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Kitchen's are always happy places
Andwise quickly looks through the cupboards- eyes glowing purple and open to any magical auras. He quickly takes stock of the shelves, grabbing any nice bottle of wine or liquor he can find.
Tanssi moves through the other flank, looking for any signs of disturbance in the kitchen, or things that look out of place.
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Irlana documents the silverware and porcelain dishes, as these are definitely something that should get auctioned off. Nothing else looks valuable though.
The pantry is mostly non perishable foods that wouldn't be worth selling. Irlana makes a note of it though so that it could distributed as charity to Belhaim's poorer citizens. The party also finds a basket filled with dry meal worms; clearly this is what Hunclay was feeding to his pet birds.
Sadly, with the exception of a small bottle of cooking sherry in the pantry there doesn't appear to be any alcohol in the kitchen.
No one detects any unfamiliar magical auras in this area.
There is one more door on the southern wall that is beckoning.
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Irlana takes the bird food back to the cages, carefully giving each cage the amount that she thinks is correct. Little birds can't eat that much.... "Empty cages won't be worth much. But with the birds!?!"
Seeing the door apparently stuck Irlana glances around the room. "Maybe the mage has another hidden switch to hold that door barred?" She starts searching the walls of the room for anything odd....
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"Best we keep moving- at least for now. There must be another entrance to the space. If we finish cataloguing the space and we still don't have access to this area we can consider other options"
Waving the others through, Andwise heads back through the main area and to the west, allowing the others to join him before opening the door leading to, presumably, a corridor.
" I would assume that it is better to finish our notations of this floor in a systematic manner, before heading up the spiral stairs..."
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The party leaves the door in the kitchen behind and heads to the door on the other side of the grand hall. There is a narrow hallway with two doors near the end: one on the left and the other on the right. A barred and frosted window at the end of the hallway lets in a little light, leaving the passageway dimly lit.
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Ilvaria doesn't detect any auras through the door and no one sees any signs of traps on it. The door itself is unlocked and opens easily. This room looks like a parlor for entertaining guests. In the northeast corner of this expansive room is a huge globe of Golarion cradled in a polished mahogany stand. Sextants, astrolabes, and paintings of unearthly landscapes are hung on the walls.
None of these items have any kind of magical aura, but they may be valuable when sold in the auction.
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Growing bored of the careful cataloguing, Andwise debates with Tanssi in his head over the likelihood of traps in the house.
I don't know Tanssi, it just seems like something that a crazy wizard would do... No I don't actually know any crazy wizards... Just a minute, who are you to criticize MY life experiences, creature not even from this PLANE of existence...
As the work clears, he nods upward to the stairs.
"Up before down, at least that would be my preference..."
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The party begins to carefully climb up the stairs, checking for traps or anything else suspicious looking. Looking down the spiraling stairs they can see that there is still early afternoon sunlight coming in through windows on the floor above.
This lushly furnished library features three tall bookcases running north to south down the center of the chamber and another bookcase of iron in the northeast corner. A stuffed grizzly bear towers in the northwest corner, its claws and fangs bared aggressively. The east wall features sixteen paintings of various planets in gilt frames. A ladder in the west side of the ceiling leads up to a trap door
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Irlana stops Sir Falcon before he can try to open the case. "There's magic on the lock, and three of the books in there, that one, that one, and that one. But we can't risk this right now. The mage might have trapped them to explode if opened without his specified command word. Besides possibly hurting or killing you, it might destroy everything in the case!"
"We'll come back to this room later to list the books and possibly examine the case better. He may have provided clues in case he was hit by magic and forgot how he trapped them."
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Ilvaria detects a faint abjuration aura coming from the lock of the iron case. This aura seems identical to the auras she's seen on the other locked doors in Hunclay's manor. She gets to the first two pairs of magical books but can't figure out what kind of magical aura they have. Then she gets to the third magical book and she detects a moderate aura of enchantment emanating from it.
Ilvaria also sees that there are two magical auras emanating from the door on the eastern wall of the library. One aura is the familiar faint abjuration aura she has seen on other locked doors but there is also a faint evocation aura on the door as well.
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Irlana notices that there seems to be a tiny mechanism built into the lock of the iron bookcase. It looks like a spring-loaded mechanical trap. Usually, these types of traps don't trigger if the lock is opened with the correct key but do go off if the lock is tampered with.
Irlana points out the mechanism. "I'm pretty sure that's a trap. It should be safe to open IF we find the key. Without it we really need to just document it and leave it alone for now. And we can't break it or that'll be decreasing the value of the items for the family or to be auctioned.""Maybe if we find the the mage's bed chamber or desk?"
Falcon nods in agreement Yeah, let's go ahead and explore around see if we can find the keys
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The party climbs up the ladder to the observation chamber at the top of the manor. Within this glass-domed chamber is an enormous telescope that sits upon a platform over a veritable sea of metal gears. An angled metal chair sits below the device, within reach of a cluster of pedals and levers that enable its occupant to perform adjustments to the telescope’s orientation. Tables covered in books and charts occupy the southeast corner. The view of the surrounding skies afforded by the glass dome is breathtaking in its expanse.
A 1-foot-wide ledge runs around the edge of the dome. Sitting on the southwest portion of this lip is an ugly creature that looks like an obese infant, but with leathery skin mottled with spots of grime, curling ram’s horns, sharp blackened teeth, and black eyes with no pupils. The strange creature has two pairs of fleshy brown bat wings. It turns its head to look at the party and gives them a wicked smirk with a mouth filled with tiny, sharp black fangs.
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Ilvaria moves up to the chair and tries to identify it, but she can quickly tell that the chair itself is not enchanted but has had some kind of spell cast on it. But without having seen the spell being cast, she won't be able to tell what the enchantment does until it's been activated.
When she moves towards the strange winged baby the creature flies up out of reach. She can now see that the magic item in it's hand is a wand formed out of twisted copper wire.
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Irlana doesn't know anything about the creature but the thing just looks evil! "Could that thing be the wizard's familiar? Would such a thing stay around after the wizard is dead?" She steps back and glances over at Sir Falcon. Realizing that they might be starting battle she re-establishes her Life Link hex with Sir Falcon. If he got hurt the hex would immediately start to restore him.
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Ilvaria recognizes the creature as a homunculus, a construct made out of a spellcaster's own blood to serve as a loyal and attentive servant. This homunculus looks like it has been modified somehow and is more powerful than the average creature. As a construct it is immune to things that affect the body or the mind (standard construct immunities). Homunculi can't speak, but they do understand the same languages as their creator and can also communicate with their masters telepathically. These creatures aren't particularly dangerous; but their bites have a poison that can put people to sleep.
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Ilvaria explains what she knows to the group.
“Did we find any ink? Because this creature can definitely read and write but obviously cannot speak! So we could communicate by writing something for it!“
In case they find some ink and paper she’ll write.
“Hello, we are here to see if there is any danger here because your master obviously has left! Do you potentially know anything about that? Is there anything that we can help with? What is your name?“ she writes and shows it to the creature.