After casting Enhanced Diplomacy on Lily, Nissim lingers near the rear. He doesn't see much more that he could do to to assist with the gnome and his dogs, and he also doesn't want the gnome to feel overwhelmed or threatened by the groups numbers. He hopes all of this can be resolved with a little food.
Nissim gets the sense that the gnome does have some capability as a spellcaster, but likely less than he claims. Still, there is nothing about his sense of the gnome that is important enough to speak up about.
Varuzhan's primary conclusion, given the gnome's behavior, is that he has nearly or completely lost his mind. Particularly given that he is talking to an empty stall, and apparently did mark the building himself. He takes a step to the side so that he doesn't block the door, making it easier for others to enter the room if they managed to do so in a non-threatening manner.
"Ohhh!" Miranda exclaimed. She didn't really believe the gnome was that magical, but the talking-to-house part intrigued her! Haven't met anyone that does that. I wonder if he is similar to me - or just weird? "What more did the house say?" She also threw a sideways glance at Boros and Lily - the promise of food was always tempting, even if the atmosphere wasn't really appetizing!
As he proffers the pouch of foodstuffs to Lily, he catches Rexus' eye and waves him over with a twitch of his head. When Rexus is close enough to speak with, without being overheard by the gnome, Boros asks softly, "Do ya have any ideas about what we're lookin' for in here, or where to start? Might help if we could offer the dangerous wee fella with the knife and the dogs some sort of timetable for a search of the area. Or keep him busy over here while someone else casually goes pokin' about in the back or whatnot."
Lily nods to Boros, "We actually apparently already have food to share, if you aren't set upon having a home-cooked meal." she announces to the gnome, having not caught Boros pilfering the food for later.
Juliette wasn't in the mood for any food, so she didn't seem inclined to do anything about them offering the food. However, she was a little disappointed that she had bothered using her only daily spell of any real power just to watch the effect fade away without any real use.
She stood silently, waiting to see how the attempt at diplomacy with this filthy gnome went, not wanting to touch anything that might have gnome pee on it.
not wanting to touch anything that might have gnome pee on it.
Walking over a cabinet, unlocking it and taking out a belt pouch, she returns:"Keep hidden for a few days. There is too much going on in the city, they will need to shift their attention. That's when we'll get back in contact. Talk with the Madame at the...place you've spent the night. She'll maintain the contact between us. And don't tell me or others where you'll be. Makes it easier to state half-truths without actually lying." she hands you the pouch, containing quite a bit of money.
"Ah, nothing less than a feast will do!", the gnome states excitedly, "I do have a...pan of sorts, someplace! Just need to find it!"
He walks over into the stall with the fire, then quickly returns with a dented blackened pan, encrusted with the remainder of a few past meals:"Here, found it!"
Turning to the Boros and Miranda, he states:"Came in here to sleep, months ago. Woke up hearing it talk. Thought I was going crazy, but the livery assured me that was not so! It...was fine company! Also showed me secrets. Oh yes! Secrets I can never tell you about! Told me to keep people away from those...away from the livery itself. It's shy, doesn't want just anybody entering. But...food! The livery provides but I am SO tired of rat meat...", he keeps talking, using his knife to scrape out stuff from the pan, which the mongrels with him quickly gulp up.
"I...have to get you to leave. But technically I could hardly throw you out while I'm eating a meal you prepared for me, that would be very very inpolite. Oh yes! So while I'm eating, you are my guests. Oh, nice lady, is that clean enough?", he shows a pan to Lily that she'd usually not even touch with a tweezer, then grins.
Boros just barely stiffles his cheer of triumph when the gnome mentions allowing the group to stay within the Livery while he's eating. Instead, he confines himself to a delighted smile. "While our friend Lily is fixin' up a little somethin' tasty for yer dogs and yerself, would ya mind if we took a look around," he asks hopefully. While Boros has every intention of searching regardless, getting the gnome's agreement would make it much easier and faster.
"We really do have good cause to be lookin' here," Boros continues, hoping to sway the gnome's mindset to their favor. He then frowns thoughtfully and adds, "Perhaps ya could, ah, get the permission o' the Livery itself to let us look. Ya did just say that it didn't want any ol' lot o' people wanderin' about in here, maybe we'd qualify for an exception or somethin'?"
This verbal balancing act, never Boros' strong suite, is causing him to break out in a sweat, and he hopes desperately that the gnome will prove amenable to persuasion, preferably from a more skilled source, so that he can concentrate on doing instead of talking. The only saving grace is that he's not yet run off at the mouth; this situation has Boros fully in his soldier's mindset, which is keeping a tight lid on his usual tendencies.
Having heard what the gnome has said, and then Boros's request that the gnome consult with the livery about allowing a look around, Nissim steps back outside. Breaking line of sight with the gnome, he casts Message. Then pointing at Lily, he whispers Ask what the livery sounds like when it speaks with him. No need to respond to me, I'll be listening.
With the gnome insisting that the livery was talking to him, Juliette takes the opportunity to cast detect magic.
Well, that worked out better than expected, thinks Varuzhan, as the gnome allows them to enter.
Varuzhan takes the gnome at his word and quietly enters the property on invitation. Though he keeps a leery eye on the dogs to make sure they are also standing down. He, too, searches the area for magic auras.
Also, she's effectively kicking you out for the time being, so there's a certain punishment involved, together with the assumption that you're a smart enough girl to not run right into the inquisitions arms(but she's not intending to get anybody else involved...just a precaution-)...
When Rexus approaches, takes the Pan, and uses magic to start cleaning it(after a glance over at Lily), the gnome shifts his attention to you others, addressing Boros: "Ah, sure could ask the livery if you'd be welcome, but you wouldn't like the answer!" Glancing over at what Rexus is doing with his pan, he continues:"Shouted at me before, to throw you lot right out! Talks to me right in my head, it does!", pointing at Juliette:"Told me to kick you guys out, except her, she's welcome to stay. Pretty young human girl, do you like dogs?"
Those of you approaching and taking a look around in the inmediate vincinity find a pyramid of rat skulls, almost three feet high at it's peak, in the stall next to the fire. It seems to be meticulously built, with all the rat skulls looking in the same direction. At the viewer.
Several of the others stalls have been converted into a kind of...space for living. A blanket in one of them, some clothes in another...others are basically filled with dirt, garbage and whatever was in the other stalls before the gnome moved in.
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Boros looks from the gnome, to Juliette, and back again. Though he doesn't let it show in his expression or actions, he's very wary over having one of his allies singled out in such a fashion. "And why is the Livery interested in her especially? I wouldn't think the buildin' has much care for her looks, appealing though they may be, so what reason could it have," Boros asks carefully as he draws a bit closer to the fire. When he gets a good look at the pile of skulls, he stumbles in midstep from the macabre aura the sight induces, but quickly recovers.
Though he remains focused on the gnome, he can't help but cast glances at the skulls every so often, and he privately vows that the pile is getting destroyed if he gets the opportunity to do so, because the sheer creepiness of the gnome's vermin monument merits no lesser response.
Miranda lingers around the food with an appreciative look but after a little while into the process she shifts inward and starts to explore the livery instead. That was supposed to distract *him* and not *me*! she reminds herself. She frowns a bit at the eerie pile of rat skulls - no doubt it would have something interesting to say but in all honesty she probably wouldn't really like it. And he probably put in a great deal of effort in it so I can't really just pick one skull ... Instead she circles the livery looking briefly into each stall before coming back to the gnome.
"It talks to you inside your head?" She briefly leans in closer as if to listen. "Hmh hard for the rest of us to talk to it that way ..."
With a small sigh she turns back to circling around the livery looking for anything hinting at a hidden rebel base. A trap-door maybe?
Varuzhan looks about the room, staff in hand. Not seeing much in the immediate vicinity, he begins to move toward the shed. "Alright, come on then. Maybe what we're looking for is in that shed. Since we're guests here, we shouldn't overstay our welcome. Do you mind if we go in there, Mr. Gnome?"
Nodding appreciatively to Rexus, Lily takes the cleaned up pot... and then looks to Miranda, "Do you have a dagger I could use?" A halfling dagger likely being more akin to a knife, after all.
Once she does have at least one utensil to cook with, she sets into cooking what she can from the earlier meal. Toasting the bread is easy and well within her grasp, adding the cheeses makes it even simpler, and chopped up meat within the cheese results in a rather filling sandwich... sandwiches that she keeps churning out as long as she has more ingredients.
While she cooks, she does much more in the way of small-talk than being direct about what they'd come there to do. "How long have you been living here, Mister.." she trails off, but quickly introduces herself as well, "My name is Lily, by the way."
"Hmr? Oh of course!" Miranda grinned and returned from her small survey. She her tail twitched a little and softly dropped a small dagger into Lily's lap. The tiefling herself perched nearby and watched the food take shape - careful not to appropriate too much of the food. It was intended to bribe the gnome, not her, after all!
Watching intently as Lily starts preparing the food, he answers questions without even looking at people:"I have no idea why the livery is interested in her. Never been a building, I dunno how they think, and what reasons they have."
Rubbing his hands together, causing dirt to flake up and float to the floor, he continues:"Go in wherever you please...my home is your home, even if it would not agree to that...", turning towards a different empty stall, shouting "SHUT UP!" again before focusing his attention on the food again:"I think it's common courtesy. As long as you are not inpolite. What are you looking for, anyway?"
When Lily starts chatting with him, he warmly smiles, answering her questions willingly, savoring the first sandwich coming his way.
He's been here for about 4 month, the dog's names are sausage and buttercup, the house would very much like sandwiches, if you could just stuff one into one of the holes it has, but no more because you are HIS guests, and the house mostly talks about things he should do, recently, rather than about him, as it did when they first met.
When a few of you look around the remaining parts of the livery, you find that the rooms in the back had been used for administrative purposes. They were probably an office of sorts, and a storage room. It would seem your host pretty much picked those clean - of course, that's not a guarantee there's nothing left, but carefully combing through them would probably take a lot of time. [ooc]If you want to search them again, pick one room to look in(A1a or A1b), and do a perception roll. At most 2 people can check in a room concurrently, so first 2 rolls for a room count.
The door to the wooden shed is barred from the your side. Since he allowed you to head there, Varuzhan lifts the bar, and checks the inside with Miranda. You find yourself in what seemed to be a smoking chamber, originally. The areas where meat could be hanged is no longer useable, fallen in disrepair over the years. But a very large oven still prominently sits in the shed.(Another room, Shed, same as above).
The way south is barred by a iron gate, locked(with a complicated-seeming lock.)
"Hey, there's a big oven in this place. Maybe something Lily can use to cook for a big group!" Hardly looks like what we're after, though. Mostly as a matter of historical curiosity, Varuzhan decides to look over the shed for anything of interest, though he's not expecting much.
Given permission, Boros heads toward the rear of the stable to do a bit of poking around on his own. While Varuzhan examines what lies beyond the door in the corner, Boros decides to check out the large stalls for anything of interest, starting with the stall closest to the Livery's doors.
Seeing that one place was mostly just barred - and another locked with a really fancy lock - Miranda quickly hypothesises that the more interesting stuff is probably behind the locked gate! That's usually how it works anyhow! After borrowing Lily a dagger (and joinking a sandwich) she bounces in the direction of the fancy lock.
"You won't mind if I take a look at this would you?" She announces and actually waits for a whole moment for the gnome to reply. And then assuming he hasn't manage to produce any threat to the contrary she starts inspecting the lock and retrieving her tools again.
Since it seems that the gnome is content with the current situation, accepting the group's presence and their search, Nissim comes inside to look around as well.
He looks around the main room where sandwiches are being made.
Then proceeds on to look in one of the rooms
Rexus assists Lily as she churns out Sandwiches and more experimental food creations, utilizing what Boros managed to snatch away from Miranda during breakfast.
Juliette, meanwhile, looks over at the entrance, and considers that the opened doors could draw unwanted attention. Seeing no inmediate danger to the group, she heads over towards them and with some effort(and Rexus's help) pushes them almost closed again.
Varuzhan is looking over the shed, and it's contents. The one thing still intact is the oven, most of the other stuff in there is rotting or broken, and in the rubble, you find little.
Opening the oven, however, you spot the burnt skeletal remains of a person, with an outstreched arm. Looking along that arm, you see something silvery grasped in the skeletons hand.
Miranda, meanwhile, ops to try her luck with the locked gate. In a hurry to check it out, she doesn't really wait long enough for the gnome to realize what she's even talking about :"Oh, it's not me that will mind, missy. Not me at all", Looking over at you fumbling around with the lock, slightly panicked, he continues "No-no-no! I don't think you are SUPPOSED to go in there. The livery always told me to stay away from there! Oh yes!"
One of the prime reasons for that, as you are about to learn, is a rope trap triggered by your meddling. A hempen rope from above catches on your head, pulling you up with it.
Boros and Nissim, meanwhile, check the office area in the back of the livery.
Boros, in his room, finds little of interest on the floor and what remained of furniture, since the room was, as he suspected before, already cleaned out by the Gnome who made his home here. Looking upwards, Boros sees a piece of jewelery, a ring, earring or similar, hanging from a nail at a rafter near the ceiling. Of course, one could climb up to reach it. But the distance from the scalable walls would make it different to reach it without losing one's grip.
Nissim finds little of interest in his room, kind of distracted by the tasty sandwiches made over at the fire place. He does find a few rats, who watch him as he scours the room for anything useful, and hide away when he gets close, only to emergy from other holes in the walls.
NIssim isn't bothered by the presence of rats since he carries one around daily. He continues to look around.
"What in the nine hells? There's a person's remains in the oven!" says Varuzhan, quite shocked. He sees the silvery object, but doesn't think he's the best one to try to get it. "There's something still glinting in the back of the oven - Miranda, you're small enough to get it. Can you help? Miranda?"
With your knowledge local you basically know that some buildings from back in the civil war had hidden basements. This may be one such case.
As he examines the room in the dim light filtering into the Livery from the open doors, Boros finds little of interest. Only a passing glance upward reveals xomething, as he catches a faint shine of reflected light. Stepping closer, he just barely make out a small piece of what appears to jewelry, of all things, dangling from a nail. Just as he identifies what he's looking at, the light grows dimmer still, accompanied by the sound of the doors being shut. A careful listen doesn't reveal anything amiss at the fire, so he decides to try retrieving the bauble before checking on those around the fire.
After a few moments of thoughtful examination, carefully inspecting what hand- and footholds he can make out, he starts to carefully climb to a point where he can try snagging the piece of jewelry. While having something to climb besides the walls would no doubt be easier, in truth, he doesn't actually trust the integrity of anything besides that wagon out in the main hall, and thst isn't small enough to fit through the doorway.
Though he comes close, very close, his first attempt to reach the rafter where his goal is located isn't a success, the lack of light causing him to mistake a shadow on the wall for a handhold. Fortunately, he's not far enough off of the ground yet for the consequences of that error to matter, though the unexpected drop makes his heart race for several moments. With a frustrated growl, and a close look at any potential handhold he can't see clearly, Boros makes a second attempt.
The second time around, Boros has much better results, scaling the wall almost as adroitly as one of the rats whose watching eyes reflect what little light reaches into the room. Finding a particularly good handhold, Boros hangs on to it while squinting in the direction of the jewelry. It isn't quite in reach yet, but he doesn't particularly trust his luck on the creaking wood of the Livery's supports, especially after his earlier inspection revealed just how decayed the building actually is. Thinking for a few moments, he suddenly smiles and checks his handhold. Satisfied by what he sees, he cautiously removes his left hand, the other tightening in response, and draws his rapier.
Inhaling and exhaling slowly a few times to calm his sudden nerves, Boros carefully extends the blade toward his target, the tip vibrating slightly as the tension in his arm transmits itself down the metal's length. The vibration, while annoying isn't enough to actually make him miss, however, as the tip slides neatly through a small loop in the piece of jewelry, securing it on the blade as Boros teases it off of the nail. Bringing the blade with its prize to his face, he then catches the bauble between his teeth and carefully--very carefully, as he doesn't particularly feel like maiming himself with his own weapon--lifts it off of the rapier's tip before returning the blade to its sheath. Tucking the recovered jewelry into his belt pouch for later inspection, Boros reverses his climb, moving steadily back down the wall. In a show of exuberance over his accomplishmemt, he casually lets go or the wall as he needs the bottom, dropping the last few feet to land with a floor-shaking thump.
Prize secured, he leaves the room with a cheerful strut, eager to show off the results of his searching.
Bad house! No! Put me down! Miranda thought loudly as she as lifted into the air. She also noted that it was sorta nice that they made an equal-opportunity trap like this; it was always a bit anti-climatic when the dart passed over your head ... Okay that just happened *once*. Why do I keep getting hung up on it? *uhm* Okay better focus on what got me hung up now! She briefly considered flailing helplessly but failed to see how that would improve the situation. Instead her tail grasped for her second-nicest dagger and swiftly transferred it to her hands which swiftly transferred the sharp end to the rope. Now lets hope its just a rope and not anything fancier!
@Miranda: Alas, while the idea is good, it would seem whoever constructed THIS equal-opportunity trap had almost expected that whoever has the audacity of messing with a lock they are not supposed to mess with would be carrying small cutting implements, like daggers, knifes, or kukris. While your tail delivers and you try and start cutting, you hear metal grind against metal. Getting a better feel with one hand, the area of rope above you seems to be strenghtened with interwoven strands of metal wire.
.
Your gnomish host draws Lilys, Rexus's, and Juliettes attention towards your predicament:"Foolish girl! I TOLD you not to go there. Kind of! Did I?" Turning towards Rexus, he ponders:"Just what DID I tell her? It was just moments ago but was it ambigious? Why did this happen?", pointing towards you with one hand while holding Rexus with the other.
Not wanting to agitate the gnome, Rexus stays and tries to recall his exact words, leaving only Lily and Juliette to act, AFTER your next action.
Darn it! Stupid cunning house! Miranda doesn't swear. She drops the dagger - doubting she can manage to cut trough the steel quickly enough - and instead tries another approach. And perhaps the falling piece of steel would attract some attention? Shame on the edge ... Maybe I can just get a little bit of wiggle room? With a suppressed grunt she grabs the rope with both hand and pulls for all that she is worth while simultaneously attempting to loosen the noose with her tail. Sure she had to curl up a bit to reach but better then just waiting! Just. A. Little. Bit!!
"Miranda?" Varuzhan goes looking the halfling before discovering that she's strung up by a rope. "Miranda! Come quick! Miranda needs help!" Varuzhan draws a Chakram, wondering if he can slice the rope free with it . . . though the rope looked unusually sturdy.
When he realizes that the walls are unlikely to hold any passages or disguised openings that will lead them to a hideout, Nissim leaves the small room he is looking though and goes to the one beside it to tell Boros they should check the floor carefully if the hideout is here and hidden.
With a choice selection of curses, her non-verbal moment had given her some time to queue up a nice sequence, ball-curled Miranda crashed to the floor. With an owww she unfurled and simply laid down for a while. Pew! Close one house but I won! she thought, since she wasn't all to sure if it made any diffirence to the house if she said things out loud or not. And the gnome might be insulted if she was mean to the house. Even if it deserved it!
"Aow... I'm okay, sorta." she winces and rubs her neck, her back and tries to figure out how to rub her wounded pride.
As Boros steps out from the room, he hears Varuzhan's shout and sees something he can't quite make out occurring across the main hall. With a curse in gnollish, he races toward the site of the problem, barely avoiding a spill on the piled debris in his way.
As he sees Miranda drop free of whatever it was that had her in the air, Boros breathes a sigh of relief, which quickly turns into a wince of empathy when she drops like a rock to the floor below, her slight size still sufficient to rattle the nearby walls when she hits. In mid-stride, he reaches into his belt pouch for his aid kit.
Nissim stops in his tracks and stares open mouthed as Miranda crashes to the floor.
"What happened?"
"Looks like you found a sensitive area for the house, Miranda. I was going to ask you to help me grab a strange object in the oven, if you have the time. But we can also figure out this mystery first."
Varuzhan looks carefully for any other fun traps that might snag the party.
As Boros reaches Miranda, he kneels next tocher and looks her over in the flickering light cast by the distance fire. He doesn't see an obvious injuries, but remembering the last time he treated her, and what happened, he clears his throat worriedly. "Are ya alright? That was a pretty hard fall ya took there, did ya break anythin' when ya landed? Or get cut or stuck by any o' the trash in here," he asks as he open the kit up, ready to treat her if needed.
"Mmm. Yeah I think I'm all right..." Miranda replied to the medic whilst laying on the floor. It took a few moments for her to regain her wits properly. But when she did she winked at Boros. "No need to get me undressed this time either! Heh. But I never thought I'd be grateful to see mushy floor-boards!"
With that she sat up and eventually got back to her feet and pointed at the noose still hanging from the roof. "Someone didn't want us snooping around. That probably mean we are on the right path!" She briefly considered the prospect of crawling up an oven but couldn't quite muster any excitement for the thought. "Yeah let's start with the lock and we'll see if we can fish out that other thing in a short while. And thanks for keeping an eye out!" she added with a smile; both at her avian friend and the gunslinger with the first aid kit.
Boros flushes slightly at her reminder, and quickly packs the kit back up to distract himself. When Miranda mentions inspecting whatever Varuzhan found in the oven, he recalls the trinket resting in his belt pouch, which he pulls into view after stowing the kit. "Speaking of things found, I got this in the room I was searchin'," he says as he brings the ring into view. "Took a bit o' work to get, somehow it ended up hangin' on a nail in a rafter a good twenty feet up. And for some reason, I don't think it ended up there by chance," Boros finishes as he passes his find around to the others to examine in detail.
While they do so, he waves Nissim closer with a worried look. "While Lily, Juliette, and Rexus keep our temporary host engaged and fed, I think we should all stick together for any more searchin'. Next time, there might not be help close by if we spring another o' these traps," he says with a worried glance at the empty noose swinging overhead, quite aware of what could have happened.
Varuzhan examines the bit of jewelry that Boros shows to the party, intrigued as to whether it was magical in nature.