Dill's Diary excerpt
I had never expected the day to turn out such as it did. I never dreamed the world could be so convoluted and mixed up. This poor fishing town was being terrorized by a deserted haunted mansion overlooking the sea. Lights flickering in the windows. Strange noises and occasional screams at different odd hours of the night. The dead owner was thought to have come back after over 50 years. However, I was pleased to hear it had a lighthouse. That prospect had drawn me to the area in the first place.
I would have thought that when people truly needed help and asked for it that the leaders of the community would wish, especially, for outsiders to come and take care of it. If someone gets hurt, the populace normally won't care much. If the problem is made worse, it's outsiders whom are at fault. If it's taken care of and the task accomplished, then so much the better. It is generally not a losing situation for elected officials. But, Mr Long, this rich merchant who came in at the last moment of the council meeting actually seemed to have something personal against us. I've never run into a merchant that had a problem with spending other people's money for something that seemed such a winning situation. He finally agreed after much yelling that we should be sent up to the haunted mansion, but with more stipulations in case we failed than I have seen in most major contracts. It must be an election year. And that was only the first half of the day.
I had not known any of my companions prior to the towns hiring us. I do not know much about this part of the world, but it seems that the thief, Valek, does not like to work with women. He immediately took a shine to the vilest beast I have ever laid eyes upon or even came within smelling distance of. He, or it, calls himself Nibbler. He doesn't speak but in half sentences and appears not to have seen soap or a comb since shortly after birth. My other two companions, women, Shikata and Geneva, look to have some possibly distant relation and communicate through nods and short phrases. The short bits of intelligent conversation I attempted with them were not well met. It appears that none of my companions enjoy conversations of politics and theory the way the Priests and Priestesses of Soquel do.
Once we entered the mansion we immediately heard noises and scraping from down a hall to our right. I began to wonder if the tales of haunting were possibly true and not just mischievous local bored teens, like I had initially suspected. I saw in my companions' faces that they were thinking the same thing. Nibbler began muttering and a rat approached him. When he reached his hand to it I thought that it was going to bite him. But strangely enough it cocked its head, cleaned its whiskers and went off in the direction of the noises but did not return. Instead of the rat, a group of four humanoids came from that direction, thus the noises. Nibbler wandered off toward the hall they had just come from, not concerned at all for the people or their affairs. An unusually tall female, Erilyn, wanted to know who we were. She and one of her companions, Eowyn, struck me as fairly exotic. They communicated often with just glances, sometimes finishing each other's sentences. Shikata spoke to them in the strangest almost musical tongue and they responded in kind. A fairly short adult female, Layla, with shocking reddish hair and the strangest speech pattern didn't want to combine efforts to search the Mansion nor did she trust us. The only one that I had any familiarity with was a 6-foot tall male who had the appearance, airs and insignia of a Protector of the Knights of Tuon, Mandorallen
It was finally agreed that we would work together for the current situation, since we had similar intentions in mind, and the more the safer.
Once agreed upon the terms of the association, the party moved quickly from room to room. They began by searching the rooms from which the newest party members had entered. Little more than 11 coppers, thieves tools and tattered clothes were found in the first room. Valek was observed by a number of the party members trying to pocket the coppers, and was labeled by Erilyn as a "terrible thief". The second room contained blood blooms, a blood thriving flower which shoots a tubular spike into its victims, usually rodents and birds attracted to the bright colors and rich smells of the blooms, so it will bleed near the plants roots. These were dispatched by Erilyn's shock bolts and Mandorallen's arrows. Shikata, a child of nature, could not bear leaving the blooms to die and dug up the roots and stem of one to replant in the forest. A desk at the far wall of this room contained some moldy paper and a magnifying glass of Dwarven make. While taking inventory of the rooms amenities, Shikata noticed that the ceiling joists have been purposely sawed away in part of the floor area of the room above, in the area that the floor was already sagging.
When they entered the old kitchen, Mandorallen noticed that the stairs leading up have been reinforced recently with new lumber. The stairs leading down went into an old basement where a body was found. It is determined that it was an elf who died less than eight weeks ago. The corpse was infested with bone worms, which did little more than nip at the party before becoming target practice. Erilyn and Eowyn insisted the party help to wrap the corpse in an old blanket and bring it to the front entrance to be properly buried later. They could not find any clan or personal identifying marks on it.
From there, they headed upstairs from the kitchen and found the stairs continued up to the lighthouse. Erilyn floated to the top and saw a ghostly mariner tending a ghostly fire that looked right at her before fading away. She saw a glimpse of light on the ocean and movement in the forest. The party assumes it was a boat whos lights seemed to flicked in an unusual fashion. Geneva managed to send the signal the pattern back after the party had lite. But, the boat continues out to sea. They fear it lost since a boat cannot safely sail after dark without a Navigator aboard to interpret the Charts of Teleron. Upon closer inspection of the fire bed, they notice a stack of pebbles faintly glowing with Essence. Nibbles thought them interesting and put them in his pocket.
Since signaling the ship failed, they continue searching the second floor. In what appears to be a master bedroom they find some semi-readable scraps of paper talking of experiments, and notice an oddity about the wall. After Mandorallen smashed a hole excessively easily into it, they determined that it was hollow, with just thin sheets of wood and a thin layer of stucco on the outside, not enough to protect from a Maelstrom. Through the walls can be heard the ocean more clearly in this room even though other rooms they've been in were closer to the cliff. It almost sounds as if they are outside just above the cliff face. It is customary in above ground homes to fill the walls with some sort of insulation, like dirt, to help protect the occupants from the Maelstrom. As they investigate further they find two secret closets, one of which has a hand still grasping a leathery dried up human ear. The hand seems to be reaching for them, while still greedily grasping its prize. They destroy it with a Repel Undead spell and find the room has a high instance of Taint throughout.
In one of the other bedrooms they find more papers and some dangerous mold. A few coins are found by Nibbler in an alcove above a fireplace. While attempting to pocket them, he is observed by a Shikata, who shoots a blow dart in his general direction. The coins are handed to Mandorallen for safekeeping, while Valek blindsides Shikata for making Nibbler a little more wary of party morals. In another room, they find a few giant spiders that hungrily attack Valek. Dill justifies her pride in her marksmanship and turns one into a pincushion while the other spider is beaten into retreat.
Excerpt from Laylas Letter Home #103
At first it didn't seem practical to trust a group of five humans, one appearing ready for a minor ball and another looking like one of the insane ones we occasionally have found wandering the caverns driven mad by darkness, starvation and dirt. Some of my new companions began to prove themselves. Dill, a Priestess of Soquel, was the most unusual of their group. She enjoys books, an excellent quality in any being, but she also seemed to disapprove of wasting time and harming beings not harming you. I trust I'll get along fine with her.
I found something out about the elves that visited us, the ones I chose to escort through the Northern tunnels. It seems that the sweet female, Erilyn, used to be an Inquisitor. Nasty business that. She scared the bejeebes out of some poor foolish human, Ned, we found bound and gagged in the haunted mansion. I still tell myself she just wanted to scare the poor fool off, 'cause it worked. She claimed he was lying and hiding something about someone "paying him to enter the Mansion." If she threatened to break my fingers for that, I think I'd dive over Mandorallens head and off a second balcony and ran for the woods, and as Shikata later reported, the hills. I do ney think we'll see him again. We did find something of interest. It seems that someone went through a great deal of trouble to keep or scare people out of this place. Blood blooms were planted inside a library area, where a desk contained a Dwarven magnifying glass. Ceiling joists were sawed through in this room, so if someone stepped on the floor above them, they would fall through. It seems we weren't diligent enough in finding these throughout the house. Valek, a human thief, went crashing through them, like a clumsy fool, while chasing after Ned in the front room. Lucky bugger didn't break his neck. Also, there have been a couple of ghosts appearing and disappearing for no specific cause; one in the hall near a decrepit kitchen, the other in the lighthouse.
It also seems that sometimes even dirty, half-insane humans are useful. At least this one is. Valek calls him Nibbler, and he seems to posses an ability to call and speak with some animals. He called a ferret, a rabbit, an opossum and I believe a rat. After Erilyn killed the rat with a shock-bolt just before we met this group, Nibbler fed the rat to the opossum after taking a coin out of it. How the copper got into the rat I do ney want to know. He also seems to have a strange sense of humor. He sent the rabbit after Ned. He called it his "Jack-rabbit of exceptional size" and his "35 mph fuzzy missile". It came back with Ned's undershorts, but not Ned.
One of the papers indicated an area below the basement, so the party went back to reinvestigate it. They found a secret door to a narrow stairwell that led down nearly forty feet. Here they heard arguing and swearing on the other side of an old solid hardwood door. Charging through with swords blazing, they find two big and stupid looking fellows boisterously discussing the disadvantages of cheating at cards and very surprised looks on their faces in a room that resembles a common room. Again our heroes pound the snot out of their deadly enemy, nearly killing one.
While exploring what appears to be a private bedroom, they find a hidden tin box under a loose floorboard under the bed. Valek again proves his aptitude for thievery and pricks his finger on a needle trap, with the result of having a blue stain imbed itself under his skin. In it they found treasures of gold, silver and copper along with a manifest, what appeared to be a list of semaphores, a note from someone named Hughe, a box containing packets of some sort of powder, and other fun things including pebbles matching the ones from the lighthouse upstairs. By the warmth of the wax on the candles and the smell of smoke in the room, they figured someone has just left this obviously private room.
