Carefully slipping free of my hauberk, I gently set the piece in a rough pile besides my boots, shield, and still glowing Morningstar near the northwest corner of the room, though my emblem I tuck into a small pocket sown to the inside of my shirt.
Looking around over my shoulder, and seeing everyone preparing for bed, I return removing my the lower portions of the armor, still careful not to make too much noise. Elijah, a thought occurs to me. We do have a fire going still. Do you think it would work better to set up watch outside the room, or inside? We can use some of these chairs as fuel.
Along those lines, I recommend that you stay off those stairs. I'm certain their is some spirit guarding them, and I don't know how they might react if you start tearing them up for firewood. We should also both make a point of warning Thia as well.
Turning to Kvina;
I don't suppose you have any experience with haunts, do you? I've got the basic know-how, but it would be good to have someone at my back with some knowledge of such things before tackling one... in case things go south.
I look to the chairs, then to the semi-strong fire in the main hall.
Hmm, we could use the chaurs and other wood as fuel. My only worry is that we are quite out in the open. In here we could "in theory" be safe. Yet trapped should sonething come try to eat our faces. We could lock the side door back up after we thoroughly search it? Make sure there are no surprises? What do you guys think as I pise the question to Kvina and the others.
I finish my business and head back to the others. I catch the tail end of Elijah's words. "I think I should've never left Daggermark. I never thought I'd miss sleeping outside in the open, but I'd take being out in a blizzard over this place." I turn and salute Kvina "Welcome to our haunted house. It sucks. Feel free to do the 'Paladin riding in to save the day' act."
I will look at the others, It appears there are some pieces of the fire that I could move to in here. Once here, we can stoke the fire with a chair as needed to keep warm and hopefully ward off any predators that or inside this damned house.
I head to the fire, and carefully take what I can to the observatory room that we will be hunkering down in.
Though I relate well with Thia's sentiment, I can't help but be annoyed at this point. It's late and now isn't the time to go springing issues like this. I get up from where I was crouched over my blanket, taking my morninstar with me, and walk past Thia to the hall to deal with business. As I walk past her, I give her a stern look. Play nice. I don't want to spend an hour tonight putting you two back together, and our wizard's crabby and trying to sleep. Not waiting for a retort, I continue past, turning to Elijah as I go: Sorry, but I've been holding this for about an hour now. I'll lend a hand once I've finished.
I blanch for a moment, Aerrodin seems quite stern, before a bubble of outrage wells up in me. I scowl at his back as he goes down the hall. "Yeah. In case you were confused, I was trying to make a joke." I tell Kvina. "A sense of humor keeps me from babbling in the corner like a baby."
I look at the fire that Elijah brings in and I try to keep my features composed. Of course we'd bring a fire in with us. I take up a position leaning against the doorframe, my hand on the hilt of my axe. "Once everyone's finished their business we'll close the door and I'll stand watch. Elijah, please make sure the fire in the hall goes out. Kvina, if you don't have a bedroll you can use mine while I'm on watch."
Distracted by the cleric before I can really focus on the house, I reply, "I can't say I have done much work with haunts, they are fairly rare in the places they allow trainees... We did study about them some, so I might be able to help." Having been distracted by the questions of ghosts and everyone's move to the room they had been in earlier, I start to gather my gear, ideas about the evils of the place pushed to the back of my mind.
With the female warrior's return, and salute, I fumble a quick, duplicate salute back.
"I, uh, actually am not a true 'paladin' just yet... I was going to take my vows after my pilgrimage, but I will gladly offer assistance when you need it. Although, we prefer the term 'Holy Warrior'."
Puzzled by Aerrodin's words I cock my head and reply, "Why would I attack Thia, she's done nothing wrong and holy Warriors have been known to swoop in and save people before. It's actually refreshing she brought this up so soon." I retort in defense of Thia, slightly miffed he'd been so stern for nothing. "It's okay, HE obviously missed it was a joke..."
...Not that I realized it was one either...
Berating myself, I drag my supplies into the room and start to set up my bedroll and blanket. "I do have my own bedroll, and even an extra blanket if you'd like." I reply to Thia as I hold out an thick, if slightly damp, blanket.
I finish my business in the hall, and wearily go over to Elijah to lend a hand with the fire, quietly hanging my head in exhaustion.
The group has much more difficulty getting to sleep the second time... the knowledge of the massive wolf roaming about makes sleep hard to grasp.
Hours pass as the storm flings its fury against the house, its bolts of lightning shattering the darkness and its noise breaks the silence and makes the house seem even more murderous and alive.
It's easy to stay up for my watch, what with the noise of the storm. After a few hours I go wake Kvina and head for my bedroll
Barely able to get some sleep with the lightning falling all around, I find it a relief when Thia finally 'wakes' me. With a smile, it feels almost out of place, and a nod, I offer her my extra blanket again.
I spend most of my time on watch half-listening to the sounds of people sleeping. I'm instead focused on all of the things that went wrong today. I should have listened when the High General warned me this was the worst season for storms here. I've gotten my self trapped in a 'haunted house' with people I barely know because of that...
Pharasma knows I'm probably to blame for their suspicious reception; I wasn't open enough with them and too rattled from the storm to even listen to them. Speaking of storms, why do I STILL freeze up whenever there is a lightning storm? It's pathetic I cower from them. I just need to focus on something when they are around...
I wonder what Thia thinks of me. Knowing me, she probably secretly hates me but doesn't want to hurt my feelings. Maybe if I...
After my hours are up, I try to hide my bleak and morose mood behind a stern mask and proceed to wake up the next person. I crawl into bed, finally exhausted enough to drown out the storm raging through the almost too thin walls.
Gazing over the party, watching the window and the door, you hear a faint noise. The rain has died to near silence, and the lightning has stopped its erratic stabbing from the skies.
A lengthy scrape... like leather on stone comes from... somewhere, you can't pinpoint it... listening intensely... you move to stand to see if you can get closer, maybe find the source, but the rain returns like a wave, and the noise is drowned once more.
Though Kvina tries to hear the sound again, there is nothing more that can be heard over the sound of the rain.
Kvina's watch ends, and she begins to wake the others.
Really trying to hope the sound I heard wasn't something wanting to kill me, I try to focus on my depressive spiral, but the sound has taken the edge off it... Deciding I should probably do something nice for the group I had sheltered the night with, I start to get a nice hot breakfast prepared from the abundance of trail rations I have. After it is well under way I start heading around waking people.
and Mother said I had packed too many...
"Thanks" I take the food from Kvina and start munching away. As I eat I ask the rest of the group "So...what do we do now?"
I wake, clear the gunk from my eyes. I see the fire still burns, and I let out a sigh of relief that it still goes.
I look to the others, So, where to now? This house has it out for us so we need to go together. The hall with the wolf?