Happily, signs Mun. I do wonder if someone should poke open that door before we all line up before it however. Though we were fortunate last time we entered one, memories of our near misses to date still linger in my dreams from night to night. 

While the bat uses his blindsight to look into the room, yistril cast mage hand then blade ward  the hand moves twds the door and waves ppl back 

and waits tonopen door based on what the bat senses 

Xarkris prepares himself for any danger that might leap out once the door opens, and Yistral aligns his senses with his familiar, which is looking through the crack in the door. The bat’s own mental image formed by the clicks of its echolocation appearing in his mind, and it seems incredibly curious. He sees the form of a staircase, but the interior walls of the building seem to be absent from the lack of vibrations bouncing back to meet the bat’s ears. It must be some kind of sound dampening coming from the gloom of the Shadow Knot; you hope further investigation could confirm this.

Looking to explore further, Yistral tentatively opens the door with his mage hand, and you all peer inside the windmill. The interior aligns with what Yistral managed to see with his bat’s blindsight; a simple stone staircase, extending both up and down, and the walls enclosing it are  entirely pitch black walls. Daewen squints. Usually her umbral sight is enough to pierce parts of the unnatural darkness generated by the Knots, enough to discern the grain of planks or stone bricks, but these shadowy walls appear to be as dark and textureless as the midnight void. The magical darkness here must be far stronger than that formed by previous knots. The accelerated generation of monsters could imply a particularly powerful Knot too, as it usually takes a month or two to twist a creature’s form, but eyewitness reports have been seeing monsters appear every few weeks.

Mun gives a silver coin to the cart-driver and gives the names of her companions and herself. Should the worst happen, or they not be heard from within the week, she would have a message sent to her order of her likely demise and this dark knot.

Daewen peers into the darkness of the windmill's interior, a silent, focused intensity on her face.  The darkness isn't just an absence of light; it feels like an absence of everything, a textureless void that swallows even her enhanced Umbral Sight.  A brief flicker of surprise crosses her face, a rare breach of her usual stoicism.  She is in her element, but this element has been twisted and amplified into something far more dangerous than anything she's faced before.  This isn't just darkness—it's oblivion.

She turns to watch Mun give instructions to the cart driver, a grim act of finality that speaks volumes.  Daewen’s eyes meet the sorcerer’s for a moment, and she offers a silent, understanding nod.  There are no words needed for this kind of preparation.

She looks back to the dark stairwell.  The challenge has been upped, but so has her resolve.  Her hand tightens on her rapier, and she takes a deep breath, preparing to step into the void.  She pulls out her slate once more and scribbles a new message, holding it up for the others to see before she moves into position.

Worse than expected.  My lead is best.

She then steps inside, tentatively crossing the threshold...

OOC: I was going to say "and then she quickly turns around and yells out BOOO!" but then I remembered she's a mute...  hahaha

Mun pays a silver coin to the driver, who solemnly tips his hat as he glances to the doorway. Even he, a simple man from the country, can tell that it’s something more than what you’ve encountered before, perhaps from the look of apprehensive curiosity on your faces given the level of darkness inside, a silent void of oblivion, or the grave seriousness of Mun’s words telling him to report to her order if they don’t return within a week. He nods, gives a quick word of farewell and good luck, then slowly turns the cart around, trundling back up the forgotten lane until you are well and truly left alone. 

Then, Daewen is the first to move into the building. She steps over the threshold onto the first stone step, into the cool air of the stairwell, and finds nothing bad happens, but no answers present themselves either. The stairs extend up and down with no sign of a ground floor, and you have a flash of doubt as you realise that ‘Don’t windmills usually contain an actual mill inside, not just steps?’ You wave the thought aside; no good getting paranoid over silly details like the architecture of this place, all you need to do is just find the Knot, like you always have done, and get this quest over and done with. 

Daewen glances back at her companions, her hand rising to gesture upwards before she begins to climb up the stairs.  Her movements are silent and deliberate, a practiced motion of a seasoned hunter.  She ascends the pitch-black steps, her boots making no sound on the stone.  The void-like darkness ahead of her still defies her Umbral Sight, but her other senses are on high alert.  Her ears strain for any hint of movement or sound, and her hand-held hand crossbow is raised, ready to fire at the first sign of a threat.

She moves like a specter in the gloom, her presence a silent, tense anticipation of what lies at the top of the stairs.

Mun follows, her golden eyes flashing dimly in the shadow, in her place in the line. It never gets any easier, but, if there is danger ahead then she would trust few others more than Daewin and Xarkris. With their new companion’s bat, she may well be the most surprised when whatever ugly evil here rears its head. 

[Sorry for the wait, wanted to see what other players were going to do before progressing. With Daewen at the front and Mun at the back, are we happy for Xarkris and Yistral to also enter in between them?]

(Sure im ok in middle… also im viewing theough bats senses so i should know whats in there)

Xarkris will be 2nd

The party closely follows Daewen's lead and enters the staircase, where a gentle breeze and autumnal chill seems to linger on the air. After the first few steps, the door shuts behind you with a slow and eerie creak and click, pushed closed by the zephyr around you. Progressing up the stairs, Yistral keeps his familiar close, and continues to use its senses to see if he can discern what may be lurking in the dark, but finds that the pitch black walls don't appear at all in his mental image when when echolocation is used. For a moment, you wonder if it's really the walls that are pitch black, that there might be a phantasmally thin veil cloaked over the staircase that keeps you on its stony steps, keeping you from falling off into what looks like a void all around you. But that's not something a Shadow Knot can do at all, making a room feel bigger on the inside could be an unseen side affect of how it plays with shadows and the mind, but not to this extent? Yet you're coming up with no better alternatives. Maybe the shadows are just cutting deeper than usual this time, and are causing things to appear as if they aren't there. When a mournful creature's sense of identity is leeched out by a Knot, they can end up as an invisible skulk, so perhaps the two processes are related? You're not sure how a building could lose its sense of self though.

Regardless of the strange circumstances you find yourselves in, you press on, an after three and a half revolutions of the spiral staircase, you come to a landing, jutting out about 10 feet from the stairs with a single lonely door at the end. Again, like the absent walls, this seems to be a paradoxical, given that you were certain that the staircase was the only thing that fit within the turret, yet alone another room and landing. The landing is made of uneven wooden planks, all bleached white as bone and held down loosely with nails that have been neglected to be hammered down, causing the boards to warp and bend over however long they've been left here. The door itself seems as like it hasn't seen much use either; the hinges and handles are rusted, the grey paint is peeling, and there are cobwebs in the corners, but no sign of spiders. Overall, this desolate little corridor seems totally abandoned and forgotten; perhaps an ideal place for a Knot to take root?

(Does the stair case still continue up beyond this landing?). 

Daewen steps over the threshold and into the cool, still air of the windmill.  The thought of the nonexistent mill inside crosses her mind, a fleeting oddity she dismisses with a subtle, dismissive shake of her head.  Such details are irrelevant; she is here for the Shadow Knot, not a lesson in architecture.

She reaches the landing and pauses, her weight balanced on the balls of her feet.  The sudden shift from cold stone to warped wooden planks is jarring, but she moves with such lightness that the boards remain silent beneath her boots (OOC: by all appearances, outside of the Shadowfell, she's a lithe 13 year old girl).  The bleached-white color and the rust on the door handle are noted in her mind's eye.  She takes a moment to scan the desolate corridor, her eyes straining against the darkness, her other senses hyper-focused on the details her sight can't pick up.

She turns back to her companions.  With a few quick, precise motions, she draws her small slate from her pack and scrawls a message.  She holds it up for them to see: Uneven boards. Walk softly.

Her eyes move to the door, and with a swift, silent motion, she moves towards it, her hand-held hand crossbow now aimed at the lock as she prepares to inspect it for any further danger.