Quickly scouting around you find two obvious entrances into Foxglove Manor, the front doors and the side door. In both cases, the doors are locked. Numerous windows could provide entrance into the manor as well on either the ground or upper floor. The unbroken, grime-encrusted panes of glass in their frames speak not only of the Foxglove family's wealth in being able to afford such an extravagance, but also suggests that the manor's notorious reputation is intact since vandals have not dared break them. The windows themselves are curtained from the inside, but it should be a relatively simple matter to break the glass and climb into the room beyond.
"As officers of the town, I see no reason to sneak through the side door. Let's head through the front gate and announce ourselves. Epi, could you do the honors on the lock on the gate?"
There doesn't appear to be.
"We can't just break in," Nuri objects. "We only have the word of a bunch of undead that there's anything wrong here at all. There's no sign of a band of ghouls hiding out in here to terrorize the neighborhood. We had no problem finding signs of passage at the mill. There should be footprints if corporeal undead are going in and out of here, or the stench of death and remains of their prey. Ghouls aren't exactly known for their subtlety."
"Let me look around some." On the approach and outside of the buildings, Eponine will look for signs of tracks, especially anything recent. Can she take 20 on this? If not, Survival
Eponine surveys the approaches, and confirms that nothing has come or gone from the building through the front or side door. It seems even the animals stay far away from the structure which gives you all an uneasy feeling. Except for the crows near the ruins and the well the place seems abandoned.
"If something's turning people undead and sending them out to kill people and deliver notes, they're not doing it from inside," Nuri insists. "Ghouls don't fly. Are there any outbuildings? Stables or the like? A boathouse?"
You've been around the house, there are also the ruins I described in the arrival posts. Where the crows are, it was an old servants house or guest house now burned to the ground.
"Let's check out the outlying buildings first."
Eponine will move over to the burned guest house.
Eponine returns to the burned ruins the group passed coming into the manor yard. It's impossible to tell the number of floors this building might of had because all that remains are the sooty, scorched stones of its foundation. To the east, a four-foot-wide stone well sits, partially collapsed, in the corner of the ruins. Calmo chases off a random crow that screeches and flies away as the Eponine approaches the well. Looking in it appears to drop 100 feet into the darkness, with a deep pool of water at the bottom. There is nothing else interesting about the ruins.
"I suppose we could try to find a way down the well, but I'm not sure if that's be the best idea."
As his thoughts return to the task at hand, Victor becomes quickly bored. "Okay, why do we not just walk in? This place is better suited to be the local dump. Nothing lives within this dump except creatures that like garbage. All this looking around everywhere but inside will do us no good is all I am saying."
"Agreed. It just looks like abandoned ruins. But maybe we can find something useful."
Eponine will lead the way in to the manor itself, pausing after at the threshold to make sure the others will follow.
"Agreed. It just looks like abandoned ruins. But maybe we can find something useful."
Eponine will lead the way in to the manor itself, pausing after at the threshold to make sure the others will follow.
Eponine makes short work of the lock on the door and pushes it open. The sound of the house straining and creaking 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 batlike wings, and a deformed humanoid face.
You briefly hear what sounds like the faint sobbing coming from somewhere upstairs.
"This doesn't make sense," Nuri insists quietly from the doorstep. "The girl at the bar said Aldern was here a month ago, but he couldn't have been staying here. It looks like no one's lived here for at least a year."
As Victor steps around Nuri, "You are in the way, he says to her as a matter of fact as he passes by. "That is true. It looks as if no one has ever lived here," he says as he takes in the scenery of the run down building.
His eyes going wide, "Shhhhh! Do any of you hear that?!" Victor goes silent as his eyes travel upwards. "There is someone here," he points upstairs, "and it sounds as if they are in trouble. Let us investigate." Victor pulls out his bow, keeping his eyes peeled and looks for a stairway to use.
Perception
Eponine frowns. "I don't hear anything, but let's check."
Eponine will lead the way, blade out and scanning for traps as she goes.
Wren shakes her head at the barbaric practice of taking trophies. Hunting for food was fine and encouraged even, but killing something just to stuff it and have it sitting next to the fireplace was just wrong.
Eponine and Victor enter into the room there are shut doors in the north and south walls, a grand stair case in the south wall and the main hall stretches eastward further as well. Down the eastern way there are two more doors, one each in the north and south walls.
"Should we take the doors as we come to them?"
Victor possesses another look of shock, "Someone is being burned! We..." he stops as shock is replaced by confusion. He looks to the others, "Did any of you smell that? That is odd. How does a smell like that instantly vanish? This is not a good place... not a good place at all. Watch your backs, people. I am thinking there are probably more of the creatures like Belril here. And I do not mean halflings."
"And no, Miss Wren, we do not take the doors. Well, you can along with whoever else wants too if you wish, but I will being going upstairs. That is where I heard sobbing. I would guess whoever or whatever is in here, that is where they are, tormenting another. I must do what I can to..." Victor fades off a moment before eventually shaking his head from his reverie. "I must go." Victor heads toward the stairway, a look of determination about him - a look that is rarely seen upon the flamboyant warrior.
Eponine wrinkles her nose. "I thought I smelled something burning, but it seems to be gone now. But I certainly didn't hear anything. Be cautious, Victor. Someone may be toying with us."
To Wren, she'll say "Door by door is good. It wouldn't do to have anyone, or anything, coming out behind us."
Wren whispers back to Epi. "Do we want to let Victor go along by himself? You know as well as I do that he will get in over his head in about three seconds..."
In a harsh whisper, Eponine calls out "Victor, hold! It may be a trap."
If that doesn't slow him down, Eponine will follow him.
Victor stops a moment, turns to Eponine with a look of thought about him. "A trap? I guess you might have a point Miss Eponine. If the sobbing is false, then I could be walking into an ambush. But what if it is not false, then what? We cannot just stand idly by. What do you - or any of you for that matter - suggest we do?" he simply asks. He then scans the house again, "I must confess, this place is a bit spooky looking. All of those dead creatures and whatever that thing is in the middle. It is hard to imagine anyone ever living here."
"You said it yourself. If there is sobbing from somewhere, and no ones lived here in a very long time, what does that mean? Judging from the state of disrepair, there's no one actually here. I'd expect there's a trap ahead where the voice came from."
"Living here I cannot imagine, that is true. But being kept prisoner here? now that I could believe. This place would be a perfect prison. A sad, abandon looking place that nobody would care to even bother with because it is so run down. But I cannot dismiss the idea of it possibly being false and leading me straight into a trap, Miss Wren, that is true. Okay then, one door at a time it is then. Let us go." He nods, his bow ready.
"If there are prisoners here, we will see them liberated. But based on the tracks outside, they will have been here for quite some time. A few minutes while we are cautious shouldn't matter one way or the other. But your passions guide you well, young one."
Perception
Eponine quickly checks the door then eases it open. Beyond is a narrow hallway with three more doors.
"A hallway, more doors." she mutters.
Before going into the new space, she'll next check the other doors in this room. Starting with the door on the south wall, two squares below the "B" in "B3".
Wren follows along behind the others, knowing she didn't have many strengths when trying to listen at doors for traps.
Eponine moves back to the other side of the room, once she is sure the door is safe she swings it open to reveal a cozy-looking drawing room. The small space is marred by the unnatural dampness and the thick sheets of mold that cling to the curtains of the southern window. There is another closed door in the east wall.
Eponine steps over to the window, looking outside. "Thought I saw..." she mumbles, but trails off and doesn't finish the comment.
She'll take a quick moment to search the drawing room for anything that looks recently disturbed. She'll also scan the room with detect magic. If nothing interesting comes from either of those checks, she'll check the door in the east wall (check for traps, listen at it).
Victor steps in the doorway, "What was that, Miss Eponine? Did you say something?"
The room holds nothing of interest for Eponine, and a moment later she has checked and opened the door into the next room. Beyond is a library featuring two chairs, one of which lies on its side, before a stone fireplace. A scarf, its reds and golds contrasting with the drab palette of the room, is draped over the side ofthe fallen chair. A book sits facedown on the floor between the chairs. A stone bookend, carved to look like a praying angel with butterfly wings, lies on its side in the fireplace itself. Updated Map
In response to Victor, Eponine says "Uh, for a second I thought I saw a woman in the window. Or maybe just a reflection... Her face at least. But it may just be this place."
In the library, Eponine will check for the same things; magic and things recently disturbed. She'll also check the face down book, just curious to see what it is.
Eponine enters the room cautiously, scans for magical effects and feels confident there are none. Closer to the chairs she recognizes the northern one, which is the one over turned with the scarf draped upon it, has large blood stain on the back of it. The scarf appears valuable. The bookend in the fireplace looks damaged, and it too might be stained with blood. Eponine bends down and retrieves the book which bares the title The Historic Coast: A History of Varisia. It fell open to pages about the early settlement that soon became the town of Sandpoint.
Wren enters the room with Epi, once it was cleared. "That's pretty, isn't it," Wren nods at the scarf, not wanting to grab it without the okay from the trap spotter. "It seems out of place in this run down house."
Victor walks in with the others, "A woman? In the window? That is odd." Looking to the scarf and then turning to Wren, "Pretty, Miss Wren? Okay, yes, it is pretty I guess. But more importantly... boring. We are not interested in some stupid scarf that was left in here forever ago, Miss Wren, we are looking for... we are looking for...," he face contorts into confusion, "What exactly are we looking for in here, Miss Eponine? Besides someone who may be trapped in the upper levels, of course."
"A pack of ghouls?" Nuri suggests from the doorway. "Or the ghast that's recruiting them? This place doesn't smell like an undead hostel. Eponine, how recently has that fireplace been used? Can you tell?"
Roached feels unease in this structure and steps outside to catch a breath of fresh air and "keep any eye on things" as he put it. Nuri passes through the small room and remains outside the library where Wren, Victor, and Eponine are investigating. The best Eponine can tell it has been only a few months since the fireplace was last used.