Mandras was slowly getting used to his reduced stature and status in life… a mere thief… While his combative mates took a breather, Mandras re-entered the manor with some colleagues.
They meandered through the ground floor, checking a room with mushrooms on floor and ceiling, among others. Harlan found a small locked box behind a loose brick in the former (no.8), but Mandras failed to open it, so they popped it into the backpack. In the worn-out library, they found some damaged books that might bring a little cash and across the corridor, the broken desk in the office yielded a false bottom, containing a large vial of pinkish fluid (no.3). They entered the last room on the ground floor and as they searched it, a voice boomed from above ‘Welcome to your deaths’, while alarming, the voice did nothing else… Mandras pocketed a golden earring lying in a pile of junk (20GP). Meagre pickings, but what else can a thief do?
They headed back to the kitchen at the back, with a view to heading downstairs, as they did so, a second giant weasel set upon them – efforts to sleep it failed, but Harlan and Mandras wounded it grievously and it ran off into the dining room, disappearing down some undiscovered hole.
The party returned to the basement entrance and, as they descended the stairs a voice screamed piteously. Mandras was puzzled, the sound seemed to come from his feet, how was this possible? The basement room was an old wine cellar – mainly ruined. A body in plate armour lay in the middle of the floor. Fearing undead, Mandras readied his trident, Harlen prepared oil and Tyrian threw a grappling hook to get the large sword away from the corpse. Nothing much happened, the sword was recovered and seemed plain. Harlan walked over to check the corpse. An enormous maggot surged out of the corpses ’s cheek and plunged into Harlan’s neck! Two more followed. Mandras and the team quickly lit torches and applied the smouldering flames to Harlan’s skin. He screamed, but the maggots shot out of him and curled up dead, on the floor. Harlen was not in great shape, but at least he was still alive and felt better after receiving heal wounds. It turned out that the corpse was wearing +1 plate (no.20), which Harlen had earned. He donned it.
In the meantime, the stairs continued screaming… Tyrian hacked at it hoping to find a secret passage, instead he came up with a piece of screaming wood… Mandras was sure there must be a secret panel and kept searching. In the south wall he found the faint outline of a panel, careful searching revealed an indentation in the floor, which he gingerly pushed with his trident – the door popped open.
It revealed a large well-lit room with a dining table and a dozen chairs. Ten rough beds with footlockers lined the wall as well as barrels of supplies, water and beer. A thieves den! A stair up on the west led to a closed trap door, probably giving into the yard. To the east were two doors. One led to a more luxurious room, with nice accoutrements and books of an indiscreet nature. Two parchments were discovered, one with mystical writing and the other with some sort of puzzle – the heroes weren’t able to decipher either. They now focussed on the last door. It was barred on their side and bore a sign: DANGER. After a brief chat about the various Samaine type pranks in the house, the party unanimously opted to ignore the warning. As they entered the dark room, six skeletons issued forth from shallow alcoves along the wall. They were cut down rather rapidly and Mandras admired the imagination of Tyrian who used his floating disk to stand on and shoot over the head of the party.