Day 2 in New Sarnath (Afternoon)
Because the DM is too lazy to go into the same level of detail as before
Party goes through the door and down a spiral stone staircase; finds an under cellar.
Dead ahead is a desk, some chests, and a heavy safe; the area has a couple Continual Flame spells on the walls. To the left is a passage ending with a crack in the wall and a lot of fugal growth on the floor and walls, clearly growing from the passage beyond; it's too little for party to squeeze though, but there is the wind blowing from it. To the right is a passage that turns. There is the almost inaudible sound of weeping in the room or it could just be the wind blowing from the passage.
Thanus and Vlad go behind the desk; behind it is a skeleton wearing a noble woman's dress and the skull is caved in. Vlad sees an expensive locket on the corpse; he opens it and there is a small portrait of a little girl. Thanus opens chests and finds lots of old business records, ledgers, shit like that. They turn to the safe and figure the numbers on the key are the combination.
Braggor goes right to the passage that turns out of sight to check it out; find it dead ends rather quickly, but there is a ghostly woman weeping there. It's a Fye; he antagonizes it and it screams and tries to possess him (fails) before floating through a wall.
The scream attracts the attention several fungal crawlers that had been dozing in the lush fungal growth at the end of the left passage; they enter the office area and wreck Thanus, but between summon monster spam and Vlad blasting they eventually go down and the surviving ones flee and go back down the passage.
The Fye floats back into the room during the fight and besides trying to randomly fear the first person who makes eye contact with her, she seems content to ignore what is happening. And then Braggor punches her again and this time he gets possessed for real; the fye screams and cries though him while bashing his head against the wall until he is unconscious before leaving his body and floating back to her corner.
Party helps Braggor and decides to leave her alone; safe gets opened and party finds more documents that don't matter anymore, but also 5,000 gold in platinum bars and a carved ivory charm; Vlad recognizes it as a "good luck charm," the kind affiliated with the Forgotten Pantheon. It makes everyone a little uneasy for some reason, but it's not magic says Detect Magic. Braggor and Thanus don't like that and think maybe its cursed, but Vlad takes it with no obvious ill effects.
Dark family secrets
Party goes left, finds a hidden door not far from the fungal passage, opens it to find a small hallway that curves around behind the office area they just looted. Another door there, locked, but they have the key. They hear a little girl's voice singing some nonsense song from beyond.
They open the door.
Room description:
- Decent sized room, completely open.
- Some bedding off to one side, expensive sheets and blankets, lots of dolls on it.
- Past that an arm chair and small table with two bottle on it; one bottle is half full and contains a dose of a rather deadly poison. The other is wine.
- On the floor, leaning against the chair is a skeleton in noble's clothing; an empty goblet lays nearby. With the half full poison bottle on the table, it definitely looks like a suicide.
- Directly in front of him are three painting propped up against the wall; one is a large family portrait (man, woman, little girl - the same from the locket) and the other two are smaller portraits of the little girl (one as a 4 or 5 year old, the other as maybe 8 or 9). Next to them is a journal.
- Past that is a fireplace with a magical fire (smokeless, eternal). There are old burned pages around the fireplace, now illegible; clearly there was a book burning here at some point.
- Nearby is a shrine of some kind; there's a place on it for a large statue, but the statue is missing.
Party talks to the "little girl" (who thinks she is a little girl and acts like one, but will have a violent reaction to anyone telling her she isn't one); Who are these strange men in my house; my daddy won't like it. Braggor is gruff and lies badly, so she doesn't like him and is suspicious. Vlad is nicer and she seems to trust him. Braggor steps back into the hall to let Vlad talk and Thanus goes too, but only so he can go invisible and then reenter to see about looting.
By going back and forth with the girl, Vlad learns:
- "Daddy" wouldn't like her talking to strangers, but Vlad seems like a nice man; could he stay and play?
- She's lived in this room for a long time; Daddy said that she had to stay here where it was safe. Daddy doesn't talk to her a lot anymore though (looks at suicide skeleton).
- Has a negative reaction to the locket Vlad got off the dead noblewoman in the room; "Mommy" doesn't love her anymore and says she's not her daughter. Mommy wanted to hurt her, so Daddy had to hurt her.
- She can still hear Mommy outside sometimes and it scares her.
Vlad offers her the ivory charm from the safe, she takes it reluctantly and is confused; it belongs to her Daddy, where did Vlad get it? Vlad lies and says he found it on the floor outside and she believes him... but then she cocks her head as if listening to a voice only she can hear and she looks strangely at the charm.
She then looks Vlad in the face and says he's lying, it was in her Daddy's safe. How did he get in her Daddy's safe! She gets worked up and this is clearly escalating toward a fight. She yells for her Daddy to save her. Thanus takes this distraction as meaning it is time to cut the portraits from their frames and does so.
The party is torn between fighting or just running off with the loot and locking her in. Before they can decide the sound of insane gibbering fills the room. Daddy heard his little girl's call and returned; it is an Allip, but this one is clearly recognizable as the man in the portrait. Most allips do not retain the visage they had in life, yet this one does. Unique enemy? That can't be good.
End of Session
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