"What they're smuggling is anyone's guess," she said to Dak.    "All the props are in place to suggest that is what's being done."  She shrugged.   "But, there's no proof yet."

She understood Wick's take on the matter of Karel.  It was practical thinking.   The odds of him being returned to this life were tiny.    Still, she would see him given proper last and final rites, regardless of whether he practiced Atuan faith or no.

"The upper level is not safe," she reminded Westin.    "With the floors in the shape they're in.    To saying nothing of other risks.    Snakes sometimes nest indoors. I know you wanted to get the book, but.." she looked to the others, to see what their opinions might be.

”I believe it can be done: we need to be very careful and plan well. Perhaps an anchor at the edge with strong ropes while a light footed one advances to grab the book," Storm suggests l. He knows among his friends are some stalwarts and some who are fleet of foot.

In the kitchen, Dak lit the lantern and adjusted the wick.  With lantern in one hand and javelin in the other, he opened the cellar door he'd discovered earlier and descended the stairs.

Storm seeing Dak moving up the cellar l, offered to go with him to serve as an extra pair of eyes and arms in case of danger. Eager as always to protect his friends and comrades and rush into danger.

As the group began to make their way down the stairs, there arose a rather ghastly sound, a melding of screams like that of one under torture and groans of agony.

The stairs opened into a room which was lined with wooden shelves which had the curved openings suggesting that this might have been a wine cellar in the past.  Across the room, there was a door with a symbol chalked upon it.

The room appeared to have been unused--dust and spiderwebs seemed to coat the surfaces, even that of the corpse--a man, presumably, dressed in ringmail lying alongside the wall in the corner opposite that of the door.

Lenelle likewise followed these brave comrades -- The ghastly sound was blood curdling; were they to discover the house plagued by restless dead at last?

The corpse was a sickening sight --  but she pried her attention from that, and tried to make sense of the symbol chalked upon the door.

Lenelle rolled 17 using 1d20.  religion proficiency.  would normally succeed with my wisdom stat --  check to see if it's any symbol familiar to me -

Storm quickly draws his mace and advances towards the noise.’while advancing, he concentrates to detect residue of evil in the place. Seeing the corpse, Storm feels pity and tries to identify the cause of death and The length of death.

Dak let the others push past him and held up the lantern for all to see what was there.  He half expected that one of them would be carrying Karel's body.

"Doesn't look like anyone's been down here in a long while," he pointed out.

Having rescued Karel's body from the snake, there was no reason to leave him outside where the snake might return and resume its attempt at a meal.  Telemachus carried the body into the house, leaving Karel's body near the door they entered.

Storm approves of Telemanchus act of carrying the body of a comrade! As a paladin, he is loathe to leave his comrades behind and he is glad a friend is carrying the body so he can focus on the more important task of protecting the living. It is always a dilemma a warrior of light face! To carry the body of a fallen comrade protect the bodies of the living.

Nothing overtly evil appeared to be present in the wine cellar.

Panatix keeps telling himself it was just the stairs squeaking and their heightened nerves and not some ghoul waiting below.  He does perk up when he sees an old wine cellar, perhaps, some very old well aged bottles have survived!  That is worth checking for, and he does.

In reply to DM (msg # 29):

Storm approaches the body slowly. He draws his mace and shield as he walks towards the body. As he nears it, he uses his mailed boots to gently prod the body and to visually examine the body for signs of life.

With the body safely inside he decided to bring it a little further in so that if some random person happened to walk on by, as unlikely as that would be, they wouldn’t see it and cause a scenario that could turn quite poorly.  Remembering the pack that Dak had left behind after having removed the lantern he collected it up to bring inside and remove the blanket so as to cover Karel's body for the more squeamish.  The sound that came from the others momentarily startled him and his head turned to look towards the stairs but the lack of living screams or the sound of battle eased his mind from rushing to them as of yet.  He then began looking for a length of wood among the broken furniture that would suffice for creating the sled he mentioned earlier and got to work cobbling it together.
This message was last edited by the player at 02:46, Fri 20 Dec 2019.

"That symbol appears to be a warning,"  offered Lenelle, as Storm did his inspections.

"But of what is hard to say."

Wick followd behind Telemachus, keeping his eyes peeled on the undergrowth for snake sign.  Once Keral’s body was inside, Wick moved on down the stars, headed to rejoin  the others.  “Find anything interesting?” He asked of Lenelle, having noted the chalked symbol.

Moving through the house, Telemachus found, by turning up the hall back towards the front of the house, that the room on the right had been a dining room, with considerable broken furniture that might be used to his purpose.  He could see, too, several items and moldy cloth shoved against the underside of the door to his left.

---

Panatix began his inspection of the racks, finding that those that were at the level he could reach were rather disappointingly empty.


Storm moved over to the body lying on the ground, nudging with his toes the form.


As Storm prodded at the body, the toe of his mailed boot turned bright green.

"That depends -- how are we defining interesting?"  she responded, casting her eyes on Storm's boot.

Finding what he was looking for Telemachus placed Karel onto the board and removed the rope from his pack.  He then carefully went about binding the body to the makeshift sled with the blanket covering him for modesty so that when they were ready to go that they could.

"Can you wipe that off?" Dak asked, indicating the splash of green with a gesture from the lantern.

Westin jumps at the ghastly sound. He looks at Telemachus but keyed by his reassuring response, calms down. He starts searching with him for materials to make a sled. As he enters other rooms with Telemachus, he can't help to do a little searching of his own for any place where a book might be found.

OOC:
Does he find anything?

Storm jumps back and rubs the green spot on the ground while moving away from the body. He deftly removes the boot without touching the green spot.

"I hope it doesn't spread! These traps!" He says

"If it seems to be spreading, then please get that boot off, quickly. I think this man died trying to leave a warning of whatever claimed his life. Maybe this was it -- some unnatural mold, or wizardly experiment gone wrong."

"Thank you Westin and certainly lets double our efforts up to see if the book happens to be in these rooms." remarked Telemachus quietly as they moved.

"I feel foolish saying to you to step lightly...especially in the middle of the rooms, being what you are, but if I can spot any weak spots in the flooring, walls of ceiling I will let you know."

Dak gave up waiting for Storm to die of poison and helped Panatix check the higher of the wine shelves for interest.