Sirio does his best to move quietly over to the eastern door and puts a finger up to his lips in a gesture of silence. He pushes an ear up to the door to listen for any movement beyond it...
Sirio hears nothing. Whatever clicking sounds Hannelia heard have now stopped. The room beyond is totally silent, as near as his excellent ears can perceive.
Constantine steps out onto the balcony. The springtime sun is bright and the air is clean, a pleasant break from the interior gloom and dusty air of the house. A small table and chairs sat out here once, but with their construction being wood and leather, and the balcony exposed to the elements, time has not been kind. They sag and tilt, discolored and stained. An enterprising bird has ripped shreds of batting from one of the chairs to pad its nest, and stray white wisps still stick out from the tatters of the fabric. There's a nice view of the town from up here, and the glittering Conerica River stretching away beyond it.
He is nearly about to go back inside, having determined the balcony has little except for the view, but something tugs on his subconscious a moment longer. Constantine hesitates, then drops down to his hands and knees, observing the underside of the table and chairs.
Here. This chair. The wood of the seat has warped with time and what was once the narrowest gap has widened to reveal... something pale and brittle, paper? tucked between the composite parts of the seat.
"Might have found something," Constantine says from the balcony, crouched down and removing his armored coat to give himself the most flexibility. "I just need to--"
He tries to press the fabric and work the wood against the joints to retrieve the paper without destroying it...
Glad of Sirio’s extra attention, Hannelia sees him incline his head as an all-clear after she finishes turning the tumblers. Withdrawing her wire from the keyhole, she is just about to pack her tools away when she hears Constantine call from the balcony. Gathering the whole lot carefully up she heads outside. ”Here,” she says, using a pointed file to get in a gap and widen the opening Constantine is working in. ”Easy does it, you’re looking good to me though.”
As Sirio listens at the door Hannelia curiously investigates what Constantine has found, and lends her tools to the effort...
Constantine retrieves a handful of pages that have probably gone through multiple cycles of exposure to moisture, drying again, wetting... etc., etc. They are discolored with mold, brittle and warped, and much of the text is unreadable. The writing is in a different hand than the books in Constantine's possession.
The surviving legible bits you can make out are only sentences there and there.
...dotes on his half-Mwangi bastard... absurd that the boy should be raised under our roof. I have suggested any number of schools the child might be sent off to, but...
...who does he think he is fooling with the story of the boy being the son of a dead fellow officer? Luca looks more like him every day-- and he named him after his...
...again I have miscarried. I have taken every herb the midwives suggest but it doesn't...
...enough that I cannot bear the heir I must, but every day I must watch him playing with the brat... can Marcius truly be so oblivious to the disrespect he visits upon me? Maddening...
...more dire measures may be...
...so be it. The bargain has been struck. I only must acquire the herbs to cause the appearance...
...as intended. Marcius grieves the little half-breed in a most unseemly way. But even this, I think, can be used...
...bring him into the service of my lord, we will truly be a force among...
...with child. Praise be to the Prince of Law.
"Thank you," Constantine says as he manages to extract the treasure with her help. "You're quite good at this."
As Constantine holds and peers through what text remains legible, he doesn't even have to allow his heightened supernatural senses drift towards the whispers of the spirits. The surviving text is enough. He trembles slightly, shaking his head.
This is what happens when you allow the ends to justify the means. Innocent people die. Innocent children die.
"You were right, Ms. Venator," Constantine says, his voice quivering. "Luca did not die of illness. You don't need to hear the ghosts to know who is responsible either."
Roger stands by, not sure how to help, simply keeping to himself quiet. His tales were for whimsy and good natured frights. No place for children damned in diabolic bargains in them. A concerned face is all he can offer.
Hannelia nods her acknowledgement to Constantine. She knows - she is good at this, a combination of natural aptitude, curiosity and hours of hard graft. But she also knows she has much to learn. The last few days have shown her all kinds of new things that have furthered her knowledge and yet also highlighted how much she doesn't know.
As Constantine reads through the papers he had retrieved, she sees him shudder and places a companionly hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry," she says quietly. "For all of this." Wordlessly he passes her the notes. She doesn't really want to read it - the occultist's reaction was enough and she knows the gist of it - but she forces herself to read the few lines of legible script. An elegant hand may have written them, but the heart responsible was one of purest black. She can feel bile rise in her throat as she silently reads, before passing the papers back. "I wish I hadn't read that."
These people. This place. What a hold it still has on us all. Even after we've gone, it will still be here, a monument to a terrible history. It might be extreme but she's still considering suggesting razing the place to the ground, removing the tangible element of something which still casts a long shadow over the whole of Saringallow, such is the power of stories. Equally, she's wary of such a big move and the perils of erasing history and forgetting the lessons it teaches.
"Ok," she says after a minute. "Ok. If we're ready to face whatever lies behind that door? Goes without saying but I think we should be on our guard - that was a quality lock and it's off the master bedroom. Clearly whatever's in there was not supposed to be easy to reach so I'd guess there's a good chance of further guardians or traps." Giving Constantine another gentle pat on the back, she leaves the balcony and returns to the door, swinging it open and scanning the interior for danger.
In parallel to Hannelia's thoughts, Constantine's mind likewise turns to fire. Purging this place from the world increasingly seems like a reasonable option, and he almost feels a sense of--ownership? responsibility?--to do something about it before leaving this town. But there was still more to learn. He needed to know why. He had come here to glean these very answers.
This was why the Sarinis had such terrible reputations. A "noble" family doesn't earn the names Lapdogs of Hell and Fools of Thrune without truly sordid deeds like this. Constantine hadn't known his parents more than blurry memories of kind faces. But he knew that--one by blood and the other by marriage--they were Sarinis. And they had fought and died in the Goblinblood Wars. The Isgeri military had essentially abandoned the hinterlands to the goblinoid invasion. And someone of noble standing could have hidden comfortably, safely behind impenetrable walls. And yet his parents had not. They had given their lives.
Constantine had scoured the records trying to figure out why. Were they, too, trying to change the public perception of the Sarini name? Were they, too, ashamed of their brethren? Were they ordered out into the fields by their Thrune masters as a punishment for something? Had they even been killed by goblins, or did they meet their ends at the hands of their fellow men?
No, Constantine wouldn't find the answers about his parents here. His own history was far too recent for that, far too churned up by Hell's bureaucracy. But the uncovering of history was no linear matter. This story would take time to come together, and Constantine had already devoted years of his life towards uncovering that story. He would take as much time as was necessary to learn the truth and share that truth with the world.
The occultist lightly grips Hannelia's hand on his shoulder, blinks away the onset of a tear, and stands up. "Thank you," he says again, more quietly this time. "Yes, let's move into the next room. Carefully."
As Constantine moves ahead, a little more in the middle of the pack now, he clears his throat and calls out for Roger. "If you have a whimsical tale, I would love a distraction."
"Oh aye, well, once t'was a situation that there fancy door reminded me of. Great big door of the captain's cabin they had on a Hellknight ship. T'were ten times as fancy as should be, more or less."
"So, we'd looted the whole rest of the ship but hadn't opened this door. The crew so far were easy pickin's, lads gave up soon as we drew swords more or less. Nothin' worth dying over in their eyes. But we was worried about this door, cause well, sure looked scary adorned with devils'n such, and there hadn't been no hellknight yet. Figure'd the lad must be inside, cavorting with devils without a care for his crew, let 'em all be damned."
"Well, we bickered about who'd go first and what spells'n'charms and whatnot should be used and were drawing lots and talking who'd get an extra share of the treasure if'n the door was cursed and they tripped it, that by the time we finally got round to opening it, all the spells'n'charms had to be cast again cause we'd took too long."
"Then, only then, we found it wasn't a real door. Just a facade. Never really was a hellknight ship, they just dressed it up like one to hope it'd scare us pirates off."
Smiling slightly, Emma shakes her head at Roger's tale. To be honest, she's a bit jealous of the salty pirate - the ease at which he can tell a story to distract them all. She wonders if Roger even knows how rare - and useful - of a gift it is.
It was something she'd gotten familiar with back home - those traveling to and from the fort would often gather around fires and tell a variety of stories, often trying to one up the other. Emma had never been particularly good at it herself - she loved to listen, but wasn't so great at the telling.
Still. They're lucky to have Roger with them.
Between Hannelia's reassurances and Roger's stories, Emma feels as though Constantine is probably well assured. There's not really a whole lot she can say that would add to the situation without seeming trite. Still, she offers a supporting arm on his back and a reassuring nod - no words, just a voiceless show of support for whatever lies ahead.
Constantine enjoys Roger's tale, not least because the idea of a bunch of pirates being unphased by Hellknights ought to ruffle Sirio's feathers a bit. "Thank you," he says to the old seadog, gently patting Emma's hand on his shoulder with another sign of thanks. "People put up all sorts of facades. It's almost always more interesting what they're hiding when they come down."
A few moments to process the discovered documents, and then the intrepid explorers steel themselves for the room beyond...
With the door open it appears to be a combination of a workshop and a study. The furniture in this irregularly shaped room are cluttered with scientific equipment, tools, and half-built contraptions. The glassy eyes of taxidermy animal heads stare down from the walls. At the north end of the room, the stuffed body of a large, winged beast is mounted on a low platform.
Primed and wary, Hannelia scans the room beyond from the door. Her sharp eyes instantly detect some problems-- shortly within the door, the floor itself looks dangerous and the column in the center of the room seems to have ominous little grooves that might release something as well.
Moving carefully through the room and stepping only where Hannelia indicates is safe to step, the party is able to inspect and collect various objects from this chamber that might be useful.
One of the work tables is covered with alchemical equipment-- distillers and infusers, pestle and mortar-- and a number of small vials sealed with cork stoppers and wax have weathered the centuries with no more than dust as damage.
A table in a corner features accoutrements of war: a masterwork chain shirt, masterwork cold iron long sword, and masterwork cold iron dagger.
Another table is piled high with books and papers. A single lens made of silver, with a silver chain, and fine runes etched around its edge, rests atop some of the documents. Most of the books pertain to plants or wildlife and the acquisition or uses thereof-- guides on how to construct traps for animals, or how to harvest certain berries, and the alchemical uses of the products of such work.
The papers on this table are more personal documents-- letters of correspondence to people no-doubt long dead, the business accounts of the manor, debts and acquisitions, design sketches of traps or mechanisms. Among the papers you find a map of the manor house itself, with a few notes that might draw your interest: In the ballroom, by the piano you paid no real attention to (because you were fighting a mite at the time), a musical note is inscribed; the same note is inscribed on the map of a third floor, a cellar, that you have yet to discover. The map also has little skull symbols indicating traps-- traps you've discovered in your own right, but it's nice to see that you have found nearly all of them-- the only one you can see on the map that you haven't accounted for yet is down in the cellar.
Constantine is able to look the lens over more closely. It's a pleasant weight in his hands. The little voices that whisper to Constantine murmur about understanding...
Finally, among the documents, a single note that looks as if it were ripped from a journal. The writing is that which can now be recognized as Marcius's hand, though wilder than his usual careful script. The message on it is short.
So be it. She thinks she leads me into this game of bargains but I walk forward with my eyes open. Let me be damned, then; what is my soul compared to the return of my boy's life?
With Hannelia's careful pointing out, Constantine happily leaves her to her professional discretion. There is much to see in workshop-study--more to the story and more to their collective inventories. It once again seems that they have another curative potion each to pass around, along with a few other useful potions and alchemicals. For himself, Constantine tentatively secures one potion of cure light wounds and a potion of enlarge person. While such magic is already familiar to him, being able to quickly quaff a potion could help him to avoid using some of his personal magical reservoir. And why not?
The antiquarian's monocle also catches his eye . It's not his style, but divination is one of those schools that he hadn't studied. It could be very useful to him. It could be useful to all of them, but is was one of those bits of esoterica that especially appealed to him given his trade.
The only other item in the haul that he's interested in is the chain shirt. It's no more protection than his armored coat--and would mean a significant hit to his personal sense of fashion--but it would enable him to move more quickly if he found himself chasing another mite. Then again, it would be a significant upgrade to Hannelia's defensibility. He waits until Hannelia is done disarming the traps to determine who might best claim that and focuses instead on the less monetary treasures.
"This map is very useful. It seems that we've almost completely explored the upper floor and can soon head back down to where we left off before we were so rudely sniped. And then, the cellar awaits."
Constantine's finger lingers on the musical note on the map for a moment. "Any ideas what this means? Why label what is already clearly a musical instrument?"
As Hannelia scans the room, there’s a lot to take in. The extra sheen Anilda has given her eyes makes everything stand out that bit more vibrantly. She spots two potential sources of harm, which was primarily what she was concerned with, but navigable ones if they’re careful. Sweeping her glance around the rest it seems like an alchemist’s lab, a library and even a menagerie - of a quite specific kind - all rolled into one. Giving the others a heads up to avoid a certain floorboard and not to approach the column, she lets the others take stock and see what goods and information may lie amongst the copious amount of things. The majority look to be well preserved, at least on the face of it so she expects that at least something of value will be present.
She knows that she could simply leave the devices as they are. She also knows that she’s not going to. Hannelia doesn’t want to let anyone come to harm if she can prevent it and while she can do that with the party, and warn the fey, she can’t guarantee that for anybody in the future. Marks can fade and warnings can go unheeded so the only certainty is by removing them as a threat. Partly though, she acknowledges, it’s the challenge. She relishes testing her skills against the Sarini’s master trapmaker. And new knowledge and understanding will come from practice, allowing her to hone her skills further.
The grooves in the column feel like second nature to her and she feels confident that she has it sorted without too much of an issue. Perhaps it’s overconfidence but as she tries to pry the floorboard up her usually steady hand slips, causing it to jerk up suddenly. ”Constantine,” she asks through gritted teeth, sweat pooling on her brow, ”any chance of a hand please?”
"Oh, I was just about to--" Constantine says with a start, gazing across the room. "OH!" He gently places his shield down and sheds his armored coat before trotting across the way while he brings his tools to bear. It's good to feel useful.
With a bit more brute strength than finesse, Constantine helps hold up the floorboard while finagling with a pair of scissors while looking for a wire. "Maybe that will do..."
There was only one way to find out.
Hannelia makes quick work indeed of the pillar's concealed danger, disabling a mechanism that would have sent keen scythe-like blades whipping out at waist height to anyone who got too close.
The floor turns out to be trickier. She finds herself breathing hard, too conscious that she has tension on a spring but that her tools are starting to slide.... fortunately, Constantine's quick assistance prising up the floorboard gives her the moment she needs to adjust the position of her tool-- barely. The wire is taut with tension and Hannelia has a glimpse of the poisoned spikes that are waiting to stab upwards into everyone's feet ... but then she cuts the wire, and the spikes chunk back into their spots beneath the floorboards. Well done!
Breathing a sigh of relief at the disabled traps, Emma takes a moment to take the cloak she'd won with Roger's dice and drape it around herself. It feels...nice.
She can feel the magic flowing from it; it's familiar and relaxing, like slipping into a warm spring after a day of training.
In the end, true, it's just an enchanted garment. But it feels comforting all the same.
Their upcoming confrontation looms ahead of them, an unspoken threat they all know is coming. One way or another, they'll confront Wormgnash.
Iomedae...I ask only for the strength to keep my friends safe. If I am to fall in battle this day, I will be content so long as I can keep my friends safe by doing so. Is that not the noblest of ends? To die in the service of preserving the life of others? Not that I wish to die - but if anyone is to die this day - let it be me. They've been through enough already.
With a final snip Hannelia disarms the second trap but it was a close-run thing. "Thanks Constantine, that one nearly got way from me." She wipes her brow on her sleeve. Easy does it, but job done at least. Giving herself time for her body to calm down, she packs away her tools with care.
When she's done, Hannelia returns focus to the rest of the room, eyeing the large stuffed beast curiously. "Sorry Constantine, you said there were maps?" She moves over to take a look, noting with pride that all but one of the marked traps have now been disabled. "We have indeed covered most of it, it appears." She tries to mentally layer the basement level beneath the ground floor, lining up the stairs. "It looks to me like the musical note on this floor would sit over the one in the cellars. But I'm unclear what it might mean. A twin instrument there too, perhaps?" She shrugs.
"If we have everything we think is of use or value, are we ready to tackle the last room up here? I don't think we're expecting too much to be there from what Anilda said."
"Thinking about the other things marked on the map, it doesn't look like a trap. The only other notable features marked on the map are traps to keep watch for. So it's possible that the piano holds some secret, trap-like, but not deadly? Perhaps an alarm of some sort, like if you were to play a sequence it would activate security. I've heard of some nobles that commission larger constructs for protection. Then again, I have no talent at the piano, so it might be a moot point." He looks around at the others, settling his glance to Roger. "I don't suppose a life at sea opens one to tickling the ivories, does it?"
Constantine takes a moment to trade his armored coat in for the chain shirt, thinking that additional maneuverability might be useful after all. He encourages Emma to arm herself with the cold iron weapons, feeling partial to his own implements. Feeling a bit foolish, he also dons the monocle, reminding himself that it's just so that he can read those extra scrolls if it comes to it. For that matter, he takes any of the scrolls that no one else feels partial to claiming.
"Right--let's finish this floor. Lead the way with those keen eyes, if you please."
Anilda's words turn out to be correct: the next room, when you go to explore it, seems to be free of any obvious danger or troubles. A guest bedroom to judge by the nice furnishings, and the windows have the view Anilda mentioned-- not of the town, but of the hills rising to mountains in the other direction. The beautiful view contrasts with all the recent horrors you've discovered.
Beyond that short, desperate message, you see nothing else of interest here.
”I’m afraid I have no musical talent either but you’re right, I’d wager every seadog worth his rum knows a sea shanty or two,” grins Hannelia.
Moving into the guest room, the nuffekeen’s assessment seems accurate: the view is indeed something to behold. Peering out at the forests and mountains, she thinks of how far they’ve come to be here in what has been but a few short days.
She wasn’t wrong about the lack of interest in the room either, though Hannelia fancies she can see the marks of Anilda’s cleaning. Searching the room doesn’t take long but while she is poking around under the bed’s sagging mattress she finds a permanent testament to the house owners’ despicable reputation. She pulls a face, not that anyone else can see. Gods help us indeed.
Reporting the find, she’s ready to head back down the stairs to the ballroom if the others are.
Constantine purses his lips as Hannelia reports the carved message. What can possibly be done to cleanse this place of its vile past? Can it be cleansed?
Constantine kneels down and traces his fingers along scratched message. His face turns red. "I'm sorry," he whispers. "I hope that your soul found rest. If not, then I'll try to help."
Standing up, Constantine nods and leads the way down to the ballroom, his sword hand gripping the hilt of his blade a little harder.
"I mean, ye heard me singing one what in the shattered glass room." Roger shrugs. "But willingness and talent be two different gifts."
With a certain soberness, the group returns downstairs, descending the curved marble stairs that they ran pell-mell up, earlier...
The floor, walls, pillars, and fireplaces of this majestic ballroom are all made of polished marble. On the north side of the room, a grand staircase with divided flights leads up to a balcony overlooking the ballroom floor. An angel carved of black marble looms on a platform behind the middle landing of the staircase. Her eyes are milky-white pearls set into the stone-- while the statue itself no doubt is too heavy to easily transport, the pearls could possibly be prised free.
As per the map, a piano exists in the southeastern corner of the room, the dust cleared to reveal dark gleaming wood-- perhaps Anilda was through here recently. The rest of the room also shows signs of dusting-- while there are works of value here, like marble busts and velvet-upholstered furniture that Anilda must have tried to clean-- most of it is too bulky to stick into a pack or the like. Maybe if you return for that bathtub upstairs you could try and haul some of it out.
Sturdy double doors lead south-- no doubt back to the entry foyer you have already been to. Another door leads east.
Constantine retrieves his tools and decides to give Hannelia a hand with retrieving the pearls. As they work, he looks over the statue and has second thoughts. "This is, hmmm...an erinyes. A fallen angel." He clears his throat as he and Hannelia work. "I doubt that desecrating a statue of one is going to summon one to wreak havoc on us, but there it is."
With his hands full of tools, popping pearls out of black marble sockets, he calls to the others. "Anyone want to check the piano before we go into the next room?"
”If I’m honest I don’t really want to answer to any angel summoned as a result of this, fallen or otherwise,” replies Hannelia. She carefully levers a chisel-like implement into the socket and retrieves one of the pearls, working in tandem with Constantine to then remove the second.
When they have finished the delicate work she steps back to look at the statue properly once more. ”So long as this one isn’t asking to borrow my eyes any time soon I think we’ll all be happy,” she says lightly, though she hopes the others realise she knows she acted fairly rashly.
When Hannelia deftly pops out the first pearl and hands it off to Constantine, he feels a little tingle from the pearl that suggests there might be more to it than just shiny. He examines the milky-white surface a moment, opening his senses to the object's history, and is able to grasp that magical energies can be channeled through this pearl.
The piano, meanwhile, looks like a piano. It sits on a large and beautiful rug of black, crimson, and gold weave-- the colors dulled by time and dust, but with a recent attempt to clean both the rug and the instrument itself. Glossy ebon wood and ivory keys look intact enough, and well-made-- another item that might be worth a considerable bit of coin, but would be an enormous hassle to try and get back down to town.
Sirio idly investigates the piano. Running his fingers along it's edges and tapping at some of the keys in the melody of an old Asmodean hymn he learned to play once.
"Doesn't look like anything to me" Sirio says blankly.
The piano seems to play normally as Sirio interacts with it.
As Constantine inspects the pearls for the enchantment that he senses, Hannelia makes her way to the piano. Without a musical bone in her body is how she’d describe her talents, or lack thereof, in that direction, but she gives it a look anyway.
It’s clearly a very finely made item - worth a fortune and probably weighing the proverbial ton. Hannelia too approaches with no real idea what she’s looking for, but as she does so the vibrations beneath her feet shift into a subtly different pattern.
”Hold on please,” she says to Sirio. The vibration stops. ”Now try that note again.” As the priest taps the keys once more, she again feels the difference in the floorboards close to the instrument. ”There’s a change here,” she says, pointing at the floor and casting around for musical terminology that she doesn’t possess. ”I don’t exactly know how to describe it but when you play, it highlights a difference in the flooring close to the piano compared to the rest of the room. Like maybe it’s hollow beneath, or something is hidden, maybe? Perhaps we could move it and take a look?”
As Sirio sits down at the piano, Constantine turns the pearl over in his hand. Recognizing it for what it is, he gets the cleric's attention. "This will serve you best, Sirio. Catch." Then he tosses it in an arc through the air towards his "brother."
Curious that his family had the long history of devil worship, but it was Sirio who was actually beholden to those creatures. Someone might as well get some use of it.
At the mention of a possible hollowed floor, Constantine cracks his knuckles and limbers his muscles for the exertion. "Yes, let's move the piano to check. It won't make the tuning any worse."
As they surround the heavy instrument to move it, despite their combined might it doesn't budge. The reason for its lack of mobility is quickly revealed to be heavy iron bolts securing it to the floor. Though they show slight signs of wear - like everything else in the house - and an initial test suggests they are stiff with disuse, Hannelia thinks that with a bit of work she ought to be able to release the piano from its confines.
"It might take a bit of effort to unbolt it," she says, "but then someone took the effort to do it in the first place. I don't have any experience with such instruments but I don't think anyone is likely to be able to run off with this piano in a hurry so it does seem like overkill to secure it directly to the floor. All of which seems to beg the question: what were they trying to hide?" She smiles at the party. "I'm assuming we're not going to leave this mystery unresolved?"
"Ah, figure they've hidden something under the floorboards? A classic! T'wasn't a single honest merchantman in the whole Inner Sea what we could find, everyone has their own cubbies for a little under the table smugglin'." Roger nods in agreement.
Wiping her brow from the effort of having tried to move it, Emma paces around the piano with a slight frown.
"I'll admit, I'm curious. I can't say I'm the most adept at the work that would pry this thing loose enough to move, but..."
Emma trails off, shrugging slightly.
"I can't say I'd fancy returning here later, and I'd hate to leave an unsolved mystery behind. But I also don't know if we're running up against any kind of a clock here. Constantine, what do you think?"
Sirio snaps up the pearl in his fist as Constantine tosses it to him. "Careful with that."
He examines it curiously before stowing it in a belt pouch.
Hannelia crouches by the bolts and starts to work on them. The bolts themselves are old but nothing that a bit of grease (both the elbow variety and normal sort) can't fix. However, with the first leg unbolted and the thinnest gap between the bottom of the piano leg and the carpet and floor beneath, Hannelia realizes there's more going on here than meets the eye-- an internal metal pipe, perhaps 3/4ths an inch thick, extends from inside the piano leg and down into the floor itself, with wires and springs forming some sort of mechanism.
"Huh," mutters Hannelia as she works away at the first leg. The bolt took a bit of work but removing it turns out to not be enough to fully release it. Her face barely above the fine layer of dust on the rug, she sees something she wasn't expecting. "There's an insurance policy," she says, puzzled. "The leg itself is also attached to the floor. I'm not sure what's going on with it yet - I'd need time for a closer look - but it looks complex at first glance." She raises herself into a kneeling position. "What is clear is that whoever did this really didn't want this to be moved."
"There must be an easier way," says Sirio. "You don't go to that effort to hide something and then not have a method of being able to access it on demand. That would be utter foolishness and the Sarinis were no fools. There has to be a key." Muscle memory shapes his hand into a chord and he presses the piano keys again.
Inspired by the note, Hannelia makes a sudden connection. "A piano key. 'Play the right melody and the hidden door behind the bookcase opens', the old adventure story staple. Brilliant, Sirio - I think you have it." Hannelia smiles up at him, musing for a moment. "We've heard two tunes," she recalls. "One with the spirit and Anilda had a music box playing. I think we can discount the spirit as presumably that would only have begun to manifest once the house lay dormant. The music box probably dates from the Sarini's time, however." I'm glad it's that way round, she thinks, much preferring the idea of borrowing from the fey rather than facing the restless manifestation again.
"I'll go and ask Anilda. I'm sure she'll let me borrow it for a few minutes. If one of you would care to accompany me - just in case I have to sing to Baby or something while we're using it." She meets Emma's eye as she says it to let the paladin know that she's joking, mostly.
Anilda seems pleased when Hannelia informs her that she has removed a couple of hazards that could potentially have hurt either her or Baby, laying the groundwork before asking the favour. "He's awake now anyway, the little lamb" she says, head jerking in the direction of the crib. She snips away with her scissors once more. "And I'm sure he'd LOVE to hear you play his favourite song on the piano."
Pleased that the conversation went smoothly, Hannelia returns down the ballroom stairs forthwith carrying the music box. "Here we go then, let's see what we can do with this."
One music box swiftly acquired from your bestie Anilda....
You wind up the music box to give it another listen. It's a soft, simple lullaby, nothing too complex. None of you are, perhaps, incredibly musically trained, but maybe with a bit of dithering you can replicate the notes you hear from the box?
Placing the box on top of the piano, Hannelia winds the crank and it starts to play the tune that had been the backdrop to their conversation with Anilda. She has to confess she hadn’t really been paying attention to the melody though.
”Who will play?” she asks. ”I have what I think bards refer to as stage fright. I’m good enough at what I do but I sometimes struggle with things where I don’t know what I’m doing or haven’t practiced. I’ll try to help by focusing on these notes maybe?” She presses a few keys near her. She doesn’t particularly like admitting that she might panic a bit but she has enough self-awareness to recognise she might and isn’t going to let her pride harm their mutual chance of success.
"I'll go and ask Anilda. I'm sure she'll let me borrow it for a few minutes. If one of you would care to accompany me - just in case I have to sing to Baby or something while we're using it." She meets Emma's eye as she says it to let the paladin know that she's joking, mostly.
Emma rolls her eyes at Hannelia's barb about the 'Baby' but still, she's happy to accompany the other woman to retrieve the music box. Anilda manages to be as creepy as she was on their previous encounter; Emma does her best to keep her distance while Hannelia converses with her, trying not to shudder when Anilda gestures over to the 'Baby' in the crib. Hannelia was the one who had the best relationship with...whatever it was that Anilda was. Emma was all too happy to let her handle the conversation.
After leaving the room behind with the music box in tow, Emma turns to Hannelia and says in a low voice, "If she brings 'Baby' in there to listen to his favorite tune, it's going to turn into a funeral song real quick."
She doesn't mean it.
Probably.
Still - she doesn't really want to get close to 'Baby' again.
As a group, they listen to the song that's emitted from the music box. A simple lullaby - nothing too complex. That's good.
Right up until Emma glances around at her companions. No one seems to be volunteering, nor does anyone seem to look particularly confident about their piano skills.
Placing the box on top of the piano, Hannelia winds the crank and it starts to play the tune that had been the backdrop to their conversation with Anilda. She has to confess she hadn’t really been paying attention to the melody though.
”Who will play?” she asks. ”I have what I think bards refer to as stage fright. I’m good enough at what I do but I sometimes struggle with things where I don’t know what I’m doing or haven’t practiced. I’ll try to help by focusing on these notes maybe?”
With a soft sigh, Emma rubs her eyes and lets out a cough of a laugh. "Really Hannelia? Really? Stage fright? For Iomedae's sake woman, you gave up your eyes to Anilda without a seconds thought, but playing a piano in front of us is what gives you pause? Just when I think I have you figured out." She smiles at the other woman to let her know she's kidding.
Mostly.
"Well...I suppose after the earlier dancing performance earlier, it wouldn't surprise any of you that I also had some lessons with classical instruments - including the piano. Nothing extensive - I'm not trained or studied. But I played the basics and I'm willing to give this a shot. Hannelia, your help is appreciated of course."
And with that, she wanders over to the piano. After another listen to the lullaby, she puts her fingers to the keys of the piano and hopes for the best.
Iomedae is not known for a particularly strong musical tradition-- oh, certainly there is marching music, and hymns-- but it's not as though she is Shelyn.... yet all the same, it seems the goddess approves of Emma's immediate efforts.
After a bit of tinkering with the keys to ascertain notes-- the piano sounds rather out of tune but at least it still plays-- Emma takes a deep breath and tries to mimic the simple la-di-da melody of the music box. Hannelia nods along at this or that note, murmurs 'go a bit higher,' and after a few tries, Emma is able to pick out the basic notes well enough!
Something clicks inside the piano's strings-- something ticks and whirs inside the piano legs-- and the section of floor covered by the rug starts to move. Specifically, to sink! With a grinding of stone, the floor beneath you starts to move down, piano and all!
Hannelia shrugs at Emma’s teasing. ”I’m a woman of many talents. This just isn’t one of them.”
She’s unsure whether the paladin is being modest in describing her musical knowledge but once she starts playing, Emma is able to pick the tune out flawlessly with Hannelia’s untrained ear pretty much surplus to requirements.
Sweat beads on her forehead as she plays - perhaps she shouldn't have teased Hannelia about the stage fright. She thinks she's doing well enough - no one is telling her to give it up at least. Still, it's hard to tell how she's doing. It sounds close enough to her ears, but she's not exactly trained in this sort of thing.
"Think it's working?" she asks.
Almost immediately after speaking, there's a click within the strings of the piano. With a cacophony of suddenly jumbled notes and a small yell of surprise, Emma leans forward and grasps the piano. and feels it begin to move.
"The piano is moving!" she cries, perhaps unnecessarily. No, her voice isn't shrill, thank you very much.
Without a better plan in mind, Emma simply tightens her grip and waits to see what happens next. If there's any justice in the world, if she's to fall through the floor with the piano, let it at least land on Wormgnash and save them all the trouble.
Hannelia initially feels the success of the playing through vibrations in the floor before she realises what is happening. As it starts she braces to move, trusts to luck and instinctively leaps aside as the piano - and the floor with it - whirs, rumbles and begins to descend.
"Haha! Of course, a secret floor sinky thingie!" Roger is all smiles as the floor gives way, quite enjoying himself with the adventure of it all. He rides it down with a hearty laugh.
Constantine comes back from the initial exertion, not necessarily with sore muscles, but certainly frustrated. When Emma asks him for his opinion, he shrugs. "The only clock we're certain of is when the apparition we dealt with earlier will reconvene. Otherwise, we don't know what Wormgnash's timetable is. I don't want to take any more time than necessary."
He stands at the ready, idly spinning some of his tools around, while Hannelia works, prepared to hand her whatever she needs or put his back into holding something that she needs held. He's rather pleased when it turns out that the answer might not be finesse or brute strength, but a melodic construct. It is, perhaps, the first bit of clever engineering that they've encountered not designed to kill or maim. Constantine has been thinking about that as they've been working around all of the contraptions in this place. If a person was blessed with a mind for mechanics, why would they devote their prowess towards harm when there were so many wondrous things that they could do? He ruminates on such ideas while Hannelia and Emma go to retrieve the music box from Anilda.
The idea of playing the melody, however, causes the occultist to arch his eyebrow so high that it seems he might have pulled a muscle or two to stretch that far. He clears his throat and shakes his head. "The nun that directed the choir at the orphanage told me to--oh, how did she put it, Sirio?--'either mouth the words, boy, or bring me a pick to gouge out my ears so I don't have to hear your tin-eared caterwauling'. I have tried to avoid music ever since."
To be fair, Asmodean hymns were not particularly beautiful either, so it probably wasn't much of a loss to his cultural upbringing.
Thankfully, Emma seems to have benefited from those basic lessons at her church. As she flawlessly activates the curious mechanism, Constantine feels the floor move beneath him. He leans back away from the piano and draws his blade, riding on down.
Sirio tries to keep his demeanor aloof, despite his interest in the piano.
"It's just as well Mr... the gears in his head turn before he settles on, "Fioritura. Aside from the religious practice, I don't much see the point of music in any case. Beauty is only beautiful when enough people say so. Otherwise it's just self-indulgent."
When the floor drops he looks at Constantine, then draws his own weapon in kind. He turns to look around the room for threats.
Instinct and self-preservation guide Hannelia to leap clear-- but everyone else seems content to see where this ride is going... Hannelia safely leaps up to a stable section of the floor, but everyone else, you see the floor above you, and Hannelia's worried face, receding as you sink down...
After a descent of a dozen feet the floor grinds to a stop. The chamber around you is nightmarish!
A web of thick, pulsating goo covers the walls and part of the floor of this room. Dozens of misshapen, puffy heads and arms stick out from throbbing sacs attached to the vile substance, their mouths wailing and moaning, and their twitching claws reaching out blindly. Spiraling stairs lead down to a central two-foot deep recess decorated with diabolical symbols...
The writhing figures react with even further agitation to your presence, starting to rip free of their twisted chrysalises! Some of the figures are larger-- well, relatively-- more of the smarfus, or whatever they are called-- and others are small in a way that takes you unpleasantly back to the fight at the entrance to the corrupted warehouse....
If you think you've set it off, you move. That's the first rule of messing around with dangerous devices and years of doing exactly that has honed Hannelia's reflexes. As soon as the floor started shaking, she jumped to safety. Turning, she sees the rest of the group remain on board as piano, floor and party disappear out of view. Within a few seconds they sound like they have come to a noisy stop, so she peers down. The impromptu ride over, everyone else seems equally unharmed, if surprised.
She realises she has broken another key rule in that splitting up rarely ends well. She knows from the map they found that there are stairs down but she doesn't know what may lie between her and the stairs, nor what she'll find between there and the others. More importantly, despite a more restricted view from above, what Hannelia can see below looks horrific. Similar to the scene in the outbuilding, the room is covered in the accursed goo that has been plaguing the party and what look like misshapen forms appear to be trapped within.
That focuses her mind and she stops kicking herself for reacting naturally and stranding herself up here while everyone else is below in the demonsbile-coated chamber. Hannelia swallows, then jumps down, kicking lightly off the wall to her side and landing in a controlled crouch.
As she takes in the room fully, it's even worse than it appeared from above. A number of mites appear to have wriggled free from the web and a whole cloud of tiny forms is swarming above diabolic floor markings. Again, acting purely on instinct, Hannelia rises out of her crouch and snaps an arrow at point blank range at the mite just in front of her.