Arianna laughs nervously at the glare Scramsax gives her before the stick is snatched out of her hands and she mutters "Sorry about that."
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I remember counting to 10 in order not to give Burst a slap, instead calmly saying something like "Wait until my face is closer to the rotten pustule next time before you pop it." I was still no closer to understanding how long this thing had been dead. But there was somethin' else caught my attention anyways.
At the time, I couldn't really figure the use of a fiend metatarsus. But If someone went to the trouble of removing some, must be valuable. So, I got crackin' as if I were diggin' into a buttery bowl of Chucklefish Chef Supreme's Claw-abunga Delights...though the stank-nasty necro gasses making their way down my throat and merging with the mucus membranes of my eyes and nostrils was less appealing than that sweet crab meat. Was more like that cheaper place down the docks, the one that served the Pinch Me Tender Platter on holidays for a copper. Now that was a gamble even the hardest Craps Crusader would steer clear of. The images of those shellarious seafood spectacles kept me goin' through the grim as I slowly sawed through the unpolished exoskeleton with my dull gemstone lapidary micro-blade. In the end I had a nice spider claw, but wasn't much cleaner. When in Zobeck.
I'm sure I did remember to mention the missing sacs "Dang! Someone's already nabbed its best bits and bobs! Beware o' poisoners in the shadows..."
I was about to shake down the upstairs but Gunnz and the Prophet had other ideas.
Every time she goes to combat, her hair becomes flaming white. I've had a fixation on casting Light on the caster's hair, now.
Luthael looks to everyone in the house and offers, "Do you hear that soft chime of a music box playing from somewhere inside the house. Those tinkling notes of some waltz used to be fashionable a hundred or more years ago. I think it is coming from beyond that eastern exit."
"Want to take a look first? Gunnar, want to examine those books beforehand?"
Arianna gives Luthael a look when he mentions how old the waltz is.
"How old are you," she asks the flaming-haired priest.
No judgements here. I mean, I'm playing a cat girl that glows in moonlight. It's not like I'm in a position to judge.
Still, pretty cool concept.
" So follow strange ancient music that only you hear." Ingryd says as she looks to the priest and hisnhead then blinks as she puts the flaming head of her Maul parallel to her head and then sighs and laughs.
" You feelin' well Proph?" she adds a bit concerned
”I hear it too,” agrees Gunnar, ”And as much as I’d like to settle in and search for magic or read the books, we may not be alone in here. We should follow the obvious trail to the west for now, I think, though perhaps take advantage of the webs to the east and prop up some noisy baubles that will sound if the webs there are disturbed.”
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As grandpa and grandma blathered about god-knows-what, and Griz was nearly catapulting into the campfire chronicles, I could really smell what Gunnz was cookin'. I took some doodads from the Lost'n'Found heist and littered them about the east-side...careful not to strum the warning strings of the greater fiend colony.
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The putrid gases, the still splurting and splorking juice-filled innards, Scramsax estimates the spider met its maker within the last week or two. But not within the last day or two. Blood on the floor is quite dry, the limbs (those that remain) are curled and stiff, the flesh rubbery, hardening, but not nearly completely desiccated.
Prepared to move on, the halfling places a smattering of rabbit's feet, bent sunglasses (the good pair of Grandmother's Lemonade sunshades were sacrificed upon the vampire pyre), random keys, a squeaky witch toy, a several polyhedral dice (likely abandoned for always rolling low) in a carefully constructed pattern to create the most nose and havoc from anyone or anything making their way in from the eastern passage.
All the while, now that everyone's attention has been drawn to it, the tinkling notes of the music box continue to drift through the halls of the lonely manor.
Cautiously moving west down a short hall, there is a door to the south. A quick check reveals a long unused water closet. More unnerving is the corpse sitting upon the wooden seat. The decaying clothes would indicate the man as a servant, perhaps the butler or head steward. A bit of ancient parchment remains clutched in the dry, papery hand. There is little doubt that this corpse is quite old. Nor the cause of death. The head lies on its side in the sink, the eyeless desiccated face staring up at the ceiling, the mouth still open in surprise. A dark rusty black stains nearly every surface. Dried blood, long since soaked into the wood floor and walls. A cockroach scuttles across the bare leg and down into the depths as Luthael's flaming hair brings light to where little has flared for numerous long years.
The music continues to play it cheerful notes quite at odds with the gloom of the manor.
"L-luthael," Arianna calls out softly, "I'm starting to thing this place is haunted. Do you know how to, I dunno, exorcise ghosts?"
”Yes, but we need to encounter the ghosts.” The prophet replies while double checking the corpse for cause of death.
The sound of the single boot was unusual, but then it made watertight sense. If these ghost vampire chipmunk fiend-slayers were still around, they would've left only one leg standing. Furthering the analysis, only one other possibility remained: pirate ghost vampire chipmunk fiend-slayers. Yet I waited for the peg to drop...it never came. Science.
Or those asshat gnomes made stilts out of the spider legs and put boots on them to appear human sized.
But then I noted the parchment in the corpses grip. And the sounds of that music box. "Hold it...could be a trap." I warned. See, it was all to neat and tidy. Too neat and tidy for a deadman decapitated on the latrine. Too sweet the sounds from yesteryear scattering about.
Both could easily be lures.
How did that paper survive when those books earlier crumbled to nothing? How did the cockroaches not already eat the grease on the gears of that music box? I took a closer look at that corpse...
...while cautioning "Look, I heard somethin' up top. 3 to 1 odds it was a f*ckin' boot. That music, I say its a trap...that little tinklin' like to entice a sucker. We should check upstairs first, eh?"
"Great. I never liked ghost stories and now I'm in one," Arianna grumbles.
"You said you heard a boot up top? Are we sure it's not someone trying to play a prank on us," Arianna says as a thought comes to her.
Yes, it takes her a bit to remember she could create sounds like that. Sleep deprivation following a pitched battle following almost blowing yourself up tends to not do one's mind any favors, after all. Still, she does remember.
"I mean," she says before deciding that showing is faster than telling and casting a couple of quick cantrips, one making it sound as if someone is playing a jig and another to add the sound of clomping boots to the mix.
"I'm not the only one in my clan that can do that. My brothers and sisters got us into a lot of trouble when we were little doing things like that."
"Ah yeah, pranksters...must be. Holed up in a fire hazard cabin with fiend spiders and decapitated corpses in the middle of nowhere, just waiting for some happy-go-lucky bushwhackers to waltz in and get a lemon meringue pie to the face. After all, if you can't have a little fun in a vampire chipmunk lair, where can you?" I let the thought linger a moment "The answer is no where."
"But right, a boot. Or somethin' that sounded like a lot like a boot. What sounds like boots? Shoes? Certainly not sneakers. Coconuts with little rubber mufflin' pads on them? I punch a pillow, sounds like a boot. I punch your sister upstairs sounds the same. Let's go test it out."
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Arianna just gives Scram a look.
"You've never meet one of the true fey, have you?"
" Can we give him a proper burial?" She says as she looks at Lutheal.
"I get the idea it could be a trap, and yeah the upstairs is prime ambush be it a door way or stair well. Good fighting areas." Ingryd says as she laughs.
That strummed a note inside and I stumbled with "I met one once..."
In retrospect, Burst had a good point. I had ended up in a Hag's stew in a place a lot like this...back when Narg was just a mudwipe on the west coast. The old Slime-in-a-jar-above-a-door-ajar trick...I fell for it goddamnit! Course Zove had that particular tricky psychosis too, but she was scathesidhe...a corrupted line and not what I figured Burst would count as 'true'.
But na, at the time my mind went to Illarya. My prison. My love. My victim. If she had ever deceived me, I must've willingly ignored it. My guilt would forgive her. None knew me better, and none ever would...I was sure of it.
Made me wonder again what happened to her, when Carnadine betrayed us and that thunderous companion knicked my knocker. That was her sapphire orb, some psionic spark or gift given to her line from near primordial days. Certainly shook things up downstairs for me to have it torn out, would be a long time before I found out the similar fate of Illarya.
"...cobbler, ironically."
Luthael tries to follow the halfling’s rambling. Assuming he’s just kidding, the prophet attempts his own joke by saying, ”And that’s why the music box was playing a waltz, right?”
After the reaction which probably reduced the tension in the room, Luthael nods to the bearkin, ”It’s the least we can do, let’s get the body outside. Does anyone have a shovel? We can get the villagers to work on the grave while we clear the house. Besides, they may recognize him.”
Scram's answer only raises more questions, but those will have to wait.
"So upstairs next," she asks after helping Luthael with the body of the long dead butler.
Scramsax, apparently relishing all of the corpse-examining chores, checks over the head and body of the long dead servant. There is one rather embarrassing snapping of a brittle rib caused when the halfling catches a glimpse of metal pinned to the lapel of the man's jacket. Rubbing the grit and grime away, he finds the piece to some kind of copper symbol. An owl, wings in flight and flaming surrounded by a rose and laurel pattern. The little pin being the only item of interest, Scramsax soon declares the all clear allowing Luthael and Ingryd to get to work.
Before bothering the body further, Luthael makes his own more in-depth examination focused on the actual cause of the poor man's demise. Given the relative location of head to shoulders, he quickly rules out suicide. Instead the prophet focuses his attentions on the extraordinarily clean cut of bone and flesh where the separation of the head occurred. Cleaner than an executioner's axe. Is the phrase that one might use when looking at the wound. Not a jagged notch of flesh. No rough ridges or splinter on the bone like one might expect from a normal sword or axe blow. In fact, as the prophet carefully brushes away a layer of gathered dust, he notices the flesh is blackened as if burned all along the massive cut. Something sharp, something strong, and something hot ended the man's life.
His examination complete, bearkin and prophet carefully gather the remains and carry it out onto the fog shrouded lawn. The locals all mutter and whisper among themselves making various signs of protection, one or two even invoking Khors, as they scuttle back from the body. Mik and Milo do offer to help dig graves and Mik points around toward the western end of the manor.
"Pretty sure I saw some markers over that way." He says. "Might be a good spot to start digging."
Back inside the manor, the music plays. The air grows chill and dry. Like a harsh winter day in Domovogrod. Lips chap and eyes water while clouds of warm breath spill forth. A wind moans through the hall rustling the broken webs. Silk strands flutter and wave like listless parade goers waving as the last marcher drags past.
"Right. Not a tricksy fairy, but properly haunted," Arianna mutters as she rubs her arms in an attempt to warm up.
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I had seen that pin before, I was sure of it...
Ingryd gently raised the body and carried it out. Gently she let the body lay on the ground and offered the butler a draft of booze. Ingryd sits down beside him and speaks.
" I know not who you are, but you seemed a faithful and dutiful man. Even in death you watched the door unable to stop the horror, but you kept watch waiting." She toom a drink then gave him another.
" Your watch is at and end my stalwart friend. Your bones will be intured into the ground for which you watched. Rejoice in it. The end of your watch has come be at peacd" Ingryd laments with pride. Still bloody broken and battered she looms doen at the corpse snd then to the sky. She smiles and wipes away tears.
" Luthael, Let us let them take over. Our companions will need us. I feel this is another fight, most likely one that tests our souls and not just our steel" The bearkin toom another drink before she put the booze away.
After his examination, Luthael pronounces that the servant was killed by a "strong, sharp, hot blade."
The prophet helps Ingryd with the body getting through doorways, so the there are no awkward incidents like snagging a piece of furniture with a foot, because the bearkin is strong enough to carry the corpse herself.
After the bearkin's kind words, Luthael performs last rites and prays for the villagers who intern the body to the ground. Although he would prefer a cleansing pyre, but it would signal where they are, so hallowed ground is second best.
He follows Ingryd back inside to clear the house.
It takes a few moments for Scramsax to sift through the various memories stored within the many mental compartments of her mind. It seems that with each change of ownership the filing system changes and things become more and more difficult to locate. Nevertheless, the halfling's neurons do eventually recover the information and send it back into her consciousness.
It was several years earlier, she'd (actually he'd at the time), found himself in Zobeck waiting for a contact to pawn some...errr...close a business deal. Strolling through the Collegium District that fine autumn afternoon, the halfling came across the Zobeck Historical Museum. A hand painted sign hung in a window claiming a complete collection of Lady Gwendollyn Stross' famous gold buttons. Seeing an opportunity to case the...err...learn something new, the halfling coughed up the two coppers for the tour and went inside.
Of little immediate relevance is the kind-hearted elderly woman who guided Scramsax through the musty rooms of the small museum. Of even less relevance is the rather grim fact that Lady Stross' buttons had become so famous because she always wore them to public executions. Each button was made of solid gold, was the same size as a standard imperial crown, and stamped with the griffon crest of House Stross. In addition, each contained either a ruby or a diamond set as the griffon's eye. Each dress had a button for each poor soul facing the executioner's axe. The dress known as the Gown of Gore made of the finest Nurian indigo and crimson silk, had a total of twenty-six buttons. (It was rumored a twenty-seventh was added when her maidservant took too long buttoning the dress and was suddenly added to the list of the condemned. This rumor was never substantiated.)
Although by no means complete, the museum's collection of six dresses including that most famous gown was still quite impressive...and quite valuable. Now of course of even less relevance was the following heist and the then following loss of the coins to a pair of large minotaur's and a rather buxom tavern wench. No, not relevant at all.
What is relevant to the moment, is that while waiting for the kind elderly docent to move on with the rest of the tourist rubes, Scramsax had a moment or two to study the long row of noble Griffon Knight houses that once served the city. It was there among the heraldry and regalia of Zobeck's distant past, that Scramsax saw the flaming owl and laurel symbol pinned to the corpses coat. The sigil of the Von Florien family. The little plaque beneath the scribed drawing of the symbol. A relatively minor noble house with lands somewhere along the northeastern border with Morgau. The last known tax collection listed the family as owning a trio of minor tin mines, several orchards, and various other lands and peasant served farms. Many of the records were lost in the Great Revolt, but the museum plaque did note that young Rupert von Florien III was the last of the Florien's and disappeared along with his young wife and daughter. Many rumors followed the young lord's disappearance. Most involved the ghouls or other denizens of the Blood Kingdom's, but like so many stories, they were never confirmed.
The dust settled loosely on the fresh grave. Somewhere, a bird of prey *caw*ed as it plucked a nocturnal animal from its recent slumber. Undying. Griffon. That sigil...it was the Lost Von Florien's.
"Heh. Guess what? That pin? We just buried the butler of the Lost Griffon Knight Rupert von Florien III. Ever heard of the Great Revolt down in Zobeck? See, used to be Stross ruled the place with a hard hand, but well he killed a 10 year old kid and the city turned against him...now its the Free City, free from Stross."
"But see, Von Florien was a Griffon Knight before that revolt...meaning his allegiance was with the Order of the Undying Sun." I had to tread carefully, Invictusol was my friend. "I mean the part of the Order sworn to Stross. Them same mad priests and paladins that turned from our true Prophet's teachings, them fillers o' the Patriarch's blimp we popped outside'a Narg. Now the Great Revolt was what...90 years ago? How old was that waltz you said...? Yeah that tracks. Might just be we'll find his wife and daughter inside...might just be."
Y'know Zove told me about the scathsidhe once, the Heartwood Pact that damned them to shadow. All started down there at the crossroads. Shadowcrag was the name of the Stross mansion up on that legendary hill where the Holly King made his sacrifice...the site of that trick murder that let Sarastra get them elves for good. But all them Griffon riders, that whole flying calvary, they were all stationed there just the same, up in them airy bastions with the leaky shadow portal right below. Ever heard that?"
They were exiles now, just like me.
I lit a pipe for the dead and the damned, Stross' shadow vault's cipher a puzzle I could never crack.
The parchment is old. Crumpled. Much of it soaked in long dried blood that obscured whatever was originally written upon the page. A few words are still legible near the top of the page. "Celebration...roasted pheasant...honey soake...spiced....cake." But when Scramsax tries to slip it free of the old servant's grasping hand, the document simply crumbles.
Something creaks from up above. A board shifting beneath a weight. Cold continues to blow through the manor. The hall continues west. Another door on the right and one on the left directly across before it continues on into the shadows and darkness.
"Alright, how 'bout a pincher move? I can climb up through that window while you come up the stairs?"
"I guess I'm the point of the other side, then," Arianna says before moving up the stairs as silently as she can.
Having been unusually quiet and somber once the body was found, Gunnar took the opportunity of its removal from the house to ritually cast Detect Magic. He now follows Arianna up the stairs, extended his senses both mundane and magical.
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It takes a few moments to get your bearings and for your eyes to adjust. The music is louder here, perhaps coming from a nearby room. Darkness seems to gather and pool throughout the room. Especially near the open door leading into the second floor hall. The chamber is a nursery judging from the bassinet and crib sitting near the center of the ten foot by ten foot space. But you quickly realize this is not a place of happiness. The remains of a half dozen stuffed animals lie rotting and moldy across the floor. A mobile gently shifts as the open window brings fresh air into the stale room. The hanging unicorns, pegasi, and hippogriffs suffer from angrily broken wings, horns, and legs. Sharp straight-pins jut out from the heads of several of the wooden creatures.
The once cheerful yellow and blue wall covering is peeling and moldering. More disconcerting are the splatters of a blackish brown substance that you are all too familiar with. Blood. You catch a glimpse of movement. Turning quickly you sigh in relief realizing it is only a mirror. Your own reflection stares at you from across the room. But then your heart quickens again for written across the dusty surface in the same flaking dark brown substance is a statement of madness.
"Despair and Woe. Let Hope Perish Upon Dreams of Damnation. Succumb to the Whisperer of the Wood and Find Eternal Life Upon the Void Wrapped Stars."
As you read the words a quick tingle rolls down your spine like a single claw of fear tickling your flesh. In the reflection of the mirror, the ancient, dust coated bassinet suddenly twitches and shifts.
The notes of the tinkling music drift upon the shadows.
With elven grace and silence, Arianna leads the way up the narrow staircase followed by the dwarven grace and not quite so silent Gunnar. Behind the wizard are Luthael and Ingryd. With each step the cold grows more intense, seeping into bones and causing breath to cloud. A rime of dusty frost coats the upper landing where the stairs then narrow and continue up into a third floor or a hall branches left and right. More webs choke the hall to the left. Undisturbed and filled with darkness, the still present chiming notes of music seem to originate from that void dark direction.
To the right, the webs are broken. Left to dangle in shredded tatters like severed vines along a jungle path. An odd eldritch light flickers from an open door midway down the hall. The dim light and slowly shifting strands of silky webbing create an eerie shadow play upon the wall opposite the open door.
Tilting her head to listen down the hall, the elf's keen ears pick out the soft tap and tinkle of cutlery upon china.
Arianna turns to Gunnar and Ingryd and holds up a finger to her pursed lips, what she hopes is a common sign for silence. She then mouths "wait here" before trying to quietly cast her invisibility spell.
While the words are whispered, there's a thrum in the air as the arcane weave is undone and rewoven into a cloak that shields Arianna from most prying eyes. She winces, hoping that what ever it is casting that light isn't trying too hard to detect any change in the flow of magic. She pushes her fear down as she wraps the cloak around herself and moves as quietly as she can towards the eldritch light to learn what dangers they would soon be facing.
As I sat ridin' the sill the sight of the blood juxtaposed with the crib left me feelin' pretty banjaxed. Yeah, I thought about Vee...what it would take to drive someone to do this. I swear I felt a voice not my own, someone else asking "What price for you to do the same, thief?" Well, I tell you, had me thinkin' for quite a few days after that.
Course I understood the cause. Eh, 'understood' isn't the right word...more had the target painted. Was clear in blood: the Void. That dark brook with silent rapids cutting the night woods. The gnarly knot within Yggdrasil bleedin' shadow. It followed us wherever we went it seemed, since that close encounter at Radovan's. Could happen to anyone, I suppose. You pick your mates to run with and could be that anyone of 'em could gut you in your sleep. Von Florien made a bad pick.
I wasn't havin' any of it, especially with that living darkness cutting me off from the Six. I wet one of my flasks of soil and tossed it in the crib before sliding back outside.
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It is unclear who or even what is responsible for first creating the arcane legumes commonly known as magic beans. Some believe that first crop sprouted from plants tended in Baba Yaga's garden, watered by the effluent of her magic cauldron. Other wizardly analysts speculate that they are the gathered leavings from the original elements of creation. While within the darker temples and hidden shrines, there are those who believe they originated when the Great Serpent, Ouroboros sneezed upon the plains of Midgard. The hardened bits of olfactory effluent sprinkling like a shotgun blast across the land to plant themselves deep in the rich soils of the mortal realms. A short hundred years later the first plants emerged to propagate their seeds. Most scholars find this particular theory to be to disgusting and horrifying to be plausible.
Regardless of their origin, most of the elite educated class consider the nefarious veggie nuts to be a blight upon the mortal realms. Unpredictable and for whatever reason often falling into the hands of the most dangerous of all mortal denizens, the adventurer. Many a treatise could be written on various results of wanton bean planting, in fact several have. Yet the abominable invasives continue to spread and find their way into the nooks and crannies of Midgard, usually to the detriment of the local flora and fauna.
...As the deadly changeling leaps upward, the magic bean sprouts and releases its store of world bending dragon snot. A shudder ripples through the entire mansion and then a geyser erupts from the bassinet. Having tapped into the main brewing vats of the Iron Crags Seven Star Brewing Company, the gushing geyser spews for a dark, heady stout. Thick white foam begins to line the former nursery while the changeling struggles, splutters and screeches, caught between ceiling and the pouring flow of hardy ale. At a rate of well over one hundred gallons per second, the nursery is quickly flooded with ale. The nutty nectar smelling of strong alcohol content soon enough spills from the open window and out the open door.
Of the lurking changeling, Scramsax can see no sign.
Arianna completes her spell not quite silently, but quietly enough. Disappearing from the sight of her companions she begins to creep down the hall, bits and pieces of her footprints appearing in the dust riddled hall. Just as she reaches the door from which the flickering illumination emerges, the entire mansion shudders as if it were just kicked in the gut by a massive rock troll. Moments later an bizarre spluttering screech erupts from the other, shadow filled end of the hall. The cry momentarily drowns out the grating tinkling waltz the still plays and carries throughout the manor house. A rush of air flows down the hall past Ingryd, Luthael, Gunnar and eventually Arianna. It smells of a dwarven pub and dark beer. Looking down Ingryd notices a small rivulet of dark liquid running down the hall from out of the shadows.
In the lighted room, Arianna hears the clatter of a utensil dropping on a plate, the hurried scrape of a chair across the floor quickly followed by the thump...thump...thump of hurried boot steps.
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Gunnar reacts first in shock, then grunts in appreciation at the smell. "First good news in quite some time--someone has beer up there," he says, increasing his pace up the stairs.
Ingryd stops sniffs and points." That way is booze"
Luthael shrugs and follows the dwarf and bearkin. "Whenever in doubt, follow your nose."
Yeah, that Iron Crag stout flushed it out...hooch and singing darkness were a good mix. Wasn't expectin' a changeling though, had to act fast!
I cobbled together a false nose from a rations carrot and some string, adding some aging saggy jowls with a slice of salt pork. A few raw potato slices inflated the cheek bones, and my disguise was complete. See, if that changeling was gonna swipe my face...I needed a different one. Rushing back outside and up the stairs, I tried to find the Six before it did.
"Hey, iths me, Scramsaxth. I never tell liesth."
"Quick, put thesthe on!" handing over a sack of vegetables.
Oh no. This is bad!
Arianna moves forward quietly as she can to see what threat is coming to investigate the commotion behind her. From what she can hear, and smell, it's not yet dangerous to her companions while the unseen figure in the room ahead might be.
Beyond the table is a wide fireplace, but instead of burning with a bright orange flame that gives off warmth and comfort, this stone hearth burns with ice blue eldritch cold. The chill wind that blows through the rest of the manor seems to originate from here as the cold brushes past your face leaving a rime of frost throughout the room.
Two doors exit the room opposite the one you currently peak through. One on either side of the eerie fireplace.
A credenza runs along the nearest wall. Topped with the long ago rotted remains of some past meal, now nothing more than simple mold and dust.
Standing in front of the table, his chair pushed back as he starts to walk toward the door is a ghastly figure. His armored body is covered in a thin layer of frost, a pale white hand grips the hilt of a longsword while the other tosses a rotting napkin back onto the table. His ghost white face is mostly covered by a frost coated beard and mustache. Madness filled, eldritch eyes swirl with demonic power and energy as they look toward the noise coming from down the hall behind you. His armor is old and the same symbol of flaming owl in flight is clearly visible across the chest plate.
The ancient knight suddenly stops midstride and begins to sniff the air. His head sweeps back and forth, wide nostrils flaring at the end of a an almost bird like nose. All motion stops and his unholy eyes glare at the door and where you peer wrapped in your cloak of invisibility.
"Who dares cross my threshold uninvited?" A voice brimming echoing the icy pits of the deepest Abyss calls out. A sound of his sword being drawn grates like nails upon a chalkboard. "I smell you there elf. Your petty trickery cannot keep you hidden. Give yourself up now and I shall offer you a quick death, else I shall give you over to Her. A fate I do not think you will relish."
Out in the hall Scramsax finally catches up to the soft furry warmth of Ingryd and begins to hand out odd looking masks while ale continues to flow at a startling rate from the darkness down the hall.
As the halfling holds out the veggie filled sack, a voice echoes menacing and cold from the room Arianna was investigating. "I smell you there elf. Your petty trickery cannot keep you hidden. Give yourself up now and I shall offer you a quick death, else I shall give you over to Her. A fate I do not think you will relish."
Well about that time, started to sound like there was more than just boozed up baby-snatching changelings afoot...but I warned the crew just the same with a quick whisper "Changelingsth about...face shtealers. Plusth whatever Bursht just dishcovered."
I decided to gamble "Come on out, Von Florien. I've got your pension payment from Shtross...been a long time comin', but westh promised it were comin'...you've been recommisshioned. We got a job for ya. A certain griffon is waiting outshide to shee you..."
Meanwhile, I climbed up Griz' back and wedged meself up in the ceiling...ready to ambush from above.
Ingryd takes the mask and dons it to the best of her ability. Strangely it wasnt the best as her muzzle and face were not compribale to that of a more classic human, galfling, dwarf or elven face. Still she took the pint sized halflings advice.
" Okay, how do I look...also booze" Ingryd says lettinf her hammers flame dance and light the path.
Well, this doesn't sound good.
Arianna's mind whirls as she tries to decide if she should get more out of the knight or if she should run back to the others. With the chill in the air and a burning desire to not find out the hard way which of the malevolent hers the knight could be referring to, Arianna tries to sneak back to the others. He might be able to sniff her out, but she's willing to bet his sense of smell isn't as keen as a hound's.
She does pull her bow out and nocks an arrow as she makes her way back to the stairs and readies a shot for when he comes out.
Gunnar puts on the mask and follows Ingryd up the stairs. He has his hammer out and ready in case the entity above is dangerous and decides to fight, though he would rather have his mug out right now.
Luthael accepts and examines the mask with puzzlement. After a second, he puts on the mask trusting the halfling. He grips his shield and prays to Khors for guidance.
The cold of the void billows through the doorway as the knight approaches the doorway. Silky webbing hardens and then shatters into a frosty mist as the ancient denizen steps into the hall. An aura of pale eldritch blue shimmers around the bloodless features as he swings his gaze up and down the hall.
Scramsax's slightly muffled taunt's echo brightly down the hall. At the mention of the Von Florien name the knight's eyes flare with grim hatred. Moments later Arianna's arrow shatters against the knight's heavy armor, the iron tip dropping to the ground with a small clatter.
"That name has not been spoken here for nearly a hundred long years." The grinding, unearthly voice screeches. "All that once was the weakness and cowardly mortal known as Rupert von Florien has been cleansed and freed from earthly perils. For your trespass in word and deed, I shall deliver you into Her loving embrace."
The knight's jaw opens wide and then distends itself even wider. A pale blue glow emerges at the back of the undying throat. The house trembles and shivers beneath your feet.
"WHOOSH!"
The fury of winter plunges down the hall. Webs freeze, snap and shatter turning into tiny ice spikes that cut and pummel ancient wood and flesh alike. The ale freezes instantly turning the stairs and hall into a slippery nightmare. Making matters even worse, the liquid continues to flow across the now slick, frozen surface creating even more treacherous footing.
After a few moments, the knights jaw clamps itself closed again and he slowly strides toward the top of the stairs sword glimmering in the eerie blue light.
Gunnar throws up a quick abjuration to lessen the chill, trying to impose his shield between himself and the chill knight.