"Good job."  Meepo tells Ismark, patting him on the thigh as he moves towards the door.  "Save Meepo trouble."  He moves inside and heads towards the swinging door.  "Rat go."  he commands his familiar, sending the faster Tressym through the door first.

Ismark looks down at Meepo.  "My pleasure."  

Henrik climbs out from under the table, keeping his back pressed against the wall.  His hands are up. He looks sad, troubled, and dour. In a shaky voice he says, "If you've come for the bones, they're upstairs. Some are in the wardrobe upstairs, some are in the wood storage room upstairs. Please don't hurt me. Take them and go."  He motions to the door closest to the corner of the room.  He seems to be looking past the party and out the door.  Ismark and Ireena follow the group in.  

Rat goes into the junk room.  It connects to the side door, a bar across it.  There is junk haphazardly tossed everywhere. Rat reports, "Much is lost here."

"Not sure what are you doing here, friends, but you do know you walked into the vampire nest, don't you?" The calm well-modulated voice belonged to the young man, that appeared at the broken door and now studied the group with a quiet interest. He looked like a warrior - a noble warrior and the very definition of a saying "knight in the shining armour" (minus said armour - the equipment, though well crafted, was unremarkable) - golden hair, blue eyes, good manners, cool confidence, usually granted by a clear conscience and good physical strength. "I tracked them here some days ago but did not have a chance to check it out myself yet".

Meepo glances back to the doorway.  "Meepo no see nest."  He says, looking around the place.  "Oh, vampire nest be coffins?"  He asks then, nodding to the 13 arrayed around him.  "Meepo think vampires like place." He says.  "If need new coffin."  He is distracted though when Rat tells him about the lost things in the next room.  "Meepo need go."  he informs this new person.  "Many lost things..." He explains to the others, then he heads off after rat.

Definitely a pet. Smart one, though. The young man watched the kobold disappearing in the house.  "Well, if "Meepo no see", may be I will have more luck." He paused for a second casting eyes down, and when he looked up again, the blue changed to silver. He slowly inspected surroundings: Detect Evil and Good

(Meepo is a kobold...)

Meepo stands 2 and 1/2 feet tall, wears a cloak with a hood, though the hood is currently down.  He has coppery scales and an assortment of junk sticking out of his pockets.  a light crossbow hangs from his waist, probably nearly rubbing against the floor as he walks.

"Vampires? Thank you for the warning." Olin says, looking at the newcomer, staff still pointing at Henrik, "I am Olin. Who are you?" Turning his attention back to the coffin-maker. "Tell me true man, your life depends on it: Do you serve them willingly, or are they your captors?" (insight, with previously cast guidance, 8)

Olin re-casts guidance on himself. "We have a little daylight left. If we're going to deal with a nest of vampires we'd better get a move on." Olin says to the group. Turning back to Henrik, "Where are the creatures now?"

Olin's pointed ears, tarnished-copper skin and vibrant hazel eyes give him away as a wood elf. Long brown hair is pulled back in a tail. He carries a staff in one hand and a small wooden shield, painted with the oak-leaf of Silvanus, in the other. An elven longbow hangs on his back and a quiver of arrows at his hip. Olin's clothing and leather armor are well made and meticulously maintained, all in the muted greens and browns of the deep forest. You would swear the cloak he's wearing was mist-grey when you saw him yelling in the street, but now it is the same dusty brown color as the walls.

"Forgive my manners. I am Lionel Silverstone," as pretentious as the name sounded it suited him. He stopped scanning the house for a moment and bowed politely. "I saw those ... creatures coming in here and have not seen them leaving. It does not mean they are still around but I would like to make sure. Otherwise ... Have you fought some before? If not, it would probably be safer for you to leave.""As skilled as you might be," added he, continuing his search.

(He will use those 10 minutes in full - going upstairs if need to be, checking cellar if something like this can be found) 

Henrik shies away, his eyes aghast, and then shrinks down to the corner, sobbing with anxiety.  "They made me do it, the devil promised me riches, but then left the creatures here. They made me take the bones, they are upstairs in the wood room....upstairs..."   Olin figures this old man is indeed telling the truth, and is likewise tortured, desperate, and extremely scared. 

In the backroom, Meepo begins picking up lost things. There is a wooden pail filled with several dirty clothes a chisel with a broken wooden handle, a chunk of cut wood, and three wood chips that are used to combine boards.  Laying under the cabinets are six nails, three discarded chunks of wood, a bunch of saw dust, a broken chunk of saw blade, a tiny broken pencil, a six inch piece of string with yellow powder on it, a piece of broken flag stone, and a wooden statue with a leg broken off of what appears to be a child holding a ball.  

Ismark begins flipping off the lids of coffins with an untrusting glare in Henrik's direction. Lionel helps as does Aga.  A few moments later all thirteen coffins are open, revealing them to be empty. 

The group pushes open the other two doors on this floor.  One leads to a stairway up.  The other opens into a wood working shop.  It contains everything a carpenter needs to make coffins and furniture. Three sturdy worktables stretch the length of the west wall.

At the top of the stairs are a door on the left and the right.  Aga stomps upstairs without waiting, her lance over her shoulder.  She puts her back to the wall and pushes open each door in turn.   "Clear," she says, and walks in through the left door.  Lionel is right behind her.  The rest of the group follows cautiously.  Meepo hears everyone heading upstairs and he gets up off the floor.  There are still cabinets filled with all manner of lost goods, but....the group is heading upstairs.....

The door to the right is a kitchen, which contains a table, some cabinets, and some bits of food here and there.  There is a door on the far side of the room.  Aga and Lionel have gone the other way though into the largest room on the top floor.  This large, drafty room is strung with cobwebs and takes up most of the upper floor. Stacks of wooden planks lie amid several large crates marked 'JUNK' that are laid around this L shaped room that stretches the full length of the building, and then turns to the left.   

There is an unusual amount of dirt on the floors in this room.

"Meepo coming!" Meepo calls, huffing as he runs to catch up.  "Meepo busy." He says when he catches up.  "Lost things down there." he gasps out as he looks around.  "Next time wait Meepo finish."  he tells the others.

Lionel was too concentrated on both the spell (no readings?) and the grievous task at hands to react to anything else. Slowly warily he moved forward, looking up and around.

Lionel sense evil from the room upstairs, though it's faint, as if through a barrier of some sort. As he enters the room with the crates, he feels immediately that six of the eight crates contain undead.  

Lionel did not say anything and simply pointed at the containers radiating evil to Aga and anyone who followed them up here, and nodded.

Hearing talk about vampires, and seeing the others in such a hurry, Meepo pauses only long enough to cast Mage Armor on himself, then comes into the room behind them.

Olin whispers "Six vampires?" A look bordering between hatred and fear crosses his face. "Perhaps we should find the bones before we do anything else..."

Lionel gave Olin a puzzled look when some bones were mentioned, but answered the first question with intense sadness in his voice: "Yes, six. My six friends. All were taken by Strahd and turned into the husks of themselves, that now stored like some kind of goods waiting to be shipped away." He took a deep breath: "I came to do the only thing I am still capable to help them with - to end their tormented existence in these wretched place." "The only way to kill a vampire I know about is the wooden stake though the heart. And... I will do what I must, while there is still time." Lionel showed six wooden stakes with the names on it. "For each of them. I had to do it."

Ismark steps forward, "I will help you."  He holds out a hand for a stake. "Let us do this, before night comes." 

Aga growls and holds out a hand as well.

"I will take one." Mordekai steps up, holding his hand out to take a stake. 

Lionel hesitated just for a very brief moment before handing over stakes to everyone, willing to participate in a dreadful ritual. "You said you have to do something else here? The task ahead can be deadly. You might want to finish your previous mission."

"Meepo find bones."  Meepo pipes in, moving around and searching for the bones.  He remembers what the coffin maker says and looks in the areas he mentioned first.  "Rat help Meepo." He tells his zombie tressym, who, stinking of death and decay moves around with the kobold helping to search for the bones.

Investigation: 16