Abella is a bit too intrigued by the chance to study a possible active negative energy effect and forgets to steel herself against it.
After accidentally making Pavo’s wounds worst, Shade doubles down.
Shade sis worried something is preventing him from healing his friend..
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Abella is intrigued by what she saw, and at first doesn't notice any ill effects, but there was that thing Phaedra said to her the other day, a compliment, something flattering even. She can't seem to remember it now, and it had been such a nice, if all too rare, moment between them. It's almost as if that memory was somehow stolen away...
Each time you get a full night’s rest in a region not influenced by the malevolence condition, the value of your malevolence decreases by 1.
The malevolence can never increase above a value of 4. If an effect would increase a creature’s malevolence value higher than 4, the creature is instead stupefied 1 for 24 hours as the malevolence consumes a few of their random, short-term memories. A creature that has a malevolence 4 won't voluntarily leave the Xarwin Manor grounds.
Tuco is going to alternate meditating and keeping an eye out of danger while the party is busy healing and researching.
Abella pays little attention to the misplaced memory. She always remembered everything important when it mattered, so why bother over one little misplaced thought? It will pop back when it is needed.
She continues her research.
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Once Pavo has finished preparing applied the poultice to reduce the swelling around Phaed's neck after the surgery--and after Shade finishes his own brutal treatment--he puts away his tools and dusts himself off as he rises. "That should do the trick," he says. "I'm going to take a look at the fireplace. No one has heard Abella berating anything out there, have they?"
He heads over to investigate the fireplace for clues about the previous occupants (the mortal ones, not the aberrations) and search it for secrets. Everyone knows hearths are good hiding places.
Once he is finished with that, he heads back to the garden to look to see if Abella has been abducted.
Phaed looks around. Abella has been out there alone for quite a long while. Shall we check on her?
Abella continues to study the building. The grounds are calm and quiet aside from a susurration of wind through the trees.
There are no further manifestations, but she does have the sensation that she is being watched.
After an hour, she comes to understand that the Caul is a reflection of both a malevolent will’s hatred, especially toward birds, and its thirst for knowledge, yet it’s still unclear why these two drives caused the Caul to form.
Meanwhile, inside, Pavo investigates the fireplace, and while he doesn't find any hidden treasure, he does notice that the chimney connects to the fireplace on the floor above making it possible for a creature to climb between floors. Closing the damper is easy, but that may not be enough to keep something out.
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Pavo turns the damper closed on the fireplace after Abella returns. "That is sure to keep the ectoplasmic beings from climbing down here!" he says with self-depreciating irony. "Shall we search this cloak closet that Tuco found? Maybe we'll shake a skeleton loose. There's probably some dark-haired ghost in the wash room waiting to drown us, so I'm happy to save that for later."
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She strides back inside to the rest of the group once she has finished and they are ready to move on. She takes a seat, immediately lying back into a languid slouch. ”The outside was boring, but I was able to further confirm several facts.” She holds up one finger. ”A malevolent will, the Caul, suffuses the entire house.” She unfolds a second finger. ”This will is motivated by hatred towards birds.” She unfolds a third finger. ”The Caul also thirsts for knowledge.” And a last, fourth finger. ”This will may attempt to affect those who interact with it.” She leaves out the part about the malevolent will accosting her, having learned long ago to not be too open with her errors and mistakes.
She glances over the closet that Pavo mentioned. ”’Skeleton in the closet?’ How droll. I have always known skeletons refreshingly unrepressed in the areas of gender and sexuality. Why, you can see right through them.” She quite deliberately adjusts so she is leaning on her skeletal arm as she says this. ”If the dark-haired drowning ghost is a lady, ask her if she is single and/or available.” She smiles and shrugs as if to say “I’ve done worse.”
I dance so well, I need no magical accouttremant.
She turns to Abella with a wry chuckle. Clearly the true Abella has returned and not some impostor or entity possessing her.
Hmmm. The outside doesn't sound boring to me. We shall deal with this Caul — but how? Well… the show must go on! She turns to the closet.
The doors in the coat room open easily. The door on the left leads to a short hall toward the back of the house. The door to the right leads to the front of the house, and what may be the entrance hall.
{ooc]I've updated the map for you, using Pavo again to represent the party. Let me know where you decide to go. The day is getting on. It might be nice to find the kitchens and make some dinner...[/ooc]
Shade does his best not to roll his eyes at the histrionics of the bard, thinking ’Well, what would you expect?’
”I wonder what is fouling my poultices? ”
To the di-ning room!
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"Very well. Just try and not die, Phaedria." pleads Shade. "I am not sure of my abilities to patch you up right now."
You move deeper into the house, through what must be the servant’s gallery. You recognize one of the two windows in this ten-foot-wide hall's east wall as the broken one Pavo wanted to climb through.
Years of weather exposure have caused significant damage to the walls and floor here.
On the opposite wall hang eight medium portraits, only two of which have escaped mold and decay—one depicts a stern-looking bald man wearing a leather carpenter's apron and holding a hand drill in his hands, and the other depicts a nervous-looking elderly woman dressed in the attire of a majordomo.
The portraits bearing the plaques reading “Cook,” “Butler,” “Maid,” “Tutor,” “Groundskeeper,” and “Librarian,” have been ruined by mildew.
There is another door at the far end.
Tuco tries to stop thinking about the statues outside as he spends some time studying what remains of the portraits to try and glean any detail he can.
Shade takes some time to look carefully at the portraits. "I wonder, is there a reason that these two are still clean?"
He tries prestidigitation to clean up the other portraits, in case he can make them at least a little better.
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Pavo puts his brass ear to the door but doesn’t hear anything on the other side.
Tuco looks more closely at the portraits and when he comes to the majordomo, the painting suddenly falls away to reveal the night sky. For an moment, Tuco thinks he might tumble inside, but worse, he feels something ominous looking back at him from the darkness between the stars. As soon as he blinks the image reverts to normal.
The prestidigitation does remove the mold and mildew, but isn’t able to repair the damage from the moisture.
Tuco doesn't feel any ill effects from his experience, but there is something. The first night he was free from the farm, from his contract, he remembers how he felt, but the special thing he did to celebrate, to mark the occasion? He can't remember, as if that memory has been syphoned away...
Each time you get a full night’s rest in a region not influenced by the malevolence condition, the value of your malevolence decreases by 1.
The malevolence can never increase above a value of 4. If an effect would increase a creature’s malevolence value higher than 4, the creature is instead stupefied 1 for 24 hours as the malevolence consumes a few of their random, short-term memories. A creature that has a malevolence 4 won't voluntarily leave the Xarwin Manor grounds.
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"I don't hear anything, so I'm going to open the door," Pavo says, looking over his shoulder. He notes the intense attention the farmhand is paying to the painting. "Tuco? Hey, you daydreaming or being possessed? If you're being possessed, blink twice." He stuffs the brass ear in his belt and starts fishing out a vial of holy water.
"Well, at least they are cleaner. But... Tuco, are you ok?"
Pavo pushes the door and it opens into a short hall that leads to a large kitchen with several counters and tables. Cabinets and shelving on the walls afford places to store utensils, pots, and pans.
However, someone has taken the utensils and arranged them in strange patterns throughout the room—lines of forks and spoons spell out nonsense words, pans and pots are balanced together or stacked in towers, knives are jabbed into the wooden floor or the four oak tables.
The fireplace to the north has a large cauldron and grill for cooking.
The window just to the right of this fireplace is cracked and missing a few large panes of glass near the bottom.
In the middle of the room, a human skeleton lies sprawled over one of the large oak tables, a gleaming rapier still clutched in its hand.
Tuco shakes his head in response to shade "There's something wrong with this place. Every since those statues outside, I've been... distracted. I have to imagine nothing good can come from eating anything in that kitchen, no matter how tasty..."
Abella immediately heads forward to check out the skeleton. ”See, this is more of what I expect from a skeleton.” She attempts to investigate the skeleton for any signs of undeath, current or recent, and also the rapier.
"Careful, there is magic here."
Abella waves off Shade’s concern. ”This whole place is haunted, so of course it is. The sooner we figure out how it works, the better.”
The skeleton was once a human in life, but the dead body is now merely a sprawl of bones held together by a suit of old leather armor.
The rapier clutched in his bony hand is dusty but looks fully usable. A cracked leather pouch at his side contains a silver religious symbol of Norgorber, a set of infiltrator thieves’ tools, 12 gp, and 8 sp.
As Abella looks through the skeleton's belongings, a disembodied voice calls out from above.
"What are you doing in my kitchen?"
Abella mutters to herself as she looks over the skeleton and kindly relieves it of its gear. ”Norgorber? What they get for worshipping a god with a name that sounds like something you pick out of your nose.”
She turns her head towards the disembodied voice above. ”I defer speaking to my companions. I have a terrible personality and will likely infuriate you with a mixture of self-satisfied arrogance and particularly patronizing condescension. And nobody—aside from me—wants that, and I would rather just sit back and let someone else do the work regardless.” She snaps and waves for those outside the room to enter.
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"I knew it!" Pavo says excitedly as the voice speaks. "But a rather coherent introduction for a poltergeist... Phaed? Would you like to explain the transfer of ownership to this spirit while I try to find what anchors it to this room? I'm reasonably certain the fellow on the table is a thief and not the cook."
He waits for Phaedria to distract the voice before beginning to cautiously investigate the room.
Phaed turns her mask upward, seeking the source of the voice. She pitches her voice to mimic that of a kind and naive heiress.
Oh… hello? Are you the cook? she gestures to the skeleton on the table. Why… my friends and I would appreciate not being carved up, too. You see, I inherited this strange place, and we're just trying to understand it more. Will you help us?
Her voice trembles a tad. She adjusts her escoffion, and uses the body language of a rather timid person.
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The voice let’s out a trilling coo, like a song bird, when Phaed introduces herself so politely.
”I am not the cook, I am Ezramalkun. I too am on an urgent mission to cleanse this house of its presence. But, well, I may have gotten in over my head. I’m so relieved that someone has come to help.”
Ezramalkun drops her illusory disguise and reveals herself to be a whippoorwill sitting among the rafters wearing a plague doctor mask.
”I’ve been trapped in this kitchen for over a year, so perhaps we can share information. What have you discovered so far?”
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Phaed tries to keep up the naive heiress role, but her disappointment that the manor doesn't come with its own ghost chef is apparent.
Ahh. It is a pleasure, Ezramalkun. I am Phaedria. I am the heiress of Ioseff Xarwin, the Paracountess of Ilverness She pauses. Well, the delightful Abella here has discovered that the house is suffused in a caul that hates birds but loves knowledge. She will introduce the other party members if needed.
What traps you here?
”Yes, I became trapped when the caul reformed, and I’m not strong enough to open the doors. I can sense many evils spirits in the house.”
"I a saddened to hear that such a loyal servant of the Mistress of Graves has been trapped here, but perhaps we can work together to free you and this house.
"We have not had a chance to learn much, yet, though my friend Abella here has learned a little about the Caul. Would you like to fill Ezramalkun in?"
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"Have you seen any spirits in the kitchen?" Pavo asks. "So far we have only encountered creatures summoned from beyond the Dark Tapestry--gibbering mouthers, chokers, and a leshy with a viciously parasitic bent--except for the caul itself when we accidentally punctured it. The effect apparently killed every bird flying overhead at that moment."
Tuco listens, half heartidly, more focused on trying, and failing to remember certain things...
Eventually he looks up to add "There's more than just a few spirits and haunts floating around in here... There's something wrong. Deeply wrong."
Ezramalkun cocks her head, thinking.
"I have seen manifestations here. Some great tragedy occurred. I do not know about the dark tapestry, but there is something here, a presence that drew me, Tchekuth."
She pauses, as though recalling a dream.
"There was a time before I came to my house. I lived among my own kind then. I was one of the bravest. Others have come here before me and failed. I sense them now. They've become monstrous dogs below and bad birds above. I hear their naughty calls now and again, tryin to trick me into joining them."
What an ahh-mazing bird you are for avoiding those temptations. How have you avoided it for so long?
"Thank you, but I wish to stay in my house until I have seen my mission through to the end."
"The fallen spirits can sense me, like I can sense them, but I'm very good at hiding. Unfortunately, I scarred that thief on the table and had to defend myself. I probably spared him from a worse fate."
Pavo and Phaed spend about ten minutes chatting with Ezramalkun, but they aren't able to learn anything more about the Caul or Tchekuth.
The sun is beginning to set outside. Night will fall upon the manor soon.
From deep within the house a grandfather clock chimes with strangely muffled bells, as if heard underwater.