== Wealday, Neth 13, 4707; The Misgivings, Evening ==

After our break for lunch we continued to explore the house, and exploring the main hall in more detail revealed that the grotesque monkey head with the rope dangling from its mouth was magical. We also found that the bookcase beneath the circular stairs held tomes of the Foxglove family history as well as a few religious texts.

The last entry was made by Aldrin himself, sometime within the past year. He describes arriving at the house in order to prepare it for his fiance’, Iesha, who would be arriving soon.

The very first entry in the oldest book was dated 4620 and discusses the family’s search for a new home; and mentions that perhaps the “Brothers” would help.

To the south of the dining area was a large library with an extensive collection of books. Unfortunately most were suffering from damp, and had mildew growing on their spines and covers. Of more interest to us were the two chairs in the center of the room. One of the chairs lay on its side with a bright red silk scarf draped across it. The other faced the toppled chair, and between the two was a book on Varisian history. In the fireplace a stone bookend had been smashed.

As Kane entered the room he paused for a moment and turned very pale. He then described the vision, or memory that had enveloped him. He heard a woman’s scream and the scarf leaped through the air and around his throat. Suddenly Aldrin was before him, his face contorted in rage and his hands twisting the scarf tightly around Kane’s neck. And then the vision passed.

At the same time Avia had detected a cold, evil presence around Kane, but it too passed with the vision.

Kane left the room, clutching the scarf in his trembling hands.

[200] silk scarf (~100gp)

Rigel had discovered that the bookend in the fireplace, which was of the shape of a praying angel (sans one wing, which had broken off), had bits of bone, hair and blood smeared on one end.

Other than the impressive accumulation of books (albeit moldy), we found nothing more of interest.

A sitting room lay to the north of the dining area. A large sofa facing a stone fireplace with capering imps and birds carved into the mantel. The sofa was coated with a thick layer of white fungus, which we carefully avoided.

We pulled back the drapes, as we had done in the other rooms, to let in some light, and there before the fireplace, Rigel saw that the dust was churning about, as if invisible person were walking back and forth.

Avia said an evil presence was in the room as Trask bent down and set out caltrops in the path of our invisible host. The dust stopped moving, and at just that moment I heard a voice whisper, “Laurie.”

We decided to check out the door in the west wall when Trask became quite agitated and insisted that Rigel not open the door. He then demanded that she leave the house because it was not safe for her. “It is dangerous, and no daughter of mine…!” I cast Remove Fear upon Trask and he fell silent. After a moment he said he was concerned because he didn’t want “her” to go into the basement.

Another vision, or perhaps possession? Or maybe a warning.

The west door opened onto a hallway, and the first door on the right was a washroom, with a rusting metal tub set against the far wall. Something was scrabbling about in the tub: it was a hideous rat, half eaten away by some wasting disease, and its empty eye sockets rimmed with white fungus. Nolin put it out of its misery.

The next door off the hall was a conservatory, and a grand piano sat off to the side while a giant glass chandelier sat in ruins in the middle of the floor. The walls were paneled with rich dark wood, and frescoes of dancing figures decorated the lintels, but everything was coated with mold, and the floor boards of the dance floor were twisted and warped.

I pulled back the curtains and opened the double doors, which led back out to the drive along which we arrived. I then walked over to the piano and played a simple tune I was taught as a child back in Magnimar. While I am no musician, and my training on the piano was limited to one or two hours at the keyboard of the temple’s old upright, it was obvious that this ancient thing was in perfect tune!

We all then noticed that Kane was standing in the center of the room; his eyes vacant as he swayed from side to side. Suddenly he started and looked around at us as if trying to remember where he was.

As soon as I had begun to play on the piano he was swept into a dance with a beautiful woman. As they danced she changed as bruises formed on her pale neck, her eyes bulged and her lips turned blue. She then dropped to dust, leaving Kane back with the rest of us.

We made our way back through the small corridor and into the main hall and then across to the circular staircase, which we ascended.

The first room was obviously a child’s room, with a child sized bed, a toy box and a fireplace in the corner. The sound of a child crying wafted through the room, although I could not hear it.

The crying affected Avia, who hid in the fireplace as best she could and refused to speak to any of us. After a few moments she came out of the fireplace looking confused. She said thought she was Aldrin, frightened and running into the room to get away from his father, who had bulging eyes and a knife in one hand while chasing Aldrin’s mother about the house. His mother was also running around with a burning torch, trying to kill his father.

The room to the north had been a music room, with a few music stands scattered about and old harps, violins and flutes against the wall. The east wall was bowed, like the eastern end of the great hall below, and its windows were also of stained glass, depicting five scenes — one in each window.

• A pale ghostly scorpion
• A gaunt man holding our his arms while a dozen bats hung from them
• A moth with strange skull like patterns on its wings
• A tangle of dull green plants with bell shaped flowers
• A young maiden sitting astride a well while a spider the size of a
  dog descended from a large web

Kane noticed right away that they represented the following:

• scorpion venom
• bats wings
• death wing moth
• belladonna
• the heart of a maiden killed

Sabin commented that a lich based apthiousis was based on these ingredients.

Across the hall from the music room was a gallery of sorts. A stone fireplace crouched in the northwest corner, while cobweb covered portraits lined the north and south walls.

The north wall appeared to boast paintings from an older generation than those on the south, and on the frame beneath each painting was the name of the subject. The paintings on the north wall all appeared to have been painted at the same time in the same style (and no doubt by the same artists), just as those on the south, while different in age and style from those on the north, were done by one artist.

North wall portraits, from east to west:

1. Vorel Foxglove: a tall middle aged man, clean shaven with dark hair and blue noble clothes.

2. Kasanda Foxglove: a stern faced brunette with slightly graying hair, cut short, and wearing a blue dress.

3. Laurie Foxglove: a doe eyed little girl, much the same in the face as her mother, although less severe and stern.

South wall portraits, from east to west:

1. Trevor Foxglove: a tall and thin man with a narrow face and a long thin mustache.

2, Cyrlie Foxglove: a young woman with long red hair.

3. Aldrin Foxglove: a boy with the same foppish weak chin he sported as an adult.

4. Sendel Foxglove: a girl — obviously Aldrin’s sister.

5. Zeeva Foxglove: another sister.

Zeeva’s portrait was especially obscured with cobwebs, and when I brushed them aside the temperature in the room suddenly dropped, and our breaths came out as steamy puffs.

And with that all but two of the paintings underwent a change.

Vorel’s portrait turned to fungus, which spread about the room at a frightening rate, and, as we would soon learn, infested Nolin and Rigel with some sort of disease.

Kasanda and Laurie slumped into misshapen, tumor ridden forms.

A long cut opened in Trevor’s throat and blood washed down his chest.

Cyrlie blackened and charred and suddenly her arms, legs and back fractured in a dozen places.

Aldrin’s hair fell out as his face rotted and he transformed into a ghoul like creature.

Sendel and Zeeva remained unchanged, and we speculated that we had witnessed the end of each of the Foxglove family members as it had actually occurred. We assumed that Aldrin’s two sisters remained alive and well in Magnimar.

Moments later the room returned to as it was before, but the air was still heavy with the powdery mold that sprang from Vorel’s painting, which left us with little doubt that what we had experienced was real and not an illusion.

Nolin and Rigel both claimed that they had red spots on their arms, but the rest of us could not see them, nor could they see one another’s. We had them draw with ink where the spots were, and saw that both formed similar patterns.

Curing of diseases is currently beyond my skill, and we resolved to quickly explore the rest of the house and perhaps return to Sandpoint on the next day to seek a cure.

West of the gallery was a large bedroom, dusty and unkempt. A desk was set under the north window with a dark stain on its surface. Oddly enough there was no mold in this room.

I looked through the desk, hoping to find some document or clue about what happened here. Suddenly I became aware of a dagger and I picked it up and held it to my throat. I had just killed her! The woman I loved most in the world, and without her, what point was there in living? No. Wait. That wasn’t me, but I found that I had picked up a large sharp splinter of wood.

The papers in the desk indicate that it was Trevor’s room, and from the mental image I had just had and his painting’s transformation we deduced that Trevor burned his wife and threw her out a window onto the rocks below, and then returned to his bedroom where he slit his own throat.

Next we went to the far northeast bedroom — perhaps a guest room — caked with a thick layer of spongy dark green and blue mold. In here we heard a ghostly child’s voice ask, “What’s on your face mommy?”

Sabin started to claw at his face, and we had to restrain him until the fit left him. Poor Kasanda and Laurie ended this way. We carefully backed out from the room.

The washroom was off the north wall, with an iron tub perched upon a floor, sagging beneath its weight.

In the northwest corner was a large bedroom. The bed had been smashed and the mattress slashed, along with the walls and paintings. One painting was still intact, but turned around such that it faced the wall.

A voice shrieked high and piercing, “What do you do down in the damp below?!”

Rigel staggered about and then charged at Avia, screaming! Avia simply held her away with one arm until the evil mood passed.

I turned the painting around to reveal a portrait of Iesha Foxglove, wife of Aldrin, whom he murdered in a fit of rage.

We estimated that the damage done to the room was recent — within the past few months. And so it seems that each generation that lived in this house was destined for some great tragedy… or evil.

A door next to the bedroom led up a flight of stairs to the attic.

The first room was a work-room, with large holes in the roof and pots and urns strategically placed to catch the rain. Woodworking and carpentry tools line the shelves and rest on the work table.

The next four rooms were simple storage rooms holding furniture, bedding and all manner of household goods and supplies.

The southeast corner held a small bedroom and had a low ceiling slanting down to the east. From this room we heard a shriek from the north, and we ran out and over to a door at the end of the hall.

Rigel and Kane fumbled with the lock and Avia burst inside. It was a cold and damp bedroom, with a mold encrusted chimney in one corner and a mirror leaning up against the slimed bricks. There, huddled on the floor and wrapped in a sheet was a woman rocking back and forth and staring at the mirror.

It was Iesha. That is, it was at one time Iesha, although what it was now we were not sure. Avia said she was evil. No real surprise there.

Avia broke the mirror, and then the Iesha thing screamed out, “Aldrin, I can smell your fear! You’ll be in my arms soon.”

Someone suggested letting her go and then following her to find Aldrin (and perhaps provide an unlikely ally in the ensuing, but inevitable conflict), but we had stood in her/its way for too long and it was grasping at us. It had got a hold of Nolin and squeezed him with almost bone crushing strength.

We killed it, and if there was any part of Iesha still present, we ended her misery. The body rapidly decomposed as it lay there, and we covered the remains of the remains with a sheet.

Across the narrow hall from Iesha’s place was a locked door, and beyond the door was an interesting room filled with books, skulls with candles, scroll cases, statues, an empty birdcage, tribal fetishes and other odd but interesting paraphernalia.

A small desk stood squat before a fine leather chair, and as I sat I was overwhelmed with the sound of book pages rapidly turning, and my thoughts turned with excitement over planned expeditions and sea voyages to far away and exotic lands. But these were just pipe dreams now: all forsaken and lost because I had to settle down and marry that harpie!

Hmm, yes, well now I do hate it when that happens.

Two of the scroll cases held magical scrolls:

[201] scroll of lightening bolt
[202] scroll of keen edge

The books were all of tribal cultures, and the Ashanti tribes. A painting of a bull fight hung on the wall caught our eyes as being of high quality.

The final room was over the music room, which itself was over the dining area of the main hall, and this room shared the same bowed alcove and stain glass windows of its fellows. A desk and chair sat in the middle of the room.

• Northern window: a dark haired woman with pale skin and large green eyes, wearing red and black clothing and wielding a jagged iron staff.

• Southern window: the bottom has been broken and the hole covered by canvas, but in the top half we saw a handsome man wearing an ivory and jade crown.

The frame around the broken part of the window was burned, as if something (or someone) was set alight and pushed through.

On the desk was a battered telescope, and in the ceiling above was a trap door, secured by a series of ropes and pulleys. Nolin managed to get the contraption working and we climbed up and out onto the roof. It was late in the day and the sun was close to setting.

We climbed back down from the roof, and then down to the main hall on the ground floor. There we decided it would be prudent to walk the three miles back to the Lost Coast Road to make camp.

Once outside we noticed that in the clearing that had once housed the out buildings for the manor a vast flock of black birds or ravens had roosted. Only these birds had glowing red eyes, and they followed our every move.

Anytime we tried to walk away from the house they would drive us back.

We debated trying various tactics and spells to escape, but decided instead to conserve our magics in case we could not get away and had to camp here anyway.

We set camp between the main hall entry and the ballroom entry, beneath the bare limbs of a twisted tree. We expect trouble overnight, and despite the watch, sleep does not come easy.

== Oathday, Neth 14, 4707; The Misgivings, Morning ==

The night passed quietly and uneventful, if you can call having thousands of beady red glowing eyes staring at you uneventful.

Nolin and Rigel do not look good, and now everyone can see the angry red sores that have erupted from their skin. Kane and I used our healing skills to help as much as possible, but I fear we must escape this place and return to Sandpoint for any hope of a cure.

And apparently the only way to escape is to confront what awaits us in the basement. We’re fairly certain we will find Aldrin, or more precisely what Aldrin has become. No doubt this trap was of his creation, but he may have underestimated our abilities, or so we hope.

We scrambled down the regular stairs, leaving the mold stairway and the magical mystery monkey head as a last resort.

A kitchen. We were not expecting a kitchen, complete with table and fireplace.

The table top was covered with mold (imagine) and rat droppings (disgusting).

Disturbingly large and wide cracks, a foot wide each gape from the southwest wall. Kane has volunteered to go in if we run out of options.

As we explored the area the sound of chattering rats came from the cracks, but with some oil and a little fire we kept the diseased rodents at bay.

A door in the north end of the east wall opened onto a large room with bunks and a chair, but very little dust.

To the west a door opened onto a pantry and the rats. We quickly slammed the door shut before any could squeak through.

Next to the pantry was a door to wine cellar, filled with racks and broken bottles.

A door in the south end of the east wall opened onto a hallway, which turned north and ended in a locked iron door. Rigel and Kane worked hard to pick the lock, and when it opened we found ourselves in a chamber beneath the dining area above.

Of course the east end was bowed, and held two stained glass windows.

Sabin thought this was an arcane workshop at one time, and there is a work bench in the center of the room with three iron bird cages set upon it. In each cage is a diseased rat corpse.

It is too dark to see the images in the stained glass, and I will need to hold a brighter light source near them to see what they portray.

There are no other exists from this room than the way we came in, and now we are deciding what to do next.

Searching for secret doors is high on the list of priorities, but I fear we will need to tread the fiendish ways of a more ethereal stairway to find where Aldrin awaits us.

Postscript:

I have just completed a sketch of the basement floorplan, and noticed that we have not found a way into the area beneath the mold stairway.