Vice's body convulses as he fights against the paralyzing poison coursing through his veins, his breaths come in shallow gasps. Slowly, he begins to regain control over his muscles, first his fingers twitch, then vision gradually focuses. He tries to move his lips and lets out a grunt. He sees Juniper’s concerned face above him, and he’s lying on something really soft and warm… He clears his throat and pushes the distracting thoughts out of his mind, finally manages to sit up. He winces as he touches the claw wound on his neck, feeling the sticky warmth of blood on his hand.

"I'm fine," Vice manages to say, forcing a smile at Juniper, hoping that it looks more reassuring than he feels.

He looks over to see Emma crying beside the corpse of the ghoul, and his brows furrow in concern. "What happened with her?"

When Vice’s breathing returns to normal and he regains control of his body, he might catch Juniper lost in thought while staring into his face. She breathes a sigh of relief, her complexion pinkening just slightly, and helps him back upright.

“That looked horrible. Elves cannot be affected that way, I’ve never seen it before. I thought you might…” she trails off, then takes a deep breath and smiles warmly and sincerely at Vice.

Her attention turns to Emma, and she now moves to her, her eyes large and compassionate.

“Emma, what you did was a good thing. Such creatures live — if they live — only to do harm.” She trails off, perhaps intuiting that the tears aren’t really about the ghoul, but something else entirely.

In answer to Vice’s question, she shakes her head, a mute ‘I don’t know.’

Emma shakes her head, but a few more moments pass before she pulls out of her hands - revealing a red face - and wipes away the tears. She shouldn't be wasting everyone's time. They probably want to continue, and she's again slowing them down.

"No, I... it's nothing." It doesn't sound like nothing. She can't even really hold back the tears, but only wipe them with her sleeves as she struggles back on her feet. "Let's continue. I'll be fine." 

But this time, as they'll walk, Emma will be last of the line, keeping a short distance away from the person in front of her. She soon manages to stop the flood of tears, and yet she seems anything other than fine.

With Vice now recovered from his paralysis and Emma ready to move on, the only question remains is which direction to go next.

Juniper, keeping a sympathetic eye on Emma, examines the chamber. Are those elongated wooden tables, or benches or coffins?

Looking back at Emma, emotional after her first kill, Star knew he had the perfect story to tell. But now isn't the time. He knows as well as anyone that you need time with your feelings before you can talk about them. Later then, once they had escaped this place, or when they next slept. Whichever came next. 

For now, he examines this room, tries to figure out what it was for, before the house became this lonely tomb.

Perception: 12

"If it's of any comfort," Kal says to Emma.  "It was already dead.  You just laid it back to rest."   He then helps Star search the room.

(I realise now I could have just said I was Helping Juniper, but as we're here I'll roll the Advantage roll for Kal's Help.)

11

Juniper checks out the wooden objects in the room and realises that these are crudely made beds. They don't look too comfortable to sleep on.

Star looks around the room but finds nothing else of interest. With the wooden beds and table, it seems that this room was used as makeshift sleeping quarters. However, with the room being spartan, it seems that whoever slept here was not of great importance to the family that lived in the mansion above ground.

Emma doesn't answer. She doesn't fully understand what Kal means - already dead? She does understand he's trying to comfort her, but she can't force herself to smile right now, nor tell them what's really wrong. That will only lead to some questions she was reluctant to answer at the moment. She'll have to tell them eventually, but if possible, it's best saved for after they're out of this place. At least then, if they cease travelling together, she won't be stuck in some haunted house.

While the others search the room, Emma waits to see what they find, or for when they continue onwards. To her, the only thing she'd like to find is the exit door, and that wouldn't be hidden under one of the beds, surely.

“Let’s get moving again before more of those things show up.” Vice says. Seeing there’s no more items of interest in the room, he begins to move towards south into the next one.

Perception: 13 

(Moving south isn't going to get you anywhere, you can either go east back the way you came, or head west.)

Quote from TheBritGeek >>

The table's surface is scratch and stained. However, from here, Juniper can see a slender hallway crawling with insects leads to a short set of stairs. Also, the stench of rot taints the air. Something shuffles about in one of the nearby alcoves that lines the room;  a snarling in a guttural language better left unknown by the men of this world. It's a ghoul.

 (Stairs are in this room.)

Juniper moves toward the short set of stairs and peers down them, keeping within sight of the others. 

(The only stairs are to the east and west.)

Juniper heads west to the stairs. Here she finds a slender corridor crawling with insects.

Insects are certainly no cause for alarm for Juniper. One slender eyebrow quirks as she wonders what has attracted them to this hallway and tries to discern whether they represent danger (OOC: Nature: 14).

She calls quietly over her shoulder, “a stairway down,” but allows no one pass her until she gets a read on the bugs. 

Kal follows Juniper's voice down the stairs, stopping cold with a grimace when he sees the the bugs crawling over the corridor.

"Any chance someone can do something about those?" he asks.

Juniper examines the bugs and confirms they are normal bugs that have decided to infest this part of the underground tunnel system.

“Okay, let’s go,” Juniper nods to the others and tries to lead a way forward which avoids as much bug carnage as possible.

She is also trying to be quiet. 

(Stealth: 22)

Kal waits to see how the bugs react to Juniper's passage before following himself if nothing goes wrong.

Stealth: 18