Cynthia shook her head, a little disappointed in their refusal to be sensible. Still, she was only obligated to do so much to help them, and had her own (rather important) mission to pursue. Rather than continuing to try, she moved to meet up with the others instead.
Thalion shrugs helplessly at the request for curing poison. "I fear neutralizing poison is beyond my meager powers, though perhaps we can address this ailment with more mundane means? My colleague and I have some experience tending to the ill, and may be able to keep the condition from worsening, if nothing else." The cleric looks over to Janus apologetically, realizing belatedly he just volunteered his comrade's aid without checking with him first.
"I simply do not trust you enough for that. Do something about the monsters in the toy store and then we can talk" says the man.
"We are just clerics...but we have not come without an escort after hearing about all the recent problems. Mayhaps together, we could tend to your troubles? What is going on in the toy store that causes problems for the neighbourhood?", Janus gently responds.
"I do not know what it is, the last cleric that came along found something there that he was worried about and he was going to go get help to take care of it but he vanished right around that time" he replies
You figure he is holding back some information but he's being careful not to say more than he needs too.
"So, let us finish treating these patients, then lead the way."
Cynthia nodded slightly - their mission was important, but that didn't mean she was going to advocate abandoning people who were injured. That would be a bad plan on several different levels. She wasn't much for magical healing, but she did help as she could.
Riven tried to help with some of the basic first aid but after just getting in the way she steps aside and lets the others do it.
You finish doing what you can for the people and then you gather up and the man takes you to the boarded up toyshop were the bodies are piled up.
Thalion wrinkles his nose at the odor as he surveys the surroundings. "What happened to the owner of the place? Do we need to clear this with anyone before entering the place?" As the cleric waits for word, he looks for some sort of window and a gap to peer through.
"Oh my...it would seem you'd need a cleric of Pharasma, rather than us. I heared the people have given up on the dead, but piling them up like this? It's WRONG!...there's creatures bred from that kind of handling...I mean...Do you want undead? Because that's how you get undead!"
Janus waits for an answer to Thalion's question, appaled by the careless disposal of bodies on such a scale.
"Not sure what happened to the owner. Dead I supposes either in the riots or in the plague. That's just the thing we don't know how the pile got started. One morning it was just there. Some people had some dead bodies and nowhere to put them so they added them to the pile"
Sigh... It was really hard to cure stupid, wasn't it? "Still, why a toyshop...?" she muttered. It was possible that it was just random, but... that was kind of an odd place to put bodies, since it was an area associated with children. It didn't make sense yet, and she was always bothered when she couldn't figure something out.
Flare pauses, looking at the pile, retching. She squints slightly as her face scrunches up and her eyes start to water. "Do you have a wagon..? Shelyn will protect me from the disease... and this is simply not okay."
"It's not only about a disease, this kind of careless treatment of the dead, without the proper rituals, invites a repossession of the bodies by vengeful beings from the other side...these bodies need to be sanctified and burned. They are too many to bury, already. We will need holy water, and oil, and a open space....and, as my guard says, a wagon to transport them there."
Janus eyes the toyshop, suspicious of it's contents, then turns to the man who led them here: "As you claim not knowing about what's in there, do you think you could at least manage to fetch a wagon, wood and oil for a proper pyre? We'll fetch the holy water later...then we can deal with whatever is in this shop, and so Abadar's scales weigh us worthy, later take care of this...insult to Pharasma-", he states as he produces a few coins: "That should cover any costs the request would incur- so hurry."
The man takes the coins and nods "I will go find you a wagon." he says and takes off.
"Well, lets head inside, shall we?"
The building is boarded up with no visible entrance. You could try to break down the door or go in trough a window but yes you will need to break in somehow.
The street is more or less deserted but some folks watch from a distance.
Janus looks at the corpse pile once more, then walks up to the front entrance, starting to bash the door in with whatever blunt improvised tool is at hand.
Thalion looks at Janus' efforts and pulls out his trusty ol' morningstar. "Does anyone have a crowbar handy by chance?"
You break down the door and enter.
Unbalanced stuffed animals, poorly equipped toy soldiers, and dolls exhibiting myriad accidental deformities stare blankly out of the filth-smeared front window of this toy store showroom. Several heavy-looking kites dangle purple and crimson tails from the ceiling above, and a dollhouse recreating Castle Korvosa’s intimidating towers dominates a table in the room’s center. Festooned with tiny bells, the shop’s entrance stands to the north, across from a counter cluttered with dusty candies and a doorway marked “Private.”
Everything is layered in a thick layer of dust and cowbwebs.
"Somebody able to provide light? It's not an Orison I thought to need today.", Janus addresses his companions as he enter the shop.
Looking at the curiosities inside, he starts talking while slowly walking around:"Deformed dolls, asymetric stuffed animals....this shop catered to an interesting taste. All that filth, and dust, and cobwebs...how long was it since all those problems came upon Korvosa? I mean, that man did not state how long ago they boarded up this place did he? That dust must have taken months to get so thick.", he ends with a finger swipe over one the dollhouse towers, then looking at the others, pointing towards the "Private"-doorway and nodding to Victor, before resuming to talk: "That model seems quite accurate, the level of detail is amazing..."
Thalion puts away his morningstar as he looks about. "I'm with you Janus. This place looks so...unused." The young man fights off a sneeze from the heavy dust present, and takes the time to study the dollhouse while he waits for others to settle in. "What are we looking for here again? Some sort of trouble?"
Cynthia shrugged and snapped her fingers, calling up a bit of illumination for Janus. It was a simple magical trick, but also a useful one - which was why she'd learned it, of course. "Those who make miniatures can be... obsessive." she noted quietly. "Hope they did not also make miniature traps that are genuinely dangerous."
That... was a joke, wasn't it?
Dozens of crooked glass eyes—hollow and crazed—glare from the heads of malformed and half-carved dolls lining skewed workroom shelves. Rat-gnawed stuffed aurochs, disembodied doll limbs, miniature rolling elephants, unseaworthy wooden ships, and crooked blocks illustrated with deformed or poorly painted animals fill bins and racks about the room. A cracked wooden door leads to the north, while a rickety trap door breaks the sawdust-covered floor to the east. In one corner lies the drying corpse of an old bald man amid the wood chips, rusty tools, and oily rags of a scored workbench. The body is old and has likely been here for weeks or months.
Cynthia eyed the body carefully, standing well back from it just in case it decided to move. Once she was sure that she was at a safe distance, she carefully gazed around the room and took in the many sights. "I'd like to check down there." she said, indicating the trap door.
Victor glances at the dusty floor and retracts his earlier idea. "Its true, invisible tricks do not look successful here, unless I cleared the floors with a spell, which I guess limits the purpose of being invisible". Glancing at the trapdoor Cynthia gestures to, Victor frowns at it, before slowly kneeling on the floor as quietly as possible. "I could try and open that door, and/or any trap that lay around it, from a fairly safe distance if required, if we are agreed that this is the way forward".
"I think it's weird that it's been boarded up from the inside. If there's something to be afraid of in here, wouldn't they have boarded it up from OUTSIDE? Besides, whoever closed the door would have been trapped in here...strange, I wish we had noticed before that man departet to fetch a wagon-",
Janus takes a look at the corpse, trying to decude how long it's been dead, and if a cause of death can still be found out.
At the implication of checking the trapdoor, Janus points at the cracked wooden door:"Honestly, I'd like to make sure nothing is up here, first- wouldn't want to get trapped down there with something up here placing one or two of the display cases on top of the trap door."
"Probably going to be another haunt." Flare says, shaking her head, annoyed by the half-way done everything. "Guessing it's more likely he was crazy and barred the door. Maybe we'll find something out. Agreed on starting up here." she says, pulling out her polearm as she moves into the room... and through it.
Riven draws her weapon following Flare's lead. "Anything that could survive this is going to be trouble." Riven casts detect magic as they move up making sure they didn't have any horrid surprises she could prevent.
Janus is able to find several puncture wounds on the man's neck and that he died from being drained of all blood. Searching upstairs you find a stash under a floorboard consisting of coins (130 gold) and a key with a label 245B (a key to a storage locker at the bank of Abadar).
That leaves only the trapdoor.
"Well, they did have Vampire problems in the city, did they not? It's so dark and dusty in here...how about we remove some more of those boards covering up the windows before heading down there?", Janus suggests, eyeing the trapdoor suspiciously.
Thalion nods at the suggestion. "If nothing else, it'll be easier to dive out the window to the outside if we need to run." The cleric smacks his forehead at the thought and turns to Flare. "Make sure you don't include that when you write about our heroic deeds!" He then proceeds to pry the boards before returning near the trapdoor.
Cynthia watched from behind Thalion, perfectly willing to let the others verify the safety of the trapdoor - and the area beneath it - before she approached.
It a few hours after noon but it's very gloomy and cloudy out.
Listening to Thalions word Riven would help him pry the windows free to allow what little light this place had inside.
You do what you can but the only windows are at the front and the light wont reach all the way to the backroom.
You open the trapdoor and go down and see tree coffins line up in the basement. The basement is filled with a light mist.
No signs of movement so far.
Cynthia didn't go down the ladder - instead, she carefully swept the mist, looking for any signs of magic. If there was nothing there, her next effort was to try and see if the mist matched the description of anything she knew (toxic clouds, that sort of thing).