Everasil - Game thread

The room of those haflings the massive blonde bearded warrior manages to conclude with a relieved nod before turning to check behind the next door in the corridor.

Finding nothing else of immediate interest downstairs, Ember paces by the staircase once. Then twice. Then a third time. Torn between staying near the light of the fire and being with her friends, she takes a deep breath in preparation of her ascent. Aggie pops out from her scarf again and presses his nose to her temple, where he chirps something only his little wizard can understand. 

"Oh! That's a good idea, Aggie!" she whispers, raising the candle stick up in front of her face. She stares, unblinking, into the flame's warm glow, the fire reflected in her amber eyes. Then the mirrored flame takes on a life of its own, swirling and flickering around her irises. When she looks away, her surroundings are lit almost as though through thermal vision, but instead of heat, the colored signatures indicate magic. 

She takes a cursory glance around the room and down the corridor and then, should she see nothing of interest, very slowly makes her way up the stairs, humming a soft, comforting tune to herself all the while. 

When Ozyre notices the humming that's making its way up the stairs, he's pulled out of his pondering of the strange circumstance and leaves the room to cut off Ember before she has a chance to peek at something she doesn't want to see. Before she can fully react, he bombards her with Gnomish. "[Hey! Hi! Hello! So, um... there's some bad news. There are people in this room. Which would be good news, except the people aren't doing great. And they haven't been doing great for a few months. And they're probably not going to get better. Because they're kinda sorta logymnify (no literal translation, vaguely implies "I'll see you again" but with a dash of melancholy). So maybe you don't want to go into that room because it's not a very good thing to see. And it smells, to be honest. I don't even want to go into that room. So we're staying out of that room now. Is that okay? Do you have any questions? Do you need some support?]"

Ember's eyes, full of dancing flames, go wide and flick from Ozyre to the open doorway, then back again. She thinks of the picture downstairs on the mantle and her expression crumbles. Logymnify... the same word Grandpa had used for her family. 

"They're dead," she states, processing his meaning. Her lower lip quivers before she sniffs and heaves a great exhale, as though expelling all the emotions cluttered around her heart. She makes a valiant effort at being brave and it almost seems to stick, but the barest tremble of her chin starts up again. "I should look. I can see magic right now. It could have been magic that--" her lips purse together, catching the words behind them. After another deep breath, she summons a smile and nods her head resolutely. "Adventurers have to be brave."  

Noticing Ember coming up the stairs and on her way to enter the room with the grisly scene, Thurodim's eyes goes wide with worry and the massive blonde bearded warrior turns and effortlessly grabs the girl, lifting her up to sit on his strong arm, facing him. "Yes they do, but save your bravery for when it is really needed girl." He says, more harshly than intended, then taking a deep breath before speaking much more calmly. "Any lingering witchcraft on them will still be there tomorrow. Today we see to the living." He says with a more gentle voice than would be expected.

“See to the living,” Ember echoes thoughtfully. She looks down at Ozyre from her high perch then, like a slippery noodle, wiggles back down to the floor. She approaches the gnome and wraps her arms around his neck, giving him the biggest bear hug she can manage over his armor. “[Thank you, teaghlacha (also a word with no literal translation, but one of the many distinctions of love in the Gnomish language, this one a familial bond for those not of the same blood, essentially ‘my kin made of the same clay but not from the same mold’).]” 

She then climbs back up the massive warrior to sit once more, using his abs like steps to scramble over his shoulder and cling to his back so he has both hands free, the whole maneuver quite a comical display. She leans up to lightly headbutt Big Man’s ear and smiles, feeling wholly safe and secure. “The living!” she repeats once more then holds her candlestick out over his shoulder towards the dark corridor . 

Thurodim seems relieved that Ember is clinging to his back rather than witnessing the grisly scene in the next room. Guided now by the light of her candlestick, he opens the next door in the corridor and peers inside, ready to close it again if it reeked of death.

Prerception: 22

The party now all reunited on the second floor, they decided to move to the other end of the corridor. 

Ember, your magic-sensing eyes don’t notice any particular traces of magic, save maybe for the flame of your candlestick which you magically enhanced, and your trusty rodent familiar, Aggie.

The first door you open is the room oriented towards the back of the house. This is a much larger room than the previous two. You first see a large double bed at the back of the room, which to your relief, is also empty. However, it hasn’t been remade. Looking further in, you notice that there is also a study desk with books and paper piled up. Around this desk, you see multiple shelves containing books. Sort of like a miniature library. This room must have belong to someone important in this household. 

Thurodim, with that roll, you even manage to catch the ever so faint smell of decay coming from the other unexplored room. Your companions seem unaware of it…for now.

Thurodim gently sets Ember down on the floor in the room with all the books. He was admittedly curious to see if there was any poetry around, but now he had more important things to handle. "You go ahead and look around in here, I will just take a peek into the last room, I'll be quick." He says firmly but with a reassuring smile to the others, then as soon as they have their attention on the books he would bring his torch and peek inside the last room, mostly to confirm his fears.

Perception: 10

Before Ember hopped back up onto her massive blonde bearded perch, Ozyre made sure to give her a great big squeeze in return. His tiny magic muscles threatened to crush her before he remembered his own artificial strength and pulled back a bit.

When the next room is revealed, Ozyre lights up. "Oh, books! Much more pleasant!" He hops over to the desk, inspecting the papers and the reading materials on and around it, looking for any clues or any books he's familiar with.

Investigation: 8 (6 + 2)

"Okay!" Like a child released in a toy store, Ember doesn't question the intended distraction. The damp little wizard scurries after Ozyre to search the desk and mini library, passing anything of interest to the librarian warrior (and [Sound of Cork Popping] if he comes in as well). 

((Investigation: 17))

Meanwhile, Aggie hops down from his charge and skitters after Thurodim. Just as Ember had, he climbs his way up to the barbarian's shoulder and perches there like a vigilant--and furry--gargoyle. 

((If it's not too late, can Aggie assist with Thurodim's Perception check?))

[Sound of Cork Popping] also enthusiastically strides toward the desk of books, his clawed toes clik-clakking across the wooden floorboards.  He doesn't push, standing taller than the other two.  He peeks his bird head over and around their shoulders to eye the titles and literature on the desk and nearby shelves.

Initially he is concerned with any books on local plant or animal life, but chastens himself with a reminder that any journal or log would be more helpful to the matter at hand.

Ember, Sound of Cork Popping and Ozyre walk into the larger room, all excited at the prospect of books. Ozyre, in your search of the study desk, you uncover basic notes keeping track of stocks of food. You learn that in addition to the small apple orchard, they little farmstead was attempting to grow wheat, barley and other grains. There are a couple of tomes detailing certain agricultural practices, that you believe could maybe interest you avian friend.

Ember, you manage to find a few more novels like the ones in the living room downstairs. While you find this disappointing at first, you soon uncover a book filled with numbers and dates, much like the one you’ve found in Brugg’s office back at the Wailing Wench. You deduce that this might be a ledger. You then turn your attention to the bookshelves, which contain a handful of imperial history books, cook books and…what’s this? You see a few used books of arcane theory and sorcery studies. What could a simple farmer need to know about the arcane?

Sound of Cork Popping, as you peer over Ozyre’s shoulder, you catch a glimpse of a neatly suede-covered book with the initials B.W. You pick it up and begin riffling through its pages, only to realize that this is a journal. The pages are covered with written descriptions of the author’s observations, thoughts, feelings, all organized in chronological order.

Thurodim, as you open the door, you feel something crawling up your leg. You seize up, ready to react against a possible threat, until you realize it’s only Aggie, Ember’s squirrel companion. It rests on your shoulder, looking between you and room, trying to communicate that it wants to accompany you. This room is of comparable size to the one with the two child-sized bed. It contains the same set of furnitures and a single-person bed. It has a small window with a view of the front of the house, where you see the rain has not let up since your arrival. Stepping closer to the bed, the smell of decay gets stronger. Aggie tries to cover its little snout with its paws as you pull the sheets and uncover the grisly sight you feared. A third body, looking similarly emaciated and pallid. This one is of a human man, early twenties to your best guess, with brown hair.

Ember passes the far-less-interesting ledger to Ozyre then tilts her head sideways to better read the book spines. She pauses briefly at the cookbooks, curious if they had anything for root vegetables like the gnome mentioned, but then comes to the arcana books. "Hey, hey! Look at these! They look like Grandpa's books," she announces, then pulls them from the shelf and makes herself a place on the floor to open and inspect them. "Buuuttt, why does he have them? I thought only the primal magics druids use were good for farming. Not sorcery." 

The massive blonde bearded warrior nods and smiles calmly as the squirrel scurries up his body to perch on his muscled shoulder. "Just don't tell Ember." He sternly tells Aggie as he checks under the sheets. One more body, the young man from the painting downstairs. That would only leave Bart himself unaccounted for. Thurodim does not spend more time than necessary in this room of death and decay, instead pulling back the bedsheet and closing the door behind him as he moves back to the others. "Found anything?" He asks as he returns to the room with the many books.

Ozyre puts all of the books he finds on the nature of the area into a neat pile for [Sound of Cork Popping]. Alphabetical order, of course. When Ember hands him a mundane and not-especially-pertinent ledger, he tosses it onto the desk and lays down to inspect the arcane books alongside her, his heavy armor clunking against the floor. "I'm sure all the answers you're looking for can be found in the books," he says somewhat mysteriously. "Wait, these aren't just books... these are tomes! Bona fide tomes! Tomes are the best. Now, let's see here..."

His librarian powers visibly kick into high gear. He measures the dust to find how long it's been since the books have been cracked open. He carefully scans the pages, trying to tell which ones have been flipped to the most, as well as how worn the books are in general. He identifies the Dewey Decimal numbers for each of the tomes, mostly for the heck of it. Then he identifies the lesser-known Huey Decimal and Louie Decimal numbers (which have only ever found use within gnomish libraries) of the books, this time entirely for the heck of it. Whenever he finds something of interest, he offers it to the wizard beside him.

"Bona fiddle tomes!" Ember exclaims in an incorrect echo of Ozyre to Big Man. She watches the gnome inspect the book, absorbing his method of investigation, then looks up at the Northman and cocks her head.

"What did--" her fiery eyes narrow in confusion at Aganazzar's behavior, his tail flicking wildly in upset before he scurries to hide behind Thurodim, "--you two find?"

The massive blonde bearded warrior had never heard of any boney fiddler toams but he didn't expect to understand much about what was found in the library, with the exception of poetry of course. His question answered he simply nods to Ember and looks around the room for any signs of Bart being here recently.

Perception: 2

As Ember confronts him about what he and Aggie found he sighs deeply and gives the squirrel at his feet a brief glare. "There was another body in the bed, same condition as the others. It was the young man now and it was the half-orc and the dark-haired woman in the other room. With the halflings safe back in Dawn's Point we have only Bart himself still unaccounted for." He says grimly. "We should focus on finding him now." He adds, seeming troubled now over the strange deaths in this household, like some evil witchcraft had been in play.

"[Logymnify]," Ember says to Ozyre, eyes wide and voice taut with distress.

"I have to look now," she says in her lilted accent, getting up from the floor with her candlestick and setting her jaw tight with determination. "It's time for me to look now." She strides by Big Man and Aggie jumps up to grab the ends of her hair as she passes, scrambling up them like vines to her shoulder. 

The little wizard pauses just outside the door and takes a deep breath before opening it. Her eyes immediately go to the silhouette of the body beneath the sheet, something strangely familiar about the death shroud. She tries to take a step closer, but her feet are rooted in place. 


((Just cause I'm a paranoid little bean, is Detect Magic picking anything up in the room or on the body?))