Zeig is sweating a bit and pale, although it is hard to tell if it is from the sudden exertion or a more visceral reaction. He breathes heavily, as if the brief exercise was taxing, though he always maintains a certain pallor about him.

"That is hands down the most horrible and powerful looking undead creature I have ever seen. I hate to say it but...we may have to engage it. We don't have a radar for the crown, if there's any chance that it might be in there based on what it said...well, let's not be hasty. What did it say, precisely, Sili?"

DAI hurried along replacing his wand so he had a hand free just in case, when they were out of the immediate area he looked ready to speak up- but ZEIG had covered pretty much everything he was going to mention, and then some. Before SILI's explanation he was curious, so he said to ZEIG: "I couldn't really tell how strong it was, and the last talking undead we saw were only a threat from sheer numbers. Did you recognize it as anything specific?"
This message was last edited by the player at 02:08, Fri 27 Sept 2013.

Sili shrugs and says, "It called me a half-breed and asked what I was doing here. I suppose I hurt it's feelings when I replied that I was searching for lost history. Perhaps it doesn't know it's dead?"

DAI grumbled something under his breath about the dead staying dead, then bit his tongue recalling his own fallen friend. "It is pretty easy to see coming, maybe we could just avoid its patrol...? Or check elsewhere first." He gestured back down the tunnel they used to reach the keep and mansion originally.

"I can't tell specifically, no. It has been infused with quite a bit of elemental energy, fire, if you couldn't tell. It could sear with a touch, and it is at least as powerful as the poor soul we faced in the abandoned drow village. It was almost assuredly a drow in life.

We have explored elsewhere many times now. If we continue to advance in this manner I think we will never uncover any information, let alone the crown itself. Somehow I don't think it would be willing to speak with us again, however. If we return, we return to fight."

DAI pulled out an old scroll. "Well, I have this simple Water spell... might be effective. It'd be better if we had a river or something nearby though."

Sili taps his foot impatiently. "So we're not fighting scary incendiary skeleton drow. What next? Do we even know what this crown looks like?"

The party mulls about indecisively away from the gate for four or five minutes, then silently agree to move back toward the gate.

Upon reaching it, the light does not appear. After waiting a minute more, you re-enter and instead opt to head to the right, away from the keep, but toward the manor house.

The front lawn of the manor house is luxiours... except you couldn't really call it a lawn. In the side yard, now visible, several large fountains sit. They are large enough to fit at least twenty people shoulder to shoulder around their circumference, and look to be about thigh-deep. Two of the three are filled with murky, stagnant water.

The ornately carved wooden front double door is closed. The house is a three-storey structure, as stated before.


To the east lies some smaller houses, and SILI and Garus think they can see where the wall behind you ends and turns to the left off into the distance.

Back toward the keep a very faint glow can be seen shining up and over the keep or the walls. It is barely bright enough to be seen over the long shadows of the party's light sources. It is rather faint, obviously obstructed, and rather far. It doesn't appear to be moving very quickly, if at all.

Between the manor house and the keep, the "main" road that the party followed to this location continues northward.

(Not to scale)

F = small fortress
G = gate
H = 3-storey house
1, 2 = small houses
P = party

 FFF

FFF  HH
FFF  HH 12
---G--P----

This message was last edited by the GM at 14:04, Mon 07 Oct 2013.

DAI points out the fountains. "Water may be far from drinkable, but could come in handy if we have to fight that thing. Just a thought." He inspected the manor from a short distance for now, then turned toward the smaller houses. "Alright, if we're going to continue this search- JAGA kick a door down, or Garus barrel one over, assuming they're locked." He gestured toward the manor for now, it was closer and would take longer to search, best to get it out of the way while the skeleton was still on its distant patrol.

Zeig goes ahead and blankets the party in a soft orange light.
Extend Protectra - +3 AC, 180 min duration
MP: 73/82

"Well? Let's get to looking around then. When we find that crown we can get outta this hell hole."

Zeig motions towards the door that Dai gestured towards.
This message was last edited by the player at 23:55, Mon 07 Oct 2013.

Sili strides forward, looking the manor over. "This looks more like what you would find aboveground, doesn't it? Feels out of place in a cave such as this..."

My knowledge powers failed me. :(

19:45, Today: SILI rolled 8 using 1d20+3 with rolls of 5. Knowledge (Architecture).

SILI fails to garner anything more than he did from his original Knowledge check about the manor house and compound in general.

JAGA and Garus exchange a glance and a shrug, and somehow determine it's Garus's turn to open up the door. Gurlop is instructed to remain behind.

He walks up onto the low stone porch slowly and carefully, shield readied. Nothing happens.

He reaches down and tries the handle on the door, but it's locked, or at least doesn't budge. The handle is ornate, and there are three holes, presumably keyholes, above it, suggesting to the party's untrained eyes that it's likely a fairly complicated mechanism.


Looking over the door and its hinges now that he's next to it, Garus is pretty sure giving it a good shouldering or a few trident whacks would likely start, maybe even finish, the process of "unlocking" it. It's also likely to be a very, very noisy ordeal as well.
This message was last edited by the GM at 17:04, Tue 08 Oct 2013.

And a super quick map of the immediate surroundings in case any of you are wondering:

D = door
+ = thick stone tile porch, 2' off of the ground. Looks to be inlaid into the cavern floor.
. = path up to the house from the path just inside of the wall
P = rest of the party somewhere around or behind here.

---DD----
++++G++++
+++++++++
   ..
   ..
   ..
   P

Garus sizes up the door a bit, and decides to first send a shoulder into the door via his tower shield.
12:46, Today: teslas, on behalf of Garus, rolled 24 using 1d20+8. Str check to bust down door.
He gives it a mighty heave and the structural flexing and bowing of the wooden doorframe can be heard in coordination with the expected crashing noise as he collides with the door.

A split second after he slams into the door, Garus is shocked to feel his force returned onto him, and then some, though his footing and several hundred pounds of metal around another several hundred pounds of half-giant flesh remain utterly unmoved.
12:47, Today: teslas rolled 7 using 1d20+4. bull rush vs. garus.
12:48, Today: teslas, on behalf of Garus, rolled 15 using 1d20+10. resist bull rush.
Both "creatures" are considered Large in this instance, so I removed the +4 modifiers they each have from such a thing.

A 5' wide and 10' long trap door 5' behind him opens up another instant after the door pushes back against him, then quickly slams shut again not long after. Garus smells some kind of offensive odor afterward, as if something he'd rather not fall into was down there. Turning around, the seams around where the door opened line up with the other seams in the stone porch in what appears to be a perfect manner.

The door stays where it is, and doesn't look any worse for wear apart from some small nicks in the lacquer where the corners and edges of Garus's shield slammed into it.

A slamming sound reverberates throughout the cavern. It would have been audible to anyone and anything, possibly even the deaf.

t = Where the trap door opened. It is now closed.

---DD----
++++G++++
+++tt++++
   ..
   ..
   ..
   P

Do not take actions that consume more than a few rounds worth of time. If you would like to start doing something that would take extended time, post what that is, and you can get started on it.
This message was last edited by the GM at 11:11, Thu 10 Oct 2013.

Silk glances at the nearest window "Well, magic. Perhaps the window or a way would be less protected?"

DAI grumbled seeing the door lead to very little success. He looked at the window and tipped his hat forward before throwing both hands up and muttering some arcane words under his breath. "When Titan closes a door... he opens a window." He said with some venom coating his words, before throwing a magically conjured fist of stone toward the glass pane.

00:34, Today: DAI rolled 16 using 1d20+7. Stone vs window- because why not?
00:34, Today: DAI rolled 18 using 2d10+10. Damage, does PBS work on objects?
MP 85/86

The glass of the window shatters as it's scattered into the house with a volley of magical stones following just behind it. Some more ruckus and crashing can be heard inside as the glass and stones bounce off of the wall and ceiling, and then into something else.

The window lies about five feet off of the ground to the right side of the porch. It is three feet wide and quite tall. Only Garus would have trouble making it through, though he could easily force his way through if he didn't care to cause a sizable repair bill to replace the window frame.

Putting on pause the idea to walk behind the house. In the couple rounds that have passed since before, there has been no change in the distant light.
This message was last edited by the GM at 08:02, Fri 11 Oct 2013.

DAI walks around toward the window, before stopping and looking down at the ground in front of it warily. He pulled his bedroll out from his pack and tossed it unrolled partway through the window, so anyone climbing in wouldn't have to deal with the glass on the bottom part of the frame.

Still, he didn't seem eager to climb in first, glancing back at JAGA questioningly.

Zeig seems calmer for now, not noticing the moving light source. Still, anything could be out there, or even inside, and be curious about how whatever made the sound tastes. He looks ready to follow, though certainly isn't volunteering to climb in the window first.

DAI walks over to the window and tosses his bedroll up through it. He cannot see any light coming from the inside.

JAGA gets the hint, and fairly effortlessly hops up and through the window.

He lands inside with a bit of a crunch of broken glass. He is inside a large room with rather nice furnishings. There are a few cabinets with glass fronts full of fine ceramic plates and the like and a large table surrounded by 10 exquisitely crafted wooden chairs. A third cabinet lying in the path the stones took as they came through the window and bounced off of the ceiling has the top half of it smashed in, and most of the crystal glasses are shattered inside. It occurs to JAGA that it's clearly a dining room. It has a large, closed, double-door on one wall that goes back toward front door of the structure, and another single door, likely that leads to the kitchen. Fine detail is hard to see in the dining room, as he only has dim illumination inside from the party's lights outside.

The rest of the party outside sees the red glow in the distance growing slightly stronger.
This message was last edited by the GM at 12:14, Sun 13 Oct 2013.

DAI spots the light growing closer. "Inside, now." He said as he tossed his copper piece still holding an Illuminate spell inside after JAGA. He then opened his scroll containing the Water spell, just in case. Once inside he looked around at the glass scattered across the floor with a furrowed brow, then back to the broken window. "Well... maybe he won't notice?" He mumbled lowly to himself, walking a little further in and retrieving his copper-light.

When everyone had climbed through, or Garus had made his own way in otherwise, DAI puts his bedroll back into his Haversack.

Edited out the unnecessary rolls, wasted a 20 on climbing :p
This message was last edited by the player at 03:19, Mon 14 Oct 2013.

Zeig follows, less climbing and more bumbling through the window.

Silk climbs up after Zeig, before training to address Garus. "Pick up my dog, will you?"

Garus obliges, and lifts the dog up and through the window. He chucks some of his longer weapons in through after MILO, then his tower shield with a massive clang. He squeezes himself through, making quite a bit of ruckus as all the remaining glass in the frame breaks and falls out as a large bit of the frame catches on Garus's armor and is pulled inside with him.

The light in the distance grows brighter and brighter, nearing the southwestern corner of the keep as Garus jumps inside. Once inside, even leaning outside of the window, it'll have to be a bit closer before you can make direct line of sight. The brightening of the illumination, however, would give you a fairly clear idea of exactly how far away it was, especially for Garus and SILI.

You can see clearly inside of the dining room thanks to the hooded lantern DAI is carrying along with a copper piece with Illuminate (expires at 12:35) cast on it underneath the table where it landed when DAI tossed it inside.



Drawing a map of an interior of a home produces its own challenges in ASCII format. The rooms are pretty "small", which is normal for a house. The walls themselves are never actually the entire 5' thick, and there are a lot of things in the house that will get in the way slightly. We'll do our best, however. Please excuse fairly-obvious bending of spatial dimensions in some circumstances. (Man, I miss dry-erase boards with 1-inch squares already printed on them. Those things are awesome.)


D = dining room.
There are three large, fine cabinets in this room, and one has the top half shattered and most of the crystal glasses inside share the same fate. The other two hold fine porcelain and ceramic plates and saucers and such. Each cabinet also has draws inside that you can see through the glass double doors that close them. In the middle of the room lays a large table (t). It is actually 10' long and 4' wide. Around it are ten finely-carved chairs. The western door leads to what is presumably the entryway. The small northern door would likely lead to a kitchen or a hallway that connects to a kitchen if this were anything like a normal home.

O = broken open window
D = 6' wide double-door.
d = normal-sized door.
DD = big set of front doors
P = party is in this room (or close enough to it)

       ---d-
       |DP |
       D t |
       |   |
---DD----O-----
This message was last edited by the GM at 16:51, Mon 14 Oct 2013.

DAI leans out the mostly destroyed window and peers at the flickering light again, he frowned slightly as he wracked his mind on something to slow it. He tried looking as far back toward the keep as he could, before creating a ghost sound of many people running away from the keep. He split the noise sending some out the front gate, and having others noisily run down the main path, both 'groups' heading away from the manor.

He sighed and shook his head. "If that works I'll be surprised, but better than nothing." He muttered, before thinking again and shrugging. "One more for good measure..." He then conjured a basic yellow chocobo just outside the window, slapping its side to send it running off.

MP 84/86

After his distraction attempts he rejoined the others, Garus likely pulling pieces of window off his armor. "Okay, let's try to do this quickly, and make sure we have some other windows open in case we have to leave in a hurry." DAI began looking around this room, checking the cabinets for hidden backs and opening the drawers.

13:25, Today: DAI rolled 12 using 1d20+5. search (will aid a higher mod).