Alev nods. "I agree with Rudick too. If the house is a monster by itself, we kill it. And if we can't do that by dealing with whatever is down those stairs, well... I say we go and burn down this place to the ground on our way out!" He declares, extending his wings to emphasise his words. "Sorry to the kids for destroying their house, but they are better not living here anyways! How did they even survive here this long?"

He turns to follow Rudick down the stairs, but he turns to speak to Sergei before he does. "...I told you to wait here." He says, smug. "You look really scared. Did you really just saw a ghost down there?" He asks with honest curiosity.

Turning to look at Alev, skip asks “what makes you think these children have survived here? If the house is alive, and the baby was some ghost trap, maybe them kids are too. Hey Sergei, did the kids do or say anything just now when you went down there?”

Sergei trembles a bit and then it all bursts out of him. He describes the grisly scene and says,

“We can’t get out that way.”

After brooding a bit, he remembers:

“Wasn’t there a secret door in the nursery? But we got distracted by the ghost?”

Alev is shocked into silence by what Sergei describes to have seen. "The door is that way..." He answers at his question, in a more quieter tone than how he's been speaking so far. "There's a staircase inside, but we still don't know what's down there. It could be anything at all"

"...Are you okay? Do you need some rest? You could stay here and rest a little, if you want."

As everything else is going on, and presuming things to be on the second level, Rudick kept an ear open. However, his main focus during all the prattle was getting the half-plate in place on his body. An embarrassingly lengthy process involving much uncomfortable squeezing to fit everything into place by the looks of things. Following a sigh of relief when all that's done, Rudick worked on bundling up the old chain mail to pack away. 

"Up." He corrects as he made his way to main stairway, and popped a squat on the steps. "They ascended, not descended. But, is our best guess for finding one leading down eventually... For now, if this house wants us to stay so badly as to scare the piss out of those trying to leave, then we stay. But, we move at our own pace... and I'm not moving till I've had me a breather." With that, he breaks out some jerky and waterskin for what could be a final lunch.

Go ahead and take a short rest. 

While you take a small respite, the house stays as still as ever. It creaks slightly as it settles. Somewhere above on the third floor, you hear a door open and close. Footsteps rap on the floor overhead and stop. If you go up and check, the closet with cleaning supplies is slightly ajar, and you see footprints marking the dusty floor that makes its way towards the main spiral staircase. They fade off half way there. Hopefully, it's just a trick to scare you, not something worse.

Sergei doesn’t want to have anything to do with the closet or the footsteps. The house has already jerked him around plenty. And he’s sure the way out won’t be found in there.

”Let’s get to that secret stairway and keep going.”

Alev takes notice of the footsteps, but after the armor and the ghost it's going to take a little more to scare him. "...Another ghost, maybe?" He wonders aloud.

He stands up from the spot where he was sitting at during their rest and nods to Sergei. "Let's go kill this thing!" He exclaims.

It was very tempting to go take an earlier peek. Yet true to his words, Rudick refused to move from his step. At some point during the rest he produced a pipe and all else needed for a casual smoke break, and only looked up in confusion over all the noise. He then has the presence of mind to draw the warhammer closer to his side, waiting in anticipation for their monster to come running down.

"Hmph." The only reaction out of the Orc when all is relatively quiet again, or quiet enough at least to continue his break. "Mn... right. Good to see some of you have your spirits back. Let's go." Unless another races ahead, Rudick takes point on heading up the secret stairway having put away his smoking material. Now just good and blazed enough to give too less hoots about the dangers beyond, but not so much as to be truly impaired, he stepped lively every step of the way.

-->SR Healing(1): 10. (Rolling just for posterity's sake)

Sergei follows closely, eager to be moving, eager to be done with the place.

Skip slinks through the shadows at the groups side, flitting from one to the next, ever award for any present danger

Alev marches to the stairs along with the group, his feathers fluffed in an attempt to look bigger and more threatening.

You make your way up the stairs. You come to a blank wall. You push on it, and a section pivots to allow access to the cellar. You walk into the room beyond and find yourself in a t-shaped chamber. You see four doors. This room too is flooded with dust, and webs hang heavily from the ceiling.

Sergei heads to the nearest door and yanks it open

You move to the nearest door and try to open it, but the door is locked. (Bottom right on map)

Sergei calls out “locked” and moves to the next door

By the time Sergei had called out locked, Rudick had already made his way over to the door on the opposite side of the room from Sergei's 1st door for a peek inside. Though if it too was locked, with all the grace of a bull in a china shop, the Orc would put thick bottom boot to work and kick it open. Regardless of outcome, he called back, "See if you of you can get the other one unlocked. Could be our way down."

Alev lightly sneezes just from looking at all the dust surrounding him. As the others check the doors, he nervously looks around to see if there's any traps. With how things had been going so far, he half-expected to see a giant spider to descend from the webs around the room any second now.

Perception: 19

Alev, you don't notice anything. 

Rudick, you find a dust choked room containing a slender bed, nightstand, a small iron stove, writing desk with a stool, and empty wardrobe, and a rocking chair. A smiling doll in a lacy yellow dress sits in the northern window box, cobwebs draping it like a wedding veil.

Sergei, You open the door on the right side of the alcove and web-filled room containing a slender bed cover nightstand, a rocking chair, and empty wardrobe, and a small iron stove.

Sergei would like to spend a few minutes examining the room for anything unusual, especially the walls, remembering the secret door that led the group up here.

Investigation 6

If he doesn't find anything, he moves on to the fourth door.