As she is hugged, Juniper feels the cold touch of Rose's spirit. For a fleeting moment Juniper feels something touch her mind, but she manages to resist it and Rose breaks the hug.

Vice too feels Thorn's ghostly presence, but he too resists the effect on his mind. Then Thorn steps away and hugs his sister instead.

"Yes," Star says, agreeing with the suggestion of a burial. "We can bury them next to the maid." He makes to follow Juniper and Vice from the room "I have already..." Then pauses as the child spirits make their exclamations and move to hug the other two. He sees the looks on their faces as something in the ghosts' touch affects them. "What happened? Are you both alright?"

Juniper’s eyes shoot open for a moment, as if a static shock had passed from Rose to her.

“I’m all right,” she answers Star, as a tear jets down one cheek.

She exchanges a look with Vice, then leaves the room and walks toward the secret door to the spiral staircase to the basement.

As Thorn's spirit briefly touches Vice, he feels a flood of memories from a time long ago. The sweet taste of candy and cereal in his mouth, the soft fur of his beloved Teddy bear, and playing with Rose as they decorated the dollhouse together and waited for their parents to return. But then, like a sudden gust of wind, the memories vanished and Vice was back in his own body.

He looks down at the children, couldn’t help but remember when he was little, left alone in the house, waiting for his father to come back. The monster under the bed was as real to him as the monster in the basement.

“No… I’m fine.” Vice shakes his head, trying to push these thoughts aside. But his head in somewhere else. He takes a knee in front of the children, reaches for them but touches air. “We’re not leaving you. We’ll take care of the monster in the basement, and we’ll put your bodies to rest. You won’t be alone again.”

With a last, reassuring look at the children, Vice stands up and follows Juniper up the stairs. But even as he moves forward, his heart aches with the pain of his own past, and the knowledge that these innocent children have suffered in ways that he could never imagine. 

Heading to the secret door, Juniper opens it to find a tight staircase leading only down into darkness. Cobwebs and dust blanket the walls and the steps down and down into the depths of the house the staircase reaches. It looks like this will be the way to the house's basement. What lies down there yet remains a mystery. Thorn and Rose believe that there is a monster down there. However, findings in the house suggest that the basement was used for more than just storing wine. With no other way of escaping the house, descending the staircase looks to be the only way to go. Taking a moment to prepare, the group feels a mixture of surging emotions.

(You now gain 2nd level.)

(did I see anything of note in the dollhouse?)

Dim light will have to do for now, Juniper thinks.

The pitch blackness resolves into shades of gray, thanks to the druid’s elven heritage. Enough visual information for her to slowly and quietly descend the stairs, ears perked, eyes peering over her raised shield, or behind it down to see her feet taking the cobwebbed and dusty steps one by one.

After descending one story, she stops. Are the others coming too?

Stealth: 13

Emma is very confused, so she just keeps silent. Unless the children just forgot meeting them last night, who did they talk to? Because she definitely remembers talking to someone who looked like them. But then again, in this house, maybe that too is part of the ordinary.

She wouldn't even notice anything unless she saw a tear on Juniper's face as she leaves the room. And, that too, she would probably not think much of. People's eyes water, sometimes, even without a good reason. What did Star notice, or was he simply worried about someone touching a ghost - a reasonable concern, no doubt. Well, whatever it was or wasn't, the others claimed to be okay. As they leave the room, Emma tries to cheer the children up, at least a bit, before hurrying after the others. "Don't worry, they know what they're doing. Even if there still is a monster down there, I'm sure they'll be able to deal with it." Or was she just trying to cheer herself up, knowing she was following them into the heart of danger - if there was any. "Besides, you can leave the room now. The door is open. You can go wherever you want." For a brief moment, Emma wonders where the maid disappeared to. Has she left the house, perhaps?

Hurrying after everyone, Emma follows them until they start descending into the darkness. Following Juniper's example, she takes her shield and dons it, but then stops at the top of the stairs. She wouldn't think much of it if Juniper didn't seem like she was intentionally walking slowly, quietly. Was she trying to avoid drawing attention if a monster truly resides down there? That would make sense. But in that case... "Umm," she whispers, "should I stay up here? I mean, I won't be much help anyway, but if you go down without a light, I'll be able to avoid falling down the stairs, at best. I won't see as well as you might, down there."

(The most significant thing to find in the dollhouse was the secret door.)

Juniper makes it down one flight of the staircase without making a sound.

Vice will cast goodberry before they go downstairs. He deftly places them in his pouch on his belt, knowing that they may prove useful later. Then, realizing Emma is hesitating at the top of stairs, he turns to her and pauses, not sure if leaving the guildwoman by herself is a good idea. On the other hand, they are going down to find a monster, so it might be safer for her to stay upstairs. "Are you sure?" 

At that moment, Lancelot comes up the stairs into the attic. He sniffs around momentarily before following the group's scent to the storage room with the secret door. Once he has found everyone, he gives a happy bark and starts wagging his tail.

While Juniper waits for the others, she opens her senses to the sounds and smells of her environment. Is there an answer to Lancelot’s hello from below? A shifting of claw against stone? The exhalation of noxious breath caused by a monstrous yawn as a devil stirs from slumber? A shifting of air pressure when some enormous beast extends like a shadow to block the base of the stairway?

Perception: 23

Kal follows the others down the staircase towards the basement, straining to listen for any sounds from the basement as they approach.  As they reach the first floor level on the secret staircase, he begins chanting softly and focuses on spreading out his awareness and senses to feel for the presence of good or evil entities nearby.

(Cast Detect Evil and Good)

Vice's lips curve upward as he spots Lancelot following them closely. "Hey Lancelot," he says quietly. "You want to come along? Do you want to help the children too?" It would probably be safer is Lancelot stays upstairs, but it’s his house too after all, and Vice would have the dog make his own decision.

As they descend the stairs, Vice keeps an eye out for danger and keeps his ears open, listening for any suspicious sounds. His grey eyes faintly glow in the dim light, outlining the environment in faded shades of grey.

"We should've brought a light," The half-elf whispers, "It's hard to see anything down here. Plus, I'm sure the monster could see in the dark too."

From somewhere down in the basement, Juniper hears the sound of voices. However, the voices are too quiet for the moment to make out very well.

Kal descends the first flight of stairs to catch up with Juniper before casting his spell. His senses open up, but he fails to detect any aberration, celestial, elemental, fey, fiend or undead.

"I can see just fine," Kal comments without thinking in response to Vice, his focus still on his ongoing spell more than on what the other man was actually saying. 

"I don't know if there's a monster or not, but I don't sense any aberrations, celestials, elementals, fey, fiends, or undead so far," he whispers to the group as they continue walking.  

(Picked up Devil's Sight eldritch invocation as part of leveling up.  And Detect Good and Evil lasts 10 minutes, so Kal continues concentrating on it as they descend the rest of the way.  Just in case there is something there that just can't be detected yet through the barriers between us.  If I detect anything at any point, I'll warn the group)

“Shh,” Juniper, in the lead, whispers. “I hear voices at the bottom of the stairs. We need to stay together and Emma and Lancelot need light. Do you know that spell?,” she asks Kal. If he doesn’t she asks the person in back (Kal, I assume, on this narrow winding staircase) to ask Star if he can cast it. If Star can’t either, “tell Emma to take a lantern or torch and follow just behind us.”

She waits until the party is lined up and ready to move as one before continuing down the stairs.

“Hmm.” Vice muses Kal says he could see just fine in the dark. Thinking about it he murmurs to himself, “That’d be pretty handy.”

“Hey, Star,” Vice says, his voice lowering to a conspiratorial whisper, “Do you have -“ He raises both hands and wiggles the fingers as if they are holding and manipulating small balls of light in the air. “- you know, that thing?”