"A haunt more likely, judging by the looks of this place." Andrezi flatly says.
Nia shrugs. "A ghost, a haunt, whatever it is if it doesn't want us to find it then we won't." She gestures at the doors. "I'll check the doors."
Garrick shivers, "Ghosts and haunts don't sound good."
It's not dark, but the griminess of the windows reduces the light level to the point where the normal humans are having trouble seeing.
Nia finds no traps on either door.
"Given the shadows in here, would anyone be opposed to me producing a bit of light?" Andrezi asks, preparing to cast a cantrip on the tip of his staff.
Nia shrugs. "Makes sense." She gestures at the door to the south. "Unless anybody has a preference, we'll go this way?"
The door sticks in its water-warped frame, and Nia is unable to force it.
Nia backs up and gestures at the door. "It's stuck. Garrick, you want to give it a try?"
Vidar shakes his head as he follows the others, muttering to himself in a very sarcastic tone.
"Nooo, do not give up on Necromancy Vidar. Not ALL Necromancy is bad, and you can use the power for good.
Give up on something with less...substance.
Nobody REALLY likes Illusions."
Garrick nods, "Right. Let's see what we can do," and charges the door.
Garrick braces himself, then pulls the door open with a screech of swollen wood and long-unused hinges. It opens onto a long, dark hallway only dimly illuminated by the glow through the dingy windows behind the dwarf.
Garrick says, "Well, I guess there's no sense in being sneaky after that. Let's go."
There are several doors visible in the hall.
Garrick asks, "Nia? Hear anything?"
Nia hears the house creaking in the onshore wind, and catches what might be a snatch of chanting. It's gone before she can get a direction.
Nia nods at the door across the hallway. "First door first." She steps up and checks to see if it's locked or dangerous.
The door sticks, and Nia isn't able to get it to move. Nothing keeps Garrick from eventually getting it open, though.
On the other side is the entrance hall. The sound of the house straining and creaking gives this long, high-ceilinged room an additional sense of age and decay. The place smells damp, the unpleasant tinge of mold lacing the air as surely as it stains the wooden floor, walls, and furniture in pallid patches.
Moldering trophies hang on the wall to the northeast: a boar, a bear, a firepelt
cougar, and a stag, yet they pale in comparison to the monster on display in the center of the room. Here crouches a twelve-foot-long creature with the body of a lion, a scorpion’s tail fitted with dozens of razor barbs, huge batlike wings, and a deformed humanoid face.
As they enter, both Garrick and Andrezi think they hear a woman sobbing somewhere upstairs.
Andrezi nods to Garrick, "Aye, I hear it too. Another haunt would be my best guess, but as we can't be sure, we should go see if this woman requires our help."
Nia quietly proceeds into the room, looking carefully for anything dangerous or precarious.
Garrick says, "Aye, we'd best check it out - I don't think I could live with myself if I thought I might have left some poor person stuck in here."
As Nia advances, every now and then she hears small creatures skittering under the floorboards. Although the manticore is a bit moth-eaten and moldy, it seems to have been constructed well enough to remain standing.
Once in the room, everyone can see that there's a staircase curving up and east from an archway in the south wall.
"Hnnh, I would very much like a word with the interior decorator..."
Nia gestures at the floor. "I hear rats." She shakes her head. "No, I hear skittering under the floor, it just sounds like rats."
Garrick chuckles, "I'm sure they took out any useful spell components before filling it with sawdust."
He looks at Nia, "Can we assume that it's small, whatever it is?"
Under a ragged area rug, the mark on the floor proves to be a foul stain of dark-colored mold about ten feet across, a swirling pattern of dark blue, sickly green, and black. Nia contemplates it for a short time and thinks it almost looks like a spiraling staircase ascending or descending, seen from above or below. The fine structure of the pattern of mold on the "steps" suggests skulls and other bones.
The investigator is so focused on the stain that it falls to Garrick to spot the rather gruesome antique hanging on the northern wall. It's a mummified monkey head with a frayed bellpull hanging from its gaping mouth.
Garrick says, "I'm thinking we should probably pull the cord... as vile as that thing is."
Garrick pulls the rope, triggering an earsplittingly loud simian scream that echoes through the room, startling everyone.
There is no apparent response to the sound.
Nia jumps, laughing out loud instead of screaming in surprise. She looks around warily for a few seconds, waiting for something to jump out of the shadows. Eventually she nods and relaxes a tiny bit. "Let's check to see if that opened a door or something."
The mold isn't dangerous...at least, as far as Nia can tell.
Garrick shrugs, "Thought it was worth a try. Guess this is a dead end -- unless someone thinks we can just walk down the stairs in the rug?"
Continuing past the peculiar stain, the party comes to an ornate dining room. The center of the chamber is occupied by a mahogany table whose finish is dulled by the dust covering it. Chairs surround the table, their cushions moldering. Twin fireplaces loom to the west, while to the east stained-glass windows obscure what could have been a breathtaking view of the Lost Coast. Each window depicts a monster rising out of smoke pouring from a seven-sided box. From north to south are depicted a gnarled tree with an enraged face, an immense hook-beaked bird with sky-blue and gold plumage, a winged centaurlike creature with a lion’s lower body and a snarling woman’s upper torso, and a deep blue squidlike creature with evil red eyes.
Garrick winces at the images, "I was about to compliment the solid woodwork of the table -- but then the horrible images on the windows sunk in. Starting to think I understand why someone would want to ruin the place."
"Hrrm..."
"I suppose we could just set fire to this place on the way out." the priest quips.
Nia looks away from where she'd been looking for loose change in the chair cushions and up at the windows at Garrick's comment. She grimaces almost instantly. "There are necromancy runes on the image of the seven-sided box in all of the windows. And the way that the figures are drawn seems to indicate that they're being pulled into the box (not summoned from it), and the creatures' faces show fear, not anger. I don't know what that box is but it's bad news."
She gestures at the door to the south. "Next room?"
Garrick nods, "One door's as good as any..."
Nia doesn't notice any traps on the door. When she goes to open it, the door sticks for a moment before yielding when she leans on it. The room on the other side is apparently a library, though it only contains two chairs in front of a stone fireplace. One of the chairs lies on its side. A scarf, its reds and golds contrasting with the drab palette of the room, is draped over the side of the fallen chair. A book sits face-down on the floor between the chairs. A stone
bookend, carved to look like a praying angel with butterfly wings, lies on its side in the fireplace itself. The chairs and book are coated by a thin film of dust.
Nothing moves in the room.
"Eerie...
This really does not sit well with me.
...
Although, perhaps the environment is simply starting to affect me."
Garrick nods, "Aye, maybe. Though it looks entirely too much like someone was interrupted in their reading... a few months ago."
Nia carefully looks around the room, making sure not to touch anything but looking closely at the out of place bookend and scarf.