Corrin smiles. “Sounds like fun!”

Winter kept a stoic face when the others dealt with the children, simply following behind the group, and despite feeling as this was a complete waste of time, kept her comments ultimately to herself. Should be over soon if it's in the basement, just look for a hatch on the main floor, Winter thinks as she looks around (using her passive perception of 16). The others had ventured in the different rooms staying relatively close to one another, the rogue doing the same by quietly stalking behind Anborn and Corrin. With the suggestion that the halfling slither inside the dumbwaiter, and him so readily accepting the plan, Winter helps Corrin inside (if needed).

Corrin climbs inside, pulling out one of his daggers, mutters a few words over it and it begins to glow, emitting a white light. “Alright, I’ll take a quick peek.”

Anborn begins lowering Corrin down the dumbwaiter. "If you run into some trouble while you're down there, say something like 'Oh shit, my innards are being eaten by some death monster, get me up now.' and I'll pull you back up quick as I can."

So the dumbwaiter goes up to the second and third floor, or back to the first floor.

But first.

Corrin, can you please make an Acrobatics check for me, with advantage.

ACROBATICS: 6 13

As you ascend to the second floor, this is what you see

SECOND FLOOR
SERVANTS ROOM

An undecorated bedroom contains a pair of beds with straw-stuffed mattresses. At the foot of each bed is an empty footlocker. Tidy servants’ uniforms hang from hooks in the adjoining closet.

THIRD FLOOR
MASTER BEDROOM

This dusty, cobweb-filled master bedroom has burgundy drapes covering the windows. Furnishings include a four-poster bed with embroidered curtains and tattered gossamer veils, a matching pair of empty wardrobes, a vanity with a wood-framed mirror and jewelry box, and a padded chair. A rotting tiger-skin rug lies on the floor in front of the fireplace, which has a dust-covered portrait of a gothic looking man and woman hanging above it. A web-filled parlor in the southwest corner contains a table and two chairs. Resting on the dusty tablecloth is an empty porcelain bowl and a matching jug. A door facing the foot of the bed has a full-length mirror mounted on it. 

Anborn will bring the dumbwaiter back down to the first floor and pick Corrin up out of it. "Nothing? Well then I guess we'll move on to the next part of the house." 

Elya walks into the kitchen to meet back up with the group, "Did you find anything interesting in here? I haven't found any monsters yet."

"No. Nothing of worth. If we've explored all there is down here, we should head up the stairs and start searching for anything relevant."

"That sounds fine to me, let's move."

Elya walks over to the spiral staircase in the main room and heads upwards, keeping an eye out for any dangerous dangers. Perception: 24

THE SECOND FLOOR

Unlit oil lamps are mounted on the walls of this elegant hall. Hanging above the mantelpiece is a wood-framed portrait of a family: A father, a mother, and their two smiling children..who look like the children standing outside. Cradled in the father’s arms is a swaddled baby, which the mother regards with a hint of scorn. Standing suits of armor flank wooden doors in the east and west walls. Each suit of armor clutches a spear and has a visored helm shaped like a wolf’s head. The red marble staircase that started on the first floor continues its upward spiral to area 11. A cold draft can be felt coming down the steps.

Elya opens the door to the immediate right of the staircase, entering the bedroom and looking around. Perception: 8

"If the children in the painting are the children outside... where are their parents? Where is the baby? Don't tell me that this monster...

Let's speed up a little, we can't keep them waiting."

Your high perception roll immediately tells you that, aside from what Corrin saw, there is nothing else of interest in the "Servant's Bedroom". The footlockers are empy, and there are a pair of servant uniforms in the closet.

You DO notice, however, that the higher you go up in the house, the older and unclean everything appears to you.

"That's a pretty good question. I can't imagine that any decent parent would leave their children alone in a place like this and if the parents were dead, I'd presume the children would say as much. This place is getting stranger by the second and at this rate, you couldn't convince me to stay in Barovia if you gave me all the gold in Faerun."

Corrin follows Elya closely, describing what he saw as he goes along. 

Winter takes a glance at the painting, her usual emotionless face now showing a little bit of pity for those children. She shakes her head, ridding herself of a thought, then makes her way into the big room to the north. 

Perception: 18

THE LIBRARY

Red velvet drapes cover the windows of this room. An exquisite mahogany desk and a matching high-back chair face the entrance and the fireplace, above which hangs a framed picture of a windmill perched atop a rocky crag. Situated in corners of the room are two overstuffed chairs. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves line the south wall. A rolling wooden ladder allows one to more easily reach the high shelves.

The desk has several items resting atop it: an oil lamp, a jar of ink, a quill pen, a tinderbox, and a letter kit containing a red wax candle, four blank sheets of parchment, and a wooden seal bearing the family’s insignia (a windmill). Winter, you find a key in the desk drawer. 

The bookshelves hold hundreds of tomes covering a range of topics including history, warfare, and alchemy. There are also several shelves containing first-edition collected works of poetry and fiction.

Winter, you also find a secret door behind one bookshelf along the east top wall which that opens by pulling on a switch disguised to look like a red-covered book with a blank spine.

"Quite a collection," Winter says idly, her eyes darting from book to book, desk to chair, noting the things that particularity stuck out. Secret door behind a bookshelf? Original. She yoinks the key she finds and slides it into her pocket then moves towards the book in question. "What's behind you, I wonder..." With a slender finger running down the books spine, she pulls the lever.

THE SECRET ROOM

This secret room contains bookshelves packed with tomes describing fiend-summoning rituals and the necromantic rituals of a cult called the Priests of Osybus. A heavy wooden chest with clawed iron feet stands against the south wall, its lid half-closed. Sticking out of the chest is a skeleton in leather armor. It's obvious that the skeleton belongs to a human who triggered a poisoned dart trap. Three darts are stuck in the dead adventurer’s armor and ribcage. Clutched in the skeleton’s left hand is a letter.

You can take the letter, open the chest, or do neither.