Flight 03

Date: 24.10.21

Prev: Flight 02

Next: Flight 04

September 23, 1335:

V flexes by doing 15*6: 90. Gin is… impressed.

They go into the gallery first. They’re weirded out by the statue, “is it spicy?” Gift looks closer. Neither she nor aadi want to get closer. V sees they’re hollow. He puts his fingers through the eyes and shakes it but doesn’t notice anything. He babbles about the statue, not quite compelling G to take a dagger to it. A: oh, are we gonna break it? G: we’re gonna break it.

Crit! 6 pts of damage. Stabbed in the “heart”, a second blow shatters the chest. G finds the note at the bottom of the statue. A reads it out loud. V tries to figure out what the note means, assuming it refers to the statue and becoming confused by the glass reference.

They look into the room and take up the stairs. They realize the stairs going further up don’t have railings. A looks around for a torch, can’t find one. G lights up her branch focus. They begin moving up… A slips almost immediataely, V doesn’t notice in time but A manages to catch themself and swing into the stair below.

They hear the leaper. V puts his arms out, and he and G look around. They don’t see anything, but hear the sound. V is panicking. A keeps moving but is stopped by the leaper and the wind. A falls to the ground, going unconscious. G runs down the stairs and casts cure wounds (A fails 1 death save in the meantime). G throws magic at the problem A is back. V is screaming and crying and hugging them. V wants to fight the wind, but A surmises that’s how someone died and suggests there might be other people to help elsewhere in the house.

Head into a sitting room. V begins to blame the ghost for A dying, so he thinks it’s probably impolite but takes out his aggression out on the couch. G finds a small pocket mirror that fogs over as you hold it, as if it’s reflecting a mist that ins’t there, back depicts a raven’s wing motif in wrought brass. A arcana 19: thing isn’t enchanted by someone, just grew a b it of magic. A offers to investigate it more when they have time. (V doesn’t find anything in the chair, A triest o help him keep it out of his teeth.

Another small sitting room. G waits outside while V and A look around. A finds a small diamond ring between a floorboard. (50g worth, 10g) A explains the excitement of the ring, and how they can finally cast this spell they’ve been working on for a while. A idly wonders whose ring it was. G wonders if it also belonged to the holder of the mirror.

AS they enter the ballroom, they hear Dranzorg’s convo. A silence, G “who is our commander?”, V doesn’t think it’s talking to them since they’re knights, so “entomb us then!” the glass cracks from the scream, A takes psychic damage efrom the scream, ears bleeding. They’re nonplussed. “ghosts are annoying.” G checks the window, seeing the trapped reflection, but no other ill effects. V is anxious, he approaches G and tries to explain himself since he thinks it’s his fault they’re behind the glass and apologizes for putting them in danger. A casts mending on the glass but it doesn’t seal.

V/G suggest going to rest, but A wants to check this last room beore they do. They see the ghost of Theodora, who G saw at the top of the stair. A notices the tools and attempts to flee, running into V, they avoid the tools but the glss cracks saying “uninvited”. The room settles. V calls out “do you live hre?” but silence. G approaches a planter, doesn’t recognize the belladonna. She picks a different planter and pulls the dead plant out, then uses the wand of flowers to create poppies in the planter. A: “what’s that?” G: my fathers gave it to me. I thought that she might like flowers. V: she seems upset, so I hope she likes htem. A: frankly, I don’t care if she likes it. But it’s an interesting wand.

A investigates 13 to find some stoppers, V checks the plant; he recognizes it as poisonous belladonna. 2 things that make sense in context, 3 was poisonous plants. Don’t eat it. A takes 5 berries.

They head back to the parlor. L: did you find anything interesting? A: I’m in great pain.

V asks before petting the dogs. “I have a vague idea but I’m gonna need help, I’m not that bright.” G offers to make a restorative potion, they roll out bedrolls.

They long rest… Gift has a nightmare with a warlord dream, and wakes up in the office, faced with a ghostly accountant measuring sins and virtues as ghostly coins on a merchant’s scale… the scale tips more to the side of virtues. Then she’s awake. She looks around, not quite in a rush, but otn taking time to really look too deeply at things.

Gin shakes A awake saying “your friend disappeared”. Just there one moment, gone the next. A wakes up V, who goes 0 to 60. Gin helps him calm down, and L agrees to go with them. (He gives Gin his sparkly good luck charm rock.) when A wakes up, they cast gift of alacrity on V.

They check the sitting room, nothing. They move thru quickly, and thru the music room, into the dining room, where V picks up a 2-foot doll from under a sheet on a chair. Into the kitchen… gift is not in the stove. But V finds a warm caramel chip muffin. He takes it. A continues into the porch, calling Gift’s name, and G hears up on the balcony. They follow around to the front of the house. A and G discuss that she vanished from atop the balcony. V throws a rope up to G at A’s suggestion. But they keep missing… G tries to climb down, but the siding peels away and G takes a little bit of fall damage. They’re reunited!

They head back to the parlor while L + G catch some shut eye. A asks G what happened? G had a nightmare and describes it. A asks if the voice was the same as the voice in the ballroom, and G agrees. A wonders if the stone was part of the tower. G then woke up in the office “nothing interesting that I could find, but it’s worth another look.” V found a doll and a muffin. G is worried it might be poisoned. V didn’t think about that. But he offers her the doll. G inspects it. “All ghosts were children once.” A: “what about a baby?” Vito is slowly realizing babies can die. A wonders if the tower is haunted and the house is something separate. V wonders if someone is trapped that they need to help. They continue discuss the house – maybe going downstairs, to a basement? They don’t want to leave the twins or split the party by leaving someone behind. Instead they settle down to begin A to learn how to read. A 7, V 6, V is worried about Gin waking up and hearing him.

They’re grateful when they wake up that they stuck around. L will come get them when they are ready for the séance.

They go to the sitting room. There’s a chessboard, a fantasy atlas, landscapes on the wall. a uses presti to make the moose head make sparks which startles V. He takes a breath. They come back to discussing the poisoned muffin. V suggests eatig it, although G suggests other ways. “I didn’t go to school for poison testing.” G: “did you go to school at all?” V pries the moose head off the wall, or he tries, but can’t get leverage. V is stumped by where he could put it.

They check the closet in the foyer. Then into th emsuic room. A touches the harp. Fail for compelled to play, success on performance, A plays the song to V and G’s stunning performance. A learns the song. “I don’t know how to play the harp.” A theorizes it was possessed, and they’d have been punished if they’d failed. But the harp is. “I sometimes wish you didn’t think things were fascinating and thought things were scary, but that’s alright.” V to A. A looks for the sheet music for the song, but doesn’t find anything despite a basic knowledge of music notation.

Back in the dining room. A looks around, finds nothing of value. G pulls off the sheets. They head into the kitchen. V looks into the pantry: finds a poison vial. A is convinced it’s what’s in the muffin. They come out of the pantry and find a pink icing cupcake with the letter H on it. V thinks Gin left it for them. But he reaches out for the cupcake, and they let him pick it up. A wonders what the H is for. G thinks the first letter of someone’s name? V misremembers the name of the note writer. A wonders if they’re actually poisoned. They’re about to go downstairs when Laurie catches them and says they’re ready for the séance.

Laurie starts. The silence goes on for while. They think the H on the cupcake was Halvhrest, for Theodora’s ghost (G describes her, Gin mentions what it’s for). V suggests A sing the song; they do, 13 to perform. G asks Theodora what her favorite flower is, but silence. A wonders if they should break their stuff. V suggests saying what was on the note, A recites. G: “how rude.”

The planchette moves, saying greetings and saying “Theodora.”

G: hello, Theodora. V: thanks for the cupcake. T: not me. A: did you throw the gardening tools? T: no. A: is it the skull man? T: no. G: who did make the cupcake? T: chimney witch. (A is instantly more interested.) G: did the chimney witch attack them? T: no. V: are you safe? T: no. V: do you want our help? T: yes. G: how can we help you? T: SEEK THE WITCH STONE (then moves to the candle image at the bottom) V: are you in danger now? do we need to hurry? T: no. V: does anyone else need our help? T: yes. A: who? [no answer] G: does the chimney witch need help? T: no.

A wonders if she can be trusted. V insists that if someone needs help, they should. A counters with the idea that she threw the tools at them.

What do they tell L/gin about what happened in the house? A and V let G take the lead on what to tell them. The basic run-down, shows them the mirror. Leaves out the ring and the accountant. The accountant: no figure from mythology that you recognize, Bifelgan. (A knows quite a bit about gods and the dead.)

They stick around to talk more. The tower was part of castle/fiefdom no longer exists, County Silvra, Castle Silvra, Dranzorg, took over the castle, Mara daughter of the count, came back to challenge dranzorg. Defeated dranzorg, but how is not clear from the historical record. Merchange Loren Halvhrest bought the land constructed the rest of the house, they lived there peacefully for a few years before mysteriously vanishing. Couple of generations ago, a little over 100 years. Gin/L hired by halvhrest relatives to find out what happened once and for all. House has reptuation for attracting the dead, appearing in strange places.

A: any thoughts about weird notes? L/Gin: sent by Theodora? But trapped/in danger and also a ghost. A: what about raven symbology? Silvra was somewhat to the north by Cormount, but Gin will keep an eye out for other raven references. V wonders about the windows saying UNINVITED when they were clearly invited.

They long rest again, to level up. G sees the patron in a dream: what kind of power do you seek? The power to protect. So “cloak yourself in my light” but also “if you see a threat maybe you’ll go do something about it”.

V teaches Gin a secret handshake.