Adventurers
- Harlin Winklevos (Fighter 3)
- Mandras (Thief 5)
- Tyrion (Elf 1)
Leaving several comrades to recuperate from the initial foray into the villa, the rest of the party took two of their retainers, Beerdale and Hats, and returned to scout out the rest of the ground floor. Most of the rooms were empty with a few odds and ends to pick up – most notably an unopenable metal box stuck up a chimney and a mysterious vial of liquid hidden in a drawer’s secret compartment – but no threats other than a burst of maniacal laughter issuing identical threats whenever they walked around one room. Speculating that floor above would probably prove similarly empty, the adventurers elected to try the cellar. Another giant weasel tried ambushing them as they unspiked the door but they were better prepared than before and sent the creature scurrying away.
As the party started to descend the stairs they were met by a piercing scream from below, but they pushed on regardless. The scream continued on a loop as they edged down. In the cellar they found a heavily armoured body. Harlin turned it over to examine it and was startled by several large bugs erupting from the corpse’s face. He was unable to fling himself away in time and they started burrowing into the fighter, his screams merging with the looping one coming from the bottom step.
The adventurers stood stunned for a second before Hats and Mandras, having seen the same thing happen to the latter not long ago, leapt forward with torches and started roasting the fighter wherever they saw lumps moving about. Tyrion grabbed another torch and joined in while Beerdale flung a fiery oil flask upon the corpse to burn up any lurking gribblies.
The party let the badly singed Harlin recover while they investigated the cellar more fully. Tyrion donned the corpse’s armour, reasoning that its remarkably unburnt appearance after a flaming oil bath might be a sign of something magical. Beerdale noted a distinct smell of cooked meat coming from the fireplace flume and, investigating the wall nearby, Mandras found a secret door which led to a larger cellar with plenty of bedding and signs that someone had been here recently.
They took a door into a smaller, fancier room and pillaged a few books and a note showing a code of some sort, then tried another door which had a bar nailed across it and ‘Danger’ scrawled upon it in chalk. Reasoning that everything so far had been some illusionary trick to turn them away, they pulled the bar away and entered. This time the threat appeared genuine as several skeletons stumbled into ‘life’ and charged. The adventurers dispatched them with little issue.