As soon as Alric’s steps out into the main hallway, spectral hands flare up out the floorboards. Some are missing fingers, some are not, but all sport the same tattoo of the old mob boss you identified earlier. They claw at Alaric causing
damage. The wound also looks nasty, bleeding profusely.
Now that the hands have revealed themselves, you see them hanging around in the hall quite clearly, presumably waiting for their next victim. They don’t seem to leave the main hall and persue you into the side rooms. A successful religion check might get them to temporarily calm down.
With his nat 20, Isurus not only quites the spirits, but he knows the trigger was trodding upon the same ground twice in a 24 hr period, and that while he has put them to rest for right now, they will return within 24 hours unless someone finds what is causing the haunts to rise and putting right what once went wrong.
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Ogren, clattering in his armor, gives a small shriek as the hands come out fo the ground and grasp at Alaric's foot. He rushes over and lays his hands on the still bleeding human.
He then tries to patch up the man as well, hoping that some quick bandages would help finally stop that bleeding.
After a moment, he takes a deep breath and relaxes just a little, before perking up again and asking, "Why are there hands under the floorboards? Is someone or someones living down there?"
The hands are still visibly in the main hall. They look like they'd be ready to jump anyone who steps out again. You think a religion check could put them to rest for about a day.
Then the GM re-reads the previous posts and the hands die down and appear to be gone for the moment.
Only a single, aged worktable still stands in one corner of this room, though the clay fragments of an oven and rusted metal suggest it was once a kitchen. The ceiling has completely fallen in, leaving this room open to the sky above. Doors stand in the east and west walls.
Everything this room once held now lies jumbled over the floor in a soggy mess: torn pages, scraps of fabric, and splintered remnants of furniture. Doors hang askew in the north and east walls, but the door to the south has been smashed from its hinges.
All the PCs instantly notice a painting hanging slightly ajar, and behind it is a potion and a small stack of papers and a potion bottle. The papers are surprisingly legible and detail all sorts of criminal activities from decades ago. While they can’t be used to solve any current cases, you have a feeling that Absolom’s finest would reward you for turning these in as they could solve some cold cases. They are worth one treasure bundle.
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He turns to Ogren. "Remember the stories? About the mob cutting off fingers and hands here. I guess that's where they went."
Ogren's eyes go wide as he immediately starts to try climbing Jaxon's leg to get off the floor. "They're WHAT? Living hands of dead people? NOOOO!"
As soon as Jaxon gets near a wall, Ogren tries to jump to it and hang on instead of touching the floor again. He waits just inside the new room to see if anything pops out of these floor boards before slowly climbing down again. "We, uh, should probably stay OFF the floor... Anyone good at making hammocks?" He nudges his toes through the soggy mess on the ground and looks up at everyone. "So, where are we sleeping? Outside? Yeah outside sounds like a GREAT idea!"
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Jaxon fights off the clutches of the goblin. "Hey! Hey! Leggo!"
He enters the room and immediately goes to the painting and pulls the papers and bottle from behind it. He shuffles through the papers. "Huh. Well, this is useful. Not for here, but I'm sure someone can make good use of this information. The Guard would probably pay high coin for it. Maybe others would pay for it not to be released." He shrugs. "Above my paygrade, but maybe the Society could use it to get what it needs."
He then turns to the bottle, shaking the contents and peering hard at the faded label. "I think this is a healing potion. Maybe an old one. Do they go bad? Or do they get better with age?"
Just as Isurus says that the spirits are subdued and is about to enter the Study, Samna holds up her hand and as she hears something.
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Ogren fights Jaxon to stay off the floor.
He looks at the potion and uncorks it taking a whiff. "Smells good to me. Just like the one I bought a few days ago... though this one has cinnamon in it?"
Corking the bottle back up, he hands it back to the rogue and then looks at Isurus, "HERE?! Noooo, let's go near the front doors... please? I don't want hands crawling on me in my sleep! That's too scary."
As soon as Samna points out the whispers, Ogren bolts for the front room. "NOPE, NO, no please!"
Alaric does such a good job quieting the spirits that he thinks they won’t show up until NEXT midnight (as opposed to this midnight).
Inside the room:
Ivy has overgrown the empty window frame, casting this room into cool shadow. A low shelf, its wood warped and cracked, stands against the south wall, and a desk has been overturned and smashed in the eastern part of the room.
Inside the desk you find a sort of ledger that details the crime bosses employees. Several names are crossed out and written in the margarine are things like ‘talked to the cops,’ or ‘betrayed me,’ or ‘failed the family.’ You think if these people’s deaths were made public their spirits might be finally out to rest.
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Across the other side of the isle, there is another that makes his way unto the Grand Lodge!
With a red hood pulled over his head, a brutish canine-looking humanoid with padded feet pulls a red hood over his white-furred head after depositing a small letter he was reading back into one of the folded pockets of the flowing garment, now soaking into a soddy crimson as the rain beats down equally on it as well as the streets and collecting into large puddles that overwhelm the sewer drains. He smiles to himself, a cunning eyebrow creasing crosswise opposite the other, the long silver hairs curving an arch that extend well past his brow an inch longer than might be expected.
Looking both ways to see the streets clear, he proceeds with some haste in his careful steps, gait bent forward and downward, not unlike a quadruped maintaining the pretense of two-legged movement, dashing between overhangings on this side of the thoroughfare and that, trying to maximize vertical cover provided by adjacent buildings, and avoiding the single units of increasingly sparse foot-traffic, bounding like a rogue on the run, towards the massive structure in the center of the district...