Thras stops, nodding to Aira's plan and subconsciously puffing his chest a little. "Aye, blast and clash. I used to work with an evoker that did that. Don't worry, I'll give them plenty to focus on after your magic." He follows the plan of the others, reading himself to storm the room after Aira releases a flashy spell.
Sam doesn't want to let her friends fight bugs by themselves so she goes along to make sure they're ok.
The garden is down the stairs and to the right." Which you will note is the opposite direction of the bugs. Opening the door you find a gloomy dining room that contains a narrow table with a single high-backed wooden chair at each end. Other chairs and a sideboard stand against the room’s eastern wall. The headless corpse of a hairy, humanoid creature sprawls across the middle of the table being eaten by three giant fleas.
Aira rushes in the room, and takes a position to hit as many as she can with one shot.
"Lets get them!"
As soon as the fire clears Thras bounds in front of Aira, giving a joyous roar as he winds a full-bodied kick into one of the bugs!
Sarela steps to the door, focuses on one of the flies, and hexes it with ill-fortune before cackling madly.
Sam moves forward a bit and stays ready to help.
Current HP 25/25; HP 31/31; Swift Refuge: 0/1
AC 18, touch 12, flat-footed 16, CMD 18 (+1 dodge bonus against Large creatures; +2 vs. Huge or bigger creatures)
Fort +5, Ref +3, Will +1
Challenge: 0/1; Tactician (5 rounds): 0/1; Champion challenge: 0/1
Effects: 4 Con damage, bless
Mithralline sighs for a moment as the others decide to attack the bugs for no reason, but then she shrugs and charges in following the fiery blast.
The bugs manage to avoid the worse of Aira's spell and though crispy, still manage to stay up and fighting.
Thras moves in and quickly eliminates the blueish one however, one swing of his blade divides the creature into two pieces. Mithralline charges in and buries her lance in the adjacent one, taking it out of the fight and leaving only one foe.
The last bug moves over the corpse on the table and tries to take a bite out of Thras . The bug misses, unable to get solid positioning.
Aralah looses two quick shots one after the other at the bug.
Thras laughs as the creature's teeth scrape harmlessly against him, and he turns and viciously claws it!
Mithralline, surprised the bug isn't coming after clearly the most dangerous target -- herself -- misses, but then follows it up with another jab of the lance.
Aralah's second shot coupled with Thras's claws and Mithrallien's lance eviserate the flea, erasing it from existence in bloody fashion.
Quickly searching the room, you find a sideboard that contains an elegant tablecloth with gold thread that is worth 200 gp.
Other than the door you came through on the west, there is another closed door that leads north.
"Great job, and glad to see no one was hurt. One less thing to worry about attacking us in the back while we are here. Shall we to the garden now and take a look at that next puzzle, or continue through this new path we have uncovered?"
"Let's head to the garden. I'm sure we'll have to come back this way at some point, but for now, let's focus on the task at hand."
Moving west back through the foyer, the party opens the western doors and moves into a room that is not the garden.
This large parlor has several padded chairs and an enormous sofa with upholstery so dark that it is barely visible in the dim room. A delicate wooden table with a distinct inlaid pattern bears a full decanter. Doors lead out to the west, north, and east.
The table has an inlaid board for a popular strategy game called imperial conquest; the game pieces are in a drawer beneath the table. The decanter contains excellent brandy, although there are no glasses here.
Sighing, Sarela says, "I guess we have to make our way through the rest of the house to find the garden."
Sam nods. "Yes let's see what's in the garden. Puzzles sound much better than fighting nasty things."
Seeing no threats Aralah goes to check the other doors. She hears the music from the other side of the north door, but then spots a secret door just to the right of the main northern door, pointing it out to the others. Before doing anything she checks all the doors for traps, then looks to the others "Which door do we want to try?"
Thras comes up behind Aralah, grinning and clapping her on the shoulder. "Good eye!" He checks the secret door to see if it's unlocked.
Thras sees the door is unlocked and opens it to find a single narrow 5' passageway that extends 30' in length before it dead ends and splits both east and west at the far end.
Thras goes to the end of the hallway and looks both directions, and if he sees no difference goes to the right.
At the end of the first hallway, the corridor continues 20' in both east and west directions with two small, closed wooden doors on either side of the corridor. At the far east end there is a closed wooden door moving east. Thras gets the impression that these like are back hallways that a servant would use to service the manor. Checking a few of the closets on either side of the passageway, he finds they contain storage for mundane items. It looks like this passageway hasn't been used in quite some time.
The door on the far east isn't a storage room however, and he can tell there is a larger room behind it.
"Well, it seems the secret door doesn't possess any creatures that might try to kill us, and Thras has already started walking down it, so we might as well go that way."
"Good job, everyone," Mithralline says, gaze lingering on the game. Were situations different, she'd love to sit down and play a game or two. She even glances at the game pieces but finally moves on with the others.
Lance ready, she listens for a second at the other door -- if she doesn't hear anything, she gives it a quick once-over to make sure it's safe, and then heads in.
Mithralline detects these are chess pieces, nothing gets past her quick senses.
Everyone follows Thras back down the corridor and to the east. When he opens the door he reveals a small pantry thas two other doors doors, one sturdy wooden door that leads outside the manor to the east and another that leads south. The shelves here contain a few bags and boxes, including a few bottles of wine. Several of the wine bottles are valuable for their rarity; four of them are worth 60 gp each and eight are worth 15 gp each.
Aralah goes to check each of the doors, suspecting the heavy door may lead out the garden, but wanting to make sure nothing is waiting on the other side.
Aralah detects sounds of some type of movement to the south and to the east she senses nothing behind it at all.
Aralah makes note to Thras of what she has found and suggest "If we are looking for the garden, probably the east door I think, if we want to cover our backs, should probably see what is making that noise to the east."
"The garden is where we need to go. Let's head there, but keep an eye out in case anything comes up behind us. Perhaps whatever it is will stay put - the fleas certainly didn't seem to care about us until we attacked them."
Aralah opens the door to the east and finds that it is a backdoor that leads out of the mansion back outside. Other than the eaves that hang from the building, there is a swirling grey mist that represents the unknown area off from the dead roads that the psychopomp guides warned you to stay clear of.
Opening the door and finding nothing but grey mist Aralah promptly closes and looks back at the others "Is this even the right side of the building? Maybe we needed to go the other way?"
"We're going the wrong direction," Mithralline points out, trying to herd the others back toward the garden.
Aira lagging a bit behind follows mith's lead and examines the game pieces, casting detect magic, while evaluating them.
Looking through the east door Aralah opened, Aira chimes in "Well, at least we have a route to flee if we need to. I guess we should head back another way?' She then casts detect magic towards the previous south door, and alerts her allies to what she finds.
Mithralline leads the group back to the parlor and over to the far western double doors which you figure must lead to the garden. The doors open easily and reveal the location you have been searching for.
Grimy glass comprises the walls and ceiling of this large greenhouse, barely admitting the dim moonlight. Benches filled with live potted plants line the sides of the room; bags of soil and gardening equipment are stashed underneath. Some of the bags are open, spilling dirt across the greenhouse floor. Strange tracks, as if left by a large earthworm, crisscross the dirt. A sturdy iron-framed glass door leads out of this room to the west, while a sliding double door leads out to the east. A small slate chalkboard hangs on a peg near the sliding door, with a piece of chalk tied to the frame. Several garden tools are piled up near the straw in the southwest corner of the room.
Mithralline starts heading for the chalkboard.
Aralah follows the others and looks at the tracks but she is distracted as Mith makes a move for the chalkboard, keeping her eyes peeled for any threats.
Thras sidles up to Aralah. "Hey, what do you reckon made those tracks?"
"Oh, neat. Tracks" Aira whispers as she follows along with Aralah.
"The chalkboard is there. Let's go figure out the puzzle."
As Thras moves in close and draws her attention back to the tracks she looks at them a little closer and then shrugs but points to the northwest corner of the room as she calls out to Mith "Wait! Whatever made these, might still be here. Over there."
It is indeed over there still. As Aralah points it out to Mith who starts to close in on the northwest corner, a pot in the southeast corner of the room behind everyone tips over and falls the ground, shattering. As everyone turns to take a look, a creature with a stout canine torso that tops a slimy mass resembling an earthworm appears. Disgusting veins dangle from its face and they pulse as it casts a spell on Mithralline.
Esipils prey upon the unease that comes from living among beasts. The civilized world has domesticated animals, but those creatures are just a step away from wild animals, and esipils make sure that humanoids who live around them remember that.
They ingratiate themselves with humanoids (particularly neutral evil spellcasters who might take them on as familiars) by acting like loving pets. They then delight in aggressive episodes, barking and snapping until called down by their masters. They return to a fawning obedience for a time—until the next inevitable outburst.
Instead of gnashing jaws, an esipil’s bite involves a lashing mass of fleshy veins and viscera that can grasp at its opponent. Esipils use this attack to distract their opponents, savaging entangled victims with their vicious claw attacks until their masters pull them away.
Seeing the thing Aralah notes to the others "This is one of those sakhil the painting was talking about. It will try and grab a hold of you and lash out at you with claws."
After explaining to the others she takes aim with her bow and fires.
Current HP 25/25; HP 31/31; Swift Refuge: 0/1
AC 18, touch 12, flat-footed 16, CMD 18 (+1 dodge bonus against Large creatures; +2 vs. Huge or bigger creatures)
Fort +5, Ref +3, Will +1
Challenge: 0/1; Tactician (5 rounds): 0/1; Champion challenge: 0/1
Effects: 4 Con damage, bless?
Mithralline's hardly one to be scared by a monster -- she's trained to kill them, after all -- and she brings her lance to bear immediately!
Sarela stepped back in shock - and to put a little more distance between her and the sakhil.
She focuses on the sakhil, hexing it, before she cackles loudly.
Thras grimaces at the creature. "Something that ugly needs to be put out of its misery." He strides forward with Mith, then reels back and delivers a mighty kick!
But one with a lot more power than accuracy.
"Ewww Gross!" Aira shouts, but watching her allies all immediately get in formation, she knows this is just no little worm. She steps up next to Mith, and sets the entire area aflame.
DC16 Ref for Half