Juniper’s eyes turn rather slowly to Vice, and she fights the smile that wants to warm her face. Wrong place, wrong time, wrong everything, girl. Focus. 

”Thank you,” she says tentatively. When Vice remarks about Strahd and Star responds, a corner of her lip curls up, enjoying the dark humor and also relieved that she wouldn’t have to either explain herself carefully or avoid sarcasm altogether around the tabaxi.

She now notices that Emma has left and nods agreement to Star and Vice, but doesn’t comment regarding the guild woman’s behavior. Something is definitely up with Emma, but that’s true about the tabaxi too. Juniper had never met one before, and it seemed that they looked at life from a different perspective. 

Vice smiles back at Juniper, gratified that his explanation didn’t make it worse. And he finds the humour in Star’s proclamation lightens the tenseness at discovering the dark letter. He pats the tabaxi’s shoulder amicably, “You got it, buddy.”

“Okay, let’s go get Walter.” Vice says to the others, deciding on the plan. He hands the letter back to Juniper so they could show Emma when they find her, and leads the group upstairs together.

Despite the clear inability to keep the house clean, the mother was with her baby - at least it sounded like that - and so Emma had no reason to be in the house, actually. Not anymore. She can tell the kids outside that their mother cares for their baby brother.

Emma backs away from the door, out to the hall with the strange suit of armour. She can go down and avoid the monster-keeping-parents. 

On her way down, Emma will (I assume) encounter everyone else. So they finally left the books. "The baby is with their mother. The whole place is dusty and cobwebbed but other than that there's no reason to worry, I think. Is it finally time we find an exit, then a place to sleep and something to eat?" Emma asks in hope they don't plan on searching any other rooms for the residents of this strange house with hidden rooms and an entire floor that seems like it was never cleaned... not to mention monsters in the basement and children locked outside.

Juniper nods in agreement with Vice and smiles at the camaraderie he so easily shares with Star. She could certainly have been stuck with worse companions. Although just being alone also has its advantages. But it’s nice being with people again. Her eyes dwell on Vice as this thought occurs to her. 

The young druid is relieved to see Emma coming down the stairs, and is at first encouraged to think her foray in this strange house might be near an end. She asks, slightly confused, “Wouldn’t she tell you how to get out of here? The mother? You… asked her, right?”

"Perhaps she has a key for the front door," agrees Star. "Also, there is a dead body in her hidden library, we should probably tell her."

"I... no. We're not supposed to be here, right? What if she thinks we're thieves?" Emma defends. "I don't want to get on the wrong side of parents who can keep a monster in their basement." But this is such a peculiar situation for Emma. She had never experienced anything like it. But as far as she knows, even if the front door got stuck, there's surely a back door somewhere, or a window if it comes to that.

"A dead body!" Emma exclaims. How can he say that so matter-of-factly? Are dead bodies common for his kind? "All the more a good reason to leave, else they'll think we have something to do with that!" Emma lowers her voice, fearing she might alert the residents of the house. "Which... we don't, right?"

Juniper’s expression falls as Emma speaks. The young druid feels the long night catching up with her, the need for trancing having been too long ignored already. 

“Emma, you should look at this. It was in the — not a dead body exactly — the skeleton’s hand. I wouldn’t worry about drawing blame, it had already been dead a long time before today.” She hands the guildwoman the letter.

“It’s not… good news. Long story short, we think there may be a torture room or sacrificial altar downstairs — no really, in this house — overseen by the parents. There could be others trapped there right now.”

The train of thought continues but Juniper is unwilling to give voice to the terrifying idea which occurs to her. What if those victims are there because the children lured them inside?

Kal watches Emma with a somewhat confused look on his face.

"You....do remember that we can't get out, don't you?" he asks.  "It's not as easy as simply deciding to leave.  We couldn't get the door open."

"Did you see what the woman look like?" Vice asks Emma as she reads the letter, "Anyway, not Mrs. Durst. The letter says the master of the house cheated with another woman and had a son. I don't think the children are safe in this house. Not with... whatever that's going on in the basement. Human sacrifice, torture room. We think that's the monster Rose and Thorn heard."

"Do you think the mother is in league with the Dursts and their evil rituals, or she is another victim they trapped? If you think she's harmless... maybe we could try and talk to her." 

Bodies, skeletons, torture rooms and human sacrifices... Emma would most likely wholly freak out if she weren't so tired. Right now, however, the meanings of these words somewhat elude her. Not that she doesn't understand, but it's all so absurd she cannot believe any of it. Even if she were there herself, it wasn't half as believable as some of the scary stories she had heard in the past, and Emma was easily scared by those too. So, while she is fearful and on edge, she is not terrified.

"I don't understand, what do you offer then? How can you read all this and wish to stay here? You don't give up on a recipe just because the dish failed once. If the door's jammed then maybe we need to apply some force, or just find another door, or a window we can climb down from." Emma searches the others' faces for a look of agreement or understanding. "We didn't even try..."

On the other hand, these people were different. If the Vitsani were to be believed, they were supposed to be heroes, and if not... their reaction to the wolves tonight were anything but ordinary. Emma, however, was no hero. She knew she is here only by mistake. Maybe there was some unbridgeable gap between the ways they viewed the world. Or maybe it was just a Human thing, which only Emma could relate to. Even if they all walked on two legs, had similar physiques and spoke the same language, who's to say they're truly the same? "She... I didn't see her. I heard her trying to calm the crying baby down. She sang a lullaby, then pleaded the baby to stop crying. There's nothing else I can say."

Juniper listens to Emma with growing concern, then responds in an even undertone. “Emma. You were the first person in here and now you’re asking,  Why are we in here? Listen, I’m not ready to leave yet. I’m not convinced that baby is safe. I am getting conflicting information, from the children outside, from the letter, from that painting, and from you.

“This house feels wrong in every way, and moment by moment it feels worse, like a bad dream which won’t end. You couldn’t be more right. There’s a mystery here — either a lie from beginning to end, or a veil covering some lurking evil. If it were just me, I couldn’t get out of here quick enough. But as far as I know there may be three children here in this building in great need right now. I can’t. I want to speak to that mother myself — or the father — and I want some real answers. Okay? Is that insane?”

Vice's grey eyes looks over at Juniper, seemingly awed that there is such passion and determination in the elf's voice, her eyes filled with genuine concern for the children. "No, that's not insane at all." He whispers.

He turns to the guildswoman. He understands her hesitation, she just seemed to be someone who's been dragged out of her ordinary life and suddenly surrounded by weird, frightening things. He doesn't want to pressure her if she wants to leave. "You cannot say you think the children will be safe here after reading that letter. At least let us figure out what's going on, you don't have to come with us." 

"I... just came in to check on the baby. It may have been impulsive, but that's all. Then, when the door closed on us, I got scared. I wanted to either regret it and get out or go up there immediately and at least do what I first intended." Emma tries to defend herself, but she's not arguing. "But you started looking through people's rooms, through their books, their letters." Emma waves the letter in front of her to emphasize her words further, but her voice gets smaller and smaller as she speaks. She feels like a child who is being reprimanded by their parents after they've done something wrong. "To me, it seemed you have some other reason to be here. That's why I asked."

Emma listens to what the others have to say. They weren't wrong about the children, perhaps, but they seem to be missing something important. Again, it might just be Emma's different experiences, but she still cannot ignore them. "But what can you do? If the parents truly are... what the letter describes." Emma's voice, by now, is very small. "Do you think they'll stop if you just talk to them? Or, perhaps, are you thinking about taking the children away? Even if the parents are twice as horrible as this letter depicts, the children here seem unharmed, they have food, the safety of walls and a bed to sleep on. What have we to offer them? We're just a group of strangers in a foreign land. We've only been here tonight and already we've been chased by abnormal wolves. It's the middle of the night and we've been walking for hours without sleep or a break to eat. And if the baby needs nursing... I know I can't." Perhaps it wasn't a problem for other races, or maybe Juniper has just recently had a miscarriage. Everything was possible, but Emma doesn't say that. "Don't throw them out of the pan and into the fire."

"Um." Vice clears his throat when Emma mentions nursing. That thought hasn't crossed his mind at all, and he feels kind of embarrassed for not thinking of it. He blushes a little. "Maybe there's baby food around. That's why we need to talk to the mother. She has to care about her child, right? What if she doesn't know anything about the evil rituals going on with Mr. Durst? If we show her the letter, she might be willing to help us." Though as he says this, he knows he's projecting. Did his mother know the curse she would place on him when she birthed him, or she knew and just didn't care? Does she even remember him?

"At least we can tell her the two children are outside alone in the mist, so she can open the door to let them in." Vice says, trying to find the middle ground, "We don't have to say anything about the letter." 

Juniper shakes her head slightly as Emma speaks, thinking that’s how young people think, black and white, it’s just something she’ll have to grow out of.

Her eyes slide gratefully to Vice for trying to be sensible, and she jumps in, nodding, when he finishes.

“Who said anything about taking children away?,” she asks Emma, in a reasoning tone, but also including the others. “No stranger’s kid is latching onto me, no. That’s not what I’m saying. I want to talk to the mother. Talk. And figure this out with her. Including the magic mist, the backwards-locking door, the disappearing harpsichord player, the hidden closet and this letter. Or not figure it out, maybe it’s all a mystery to her too, I won’t know until I ask. But I’m not jumping to conclusions and trying to make decisions based on things I don’t know.”

She continues, turning back to  the guilds woman with concern, “let’s just stay together and figure this out together, ok?”

If the others are willing, she heads up the stairs with the others to find the mother. 

Juniper heads up the red marble staircase to find herself standing on the house's third floor. As with Emma before her, Juniper cannot help but notice the sudden change in the atmosphere compared to the previously visited areas of the house. Up here, the air is choked with dust, and cobwebs are abundant. In front of Juniper is the suit of armour that stands vigilant, watching the balcony. Up here, Juniper can hear the cries of an infant. A cry that couldn't be heard on the second floor.

As Juniper stands there momentarily, Lancelot arrives on the landing just behind her. The dog seems a little less sure of himself on this floor. He sticks to close to Juniper and not wondering around the house following scents.

Juniper notes the sound of the baby crying. She stops at the top of the stairs, one hand signaling for the others to join her but not not to pass her. The young druid kneels, puts an arm around Lancelot to hold him in place. Studies the floor and the rug. 

A corner of the rug is turned up. No one has fixed it. Is the turned up bottom corner covered in dust like everything else? In other words has it been turned up for a long time? Are there footprints or dog footprints in the dust on the landing.

Emma nods silently. She didn't fully understand what Juniper wished to achieve, nor did she whole-heartedly agree with what she did understand, but... at least Vice's suggestion made sense, in theory. She was pretty sure the mother knew where her children are. Still, just talking can't harm, hopefully.

Emma climbs just behind Juniper. "Over here," she guides to the same door she opened before, then to the door she listened through. Juniper could hear for herself, so there was no use explaining. Emma stands by the door, allowing the others to open and enter through without blocking their way.

(@DandDSince1973, make a Wisdom(Investigation) check.)

(She has +0 for investigation. Can this be tracking and thus Survival, which she has +4? Also can she pull someone down to help her look? We all have 1 level of exhaustion, is this at disadvantage? Rolling twice with no bonuses to cover contingencies:

First Roll: 2

Second Roll: 9

Woohoo. Get this girl to a casino.)