"Welcome back. You were placed under a magical sleep."
'Well, thanks for not leaving me I guess. Should we press on or do the rest of you want a turn?' Red stretches the sleep out of his muscles and gives himself a once over. He comes across the onyx in his pocket and discretely gives it a once over, trying to determine it's value.
Blue claps his brother on the shoulder and laughs heartily.
'Ya just gave me time ta drink some more! I'll need ta hit the liquor cabinet again and I'll be go ta go. I found yer little gem thing, a bit fancy don't ya think?' Blue gives his brother an unreturned grin.
The elf motions to the staff on the wall.
"Is this trapped? Or is it safe for me to pull it down?"
'I suppose checking it for you is the least I could do, considering you didn't leave me for dead' Red pulls the chair previously occupied by Blue over to where the staff hangs and climbs atop it. He carefully examines the staff and the mount for any possible traps.
Blue leaves the room while his brother searches the area around his staff to retrieve more liquor.
You don't detect any traps on the wall mount. Removing the staff doesn't cause anything to happen.
Red takes a couple of test swings with the staff before handing it over to Drizzle. 'Got a good weight to it.'
'Let's get a move on.' Red makes his way back to the main hallway, meeting the freshly bottled Blue, and continues towards the back of the house.
'Let's get a move on.' Red makes his way back to the hallway outside the door and, meeting the freshly bottled Blue, continues towards the back of the house.
Before moving on back to the main hall, you attempt to walk to the end of the narrow hallway. However, as you take a few steps forward , the door withdraws. Try to move closer, it withdraws again, no matter how much you try to get to the door.
The door moves away from the lasso, despite your best efforts. You begin to think that perhaps it's opened from elsewhere...
Red sighs in frustration at the trickery of the door. He thinks for a moment and then studies the hallway, looking for any potential methods for bringing the door to him or ceasing whatever is moving it.
Red doesn't detect anything, apart from that no matter how far he moves, the door is always 20' away. There's no sign of mechanics at work, suggesting the door may be enchanted.
'Don't think we can go this way. It seems to be blocked with some kind of enchantment.' Red turns and returns to the main hallway.
Blue watches bemusedly as his brother struggles with the stretching hallway. As his brother walks past Blue gets an idea. Closing his eyes he attempts to charge down the hallway.
Blue charges down the hallway and is stopped 20' from the door. He keeps running, but the door always remains 20' away, and he feels like he's running in place. This continues for several minutes until he's out of breath.
'Ah was sure that'd work.' Blue sheepishly follows his brother back to the main hall.
You make your way back to the larger hall and move to the hall which leads to the foyer. As you walk toward the back of the house, you see the great hall clearly for the first time .
This enormous, echoing hall is open to the floor above. The massive skeleton of a dragon hangs 20’ above the floor, suspended from the ceiling far above by thick metal wires and arranged to appear in flight.
Tapestries depicting famous episodes in the history of Tazimack’s legendary adventuring group, the Pentaverate, cover the walls.
In the northwest corner stands a 6’ tall, golden harp.
At the back of the grand hall are two staircases on either side leading upstairs.
Between them is the entrance to what appears to be a conservatory .
The entire northern wall of the conservatory is made up of large glass panes, and a dozen raised brick planters surround a beautiful, three-tiered fountain. The fountain is dried up and all the plants and flowers are withered and dead.
Blue stops to admire the tapestries.
'Uncle Taz an' his friends look like some kinda heroes. Wonder where the rest a' these fellas ended up?' Blue studies the tapestries for a moment longer before taking a look at the harp in the corner. He plucks the strings absentmindedly.
Red moves to examine the door between the stairs.
After Blue plucks on the strings of the harp, he feels extremely confused, and begins to babble incoherently.
Red inspects the conservatory but finds nothing apart from the dried up fountain and wilted plants.
The elf admires the dragon skeleton.
"That is novel. Oh alright, it's pretty darned impressive. This human has a dragon skeleton. That's not something you see everyday . . . In human lairs."
"Uh oh, Blue's talking in strange talk. . . . Did you not learn to stop touching things first? Lords of light."
The cleric squints at the harp trying to determine its properties.
Robious doesn't notice anything odd about the harp apart from it is clearly magical. It is elegant and well constructed and looks to be quite valuable. And heavy.
'Orange pleased farm sit, twelve walk broom' Blue somehow manages to look MORE confused than normal.
Red shakes his head and he walks past his brother to the double doors on the first floor.
'Idiot drank too much again' He mutters to himself and he looks over the doors.
"Ah ha, a Harp of Discord I've heard of those, but it's been decades."
The elf says obviously quite pleased with himself.
"However, I can't seem to recall what one needs to do to make it wear off."
"I'll pray on that, perhaps the gods may tell me."
"In the meantime, let's move on."
Robious meditates on his question when he's suddenly struck by divine inspiration that the confusion effect will wear off after only a few minutes.
Meanwhile Red opens the double doors to reveal what appears to be a dining room.
Eight high-backed chairs encircle a long, polished table in what is obviously a formal dining room. Horizontally suspended above the table by chains is what looks like an old, wooden wagon wheel, its circumference dotted with burning candles.
An ornately carved sideboard occupies the south wall. Although the chairs are unoccupied, the chaotic jumble of shadows in the room would appear to indicate the presence of seven people enjoying a lively dinner party.
The group barely has time to register the shadows when they suddenly spring from the walls and floor to attack!
The shadows swarm and attack everyone.
vs. Red, hits.
+1 point STR drained
vs. Red, misses.
vs Blue, misses.
vs Blue, misses.
vs, Robious, misses.
vs. Robious, misses.
vs. Drizzle, misses.
Combat order: Robious, Shadow 1, Shadow 5, Red, Shadow 7, Shadow 6, Shadow 3, Shadow 2, Drizzle, Blue, Shadow 4.
"Go back to the . . . Huh? Well this is kinda ironic . . . Shadows!"
Robious holds up the hammer of justice and commands the undead to turn from him.
Robious quickly learns that Shadows are not truly undead and therefore cannot be turned.
Shadow 1 attacks Red again.
+ 1 point STR drained
Red collapses unconscious as he knocks upon death's door!
Shadow 5 strikes at Robious.
+ 1 point STR drained
Shadow 7 strikes again at Drizzle, and misses!
Shadow 6 also strikes at Robious and hits!
+ 1 point STR drained
The cleric gets in line at death's door right behind Red!
Shadow 3 attacks Blue and hits!
+ 1 point STR drained
Shadow 2 strikes at Drizzle and hits!
+ 1 point STR drained
'That was mah brother!' Blue shouts as he brings Loretta to bear on the offending shadow.
Loretta strikes the shadow and takes a chunk out of it, causing it to fly against the wall, but it survives to keep fighting.
Drizzle casts Magic missile at the injured shadow.
"Blue, we need light!"
Drizzle's Magic Missile strikes the shadow and destroys it.
He notices that as the shadow dies, one of the candles suspended above the table goes out.
'Lemme clear some a these shades outta here, that should light 'er up!' Blue roars as he presses the attack on Shadow 1.
"Take out the candles!"
Drizzle throws a flask of oil at the remaining candles.
The flask knocks out the remaining candles before breaking, causing the shadows to vanish.
However, the oil splashes on the wagon wheel and ignites from the last candle, causing it to burn with thick smoke.
The structure holding the wagon wheel, engulfed in flames, quickly breaks away from the ceiling and crashes onto the table below, igniting it and filling the room with smoke.
Blue babbles incoherently, staring at the fire.
"Ha! Yessss! the shadows are----"
The room erupts in flames.
"Ho! Holy Sh----"
"Get them out, quick grab red, I'll get the cleric. And look around we might be burning up all the good loot damn it!"
Drizzle starts to drag the cleric out.
Blue's attention is briefly torn from the flames by Drizzle's orders.
'Pa nep dole pu arip veme cori hohes epecat! Utepihan pitat tapexut silibe vunab pop nesec winilar ratitog liroda: Ipot ata jiso! Poner utisoc diterel lase axa pa wo?' The big man returns his gaze to the flames.
Amidst the rising flames, Drizzle hears the glass in the east window rattle hard from the wind outside. It sounds almost unnatural to his elven ears.
If Drizzle can spare a moment from rescuing his party he will hazard a glance out the window.
Drizzle sees that the wind outside is blowing strongly enough that it might help with the flames. The window itself appears locked, but the glass is thin.
Against his better judgement, Drizzle breaks the glass with a weapon pommel.
One pane of glass shatters as Drizzle hits it with his weapon, and the wind howls through the room and blows out the flames, leaving the burnt and smoldering furniture in the middle of the room and the walls and ceiling covered in soot, but the sideboard and structure otherwise unharmed.
The smoke slowly clears out of the room as the wind dies down.
"Humph, well I've saved your human skins once again it seems. While you all sleep it off I'll search the room."