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"Make sure she does all seven verses each time." Adolina says to Celli and then vanishes with surprising speed.
She returns just as Rose is delighting her audience with the fourth verse (the one with the giggling girls) for the third time and, upon hearing the song, slows to a walk so that she is breathing normally and still has a verse in hand.
"Jerky." She says, holding up some unappetising looking meat. "Better than nothing though."
The coin pouch is flicked back to Rose, no lighter than before.
Celi nods, relieved that someone's come up with a solution that doesn't involve killing the dogs. Or using their limited spells. "Get offal if they have it. Kidneys, tripe, brain, whatever. It's cheaper and the dogs won't care." She's not sure if a noblewoman like Adolina has ever actually shopped for her own food, so it might not occur to her to ask for the cheap stuff that many humans won't eat.
"If they're starving, then they probably aren't being used as guard dogs..." Rexus adds, realization striking. "I hope." The last words are darker, almost angry. Still, he relaxes as Rose begins singing, though the shivers that run through him are growing more severe as they wait.
The dogs stop barking after a few verses, but every so often, a word or phrase seems to set them off, causing them to raise their voices to overwhelm the singer's.
It takes Adolina a few minutes to get to the local butcher's - owned by a tiefling with insectoid eyes named Varin - and a few more minutes to return, but when she does, she does so with a significant amount of meat.
"Well-" The barking covers Rexus' voice, so he raises it and tries again. "Well done, Adolina. Just... toss it in, do you suppose?"
Ghorza nodded at that statement. If she were to handle the animals it would likely be in the same manner as she did the door.
"It's flattering that you believe that I have any skill with animals whatsoever, other than the wild alley version of the common variety brute," Rose comments with a chuckle as she takes the offered bribe.
"Good doggy. Nice doggy," she cooes as she steps into the doorway. "Doesn't this smell oh so good? Yes, it does." She waves the meat in the air for a moment before tossing it towards the farthest part of the space ... away from their intended path.
Though they definitely don't seem to trust her, Rose's toss brings the dogs slowly towards the corner of the room, where they growl and snarl at one another as they tear into the hunk of meat.
Rexus shudders again. "Can we please head in? I'm hardly the most sturdy person at the best of times, and the wind is going to steal what little I have in me." He tucks his cane beneath one arm and rubs his arms vigorously, trying to keep the heat.
”If we don’t get too close we should be fine.” Ghorza said. ”Everyone go inside.” Pick in hand she stood between the group and the hounds, to ensure that nobody would be ambushed by them when entering. She was to be the last one in.
Rose stays near Ghorza, ready to intercept any canine aggression directed at some of the more ... squishier ... members of the group. Once they've bypassed the hounds, she quickly moves to the front.
"So, now let us see what we shall see. Shall we?" she questions with a grin.
Celi slips inside after the others, one hand on her spell component pouch as she watches the dogs.
The dogs seem distracted enough that they're willing to ignore the Ravens for now, and Rexus hastily follows the women inside.
Although it isn't quite warm in the poorly maintained Livery, the walls do keep out the worst of the winds, and Rexus sighs, shivering. "Thank Shelyn for the shelter." He looks around the building carefully. "Erm, I don't suppose anyone thought to bring a light of some sort?"
Most of the Livery is ruined and covered in junk, and there's not much to be explored, at least in the front half of it. The doors of the horse stalls hang open where they remain at all, and an odd assortment of broken desks, scuffed tables, and torn chairs.
"Did someone use this as a storage house after it shut down?" Rexus asks no one in particular, looking at the closest pile of refuse. "Because there are far too many pieces of furniture for a building used as a house for animals."
It's likely that the government hasn't bothered inspecting this building for awhile, though. Probably from a combination of rumors of it being haunted and and the lack of interest/money pushing for it.
Rose responds with a shake of her head when questioned about light.
"Squatters are always a possibility," Rose offers as she carefully searches through the debris.
"Light? Aye." Ghorza put her pack down and pulled out torches. "Sure, me people can see in the dark. But it's only in black and white, aye?" What she didn't admit was that she had actually bought the torches to keep her warm at night after she lost her home. The other explanation helped her save face. She handed a torch to Rose, Adolina and Rexus.
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"Wait." Adolina says when Ghorza produces a torch. "I can do this." She takes the unlit torch and speaks a few quiet words before the top of the torch glows with magical light. She keeps her body between the sudden light source and the dogs, holding it close to her chest.
"Might as well save it, r-right?" She asks. "Shall we go that way?"
"Oh, nice! All I have is candles. Torches and lanterns are heavy, and I can see in the dark so I don't usually need much light." And Celi would rather save her cantrips for other, more useful things. "To the northeast, then!"
Rose's search through the debris leaves her with a few sneezes but she finds nothing of significance. Adolina's light allows her to see much more clearly - as well as the others, to varying degrees.
"Thank you, Adolina." Rexus says, casting a quick glance at the dogs, still devouring the meat. "Let's move a little further in, shall we?" The women lead the way into the eastern end of the Livery, where they find that the iron gate is firmly locked shut, with no sign of a key nearby. There is a gap in the bars wide enough for Celi to slip through, however...
On the far end of the hall behind the gate, there's a stream of sunlight flowing in through badly cracked walls.
To the right , there's a strange opening in the wall - a door that looks like it was disguised, once, to look like the surrounding wall. Now it hangs on loose hinges, dangling open for all to see.
"Ah!" Rexus exhales sharply, which prompts a growl from the dogs in the corner. He swiftly claps his hand over his mouth, eyeing the creatures warily, but when they settle back down (for the moment) he continues in a quieter voice. "That looks like it might be our goal - a secret door!"
Rose glances back at the dogs before slipping her blade back into its sheath. "Another way in would be beneficial," she says before squeezing between the bars of the gate.
"One moment, Ladies and Gentlemen," she offers up quietly as she moves past the secret door to the cracked wall. With a couple of well-placed kicks from a booted foot, a portion of the wall crumbles and daylight streams in.
"I present to you a back door," she declares with a flourish.
Celi bites her lip, hesitating. "I could get through there... but I don't really want to go in alone. Who knows what might be lurking in a mysterious dark room?"
"Then we'll walk in together." Ghorza said, walking one step ahead of Celi. "Ye watch me back and I'll do the same."
"Let's hold off on heading back out for now. I don't want to disturb the dogs." Rexus grips Rose's arm with a chilly glove, glancing warily back at the animals, who are almost done with their meal. "Leave that as a last resort."
The women (and Rexus) advance into the deeper parts of the Livery, which quickly prove to be offices. They're covered in dust and are littered with battered cupboards, scratched desks (one in each room), and broken chairs.
With their magical prowess, they could quite easily make a building seem haunted, even - they can telekinetically manipulate objects, cause minor magical illusions and changes, open and close doors from a distance, and create slippery substances on the floor. All of them save the last would be quite effective at giving the impression of an angry poltergeist.
Grimples are able to climb up walls with astonishing ease, and can even fly (albeit clumsily). They are almost universally inflicted with vermin that are known as "gremlin lice," which can cause serious itching in any warm-blooded creature unfortunate enough to get inflicted by the close proximity to the grimples. Fortunately, they die off after a day or so, by submerging them in water or exposing them to freezing temperatures.
In battle, grimples resist normal weapons (as with most fey), and are able to vomit up putrescence that can nauseate even the strongest of stomachs if one is hit with such a blast.
Drawn out of her daydreaming of being thin enough to to slip between the bars, Rose moves into the other part of the livery. She stills seems lost in her thoughts, though, and doesn't notice anything of note.
While everyone searched, Ghorza spent time outside of the offices. She stopped, suddenly seeing a gleam of...platinum! There was a platinum ring hanging on a nail in one of the rafters, about fifteen feet up in the air.
"Oi, Celi." Ghorza called out. "There's a ring up there. Got any magic that can bring it down? Quite high up, I'd hate for any of us to fall trying to get it."
Celi takes a look around, but she's quickly distracted by Ghorza. "Ooh, nice! I'll have it down in a jiffy." She recites her favorite cantrip, reaching up to control the spell with her own hand. It takes a bit of wiggling, but eventually the ring comes loose and floats down to where she can grab it. "I wonder if it's magical?" Fortunately, Celi keeps detect magic prepared just in case she finds something interesting. She casts the spell and stares intently at the ring. Then she looks around the rest of the offices for magical auras; maybe the Silver Ravens used illusions to conceal their hideout.
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Adolina catches sight of the ring before Ghorza does, but a moment of hesitation over what to say lets the dwarf speak first and (honestly) relives her. As Celi deals with that Adolina wanders away and pokes around in the desk draws, eventually finding an iron key jammed in the back of a stuck draw.
"F-found something!" She calls softly, holding up the key for the rest of the group to see. She heads back to the gate and tries it in the lock, doing her best to be quiet.
The key fits perfectly to the gate's, though the lock on it is a touch rusty, and the noblewoman needs to put a bit of pressure into it to turn the key. As soon as she's about to touch the gate to open it, however, it flings itself open of its own volition, revealing in fuller light the space beyond it. A chorus of giggles echoes from behind the dangling door.
The light from the cracked wall shafts into the building, casting shadows of the boxes and barrels left behind. The women in front can see through the half-open doorway - it looks like a storage room, or maybe a workroom.
"What the-?!" Rexus jumps, startled from his watch over the dogs' corner by the unbidden opening of the gate. "... what was that?" He adds slowly, looking rapidly around. "And did anyone bring holy water?"
"What?" Rose questions with a grin. "It just sounds like someone having a little fun." She draws her blade as well. "We wouldn't want to disappoint them, now would we?"
She advances cautiously towards the door.
Cursing under her breath, Ghorza walked beside Rose with pick in hand. There was no bravado or words of bravery, rather she merely kept her eyes peeled for whatever danger might beset them.
Celi frowns, listening intently. "That wasn't someone opening the gate by hand. That was the open/close cantrip, or something very similar."
"... Does that mean it isn't a haunted area? Or is it just more likely to be some sort of ghost that can manage such a cantrip?" Rexus asks Celi, his lips twisting in a slight frown.
Ghorza and Rose advance in to look at the opened door. It's a workroom, it seems - numerous old slaughterhouse tools, veterinary equipment, and woodworking tools, all of which are covered with a thick layer of dust through which strange tracks and patterns have been traced. Heavy mallets, crumbling ropes, and tools for restraining animals hang from pegs in the walls or rest atop leaning tables. To the southwest, a trap door sits ajar, propped open by a block of wood.
With their magical prowess, they could quite easily make a building seem haunted, even - they can telekinetically manipulate objects, cause minor magical illusions and changes, open and close doors from a distance, and create slippery substances on the floor. All of them save the last would be quite effective at giving the impression of an angry poltergeist.
Grimples are able to climb up walls with astonishing ease, and can even fly (albeit clumsily). They are almost universally inflicted with vermin that are known as "gremlin lice," which can cause serious itching in any warm-blooded creature unfortunate enough to get inflicted by the close proximity to the grimples. Fortunately, they die off after a day or so, by submerging them in water or exposing them to freezing temperatures.
In battle, grimples resist normal weapons (as with most fey), and are able to vomit up putrescence that can nauseate even the strongest of stomachs if one is hit with such a blast.
"Ah!" Rexus looks distinctly pleased. "That trapdoor must be our goal... but why was it left open? Mother's letter didn't mention any Thrune raids on this pla-"
He is interrupted by the sight of several tools growing bloodstained, as though they've been used - recently.
"Ghosts don't normally leave footprints," Rose comments as she moves through the room towards the trap door. "Not, at least, as far as I know."
She raises her voice a bit.
"If you're trying to scare us, you'll have to do much better than that," she calls out. "So why don't you just call it a bad job and show yourself."
Ghost. Mage. Devil. Demon. Elemental. Whatever it was, Ghorza kept her eyes peeled, hoping to catch a glimpse for the source of the morbid disturbance.
"Does anyone know what kind of tracks those are? I don't." A flash of red catches Celi's attention; blood slowly appearing on the slaughtering tools. The gnome sighs and rolls her eyes. "That 'blood' is coming from prestidigitation. Honestly, they thought they would fool a gnome with something that basic? Child's play." And she does mean that literally. Gnomish children use their natural magic- or not so natural magic, in Celi's case- to play tricks on everyone around them.
Adolina has a good idea with detect magic. Two sets of eyes are better than one, so Celi follows the human's lead.
However, she does notice something strange about the footprints - they look almost like a human baby's, except most human babies she's seen don't have claws long enough to scratch the floor.
There's no answer to Rose's challenge - whatever's doing this, it either doesn't care about her taunts, doesn't understand them, or wants to bring them to it.
Rexus looks somewhat relieved at Celi's information. "Well, that's good, I suppose. It means that whatever is here, it isn't necessarily that potent." He glances over the tracks, then shakes his head. "I'm afraid not. My studies were perforce more focused on, erm, human matters. Especially Chelaxian." He sounds more than a touch bitter about that. "Fortunately, I was able to at least glean more insight from the texts I studied than Thrune would've liked."
After a few moments, he looks around. "I suppose we should at least take a look down the trap door?" Despite his words, he takes no immediate moves, clearly aware that recklessness on his part could easily lead to injury.
Holding up a hand to get everyone’s attention, Ghorza then pointed to the tracks she had found. ”Look.” She demanded, her voice deathly serious. ”Tracks that look like those of a human baby. But…what baby has fooking claws? See? It even scratched the floor.” She paused and then continued ”Whatever it is be small. And while I don’t like betting, if I had to I’d say it used the trap door.”
"Could it be a devil of some sort?" she questions, her knowledge of devils limited entirely to popular knowledge and what she's seen on stage.
"And if it is, then all the more reason to confront and deal with it, no?"
She moves to the trap door and pulls it open entirely.
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Adolina approaches the trapdoor cautiously and then tosses the magically lit torch through with a gentle underarm throw. She doesn't retreat, but does circle the trapdoor at a distance so as to look down from a different angle to the one she threw the torch at.
Unless Ghorza takes the lead she squares up to the ladder and clambers down, obviously trying to move pretty quickly.
"Hold up, my Lady," Rose speaks up, placing a hand on the young noblewoman's arm. "It would be churlish of me to allow someone of your refined nature to tip the spear." She gives Adolina a wink before sheathing her blade and slipping down the ladder.
Celi frowns at the unfamiliar prints. "The only devil I know that size is an imp, and they have wings. Why would they walk when they can fly?" She certainly wouldn't bother walking if she could fly.
Once Adolina opens the trap door, Celi waits a few seconds to see if something flies out at them. If not, she carefully makes her way over to peer down into the darkness.
"It could be a devil," Rexus allows, but shakes his head. "I never studied much diabolism. It was something of a point of pride for me, really... but I think, on reflection, it was somewhat foolish."
Opening the trap door doesn't provoke any reaction from whatever is "haunting" the Livery, allowing the women to take the chance to look down into the basement. There is a ladder that extends fifteen feet down to the floor, fortunately, as there's not much down there to cushion a fall.
The eye-watering stench of urine and feces fills the large room beneath the trap door. In the flickering torchlight and the steady light of Adolina's spell, the Ravens also catch sight of what seem to be... nests? These "nests" are made up of chewed crates and barrels, and are far too large for whatever dwells in them to be pleasant. Rusty knives and hooks cover the tabletops, their metal not even glinting in the two light sources.
"'And into the depths we descend,'" Rose quotes from a popular subversive play about heroes facing diabolic forces. She grins before descending the ladder.
"Rodents of unusual size. Great. Just great." Ghorza said, as she went after Rose.
"Ew." Celi stands at the top of the ladder and aims her crossbow at the nearest rat.
As Rose reaches the bottom of the ladder, she hears sharp squeaks - just in time for Adolina's warning to register with her. There are definitely rats down here.
Rexus, still in the work room, glances around and then lays a hand on Ghorza's shoulder. The dwarf feels a sudden sense of incipient destiny, as though something grand is about to occur. "There. This should help you a bit." He says.