Uncovering Secrets of the Haunted Mansion
Darvin pushes open the front door and steps inside the musty dirty entrance hall, the others following close behind. Kenku taps on the door frame three times before stepping into the house. Looking around the group sees bare walls full of cracks and holes, fallen plaster, and pieces of smashed furniture lying strewn across the floor.
"From the look of the place, I don't think anyone's been in this house for years," Thamila says poking at some of the cobweb covered furniture pieces.
Kenku dances over to the stairs and pauses a moment before gingerly stepping up the first two steps. She lets out a whistle of satisfaction, "Stairs safe."
"Wait. I found something..." Darvin says while crouching down to examine the floor.
When the human doesn't continue, Illayana and Thamila come over to see what he found. The two women join him on the floor and Darvin points and says, "See that. Those are footprints in the dust."
"We should follow them," Thamila says without hesitation, "They may lead us to the slavers Anders thinks are operating out of here."
Kenku whistles again, reminding the others of her presence on the stairs. Three heads turn her way and see the little kenku had gone farther up the stairs. She looks up the stairs longingly making quiet chirping sounds.
"Oh sweety, I know you like to find the highest perches, but we've got a real clue here," Illyana says to the kenku.
And in a perfect imitation of Illyana's voice, Kenku responds, "But there may be more clues to find up here. And the masters always told me to look more before taking action."
"That's incredible," Darvin murmurs.
"It's as incredible as it is startling," Illayana agrees, "The first time she mimicked me was the day we met. That simple 'Hello' charmed her way into my heart."
"So, yes?" Kenku asks and wags her tail feathers in delight.
Illayana looks at the other two, she can rarely say no to her little sister when the kenku looks so delighted.
Darvin shrugs, "It couldn't hurt to take a look around the rest of the place."
Kenku squeals and bounces happily the rest of the way up the stairs.
Illayanna follows after her sister. Three steps up, when she shifts her weight to take the next stair, the eladrin hears the stairs groan and creak ominously under her. Gingerly Illayanna steps up, the stair holds and she continues to carefully climb up. The eladrin hears when Darvin hits the same creaky stair.
At the top of the landing, Kenku heads off to the left across the balcony, barely catching herself from falling as the floor collapses beneath her. She lets out a loud squawk and flaps her arms like wings.
"Kenku!" Illayana shouts in alarm and runs toward the younger woman.
"I'm alright, but floor is not," she replies looking down through the hole.
"Well, it looks like we're headed to the right then," says Thamila stepping onto the balcony. She comes to a door on her right not far down the hall. Without hesitation, she grasps the doorknob and turns it. The door easily opens with a loud creak.
Darvin looks in over the halfling's head.
"I was just about to close it. There's nothing but a lot of rubbish and spider webs," says Thamila, starting to pull the door closed. At that moment the clouds shift, allowing the sunlight through the window, and something glints in the fireplace.
Not wasting a second, Darvin slips into the room around the halfling, "I'm just going to check out the fireplace."
As soon as he reaches into the fireplace to pick up a small flat-bottomed crystal orb, a swarm of spiders descends upon him from a web above the fireplace. The spiders crawl up his arms and legs, biting wherever they find skin, covering the human with tiny bites. He smacks the spiders and brushes them off of himself while crawling to the corner of the room away from the attacking swarm. Once away from the arachnids, Darvin drops the crystal bauble into his pack.
From the corner, Darvin watches in horror as a second swarm of spiders runs down the walls from the webs above the door and onto Thamila. The halfling pulls an aquamarine crystal from her pouch, it begins to glow and crackling energy zaps the spiders. She quickly backs out of the room and retreats down the hallway.
Illayana appears in the open doorway, her tattoos glowing while she whispers to the spirits of nature, and then rubs her hands along the door frame leaving behind a strong scent of mint. The spiders scatter from the smell crawling back up the walls to the ceiling.
The first swarm unable to leave the room now, skitter across the floor towards the human in the corner, crawling up his legs. He prays to Lathander and flame-like radiance descends upon the swarm burning them where they are.
Kenku looks into the room, "Darvin need help! Come quick!" she shouts. The kenku moves into the room and attempts to slash the arachnids with her scimitars, but they do little damage to the tiny creatures.
Illayana, tattoos glowing, lashes out at the swarm attacking the human with a long vine-like whip covered in thorns. She then gives a tug and the whip magically drags the spiders off of Darvin.
The eladrin grimaces as the dead spiders fall from her vines to the floor and says, "I wish we didn't have to kill nature's creatures."
Darvin responds while casting his spell at what's left of the swarm, "Even if they're trying to kill us?!"
Before Illayana can answer a crackling bolt of energy shoots through the door, obliterating what's left of the swarm.
And then Thamila pokes her head in and asks Darvin, "So what did you find in there?"
Darvin makes his way out of the room, pulls out the flat-bottomed crystal orb, and shows it to the others.
Illayana holds out her hand saying, "May I look at it?"
Darvin hands the bauble to the eladrin. She twists it this way and that, examining the trinket, "I think it may be part of a set of counterweights for alchemical work," and hands it back to the human. He stuffs it back into his pack.
The next door also opens easily. Darvin carefully looks around the dirty room. The floorboards along the eastern wall look rotted, and some are partially dislodged and missing.
"This one's empty," Darvin states, continuing down the hall.
"Wait," Illayana says and holds up a hand.
She crouches down and finds recent tracks in the dust, leading from the door to the window, and back again, along the edge of the room.
"There are tracks here. I think if we follow them it will be safe to cross. And I want to find out what's so interesting out that window," the eladrin says and carefully makes her way across the room.
"Three bads. clicks Now time for goods whistles," Kenku says under her breath when she steps through the doorway.
Looking out the window, they can tell this room has the best view of the sea. Illayana finds fresh scratches on the window sill, most likely from where a signaling lantern has been used.
"I'm pretty sure the slavers are using this window to signal their ships," Illayana states.
"I would agree," says Thamila, "Now we just need to find and stop them."