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Skarn looks to Faywen, ”how do your people work metal, if not with fire?”
Faywen looks back, perplexed. "I'm not sure what you mean. Magnimar certainly has blacksmiths, same as anywhere else."
"I umm, I mean, your people. Under the water?"
Faywen laughs. "Most undine live on the surface. My family lives in Beacon's Point. It's very rare that one of us can actually breathe water. I'm just special, I guess."
"Well, as you might imagine, we dwarfs don't see a lot of you in our mountains, so I hope that I don't offend with my questions, curiosity, and incorrect assumptions."
"Erond, just a washroom there? Anything strange in it? And there's still another door at the end of the hallway that we haven't checked out, right?"
As the conversation takes place Trox moves to the final door and prepares to open it as soon as the others are ready. It is clear at this point that he is getting anxious to get this done.
"By the way, I can see why you guys want to burn this place down. But I don't even remember why we are here. Aren't we supposed to find something?"
He catches up with Trox and gets his battleaxe ready.
"There were ghouls coming from here or something, right?"
@Trox: This oak-paneled chamber must have once been breathtaking, but is a sad sight now-the floorboards are warped with moisture and the paneling scratched and spotted with mold. A grand piano, its surface splotchy and keys warped, leans tiredly in the southeast corner.
René sighed. "Y'know, the more ghosty things we see, the more I think it ain't worth it ta figure out what's goin' on here and that the 'burn it all down' idea has merit. Though as soon as we know there ain't nobody upstairs and that cryin' sound weren't nothing, mebbe we can fall back on that."
"And if the crying upstairs is from the meanest banshee this side of the Worldwound?"
"Then instead of stickin' around fer it ta kill us, mebbe you put ya pride aside, retreat, and we burn the place down." René looked pointedly at Cordwin, who had almost gotten himself killed by rats because he wasn't willing to retreat.
"Guys, I'm not sure that burning this place will fix anything. If there are haunts and ghouls and ghosts or other evil things here maybe they would just infest the burned ashes of the building." Druamin shrugs. "But I'm not an expert on this kind of stuff. I don't know. Where to now? It seems that there are some apparitions that we've ignored down here. If we go upstairs now how do we know that these things won't attack us from behind?"
"Well, thus far bad thing've only happened to us when people actually interacted with certain things. Like, that scarf didn't do nothin' 'til someone got too close to it. And we've been walking around fer a bit now and the other spooky things haven't tried ta come after us yet. Seems reasonable ta think if we leave 'em alone, they'll leave us alone. But more importantly, none of y'all had any concrete ideas about how ta lay that scarf ta rest, so what makes ya think we have any better ideas about how to deal with the other spookies right now?"
Cordwin lowers his head at René's truthful reminder of his time with the rats.
"At the very least, none of this started on its own. Someone did this," Faywen says, looking back the way they came. "This manor is important to whatever they're doing, I think."
Trox scratches his head at the conversation thinking this is all outside his wheelhouse. Still he brightens and speaks slowly in his slightly high voice.
"A priest to.... concentrate the building? No not concentrate but... you know what I mean right? Make the place holy?"
Unfortunately, your knowledge of these things certainly seems to be lacking. Haunts are generally tied to a place, so perhaps removing the place will work, but it is just a wild guess at this point. On the other hand, what if burning the place brings everything down on you at once?
There are two sets of stairs headed up - #2 and #3 on the map. Which do you take?
Or, this is a haunted house - do you split up? It is a classic horror movie move...
"So which stairs? There were stairs off that room with the big stuff thing. How about those?"
René nodded at Druamin. Curved stair cases were more interesting looking. He then headed up.
Cordwin will follow the others up the stairs.
Seeing the direction Trox moves upstairs with the others, staying near the front.
Faywen sticks close behind, listening for any more trouble headed their way.
Skarn joins, keeping fairly close to the front.
As René crosses B2 towards the stairs, the manitcore on the table seemingly comes to life and whips it's now fiery tail at him!
As suddenly as it happens, is seems to be over - except for the burning flesh.
"René! Faywen yells, rushing to him, water already flowing from her hands. She douses him to put out the flames, before using her same power to dry him off once the danger has passed. Finally, she channels some of her inner strength into a surge of healing power, transferring it to him.
Another haunted room, it seems. You aren’t sure why it didn’t trigger the first time you passed through, but all seems quiet now.
Skarn pats Renè on the back, "Well, there goes our idea of burning the whole place down, if part of the haunt itself is flame based. My next idea is to douse the whole place in spirits and ale!"
"If there really is a lich involved, we're probably going to have to fight him. And his friends, most likely. I doubt anything less will end this."
"The biggest problem with fighting a lich is the spells right? Anyone able to shut that down? Cast silence?"
Trox is growing more and more agitated by this place.
"This place is the worst. Give me a dragon, at least it would kill me honestly."
Druamin flinches when the stuffed manticore whips its tail at René. "Whoa! I expected that when we first came in this room." He moves carefully around the taxidermy and then up the stairs.
At the top he sees a door right where the hallway bends. "Since we're exploring, we may as well try this door, right?" He waits for others to catch up then steps aside as Erond moves to listen at the door.
"Gah! René glared at the creature and then started spluttering as he was immediately doused in water. He gave Raywen a very wet, thumbs up. "Thank ya kindly fer the timely save and healing." As other people started to explore upstairs, he started to whistle, pulling out a vial of oil. He then proceeded to start pouring it on the manicore. Pulling out his flint and steel, he started trying to light a spark...
"The biggest problem with fighting a lich is the spells right? Anyone able to shut that down? Cast silence?"
"I can get in his face and attack him. I find that makes it harder for spellcasters to do their thing."
"Until they step back and keep casting is all!"
"You're very welcome," Faywen replies, smiling. She steps back and lets him do his thing, curious to see if it will actually work.
René lights the manticore remains on fire, and watches it burn. Erond checks out the doors on the second floor, and hears the sounds of someone crying beyond the door he is standing at. (The reset were quiet).
Druamin opens the door to B10 to find a small room with stairs presumably up to the attic.