Seeing the others go down Aldous exercises the better part of valor and spasms then goes still apparently breathing his last...
The scholar lies dead-still with one eye barely cracked and his breathing as shallow as possible.
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Aldous tries to put together a quick spell, but between the shock of the fall and the need to roll out of the way of a flaming heel getting a little too close for comfort, he doesn't manage it.
Fall Damage + prone.
Aldous comes thundering up the hallway on his horse...
From afar in the shadows, Aldous traces his fingers through the last gestures of a summons and when the chestnut mare appears in the corridor he quickly pulls himself into the saddle. "You'll have to forgive me for this later Laurel." The mage kicks the mare's sides and shouts "Hyah!" as she charges down the corridor.
Aldous drops the empty vial, looks at his doomed companions and the burning skeletons hoarding in around them and turns to run. Spoiler:
Some distance away in the shadows he stops, twists his ring, and begins casting...
Aldous stumbles away from the flaming bones nearest him clutching his wounds. His dagger clatters to the floor while he frantically digs through his bag for the vial he tucked away earlier.
Blood flows free staining his loose white shirt now shredded across chest and sleeves. Aldous is in trouble, and he knows it, but there is no way he could climb that rope before one of the skeletons would just yank him down. Instead he keeps his guard up, waiting for Luka and Trevor to pulverize the remaining skeletons.
Aldous cries out when he claws slash him and reaches for his dagger. He holds it in front of him like he expects it to ward off the walking dead, but all of his considerable attention is focused on staying away from those claws.
Aldous hurls his rock in a panic and watches in dismay as it sails between two rising skeletons missing them entirely.
Aldous nimbly dips and grabs a fist sized rock from the rubble. "No one knows how to stay dead around here..."
Aldous drops down lightly and brushes his hands clean. He notes the partially buried bones with some trepidation. "If we get trapped by spirits down here it is time to utilize the Pharasman devices, agreed? We do not want to be trapped down here after nightfall. Retrieve the badge and get out, yes?"
While the others fuss and worry about climbing down, Aldous is preoccupied with his book- so focused in fact that he has lost all rack of them and hears their voices only as a distant background murmur. The scholar is sitting down back against one wall with his book spread open across his knees hastily sketching from memory. When he is satisfied for the moment (details can come later), he pens in 'Vesorianna - Wife of Warden Hawkren' and blows on the ink to dry it. While blowing on the fresh ink he finally looks up only to realize the others are gone. "Oh. Well then." After a brief moment of panic, Aldous hears Luka's landing as he lets go and drops down the last couple of feet far below. After carefully putting away his book, pen, and vial of ink he walks over the the edge of the ragged hole, looks down and sighs. "Someday when I become dean of Ustalavic studies this will be a charming little story..." But today the chance of injury or death was a little too real and he quickly ran through an incantation of protection before taking hold of the rope himself and climbing down.
Aldous shuffles uneasily and nudges Trevor, "Did she just say we had to confront all five of the most twisted prisoners locked up here? Because our track record with average inmate is not so hot right now."
Momentarily distracted by the blue fabric Aldous frowns and pulls the scrollcase out of his bag. He uncaps the top and pulls out the scrap salvaged from the warden's house, holds it up, looks at the pile int he corner and back again trying to make a match.
"I wouldn't dream of getting in the way of the professionals. But tea is a great idea now that you mention it. After this room maybe we can take a moment to refresh."
Aldous notes the look of impatience on Trevor's young face and sighs. just before the boy goes to break down the door he grabs him by the shoulders to stare in his eyes while trying to explain a little more. His smile is a little too forced, eyes red rimmed, gaze intense. "The prisoners are trying to kill us, yes? I cannot imagine a scenario where a woman was a prisoner here. Therefore, it is my hope that she will not try to kill us. If that is the case, whether explorer or laundress, she may be willing to help us in exchange for help passing on or merely to spite the prisoners who may have killed her. Do NOT attack her unless she comes after you. ...on second thought if she comes after you get out of there fast. There are too many dangerous things laying around."
Aldous walks alongside Trevor explaining as the walk up the hall, "There is a serious manifestation in this room ahead, but it is puzzling. I could hear a woman crying from down the hall. Bu this was a men's prison from what I have read. I don't know if the spirit might be a past explorer or maybe the prison laundress if they were so bold as to allow a woman to work inside. In any case there are bones inside and a fair number of sharp implements that I am rather hoping to not see flying around once we disturb her."
Aldous looks between the door, back down the hallway and back at the door then sighs. As badly as he wanted to see what was going on in there, getting killed in the process was not part of the plan. If needles and shears started flying better to have that eager boy in his suit of armor up front. Aldous makes it back to the group in time to see Trevor clutching his burned arm with Luka leaning over to inspect it. "Ahh... Another haunting? That looks... unfortunate." With the door still open Aldous peeks inside and doesn't see anything terribly threatening so he steps in circling the room while stopping to inspect an iron here, the desk there, and anything else that catches his eye until he has made the circuit.
The full collection of sharp and pointy things scattered around the room give Aldous pause. "Ahh. Hmm. Well now..." He looks back over his shoulder to see if the others are near by.
Aldous walks on almost in a trance until he is standing outside the door. This doesn't make any sense... Why would a woman's spirit linger here? An explorer killed on site? A sacrifice by the cultists? "Guys... stop playing around in there. I'm pretty sure you are going to want to see this." Aldous knocks on the door, "Miss, are you okay?"
Aldous doesn't seem to hear Trevor. He hesitates in the central corridor listening with his head cocked to the side and brows furrowed. He mutters to himself while digging in his bag, "Surely this prison only held men?" After a moment he comes up with a small leather pouch. The scholar dips one finger in, traces a line of grave dirt under each eye, and begins slowly walking toward up the hall from where the others are gathered.
Aldous stops and looks up at the shattered ceiling. "Hmmm. I would wager this collapse was deliberately triggered. Wonder if there is another explorer like us or the professor under all of that?"
"That flute... could it be the Piper of Ilmarsh?" Aldous pulls back a bit, "Let's not hang out here to find out. Hurry up Trevor!"
"And then they locked it again?" Aldous frowns then offers Arasmes a sly smile. "When I crack this safe I'll gladly remind you that it's contents have nothing to do with your investigation."
It could fairly be said that Aldous was enjoying making a production out of gathering research materials from the found documents and other incidental items along the way. Aged paper was pressed between the pages of his book just so and closed carefully before being replaced in his bag. Bizarre, perhaps morbid knick knacks were bound in strips of fabric and dropped into his scroll case. At the sight of the safe his interest is especially piqued. "Mind if I give it a try?" Aldous kneesll down and opens his pack, rummages around for a moment and pulls out a small shaving kit. He sorts through it looking for something and finally settles on a small metal file and a very long thin pair of scissors.
"Hmmph. This old lock must be rusted. Give me a minute here..."
"If I had to hazard a guess, there will be a lot of shouting and running around followed by a disorderly retreat. I thought today we might do well to chart a path around the ghosts as much as we can and hopefully learn something while we are at it."
"That, my friend, is a very good question." He steps in to examine the papers.
Aldous simply shrugs with a sly smile, "Well- no. We don't have to." He steps back and with a flourish shows Trevor to the door. "It is certainly more exciting this way, I'll give you that."
"Let's see how things are at the heart of the prison."
Aldous tucks the cloth scrap into a leather scroll case and places it back in his pack while retrieving a savory breakfast pastry he'd picked up from a local baker early that morning. "I suppose a map would have been entirely too easy. So where were we..." The foolish or fearless scholar takes the lead heading back into the prison complex. From the entry hall he deliberately heads in the opposite direction of yesterday's hauntings while rattling on in a belated response to Trevor's question about his lodgings earlier that morning. "Ahh yes. It is comfortable enough and the food is certainly decent. At the moment there are only two other lodgers- a couple of troubadours." A momentary frown crosses his face, but its hard to tell whether that had to do with the troubadours or was in relation to the door he was inspecting. "The innkeeper, Ms Sarianna, seems honest enough and the sheets are clean."
Aldous eventually realizes no one is volunteering to fetch a scrap of blue cloth from a dangerous ruin for him and sighs. With a few words of warding and a traced rune through the air in front of him, he steps in lightly and heads directly for a scrap of the fabric he had seen from outside.
"Hmm. Just some tatters of blue fabric. Grab a piece of that if you don't mind. Perhaps it could come in handy as a spirit focus if we attempt to establish contact with the ghost of the warden at some point."
"Just a moment... I think I see something..."
Back at the library... Aldous accepted the box with a curious smile. "Ahh Kendra. I have to admit I was needling her a little last night for old times sake- I love seeing her a bit flushed and excitable- but now I can't help but consider her fiery response a challenge." He looks down at the box turning it around from various angles while frowning before cracking the lid, "And thank you for bringing this." Back at Harrowstone... Aldous stands outside the crumbling structure apparently hesitating while staring off into nothing.
The moment that Arasmes makes a crack about doing research for Aldous, the writer steps around a corner walking slowly while reading a tattered book. Without looking up he mumbles, "And I can't thank you enough. You've been invaluable." Aldous is looking a bit more disheveled than yesterday with dark circles under his eyes and ink staining most of the fingers of his right hand. "This is truly fascinating reading'"
Last night... When the momentary blindness from the intense flare passed, Aldous instantly checked for his purse then looked around suspiciously before settling on the card players. When he saw which cards were laid out on the table, his face went pale and he immediately continued up the stairs to his room at a careful measured pace. Day to day Aldous had more or less convinced himself that he was not a superstitious person, but something about the spread of the cards managed to tap into a reservoir of suppressed belief cultivated by his decades of youth in the Ustalavic countryside well before University days. Days spent in the care of his mother and her tales of fate and prophesy and more importantly- her ever present harrow deck. Aldous was rattled, but safely inside his room he pulled a chair up to the tiny desk and spread his book open. For the next hour or so the mage lost himself in recording his initial impressions of Harrowstone, those he had explored it with, and the spirits encountered within in exquisite detail. That time was precious to him as it always was when he could pour all of his focus into one thing and stop the intermittent bombardment of incoherent sensory impressions from near and far, present, past and future. As his pen scratched across the page tension flowed from it and the scholar slowly began to unwind. Eventually a long yawn surprised him and let him know he was finally drowsy enough to change clothes and turn in for some sleep. In his dreams though, the cards, The Uprising and his mother's warnings were waiting...
Aldous squirms as her nails dig in and snatches his hand back once she releases it. While massaging his hand he offers a weak smile and declines, "Ah... no thank you. It does seem to be getting late. Perhaps I will take you up on the offer to peruse the Professor's library another night." "Gentlemen, it has been a pleasure. I have some personal matters to attend to, but I will meet you back here in the morning to continue our exploration."
"Hmm," Aldous muses while seemingly absorbed with a portrait hanging across the room, "I can't say I am all that familiar with the Whispering Way. Their name comes up here and there in arcane texts, but I have never bothered to follow up on the references. Either way about it we are talking flesh and blood now and necromancers to boot. That would certainly explain the spike in paranormal activity within Harrowstone's grounds and make them the prime culprit for the ritual etching of Lyvar Hawkren's name over and over around the foundation of the prison in blood." The scholar's gaze suddenly shifts back to Kendra, whom he fixes with a passionate gaze, "My dear Miss Lorrimer would you believe that in one afternoon within the prison grounds we were confronted by a manifestation of those who died in the prison blaze screaming from the wood grain of the doors, flaming skulls (quite real and material) flying around trying to bite us, a restless spirit who tried to suck the warmth right out of poor Arasmes here, and a giant iron furnace possessed by yet more lingering spirits who died in the blaze? I've never seen or even read about such an intense haunting in these parts. This must be a new development or the townspeople would know all about this by now. The more I think about it, the more certain I am that these necromancers were working to set something in motion and Professor Lorrimer, Lady of Graves rest his soul, stumbled into it." Aldous thinks for a second while glancing at the bookshelves around the room, a queer half smile plays over his features and he licks his lips before continuing, "Kendra... love... you know as well as I that full unfettered access to the Professor's library is the surest way for us to find the scoundrels who did him in and put things right at Harrowstone." He reaches across the table to take her hand looking her straight in the yes, "Furthermore- you know I have always preferred a lighter touch in my arcane manipulations, but now I find myself at a bit of a loss. The dead are generally immune to my strengths in detection and muddled senses and there are far more of them wandering the grounds than I had expected. I fear that sooner or later I will have to expand my studies into the vulgar use of force." He sighs in disappointment then looks up at her in feigned sudden hope, "If I recall though, you did used to dabble in the cruder elements of wizardry. If you ever managed to master anything we might find useful in helping the restless dead pass on to the Boneyard and would be willing to share your technique, you are most welcome to study my own advances in the finer arts of divination, illusion, abjuration and conjuration." He caresses her hand and adds, "And if we find ourselves burning the midnight oil like old times and you should change your mind about the maximum occupancy, I am at your service as always..."
"Mmmm Kendra this chick pea stew is... delightful. One rarely finds quality village food like this in a tavern." Between spoonfuls something catches his ear, "What's thus you say about the Whispering Way?"
Aldous finger stops on the spine of the book he had been perusing on one of the shelves in the sitting room and he looks back to Kendra, "I'm paying my respects in my own way. It just so happens that a new book honoring his legacy and following up on his last work is a perfectly good means of doing that. If it happens to enhance my own career so much the better and I'm sure the Professor wouldn't mind. I will admit though that I had not intended to miss the formal service. I was caught up in a breakthrough in my arcane studies and completely lost track of time. When I realized, the ceremony was long finished. I stopped by and paid my own respects." "But Kendra love, tell me you aren't so angry just because I missed the funeral? If my intuition serves me well, and you know it always does, you are still put out with me over the way things ended between us back in Lepistadt. You know well the girl was simply a pupil of mine. You know I was always working as a tutor on the side to fund my studies." He waves a hand, "Well. We have had this argument too many times to start over now. You'll be pleased to know I have taken lodgings at The Drowned Otter or some such boarding house. It is decent enough if a bit drafty. I won't disturb you further." Aldous gathers his pack comically slowly while waiting (most likely in vain) for Kendra to call him back.
"Good evening Miss Lorrimer, always a pleasure." Aldous nods his head slightly while locking eyes with a slightly mischievous grin. "How long has it been? Two, three years? I trust your studies are coming along nicely?"
"Well," Aldous huffs catching his breath, "I think we can all agree that we gained some valuable insight to Harrowstone today and more importantly that this place is best explored in fullest daylight." He stares off into the twilight of the surrounding countryside, "I for one do not welcome the possibility of finding out what other spirits awake here with nightfall- at least not yet. With time and preparation, perhaps."
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