"Its like a ghost but without any real mind of its own. A family died here decades ago, that's the kind of thing that could happen here. We might want to leave this room."
"I gotcha covered, Hollie." Hearing Cator's warning, Krovek moves up beside Hollie and keeps his axe out. Sobbing child or not, the most important thing was that they get out of here alive.
"Yup that's spooky, leaving it alone now." And Lunal promptly gives the 'haunt' space and ushers the group to move forward.
Curious about the contents of the box but wary of going too far into the room, Cator says "Once everyone is out of the room i will prestidigitate that box open, see if anything worth taking is inside"
Seeing that nobody else was going to advance, Krovek happily withdraws with Hollie.
Cator opens the toy box gently. Within are a few toys that a young child might like - a wooden horse, a doll, blocks of varying shapes and sizes.
As Cator checks the…toy box…Hollie heads over to the next door and begins checking it.
Krovek checks things out as well.
This large room features two padded chairs and a long couch facing a wide alcove lined with stainedglass windows. These windows depict a diverse array of animals and plants—from north to south are a large pale and ghostly scorpion, a gaunt man holding out his arms as a dozen bats hang from him, a moth with a strange skull-like pattern on its wings, a tangle of dull green plants with bellshaped flowers, and a young maiden sitting astride a well in a forest while a spindly spider the size of a dog descends along a string of webbing above her.
Shae still hears the crying from the area near the bed.
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"Why?!" Lunal points at the stained glass windows. "Who decorates like this?!?" Lunal gives an exasperated roar and scans the room for magic.
Shaedeen follows quietly after Hollie . "I can still hear the sobbing coming from the bed back there," she whispers.
”I don’t…so it must be some sort of haunt effect like Cator said,” Hollie replies to Shaedeen.
Hollie can’t help but smirk at Lunal’s most pressing concern, the decorating choices. She suppresses a giggle and continues on searching. If she finds nothing further in this room, she continues the route around this level.
Replying to Lunal, Cator snickers "it's like they wanted this place to become haunted."
Cator knows that all five of the subjects in the windows as classic spell components for necromancy magic (scorpion venom, vampire’s breath, the tongues of deathwing moths, belladonna, and the heart of a maiden slain by poison); cator also knows that those spell components are recognized as having ties to several known lich apotheosis formulae.
Taking a closer look at the glass, Cator adds "You know who decorates like this? A necromancer, and one that apparently was trying to become a lich."
”Lich? What’s a lich?” Hollie asks, concerned.
"A lich is a powerful undead spellcaster. Don't think we want to run into one. Seems like there is nothing to see in this room though. On to the next one?"
"Undead spellcaster? Don't like the sound of that." Krovek seems to be more alert, leery of some strange magic striking out at the party.
"Ughhh, why have I barely heard about any of the stuff we're dealing with in here?!" Lunal had spent so much time recently focusing on power that the lack of study was becoming apparent.
"Still I know what they're bad, really bad. A full blown lich we wouldn't want to get near, but somebody that hasn't become one yet...all these evil things in town, it makes sense somebody trying to do that. This may be our only chance to nip this in the bud."
The party moves on from the eastern room without entering it nor searching it, checking the next counter-clockwise door for traps. Finding none, they open the door.
This entire bedroom is caked with a thick, spongy layer of dark green, blue, and black mold.
You still hear the sobbing coming from the open door to the child's room.
Cator examines the mold
Cator knows that mold like this is probably a health hazard, but it doesn't seem to be any of the horrible animated or odd mold that serves as an especially dangerous hazard - like brown mold, etc.
"this looks unhealthy, we should probably move on."
Shaedeen looks back over her shoulder toward the room where she said she heard sobbing coming from the bed. "I still hear it!" she says tersely, an edge of panic starting to make its way into her voice.
She's all for moving on from the mold room.
Krovek peeks in from a distance, though he doesn't expect to find much.
"Let's keep goin' until we find somethin' ta kill," agrees Krovek. He is ready to check out the next room.
Shaedeen still hears sobbing from the child's bedroom, through the open door.
The party does not search the room filled with mold, though Krovek certainly sees that the mold completely covers many things that he can't make out.
An iron tub sits in the middle of this room, the floorboards around it sagging with the tub’s weight.
Shae notices that the floor in front of the doorway to the washroom looks to be unstable and likely to collapse if any substantially-sized creature steps onto it (medium-sized).
"Don't go in there! The floorboards look unstable," Shaedeen warns the others. The rogue scans the room from the hallway to try to see if there's anything valuable or out-of-the-ordinary in the bathroom.
Shaedeen does not see anything of value in the room.
Hollie had been about to enter the upper bath when Shae called out her warning.
”Thanks,” she whispers sheepishly to Shaedeen at her almost dangerous mistake.
This once fine chamber has been destroyed. The bed is smashed, mattress torn apart, walls gouged as if by knives, chairs hacked apart, and paintings on the walls torn to pieces—with one exception. A portrait hanging on the northwest wall seems to be untouched, although it hangs backward, its unseen subject facing the wall.
Hollie hears a woman’s voice asking, ”What do you get up to down in the damp below?
Hollie milled carefully around the room, taking in the destruction with growing worry. She had just started to reach for the backwards portrait when she heard something. She turned back towards Shaedeen and asked ”What did you say?”
"Wonder what's behind there." Krovek approaches the undamaged, hidden portrait and looks for anything of interest.
Unless he sees warning or danger signs, he dares to take down the portrait and look at it.
Shaedeen glances at Hollie with a puzzled expression. "I didn't say anything." She looks genuinely terrified that Krovek's going to mess with part of the creepy house...but maybe it's for the best. The investigation seems to be going nowhere.
Nothing happens in the area, other than the seeming confusion between Hollie and Shaedeen.
Krovek turns the painting around, and the portrait reveals a beautiful dark-haired Varisian woman in a thoughtful pose.
Upon seeing the portrait, Shaedeen is almost overcome with a sudden feeling of sadness.
Draxtherian seems to be afraid for a short time taking a half-step away from the painting.
"Who's that?" Shaedeen wonders aloud. Her tone seems to indicate genuine concern and sadness. It's rare for the teen to show such feelings for anyone not named Shaedeen...or Hollie.
Cator inspects the painting to see if he can identify the subject.
Cator shrugs his shoulders
Krovek shrugs right back at Cator. "Weird how this picture wasn't messed with. Whoever messed up this room probably has a thing for her," he speculates.
He sets the portrait down, ready to continue on.
Lunal's hand is gripped to their clothing, trying to keep any more scared impulses from frying something more important than a rat. Every flash of fear is quickly followed by a flash of anger, then embarrassment. "Come on! We just go through quickly and take care of whatever's messing with us..." Lunal said, hopeful that it could just be solved with a fight.
After a moment of discussion, the party is deliberating, and a strange look comes over Hollie. She turns to Shaedeen, and shouts, and then flicks her fingers towards Drax, who looks confused for a moment, and grits his teeth, roaring "this isn't me!" as he tries to slice Shaedeen to ribbons.
Hollie, for her part, steps up, and tries to stab her friend. She follows up with the word roaring herself at Shaedeen.
Shock is reflected in the teen's eyes when Hollie and Drax turn on her. Pain and betrayal show through when Hollie calls her what she does. Shae's first impulse is to fight back. Her second is to fight back using her sap so any damage she does will be nonlethal. In the end, though, she simply flees from the onslaught, moving past Cator and Lunal before pointing the tip of her rapier in Hollie's direction.
"What is wrong with you?" Shae demands, on the verge of tears.
With a bound, Draxtherian flies over Cator and Lunal to reach Shaedeen, moving to devour her. He looks pained, and says again to the teen, "I promise you, I cannot control myself. Something is wrong with Hollie."
Hollie sneers and says "nothing is wrong with me, I just finally see the true weakness of women!" and she tries to shove past Lunal.
Cator tries to deduce whatever could be influencing Hollie
Krovek moves up and tries to wrestle Hollie to the ground.
But despite his bulk, the paladin is too wily. Kazaht hangs back nervously in the room.
"Uhhhh what? WHAT?!" Lunal's hands raise and crackle dangerously, but they hesitate. "I can slow them down but it will hurt them, should I?" Lunal shouts uncertainly.
Cator exclaims "I think she is being influenced by a dominate spell. Lunal, tell me you have protection from evil prepared. Otherwise, maybe destroying the painting would help?" Cator then attempts to tackle Hollie
Shaedeen goes total defense, keeping her shield and weapon before her as she tries to fend off Drax's assault. "I know," she squeaks to the dragon, tears still in her eyes.
Hollie shudders, and shakes her head, then looks up, and drops her weapon with a clatter. Drax sits on his haunches and digs his foreclaws into the mansion’s floor, as if trying to keep from attacking Shae again, but no more compulsion comes to him.