Ro stays on the floor for a while, to make sure the possession has passed.
"Damn" she mutters as she stares at the ceiling.
Karmid merely stands there staring at Ro, hammer and klar pointing at the floor.
"Damn."
Edgar sputters a bit as Ro not only approaches him in her maddened state, but brushes up against him and then keeps doing it. He's certainly not opposed to the idea, but the suddenness of the gesture takes him off guard. Then he realizes she's under the effect of the haunt's influence, and blanches at both the embarrassment she might feel as well as his own, at having thought perhaps she'd been harboring unknown feelings for him. There was of course nothing there. He averts his eyes and joins in the chorus, a hint of regret to his voice. "Damn."
"Get your Damms moving!!!" Drasven hollers as he moves to pull Lia off the Piano.
These younglings! We're in yet another life or death situation and they want to dance and admire each other. he grumbles internally.
And then as an afterthought.
"Good work chair."
Lia nods at Drasven and moves out of the room. Damn.
Karmid moves down the short hallway to the next door, his head shaking as if he can't un-see what he saw.
The group moves down the damp, mold-encrusted hallway to the next door, which Karmid opens after Ro and Jili check it and find it safe. Opening it, you see that this is a simple washroom with a single other exit that must lead to the haunted music room. An ancient metal washtub stands to the north, a ring of mildew crusting its inner surface. A strange, furtive scratching comes from inside the tub.
Stepping back just out of normal reach, Karmid taps the tub with his hammer, ready to skewer whatever comes out with his Klar...
As Karmid steps into the room and taps the washbasin, the scratching increases in speed and is augmented by a loud, desperate rodent-like squeaking.
Deadpan, Karmid frowns only a little.
"Rats."
"Dire rats?" Jili asks with a straight face.
Standing a bit to the back, Lia turns to Rojava: "That was pretty. I wish I could dance so well. Can you teach me?"
Without waiting for an answer, she turns to Jiliana:"Contagious rats. This place is evil and filthy and undead. I would not want to get bitten by a local rat. Well, I would not like to get bitten by any rat. But even less so by a local rat. I would pick a normal healthy Sandpoint rat any day over a Misgiving Rat."
Ro doesn't let go of what happened in the music room quite as quickly as the others, but she was the only non-spectator. As they move on from the room, Ro tries to rememeber something, anything, about possession of the body.
She never really paid attention to religious instruction at the cathedral, she had zero intention of entering the priesthood or any such thing, so why would it ever matter?
Joke's on me I guess Father Zantus.
Still, nobody else is going to know what happened unless she tried to explain it.
"Yeah, if ghoul fever can spread by bites, I don't think we want the rats around. Kill it, and then we need to talk about what happened in the music room."
"It's in pain. Release it from it's misery.", Lia suggests to Karmid.
Taking pity on the poor rodent, Karmid grunts and ends it quickly with his klar's blade.
He then shakes his head.
"That was not normal. That was more than unnatural. Either this 'place' corrupted its form, or it was diseased. Whatever it is in the end, we should be even more worried now. Maybe burning this place wasn't a bad idea, and once we finish should be discussed again."
Moving on to the next door.
"Once we're done here, I would agree that a cleansing fire is a good idea, but only after we've explored it and ensured there is no one within." Edgar definitely thinks fire is an appropriate response to the situation.
The diseased rat dies with a horrible squeal as Karmid plunges his klar into it, twitching wildly for nearly thirty seconds after its spine and brain have clearly been crushed.
Moving on to the next door, you check it for traps but find nothing. The door opens with a creak, revealing a dusty room features a long couch caked with white sheets of wispy fungus. Eddies of dust skitter along the warped floorboards as if caught up by a slight breeze, yet no wind is noticeable in the air.
The room has no other visible exits, and the windows are covered with heavy blackout curtains like in the music room.
"Nothing is here apart from us, death, and corruption.", Lia stoically responds as they move on.
As the next door is opened, she takes note of the patterns as the dust skitters. Lia was good at seeing patterns.
She points to the fireplace:"Look, a memory of days long gone, restless and trapped."
Hissing between his teeth Karmid backs up and out of the room slowly.
"Something...another haunt?! Beware everyone. Ghosts don't stir dust usually..."
Jili casts Hide from Undead on herself, and then peeks into the room and casts Detect Magic. "It's something."
"Perhaps some things are unable to find their peace. Who knows how long this poor soul has had being searching for its own?" Drasven steps forward to investigate.
Lia silently hums to herself as Drasven advances..."hmmm, hmmm, hmmm hm hmmm, hm-hm, hm hm hmmmm, hm, hm hm hm, life is but a dream..."
After the rat is dead, and before they all move on, Ro takes a few seconds to try to explain the music room incident. She intends it partially as an excuse, partially as a warning, and partially as an argument against burning down the house at the present time.
"What happened in the music room, something got hold of me. It got in my head first, and from there it took over my body. The thing is, until I lost control I didn't even totally know that it wasn't me thinking those things. It was when I was like a puppet I realized it. The things I said and did, it did them not me."
She doesn't mean to, but Ro shifts her eyes toward Edgar for a second.
"I shook it off, but it's still here. I think it will keep doing what what it's done before. I don't want to make people paranoid, but we need to keep an eye on each other. If it happens again, we the person it's happening to can't be counted on to know. If you see someone starting to act in ways that don't seem right for them, say something so the rest of us can try to help."
"Aside from making sure there's nobody here before we burn this place, we should also try to figure this thing out. It's in here, what if the house has it trapped inside, or it's tied to the house? If we burn this place down, is it free to roam? Let's just be sure before we do anything we can't undo."
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Although it makes her queasy to think about being around the spirit thing again, they can't all stand around watching the dust forever. Ro is fairly sure they're watching (albeit indirectly) the same thing from the music room. They could really use some information, and it's not out of the question that it can communicate. She takes a couple of steps into the room to see if it will react, and then tries to speak to it. She comforts herself a little by thinking at least I've beaten it once. I suppose that gives me the best chance of beating it again if I must.
"You're tricky, a joker. What do you want out of messing around with us?"
Drasven steps forward to investigate the spirit who seems to be moving back and forth in front of the fireplace. As he approaches, he hears a whisper in his ear. It sounds like a woman's voice and clearly does not come from any of the women in the room with the dwarf. It whispers a single name: "Lorey".
After hearing the voice, Drasven is overcome by an incredible urge to grab Ro's hand and rush from the house. He must escape with her before the evil in the house can take her! Just as he is about to grab her hand, Drasven realizes that these are not his own thoughts and emotions, that he is experiencing the feelings of someone else, someone long dead, and the panic fades.
"Lorey?"
"Who by my beard is Lorey?" Drasven questions.
"This household seems to be filled with regrets and past grievances. I just felt an urge to grab Ro and flee if not for the fact that I realized that these thoughts and feelings weren't my own. The house is evil but why I cannot fathom." the dwarf looks pensive.
"I feel that in this house perhaps we can find out more though the dangers be great about what is going on here."
"Death. Death and more Death. Let's move on."
Karmid leads the group back out into the main area and across.
Ro takes a couple of steps back, both from the spirit and from Drasven.
"Did you hear Lorey? From a voice? A man's or a woman's? That's the name of a member of the Foxglove family from way back. Vorel, who had this place built, had a daughter named Lorey. They all died of some disease. Aldern's father Traver moved his branch of the family here years later. He and his wife died in a fire here. Lorey would be Traver's aunt I believe. Family trees are hard without pen and paper. Cheery history eh?"
"And yeah Lia, I checked up on him and did some reading after you two hit it off."
Ro moves on with Karmid.
Lia falls in line besides Ro and Karmid:"Me next! I also want to dance with the devil under the pale moonlight!"
"What a sad place this is. It really is cursed. The whole family must be cursed to have so many spirits who have not gone to the Boneyard. I almost feel sorry for any Foxgloves who are still alive. Not Aldren. He's just evil."
She moves near Lia. "Lia that dance wasn't good. It took over her body. That's not something we want to happen. You should try to resist anything that wants to control you in this house. Who knows what it might cause you to do, and you would feel terrible afterward."
"Aldern was not evil. He fell into darkness. What he is now is evil. But it is not Aldern.", Lia responds to Jiliana, then shifts her head sideways "And I know what happened to Ro. But I am used to not being in control, and if something takes over my body, then one of them can hold me.", she points at Drasven, Edgar and Karmid, "If something takes over one of them, I cannot hold them. Unless we tie them up first, I guess? Should we tie someone up? I think there was some rope in the saddlebag..."
Edgar listens to the various revelations, and keeps a stoic face. It would take only a nominal effort to see that he's just barely concealing his feelings in a clenched jaw, one to hide his nearly quivering lip. He looks away, the better to hide his feelings. The fighter makes like he's investigating the footsteps also, but he's just trying to busy himself to keep certain thoughts at bay.
"We have rope, and can certainly tie someone up," Edgar remarks. The shaky voice is there, but could certainly be attributed to tension and concern.
Lia's comment makes Ro feel compelled to defend herself. Doing so causes her to say, in turn, probably the most horribly parental sounding thing she's ever said.
"I wasn't trying to control you Lia. It's that he's quite a bit older than you, and he does have a taste for flayleaf..."
She doesn't finish the thought, figuring it's better to just let it drop so she can change the subject.
"You have a point Lia, but there's another difference between you and the boys. You're the target and they're not. It might make a difference. In how the spirit behaves."
"We don't need to tie anybody up beforehand. Let's just not forget it's an option if we need to do it I guess."
"If we are done here, we should move on. Who knows perhaps there is a story here but one I'm admitting I'm not keen on. Information is useful though. Young Ro could be a key here."
"You could tie me up if you want to?", Lia suggests to Ro, innocently. "And let me go ahead that way-"
She shrugs:"I appreciate how you and Kira and Talene and everybody looks out for me. But I want to help. I can."
After carefully checking the door for traps, Karmid opens it cautiously and peeks inside. Once the light from the hallway illuminates it, the group sees an ornate library with one other exit to the west. It features two chairs, one of which lies on its side, before a stone fireplace. A scarf, its reds and golds contrasting with the drab palette of the room, is draped over the side of the fallen chair. A book sits face down on the floor between the chairs. A stone bookend, carved to look like a praying angel with butterfly wings, lies on its side in the fireplace itself.
Karmid steps into the apparently empty room, bracing himself for the next haunting...and if nothing happens, he will pick up the book.
"That's odd. It's a new scarf." she moves over toward the chairs and casts Detect Magic in that direction.
Karmid and Jili move into the room to look about. While examining the book, which looks to be on Varisian history, he notices a old splash of blood near the northernmost chair. There seems to be more blood on the stone bookend shaped like an angel, along with bits of hair and skin. A part of the angel's wing also seems to have broken off.
The scarf looks rather pretty, but neither it, nor anything in the room detects as magical.
Ro moves into the room to look around as well.
Drasven follow in and catching sight of the strange looking stone bookend, he approaches it cautiously.
Karmid picks up the book and tosses it to Ro.
"Look: Blood. Here...and there. The bookend. Looks like someone got hit pretty hard. Maybe murder? Pretty standard stuff for haunted houses. Right?"