"I actually agree with you on that. I'd like to get my potion back. Whoever took it will be sleeping on the cold dirt, covered in bruises."
Ulrich followed Scribbles to meet up with Rexah and Sand.
"Alright everyone, if y'all want to help, we have a small lead. The squirrel man said that there's an old big house next to the Lich that we can look into to find this rotten thief."
Ulrich crossed his arms, looking at Rexah and Sand.
"Ya in or not?"
Scribbles arrives at the feet of Rexah and Sand. He looks up to them, awaiting a reply to Ulrich's question.
After what feels like , Scribbles blows a sigh through his feeble mustache. "I think we should take that as a 'No' for now." Looking back up towards Ulrich, he continues "Want to start our investigation without them?"
”Then we shall go to the big house next to the Lich” Ulrich smiled at his new comrade and went forth toward their objective.
Scribbles and Ulrich walk away from the two eerily unmoving travelers, and as they again approach the Laughing Lich, they look at the surrounding buildings. Near the intersection of the north-south dirt path and the east-west main road, there is a small shack, a farmer's house, to their left and nice, well-kept yet humble abode to the right. Northeast looms the Laughing Lich, but to the northwest, there is a manor with patches of overgrown bushes and weeds closely surrounding it.
With a sly smile, Scribbles says "You know, I have a much smaller physique than yourself - as you so kindly pointed out a while ago - I could scout ahead quietly before we barge in." Looking Ulrich up and down to gauge how noisy he is, Scribbles adds "Just let me just find a nice hiding spot for my shield and pack - much less of a racket that way."
Scribbles looks around for the tipped over wheelbarrow, thick bushes, or maybe even a pile of leaves or hay. Assuming he finds someplace inconspicuous, he'll tuck his things out of sight. Also, he'll make sure to grab his signal whistle from his pack and tie it around his neck.
"Perhaps I can climb up to a window... I'll have this on me in case I run into trouble. I'll blow it three times to request your assistance - if that happens, you can bust in through the front door for all I care."
Ulrich looked ahead to the old manor.
”Alright, you can scout, but I will not be too far behind. I can take your pack and shield, they are not too big for me to carry.”
”I will follow you until we get near the enterance.”
There are plenty of readily available hidey-holes for Scribbles to put his pack if he so desires. The bushes around the manor are thick enough to conceal it. Scribbles looks through the windows to try to find a good one to enter, but he quickly discovers they are boarded up on the inside.
He finds himself standing in front of the main entrance, hand placed on the door handle.
He slowly pushes the door handle's lever down, and the door opens with a creak.
Considering Ulrich's offer to hold onto his stuff, Scribbles nods his head. "That's a much better idea, yes. Here you go. Thank you." After handing over his pack and shield (minus the whistle) he looks Ulrich up and down once more. It has become doubly important that he stay behind now... Turning back to the house, he takes to a crouching position, doing everything he can to avoid dragging his feet or stepping on twigs.
Scribbles disappears into the bushes surrounding the house. The only times he becomes visible is when his wild blue hair sprouts from the bushes below a window like a queer flower blooming for a quick moment. Finally, with his options exhausted, he approaches the door, his figure exposed on the doorstep. With a glance behind him to Ulrich, he takes up the whistle in his left hand, and the doorknob in his right.
Making a quick mental note about how cold the doorknob is, he pulls down the lever slowly, and pushes the door open with even more care. He mouths a few gnomish curses each time the hinges whine despite his efforts.
Ulrich took Scribbles pack and shield and placed it in his own bag, luckily Scribbles stuff was dwarfed by Ulrichs pack.
When that was done, Ulrich looked carefully at what Scribbles would do next.
Scribbles can't make out many details as the manor is very dark, but with his low-light vision and the open door, he can see most of the big entryway, which used to flaunt wealth but now looms coated in layers of dust and cobwebs, barren.
As Scribbles cautiously steps inside and closes the door behind him, his eyes adjust to the very dim lighting coming from the small cracks between the boards covering the windows. The far corner of the entryway is blackened, and in the middle of this blackened area, there lies an intact skeleton with a sword through its ribcage stuck downwards into the wall, its arms outstretched on both of its sides on the ground. One hand loosely clasps a dagger while the other remains open with an ornately carved metal orb resting upon it. As Scribbles’ eyes find the orb, all other potential details of the entryway go unnoticed and he finds it difficult to look away.
In a daze, Scribbles walks up to the orb...
... and picks it up. He straightens from bending to grab the orb and is able to see a couple of the symbols etched into its surface before they start to glow orange. Before he can react, his hand feels hot. The symbols brighten, and the metal orb seems to just melt. Scribbles' right hand burns as the metal glides from his hand down his arm. The metal glows orange and then white, forming the same symbols. He's briefly blinded, but the heat seems to fade away almost as quickly as it came into existence. A moment passes; he stands there blinking, stunned. As his vision returns, he can see that his right arm now bears the markings and the orb is nowhere to be seen.
As the metal melts, coating his hand and arm with blinding light, Scribbles bites his lower lip and whimpers at the pain - doing what he can to keep quiet.
Of all my knowledge of stories about irresistible magical items, that I should be so ill prepared and fall prey to one!
Blinking away the burning afterimages, he looks his arm up and down. A shudder quakes his body, not from the chilling air.
Should I be the hero of my own tale, let this not be my downfall!
Looking down at the dagger in the skeleton's other hand, he bends down to take that as well.
In for a penny, in for a pound...
As Scribbles touches the dagger, sudden dread and despair washes over him and the temperature seems to drop even more. He hears sobbing next to him, broken with laughter from the same voice. the voice cries, the source seemingly the motionless skeleton. The sobbing returns followed by, "I didn't mean it... I didn't..." The air warms back up to slightly chilly, and the sobbing recedes.
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His shoulders suddenly heavy with an overwhelming sadness, Scribbles drops to his knees in front of the skeleton.
for the orb or dagger.
on the interaction with the dead.
"Did you face horrors here? What causes us such despair? Guilt? Madness?" Scribbles whispers.
His body shudders once more, this time from the irrepressible melancholy. A thin layer of tears wells up in his eyes as he raises his hand to the skeleton's cheekbone, as if he was wiping a tear from it's cheek.
"What brought you to this misery, poor soul?"
Scribbles doesn't know anything about the orb, but he can tell without a doubt that the dagger is just a plain ol' dagger.
Scribbles knows that this surrounding area is under the effect of a Haunt, likely triggered by Scribbles' contact with the dagger. He might find it curious that it was not triggered by the orb. Additionally, Scribbles knows that Haunts like this typically are triggered once and may reset after a period of time, typically a day. It can also be removed, like a curse, but he doesn't know how.
When Scribbles' fingers brush against the skull, he intuitively knows that the skeleton previously bore the orb's mark as he does now. In his mind, he hears the sound of scraping feet on wood, clanking of steel clashing, harsh words spoken from the betrayed, a blade sinking deep through flesh, a shocked final gasp, bitter and dismissive murmuring followed by surprised and muffled voices, crackling as if from a fire, and then silence.
The skeleton does not reply.
Moving sluggishly under the emotional burden, Scribbles acts as if the despair is driving his movements. Taking the new silence as its own reply, he starts by pulling the sword from the Skeleton's ribcage. He gently rests the blade on the blackened floor beside the body.
I know little of how to put you to rest, old soul, but I will try to come back once I've learned more.
With a second thought, Scribbles pauses.
Old bodies put to rest are laid down with their arms crossed, right?
He works at moving the skeleton to a more appropriate position, glad that it isn't a full corpse - bones are lighter than flesh, and his muscles are faltering under the spell.
As the slow minutes pass by, Scribbles ends his improvised ritual by passing his hand over the eye sockets, as if closing the eyelids. He kneels over his work for a while, hoping that it does something for now.
The crushing despair fades, and Scribbles realizes what he's done. Shocked that he's let his guard down for so long, and that his whistle has dropped back down to his chest, he shakes his head.
One thing after another tonight, huh? He picks up the dagger again. If you were betrayed, perhaps using this on your betrayer, whatever form that possesses now, might give you rest. Looking down at the sword, his thoughts continue And if you were the betrayer, I may need this to finish the job...
Scribbles tucks the dagger into his belt and wields the sword in his right hand, returning the whistle to his left. Standing back up, he takes in the room in full, and resumes a more stealthy disposition.
Ulrich waited outside the manor, impatiently. His arms were crossed and he was tapping his foot.
”Agh, There’s probably nothing even in there, either that or other sneak thieves. I’m not a fan of all this sneakin’. It just takes too long...”
Ulrich talked aloud to himself and then thought for a moment.
Though if this place does house a thief, the jerk may get the drop on the little guy.
A long pause occurred and Ulrich thought about the potion that his grandmother had got for him. He grew irritated at the thought that some bloke took it, and he could be in this manor no less.
”That little guy has five minutes before I get in there.”
Unable to dislodge the sword and reposition the skeleton, Scribbles does what little he can - simply crossing the arms over its chest (probably resting the wrists on the sword so they don't fall back down.) One way or another, Scribbles waits out the crushing despair, ending that scene a sword shorter.
Dagger and whistle in hand, he continues into the manor.
Scribbles searches the entire manor without further incident. There are two floors, a curving staircase leading up. There are bits of what used to be furniture here and there in the various rooms, worthless clutter that give hints to what the space was used for, cheap dishes and utensils, torn scraps from rough blankets. But there doesn't appear to be anything of value that Scribbles can see.
While Ulrich waits outside as a lookout, he sees the three guards from earlier down the road, leaving the house across the way from the guardhouse, which you remember them mentioning as the mayor's. They are making their way toward Ulrich and the manor but haven't seemed to notice him yet.
After finding nobody in the house, Scribbles ends his expedition standing at the door to the manor, ready to leave. Pausing to dust off any soot, dirt, and cobwebs, he takes a deep breath.
I can't believe I got so shooken up there.
”What’s this then?”
Ulrich uncrossed his arms and placed his hands on his hips.
They are heading this way. How intriguing, or perhaps bothersome. I guess I’ll find out which soon enough.
Ulrich continued to wait by the manor, the time getting closer for him to make his move to go inside.
Scribbles dabs at his eyes with a sleeve to make sure they are dry, then slowly opens the door. Seeing Ulrich still there, he approches with a forced smile on his face.
"Our little squirrel wasn't very helpful, was he? Nothing but dusty old furniture in there! Oh, and an old skeleton with a sword in its chest. Couldn't get it out. Do you know what to do with old haunted bones to put them to rest, Ulrich?"
Ulrich looked visibly confused at Scribbles words.
”Um... what?”
"There's nothing but dust, dirt, cobwebs, and rotting furniture! It would take a bit of work to turn that place around. Then again, it'd probably be cheap to buy it in the first place, especially since a man died in there."
Ulrich stared blankly at Scribbles.
”I... I don’t....”
Somehow I feel like I’ve gotten even less information after this.
Ulrich rubbed the bridge of his nose and continued to speak.
”You weren’t in there that long... Let me have a look as soon as these guards pass.”
"As long as we don't acquire some tag-alongs" Scribbles glances towards the guards "I can even go in with you and point out what I found so far."
Ah! I didn't check the outside very well, did I?! Clenching his right hand, then crossing his arms to put it back out of his mind, he adds to himself Was I so eager to find that orb without thinking?
"Did you look around out here while I was inside? If not, I can stay out here instead and check more than just the windows this time."
”Of course I wasn’t looking around this place. I was waiting on ya and seeing if ya would call for help. Would you like your stuff back?”
“I say we should check it out more if you only want slightly inside. But we should do it now.”
Ulrich walked up to the door, ready to go inside.
After walking through the door, out of sight of the guards and any other prying eyes, Scribbles takes back his pack and shield. "Thank you, friend."
During the search, our buddy cop duo finds the deep gouges in the wooden floor. Scribbles tries to hide the fact that he missed this clue the first time by making conversation about it. "What do you think about this? Do you suppose this was made by thieves, trying to make a home of this place? Or perhaps these were made long ago, at the same time that old soul was left to rot there? There is a strange lack of scrapes leading up to that scene, so the latter is my guess."
After finally finding the trap door Scribbles exclaims "Oh, a trap door! Sorry, I missed this the first time I looked around." Standing above the closed door, he looks up to Ulrich. "Before we dive in, do you want to grab that sword? The one in the skeleton? It might have something to do with the Haunt that I found there, and I couldn't grab it myself."
As Ulrich walked into the house he was shocked to see the remains of a person.
It made him nervous and he focused on investigating the other areas.
He noted the grooves that the gnome also discovered.
”It may not be anything as trivial as thieves trying to move stuff around, but it is odd that these markings don’t exist where the body is.”
As they find the loose floor board, Ulrich helped Scribbles to move them out of the way to revival the trap door. Ulrich looks at Scribbles as he asks him about going in.
Trying to avoid having to go near the skeletal remains he stalled and simply said...
”Before we go in? There’s a big lock there, mate.”
Ulrich got up and crossed his arms.
”Can you pick a lock? I sure can’t pick one.”
"Err... That's a good point." Scribbles says as he inspects the lock. "Do you suppose either of the others have experience with locks?" Though I think we would be hard pressed to get help from those two - for all I know, they secretly stayed out in the woods to spend some lonely time together...
After a moment of thought, he looks over to the skeleton.
Ulrich eyed the lock a bit longer.
”Wait...”
Ulrich took a knee and examined the lock closer.
”This lock is not that old. Definitely not as old as that skeleton. Someone may have locked this recently...”
The guards act suspicious and are basically no help, we find this spooky place where there seemed to be a murder, but no one bothers getting rid of the corpse, yet there is a lock here that has been put here after the person was killed.
”I need to pry this open...”
Ulrich nervously walked up to the skeletal corpse.
He gripped the sword and pulled.
Ulrich easily rips the sword from the skeleton and wall. The skeleton topples over onto the floor and turns to dust, starting from where the sword once held it in place, and the wall pops loudly as the crack that was formed by the sword grows a few inches. Ulrich thinks he might have heard a faint gasp of pain, but he can't be sure.
By this point, it is very dark in the house. You can't see any details of the sword itself without some light.
Ulrich shuddered as the skeleton fell to dust.
Poor guy.
”Ya wouldn’t happen to have a torch or lantern, would ya, Scribbles?”
Scribbles lets out a small gasp as the skeleton fades to dust. He made it look so easy! At least that might have dispelled the Haunt if the skeleton finally disintegrated.
As Ulrich asks for some light, Scribbles responds "Don't you know that gnomes can see fairly well in dim light? Why would I need a lantern? As long as the sun doesn't set completely, I can see by its illumination through the boarded windows."
"Look out!" he shrieks, barely able to keep a grin from forming. The figure brightens a little more as it begins to stand.
Ulrich looked shocked at first with Scribbles shriek, but looked at the light formed in front of him, frowned, then looked back at Scribbles.
”Good, you can make light. Try to keep that up, will ya? And stand back.”
Ulrich walked up to the trap door. And readied to swing and attempted to break the lock with the newly acquired sword.
With the light, you can see the sword is a gladius. It looks fairly old and a bit singed at the hilt and up to where it went through the skeleton, but where you estimate it went through the skeleton, the sword looks rusted and ancient.
Ulrich swings true with the gladius, and the sword shatters where the rusted part begins. The sword scratches the lock.