The hallway, where it turns south, has two more doors, one on each side of the hall, and then it seems to open into a large, high-ceilinged entry hall. She can see the front door from where she's standing, in fact, thanks to the occasional shaft of light coming through the holes here and there in the roof.

Neide sees no one, hears nothing. So far everything is simply both dusty and silent.

"Hm", Neide murmured inaudibly.

She waved at her companions to follow her, then moved to the door located next to the hallway's turn. She put her ear to the door and tried listening for any noises...

OOC: Just to be clear - she checks the first door you mentioned, the one from your Friday post.

Neide hears nothing.

Carefully, Neide tried opening the door and peeking inside...

This is obviously a kitchen. It is dirty and damp, with patches of grey mold and a few cobwebs on the floor, walls and ceiling. In the corner to your left is some iron cooking equipment with a chimney above. Next to it, under the window, is a cracked and discolored stone sink.

To the right of the sink a small, closed wooden cupboard is fixed to the wall about 5’ above floor level.

Against the far wall a flight of wooden stairs leads upwards from left to right; even from the door it is obvious that the woodwork is decayed and a few of the treads are missing.

Silently, Neide backed away from the kitchen. Then, slowly, she took the turn left and tried approaching the other door on the left...

Two stuffed armchairs stand near the fireplace of this new room. The covers of both have been torn or cut and the stuffing has been pulled out; however, the wooden frames are still intact. The pieces of a broken table lie on the floor near the north wall.

"Still no sign of the witch...", Neide thought, "Where is she? Is she hiding behind some new illusion..?"

She backed away from the door and tried peeking into the room on the right.

At one time a long table stood in the center of this new room; now it lies broken — though still recognizable — on the floor. A broken chair stands against the wall between the
windows, and there is a heap of broken china in the northwest corner.

On the far side of the broken table, there's also a dead body of a man...

Upon seeing the dead body, Neide tensed. She raised her hand in a warning gesture, signaling her friends that she spotted something important.

With her hand on the hilt of her sword, she stopped into the room and towards the body...

(Wis roll, please...)

01:25, Today: Neide rolled 9 using 2d6 with rolls of 6,3.  Wisdom.

Neide realizes just barely too late-- the dead man moves. He lurches forward, and grabs Neide's left wrist...

(Zombie!

I'll let Neide go first, since she's closest (too close!), then I'll let the rest of Dear Old Gang try to be useful...)

"Goddess!", Neide exclaimed, as the dead man grabbed her wrist. With her other hand, she reached for her sword and slashed at the rotten monstrosity...

00:16, Today: Neide rolled 7 using 2d6+1 with rolls of 4,2.  Slash.
00:19, Today: Neide rolled 1 using 1d10 with rolls of 1.  Damage.

Please tell me the zombie has only 1 HP... :)

The zombie claws at Neide, but her armor deals with most of it...

Kerran starts to pray, but he stammers and can't concentrate...

Aden slashes at the zombie, and is somewhat effective...

But it's Ondreya who's truly effective, blasting the zombie with bolts of magical energy, and destroying its head...!

The zombie is a threat no longer...


(20:35, Today: The GM rolled 10 using 2d6 with rolls of 4,6.
20:35, Today: The GM rolled 3 using 2d3 with rolls of 1,2.
Counter-attack: Zombie does 3 damage to Neide (NOT counting her armor...) so 1?

Kerran tries to Turn the zombie...

20:36, Today: The GM, on behalf of Kerran, rolled 6 using 2d6+2 ((1,3)).

Fail!

20:37, Today: The GM, on behalf of Aden, rolled 8 using 2d6+1 ((2,5)).
20:38, Today: Aden rolled 2 using 1d6-1 ((3)).

Aden does 2 damage to the zombie...

20:38, Today: Ondreya rolled 13 using 2d6+2 ((6,5)).
20:39, Today: Ondreya rolled 7 using 1d8+1 ((6)).

Ondreya does 7 damage to the zombie and destroys it!)

"Thank you...", Neide gasped at her friends, "That thing... it caught me completely off guard..."

Her sword still raised, she took a step toward the rotten creature's remains. She eyed it warily - was it still moving..?

"Some sort of magic, I guess...", she commented, still unnerved. Then, she turned around toward the room's entrace.

"I suppose our presence inside isn't unnoticed anymore... if it ever was", she said, "Let's get moving. We need to find that witch before she springs any more tricks on us"

Having said that, she walked out of the room and into the entry hall.

The entrance hall is dirty and musty. To the right, a corridor leads into the west wing of the house. On either side of the corridor opening the walls are bare, but some pieces of wood in the corner near the window indicate that a small wooden table or chair once stood there. To the left, a staircase climbs to the next story, reaching it at a balcony which overlooks the hall along its north and west sides; the stairs appear safe to climb, though the balcony rail is broken in several places. Under the stairs, at the rear of the hall a third corridor (the second one being the one that was just used to get to this entry hall) leads east.

Neide paused briefly, considering her options. Then, she headed into the corridor leading west.

Once again, there are three doors to consider-- one on the left side of the corridor, another just a little farther along on the right, and one at the end... all are currently closed...

Neide walked over to the door on the left and tried opening it. This time, she was on guard for any bizarre danger that might appear...

One can tell that this room 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...

"No witch here, either...", Neide thought. She was begining to feel both frustrated and unnerved. Where was that witch hiding, actually? Could she be a step away, secreted behind another illusion..?

Having spotted the pile of books, Neide decided to inspect them quickly. It wasn't really the time for bookreading, but there was something peculiar in how the books from the bookshelves had seemingly been thrown onto one pile...

Hastily, Neide approached the pile of books, picked one of the tomes at random and skimmed through it.

There are over a dozen books in the pile untidily thrown into the corner and now covered with cobwebs and harmless mold (the harmless kind of mold)... all have been partially spoiled by a damp environment, but are still legible.

The first one Neide picks up is apparently a collection of romantic poetry.
This message was last edited by the GM at 13:45, Fri 05 June 2020.

"Hm", Neide frowned. She put the book down and picked up another one...

(GM rolls some dice)

The next one Neide picks up is a history of Sefonia.

"I'll help..." says Aden. "Let's see... this is... a history of The Isles... Oh, this fellow has no idea what he's talking about..." He continues to flip pages in irritated scorn...

Ondreya steps forward and picks a book as well. "Well, well," she says with interest. "Not all of these are worthless. This one is On The Magical Properties of Gemstones... and the author knows what he's talking about, too. Some of these-- like this one. Shall we check them all...?"