered you with this. See?", she presents the object to the Revenant, carefully watching her reaction.
Karmid thumps his Holy Tattoo on this chest with his klar in hand, and it flashes green!
"Release!"
Then he shuffles Jili backward out of the direct confrontation with Drasven and the woman undead!
"Stay here and be safe! Everyone focus on her!"
Nooo!!" she cries as her hands slip off of Kharmid. She prepares to cast Ghostbane Dirge on Iesha if she continues attacks another ally.
Ro backs up until she hits a wall and she stays there. She's agog at what she's seeing.
She screams this over and over until it makes an impression.
He'd liked to move out of the way but then again perhaps standing in her was not the wisest of moves as her claws Dig into his flesh.
However seeing Karmid move out of the way would have made things easier now that he isn't attacking her.
"You can go ahead move towards Alden. I won't be blocking you." He manages as her powerful arms begins choking him as well.
Edgar pokes his head into the room, but sees to room to maneuver inside. Hearing his companions plead to let the undead creature escape, he steps aside to let her flee or else attack her should she continue attacking his companions.
Seeing the scarf, Iesha's face crumbles and she collapses on the floor, wailing and beating at the rotting floorboards with her fist, sending up splinters.
"I am sorry for causing you pain, Iesha. It will soon be over. We all will go to Aldern. Please show us the path. You will find peace soon, I promise you."
Not moving in the slightest, Lia remains standing, with her hand outstreched and the scarf clearly visible for the Revenant.
"See, she is harmless. She does not desire to fight anybody but Aldern. But she will cut down anybody in her way, anybody preventing her from her revenge. She is trapped her, until such time as she is granted release...when her murderer dies, she will pass on. Please trust me. She will lead us straight to him, and has more reason than any of us to end him. She is an instrument of judgement, not a mundane undead driven by hatred for the living. A fire to fight fire. Please make way for her, so that we can do what we came to this mansion for...together-"
Despite talking, Lia seems almost frozen, barely daring to breath, for fear of making a wrong move and breaking the effect the scarf had over the Revenant.
Karmid stays away from her now that she's dropped the dwarf, staying in front of Jili...hoping she will just leave as his companions suggested. Karmid can't stand the sight of a crying woman, even if she's dead.
"What the heck.."
Jili whispers to Kharmid, "Move out of her way. Let her go find Adlren. It will be ok. She has a job to do." She moves to the window to allow Iesha to pass when she gathers herself.
Drasven rolls away from the crying undead woman. He has sympathies but she has very sharp claws and was this close to eviscerating him.
Rolling to the far corner of the room, he checks himself before nodding to reassure himself his beard is fine and his limbs still remain attached.
He waits to see if the Undead woman does anything else.
Ro stays still. Lia's situation seems to be a very touchy one to her, but she's doesn't know what Lia should do next.
"Lia, maybe you should give her the scarf, or put it away..."
Once everybody has cleared a path, nobody in the Revenants way any more, Lia smiles at Ro, then speaks a few magical words and turns invisibly once more - the scarf vanishing with her.
As Lia disappears, Iesha's revenant picks herself up off the floor and lets out high-pitched shriek.
"Aldern! I can smell your fear! You'll be in my arms soon!"
She turns toward the door and rushes out past everyone, turning down the hallway and moves quickly toward the stairs going down.
Karmid squashes his initial urge to follow after the woman recklessly.
"Are you OK Jilli? I'm sorry about all of that stuff. Look...we need to follow her...right?"
His urge is just growing to rush out the door, but is waiting for some sort of assurances now...from anybody.
Laughter, bright as a bell, suddenly indicates that Lia is on the move, probably trying to play a game of catch with the Revenant, and swiftly passing by all the slowpokes not yet on the move.
Jili nods "Yes. Follow her. She's going to lead us to Aldren. I hope." Jili follows at a good clip.
Groaning abit, the dwarf rolls up and attempts to follow as well, his short legs struggling to catch up with the rest.
Karmid moves immediately after Jili says he can, but grabs Drasven and helps him to his feet as he steps past.
"No sleeping on the job old man."
Then he's gone and out after the woman...
By the time Iesha starts moving, Ro is tied in knots from the tension of waiting to see what would come next. She hopes that she's right about what Iesha will do going forward since their guesses have been right so far.
She follows Iesha out as soon as she starts toward Aldern, although from her expression one would think she's about to be forced to eat worms. Her mouth is uncomfortably dry.
Being first behind the revenant isn't fun, but it what she's asking people to do so she should 'lead by example'. She'd heard it often enough from Father Zantus that the notion had actually stuck in her memory.
Probably second behind her actually, but it's hard to say without being able to see Lia.
Trailing everyone behind, the revenant of Iesha rushes through the hallway and down the stairs to the second floor. From there she turns and rushes past the many rooms you have explored toward the grand staircase that leads down to the lobby with the stuffed manticore. During the chase she occasionally slows down and seems to reorient herself before charging on with more purpose.
She reaches the ground floor with the head of your group only a few steps behind her and turns toward the small corridor connecting the lobby to the back of the manor. She stops in the hallway and rips up the rug, revealing a large mold stain on the floor in the rough shape of a spiral. She stares at the spiral mold for several seconds, seemingly unsure of where to do next or else her mind is distracted by something that is not immediately obvious.
Lia will exit the room, cast detect magic, and return, looking at the spiral mold with enhanced senses to try and guess why she would stop there.
Hammer leading his way, Karmid guesses what the monstrous woman needs as soon as he notices her hesitation.
"If what you say is true about the lady, unless that's Aldern's greasy stain on the floor, he's under there somewhere!"
He then lifts his hammer meaningfully and looks at Ro.
"The Floor? Should I?"
Ro hasn't a clue what to do. It seems strange to her Iesha would need to go through the floor, there must be a way to the basement that's easier, like stairs or a ladder. She looks at the patterned mold stain (with only a single step forward).
Finally she decides to just ask. Iesha can speak after all.
"Do you need a way to Aldern opened in the floor here for you?"
Ro really hopes she's not offering to destroy Iesha's favorite mold stain.
Coming from behind, Drasven finally sees why the brief run has stopped.
Looking at the shape and their guides confusion, the dwarf quickly examines the shape and structure.
"Let's see perhaps if ah can move closer, I could maybe discern the structure that should be there..."
Iesha seems to be trying to decide how to continue. She ignores any questions asked of her, her eyes focused and intent as she considers her next move.
A few moments later she lets out a baleful shriek and begins tearing at the floorboarsd covered in the spiral stain with her clawed hands. Wood chips start flying as if four or five workers with pickaxes were taking up the floor and within seconds she already has a head-sized hole open. She then grabs the floorboards with both hands and rips them up, throwing them aside, not caring who or what she hits.
Once she has an opening big enough for her , she drops through it disappearing into the darkness.
"We need to follow the white rabbit. I wonder how deep this hole goooooooooessss....", Lias voice can be heard approaching, then going down the hole.
Rolling off to the side, she then casts light to illuminate her surroundings.
Drasven looks at the crnage wrecked onto the floor.
"Then again maybe not..." as he looks at how efficient she was at going down.
"We may need to open that up and quickly so that the bigger among us can get down...."
Karmid looks at the the amazing hole in the floor, and the insane move Lia just made too. Then looks at his hammer puzzled.
"Maybe I should grow claws?"
Shaking his head suddenly to clear it, he then looks at Ro, and pulls out a rope from his pack.
"Let's get down there."
Karmid then finds something solid to tie the rope to and lowers it quickly down the hole, then follows it. His hammer and klar are now strapped to his back.
Ro looks back at Karmid with her mouth hanging slightly open in shock.
"I suppose you could still make the hole a little bigger like Drasven asked..."
She goes to the hole and looks down through it.
Valot päälle. Ro's in too much of a hurry to wait around long for a rope, but she's not completely out of her mind like Lia so she uses a quick cantrip to put a light on a copper. She drops the coin in to get a feel for how far down she's about to go.
Jili casts light on a piece of wood, and drops it through the hole.
Blind of where she is going, Lia drops down through the hole a few seconds after Iesha. She lands awkwardly on an uneven masonry staircase, but is able to roll prone onto a flat surface, taking only minimal damage.
Both Ro and Jili drop magically illuminated objects through the hole, revealing that Lia is lying in a small room with a single passageway heading south. Piles of broken stone, dirt, and a few ruined pickaxes line the edges of this room. The floor in the middle of the chamber has been torn up to reveal an ancient set of stone spiral stairs, obviously of much older construction than the surrounding basement, winding deep into the bedrock below. A foul stink, like that of rotten meat, wafts up on a cold breeze from the darkness.
Just past Lia, the passageway turns into a rectangular staircase going up and heading south. Lia can hear Iesha moving at high speed somewhere out of sight down that hallway.
For a moment you are terrified in fear, but then realize that Iesha would have reacted strongly to Aldern were he truly here, which means that he isn't, which means that the house must be playing tricks with your mind. You purposefully blink and when you open your eyes, Aldern, the ghoul, and the hole in the wall have all vanished.
Back above, Karmid finds nothing nearby to tie his rope to, and must return to the entry hall and carefully loop his rope around the entirety of the massive wooden platform the stuffed manticore is perched upon. Making sure it does not suddenly come to life, he quickly ties off the rope and returns to the hole in the floor, dropping it down into the now illuminated room. He then climbs down with little trouble, dropping down next to the still prone Lia who seems to be staring at a blank section of the wall.
It's farther to the floor through the hole than Ro expected. She wants to call out to Lia to see if she's alright, but decides against it because it could put her at risk of other things with nobody there to help her.
Ro waits while Karmid gets the rope set to go.