With the death of the homonculus Kiri felt a wash of relief. Such tiny targets were difficult to hit, especially when they were climbing on her allies. She was going to have to work on that problem. She began looking for valuable or hidden areas, stopping as son as Leora called out about the traps. She looked over at the woman and asked, "What will their path be?"
Kiri looked at the group and said, "Get away from where the forks are going." Her warning delivered Kiri pulled in a ball of wind and sent it slamming into the boockcase in an effort to trigger the trap.
"Let me take a look at that before you do anything, Kiri," Dom says as he steps over to where the contraption is set up.
T'chazzar keeps his backsword handy and stays some distance away from the trap.
After providing some cover for the others, Dom gets off to the side. "Ready when you are, Kiri!"
At Dom's signal--and once everyone else is out of the danger zone--Kiri lets fly with one of her patented air blasts. An instant later, a volley of forks shoots from the hidden trap, and dozens of the sharp eating utensils fly across the room.
Subsequent searching, and that done a bit earlier by Leora, reveals nothing of value in the ransacked room. Leora does notice that what's burning in the fireplace are portraits taken off the walls and some of the books from the now mostly-empty cases.
"Okay, no place left to go but up," Domitius says as he returns to the bottom of the stairwell. "Let us hope the idiot boy left a clue that wasn't destroyed by Leora's pet."
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"I'm feeling better now. Leora's pet? It did take a liking to her ankles." Davina carefully goes up the stairs following Dom.
Tiny bloody footprints from the recently dispatched homunculus cover the wooden floor of the upstairs hallways, and bloody hand prints can be seen on the walls, doors, and doorknobs. They are all dry now, and are fairly equally distributed (no one room seems to have been favored by the little beast during his reign of destruction). All is quiet as your group reaches the house's second floor.
"Dom let's try the door to the left. Lead the way please. I don't think anyone is left here, but we need to find out."
Nodding, Domitius moves over to the door without speaking, looking it over to see if the little... thing had left any surprises.
Dom examines the door and believes it trap-free and safe to open.
Dom opens the door without incident.
The shelves in this storeroom have been ripped off the wall and lie in a heap on the floor, along with their now-wrecked former contents—bloody linens, a broken broom, and other ruined household supplies. Past the storeroom, a half-opened door reveals a tidy washroom that appears oddly untouched by the surrounding messy chaos.
Davina enters the room and looks around. "More blood. How many people were bleeding in this house?"
"More blood. How many people were bleeding in this house?"
Dom shakes his head as he helps Davina pick through the rubble. "We won't like any answer to that question we might get."
Leora shakes her head in dismay at the blood everywhere. She stays in the hall so Dom and Davina can get a good close look at everything.
"I wonder if the homunculus did all this..."
She keeps her ear open in case there are any more homunculuses or other creatures still in the house.
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Davina's further investigations reveal nothing new nor nothing of value; she does note, however, that there are several more tiny bloody hand- and footprints in the room, further suspicions that the slain homunculus may have been some sort of blood ritual gone awry.
There’s just a hint more resistance than there ought to be as Dom nudges the door to the washroom further open. A hidden tripwire causes the mirror hung on the wall to fall and smash on the floor. Written in blood in a childish hand is a hateful message: “HA! Years of bad luck! You are STUPID! You know NOTHING! You ruined EVERYTHING! Your friends hate you! I HATE YOU!”
Meanwhile, out in the hallway, Leora's perked ears detect no other sounds.
As Domitius reads the writing, he asks Davina, "Ms Eradon, these homookyul... <sigh> ...these things, are they usually this, I don't know, this pissed off?"
Davina looks at the smashed mirror. "He seems particularly angry at his maker. They usually are usually fairly good servants to whomever made them. Not something I'd make myself, but some wizards and necromancers like that kind of thing."
The washroom holds no further clues nor anything of value.
The sheer volume of blood was surprising and Kiri began to think of the stories her father told her of the tribe of his youth's haunted places. Nests where a great calamity had left nothing but the horrific deaths of the tribes, especially the hatchlings, haunting the area until they could be laid to rest. She looked worried as the creepiness of the place began to come over her and she said, "Let's hurry up, I don't like this place. It is...wrong."
T'chazzar advances behind the explorers, keeping his shield up cautiously, and says, "Not uncommon with some kinds of magical experimentation."
Davina moves down the hallway to the doorway to the north. She studies the door and attempts to open it.
Seeing nothing untoward about the door, Davina reaches out for the doorknob and gives it a turn. Beyond is a large bedroom full of upturned furniture and decorations knocked from the shelves and walls. Every painting has been smashed from its frame and torn to pieces. Sitting on the otherwise-undisturbed master bed is a small book or journal.
"Let's hurry up, I don't like this place. It is...wrong."
"Kiri," Domitius says as he enters the room, "In the whole time we've known each other I don't think I've agreed with you more than I do right now." Dom reaches for the book on the bed, without checking it. Hell, how would you trap a bed?
Dom has found a journal belonging to Beldonna Brassvane...Gavin's mother, perhaps? Although it'll take some time to read the entire thing, something stands out immediately: Nearly every page has a brief message scrawled in blood upon it with a message like "My son is a terrible disappointment" and "Gavin is a hopeless, gutless loser."
The last couple of pages relate that Mrs. Brassvane had become worried about her son in recent days because Gavin had become aloof, obsessed with working out of his bedroom, and didn't go to work at Paqshari's potion shop.
Davina looks at the book. "She was right to be concerned. Let's find Gavin's room. Maybe across the hall?"
Domitius nods at Davina's question. "Makes sense, I think it's the only one left." He goes to that door, and looks it over for any more of the thing's "home improvements."
Dom checks the door for any more of the homunculus's booby-traps and finds none. Bloody hand- and footprints on the door and floor forewarn that the little creep has visited this room on more than one occasion in the past, however.
While Davina reads the diary, Leora searches the master bedroom for anything else of interest.
After everyone is finished in the bedroom, Leora is more than happy to hang out in the hallway while Dom and Davina carry out the investigation of the next door.
Leora's search of the master bedroom reveals nothing else of interest or value. It appears that, although the home itself is fairly nice, the Brassvane's didn't have a whole lot of material possessions, and certainly nothing extravagant.
*************************************
This small room contains a simple bed, desk, and chair. Thick webs cover the west end of the room where the bed sits—and two humanoid forms appear trapped within. Glistening purplish-black strands cling to the desk and chair on the east side of the room, except in one spot where the strange filaments have left a clear space around a small piece of metal.
The giant spider responsible for weaving the webbing--showing signs of demon's bile contamination--lurks in the webs near the ceiling in the square to the left of the room's lone window. It CAN be reached by a foe on the ground in an adjacent square.
If you've successfully made this check and your name is NOT T'chazzar (Sorry man, even the DM dice don't seem to get along with him), you may take one action in the surprise round before the spider can act.
"Aw, seriously Gavin? Did you hide some of that demon goo under your bed?" Leora is about to channel energy, but looks around the room first and notices the spider. "Why is it always bugs eating this stuff?" she wonders aloud.
"Cayden Cailean! Help us set Gavin's parents free from the clutches of the, um, weird spider thing!" Leora prays to bless her friends in battle.
Transfixed at the sight of more trapped humanoid figures, Dom fails to notice the spider at first.
Davina pulls out her crossbow. "Seriously? He wrapped up his parents in Demon Bile. I'm beginning to think that kid needs some serious help."
Leora's blessing washes over each of you. The spider some folks mentioned emerges from behind a curtain of webbing hanging from the south wall. Between that flimsy barrier and the fact that it was hanging out up near the ceiling, the thing's unable to charge Dom. A moment later, though, Dom finds himself face-to-face with a man-sized webspinner with 'boogers' of demon's bile oozing from its mandibles and the edges of its eight beady black eyes.
Dom steps right up to the spider and swings hard.
Kiri managed to hear the sounds of...something, scuttling but wasn't sure what it was or where until it was too late to say anything. She called out, "There's a spider in there with Domitus," and began to move up to see into the room better.
When she saw the creature move in on Domitus she focused and pulled together winds to send at it. She wasn't sure that she could hit it but she was certainly going to try.
Davina moves carefully into the room trying to avoid an attack of opportunity from the spider, and loads her crossbow.
Between Kiri's air blast and Dom's brutal slash, the overgrown spider is dispatched before it can attack. Kiri's air blast does the added favor of blowing back for of the spider's sticky webbing to the west wall and southwest corner. This will allow you to examine the cocooned figures without the risk of entanglement. Even from across the room, you can see that the larger of the bound figures has a lot more blood staining its web restraints than the second.
"Whew, that was a lot easier than I thought it would be! " Leora puts away her rapier.
"Be free! Be free from the nasty demon bile! " Leora channels positive energy to banish the strands.
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Davina will carefully examine the bodies. "Cold Iron. Looks like we need to get more cold iron weapons.
Leora's positive energy indeed causes the demon's bile to shrivel up and waste away. But wait--there's more! Her healing energy also puts life into one of the silk-cocooned victims of the spider, the person trapped within struggling a bit and moaning.