The youth’s have added another player to their table, bringing the number to 5 – a perfect number as far as I’m concerned after 3 and a half decades of playing and DMing. Allows for a person to miss a session and the game to go on, a deviation from the 2 + 2 for set up of combat, and the possibility of overlapping and sharing skills and sets comes into play.
They continued their plumbing of the ground floor of the mansion and a look at the clock shows that if they left now, they wouldn’t arrive back at Saltmarsh until after dark – so the question for next meeting besides finishing up the group floor – is stay and camp or go and return?
Write up follows:
Before Deja could climb back in the hearth to look around we heard a bang from the front door and a voice yelling out, “Veldryn?! Everything ok!?” Who the hell…?
We went out to the hall to see a 6’ tall, 220 lb female half-orc barbaric looking fighter type with a humongous war axe on her back looking about, her lower tusks distending her upper lip. Veldryn was surprised as the half-orc was a druidic friend from the Karon Circle of Frey named Valerie and a friend of the elven necromancer.
From the story we got, the Druid of her circle had fostered Valerie’s innate wanderlust, inspiring the young woman to go and explore, learn of the world, and then return and share her views with the rest of the circle of how Frey’s power works in the greater world. She had heard of her friend (and her friend’s friend, Magnus the paladin) trip to Saltmarsh to take up the adventuring charter and decided to follow Veldryn and offer her aid. On arriving at Saltmarsh she was dismayed to learn that the party had already left this morning to seek out the alchemist’s mansion and see the haunting within, but set out along the marshy land until she only just arrived and heard a high pitched scream, running in to help out of need be.
Once introductions were passed around and the group felt good with one another, we went back into the drawing room and returned to both the hearth and the hidden spot, and the giant spider and the poison glands. Magnus and Deja managed to pry the stone aside and the Halfling carefully extracted a metal box some 5” x 5” x 2” with a rusted hinge. She oiled it a bit and then pried the cover open, revealing a nest of torn bedding and a wide banded iron ring with a series of shields butting up against one another along the outside.
Valerie called on Frey and revealed the ring was not only magical, but had something to do with warding. We talked briefly on the ownership of the ring and the party accepted Deja wearing it for now. The inner band was oily to the touch. When she slipped it on, the band shrunk down in size until it fit firmly on her finger with no discomfort.
As for the spider, Talion and Veldryn managed to extract the two poison glands and squeezed it carefully into a vial, sealing it with another application of wax. The last of anything noticed was by Magnus who commented that the chairs that were here had been torn and cut, but the tears were NOT 20 plus years old, much more recent, and they were not ragged like an animal’s claws, but deliberate cuts as if from a blade.
Someone had been here in the last year.
There had been little haunting so far, just a feeling of being watched and a gloomy bearing the longer the party stayed.
We went back to the hall and went to the last room, opening the door to reveal a kitchen with a stove, sink, and cabinet on the wall, a set of stairs going up to the next floor, and a door on the east wall heading elsewhere. A check of the oven was decided on first, with Deja, Valerie, and Magnus scouring the room and Veldryn and Talion watching the hall. The oven door was stuck, rusted in place, so Valerie was asked to add her strength to it…and she tore the 9’ iron door off the oven. So sorry! Don’t know my own strength!
We put the door down while looking in the oven – cold and empty. Valerie decided the iron stove door might not be a bad thing to hold on to, so into her pack it went. The cabinet was the next object to look over, so Valerie lifted Deja up so she could look it over. It wasn’t locked, so it was door open…
And the weight of the open doors pulled the cabinet away from the wall and crockery, knives, dishes, bowls and what not started falling back and away onto Deja and Valerie…who tried to dance back and shield the Halfling but instead tripped and ripped the cabinet entirely off the wall where it all fell on top of both of them amidst a hell of a lot of noise!
As Magnus went to lift the cabinet off of them and help, the two of them cut and bleeding badly, the noise and open front door attracted the attention of…a giant weasel! 6’ long, 70 lbs, sleek and chittering nastily, it stalked in to the house and fixed a beady eye on Veldryn and Talion as it stalked towards them. Talion readied his bow but Veldryn told the ranger to hold as she called on Hel to give her the power…and commanded to weasel to “leave”.
The beast paused, and then turned back, stalking slowly towards the door where it turned and went to the left. The cleric ran forward and shut the door, barring it closed and we all breathed a sigh of relief as Magnus was able to help the thief and druid up. Healing and herbalist kits came out and we managed to fix Deja’s painful wounds and a few points of damage repaired on both of them before it was time to look onward.
Before going upstairs, we went to look in the east door first. A copper boiler was near the north wall, damp, decaying, moldy; a set of stairs was across the chamber heading down to the basement. A brief check in the room and too long a few of the party members stayed, mold spores and other damp vapors robbing them of breath. Veldryn turned and succumbed, falling down and knocked out.
We managed to get back to the kitchen and Magnus laid his hands on Veldryn, curing her of the toxins with the power of Tyr. Once we were all up and better, we decided to keep the steps down on the back burner for now and finish the main floor. Before going though, we did take a glance up the steps on the second floor, seeing it was also in poor repair with a hole in the ceiling leading to the attic.
We went back to the foyer and decided to check out the west wing of the mansion first. Long hall, three doors, one on left, one on right, one at end. As the torch was beginning to sputter, Talion lit a new one and we went on our way. Decided to check out the 1st door on the south (left) and a shoulder and shove showed us a study. Most of the place was a mess of wet papers but a writing desk with a few drawers still working took up the space near the window.
Deja was on point again as she looked over the desk. No traps, drawer opened but was stuck. Valerie and her half orc muscles helping to tear the drawer out of the desk. Lots of papers, 3 years worth of receipts and purchase documents the alchemist had ordered such as chemicals and lab equipment. Veldryn and Talion were highly interested in them and shoved them in their backpack to be read later. Not much else of interest.
But before the drawer was put back in place, Deja noticed the base of the drawer did not match the height of the bottom on the inside of the drawer. Secret compartment? There was a spot along the edge for thin fingers of a blade to be inserted – and the bottom lifted out to reveal a hidden compartment with lots of padded areas for a dozen or so small ampoules – but only two were left. Deja looked them over, small tastes, touch, her knowledge of poisonry coming in handy as she let the group know these were two doses of neutralize poison. Probably the alchemist in his working did accidentally poison himself in the past and these were here to help ward off whatever toxin he exposed himself to. We took them and then left the chamber feeling good.
We went to the north door next and it was the mansion’s library. Much of it was a wet wreck many of the shelves broken and useless, but there was a stack of a dozen or so tomes in the corner that had escaped much of the decay. The group looked over them and found 3 of them useful which had Veldryn thrilled: Magical Properties of Gemstones, Magical Properties of Herbs and Flowers, and Metaphysics of Math and Magic. She perused them a bit, and a scrap of paper fell out of the third one with a scrawled message still readable…”Beyond Skeletons”.
We left the library and went to the end of the hall where the door beyond opened to the Living Room. A door lead out to a cracked overgrown glass enclosed patio and there was a pile of refuse in the corner. But before we entered, we noticed prints in the dust and dirt, shoed prints leading across the room to the north and west. Talion took care of the prints where the ended as nothing, Magnus and Deja went to the fireplace, Valerie poked at the refuse looking for anything of interest.
Talion was sure there was a secret trap door here and there was a spot to pry up a part of the floor. Valerie was once again called to help, the half-orc druid lifting…but the door held. After resting a moment, Magnus pulled out his crowbar to help. Meanwhile Veldryn called on Hel to help detect any undead…and got numerous pings below! She wanted to get down there and now, Talion was willing to appease her, but we needed the door open. So again, Valerie and Magnus worked on the door while the party hovered about…and the trap door lifted free!
And when it did, we heard a raspy cold as the grave voice cough out, “Welcome fools! Welcome to your deaths!” followed by piercing laughter. Veldryn, Talion, and Deja all turned and ran while Valerie tried to shut the trap door and Magus was shouting for them to come back. The three friends terrified hit the foyer and ran for the front door. After struggling to get it open, they trampled each other a bit and ran across the garden towards the front gate, still breathing and beating hearts. A glance back showed the mansion seemed to be staring at them, baleful lights in the top most windows like eyes.
Magnus and Valerie were running after their friends, trying to get them to stop. They got hung up at the gates and eventually Talion and Deja calmed down, physically restraining Veldryn who eventually was able to relax. Looking back the place no longer looked like eyes but Valerie still threw the 9# oven door up where it smashed through one of the shuttered windows at the attic. Nothing but tinkling glass and busted wood sounds followed.
We discussed heading back in and looking the rest of the place over (Veldryn did NOT want to go back to the living room) or risking the 4 hour trip back to Saltmarsh and try again tomorrow.
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