So the youth’s met again, and continued their VERY SLOW crawl along the upper rooms of the mansion. I mean very slow. Not that I want them to race through, but there is a lot of cross talk and laughing – which is great! But I can see two of the party members are getting frustrated that the opposite end of the table is chattier and fluff than focus and crunch.
I’m the impartial neutral DM, and I’ll go as fast or as slow as they want – but I keep a ready eye on the clock and it ticks ticks ticks endlessly – which the game isn’t. Ends on time each time at 9:30 on the dot.
But, they did get to meet Ned Shakeshaft, a poor wanna-be adventurer who had seen a light in the window at night and while exploring the area, got coshed on the noggin, robbed, and tied up and dumped in an upstairs bedroom with naught but his underwear and a lump on his head. He’s already endeared himself to 3 members of the party and is just being an all around helpful and respectful sort of guy.
Write up follows:
Magnus was willing to go in, but Talion offered to enter first. Deja was not happy, hated the webs, but was willing to enter after the ranger, which had our paladin taking up the rear. They inched their way towards the fireplace with exaggerated care while Valerie guarded the hall and Veldryn was fingering her holy symbol. Concern for the ever present spiders, she called on Hel and centered her will on the fireplace area, asking to let her know if there was any poison in the area.
And a section of the fireplace lit up with green sparks. Which made a spider leg the side of Magnus’ forearm come out of the flue and feel around before retracting. Big, Fricking, Spider.
It was time to step back and out of the room when Talion saw something out of the corner of his eye and another Big, Fricking, Spider, the size of a German Shepherd, jumped out of the webs to his left, landed on his chest, and tried to bite him, only getting hung up on his armor.
The one in the fireplace dropped down and went to scamper towards the party while the one on Talion, the ranger tried to peel backwards and stab with a dagger, succeeding only in getting more bites on his wrist, his greaves taking the blow. Deja let two daggers fly at the scampering spider, “Not Talion!” she cried, one of them sinking deep into the arachnid’s carapace. Who then reached up with a long leg and flicked the knife free. WTF?!?
Magnus tried to hold it off with his scimitar while Valerie lumbered into the room and the half-orc grabbed the spider off of Talion’s chest and went to crush it. It turned and bit her, and she slumped over, eyes rolling up, and fell down, dropping the spider. Veldryn hoped to blind it and called on Hel to light the spider up, having it radiate! Unable to see, it spun around squealing and hopping mad, eventually bumping into Valerie and assuming her to be an enemy bit her again, injecting her with more poison. The other spider made to lunge and Deja who screamed and ran out of the room to Veldryn who tried to get the Halfling thief to calm down.
The spider instead turned to Talion and clawed at his leg, sinking its fangs into his calf, and the ranger cursed as he slipped over and dropped from consciousness. Magnus braced the spider with a wide stance and calling it an infidel, hacked it three times with his curved blade, splitting the beast in half and ending its assault.
The second spider with the light spell also bit Talion again as it bumped into him reflexively, and then backed up, following the walls of the room until it arrived at the corner. It then tried to climb up backwards and blind. Deja was mastering her fears, pulled out tow more daggers, entered the room, and hurled them both…both striking. The oversized menace was badly hurt and bleeding when Magnus ran up to it and hacked down, killing the spider at long last.
We closed the door and looked over the two friends unconscious. They were sleeping and twitching a bit. The consensus was that we had two antidote ampoules but since this was somnolent poison, we should let it run its course and save the antidotes for another, more dangerous time. So time passed. The glinting in the fireplace turned out to be a piece of fractured Gypsum crystal, seemingly useless but we kept it. The hours passed and Veldryn continued to read her books when we heard noises coming from somewhere else in the wing. Moaning and then a few thuds like someone moving.
Deja and Magnus went to investigate while Veldryn stayed in the room with their friends. The approached the first door and carefully, the Halfling opened it. It was the remains of a dilapidated bedroom with the floor sagging and even missing a few slats in it. The noises were coming from the last chamber and we also heard a few moans of muffled sounding, “Help me,” and “Anyone, please?”
Deja opened the room after swiftly unlocking the lock and with the paladin right behind looked in. Another bedroom and in the corner, tied up and gagged near the remains of an old bed was a man in his 30’s clad only in his underwear and looking around fearfully. They undid his gag and he thanked Deja (called her Lady Deja) for her help, eventually getting his other bonds cut. Said his name was Ned Shakeshaft, a wannabe adventurer from Seaton who was on his way to Saltmarsh to look for work. He had travelled too late and saw lights in the windows of the house. So he had crept up to look around and was knocked on the head last night, waking up only a short while ago missing all his gear and dumped here.
He was cut free and leaning on Deja, was making his way back to the room when his legs gave out and he had to stop near the fireplace and catch his breath. Eventually he felt better and the two friends helped bring him back to the 1st chamber where he greeted Veldryn in Elvish, but knew no other elvish but the first greeting. He also had heard of Magnus, the paladin from Karon. He saw the 2 spiders and seemed to expertly know how to find the poison ducts. When questioned about him, he identified the 2 spiders by class and genus and let the group know that he had been apprenticed to a zoologist in his youth for a few years and had a distant love for animals.
He did say that the friends would probably be out for a few hours tops. Not having a way to defend himself he asked for some aid and Deja lent him one of her many daggers. By this time Valerie and Talion were waking up and we helped them up, filling them in on what happened. The Half-orc was most taken with Ned who was respectful and flattering to the druidess. He also made sure to call Talion Lord Talion and deferred to his leadership.
We ate lunch, Valerie sharing her food with Ned, the two of them staring happily at one another. We talked about going downstairs and Ned did say the place was haunted and we should probably check out up here first. Most everyone agreed and the decision was made to clear out the rest of the top floor. He also hoped that if it got too late, we should head back to town instead of risking staying out here.
He had skill with a blade as evidenced when he helped Veldryn get her sword back, putting the long blade through some paces, and did ask for some pants with Valerie offered hers with a blush and even though he thanked her for “getting into her pants” he was too much of a gentlemen to do it and instead borrowed a pair from Magnus.
We were ready to explore some more when Deja wanted to look over the middle bedroom a bit more. Veldryn went with him and the two of them gave the place a serious once over. The thief did note booted prints in the dirt and grit on the floor, heading to the window and back many times. The two friends checked it out and besides telling that someone had knelt here as well, there were scratches on the windowsill that looked like they came from a lantern base.
After returning to the hall and telling the group what they say, Ned was wondering if it were spirits but was told spirits didn’t wear shoes. Deja suspected it was a guy, or guys, who were doing it, but the thought was the place was still haunted and we should not rule any idea out. Then the conversation turned to the former mansion owner and his fascination with crafting a potion of human control. That’s when it was finally revealed that Talion and Veldryn were interested in finding such a potion or at least a successful recipe for it…and Deja, Magnus, and Ned were not. Valerie wanted little to do with the conversation and went further down the hall, sitting by the balcony and just looking out.
The words got heated but until we could even find such a thing, the decision was to shelve the conversation for now and worry about only if the situation came up.
We looked down the two remaining wings and Deja and Valerie thought it prudent to go west first. There were two doors here and after checking the first one, we opened it up to show a dressing room with a large cupboard on the west wall which had the two friends look at one another and shudder – remembering the fiasco in the kitchen yesterday and the falling cabinet.
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