Ben:

”Oh what an excellent and helpful creature you are!” exclaims Ben as he heads over to the cabinet where the frog and candles are.  He gives Matilda a meaningful look as he passes, then works with the frog to pick up the candles and start changing them out in the chandelier, though he takes care to keep his body in between the frog and Matilda as he does so, doing his best to keep the creature’s attention on himself.

After a few moments, Ben glances at Titaani and asks the frog, “We are helping you and your mistress, having fixed her pool and now we are helping in here with the candles.  My friend is looking for something she lost…Tell me, where do you keep lost things here?”

Nodding to Ben Matilda slips through and out the window.

Stealth ( assuming Help from Bens actions): 15

"Lost things? Lost things? Lost things?" replies the lornling agitatedly as Ben climbs on top of the rickety table to replace candles in the chandelier, as there seems to be no way to lower it. "How could I know where lost things are? I just know where found things are! Candles! Table! Chairs! Hors d'oeuvres!" It begins pointing things out in plain sight. Craning to reach the candles, Ben steps in a bowl of rotting pudding of some sort, fouling his shoe.

Matilda slides through the open window onto a rickety balcony looking out over the foggy swamp. The fog is so thick she can't even see the pond, but she can smell it.

A thin railing runs along the edge that will probably support her weight. The slanted, thatched roof is accessible here, with a good jump from the railing. (She'll need a successful athletics or acrobatics roll to make it up there from the railing without help or tools, though, if that's her plan. A good roll and she's up. A bad roll and she's not. A very bad roll and she visits the pond.)

Matilda looks over the edge with a slight grimace, " Nothing ventured...."

19

Lets try that again: 11

Matilda cleanly catches the edge of the thatching and pulls herself up onto the roof. 

It's very foggy, but she can see the outlines of the third floor, and a window directly above her.

Horatio gives a deep sigh, then rushes up after Matilda, "Don't go alone!" He chides quietly as he climbs up behind her. 

(( Athletics = 12 ))

Horatio Stealth (with advantage from Ben's distraction): 9  

"...China! Goblin head! Window! ..." continues the lornling impatiently to Ben, pointing out all the items it finds, until it is interrupted by Horatio's entry.

"The door is RIGHT THERE!" it scorns, watching with judgment as Horatio squeezes through the filthy window. 

Horatio huffs and puffs and barely manages to pull himself up onto the roof behind Matilda.

"What is he doing? Why is he climbing the cottage?" demands the lornling of Ben.

Ben:

”An excellent question,” replies Ben, “Perhaps there is a repair needed on the roof.”  Sticking his head out the window, Ben calls out, “Horatio? Whey did you climb up there by yourself?  Surely there are safer ways to check if the roof needs repairs.  Why don’t you come in here and steady the ladder for me as I change the candles?”

"Huh?.. Oh." He looks embarrassed a moment, then looks at Matilda doubtfully. He whispers, "Please be safe." He looks back at Ben apologetically, "Right, sorry, I'm coming." 

Titaani watches curiously, before the party's plan finally clicks in her brain. "Oh..."

"Little creature," she says to the lornling, "Why don't you check up on Bavlorna's bedroom? I think I heard some thief rifling around in there, searching for something. You're the only one of us who can get rid of them, so you'd best hurry before it's too late!"

Persuasion: 4

(Darn it)

"Who are you all? Who are you all, ordering me around?" The lornling jumps up and down excitedly, upsetting a pitcher of fetid water on the table. "I was just up there! Even if burglars did get upstairs, the light'd eat 'em before they could get her chest two steps outta the room. Let 'em try!"

Titaani goes to backtrack, only for the creature's words to pique her interest. She walks closer to the creature. 

"The light? What's the light?" She asks, her long ears twitching curiously. "Is it some kind of creature under Bavlorna's care? Oh, and what's in her chest? Does Bavlorna have two bedrooms? I thought her room was on this floor."

Ben:

     "Burglars, the LIght, and her chest?" says Ben with confusion as he finishes getting the candles set and trimmed.  "I don't mean to order you around," he says to the small frog, "I just needed help with the candles.  But you make me curious...Is there some kind of hungry light that eats visitors?  That seems a bit dangerous for us...Maybe we should skip cleaning that room, wherever it is."

Matilda carefully made her way across the roof towards the window, digging her knife into the gaps to anchor herself as she moved.  

Sleight of hand: 8

Acrobatics: 5

"Too many questions! Too many questions! Go ask Bavlorna! Such brazen, impudent prying will get you swallowed in short order!" It pauses to look you all over with suspicion.

Horatio climbs back down and into the dining room. 

Matilda is easily able to scale the thatched roof. The window is latched shut and covered with grime, inside and out, completely opaque. She can try to force open the latched window with a Strength check, unless she has thieves’ tools to try to unlock the latched window from the outside.

( Assuming needles, pins and knitting needles don't count as lockpicking equip.)

Matilda wrenches at the window to try and open it.

Strength: 2

Matilda forces open the window with a raspy squeak. 

Within is a bedroom. A ball of light bobs above the rafters, casting shadows over this room, in which the owner’s messy habits are on full display. Rumpled and moldering rugs share floor space with food scraps, stacks of dirty dishes, and tipped-over clay pots whose plants have long since died.

A bed that occupies one corner of the room has a pile of straw in place of a mattress. In the opposite corner stands a squat chest of drawers with a watering can resting atop it. The only other furnishing of note is a stocky wooden chest with a sturdy iron padlock. It sits in another corner between two closed doors.