Session 7 Report - Mansion Part 2
General Summary
The companions stood in the basement and looked around. They noticed a sooty trail leading from where the body was lying to where the fight took place, and another trail to the large pack in the corner. Aliurinal approached the pack cautiously and checked for traps. Not detecting any, he knelt and opened the pack, discovering a large set of clothing smelling of dust and large quantities of food wrappers nibbled on by rodents. The inside of the bag was sooty and there was a rip down the side with ragged edges, apparently torn rather than cut. Tanith, looking at the trail, wondered if the corpse lady had pulled the amulet from the bag.
Lucian inspected the desk more closely, finding a wooden box at the back of the desk with a cone of char radiating outward from it. Carefully avoiding the range of the cone, he peered inside and saw it was empty of all but dust. Charred papers and books were scattered on the surface of the desk. The books appeared to be written in Latin, which Lucian could not read.
Moving to the tables with alchemical supplies, everything appeared to be old, with dried up potion residue at the bottoms of the beakers. Aliurinal looked for a secret door behind the bookcases, but he did not find anything. He took a book from a shelf, but it started to crumble with age, and he rapidly replaced it.
Roland believed the sigils on the floor were of the necromantic school of spells. In the center of the centermost sigil, there was a scrape mark and something shiny glinting through the gap. Examining it more closely, Aliurinal could see what appeared to be the tip of a weapon lodged in the gouge. He also noticed the spaces between the stones in the vicinity of the scrape were darker than the surrounding areas. Tanith approached where Aliurinal was bent to the stones.
“Do you want me to try to pry that up?” She asked.
After checking for traps, he told her to go ahead. Tanith struggled for a while and eventually pried up a stone, finding naught but dirt beneath. After a short conference between Aliurinal and Roland, Tanith was instructed to pry up more stones. After a very long time of checking for traps, prying up stones, and repeating, Tanith could hear Roland lean over to Lucian and say, “I think you were right. There’s nothing here.” Tanith, panting and mopping the sweat from her face, glared at her companions, cleaned off her pry bar, and replaced it in her pack.
The party moved back upstairs. They went back to view the painting, but it was unchanged. Aliurinal dashed back downstairs to see if the tiles had replaced themselves, but everything downstairs was also unchanged. Tanith wanted to check out the courtyard garden. The rest of the party went with her back to the room with the hole in the floor. With a bit of force, they managed to open the doors to the garden. Looking around for signs of being tended, the growth seemed to be less wild than the surrounding grounds but not recently groomed. Aliurinal moved around the area but did not notice anything unusual. The fountain in the center of the courtyard was dry. Shrugging, Tanith went back into the house.
Lucian took the lead toward the main circular stairs and the party moved up to the top floor. At the top of the stairs was a long hallway leading in both directions, with doors opening off the hallway. Aliurinal
moved down the hallway checking for traps. Only one of the doors was locked. Aliurinal promptly unlocked it. He did not discover any traps.
After some small discussion, Silas chose door #4. He opened the door, revealing a rectangular room containing couches and comfy chairs. Paintings on the wall depicted battles among humans and demons. Half of the room was empty of furnishings, other than empty racks on the walls which may have contained weapons at some point. The companions moved around the room when suddenly they all realized at the same time that they were covered with wormlike pink creatures, each with eight legs and two little toes at the end of each leg. They appeared to be trying to get at their weapons! Lucian and Roland flailed and shook the critters off before they could obtain any of their belongings. Tanith made a noise of disgust and dodged around the creatures. In the center of the room, a larger version of the creature popped into existence and Tanith shouted a warning.
Putting her back to the wall by the door, Tanith brandished her sword at the smaller creatures in front of her while concentrating and summoning her echo near the large creature in the center of the room. The echo struck twice at the larger creature while Tanith quickly dispatched two of the small ones in front of her. Lucian at the same time dispatched three of the creatures trying to grab at his weapons. The large creature struck at the echo, which dodged out of the way. Aliurinal aimed his bow at the large creature and let fly. His arrow protruded from the creature’s body which appeared to anger it. Aliurinal tried his best to hide in the corner of the room. Bear stepped up to the matron and swung his sword, striking once. Roland caused a sudden loud ringing noise to emanate from a point just past the large creature. In a 10-foot radius, all the creatures cringed back and Tanith’s echo blinked out of existence. The small creatures at the back of the room all dropped dead and the big one looked even more angry. Two little creatures skittered up to Bear and bit at him. He kicked out in disgust. Three more closed on Silas but he dodged out of the way. Lucian glared at a creature near him, and it hesitated. One tried to bite Tanith, but she stomped and it dodged backward.
Silas reversed his sword and stabbed downward at a critter. He impaled it on his sword and waved it at the large creature. Tanith resummoned her echo and it struck at the mother creature, while Lucian crushed the two creatures in front of him and then kicked at a third, which slid into the corner and moved no more. The mother creature attacked Bear, who staggered backward under the blow. Aliurinal let fly with another arrow and the central creature toppled over in a puddle of pink goo. Roland stepped forward and shot lightning at one of the remaining small creatures, killing it instantly. A second lightning bolt incinerated a second creature. Silas stabbed downward with his sword, which still bore the corpse of the last critter he had impaled. He impaled the last remaining creature and then flung both away from him. They sailed across the room and splatted into the wall, sliding down in a trail of pink slime.
The companions gasped and looked around, taking stock of the situation. Aliurinal searched the room and found a single playing card under the coffee table. He attempted to pick it up, but it crumbled to dust. He moved over to the door at the side of the room and listened.
“I hear skittering and clacking,” he said. Tanith shuddered.
In the meantime, Roland was inspecting the large dead creature, particularly its fangs. He started to pull the teeth out and Tanith looked away.
After a quick discussion, Lucian and Roland made a plan to open the side door and cast his shattering noise into the room preemptively. Tanith voted to leave the door closed and move on. Putting off the
decision for now, the company moved on to another room across the hall and listened at the door. Aliurinal heard nothing but the ever-present faint whispering. Lucian opened the door. Three small couches sat roughly in the middle of the room. A desk and a bookcase rounded out the furnishings. A painting on the wall depicted a large stone building with a pointed roof. A door to the east was ajar.
Lucian walked into the room and peered through the eastern door. He saw a bedroom containing a bed and a wardrobe with two drawers in its base. Aliurinal moved into the first room and inspected the desk. Papers and books covered the desk. Balanced on one of the piles was a plate and a cup. Vials and tubes were also on the desk, some in a holder across the back of the surface. A wooden box was the last object on the desk. Aliurinal opened the drawers, finding more papers, jars, and small bags containing various powders. He opened the wooden box and found more glass vials with crusty remains in them.
Tanith moved over to the bookcase but could not read the volumes. Several empty places indicated where books had been removed. Aliurinal walked up next to her and started handling them all, watching them crumble with age.
Silas moved through the eastern door and opened the wardrobe. Shirts hung to one side and wizard robes to the other. The clothes appeared to be mostly fancy, with some more casual items. They all looked aged. He opened the bottom drawer, discovering old dress socks, a couple of thin books, a battered pocketknife, a tin whistle, and some rocks. Silas opened the top drawer, which was entirely empty. He did not find any secret compartments. He checked the wardrobe for a false back but did not find anything. He also looked under the bed without incident. The bed was made, but not well. Everything was covered with dust. Silas slid the tin whistle into his pocket and moved back into the other room, where Lucian was looking for hidden doors and secret compartments. Aliurinal joined Lucian and began to inspect the desk more closely. On the underside of the desk, he found a crude carving: Y&G, surrounded by a darker area. However, nothing seemed to be hollow, and the dimensions all worked out.
Moving back into the hallway, the party approached the double doors. Aliurinal listened at the doors. He opened them to see a large desk sitting at a 45-degree angle to the window. On the eastern wall was a painting of a hunt in progress. Most of the remaining wall space was covered in shelves. Mostly books but also some decorative items were on the shelves, including vases, a mask, and a small spyglass on a stand. On the desk was a blotter, an oil lamp, a dragon statue, and a glass sphere about the size of a human hand. Inside the desk were several bottles of dried ink and other writing supplies, including documents and correspondence. Everything was in Latin and they could not find any Y&G initials.
One of the drawers seemed to be too shallow. Aliurinal bent his head to the task, trying to discover how to open the secret compartment. In frustration, he pulled the whole drawer out and then was able to discover an opening in the back of the drawer. Not finding any traps, he opened the secret compartment. Papers slid out, crumbling on impact. A small felt bag also slid out and Aliurinal caught it in his hand. He opened the bag, finding a gold medallion shaped like the sun and a piece of paper in good condition. Unfortunately, the paper was also in Latin. The only word he could make out was the word “three.” He put the items back into the bag and slipped it into Roland’s bag of holding.
Lucian picked up the spy glass and looked out the window. Even though it was bright daylight, he could see stars as if it were night. He thought they may have even been the “correct” stars. He put the spy glass into his pack. He examined the stand that the spy glass was on. There was no writing.
Aliurinal looked at the dragon statue. He turned it over but did not find any sort of writing. Tanith picked up the glass sphere and examined it. It was mostly clear with a few bubbles on the inside. The bottom was slightly flattened so that it would not roll if set down. She put it in her pack.
Roland spent 10 minutes to perform his detect magic ritual. Low levels of necromancy permeated the air. The Silver Amulet (evocation), Spyglass (divination), and Mask (divination) were all magic. All eyes turned to the mask. It looked like a frog, made from metal. Lucian took a deep breath and put the mask on. Feeling a bit disconcerted, he could see in crisp detail for a few feet in front on him, but beyond five feet everything was blurry. The amulet and silver dragon statue were added to the bag of holding, while Silas took the mask.
Moving back into the hallway, they moved to the door that had formerly been locked. Aliurinal listened but did not hear anything other than the usual whispering. Opening the door, the room was brighter than any other room discovered so far, both in color scheme and actual light. It was strangely absent of the dust that permeated the rest of the house. Paintings of animals covered the walls and lush carpets covered the wooden floor. A low table was off-center in the room with colorful wooden blocks on top and more piled on the floor beside it. Two very small chairs were pushed up to the table. Two other small chairs were in the room, and a wooden sword stuck out between the cushions of a full-sized couch. On the western wall was another door as well as a large wooden chest with griffons painted on it.
A figure materialized, standing between Silas and the table. It was smaller than Silas and thinner, and Roland muttered, “Necromancy. And the table might not be real. There is an illusion.” The apparition appeared to be a woman with red hair, but her features were indistinct. They were unable to discern whether she was a half elf like the woman in the painting downstairs.
“Hello, my lady,” offered Silas. The figure replied in Latin.
Tanith moved forward and touched her own chest. “Tanith.” Then pointed to the figure. She spoke more in Latin, seeming angry, and extended her arms out behind her as if to shield something.
Aliurinal tried next. He held up his hand closer to the ground, as if to approximate the height of a child, and questioned, “Where is he?”
The figure replied angrily and took a step back toward the table.
Tanith said, “I think this is a different lady than the one in the basement.” Lucian agreed.
Aliurinal tried greeting her in Elvish, asking her if she understood him. She replied in an old form of Elvish. He could only make out the word, “protect.” The four companions who could speak Elvish exchanged glances. Aliurinal started trying a list of words, like family, assist, help, gathering, etc. She repeated the same phrases she said previously, although occasionally the companions could also hear the word for family. “Son or daughter?” asked Aliurinal in Elvish, but her response stayed the same.
Tanith stepped forward and asked, “Do you speak Dwarvish?” The apparition answered in Latin.
Lucian began to move slowly and deliberately toward the other door in the room. The ethereal figure moved as well, trying to keep herself between most of the party members and the table.
“Is the table masking something else?” wondered Tanith.
Aliurinal, after begging repeatedly for Roland to give him the velvet bag, was finally handed the empty velvet bag. Eventually giving in to Aliuirnal’s histrionics, Roland handed over the sun amulet and the note from the bag. Aliurinal held them up in front of the apparition, but she did not react. Roland stowed them back in the bag of holding. He refused to take out the amulet from the basement, and Aliurinal sighed in frustration.
Lucian encouraged the party to leave this woman alone, as they were not making any progress. The companions left the room, not noticing that Aliurinal stayed behind. Once everyone was out of earshot, Aliurinal spoke to the apparition in thieves’ cant, to no effect. As he left the room, he heard a sound behind him. Turning back, Aliurinal saw the figure crouched by the table. A small boy was at the table, stacking blocks that then fell down onto the table. Continuing to watch, he saw the boy stack the blocks again and they again fell in the same configuration. The boy was much more distinct than the woman, but still transparent. Aliurinal paused. “Youngster, do you understand me?” The boy had no reaction, but the woman’s head snapped to Aliurinal and stared at him. The boy disappeared. Aliurinal made a symbol of a heart in the air. She stared at him. He bowed, backed out the door, and closed and locked it behind him.
With one door remaining in this hallway, Aliurinal listened at it. Hearing nothing, he opened the door. Curtains that could be used to divide the room hung from the ceiling. There were armchairs, a couch, and an old planter no longer holding a plant. A small shelf on the wall held knick-knacks (an ornately carved box, a small book, and two statuettes – one of a woman in a fancy pink ball gown and one of a white horse mid-gallop). Two doors opened to the west and a glass door opened to the outside on the south. A mirror hung on the wall. A large four-poster bed sat with its head to the southern wall and nightstands on both sides.
Aliurinal took the box off the shelf and opened it. Inside were pieces of women’s jewelry (including a hair pin with three blue feathers) and a small brass key. Roland thought the key looked like it would open the doors in the hallways. Aliurinal took the box and went back to the children’s room, opening it with the key. The image of the boy rapidly vanished and the woman looked at Aliurinal. He showed her the jewelry, but she just repeated the same tired phrase and he left her once more.
Tanith walked up to the mirror and gazed at it. It seemed to be a normal mirror. Silas joined her and inspected it more closely, not uncovering anything untoward.
Aliurinal inspected the nightstands. They did not have any drawers. On one stand was a pitcher and a single cup. Looking around, he noticed the sheath of a dagger, empty, lying half under the bed. He looked further under the bed but did not discover any other items. He took the sheath, which was plainly made without heraldry. This bed was made carefully, although signs of wild animals were present.
The party moved to the northern of the two doors on the wall. It opened into a closet containing shirts and pants, finely made, ranging from hunting garb to ball gowns. Hats, shoes, and boots were on one wall. A single cabinet with a glass door contained dresses, two hats, a pair of jeweled slippers, and ankle boots. Aliurinal carefully searched for secret compartments. In the glass cabinet, mostly concealed by one of the dresses, was a hat box. He also discovered a men’s outfit that looked as if it may have been what the absent figure from the painting downstairs was wearing. In the hat box was a silver hairbrush containing red hairs and perfume bottles containing dried up perfume. In the corner of the closet was a full suit of plate mail.
The party moved to the south door, which appeared to be a washroom. A massive claw-foot tub dominated the room. A wardrobe stood on one side of the room and an ornate table stood against a wall, holding a large shallow bowl in the center. The wardrobe contained towels of various sizes and a large wooden box. The towels had the monogram of a D, similar to the gates in front of the house. Lucian did not find any secret compartments in the wardrobe. He opened the box, which contained two glass rods, one tinted blue and one tinted brown. They were about a foot long with grips carved into one end.
Roland once more started his detect magic ritual, while Lucian examined the tub. It appeared unremarkable. He then moved over to the glass door, which led to a small balcony overlooking the ornamental garden below. He opened the door and stood out on the balcony, taking his spy glass from his pocket and looking around the grounds. Wherever he looked, he could see stars in the sky.
Meanwhile, Aliurinal wandered off and took a dead pink creature and brought it back to the lady ghost. He held it up and pantomimed killing it and pointed to himself. She repeated the same phrase as usual.
Lucian looked for secret doors in the washroom but did not find any. The detect magic ritual complete, Roland announced that the rods were enchanted with transmutation spells, while the hairpin was of the divination school. There were no other magic objects. “I think you were right, Lucian. The blue rod is to fill the tub and the brown one is to empty it!” said Tanith. Roland pointed the blue rod at the tub and it began to fill. He switched to the brown one and the water drained out.
Trying one more time, Aliurinal went back to the children’s room, this time wearing the hairpin. He looked very festive. As before, the child disappeared (after a slightly longer time than before) and the woman said the same phrases. He showed her the hairpin but she did not react. Defeated, he rejoined the party. He gazed at the hairpin in consideration but then replaced it in his pack.
The party moved back down the stairs and then up the other set of stairs. At the top of the stairs they found a work room, where likely the servants did the laundry. A door opened from the room to the south. Lucian inspected the room, finding cabinets full of linens and soaps. No secret doors were found.
Moving through the southern door, they emerged into a shallow room that appeared to be the servants’ dining room. A door led out to the north. Through that door, there was another long hallway with three doors to the east. The southern-most door opened to a tiny room with a single bed and wardrobe. The bed was a bare mattress with a pillow, without linens. The wardrobe was empty. The central door opened to a room with three narrow beds, no linens, with a trunk at the foot of each bed (all empty). The northern door opened into another room with three beds, same as the last. Each of those three rooms had windows overlooking the courtyard.
The group paused to consider their next course of action. Lucian and Tanith were in favor of moving back out to their campsite from the previous night and coming back in the morning to see what had reset. Roland opined they go clear out the last room full of pink creatures. The others agreed to this course of action, after resting for a short time.
Their rest time finished, the party went back downstairs and then up the circular staircase and grouped outside the remaining room containing the clicking and clattering. Tanith smirked as she watched Aliurinal put the hairpin into his hair and tie a bandana over it. “Are you going to put your fancy hat on, Silas?” she managed to get out without breaking down in laughter. Silas just gazed at her. “No,” he said.
Aliurinal listened at both doors to the remaining room and could hear the chittering of creatures within. Roland cast a defensive spell on himself. Lucian moved into the hallway and banged on the door, hoping to distract the critters. Aliurinal readied his bow behind Roland. Bear stood beside the door to pull it open so Roland could move inside to cast his sonic spell from the center of the room. Tanith positioned herself to run into the room for a rescue if needed, without obstructing Aliurinal’s line of sight. Silas went to stand by Lucian in the hallway.
In the hallway, Lucian slapped the door. Bear pulled the side door open and Roland stepped through. Tanith caught a glimpse of shiny objects under a writhing mass of pink creatures. Roland snuck further inside the room, the creatures writhing around his ankles. A loud wail of thunderous force swept out from Roland. Most of the creatures died instantly and were pushed away from Roland’s position. A few creatures remained alive in each corner of the room. Roland backed to the doorway.
In the hallway, Lucian grimaced at the pink goo that suddenly squished under the door. Taking a deep breath, he pulled the door open and stepped into the room, swinging at the creatures in the corner behind the door. He dispatched three of them immediately. Aliurinal shot an arrow through the door and killed one more. Silas ran into the room from the hallway and speared one on his sword, his favorite method for dispatching the critters. Tanith summoned her echo which struck down three of the creatures, leaving two alive in the far corner and one over by the hallway. Roland shot lightning bolts to finish off the two in the far corner. The last pink creature attacked Silas, who fended it off with his sword breaker. Bear strode into the room and speared the last creature.
Looking around the room that was now sweared with pink goo, there was a large pile of weapons and a few items of armor in the middle of the floor. There appeared to be one silver dagger, and Aliurinal found another dagger that fit the sheath found earlier. A spear with a tip missing seemed to match the weapon tip they had found in the basement. Three beds, slightly bigger than the ones on the servants’ side of the house, stood against the wall. An armor stand, empty of armor, stood in the corner. “Guards’ quarters,” muttered Silas. Roland once again began his detect magic ritual. He found a battle axe that was magical, but nothing else. Bear judged that his was better, but they could take it to sell in town, as well as the silver dagger.
An argument commenced about whether to take the sword from the painting room, and whether items from the house should remain in the bag of holding. There was speculation that the items might transport back to the house and take their bags with them. As the discussion continued, they wandered back down to the painting room where Silas put on the frog mask. He examined the painting and sword but did not see anything new. Aliurinal picked up the sword and everyone else took a step back. As the sword cleared the weapon rack, it ripped itself from Aliurinal’s hand and appeared in the hand of a shadow creature facing them. Aliurinal stumbled back a few feet.
The shadow appeared to be an armored humanoid, roughly six feet tall, in full plate mail. Aliurinal repeated the Latin phrase he had heard so many times from the apparition upstairs, but there was no reaction. Bear shot magic missiles at him which appeared to connect. Roland’s magic misses followed behind Bear’s, and he stepped forward to cover both Silas and Aliurinal. The figure swiped at Roland,
with one blow clanging off his armor. Tanith summoned her echo and moved it into place, but it missed on both swings. Lucian punched the apparition, which retaliated and struck Lucian a solid blow. Aliurinal shot the figure with an arrow at close range, then backed up and attempted to hide behind a couch as Roland yelled, “Back up!” Silas stepped up to the shadow, striking it with his sword and then rapidly backpedaling to the corner. The shadow swung at Roland again, but Roland dodged aside. Bear ran into the opening and attacked, striking it with his battle axe.
Roland hesitated as now Bear was in range of his attack. He loosed two lightning bolts at the shadow and then ducked out of the way of a blow from the shadow. The second blow connected and he staggered with weakness, but shook it off. Tanith’s echo attacked again, missing once more but then striking with her second blow. The shadow dissipated and the sword clanged to the ground. The party stared at it as it lay on the ground. Bear offered healing to Lucien, who was gravely injured.
Aliurinal started to speculate on how to remove the sword from the house. Would the shadow still appear if they took the sword from the ground rather than the weapon rack? What if Roland moved the sword with his mage hand? Tanith remained quiet, upset at the thought of selling the sword to someone where it may do great evil. Or what if a child touched the sword and the shadow materialized and killed the child? It was beyond bearing to contemplate.
The party moved back out to their camp from the previous night. Aliurinal then went back to the house to pick up the sword and bring it to a separate camp. The sword was still lying on the floor. He picked up the sword. As he walked out of the house, he saw that a door that had been broken down when they first entered was now whole. He went down to the basement and some of the stones were regenerating. He exited the house and decided to camp close by, remaining awake all night to keep watch. The sword didn’t budge all night.
In the morning, he entered the house once more on his own. He went to the basement stairs and peered down at the corpse, which was lying on the floor with her head reattached. Some of the stones were not repaired. He made his way down the stairs and put one foot on the floor. The corpse remained quiet. He went back to the painting room and the sword was still absent. He exited the house and found the sword where he had left it. He picked it up, leaned it on his shoulder, and set off to rejoin the others at their camp. He reported on his activities overnight.
Tanith was in favor of going back to town to do some research on the family who lived at this house. The others agreed. On the way back, they discussed obtaining reagents for Roland to be able to identify the sword properly. They also wanted to visit the library to research genealogy records. Arriving back in town, Aliurinal purchased a pearl and gave it to Roland. Roland was surprised to find the necrotic energy gone from the sword. The evocation remained. He determined that it was a Greatsword enchanted to inflict frost damage (d6 frost damage, with three charges of ray of frost; at dawn, a d3 will replenish the charges).
Aliurinal Meridethson
()
8 / 8 HP
STR
DEX
CON
INT
WIS
CHA
Tanith
Report Date
26 Aug 2023
Primary Location
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