Having wasted a perfectly good bomb on the furnace, Ismene considers what she knows of this type of undead...
...and pulls out a Flask of Holy Water as she moves to lobbing range.
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Ismene steps out to better scrutinize the haunted furnace, wondering if a bomb might just exacerbate the situation. "Seems a bit like adding insult to injury. Perhaps I will do some research into the prospect of endothermic reactions." Then with a shrug, she mixes another bomb and tosses it at the mouth of the furnace.
Ismene combines reagents, giving the mixture a shake for good measure before lobbing it at the poltergeist's last known location, making sure to spare the frontliners from the splash.
Ismene shakes her head slightly to clear it, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Hmmm... That is an odd sensation. Perhaps we should take precautions toward neutralizing the intermediary's ability to do harm while we make our inquiries?"
After hearing Theodore pronounce the spell book cursed, she averts her eyes and leaves it to Tiff to deal with. She looks on as the Wizard asks her question with the spirit board. "I surmise that was unsuccessful? Shall I try next?" She will repeat Tiff's actions and question and hope for a better result.
Ismene moves into the room, drawing a flask and lobs a Holy Water at the area Tiff indicates.
Ismene opts to carry her armor in her pack to start and makes sure to have the masterwork tools and a few flasks of the holy water on hand as they make ready to return to the prison. She sets to work on the stubborn lock, applying oil to the mechanism and hissing curses in a variety of languages as she must pause frequently to slide her lenses back upon her nose due to perspiration.
Ismene shakes her head sadly to hear that the Professor's remains were put to such nefarious use. "Given what we learned about his murder, is it possible his body was... profaned by those foul actors before it was discovered? Are there any preparations we might make to be certain his rest will not be disturbed again? I wonder if cremation might be a workable solution..." "I will let Kendra know and inquire as to her wishes." Ismene said, self-conscious of her night clothes and eager to return to the house. They were quite modest in coverage, but still clearly night clothes all the same.
Ismene cautiously steps out with Theodore, Tiff, Quinn and Luna. She peers down at the tracks by the light of Theodore's pillow, trying to note anything odd about them. "I suppose it wasn't a spirit... The incorporeal don't generally leave tracks. It's not my best skill, but I will give it the old Academy Attempt."
Ismene's mouth twists sourly as she considers their options, then she turns and blinks rapidly as she spies a phantom equine. Squinting, she removes her lenses and swiftly cleans them on her night shirt before putting them back on to scrutinize the apparition properly. "Er... Quinn, there is something behind you just there."
Ismene looks over the tools and nods with approval. "Yes, these will do quite nicely. I'll write them a thank you note. Never hurts to have a monylender in your corner." "Given what we know about the forces working against us, I move that we arrange a watch. These spirits are apt to do worse than simply go bump in the night..."
Ismene takes stock of the spellbook briefly. "My formulae are bit different from a wizard's spells. But I do see a few here that I can convert. Thank you, Kendra, we will take utmost care with it."
Ismene nods, "Yes, though I can't help but wonder about the mechanics of it all. If his spirit is still trapped, how is he spelling upon the monument outside? With what blood? Person... animal? And how can one ghost murder another? Surely they cannot die twice..." Ismene shakes her head at the unfathomable predicament as she gratefully accepts a cup of tea. "And what about this mysterious necromantic cabal? If the Professor observed them at the prison, is it possible other locals did as well? Did they travel from some distance and simply had their passage unremarked or are they hiding in plain sight among the populace?" "Too many questions and not enough answers. All I know for certain is we'd better load up on holy water. There seems to be no end of spectral activity."
"Do the other ghosts know about you, that you work against them. If so, beware, the spelling has already begun beyond the confines of the prison. It started with 'V'..." And with that she takes her leave. ******* "Yes, do let's sit down to to a bite, Kendra. We have some news that may be hard to hear, though it should not come as a shock to you." She said as she stood ready to give comfort, if it was needed.
"Fire, yes. That's my cue!" Ismene takes a step in front of Theodore to clear her line of sight, combining her reagents and lobbing a bomb at the straightjacket.
Ismene takes a step back from Quinn and catches his eye as she combines the reagents for a bomb and calls, "Get clear of it!"
Once Quinn steps away from the shackles, she throws her bomb.
Ismene reaches into her belt pouch and retrieves a vial of glowing blue liquid, which she quickly downs in one gulp, swaying slightly as it takes effect.
"Another presence... I hear weeping and feel the oppression of it's aura. A prisoner, perhaps, I feel the cold weight of manacles." She shares, rubbing warmth back into her wrists.
Ismene steps back and lobs a bomb at the central spider, using her discovery to spare Marill, Quinn and Tiff from the blast and splash.
Ismene hesitates to return, "Problem is, the bloody thing is incorporeal. I don't think my bombs can do anything against it. Maybe the Holy Water, but we'd still need to see it!"
Ismene's lips twitch worriedly as she tracks the undead back to a grave in the Restlands. Once they seek out the priest, she asks him, "Father Grimburrow, I do not mean to be indelicate, but how is it that a body properly interred in hallowed ground was able to rise like this? Is there no way to protect the dearly departed from this unholy state?"
Starled, Ismene scurries up beside Tiff, grabs her reagents from her belt, combines them to form a bomb and lobs it.
Nearly done with level-up, taking Precise Bombs discovery and Draconic language for next rank in Linguistics. Should get the profile updated tomorrow.
"I'm afraid I'm only able to heal myself at the moment. But that is another subject I intend to study, eventually." Ismene shrugs, feeling rather useless in the face of recent trials.
Ismene draws and loads her crossbow, taking a step toward the hubbub.
"Well, at least we can be certain we've not been poisoned with lich dust... I think." Ismene adds.
Seeing there is little she can do here, without collateral damage, Ismene imbibes her shield extract.
Sorry to report but my laptop has crashed. Trying to troubleshoot but my coverage has expired so if I can't fix the problem, it may take some time before I'm up and running again. I will keep you posted.
"Hmm, perhaps..." Ismene pulls a hairpin from her updo and fiddles with the lock.
But she is stymied by the latch. "Then again, maybe not." She says with a sour twist on her lips as she replaces the pin.
"I fear my reagents are only alchemical." Ismene says, hoping the Pharasman may have a solution.
Suspecting that throwing fire at the charred phantoms would be counter-productive, Ismene does what she can to aid Maril's efforts.
"Warden Hawkran, I presume. Though I'm not sure I recorded his first name."
Ismene gives Quinn a bracing pat on the back, "Just remember that it is not your own sensory perception at all, merely the psychic resonance of this place." She says in what she hopes is a reassuring tone. Adjusting her lenses, she follows Tiff inside and peers about.
"Burning?" Ismene asks, her magnified eyes blinking rapidly. "Could it be a psychosomatic symptom, some psychic echo of what the victims of the fire experienced?" She immediately begins scribbling notes in her journal as they progress. "Do you often feel anxiety in enclosed spaces?" She asks Quinn curiously.
Tiff shrugs as they walk away from the paranoid girls towards Harrowstone. She speaks without stopping to breathe in a long meandering way, "I guess Father Grimbarrow's guards already left. Anyway it makes sense that the Splatterman would have rhymes made about them long afterwards that kind of incident can leave long lasting effects on peoples and rhymes like that are a way to deal with the trauma." Ismene nods in agreement, "Yes, it seems events at Harrowstone have had a lasting effect on the residents here. More than just the Splatter Man was referenced in that skipping song, though. Each couplet referred to one of the five most notorious inmates at the time of the fire. I take it you suspect the Splatter Man is the primary focus for this cabal the Professor was investigating?"
Ismene seems quite interested in the song and twiddles her gloved fingers at the little girls in a shy greeting. She speaks more to her companions, but moves close enough for the rope skippers to hear as well. "Children's rhymes are a bit like a time capsule, you know. Adults prefer to forget about unpleasant things but children pass these little ditties to their younger cohorts and they are embraced and shared with friends. My, what brave girls to be singing about the Infamous Harrowstone Five."
Ismene spends some time that evening tinkering in the Professor's Lab. She brews a replacement for her Cognatogen and provided she finds all the proper ingredients in stock, brews up a replacement for her spent acid flask as well.
Ismene jots down an inventory of the items as Kendra identifies their properties. Before they leave for the temple again, she asks Tiff to double check the alarm spell and cautions Kendra to keep the doors and windows barred while they are away, just in case. When Father Grimburrow requests the information, she hands over the list. "Of course, Father. You have our gratitude for all your assistance in these troubling matters. The lock had been tampered with and it seems likely the Professor had visited before his untimely demise, so I fear it is not a comprehensive list of all that was secreted there initially." In the Archive, Ismene inhales expansively, savoring the smells of aging parchment and vellum before drawing forth a vial of cobalt blue liquid that seems to glow faintly as if held up to the light. She twists the waxed stopper and tosses the contents back quickly, shuddering delicately at the apparent taste. Then her eyes pop open wide, seeming especially magnified by her lenses and she nods to herself as she sets to work.
"My apologies for the splash-back. I have proven a theory that such discharges can be made malleable under the right conditions, however I have not been able to replicate the experiment outside of the laboratory, yet. I will endeavor to persevere." Ismene rearranged her mental priorities now that she had companions she would rather not reduce to collateral damage... "We do still have the Pharasman Archives available for research." She offers as a reminder, but doesn't oppose the idea of returning to Kendra.
"Turn your faces, and don't inhale!" Ismene advises as she takes a step to better line up her shot, draws an acid flask and lobs.
"I can perhaps aid in identifying the liquid within the flasks and vials..." Ismene says as she steps closer and lifts one to examine it more closely by the light.
Ismene smiled and patted Theodore on the shoulder, her voice taking on a mildly lecturing tone, "I suspect your sister enjoys etymology, like myself. The origin of the word sinister bears no malice in it's context, it merely referred to the direction, "left". It was only later, when the direction and left-handedness became associated with "wrongness", as opposed to "rightness", you see, that the word gained the connotation for wickedness." She explained sharing an amused look with Tiff and Quinn.
"Let us remain vigilant and watchful, it would not do to be caught unawares in such a sepulcher." Ismene keeps an eye out for trouble as well as any carvings that indicate who is entombed within.
"Thank you, Father. Yes, there does seem some disturbance of a spiritual nature. We will continue to investigate but we need more information. We need to know more about the infamous Harrowstone inmates. It goes without saying that those souls who were wicked and malicious in their lifetimes are even more likely to wreak havoc upon the living from beyond the grave. Truly, we need all the guidance we can discover." Ismene made her plea as succinctly as possible.
"Is it real blood, Master Carter? Not just an apparition of blood?" She tries to recall any connection of the letter "V" to the late, great Warden Hawkran...
And then she tries to determine if the blood forms any sort of trail.
Ismene keeps close to Kendra. She adjusts her lenses to peer at the substance to determine what it is...
"That sounds like a very sensible plan, Kendra." She took her hand and gave it a comforting pat. "It's clear to me that while the professor felt inclined to risk himself in this endeavor, your safety was of far too much value to him to gamble. I am inclined to agree." Ismene said with what warmth she could muster. To Theodore's revelation, she replies "I had wondered if there was a connection to the Whispering Tyrant. Though if it predates him, I suppose his moniker derives from the Way, as opposed to the reciprocal." "I wrote my master's thesis on the Immolation of Harrowstone. My studies indicated that Warden Hawkran committed himself and his guards to a great sacrifice to prevent the uprising and escape of several very dangerous inmates." She goes on to describe the events as she understood them. "Let's have a look at the resources available to us here first. Perhaps it will be easy to spot what the professor himself had been looking into..."
Ismene listens to Theodore's musings and considers the subject matter again herself. "Whispering way... whispering... why is that ringing a bell?" She mutters to herself, chewing her bottom lip in concentration.
She felt a sudden surge of paranoia over the circled portions. "Kendra, can you confirm that this is this is your father's journal, and his penmanship? What can you tell us about the professor's actions over the past few months? Does it seem consistent with this account?" She blinks in alarm at Tiff's question to Kendra. "Well, we certainly can't leave her here alone. We can't ensure her safety if we leave her behind! Those ruffians could come here to start trouble again. Especially if we're seen disturbing a crypt in these Restlands they seem so concerned about."
Ismene adjusts her lenses as she skims the entries over Tiff's shoulder. "So it seems the angry mob was not completely off base to be concerned over necromancers. This information suggests a shift in priorities. Perhaps we should investigate Harrowstone ourselves? Or should we encourage Kendra to relocate before we set down that path? I would hate to repay the professor's kindness by putting his daughter at risk..." She states, thinking out loud to the group.
Ismene's magnified eyes widen at the mention of dangerous tomes, the stewardship of such was certainly an intriguing opportunity. And the professor hadn't specified anything about them reviewing the contents, though she supposed that would need to wait until Kendra's path was decided and they had gone their separate ways in order to spare her any potential backlash. The time-frame involved was a bit concerning, she thought, unconsciously fidgeting with her gloves by pulling them partway off and then tugging them back on snugly. But she quickly nodded her assent to Kendra's question. "Of course, I'll be happy to help you organize paperwork and pack up personal effects as well. There's always a glut of busywork at times like these. Did the professor happen to have a laboratory here in the house?" She asked, hoping she did not look as twitchy as she felt contemplating the possibility of spending an extended period of time without one...
Ismene gave an empathetic nod in agreement with Kendra's first statement but resigns herself to a pointed sniff as her only sign of disagreement with her apology. She was not at all surprised to hear of the Professor risking life and limb to help some students suffering under lycanthrophy. And though she had eschewed the study of poisons and their use, she knew enough to understand the danger in a concentrated elixir of wolfsbane. Simply handling it would have been a precarious operation. It was just the sort of thing the professor would do. She wondered idly what sort of study the professor might have made of Master Harwood but there were no telltale symptoms for her to even conjecture, let alone formulate a hypothesis. When a sufficient lull had elapsed, she stepped forward to speak herself. "It would not be an exaggeration to state that I owe Professor Lorrimor everything. I was but a half-starved waif in an overcrowded orphanage in Rozenport when he found me. I had a scrap of blank journal I had rescued from the rubbish heap. I hadn't been taught to read or write but I had filled it with my own marks and scribbles. It held meaning, but only for me. But when he examined it, he saw meaning in it too. He told me later that he'd recognized I had contrived my own sort of shorthand. I still use a form of it in my my own formulae book." She says somewhat sheepishly. "I suppose in that moment, he saw in me some potential or likeness to his own young daughter." She meets Kendra's eyes and gives her a weak smile. "He tutored me and called upon favors to secure me an apprenticeship and later, scholarship at University. Without him, I expect I would be an ignorant washer-woman, or... well, frankly, I dread to think. He gave me the greatest gift of my life, a love of learning and a drive to use my knowledge for the betterment of all." She clears her throat, gives a sharp nod and steps back again.
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