Belros stops near Allysen, realisation dawning in his eyes.
"Allysen, are the Dorthana clan your foes? Or in league with them? You clearly knew that symbol well."
Allysen looks from Moves with Grace to Lord Belros, her breathing ragged and her eyes wild. She opens her mouth to speak, but the words catch in her throat. She should have left, her own conscious screams at her. She should have left! She tuns away from both of them, dropping like a puppet with cut strings into a ball with her hands clasped over her neck to protect it.
"I-I'm sorry."
The words come out in a hoarse, broken sob. She curls tighter, expecting the stinging blows she is sure are to come.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I should have left. I should have left. I should've left. I should've left! I shoulda left! I shoulda left! Shoulda left! Shoulda left," she cries over and over again as she rocks back and forth with each word. The words come faster and faster, blurring into an unintelligible stream before she breaks down in a hysterical, sobbing fit that ends with her screams turning into body-wracking coughs. Once her emotions had spent themselves and the fit had played out, Allysen lay curled up on the floor whimpering with each breath.
"It's too late," she weakly cries, "She knows. She always knows. Ma Belladonna always knows. She'll find me. She'll kill all of you. She'll do it for what I've done. It's too late, far too late. I've damned us all."
With patience, Belros waits out Allysen reply.
He then responds, as softly as he can manage.
"Allysen, this...Belladonna. What happened that she would hunt you? What manner of being is she? As for her slaying us...that is far from certain given the stalwart folk arrayed here."
As Isagoras pulls up the trap door, a booming voice calls out: "Welcome fools, welcome to your death!"
The voice is loud and seems to be coming out of mid-air, so is clearly of supernatural origin, but still plenty scary.
Below the carefully hidden trap door is a stone stairway leading down into darkness.
Allysen flinches and cries out at the voice, but is too drained for anything more. After another moment she slowly sits up against the wall, her eyes looking haunted and dead with silent tears streaming from them.
"A witch, a vile, powerful witch. She's after this," she says as she holds up one hands and a ball of shadow appears above it. "She'll kill you just because you know of it, and she'll do it slow to punish me by forcing me to listen as you scream."
Her voice is eerily calm and flat now, as if all the emotion she had had been leached out of her. The shadow fades and she lowers her hand. She passively sits there, as if waiting for something.
"It sounds as if Isagoras has found something. Maybe it can kill us quick," she says as she stands and begins to walk back to the room Isagoras is in.
"Well, that's not much of a welcome." Wolfram deadpans.
"It's not like anything is preventing us from just leaving!" he shouts into the darkness. Then, to Isagoras, "After you, my friend."
Wolfram reignites his lantern and illuminates the stairway.
The stairway is circular and looks like it has been recently used.
Before Allysen walks off, Belros states:
"Even a potent witch can be slain, Allysen. I would have you bear that in mind."
He then also walks towards the trapdoor
MWG, who is fairly emotionless due to her martial arts training, is so shocked by Allysen's breakdown that she has no idea what to say. Then when Allysen's voice goes dead-pan, she is even more baffled. Finally, when Allysen gets up and speaks of hoping to die quickly, she just gives up trying to understand.
There is a faint smell of moss and mildew wafting up from the spiral stone staircase descending down into the darkness. The walls are rough stone as if they were dug out of the bedrock. Somewhere in the distance far below, you can also hear a slow drip impacting a hard surface.
Allysen looks back at Belros, her face a mask save for her eyes, haunted eyes full of terror.
"But do we have the strength," she asks before continuing and being swallowed by shadows, a strangely fitting metaphor for her own sanity and emotions.
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"Oh that's just pish-posh," Isagoras says to Wolfram as the greeting echoes upward. "If there were an entity of any true power down there it would have crawled up and killed us by now! Methinks there is more bark than bite down there."
Isagoras dutifully lets the more eager persons of Belros, MWG, and Allysen take the lead down the stairs before he hefts his rapier and follows them down.
"Do try to keep it down up there!" Isagoras asks following Allysen's cacophony.
As the last of you start down the spiral staircase, a loud thump can be heard coming from somewhere on the second floor of the haunted house. A few seconds later, a second loud thump can be heard.
Allysen freezes when the first thump sounds. When the second thump sounds, she slowly turns around, looking up and wearing an expression of pure terror.
"W-what was that?"
"Large, heavy, not hard, and striking a floor above us, though not directly so. I suggest that we turn around and seek out this foe upstairs. Straight away."
Allysen swallows her fear and nods, slipping past the others and leading the way.
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"Oh very well. I suppose Mr. Overconfident in the basement is going nowhere and will wait upon our leisure. Goodness knows that if it could leave it would have simply been waiting for us upon our entrance!
Oh, my, Allysen is already heading up. We may as well follow lest she be eaten by a grue."
Whatever one of those are.
Wolfram does not sneak. When he finds himself suddenly at the front of the line instead of the back, he dutifully returns to the main floor to allow the others to pass.
Lord Belros follows Allysen's movements, as he will maintain his relative position in the group.
The group heads up the rickety staircase to the second floor landing that overlooks the entry hallway. From here there are two ways to go, and you're not sure form which direction the thumping sound came, and don't hear it anymore.
From here you can either walk eastward or westward, although Allysen warns that the floorboards heading westward look pretty mildewed, and she's not sure if they will support everyone's weight.
Quietly, Belros whispers:
"Let us try east first. Be ready to fight."
Allysen nods and draws her sword as she turns down the eastern corridor. Her heart is pounding in her chest as she gets close to finding out what was making the noise.
MWG is right behind Allysen, sword drawn.
Lord Belros follows suit, blade in hand.
The eastern corridor is only 40 feet in length and has only three doors branching off of it, all to the south.
Moving up to the first door, you listen and check for traps, but find nothing out of the ordinary. Carefully opening it, you see a bedroom that is dirty and decayed; the floorboards appear intact but rubbish is scattered everywhere and webs are profuse on the walls and ceiling. From the doorway, you can see a glint of light in the fireplace from what appears to be a small, highly reflective object. There is no furniture in here.
Allysen looks around the room for a moment before stepping inside. Her posture is tense, like a spring wound too tight. She carefully makes her way over to the shiny object to see what it is.
Belros quietly enters the room, wary for danger.
Allysen walks over to the fireplace to examine the shiny objects which turns out to be a hunk of worthless crystal.
Just as she is about to give up on searching through the fireplace, there is a skittering sound from the chimney. Both Allysen and Lord Belros jump back as three dog-sized black spiders come crawling down to attack!
Initiative:
Wolfram: Joker! Group Benny!
Isagoras: Ace of Spades
Allysen: 9 of Clubs
Spiders: 5 of Spades
Belros: 5 of Diamonds
MWG: 4 of Diamonds
Allysen wastes no time in working to dispatch the too large spiders skittering out after her. Her sword dives down at the first one's head.
"Why is it always bugs!"
"There must be a safer way to clear out a chimney."
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"Hahahaha! I knew it! At last I am not the only one to be pounced upon by their fetid kiss!
Nay, Wolfram, we would need some kind of spider-killing trap for every chimney we came across! Although, you would think that someone would have invented such a thing by now, given the frequency.
In the meantime we have but the old fashioned ways of...MAGIC!" Isagoras spits out as he conjures a ball of lightning from the aether.
Allysen plunges her sword into the first spider, skewering it through to the ground and nearly getting her weapon caught in the soft floorboards.
Wolfram's heavenly bolt sizzles the spider, which twitches and seems momentarily stunned or else is distracted while pondering some deep spider thoughts.
Behind him, Isagoras fires off a bolt of lightning, frying the poor arachnid completely and leaving only a charred husk behind, filling the room with the smell of burnt spider.
Belros speeds his advance into a full charge!
Belros charges into the room and swipes at the only remaining arachnid, killing it instantly!
Belros wipes his blade, warily listening for loud thumping alerted by the commotion.
Hearing none, he speaks softly:
"The vermin alone would be a threat, let alone any baleful influences upon this building. Let us continue cleansing it."
"We could leave," Allysen mumbles as she cleans her sword.
Not believing that the others would do that for even a moment, Talienda moves onto the next room down the hall.
MWG, right behind Allysen, also listens for any sounds from behind the door :
= 11, a Raise
Moves with Grace listens at the next door, and when she doesn't hear anything, moves for the party to open the door.
You find a former bedroom, quite dirty and smelling heavily of mildew and rot. Rotting draperies still hang in tatters from the wall, covered in mildew and fungus from years of exposure to the outside. The window glass across from the doorway is completely missing and the morning wind blows in from the ocean, sending a chill through everyone. The floorboards in the room look particularly rotten and its eastern half is visibly sagging. The room is completely unfurnished, and from the doorway, you can't see anything of note.
Wolfram scowls at the floor. An old house like this, exposed to the elements, especially with a broken window letting all the briny air and rain inside - the floorboards are unlikely to be structurally sound. A man of his prodigious girth has to be extra careful where he steps up here.
"Move with grace," he says, encouragingly.
Belros looks at Allysen and Moves with Grace.
"What is your assessment? Withdraw from this room or explore it?"
"Leave it. I'm not seeing anything worth risking a nasty fall over," Allysen answers.
Belros nods.
"Fair. Let us move on then."
Allysen nods and goes to the next door.
Before leaving the moldy bedroom, MWG gives it a once-over look-see without going inside :
= 7, a Success
MWG then follows Allysen in listening at the next door :
= 5, a Success
Lord Belros follows, ready to step into the breach as necessary.