"I already have holy water, we can both take a scroll Norna and I'll let you have the wand."
Kawrock takes a turn at checking the door after Norna motions him over.
Kawrock hears the faint, if not strangely distant sound of a woman sobbing from within.
Kawrock clicks his tongue twice with concern. "Sounds like someone is upset and crying inside. Perhaps someone that might cheer her up should go first?"
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"Remember," Norna says, "We are looking for the warden's wife, Vesorianna, or her ghost, or something. Hopefully not just a haunt: there's just no reasoning with a haunt, even over tea and biscuits. But I'll go in first, as I'm told I have 'a good shoulder to cry on', at least if you are short or sitting down." She then knocks, waits for a moment, and opens the door slowly with a tentative, "Hello?"
Eldon points a finger at Norna while casting message, then whispers to her with a slightly altered and creepy voice. "I see dead people..."
"So what do you see, Norna? Is anyone in there?" Eldon asks after cancelling the spell, using his normal voice.
Norna opens the door and peers in.
This chamber is in shambles - old wooden benches lie in ruins along the walls, while rusty chains and bits of rotten rope lie scattered on the floor. The room is silent.
As you stare into the room, the sobbing increases in volume, followed by the clink of chains. Suddenly you feel manacles close around your wrists and a sense of panic overwhelms you. Just as quickly, the sensation is gone and all you hear is the sobbing again.
Arval marches in the room and looks around.
"Good day! How are you?"
He waits for an answer if there is any.
Kawrock squacks loudly and it a shaking voice calls out, "Haaauunt!" and backs out of the room.
Arval looks back at Kawrock and then back in the room again.
"I see nothing at all! What's there to worry about?"
As Arval steps in, he looks around to see nothing unusual. However, as he turns back to the group to brag about this, everyone sees a pair of manacles from a bench near him rise into the air, and lunge at Arval!
Arval feels the cold steel begin to close around his wrists but he manages to react and yank his hands out of the way in time. The manacles dangle in the air in front of him. One of them whips out to slap him lightly in the face. Around the group, everyone can now hear sobbing in the room.
Arval
Rustom
Lena (mage armour)
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Manacles
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Kawrock
Eldon
Norna
Seeing the manacles going after Arval Rustom rushes in to help him.
Arval jumps at the sight of the ghostly manacles. He slashes out in defence.
He misses in his fright, after his attack he seems to shake a bit.
Rustom's massive axe sends the manacles flying across the room. Arval's swing goes wide as the manacles bob about, trying to lock around his arms.
Kawrock stares at the manacle beak wide open for a moment before looking over at Norna. "Uhhhhhh you can do something about this right Norna? I'm not used to fighting the angry manacles of the undead."
The animated manacles themselves are like the scythe; animated through the power of an angry spirit. So the manacles itself are not susceptible to a siphon, holy water, or positive energy. However, the spirit in the room animating them may be.
The traditional methods of dealing with a haunt are to either resolve the source of its anger or to disperse it with holy water, positive energy, or items like the haunt siphon. Holy water and positive energy only work temporarily.
Haunted spirit or not, the easiest way to deal with an animated object is to break it. No object, no danger.
"Destroy the manacles, got it." Kawrock steps into the room and sends a bolt of fire at the manacles.
"No Don't use the siphon! The manacles are like the scythe; animated through the power of an angry spirit. So the manacles itself are not susceptible to a siphon, holy water, or positive energy. Meaning you'll waste the siphon on it! Just break the manacles, like we did the scythe!"
Eldon moves into the room and up to the manacles, taking his dancing lights with him and drawing his rapier. "The crying spirit in the room may be animating them though! If we can't resolve the source of its anger, we could try to disperse it with holy water, positive energy, or items like the haunt siphon. Keep in mind holy water and positive energy only work temporarily, but we want to safe the siphons for the big five!"
When next to the manacles Eldon attempts to stab them. "En garde!"
poink
Eldon's mighty rapier just scratches the manacles and does no damage.
Kawrock's fire bolt flies in, but the confusion of the crowd causes him to miss in order to avoid setting Norna's head on fire.
Our stalwart bard's perfect fencing stance leaves him briefly vulnerable to the animated shackle, which lunges for his wrist. However, he turns to the side and avoids the attack at the last minute.
Rustom takes another mighty swing with is axe.
Rustom swings with enough force to shatter stone, but misses entirely. Lena's bolt goes wide as well.
Eldon's about to strike again with his mighty rapier, but lowers it when he remembers a funny anecdote: "On one of my many adventures I encountered a woman who had an obsession with manacles. She used them for practically anything. She told me she even used the manacles to clean the toilet. When I asked how she did such a thing, she answered "I use them to attach my husband to the toilet. I won't release him until it's cleaned." Hahaha!"
When probably no one else's laughing Eldon coughs, scrapes his throat, takes a step away from the manacles, and starts a different story: "Mischieveous little creatures, leprechauns. I once spoke one that had an obsessions with toilets..."
Kawrock steps forward and strikes with his sword and beak. "Curse you tiny manacles!"
Kawrock manages to snatch the manacles out of midair with his beak, but does no damage. However, he follows up with a mighty blow from his sword which smashes the manacles to the ground, where the chain breaks. They cease moving, and the sobbing fades out of hearing.
End of Combat
Eldon used 1 round of inspire courage.
Vladlena used 1 firebolt.
Kawrock used 1 firebolt.
You now all stand within the empty room. Aside from a few more (thankfully inert) sets of manacles on the wall, you see little else in here.
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Norna is relieved to see the manacles fall, broken and inert, but the victory seems mixed, in that only the expression of the haunt (or whatever) was defeated with the haunt itself not solved.
She also feels mixed emotions about Eldon's story, not being quite sure if she is relieved or disappointed about the manacles story not going the direction she expected a manacles story to go. "Maybe I'll ask it again after he's had a few ales," she thinks, giggling for no apparent reason, "Hee Hee".
Norna searches - or, rather, helps Kawrock search - and scans the room for magic, as well. "You never know what is concealed in a wall or under a loose floorboard," she explains.
After they are finished with the central room, Norna suggests re-starting their search at the next room clockwise, although she has always been uncertain as to why clocks are considered 'wise': "It must be something I've missed!"
She'll listen at the that door and, after Kawrock does too, will open it and enter.
Kawrock pokes the broken manacles with his sword a few times to make sure it is lifeless. At Norna's suggestion he searches the room.
He ponders Eldon's story as he searches. Such a strange custom, treating ones mate as a common slave. It is like that idiom from the common tongue I read once the old ball and chain.
If he finds nothing he will move on and search the door Norna leads him to.
The group gives the room one more going over; nothing of value is found.
With Norna suggesting the next direction, the group begin to take a clockwise exploration of this part of the main floor. The group make their way to yet another rotting door, this one barely on its hinges but stack fast. Kawrock inspects it closely - a good shove should open it. From the outside, this room looked empty except for a brazier and a few iron rods leaning against it.
Despite silence from the other side of the door, Kawrock's sensitive beak smells the faint aroma of burning flesh.
"What a beautiful door!" Eldon exclaims as he observes the rotting door that barely hangs on its hinges, "I'd sure like a door like that in my home!"
"I know this smell", Kawrock says before taking another whiff of the air. "It smells like victory."
"Rustom or Arval would one of you mind kicking in the door? I think there may be more upset spirits based on the smell coming from inside."
Rustom walks up to the door, pauses for a moment and gives the door a mighty kick.
Just as he is about to kick his foot catches on something and misses the door completely and instead kicks the wall next to the door. Wincing he staggers back a few steps.
After hurting his foot, Rustom puts his shoulder into the door and it falls right off of its hinges, collapsing into the room with a loud BOOM and an explosion of dust.
This stark room contains a low stone bench against the north wall and a ruined esk to the west that sits under three narrow, barred windows. An old brass brazier lies on its side to the south, surrounded by several rusty branding irons.
You notice the rising scent of burning flesh.
Seeing the branding irons kawrock fires a bolt of flame at one of the branding irons. "Quickly destroy the branding irons before they can animate like everything else in this cursed place."
Kawrock steps into the room in order to get a clear shot, and fires a firebolt directly into the branding iron. True to his prediction, the smell of burning flesh suddenly becomes unbearably strong. The branding irons all begin to glow red-hot and one of them suddenly flies through the air, straight at him!
Kawrock lets out a squawk and ducks to see the branding iron fly overhead, and slam into the wall. Its fire goes out and it lies there, inert.
"You ask me to kick the door in with all this stuff happening here! Are you mad?! You want me to call upon me these things?"
He says while his eyes skitter from left to right to scan the area. As the Branding iron flies past him he lets out a shriek and jumps to the side.
"Why?!I am not going in that room first! Just so you know!"
He keeps watching around him frantically.
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Norna walks into the room, shillelagh and shield raised high, ready to dodge, trying to puzzle out if it is a haunt like the manacles or another kind of haunt.
"Perhaps, just thinking, we should destroy the brazier, too, since it is normally the source of the heat for the irons. Or maybe freeze them, or dump them in the lake."
A loud sizzle sounds and a scream echoes throughout the room as a rod begins to glow red-hot. It flies across the room at high velocity at Norna, but misses entirely, slamming into the wall. It ceases to glow with heat and the burning scent dies out.
This is most definitely a haunt, although not one you've read about before. Temporary fixes to a haunt are to let it exhaust itself (if applicable), or dispel it with holy water or positive energy. Permanently solving a haunt means tackling the source of the haunt's distress and/or power.
"I doubt any of us feels like being pierced by that, so give me some space please." Eldon takes a flask of holy water from his backpack, and attempts to toss it at the brazier and its irons.
Oh dear...
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"Um, no! Not really a haunt! ... per se," Norna says nervously, crossing her toes as she does so. "Just put the siphon away for now, okay? We need to save those for the big ones, and this one may just run itself out, or we can take away its irons or something."
"These little ones are probably only becoming a problem because of the breakdown in whatever was holding the most malign forces back, probably the - Whispering Way's - doing," she speculates, dropping her voice to a whisper.
Eldon throws the holy water far too hard, and it simply smashes against the opposite wall. Yet another scream rips through the room as a burning hot iron rises and flings itself at Eldon. Thankfully, the halfling's small stature makes him a hard target, and the rod smashes against the wall. Only one branding iron remains.