Tunder shrugs his shoulder as the key is suggested. "I suppose we should at least give it a try."
Selena gives Thorn's hand a squeeze in thanks of his assurance. Thanks Thorn, but I just hoped we wouldn't have to go inside. I was hoping that we would have been lucky and caught him some place else. No such luck for us or Miri. Why did this have to be haunted...
When Tunder shows the axe Selean joins in the voices to stop. Hold your axe please. We don't know what type of damage that would cause and then the house would fall on us. Besides,itwould alert everyone to our presence.
With that Selena steps back giving the rickety old manor plenty of space for the others to work.
The key with the Foxglove on it fits perfectly in the lock, and the well oiled mechanism opens with surprising ease as you advance into the entrance hall of the house.
The sound of the house straining and creaking against the wind 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. Moldering trophies hang on the wall to the northeast: a boar, a bear, a firepelt cougar, and a stag. 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.
Interior doors are on both the north and south wall, a set of curving stairs on the south wall leads to the upper levels, and to the west, a passage opens into the rest of the house.
perception
Once the door opens Selena creeps forward till she is next to Thorn and Seldon in the back. Not wanting to rush anything Selena casts detect magic trying to cover as much of the room as possible for any threats or items of interest. Only once she is certain there are no magical auras does she give a look at the room's contents. Clearly distracted by the large creature in the center she finds it impossible to perceive anything else. She can't help but try to catalog the creature though.
knowledge on center trophy assuming Knowledge (arcana) , if not then
Knowledge (dungeoneering) ,
Knowledge (nature) ,
Knowledge (planes) ,
Knowledge (religion)
Selena cares not which direction they take as long as she can remember how to get out of the house should she need to in a hurry. As such she remains outside till Tunder or Miri advance and give the all clear sign that the room is not trapped or inhabited.
Barek walks into the room, bringing his hands up reflexively as the hulking statue of mixed heritage. "What on earth is that?!" He peers at the thing, but then suddenly looks beyond it.
"I thought I heard something. Crying from upstairs. But it's stopped now."
Perception: +2 v goblin or underground
"Me too." Tunder starts up the stairs cautiously.
Perception: +2 v goblin or underground
Moving towards the center of the room, Mirela stares curiously at the lifeless monstrosity as she waves Selena inside. Glancing over at Barek, she responds "Whatever it was Barek, it certainly was a nasty customer."
Stopping dead in her tracks, Mirela's eyes dart towards the upstairs as she quickly grows pale "Crying, I heard it too." Slowly drawing her blade, Mirela sighs as she tries to build the courage to follow Tunder up the stairs "I hate this place already."
Out of reflex Selena answers barek's question about the centerpiece before the rest of his statement takes hold of her attention. It was a manticore and a ferocious creature at that. Whoever killed it must either have had a lot of help or is possibly the most powerful person I have ever heard of to do it by oneself. I hope Foxglove paid for the centerpiece instead of killing it himself. If he did kill it I am not sure we can handle this by our...did you say crying? Like from a child or from something else?
Selena looks to Miri as Miri confirms it before she steps forward and readies for what they reveal.
Heading upstairs immediately, the party wince as the old stairs creak and groan under their combined weight. Eventually, they make it up to the second floor, where a hallway fills the center of the house, there are several doors that lead from the central hall
Tunder plans to go door by door until he encounters something of interest.
Barek shoulders into the room Tunder opened . He looks around the room for anything out of the ordinary.
The first door Tunder comes to upstairs reveals nothing but another stairwell descending back to the first floor. Ignoring that space the dwarf and his crew push on, trying the door across the hall.
At first the door sticks a bit, but eventually gives way revealing a bedroom that features a child-sized bed, a chair next to a toy box, and a looming stone fireplace big enough for a child to get lost in.
"We did not even look elsewhere. He could be in other places, but with the ghoul problem developing and him being named as their leader seems to have lead us here. We could just burn it down first..." He says in response to Selena's words.
Thorn follows the group closely from the back. He holds his Elven courtblade ready knowing that threats sometimes just pop up especially in spooky places like this. He keeps looking to his kin, eventually he asks as they ascend the stairway, "Seldon, do you have protection from evil prepared. I don't like how this place feels."
Selena continues to liberaaly use detect magic and wait outside until the ok is given from Tunder or Miri. She is glad for the close support and protection from Seldon and Thorn though.
Detect Magic does not provide any magical auras in this room to investigate.
Entering the room, Mirela moves lightly about as she runs a single finger along a dust covered bed post. Suddenly stopping dead in her tracks, Mirela grows pale and wide eyed. Glancing back at the others, Mirela asks with a quavering voice "Did anyone else hear that?" Realizing quickly that none of her companions had heard the young child crying, Mirela puts her left hand on her head, as though trying to assuage a migraine "Ohh... am I going mad?! Nobody else heard a child crying, did they?"
As soon as this frightening image appears, it fades, but you are left filled with mind-numbing terror.
Taking a step back, Mirela appears to stare past Tunder with a look of sheer terror written across her face. For a moment, it appears that the young varisian is fighting to hold herself from screaming, until she finally covers her eyes with both hands while shaking her head.
Sinking to her knees, Mirela holds herself a moment and regains control of her breathing. After a moment, she looks up and weakly adds "I'm okay... I-I just had a most horrible vision, but it's gone now." Standing up, Mirela describes exactly what she saw.
Rushing to her side as Mirela swoons, Seldon listens earnestly as she recounts her vision, and begins casting a warding spell at Thorn's suggestion.
"Some fel magic is in the air, in the very walls..." Seldon says, gravely. "There was some great tragedy here, that much we know."
"Oh! Okay, then. Let's keep looking." Tunder continues up the hall opening doors.
Seldon has some knowledge of haunts, spirits that infest a place long after some great evil or tragedy has occurred there, but no direct knowledge of them.
Moving on down the hall, Tunder leads the parties to the double doors on the right. Pushing open the doors, the group finds a large room featuring two padded chairs and a long couch facing a wide alcove lined with stained glass windows. These windows depict a diverse array of animals and plants -- from north to south are a large pale and ghostly scorpion, a gaunt man holding out his arms as a dozen bats hang from him, a moth with a strange skull-like pattern on its wings, a tangle of dull green plants with bell-shaped flowers, and a young maiden sitting astride a well in the forest while a spindly spider the size of a dog descends along a string of webbing above her.
Detect magic again
Know arcane
Selena again stays in the back to do her magical inspection of the room. As she does so she notices the stained glass windows and is quite intrigued by their imagery. Pending the results of her magical inspection she will relate to the others what she finds before addressing the windows themselves. There is no doubt we are dealing with a vile and dark individual. All of those scenes in the windows relate to dark necromantic forces. Their intricacy and detail tells me that whomever commissioned this has been planning this for quite some time. That means that Miri was never a part of this from the beginning but rather added afterwards. Selena tries to put a positive spin on it but isn't sure she said it properly to encourage the Varisian woman completely. What it does mean is that we must be prepared for all forms of necromantic forces in this house.
"So this didn't happen to Foxglove by accident. He and his family are somehow ties to this undead horror." Barek shakes his head. "Somehow I had hoped he was somewhat a victim in all this."
"Let's keep looking. Maybe we will have to go down to those caves after all."
After determining there is little else of interest here, the party moves on, with Tunder leading them across the hall to the other set of double doors.
A big 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 the subject from view.
There are three portraits on the north wall, and five others on the south wall. Of the five, two are similar in size to those on north wall (large) while three others are much smaller, but still covered with cobwebs.
Seldon intones a light spell, his holy symbol glimmering with starlight as he tries to illuminate the portraits in the far room, warily clutching onto his holy symbol as he clears the cobwebs.
"Stay alert." Tunder begins to wipe away cobwebs to better inspect the paintings.
At Seldon's and Tunder's warning Selena clutches her staff tighter and keeps her eyes out for any movement. She momentarily relaxes as she casts her detection spell as the dust is cleared away an relats anything she finds to the others. Be careful both of you. Who knows how long some of those painting have been covered up in dust. You may be the firs to walk in this room in years. There may be more than necromantic forces as well against us. Watch out for any molds or anything that could carry a disease as well.
Mumbling to herself, I knew I should have taken prestidigitation this morning. Never enough power or foresight.
As Tunder removes the cobwebs from the first picture on the north wall, it reveals a portrait of a tall, middle-aged man with long dark hair, a clean-shaven face, and dark blue noble's clothes. A small plaque at the bottom reads "Vorel Foxglove"
The portrait next to that shows a stern-faced brunette woman with wisps of gray in her short hair and a flowing blue dress. Her name is Kasanda Foxglove, and appears to be the wife of Vorel(?)
Next to them on the north side is the likeness of a young dark haired girl of about 10 years, with the inscription Lorey Foxglove attached at the bottom.
On the south side Seldon cleans off the larger portraits first. On the right is a young adult male, Traver Foxglove, who appears tall and thin, with a narrow face and thin mustache. Next to him is Cyralie, a woman with long red hair and an impish smile.
The smaller portraits appear to be of children: the first two, Sendeli and Zeeva Foxglove, are fair, red haired children, favoring their apparent mother. As Seldon scrapes away the cobwebs on the last he reads the nameplate: "Aldern" For an instant, you glimpse a dark-eyed boy of about 8 years then all hell breaks loose.
Seldons eyes widen, and a horrible shudder takes over him. He raises his holy symbol protectively and invokes his goddesses name. "Desna! Speed this spirit along the path..."
"Make Ready!" Barek shouts as he feels the temperature suddenly drop. He knows something is about to happen, but not sure what it is. The boxer brings up his hands, ready to strike at anything which approaches.
Perception: +2 v goblin or underground
Like Barek, Tunder gets his axe is a ready strike position.
Taking several steps back from the paintings, Mirela looks about with consternation and fear as she notes the change in the room.
"Not again..."
Perception
Looking at the pictures, That must be Foxglove's grandfather and grandmother. And those that Seldon are clearing off must be his mother and father. They look like normal people. I wonder where this necromantic influence came from?
As Seldon brushes the last cobweb off of Seldon's portrait, the temperature in the room drops dramatically so that breath frosts and a thin layer of rime starts to creep across the walls and paintings. The figures depicted in the paintings begin to suddenly shift from living people to dead folk. Kasanda and Lorey slump into misshapen, tumor-ridden corpses. Traver grows pale as a long cut opens in his neck, and blood pours down the front of his suitcoat and shirtfront. Cyralie blackens and chars and her arms and legs twist, as if broken in a dozen places. Aldern's flesh darkens with rot, his fine hair falls out, and he deforms into a ghoul-like monster. The other girls', Sendeli and Zeeva, portraits frost over, but are not otherwise changed.
Worst of all, the portrait of Vorel, frame and all beings to erupt into an explosion of fungus and tumorous growth, but before the diseased growths can reach you, Seldon hefts his holy symbol, channeling the positive power of Desna, and removing the power of the haunt in this room. The room suddenly reverts to normal, no icy temperature, no change in the portraits, as if it all never happened.
"This place is clearly haunted. Did you see the picture of Aldern? It became a ghoul. Do you think this showed the fates of the other family members? Some killed. The littlest ones could still be alive? Or are they frozen to death? And what about the father?"
"We should follow the sounds of sobbing and be wary of disturbing the spirits of this place. Whatever mystery this place holds, it will remain when we have vanquished the evil here." Seldon consels, pacing into the hallway and testing the locks on all the northern doors, holy symbol at the ready.
Selena was taken completely off guard and it was only due to Seldon that the manifestations did not cause any problems to her. Thank you Seldon. I am grateful for your divine intervention once again. It seems the necromantic powers are nefarious and hard for myself to detect. Yet you are quite adept at detecting them.
I don't know know, Barek. what we just saw could be reality or just representative of something else. if reality then it seems likely that the vision does depicts how they died but why the girls just frost over I don't understand. It seems though that I was wrong and the family is not that normal after all. By the rampant growth from Vorel it seems likely that he was the beginning of this and the source of the initial corruption. How to end it after all these years though is a mystery and may be beyond our power.
Selena stays in the back while Seldon goes about checking the doors as it seems he is the best suited to counter any of the necromantic threats here.
"Torag's Beard! I hate this place. We should leave now and burn it to the ground." His hands keep ringing Rumilda. He steps outside the room.
When Tunder mentions burning the place, the wind outside picks up sharply, a strange whistling sound, almost as if the house itself were disagreeing with the dwarf, begins then ends as the gale subsides for a moment.
Heading back into the hall, rather than through the gallery, Seldon tries the first door on the north, which is locked. (The one farthest left).
The next door, on the upper left, is unlocked, and Seldon pushes it open, his holy symbol at the ready.
This once fine bed chamber has been thoroughly destroyed. The bed is smashed, mattress torn apart, walls gouged as if by knives, chairs hacked apart, and paintings on the walls torn to pieces -- with one exception. A portrait hanging on the northwest wall seems to be untouched, although it is hung backward, its unseen subject facing the wall.
"I think we all feel that way Tunder, this place is a terror that I have never known before! I am so out of my field of skill or knowledge. Seldon, it seems we rely on you. Anything we can do to ward ourselves from haunts, holy symbols, holy script, holy water?" Thorn states with worry on his face, he then asks the priest ways to protect themselves. He stays ready as ever, but with no physical threats he is unaware of what to do.
Staring outside through the bedroom as the house groans in protest, Mirela nods "Yeah, nothing would make me happier than seeing this place burn to the ground," pausing a moment, Mirela scowls and quietly adds "and hopefully Foxglove with it."
Walking up to the untouched picture, Mirela raises one brow inquisitively "I wonder why this picture wasn't touched?" Her innate curiosity guiding her, Mirela turns the painting around to view the image.
Selena spies the turned over picture a moment too late. She was about to call Seldon's attention to it when Miri already moved over and flipped it over. Bracing for the worst Selena steps back into the hallway waiting for the next grisly display.
"I can call on the goddess for one more warding spell. I did not see this in the stars and haven't another prepared." he says, with a frown. "This one is locked. Miri, do you think you can..." the elf looks up, with a start.
"Mirela! Hold on, don't-"
Mirela grabs the painting, turning it around and revealing the portrait of beautiful dark-haired Varisian woman in a thoughtful pose. Chillingly, the woman looks considerably like Mirela herself, (although not exactly)...Despite Seldon's fear, there seems to be no effect on Mirela for touching the painting.
Perception
Selena relaxes once nothing happens to Miri or anyone for that matter. When the picture is revealed Selena can't help but gasp as the portrait. Miri, if I didn't know any better I would say that is you or a family member of yours. How would that get here and why?