Somewhat chagrined that Eugeni rather than he managed to grab the nimble halfling, Morythine scurries over and helps grapple Zoli.
This insanity has touched nearly everyone now. When’s my turn? How will my companions react when I do something loopy?
Zoli suddenly stops struggling in her friends' arms, dropping the knife and instead clinging to Eugeni and Morythene--a fistful of fur in one hand and the monk's robe in her other. She sobs, "It was a trick!--An evil trick, but I...it made me remember...horrible, untrue things, I...I want to get very far...very far away from this house."
"We don't seem to have found anything here that would further our investigation. Let's finish exploring it quickly, and then burn it to the ground. Wherever the Foxgloves are, they need to be held accountable for this travesty," Eugeni says. He hugs Zoli back, squeezing her hard with his long furry arms.
The group resumes their search after Zoli composes herself, and heads back downstairs. Continuing their pattern, they open the next door on the right...
This cozy-looking drawing room is marred by the unnatural dampness and the thick sheets of mold that cling to the curtains over the southern window, which seem to rustle unnaturally.
"As much as I dislike simple destruction, I think this place would be better turned to ashes. I'm all for lighting it up once we're done here." Darius snaps his fingers and a small flame appears in the palm of his hand. He lets it linger there momentarily, watching the flame flicker like a candle, before snuffing it out by closing his hand. He's quite obviously more than eager to burn the place to the ground, especially considering his near-death experience caused by it.
The next chamber is a library that features two chairs, one of which lies on its side, before a stone fireplace. A scarf, its reds and golds contrasting with the drab palette of the room, is draped over the side of the fallen chair. A book sits face down on the floor between the chairs. A stone bookend, carved to look like a praying angel with butterfly wings, lies on its side in the fireplace itself.
"That scarf just moved! Be careful, it's liable to try to choke one of us," Eugeni reports. He shoots an arrow into the scarf just to be safe.
As the group moves to the next door to continue on, the shredded scarf almost instantly stitches itself back together, and a feminine shriek fills the room. It immediately lashes out and wraps around Darius' throat like a garrote.
Darius goes pale with fright, and holds up his hands as if trying to push someone away from him. "It's all a misunderstanding! I never cheated on you, my love! We were only reading!" he says before the whites of his eyes turn red with bursting blood vessels, as he falls to the ground, the scarf falling limply around his throat. More disturbingly, his voice was distinctly female when he said it.
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Beyond the next door sits a mahogany table surrounded by chairs. Twin fireplaces loom to the west, while to the east, stained-glass windows obscure what could have been a breathtaking view of the Lost Coast. Each window depicts a monster rising out of smoke pouring from a seven-sided box. From north to south are depicted a gnarled tree with an enraged face, an immense hook-beaked bird with sky-blue and gold plumage, a winged centaurlike creature with a lion's lower body and a snarling woman's upper torso, and a deep blue squidlike creature with evil red eyes.
Between the foyer with the stuffed manticore and this room lies a short connecting hallway. A rather gruesome antique - what appears to be a mummified monkey head - hangs on the northern wall here, its tiny mouth gaping. A bellpull extends from the monkey's gaping mouth. A ratty throw rug partially obscures a foul stain of dark-colored mold on the floor.
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Morythine leans forward with interest as Darius' eyes colour red from asphyxiation. He glances over at Destrina.
"I think your cousin might need a little help."
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Morythine rustles through Darius things as the others look on, clearly stunned by the most recent terror unleashed by this house. He quickly comes up with the obsidian wand and mutters the command word he's heard used several times to activate it's healing energies on the fallen mage. Before long, Darius is coughing and gasping for breath, as Morythine unravels the scarf from around his neck.
Anyone examining the scarf itself can tell it is of exquisite craftsmanship, and likely quite valuable.
Zoli pokes at the scarf nervously and casts detect magic on it. Finally--gingerly--she picks it up and stuffs it deep down inside of her pack.
"OK, let's keep moving here." She listens at the door to the North, checks it for traps, and then--holding her breath--opens it up.
This dusty room features a long couch caked with white sheets of wispy fungus. Eddies of dust skitter along the warped floorboards as if caught up by a slight breeze, yet no wind is noticeable in the air.
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Zoli's eyes go wide. "Pssst. Look! It's like someone's pacing there. I gotta say...unless one of you wants to go in there...I'm inclined to leave this one alone."
If noone objects, she closes the door for now and moves on down the next door and again listens and looks for traps, opening it if she doesn't see or hear anything.
The next door opens to reveal a set of stairs leading down.
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As Zoli continued her explorations, Morythine gave another touch of the wand to Darius, before handing the wand back to the wizard. Then, the group descends into the lower levels of the manor...
A large oaken table, its surface covered with moldy stains and rat droppings, sits in the center of this large kitchen. Shelves line the walls, and an oversized fireplace dominates the northeast portion of the room. The shelves in the southwest wall are in a much greater state of disarray, and two one-foot-wide cracks in the wall near the floor lead south into the earth beyond the basement walls.
Most of the cupboards and cabinets remain closed, however, a stark contrast to the level of chaos that seems to litter this large chamber.
"I don't know about you guys, but any sense of curiosity I had when we first came here is long gone." Darius rubs his bruised throat as he speaks, still sore from the scarf that Zoli for some insane reason decided to keep. "I say we don't go into too much detail examining things, lest something worse happens. Lets just get this place over with. I'd rather fight something.. tangible."
Eugeni stalks silently behind Destrina, his bow ready.
As Destrina crosses the room to the cracks, her armor echoing noisily on the stone floor as she does so. She can tell that the cracks are actually tunnels that lead into the earth, the light of her halo spilling into it's depth and revealing a multitude of small wriggling bodies in a chamber beyond. As the light spills in, she can see that the forms are oily, hairless rats covered in strange tumors. There is a rapidly growing susurrus of them trying to squeeze through the cracks simultaneously, accompanied by a rising wave of rodent squeaks. She can tell it will only be a few moments before they begin spilling out into the room in which the heroes currently stand...
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"Augh!" Eugeni says upon sighting the rodents over Destrina's shoulder. "Looks we got a swarm of diseased rats coming guys....Darius? Fire?!" Eugeni asks frantically. He backs away, knowing his bow will be no use against this foe.
Darius grins wickedly at the group looking for him to solve their rat problem. He readies his rod and prepares to cast a spell at the encroaching swarm. "Stay behind me, and those of you who can, prepare a splash weapon if you've got one, in cast my first blast doesn't kill it!" Darius searches his spell component pouch
"I don't know about you guys, but any sense of curiosity I had when we first came here is long gone."
“I hear what you’re saying. I had such great plans for the place. First impressions didn’t hold true it seems. If I lived here I don’t think I’d expect too many guests, but even so, it might get awkward if the occasional visitor I did receive ended up killing themselves.”
I'd rather fight something.. tangible
“It looks like you got your wish, wizard. Let’s hope these rats burn!”
As the group forms up around the Galtan mage, hundreds of hideous looking, hairless, tumor covered rats pour through the cracks and into the room. They immediately begin to surge towards the beleaguered heroes...
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Zoli steps to the side, brushes her lucky button, and attempts to hack the rats to bits with her scimitar.
HP 30/39
Luck 6/8
Panache 3/4
Charmed Life 3/3
Buffs luck (1/3)
As the diseased rats pour out from the cracks, Darius is ready. He reaches down into one of his pouches and pulls out a small pinch of saltpeter, followed up by a combination of words and gestures to invoke the fire magic he seeks; At the culmination of the spell, he flicks the saltpeter, spreading his fingers as he does so, and a cone of fire bursts forth to incinerate the rats.
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Eugeni grabs another of Darius's alchemist fires, and then moves away from the swarms, preparing to throw the flask at one of them.
As the diseased rats pour out from the cracks, Darius is ready. He reaches down into one of his pouches and pulls out a small pinch of saltpeter, followed up by a combination of words and gestures to invoke the fire magic he seeks; At the culmination of the spell, he flicks the saltpeter, spreading his fingers as he does so, and a cone of fire bursts forth to incinerate the rats.
Zoli steps to the side, brushes her lucky button, and attempts to hack the rats to bits with her scimitar. While she does manage to cut down several rats with her flurry of slashes, it is clear that this is not going to do much harm to the frantic swarm any time soon.
Morythine, Destrina, and Eugeni all let loose with their prepared vials of alchemical fire. All three hit their marks, though Eugeni is certain he had under thrown his vial, and manage to put an end to almost half of the diseased vermin in front of them. The splash from the vial he threw did appear to singe Zoli, though she seems too preoccupied with the rats to have noticed.
The remaining rats continue their mindless approach towards the nearest meal, the halfling flailing about with her blade. They bite and scratch at her as they clamor over her body, eliciting pained cries from the covered halfling.
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"GAAAH! Gah! Gaaah!! I hate this house!" Zoli screams as she brushes rats off of herself.
She takes another swing at them, managing to kill another handful of rats, and then gets herself as far away from them as she can.
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HP 30/39
Luck 6/8
Panache 3/4
Charmed Life 3/3
Buffs luck (2/3)
"GAAAH! Gah! Gaaah!! I hate this house!" Zoli screams as she brushes rats off of herself.
She takes another swing at them, managing to kill another handful of rats, and then gets herself as far away from them as she can.
Destrina draws her hammer and repeatedly brings it down on the mass of rats, trying to smash as many as she can. "Die, blighted vermin!" she shouts, though the creatures manage to evade her heavy hammer strikes.
Darius unleashes another gout of flame, encompassing the entire horde of rats in front of him. While most of their number have died, there are a few stragglers that remain. Morythine kicks at the few remaining pockets of rats, sending the few survivors scurrying for the cracks in the wall.
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Wiping flakes of rat skin and hair off of her, Zoli turns to Morythene and says, "You mind if we take this here silver with us? If you plan to eat with it once you move in here, I'll totally understand. If not...it's a bit of a consolation for a crappy, crappy day."
She'll also ask Darius for a zap of tingly devilish healing, and then listens at the two doors in the corner.
Once a pantry, this room has become a filthy, reeking lair of what must be hundreds, if not thousands, of rats. Swaths of fur cling to everything, and mounds of rat droppings cover the floor.
Two wine racks line the walls here, their shelves empty and dusty. Mounds of broken glass bottles clutter the floor.
"Let's get this over with," Eugeni says, opening the next door. He holds his bow ready in his other hand. How many more rooms can there be in this hellhole?
Two bunks stand in this room, relatively free of dust and mold. A single chair lies on its side between them.
At the far end of the room stands an iron door in the eastern wall. While patches of rust mar its face, it remains quite stout...and locked...
Zoli squints her eyes at the lock, removing her tools and begins working on the mechanism. In but a few moments, the lock is open and the door creaks open loudly and eerily, revealing a long hallway, opening up into another large chamber.
This room looks to have once been some sort of arcane workshop, although it now lies in ruin. A row of soggy books sits on the northern end of a workbench along the western wall. At the other end of the workbench, what looks like three iron birdcages sit, each containing a diseased rat. To the east, two stained-glass windows loom. The northern window depicts a thin man with gaunt features drinking a foul-looking brew of green fluid, while the southern one shows the same man but in an advanced state of decay, as if he had been dead for several weeks. His arms raised and head thrown back in triumph, his rotting body turns to smoke and spirals into a seven-sided box.
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Destrina suddenly freezes in place the moment her hand touches the cover of one of the books laid out on the workbench, her eyes glazing over in a strange myriad of colors and appearing similar to the stained glass windows of the manor.
After just a few seconds, Destrina gasps for breath and slumps down over the workbench, holding onto it to steady herself as her eyes return to normal.
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