After investigating the small room, Druamin follows the rest of the group to another room.
Once upstairs, Faywen tacks to the left a bit, to keep an eye out for any threats that might come up behind the group.
René whistled happily as the manticore went up in a blaze of glory. He then followed the rest of the group upstairs but didn't do much else; last time he tried to be proactive he got hurt. He was smart enough to have learned his lesson.
"Ok. So Erond's door looks good enough to try." Druamin steps to the door in the southeast angle of the hallway. Erond is there. "Hear anything? Do you think it is safe to open?"
This bedroom features a child-sized bed, a chair next to a toy box, and a looming stone fireplace big enough for a child to get lost in.
As you enter and look around, Faywen suddenly looks pale.
"Oh great! What now?"
"I do not like this place one bit."
Ye goods! Don't tell me this haunt has to do with a child!
Faywen shudders, forcing the images from her mind. She takes a breath to compose herself, then presses forward without a word.
Skarn nods approvingly, ”A strong lady indeed. I approve.”
"We'll get to the bottom of this."
Moving on to the next room, Erond again checks the door before entering.
This large room features two padded chairs and a long couch facing a wide alcove lined with stained-glass 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 bell shaped 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.
breath, the tongues of deathwing moths, belladonna, and the heart of a maiden slain by poison); if the check exceeds this DC by 10 or more, open the next:
From the back of the pack, René called out to the group. "Oh, my Ma told me this story once. It's from this story 'bout a maiden who's fiancé died the day before they were ta be wed. In her grief, she went ta th' hermit who lived at the edge of the village even though her parents warned her not ta. He told her he could reunite them if she went and got four ingredients fer him: scorpion venom, vampire's breath, tongues of death wing moths, and belladonna. Long story short, she went on this epic quest ta find it all. Th' hermit told her ta bring it all ta this old well at the edge of this ol', haunted forest. While she was waiting, the hermit turned inta gross old spider and bit her. As she lay slowly dyin' the hermit turned back an' said, 'See...I told you I would reunite you with him...' He then ripped out her heart and used it ta turn inta a lich. Moral of the story obviously bein' ta listen to yer parents."
"What delightful bedtime stories you humans tell your children. Explains quite a bit."
Can this place get any more...disturbing! Cordwin muses.
"More awful than René's mother's night time sagas?"
Nothing else in this room catches your attention.
Moving on to the next, Erond again does his thing.
This entire bedroom is caked with a thick, spongy layer of dark green, blue, and black mold.
Trox suddently starts to itch.
Druamin just shakes his head at René's story. "Really? Your mom told you that? And did it scare you?"
Deciding that there's nothing of interest in this room, he follows Erond to the next.
"This place is just a carnival of horrors, isn't it?" Faywen asks, looking through the room's contents. "I hope something in here is worth what it's doing to us."
"Pfftt, it's meant ta scare young'uns onta the right path. 'Sides, it's no worse than the tale of a lil girl and her grandmama gettin' eaten by a wolf. Or th'one of girls who chopped off parts of their feet to try ta get a prince ta marry'em. But hey, 'least my Ma told me stories; I doubt Skarn could understand a word that was being said through his mam's beard!" René cackled.
"Have you never seen a female dwarf René? It's a myth they have beards. A myth usually recounted by those who are afeared of the femininity demonstrated by our womenfolk."
Trox stops in his tracks and grabs his face and grabs his face. For a moment he feels his face has become tumorous but the feeling quickly fades. He looks around the room with wide eyes not at all sure what just happened or how his mind managed to fight it off.
"Something bad it here..... Felt like.... I don't know like my face has swelled with tumors but it faded fast, I think I got very luck."
Clearly there is more to what went on but Trox does not have the knowladge to tell the others.
Gah! If it looks like something bad is happening to you then you have to ignore it because it ain't real! Unless its rats. rats are always real!
Skarn nods at Cordwin's words, and mutters "rats."
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"I have, yes. Her name was Keala, and she was quite proud of her beard. Assured me t'was the finest in her entire clan an' that only female dwarves who had been shamed by their menfolk shaved theirs off." René responded idly before adding. "She was also one of the best singers I've ever met."
Mold is usually dungeoneering...
+3 to identify creature abilities and weaknesses
The mold is harmless, but certainly it seems that to be here in such abundance is not natural.
An iron tub sits in the middle of this room, the floorboards around it sagging with the tub's weight.
"This place just seems totally abandoned. Other than the haunts we keep running into. I hope we find what we're looking for soon. I'm starting to agree with you guys. We should just burn this place down as soon as we can. I can't think that anything good is going to come of this place."
Druamin glances over the washroom before moving to the end of the hall to the two closed doors there. He opens the right hand one.
"Another creepy tub," Faywen comments from the hallway. "Though, I guess everything in here could be considered creepy."
Locked.
The other leads to the master bedroom.
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.
"Ok. This is strange. But so is everything in this house." Druamin looks around the room and noticed the painting. "Why is that backwards?" He makes his way carefully across the room to the northwest wall and pulls the painting away from the wall just a few finger's width. He leans in next to the wall to see if he can see what is on the painting.
"Ya know this place is haunted, so why're ya tempting fate by purposefully lookin' at sommat ya clearly not s'posed ta? It's a painting, so jus' burn without turning it around." René then purposefully looked away as he went to check which of his companions had a bow. "Jus' light an arrow and shoot it at the thing. Should do plenty fine."
Druamin takes a peek, and finds a portrait of a nice looking lady. Nothing appears to be strange about it, but Druamin suddenly has a strong sense of sadness.
Erond flips it over for all to see. As he does so, René gets a sudden wave of fear, but it passes quickly.
At the bottom of the frame, there is a small faceplate that has the name "Iesha Foxglove" engraved on it.
Just a few seconds later, Erond gets dizzy and staggers a bit. He seems to quickly regroup, however.
"Dammit, now why'd you do that? What a stupid thing! We know things are haunted here!"
"Erond, are you all right? What are you feeling?"
"Well, I'mma gonna wait out in the hallway until y'all stop being idjits and agree ta burn the place down." He then walks out of the room and stands in the hallway close to the stairs.
Druamin does here a woman's voice as he moves the painting. "What do you get up to down in the damp below..."
"What?" Druamin looks bewildered. "Did any of you hear that? The woman's voice? She said 'What do you get up to down in the damp below...'. That doesn't even make sense to me."
He moves back across the room and closer to the rest of the group. "I know you guys just want to burn this whole place down but weren't we coming here to investigate something? It seems that burning down the manor is not investigating."
"Yer wrong. We ain't here ta investigate. We're here ta stop ghouls. Burnin' down seems ta me like it'd do jus' fine." René called from far away.