"No!" Mithralline growls, clearly frustrated enough that she's almost ready to act like Thras. Just as clearly, she's completely unharmed.
She stalks around, collecting her discarded weapons as the other recover.
"Something's wrong in this stupid Boneyard. It's clearly affecting me," she explains. "Maybe my vision's off? I can't seem to hit anything..."
”Let me take a look.”
Sarela looked over Mithralline both physically and magically. She checked her vision, looked for lingering magic auras, and even checked Mithralline’s equipment. Once finished she said, ”I can’t find any physical or magical cause for the sudden lack of accuracy. However...it is possible that the environment we find ourselves in is causing your mind to play tricks on you, and that is affecting your accuracy. Perhaps if you take a few moments to meditate and calm your mind, it might help.”
Thras shakes his head. "This place is full of tricks and misdirection. But clearly they're afraid of us if they're stooping to such low levels to stop us. Press forward, we will fight our way out of this hellscape."
Aira looks at her friends, with a few tears in her eyes. "I am sorry. I could not help but run from the hound. I found myself cornered, and thought for sure I was a goner. But you all came back for me. You risked yourselves for me. I am so grateful that we are here together, to work through this together."
She tightens up her grip on her staff before walking over to Mith. placing her hand on his shoulder, "Mithralline, I am sure we will get to the bottom of what is bothering you together, and you will be back on your feet in no time!"
She then rushes over to Sarela and gives her a big hug. "I am glad to see you are safe. " Turning to Sam and Aralah. "Thank you both for your wonderful healing magic. You will have to try to show me how to do that sometime. I feel wonderful now. Do you all think it is safe to go back into the music room and get what we actually came for?"
Sam winces slightly at Thras' display of unnecessary violence but forces herself to grin at the others. "I'm ok. That was tough. But like I always say, we can pull through if we work together."
She grasps her necklace and sends healing energy into herself and the others. "Thank you, Blessed Attendant" she whispers.
Sarela looks at Thras, her face betraying no emotion as she says, ”Not every hindrance we encounter is intentionally placed to obstruct us or make us fail. Some are merely the result of the environment we find ourselves in.” You ignorant buffoon.
As they return to the music room, Sarela says, ”Prior to our encounter with the Yeth Hound, I noticed a magical aura coming from a drum in there.”
Mithralline takes a deep breath and tries to calm down
"Well, something's wrong," she repeats, "but don't worry. I'll figure it out and it's not going to stop me!"
Once the others as ready, she joins them in returning to the room where the dog first accosted them, to collect the key (and her lance).
Aralah follows behind the others she gives a nod to Aira when the woman gives her thanks but doesn't say anything in return.
She is clearly frustrated by what happened, never having run away in fear like that before. As they move back into the music room she takes up a position by the door and watches the hounds corpse for a few moments making sure it doesn't come back to try and attack them.
Moving back into the music room, the party has no difficulty in acquiring the key they needed this time around. Scooping it up, you make your way up the stairs to the locked door and unlock it without difficulty. Opening the door reveals a drawing room beyond.
This room has several overstuffed chairs and a few low tables and cabinets. A closed door is to your south and glass door to the north opens onto a small semicircular balcony.
In the center of the room on the floor, an origami grasshopper sits alone.
Sarela casts detect magic and sweeps the room for magical auras.
Aira stands by Sarela's side and aids her detection. "Good call cous. This room gives me the jeebies"
Sarela detects magic not coming from the grasshopper, but from a deck of cards in the corner of the room.
Curious, Sam waddles carefully toward the deck of cards and looks at it closely. If it doesn't seem dangerous, she picks it up.
"Before you pick it up, Sam, let me see if we can figure out what it is."
While the others are messing with the deck of cards and it is clear the hound is not going to come back to life and try to get them Aralah slowly makes her way over to Aira's side as she whispers to the woman "Sorry I left you alone with the hound earlier. I've never had fear come over me like that before and I would never leave someone behind like that willingly." She looks down to the floor as she finishes, obviously ashamed of how things transpired.
Aira places her hand upon Aralah's shoulder, whispering back. "Do not fret my dear friend. I do not believe any of us had control of our minds. This place... It is definitely affecting each of us drastically. I would never doubt your courage, nor your strength." She gives her a soft smile, followed by a not so soft hug.
She then calls out to Sam and Sarela. "Anything peculiar about this deck that you see?"
Sam waits a moment before picking up the deck in case Sarela discovers something about it.
Mithralline waits for the others to handle the deck and goes to take a closer look at the grasshopper.
Thras rolls his neck and waits for the others to figure out the path forward; this place was a puzzlebox that he couldn't claw his way through.
Sarela identifies the cards as a deck of illusions.
Mith unfolds the grasshopper and finds a neat script that reads: "The new Master wants you gone from here. I have little patience."
Additionally, the liquor cabinet contains six fine glasses engraved with a detailed image of a snail. The glasses are worth 20 gp each. The cards and dice are sufficient to form a common gambler’s kit and a deck of harrow cards.
While the others are messing with the deck Aralah moves over to the glass door to look through and see what lies beyond. She will then go over to the closed door and listen to see if there is anything waiting on the other side.
Once Sarela determines what it is, Sam picks up the deck and looks it over. Then she draws some of the cards to look at them in curiosity.
"We're apparently upsetting someone," Mithralline says, showing the others the note. " ... Good!"
She seems quite satisfied, certainly happier than she'd been since the Yeth hound incident.
Aralah hears nothing behind the door. Opening it, she sees there is nothing but the swirling mists of nothingness that surround the dead roads.
With nowhere left to go but south, the party moves onward into the library.
This elegant library is in shambles. Piles of shredded books are heaped untidily throughout the room. A small desk is scarred by deep grooves across its surface. Several large, umbrella-shaped masses of parchment and torn paper hang from the ceiling. Sliding double doors lead out of this room to the north and south, and a narrow glass door in the west wall leads to a small semicircular balcony. The glass of the door is badly cracked.
Sarela points out the wads of paper. "Those look like Wasp's Nests. We should be careful we don't disturb them."
Aralah nods to Sarela's suggestion. She leaves the balcony door alone though wonders why it may be badly cracked like that. Instead she moves up to the other sliding doors, checks for traps and listens to make sure there isn't an immediate threat on the other side.
Sam gives the wasp nests a wide berth and steps up behind Aralah to help out.
Mithralline checks her pockets, but realizes she doesn't have anything to fight a wasp swarm with very easily, so is content to avoid them, as Sarela suggests.
She tries to figure out if she can get close to the desk to figure out what damaged it -- and more importantly, why -- without disturbing the wasps.
While Mithralline studies the scarred desk, Aralah moves to the southern doors and slides them open after she is satisfied it is safe. Beyond is a study that has several tall wingback chairs, a small writingdesk, and a peculiar iron statue of nine bearded snails climbing a rocky waterfall. One sliding double door leads north, while another leads east, and a wide glass door opens onto a small semicircular balcony to the south.
Mithralline finds a gaudy fire opal with 350 while examining the desk, but she doesn't have time to do anything about it because the room erupts in a cacophony of noise as wasps suddenly begin pouring out of the nests scattered around the room!
Thousands of diminutive-sized creatures begin to emerge from crumpled paper, behind the bookshelf, under the desk, and numerous other places scattered around the room.
Sarela knows that wasp swarms surround and attack any living prey in their paths, and are swift to seek out new prey once their anger is aroused. An enraged wasp swarm often loses track of its hive or the original source of its anger, and presented with a constant series of new targets to swarm and sting, a swarm can continue its rampage nonstop until it is destroyed or dispersed.
Sarela moves back the way they came, out of the room, and stands next to the door, ready to close it, as she says, "I suggest we all get out of the room, shut the door, and come up with a plan for dealing with these wasps, or else they'll sting us to death. Weapons will do nothing to stop them."
"Damn it!" Mithralline swears, annoyed that the wasps attacked despite their efforts to not upset them ... and that there's nothing she can do against them.
"This way!" she calls, grabbing Aralah and dragging her through the southern doors. "Thras, make sure no one's left behind!"
Thras waves his hand in annoyance, swatting a few strays as he backs out of the room. He grabs Sam around the midsection, picking her wholly up with one hand and moving out of the room.
Sam is startled but gets the idea quickly enough. Getting away from the swarm seems like quite a good idea.
Aralah doesn't put up a fight as Mith quickly grabs hold of her and pulls her along.
"Oh gosh! It never ends does it?"
Aira waits for the room to clear of her allies before she holds up her staff and shouts "Serenity Now!" as her staff charges and lets out one final blast of fire towards the buzzing insects. She then high tails it back out the room as well, signaling for Sarela to close the door.
With everyone out of the room, Sarela closes the door.
Aralah grabs Mith and Thras grabs Sam, heading north.
Aira blasts the warms her fire, incinerating wasps and books alike in the library. Before the smoke can clear, she half pulled into the drawing room to the north as Sarela slides the door shut behind them. Everyone stares anxiously at the cracks around the door, waiting for the wasps to come pouring through at any moment, but they never do.
Frowning she notes "Well I'm glad we at least got out of there without anyone getting hurt."
She moves over to the balcony and opens the window hoping to take a look outside and see if there is anyway the could possibly move from balcony to balcony to circumvent the wasp room and get to the room beyond.
Sarela exhales in relief. "I don't have any magic that can affect the swarm, but I might have magic that might help keep you from being affected by them, Aira."
"We could look around the place and see if there's anything else that could help," Mithralline says. "I was trained to fight BIG things, not a bunch of bugs."
Aralah returns to the balcony, looking out. This room is positioned in the northwest corner of the second floor of the manor. There are no other balconies on this side of the building, but she knows that there was one on the west side around the corner in the room they just fled from.
Sam considers the problem and nods. "It might be dead but I agree. We shouldn't go back in there if we don't have something to do about it." She turns to Airah. "That was very helpful. Could you do that again if we needed it?"
"Maybe we can try to find a way to go around it? Down on ground level?" Mithralline suggests .
Aralah nods to Mith suggestion "Think we could maybe use the balconies assuming the next room has one. Will just need to see if we can climb up. Do we want to go do that now, or..." She looks to Aira "Do we need to stop for some rest?"