Jerick, Glugrug and Kysken begin investigating the footprints and follow them to the other room. Here they find themselves entering into a great hall. This hall is draped in fine white curtains and the walls have been given a fresh coat of white paint to match the curtains. However, red smears and handprints are dotted all around the white room.

Chairs, tables, and musical instruments are to be seen lying around the room. All of these dark wooden objects have been broken. Scattered on the floor between the broken parts of tables are rotted food on top of shattered plates. Black rats are feasting on the rotted food.

Around this room are five bodies lying on the floor dressed similarly to the man in the entrance hall. They too lie in pools of blood. You can see that these bodies have large jagged, circular wounds the size of the plates on the floor.

Meanwhile, in the entrance hall, Aranea stays with the man.

"I don't know. He was here. Maybe the beasts in the cellars go to him?" He then begins to laugh again. "It hurts you know. The bite, it hurts."

The man begins to roll over and Aranea can see a large jagged circular wound in his back.

"Something horrible happened here."

Kysken performs the rituals for Speak With Animals, then approaches the rats. 

"Little friends, what can you tell me about what happened here? What caused this? What killed the people here?"

The rats all turn to Kysken clearly not used to seeing a humanoid talking to them.

They begin squeaking which Kysken understands as being one word repeated over and over again.

"Worms"

While Aranea is performing her ten-minute ritual, Jerick tries to determine how long the nearest corpse has been dead.

Medicine: 4

He also investigates the jagged holes in the body. Do they appear to be teeth holes? From what sized creature?

Investigation: 22

Finally, he looks for more footprints to help lead the way.

Investigation: 24

As Jerick investigates the body, all five begin to stir. They eyes open and you can see that a red madness burns brightly in their eyes. Their faces being to twist into fiendish masks of hatred and violence.

(Make a Constitution Saving Throw, then roll for initiative.)

Constitution saving throw 9

Initiative 20

"The rats said 'worms'! Those must have been some BIG worms!"

Constitution 12

Initiative 20

"What sort of beasts? Tell me what is going on here. If you tell me, I can ease any pain you might be feeling."

Aranea stares fiercely down at the man before her. It occurs to her that she hasn't fed in some time and this man lies helpless at her feet. The others would likely never know. At the monastery she only fed from willing donors, but this isn't the monastery. 

Persuasion - 6

((I don't know why it changed it but my original initiative roll was 20.))

((ETA: I'm going to edit my post above to reflect Aranea staying inside the entry way to continue to talk to the man for a moment.))

(Rolling for Glugrug to keep things moving; Con: 11 Init: 12
Init: 19)

"Worms," the man laughs again. He then coughs up more blood.

Meanwhile, after seeing the bodies suddenly climb to their feet, Jerick and Glugrug begin to hear the sound of a soft ryhthmic pounding sound.

 (Turn order: Jerick, Kysken, Undead, Glugrug.)

As the beings awoke and rose to their feet, Jerick stepped back towards the others. (I assume that any triggered opportunity attack was while they were prone?)

Jerick reaches into his pocket to grab his crystal to cast mage armor on himself. He uses his remaining movement to get behind Glugrug.

He stammers to his companions, "The worm food is awake!"

Aranea senses she won't get much more out of this man, and the sight of the blood on his lips is stirring the hunger inside her. While the others seem engaged for the moment (Aranea thought she heard shouting just a moment ago), she decides she won't get a better opportunity to feed.

"Time to sleep," she tells the man. Then she lifts his upper torso so that she is cradling his upper body in her arms. Lowering her mouth to his neck, she bites deep and begins to feed.

Fanged Bite - Attack 9 / Damage 4

As Aranea plunges her fangs into the man's neck, he lets out one last death gurgle. Then he is still.

(Kysken's turn.)

Kysken casts Thorn Whip at the legs of one of the bipeds.

Thorn Whip attack roll: 20
Damage: 4

As a bonus action she casts Shillelagh on her club. 

Somewhat shocked by the sudden change in the denizens of the hall, Glugrug freezes up for a moment, trying to decide what to do...

Satisfied that the man is dead, Aranea enters the main hall to see what all the commotion is about. It appears as though there have been more victims of these worms the man talked about, but these ones were not staying dead. She could relate to that, but these undead were in their way, preventing them from learning the fate of the baron's wife. Aranea prepares herself for battle.

Initiative - 5

Kysken attacks the creature with her thorn whip spell. She is successful in the attack and she pulls the creature towards her.

In response, the creature moves in closer to Kysken before attacking with its claws.

(Attack: 12 Damage: 4 slashing damage.)

The rest of the creatures move in closer snarling as they do so.

(Glugrug, then Aranea.)

[Not to put too fine a point on things, but I didn't write that Kysken pulls the creature to her. I just wrote that she aims for the legs. Pulling is optional with this spell, right?]

(Well, it doesn't say "if the creature is Large or smaller, you can pull", it says "you pull". So I see it that is a consequence of the spell desired or not.)

ok, then.