Legends of Avantris - Edge of Midnight | Ep. 3 | Crooked

Episode Date: May 23, 2024

The evil that lives within the Crooked House is finally revealed...   Gain access to an exclusive campaign, Shroud Over Saltmarsh, over on Patreon: https://legendsofavantris.com/patreon The Crooked Moon, a folk horror supplement for 5e, is available for preorder! Get the Crooked Moon at: https://thecrookedmoon.com/ Watch more D&D adventures in the world of Avantris live on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/legendsofavantris Check out our merch store: https://shop.legendsofavantris.com  Join our community on Discord: https://legendsofavantris.com/discord Watch our many campaigns on YouTube: https://legendsofavantris.com/youtube  All other links: https://linktr.ee/legendsofavantris   Watch the full episode here: https://youtu.be/j4bsjcZV660?si=dnUam_Z6bW4-gTZL

Welcome to Legends of Adventress. I'm Briggsita Cutlass Crats. You have heard of me, haven't you? And you're listening to Edge of Midnight. Here's what happened last time. Don't let go of your hope. The death of hope is the last of soul. Philip Druskenval, it's your service.

Lord of Druskenwald and the Crescent Park. And this glum-looking fellow is Yorbram. He's the last member of your band of Midnight Witchhugglers. Say hello to our new pals, Your Honor. Hello. you're doing business with you, my witch hunters. And to sweeten the deal, I've even thrown in a house for you all to stay in. Whenever you choose, while you're here in Druskinwald.

No, I have a witch problem and I need it gone. You get the overall spooky vibe that you are not alone. If you like to shit your pants, that's free. Kill Hag. Someone, someone ask, ask where or how? I know my mission I will follow through. Beware, the below. There must be a bit.

be a basement. Find kids, my book upstairs. And then we kill the fucking hang in the basement. So I saw it in black. It was a dark and stormy night as much of a cliche as that is. It's the gospel truth with all the usual tropes. The wind is howling, the rain is falling, the thunder's booming and the barren branches look back and forth as if if they're trying to uproot and run away from the crooked house on the hill, where dark things lurk below, cackle above, and skid off the walls. It's in that doomed place where the strangers in this all-too-stranged land reached out to speak with the dead, and the dead talk back.

You all sit in the darkened parlor of the Lockwood estate around a spirit board that was just found dormant after communing with the spirit that called itself Petrini. The chill of the long-abandoned house returns almost immediately, despite the fire that had roared in the room moments prior. As the quiet swallows the six of you and is suddenly shattered by the slam against the side of the house that causes the walls to shake and bits of debris to flake from the ceiling

and land on the floor. You're jostled back and forth is once again that familiar slam racks all of your bodies. The spirit board clatters to the side on the table. The planchette hovers for a second and then clatters as well. Completely dormant. Are you sure this is what we're supposed to do?

You think this is some kind of trick? It could be both. How could it be both? Well, it could be what we are supposed to do, but it is the spirit's will. It could be trying to trick us. If there are any innocence in danger, we must go quickly.

It would be easy to check upstairs for Patrini's book to see if what it instructed. A lot of character. So I didn't write down the message. You say you wrote down, because it was, it was helped, yeah, please. That would be, that would be good. It was help, something about the children, the walls.

You're gonna, he does speak to, he does speak to ghosts regularly. I have an idactic memory. Allow me to recite perfectly. It was like three seconds. That's not very much. That's what it works. That means.

What do you want? There was, it was something about all message. Upstairs, yeah. Upstairs, the walls, there was the final message. The children, right? Yeah, find kids, my book upstairs, farewell. Okay, okay, okay, okay.

Yes, so that's what I, that's what Marius would be referencing is, just find the kids, find the children. Well, I guess we have two options if we want to go start, head upstairs right away, or we want to explore the rest of this spooky first floor to make sure there's nothing lurking about that's going to follow us up there.

I don't believe that there's any reason to delay. We know where we must go. Well, I suppose that's true. I'd like to find those kids. Virgil, very intent on finding the children, too. I think, do we know how much of a sense of urgency we need? I mean, this place has been like this for years. Or at least a long time, I...

I think Mr. Druskinvall said it was near around 20? Two whole decades. It's because it's been so many years that we should rush. We shouldn't let the ghosts of these kids suffer any longer. He's exactly right. It could be our presence that started all this up again. And I wouldn't want to delay and cause anyone any suffering. I think I agree. If we continue to poke around, we might trigger some other terrible trap or continue to wake whatever haunts this place. Let us rid ourselves of this evil.

Oh, the head is in this house. is maybe lurking in one of those rooms right over there. She wants us to go upstairs. You talk about that? There are many possibilities, yes. We passed a staircase, did we not?

You didn't. I stand up, very quietly, push my chair back, ready my shield, and I draw my sword, and I begin to walk towards the door where the staircase was. Riggs'i, you can either choose to follow will stay behind. Into why.

Well, let's go up upstairs and I'm sure it's probably going to be fine. We'll find them children. Oh, now I understand why you want to find those kids Virgil. You're not going to be no children. Mary, if I need you to roll perception check on you, please. Tund, ton, ta, ton. Let me check my perception.

It's a bad crow. Do you like a... Very bad crow. Oh, yes, I actually think I would, provided it doesn't like ding it up. I don't know. These are metal dice. That's right.

16. So good. I don't need to the dice town, those bad boys. You move towards the door, heading into the direction of where you remember seeing the staircase that ascended to the second floor of this, of the crooked house.

And you hear the noise at first. It distracts it. It's soft pattering, scraping. You look around to see who's immediately behind you or beside you. you, but it's neither beside nor behind. The sound is coming from inside the walls themselves. Did any of you hear that?

I was busy lecturing Jerusalem. Did I hear anything? Would we help? No, just marries. Well. What's to you? Hey, what? Please be on alert.

The sound seems to be something within the walls. Or like our good friend, And your premier, I may be hearing things. There was something in the letter that was inside the statue about something within the walls. It does not surprise me that you would hear something. I pray to the thunder that it's only rodents. Let's carry on. All right.

You first. I'll proceed forward. If you make your way back through the gallery, and then in through the part, the part, not the parlor area, the foyer area where you see the stairs begin to ascend up. It's not grumbling.

It's Briggs. Briggs, can you roll a perception for me, please? Oh. Oh, my God, where my dice. They're in this thing. I warned you. I was never going through it. It's like 20?

Pretty sure, at least. It's at least a 20. As... Sounds right. As you make your way into the room, you immediately hear the sound of scraping, almost claw-like sounds on work. And knowing what Marius had just told you, you turn your head towards the doorframe, and you can hear it in there, the sound of what sounds like a multitude of feet, tiny feet.

Even if they all roadage, there's a lot of rodents. And I'll just sort of like start to kind of hustle behind Marius. I think it's safe to say It's not rodents I'd just like Grimp my shovel harder What do you think maybe like Big insects? Like a beetle or something

Or maybe a Rachnids Like a spider or scorpion or a louse Which are Racknids by the way I think it's... I'm in the foyer I presume, yeah Yeah, I would have followed behind Briggsie Sorry you make it to me I think it's ghosts or some other horrible monster.

They've made themselves known to me, and it seems now others starting to see or hear them. It could be zombies. I've seen a lot of zombies in my day. They kind of sound like that. Who's the last person in the room? No, I don't know. I think I would have been in the back.

I would have been busy with Virgil. Virgil, why don't you make yourself useful and try to find some rodents? I know your technically clothes are carrion birds, but why don't you act like a raptor or something? Such as a falcon or a hulk? I would inspect the stairs to see if they, you know, look like they're in decent condition to be used and we're not going to just like, you know, fall through some rotten floor wards. Roll an investigation. Check.

We're going to be just fine. That's going to be a six. Looking at the stairs, they definitely look old and worn. Your familiarity with woodworking doesn't give you any additional knowledge as to whether they'll support the weight or whether they are water damaged, eaten through, termite eaten. They all most look to be in apparent.

completion, though towards the top of the stairs, I would say you can see some shards where it appears that some of the steps are not. I'll turn to the group and... And as you do, the door that had been shut behind Jericho, you slowly watch as it slowly creeps open. Not a small crack, but the entire length opens up and standing there in the doorway, shrouded in shadow, one head lilting to the side.

Is a man that you've never seen before. But you're grim, you see it. As you see as Mary's face who's even paler than it normally is, you turn and look and you've seen this man before. This was the man that was staring at you, with the blood dribbling out of its mouth. And as you look, you see it to begin to drip, drip, drip onto the floor.

You all take notice as you stare and turn to look towards. this man. He stands there in front of you in the doorway that had been closed, watching. Oh, by Lathander. Who are you? Are you all right? What are you waiting for? When I shoot him with all those glass. Roll to attack. Do we all see this? Yeah. All of us. All of us. 23. Nice. You speak out. You speak out. to him, you are still finding bravery somewhere within yourself in the face and whatever this

entity is. As Briggsie from behind you pulls out his blunderbuss. Yeah. And he lets out, I don't know, what is it? You tell me. Let's out his blunderbuss. And pull and lets out a blast of Eldritch magic. You watch as the vibrant greens, greens, grayed. and purple swirl through the air and collide with the chest of this entity. And as it does, it finds no purchase, for there is no form on this man. You watch as his eyes roll back,

blood pours forth even more from his mouth as a look of pain racks his face and he begins to dissipate in front of you. He reaches out his arms to you, but his head cannot be a as he disappears from the world. Oh, no, no, we're here to help. Don't, don't go! Bricksey, why? Did you do that for? Wait, did you see that guy? He's missing deep and he's got blood coming out of his mouth? You're trying to help him?

Have you looked in the mirror lately? Oh, well, I can't dissipate like that, can I? He... He wished you could. He didn't. He wasn't attacking us. He wasn't trying to harm us. He looked awfully scary. You're not doing some pain.

Well, maybe it was a menacing grin. We can't really dare to be friends. The thud smacks the edge of the house as once again, the entire form of the crooked house shakes and moves. You can hear the sounds of the steps creaking, but not just the sounds of the steps creaking. The sounds of small, soft, cushioned feet

running up the stairs as all of you find your balance and stand around. Was he in the Paula? Was he over here? He was over from the way that you had come. Okay, so he was standing at the end of the parlor. Yes. Did anyone recognize, and I presume I recognize the portrait, am I intelligent enough to make the connection?

I would say yes. the same way you were intelligent enough to make the connection with Cotunia, you're intelligent to make the connection that this was more Lockwood. Well, I think that perhaps Mr. Lockwood maybe needs to see a chiropractor. I think that didn't anyone recognize? Was that the man of the house? He's the ghost that appeared to me before. I think. begging to be or to rest.

We should hurry to our destination. The spirits are restless. I agree. I think Yoram is right. Briggs, I would never tell you to hesitate to defend yourself, but I beg you, please. Remember that we are here to help. People need our help.

We always aid. Remember. His wife didn't sound like she was trying to. help us. That's right. This family is but one of the many layers of the mystery of this house.

Do not fire unless you are sure that we are in danger. All right. Baron, I need your role the reception check on. Put the old one back in my sack. Is it not a spectral? No, it's just a motion.

I... I... The sword is the... That's what you saw. He conjures it. Okay. Farron, as your back is facing one of these walls, there are bits of plaster and wallpaper that have faded away and deteriorated over time. And you don't hear a sound at all.

As you're focused on Briggs and Marius and everything that was going on, is all of a sudden you feel a pinch at the back of your neck. You swamp back and your fingers are covered in your own blood as you take 12 points of you. Whoa! What the hell? Two. I'll look behind. What do I see behind me? Behind you, you look at the wall and I'll have you roll another perception check for you, please. I'll have the rest is worse.

Eight. It looks like a deteriorated wall. You don't see anything more out of place in the fact that this place is clearly falling apart. Spit me. Are you all right there? I don't know who I'm bleeding. Let me take a look.

I will look at the wounds and sort of try and get a sense of the way. Roll as a medicine check from the place. Oh, a medicine check. I've never ever gotten to roll out. So you're just bleeding and we... And I need you to make a Constitution saving from the evidence. Please don't come in.

We just started. Your party's not. I'm gonna let you die. Man. I think I... Just kidding. I'm gonna twist it. I'm gonna twist it.

Thank you, Chad. Thank you, Chad. I'm waiting for the anti-twist. What the hell? Wait, well, I just put this back in the back. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay.

Six. What can you make you? That's good information to know. And I got me. Oh, God. I'm my medicine show. Oh. He's covered in blood that kept. Is this your hair?

Mad and fur. Yeah, it smells. Oh, gross. I will say, Though you can't tell what created this bite, you are able to see that it was some kind of creature with moderately sized incisors. And it appears to be two puncture wounds.

There are two punctual wounds, I can see. It seems like you're a bit or... It felt like it. This may be weird, I'm gonna which direction was it? I'm gonna kind of look in the direction that she was her neck, been facing. You roll a perception check for me, please.

All right, I suppose I could. I'm sure that... That looks like it hurt terribly. Just let me see what I can do. And shadow will start to cover over her neck. I'll wave my hands back and forth. My eyes will darken just a little bit. And as the shadow dissipates,

cure wounds will have taken effect. 18. Okay. As you say this, you begin to look around and you start to hone your senses. with the things that Marius has said and with what has recently happened to Farron, you look at the wall behind her and you see a small hole that is just enough, is just large enough for the head of a creature to poke out of.

You follow that line around the room and you begin to hear the skittering. And you can hear it all over the walls, but there is one sound that seems to be larger than the rest, heading towards the doorway into the hall outside of this room. I think there might be a bunch of gross animals, but one is probably larger, and perhaps the one that is after feasting on our blood? If we do have blood, I don't have any, but I'm still afraid of it.

Should we hunt? We should hunt it, shouldn't we? Once and so. If it's in the walls, we'd have to figure out a way to draw it out. If we're meant to live here, we should. kill rob threats. Everyone backs together so that we face all sides. Are you feeling better, Theta? Feel a bit better. Thank you.

I worry that we are being attacked to distract us from what we need to go and to do in this house. I agree with you, Lethika. If we keep our eyes on the walls and look for places that look to be weaker or perhaps open, we might be able to continue on. I have no idea how we would draw this creature out before we continue on. I'm open to suggestions. Seems like the creatures are coming to us.

If we just keep searching, I'm sure they'll come again. Aaron, I use your roll a D4, party, please. One of your eyes just... No one higher, too. You begin to feel incredibly dizzy. Because all of a sudden, you feel yourself off balance, a little bit of nausea comes to your stomach. And you are dealing with severe dizziness.

Anything that would cause you to make a dexterity saving throw, you'll be at disadvantage. Let's just poke our head. Maybe there's misunderstanding, and we can just poke our heads into the door just to make sure that it's not just a whole bunch from waiting on the other side. Well, you go doing it. Perhaps Virgil can open the door. Virgil's terrible with doorknots. And you've seen his talent, he's awfully comfortable. I'm not going to compliment you

for everything you said about my new friends is not a chance. I'm going to open the door and stick my head. I'm going to enter the next room. So you are your not going upstairs, you're heading. I just want to check because I heard a giant fucking monster. So you're going this way? It's not a giant monster. It is definitely bigger than the creatures.

What Mikey is understand, There's a bunch of small, perhaps vermin of some kind, and then there's one larger thing. I would say that's a good adeparding under the assumption that it's giant. I'm going to step into this, take a look around. You open the door, and it actually opens a lot more easily than the other doors have.

It does still creak on its hinges as the door swings open. As you peek your head in and look from side to side, Beside the peeling cracked wallpaper, the first thing you noticed about the long and wide hallway on the first floor is the sound of a loud, rhythmic ticking. Standing prominently amidst the five doors leading deeper and deeper into the house is a huge grandfather clock carved in the shape of a single tree. The glass paneling revealing incredibly intricate clockwork along with its respective pendulum in weights that should not still be working after so many years. Yet all the same, the clock ticks away as the pendulum swings back and forth. above the ornately carved shape of the fever at the base of the tree, with massive buck teeth far too large and crooked for its head.

Clain to the trunk of the oak are the carvings of five gremlin-like creatures with pointed snouts and ears and gnashing malevolent moths. Built within the leafy canopy of the trees a small door giving it the look of a cuckoo clock and as if on cue the hour strikes. The bonging echoes through the otherwise silent house as a plump wooden bumblebee emerges and withdraws with each subsequent chime accompanied by a mechanical buzzing before it finally settles down and the slow ticking continues. You listen for the sound, the rustling, the walls, but all seems to be quiet, all aside from the tick-up of the clock that should not work.

For what it's worth, I would be standing and staying towards the base of the staircase, just waiting and listening because I'm very concerned. I want to head upstairs. I'm very concerned. Well, it's just a weird clock that buzzed at me. Hello?

Do we all see, I guess? I guess I haven't done. There's a clock and it's still working after does anyone know how to... I mean, I know I'm technically sort of a machine but I don't really know how they work. What else do you see? I see a bunch of doors.

hallway. Do you see any evidence of a giant creature? I didn't see anything, right? I just saw the clock and that's a... Um, you know, you just see the clock and exactly the way that the clock was described with all the things carved into it. But outside of that you don't see anything moving. Gross beavers and gremlins and a big old bumblebee clock thing. He just like babies. Well, there's one beaver. I can see it's just carved it's got a real strange toothy grin looking at me. I knew it. I think this house is haunted by wear beavers.

Ware beavers. Perhaps in the hallway. You said that there was the two insides and teeth. Dear beavers in the walls. Perhaps. Why else would it be horrifically and I want to stick my head in and look at the beaver? You do. Does it look like a horrifically monstrous beaver?

It does, but not as horrifically monstrous as the grimo. like creatures that are depicted around the big set. I ignore all of the gremlins. And I look at the meaver. Because he has a very crooked. He does. He does.

They're not sharp necessarily. They're much more blunt. Does it look like it could have done the damage? Roll in medicine, check. You're a fucking disaster. I want to go on record. That is so logical. If it's not Clayton, it's Triggs.

You see, she gets. It's attacked with two big incisors and then you see downstate neighbors. The Lone Guard House of the Dam. 18. 18. I would say, looking at this, as much as you want to convince yourself that beaver teeth could do this. It is far, it is not likely that it was a beaver that made those marks on fair. Thank God, Nikki.

Thank Jesus. Well, I think that. If there's not one or two angry beavers in this place, perhaps we should, we should just continue upwards and keep and just keep. Virgil, why don't you just keep an eye behind us? Are you in the actual hallway? But you're in front of the... Yeah, well, I stepped in and got close enough, like, look at it. Sweet Lord.

Get back in here. We need to stick together. You're staring. You're staring at the beaver. You're putting your fingers up next to it, measuring its teeth. trying to figure out how it could possibly have made that hole. And you're not convincing yourself because you swat a bee away from the side of your face.

And you move to look at the other, swat another bee away from your face, and swap one off of the side of your net. And then you realize you're swatting actual bees away from you. And as you still and stare at this clock, you see bee after bee after bee, buzzing and swirling around you and then you hear the sound

I've made it in no mistake and look Jericho you see this as well coming down from the other end of the hallway where the kitchens the part of the hallway that's closest to the kitchens a man in leathers and boots

covered in bees as he begins to run down the hallway towards you He's screaming and ripping at his flesh, trying to remove bees from him. He's covered in giant pox and pustules filled with bee venom. Do they sound venom? They do now. Be venom.

I'm not sure what you call a stagher. No, it's bee venom. As he is succumbing to his wounds, as the room around you is now filled from top to bottom with a cloud of bees. Jericho, they are swarming all around your face. All of you, looking out into this hallway, you see them. Thousands upon thousands of beads. Cremie.

I need you roll a Constitution. I'm not crem me. I'm bringing me. You're coming out. Is it against poison? I need you to roll a Constitution saving from Frenchville. Well, it's rubble of it if it's against poison, but... It's not. It's against bedlam.

16. I need you to re-roll back. Get wrecked. As we cash in the... first ever twist of Dreadin. You get a fucking five! Dreadin! Twist of Dreadin! That's what you get for going after the beavers and not the bees.

You turn towards this entity as it runs and runs and runs down the hole faster and faster at you. As it slams into you, you expect it to run right through you, but it doesn't. It slams directly into you as all of a sudden you are covered, with bees as they sting and poke at you. You feel your limbs swell and pop with bubbles of venom.

And you're going to take... As he's running at me, I pull my blunderbuss out, and I'm about to shoot, and I think about what Mary is. Do you need help off? What is that saying about being lawful good isn't lawful stupid? You were going to take eight points of damage.

Do you need... I will never ask this question again. Jericho, you can barely see through this thick cloud of bees as they sting into you as well, but you don't have flesh. It doesn't seem to be doing much to you. You just got some wood here, bees. There's nothing sweet for you to consume.

And then I need you to roll a bee for me, please. When then those big, like, carpenter bees start to go out. Oh, no. of you. They're the no, they're nice. Carpenter pieces of nice. Not to wood. They're big fat. For a moment, you feel, for a moment you feel like you're,

like you're going to pass out from the pain that you're enduring as your body is wrapped with countless amounts of stings. As it begins to subside and the buzzing slowly comes down and you hear the tick talk, tick-talk of the bumblebee clock above the sound of the thousands upon thousands of bees until where there had been that man upon you covered in beads there is nothing else and as you sit up and stare towards grico you open your mouth to speak Jericho. What did I say?

Gregorico. Oh, I'm thinking it. You're gonna just go kill one of him. Oh, my God, it's bees. I love bees. I can have any of the dreaddom, maids. There's 384. Can I finish?

I'm gonna damage the odds. Briggs, you sit up and look towards Jericho, and as you open your mouth to speak to him, your teeth begin to fall out in your mouth. Oh, no. One after a nine. after another. Do I hear any of this having happened?

You can hear the sounds of it, but from where you were positioned, you wouldn't be able to see it. Right, I just didn't know if I heard any of it. I would say because the doors open, you could have seen that it was literally filled to the gills with bees. But they didn't even for a second make their way into this room.

I would have just kind of poked around from the corner of this staircase and is everything all right? Get in here in danger Are you all right? I'll go over too I think we should leave Who's cring?

You just did it Oh my gosh, Briggsie, are you okay? Grick-who are you? We're all gonna need to put on name time My name is Briggsie, are you all right? Let's get out of here I think there's more bees coming.

I struggle out a bunch of my fucking team. Get back into the pot. I'm trying to collect them. I want to try to collect them. like everyone that falls out. You're able to do. You're going to one out there. I'm not stopping by my entourage and I'm on my teeth fell out.

Well, well, let's just close a door on that chapter. And I'm gonna just shut the door. Yeah, fuck that. You know, I really can sympathize you with Briggs. I know that it's a very common sort of nightmare and fear to have with your teeth, but seeing as I don't have any, I can't really relate, but that does look very horrifying.

Don't go in there. Briggsie, as you enter the room, the marks on your skin slowly begin to fade, and the teeth in your hand begin to disappear, as you reach towards your mouth and you find that the teeth that we're missing are still there. The damage that you'd suffered, you no longer feel weak from. You can regain that health. Make sure they're all there. One, two, three.

No, that was already missing four or five. I all feel, I don't know, I'll make sure that they're still sharp. So I was, oh no, it was just, it's nothing. I was checking on the people. It didn't sound like nothing. You were screaming like a baby. I mean, it was, I mean, there were ghosts in this house.

I wouldn't scream at a ghost. What did you see in there? What was this big beaver? There's a man covered in bees. House, just killing Briggs, he won't bring back to your God's damned honey. Let's get out of this floor. We've got to find the kids.

We got to find the books. We must stick together. Do you say a man covered in bees? Like the one we saw? Or did, oh, no. It was totally, yeah. It was totally covered in bees. And he was screaming for help.

And I asked, do you need help? And then he brutally attacked me. And then my teeth fell out, but then it's fine. So it was probably just, I'm a little on edge. Are you sure that you're all right? I think so I think so Did you get a look at him

I mean he was covered in bees so don't look at the bees If you're asking No I don't look at his face No I mean

there were like millions of peace Not even like thousands They were like millions of peace In that room Who there were I was mighty feared I would have let out quite a Cry too

If I wasn't petrified And feared We must be brave we must stick together and we must get upstairs agreed it's very clear that this house is playing some sort of tricks on us

and I feel as though I'm repeating myself but we must stay on God all right yes that's and that's two fellas that we've seen that have not been in the portrait

so you gotta wonder who they might be if if It was the same ghost I saw from before. I think it was the hunter in the room we were in, of the ivory statue. But I was able to see his face, I think. Yes.

Yes, I'm sure of it. Absolutely sure, man. Well, was he covered in bees? He was covered in bees. Probably the same guy. He was ripping flesh off of his bones. Well, I think that perhaps we should make like a tree and leaf of the stairs

Perhaps we should make like fine humans who are gutting back from work after a long day and going upstairs to get chained for supper. I'll reach up and sort of give Jericho a pat on his cheek. I am not a human, and I will make my way towards the stairs and start to ascend. I'll take my hand and put it against my my burlap sack of the head.

Who's not fresh and who's in the rear? I'm in the middle. Briggs'i is making sure that he's not in the front or the back. You're good. Amirius, why don't you take the lead and I'll make sure that Virgil and I keep an eye out towards the back? I don't know if these stairs will hold me, but yeah, I'll go first.

It'll be a good test. Just watch your steps. Is that a joke? No. No, no, I'm being very serious. Why would you think... You just said steps. We're on stairs.

Watch your step. Okay. I will. You ascend the curved staircase to the second floor of the house. The carpet beneath your feet torn and a good number of planks that threatened to give way to your weight. You arrived from the landing in the second floor hallway. The cracked wooden railing of the internal balcony

looking out over the tilted chandelier that's interwoven with dust. clamped cobwebs. The ratat-tat of raindrops on glass draw your attention to the open sitting space that fills this level's portion of the manor's turret before the hall continues deeper into the house and presents all the doors for this floor. The curved walls are painted with floor-to-ceiling windows of stained glass, depicting generally leafy and floral designs with the prominent figures of white peacocks, a windmill, green fruits, some elegantly dressed clergy, and a grandmotherly woman and a shawl. Each clasped with lightning sheds light through the colorful glass and projects a

phantasmagoric display of elongated shapes, dancing on the floor and walls of the sitting up in hall, turning the scene from each pane into a twisted nightmare. Particularly, the old woman flashes across the floor before you as a booming thunder clap shakes the house, and as you blank, you could swear she was covered in a wriggling mass of furry brown creatures before darkness returns once more. When you hear skittering and squeaking, you realize, that the furry mass did not disappear with the shape of the crown and a swarm of dozens of vicious malevolent weasels crashed towards you in a tide of vermin I need everyone to pull furniture with actual weasels yeah weasels I'm getting

salt marsh lash vass wheezels this is just like the old Paget right everyone look out it's whizzo's the next map up for me it's the one closest to me yes do I need to pick anything up thank you guys down we can just move that map off to the side. Are we can stop them? I've already seen. Son of a bitch. And so you were coming up the stairs and you were right there in that hallway. It was there right? Are we here? Yeah. We came up there. Inside it's a nice house. Sorry. Yeah. It's a bit of a fit of forever. He's a code of pain. Who was last? I was thinking, well, walking with a girl.

Yeah. If that's reasonable, let me know. It's unreasonable. You can shove it. You can shove it. My name's fine. And then if you could, if you could just put these all around you, yes, put these. So are we all in the room at this point, or are we kind of like coming up the stairs? I don't know where the hell we are. Well, you said hallway.

Are we here? Yes, so you just come up the stairs, so you are all up the stairs, and they are just all around you. And for the purposes of this, they can also be in the wall, so they can be alongside you along that portion of the house. I just do this.

This is very scientific. You never want to roll for initiative for me, please? Oh. Uh-huh, got it. Why is it so washed out? I roll really well for initiative. I'll move this over a bit. Well, I think it's because this map is printed lighter,

and so you changed it to facilitate a darker map, so now it looks more washed. That's probably true. It looks bad, though. It's not horrible, I can see. But if you can't at home, let us know. 20, 25. 22.

21. So who, wait, so 22? So fairness first, and then you two decide how you're going to do this. That's cool. Your Grim and then Jericho. Go ahead there. 15 to 20. Thank you.

I miss playing a deck's character. 10 to 15. 12, 13. Enjoy. Yeah, enjoy. So Briggs, Marius, Lothica. What did you get? He beeped, he does.

So it brings you Marius Lothicka. All right, with that, as you crests around the top of the stairwell, and you're fixated on this mass where you had seen the stained glass create its image of the woman covered in weasels. You now see that weasels there are, but not just on the floor in front of you, but all around you, coming out of the walls themselves, as they all make to attack you. It is easy to see that is a creature similar to this, though these are weasels of a sort, they're twisted and contorted and different, with slight humanoid features, not quite, but there's something uncanny to their small, rodent faces.

And is their teeth protrude out of their mouth, you can see that if one of these were bigger, it would be the perfect size to have. have hurt Barron. Whoa, whoa, whoa, wheezzles? Run, roll, row, row, rogy. Baron, it's your turn. Oh, shit. Oh, boy, okay.

You just let me know which one you're attacking. I'm still upset that you were even 10% right. Oh, dear. Okay, I am I am going to lower, I'm going to lower my head and turn towards number five and ram into it with my antlers. Okay. These are swarms or are the Z-21-weasel? They are like swam. For all intents and purposes, it's like swarms of the weasels.

Like swarms of rats, right? Swarms of rats. I'm going to try to shish kebab as many weasles onto my antlers. like. All these. Exciting. 14. Bad notes. Oh, you're doing your name instead of primal saverick.

No. Pudal savagery is probably... Oh. Yeah. Yeah. I take that back. Primal Savatory. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. So strike the horn thing. Well, I thought you said you were going to do problem with your horns, too. Can I do that? Yeah. You can do horns. You can do you can do antlers. You can do...

Okay, yeah, because I want to use my antlers. So I will kind of lower my head and the tips of my antlers will kind of blacken and look a little decrepit and I will ram towards them. Have you ever seen the antlers shit? I imagine it's about to look a lot like that. Whaty? Uh, okay. One D10. What the aim? Ten. Oh.

I thought it was zero. Nicar, oops, I didn't mean to roll that. What is it? A tear drop. Poison? Poison. Probably, yeah. You slam in to, you find a bunch of them. As you ram into them,

spearing some of them through the gut directly into the wall behind them, taking out quite a few of the weasels in this swarm. This patch of them is starting to look sparse and weakened, but they continue. you just warm around all of you. You did any pin damage?

Yeah. Nothing to worry about everyone. Dealing with ghosts before, but now it's just a pack of weasels. I've got a shovel. I would, well, I would, uh, well, I'd turn, instead of normally, uh, you may have noticing, like before I'd strike with my shovel,

like bladed edge towards, uh, towards a target. Uh, but now I'd kind of, to turn it like a blunt edge to try and like hit with a sweeping kind of deal. Okay. And I'd strike out against a whole bunch of weasels. All right. Which swarm of weasels? I don't know. I can't. Yeah, and you can hit four. Probably probably number four. Right. You take your shovel and you swing it around as you swipe towards this throng of weasles in whole for me.

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. 12. That hits. As you bludgeon into a bunch of these weasels flinging them around and slamming them lifelessly against the wall. How many points of damage? Not bad, brother. 15. Big money. Two, which one? To four. The four. You slam into them, taking the blunt part of your shovel and smashing them into red mist on the ground. as you obliterate this pocket of... Damn, they're dead? Yep.

It's weasel based. 15. And Hanska is a fun, a weasel fact. A group of weasles may be referred to as a boogel, confusion, gang, or peck. I love that.

I've slain this boogle of weasels. Stop saying, booze. You're up next. I've only said boogle once. I immediately stopped. I am going to say, see Virgil finally is something that you can actually morally snack on and I'm going to take my banjo

and it'll glow with all these strange fiendish reams on it and I'm gonna give it a huge twang and cast shatter right now who shattered the bones of all the weasels. Is that going to catch your friends? No, I'm gonna cast it on the staircase. I see. So if there's a chance that it is going to obliterate the stairs, Jericho's not thinking.

He's trying to kill weasels. So six, two, and one? Six, two, and one. They need to make a constitution saving throw, DC15. Otherwise, it's 38. You certainly good. That's three packs of rats. I'm going to twist it.

Yeah, twist that shit. That's still tough. What was it? 15. No, no, no, what was the stat? Oh, Tom. Yeah, no, they still fail. Okay, they're going to enjoy 17 points of thunder damage.

Six, one, and two, you watch as all of a sudden this loud, booming crack of sound just reverberates through the top portion of this house, or the second floor of this house. As you watch as the heads on hundreds of these weasels be explore. You're covered in bone bits and blood and viscera as you hear the creak and groan as the stairwell behind you crumbles. Oh boy. And splinters.

But six, two, and one are dead. But six, two, and one are dead. All right. You're stronger than you look, scarecrow. Well, it's not me. It's just this here banjo and I can play it pretty fun. Just warn me next time. Who's in front of three and who's in front of five?

Well, it's three. Three is me. I'd say, yeah, Briggsy's probably closer to three than me. Okay, so three's gonna go after Briggsie and five is gonna go after Farron because... When five starts its turn, some kind of blackish, greenish, spore-ish dust will come off of me, some spores, if you will.

And drift towards number five. So they have to make a non-saving throw. And see. Oh, do, well, hold on. Well, why? One hits Briggsie. It's 23 hit. No.

Barely misses. Just check. Barely misses. No way. You were going to take 10 points of piercing damage. Okay. The other one is going to make con-saving throw. It is going to more than likely fail with a seven.

It fails. And show it shall take. One necrotic damage. Perfect. Yeah, Adam. It is then going to lunge into its now necoticized. And then it is going to 16. Does that hit?

Oh, it does. Just. It does. And it is going to, oh, it has half of its hit points are fewer. Oh, you're going to take one point of damage. You can use one of your DMs. Just trading. Yeah, but I don't want to use them for, I don't want to use them for these,

for these disgusting best. There's something much more awful. This is the boss fight? I mean, probably. And they bite into you, but they are weakened by what you've done to them, and they're not as voracious as they had been. And it is now, Ricksey's turn.

I will, after being attacked by a whole swore of them, I will try, I will somehow inexplicably cast hex on an entire swarm of easels. Sure. and I will bring the cutlass down right on top of them and try to cleave them all in Twain. For number three? Yeah.

That probably hits with a 19? Misses. No, it's against. Stop. I was gonna say, wait a minute, dot, dot, dot. I'm gonna be like, one teacher. You forgot to assign homework. 11 points of damage.

Nice. You put your house. Hex magic on top of what feels like one, but it almost seems to move with an entire grouping of them. 13 damage. As you cast your magic into them. And the majority of them are completely incinerated by your magic. But some of them still live. A small grouping of them, even more voracious, even more hungry. They're salivating at the scent of your blood. That is Briggs' turn. Marius. Um, oh, it's alive?

There's five and three. It's all right. All right. Kick it. Oh, boy. Kick it good. Not going well over here. Ten to hit. He's bad.

No way. Wow. You know what? Sometimes better be lucky than good. There are swarms. I think the idea is that like you're bound to hit one of them. So I see my new friend, Briggsie's struggling. I double on this swarm of weasels.

There appear to be two weasels left as you quickly with your blade once and then twice, severing the heads from both of them, almost instantly. As I- This swarm of weasels is an eye. As I dispatched them, I turn to Briggs and I say, Are you all right? Oh, no really.

How bad do you look? Fuck! At a cursory graze. My chunk. Beas, weasels! My chunk is on the ground. Beasles? How bad do you look like?

I'm bloody. I'm more than bloody. Okay. All right, well, I can only use things as matched. I got pieces. I got pieces falling off. You're fucked, but I'm worried about you. They are live weasels. They're live weasels.

They're live weasels. And they look like weasels. There's just something uncanny to them. Their ears look slightly in shape in. Their faces look. Like there's something different to them. You can't quite put your finger on it, but they don't look like your common garden variety weasels.

Could I hear real hard and get a sense of what's happening in their face? Sure. Roll, roll for perception. Thank you. Look of disease, weasels. Nope. All right, so with a nine, I'll just take my turn. I will take my hand and I will turn to the remaining weasels, number five.

There are four of them. There are four of them. creatures. There's something strange about you. I will start to work my hand around the chakron like this as it starts to reverberate. Almost like when you run your finger over a crystal box,

and it starts to make that... And I'll cast toll of the dead on it. It needs to make a con... The entity that is these weasels need to make a constitution saving throw. Does a 15 pass? It's mean it or beat it, right? Yeah.

Yeah, pass. We host pass. Well, I'm out. All right of her noise, Jesus, mate. Faron, you're up. Feren, finish off these weasels already. Feren, these weasels, they, you feel almost a vendetta against them.

You still feel the throbbing in the back of your neck where one of them, maybe one of these, maybe not, had feasted upon you downstairs. And they're salivating as they're looking at you. All of their heads are turned towards you. You are what they. want. They've tasted satyr and they can't be sated. I will. I'll extend my long, pointy finger in their direction and the floor, the wooden floorboards,

I might be wrong, but the wooden floorboards will start to creaking and like splinter beneath them until it looks as though like a splintered hand is grasping up into the weasels and I will chill touch them. All right. Okay. Okay. You. Fuck you. It's a one. Oh, no. You watch as these spectral frosty,

tendrils and fingers come up out of the ground, or out of the wood, but the weasels are easily able to move their way. So weird, they weasels. They're very wheezele their way out of it. They are able to be grasped. Your grasp. You're not. I mean, weasels are basically more noodle than animals, so that's fine.

They're more fluid and solid. Ah, you're all going to move weasels. Oh, the final boogh. Is this like a one-person hallway, or can I get my immense form or I don't even know how you're getting the grave room? I would say you could use half your movement to make. your way for them. Oh. All right.

You're not going to know. Okay. I got you. I got this big excuse me. Pardon me. Oh, you're barbarian,

though. You should do clearance. Not yet. Not yet. Who? Who? I would like try and, I guess, try and start to make my way back,

but I can't quite get out of my fucking way. There's a boog left. Yeah. there. Okay, right? Oh, yeah. No, if it's there, if you can get here, then that can hit them?

Oh, I can hit them? Diagonally. If you get here. You can get here. Oh, 30, so like 15 times. Okay. All right. Done and done.

It's the final boogal. Da-da-na-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. I really regretting. 21. 21. Oh, yeah. Yeah, now as there are less weasels, the EC guitar.

the EC guitar. Oh, shit, right? No, that's not true. Oh, good. Well, I'm in good, that I should have thought of that before this session, but I did. Okay.

Six, but not bad. Six damage. You are four weasels in. You are able to maneuver yourself around the rest of your group, slowly nudging them to the side as you make your way in. You look down at Farron, who is significantly smaller than you are,

and you can see the two puncture marks at the back of her neck as you take your shovel and you place it directly on the necks of these creatures and sever their heads from their bodies. All four of them. Line up. Line up, please. In one fell swoop. Die fell beasts.

And the boogum was dead. You look like you were turning booke. I'm not going to squeak. I'm not going to do animal noises. I shouldn't look up what a weasel looks like. They're really cute. They're like cartoon weasels. They look like a bunch of mobscerns.

But as I've said, these don't look like your standard. They do for the most part, but there's something very uncanny about them. You can't quite close. They're kind of cute, but you just can't love them. It still is just can't love them. a sense of murderous intent within you when you gaze upon it. And does this is the quiet return?

As Or is there still should come in the house? No, there is absolutely still the boss man mole somewhere in the walls. Are you sure it wasn't that one? I'm pretty, Marius doesn't know, but Andy know. Maybe he fell down the stairs.

Andy knows. As the dust settles, you are surrounded and coated by bits and pieces of boggles of wimsels. but quiet does come to the hallway in front of them. Oh, there's still like solid forms of them? Like, when we...

Yeah, they didn't, like, disagree. They're clearly alive creatures or had been alive creatures. And so some of them are still in their entirety, most or not. We think that's what bit me. Oh, so we took care of the problem. They got real fast getting from the hallway up. appeared to attack us. Remembering what little I saw the wound through the blood,

does it seem reasonable that the weasel bite was what caused the damage to Farron? I would say it does. None of these weasels look to be large enough to have created the puncture wound on the back of Farron's neck. Really hurt though. Something similar, I think. Jericho, thank you for destroying the weasel were coming up around me.

But to be very careful when you make that sound, it made it a little hard for me to attack. You also destroyed the stairs. Oh, Gars, I know. I'm in like this the whole time. I was, who would you wouldn't notice that? No, I broke the stairs. I would fall down the stairs if I did not notice.

Look how far this fall is now. Garsh, I'm sorry about that. Virgil, will I? Just don't choke. And you'll see like Virgil's life, like trying to swallow down a weasel. Like, as important, a weasel. Well, you are a carrion bird, so at least your feats on that instead of children. Don't eat all of them.

We need to, there's something strange about the faces of these weasels. While they're all having this conversation, I would like to, following in what Lethika said, kneel down near this awful mess of weasels, And what does the blood smell like? Does it smell a bestial, human? Is there in time? Can I not tell? Ooh.

I am not a Viking. There is a certain member of our group might fuck. 11. They might fuck. Certain number of our group of fun. My name is John. You get down, you get down onto the floor and you take a bit of the blood on your finger, and it is already starting to darken to a,

ruddy shade of ground as it oxidizes. You rub it between your fingers as you get a whiff of the scent, very metallic scent. And I would say just the fact that you are a dampier, you are easily able to tell that this is truly weasel blood, but there is something slightly off about it. I breathe in deeply, and as I stand up, I wipe my hand on, you know, my armor or my cloak, whatever is there,

and I spit on the ground and I say, uh, uh, something is not right. You don't look a bit weird. Well, Marius, if you're inspecting that strange blood from the weasels, maybe you want to check out Farron's neck? I believe Lathica has already done her duties. Thank you, Jericho. Oh, okay. Well, I just wasn't sure.

Sure, if anyone you need, it looks similar to blood. Hey, I'm sorry for breaking the stairs. Perhaps we can get all the weasers in the house, and we can proceed quickly without much danger, and I guess we're not going back downstairs. It's fine, Jericho. We'll find a way back down. I want to just take a look in, like, the upper level of this circular, well, I guess was the gallery below us?

So, yes, so this is, there is, on the side of this house, there's essentially a turret that goes straight up, and this is the second floor of that, which is essentially a sitting room, a place to maybe wait for the warden lady of the house, but the lady or the master of the house to come and see you, et cetera, if you were being welcomed. Am I still feeling like dizzy? Yes. I'm going to take a seat on one of the stairs and cast care wounds on myself while we're...

There are still remnants of the stairs that are on the chairs. Oh, the chairs. I think I said stairs. for the sake of explaining. There are a couple of the stairs that are still there at the top. It is a large chunk of them that had fallen away. But the bottom, I would say, 60% of the stairs are still intact. It would require a jump and hoping that upon landing on the stairs,

they would hold your weight. But you would be able to get down. It'll just be a little trickier. As for that, you're easily able to sit upon one of the plush seats. The velvet, the green velvet of the upholstery cracks and crumbles as you sit into it as dust billows up around you. But it holds your weight. I'm still not feeling well. Dizzy.

As I watch Farron casting cure wounds on herself and healing, I breathe deeply and salivate a little, but turn my head to the rest of the group and say, does anyone else need medical attention? Is everyone all right? He's going to be picking up a piece of a big rubbery piece of my flesh and put it back.

Grady, you're not, I mean, I would say you're not looking so good, but you generally don't look so I don't know with you. Oh, and then you see it like slither, it's like slide out and flop on the floor. I'm not feeling too great off. Sloth off, if you will. Slufe.

Sluice. Slufe. Slufe. Sluif. Bids of you are coming off. S-L-U-I-C-E. Oh, yeah. Sloose.

I'm very clearly bloodied. Five. Farren, you relax into this crushed velvet seat, and the stench of the decaying fabric hits your nostrils, nostrils, but you're too dizzy and too exhausted to care as you finally get a small amount of rest. Around you, you see the darkened hallway leading forward. Doors on the side and a curve until it's just pure darkness. Well, after being attacked by Weasel, I think that we should probably make our way a little bit curve. Virtually, spit that, you're going to jump. We should probably

continue to look for them children. And I'm going to take a quick look at that strange window where all them weasels came from. And I'm taking a look. There was a... The stained glass window. Same glass window.

And I believe everything that you mentioned seemed to be consistent with what we had seen in the gallery. Yes. But there was one piece where there was an old woman. Yes. And where weasels were on. And that seemed to not be

something that we've seen before. No, that was not on any of the depictions that you had seen downstairs. I would like to take a look, hoping that my shatter didn't break all the windows. It was far away. It was far away. It was far away. And then I'd like to take a look to just see if I can discern anything, just to take a closer look, anything that we recognize. Roll a perception check for me.

Okay, I suppose I could do. Or no, an investigation. Investigation. Oh, gosh. Let me, well, there we go. That's my good D20. Oh, no, not good today. We're done, investigation.

But I'm a barred, so I believe I'm okay at everything. But I'm a bird. Investigation? That's a 12th. You inspect the stained glass window, and though the majority of this house seems to be in significant amount of disrepair, this window seems to be holding up fairly well.

Lightning outside as the storm continues to rage around you, occasionally flashes illuminating this hallway that you're in. And you pay extra attention to the way that the shapes on the glass manifest in their shadows on the on the ground. And it's easy to see why in that moment with the weasels coming out of the walls, it would have looked like their shadow was entwined with that of the woman in the pain. But the subsequent flashes of light don't seem to create that same imagery. But there is something strange about her. She's slightly hunched, a little bit frail, but it being a stained glass window, there are no significant facial markings or designs in the clothes that she wears, but she does seem sort of out of place.

Well, this is creepy old lady where the weasels came from. I'm hoping, and I don't recognize her from anything else. Hopefully we don't run into her. Probably will not, I don't know why we would Don't jinx it now Get away from those windows Okay, okay, yes, yes, yes, it'll And I'll like Virgil, come on And he'll like scarf down a few more weasels

I pray That whatever Family may be trapped here That we can cleanse this place and give them rest Respite I hope I hope they're not malevolent And I hope that we can free them

I really do I do too And I think that If Patrini was right and wasn't trickle of us Like a ghost's want to do That we should be able to find the children here in these rooms So perhaps we just go one Check one door at a time as quickly as possible

And just take a look around And on to the next one Until we find the kids in the book I would just proceed To the end of the hallway past this door Just to see what can be seen Yeah. And make sure we're not getting bum rushed. You make your way towards the corner where the hallway diverts down the opposite length of the house.

And you see that there are a few more doors. Oh, boy. Three to be exacted. That's a lot of space. All of them closed. I would just turn around back to the rest of the group. And the hallway is long. It's very dark.

And there's several doors. I suppose we just begin here. Start opening them. I'll be right behind you, and I'll go over here. I'll keep an eye on this door, but mostly I'm just keeping an eye on there. All right, well, then I'm going to go. I'm going to skip the first one and go right for this bad boy right here. You attempt the handle,

and at first, it does not give way, but you are slowly able to force it open as the rust grimes on the machinery inside of the lock. I'm very strong. And you swing it open to find a, that you are met with dust and damp, musty air as you see a wooden stairwell leading up into darkness. Oh.

Oh, wait, that one? This one? I think it's a different door. The first door that comes to you. Yeah, we skip that one. Yeah, we're going to skip that one. Sorry, I apologize. I was just keeping an eye on it.

Yes. Oh, there's a stairwell of this one. Let's say that. Let's say that I opened the stairwell. We did. That's the way we went. Well, you did because you now know what's in there. Ooh. More stairs.

So you're planning on going to the one that's at the very end of the hallway before you That's where I'm standing, but we can say that. The camera queen is directly in front of it, so I can't see what you're pointing out. No, I know. It's a little. I mean it pads me that bad boy and we'll get you a better to be. So Leithica looked up that way. Lethika opened the door that she's in front of and I'm still standing in front of the one at the corner.

Okay, the one at the corner. Okay. Yep. Yes, that's the one that I was referring to. No worries. You are, as well as the one that led upstairs, you are able to open this door quite easily. There appears to be, it does not appear to be locked in any way.

And it barely groans on its hinges as you open, as you open the door and peer within. You enter a room that might as well double as a toy chest. A pair of small beds are surrounded by numerous dolls and frilly dresses. Knights and soldiers made from tin, a stuffed owl bear, a wooden rocking donkey, a toy train with chipped black paint, a bent and crooked dollhouse that looks nearly similar to the one you're in, and a plethora of other playthings. Besides some of the toys being a bit creepier than you might expect, it seems like a fairly standard children's bedroom.

However, it's then you notice that the bottoms of the bedposts have large, deep scratches in them. Similar jagged grooves can be seen in bits of the wallpapered walls, window sills, and up the bed frame. But then you notice that there's something poking out from underneath the leftmost bed topped with faded pink blankets, the strap of a large leather bag. Your eyes adjust and you see that it is adorned with the designs of too many elbowed arms tipped with jagged yellow fingernails, all surrounded by long, stringy black hair. I'm going to need you to slowly repeat that one more time. What I physically see is a room that looks like a children's room. my immediate reaction would be O LaFander, the poor kids.

And then describe this creature? It's not a creature. It's a bag. It is a bag that, okay. You notice that there's something poking out from underneath the leftmost bed topped with faded pink blankets, the strap of a large leather bag. Your eyes adjust and you see that it is

adorned with the designs of too many elbowed arms tipped with jagged yellow fingernails, all surrounded by long, stringy black. All right, so that's why I was I was confused. Like, bend, Ben, yes. I would just elbow.

Too many bends in your room. Got it, got it. I was picturing just lots of elbow. Oh, yeah. That's weird, but not necessarily scary. I heard the bag part. Anyway, I apologize. I'm sorry.

Oh, but Fanda, no. This is the children's room. Something awful must have happened to them. And I would gingerly walk over to this bag and kneel down beside it and see if I can see if I can pull it out since I caught my eye. You begin to pull out the bag, and it moves easily.

It doesn't seem to be caught on anything. And as you hold it, it feels like it is full of things, but it weighs nearly nothing. It's a strange sensation that you feel. As you try it over in your hands, there is a sense of a magical aura that emanates from this thing. Can I open it? You'd like to.

I attempt to open it. You open in and you reach your arm in and you feel around, but you feel nothing. Strange. And I would just kind of tie it to my belt for now. Well, we're supposed to find the kids. Do you either hiding under the beds? And I'm going to try to basically, if we're all joining Marius in the room, we're all, just look under the beds, look around for the kids, look.

an investigation. Pick up the toys and move them around. If there's like a rocking chip, a horse. Oh, that'll be a natural 20. Boom. Oh. 22. There are a few things that catch your eye. The first is the dollhouse in the corner of the room. It seems to be a 1 12th scaled miniature of the house that you're in currently. And as you look through it, you see that there are figures of what would have been the family members in different areas of the house.

as well as what appears to be a strange man in the kitchen, but even stranger so, elbows all the way to the hands with fingernails and stringy hair, coming out from beneath the bed adorned in pink in this very room. Oh, I don't see that, right? No, just Jericho. So having noticed that everybody else has joined us in the room, I'm not knowing what is I untie the bag from my

my waist I was gonna do this anyway I'm really sorry Derek and I look to Lethika and I tell us to the bag and I say what do you make of this it appears to be magical It doesn't look unusual Yeah

I would say you can feel the thrum of magic emanating from this fact It does appear to be an unusual artifact You have found something here I will Is it closed Does like require a class How would I open it?

Yeah Two like it's a string that goes around A loop and it's got a slide That you can draw string Yeah draw string, thank you Words that I don't understand I got you and you haven't opened it I did I understand there was nothing inside

Nothing inside But did it feel like a normal size bag When you reached and throw Jericho You continue with your natural 20 looking around this room and you are drawn to a small black train, ToySap. You pick it up and you recognize this train. You rode in the life-size version of this.

And at the very, very head of it, you barely notice it, but the hint of green catches your eyes. There is a small figure of a frog in a hat. As you turn it around in your hands, you see inscribed on the bottom, is no fun, is no Blinsky, the second. You place the train down on the track, and it immediately pops the faint wisp of blue and green smoke as it begins to chug and go around the track,

and you hear, all aboard the gobble, as it slowly comes to a stop. You continue to make your way around the room, and everything else looks haphazard, albeit one small thing. There is a little tiny chair in the very corner of the room, a small table in front of it laid out with what appears to be the remnants of a tea party. And a doll punched over in a cute pink fronk.

You look at it and you can see that this doll was loved and well taken care of. And use your old perception check for me, please. That's a boy that could. That's pretty good. You have a perception, you say? that'll be at 22. As you turn, you notice that for a second,

there was motion in that doll. You're not quite sure what moved, but something moved. And this is like a children's doll, regular size? I would say you, with that perception check, you immediately sink back to the painting that you saw above the fireplace

of the little girl. She was clearly holding this doll. Oh, I think we found the doll with that little girl had. I think this was her favorite dolly from the painting. I pray that these children are all right. I pray that these are not something horrible as it happened to these kids. Petrini did say that they were among us. And I'll reach up and I'll take off my hat

and you'll see kind of the blowout sack and the strange female orange energy kind of going through the scenes and I'll just pull that, and I'll look around and say, Well, maybe we should take the doll with us in case we run into her in some manner of speaking. And I know I don't want to steal, but I, the small toy of the old black train I'm quite fond of, and I really did like that frog,

and I'd like to take it if that'd be okay. I think that's fine, sir. We were gifted this house, provided we make it livable. Well, I'm gonna try to tune it up. I'll crack it open, and I don't know what this is no funning, this new Blinsky the second, Fowler. But I'll take it with me. That's, it's mighty fine.

And I'll put the train in that, and then I'll take the doll as well. You pick up the doll, and it had been hunched over. And as you pick it up, its head and arms low back, and you see that its face is completely different than you had seen it in the picture. It is now blue, as if it had been devoid of all air. It had suffocated. I'll blink. You'll see, like, the burlap sacs in my eyes just go like that. What's wrong, Derek?

It just changed color here. like it's swallowed some sort of strained blue blueberry candy What do you mean Jericho? The doll changed color. And I'm going to look to see if it's like when I look again, is it? You hold it up towards your face and you slowly watch as the doll's head rises and it looks directly into your eyes. Can you help me?

Can you help me the thing under my bed? Do we hear this? All of you can hear it. as the doll looks directly towards Jericho. I tried to run. I told everyone it was there, but no unbelief. With a very grim pale look on my face, I draw my sword and I turn back towards the bed, waiting.

Is that you, young little girl of Miss Lockwood? I don't recall hearing your name. My name's Sally, what's your name? You can hear me? My name, if you can. My name is old Jericho sticks, but you can call me Jericho, most folk do. It's cold in here. I can't breathe very well. We'll warm you up. That's why you're turning blue. It's just too, too chilly here. Any, uh, we'll warm me up.

Is there, is there a fireplace on this floor? I believe there is a fireplace downstairs. Uh, little one, can you hear me as well? Yes, it gets me. It comes from the bag. I have drawn my sword. I turn to Lethika. That's what's going to be my next question. Drop it. Drop it now. It came from the walls, and it lives in the bag.

Lethika tossed the bag. I toss the bag into an empty corner as quickly as I can. You do, and just as quickly as it hits the ground, miraculously, it appears back in your hands. You are now bound to this back. It takes up an attunement slot. by the way. I will make note of that on D&D Beyond. Well, oh no, little, a little Sally Lockwood, well, you know, there's nothing wrong being some sort of animated construct type creature. That's that's me, you and I ain't so different.

I told Mama it was in the walls and in the bag and And she said not to worry. I imagine you do not want to go inside the bag, correct? No, don't put me in the bag. I can't breathe in there. I'm going to reach down and grab what it looks like the most mundane of toys, like maybe one of the lettered blocks or something like that. And I will open the bag, holding it so that it gates as well as I can.

and then I will throw toss the block inside. You toss the block into the bag, and you expect to hear a dull thud as the block hits the leather. But you wait and wait and wait until you finally hear the echoing sound, the block hitting something hard and firm. And then the sound of scraping and slithering is if the block is being hit. I am, I am so sorry. I had no idea.

If there is any way for me to fix this, this is my burden to bear and not yours. That's a curse if I've ever seen one. You reached into the bag and you felt the bottom, correct? I don't know what I felt. But Rainey was the only one who tried to help me. How did he try to help you? He told me not to be scared. But he believed me, I know he did.

He told me not to put my feet on the ground when it was dark, but I left my doll and I went together. It's hard to breathe in here. Where's my bra? And as she begins to say the words you watch as the blue of the face of the doll begins to fade and go back to its pale near porcelain color as the weight of its heavy porcelain head falls forward

in the doll. is no longer animal. It might be something's blocking it anyway. Stick your fingers down to don't smell. I mean, they're not like an open mouth at all? There is not. We need to warm her up. There's got to be, if there's a chimney.

It's a doll. She's gone. There's nothing we can do for us. She's not joking. She said she was cold. We have to warm her up. She just thinks she's cold. We have to try.

Petrini said we have to try. You said we could help us. Somehow. His book. We have to find his book. There may be more information inside. It's exactly right. All we can do now to help these children,

the boy wherever he is, is to set him free. We have to press on. This house must be purged. Well, if there was a chimney, on that side of the house, if I, if my geometry, if it's on the right side of the house

and the chimney goes all the way up, then maybe there's a fireplace in the next room. I'm gonna bring the doll with me. Let me try one more thing. Yes. I'm going to open the bag mouth as much as that. And I'm gonna like pull the doll away from the bag. Stay on the other side of the room.

I do not know what this would do. Oh, I'm in the hallway. I'm gonna come, I'm very near Lathaga. I'm taking my hat and I put it over the, like, hanging on the doll's head so she can't see the bag. And I'm close to Lathica. I'm going to try to put my hand on the bottom of the satchel and attempt to invert the back.

Okay. You are easily able to do that. There appears to be nothing inside. And the inside lining is just... The inside is just leather. I want you to roll perception check. Oh, God. No, I love where Lethika's head at.

I want to kill some shit. Oh, man. Actually, maybe it should be survival. What in the hell? Do you want me to roll both? Yeah, please. Okay, so I get an 11 for prescription. Okay.

And I get a... 13 for survival. Okay, that's enough. You inspect the inside of this bag, and it does not have the same adornments that the outside has, that same imagery that you saw all around it. But you do notice a few bits of dark brown staining that you are easily able to discern

as blood of some kind. The thing that catches your eye is a little bit darker than that. This leather appears to be that of human skin. I will re-invert it to the patterned exterior, cinch it up as tightly as I can. Give it one more flap into the corner to just toss it over. It lands for a second, and you begin to feel ease as it sits there. And then you see it move.

as it begins to open, and one long spindly arm with long yellow nails reaches out, and another as it crawls towards you, quicker than you would expect, as all of a sudden it stitters across the room, climbs up your leg, and attaches itself to your side. What the hell was that? Some creatures exist in this bag, or perhaps is the bag. I have more questions for it, but there's not much I can do to reduce. the risk, so to speak. I suggest we carry on, and I will attempt to forget it. No, no, the walls, this bag, these creatures of the

night are hiding. They're cowards, and they must face us. We can burn the bag, we can kill it. We can make it come out and face us. I think that if we can burn it, perhaps we can find a fireplace and get the doll warm and maybe throw that bag in and and, and, Virgil, get away from the, get away from this doll. You stay with Miss Lefico? Perch on her. Do you mind having a creepy, weird

crows sitting on your shoulder and keeping an eye on the bag? I don't. I also am concerned about piercing the bag because I worry that the voice we heard from the doll may have actually been consumed

by this bag, and we only heard the spirit from the doll. It could be that there is one of these children we are attempting to aid here at my side. We don't not destroy things

that we don't know what they are. I take your advice with prudence, but I will not sit idly by, while some creature that allegedly murdered a child hangs from your waist. And yes, I know that it is my fault that this thing is attached to you. I must make it right. Is it like still, can we see like it's arms? No, the arms have completely recoiled back into the depths of the back. You were only able to see from the elbow to the tips of the finger. And it was using its long, yellowed sharp. And it was using its long, yellowed sharpened fingernails to dig into the wood and propel itself very quickly, like just insanely

quickly towards Lethaca. Do you honestly believe that the child is in there with that thing? I'm trying to remember the hair and stuff that's around the, like, rim of the bag? Yes, that was those, that is the design that you see around the edge of the back. So it's not like, okay. If Lefika would welcome it, I would have Virgil basically perch on Lefika's shoulder and just keep an eye on the bag and then alert me if anything happens. If the bag makes any move and Virgil alerts us, we will attempt to defeat this bag. Now look, I hate to interrupt, but we know the girl's dead, right?

We can help her somehow, but we know she's not alive. That's why we gotta take the doll and warm it up. And that's why I think we should just, we should keep going. It seemed like Petrini understood what this creature was and gave warning on how to avoid it. If we find the book, we might find a way to destroy this bag or kill the creature, something a child couldn't have done. But maybe we can.

I like to, if I can, like to, if I can, check under the bed or even just like flip the bed over roll a investigation check on me place. You got this. You got this. It's an in-score. You'll be fine. No. Rocks up here. I'll tell you that much. Investigation, you said?

That is a 10. You... Very strong, though. You move the bed to the sign so you can fully investigate the area. where you had found this bag. And as you look, you do see scratch marks on the floor,

where it looks like from the corner that Jericho had found the doll to where the bag was discovered by Marius, that something had been dragged from that corner of the room towards the bag itself. To find one tiny fingernail embedded in the wood and bits of long black hair. This place is an abomination.

Marius, I understand you feel responsible, but be at peace. If the bag attempts to harm me, I know that you are all with me. Let us continue on and see what we might find in this house. Perhaps there will be an answer to this bag elsewhere. I can attempt to tie it to my belt one more time. And maybe it will choose me over you. I cannot let you shoulder this. Sir, Marys, I mean this in the most respectful of employees.

lightweight possible, but you already got one curse. Let us bear some curses. So you don't have to. That's the point of friends. I would almost reflexively snap to Jericho. I can bear more! Why don't you let your friends shoulder a little bit of your burden? Let the world do its own spinning. Oh, if you should know, better than the rest of them.

It's not that easy. You can't just say, I'll take the Commission's stead. Roll perception check for me, please. It's possible that it will not even let me natural 20. Hey! As you begin to speak, you immediately hear the sound once again, skittering in the walls.

Am I the only one who perceives this? Jerry. Jericho, I'm sorry. I did not mean to snap. Briggs, you're right. It's all right. I apologize. I know you want to get out of here. I think we all do. So let's make haste and find the book. It can't get much worse in this room. And I'm going to walk down the hallway. Yeah, I'm all right. And I'll, and I'll be holding the doll, and I'll say, well, you know, you enjoy the Ghostlight Express like I did. I have a song about it. there's an old black train of going. And I'm going to basically chugging through the phone.

We don't know where it's going, but I'm going to miss that fro. I'm going to sing to the doll as we go. Did the stairs go down or up that left it up? They went up. They went up. Okay. Thank you. But we're headed farther down. Got it. And are you going to go, if you were Mikey,

or would you go to the left or the right? Because that'll tell me. Left, towards the back. The house, back. The same direction as the as the little girls are. That side. I'll look up at the ceiling, but really thinking of the sky at night and say,

Dark lady, should you be able to hear me, give me strength? But I will be brave, and I will attempt to leave the room. You are easily able to leave the room as the bag dangles at your side. Okay. And you begin to make your way down this hallway, creeping slowly, listening for the sound, of movement and walls. As you come towards the end of the hallway, you were met with two doors, one on either side, and you choose to go in a similar direction as the room that you had found,

Sally Lockwood. This door is more difficult to open. The rust that's caked onto the hinges is thicker and more secure, but you are able with your strength and a little bit of help from your newfound friends, able to open the door. And as you do, the strong earthy smell of mold hits you as instantly is the damp humidity on your skin when you enter what appears to be a master bath. The moist walls are covered in a kaleidoscope of colorful fungal growth, which consume the drab tile that lines most of the space. Besides the tilted dressing screen and cracked vanity, the prominent fixture in this room is an opulent marble bathtub with clawed feet immediately next to the dormant fireplace. Your attention is drawn to the tub.

And as you approach to see beyond its broad-lipped sides, you see that while the rest of it is a white, albeit dusty stone, the inside is completely stained with a deep, dark crimson. There's a fireplace in here. And I'll walk in and I'll point to the fireplace there. Yeah, we'd all just filter in. Everybody's cool with that?

Yeah, I'm filtering. How do you light a fire? Is anyone- I've lit a fire. I've lit a fire once or twice. I could get this going, hopefully. Okay, give it to hurry. I think she feels is the same to me,

but she's getting cold probably. Like they're trying to, is there like wood in the fireplace or the making? This house has been uninhabited for a long time. Unless you have magical means to make a fire, you would struggle. We're supplies, right? I don't know if you have supplies on you.

And this room itself is very moist, so any wood that would have been in here is going to be far too damp to light. You described the tub. Is it in? Is it empty and there's a film or is it full? It's empty and there is a film. I would be immediately drawn to the tub.

And again, I would probably, even though I don't want to, I'm almost compelled to run my fingers in the tub and see what is in the tub. You make your way to the tub, once again, drawn by what you immediately detect to be the stains of the flow. As you run your fingers through the now dried, dusty debris of what once was a liquid, the tub begins to fill with steam. You feel it at first as your hand gets slightly warm. There's no water but steamed. As it begins to rethrith around you and swirl, all of you soon begin to notice as the steam.

as the steam spills over the edges of the bathtub, and arising out of it is something almost too horrific to describe. The small form of a boy, his throat having been ripped open by some kind of claws, his entire body covered in blood as he looks towards you. He opens his mouth to speak, but no words come out. Are you holding the doll? Yeah, yeah. He reaches over to the doll, his body very, very frail, sickly almost.

As he reaches towards the doll and you see tears glistening as they begin to, as they begin to slide down his face and pull on his chest. He looks towards all of you. He looks scared. He looks cold as he begins to shiver. You all immediately recognize this to be Arthur Lockwood. We know he was sick in the... Yes, he looked sickly in the painting, and he looks sickly here as well.

Can you hear me? Is this your sister here, little fella? The steam is billowing up all around you. Get warmed up here, girl. He looks towards you, and you see as he attempts to nod, but the damage done to his throat makes it nearly impossible for him to move his head.

He slowly looks around using his entire torso to move and look is his eyes linger on the single mirror in the room, the steam now covering it completely. He points his finger towards it and he begins to write. And you see the word, yes, appear on the mirror. Her name, my name is old Jericho sticks. You can call me Jericho. Most folk do. What's your name more boy? I know that this is Sally. We're trying to warm her up. And I'm going to try to like move her towards the steam to warm up the doll. You see as the steam begins to cover up the message,

the yes that had been written previously. As he raises his frail arm one more time and begins to write, I am Arthur. Young master, I'm so sorry for whatever happened to you. Any information that could be used in potentially freeing you. We'd be greatly appreciative.

I promise we will avenge you. He looks towards you, moving his entire body to do so. And you see a look of terror on his face as he writes the word teeth. And then quickly you see the room fill up with even more. mist or even more steam as he writes F-I-L-H-Y and then he moves to another line J-A-S-P-E-R what does that mean the words filthy Jasper we need more information we don't know what or who that is please please help us and we can help you.

Can I, real quick, can I look to see having, probably unfortunately, cut a few throats in my day? Does it look like man-made or like a killing? I would say this is, it is very graphic and easy to see that it appears to be like some sort of creature, some sort of claws, tore the throat out of this.

Of this child. Rigs me, I do not, you know, envigorated. and he was going to do something. Oh, yeah. Did I know anything? No, so that is what you see. He looks between all of you as he doesn't seem to understand anything more than this. As the steam rises up again and he quickly writes the words,

I was sick, but it came. only Petrini tried to save me. What did this to you? It? What is it? Is that filthy Jasper? The steam rises up again, and he writes the words, Filthy Jasper, it comes for teeth. Where is Petrini's book? You wait for a moment as the mist begins to obscure the

to obscure the mirror one more time. And he writes, I do not know. Do you want your sister, little boy? Well, we'll figure this out. I promise, I swear. Once again, he begins to write, leave her with me. Keep us together.

I've missed her. Okay. Okay. Arthur, there you go. And I'm going to place the doll. as gently as I can into the back. The steam is rolling over the sides of this claw foot tub as you slowly sink your hands into what feels like nothingness.

You cannot see the bottom or the sides of this tub with the steam that's billowing from it. But you eventually find the bottom and place the doll of Sally Lockwood from the very bottom. And as you do, the steam begins to recoil. It slowly Jasper's form begins to fade. He looks at all of you. Or sorry, Arthur's form.

Okay. Yes, no, Arthur's form. I just have jacked it along with all in. Arthur's form begins to fade as he looks at all of you one last time, and as he nearly blinks from existence, you see two final words appear on the mirror. Help us. I am the hands of Lathander and King Victor D'anthria.

And as long as I live, I will purge whatever is in this home. I don't care if I have to die to expel it. I know it must be done and I will do it. We're on the path. That's step one. We found the kids. We know what happened to them. They're together now. Now we just got to find a book.

And then that'll be it, right? That's the next step. That's right. We just keep looking for the book. The sooner we find it, the sooner we get out of you. Cross the hall, then. Charmarius? Take that fire and put it to look in.

Without hesitation, I draw my sword and shield, and I press forward, and I move through the room across the way and basically kick the door off the hinges of the next room. And as you rear your leg up and you kick the door in. It eats my fucking leg. house shakes again as that same loud banging finally comes to you all. You shake and it feels for a moment as if Marius had done this, but the sheer force of the house moving, propelling you forward, allowed you to have the strength to kick this door in as it was nearly rusted, shut. You all find

your bearings and write yourself. In this time, very faintly, you hear, and then silence. This podcast is brought to you by our Patreon. Become a patron today at patreon.com slash legends of Aventris and gain access to tons of exclusive perks, including a monthly movie night and a weekly Patreon exclusive campaign set on the high seas, shroud over salt marsh. You can also go to the crooked moon.com

to pick up your own copy of our first published supplement, The Crooked Moon, a folk horror tome for Dungeons and Dragons fifth edition. And don't forget to snagged. all of the extra goodies like dice, miniatures, plushies, a tarot deck, and more. Thank you. As you enter the master bed room, you see a grand, canofied, four-poster bed flamed by end tables. The headboard is emblazoned with the crest of the Lockwood family beneath a pair of moons. The bedding is intricately woven with what seems to be a pattern of tea leaves, but through the fading and yellowing of the green-died wool, you swear some of the designs look like mouths of

crooked teeth, contorted in horror, agony, and malevolent clean. A bent wardrobe stands beside a sliding door that exits to a wraparound balcony, and on the other side of the room is a small writing desk beside a torn leather chair. On top of the desk is what appears to be a thick, faded journal with brittle pages. For the most disquieting aspect of the space is not the sights, strongly overpowering the houses to mill your scent of dust and mildew is the putrid stink of sweat and body owner? Um, I would having, I'm pissed. I'm gonna start just tearing through the bedroom.

I mean, like, ripping open the, the, the, I see there's some, you know, wooden things. I mean, tearing drawers out, shuffling through the bed, ripping through the nightstands. I'm looking for this book, and I'm pissed. Okay. You do that. Your eyes are immediately drawn to the faded

the leather journal on the desk. Oh, perfect. And you were able to reach it. And as you do, you immediately hear the sounds of thrashing and rustling behind all of you. As sounds from the four-poster bed

get louder and louder as grunts and thrashing nearly consume you. What do you do? I turn around. Yeah, I mean, I would be aware of it. Under the moth-eating covers as you are now clutching this journal.

Under the moth-eating clutches, covers looks to be the form of a human. You cannot see their face or anything about them as they toss and turn and grunt and groan thrashing about as if in some kind of unholy terror. I'm going to take my staff and toss the covers aside. As you do this, the entity's back is turned towards you. And as you flip the blanket over, it rolls towards you and you watch as its head lults to the left, its mouth, empty of all teeth, begins to spill out blood as it sweats profusely, its eyes rolling back in its head as if in an eternal horrified dream. This is clearly the strange, crooked visage of Eustace Lockwood as he thrashes about this way and that on the bed.

I need all of you to, oh, no, actually I don't. The doors slam shut. The doors slam shut. on this room, somehow reconnecting as you begin to feel dampness at your feet. Sweat pouring from this lopsided entity begins to fill the room. Up to your ankles. Up to your knees. Oh, no, no, no. I rush at the nearest door and I try to... You try all, with all of your might, and you cannot get this door open.

You rush to the window and you attempt to heave it up. You cannot heave this up. Marius, you are looking through this journal. This appears to be the journal of Eustace Lockwood. It's effectively a dream journal where he describes the nature of the nightmares he's been having. His handwriting appears to get more frantic

as the weeks go on and he questions his madness and he describes children in cages, a burning windmill, a block of orange glass, eyes in the darkness, furry things in the walls, the cackling chrome. He also mentions sleepwalking episodes

that are getting more and more frequent until it becomes indiscernible his words making no sense letters and symbols appearing that form no known language that you've ever known before. Damn it, this is not the right book. This is horrific creatures' nightmare journal and I would recount the things that I'm reading.

Now I need you all to make a Constitution saving throw as the sweat begins to fill the room and you all begin to drown and the sweat. Oh, we're drowning and dead guy sweat? Oh, my God, it's your 20! As the sweats filling the room, I'd be trying to move towards you at the bed. 17.

Let's see if I could get any closer to him. You are making your way towards him. What was everyone I was doing? I got a 17. So I would, I guess. Constitution. You're doing all right? Yeah, I would try to basically use my boot strength

and break the windows. I mean, I know that it's not. Thanks, Chad. But I would try to... Yeah, go ahead and I would say roll to attack. Wow. Unarmed attack. You're attacking Eustace? No, the windows.

25. You rear back and you attempt to slam into the window using your full strength, your plate armor that you have on, assuming you're wearing plate armor, that you have on, and you feel like you should easily be able to break through this window. Even with the amount of effort it takes to move through the resistance of the sweat that is filling up this room, the horrid stench of body odor filling your nostrils, the saltiness of it on your tongue. But you are not able to make that window budge. Something, no, some sort of magical means are stopping me.

That's all I got. Oh, I did roll a 17 for my con saving throw. All right. Everybody else got saving throw? A 20. Anybody get below a 13. Oh, I got a 13. Oh, meter bit, baby.

15. 15. Perfect. Oh, I got a 12. You are all able. You are all. No, he got a 12, actually. I'm weighted down by stone.

Everybody else is able to, you were just so large in the space. Everyone else is able to find pockets of air at the ceiling, where they're able to take in the last, glass gulps of air that remain in this room, but you are far too large. I will throw up. As the hulking form of your tombstone hits the ceiling before your head is able to break the crest of the sweat, as you attempt to breathe in, you swallow and choke on gulp after gulp of putrid, rotten sweat.

And you're going to take. I'm actually going to throw up. I told you was going to be gross. You're going to take five points of choking damage. I mean, if I were, if I were Yorker, I would just wish to be dead. I would say 30 points of psychic damage on top of that. At this point, I know this is a magical realm, the dare I enter. I am a scarecrow with no lungs.

Do I get the scent? Ooh, I don't got no lungs. Well, I would say no, you don't get that. Okay, thank God. Because I also don't have to breathe, which is kind of bullshit. You don't want to swallow gross dead people's sweat? I'll tell you that much of fucking sucks. After teeth,

the fruit team. I also pick a tooth out of my I, given that I I would like to think back at my unfortunate experience back in the day before Virgil and the thieves tools that I have. Would I be able to, probably since I'm by

the bed, like just try to get the balcony door open, I roll an intelligence saving throw for me please. Oh, a saving through or a check? Natural one regardless of this. I've paid. Maybe it is, I would also like you to do the same.

Intelligence check. Yes, Intelligent check. Well, as someone in chat said I'm their favorite hymbo, so I'm dumb as a break. Oh! That's a 19, so if it's just an intelligent check. Yeah, so it's a 17?

Oh, then I know. Close. It's still a 19. Nicky. Okay. Can we get to my question? So I would say, though you noticed that the windows themselves seem to have sealed, there was the sound of a lock clicking in the door itself,

the door that joined to the bathroom. Do I have knowledge that you have? And so I would say with that intelligence, you would be able to question, would I be able to unlock that door? Do I have knowledge of these tools? Have you ever mentioned this? I don't think we could.

I mean, maybe, you know, maybe it, when we were on the train when we first met, like I may have mentioned it. If you would say, if you would say no and in my panic, then I would try to brute force open this door. I mean, I wouldn't even think to try to communicate with Jericho while I'm drowning. Yeah.

I mean, I'd still. My natural, my natural instinct would be trying to brute force open this door. I think that if I, if we were sharing stories while we were on the train while we were going to pick up whoever was next, I may have mentioned, I had picked Lach. That's fair. I would say that knowing that I don't need to breathe,

but I'm drowning, my panic would set in and I would try to brute force open this door. Okay. You do that. I would start to try to attack Eustis if he's still there. You would see me do this, but I would be attempting to brute force open this door. I'll roll to attack. Do we have to dive into the sweat to attack Eustis? Yes. I'm already in it. I mean, it's up to the ceiling at this point, right? Yes. There is like a very thing. thin line where there are still room to breathe. It would be a true. Depending on whether or not it's an attack or I'm pulling on it,

if it's an attack, I roll or 23. You once again attempt to break down this door. You hear, it's muffled now because you are now completely submerged, but you feel and hear the shaking of the slamming against the side of the house one more time. And you hope that it's going to give you enough momentum to be able to take this. door down, but even with the massive amount of strength that you have, it does not budge.

And as you pull away from it, you once again hear the faint sound of a locking mechanism. You would see me doing this. That's what I have my thief's tools out and going towards the balcony. I need everyone to roll a Constitution saving threat. Go! Let me know if you... Oh, God tear, again. I think that's 21. Let me check.

Khan. Yep, 21. I failed. Let's fucking go. You will take four points of suffocation damage. You failed as well? Oh, yes. You will take five points of suffocation damage.

It is. Yeah, nine. Okay. You. I'm proficient at Consuming Thrift. Are you serious? You will take 12 points, as this is your second failure. I'm drowning.

I would like to then see that Marius has failed and seeing him like gesture over to me. Are you unconscious? Not quite, not quite. But I'm starting to dream of the homeland. Waded down by my metal, the metal cage. We were both probably being waited down. Yeah, I would try to like, try to start picking the lock.

Roll a lock picking check. I see Briggsie attacking the body of Eustis. I'm, you know, my dress is billowing out around me. I'm going to swim over to you. Oh, fuck yeah. Pull one out. Eyes stinging from the salty sweat. That's not that you got a,

um, 17 plus, I got a 20. Yes, you are able to, um, you are able to, um, you were able to move in and you feel like. I'll roll the 30. Yeah. Oh, okay. Even in this, um, even in this scenario that you're in, this horrifying situation. where you're experiencing drowning and the inability to breathe for the first time,

you are able to disengage the lock and you realize something interesting about it. There is the way that this lock is created, there is potentially a key of a standard shape that could unlock this. You've experienced keys in your future before, something of a skeleton key. And I would say that with that knowledge, you imagine that there is some form of skeleton key for this house. That if you could find could end up being very useful, should something like this happen again. As I think about that, I try to open the door. And you do.

It does open, though. It does open. As the sweat begins to lower as it begins to spill out of this room. And as it makes its way over the threshold of the door, it begins to avoid. evaporate into a foul-smelling steed. As soon as the door goes while we're still underwater, I would have seen what Jericho did and given him like a brotherly bear hug as we are washed into whatever room we're being washed into

the balcony, right? No, it's in the hallway. It's rushing out into the bathroom and the hallway. I mean, there should be a door between the master bathroom. You and I would have been last break through. No, I think it's a cross- the hall. The fireplace is connected. Oh, I have a door.

That's fine. So we're in the hallway. And I'm still like, I'm like tightly grasping Jericho. You did it. You did it. Gosh, I almost tried my own key. And I'm going to take the key that's around my neck.

I'm going to tuck it back in my shirt. I would grab whatever horrific abomination you have for a hand. and say, you did it. You did it as I begin to stand up. I'm still on my knees, I'm going to turn and keep my face protected, and you get the sense that I pulled my mask away.

You hear a good amount of sweat just choked out of me and hits the floor with a splash before I managed to put my mask back up. Is everyone, is everyone okay? I hate this game. I've done a lot of disgusting things in my life, but it's the most disgust that I've ever been. Something is wrong. I don't need to breathe, and I couldn't.

Something is severely wrong with this house. This is the haunting. This is not to happen if you had been drowning in natural sweat. This is a supernatural effect. That is why you are not able to breathe. Who is theirs to the door? I am. Lepaica.

You immediately hear the sound of creaking, and then a loud crash as the door swing. open and you are all assaulted with the sounds of the raging storm from outside as the door to the balcony has been nearly blown off its hinges. And standing there on the balcony, his head lopsided, crooked as he looks at you. You see the ghost of Euston's Lockwood. As he stares directly at you, your eyes meet. He picks up his hand and beckons for you to come as he slowly steps backwards and jumps

from the balcony. I need your role was going to say for a time to be nice. See you, Aletheka. This is where I'm a Viking. No, yeah. That's called hubris, my friend. Tempting Fates. Speaking of tempting fates,

you do a twist of fate. I mean, I haven't used any of them twists, yeah. We can also let it ride and watch you die. That'd be tight. Well, there's not like an emergency happening right now. That's true. Fine to like,

Are you sure, Rich? Are you sure? I'm drowning and sweat anymore. We can do something. It's up to a little. No, it's always up to the group. So if you guys were twisted, then twist it. If not, then I'll take my skin bag and wear it like a bib and walk forward.

Andy's very happy to let this ride. Very happy. It's up to you, Derek. Do you wish? Do you decide? Okay, I'll just do it. I'll just do a one of this. One twist.

I mean, I can't be. It can't be worse than that, right? Okay. No, that's not bad, not bad, nothing. I'm going to use one of my twists of fate and you need to re-roll that. Oh, my God. The question for the DM, does it have to be that same dice,

or can I use a different D20? You can use a different D20. Okay. Oh my God, it's a roll off against the dungeon master. Does that mean I only have this value and this value has been deleted? Yes. This means that whatever you roll on this die

is the one that matters. Oh, so none of the other four rolls matter. Not that it could be much worse than, yep. Oh, wow. What a great use of Chris of Fred! Twoskow! All right, so like I promised, I will take my skin bag and

as a bit. You're going to meet your letter. You're conversing with each other. You're covered in this putrid smelling liquid as you're all gasping for air and finally finding it, Lethaca, as all of your attention is turned towards the balcony, you all see this. But Leithica is compelled, it seems. She begins to slowly rise and walk towards the balcony.

The storm rages all around you as you step out onto the second floor balcony that wraps around the building and sits on top of the porch. The rotted floorboard, sag, and burrowing insects skitter in and out of the soaked and swollen wood. As you're pelted by sheets and sheets of rain, you are, Barely see the barren branches of the spindly trees that flank the house as they bend and twist in the howling wind. Each step on this balcony is treacherous and the whole structure groans and warps beneath your weight, his hungry earwigs dart away from the foothballs. Through a flash of lightning, you look upward and see the bent and tilted upper stories of the house looming toward you. It's misshapen windows almost furrowed like glaring eyes as something catches the corner of your eyes from the wind and rain.

Another streak of arcing electricity above you with an accompanying boom of the room of, of thunder, you see a frayed rope tied to the crooked railing. As it violently flaps in the wind, you can glimpse that the end is tied into a noose. You slowly reach down and begin to pull it up. You all watch as Lethika pulls a noose up over the edge of the balcony and begins to wrap it around her neck. As soon as she begins to do this, I kind of ready my, steady myself and wipe the the liquid from my eyes, and I point to her and I say, Lethika, stop! And I cast command on you. It's a Wisdom 14 saving thrill. 15.

Waste and spells a lot of it. But it was really good. It was really good. It was shit. Do we... I need you to roll another wisdom saving throw. 24. You stare down as you feel compelling. to put this noose around your neck and you feel the pull again. As you begin to feel compelled to become crooked yourself,

as you look down, you realize that though it is not fully corporeal, you see swinging from the railing, the ghost of Eustace Lockwood. As he hangs there, his neck bent at a strange angle. It slowly swings in the wind as he looks up at you and smiles with his toothless grin, blood spilling out of his mouth.

For a moment, you feel that compulsion to become crooked, too, as you slowly step towards the railing. But a loud boom of thunder snaps you back into yourself, and you realize what you're doing is you slowly take the news off and throw it back down around the railing. To look down, you still see him there, swinging, as all of a sudden the wind picks up and boom! The entire house shakes as his body slams into the side of the wall. You now see firsthand where that noise has been coming from all along

as his lifeless form hits into the house, shaking the panes of glass and the rain-soaked wood. I'm burning this bitch to the ground. I'm a sarnaxist motherfucker. What are you a good night's sleeping here? Don't. Friends, friends, I am back with myself, please. Never do you know. Come to me.

What are you doing? I saw the ghost of Eustace, and I was compelled. For a moment, I was not in control, but I, the lightning brought me back to myself. Come inside. Virgil, you didn't do anything to stop this? Ow! He'll let out like a kind of malevolent, gleeful call that's actually just a So is the body that's making the noise?

Is it over the balcony or is it above us? It's over the balcony, so it is very clear that Eustace Lockwood was hanged from the balcony. I would almost, without consulting anybody, draw my sword and cut him down. The image that you see is the ghostly corporeal form. Oh, it's not. His actual rope is the one that

that's the one that let the car put around her neck. Got it. Got it. But he is long deteriorating. I, okay. Makes more sense. But I would say for the sake of fun and games, you could do it to the Spectral one and see what happens. No. I will not.

Thank you. Respectfully, no. I see, maybe I see you like start to go and I will turn and be like, There is no body here, but I do think it would be prudent to remove this rope. Should any of us be ensorseled in the same? way. Are he sure it was a charm and did something come over here? I'm not sure.

No, it was very much a charm, as you think. And I will, as I'm working, everyone rolled perception. Everyone rolled perception back. I'm going to pull a dagger out. Not bad, not bad. I think I got a 17. Let me check.

Yep, 17. I really need to start memorizing. 23. 18. 25. 17. Wow, great. Uh, prescription is 21.

All of you immediately notice as this bag at Lethika's hip begins to slowly open, and you watch as the arms make their way out, grab hold of the noose, and attempt to climb it up in Lethith's body. What do you do? I'll pull up the sickle up my side and cut up, attempt to at least. The rope or the arms? The rope. arms. I also have been attempted. Roll an attack. Oh, shit, there's no way we can attack the arms without attacking Lefka. It's the problem.

Oh, I don't know that. That'll be a phone team. I would like cleave her in two if I attempted to. 14? Just just go for you. That will hit. You are easily able to sever the rope into whatever this entity is that is reaching out from inside

of this bag immediately immediately realizes that you have caught it in the as it lets loose of the side of the rope that had the noose as its arms slowly begin to sink back into the bag fingers creeping up over the sides it grabs the the rope and it begins to slowly close it can I attempt to grab one of its arms absolutely I'd like to try to do that hey nice to meet too what's up roll a dexterity saving throw against a dexterity contest no but if I can put my hands on it it ain't beating me in a strength I'm gonna hold that phone. Jigs, chinks, jinks, jigs, chinks. Not bad.

You should wait, dex saving throw or just dex check? It's a dex contest, yes. Well, I'm on provision, so I think it's just plus one, right? So I got a 15 for dex. You are able to grab onto its wrist as it slowly begins to sink back into the bag. As reflexively as Andy accidentally reached for the knife, I grabbed this creature's wrist and begin to pull.

hard as I can. You begin to pull, you feel the cold feeling of its flesh, almost leathery, a strange texture that almost feels swampy and waterlogged like flesh of the drowned. As you begin to attempt to pull, the flesh starts to peel off in your hand as it is going to... Slip through my fingers, eyes, and de-glovet it? Uh, it will get a 50. Does a 19 hit? hit. Unfortunately, my AC's only in 18.

Only. Well, as it is going to twist its arm in your, twist its wrist in your arm or in your hand, and it is going to slice through your palm as its hand slips back into the bag. You were going to take equal of...

It's like holding on to one of those... Nine points. A slice of... The dollar fork with the whole donut. God. But in your palm, mixed with the blood, are small bits of its flash that you had, that had slid off of its form. Damn, ah, Lathanda, damn you!

And I throw its flesh on the ground, and I'm tending to my wound. Ah! Thank you for trying to help me, but Do not take your own God's name of faith. I'm going to pull that bastard from that bag if it's the last thing I do. Barius, I know that you're angry. I know that asking for a merciful death for those kids was too much.

But we have to be more careful. There's been a trap everywhere we've been. I've been struck by lightning. I cut into a pie that exploded. I'm currently drowning in sweat. I just like stand out like when you get out of the ocean, just every centimeter of you just drip. Like you can feel it on your eyelashes.

Like every movement just fires off a droplet of water. We cannot continue like this. I begin to wrap my hand and I look to Yorgram and I say, Yorim, you're right. I'm sorry. I forget my tenants. I'm on edge. I'm upset. I'm angry. Prigsie, roll a perception check for me, please.

I apologize. It's okay. It's okay, Mary. 20. Tiny little V-20. No, 21. I want to bring peace to these kids, too. But we can't do it if we die to insane specter traps. Prigsie, you hear the skittering of a feet in walls. as a door on the other side of this master bedroom slowly creaks open.

A darkened room laying further within. If you hear the sound, a loud thud as if something converging from the walls begins to skitter at a room. The sound of peepers being disheumpled. And then the sound was creaking bored and once again patterning. Farron, I need you to roll a before. I'll turn the barriers and I'll say, you should try listening to your own voice. I'll heat papers and books in the other room,

so the general might be there. One? One? You feel, you're feeling dizzy. You've been covered in this horrific liquid and the smell just won't seem to go. And you're used to rotting decaying earth and certain foul smells. your own being one of them.

But this is something unlike anything you've experienced. And the lightheadedness of that bite that you had taken downstairs finally gets to you as you begin to vomit uncontrollable. Oh. You just see my already kind of sickly looking form wretch over and begin vomiting uncontrollably. And that happens.

I would turn to Briggs. Having you had addressed me and finished me rod with my hand. What? You, you... Someone check on Farron. What did you say about something? They're not off here, pages rustling,

and there's some kind of beastie, sneaking around. And so, if he's trying to find that book two, I'm going to find it first. And I'm going to, basically, I'm going to... Wait, so is it this door, or is it this door? This door, okay. I'm going to basically, like, trundle down...

That L-shaped thing is the balcony that you were just on. It's that really... behind the bed. Yeah, got it. It all wraps around. Okay, I'm gonna walk down there and look in and if the doors open, walk in. I would follow you for sure.

I'm gonna go over to Farron and I'll say, Ferian, are you all right? That looks very unpleasant. I'll just be swat out him with my long nails. Okay, I'm sorry for presuming. Okay, well, if you need a, if you need help. Leave me down, boy. It's too good.

That's too good. It's too good. Stop back. That's my girl. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. And I'm just going to, I'll follow the boys. I'll stay with parents. I'll slunk down onto the ground.

And when I get a second where I'm not like vomiting up my skeleton, I'll clutch my chest and, like, did one help me through this? And I'll start to kind of, glow like green and grays and yellows and it will spread out from my chest and I'll cast a little sort of restoration on myself. You do this and you immediately begin to feel the convulsions in your stomach subside. The dizziness slowly start to fade away and as you reach towards your back where those two holes had been you feel a small dampness a strange greenish liquid

that has seeped out of your skin as those two piercing holes have peeled up. Whatever was afflicting you no longer... No longer remaining in control of your body. You have magic too, Fared. I do. I bet. Well done. You look much better now.

I feel better. With that, you make your way into the room. The connected office, you see. step into is walled in sturdy shells filled with dusty books with bent spines. A large wooden desk carved the dormance in the shape of peacocks faces. With peacocks faces the double doors with large windows, looking out upon the front balcony that might normally have had an impressive view in decades past. Yellowed business documents and heavy writing implements are joined by a merchant scale and a small framed portrait of Petunia Lockwood. The smell is strong in here as well, but it is with the stench of spirits, very clearly emanating from

crowded liquor trolley in the corner of the room. Several of the numerous bottles are uncorked and the remnants of a smashed decanter laid several feet away. As your eyes scan the collection of spirits, you swear that you can see movement within the murky liquid, with piles of cord-looking chunks resting at the bottom.

Oops. I think I'm just going to ignore the liquid and I'm just going to dig around for any kind of journal that I feel might have belonged, or book or whatever, might have belonged to. What do you do? I just start fumbling through all these different books.

I would assist Briggs-Z and I would probably stop by the trolley of spirits. I'll say, oh, you think he's got in a set for a little? I need you both to roll in investigation, please. Should I roll or should I assist? Both of you roll since you're investigating separate things. Let us catch up with the other. 16. Okay.

And Virgil is going to stay keeping an eye on the back. Orly investigation. Yep, is it higher than a 10? Then? Um, uh, I'm looking and I'm gonna be, come on, cross one, tell me a second, and I'm going to Oh, let's go. Uh, roll, okay, I am gonna add a D6 to that, but it's only a one, so seven, eight, nine.

Okay. Okay. Okay. Uh, yeah, I know, I found. Jericho, you make your way to the alcohol trolley, and you begin to look through these spirits. And as you uncork them, the aroma of the alcohol hits your nostrils, and it actually, in some of them, smells woodsy and pleasant. Oh.

Which is a direct contrast to what you see floating at the bottom. It's of teeth, fingernails, dead centipedes, a weasels tail, pigeon talon, clumps of hair, all swirl within every single one of these bottles of alcohol. No one take a drink from any of this? I don't know what I was expecting. Briggs, you begin to rifle through all of the papers here. You pick up some off of the floor, and you begin to put them together, and you find a few things that begin to start putting some of the pieces together,

but none appear to be the journal. Damn it. The documents here detail business for growing tea, processing, shipping, selling, lots of numbers. But the strange things, the dealings of petunia working with a Cyril Orphanage. She has correspondences with matron Maggie McDuff asking for sickly orphans that they could not adequately take care of, touting their wealth and ideal conditions to take the children. She seems to be using some of her connections with the other provinces to find forever homes for the orphans. This was dozens of small children this happened with.

Additionally, there are correspondences and payment records for the commission of a sculpture by Gaston Dure. He was invited to carve it at the crooked house for inspiration of the landscape at the behest of petunia. And that is what you thought. Gassanderet is absolutely named that we heard before. That's your letter. The little letters of the ivory stands. And so you can easily put two and two together these are the business documents that show

that they paid for him to travel and make that sculpture. That's ruined. This is all worthless. And I throw it all down on the ground. Hell raw. He must have been sleeping upstairs. Well, is that the whole floor?

I found a bunch of grueless. I would say, yes, it's easy to tell that you have overturned this entire floor of the house. And all of you think to yourself upstairs, there is still more that it's up. When I was out on the balcony and I looked up, did it look like a full floor or are we starting to see like those... I would say it looks like there's... There's definitely... It looks like floor plus some. Okay. Keeping my rooms of what I'm gonna call dives on once we clean this place up, I'll continue to be in.

Oh, yeah, this is your home now. I'll continue to be silent. I will not be in the house a second longer than you find there, Janico. Oh, I just found a bunch of alcohol, no saspirino, unfortunately. I guess even if there was, it'd probably be a gross pigeon food. You can... Why do you say, why do you say this about the pigeon foot? Because there's a pigeon foot in this bottle? There's a little centipede in that one. That one's got about three.

That's a lot. That one's a clock full of hair. This one's got about three or four teeth in that. Nobody fucking drink the alcohol. Marsh. Let us go upstairs. We must continue our clothes. It's like that gross fruit that the Yorghum got in his gloves.

I'm staring. I also follow up the downstairs. I take an extra moment outside the balcony. Please know the next half on. To take where I hope is. Just a nap, Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt. Your Grimm is completely coated in, like, rain as, in the wind. I'm hobbling up the steps with both hands on my shovel, like, with a pain step every, every...

So, that's down below, so we can get out. Thank you. So, you're Grim's good. That's, that's breezy. We got a Jericho in the background-ish. Oh, me, I heard it. And, okay, so then... I do with York.

should be up front. Yorghum will be in the back. We're gonna double up, even though I know we don't all fit. Farron has been puking her guts out. Jericho is the gender, gender, the tender, gentle, is what I was trying to say. Making sure everybody's okay, while Lethika and Briggs-Z and Marius take the lead.

That's what we got, right? So we all, that's our marching order, even then we would all be single file. Lettica doesn't actually say this, But just because you said it moments ago, I'll say, let's all double up so that, even though I know that we don't all fit,

it's not the first time I've heard this phrase. Yes. I wish to exit myself from the campaign. Whoever into the room, that's probably in a eye, bro. I didn't say that. Each step of the narrow staircase up to the third floor creaks beneath you

as you make your way to the smallest hall way you've encountered so far. Three rooms lie beyond three doors and the only one remarkable fixture is a strange floor-to-ceiling painting held within a simple wooden frame. The smudges of the piece seemingly done with oil paints could only be called abstract art. Have a use of browns, beige's and yellows formed together and what can only be described as a weasel-like creature with a face and hands of a man. The overly large mouth filled with rotten, crooked teeth. As you attempt to make sense of this nightmare painting, you see a large large black signature in the corner that reads,

the tune you along. So what you're trying to say is that the real villain here is modern art. You see a modern art page. No! Oh no, it's just a horrible weasel monster. Okay. Gosh, I thought we were gonna have to pay

to observe modern art. We're supposed to project our own meaning onto the answer. I think the meaning is that it belongs in trashcue. I'm idiots. Briggs, do you see the beavers? You go first. Well, if you're a weasel thing, ahead.

So what I will say is, having looked at those masses of weasels that it accosted you downstairs, this one appears in a similar state. The difference being this one truly has a full human face. There is no weasel to its face. It is pure human with a mow of crooked teeth, and its hands where you would expect weasel hands to be are human hands. Four of them in total.

That's fucked up. I would have said after Yorgram comes in from the rain, I'd be waiting there. And I'd be, I'd like pat him on the back as we're walking up the stairs together. Did you get a nice, nice breath of fresh air, maybe say our mantras? Is that what you monks do?

As he passed me on the back, I would collapse to the ground. Ah, yes. It was a much needed respite. I feel like I'll never really wash myself clean. But... Well, I hear that deep breaths is the way to get calm. I wouldn't know anything about a breath deep, shallow, or otherwise,

but I'm glad you're feeling better, Yoram. There's a bathtub downstairs once we have cleansed to this place. The bathtub with the smoke and the... Two dead kids. Once it has been cleansed, it will be fine for bathing. I'll never bathe in that tub. Dibbs then. As we look through, as we go to the hallway.

We saw the Weasel guy. We saw the horrible weasel painting with the hands and fists. And you see that there are three, there appear to be three rooms. I would try the door that I would be closest to. So we're coming out here. So, uh, towards the TV. I mean, it's, it's left. Technically, this is closer.

Yeah. Always go left. Always go left. Yeah. Right here. Yeah, so this room towards the TV over here. No, this is, technically would have come up here. The first door at the top of the stairs is you can go immediately,

if you're coming out of the stairs, you can go immediately to the left. You can curve around and an L and go up towards the topmost room. Or you can go down a little bit to the room closes to me. Just turn in that. So closest to Mike, closest to Rich, closest to Rich. Closest to Rich is what I think Rich was going for. Yeah, I'll go in there. That sounds good. You slowly open the door.

Oh, shit. You slowly open the door to this room, to what appears to be a guest room. As the bare minimum, one might need to stay overnight in the Lockwood Estate. The single sagging bed is covered in yellow sheets with stiff-looking pillows in the strange construction of the box frame that contains, much of the mattress, makes it look more like a coffin awaiting a corpse. The only other piece of furniture in the room is a wardrobe that leans forward with its faded

door hanging perpetually open on rusted hinges. What immediately seems peculiar is that it is absolutely stuffed with outfits of varying sizes and aesthetics that might have belonged to at least a dozen different men and women, who for some reason did not leave with their clothes. Uh, noticing that that's really weird, I would start going through the clothes, like checking the pockets and seeing if they left anything. But just seeing if I can kind of learn anything about, you know, do they leave important stuff? Roller investigation check for me.

Careful with this one, Briggsie. That would be an eight. With an eight, you make your way to the wardrobe and you begin checking different areas of the, you begin checking different outfits within the, within the wardrobe. and you don't find documents, but you do see that these are from a plethora of different people. And for whatever reason, none of them left with the clothes that they had on their back. You don't notice at first until you hear the thud, thud, thud, thud,

its teeth begins to fall from the pockets of every single one of these garments. Teeth, tooth after tooth after tooth after tooth, your tooth is all the sudden up to your ankles, up to your knees are covered with teeth. I need you and only you to roll a dexterity, a dex check for me. Oh, come on, baby. That's where you got to be like half-fighting. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Uh, 19. You feel the teeth. It's almost as if they're moving on their own piercing into your flesh, but you're able to kick them off as you trudge to the other side of the room and slam the door shut. You hear a rattling as if teeth falling through the walls of the house itself, peek into the room to see. And where the room had begun filling with teeth, there's just simply a small pile of what appears to be human teeth

sitting in the very bottom of the wardrobe. Riggsie, are you all right? It's just a guest room and let's just say the guests wouldn't check it out. All they were just not in the traditional sense, you know what I mean? Reception check for me, please. Do we see the teeth in the pockets? Oh, they did. I would say you saw the teeth filling out of the pockets.

And it seems, what I will say is, Briggs, because you were rifling around in them, there are about enough teeth as there are outfits. It seems like the numbers would match up. We should rally around the Briggsie with the pocket full of teeth. And what did you, what did you get? Rally around the brigsley

with the pockets full of teeth. I cast blindness on Derek. Crocs on parade. I don't give inspiration for this campaign, but that's damn bad. I have a 23. As you slowly shut the door again, you hear once again the movement in the walls

going in the opposite direction. as you hear the sound of rocking back and forth and then almost as if it been around something rocking over and over and over again multiple objects in the room directly behind you towards where

Jericho is. Archer? Yes. This one. So the entirety of the time that you were in there, I would have just planted myself outside this door like waiting to hear what you had to say and just like waiting. I think it's probably a ghost,

but the next spirit, I think is in a room over there, and I'll point down the hallway. Towards this room. All right, Brayson. I'll follow your lead. I mean, I just did that one. I think I'm going to put it off.

Oh, Theron, we're right behind you. I'll take the lead. Theron and Marius walk into our room. We walk into a bar. You were easily able to open the door. When you step into this room, you were surrounded by beasts. You tense for just a moment until you realize that the walls of this nursery are hand-painted in the same style as the portrait in the whole way. Obviously the handiwork of petunia looming over the trio of cribs and toddler-sized beds or creatures sprawled out upon the walls and ceiling as one might find in a child room.

However, rather than the universally beloved animals you would expect, the faded. oil effigies are in the shape of a spider, a pigeon, a worm, a rat, a mosquito, a crow, a cockroach, a shrewd, a centipede, a snake, a louse, a weasel, and other abstractly painted vermin. When you are finally able to pry your eyes away from the menagerie around you, the one thing that strikes you are the number of small holes in the wall besides the cribs and beds, as it dug out by rats and walls. All of the cradles in this room are rocking, almost if in around. And as the door fully swings open,

they slowly begin to stop and come to a halt. No, Jericho, what are you so angry about? You are a machine. What? Oh. You know, I do have a bit of rage issues, especially when Virgil has his saying, I'm sorry about that.

I get across, especially when I'm scared. You know, the scared crime. As I continue, anyway, sorry. As I peer around the room, I would not take too note of the conversations happening behind me. Perius, as you were doing whatever you were doing. Just look at it. You see almost appear out of thin air, a woman in a bustle dress. She turns towards you and makes direct eye contact with you.

She shimmers clearly some kind of specter, and you immediately see the ghostly form of petunia. Lockwood as a crooked smile appears on her face. You look, as she reaches towards a familiar sack at the side of her hip. If she opens it, she begins to pull a barbed wire from its inside. She holds it up to her hand as she keeps firm eye contact with you. As she slices through her hand with one of the blades, grips it tight as she begins to let blood drop on the floor. You watch as she slowly begin to begin to.

to wrap it around her neck, over and over and over again, pulling tightly little droplets of of blood running down on her dark dress, nearly fading into the fabric that has now come into full view, no longer incorporeal. And she turns towards you and she walks out towards the balcony at the edge of this room. She opens the door and she steps out. She hangs the wire over what appears to be some hook at the edge of the roof, and she jumps. You see in full view as her head is sliced from her body. You can hear the soft thud and sound of oozing liquids as both her head and her body hit to the soft, wet earth as the storm rages around you. The barbed wire coated in blood. you immediately think of the head, skull that was buried beneath the burgomtree,

clearly severed with some kind of sharp razor-like object. Any questions you may have had to how this happened? Answered in this moment. Did I see that as well or just... All of you see it. Marius just knows. She has her teeth right now? She did.

These souls are so horrifically tortured. die. I need you all to roll a perception checkpoint. Our recruiter Philip, I feel as though he may have set us up. What would drive them to claim their own lives? I'm beginning to ask the same question. I do not know. Perception, you said. Yes. 22. 18. Did anyone roll beneath a 15? It happens for you first, Farron. You feel a piercing

feeling at the back of your legs. You feel a piercing feeling at the back of your legs. you kick out. A skittering sound as all of you look around and then you, God, do you feel it at the back of your leg. As you see,

as you see standing behind your grim, feasting on the blood pouring out of two small holes in the back of his leg, an abseemly large weasel. But as it turns towards you, you notice the hands wrapped around your calf

are human hands. The face on its face is a human face. contorted with a twisting maw of crooked teeth. Two large crooked incisors piercing into your flesh as it laps up the blood. It looks at you and smiles as it begins to skitter around on its human hands, jumping between each of you,

darting between your feet, looking for any inch of skin that it can find purchase on. It would reach down and slash with my nails. I'm a wildly swat at it. Everyone roll and attack. Hector maybe. Did you damage shots? 22.

2, maybe. 18. 18? 18? 24. 17. 21. 21.

You all let loose attacks on this thing as it jumps around your feet and you feel that this, you should find purchase. Your blunderbush should be able to shoot this thing. should be able to swipe at it where you had been, but its insanely dexterous body as it grabs on to parts of you with its small human hands on its rodent-like body as it uses you to propel itself around and avoid every single one of your attacks. Before, it looks towards you, and with a strange, squeaking, guttural sound, it flings itself into one of the small holes by one of the cradles and disappears from you. This creature is about, the size of, I would say, a pug.

Like a Remy pug? Green. Like a Remyh. Like a Remy. What a nightmare. I knew it. It's like a nightmare. I knew it. And both, the two of you will take six points of damage.

Oh no, sorry. I'm lying. I'm lying. Who's the two of us? The two failed. You will take two points of piercing damage. And that's all we see in this horrible nursery. Yes. Do I look down and feel that's the same thing that bit me before? I would say it's very easy for you to tell that that was the same creature that you've been before.

I need you both throw it before. That was it. That was a thing from before it. It got me again. You're going to feel sick after this. Oh, actually, you need to roll a constitution saving throw to see if this takes it back. There we go. And let me know if it's lower than 13.

Uh-oh. 15. Uh, 10. Having felt this before, you are able to shrug off the venom that is pumping into you from its fangs. Your Grimm, however, you have not experienced this before, and it does take hold. I need to all need more. Is for damage, but... Well, we'll see.

It's either really good or really bad. While I'm Max, when it's the bad one. You reach up and you feel your gums begin to hurt, and you reach to pull out one of the teeth embedded in your gums, but it's not... your gums, but it's not someone else's teeth that you pull from your flash. It's your own teeth as yours begin to fall out. Blood is running down your face as you begin to choke on your own teeth, tooth after tooth falling from your face. How does your room look, you know, from a physical life? I mean like, like as a healthy orc, I don't know if I would probably see you. How do you look, Your Room or DM?

I don't know. I'm just concerned about Yorgram. I would say he looks pretty rough. My body is smoking from the lightning that hit me original. All right. I'm giving off. I cannot stand up without the help of my shovel. Briggs, I want you to roll an intelligence check for me. If I may while he's doing that.

Let me know if you need a test. I'd like to lay on hands. You're welcome to lay on hands. As I do you guys. Lay your hands on him. Do I get the sense that this is where, that orphans... What did you roll? Uh, 20.

Perfect. You remember reading the papers that you had seen in a room downstairs, and this is clearly the room where those children had been kept, but there is no sign that healthy, happy children had been kept here. The holes in the walls that you had seen this creature enter the room from, they've clearly entered before. The gnaw marks on the sides of the bed.

Whatever was put in here wasn't put in here to live. It was put in here to die. I read about this downstairs. They would collect orphans. They must have kept them in here. I would say you also find in one of the side

tables a strange metal clamp that looks like it was used for pulling teeth. Check out if everybody. else you say. It'll throw it on the ground. What purpose could they have possibly heard for this? While this is happening, as I lay my hands on you and I say,

Yorgrim, Yorgram, please, focus, you'll be all right. I use five points of my 15 points to cure disease and the other 10 to heal you. You feel that, you feel the softness in your mouth of your teeth, not being able to hold on to bone and gum, begin to subside. as your gums become heartier and hold your teeth in place. There's a soft glow of rose. I would say you're missing about seven. Rose petal light from my hands that cures you.

And you can almost smell roses as I am laying all 15 points of healing into you. So you'll heal 10, but I cure disease with five. So you just heal 10. I forgot that you can do that. I just do one of these. That's all of it. The thunder. No, but I mean.

That's all of it. It's all of it. It's for you. The thacker. Yep, yep, that's all of it. So I healed 10, mechanical. You heal 10, and I used five of the 15 to cure you of whatever horrific weasel disease. Hugh measle disease you have.

So... What is somebody called? Briggs, is what you're saying, that all of them kids that she got from cereal, they went here and got it up by that strange gross weasel? And presumably she was pulling their teeth, too. For what purpose? Why would they do that? I think she's behind, Iris.

Why is she the one that kept all the teeth? And everybody else, they go toothless. That's a good point. She had some kind of plot. She may have been the one who did the teeth pulling, but whether she was acting on her own will is another question. Does the wounds look like what Dunn did Little Arthur in? same kind of teeth marks.

Roll and intelligence check. I present my calf to, I'm sorry. I fail terribly regardless of what it is. I think that's a really good question. Oh, survival? It's a loadie. Oh, wow, it's not that. Now I'll give it to you for the sake of revenue because you asked a good question.

Yeah. Oh, wow. I would say the teeth are not, but looking at its finger. the yellowed claws, it had unusually long human fingernails, it does appear to match the markings on Arthur's neck. Oh, looks well... And so with that, I would say you could assume that whatever that creature is, it goes by the name of filthy Jasper. We just had it running with filthy Jasper. That was it. That's the thing in the walls. This creature is filthy Jasper.

What is it? I've never seen such a thing. I assumed his name was Hector Manwiesel. What would you assume that? It just seemed natural, I guess. No, I think it is indeed this filthy Jasper. What is curious to me is, how did Patrini try to help? That was what Arthur said, is it not? But who was he?

We don't know how he plays into all of this. He's not part of the family that we can tell. Perhaps he was the man consumed by bees. There is one room left. Regardless of what happens, we find the journal. Filthy Jasper dies tonight. We purge this house and free this family of whatever harm they've suffered with

for whatever many decades they've been here alone. I agree. Let us make our way into that room. Riggsie, you may get your gun out. Who does I get you? And we go out of my sash and all we make our way down. Yeah, hell yeah. I'll follow Lepaica into the room and I'll aim over her shoulder. We're easily able to open the door as you enter a quaint and humble bedroom with an unusually long bed against the wall on which is the only decoration in this space.

A plaque buried symbol of a crescent moon within a full moon. There's a small foot locker wedged into the space at the end of the footboard, and on the other side of the cramped room is a writing desk with accompanying school. On top of the desk are two books covered in dust. One is a small prayer book of Boltus, the page edges shimmering the silver. The other is a large green hide-bound journal wrapped two times over with its attached leather cord at the end of which contains a small brass key. Does the key look at all like any other lock, or does it just look very, like, that's a little bit? That's the, just the key that book.

You look like getting it? I would say it's also a good question and brepity, that even though Jericho was the one that noticed the contraption, it appears to be a skeleton key, potentially a skeleton key for the house. So you're touching the book is what you're saying. Well, yes, touching the book. I went up to the book.

For sake of brevity. I attached it, it's who I am. What? A journal. Holy shit. Look at those pages! Oh my God! I am going to read it to you, and then I will pass it to you as there will be some things you have to do with this.

As you hold the book in your hands, there is a sense of magic that hums from it. Holy shit. Yes! Oh, my shit. Oh, my shit. What the hell? You begin to read 249 in the year of the heartbeat. It's hard to accept that you are gone.

May Fultus light your way in the darkness. The Lockwoods held a small vigil for you in your honor. Lord and Lady Dresk involved even made an appearance. How kind of them to come. Dressed all in black, the lady wept for you, Father. I feel a fondness for them now. They pulled me aside to make sure I was well. I told them not to make a fuss over a butler's son.

They would not hear it and remained by my side through the entire internment. Lord Philip gifted me this journal. a place to keep my thoughts and find peace while I grieve. I miss you, Papa. They have given me your old job. The Lockwoods are kind. They may not be religious folk, but they look out for their own. I will make you proud.

A tree. 271 in the year of the gesture. Life moves along the same way it has for many years. My work as a butler is just as it has been. My work as a baker is what has truly brought purpose to my life. Whether I'm taking pastries to the orphanage and cereal or baking, elaborate cakes for the parties at Chateau-Claire d'Aloon. Every moment I spend in the kitchen is filled with joy. It seems the lady of the house has taken notice of my talents, for she has brought me

a new pastry recipe to try. The master of the house has become overcome with terrible nightmares. He struggles to sleep, and the lack thereof is driving him mad. Lady Lockwood asked me to make her an entire dozen of these new dream pastries. They have to be made to the recipes. She has warned me, or the results could be disastrous. She has delivered to me a large burlap sack of fine beige powder, imported from some far off land, she says. The most important ingredient, dream dust. As long as she supplies the ingredients, I shall bake these dream pastries for her.

I pray to Fultus that they will bring Mr. Lockwood a peaceful sleep. Katrina. 276 in the year of the spider. It has been years since I learned to make these pastries for the lady, inhaling the dream powder has caused me a perpetual cough in Mr. Lockwood's dreams, though abated at first, have only gotten worse in recent days. Lady Lockwood seems on edge. She spends much of her time upstairs or in the conservatory. I rarely see her unless she is picking up the drain pastries. Recently, a sculptor from Passion Dell arrived to work on a new piece for the gallery. He's a

kind man and very handsome. He seems to be the only thing that can distract Lady Lockwood from her work upstairs or in the conservatory. When he is not sculpting, he brings his tea to the kitchens to share stories of an artist's life in Edwardia. I've always wanted to travel, and I told him as much. The very next day, he arrived to tea with a hand-drawn map of Dresdenwald. He had painted just for me, such a kind man to keep an old man like me coming. It still hurts my soul that he never came to say goodbye. Now all I have is this map tucked at the back of the book and his beautiful sculpture in the gallery to prove that he was ever here at all. So strange, the day he left, his teacups still warm and only half drunk, and he left without a goodbye.

Between. 278 in the year of the phantom. The dream dust has attracted vermin. I have not seen them in the flesh, but I can hear them in the walls. Young Sally cries to me that they watch her in her sleep. I lie to her and tell her it's all in her head. She doesn't believe me, and she shouldn't. They feed on me while I sleep.

I have the wounds and the scars to prove it. I cannot sleep. Nightmares haunt me. I hear the cries of children in my dream. I want to know peace. Between. 280, the year of the reber. Something is terribly wrong with Mr. Lockwood.

I fear I've poisoned him with these dream pastries. There must have been a mistake. Lady Lockwood could not have known the contents of this dream powder. She never would have asked me to do this if she knew. I must be going mad. But I keep staring at its small, lifeless face, and I know it to be true. At the very bottom of this sack of dream powder,

I discovered, ungrounded, unlike the rest, small infant skull. That same chalky beige. I feel sick. I wish I were mad. I've asked the lady of the house to meet me in the kitchens. She must be told what I had discovered.

She must be told about the children. Dear God's, the children. I'm shaking as I write this. The rats are in the walls, the children are in the pastries. She must be told. And then I must leave. I don't know where to go,

but I must go. The last entry is not signed, and there are no more. Don't touch it. Don't touch it. I don't want to touch this shit. Oh, Jesus. Oh, my God.

Nice. I will say it was mentioned in there. There is a map at the back of the book that you can find, if you would so choose. Most in the accelerated class at Shadestone Clan University. Reading real good. Holy fuck. And you'll notice there is a signature. on the map.

Wow. Let's get on the map cam. Where do you want it? Map cam. The signature of the gentleman who made the hand-drawn map clearly. This guy drew.

After every benefit of the doubt, after every attempted goodwill, this horrid woman of this house, She has done all of this. It seems all but confirmed that she's behind it. Sloply said it was her. I don't give the fuck if she was being mind-controlled or charmed.

At least she's fucking dead. Petrini sent us to find this book. I haven't yet found anything that seems like it would lead us to how to cleanse this place, but he wanted us to find this. It must hold more. You begin to feel the book vibrating in your hands as all of a sudden it opens before you to a page at the very, very end of his journal entries.

The end of his journal entries. It's probably gonna be the front-ish. You fucking idiot. You'll notice that there are pages, page shot. Oh. There you go. There you go. Mackie. What?

Hold on, wait so you receive instruction. You feel yourself drawn to these pages, two of them feeling like they're sticking together. You may open those pages. And read out what they say. Oh, damn that's trouble. You're all easy to see. Love that bad boy. You open it up, and at first you see nothing but blank pages until words begin to form.

Oh my God. I'm so... Read them. Children fast. Children fast. Thank you. Memories returning and heavily underlined. Paula.

Let us go. Let us make haste. We cannot, we cannot delay. This is it. We're doing something right for once. We'll get to, wait, if she was dead, then who's the hag? And I'm just horrified as I follow the group. I mean, hags can be dead, right? Maybe she's a goat's head.

You begin to make your way down through the house. The house nearly shakes with the momentum that we're using to rush forward through it. Until you finally get to the stairs top of the first floor. Oh, no. And you find the large chasm before you. I need you all to make a dexterity check to see if you can jump, jump safely. Does anyone have a roll? Oh, let's go.

I think I got a 16. Let me know if anyone rolls below a 13. Oh, I'm golden. I got an eight. I'm rolling like hot fire tonight. I'm good, I'm good on this one, thank God. Oh. Thank you, Lathander.

I'll drink that. I got a nine. Anyone who rolled below a 13 as you attempt to jump your feet find purchase, but this wood is covered in urine and feces from these strange, weasel creatures. As your feet slip, you smack your head directly into the splintering wood. As you take five points of what you can reach.

Gosh. I would help everyone to their feet. Comrades. Yes, I'm sure. I'm sure your Obron would help me help them as well. Everyone would say and be like, ah, sucks a suck. We would help everybody to their feet. Should we better at jump at the bottom. I know that is you, Crossroads.

And you are easily able to help your friends up as you all stand, fireplaces on the base level begin to illuminate with fire once again signaling that Petrini is ready to speak to you. You see the illumination beneath the door as you rush into the parlor. As you see the plan check begin to float into the air. I love this thing. Keep this with the book. Oh yeah yeah. You're a slide that over there that way. I'm like so. I can move it this way a little bit. We're going to do a little bit of this. Given my...

That's great. Given my backstory... No. I'm just kidding. What do I know about hags in general? And... I would say ask more of a specific question. Given that I have a familiar...

Yes. And I'm made by hags. You have a familiar? I would say it would be very easy for anyone who has any knowledge of hags whatsoever to guess that this... entity, this filthy, this filthy jasper, is more than likely the familiar of some kind of witch

or some kind of habit. We're gonna murder this little fun. I say all of that and I'll say, Well, I don't want to presume that there's something worse than filthy jasper here, but given that I have a real gross, weird crow, I wouldn't be surprised if a horrible hag has a real gross, weird weasel.

Jericho, whatever it is, we're going to face it with bravery. We're going to avoid negativity. All right? I'll do my best, Marius. The plan said begins to shake and hover. Patrini is ready. Patrini waits.

You each are allowed to ask a question. I remember what you told us left. You don't have to, but you can each ask a question. Oh, that's right. I forgot about this. Hold on. I think we need to ask players this quickly have a chat. Okay, do we join hands again? Yes.

Just too many. We must. We must join hands. Please, gather around. Between me. Can we say spirit first? And then? You can say his name. Now that we know his name, I think that it is fine. Okay, yes, that makes sense. You watch, as on its own with none of you touching it, the planchette moves to greetings.

What's me? Farewell. What can we ask in order to prepare ourselves against this danger. There is something below, and there is also this, as you say, familiar. Well, maybe I'll ask my question just asking that to confirm. Maybe he knows if the memories came back from the journal.

Yes, and you might, oh, there you go, that's great. I'm going to hear my notes here. Go ahead. We're all holding hands. Slash touch to the planchette. Patrini, this is old Jericho sticks, but you can call me. Jericho, as most folk do, is filthy Jasper the familiar of the hag what you referenced?

Last time we spoke via this fine spirit board contraction? The planchette immediately shakes as it moves towards the word, yes. Thank you. It begins to spell an article. Your question specifically was, is that a familiar? Isn't the familiar of the hag that he referenced in the last seance that we did? Got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it. Okay, I just want to make sure I understood your question.

Did? Let us think of another question. What was you, what were you going to say, your Grimm? Lady Petunia, kill these children willingly, or were she insorseled? Great, great question. Great fucking question. Oh, wait, wait, ask, ask, ask, ask us. I don't have shit.

I don't have shit. I don't have seen it. I don't know. That was really cool. You put the planchette towards the center of the board resetting it as you asked your question. Spirit, did the lady of the manor trap and kill these children willingly, or was she ensorcelled? Begins to vibrate beneath your fingers as it moves to W. Bye. L L L, I, N, G, Y.

I'm ready, I'm ready. Oh, are nice, nice and a little. Are you sure? I'm fucking sure. Put your hands on the fucking thing. Our lives depend on this. You will not share. Put your head on the fucking thing.

I talk to me. Is this, Patrini, is this still something along that we can fucking kill. The planchette shakes and moves. The word yes. Now, one of you got to ask what it is and how we do. Rigsley, I believe that that's the crux of what we need to know.

I'm willing to ask the question. 13 hags. This is just one of them. Where is it? You have to address its name. Petrini. Let us know where this foul creature of the night is, and we will avenge you and your family.

It shakes for a moment, and it moves to the word no at first. And then you pee. There must be some sort of attic, some sort of crawl space, something above us. But

Bertrini, before, told us that she was below. I agree. I remember very specifically below Berwer being in the The letter I still carried. Gaston said, but where below? Petrini said the hag was below. I think back to the rooms that we were up in the topmost floor.

Was there any kind of a crawl space, a hatch? Not that you saw. Maybe. Did we miss it? Maybe the hag is in what we're supposed to fucking kill. Maybe we've got to kill something in the basement. Why does he sound on us up? Maybe the hag is dead too.

Any something else? No, Marius asked where the hag was, not where the thing we have to kill was. Is that what she said? I think so. It's what I said. The answer, Petrini's answer,

first went to no. Didn't we just, didn't we ask if there was more than one threat here? Yes. Well, at the very least, we know we're killing that familiar. What if someone asks what else is in the house?

Yeah, maybe it is more... Besides the hag and her familiar. Greed. I think that's a fantastic question. Who's got questions left? Regardless of what it is, we will slay it. The four of us only asked. Will?

Yeah. I already... I used my question right up. Right away. I was number one with my gumption. Do you think, Klobika? What's that? Is you two?

Don't. You forget about me. I must admit I am confused as to why it initially went to know before it told us to go up. Almost as if Petrii didn't want to send us towards the hag. Perhaps he is sending us to the familiar, yes. Perhaps that will weaken the hag and allow us to defeat her. Or maybe the familiar is what tonight. Hag is dead. No, if the familiar lives, then the hag still lives and vice versa.

So for instance, if you see Virgil dead, then I'll probably be... For what it's worth. Don't die, Rudo. I know I've already asked my question. Petrini, if you can hear me, we're not asking for protection. We're asking for direction to free you and the poor people of this accursed matter. mention, please do not dissuade us. Do not lead us astray. The fires and the fireplace begin to roar. The spirit board begins to shake. And without any of you touching it, the planchette begins to move.

I. I. T. C. A. L. B. W. Faster. S. M. A. S. H. W. I. N. S. K. Faster. M. Y. A. P. R. O. N. And even faster still. D. A. R. K. N. E. S. S. as the fire extinguishes and the spirit board goes limp. Curses, I apologize

if I've wasted our questions below the basement. We're going. Regardless, we sweep this house and we extinguish the evil within. There are three places where we can go. The kitchen. The kitchen.

I would say you very clearly remember that there was a door with stairs that went down from the We find his apron. From there we find the stairs, and we kill whatever lives below this house. Oh, right. I'll follow you.

You have my banjo and my weird crew. With my weapons drawn, I look to the gang. I nod my head, and I charge through what I remember to be the house because of this way and this way. I'll put my hand on, and if anyone joins you, you run out, but I think I still have one question left.

Between me, have we interpreted your wishes correctly? Is this how we make things right? You wait for the humming and the vibration of the planchette, but it has clearly deactivated. Without the energy of everyone, of course. However, a small lick of flame appears in the fireplace for just but a second as it blasts out with light. You're all filled with warmth, and you take the benefits of a short rest.

So I would have stopped the door as Leitha was doing this. I will nod to her and say, let us proceed. You quickly, I will... You take your short rest, but I will describe. You quickly run through the house. I gotta hit die.

As you make your way through the conservatory, you were once again beset upon by the grasping vines that attempt to hinder you, but you kick them away, you move, you know what to expect now, as you make your way into the filthy kitchen and clamber towards the door at the very back, the one that led down.

Can you please put the new map? Oh, shit. All right, we got to move that bad boy. Are I able to use song of rest again? People who play bars. And I guess this is what, an extra 1D6? I'm just trying to see if I can. Oh, no, because I wouldn't just say.

So this is a magnet and so I don't think I can use song of rest with us. Of course you can. Oh. It's a short rest. So I will say for this sake, you can sing a very quick song and everyone benefits. Rally around the breezy with a pocket full of tea. Yikes. Crocs on parade!

1D6? Duh, dada, d'A. I'm assuming that's a yes, I heal five. Yeah, I'm gonna use... Yeah, I'm just gonna do it. That's awesome. Wait, what is this? Are you healing? So if you're using hit dice on a short rest,

you may use an extra 1D6, I believe. Yes. To heal in addition to your head dice. Not that that should be any indication that you might need help going through. You have to heal. You have to use hit dice thing. You can't just eat the one. You believe it. Get the extra 1d5.

Or 1d6, I think. Whatever your bardic dices. Plus anything or just 1d6? No, it'll just be whatever his bardic inspiration. With that, you found your way. Not to the barric diet. No, but you're normal. Can you pass me those tokens so that we can have one on the door?

No. Good. You find yourselves at the very top of the stairwell that goes down into what is clearly a dank and musky's cellar of some sort. You hesitate for a moment as you all look between each other, not knowing what you will find, but understanding the mission that Petrini gave you. Look for the wine cast with his apron and smatcher. So you begin to descend. The darkness shrouds the incredibly narrow and rickety staircase beneath the earth seems almost supernatural, with each step threatening to completely snap as you grope your way down into the wine cellar. Your

rise take a long time to adjust even with your own light, and you take it in the side of the damp, you take in the sight of the damp cobweb-infested room. Two balls are completely obstructed by rows of massive wine casts that rise all the way to the eight-foot-tall ceiling, and in another houses a mostly empty rack with only a handful of greenish wine bottles. You then realize that the ancient-looking stonework of the floor is heavily stained with a deep crimson color. I will say it is fairly easy for you to find that One of these wine casts has a very dirty and stained apron slung over the nozzle. That's going to be it.

Yeah. Who wants to do it? Someone remove the apron, please. Out of respect. Yeah, I would do that. I would gently lift the apron up and maybe look through it as I step back away from Briggs. He's about to explode. You hold the apron up and you see that this apron was made for an unusually tall and lanky man. It coincides with some of the things that you've heard about the truth. And you feel that this was probably his apron. He had a long bed too, right? He had a very long bed. Nothing in the pockets. Nothing in the pockets. We all saw the image of the man in the oven.

Yes. And I would say that was a very tall and lanky gentleman and you could put two and two together. Would anyone want to join me? be my guest. I take a further step back. Be her guest, be her guest. All right.

Who'd you gone to the task? If I may. Before you do. The game of a bar. I'd like to stand over the apron and just plant my shovel on top of it and chant last rights. Absolutely.

All right, you will be on three. One, two. Free! And I'll shoot my Eldridge Blas. You let loose this voodomagic from the end of your blunderbuss. And it, actually, for the first time in this horrible, spooky mansion, it is able to find purchase with the magic. As you watch as the wood splinters,

and a disgusting, foul-smelling wine begins to completely coat the floor. As you see, a small crack in the wall. a wall that does not look like the rest of the walls in this place. Potent stench of the spoiled wine that spills from the broken casks lingers in the room as you step over the splintered wood of the smashed cask through a gap in the brick of the cellar wall. The air in the room you step into is stale and cold and you immediately begin to feel claustrophobic and realize just how cramped it is as your eyes adjust to the immense darkness. It's then you see that the walls that surround you are entirely different, the neat brickwork of the house's foundation. Instead, huge stones are stacked in the pattern

of archaic architecture and held together with crumbling plaster. This place feels incredibly old, and you could believe that many centuries have passed since its construction. And stranger still, you notice that these ancient stones have been charred completely black. The far end of this space, no more than a few feet from you,

the floor collapses into total blackness. It makes you shudder to think that there's something below even this place, and you, yet the void beyond seems to back in. And that is what you see. We mentioned darkness. That dark void that's beckon in us? Outside instead of inside this time?

So just so I understand, this structure is cylindrical. Half of it is where we're standing on the other half is just nothing but pitch blackness. Yes. But it appears that there is wall on the opposing side, What you experienced was blowing apart the cask, showed a hole in one wall of the basement or a section of the wall of basement that was clearly not the same stonework that the rest of the house was built out of. Crawling into it, you see the cylindrical structure where you're standing on essentially a platform where the stone has been completely singed black as if by a fire.

Okay. The hole beneath you is so dark that it's almost unnaturally dark. You cannot see the bottom of it, and it seems to go down, down, and down. But this wall is solid wall down. I'd like to pick up a bit of stone and toss it over the edge. You do this, you wait, and you wait, until finally you hear the echoing sound of the stone hitting something far below. It seems we've got a long way down to go. I'm able to go down,

but I don't know about the rest of you without any kind of assistance. Do you mean climb, or do you have some magical means? It's the type of climbing, I suppose. I would say looking at this, you can tell that there is, you can climb it. The stones protrude enough that there are places you can get footholds and handholds. The problem that you encounter is, simply that once you begin to descend, it is so dark that you are going to have a rough time trying to find those handholds.

I'm happy to go first if all of you are feeling up to the task. It should be a slightly easier climb for me. Do we have any means to bring the light down with us? I could give it a go and I'll do a little twang on my banjo and you'll see kind of like almost this like this dancing jacket. a lantern as I cast dancing lights. As it'll attempt to kind of cast it down as far as I can. You do. You watch as these three glorious little

plump orange pumpkins begin to illuminate with a flickering candlelight within. Their faces looking both jolly and melancholy at the same time as they begin to swirl around Jericho and slowly descend into the hole. The moment they do,

their light is extinguished as the darkness consumes them. All right. I was afraid that would happen. Well, it's worth a try. My suggestion would be that I lead the way. I'm happy to maybe tie rope to each of us. We go in a chain and we go together.

I don't need to use my hands. I just have to go slowly, and I can lead us. Why would we tie ourselves to each other? If one of us would fall, then that would pull the rest of us from the long? Is that not true? That is true. Look, if you can get down there, okay, you go down there, you tell us what's down there.

And maybe we can just jump. Based on the stone that Farron threw down there, there's no way. It's a long way down. My suggestion of tying us together was just to make sure we all make it together. We find the handholds we stay close because we're not going to be able to see. I understand their meaning. If we have enough rope, perhaps. We just dangle it and we have a handhold that we might be able to track and drink.

Let, let, I'm going to have to hitch up my dress in order to climb, let us go. As, as we're preparing, on this side of the wall, I step onto the wall, and defying gravity, I begin to walk along the wall until I am perpendicular and can walk vertically, down the side of this thing, which is why I'm hoping to be able to lead and maybe tie us, because I don't need to use my hands. I just to watch my step. Okay. I would say with that ability and the fact that you are trying to help your friends, I won't make you roll. No. Anyone that chooses to go with Marius, it will take a while, but you are able to make it safely to the ground. I'm happy to go as slow as I need to.

Did anyone know that he could do that? I didn't know anyone could do that. I would know about, but I know about vampires? You mentioned that we would know. Yeah, I would say you would know a little bit, so I don't think that it would completely be out of the realm of possibility that a damn here could do something. Well, that's a neat trick.

He's a lot weir than he lets own. Let me tell you. We're going to go slow, all right? Stay with me. Take our time. It doesn't matter how long it takes to get to the bottom. no one go too quickly. Understood.

Yes, and Virgil, in the darkness, you cling on to that bag strap. Just keep a beak and eye on it. I've freed my legs up just a bit, hitching my dress up only very slightly, but enough to free my legs to as dexterously as I can. And I think I'm quite athletic, start to make my way down and following Marriott.

Does this seem like a pretty like a vertical drop-off? Or is this at all like, I... All right, I clock. I would do my best to try to lead the way and just make sure that everybody's, you know. I do my best. I don't know what I could do. With Marius' help, you descend to what can only be described as a cavern beneath the house from the rough stone floor and walls that you can feel. This place feels even more ancient and primordial than the terrible ruined foundation of the old construction that the Lockwood estate was built on top of.

The darkness that has swallowed you seems to be all consuming. But you realize now that impossibly there is a light deeper into the earth that glows with a strange, Amber Hugh. Andy doesn't like it. Is there a, is fear of mine? You can put the map out. There's something deep, but do you all see that?

Do you choose to walk towards the light? I mean, if the only direction is down and towards it. You are now firmly on the ground. Oh yeah, fuck yeah. We get to work. And all you see is that one little bit of life. Nowhere but forward.

That's color to amber. We've heard that before. It's been calling to us the whole time. Remind me, Amber? Eyes in the Amber. Amber view. And then, yes, eyes in the amber. Eyes in the amber from Gaston's letter.

I don't like the color. It makes me sick. Something about it is off. Probably means it's where we're supposed to go. I agree. I think we are very close now. You make your way through a narrow passage of slimy stone walls into a chamber. you can reveal it.

Through a chamber that is absolutely flooded in otherworldly light, and it is here where you see its source. Standing tall at the center of a murky pool of viscous-looking dark red liquid is what can only be described as a monolith hewn from amber, radiating a terrible light the same color.

Amorphous black shape that slithers and moves within the looming column is only the second most horrifying sight before you. Oh. As the amber light glints off of a fireball, countless white surfaces across the space. You realize that surrounding this pillar are piles of hundreds, no thousands of human teeth. Oh.

It's time to come to me. And that would roll out in session. No! Oh my god. Sone of a gun! Why does the villain sound hot? I wasn't supposed to. I meant to do a different accent and then I panicked.

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