“Would you happen to know of a place called Richemulot?” He asked the warrior with a vague hope of getting directions from him. “And are there Vistani around this place?”
They still sounded like his best way to get through the Mists. He also wanted to ask how big was this Vallakia. Viktor called it a town, while Svetlana said it was a village. Unless the place was reasonably large it was strange both of them didn’t know each other. The rogue remembered the forest and how the barbarian denied being an elf. One of you is lying, he said with the voice of his mind before deciding that then and there it didn’t matter. They had a monster to defeat, starting any more conflict could compromise their ability to work as a fighting force.
Finally at the attic his attention is drawn towards the closed room. Everything else seemed to offer little if any clue regarding their enemy.
“Ok, Mittens, time to check for traps again.”He called the wizard, ready to help. Together they should be able to find if any mundane trap laid hidden on the lock. His own kind of magic would come after, through his thieves’ tools, disarming the surprise and opening the door. Hopefully.
Notes: Lorin asks Mittens to check the locked door for traps and takes the help action to give the wizard advantage.
Viktor just shakes his head “I know of the Vistani, but that is it. They tend to come and go as they please, I wish I had their mastery of the mists.” He just walks towards the chest and using the blade of his glaive decides to open it carefully.
Mittens peers cautiously at the attic they now found themselves in, noting the dust that seemed to cover everything. It looked like nobody had used this upper section for quite sometime. He pulls Pooky close to his chest in a nervous hug as he nods to Lorin’s remark. His familiar was nearly a quarter his own height, so he looked a bit like a child holding their favorite stuffed animal, but Mittens doesn’t seem to care.
Having placed the doll in her backpack, Svetlana has her shield and shortsword in her hands again, more out of habit than out of real concern, and admires the outcome of Lorin and Mittens' expert operations with confidence in her azure eyes.
...Expert operations sometimes take a little time - especially if conducted inside a haunted house - so the last of the Dusk Elf maidens waits calmly, while Lorin and Mittens proceed...
This post has potentially manipulated dice roll results.
(I am going to roll for Mittens just to keep things moving. Is everyone still interested in playing? I know it's been a bit of a slow start, but you guys are about to head into a much more exciting location of the house, I promise.)
Mittens fiddles with the lock, using his set of thieves' tools. Lorin assists by providing encouragement to the tabaxi wizard.
Mittens is easily able to open the lock and you all enter the room.
This room contains a bricked-up window flanked by two dusty, wood-framed beds sized for children. Closer to the door is a toy chest with windmills painted on its sides and a dollhouse that’s a perfect replica of the dreary edifice in which you stand. These furnishings are draped in cobwebs. Lying in the middle of the floor are two small skeletons wearing tattered but familiar clothing. The smaller of the two cradles a stuffed doll that you also recognize.
(I am going to roll for Mittens just to keep things moving. Is everyone still interested in playing? I know it's been a bit of a slow start, but you guys are about to head into a much more exciting location of the house, I promise.)
Mittens fiddles with the lock, using his set of thieves' tools. Lorin assists by providing encouragement to the tabaxi wizard.
Dex - 20
OOC: I had rolled on the campaign log and posted the result on the OOC chat, but I'm absolutely fine with Lorin encouraging Mittens to pick the lock. For clarification the "small skeletons" are real skeletons and not toy skeletons?
[[ OOC: still super interested in playing! I was only waiting for the door to be opened ]]
“Rose and Thorn” the last of the Dusk Elf maidens murmurs, kneeling before the two child skeletons. She examines the bones with her azure eyes, looking for traces of trauma... curious to at least ascertain whether the two children were killed with a violent blow (a blow that left an obvious break on one or more bones) or not.
The Voices in her head also seem touched by the scene: 'Yes, they're dead, Svetlana... you already knew they were.' 'Died like many of our children, when the Devil Stradh came to exterminate us' 'How much blood... How much pain...' Svetlana puts her hands to her head and tries to banish memories of her, not of her, memories of countless Dusk Elf maidens who were ruthlessly exterminated and who have seen a good number of their loved ones massacred in the process. When she regains control of herself, her azure eyes are wet with tears that she furtively tries to dry with a corner of her dress.
"Perhaps we should take a moment to bury them, to bury them outside this cursed house..." savage wanderer suggests "Maybe it will be easier for them to find peace afterwards - although I suppose to do this we will still have to take down the 'monster' they are so afraid of".
Noticing the similarity of the toy house to the real house, the last of the Dusk Elf maidens tries to examine it closely, to see if the toy house includes a basement - and if so she observes carefully and tries to make a mental map of the same.
((Sorry, didn’t realize you were waiting on me! Mittens hasn’t done any of the lock picking in the past, but I guess he could have wanted to try after watching Lorin do it several times.))
The normally feisty feline seems to deflate a bit when he sees the two small skeletons lying in the middle of the room. He didn’t need Svetlana to mention who they were for him to know. “Well, at least the monster didn’t end up getting them,” he says somberly. Now that he’s had time to ponder upon the clues they’ve found thus far, he had a feeling that the monster were actually Mrs. and Mr. Durst.
Pulling his thieves tool and examining the lock, Lorin found it to be no harder to pick than those find elsewhere in the mannor. His confidence on being able to pick it open was such that he started thinking of it as a training opportunity. As he inserted the tension wrench a thought crossed his mind.
“Know what, Mittens, you can get this open.” And in saying so the rogue handed his tools to the wizard. It would be useful to have someone to help with harder locks in the future. “Light touch, use the pick to feel a pin then push it.”
Mittens didn’t just follow his instructions, he bought then to life. Lorin retrieved his tools with a smile that disappeared as soon as their entered the room.
“****.”The shadar-kai cursed closing his eyes and lowering his head towards the left. Svetlana voiced everyone’s thoughts regarding the skeletons. Everyone but Viktor, that wasn’t with them as the group meet the dead children. “I don’t think they’ll be able to rest before we deal with the monster.” Not to mention the chance that by then they could be monsters already. “So let’s check this area, make sure we’re not leaving a thing pass, and go down the stairs stealthily.”
Notes: Lorin is basically ready to take the Help action towards anyone investigating the area.
The skeletons you find on the floor are indeed real skeletons, the skeletons of children long dead. There is no sign of violence upon the skeletons. Judging by the solid padlock on the door you surmise the children were locked up and no one came to feed them or give them water.
DC 15 Perception on the Dollhouse
You notice all the secret doors in the dollhouse, which correspond to the secret doors you've already found. There is another secret door in the attic which leads to a set of spiral stairs which seem to go all the way through the house leading downwards, possibly to a basement.
Viktor opens up the chest and finds another skeleton dressed in a nursemaid's uniform. The skeleton is wrapped in a bed sheet that is covered with dried blood stains.
DC 14 Medicine Check
This woman appears to have been stabbed to death.
As Viktor opens the chest, suddenly Rose and Thorn appear in the middle of their bedroom. Thorn is sucking his thumb. Rose looks forlorn.
"Please don't leave us," she says. "It's so cold here."
The last of the Dusk Elf maidens also points out to the other party members what her sharp azure eyes have noticed: "Look carefully at this dollhouse! It's an exact replica of this house! It's like having a three-dimensional map of it! Do you see all the secret doors in the dollhouse, which correspond to the secret doors we've already found? And there is another secret door, right here in the attic, which leads to a set of spiral stairs which seem to go all the way through the house leading downwards, possibly to a basement! This must be the right way to follow!"
Svetlana jumps with a little cry as soon as she finishes speaking, frightened by the unexpected appearance of Rose and Thorn. Soon, however, compassion takes the place of fear and she approaches, delicately picking up the miserable remains, wrapping each one in a blanket and putting them both in her backpack: "We'll bury you outside of here, when we're done, children..." she tries to reassure them "You won't be cold anymore, after".
After that, if no one objects, the savage wanderer approaches the point where the secret door should be (according to the dollhouse) and tries to locate the opening mechanism...
Viktor just looks over the body in the chest “Found a maid, looks like she was stabbed to death.” As the children appear he just steps back for a second, until familiarity from the party is shown to the children “We can do that for you, who did this to your maid?”
'Yes, who?' Svetlana thinks, at Viktor's words 'The monster? But stabbing... that's sounds more a human thing...' 'Humans are no less monstrous than monsters, Svetlana' the Voices in her head sentence. 'It is no coincidence that many humans serve the Devil Stradh...' 'And this family of humans, these Dursts, worshiped evil creatures...'
The last of the Dusk Elf maidens is almost on the verge of agreeing with the Voices in her head, but then her azure eyes fall on Viktor, who has not yet committed any evil act and, on the contrary, has joined them in a noble mission to bring peace to two children who died of thirst... and are so terrified that they feel fear even after death. A fear that does not allow them to leave the horrors of life behind them.
Maybe... maybe evil is not a matter of race, but of choice.
Thorn continues to suck his thumb, but Rose responds. "Walter was our baby brother," she says sadly. "Nurse Maggie was his mum. Our mum was so angry when baby Walter came. She didn't like Maggie anymore."
Thorn pops his thumb out of his mouth. "Don't leave us," he says. "Mummy and daddy left us here to go fight the monster, but they never came back."
His first reaction when the spirits appeared was instinctive, visceral, anger but before his expression could change because of it, the voice of his mind whispered cynically – what if it’s all a lie. The ghosts could be disguising themselves as the children. Rose and Thorn could have become something else, maddened by time and suffering. Hells, they could have been forced into a role by his parents.
“Careful with affirmations made before the mystic.” He said to the barbarian with the usual impassive voice. “Do you remember having a portrait painted? Of you, your father, your mother and little Walter?”His eyes darted from one kid to the other. “Where was Walter when your parents went into the basement?”
If his guess was right, the baby was dead, sacrificed by the jealous mother. The woman likely stabbed Maggie to death. At very least the blood in the sheets suggested many wounds, a mark of passional killing. Maybe the ritual went awry because the father didn’t help. Maybe the dark god of the family simply decided to doom them. Whatever the case it seemed the Dursts locked the siblings and went to deal with the monster. Not before the man begged Strahd for help. If only we could know what is the monster…
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
“Would you happen to know of a place called Richemulot?” He asked the warrior with a vague hope of getting directions from him. “And are there Vistani around this place?”
They still sounded like his best way to get through the Mists. He also wanted to ask how big was this Vallakia. Viktor called it a town, while Svetlana said it was a village. Unless the place was reasonably large it was strange both of them didn’t know each other. The rogue remembered the forest and how the barbarian denied being an elf. One of you is lying, he said with the voice of his mind before deciding that then and there it didn’t matter. They had a monster to defeat, starting any more conflict could compromise their ability to work as a fighting force.
Finally at the attic his attention is drawn towards the closed room. Everything else seemed to offer little if any clue regarding their enemy.
“Ok, Mittens, time to check for traps again.” He called the wizard, ready to help. Together they should be able to find if any mundane trap laid hidden on the lock. His own kind of magic would come after, through his thieves’ tools, disarming the surprise and opening the door. Hopefully.
Notes: Lorin asks Mittens to check the locked door for traps and takes the help action to give the wizard advantage.
Viktor just shakes his head “I know of the Vistani, but that is it. They tend to come and go as they please, I wish I had their mastery of the mists.” He just walks towards the chest and using the blade of his glaive decides to open it carefully.
Campaigns:
Wildemount: The Felderwin Irregulars (2020) - Balassar Silverstone - Dragonborn Fighter (Rune Knight) Lv. 5 | Rise of TIamat - Aiwin Aralana - Wood Elf Fighter/Ranger (Arcane Archer/Gloom Stalker) Lv. 9
Mittens peers cautiously at the attic they now found themselves in, noting the dust that seemed to cover everything. It looked like nobody had used this upper section for quite sometime. He pulls Pooky close to his chest in a nervous hug as he nods to Lorin’s remark. His familiar was nearly a quarter his own height, so he looked a bit like a child holding their favorite stuffed animal, but Mittens doesn’t seem to care.
Investigation: 21
DM- Azalin's Doom
DM- Surviving the Unsurvivable
Mittens doesn't find any traps on the lock. DC 15 Dexterity check with thieves' tools to pick the lock.
Extended Signature
Characters: Bryony Alderleaf (Phandelver and Below) ♦ Vesta Trevelyan (Vecna: Eve of Ruin) ♦ Ada Kendrick (Curse of Strahd) ♦ Gareth Blackwood (Dragon of Icespire Peak) ♦ Karys Velthune (Out of the Abyss) ♦ Surina Xarith (Simple, Heroic Adventure)
DM: Baldur's Gate: Descent Into Avernus
Having placed the doll in her backpack, Svetlana has her shield and shortsword in her hands again, more out of habit than out of real concern, and admires the outcome of Lorin and Mittens' expert operations with confidence in her azure eyes.
...Expert operations sometimes take a little time - especially if conducted inside a haunted house - so the last of the Dusk Elf maidens waits calmly, while Lorin and Mittens proceed...
(I am going to roll for Mittens just to keep things moving. Is everyone still interested in playing? I know it's been a bit of a slow start, but you guys are about to head into a much more exciting location of the house, I promise.)
Mittens fiddles with the lock, using his set of thieves' tools. Lorin assists by providing encouragement to the tabaxi wizard.
Dex - 22
Extended Signature
Characters: Bryony Alderleaf (Phandelver and Below) ♦ Vesta Trevelyan (Vecna: Eve of Ruin) ♦ Ada Kendrick (Curse of Strahd) ♦ Gareth Blackwood (Dragon of Icespire Peak) ♦ Karys Velthune (Out of the Abyss) ♦ Surina Xarith (Simple, Heroic Adventure)
DM: Baldur's Gate: Descent Into Avernus
Mittens is easily able to open the lock and you all enter the room.
This room contains a bricked-up window flanked by two dusty, wood-framed beds sized for children. Closer to the door is a toy chest with windmills painted on its sides and a dollhouse that’s a perfect replica of the dreary edifice in which you stand. These furnishings are draped in cobwebs. Lying in the middle of the floor are two small skeletons wearing tattered but familiar clothing. The smaller of the two cradles a stuffed doll that you also recognize.
Extended Signature
Characters: Bryony Alderleaf (Phandelver and Below) ♦ Vesta Trevelyan (Vecna: Eve of Ruin) ♦ Ada Kendrick (Curse of Strahd) ♦ Gareth Blackwood (Dragon of Icespire Peak) ♦ Karys Velthune (Out of the Abyss) ♦ Surina Xarith (Simple, Heroic Adventure)
DM: Baldur's Gate: Descent Into Avernus
OOC: I had rolled on the campaign log and posted the result on the OOC chat, but I'm absolutely fine with Lorin encouraging Mittens to pick the lock. For clarification the "small skeletons" are real skeletons and not toy skeletons?
[[ OOC: still super interested in playing! I was only waiting for the door to be opened ]]
“Rose and Thorn” the last of the Dusk Elf maidens murmurs, kneeling before the two child skeletons. She examines the bones with her azure eyes, looking for traces of trauma... curious to at least ascertain whether the two children were killed with a violent blow (a blow that left an obvious break on one or more bones) or not.
The Voices in her head also seem touched by the scene: 'Yes, they're dead, Svetlana... you already knew they were.'
'Died like many of our children, when the Devil Stradh came to exterminate us'
'How much blood... How much pain...'
Svetlana puts her hands to her head and tries to banish memories of her, not of her, memories of countless Dusk Elf maidens who were ruthlessly exterminated and who have seen a good number of their loved ones massacred in the process. When she regains control of herself, her azure eyes are wet with tears that she furtively tries to dry with a corner of her dress.
"Perhaps we should take a moment to bury them, to bury them outside this cursed house..." savage wanderer suggests "Maybe it will be easier for them to find peace afterwards - although I suppose to do this we will still have to take down the 'monster' they are so afraid of".
Noticing the similarity of the toy house to the real house, the last of the Dusk Elf maidens tries to examine it closely, to see if the toy house includes a basement - and if so she observes carefully and tries to make a mental map of the same.
As the others open the room up Viktor pushes his glaive into the unlocked wooden chest and tries to lift up the lid trying to see what’s inside.
Campaigns:
Wildemount: The Felderwin Irregulars (2020) - Balassar Silverstone - Dragonborn Fighter (Rune Knight) Lv. 5 | Rise of TIamat - Aiwin Aralana - Wood Elf Fighter/Ranger (Arcane Archer/Gloom Stalker) Lv. 9
((Sorry, didn’t realize you were waiting on me! Mittens hasn’t done any of the lock picking in the past, but I guess he could have wanted to try after watching Lorin do it several times.))
The normally feisty feline seems to deflate a bit when he sees the two small skeletons lying in the middle of the room. He didn’t need Svetlana to mention who they were for him to know. “Well, at least the monster didn’t end up getting them,” he says somberly. Now that he’s had time to ponder upon the clues they’ve found thus far, he had a feeling that the monster were actually Mrs. and Mr. Durst.
DM- Azalin's Doom
DM- Surviving the Unsurvivable
Pulling his thieves tool and examining the lock, Lorin found it to be no harder to pick than those find elsewhere in the mannor. His confidence on being able to pick it open was such that he started thinking of it as a training opportunity. As he inserted the tension wrench a thought crossed his mind.
“Know what, Mittens, you can get this open.” And in saying so the rogue handed his tools to the wizard. It would be useful to have someone to help with harder locks in the future. “Light touch, use the pick to feel a pin then push it.”
Mittens didn’t just follow his instructions, he bought then to life. Lorin retrieved his tools with a smile that disappeared as soon as their entered the room.
“****.” The shadar-kai cursed closing his eyes and lowering his head towards the left. Svetlana voiced everyone’s thoughts regarding the skeletons. Everyone but Viktor, that wasn’t with them as the group meet the dead children. “I don’t think they’ll be able to rest before we deal with the monster.” Not to mention the chance that by then they could be monsters already. “So let’s check this area, make sure we’re not leaving a thing pass, and go down the stairs stealthily.”
Notes: Lorin is basically ready to take the Help action towards anyone investigating the area.
The skeletons you find on the floor are indeed real skeletons, the skeletons of children long dead. There is no sign of violence upon the skeletons. Judging by the solid padlock on the door you surmise the children were locked up and no one came to feed them or give them water.
DC 15 Perception on the Dollhouse
You notice all the secret doors in the dollhouse, which correspond to the secret doors you've already found. There is another secret door in the attic which leads to a set of spiral stairs which seem to go all the way through the house leading downwards, possibly to a basement.
Viktor opens up the chest and finds another skeleton dressed in a nursemaid's uniform. The skeleton is wrapped in a bed sheet that is covered with dried blood stains.
DC 14 Medicine Check
This woman appears to have been stabbed to death.
As Viktor opens the chest, suddenly Rose and Thorn appear in the middle of their bedroom. Thorn is sucking his thumb. Rose looks forlorn.
"Please don't leave us," she says. "It's so cold here."
Extended Signature
Characters: Bryony Alderleaf (Phandelver and Below) ♦ Vesta Trevelyan (Vecna: Eve of Ruin) ♦ Ada Kendrick (Curse of Strahd) ♦ Gareth Blackwood (Dragon of Icespire Peak) ♦ Karys Velthune (Out of the Abyss) ♦ Surina Xarith (Simple, Heroic Adventure)
DM: Baldur's Gate: Descent Into Avernus
Svetlana's DC 15 Perception on the Dollhouse: 20
The last of the Dusk Elf maidens also points out to the other party members what her sharp azure eyes have noticed: "Look carefully at this dollhouse! It's an exact replica of this house! It's like having a three-dimensional map of it! Do you see all the secret doors in the dollhouse, which correspond to the secret doors we've already found? And there is another secret door, right here in the attic, which leads to a set of spiral stairs which seem to go all the way through the house leading downwards, possibly to a basement! This must be the right way to follow!"
Svetlana jumps with a little cry as soon as she finishes speaking, frightened by the unexpected appearance of Rose and Thorn. Soon, however, compassion takes the place of fear and she approaches, delicately picking up the miserable remains, wrapping each one in a blanket and putting them both in her backpack: "We'll bury you outside of here, when we're done, children..." she tries to reassure them "You won't be cold anymore, after".
After that, if no one objects, the savage wanderer approaches the point where the secret door should be (according to the dollhouse) and tries to locate the opening mechanism...
Viktor just looks over the body in the chest “Found a maid, looks like she was stabbed to death.” As the children appear he just steps back for a second, until familiarity from the party is shown to the children “We can do that for you, who did this to your maid?”
OOC:
Medicine Check: 17
Campaigns:
Wildemount: The Felderwin Irregulars (2020) - Balassar Silverstone - Dragonborn Fighter (Rune Knight) Lv. 5 | Rise of TIamat - Aiwin Aralana - Wood Elf Fighter/Ranger (Arcane Archer/Gloom Stalker) Lv. 9
'Yes, who?' Svetlana thinks, at Viktor's words 'The monster? But stabbing... that's sounds more a human thing...'
'Humans are no less monstrous than monsters, Svetlana' the Voices in her head sentence.
'It is no coincidence that many humans serve the Devil Stradh...'
'And this family of humans, these Dursts, worshiped evil creatures...'
The last of the Dusk Elf maidens is almost on the verge of agreeing with the Voices in her head, but then her azure eyes fall on Viktor, who has not yet committed any evil act and, on the contrary, has joined them in a noble mission to bring peace to two children who died of thirst... and are so terrified that they feel fear even after death. A fear that does not allow them to leave the horrors of life behind them.
Maybe... maybe evil is not a matter of race, but of choice.
Thorn continues to suck his thumb, but Rose responds. "Walter was our baby brother," she says sadly. "Nurse Maggie was his mum. Our mum was so angry when baby Walter came. She didn't like Maggie anymore."
Thorn pops his thumb out of his mouth. "Don't leave us," he says. "Mummy and daddy left us here to go fight the monster, but they never came back."
Extended Signature
Characters: Bryony Alderleaf (Phandelver and Below) ♦ Vesta Trevelyan (Vecna: Eve of Ruin) ♦ Ada Kendrick (Curse of Strahd) ♦ Gareth Blackwood (Dragon of Icespire Peak) ♦ Karys Velthune (Out of the Abyss) ♦ Surina Xarith (Simple, Heroic Adventure)
DM: Baldur's Gate: Descent Into Avernus
His first reaction when the spirits appeared was instinctive, visceral, anger but before his expression could change because of it, the voice of his mind whispered cynically – what if it’s all a lie. The ghosts could be disguising themselves as the children. Rose and Thorn could have become something else, maddened by time and suffering. Hells, they could have been forced into a role by his parents.
“Careful with affirmations made before the mystic.” He said to the barbarian with the usual impassive voice. “Do you remember having a portrait painted? Of you, your father, your mother and little Walter?” His eyes darted from one kid to the other. “Where was Walter when your parents went into the basement?”
If his guess was right, the baby was dead, sacrificed by the jealous mother. The woman likely stabbed Maggie to death. At very least the blood in the sheets suggested many wounds, a mark of passional killing. Maybe the ritual went awry because the father didn’t help. Maybe the dark god of the family simply decided to doom them. Whatever the case it seemed the Dursts locked the siblings and went to deal with the monster. Not before the man begged Strahd for help. If only we could know what is the monster…