Muttering a curse, Hilde takes a short step into the room, draws a dart, and throws it at the construct. Her accuracy is good, but she glances worriedly at Henry. I hope it's only got one of those spells in it.
Eddred and Tindertwig miss the flapping and weaving bird doll, but Hilde connects. It is also stained by the acid.
Frustrated that Henry resists its magic, the doll swoops down to peck at him before flying back out of reach. However Henry easily parries its clumsy attack. He also gets an attack of opportunity with whatever he is holding.
You are all up again.
Tindertwig frowns. He tries again.
He takes out another javelin and throws it at it.
Without his weapon Henry lashed out with his shield and tried to strike the doll down for turning its back on him.
Annoyed that it was flying away and not staying in range, Henry pulled out his Morningstar and changed tactics. "I'm going for the shiny!"
Henry heads for the bejeweled spyglass in the room. Still wary of the doll, he raises his shield instead of grabbing it this turn.
Eddred furiously mixes reagents and hurls them at the bird, also loading and firing his crossbow.
Seeing how well the first dart worked, Hilde draws another and tries again before readying a third dart.
Henry bashes the evil doll good, sending it reeling, but apart from that only Hilde managed to connect - again.
"The worms will get you in the end", it croaks. Then, wiser from its brush with Henry's shield it dives at Hilde instead. It scores a critical hit and stabs her in the throat with its beak for 10 points of damage, then returns to its position in the middle of the room.
You are all up again.
Tindertwig frowns and looks at Dirtbag. The crocodile is seen busy playing jacks. The goblin shakes his head, takes out his final carried javelin, licks his thumb (he doesn't actually know why, but he has seen folks doing that), and He tries again.
The goblin looks at his licked thumb, shrugs, and Strides toward a fallen javelin.
Henry turned to Hilde. "Can you grab the thing? I'll cover you on your way out."
Eddred has a careful rhythm and he follows it.
Tindertwig's javelin hits and the doll is starting to look rather ragged. Hilde is up and I'll adjudicate Henry's actions after that (assuming he doesn't want to change them).
Choking and wiping blood from the wound on her neck, Hilde rushes into the room, picks up the spyglass, and retreats to the doorway.
Hilde rushes to grab the spyglass with Henry covering her. The bird swoops down to attack the pair, but Henry swats it out of the air. It falls to the ground where it remains motionless.
There is a door at the far end of the room as seen on the battle map, which constitutes the only visible exit.
Henry huffed as he checked his skin for worms or other creepy crawlies. "Dang, that was a tough little doll, huh? Wish I could've whacked it a few more times, actually."
Now that the danger had passed, Henry walked over to the doll and nudged it with his morningstar a few times before stowing it and his shield. He picked up the doll and started looking at it more closely.
Hilde extends a clenched fist to Henry. "Goo--" She coughs again to clear her throat. "Good plan. Let's take that back to Wrin. She might also know the name it said."
The dwarf looks over the telescope.
The spyglass is finely crafted and set with jewels. Hilde puts its value at about 20 gp. She can't find any signs of special abilities though.
Examining the doll, Henry finds a small pocket sewn in the doll's back with a name tag attached: it seems that the doll was called "Mister Beak". Inside the pocket there is a small gem. Henry gets a sense of malevolence when handling it and seems to recall that dolls of this kind carry their animating force in gems like this one. As a gem alone it is probably worth around 5 gp.
"Give me a little time, here." Hilde tries to patch Henry up, and is able to stanch the bleeding and bandage the wounds left by the worms.
"Let's go learn some secrets."
Tindertwig collects his javelins. He kicks the doll as he passes.
"Anyone still hurt?" asks Eddred. "I can brew you an elixir."
Hilde points to the gash on her throat.
"A little bit, but Miss Hilde got the most of it. Thank you, both."
"This was Mister Beak, if anyone is curious. I've got its animation gem here with me." Henry pockets the gem and waits by the door to Spookywisp's room.
Spookywisp is waiting eagerly for you (inasmuch as you can attribute feelings to a glowing orb). You can hear in his voice how happy he is to see you.
"There you are. And you brought my shiny! Give it me, please! I will tell you all my secrets."
Hilde points to the gash on her throat.
Eddred fishes a vial of azure liquid, gives it a hard shake and hands it to Hilde. "That'll do for a start. Let's see how you feel after."
"Hmmm. Better have another," says Eddred. "I can brew more quickly if we need them."
He hands Hilde another Minor Elixir of Life.
"That was really rough, Mister Spookywisp," Henry commented, touching his healing wounds. "Hilde has it but... do you have arms? Won't it just fall off she tried to give it to you?"
"Er... I have mystic arms. Just put it down on the desk and I'll pick it up later."
Tindertwig and Dirtbag feel like they all are be used by something calling itself Spookywisp.
The both feel a bit of shame....
Hilde looks a little suspiciously at the ball of light. Mystic arms? Despite her misgivings, though, she sets the spyglass down on the desk. "You promised secrets."
"Oh, y-y-yes." Spookywisp is so excited that he practically stutters. ""First, this building used to belong to someone named Volluk Azrinae. Second, Volluk was an apprentice to someone else named Belcorra, and even though this Volluk seemed mean and dangerous, Belcorra was much worse! Third, the spooky magic lighthouse can do more than just shine an eerie light, it can also shoot a beam full of ghosts. There you go, that's three secrets for you. You can leave now."
"Azrinae...the doll said that name. Interesting. Thank you." I wonder how we can verify what it told us.
Tindertwig and Dirtbag look ready to smash the stupid named light bulb!
They seem to be counting....
So what next. Do you have anything else to say to Spookywisp? Otherwise there are three doors in this building that you haven't explored, as well as some uninvestigated rooms in the main building.
The goblin and the crocodile seem to be studying the idiot, liar Spookywisp.
Tindertwig even draws his Dogslicer.
"Let's go. We have some other rooms to check, and history to research." Scratching at the scabbed-over wound on her neck, the dwarf leaves.
"Let's do that, then," agrees Eddred, waiting for a more martial companion to take the lead.
Tindertwig and Dirtbag look at both Hilde and Eddred. The goblin gives a thumbs up. He points to Hilde with a thumbs down. He then points to Eddred with a questioning thumbs up?
"We still got a bit more of the big building to look through, but it'd be neat to come back and grab those paintings, if Spookywisp doesn't mind. Take 'em back to town for the museum, I mean."
Whether Spookywisp gives its consent or not, Henry will join Hilde and leave the building, heading towards the Gauntlight proper.
Eddred narrows his eyes at Tindertwig, uncertain what the goblin wants. He tentatively holds up a thumb. Why not? He's a goblin and will do whatever it is anyway!
"Oh, you can take the paintings. I just want my shiny."
I'll assume that you go back to the main building and continue your clockwise search of the rooms.
Searching the middle room, Hilde finds some intact bottles in a drawer of the desk. Eddred is swiftly able to identify them as elixirs: a lesser comprehension elixir, a minor elixir of life, and a lesser skeptic’s elixir.
While searching, Tindertwig gets bored and leans on a shelf, which suddenly gives way. Behind him a secret door swings open and reveals a set of stairs leading down.
Tindertwig looks at the new opening. He looks at Dirtbag (who shrugs). They both look at the group.
Wees bees tink'n dat wees founds sumtings.
"We'll check it out after the rest of these rooms. Good find, Mister Tindertwig."
As you look over the once comfortable room inside the one you just searched, you find two things of interest. While Dirtbag absent-mindedly chews on a pillow a ring of keys falls out. There are are eight keys on the ring. Six of them are iron and have corroded almost entirely, but the two bronze keys look like they may still be working.
At the same time, Henry notices a faint outline at the further end of the eastern wall which turns out to be a secret door.
Tindertwig also chews on the newly found keys; ditching the lumpy pillow.
Needs sum salts.
He licks the keys. The goblin frowns.
Who bees gitt'ns sum cats-sup?
"Those may be useful. I think the only other place we need to explore here is behind the double doors. Is everyone ready?"
"The double doors and this secret door, here," Henry said, pointing out the hidden door. "Want me to open it up before we go to those double doors?"