Fortunately, it seems the ooze's acid only dissolves flesh, as Calendula can attest to. Theodric's spear is undamaged.
With the creature defeated, Nime's curiosity is piqued. She steps closer to it and, after lowering herself to the ground, prods it with a piece of debris.
"How strange. If it only eats flesh, what was it subsisting on? Oh well. Some things we're not meant to understand."
She levers herself back to her feet.
"Are you ok, Calendula?"
Calendula waves Nime's hand away, buckling over as her stomach churns.
Her face is still quite raw.
"It's nothing," she insists, proud as ever.
"Are you sure?" Nime says, her face showing concern. "You look a little green."
A search of the kitchen turns up nothing of value. You head back into the hall and go to the next door. Two doors stand along the north wall of the room, and one stands along the western wall. A masterfully built table stands against the mold-covered windows in the room's southeastern wall. Aside from a layer of mold and a few patches of moss, the dining set looks to be in immaculate condition compared to the rest of the house's furnishings.
A fine but degraded cabinet sits in the corner of the room. It is lying on its doors, but Calendula is strong enough to flip it over. Most of the earthenware and porcelain dishes inside the cabinet shattered when it tipped over, you are able to find a silver serving set worth 70 gp, a silver decanter worth 35 gp, and a set of six copper mugs worth 15 gp altogether.
Several dozens spiders crawl about the room, but they are more of a nuisance than a threat.
"Oh, those are pretty," Nime says when someone points out the silver serving set.
She then steps over and pops her head through the western door.
Doors along the northern and eastern sides of this moldy room provide exits. The floor droops toward the south so the lowest corner of the room brushes the river as it flows by. The ceiling in the northern and eastern sides of the room is torn. The remains of a small desk lean into the northwestern corner of the room, its slim drawer hanging out.
Nime wanders over to the desk and casually looks through the drawers.
As soon as Nime enters the room, a pair of cockroaches the size of small dogs scurry up from the hole in the floor! They skitter towards the undine, greedily clicking their filth-slicked mandibles.
Despite his fatigue, Rudrik manages to stand his ground when the slime exudes its horrid stench. He draws back his blade to stab it again, but it shudders and falls into quiescence before he can make another strike.
He waves his hand in front of his face. "Whew. You think that's bad, you should smell some of the ones my dad lets fly!"
He keeps his sword in hand as the team advances cautiously through the manor.
"Can't we fight something normal for once today?" Theo complained as he moved in with his spear.
Theodric impales the first roach with his spear. It flips over as he yanks the weapon free, legs twitching and antennae writhing as it starts the long, drawn-out process of dying.
The other cockroach snaps at the sorcerer, but misses by a wide margin!
Rudrik rushes in to make a feeble stab with what little strength he has left.
Calendula moves in to corner the roach and thrusts downward with her once beautiful sword.
Rudrik stabs the cockroach with his sword, wounding it, but it still stands. It scurries away from Calendula's strike.
"Ew. Ew. Ew," Nime continues to utter as she watches the others battle the disgusting creature.
"Can't we fight something normal for once today?" Theo complained as he moved in with his spear.
"I'd prefer that too." Shenuska replies, staying out of the way as her only aggressive spells have proved very unsuitable.
With the little bastard cornered, Theo moved to finish it off.
Theo's spear stabs into the roach with a wet splortch, coming back stained with ichor. The overgrown insect thrashes and flips onto its back as well, joining its companion in its death throes.
With the bugs squashed, you are free to search the desk. The drawer hanging out of the slumped over desk is empty aside from a dried-out jar of ink and a few split pen nibs. However, a piece of paper is stuck to the bottom of the drawer by a film of mold. It's jagged around the edges, as if the rest of the sheet was ripped from the remnants. The stuck and moldering page shows an "X" in the middle of some woods, and the letters "St. Hs."
When you look into the back hall, the last room on the first floor of Roderic's Wreck, you see a door that opens to the space beneath the stairs is boarded over. The doorknob is broken off and a steel spike has been driven into what used to be a lock. However, the wood is partially rotten--it doesn't seem like it will be difficult to break through, should you be so inclined.
"Can't we fight something normal for once today?" Theo complained as he moved in with his spear."I'd prefer that too." Shenuska replies, staying out of the way as her only aggressive spells have proved very unsuitable.
Nime looks confused.
"But if it was normal, why would you need to fight it?" she asks.
"My skills mostly involve the mind, which most of these creatures have largely lacked." Shenuska replies with distaste.
Nime tips her head curiously at Shenuska.
"Can you read minds?" she asks cheerfully.
Calendula slams the door with her shoulder and easily knocks it off its hinges. Nothing compared to farm work, nor to her prior life, neither.
As Calendula batters the door down, she hears churning water behind it. The warning is enough for her to clear out of the way as the door falls off its hinges and reveals a closet completely full of water! A few moments later, the water animates and rushes out in a roiling orb! It sweeps out the back door and onto the dock behind the house before dissipating.
Among the debris swept out of the close is a pair of magical slippers.
"Water normally doesn't behave like that," Nime says in a matter-of-fact tone as she continues to watch where the water dissipated.
"I wonder if it's upset about something as well."
When you are ready, you ascend the stairs to the upper floor. Two doors stand along the north, west, and south walls, while a single door stands partially open along the east wall.
"That was uh... weird," says Rudrik. "Oh, was that a water elemental? Or something? I guess that makes it a 'water closet.' Heh!"
Nime tips her head as she processes what Rudrik said. Her laugh then bubbles forth, light and breezy.
"That was funny," she says with a smile.
"Slippers of feather step." Shenuska says, examining the waterlogged shoes. "They will help you move through difficult ground, if you don't mind getting wet feet!"
"This is a very strange house. Roderick must be somewhere though, is there a basement? Or an attic?"
It appears the house has only the two floors. There is no basement or attic.
"Hold on a sec," Theo remarked as Shenuska remarked on the slippers and held his hand out over them, a quick use of prestidigitation drying them out.
"I don't know if any of us are going to use them here, but just in case."
As the team moved upstairs, Theo moved to check the north-east room, slowly opening the door with his spear at the ready.
A moldering mattress lies amid a bowed wooden frame, flanked on either side by ruined tables. A dresser in the northwest corner of the room has seen most of its drawers pulled out and discarded on the floor. Remnants of moldy and animal-gnawed clothes spill from them. A hole has been hacked into the floor, near a long, slender wooden case that is open and tipped over on the floor.
As Theodric peers into the room, the air turns cold. The ghost of Sir Roderic drains up from the floorboards into the room in eerie mockery of gravity, then speaks in a hollow voice. "The cove. The stone house in the wood. The gauntlet. Save them. My map. The key."
Theo started as the ghost first appeared, pointing his spear at it before recognising him. He spoke up after the ghost delivered its message.
"Well, we'll do our best. Although I can only hope that the vagueness is as frustrating on your end as it is for us, Sir Roderic. Assuming you're a full intelligence in there and not just fragments in which case I may as well be talking to a portrait."
He turned back to the others. "Sir Roderic's ghost again in here - trying to pass on a message. 'The cove. The stone house in the wood. The gauntlet. Save them. My map. The key.' Have I mentioned that I hate vagueness?"
Nime smiles.
"Vagueness isn't so bad," she says. "It allows you to see things that you wouldn't have seen if it had been more specific. It allows you to think in ways that create conclusions that would have never occurred to you."
She closes her eyes and tips her head.
"You just have to open yourself up to the possibilities."
Her eyes open.
"Shall we move on to the next room? Maybe we'll find more information there."
Roderic's ghost seems nonplussed by Theodric's comments. When the sorcerer looks back in the room, the spirit has vanished again.
The wooden case on the floor is of masterwork quality, and a thin sheeting of lead lines its interior. Etched into a plaque in ornate lettering on the case's side is the word "Baraket." Two small but complex locks line the edge of the case; they automatically lock if the lid is closed. A wad of adhesive gum holds a pair of keys tacked to the lid.
Shenuska takes the box and examines it minutely, with both mundane and magical sight. More oddly once she opens the box she probes it with a stick before actually putting her hand in it.
"Baraket was one of the Swords of Sin." She murmurs, "No friend of mine, but not the worst of foes. Has anyone seen a sword-hilt without a blade?"
"Yes," Nime says. "Someone has. Kynae saw someone using a blade like that the night of the massacre."
She frowns.
"Someone has a Sword of Sin."
She tips her head and listens.
"What I could do with that sword..." Shenuska murmurs, not to anyone in particular. "It would be good to see Asheia - its been so long."
She suddenly shakes her head and looks around in confusion. "Sorry, was I drifting off again?"
Nime looks at Shenuska and then steps close to her - very close. She looks into her eyes and leans closer looking for all the world as if she's going to kiss her, but she tips her head at the last moment and smells one side of her face towards her ear. She then does the same thing with the other side.
Pulling her face back, Nime contemplates for a moment before smiling.
"No, you're ok."
She then steps away towards the next door.
The remains of a wicker cradle slumps against the wall between two cracked windows. A small wicker table in similar condition sits in the corner of the room.
As you start to search the room, a skeletal creature crawls out from under the cradle. The child-sized undead wears the tattered remains of a rabbit costume, its canine skull protruding from the hood-like head of the destroyed outfit. A necklace of lettered, wooden blocks hangs around its neck, and the unsettling creature drags a wheeled wooden duck by a soiled and knotted string. An aura of sobs and whimpers surrounds it.
The creature giggles as it stands up and playfully bites Calendula on the leg. The air seems to rush out of her lungs and into the thing's maw.
As the creature steals her breath, Calendula shouts a warning to the others, "Don't let it touch you," she groans as it bites her. "Attic whisperer, steals your breath, your voice."
She thrusts out with her sword, but misses entirely.
Shenuska gestures and the wooden toy flies at the undead creature!
The attic whisperer giggles again as it ducks under Calendula's sword and dances away from Shenuska's projectile. An eerie rhyme seems to echo in the air around it.
Can you hear him waking?
Up above the stairs?
Can you hear him weeping?
Is he really there?
Can you say "I’m speaking?"
Are you saying naught?
Is it you who's weeping?
Is it you he's caught?
"More bloody ghosts?!" Theo remarked as the creature appeared, moving in after the ladies with his spear at the reading.
Nime's eyes go wide at the revelation that this thing can steal your breath, your very voice. She actually looks angry, which is something those who have known her for any length of time know is an emotion she almost never displays.
"My breath is sacred! You shall never have it!" she declares.
She then clumsily stabs at it with her spear.
"Comin' through!" shouts Rudrik as he dives past Theo.
He lashes out with his sword as best he can.