Adam pointed at the footprints. "Perhaps we follow?"

Harry nods her agreement. “May as well. Best lead we have.”

As you move forward, you can see the hallways to the left and right.

Left has a door on the left, a door on the right, and a door at the far end.

Right has two doors on the right-hand side of the hallway.

All the doors are closed...

Harry follows the footprints leading down the lefthand hallway, pausing to ascertain which doors were opened.

For lighting reasons, it's harder to tell in this hallway with all the doors closed... but Harry's best examination suggests that there has been a little activity to and from all three doors... most especially the one in the middle, the one at the far end.

Harry opens the two nearest doors, left then right, briefly surveying the rooms beyond before moving on to the door at the far end.

You can tell that the door on the left was once a library, with bookshelves around the walls. Most of the bookshelves are broken now and in many places have come away from the wall altogether. Those few shelves still intact are empty but there is a pile of books in the southwest corner.

The room on the right was once a writing room or study. Against the wall under the windows is a large wooden writing desk partially broken and riddled with damp rot. There are three drawers in each pedestal and a large central drawer; the latter is closed but the others are all open — two obviously broken open forcibly.

As for the door at the end of the hall, it was once a sort of large living area... A door in the north wall looks like it leads onto a small patio, the now cracked and overrun with weeds.

There is a pile of refuse in the southeast corner of this living area, but otherwise, the room is bare.

Each of the three rooms has a fireplace...

...Do you actually enter any of the rooms to investigate further? Or just stick your head in from the doorway...?

Harry will enter the large living area at the end of the hall, checking first to see whether the fireplace had been recently used. She carefully does a circuit of the room, testing for weakened floorboards and keeping an eye out for telltale disturbances in the dust and grime, giving the refuse pile a wide berth. She finally returns to the door from which she entered, crouches down, and only then takes a good long look at the refuse. "Reckon some critter makin' a nest, or folk clearin' space on th' floor," Harry mutters to no one in particular.

It has not.




--As soon as Harry enters the northern half of the living room, a voice says:


this statement is followed by a prolonged burst of insane and fiendish laughter.

Harry narrows her eyes at the outburst and attempts to discern from whence the voice came. Recollections from a hundred hours of classic horror films fill her mind. Harry's gaze sweeps over the walls, floor, and ceiling seeking some telltale which might reveal a human agent behind the 'welcome'. "Right fine welcome 'tis, too. Does my host have a name, that I can thank 'em proper?"

---

OOC: Does the voice sound male or female? Does it seem at all familiar to Harry?

The voice neither replies, nor speaks again.

(The voice was male. It did not sound familiar to either Harry nor Adam.)

Harry simply grunts and continues her circuit of the room, rapping on the walls and listening for potential hollow spaces. "Bloody poltergeists. Least th' damnable beast was chatty."

Harry finds no hollow walls.

The footprints in the dust are less reliable in this room. Someone's gone from the door, to the patio, back and forth, more often than not, with a lot of back and forth. A lot of trips to carry stuff outside? Or a lot of trips to carry things inside? It's impossible to tell.

The pile of refuse remains an uninteresting pile of refuse. Investigating further would involve spreading it around or something (maybe with a stick? Or...?)

Harry draws her knife and crouches down beside the refuse pile. She moves various pieces of detritus aside with the knife-tip. "Walkin' to and fro th' patio. Gatherin' wood or kindlin' mebbe. Or this were th' only door they could get in through."

The pile of refuse contains nothing of value except a single large gold earring. Might fetch a coin or two in town... Otherwise not super interesting...

Harry pockets the earring, heads back out to the library, and immediately moves to inspect the pile of books in the corner. Afterward she does a circuit of the room much as she did in the living area, checking the bookcases for possible hollow spaces behind them. She steps carefully to avoid potentially rotted floorboards.

A quick inspection of the pile of books shows that there are 14 books in the pile untidily thrown into the corner and now covered with cobwebs, vermin droppings and harmless mold... All have been partially spoiled by damp, mold, and mice, but are still legible.

Most are of a routine nature-- histories, collections of romantic poems, and so forth... the only ones that differ are one book about appraising gemstones and jewelry, a book on the medicinal properties of herbs and flowers, and some sort of philosophical treatise involving mathematics or something.

Harry finds no hollow spaces behind the bookcases.

OOC: Are any of the books scribed as opposed to printed? Any of the histories about the Stockbridge family or Collinsport?

(Scribed vs. printed: about half and half. None of these are about the Stockbridge family nor Collinsport...)

Harry wraps the herbalism and mathematics books in a bit of sailcloth and stows them in her rucksack. She gives the fireplace a brief inspection before heading across the hallway to the study and its desk. Harry cursorily checks the open drawers, then turns her attention to the center drawer. She gives it the briefest tug to see whether it can be opened with minimal effort.

Again, not to be a broken record, but they'll probably be worth a few coins. ...Maybe not in Collinsport, but maybe in a bigger city. Or, who knows, maybe one of the Collins family likes old books. Daniel seemed the type.




It hasn't been used for some time, it seems.



The open drawers are empty.

The main drawer is locked. There's no sign of a key lying around...

OOC: That many books would be heavy and awkward to carry, unless I can foist them off on poor absent Adam. His player has not logged into the game for just under a month, do we want to reach out to him via rMail? Might retrieve the other books later, circumstances permitting.

Adam knelt by the desk and said, "Shall I open it? My familiarity with locks and such." This time, however, he drew a set of lockpicks from a pocket on his long coat. They look small in his hands but well used.

09:17, Today: Adam DeLacey rolled 7 using 1d20.  v 10 Dex +1 for Grave Robber to pick lock.
This message was last edited by the player at 14:02, Wed 09 Feb 2022.

Harry gestures freely. "Be my guest. Woulda just forced it, myself." While the big man works, she does a circuit of this room exactly as she had the prior two.

The lock-picking is successful.

The central drawer seems to contain nothing but valueless documents— receipts for household payments, mostly. A casual perusal tells you little save that
--this was once a well-run and prosperous family
--indeed, someone was pretty fond of wine back in the day. Based on the prices, it was the good stuff, too, not cheap, even by 18th-century prices.

Harry finds nothing else of interest in the room other than the desk. The fireplace in this room has also not been used for a long time.
This message was last edited by the GM at 21:37, Thu 10 Feb 2022.