Deep in the middle of the merchant quarter Livvi turned down a smaller side street and passing one of dozens of small townhouses lining the street until she came to a ivy-covered stone wall enclosing a small green space behind a wrought iron gate. The ground floor windows, what she could see of them, were shuttered and those on the upper stories of the three-story house were closed but un-shuttered. The portion of the garden that she could see looked ill kept and overgrown, quite unlike the rest of the neighborhood.
Mordecai wasn’t loitering around, as best she could tell. He might be still sleeping, or he might have already gone inside.
"Am I too late? Or too early?" Livvi thinks to herself after looking around for the half-orc. "Maybe he's already inside...impatient oaf." The young half-elf runs several scenarios through her mind while she waits for a few minutes, imagining the wort and most likely courses of events and actions. Finally, growing impatient, she whispers an arcane incantation and touches the wall near the entrance gate, leaving a common symbol for a bard with her magic. "In case I'm early..." she thinks.
Livvi will enter the garden and then the townhome, carefully looking for any dangers and calling out for Lilita and Mordecai.
The gate opens easily, squeaking hinges add to the evidence that the place as been abandoned for some time. Within the garden, grasses are knee high with weeds and overgrown brush even higher. A narrow path of flagstones and high grass winds around both sides of the townhouse proper. [GM Roll: Perception 15 + 7 = 22]
She might be wrong but the path of the right shows signs that someone has traversed it recently, maybe only a few hours before.
The path leads around the west side of the townhouse. As she follows Livvi nearly walks past evidence of someone pushing through the overgrown grass and bushes. A few strides bring her to the wall of the townhouse and a short staircase leading down to a cellar door.
She will follow the path, hoping it was the way Lilita went, but wary in case someone else, someone dangerous, used this path. At the door to the cellar, she investigates the area, looking for any evidence of who went this way. Using her years running with some of the thieves in town, she also looks for alarms, traps, and locks...luckily, her elven heritage allows her to see even in the dim light of the morning.
Right away her search uncovers that someone recently has oiled the hinges on the heavy cellar door. That it opens inward and is secured by a heavy looking lock below a thumb-latch handle. And while old leaves and twigs cover the steps down to the door they have been walked on, more than once in recent days and several tattered spiderwebs shiver in the slight morning breeze in the doorway. Perception: 16. : Thieves' tools: 13.
At the cellar door, Livvi investigates the door and lock for traps, and then fishes out her old set of lockpicks to ensure that a mundane cellar lock wouldn't end her explorations prematurely! With a practiced set of motions, she realizes that the door is not locked. Shrugging her shoulders, then looking over them to ensure nobody is watching her, she whispers an arcane phrase and causes a spectral hand to materialize at the door handle. With a thought, she causes the mage hand to depress the thumb latch and push, causing the door to open inward slightly.
The latch depresses easily beneath her thumb causing the door to open inward slightly.
Within the doorway is a stone landing a stride (5’) square. More steps descend into the darkness beneath the townhouse in front of her. To her right three steps lead up to an interior door with a simple handle and latch (no lock). Dust covers the steps to the house interior and show no footprints. If Lilita had come this way, the Grey Lady hadn’t used the interior door. With her ability to see in dim lighting, Livvi sees the cellar steps continue down several strides (10’) and enter a passageway. Walking on the balls of her feet as her mentor had taught her, she quietly follows the steps down and into the passage, looking back and forth. Stealth: 11. : Perception: 25.
Descending the stairs as softly as a Half Elf can, Livvi listens with more than her ears. Her delicate nose picks up the smells of slightly dank stairs giving way to dry air. Not the sort of air that one might expect to find in a closed off basement. There was a hint of freshness, suggesting that either the basement was exposed often enough to the outside that the air was moderately fresh or that the cellars of the townhouse were vented. Dust enough coats the corners of the floor, as do cobwebs, both old and new, decorating the corners and narrow spaces. None, however, save one, a small spider busily laying down strings, cross the passage itself as she reaches the bottom. Without a doubt the Bard knew that someone or something was making visits to the cellars via the exterior door.
The stairs end in a small room. A few old crates lie stacked in a corner, a tall, brass tank of some sort collects dust in another. The passage continues through an open doorway straight ahead and two wooden doors are on her left and right. Just inside the door hangs a small lamp, the sort holding a small candle. Neither the lamp nor candle show any signs of having been used in decades. Somewhere, possibly coming from behind the door on her left, Livvi hears soft squeaking sound of the sort made by a rodent.
The small hairs on the back of Livvi's neck stand straight - every sense attuned to this moment. If this was Lilita's ancestral home, and if she had a tie to Lord Rezgui, either real or imagined, then perhaps the vampire was using this as its safe resting place during the day. Which meant that the vampire lord was probably here, in one of these rooms. Standing still as a statue, her mind races through her potential options:
1) The most dangerous likelihood is that Rezgui was, in fact, using this basement as his hide spot and was here now. She should leave now, find Mordecai, and return with him and his new weapon. That would be the safest thing to do and give them at least a chance to survive the encounter.
2) The most likely potential was that Lilita was down here on her own, just waking up from a night's rest. She was a strange bird, that one, and Livvi honestly didn't know how the Grey Lad would respond to being found. Perhaps a simple song on the cittern would be enough to draw the girl out, and they could try and talk again.
3) It was Mordecai who had beaten her here and knocked down the spider's webs. Of course, if it WAS the half-orc, Livvi doubted that he would close doors after passing through them, so this probably was the least likely potential.
4) Of course, it could be that nobody was down here at the moment, nor had been for a while, and her overactive imagination was working overtime. Still, based on the events of the last ten-day, it was probably a good thing she had an active imagination and often was able to see bad situations as they were developing.
Livvi knew she should get someone else - but she was a half-elf and a bard, and neither one would let her leave this basement without exploring the entire area and knowing all of its secrets. So, she keeps her right hand on the neck and strings of the cittern, still slung across her back but ready to be swung around and in a playing position with a quick tug and twist. She puts her ear against the door to the left, listening intently.
For the longest time she stood there, quiet and alert, senses straining to hear or smell something out of what she imagined would be its place. Then, just as she starts to relax a new sound drifts down the stairway behind her from the garden. A slight qork of a crow and a muttered response of a deep timbred male. It was faint, and had she not been attuned to such things, Livvi doubted that she would have ever heard it in the first place.
Livvi quietly sneaks to the edge of the main basement room and, if she can reach it, uses the copper tank to hide behind. Stealth: 24 If the owner of the voice is coming towards her, then she will change tactics and attempt to ease her way into one of the doors at the end of the hallway before the man comes into view. All the while, she is trying to identify the voice, or see the face. Is it Mordecai finally showing up? Lord Rezgui returning to his resting place before getting caught in the full sunlight of the morning? Someone else, perhaps?
A soft creak of leather on stone. Slow, practiced intake of breath. The sense of something starting down the stairs tingles at the edges of her nerve endings. The flutter of a wing just beyond, and above, maybe, the cellar door that she had left open.
From her hiding place behind the metal container in the corner of the room, Livvi watches. Slow, steady breathing - no other movement. He half-elf eyes staring intently through the darkness as if it were lit by a torch. Just a step or two more, so she could she his form and then his face. She was poised for combat but praying for a peaceful encounter.
From the landing above comes a glutaral male whisper, the sort someone might make to oneself when he or she’s alone. "Let's make sure the upstairs is clear, before I find out what goes bump in the night down there.” It’s followed by a soft, almost imperceivably creak of a hinge to one of the other doors. If not for her half-elven heritage Livvi might not have heard the creak at all. The voice, however, came off as someone trying to be stealthy but not very practiced at it. Insight to determine if it is Mordecai: 15
(OOC: Thinking that from her vantage point she could see the figure and determine if it was Mordecai, a big half-orc fighter, or the handsome rogue from the rooftop and Bilina's bed, a human male of medium build, or Lord Cadrian, whom she hadn't seen in days but may still be pursuing the case of the missing girls. Because if it's Mord, she's gonna prank him! If it's the rogue, she's gonna watch him. If it's Cadrian, well...not sure! =)
Giving it some thought, the sound of the voice, it’s power and timbre makes her think of Mordechai, as dose the musky smell that comes from one who bathes less than he should and is a bit more hairy than he needed to be. Plus, the way he whispered overly loud at what sounded like one of The Widow’s crows lurking in the garden increases her gut feeling that it’s the Half-Orc going up the short steps and into the first floor above.
Livvi whispers an arcane phrase, and a spectral hand appears just behind Mordecai. Livvi causes it to pinch the half-orc on the butt, then she calls out from her hiding spot at the bottom of the stairs, "You're late!"
Mordecai turns with a start, glaive out in a defensive position. He sighs before responding, "Sorry about that - someone broke into my place last night and are seemingly trying to set me up for something, so I had to take precautions and an inventory."
Emerging from her hiding spot, the bard climbs up to Mordecai and punches him lightly in the arm. "Good to see you, Mord. Glad you could make it. I think we need to finish checking out the basement before heading upstairs. Someone was down here before me but didn't use this door here to go upstairs. So, it's either some miscreant who decided to use the abandoned townhouse as a place to hole up, or maybe something worse. If it's the something worse, I'm really glad you're here..."
"Yeah," Mordecai says somewhat drawn out, "I got the feeling that the basement would be where the most trouble is found, so I figured to do the quick and easy of casing the topside first... and let the sun brighten up the world a bit more. That said, I'm game if you are..." He turns to head back down into the basement.
He whispers to Livvi, "I'm not so much worried about something being holed up in there, insomuch as something using it as an exit from a much darker place."
The Half-Orc continues stealthily as one can be in chain mail holding a heavy glaive.
Livvi leads him to the doors at the back hallway. She points to the left one and whispers, "Thought I heard a rat or something in here, but when I listened closely, there was only silence. I guess either one is good but was about to check out this left one. Ready?"
"More likely something heard you and went and hid for an ambush," replies Mordecai in a hushed voice.
Mordecai positions himself in front of the door, glaive in an offensive position, ready to strike anything coming within its reach of ten feet. He nods towards Livvi.
When he is ready, she will carefully checks it for locks or perhaps a trap (Perception: 9) then quietly opens it so they both can peer into the room or passage beyond. Beyond the door lies a long, cross shaped wine cellar. Racks of bottles and stacks of small casks line the walls, covered in cobwebs and decades of dust. There’s an earthy smell coming from somewhere.
Mordecai looks around, eyes flickering from spot to spot, muscles tensing in preparation, moving across the dusty floor, then to the walls, racks, and stacks of barrels.
Livvi moves with the half-orc, but out of his swinging range. Quickly, they cover the room, checking corners and high spots, looking for potential hiding areas or threats. At the cross, Livvi goes right and assumes Mordecai goes left. At the end of the area she calls out, "Looks clear. Let's check out the other door before we do a more detailed search of these rooms..." [GM perception check 23]
Mordecai winces slightly at her calling out aloud. He follows her to the door, and whispers, "Remind me to teach you tactical sign language. I'm not the quietest individual with all this metal on me, but don't cut yourself either."
With one eye on the floor, another on everything else, The Half-Orc reaches one of the cellar’s side doors where he leans down to examine the stone floor, and then the door which is made from thick, old cut wood, bound in brass.
"I wonder if it's been opened recently?" asks Mordecai rhetorically. He peers over his shoulder at Livvi and says, "Stay behind me." Balancing his glaive with his leg and one arm, he reaches for the door and opens it... slowly.
The door opens with a slight creak, releasing a thicker, fresher smell of disturbed earth. Mordecai’s ears pick up the sounds of soft squeaks and rustling sounds, quite a few of them which only become more pronounced as he opens the door further. An upward glance at the barrel ceiling shows a modest colony of bats.
As she passes the last rack of wine bottles Livvi notices that several bottles are missing. Not that there simply hadn’t been bottles in the slots, there are plenty of open, empty slots, filled with old cobwebs. These, were not.
"I wonder if it's been opened recently?" asks Mordecai rhetorically. He peers over his shoulder at Livvi and says, "Stay behind me." Balancing his glaive with his leg and one arm, he reaches for the door and opens it... slowly.
Mordecai giving the room a once over asks Livvi, "Do you think something came up? Or decided to dig itself a burrow? Aren't vampires supposed to be associated with bats in some way?"
Mordecai tries to discern if it seems something escaped from deeper beneath or if the turned earth was dug from the surface.
He quips, "Should I poke the earth with my glaive?"
Livvi stares at the mound of dirt, trying to discern if it's the same size as a freshly turned grave. She pulls her instrument fully around to the front of her body and strums a few chords - a major tuning song with strong, open chords. The feeling of protection and strength wash over Mordecai as Livvi uses the cittern to cast protection from evil and good on the half-orc. "Now you're ready to poke the mound with your pole..." she says, unaware of the double entendre - lost in the tension of the potential fight with a vampire!!
Mordecai makes a face and mutters something under his breath before stowing the glaive, setting it up so that it's easy to arm himself with it. He then pulls out a maul and begins some exploratory passes of the fresh earth, trying to discern if there's something buried or if it possibly opens up deeper. He eyes the bats above warily on occasion as he works.
The first few passes with the maul reveals that the earth is loose, if not fresh, considering it was the floor of an old root cellar in an old townhouse. After some care, the Half-Orc work starts to show a pattern. A portion of earth about a stride by two strides long (5’x10’) roughly. The soil is loose to a foot depth, the limit that Mordecai was pacing himself by.
"Bigger than a grave...and certainly more than a rat's warren. Perhaps someone buried something else down here? Or they wanted an indoor swimming hole and gave up on it...keep digging. Do you want me to get rid of these bats? How do they get in and out, I wonder?" Livvi begins looking around the rest of the room, looking for an opening to the surface that the bats could use to get out and go hunting for insects, or fruit, or whatever...If she finds a crack or chimney, and Mord agrees with shooing them off, Livvi will use her mage hand to gently push the bats off of their roosting spots towards the opening.
Mordecai turns back and gives Livvi 'a look' when she instructs him to 'keep digging.'
"If the bats leave me alone, I'll leave them alone," replies Mordecai.
He then flips the maul and uses the handle to explore how deep the loose earth goes. He stands on the perimeter of the whole, not stepping in. The probing reveals that the looser soil goes deeper along the perimeter and that something hard, lay a foot down in the middle. Something that might be hallow. Between the harder ground and the buried object, the handle of the maul goes down to the head with a bit of wiggling.
Livvi eyes the bats, then shrugs. "If you don't mind the flying rodents, I'm ok leaving them alone. For now. But it seems you've found something in the middle of the dirt pile! Can you help me clear the dirt off it? I have an idea..." She moves her hands and whispers an arcane phrase, causing a spectral hand to appear and float over the middle of the pit! The mage hand starts digging the dirt off of the coffin as quickly as it can - not as fast as a good shovel, but it does get the job done slowly...
Once the duo clears the object enough to see it, Livvi will strum her cittern and play a light and airy jig. The notes quiver in the dark air of the cellar, almost visible. Slowly, as the song builds in intensity, the object in the dirt starts to float upwards! "Give it a push towards the floor, will you, Mord?" the bard asks while still playing the instrument. (using the Mac-Fuirmidh cittern to cast levitate.)
Mordecai comments, "Well that certainly makes things easier."
He pushes the object out from over the loose earth towards the firmer floor closer to the door. Dirt shifts and pours off the sides of the long, box like object as it emerges from its burial place. Ornate woodwork and brass trimmings reveal an opulent coffin.
Livvi lets the coffin descend gently to the hard floor of the room. "Well, we seem to be the dogs who caught the cart we were chasing. Are you ready to take on whatever might be in this? Isn't there something that will kill them? A wooden stake through the heart or a silver weapon? Maybe if we grab some wood from the wine cellar...Or do we just go for it? It was buried after all...could a vampire even get into this under all of that dirt?"
"I'm sure a vampire can make it through. Now, as far as killing one - wouldn't know the trick to that, but we could try this..." - Mordecai points at the glaive - "... for now."
"With that said, you should probably check it for booby traps - eldritch or otherwise."
Mordecai readies his glaive and will open the coffin once he gets the okay from Livvi.
Although she had never heard of it, Livvi nods at her new partner and carefully checks the coffin for traps. Perception: 14 She runs her fingers lightly around the edge of the lid, feeling slowly for wires, levers, indentations, locks, or anything else that would indicate she had some additional work to do with her tools...
Finding nothing, she looks up at Mordecai and gives him a thumbs up, then readies herself to lift the lid. She stands across the coffin from Mordecai, so that she can pull the lid open towards her and give Mordecai a clear look - and attack vector - at whatever might be inside...she gives him a silent count, and quickly lifts the lid on the count of three.
Mordecai lifts his glaive ready to strike, but then pauses as a look of confusion comes across his face. He lowers the glaive.
Nestled inside is the desiccated corpse of a once well-dressed woman. The smell wafting from the open coffin is stale and bad, but nothing as bad as one might expect from an interned body. Laying on the woman’s breast is a bouquet of flowers that while wilted, don’t look all that old.
Mordecai comments, "I fear we may have desecrated a grave - although given the age of those flowers, the woman is likely exhumed and reinterred on a regular basis. We should return her as soon as possible. Before we do, let's see if there's anything we could use to identify this woman."
GM Note: Player left on vacation for two weeks.
Mordecai inspects the body visually, taking care not to touch it. When Livvi is satisfied, he'll reseal the coffin and push it back to its grave.
Livvi joins Mordecai and looks over the body, the clothes, the coffin and its interior. Perception: 21 From the style of clothes and the quality of the moldering material Livvi’s convinced that this is a noblewoman, though which house, she can’t pin down. Something else about the clothing suggests a style that was popular two decades ago. The flowers are rare in the city as well, being of a type that grows in the northern province. There’s something vaguely familiar about her features, despite the ravages of death. There was some sort of magic at play here, too, though what sort, she couldn’t divine. Subtle or old, maybe as the corpse is well preserved.
"I think you're right, Mord. The freshly churned ground, the recent flowers. Did Lilita dig this up? COULD that waif of a girl dig this much? OK...back into the ground with her. Unfortunately, I can't levitate the coffin again right now...so it's gonna have to be pushed in. Let's close her back up and set this back. Ready?"
"I suspect that it wasn't Lilita who did this, but her father. This might be Lilita's mother."
The Half-Elf’s head tilt’s slightly as she looks down at the corpse. “I suspect that your right, if this her family’s home. There are plenty of stories about fiendish floobs keeping grisly trophies or loved ones they couldn’t bear to part from. If not that, then someone’s investing a lot of time and effort in maintaining a grave. Looking at the style of clothes I’d say that they’re about two decades out of date and the materials that they’re made from are expensive, suggesting a wealthy or noble birth.” [GM filling in for Player]
"That style and timeline seem to fit what The Widow described about Lilita's family," Mordecai says with a sigh.
Mordecai gives the corpse another look, before placing the seal back on the coffin, and then placing some dirt on the floor between the coffin and the grave to help it slide better, stows his glaive, and pushes the coffin back to its resting place.
Livvi helps manually move it back into the open grave. Once they get the coffin in place and covered. When they are finished, Livvi glances at Mord and says, “I think we should exit the root and wine cellar and check out the other doorway. I’ll lead so I can check it for locks or any type of tripwire or trap mechanism, disabling it if needed. Then we can check out the next room.” [GM filling in for Player]
As Mordecai waits for Livvi to conduct her investigation, she glances back at the covered grave and sighs. “Do we tell Lilita about this, if we see her again?”
"Yes," Mordecai responds matter of factly. "It'll perhaps give her better insight on what her father has become."
Straightening up he suggests, "Let's see about the rest of this house - see what insights we can gain on this vampire incursion."
“Agreed, I – “
Just then the creak of a floorboard from somewhere above comes from the cellar’s main passageway. The Half-Elf’s head jerks upwards as if trying to divine what may have made the sound.
Mordecai immediately brandishes his glaive and takes point, whispering to Livvi, "Keep your eyes and ears open - be ready to make a move. Thoughts on what made that?"
Her more sensitive ears turned slightly, head cocked as she looks in the direction of the sound Livvi whispers, “Someone – “ There was another, lighter creak from above, causing the Half-Elf to amend her comment – “or several someone’s appear to have just entered the house. I think it’s coming from the back, not out front. But I could be wrong.” She shrugs.
After giving Livvi a moment to think on what may have caused the sound, Mordecai eventually starts heading back the way they came, stalking the origin of the creaks cause.
As they reach the open doorway leading to the cellar’s main hallway there’s a sound.
“Did you hear that? Sounded like someone calling out a name.”
Livvi continues straining her half-elven ears to pick up as many audible cues as possible to determine if it is perhaps Lilita or someone else. Perception: 13 She also draws her rapier and slides the cittern to her back to keep it out of the way if a fight should break out.
Mordecai responds, "Didn't catch it. Did it sound like Lilita?"
Mordecai cautiously continues forward, as quietly as he can.
As they reenter the central hallway there’s a dull thump above, and then the sound of a door opening comes from back near the stairway that they’d entered by. Possibly that door leading up, into the kitchen.
She silently points to one side of the stairs, then at Mord, and then she points at herself and to the other side, indicating that they should quickly take up positions on either side in an ambush... Stealth: 23
She watches the newcomers from her hidden vantage point, holding her attack until a positive identification can be made. If it is Lilita, or even a non-threatening commoner, she will simply stay in place. But if it is the vampire - Lilita's father - or someone/thing else that makes her doubt, she will probably attack it without warning or sound, preferring to end the threat quickly...
Mordecai whispers, "It's morning - it's likely not to be a vampire... But if you insist."
As the big Half Orc takes position where she had pointed Livvi hears the steps of someone stealthy coming down the stairs. There’s a hint of dust and travel and something else…something feline in a corrupted way drifting down. Someone whispers upstairs, another hisses softly but the words make no sense but it’s a response to someone in charge. Someone feminine and naggingly familiar.
From her hiding spot, Livvi hears, and then sees, Lilita and two others come down into the basement. Breathing a sigh of relief, Livvi steps out of her hiding spot and says, "Thank the goddess, it's you! Honestly, Lilita, Mordecai and I have had the devil's own luck trying to keep up with you - and now you appear with two new companions. It's like you don't even care about us. You're worse than the college boys; you spend one or two nights with me and then you're on to the next distraction. Well...get down here and introduce your friends!"
Mordecai steps out of hiding, but does not lower his weapon, and whispers, "For all we know they're controlling her - we don't know who they are..."
To those upstairs he calls out, "The lot of you, show yourselves - I've had a touchy past couple of days, and I'd feel better if you all just stayed in plain sight while Lilita explains what's going on here."
The Half-Orc eyes all three of them, Lilita and the companions, suspiciously - sizing them up in the case it should come down to a fight.
Mordecai quickly gets ready and rushes off to meet Livvi at the agreed upon destination. Following the directions that The Widow had provided; it took more than an hour to traverse the city to reach the street containing the townhouse. From the corner he could see several more walled compounds of adjacent townhouses. The street was upper crust without being in nob town, he notes. A few pedestrians move along on their business as he stands there. A merchant looking floob rides by on a horse. Watching the gate to ‘Lilita’s townhouse he could see that the garden beyond was overgrown and that the iron gate looked rusted.
"From the vardo to here," Mordecai whispers. "Hopefully, Livvi didn't go in on her own... Where is that woman?" Mordecai looks around for Livvi - his impromptu compatriot in this web of conspiracy and undeath.
There was no sign of the Bard, but he doses spot one of those red splotched crows perched up on a gutter on the townhouse. Approaching the gate, Mordecai’s eyes are drawn to a faintly glowing bardic glyph on the gatepost. The gate is also slightly open.
Mordecai nods at the crow and quietly says, "Pleasant morning to you, ma'am."
The crow just cock’s one dark eye at him.
Mordecai walks up to the gate and takes a quick look at the Glyph, before saying, "I hope these aren't the ones that explode...." He takes a breath and pushes past the gate and into the townhouse.
The gate, he notes, doesn’t make a noise. With all the rust on the iron one might think it should. Inside is a broad, paved path leading to the townhouse’s front door. Narrower, nearly overgrown paths lead left and to the right. The one on the left was showing evidence of recent use. Giving the Bard’s Half-Elf heritage and perchance for being stealthy whenever she could, it would be difficult to say which path she took.
"Well, in this case, the path most travelled is likely the better choice - someone came through here... might as well find out who," Mordecai muses to himself.
Mordecai makes his way down the left-hand path, keeping a lookout for traps, whether natural or manufactured. He does his best to stay quiet, although he realizes that he sticks out in this neighborhood like a sore thumb.
The path leads around the west side of the townhouse. As he follows Mordecai nearly walks past evidence of someone pushing through the overgrown grass and bushes. A few strides bring him to the wall of the townhouse and a short staircase leading down to an open cellar door. Behind him the crow, with a few flaps of it’s wings, comes to land on a moss-covered ledge above and lets out a muttering qork.
Mordecai arches an eyebrow and looks back at the crow. He whispers harshly at it, "If you're going to tag along, be quiet about it."
He checks to make sure his thieves' tools are on him, should he need him, then he unfastens and holds it in a defensive position. He makes his way, as quietly as possible, down through the open cellar door and finds himself standing on a landing, a stone landing a stride (5’) square. More steps descend into the darkness beneath the townhouse in front of him. To the right, three steps lead up to an interior door with a simple handle and latch (no lock). Dust covers the steps to the house interior and show no footprints.
"Let's make sure the upstairs is clear, before I find out what goes bump in the night down there," Mordecai whispers. He heads to the door upstairs, ready to do a systematic sweep of the home. He does his best to hide his path and movements. [Gm Rolls for Stealth: 3+2 = 5]
Opening the door, it pulls outwards. One of the hinges creaks softly but not too bad. Beyond looks to be a large kitchen, poorly lit by sunlight streaming through the shutters outside. Layers of dust have accumulated over everything and cobwebs are everywhere.
At the sound of the creaking hinge Mordecai turns quickly, looking back down at the way he came and the darkness beyond, straining to see or hear if anything or anyone was coming from the darkness in reaction to his actions.
He waits.
Not terribly enthusiastic about his current situation, he walks fully into the dusty kitchen, closing the door behind him. "Hopefully," he mutters, "the hinges that betrayed me will betray anyone who follows."
Seconds pass and nothing. No sounds, no muttering crows, no faint demands to know ‘who’s there?’. He begins walking through the home. He keeps wary of traps, taking care where he walks and what he touches, knowing that an undisturbed place such could have hidden dangers lurking about.
He's also on the lookout for clues regarding the, perhaps former, owners of the home... especially since he learned that Lilita’s family, her father specifically, took a turn to Undeath. If he finds anything of value along the way, so be it - he'll make a note to show it to Lilita before finding it a permanent home.
Just then something pinches his butt and a soft voice calls from the stairwell behind him, "You're late!"
Mordecai turns with a start, glaive out in a defensive position. He realizes it was Livvi that pinched him and sighs. He responds, "Sorry about that - someone broke into my place last night and are seemingly trying to set me up for something, so I had to take precautions and an inventory."
Emerging from her hiding spot at the bottom of the stairs the bard climbs up and punches him lightly in the arm. "Good to see you, Mord. Glad you could make it. I think we need to finish checking out the basement before heading upstairs. Someone was down here before me but didn't use this door here to go upstairs. So, it's either some miscreant who decided to use the abandoned townhouse as a place to hole up, or maybe something worse. If it's the something worse, I'm really glad you're here..."
"Yeah," Mordecai says somewhat drawn out, "I got the feeling that the basement would be where the most trouble is found, so I figured to do the quick and easy of casing the topside first... and let the sun brighten up the world a bit more. That said, I'm game if you are..." He turns to head back down... into the basement, and beyond that... into the darkness.
He whispers to Livvi, "I'm not so much worried about something being holed up in there, insomuch as something using it as an exit from a much darker place."
He continues stealthily as one can be in chain mail holding a heavy glaive.
Livvi leads him to the doors at the back hallway of the cellar and points to the left one and whispers, "Thought I heard a rat or something in here, but when I listened closely, there was only silence. I guess either one is good but was about to check out this left one. Ready?"
"More likely something heard you and went and hid for an ambush," replies Mordecai in a hushed voice.
Mordecai positions himself in front of the door, glaive in an offensive position, ready to strike anything coming within its reach of ten feet. He nods towards Livvi.
When he is ready, she carefully checks it for locks or perhaps a trap then quietly opens it so they both can peer into the room or passage beyond. Beyond the door lies a long, cross shaped wine cellar. Racks of bottles and stacks of small casks line the walls, covered in cobwebs and decades of dust. There’s an earthy smell coming from somewhere.
Mordecai looks around seeking out anything that doesn't belong, bumps and humps where there should be none, the possible source of the earthy smell, imperfections along the walls or floor that may mean something more or something hidden... //OOC Stealth 8, Perception 19
Livvi moves with the half-orc, but out of his swinging range. Quickly, they cover the room, checking corners and high spots, looking for potential hiding areas or threats. At the cross, Livvi goes right and assumes Mordecai goes left. At the end of the area she calls out, "Looks clear. Let's check out the other door before we do a more detailed search of these rooms..."
Mordecai winces slightly at her calling out aloud. He follows her to the door, and whispers, "Remind me to teach you tactical sign language. I'm not the quietest individual with all this metal on me, but don't cut yourself either."
With one eye on the floor, another on everything else, Mordecai reaches the door and notices slight scrape marks marking where it swings out, too the left. Made from thick, old cut wood, bound in brass.
"I wonder if it's been opened recently?" asks Mordecai rhetorically. He peers over his shoulder at Livvi and says, "Stay behind me." Balancing his glaive with his leg and one arm, he reaches for the door and opens it... slowly.
The door opens with a slight creak, releasing a thicker, fresher smell of disturbed earth. Mordecai’s ears pick up the sounds of soft squeaks and rustling sounds, quite a few of them which only become more pronounced as he opens the door further. An upward glance at the barrel ceiling shows a modest colony of bats.
Mordecai giving the room a once over asks Livvi, "Do you think something came up? Or decided to dig itself a burrow? Aren't vampires supposed to be associated with bats in some way?"
Mordecai tries to discern if it seems something escaped from deeper beneath or if the turned earth was dug from the surface.
He quips, "Should I poke the earth with my glaive?"
Livvi stares at the mound of dirt for a moment before pulling her instrument fully around to the front of her body and strums a few chords - a major tuning song with strong, open chords. The feeling of protection and strength wash over Mordecai as Livvi uses the cittern to cast protection from evil and good on the half-orc.
"Now you're ready to poke the mound with your pole..." she says with more than a hint of excitement in her tone and posture.
Mordecai suppresses a groan, whispering to himself, "Left yourself open to that one, didn't you?"
He half stows the glaive, setting it up so that it's easy to arm himself with it. He pulls out his maul and begins some exploratory passes of the fresh earth, trying to discern if there's something buried or if it possibly opens up deeper. He won't lower the maul into the soil deeper than two-thirds the length of the maul from the handle forward.
He eyes the bats above warily on occasion.
The first few passes with the maul reveals that the earth is loose, if not fresh, considering it was the floor of an old root cellar in an old townhouse. After some care, his work starts to show a pattern. A portion of earth about a stride by two strides long (5’x10’) roughly. The soil is loose to a foot depth, the limit that Mordecai was setting at the moment.
"Bigger than a grave...and certainly more than a rat's warren. Perhaps someone buried something else down here? Or they wanted an indoor swimming hole and gave up on it...keep digging. Do you want me to get rid of these bats? How do they get in and out, I wonder?" Livvi begins looking around the rest of the room, looking for an opening to the surface that the bats could use to get out and go hunting for insects, or fruit, or whatever...
Mordecai turns back and gives Livvi 'a look' when she instructs him to 'keep digging.'
"If the bats leave me alone, I'll leave them alone," replies Mordecai.
He then flips the maul and uses the handle to explore how deep the loose earth goes. He stands on the perimeter of the whole, not stepping in. The probing reveals that the looser soil goes deeper along the perimeter and that something hard, lay a foot down in the middle. Something that might be hallow. Between the harder ground and the buried object, the handle of the maul goes down to the head with a bit of wiggling.
Livvi eyes the bats, then shrugs. "If you don't mind the flying rodents, I'm ok leaving them alone. For now. But it seems you've found something in the middle of the dirt pile! Can you help me clear the dirt off it? I have an idea..." She moves her hands and whispers an arcane phrase, causing a spectral hand to appear and float over the middle of the pit! The mage hand starts digging the dirt off of the coffin as quickly as it can - not as fast as a good shovel, but it does get the job done slowly...
Once the duo clears the object enough to see it, Livvi will strum her cittern and play a light and airy jig. The notes quiver in the dark air of the cellar, almost visible. Slowly, as the song builds in intensity, the object in the dirt starts to float upwards! "Give it a push towards the floor, will you, Mord?" the bard asks while still playing the instrument.
Mordecai comments, "Well that certainly makes things easier."
He pushes the object out from over the loose earth towards the firmer floor closer to the door. Dirt shifts and pours off the sides of the long, box like object as it emerges from its burial place. Ornate woodwork and brass trimmings reveal an opulent coffin.
Livvi lets the coffin descend gently to the hard floor of the room. "Well, we seem to be the dogs who caught the cart we were chasing. Are you ready to take on whatever might be in this? Isn't there something that will kill them? A wooden stake through the heart or a silver weapon? Maybe if we grab some wood from the wine cellar...Or do we just go for it? It was buried after all...could a vampire even get into this under all of that dirt?"
"I'm sure a vampire can make it through. Now, as far as killing one - wouldn't know the trick to that, but we could try this..." - Mordecai points at the glaive - "... for now."
"With that said, you should probably check it for booby traps - eldritch or otherwise."
Mordecai readies his glaive and will open the coffin once he gets the okay from Livvi.
Livvi nods and carefully checks the coffin for traps. The Half-Elf runs her fingers lightly around the edge of the lid, feeling slowly for wires, levers, indentations, locks, or anything else that would indicate she had some additional work to do with her tools...
Shaking her head, she looks up at Mordecai and gives him a thumbs up, then readies herself to lift the lid. She stands across the coffin from Mordecai, so that she can pull the lid open towards her and give Mordecai a clear look - and attack vector - at whatever might be inside...she gives him a silent count, and quickly lifts the lid on the count of three.
Mordecai lifts his glaive ready to strike, but then pauses as a look of confusion comes across his face. He lowers the glaive.
Nestled inside is the desiccated corpse of a once well-dressed woman. The smell wafting from the open coffin is stale and bad, but nothing as bad as one might expect from an interned body. Laying on the woman’s breast is a bouquet of flowers that while wilted, don’t look all that old.
Mordecai comments, "I fear we may have desecrated a grave - although given the age of those flowers, the woman is likely exhumed and reinterred on a regular basis. We should return her as soon as possible. Before we do, let's see if there's anything we could use to identify this woman."
Mordecai inspects the body visually, taking care not to touch it. When Livvi is satisfied, he'll reseal the coffin and push it back to its grave.
Livvi joins Mordecai and looks over the body, the clothes, the coffin and its interior.
"I think you're right, Mord. The freshly churned ground, the recent flowers. Did Lilita dig this up? COULD that waif of a girl dig this much? OK...back into the ground with her. Unfortunately, I can't levitate the coffin again right now...so it's gonna have to be pushed in. Let's close her back up and set this back. Ready?"
Mordecai responds to Livvi, "I suspect that it wasn't Lilita who did this, but her father. This might be Lilita's mother."
The Half-Elf’s head tilt’s slightly as she looks down at the corpse. “I suspect that your right, if this her family’s home. There are plenty of stories about fiendish floobs keeping grisly trophies or loved ones they couldn’t bear to part from. If not that, then someone’s investing a lot of time and effort in maintaining a grave. Looking at the style of clothes I’d say that they’re about two decades out of date and the materials that they’re made from are expensive, suggesting a wealthy or noble birth.” [GM filling in for Player]
"That style and timeline seem to fit what The Widow described about Lilita's family," Mordecai says with a sigh.
Mordecai gives the corpse another look, seeking any of the symbols that Lilita or the Widow had shown him. Mordecai places the seal back on the coffin, places some dirt on the floor between the coffin and the grave to help it slide better, stows his glaive, and pushes the coffin back to its resting place.
Livvi helps manually move it back into the open grave. Once they get the coffin in place and covered. When they are finished, Livvi glances at Mord and says, “I think we should exit the root and wine cellar and check out the other doorway. I’ll lead so I can check it for locks or any type of tripwire or trap mechanism, disabling it if needed. Then we can check out the next room.” [GM filling in for Player]
As Mordecai waits for Livvi to conduct her investigation, she glances back at the covered grave and sighs. “Do we tell Lilita about this, if we see her again?”
"Yes," Mordecai responds matter of factly. "It'll perhaps give her better insight on what her father has become."
Straightening up he suggests, "Let's see about the rest of this house - see what insights we can gain on this vampire incursion."
“Agreed, I – “
Just then the creak of a floorboard from somewhere above comes from the cellar’s main passageway. The Half-Elf’s head jerks upwards as if trying to divine what may have made the sound.
Mordecai immediately brandishes his glaive and takes point, whispering to Livvi, "Keep your eyes and ears open - be ready to make a move. Thoughts on what made that?"
Her more sensitive ears turned slightly, head cocked as she looks in the direction of the sound Livvi whispers, “Someone – “ There was another, lighter creak from above, causing the Half-Elf to amend her comment – “or several someone’s appear to have just entered the house. I think it’s coming from the back, not out front. But I could be wrong.” She shrugs.
After giving Livvi a moment to think on what may have caused the sound, Mordecai eventually starts heading back the way they came, stalking the origin of the creaks cause.
// OOC Stealth Check @ disadv due to armor... 12 and a perception check of 6...
As they reach the open doorway leading to the cellar’s main hallway there’s a sound.
“Did you hear that? Sounded like someone calling out a name.” She draws her rapier and slides the cittern to her back to keep it out of the way if a fight should break out.
Mordecai responds, "Didn't catch it. Did it sound like Lilita?"
Mordecai cautiously continues forward, as quietly as he can.
As he enters the central hallway there’s a dull thump above, and then the sound of a door opening comes from back near the stairway that they’d entered by. Possibly that door leading up, into the kitchen.
Livvi silently points to one side of the stairs, then at Mord, and then she points at herself and to the other side, indicating that they should quickly take up positions on either side in an ambush...
Mordecai whispers, "It's morning - it's likely not to be a vampire... But if you insist."
Mordecai takes position where Livvi pointed.
From her hiding spot, Livvi breathe’s a sigh of relief and steps out of her hiding spot and says, "Thank the goddess, it's you! Honestly, Lilita, Mordecai and I have had the devil's own luck trying to keep up with you - and now you appear with two new companions. It's like you don't even care about us. You're worse than the college boys; you spend one or two nights with me and then you're on to the next distraction. Well...get down here and introduce your friends!"
Mordecai steps out of hiding, but does not lower his weapon, he whispers to Livvi, "For all we know they're controlling her - we don't know who they are..."
"The lot of you, show yourselves - I've had a touchy past couple of days, and I'd feel better if you all just stayed in plain sight while Lilita explains what's going on here."
Mordecai eyes all three of them, Lilita and the companions, suspiciously - sizing them up in the case it should come down to a fight.
Lilita looks sadly at Mordecai and Livvi, "I am very sorry, please forgive me, I thought the two of you were right behind me when I left your residence. The next thing I knew I was all alone but that's alright I found my mother's home as did you apparently and a few new friends along the way."
Mordecai tries reading her, looking for differences from the Lilita he's familiar with, to gain some kind of assurance that she's not under some magical influence that is affecting her behavior. ( Insight Check 21 )
In his gut, based upon the healer’s expression and somewhat older looking eyes that Lilita had experienced some pain, even loss, since they had least met. Just what, however, he couldn’t tell.
Mordecai responds, "You sprinted out the door, Lilita... In the middle of the night... In a fog. Little chance to find you, but we did find a bloodsucker trying to make a meal out of an innocent girl. It was foolish of you to run out alone like that.
Lilita groans, "I did not sprint! I leisurely took my leave thinking you both were just behind but evidently you were both far too busy making cow eyes over each other to notice that I had departed." The silver-haired sorceress quipped slightly irritated at being called foolish and more than a little envious of what she perceives to be a budding romance between Mordecai and Livvi.
"I am sorry about the girl; I trust you two managed to save her. For a mercenary bounty hunter Mordecai, you always seem to be in the right place at the right time helping to rescue people who need saving, like a real hero," Lilita smiles.
Somewhat calmer, Mordecai stows the glaive.
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Livvi's story continues...
Deep in the middle of the merchant quarter Livvi turned down a smaller side street and passing one of dozens of small townhouses lining the street until she came to a ivy-covered stone wall enclosing a small green space behind a wrought iron gate. The ground floor windows, what she could see of them, were shuttered and those on the upper stories of the three-story house were closed but un-shuttered. The portion of the garden that she could see looked ill kept and overgrown, quite unlike the rest of the neighborhood.
Mordecai wasn’t loitering around, as best she could tell. He might be still sleeping, or he might have already gone inside.
"Am I too late? Or too early?" Livvi thinks to herself after looking around for the half-orc. "Maybe he's already inside...impatient oaf." The young half-elf runs several scenarios through her mind while she waits for a few minutes, imagining the wort and most likely courses of events and actions. Finally, growing impatient, she whispers an arcane incantation and touches the wall near the entrance gate, leaving a common symbol for a bard with her magic. "In case I'm early..." she thinks.
Livvi will enter the garden and then the townhome, carefully looking for any dangers and calling out for Lilita and Mordecai.
The gate opens easily, squeaking hinges add to the evidence that the place as been abandoned for some time. Within the garden, grasses are knee high with weeds and overgrown brush even higher. A narrow path of flagstones and high grass winds around both sides of the townhouse proper. [GM Roll: Perception 15 + 7 = 22]
She might be wrong but the path of the right shows signs that someone has traversed it recently, maybe only a few hours before.
The path leads around the west side of the townhouse. As she follows Livvi nearly walks past evidence of someone pushing through the overgrown grass and bushes. A few strides bring her to the wall of the townhouse and a short staircase leading down to a cellar door.
She will follow the path, hoping it was the way Lilita went, but wary in case someone else, someone dangerous, used this path. At the door to the cellar, she investigates the area, looking for any evidence of who went this way. Using her years running with some of the thieves in town, she also looks for alarms, traps, and locks...luckily, her elven heritage allows her to see even in the dim light of the morning.
Right away her search uncovers that someone recently has oiled the hinges on the heavy cellar door. That it opens inward and is secured by a heavy looking lock below a thumb-latch handle. And while old leaves and twigs cover the steps down to the door they have been walked on, more than once in recent days and several tattered spiderwebs shiver in the slight morning breeze in the doorway. Perception: 16. : Thieves' tools: 13.
At the cellar door, Livvi investigates the door and lock for traps, and then fishes out her old set of lockpicks to ensure that a mundane cellar lock wouldn't end her explorations prematurely! With a practiced set of motions, she realizes that the door is not locked. Shrugging her shoulders, then looking over them to ensure nobody is watching her, she whispers an arcane phrase and causes a spectral hand to materialize at the door handle. With a thought, she causes the mage hand to depress the thumb latch and push, causing the door to open inward slightly.
The latch depresses easily beneath her thumb causing the door to open inward slightly.
Within the doorway is a stone landing a stride (5’) square. More steps descend into the darkness beneath the townhouse in front of her. To her right three steps lead up to an interior door with a simple handle and latch (no lock). Dust covers the steps to the house interior and show no footprints. If Lilita had come this way, the Grey Lady hadn’t used the interior door. With her ability to see in dim lighting, Livvi sees the cellar steps continue down several strides (10’) and enter a passageway. Walking on the balls of her feet as her mentor had taught her, she quietly follows the steps down and into the passage, looking back and forth. Stealth: 11. : Perception: 25.
Descending the stairs as softly as a Half Elf can, Livvi listens with more than her ears. Her delicate nose picks up the smells of slightly dank stairs giving way to dry air. Not the sort of air that one might expect to find in a closed off basement. There was a hint of freshness, suggesting that either the basement was exposed often enough to the outside that the air was moderately fresh or that the cellars of the townhouse were vented. Dust enough coats the corners of the floor, as do cobwebs, both old and new, decorating the corners and narrow spaces. None, however, save one, a small spider busily laying down strings, cross the passage itself as she reaches the bottom. Without a doubt the Bard knew that someone or something was making visits to the cellars via the exterior door.
The stairs end in a small room. A few old crates lie stacked in a corner, a tall, brass tank of some sort collects dust in another. The passage continues through an open doorway straight ahead and two wooden doors are on her left and right. Just inside the door hangs a small lamp, the sort holding a small candle. Neither the lamp nor candle show any signs of having been used in decades. Somewhere, possibly coming from behind the door on her left, Livvi hears soft squeaking sound of the sort made by a rodent.
The small hairs on the back of Livvi's neck stand straight - every sense attuned to this moment. If this was Lilita's ancestral home, and if she had a tie to Lord Rezgui, either real or imagined, then perhaps the vampire was using this as its safe resting place during the day. Which meant that the vampire lord was probably here, in one of these rooms. Standing still as a statue, her mind races through her potential options:
1) The most dangerous likelihood is that Rezgui was, in fact, using this basement as his hide spot and was here now. She should leave now, find Mordecai, and return with him and his new weapon. That would be the safest thing to do and give them at least a chance to survive the encounter.
2) The most likely potential was that Lilita was down here on her own, just waking up from a night's rest. She was a strange bird, that one, and Livvi honestly didn't know how the Grey Lad would respond to being found. Perhaps a simple song on the cittern would be enough to draw the girl out, and they could try and talk again.
3) It was Mordecai who had beaten her here and knocked down the spider's webs. Of course, if it WAS the half-orc, Livvi doubted that he would close doors after passing through them, so this probably was the least likely potential.
4) Of course, it could be that nobody was down here at the moment, nor had been for a while, and her overactive imagination was working overtime. Still, based on the events of the last ten-day, it was probably a good thing she had an active imagination and often was able to see bad situations as they were developing.
Livvi knew she should get someone else - but she was a half-elf and a bard, and neither one would let her leave this basement without exploring the entire area and knowing all of its secrets. So, she keeps her right hand on the neck and strings of the cittern, still slung across her back but ready to be swung around and in a playing position with a quick tug and twist. She puts her ear against the door to the left, listening intently.
For the longest time she stood there, quiet and alert, senses straining to hear or smell something out of what she imagined would be its place. Then, just as she starts to relax a new sound drifts down the stairway behind her from the garden. A slight qork of a crow and a muttered response of a deep timbred male. It was faint, and had she not been attuned to such things, Livvi doubted that she would have ever heard it in the first place.
Livvi quietly sneaks to the edge of the main basement room and, if she can reach it, uses the copper tank to hide behind. Stealth: 24 If the owner of the voice is coming towards her, then she will change tactics and attempt to ease her way into one of the doors at the end of the hallway before the man comes into view. All the while, she is trying to identify the voice, or see the face. Is it Mordecai finally showing up? Lord Rezgui returning to his resting place before getting caught in the full sunlight of the morning? Someone else, perhaps?
A soft creak of leather on stone. Slow, practiced intake of breath. The sense of something starting down the stairs tingles at the edges of her nerve endings. The flutter of a wing just beyond, and above, maybe, the cellar door that she had left open.
From her hiding place behind the metal container in the corner of the room, Livvi watches. Slow, steady breathing - no other movement. He half-elf eyes staring intently through the darkness as if it were lit by a torch. Just a step or two more, so she could she his form and then his face. She was poised for combat but praying for a peaceful encounter.
From the landing above comes a glutaral male whisper, the sort someone might make to oneself when he or she’s alone. "Let's make sure the upstairs is clear, before I find out what goes bump in the night down there.” It’s followed by a soft, almost imperceivably creak of a hinge to one of the other doors. If not for her half-elven heritage Livvi might not have heard the creak at all. The voice, however, came off as someone trying to be stealthy but not very practiced at it. Insight to determine if it is Mordecai: 15
(OOC: Thinking that from her vantage point she could see the figure and determine if it was Mordecai, a big half-orc fighter, or the handsome rogue from the rooftop and Bilina's bed, a human male of medium build, or Lord Cadrian, whom she hadn't seen in days but may still be pursuing the case of the missing girls. Because if it's Mord, she's gonna prank him! If it's the rogue, she's gonna watch him. If it's Cadrian, well...not sure! =)
Giving it some thought, the sound of the voice, it’s power and timbre makes her think of Mordechai, as dose the musky smell that comes from one who bathes less than he should and is a bit more hairy than he needed to be. Plus, the way he whispered overly loud at what sounded like one of The Widow’s crows lurking in the garden increases her gut feeling that it’s the Half-Orc going up the short steps and into the first floor above.
Livvi whispers an arcane phrase, and a spectral hand appears just behind Mordecai. Livvi causes it to pinch the half-orc on the butt, then she calls out from her hiding spot at the bottom of the stairs, "You're late!"
Mordecai turns with a start, glaive out in a defensive position. He sighs before responding, "Sorry about that - someone broke into my place last night and are seemingly trying to set me up for something, so I had to take precautions and an inventory."
Emerging from her hiding spot, the bard climbs up to Mordecai and punches him lightly in the arm. "Good to see you, Mord. Glad you could make it. I think we need to finish checking out the basement before heading upstairs. Someone was down here before me but didn't use this door here to go upstairs. So, it's either some miscreant who decided to use the abandoned townhouse as a place to hole up, or maybe something worse. If it's the something worse, I'm really glad you're here..."
"Yeah," Mordecai says somewhat drawn out, "I got the feeling that the basement would be where the most trouble is found, so I figured to do the quick and easy of casing the topside first... and let the sun brighten up the world a bit more. That said, I'm game if you are..." He turns to head back down into the basement.
He whispers to Livvi, "I'm not so much worried about something being holed up in there, insomuch as something using it as an exit from a much darker place."
The Half-Orc continues stealthily as one can be in chain mail holding a heavy glaive.
Livvi leads him to the doors at the back hallway. She points to the left one and whispers, "Thought I heard a rat or something in here, but when I listened closely, there was only silence. I guess either one is good but was about to check out this left one. Ready?"
"More likely something heard you and went and hid for an ambush," replies Mordecai in a hushed voice.
Mordecai positions himself in front of the door, glaive in an offensive position, ready to strike anything coming within its reach of ten feet. He nods towards Livvi.
When he is ready, she will carefully checks it for locks or perhaps a trap (Perception: 9) then quietly opens it so they both can peer into the room or passage beyond. Beyond the door lies a long, cross shaped wine cellar. Racks of bottles and stacks of small casks line the walls, covered in cobwebs and decades of dust. There’s an earthy smell coming from somewhere.
Mordecai looks around, eyes flickering from spot to spot, muscles tensing in preparation, moving across the dusty floor, then to the walls, racks, and stacks of barrels.
Livvi moves with the half-orc, but out of his swinging range. Quickly, they cover the room, checking corners and high spots, looking for potential hiding areas or threats. At the cross, Livvi goes right and assumes Mordecai goes left. At the end of the area she calls out, "Looks clear. Let's check out the other door before we do a more detailed search of these rooms..." [GM perception check 23]
Mordecai winces slightly at her calling out aloud. He follows her to the door, and whispers, "Remind me to teach you tactical sign language. I'm not the quietest individual with all this metal on me, but don't cut yourself either."
With one eye on the floor, another on everything else, The Half-Orc reaches one of the cellar’s side doors where he leans down to examine the stone floor, and then the door which is made from thick, old cut wood, bound in brass.
"I wonder if it's been opened recently?" asks Mordecai rhetorically. He peers over his shoulder at Livvi and says, "Stay behind me." Balancing his glaive with his leg and one arm, he reaches for the door and opens it... slowly.
The door opens with a slight creak, releasing a thicker, fresher smell of disturbed earth. Mordecai’s ears pick up the sounds of soft squeaks and rustling sounds, quite a few of them which only become more pronounced as he opens the door further. An upward glance at the barrel ceiling shows a modest colony of bats.
As she passes the last rack of wine bottles Livvi notices that several bottles are missing. Not that there simply hadn’t been bottles in the slots, there are plenty of open, empty slots, filled with old cobwebs. These, were not.
"I wonder if it's been opened recently?" asks Mordecai rhetorically. He peers over his shoulder at Livvi and says, "Stay behind me." Balancing his glaive with his leg and one arm, he reaches for the door and opens it... slowly.
Mordecai giving the room a once over asks Livvi, "Do you think something came up? Or decided to dig itself a burrow? Aren't vampires supposed to be associated with bats in some way?"
Mordecai tries to discern if it seems something escaped from deeper beneath or if the turned earth was dug from the surface.
He quips, "Should I poke the earth with my glaive?"
Livvi stares at the mound of dirt, trying to discern if it's the same size as a freshly turned grave. She pulls her instrument fully around to the front of her body and strums a few chords - a major tuning song with strong, open chords. The feeling of protection and strength wash over Mordecai as Livvi uses the cittern to cast protection from evil and good on the half-orc. "Now you're ready to poke the mound with your pole..." she says, unaware of the double entendre - lost in the tension of the potential fight with a vampire!!
Mordecai makes a face and mutters something under his breath before stowing the glaive, setting it up so that it's easy to arm himself with it. He then pulls out a maul and begins some exploratory passes of the fresh earth, trying to discern if there's something buried or if it possibly opens up deeper. He eyes the bats above warily on occasion as he works.
The first few passes with the maul reveals that the earth is loose, if not fresh, considering it was the floor of an old root cellar in an old townhouse. After some care, the Half-Orc work starts to show a pattern. A portion of earth about a stride by two strides long (5’x10’) roughly. The soil is loose to a foot depth, the limit that Mordecai was pacing himself by.
"Bigger than a grave...and certainly more than a rat's warren. Perhaps someone buried something else down here? Or they wanted an indoor swimming hole and gave up on it...keep digging. Do you want me to get rid of these bats? How do they get in and out, I wonder?" Livvi begins looking around the rest of the room, looking for an opening to the surface that the bats could use to get out and go hunting for insects, or fruit, or whatever...If she finds a crack or chimney, and Mord agrees with shooing them off, Livvi will use her mage hand to gently push the bats off of their roosting spots towards the opening.
Mordecai turns back and gives Livvi 'a look' when she instructs him to 'keep digging.'
"If the bats leave me alone, I'll leave them alone," replies Mordecai.
He then flips the maul and uses the handle to explore how deep the loose earth goes. He stands on the perimeter of the whole, not stepping in. The probing reveals that the looser soil goes deeper along the perimeter and that something hard, lay a foot down in the middle. Something that might be hallow. Between the harder ground and the buried object, the handle of the maul goes down to the head with a bit of wiggling.
Livvi eyes the bats, then shrugs. "If you don't mind the flying rodents, I'm ok leaving them alone. For now. But it seems you've found something in the middle of the dirt pile! Can you help me clear the dirt off it? I have an idea..." She moves her hands and whispers an arcane phrase, causing a spectral hand to appear and float over the middle of the pit! The mage hand starts digging the dirt off of the coffin as quickly as it can - not as fast as a good shovel, but it does get the job done slowly...
Once the duo clears the object enough to see it, Livvi will strum her cittern and play a light and airy jig. The notes quiver in the dark air of the cellar, almost visible. Slowly, as the song builds in intensity, the object in the dirt starts to float upwards! "Give it a push towards the floor, will you, Mord?" the bard asks while still playing the instrument. (using the Mac-Fuirmidh cittern to cast levitate.)
Mordecai comments, "Well that certainly makes things easier."
He pushes the object out from over the loose earth towards the firmer floor closer to the door. Dirt shifts and pours off the sides of the long, box like object as it emerges from its burial place. Ornate woodwork and brass trimmings reveal an opulent coffin.
Livvi lets the coffin descend gently to the hard floor of the room. "Well, we seem to be the dogs who caught the cart we were chasing. Are you ready to take on whatever might be in this? Isn't there something that will kill them? A wooden stake through the heart or a silver weapon? Maybe if we grab some wood from the wine cellar...Or do we just go for it? It was buried after all...could a vampire even get into this under all of that dirt?"
"I'm sure a vampire can make it through. Now, as far as killing one - wouldn't know the trick to that, but we could try this..." - Mordecai points at the glaive - "... for now."
"With that said, you should probably check it for booby traps - eldritch or otherwise."
Mordecai readies his glaive and will open the coffin once he gets the okay from Livvi.
Although she had never heard of it, Livvi nods at her new partner and carefully checks the coffin for traps. Perception: 14 She runs her fingers lightly around the edge of the lid, feeling slowly for wires, levers, indentations, locks, or anything else that would indicate she had some additional work to do with her tools...
Finding nothing, she looks up at Mordecai and gives him a thumbs up, then readies herself to lift the lid. She stands across the coffin from Mordecai, so that she can pull the lid open towards her and give Mordecai a clear look - and attack vector - at whatever might be inside...she gives him a silent count, and quickly lifts the lid on the count of three.
Mordecai lifts his glaive ready to strike, but then pauses as a look of confusion comes across his face. He lowers the glaive.
Nestled inside is the desiccated corpse of a once well-dressed woman. The smell wafting from the open coffin is stale and bad, but nothing as bad as one might expect from an interned body. Laying on the woman’s breast is a bouquet of flowers that while wilted, don’t look all that old.
Mordecai comments, "I fear we may have desecrated a grave - although given the age of those flowers, the woman is likely exhumed and reinterred on a regular basis. We should return her as soon as possible. Before we do, let's see if there's anything we could use to identify this woman."
GM Note: Player left on vacation for two weeks.
Mordecai inspects the body visually, taking care not to touch it. When Livvi is satisfied, he'll reseal the coffin and push it back to its grave.
Livvi joins Mordecai and looks over the body, the clothes, the coffin and its interior. Perception: 21 From the style of clothes and the quality of the moldering material Livvi’s convinced that this is a noblewoman, though which house, she can’t pin down. Something else about the clothing suggests a style that was popular two decades ago. The flowers are rare in the city as well, being of a type that grows in the northern province. There’s something vaguely familiar about her features, despite the ravages of death. There was some sort of magic at play here, too, though what sort, she couldn’t divine. Subtle or old, maybe as the corpse is well preserved.
"I think you're right, Mord. The freshly churned ground, the recent flowers. Did Lilita dig this up? COULD that waif of a girl dig this much? OK...back into the ground with her. Unfortunately, I can't levitate the coffin again right now...so it's gonna have to be pushed in. Let's close her back up and set this back. Ready?"
"I suspect that it wasn't Lilita who did this, but her father. This might be Lilita's mother."
The Half-Elf’s head tilt’s slightly as she looks down at the corpse. “I suspect that your right, if this her family’s home. There are plenty of stories about fiendish floobs keeping grisly trophies or loved ones they couldn’t bear to part from. If not that, then someone’s investing a lot of time and effort in maintaining a grave. Looking at the style of clothes I’d say that they’re about two decades out of date and the materials that they’re made from are expensive, suggesting a wealthy or noble birth.” [GM filling in for Player]
"That style and timeline seem to fit what The Widow described about Lilita's family," Mordecai says with a sigh.
Mordecai gives the corpse another look, before placing the seal back on the coffin, and then placing some dirt on the floor between the coffin and the grave to help it slide better, stows his glaive, and pushes the coffin back to its resting place.
Livvi helps manually move it back into the open grave. Once they get the coffin in place and covered. When they are finished, Livvi glances at Mord and says, “I think we should exit the root and wine cellar and check out the other doorway. I’ll lead so I can check it for locks or any type of tripwire or trap mechanism, disabling it if needed. Then we can check out the next room.” [GM filling in for Player]
As Mordecai waits for Livvi to conduct her investigation, she glances back at the covered grave and sighs. “Do we tell Lilita about this, if we see her again?”
"Yes," Mordecai responds matter of factly. "It'll perhaps give her better insight on what her father has become."
Straightening up he suggests, "Let's see about the rest of this house - see what insights we can gain on this vampire incursion."
“Agreed, I – “
Just then the creak of a floorboard from somewhere above comes from the cellar’s main passageway. The Half-Elf’s head jerks upwards as if trying to divine what may have made the sound.
Mordecai immediately brandishes his glaive and takes point, whispering to Livvi, "Keep your eyes and ears open - be ready to make a move. Thoughts on what made that?"
Her more sensitive ears turned slightly, head cocked as she looks in the direction of the sound Livvi whispers, “Someone – “ There was another, lighter creak from above, causing the Half-Elf to amend her comment – “or several someone’s appear to have just entered the house. I think it’s coming from the back, not out front. But I could be wrong.” She shrugs.
After giving Livvi a moment to think on what may have caused the sound, Mordecai eventually starts heading back the way they came, stalking the origin of the creaks cause.
As they reach the open doorway leading to the cellar’s main hallway there’s a sound.
“Did you hear that? Sounded like someone calling out a name.”
Livvi continues straining her half-elven ears to pick up as many audible cues as possible to determine if it is perhaps Lilita or someone else. Perception: 13 She also draws her rapier and slides the cittern to her back to keep it out of the way if a fight should break out.
Mordecai responds, "Didn't catch it. Did it sound like Lilita?"
Mordecai cautiously continues forward, as quietly as he can.
As they reenter the central hallway there’s a dull thump above, and then the sound of a door opening comes from back near the stairway that they’d entered by. Possibly that door leading up, into the kitchen.
She silently points to one side of the stairs, then at Mord, and then she points at herself and to the other side, indicating that they should quickly take up positions on either side in an ambush... Stealth: 23
She watches the newcomers from her hidden vantage point, holding her attack until a positive identification can be made. If it is Lilita, or even a non-threatening commoner, she will simply stay in place. But if it is the vampire - Lilita's father - or someone/thing else that makes her doubt, she will probably attack it without warning or sound, preferring to end the threat quickly...
Mordecai whispers, "It's morning - it's likely not to be a vampire... But if you insist."
As the big Half Orc takes position where she had pointed Livvi hears the steps of someone stealthy coming down the stairs. There’s a hint of dust and travel and something else…something feline in a corrupted way drifting down. Someone whispers upstairs, another hisses softly but the words make no sense but it’s a response to someone in charge. Someone feminine and naggingly familiar.
From her hiding spot, Livvi hears, and then sees, Lilita and two others come down into the basement. Breathing a sigh of relief, Livvi steps out of her hiding spot and says, "Thank the goddess, it's you! Honestly, Lilita, Mordecai and I have had the devil's own luck trying to keep up with you - and now you appear with two new companions. It's like you don't even care about us. You're worse than the college boys; you spend one or two nights with me and then you're on to the next distraction. Well...get down here and introduce your friends!"
Mordecai steps out of hiding, but does not lower his weapon, and whispers, "For all we know they're controlling her - we don't know who they are..."
To those upstairs he calls out, "The lot of you, show yourselves - I've had a touchy past couple of days, and I'd feel better if you all just stayed in plain sight while Lilita explains what's going on here."
The Half-Orc eyes all three of them, Lilita and the companions, suspiciously - sizing them up in the case it should come down to a fight.
<><><><><><><>
Mordecai's story continues...
Mordecai quickly gets ready and rushes off to meet Livvi at the agreed upon destination. Following the directions that The Widow had provided; it took more than an hour to traverse the city to reach the street containing the townhouse. From the corner he could see several more walled compounds of adjacent townhouses. The street was upper crust without being in nob town, he notes. A few pedestrians move along on their business as he stands there. A merchant looking floob rides by on a horse. Watching the gate to ‘Lilita’s townhouse he could see that the garden beyond was overgrown and that the iron gate looked rusted.
"From the vardo to here," Mordecai whispers. "Hopefully, Livvi didn't go in on her own... Where is that woman?" Mordecai looks around for Livvi - his impromptu compatriot in this web of conspiracy and undeath.
There was no sign of the Bard, but he doses spot one of those red splotched crows perched up on a gutter on the townhouse. Approaching the gate, Mordecai’s eyes are drawn to a faintly glowing bardic glyph on the gatepost. The gate is also slightly open.
Mordecai nods at the crow and quietly says, "Pleasant morning to you, ma'am."
The crow just cock’s one dark eye at him.
Mordecai walks up to the gate and takes a quick look at the Glyph, before saying, "I hope these aren't the ones that explode...." He takes a breath and pushes past the gate and into the townhouse.
The gate, he notes, doesn’t make a noise. With all the rust on the iron one might think it should. Inside is a broad, paved path leading to the townhouse’s front door. Narrower, nearly overgrown paths lead left and to the right. The one on the left was showing evidence of recent use. Giving the Bard’s Half-Elf heritage and perchance for being stealthy whenever she could, it would be difficult to say which path she took.
"Well, in this case, the path most travelled is likely the better choice - someone came through here... might as well find out who," Mordecai muses to himself.
Mordecai makes his way down the left-hand path, keeping a lookout for traps, whether natural or manufactured. He does his best to stay quiet, although he realizes that he sticks out in this neighborhood like a sore thumb.
The path leads around the west side of the townhouse. As he follows Mordecai nearly walks past evidence of someone pushing through the overgrown grass and bushes. A few strides bring him to the wall of the townhouse and a short staircase leading down to an open cellar door. Behind him the crow, with a few flaps of it’s wings, comes to land on a moss-covered ledge above and lets out a muttering qork.
Mordecai arches an eyebrow and looks back at the crow. He whispers harshly at it, "If you're going to tag along, be quiet about it."
He checks to make sure his thieves' tools are on him, should he need him, then he unfastens and holds it in a defensive position. He makes his way, as quietly as possible, down through the open cellar door and finds himself standing on a landing, a stone landing a stride (5’) square. More steps descend into the darkness beneath the townhouse in front of him. To the right, three steps lead up to an interior door with a simple handle and latch (no lock). Dust covers the steps to the house interior and show no footprints.
"Let's make sure the upstairs is clear, before I find out what goes bump in the night down there," Mordecai whispers. He heads to the door upstairs, ready to do a systematic sweep of the home. He does his best to hide his path and movements. [Gm Rolls for Stealth: 3+2 = 5]
Opening the door, it pulls outwards. One of the hinges creaks softly but not too bad. Beyond looks to be a large kitchen, poorly lit by sunlight streaming through the shutters outside. Layers of dust have accumulated over everything and cobwebs are everywhere.
At the sound of the creaking hinge Mordecai turns quickly, looking back down at the way he came and the darkness beyond, straining to see or hear if anything or anyone was coming from the darkness in reaction to his actions.
He waits.
Not terribly enthusiastic about his current situation, he walks fully into the dusty kitchen, closing the door behind him. "Hopefully," he mutters, "the hinges that betrayed me will betray anyone who follows."
Seconds pass and nothing. No sounds, no muttering crows, no faint demands to know ‘who’s there?’. He begins walking through the home. He keeps wary of traps, taking care where he walks and what he touches, knowing that an undisturbed place such could have hidden dangers lurking about.
He's also on the lookout for clues regarding the, perhaps former, owners of the home... especially since he learned that Lilita’s family, her father specifically, took a turn to Undeath. If he finds anything of value along the way, so be it - he'll make a note to show it to Lilita before finding it a permanent home.
Just then something pinches his butt and a soft voice calls from the stairwell behind him, "You're late!"
Mordecai turns with a start, glaive out in a defensive position. He realizes it was Livvi that pinched him and sighs. He responds, "Sorry about that - someone broke into my place last night and are seemingly trying to set me up for something, so I had to take precautions and an inventory."
Emerging from her hiding spot at the bottom of the stairs the bard climbs up and punches him lightly in the arm. "Good to see you, Mord. Glad you could make it. I think we need to finish checking out the basement before heading upstairs. Someone was down here before me but didn't use this door here to go upstairs. So, it's either some miscreant who decided to use the abandoned townhouse as a place to hole up, or maybe something worse. If it's the something worse, I'm really glad you're here..."
"Yeah," Mordecai says somewhat drawn out, "I got the feeling that the basement would be where the most trouble is found, so I figured to do the quick and easy of casing the topside first... and let the sun brighten up the world a bit more. That said, I'm game if you are..." He turns to head back down... into the basement, and beyond that... into the darkness.
He whispers to Livvi, "I'm not so much worried about something being holed up in there, insomuch as something using it as an exit from a much darker place."
He continues stealthily as one can be in chain mail holding a heavy glaive.
Livvi leads him to the doors at the back hallway of the cellar and points to the left one and whispers, "Thought I heard a rat or something in here, but when I listened closely, there was only silence. I guess either one is good but was about to check out this left one. Ready?"
"More likely something heard you and went and hid for an ambush," replies Mordecai in a hushed voice.
Mordecai positions himself in front of the door, glaive in an offensive position, ready to strike anything coming within its reach of ten feet. He nods towards Livvi.
When he is ready, she carefully checks it for locks or perhaps a trap then quietly opens it so they both can peer into the room or passage beyond. Beyond the door lies a long, cross shaped wine cellar. Racks of bottles and stacks of small casks line the walls, covered in cobwebs and decades of dust. There’s an earthy smell coming from somewhere.
Mordecai looks around seeking out anything that doesn't belong, bumps and humps where there should be none, the possible source of the earthy smell, imperfections along the walls or floor that may mean something more or something hidden... //OOC Stealth 8, Perception 19
Livvi moves with the half-orc, but out of his swinging range. Quickly, they cover the room, checking corners and high spots, looking for potential hiding areas or threats. At the cross, Livvi goes right and assumes Mordecai goes left. At the end of the area she calls out, "Looks clear. Let's check out the other door before we do a more detailed search of these rooms..."
Mordecai winces slightly at her calling out aloud. He follows her to the door, and whispers, "Remind me to teach you tactical sign language. I'm not the quietest individual with all this metal on me, but don't cut yourself either."
With one eye on the floor, another on everything else, Mordecai reaches the door and notices slight scrape marks marking where it swings out, too the left. Made from thick, old cut wood, bound in brass.
"I wonder if it's been opened recently?" asks Mordecai rhetorically. He peers over his shoulder at Livvi and says, "Stay behind me." Balancing his glaive with his leg and one arm, he reaches for the door and opens it... slowly.
The door opens with a slight creak, releasing a thicker, fresher smell of disturbed earth. Mordecai’s ears pick up the sounds of soft squeaks and rustling sounds, quite a few of them which only become more pronounced as he opens the door further. An upward glance at the barrel ceiling shows a modest colony of bats.
Mordecai giving the room a once over asks Livvi, "Do you think something came up? Or decided to dig itself a burrow? Aren't vampires supposed to be associated with bats in some way?"
Mordecai tries to discern if it seems something escaped from deeper beneath or if the turned earth was dug from the surface.
He quips, "Should I poke the earth with my glaive?"
Livvi stares at the mound of dirt for a moment before pulling her instrument fully around to the front of her body and strums a few chords - a major tuning song with strong, open chords. The feeling of protection and strength wash over Mordecai as Livvi uses the cittern to cast protection from evil and good on the half-orc.
"Now you're ready to poke the mound with your pole..." she says with more than a hint of excitement in her tone and posture.
Mordecai suppresses a groan, whispering to himself, "Left yourself open to that one, didn't you?"
He half stows the glaive, setting it up so that it's easy to arm himself with it. He pulls out his maul and begins some exploratory passes of the fresh earth, trying to discern if there's something buried or if it possibly opens up deeper. He won't lower the maul into the soil deeper than two-thirds the length of the maul from the handle forward.
He eyes the bats above warily on occasion.
The first few passes with the maul reveals that the earth is loose, if not fresh, considering it was the floor of an old root cellar in an old townhouse. After some care, his work starts to show a pattern. A portion of earth about a stride by two strides long (5’x10’) roughly. The soil is loose to a foot depth, the limit that Mordecai was setting at the moment.
"Bigger than a grave...and certainly more than a rat's warren. Perhaps someone buried something else down here? Or they wanted an indoor swimming hole and gave up on it...keep digging. Do you want me to get rid of these bats? How do they get in and out, I wonder?" Livvi begins looking around the rest of the room, looking for an opening to the surface that the bats could use to get out and go hunting for insects, or fruit, or whatever...
Mordecai turns back and gives Livvi 'a look' when she instructs him to 'keep digging.'
"If the bats leave me alone, I'll leave them alone," replies Mordecai.
He then flips the maul and uses the handle to explore how deep the loose earth goes. He stands on the perimeter of the whole, not stepping in. The probing reveals that the looser soil goes deeper along the perimeter and that something hard, lay a foot down in the middle. Something that might be hallow. Between the harder ground and the buried object, the handle of the maul goes down to the head with a bit of wiggling.
Livvi eyes the bats, then shrugs. "If you don't mind the flying rodents, I'm ok leaving them alone. For now. But it seems you've found something in the middle of the dirt pile! Can you help me clear the dirt off it? I have an idea..." She moves her hands and whispers an arcane phrase, causing a spectral hand to appear and float over the middle of the pit! The mage hand starts digging the dirt off of the coffin as quickly as it can - not as fast as a good shovel, but it does get the job done slowly...
Once the duo clears the object enough to see it, Livvi will strum her cittern and play a light and airy jig. The notes quiver in the dark air of the cellar, almost visible. Slowly, as the song builds in intensity, the object in the dirt starts to float upwards! "Give it a push towards the floor, will you, Mord?" the bard asks while still playing the instrument.
Mordecai comments, "Well that certainly makes things easier."
He pushes the object out from over the loose earth towards the firmer floor closer to the door. Dirt shifts and pours off the sides of the long, box like object as it emerges from its burial place. Ornate woodwork and brass trimmings reveal an opulent coffin.
Livvi lets the coffin descend gently to the hard floor of the room. "Well, we seem to be the dogs who caught the cart we were chasing. Are you ready to take on whatever might be in this? Isn't there something that will kill them? A wooden stake through the heart or a silver weapon? Maybe if we grab some wood from the wine cellar...Or do we just go for it? It was buried after all...could a vampire even get into this under all of that dirt?"
"I'm sure a vampire can make it through. Now, as far as killing one - wouldn't know the trick to that, but we could try this..." - Mordecai points at the glaive - "... for now."
"With that said, you should probably check it for booby traps - eldritch or otherwise."
Mordecai readies his glaive and will open the coffin once he gets the okay from Livvi.
Livvi nods and carefully checks the coffin for traps. The Half-Elf runs her fingers lightly around the edge of the lid, feeling slowly for wires, levers, indentations, locks, or anything else that would indicate she had some additional work to do with her tools...
Shaking her head, she looks up at Mordecai and gives him a thumbs up, then readies herself to lift the lid. She stands across the coffin from Mordecai, so that she can pull the lid open towards her and give Mordecai a clear look - and attack vector - at whatever might be inside...she gives him a silent count, and quickly lifts the lid on the count of three.
Mordecai lifts his glaive ready to strike, but then pauses as a look of confusion comes across his face. He lowers the glaive.
Nestled inside is the desiccated corpse of a once well-dressed woman. The smell wafting from the open coffin is stale and bad, but nothing as bad as one might expect from an interned body. Laying on the woman’s breast is a bouquet of flowers that while wilted, don’t look all that old.
Mordecai comments, "I fear we may have desecrated a grave - although given the age of those flowers, the woman is likely exhumed and reinterred on a regular basis. We should return her as soon as possible. Before we do, let's see if there's anything we could use to identify this woman."
Mordecai inspects the body visually, taking care not to touch it. When Livvi is satisfied, he'll reseal the coffin and push it back to its grave.
Livvi joins Mordecai and looks over the body, the clothes, the coffin and its interior.
"I think you're right, Mord. The freshly churned ground, the recent flowers. Did Lilita dig this up? COULD that waif of a girl dig this much? OK...back into the ground with her. Unfortunately, I can't levitate the coffin again right now...so it's gonna have to be pushed in. Let's close her back up and set this back. Ready?"
Mordecai responds to Livvi, "I suspect that it wasn't Lilita who did this, but her father. This might be Lilita's mother."
The Half-Elf’s head tilt’s slightly as she looks down at the corpse. “I suspect that your right, if this her family’s home. There are plenty of stories about fiendish floobs keeping grisly trophies or loved ones they couldn’t bear to part from. If not that, then someone’s investing a lot of time and effort in maintaining a grave. Looking at the style of clothes I’d say that they’re about two decades out of date and the materials that they’re made from are expensive, suggesting a wealthy or noble birth.” [GM filling in for Player]
"That style and timeline seem to fit what The Widow described about Lilita's family," Mordecai says with a sigh.
Mordecai gives the corpse another look, seeking any of the symbols that Lilita or the Widow had shown him. Mordecai places the seal back on the coffin, places some dirt on the floor between the coffin and the grave to help it slide better, stows his glaive, and pushes the coffin back to its resting place.
Livvi helps manually move it back into the open grave. Once they get the coffin in place and covered. When they are finished, Livvi glances at Mord and says, “I think we should exit the root and wine cellar and check out the other doorway. I’ll lead so I can check it for locks or any type of tripwire or trap mechanism, disabling it if needed. Then we can check out the next room.” [GM filling in for Player]
As Mordecai waits for Livvi to conduct her investigation, she glances back at the covered grave and sighs. “Do we tell Lilita about this, if we see her again?”
"Yes," Mordecai responds matter of factly. "It'll perhaps give her better insight on what her father has become."
Straightening up he suggests, "Let's see about the rest of this house - see what insights we can gain on this vampire incursion."
“Agreed, I – “
Just then the creak of a floorboard from somewhere above comes from the cellar’s main passageway. The Half-Elf’s head jerks upwards as if trying to divine what may have made the sound.
Mordecai immediately brandishes his glaive and takes point, whispering to Livvi, "Keep your eyes and ears open - be ready to make a move. Thoughts on what made that?"
Her more sensitive ears turned slightly, head cocked as she looks in the direction of the sound Livvi whispers, “Someone – “ There was another, lighter creak from above, causing the Half-Elf to amend her comment – “or several someone’s appear to have just entered the house. I think it’s coming from the back, not out front. But I could be wrong.” She shrugs.
After giving Livvi a moment to think on what may have caused the sound, Mordecai eventually starts heading back the way they came, stalking the origin of the creaks cause.
// OOC Stealth Check @ disadv due to armor... 12 and a perception check of 6...
As they reach the open doorway leading to the cellar’s main hallway there’s a sound.
“Did you hear that? Sounded like someone calling out a name.” She draws her rapier and slides the cittern to her back to keep it out of the way if a fight should break out.
Mordecai responds, "Didn't catch it. Did it sound like Lilita?"
Mordecai cautiously continues forward, as quietly as he can.
As he enters the central hallway there’s a dull thump above, and then the sound of a door opening comes from back near the stairway that they’d entered by. Possibly that door leading up, into the kitchen.
Livvi silently points to one side of the stairs, then at Mord, and then she points at herself and to the other side, indicating that they should quickly take up positions on either side in an ambush...
Mordecai whispers, "It's morning - it's likely not to be a vampire... But if you insist."
Mordecai takes position where Livvi pointed.
From her hiding spot, Livvi breathe’s a sigh of relief and steps out of her hiding spot and says, "Thank the goddess, it's you! Honestly, Lilita, Mordecai and I have had the devil's own luck trying to keep up with you - and now you appear with two new companions. It's like you don't even care about us. You're worse than the college boys; you spend one or two nights with me and then you're on to the next distraction. Well...get down here and introduce your friends!"
Mordecai steps out of hiding, but does not lower his weapon, he whispers to Livvi, "For all we know they're controlling her - we don't know who they are..."
"The lot of you, show yourselves - I've had a touchy past couple of days, and I'd feel better if you all just stayed in plain sight while Lilita explains what's going on here."
Mordecai eyes all three of them, Lilita and the companions, suspiciously - sizing them up in the case it should come down to a fight.
Lilita looks sadly at Mordecai and Livvi, "I am very sorry, please forgive me, I thought the two of you were right behind me when I left your residence. The next thing I knew I was all alone but that's alright I found my mother's home as did you apparently and a few new friends along the way."
Mordecai tries reading her, looking for differences from the Lilita he's familiar with, to gain some kind of assurance that she's not under some magical influence that is affecting her behavior. ( Insight Check 21 )
In his gut, based upon the healer’s expression and somewhat older looking eyes that Lilita had experienced some pain, even loss, since they had least met. Just what, however, he couldn’t tell.
Mordecai responds, "You sprinted out the door, Lilita... In the middle of the night... In a fog. Little chance to find you, but we did find a bloodsucker trying to make a meal out of an innocent girl. It was foolish of you to run out alone like that.
Lilita groans, "I did not sprint! I leisurely took my leave thinking you both were just behind but evidently you were both far too busy making cow eyes over each other to notice that I had departed." The silver-haired sorceress quipped slightly irritated at being called foolish and more than a little envious of what she perceives to be a budding romance between Mordecai and Livvi.
"I am sorry about the girl; I trust you two managed to save her. For a mercenary bounty hunter Mordecai, you always seem to be in the right place at the right time helping to rescue people who need saving, like a real hero," Lilita smiles.
Somewhat calmer, Mordecai stows the glaive.
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