The rice goes into the pantry and disappears from view. It is almost as if the rice entered into an area composed of magical darkness. She was so shocked by this that she forgot to listen to what sounds the rice was making as it entered the darkness. 

Confused and frustrated by her apparent random deafness, Twig grabs another,smaller,  handful of rice and tried again, just tossing the rice in all at once this time.

Perception: 4

Twig knocks over the jar of rice in her haste and it breaks on the floor, spilling rice everywhere. She then tosses rice into the darkness like she's celebrating a wedding for shadows. Lost in the glee of the moment, she forgot to pay attention to the sounds it made. 

Twig turns and grabs a ladle and chucks it into the darkness. Not so hard as to injure someone, but not as gently as she normally would.

Perception: 20

The ladle flies into the darkness and almost instantly causes glass to shatter. It sounds like a bottle or two may have been broken by the flying soup-slosher.

Twig is startled and a bit embarrassed at the consequences of her little outburst. Her shoulders slump an bit and her tail droops.

She shakes this off after a moment and resumes her normal posture. She closes the door to the blackness.

”Perhaps I will attempt to figure that out later. Let’s try something else.”

Twig goes around the room to the door that might lead outside and opens it cautiously.

She is greeted by the familiar sight of a massive black rhino standing in the grounds, looking straight at her. She realizes quickly that this is the side door she noticed earlier. 

Twig waves cheerfully at the rhino and closes the door. “Well, that door leads to the outside, I saw our friend the menacing rhino just now.” Twig looks around the room and walks to the apples. She taps her claws on the table. “Hmmm....well, we’ll have to figure out what your place is in this puzzle, but for now, I think we shall leave you here.” 

Noticing the skulls that Garth is still carrying, she takes them from him, explains what she is doing, and walks to the dining room. 

Upon arriving at the dining room, she looks at th skulls in her hands, and orients herself with the painting of the full moon. She places the Waxing Gibbous skull on the table next to the cloche 3 places clockwise of the third quarter moon, and places the Waxing Crescent skull on the table two places clockwise of Waxing Gibbous.

”I think that this is where these will go, but we can check it later to make sure I didn’t confuse the phases or the alignment” 

Twig is about to go back out of the room when she notices the other door in the dining room, opposite the full moon painting. 

“Ah. I forgot about this one...”

She opens the door carefully.

Rivana followed after Twig, whistling as she went. Rad mechanically followed after her. (I'm assuming Garth follows, but if not, that's cool, lemme know)

Twig opens the door to the side-room from the Dining Hall and takes note that the room is square and about twenty feet across. It has two long tables with benches that run the length of the room. At one point, the tables were laid out with platters of meat, vegetables, cheese, fruit, and bread but it has long since spoiled. Now a blanket of mold and dust covers the former feast. There is a life-sized stone statue of a halfling with a staff in its hands immediately inside the entryway. Someone seems to have gone through the trouble of also setting up a half dozen larger than life stone statues of rats throughout the room. Three are set up amidst the moldy food on the tabletops, one is on the bench perched on its hind legs, and the final two are set up on the floor under the tables.

Twig backs up from the revolting doorway and closes it. 

“Nope.”

Twig shares what she saw in the room, obviously displeased.

Twig leads her companions into the next room, and sits down on one of the sofas, curling up like a domestic house cat. 

“So what next? Upstairs? Try and piece together what’s down here? Back to the butterfly room? Have a drink of this glowing purple goo?” Twig laughs and settles in more comfortably, looking at her companions over her tail, eyes threatening to fall asleep with each slow blink. 

 "I think we should go check out the upstairs. I think we've gleaned all werwe going to down here at the moment. Perhaps we'll get more clues." Garth said.

"My first thought is that there is some enchantment in that room that turns living things to stone. I can't imagine the former owner wanted stone statues of rats decorating this fine home." Looking over at the door Twig had just closed, he continued to speak. "I think there must be something important in there, but we'll need to come back to it later."

"Should we try the main stairs in the hallway?"

“Sounds like a plan to me” Twig says, stretching as she gets off of the couch. 

Rivana gives a big thumbs up and says "Excellent! You go first..."

Rad mechanically inclines his head in the affirmative and follows the others. 

The group gets to the top of the stairs and sees a long hallway with a door at the end. There was also a side hallway halfway to the door and another hallway at the end of the main hall, both forking off to the right. 

(I'll provide a map when I get to the computer)

"Well, let's knock this room off the list to explore." Garth said as he headed directly to the door at the end of the hallway. He slowed for a moment as he passed the side hallway, glancing down to take note of any additional doors, and relaying the information.Once at the intended door, he paused and waited for everyone to catch up (assumed everyone followed). 

Garth slowly opened the door, taking in as much information as he could, and ready to slam it closed if he sensed a threat.

Perception: 19

Garth stepped into the hallway and made it about ten feet before he felt an incredibly strong gust of wind blowing against him. 

Athletics:10

Upon reaching that ten foot mark, he was instantly blown back fifteen feet, putting him in front of the stairs once more. 

(Twenty feet to the first hallway branch from the stairs. Twenty feet from there to the door at the end.)

While being blown back, Garth looked for the source of the wind.

Perception: 3

After rejoining everyone at the top of the stairs, he looked at Twig and said, "Perhaps we should try the stairs leading up from the kitchen."

Garth can't tell where the wind came from, only that it really picked up after making it halfway to the first branching hallway. 

“Yes, let’s try that” Twig agrees. 

The group moves on to the kitchen again and walks up the stairs in there and are greeted with the view from the other end of the hallway.

Twig moves to open the door that Garth had previously attempted to approach.