Perception: 8

As Zathon tries to access his supernatural senses, he feels the bitter spiritual darkness of the area close in on him, strangling his attempts to use his special senses. The malevolent energies fight against you, twisting your soul into painful knots. The edges his vision grow dim and blurry, and he stumbles as his legs suddenly grow weak. Finally, he relents, and the dark force ceases to assault him. It definitely wasn't a pleasant experience. 

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Rhea smiles tiredly at Kora as she approaches the petite halfling woman in the aftermath of dinner. As Kora speaks, her smile slowly fades. She exhaustedly massages her temples, her eyes closed before looking up at Kora and responding. "I felt it too. I only know a few cantrips, and I wouldn't consider myself a caster. I'm glad to hear you've learned some magic too; looks like Aoelwyn rubbed off on you as well." She smiles weakly. "But that's beside the point. I don't know enough magic to figure out what's going on, so I sent a letter to Marnik Silvstree in Waterdeep to come see if he can figure out what's wrong, but he hasn't showed up yet. He's an old friend of Aoelwyn."

She buries her face in her hands, her elbows resting on her legs. Her shoulders sag defeatedly as she lets out a long breath. "There's just so much happening right now, I just can't handle it all."  She looks back up at you, her red-rimmed eyes glistening with tears. "I'm really these are the circumstances that brought all of you back together. I wish we could have reunited under different circumstances."

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You all gradually filter into the leaving room where the most obvious sun is located. You began inspecting the room, searching for any possible clues that Aoelwyn might have left. Looking up at the sun, none of you notice anything strange or off about it besides the fact that it's not glowing like it usually does. As you each inconspicuously, servants go in and out of the room as they go about their various evening tasks. One of them, and older woman in black smock with long white hair done up in a ponytail, starts dusting off the furniture and the  paintings of children on the walls, humming softly as she does. You all notice that in between dustings, she too glances up at the sun often.

After a period of searching, Zathon moves to the edge of the room to get a different viewpoint. Knowing Aoelwyn, if she were to leave behind a clue, she wouldn’t make it so obvious that anyone could find it. He's about to give up when he notices something he's never seen before. 

On the wall surrounding the hearth, which contained a few glowing coals and embers now, he sees a new portrait of a child. The portrait depicts a small girl wearing a white dress. She has a cherubic face with bright blue eyes and long, golden hair that curls slightly. Oddly, she has a forlorn expression on her face, an expression that shouldn't be held by a child. She must be one of the new orphans, but that's not what catches his attention. The children in all of the portraits are smiling and looking in a downward direction as if to look upon whoever is in the room. This new painting of this girl is looking in an upward direction. Following her eyes, it looks like she's looking at the golden sun painted upon the ceiling. Tucked under one of her arms is a book bound in red leather. As Zathon moves a little closer to the painting, he sees that written in golden ink on the cover of the book is "Nursery Rhymes." He recognizes the flowing script as Aoelwyn's handwriting.

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Jared storms about the house, searching for the cowering Tom. Sensing his urgency, the workers give him a wide berth as they go about cleaning. You have a feeling that Tom will most likely be in his room on the second story, so he heads up there to start his search. As an avid outdoorsman, one of Tom's only requests of Aoelwyn was that he had a good view from his room, so she gave him the room that had the largest window in the house. It was a wonderful vantage point from which to view the valley that Grymhearth was part of. Tom often liked watching the sun set behind the ice-capped peaks from his window, reveling in the beauty of the natural world.

Jared's hunch proved to be accurate as he approaches Tom's room. The door is cracked open a little ways, offering a slit through which Jared can see Tom kneeling on the floor with his back to the door. Candlelight spills out of the slit from a ring of flickering candles on the floor, in the center of which Tom kneels. You see that Tom is holding his sun amulet in both hands, and he can catch faint murmurs of an uttered prayer. As Jared moves a little closer, the catches a whiff of pungent herbs and incense wafting through the slit in the door. 

"Guys, I think we need to start looking for a book." He points the book the child is holding. "I think that may be what we need to discover what Aoelwyn left for us here."

He then begins looking for the Nursery Rhymes book. 

Perception: 11

Not bothering to be subtle or quiet, Jared walks in and takes a seat. If Tom continues to pray, Jared won't say a word but once Tom is done Jared will say:
"So Tom, tell me a story of you being afraid of a mist." 

"Library? Or Nursery maybe?" Hiding something important in a kids' room was both genius and risky...

"Well, it says nursery rhymes so I'm betting nursery."

Akyan stops staring at the sun, and turns his gaze to the shadar-kai. "A book? What makes you say that? ...And what kind of book."

He points to the picture of the girl holding the book and staring at the sun. "Nursery Rhymes."

The drow turns his attention to the portrait. Noting the difference between it and the other portraits, he wonders how he missed it. Maybe that's what he gets for staring at the sun...being a drow and all. "The nursery sounds like the most logical starting place." He agrees with Anthony. Then starts making his way to the nursery.

Perception:5

Kora awkwardly pats Rhea on the shoulder and gives the halfling a moment.  Comforting someone was definitely not in her wheelhouse.  Then she asks, "When did it happen?  When your cantrip abilities were taken from you?  And from Waterdeep?  When would you expect to hear back from them?"

She then smiles, "Yes, it is good to be back under one roof.  I'm sure we can help out if you let us know what you need."

"That is a good eye Zathon. Now that book does seems important but let see if there is anything behind the portrait." says Aoufie. He moves over to the portrait and moves it to the side to examine if there is anything behind it or on the backside of the portrait.

Investigation Check

18 in game log

Anthony looks a little sheepish climbing down awkwardly and putting the chair back where he found it. I'll  just follow you guys and be the muscle."

As Jared forces the door open to Tom's room, Tom cuts off his prayer midsentence and whirls around with a bewildered look on his rugged face, rising to his feet as he does. "Just who do you think you are barging into my room uninvited!?" Tom bellows, his face turning red with anger. You can see veins and muscles bulging in his neck as he furiously glares at you. His right hand is clenched in a fist around his pendant, and it trembles in rage at his side.

As Jared just plops down on a chair nearby and bluntly brings up the mist, you see his burning rage instantly cools to a simmering fury. While he doesn't seem any less angry, he stiffens, channeling his anger in a more controlled fashion. He glowers at you as he coldly says, "You should leave before I force you to leave." As stubborn as ever, he's going to need some sort of persuasion to get him the spill his secrets. 

((You can try for persuasion or intimidation if you want to pressure him))

As awkward as Kora felt offering consolation, Rhea seemed to soak it up. She pats your hand, looking up at you gratefully. She takes a deep breath, and then she seems to become more focused, more determined, more solid. With a little bit of her usual confidence leaking back into her voice, she says, "I noticed the morning we found Aooelwyn's body. It woke me a few hours before dawn. I thought I just had a nightmare when I noticed how I felt, and I didn't think much about it before drifting back off to sleep." She looks down somewhat sheepishly as she says, "I haven't told anyone about the magic situation because I didn't want to cause a panic. I think Aoelwyn and I are the only ones that have magic, so I don't think anyone else has noticed." She hops off of her chair and grabs her plate. You wryly note that she was taller when she was sitting on the chair than she was one she stands. She says, "Marnik should be here in a few days, but I'm not completely sure. I haven't heard back yet."

 As Aoufie takes a peek behind the portrait, he notices minuscule words tucked away near a corner on the back of the canvas. Taking it off the wall and turning it around, he finds Aoelwyn's distinctive writing. It cryptically says "Don't trust anyone.''

You begin making your way to the nursery. Located at the end of the hall where the children's dormitories are located, you find your way there unhindered. You can hear workers struggling to get the rambunctious children to go to bed. Afterall, why go to bed when there was still time to play?

You push open the door to reveal the rather small nursery. This room is not lit, and it looks like it hasn't seen use for some time. That's probably a good thing since this was an orphanage. There was only one way an infant could their way into here, and it was never for a good reason. 

The room is about 30 feet by thirty feet. The floor is covered with a soft gray carpet, the only room in Grymharth to have carpet. From the wavering lamplight in the hallway, you see that the walls are painted in a gently shade of pastel blue. Fluffy white clouds are painted onto the walls, and the overall "sky'' theme in here is rather calming. A row of four white and wooden cribs are lined up against one wall, each with a soft blue or pink blanket stretched across the mattress. A normal bed for a worker in charge of tending the babies that would be in here is near the cribs. Also in the room is a handsome mahogany dresser, a cedar chest which is probably filled with blankets and other infant supplies, basket filled with various toys, and small bookshelf crammed with children books. You see that one book is bigger and thicker than the others. This book is bound in red leather, and scratched into the spine of book in golden lettering is written "Nursery Rhymes."

Zathon picks up the red book, gesturing with it to his siblings to show them and then opens it to see what it contains.

Aoufie looks at the cryptic message and lightly brushes his hand against the writing remembering the lessons he had as a kid fondly. "Oh, Aunty that is good advice and I plan to follow it." He places the portrait back on the wall and then heads to the nursery to see if his siblings found anything of note. 

"Look at us, solving mysteries." Anthony grinned, showing his dimples. He does a scan of the room for another obvious sun just in case.

Aoufie catches up to everyone else in the nursery just as Zathon opens the book of nursery rhymes. The binding creaks as he opens it, and the smell of old parchment and leather wafts up from its pages. Thumbing through the book, you see it's full of nursery rhymes. You see several that spark the memory of Aoelwyn reading to you out of this book while you are in bed when you were a youngster: "Bippitybog the Bullywug and the Bothersome Bulette," ''Baba Lysaga had a pet Naga," and "Wilfred the Wacky Wizard" being a few of them. 

As you thumb through the book, you see small, cramped handwriting tucked away in the corner of one of the pages. The page that the writing is on contains a nursery rhyme entitled, "Though we be Apart, You are not Alone," a rather somber rhyme about how death is not the end.

Bringing the book closer to his face to read the writing, Zathon sees that it says, 

I run forever, 

but do not move at all.

I have no lungs or throat,

but a roaring call.

What am I?

 Anthony blurts, looking around the room, on instinct for one, though it could refer to something anywhere.

Zathon recites the rhyme aloud. "A river right?" he pauses. "She wants us to go to the cave? Maybe she left something there," he mutters.

"Smart thing to do would be wait until morning..." looking out at the storm and scrubbing his hair. As an afterthought he asks Zathon, "Maybe this is weird, but, mind if I hold on to that book? I was a little too old for nursery rhymes when I was here."