Embedded Files
Entry 1
Entry 1
The first floor of the “haunted house,” having been fully searched, seemed safe but a staircase leading down into the basement appeared to be magically alarmed. Mitts, Baram, and Rava elected to sneak past the illusory-trigger and descend the stairs. Derriks and Galant chose to remain in the foyer, where they would investigate the nature of the gems and fungi discovered during the party’s search of the ground floor. Mitts, Baram, and Rava entered what seemed a simple wine cellar; and there they found a relatively fresh corpse adorned in clothing and armor similar to that of Eilander. Wounds on the corpse indicated that this person had been overwhelmed in a fight and the party deduced that this could possibly be the body of Joro. Rava perceived movement within the corpse and warned everyone to stand back. With the use of their Mage Hand, Rava gave an investigatory poke to the dead man and stirred up a swarm of giant grubs from within. Mitts threw caution to the wind and straight-up grabbed a grub, which immediately sprayed him with an unknown substance. All of the grubs proceeded to attack but the creatures were quickly and viciously dispatched.
After the grub incident, Rava began sketching the face of the dead man on a piece of parchment—they intend to present the drawing to Eilander for the purpose of identifying the body. In the meantime, Baram investigated the north portion of the cellar whilst Mitts searched the south—Baram found a rare bottle of Hornwine and Mitts discovered a secret passage. A switch for the passage door was then discovered, which Baram triggered. Owing to the swift revolving nature of the door, the party was compelled to leap through to the other side before the passage sealed itself. Immediately beyond the door, though, the party found itself confronted by a half-elf, a dwarf, and a hobgoblin. After the initial surprise, Mitts channeled his inner puma and annihilated two of the attackers. Temerity—a tiefling of heretofore-unknown nature—stepped out of from the shadows, insulted the mother of the hobgoblin, and provided inspiration to Rava. Amidst the Mitts-driven bloodbath, Rava fell prone between a pair of beds to gain cover from arrows while Baram charged forward and finished off the hobgoblin. Temerity, revealing himself a newly reformed smuggler and possessed of the survival instincts of a blacktip shark, volunteered valuable information about the smuggling operation, a hidden cavern, its inhabitants, and their leader, Sanbalet.
The party (now including Temerity) investigated Sanbalet’s bedchamber and found it unoccupied. Under the impression that Sanbalet would shortly return, the party set to the task of cleaning up the pools of blood and viscera and planning their next move—except for Rava, of course: they felt it would be more productive to ransack Sanbalet’s quarters. Ignorant of the plotting of the teammates, Rava proudly exited Sanbalet’s bedchamber wearing a brand-new jacket and with several books in tow; one of which might have been the Goblin Sutra. With the bodies safely stowed away the party hatched a plan: Mitts and Baram would hide themselves in barrels; Rava would magically disguise themself as a wounded smuggler; and Temerity (with the assistance of the decapitated dwarf) would create a blood trail that led upstairs. The plan hinged on Temerity calling for help and drawing his former associates out of the hidden cavern. Rava would then try to convince the enemy that they had suffered an attack and needed reinforcements. Temerity proved himself super-convincing and fooled six smugglers to come out and take part in the wild goose chase. The enemies trundled upstairs but the last smuggler lingered—he was quite familiar with whom Rava was impersonating and knew full-well of her bad-assery and he demanded that she join in the hunt. Rava wisely demurred and attempted to feign a debilitating wound, but he simply mocked them as “weak” and began to drag her along. Sensing trouble, Mitts sprung out and attacked, but he misjudged his timing and revealed himself too early. Still he slew the smuggler in one stroke.
Rava (quizzically): “Don’t we have friends upstairs?”
Everyone (blankly): “Well, shit.”
In a hurry, the party rushed up the stairs and Rava shouted to the smugglers that they were going the wrong way. With a prodigious use of Thaumaturgy, Temerity created the sound of a crash outside which drew the attention of the smugglers. With the smugglers distracted, Baram and Mitts (but mostly Mitts) sprung an ambush on the unsuspecting mooks. The final enemy fell with the assistance of Galant and the murderous habits of Mitts.
Back down in the basement, everyone (apart from Derriks and Galant, who were determined to have a half-day) attempted to sneak through the secret passage and into the caverns. Unfortunately, the party proved to be less-than-stealthy and deliberated on their next course of action after having been spotted by a hobgoblin. “That’s a fuckin’ troll,” “snuff out the torches,” “follow that knife-wielding gnome,” “hol up, dragon” became the operative plan. Strangely enough, the gnome was gnomewhere to be found; the troll did not charge a toll; and the dragon was all just a meme—the party was clearly dealing with an illusion wizard now! From here, it gets a little hectic: Baram led the pursuit but found himself beset by magic missiles and was rendered unconscious. Sanbalet entrusted the safety of his escape to the martial cunning of a hobgoblin that stood between himself and the party but Mitts summarily blotted out his existence from this universe—as such is his wont to do. Rava, in a moment of uncommon tenderness, poured a healing potion down the gullet of their prostrate brother. Attacks successfully fell upon Sanbalet but his escape seemed nigh as he rowed away on a small boat—that is until Temerity cried out, sneeringly: “If you can hear this, you are going to fucking die.” So, Sanbalet did the logical thing and had a stroke. Subsequently, Mitts refused to go anywhere near the sea so Temerity sang an old sea shanty which Baram recognized and inspired him to dive in and retrieve the boat. Also, Rava snatched the purple jacket off Sanbalet’s body and is officially a bag “lady”. Turns out, the jacket is swiggety swuck and magical as fuck.
And that is where it ended.
Entry 2
Entry 2
After having left the laboratory of Iscariot the party decided to ascend the stairs leading to the second floor. Temerity, after expressing some concerns over the undead basement-dwelling alchemist, took it upon himself to assist Galant and Derricks as they remained on the ground floor— ostensibly for the purpose of guarding the basement door. Rava began a ritual to Detect Magic while Mitts and Baram quietly searched ahead. Rava—being an arguably unhelpful person—noticed this and decided to perform the ritual in the most loud and dramatic fashion as possible; and yet seemingly disturbed nothing in the house. The first room possessed a fireplace, a rug, and a wardrobe. Mitts, obsessed with fireplaces, got sooty and found nothing. Rava lifted the rug and peeked under it while Baram rummaged through the wardrobe and disturbed a cloak covered in yellow mold. Baram saved himself by casting the cloak toward Rava who, unfortunately, succumbed to the poisonous mold spores and fell unconscious—Rava’s head was briefly pinned to the floor by the heavy rug. Upon resuscitation, Rava arose with delirious ravings about the unknowable horrors of fungus and an indifferent abyss—Rava seemed deeply scarred by the experience. Baram, unswayed by his sibling’s ordeal, continued to search the wardrobe and found a few gold coins in the heel of an old boot; “Ha ha, paydirt!”
In a room further down the hall, a dwarf was discovered sleeping in a decrepit four-poster bed.
Mitts, Baram, and Rava quietly snuck in and stood over the dwarf. Finding him in the midst of a drunken slumber, Mitts gently relieved the dwarf of his dagger and Rava poked at his nose to see if it would illicit a response—but the dwarf did not stir with anything but a snort and a snore. Emboldened by the creature’s obliviousness, Rava rifled through his pockets and recovered a compass. It was only then that the dwarf roused and attempted to assail Mitts—he reached for his dagger but found it missing and demanded that the party identify themselves. Baram, uninterested in chatting and also not willing to kill an disarmed dwarf, struck the dwarf in the head with the flat of his sword. But Rava attempted to diplomatically defuse the situation—which the dwarf was surprisingly inclined toward despite the ringing in his ears. Mitts declared: “You should give up, we’ve already killed everyone else.” “My brother, no,” the dwarf howled in rage and anguish, “I’ll kill you all!” On a side note, it is said that a bereaved and and vengeful dwarf is a nightmare to behold… but the party elected to simply knock him out and leave him be. Absolutely nothing to worry about in the future.
With the dwarf now safely “re-asleep” the party continued its search of the manor.
Once again, the adventurers came upon a room that was occupied—this time by a bound and gagged man. Mitts removed the nearly-naked man’s gag who immediately vomited upon the floor. When questioned about his detainment, he identified himself as Ned Shankshaft and stated that he was but a simple traveler that had been taken unawares on the road and had suffered many beatings by the manor’s occupants. When informed of his assailants’ deaths Ned insisted upon leaving and begged to be escorted out. He promised the adventurers a night on the town if they would just walk him to the door. Never one to turn down a free meal, Rava volunteered and accompanied the man out the front door—only to suffer a surprise attack at Ned’s hands! Rava wrestled with Ned as he attempted to poison his victim. Fortunately, Mitts witnessed the struggle from his vantage atop the staircase and used the zoomies to get right up in Ned’s face and assist Rava in breaking free. Seeing this commotion, Baram ran out in time to observe Ned beating a hasty retreat. Baram threw his handaxe at the fleeing assailant, burying it in his leg. Rava—now about 11/10ths pissed off at Ned—cast Magic Missile at the hobbling bushwhacker. Rava’s magic felled the man and Baram summarily decapitated and bagged up Ned’s head. Baram’s casual exhibition of brute violence toward Ned’s corpse may have inflicted a touch of PTSD on Rava and Mitts.
“Ned’s dead, baby. Ned’s dead.”
Determined to finish their search of the upstairs, everyone headed back into the manor.
In the attic, Mitts discovered some fucking flying blood-sucking rats and the party struck the beasts in a fine display of a coordinated attack. Mitts though, in the midst of even more zoomies, vigorously attacked an already-dead fucking flying blood-sucking rat that had just been struck down by Rava. “Overkill is still a kill, after all.” After finishing off the last of the fucking flying blood-sucking rats, the party thoroughly searched the entirety of the attic. However, nothing of value was discovered except for a creepy little porcelain doll.
Returning to the east wing of the second floor, Rava reminded the party of the distressed construction of the house and warned everyone to watch where they stood.
However, this warning went unheeded when Mitts decided to leap across to the other side of the room and subsequently fell through the rotten floorboards. Rava tried to be smart and stay close to the wall, but slipped and also fell through to the floor below. Fortunately, Rava did not squish Mitts beneath. Baram, being the only one to not fall victim to gravity, discovered a windowsill with lantern-foot-sized grooves and a direct line-of-sight to the coast. “This is obviously where they signal out to the smugglers.” Meanwhile Rava—with a newly acquired fear of fungus—stared frightfully into a patch of red mushrooms and raced out of the manor in terror.
Baram, now all by himself, decided to assay the final room.
“What possible harm could befall me in an empty room,” Baram asked himself as he poked his head into a chimney and spied a glint that shined down from inside the flue. The empty room answered this question with two swarms of furious spiders. Baram narrowly escaped and declared the venture unworthy of further inspection but Mitts was dead-set on returning to last room—he loves chimney treasure. Galant, in a rare display of team-oriented behavior, decided to be a brave person and help the adventurers to eradicate the spiders. The adventurers fought valiantly, slew the many spiders, and retrieved a quartz orb from the chimney—a type of orb which had been seen in Iscariot’s laboratory! Also, Galant died. That wasn’t expected. Derriks fell upon his comrade, distraught and in tears, he insisted on bringing the body of his friend back to Saltmarsh.
So we are going to have a funeral! “There’s always free food at a wake,” Rava thought optimistically.
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