"Yeah. I would help more, buuuut puzzles are really confusing"

Pru sighs then pushes her red locks behind her ears and scrambles up the ladder, the gap between rungs a far greater stretch for her than the taller members of the group.

Once at the top she quickly get out of the secret room with the dials and goes back out into the bedroom.

"I don't think there's anything else here," Pru says, chewing her lip a little as she does.

She sticks her head back out into the hallway to double check the doorways leading off to make sure they've checked all of them.

Aranor follows Pru. He looks dejected and uncertain. "Maybe we should check for some sort of basement or cellar. There's got to be something we're missing," he declares.

You double check all the rooms on the upper floor as you make your way back to the stairs. Even seeing the dead bodies, something doesn't add up. two old, decrepit bodies, one recently dead body. Something, someone has been here. No passages in any of the rooms, other than the hidden one off the main bedroom reading area. Going back through the books and journals, seems like you've found everything but a ritual room mentioned by Elise. Though she states it doesn't seem to be as "grandiose" as what Yvonne described in her journal.

As you make it back down the stairs to the small reading room, the lit fire seems to be dying out. It's low light dances off the walls. It barely gives off enough heat to warm the room.

Aranor decides to study the reading room another time. It's not exactly very grandiose, and the lit fire has been strange to him this whole time, as if someone was just here, but they've seen no one. He looks around the room, searching for anything they may have missed, any buttons or switches like those that activated the secret room in the bedroom.

"There's got to be something in here," he mutters to himself as he searches.

Perception - 15

Pru watches the elven warrior search around he fireplace for a moment.

While he does, Pru approaches the fire and holds her hands as close to the flames as she can not entirely sure they aren't just an illusion now.

"Yes, maybe behind the fire!" Beryl says. "It's dying down. Maybe we could put it out with water from the fountain, or just smother it with dampened ceremonial robes."

You study the fireplace. The fires is real and is about out. The coal and embers burn a bright hue. Looking for buttons, levers keyholes doesn't turn up anything.

((I don't know why it said manipulated results, maybe because I edited the post? Argh))

Pru wanders down the hallway and goes to the back door and takes a look outside.

"Maybe there's another outbuilding," she muses. 

Quote from Goddess_Nyx >>

((I don't know why it said manipulated results, maybe because I edited the post? Argh))

 Probably. No worries.

Pru looks out the doors to realize it's a little after dinner time. Sees some wild animals running around before they settle in for the night.

Pru hums a few notes to herself as she watches the animals scamper about then gets distracted by her stomach rumbling.

She turns back and calls into the manor.

”All this accomplishing nothing is making me hungry. Anyone fancy building the fire back up and having a bite?”

Aranor looks out the door toward the halfling. He nods at her and then returns to the fire and attempts to build it back up so they can cook some of the provisions they were given. 

You build the fire up and start cooking. You go over the rooms in your head. There has to be a door that was missed, another hidden room, something. You go back through the journals while eating, looking for any kind of clue. Only thing you''re able to determine is Elise found the ritual room, but where? is it on the property? Below, above?

Once they finish eating and discussing the puzzle facing them, Pru heads back outside and circles the whole manor, backing up far enough to see if they missed a room, or if there's a floor above the one they explored.

Perception: 11  

"We're losing time here," Pru says. "We've found no sign of the kids."

She looks back down the road they came up.

"Maybe we missed something back there," she says. "Maybe we need to go back and look again."

"I wish we could find the ritual room." Beryl sighs. "We've been all over this place and haven't found anything else. I guess we could make more words with those dials - we never tried shadow - but time is moving quickly."

Pru disappears outside. About an hour later as the sun starts to set, she re-appears. Noting nothing outside other than the small animals of the wild and that the manor actually looks more decimated outside than it does inside, despite it being home to the dead.

Beryl starts thinking out loud about trying more words on the hidden shelf. 

OOC: There's a map back on page 14 of the posts.

"What if we check for writing that only shows up in the dark. Or smash the walls until we get out"

"Ooh! Try "please""

Quote from Drususs_Sinistari >>

Here is a basic layout of the manor 1st floor. Currently you're in the small sitting room to the left of the statues.

 Pru comes back inside with her head low, feeling a bit lost but then she grabs her lyre and plucks a few cords. Her smile returns and she hums to herself a little.

She repeats what she did outside and wanders around the ground floor looking for something the missed.

Eventually she realizes there are two areas that have more wall than room.

”One of these must have been the room with the chest,“ Pru says while tapping on the walls, tapping louder on the one that would be where the chest was hidden. “This other one thought might be the ritual room”

Pru runs her hands along the wall, looking for cracks, seams, pressure plates, that might reveal a way inside.

Perception: 22  

“If there’s no way in down here than maybe we go back upstairs and go to the spot above this space and just rip up the floorboards.”