Liseth nodded along with the consensus, "We definitely have to keep going.  I don't..." the girl looked at the twisted and fallen form of Rogors Craesby and shivered, "I don't think I could sleep until I know that something like this won't happen again. That and..." Liseth paused and frowned, "Well..."

"Right Pisca."  The acolyte altered her train of thought, "I'll see if I can find out how the ghouls got here.  Maybe if we're lucky, I can find a clue about some of the farmer's family escaping too..."

"Kerr, will you come with me please?"  The little blonde asked.  She wasn't about to walk around here alone when there could be any number of additional ghouls hiding out.  Or even more coming from wherever they came in the first place!  And one other thing.

"So, Kerr...um."  It was a terrifying thing that Liseth had been mulling over in her head since the moment she had woken up that morning.  "Kerr, the horse figure that you got me; the one that looks like Heily.  It was missing this morning."  She frowned; the thought of what must have happened caused her stomach to tie into knots.

"I think that, if the...the master ghoul really is, or was, Mr Foxglove.  Well...I think that he sneaked into my room in the Cathedral last night and he took it."  She swallowed, "He would have been right there watching me while I was asleep; and even the other girls too.  He could have done anything..."

"We have to stop him Kerr.  As fast as we can.  I don't feel safe going to sleep.  I mean, if it was the undead who took it...I...I always thought that I would be safe from undead in the Cathedral."

OOC: Survival to seek Ghoul trails

---

---

“You think Foxglove was in your room?!?”  Shock and outrage warred on Kerr’s face to the point where it would have been comical had he not been so sincere.  “He took the Heily I gave you?”  The young paladin looked to the ground, then back up at Liseth.  “Are you sure?  Couldn’t it have been Elsbet or somebody?  Elsbet still doesn’t seem to like you very much.”

Kerr didn’t know a lot about the complex inner workings of female relationships; he just knew enough to be supportive.  He didn’t really comprehend why Elsbet had been so angry with Liseth—it didn’t seem like Liseth had done anything bad to her.

Of course, this wasn’t the first thing about women that had mystified Kerr Mollin.

“Well, if you’re right and Foxglove has been stealing into the women’s quarters,” Kerr couldn’t imagine how the man had gotten away with that, “then you’re right, that’s an even bigger reason why we have to head to the Manor and stop all this as soon as possible.”

A search of the farmhouse revealed that the entire Hambley family had either been turned into ghouls or, in a horrifying discovery, ripped to shreds.  Kellan and Kerr found torn pieces of the Hambley’s two youngest children in one of the bedrooms—not wanting to disturb everyone else, they quietly closed the door and let everyone know that there weren’t any survivors.

Farmer Hambley himself had apparently been subjected to the same ritual as the other victims the party had seen; he was pinned down with the by-now-familiar seven-pointed star carved into his chest.  During her examination, Liseth found a small iron key attached to a cord around the man’s neck.

After they had finished searching the house and the environs, the group met back on the porch.  "Anyone found anything else?"  Kerr asked.  "Are we ready to head up to the manor?"

---

---

"That was disappointing."  The gnome came trundling out of the house, her arms wrapped about a stout wooden coffer of not inconsiderable weight.  She tossed it to the ground with a thud and a distinctive jingle of ...

"Coins," she said, in oddly unhappy tones.  "Sound ... maybe ... silver.  No clues as to what the ghouls are up to," she added.  "Not a one.  Aside from death.  And cruelty.  And the Sihedron."  Pisca sighed.  "Just the obvious things."

"Shall we go?"

"Oh, let me see that key, Lys."  Not oddly, the key from around Farmer Hamby's neck fit the lock in the box as though it were made for it.  And, as it opened the box, it probably was.  Inside were 34 pouches bulging with coin.  "Well, that was unexpected," opined the gnome.  "Who'd have though a human would be so neat."

"Shall we go?" said Pisca again.  "I know I already said that.  But we weren't going anywhere, so I thought I'd say it again."

Active Effects: Message on all 50m

Expended
L1 - 4/5
L2 - 2/3
This message was last edited by the player at 01:22, Thu 12 May 2016.

---

---

Satisfied that they'd found everything to find at the Hambley's farmstead, the group loaded up their horses and headed back the way they came, towards the estate of one Lord Aldern Foxglove.

The route leading out to Foxglove Manor wound along a narrow path following the Foxglove River.  It started at the covered bridge where the river flowed under the Lost Coast Road and ended at dark sea cliffs overlooking the Varisian Gulf.  As the group approached the manor, they could hear wild sea birds calling out to a roaring ocean churning far below.

But all was not well; it almost seemed that nature herself became sick and twisted the closer they came to the manor.  Nettles and thorns grew more prominently, trees were leafless and bent, and the wind seemed unnaturally cold and shrill as it whistled through the Cliffside crags.  The path slowly rose, turned a steep corner in the cliffs, and then Foxglove Manor loomed—seemingly at the edge of the world.

As the Manor came into view, the strangely-cold sea wind rose to a keening shriek.  The place earned its local nickname of “Misgivings”; it almost appeared to loathe its perch high above the ocean--it looked as if the entire edifice was posed for a suicide leap.  The roof sagged in many places, and mold and mildew caked the crumbling walls.  Vines of diseased-looking gray wisteria strangled the structure at several points, hanging down over the precipitous cliff edge like tangled braids of hair.

The house itself was crooked, its gables angling sharply and breached in at least three places, hastily repaired by planks of sodden wood.  Chimneys rose from various points among the rooftops, leaning like old men in a storm, and grinning gargoyle faces leered from under the eaves.  It seemed remarkable that the manor clung to the cliff at all—the whole far side was nothing more than a sheer drop down to the ocean, three-hundred feet below.  Out front, the foundation stones of a long-burnt outbuilding stood sentinel astride the weed-choked approach, and a low stone well squatted morosely amid the ruins.

As for the manor itself, there were two obvious entrances; the front doors and the side doors.  Curiously, the manor’s windows were unbroken; the grime-encrusted panes hiding barely visible curtains that blocked all view of the building’s interior.

"That," opined Kerr as his friends brought their horses to a halt, "is one creepy-looking house."

---

---

Though chatty enough on the way from the bridge to the sea, Pisca stilled to silence as the land grew strange and grim.  She sat ahorse with large watchful eyes as their little troupe wended their way through this oddly wasted place.

The gnome tipped her head to one side as they all came to a stop.  Some places seem to lend themselves to natural stops, natural places for comment, as though in a story or narrative.  Pisca leaned further out to the side, balancing precariously in the saddle.  Searching for something - a perspective perhaps.  A perspective from which things did not seem so very at odds with the way things should be.

"No," she said, finally straightening back up.  "I just can't see it.  This place doesn't look like Aldren at all."  She shook her head in a sad sort of negation.  "Not at all.  Don't you think?  I can't picture him living in this place.  Not the Aldren Foxglove that we met."

"Can't really picture anyone living here at all," muttered the gnome as she slipped from the back of her pony to the ground.  "Except bats.  Bats might like it here.  Or worms.  And maybe voles.  Lemmings might like the cliff."

"Well, even if they're ghouls, they have to walk about, you know.  And that means they'd leave traces of their passage to and from the house."  Pisca began casting about for just such traces.  "No wonder, though," she added, "that they're moving out into the town and the countryside.  When you think that the alternative would be to live here."

"Oh.  Wait."

"Bostisch."  Pisca spoke the word of power again, and the pointed to each one of her friends in turn.  Then, after having renewed her Whisper Magic, the gnome returned to her search.

Renew Message spell on everyone.

Perception 36 (Taking 20 to find traces of passage that would indicate there is travel by some creatures to and from the house.)

Active Effects: Message on all 50m

Expended
L1 - 4/5
L2 - 2/3

Cato looked over the house, a shiver of fear running up his spine.  "I...find myself agreeing.  Before we head in, maybe we should be best prepared for this.  That armor we found back at the farm...could it benefit one of you?  Kellan's already got something heavy, but Kerr or Liseth, perhaps?"

Cato studied the manor, waiting for Pisca's report.  "Do you think someone's inside, watching for us to come?  Should we just head in through the front door?"

"We should probably just burn it down..." Kellan responded, only half joking really. The old Foxglove place was the source of so many rumors and stories in Sandpoint that to actually be standing on it's threshold sent a shiver up Kellans spine. Nothing good was going to come out of there, that was for certain.

"I have a feeling that this is going to be like throwing a rock at a hornets nest...once we stir up whatevers in there...well, it's gonna be ugly" he sighed and turned to look at his friends.

"They can outrun us...so I think the trick might be to punch deep enough, early enough, and find a little spot inside to claim as our own, ideally with one door that we can defend until we can wear them down. These things don't seem to be big on planning"

"I think, Cato," replied the gnome through her Whisper Magic, "that I'd like to know what the Ghoulies actually use as their *front* door first.  Lysa?  Could you help me?  Can you tell where  the most traffic enters and exits the house?  I don't know enough tracking lore to really tell one way or the other."

Pisca moved to complement Liseth by inspecting each of the entryways for traps.

"I wouldn't mind burning this place down, Stomper," the gnome mused as she worked at the doors.  "I get the same feeling that you do.  Ugly.  But we don't know for sure whether Aldren is actually behind this or not.  He may be in there.  Held captive."

"Maybe."

"Possibly."

"May not be a bad idea to find a base from which we can work.  Explore things from there."

"I hope it's not Aldren," came the worried voice of the gnome.  "I hope."

Perception 36 (Taking 20 to search Front and side doors for traps.)

Active Effects: Message on all 50m

Expended
L1 - 4/5
L2 - 2/3

"He did say that he spent most of his time in Magnimar..." Despite everything she had heard, Liseth had always imagined Foxglove manor having an appearance similar to her own family's manor-house.  Certainly not this.  The place looked as though it was long-abandoned and corrupted by evil.

"Can a house be evil?"  She whispered rhetorically.  If they could, this one definitely was.  She nodded along with Pisca; this place did not at all match the Aldern Foxglove that they all knew.  So what did that say about his family from whom he inherited the manor?

The tiny acolyte frowned and bit her lip anxiously at mention of donning the left-over armor that had been recovered from Craesby-Ghoul.  "I don't...um...it's too big for me.  And...and I would have to change out of my dress..."  Liseth flushed red; Where would she go for privacy here?

But Cato had said that it was magical.  Even if its previous wearer was an undead ghoul.  Magical armor might mean the difference between life and death once they were inside that manor with who-knew-what.  She just couldn't get the memories of her armor training with Nivlak and her father out of her mind.

That hadn't been fun at all.  It chafed everywhere.

"Do you think that it's a good idea Kerr?  I suppose I could fit into it...maybe once we get back to Sandpoint, Ms Bevaniky can resize it for me properly.  But it looks so heavy..."

"And if we burn it down," Liseth joined the conversation, "we wouldn't know for certain that we had stopped whatever it was that was causing all of this.  Not to mention any other clues.  Or even missing horsies!"  The last part slipped out semi-unintentionally.  If Foxglove was behind everything...and had taken her Heily figure...then it would have to lay somewhere within that foul manor.

The conundrum with the armor solved, Liseth slinked ahead with Pisca, moving all the more clumsily by attempting to remain quiet.  "I would think that most traffic uses the side door; those should be the servant's entrances.  But then, that would be assuming the manor wasn't...so...broken and evil.  I'll check..."

Checking the prints, Liseth went tot he task of determining the main route of traffic to and from the manor.  "I don't know whetehr I'll be able to tell if the tracks are from undead or just people though.  They usually leave similar tracks; especially when they wear shoes.

OOC: Survival to track the movements in the manor's yard and to and from the entrances.

"Pisca, I..."  Liseth put her hands outward and shrugged helplessly, "I can't find anything that looks like recent activity here.  Coming or going."

The girl cast about once more, "It looks like nothing has come here, or left, for days or even weeks.  Unless something was going through the trouble of concealing its passage."

"Nothing, Lys?  Nothing at all?" asked the gnome, incredulity drifting on the ether that is her Whisper Magic.  "I find that hard to believe.  That would mean that the house is abandoned."

"Or ... There could be a secret entrance.  Wait here.  Or, maybe don't.  Um, we need somewhere safe to keep our ponies while we check inside.  Think of someplace for them while I look for a secret entrance.  Whether I find one or not, we're going to have to go inside.  The ponies might as well be safe."

Perception 36 (Taking 20 to search the grounds and outside of the house for a secret entrance.)

Active Effects: Message on all 50m

Expended
L1 - 4/5
L2 - 2/3

---

---

Kerr looked longingly at the chain shirt; it was much lighter than the heavy breastplate he was wearing and seemed like it would be a lot easier to move around in.  He bit back a regretful sigh.  Priorities were priorities, and if Liseth would be safer, then he didn’t mind continuing his battle with the heavier armor.

“You should definitely take, it, Lise,” he offered gallantly, handing the gleaming armored shirt to the slight blonde acolyte.  “Maybe you can change behind one of the horses?  Cato, Kellan, and I can all look this way.”  He pointed in the direction of the looming manor and its sheer cliffside.

Once Liseth was changed and the grounds searched, the group approached the Manor’s side-door entrance.  An ingenious mechanism Pisca would have liked to study further secured the doors, but unfortunately no such examination was needed; Rogors Craesby’s key fit the lock perfectly.  Even unlocked, the door was not easy to open—it seemed to have expanded inside its frame—but it didn’t take Kellan long to force the issue.

The heavy door swung outwards with a long, loud creeeaaakkkkk.  A few sickly-looking ravens resting amidst the nearby outbuilding ruins ruffled their wings, but otherwise nothing responded to the party’s breaching of Foxglove Manor.

Inside, the group found an oddly-shaped, 450-odd-square-foot room that looked like nothing so much as a dancing parlor.  Its four dirty windows were covered with curtains; only the newly-open door allowed a dim late-afternoon light into the chamber.  The musty, pervasive smell of decaying wood overwhelmed any other scent that could possibly have been in the chamber.

The oak-paneled room must have once been breathtaking, but its best days were far behind it.  The room’s floorboards were warped with moisture, the paneling scratched and spotted with mold.  A grand piano, its surface splotchy and keys misshapen, leaned tiredly in the southeast corner.  The room had two other doors, both closed; one in the room’s smaller eastern wall, just north of the piano, and one in the western corner of its long southern wall.

Above, a faded fresco adorned the ceiling.  Dirt and age made it impossible to determine the painting’s subject, but it clearly involved humans doing . . . something.  Closer to the ground, mold and stains marred the walls and floors in patterns that seemed strangely unsettling, for no discernible reason.

The room stood silent, occupied by only the party and a pervasive gloom that was almost palpable.

   A  B  C  D  E  F  G  H  I  J  K  L  M  N  O  P  Q  R  S  T  U  V  W  X  Y  Z
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W = Window   D = Door  p = piano

This message was last edited by the GM at 09:10, Wed 25 May 2016.

"Nothing," the gnome whispered.  Though, whether she did so from some need for stealth or whether she was simply responding to the still and foreboding atmosphere of the house was not something that was clear or apparent.  "No slavering ghoulies," she added, her gnomish eyes wide with caution.  "Just ... a piano."

"I wasn't expecting that."

"What do we do now?"

"Can we go out and come back in again?"

"These don't look like servant's quarters, Lys," Pisca finally opined.  Her stance straightened from its wary crouch and she slid the slim blade of her rapier back into its sheathe.  "Regardless, I'm betting the reason we didn't find any trace of them coming and going is because they don't come in this way at all.  That's why the door was swollen shut."  The gnome began a casual meandering look about the room, that, oddly enough, took careful pains to avoid the splotches of strangely unsettling mold.  "I bet the ghoulies fly in.  Or, more likely, they come in by the sea.  Your Lordship was, after all, using the rivers.  Maybe they climb up the cliff.  Or maybe there are tunnels on the beach below."

"I think it might be worth trying the front door too," Pisca added, even as she put her ear to the door next to the piano.  "What do you think of that idea?" she asked.  "But let me see what's on the other side of these doors first."

Perception 17 (To listen at the door by the piano.)
Perception 19 (To listen at other door if you want to move things along.)

Active Effects: Message on all 50m

Expended
L1 - 4/5
L2 - 2/3

"Don't you hear that?"  Liseth asked suddenly.  She would swear she was hearing something but the small blonde acolyte knew that Pisca had much better ears than she.  Was she the only one who heard it?

It was understandably unnerving.

Maybe it was her nerves acting up, standing there as she was in heavy, noisy armor.  Jingling and clinking as she walked.  Wielding a shield as though she were a warrior like Kellan or Kerr.  The slight girl already felt overburdened and achy from all the weight she was bearing.

"Pisca, the piano."  Liseth pointed at the disfigured grand piano in the ball room.  "There's music coming from there."  Liseth took a few cautious steps closer to the piano.  "It...it doesn't seem to be moving though."  The girl paled, "The music is louder the closer I get.  It sounds...like dancing music..."

"Ghosts don't...play piano do they?"

There was one thing that Liseth knew she could do.  Sarenrae gave her the power to see undead if there were any hiding in the vicinity.  Even if they were invisible.  But...looking around the room, was this something she even wanted to know?

Cato glanced around the room, suppressing a shiver.  Not for the first time, the scholar-mage was glad that people like Pisca and Kellan were here, at the front of the group, while Cato was more free to ignore the ever-present threat of personal assault to concentrate on the surroundings.

"I can try to detect any magic, Liseth.  That might catch something you miss when detecting undead."

Cast Detect Magic  Look for auras

---

---

The party moved further into the room, every creak of the floorboards emphasizing just how eerie and empty the manor felt.  The room was obviously designed for a score or more of people, but there was no indication anyone but the party had set foot within it for a long, long time.

Pisca moved towards the southern door, cracking it slightly and peeking her head around to find a door just like it immediately across a long corridor that led to another door at the end.  The air in the corridor was musty and stale; it seemed as if the opening of the door might have been the first movement the air had experienced in years.  The walls of the corridor suffered the same moisture and moldiness as those in the dancing room, and the overpowering scent of it almost made Pisca reach for her scarf to keep from retching.

Satisfied that no horrors lurked in the hall, the gnome moved over to the door in the eastern wall, near the piano.  A quick peek through this door discovered a simple washroom.  An ancient metal washtub stood to the north.  It had the same sense of forlorn decay as the dancing room, but not the same silence.  As Pisca quietly closed the door, she heard a strange, furtive scratching coming from inside the tub.

Skritch.

Scratch.

Silence.

Skritch.

Scratch.

Silence.

   A  B  C  D  E  F  G  H  I  J  K  L  M  N  O  P  Q  R  S  T  U  V  W  X  Y  Z
  +--+--+--+--+-xxW-+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
1 |  |  |  |  |x | W|  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
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4 |  |  |x |  |  |  |  |  |W |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
  +--+--x--+--+--+--+--+--+-xxxxxxxxxxx--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
5 |  |  |W |  |C |L |K |  |P D  |tt|  x  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
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  +--+--+--+-xxDDxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
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26|  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
  +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+

W = Window   D = Door  p = piano  t = washtub

This message was last edited by the GM at 12:50, Sun 29 May 2016.

"Hallway," the gnome had whispered after peeking down the corridor that the southern door had opened onto.  Even now she could feel the grimace into which her face had been twisted by the stench of the mold.  "Just a hallway.  But maybe we'd better wait till it airs out a bit before exploring that direction."  She'd left the door to the Stinky Hallway wide open to allow said airing out while she crept quietly to the door nearest the Mysterious Piano.

"Stop it, Lysa."  The gnome had whispered her nervous admonitions as she cautiously skirted the Musical Instrument of Mystery on her way to the door.  "Now you have me hearing pianos as well.  She also shook a disapproving finger at the Dark Instrument of Many Orderly Ivories as though a rebuke for un-piano-like behavior.  It had been but a brief look behind what turned out to be a washroom door.  It was unnerving to have a haunted piano at her back, and so it was that the gnome called for assistance upon discovering the presence of an unknown Tub Dweller.

"Can I have a Big Person over here?"  She pointed to the nearly closed door just over her shoulder before drawing forth her wicked-slim rapier.  "There's a washroom in there, and something skritch-skritch-skritching in the tub.  I would poke it myself, but it's hard to see properly over the top of the hummie-sized tub.  And then, there's also this untrustworthy piano that someone has to keep an eye on lest it bite someone's bottom while her back is turned."

Active Effects: Message on all 50m

Expended
L1 - 4/5
L2 - 2/3

Cato had finished casting his spell, and a wave of intense concentration suddenly stole over the mage's features.  He seemed to detach from the world for a moment, his thoughts turning inward.  Finally, he broke the brief internal experience.  "There's..." Cato cut off, realizing he had been speaking aloud.  "There's magic all around.  I've never felt anything like it before.  I can't detect a source for it, but it feels like there's necromantic energy everywhere around us.  Something is very strange here.  I would venture that we've found the source of Sandpoint's ghoul problem, though."

Cato continued to think.  "I wonder, but I've never been inside a source of magic.  Is it possibly the house is infused with necromantic energy?"

Her eyes fixed on the piano exuding such ghostly sounds, Liseth could feel her hairs standing on edge.  It was so dilapidated, so musty, so broken in here that it must seem as though no one had touched the place in an age.  "Didn't Mr Foxglove say that the house was supposed to have undergone repairs?"  She spoke quietly.  If this was what the place looked like, it probably would have scared away any sort of respectable repairman.

She jumped when Pisca's investigation elicited a scratching sound from the apparent washroom.  It eerily mixed with the ghostly music from the still piano.  Her mind raced through images of what it might be; a horrid monster, an undead ghoul, a skeletal hand clawing away for eternity..."A rat," the girl squeaked.  "It's probably just a rat stuck in the tub.  That's what they sound like..."

Liseth swallowed as Cato made his announcement about their being inside an area rife with necromantic energy.  Stepping a little too earnestly, she wedged herself between Kerr and the nearby wall.  "Kellan, maybe you could...go and...check on that rat?"

Her hand clasped her holy symbol, simultaneously covering her body with her small shield.  Liseth Peered down the revealed hallway with Kerr, expecting at any moment for some new eerie thing to come at any moment.

Move to D6
This message was last edited by the player at 08:22, Wed 01 June 2016.

---

---

Kerr glanced around nervously as Cato shared his conclusion.  "Wait.  Inside a source of magic?  So this place is just . . . one big spell?"  He looked helplessly at Cato; the workings behind this sort of arcane power had always escaped him.  "What does that . . . what does that mean?"

He shot Liseth a smile as she walked over next to him, although by the time it reached his face it was more of a grimace.  "What do you think?"  He whispered at her before suddenly cocking his head.  "Hey.  That piano music you were talking about?  I can hear it!  It's catchy . . . but off."

"I hear it too," Kellan volunteered from where he'd walked to cover the other doorway.  He paused to listen.  "It doesn't sound real, though.  It sounds like," he pointed at the piano, "as if someone was playing that from under a bunch of blankets or something."  He paused again.  "Does it seem to be getting louder to you?"

Pisca and Liseth's request that he investigate the washroom drove the strange piano music from his mind.  "Sure, I'll check it out."  He couldn't help but sport a small grin as he thought of the last time he'd been tasked with rat-catching.  Sadly his chances of seeing a partially-undressed Shayliss here at the manor seemed negligible.

He carefully opened the washroom door.

Skritch.

As Kellan's armored boot hit the tiled floor, it elicited an excited response from whatever was inside the tub; the desultory clawing became much more vigorous.

Skritch Skritch SKRITCH.

Kellan lowered his polearm and warily approached the washtub.  The skritching stopped, replaced by a wet snuffling sound.

Kellan took another step forward.

Before he could react a rat burst from the bottom of the tub, the presence of a possible food source gifting it with an energy it had apparently not heretofore possessed.  The giant rodent was a horrific and pitiful sight--a tumor-heavy wretch with milky eyes suggesting impaired vision.

The thing was also shrieking in a frenzy.  Its ravenous, nails-on-a-chalkboard wails reverberated through and out of the room, making Liseth want to cover her ears.

After a moment of shocked defensiveness, Kellan easily parried the thing's attack and ran it through with his polearm.

SKREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-thunk.  The thud of the creature's body against the washroom floor provided a final coda to its starved wails.

"I think it's safe to say," Kerr ventured as the group recovered from its shock, "that anything that could hear that knows we're here.  Or that something is here, at least."

   A  B  C  D  E  F  G  H  I  J  K  L  M  N  O  P  Q  R  S  T  U  V  W  X  Y  Z
  +--+--+--+--+-xxW-+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
1 |  |  |  |  |x | W|  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
  +--+--+--+--x--+--xx-+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
2 |  |  |  | D|  |  | x|  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
  +--+--+--+D-+--+--+--x--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
3 |  |  |  x  |  |  |  |x |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
  +--+--+-x+--+--+--+--+-xx--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
4 |  |  |x |  |  |  |  |  |W |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
  +--+--x--+--+--+--+--+--+-xxxxxxxxxxx--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
5 |  |  |W |  |C |  |  |  |P D K|tt|  x  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
  +--+--+-xx--+--+--+--ppppppx--+--+--x--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
6 |  |  |  |WL|R |  |  pppp  x  |  |  x  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
  +--+--+--+-xxDDxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxDDxxxx--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
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11|  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
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14|  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
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15|  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
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18|  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
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22|  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
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23|  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
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24|  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
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25|  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
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26|  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
  +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+

W = Window   D = Door  p = piano  t = washtub

This message was last edited by the GM at 08:00, Wed 01 June 2016.

"Yerk."  Commented the gnome as she peered around Ogre Stomp at the ratty looking mess on the floor.  "That was ugly.  But I'm not so sure that there's much in this house to hear us.  The door we came in from the outside was stuck shut.  The hallway out there looks like it hasn't been used in ... well, forever."

"But I think we'd better move on."  With these whispered words, Pisca slipped past Kellan and exited the washroom out into the hallway.  "All we have here is a haunted piano that is most definitely getting louder.  And, as interesting as that might be, it won't help anyone back home in Sandpoint to linger here."

"Haunted," she said, as she put her ear carefully to the door at the end of the hall.  "That's what I think we have here.  A haunted house," said the gnome.  Then she opened the door for a careful peek into the next room.

Perception 31
Stealth 32

Position: L7

Active Effects: Message on all 50m

Expended
L1 - 4/5
L2 - 2/3

Cato grimaced as the rat's wails hit a crescendo, only to be swiftly silenced by Kellan's expertly-applied polearm slice.  Then his turned his mind back to the results of his spell.

"Kerr, it's not just active spells that register to me.  Anything with a lasting magical aura would do the same.  A magical item produces such an aura.  Obviously a spell does as well.  In fact, even after a spell has been cast, there's still a lingering aura, dependent on how powerful the initial spell was.  The most powerful mortal caster's spells might produce an aura I could still detect after, at most, an hour.  The works of the gods might produce an aura strong enough to last for days.  But in this case...imagine you were an ant, crawling around inside of your magical armor.  If such an ant were to cast a similar spell, it might feel that it was surrounded by magical auras on all sides.  Such might be the case here.  The entirety of Foxglove Manor might be suffused with necromantic energies.  It might be, in effect, one enormous magical item."  Cato nodded in the direction of Pisca.  "Yes, a haunted house."

The wizard shook his head.  "And we should limit our time here, find and end the threat if we can."

"Should we..."  Liseth jumped in response to the shrill but brief assault on Kellan by what turned out to actually be a rat.  As far as things go, that was a lot less terrible than it could have been.  "Should we peek inside the piano?" she finally finished asking.

Imminent danger seemed to have passed, even though the musty piano was playing ever louder tunes.  The acolyte inched closer to it, eying the heavy-looking wooden lid to the grand piano.  She might not be able to get it open herself, but it could be worth seeing what was inside.

"Maybe...maybe..."  She frowned.  Between Kerr, Cato and her they should be able to get it open.  Pisca and Kellan were moving ahead to scout the next room.  "We might find something that shows us where the music is coming from...it might not be a good idea to leave this behind us.  Active...like this."

"We need more light, it's too dim in here."  Liseth grasped Sarenrae's holy symbol and spoke a single-word prayer.  The symbol around her neck shed light out to brighten the ballroom and illuminate the old piano to cast eerie-looking shadows.

As though expecting it to leap at her and bite, Liseth carefully touched her hand to the piano.  She looked at Kerr and Cato, "Should we open it?"

OOC: Cast Light

Attempt to Open Piano Lid (Hopefully with help)

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"Inside a magic item?"  Kerr looked around uncomfortably after Cato finished speaking.  "An actual haunted house?  I guess we should be careful."  A look of concern passed over his face as Liseth approached the piano.  "Liseth, do you really think . . ."

As soon as the blonde acolyte touched the piano, it exploded into music, playing the same catchy but discordant Varisian song the party had previously been hearing in a more-muted form.  Kerr saw the keys on the piano actually move, as if they were played by an ethereal musician.

Kerr's mouth fell open as Liseth was suddenly swept across the room, pirouetting and leaping about the dance floor as if she were in the arms of an invisible partner.

"Liseth!"  He yelled, wanting to do something but at a complete loss as to how he might help.

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This message was last edited by the GM at 19:24, Wed 01 June 2016.

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As Liseth touched the piano, Pisca cracked open the door at the end of the hallway and poked her head around to see what might lie behind it.

She found what looked to be a lounge.  To her left was a long couch caked with white sheets of wispy fungus.  Across the room, next to a curtained window that must look out over the Gulf of Varisia, stood a long-disused fireplace.

Eddies of dust skittered along the warped floorboards as if caught up by a slight breeze.  Yet as far as Pisca could tell the air in the room was absolutely calm.

As the gnome was about to withdraw her head and close the door, something about the fireplace caught her attention.  She peered at it.  It seemed normal enough, but somehow . . . . there was just something about it that was off.

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W = Window   D = Door  p = piano  t = washtub fp = fireplace

This message was last edited by the GM at 22:58, Wed 01 June 2016.