Turning to face Eliza while she talks, she let's her face remain motionless. She nods to Eliza and when Eliza turns to face Tadia, Miya turns her back to Eliza and faces Tadia as well. "Agree." and then reciprocates the gesture Tadia showed her earlier, sticking out her tongue.
Tadia looks between Eliza and Miya for a moment before it seems that the fight drains out of her.
"Fine," she declares. "Since it's been determined that that's my job, I'll do my part. Anything to get this over with."
She looks away.
"So I can go home."
With the boards removed Eliza unlocks the door using the skeleton key and reveals the room beyond. An easel with a covered canvas stands near a stool in the eastern part of this room. Painter’s supplies clutter the shelves to the north, while a tall-backed chair is placed near a fireplace to the west. What appears to be several spills of fresh paint glisten on the floor in the middle of the room. A bed to the southeast has a pillow and sheets caked with dried blood where an occupant’s head might have rested. At the foot of the bed lies a set of traveler’s cases, partially filled with clothing and other supplies for a long journey. A human skeleton clad in a rotted majordomo uniform lies sprawled amid these supplies.
As Eliza steps into the room the paint spills merge together and slither upwards alarmingly to form two vaguely humanoid shapes. Both are vaguely reminiscent of the portraits found downstairs - the majordomo and the woman from the family portrait. The majordomo glares with intense hatred but the other woman glides bonelessly towards Eliza, stopping a few feet away.
"Are you... mother?" It asks, sounding as though its speaking through a mouthful of liquid. "Heard you, outside. Squabbling children, like mine. Love my children. Wanted to take them. Save them. Will you? Save them? Free us all?"
Eliza lets out the most frustrated groan and throws her hands up into the air in frustration.
"Look, Tadia - I don't know how to make you happy here! I have tried to be welcoming. I have tried to be fair, as yes, I have hired you all to help me."
"But, I have already welcomed you to stay here after we are done if you so choose, you would have earned it, even if it was not the most exciting prospect for someone you age. I have even said how I would like the company in such a big place! But at the slightest hint of disagreement, you always want to run away! I can only help you if you allow yourself to be helped! "
With that, Eliza turns away to the boards and starts yanking at them, taking out her frustration on the planks, rather than the girls behind her.
Tadia turns to glare at Eliza's back, but there's no manifestation of her anger. She avoids looking at the Miya, sure that the woman is smirking in victory. Determined not to let her foe see weakness, she turns away again before the tears begin to fall.
She's relatively composed - if not a little puffy-eyed - when they finally breach the room's door.
Miya turns her attention to the boards and begins ripping them off. Maybe she smirks, but her face is buried in her work and no one would see it even if she had.
Once the boards are removed and the creature moves towards Eliza, Miya draws her weapon and steps between Eliza and the creature. She's not overtly hostile towards it, but she makes sure that if something devolves in conversation that it would be the champion who would be closer to combat than the investigator.
"Free you all from what?" Eliza probes, suddenly forgetting her frustration when confronted by the figures.
"Him!" The strange paint creature replies. "He took my babies. Took our minds! Took everything!"
Purple paints runs in streaks down the strange face. "Swear you'll save them! SWEAR IT!"
Eliza pauses, evaluating the situation.
"Yes, we will free your children. We will free you too if you can help us."
"Too late. Leave. Save them!" The creature replies, before falling back into a pool of paint. The second odd creature stares daggers for a moment before deforming as well and it is clear that there is nothing more to be learned in this room with its sad debris and memories of a happier life.
Looking out the windows shows the sun high in the sky. There are stairs up another floor and considerable light coming in from above but the siren song of a cost library and reading is not far from anyone's mind. (Except maybe Miya, who doesn't appreciate such things properly.)
Upstairs is a conservatory-like structure, divided into a number of rooms and enclosed by a wooden walkway which surrounds the central portion of the manor and looks out over the building’s rooftops to the east and west, and to the manor grounds beyond. A rickety railing adorns the walkway’s edge, looking just about ready to collapse.
The only visible room is one full of glass display cases featuring feathers, preserved insects, and framed documents adorning the walls. To the south, two semicircular tables, each set against the walls, feature an exquisitely crafted miniature building, while benches along the opposite walls are covered with feathers and bird bones. Alexi is wily enough by now to recognise the tell-tale signs of a haunt when she sees one and you steer well clear.
Two small rooms stand on either side of the short passage. One proves to be a small armory where a collection of bows and crossbows rest on a shelf in the south part of this dusty room. To the northwest, two barrels filled with bolts and arrows sit under a grimy window. There are 40 arrows and 40 crossbow bolts in the barrels. The weapons on the shelves include three shortbows, two longbows, two crossbows, and a heavy crossbow. The heavy crossbow is clearly magical and Tadia identifies it as a +1 striking ghost touch weapon, although the runes seem a little odd to her. A flat case nearby holds half a dozen crossbow bolts, which seems odd until someone picks them up - the heads are incredibly heavy and closer examination shows that they are made of adamantine and worth a small fortune in their own right!
The opposite room is filled by shelves of taxidermy tools which line the southwest walls of this cramped room, and barrels partially filled with straw and sawdust sit on the floor nearby. A bloodstained cloth lies on top of a workbench under a grimy window, partially covering a tiny, pitiable corpse - a nosoi psychopomp like Ezramalkun, but long dead.
The double doors at the head of the stairs are locked, but the skeleton key fits them easily. From beyond the door comes the soft sound of birdsong but its tone is wrong and sends shivers down the spine...
Tadia is too distracted to determine much else regarding the crossbow.
"Someone really liked bows," she mumbles in a morose voice as she traces a finger along one of the limbs of the enchanted weapon, wiping the dust away.
~~~
With the door unlocked via the key that Eliza carries, the sylph pushes open one of the doors with her foot and steps back.
The revealed room beyond is elegant but dusty, with a flight of spiral stairs that ascends in the middle of this room. Paintings, display cases, hunting trophies, and taxidermic birds decorate the rest of the room, covering every available bit of space between the grimy windows - two of which to the east appear broken in a few places, as if by thrown rocks. Low, round display tables with sculptures atop them dot the chamber. The sculptures and paintings all seem damaged in one way or another.
Perched on various surfaces are four more nosoi, all with bald patches, dingy plummage and a nasty looking gleam in their birdy eyes!
can act.
Anger at what the evil in this manor has done to the nosoi - so similar to the adorable Ezramalkun - fills Tadia's vision.
Three magical bolts fly towards the furthest-most of the corrupted creatures.
Alexi moves up and attacks a nosoi.
Miya strides forward, attempting to get into flanking position with Alexi if possible. Once she's moved up, she attacks twice.
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Alexi misses by a whisker as the creature dodges, but Miya lands two powerful blows and Tadia's force bolts crush the nosoi into inert paste.
The nosoi hovering over the stairs begins a crooning song that each and ever woman hears, somehow, in their own native lanugage.
The other two birds swoop onto Tadia, pecking viciously at her!
One lands a nasty blow but the psychic is able to fend off the others.
Tadia's anger grows and her restraint falters. "GET AWAY FROM ME!" she screams out.
She directs more bolts at the nearest nosoi.
Miya is able to avoid being fascinated by the song, though she does wonder how it's possible it's being sung in her native tongue.
She moves to the next nosoi, once again trying to setup for flanking with Alexi if possible. She attacks twice, whirling her chain weapon towards the creature.
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Eliza's head fills with the sound of siren song, and her eyes glaze over as she examines the Nosoi, not noticing them attacking Tadia.
The song fascinates Alexi, but she continues to attack her chosen foe, moving to another one if it falls.
Alexi's powerful blow combined with Tadia's physical expression of rage makes another nosoi explode into a ball of feathers and bone.
A third nosoi is hit hard by the psychic blast and Miya dispatches it with a powerful blow. Within moments only one remains but its enchanting voice still draws Eliza in with magical power. When she gets close the creature lashes out!
The last nosoi is bludgeoned into paste with considerable prejudice!
The set of spiral stairs leads into an octagonal observatory, although the room appears to have been torn apart long ago from a violent search or perhaps a long, drawn-out fight. A desk and chair in the northern part of the room seem to have escaped this violence, as did a five-foot-tall, one-foot-wide mirror of dark glass in a frame made of wood, but other pieces of furniture, shelves, and books lie scattered through the rest of the room. A pile of rubble near the south walls appears to be the shattered remains of what might have once been an observation platform. At the room’s eastern and western sides, gears and chains look like they once allowed for the retraction of the roof above, but the mechanisms and chains to the east lie in rubble.
Several strange skeletons lie strewn about the place; these long-dead creatures appear both humanoid and bat-like yet resemble something else entirely and a huge unearthly, brain sprouting monstrosity is hunched over them on six powerful legs!
”I don’t know what that is, but I hate it,” Alexi groans. ”Pharasma, preserve us!” She moves in to attack with the hatchet.
Alexi lands a blow but is utterly bemused as to what the creature could be. The creature's odd glowing brains shine brightly and phantom tendrils snake out to lash at Alexi and Miya. One passes just over Eliza's head but fortunately she and Tadia seem to be safe.
Alexi falls, her brain on fire and her body eviscerated. As least she resists the toxin...
Miya uses her lay on hands ability to get Alexi back into the fight before swinging at the creature twice. [ooc]Alexi +12HP
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Her anger having cooled from the previous encounter, Tadia feels it boiling up inside again as she mentally flings a broken shard of wood at the creature.
Eliza steps forward but cannot figure a way to target its weaknesses so instead, steps behind Alexi, bending over to her aid.
Alexi leaps to her feet, flailing around her with her new axe.
Unfortunately she focuses on Eliza, rather than the undead monstrosity and her hand glows with energy as she attempts to grab the investigator!
Fortunately she misses and spins wildly, her hand still glowing.
The monster seems unperturbed by Alexi's strange dancing, but Tadia's wood shard sticks deep into it and the creature doesn't react well to that. It coils its legs and leaps over the staircase, and comes crashing down next to Tadia as its mandibles reach for her fair head.
Unable to master the concentration to even fling debris, Tadia shifts her thoughts and her form becomes indistinct.
Miya flails her weapon all around her target without actually hitting it.
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Eliza considers the monster for a moment and then decides that her best course of action is to try and get Alexi back on side.
The thaumaturge is weaving like a madwoman but Eliza is nothing if not persistent and cracks Alexi across the face with a sharp snapping sound.
The pain of the blow is enough to bring the Pharasmin to her senses!
Alexi gets a grip on herself. She grabs a healing potion from her belt, drinks it, then grabs her final potion.
Miya continues to attempt to smash the creature, but can't seem to land a blow on it.
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Eliza, knowing she stands no chance standing toe to toe with the thing, continues to help her allies, this time focusing on Tadia, unable to help Alexi any further.
The undead creature bits hard at Tadia and even her indistinct form is no protection against its brutal jaws.
As the psychic collapses, grievously wounded and wracked by poison, the undead turns its attention to its next nearest prey - Miya.
Some higher power is watching the battle however and seems to be delighting in frustrating everyone's plans as the creature's feet slip in Tadia's blood and it ends up flailing wildly.
Alexi fumble with her esoterica again, once more failing utterly to figure out what to use against this bizarre monstrosity. She moves to fight the creature again, swinging the hatchet.
Miya is amazed she doesn't get hit! She continues to attempt to strike and finally delivers a decent strike with her weapon!
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Miya sees the psychi dying at her feet and decides that she cannot simply standby and let the poor girl go like this. She pulls her last attempt to strike her foe and instead try to heal Tadia.
Eliza's heart stops a beat as she realises that fate is not on their side and she doubles down, stepping over Eliza, unconscious on the floor and strikes.
She is not usually a Godly woman, however she utters a prayer as she does so. "Not today Pharasma, we're not ready."
Ready or not it seems that the gods are not listening as both Miya and Eliza's blows rebound from the creature's unnatural flesh. Tadia, still flat on the floor, seems to be beneath the creature's interest but it bites and claws viciously enough at the champion to make up for it. Fortunately its lingering weakness mostly robs its blows of some force.
Alexi just keeps hacking with the hatchet, hoping against hope that they can take the monster down before it kills them all.
Miya swings and swings and swings until she finally lands a blow!
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Tadia staggers to her feet behind Eliza, her mind still cloudy from the creature's assault.
The anger having abandoned her, leaving nothing but cold ashes in her heart, she attempts to engage by throwing more broken debris.
Eliza throws Miya a stimulant pill and then ducks behind the creature, hoping against hope that attacking from behind will be easier. Unfortunate she can't figure out how!
Alexi and Miya team up to deliver powerful blows to the creature, but as Miya strikes one of the glowing brains on its back vanish and the creature's flesh begins to close before your eyes!
The monster seems enraged by the damage its taken and retaliates with horrendous brutality - biting deep into Miya and then crushing her with a claw. It retains enough speed and power to lash out at Alexi, grievously wounding the thaumaturge once more! Tadia continues to be ravaged by the creature's toxin.
Miya stops dying, for the moment.
Alexi hacks again.
Stumbling and trying to pierce through the fog in her brain, Tadia looks around and seeing Miya on the ground, sends a wave of soothing mental energy in the hope that the woman gets up to stand between her and the many-brained creature.