@Kal(VanderLegion) and @Star(EMIW)

Kal leaves Star, standing there looking at the remain's of the nursemaid with his key in hand, to find the others back on the first floor. Like the others, Kal notices a definite change in the atmosphere in the attic and third floor between the first and second floors. The first two floors are well-lit and well-kept, whilst the third floor and attic are dusty and dark. He finds the group in the kitchen.

@Juniper(DandDSince1973), @Vice(WhiteByakko) and Emma (FireCat5)

After her quick investigation, Juniper returns to the kitchen to inform Vice and Emma what she has discovered. Three are shortly joined by Kal on his arrival to the kitchen. The group then agrees to explore the nearest door to the kitchen door, which is the door that runs perpendicular to kitchen door and to the right when leaving the kitchen.

With Juniper leading the way, a dining room is found behind the door. A crystal chandelier glitters above the dining room, watching over eight empty chairs. The chairs are high-backed and cushioned with velvet, which matches the silken drapes covering the windows. Like the main hall, the walls are ornately carved with elegant images of deer flitting among ancient trees. The table is set, all silverware polished to a dazzling shine. A painting of an alpine vale is mounted above the unlit fireplace. A tapestry depicting nobles hunting wolves on horseback hangs from the wall.

Emma enters after Juniper, then circles around the table, puzzled. "Mr Durst, Mrs Durst," she lays her hand momentarily on each chair as she passes around and calls a name. "Thorn, Rose... Walter?" It didn't seem fitting for a baby, but someone had to sit in the chair. She hesitates for a moment before resuming. "The maid? The... dog?" As unlikely as it would seem for a dog to sit with everyone at the table, there was nobody else she could think of. Then, lastly, she completes the circle and stands by the last chair. "One, two, three [...] seven. Even with Walter, the maid and the dog, I can only count seven. Who dines in this chair? The armour?"

Emma picks up one of the plates carrying the food, brings it up to her nose and smells it, trying to determine whether it was cooked recently or has been lying here for a significant while. Then, she carefully places the plate back where it was on the table. "Who cooks their food, sets a table and then abandons it like that? That's just wronging the food." In a way, this matter seems to disturb Emma more than anything else about this house. 

Seeing the food setout on the table of eight empty chairs, Vice feels cold eeriness creeping up the back of his neck. He crosses his arms in front of his chest, not wanting to touch any of it, despite him being hungry just a minute ago. "Even we say there are people living here, this is weird." Who would set up the table but leave the food untouched? At least this explains how Lancelot gets fed everyday. 

"Maybe this is one of those enchanted houses." Vice muses, "Self-cleaning, meals magically appearing on the table. Like in the tales." 

Considering how tired I am, the comfort and generosity of such a fine meal, prepared by and for no one, is a strange and chilling statement. Someone sees us, knows how tired we are, and…

“They’re toying with us. Whoever they are. The harpsichord, this…meal, the locked door, the fog.”

Juniper glances around the room and is relieved to see Vice’s reaction.

This is crazy. But as long as someone else thinks it’s crazy too, I can manage. 

Juniper turns to Kal “Where is Star?”

Her voice is small, distant, flat. 

"Upstairs in the attic still I guess.  I assumed he'd follow me when I came downstairs."

He looks at the others and takes in the room, before explaining what he found.

"I found the remains of the nursemaid up there in a chest.  Looked like they'd been there a long time, it was just a skeleton at this point.  Which leads me to believe the kids outside weren't simply what they appeared to be either."

"Oh, and Star found a key in one of the rooms up there.  Don't know what to yet.

Juniper tries to put on a brave face, answering Vice’s theory non-commitally. “Yeah, maybe.” She smiles weakly, before her guarded expression returns as Kal relates his macabre discovery. 

“Come on.” She leads the way out of the dining room, trying not to look at the food, and walks to the next unopened door. To the basement perhaps? Is it locked?

Juniper leaves the dinning room, and moves to the next closest door. Like the other doors, this door is unlocked. However, when Juniper opens the door, she finds a cloakroom with several black coats hanging from hooks. A top hat sits on a high shelf.

[Sorry all, I've been feeling really rough over the weekend, I haven't looked at DDB in days.]

Star looks over the bones. She really should be buried properly. Using the bedsheet she lies in, he parcels the skeleton up as carefully as possible, and carries her down the stairs.

Kal was right that they couldn't very well carry her around with them, but he could leave her remains by the front door. It would save having to climb back up to the attic later on. 

As he passes the landing which leads into the study and the secret room, Star wonders about bringing down the other remains. At least those were only one floor up. He would leave them for now.

Reaching the ground floor he deposits the wrapped skeleton by the front door. Seeing the open door to the dining room, Star follows the group, almost bumping into them as they leave.

"What a strange place this is!" he comments. "What have you found in these rooms?"

“Hey,” Vice follows beside with Juniper, noticing the young elf’s sudden quiet and withdrawn. He should probably be more unsettled by the magically appearing food himself, though he tamps down the gnawing, unease feeling inside him. Just like he always does when he’s left home alone at night, when the dreams of Shadowfell came to him, when the monsters under his bed became real. At least he’s not alone now. “Don’t worry, we’ll burn this house down and sleep with the wolves if we have to.”

“Someone cooked a nice, hearty meal for us.” Vice says to Star, the tabaxi at least seems to still have cheerful energy. The half-elf’s lips lifts in a wry smile. “Thoughts?”

(EMIW, glad you’re feeling better.)

Juniper’s response to Vice’s greeting is a tired half-smile. “Hey.” Bags are staring to swell under her eyes, and her face is drawn in concern.

The young druid’s eyes flick over to Star, registering his return with half-hearted relief before they circle slowly back to the cloakroom. “Maybe there’s a key to the front door?,” she says, holding Vice’s gaze momentarily, before searching the closet. In particular, any pockets in the cloaks, or hidden in a hat band.

Quote from WhiteByakko >>

"Someone cooked a nice, hearty meal for us.” Vice says to Star, the tabaxi at least seems to still have cheerful energy. The half-elf’s lips lifts in a wry smile. “Thoughts?”

Star smiles and wags a finger at Vice. "My thoughts are that you are telling me a story. Also, that nothing in this house is what it seems, except for the bodies." He gestures to the bedsheet by the front door.

"I do wonder... The nursemaid's spirit is stuck, reliving times long gone. Perhaps the house is the same. Food is prepared, the house is clean. It does not move in time. I have heard stories of such cursed places in Far Payit, deep in the jungle, dwellings of tragedy where the catch of a hunt is hanging and does not rot, and the sound of footfall is heard though no one treads the ground to make it. Shall I try this key on the front door?" He holds aloft the iron key he had found, abruptly changing topic.

Juniper checks the pockets in the coats. She doesn't find a key, but she does find a small, weightless stone block, a tiny sketch portrait of a goblin, and a four-leaf clover pressed inside a book discussing manners and etiquette.

Vice raises an eyebrow as Star tells the similar event in the jungles of Far Payit. It does make some sort of sense… “There’s cursed stories all over the world, isn’t there.” He says lowly, though he doesn’t like the idea of himself being in one.

“Yes, let’s try the key.” Vice says, with a sigh of relief, and manages a small smile. There’s some hope in it. You never know which key is going to open the lock.

It happens almost without her having to think. “Hello, little one,” Juniper whispers as she opens the etiquette book’s pages and discovers the four-leaf clover. The tiny leaf responds to her words and breath, brightening and greening, its vessels filling magically with moisture as it returns to life (druidcraft). She delicately takes the stem and places it safely in a pouch.

“I’ll find a place for you when we get outside.” And correction: three living things in this accursed house, not just two. 

She closes the closet and looks for another door.

Juniper then opens the next door, only to find that this door opens back into the dining room.

Moving quickly across the hall, Juniper opens the opposite door. Out from the darkness loom wolves, their snarls frozen forever. A stag's head is mounted above the unlit fireplace. Fine chairs draped in furs face the hearth, with a cask of wine and a pipe rack on the table between them, the goblets dry and empty, the candelabrum gleaming in the light. The wax has melted over, leaving little white islands on the table. Cabinets line the walls. A chandelier hangs over a cloth-covered table in one darkened corner of the room.

((Does the key open the front door?))

((Agree, Star will try the key in the front door, should have said.))

Star tries the key in the front door but it doesn't fit.

“We can rest in here,” Juniper remarks as she opens the door to the parlor, before she enters the final room in the southeast corner.  What does it contain?

Are there any doors left unopened? Any way down to an alleged basement?

(Sorry, the door to the southeast is the entrance. There are no doors left unopened, and there's no apparent way down to the basement. As a hint for the key, you've already encountered where it fits, which was locked.)