Strange Aeons: The Thrushmoor Terror, Part 2 [IC]

[Blackhawk101]

Brother Jaume’s tear filled eyes bulge and his face flushes with the effort to try to communicate with winter. He makes frantic motions to try and get her to understand.

[lostsole31]

Winter nods her head and looks to the rest of the party. "It's as I feared for a cognitive block, and Brother Jaume feels it. Magic, even if not a language by which to convey syntax and meaning as we understand it when it must be spoken, still uses the part of the brain that Brother Jaume cannot access. He can go with us, but his magic is suppressed until, or if, his cognitive block can be removed."

[Blackhawk101]

BJ is forlorn but touches Winter’s left hand as he gathers up his staff.

[lostsole31]

Flair, Vilma, St. Dorn, Winter, and Brother Jaume reconvene in the upstairs room that has the body of the star vampire. Note that you haven't searched the room or the door leaving.

What is the plan?

[digiman619]

Flair had done his best to comfort Jaume; even if he wasn't under the influence of a spirit, he was afraid for his friend and wanted to help him how he could. Once they got back upstairs, Flair inspected the room, hoping to find something that would lead to some answers.

[lostsole31]

The smell up here in what appears to be a sitting room is awful with the star vampire's body.

With the party searching the room, it sppears that Lowls used the large, round table in this room to host intimate dinners, to play cards, and to stage seance sessions and other parapsychological experiments, as some of the bric-a-brac sitting around would indicate. The room is lit by candles and by a shifting, soft light emanating from the surface of the table. Upon inspection, the soft light is simply a moody-ambiance version of continual flame. The windows are shuttered. There's nothing more of interest or value in this room.

There is a door to the west.

What does the party do?

[digiman619]

Flair readies his crossbow as he looks to his teammates. Once he gets signals of readiness from everyone, he opens the door to the west.

[Blackhawk101]

BJ continues to mouth a silent prayer as he kisses his holy symbol. He gives Flair a nod.

[lostsole31]

Flair opens the door to reveal a north-south corridor beyond.

[digiman619]

Keeping his crossbow up, Flair motions for the rest of the party to follow as he goes down the hallway.

[lostsole31]

As Flair steps into the hallway, there is a door immediately across from his position, but unlike the well-lit sitting room, this hallway is completely dark. Only the many lights from the party and the sitting room illuminate a small portion of where Flair stands, and it would be foolish of him to traverse south blind.

But while he is letting his eyes adjust to the point he realizes that tactic won't be enough, Flair thinks he hears something ....the scampering of tiny creatures running along the areas between the walls and the floor.

[digiman619]

Flair steps out of the hallway and into the room they were in previously, closing the door behind him. "Okay, there's something skittering out there, but it's pitch black. Anyone have a torch or other light source?"

[lostsole31]

St. Dorn's voice creaks from the sitting room after a sigh and a breath as he says as slowly and compassionately as he can, "Son, step back in here. Nobody doubts your senses, your acuity, or your courage. But you are the last person here who should be going from front. Vilma? You are the most heavily armored, will you take the front? And then maybe Flair behind her since he does notice odd things ... like whatever he's hearing."

[silphael]

Vilma looks around in the seance room for a small item to light up then throw in the dark room. Something relatively sturdy, to not shatter when hitting the ground.

[lostsole31]

Ironically, Vilma will find a candle that she casts light on and then tosses it into the hallway, lighting it up for Flair.

Sure enough, 5' to the north is the wall (no window) that is the end of that extension as the outside of the manor is on the other side.

Where Vilma dropped the candle is right next to a door to the west.

The candle's light shines south into the darkness another door to the west 20' down from the nearer.

Immediately to Flair's south, it seems there is a washbasin and faucet.

[digiman619]

Flair will nod at Dorn's words and move towards the middle of the party. He just wanted this endeavor to be over, but putting himself at risk like that wasn't going to solve anything.

[lostsole31]

Vilma, do you take the lead as recommended by St. Dorn?

[silphael]

Nodding, Vilma opens the way, her currently shining shield ready.

[lostsole31]

Viima steps out into the hallway, realizing as she does so that her shield is no longer shining since she had cast light on the candle. She stands next to a door to the west, and sees only a sliver more that Flair saw before.

[silphael]

She casts Light on her shield again, to advance with the light source.

[lostsole31]

And with that, the light immediately drops from the discarded candle and back onto Vilma's shield.

Vilma, deal with the door next to you, or head south down the passage?

[silphael]

To the other, she speaks.

"Let's not allow them to split us through that door first."

And she opens the door.

[lostsole31]

St. Dorn moves up behind Vilma so she is not alone when she opens the door. A strong smell of vinegar hangs in the air of this simple, but well-appointed, bedroom.

[digiman619]

Flair follows his teammates, looking into the room, though he remains in the hallway for now.

[lostsole31]

As Vilma and St. Dorn turn their heads from the stench of vinegar, Flair moves to the upper corner of the hallway to peer in, and sees what seems to be a body on a bed.

[digiman619]

Flair looks at the form on the bed. "I think I see someone on the bed. We should check if they're alive, dead or undead."

[lostsole31]

Since there are no sounds of battle or immediate danger, Winter - from the back of the group - looks to Brother Jaume and says, "Brother, with me," and assuming he follows she enters the room to inspect the bodies. St. Dorn will follow behind them and go into the room as well.

The guest bedrooms of Iris Hill are well furnished and reasonably tidy, though they suffer the same general state of neglect as the rest of the manor. In addition to the two beds, writing desk, and cabinets, the room holds a wooden vat of vinegar. A woman's body that has been decapitated lies on the southern bed. The lower body of what a quick check will reveal was a man is likewise laid out on the other bed. The room looks like the scene of a pair of gruesome murders.

After a brief check of both corpses, assisted by Brother Jaume, Winter looks back to Vilma, "Fine if you and Flair want to check, but there doesn't appear to be any animating force here. These are inanimate body parts. Just a minute, though ..."

Winter and Brother continue to check over the gore, and then Winter, having been given some good charades-insight (yes/no style) from the friar looks to the group semi-assembled in the room. "The bodies appear to be separated parts of two undead that are not present. But the bodies as they are are not undead ... only the portion that separated. They aren't here, and I don't know where they are, but I think this vinegar is somehow related to preservation."

[silphael]

Still at the entrance, Vilma jauges the length of both sides of the corridor.

"So some flying head undead ? I suppose it doesn't advance by rolling on the ground, right ?"

[Blackhawk101]

Brother Jaume pantomimes something to Flair although all can see him. Whether successful or not, he shuffles over to the cabinet to check that out.

[lostsole31]

In regards to Brother Jaume's pantomime, this one has Winter stymied at first, and even everyone tries to get in on this like a bad game of charades, but anything that tries to "codify" his actions (i.e. number of syllables, "sounds like," etc.) is functionally "language" and the cleric can't even aid there. Finally, with some incorrect but intuitive spit-balling by Vilma, St. Dorn offers, "There's a head that's ... slightly open? No wait, a head that's ajar? A HEAD IN A JAR!"

And Brother Jaume points to his nose with one hand and points to her with the other excitedly.

The party begins to search the room. As evidence that Count Lowls used these rooms to accommodate the PC during his dream experiments, one of the bedside tables holds four empty glass phials and a notebook penned by Lowls. The notebook contains the names of Lowls’s test subjects, as well as a lengthy series of notes about his suspicion that Ulver Zandalus was the key to discovering Neruzavin, the lost city in Casmaron that holds three Star Stelae similar to those in Thrushmoor. The last entries in the notebook detail the PCs, identified by name and accurate data about race, gender, height, and weight, all of which the count referred to when administering the exact dose of a special sleeping drug (which the empty phials once contained), provided by someone named Miacknian Mun.

The headless woman is clad in a delicate-looking blue robe with tiny embossed runes across it's entire surface that registers as magic ... and a chain shirt. The cabinet nearest to that corpse holds a variety of things.

• Vilma and Brother Jaume detect the magical aura, but it is strong and they can't "read" the aura.
• Normal chain shirt
• Scrolls: sepia snake sigil (x2); see invisibility
• Composite shortbow [+3 STR] w/ (20) arrows
• Short Sword
• (165) gold

So, with Brother Jaume's proffered comment ... the evidence that covers everyone there (except Winter) ... and what seems to be a murdered woman that wasn't robbed (but might be some type of headless undead?) .... what does the party do?