(I thought the house in this reality was actually burned and there is no upstairs? But maybe I misunderstood...)

Jambiya returns to the entryway and then, as her eyes fall upon the ruins of the stairs, she remembers the only piece of the second floor remaining was the portion above the far corner where Erric and Maldorn found the shrine.

OOC: This is a little silly because she would know there's no second floor when she's in the kitchen, but this sounds more poetic. :)

Erric doesn't know if he wants to stay or go. He knows he wants to sleep, now, deep in his soul. But this house has been the source of a lot of horror. He suggests pitching tents in the front or back yard. "I'd like to find out why that bird creature and its friends were there and why they attacked us on sight. Maybe we could take the trap off and just tie it up and secure it to the cabinets with all the rope we have. That way if it wakes up it doesn't go anywhere and we also don't hamstring it out of the gate."

"Pitching our tents in the house might be safer then out there. The darkness is sure to hide threats. Remember those nasty plants in the back garden for instance?" Maldorn pokes Erric while asking that question.

"Also, we should take turns keeping watch. Whoever is on duty can keep an eye on the bird person turned to stone. The yelps it will release into the air upon triggering the trap will be our alarm for danger, if it regains its more lively state, of course." The ranger disagrees with Erric's proposal to remove the trap.

Still somewhat dazed, Jambiya arrives at the burned out stairs, and just stands there looking at them for a moment. Then her shoulders slump, and she put the potion away in one of her sacks. She returns to the kitchen with the others.

"Not in the house," Jambiya says firmly about where to camp. "I have had enough of the indoors. Nor the back, given what you say you found. Let's pitch in the front, the long approach was open and should be easy to guard."

As for the Kenku, she says, "Yes, let's tie it up and bring it out with us, then we will be sure to notice when it returns to form... if it does."

Erric pitches the tents where Jambiya indicates, badly, and starts to try to set up a fire and pull out rations. "What I wouldn't give for a steaming bowl of stew and a few pints of red from the Seldom Spring right now. After, of course, giving Dirk a piece of my mind about this mess. Jambiya, how are you doing? Come back to us. That magic you did was amazing. Have you ever seen anything like that before?"

"I will take first watch and then I am going to sleep for a year. During our watches we can just patrol around the campsite and into the house to check on that heavy statue. Then tomorrow we can head home. I mean, to Seldom Spring. Do you think Dirk will want to see the broken mirror?"

Jambiya sits in the camp while the others work around her. When Erric approaches, she looks up and smiles. "I... I am here, Erric. I just... there is so much I do not understand about myself anymore. I guess it makes sense, I mean, I'm a goblin girl, and I'm so... not a goblin girl. I've never seen anything like this," and her hands crackle again. "I mean, I've always been able to do some little stuff, like cleaning, and cooking, and knowing about the weather, but not this, or that... claw thing," she shudders. "I've been having dreams of a tree woman reaching out to me, but I can't understand what she is saying. I think she likes me? I think these new things I can do have something to do with her."

She pauses a moment. "I don't think I can just go back to tending bar."

Erric listens and replies with a smile and uncharacteristically few words: "I like you too. I think you are amazing."

Jambiya smiles sort of distractedly. "You're awfully kind, Erric. You were very brave in there today. Maybe this is all still just some sort of dream, and we'll wake up tomorrow in our camp in the woods with belly aches and muddled heads from those berries."

Erric begins playing some contemplative, soothing, and happy music from a variety of instruments over the course of the rest of the afternoon and into the evening, only singing now and then. 

Performance: 17

Once the rest are asleep he will begin waking a circuit around the area and into the house where the kenku statue is tied up, until a quarter of the way into the night. Then when his shift is over he will wake up the next person and sleep like the dead.

Everyone takes turns keeping watch, and nothing of note happens overnight. As soon as the sun is shining brightly from the east, still mostly behind the tall trees of the Neverwinter Wood surrounding the burned-out home, the group is awake. At last check, the statue is still a statue.

Though the night was restful and the sun is now shining brightly, Maldorn is still not ready to trust the statue's permanency: "One lost hunting trap is a small price to pay for peace of mind. I suggest we leave it here and simply start our trek back to Seldom Spring."

Maldorn is sporting fresh curative bandages on his archery-finger, and a fat unlit cigarette on his lips. After packing everything and making double-sure he is ready to leave, he invites his companions to lake the lead: "I'll watch your backs, as usual."

Jambiya fiddles with her witchy stick. “I don’t think we should leave it trapped. The bird man, I mean. What if it comes round and nobody is here to get it out of the trap? I think we should let it loose, maybe write it a note about what happened.”

She thinks for a moment. “Actually, that is a good idea, anyway. We should tell people what happened here. Eric, you’re good with words, you should write it.”

Erric awakens very reluctantly and joins the conversation a bit late. His bedhead game is very, very strong.

"Wait don't we want to see if it will turn back into a living being? If we're not here should it awaken, what's the point of the trap other than revenge against the ones who tried to murder us? We could wait another few hours to see if it had just gotten attacked by the evil chicken shortly before our arrival yesterday and is about to turn back. If not, we should probably save Maldorn a trap and get going. Unless we want to put down that thing in the garden -- Maldorn is it evil? Or just dangerous?"

After eating, Erric heads back into the kitchen, sees if he can harvest anything interesting from the body of the cockatrice (Survival or Nature or Investigation 14), and also heads down to the wine cellar to bring out all the wine bottles and setting them at the feet of his friends. "Souvenirs?"

He begins sharing some lines from the ballad he started composing in his head after Jambiya recommended telling their story. It has a few swear words and talks about rich zombies, cracked mirrors, rude birdmen, horror chickens, g-g-g-ghosts, hidden potions, house fires, heroic (and perhaps a bit foolhardy! development!) halflings, sparklefingers, wine drinking, ambitious archers, and literally every single name that Maldorn has called other members of the party.

[Edited to add "nature" to possible list of checks since I belatedly realized that was a skill :)]

It wasn’t very hard to convince Maldorn not to trap the bird: “Aye, I confess I said it out of spite. I’ll undo the trap, but I don’t think waiting for it to turn back is a viable option. I mean, do we even know if it is supposed to turn back? If so, it may take hours or even years. I don’t have many more of those to waste... let’s just leave, I say.”

Maldorn then begins undoing the trap carefully. His head starts bobbing as Eric begins to recite part of the ballad but Maldorn does not understand the chorus: “Why repeat your own name so many times, Master Keric?“

(OOC: Lol I am slowly really starting to get Maldorn)

"I was just thinking of waiting a bit longer because giving it a day seemed to be plenty of time, we got here pretty early yesterday so maybe that's when the kenku became a statue? If no one else wants to, we can just leave. I just wanted to find out why they were here."

Erric, looking over the body of the cockatrice, you decide the only thing that might be useful is the beak. You find it fairly easy to remove the creature's beak. It has a strange dust all over it, which easily rubs off.

Add one cockatrice beak to your inventory.

Are we ready to head back?

(OOC it has been a while since we went through the house in real time - is there anything we are forgetting? Grabbed the wine - any other salvage we are forgetting? The only things that were not burned up were in the basement from what I can recall, and the journal pages. No gold or other valuables anywhere, and nothing we heard about and decided we would return to after, right? Erric did ask earlier if we wanted to bring the broken mirror for Dirk.)

OOC > Jambiya still has the journal, she'll bring that back for Dirk. As for the mirror, she'll collect a shard of it for Dirk's wall, but that's all. If the casket is valuable, we should bring that back, too.

OOC: Maldorn has the casket. The only other thing I can think of is whether we should clear the garden from the evil plants...