Session 89 - Home Invasion

4 Flaurmont 1011

General Summary

Seraphina, even in cat form, continues to work at opening doors, managing to paw open the door nearest her, and it opens to an unoccupied bedroom.
The furniture in this room is pulled away from the walls and covered by cloths. The keen-nosed cats can smell the room was painted a couple days ago. There is another door on the west wall of this room and, after a cursory search of this room, Seraphina begins pawing at the handle.
Tork, meanwhile, has opened one of the other doors off of the lounge and finds a smaller bedroom that hasn't been used in some time. Searching this room, the only thing of note is a small book on a nightstand, which he takes.
By now Seraphina has opened the next door, finding a well furnished bedroom. She jumps up onto the bed and lays down. Elincia follows, in owl form, while Stavos takes a more serious scan of the room. Tork catches up with the group, carrying the book he found. Meanwhile, across the street, Leo has decided he needs some info on what is happening within the house, so he uses his Book of Ancient Secrets to reach out to Stavos, asking if everything is alright, receiving a "Meow" in return on the page of his book.
When Elincia alights onto a suit of armor several things start to happen. First, the armor starts to move, swiping its gauntlet at Elincia, while the rug tries to envelop Tork, an end table tries to batter Seraphina, and a swarm of books fly off the shelves and launch themselves at Stavos.
Elincia alters the Animal Shapes to change Stavos and herself into dire wolves and Seraphina into a tiger. The room is now quite crowded with the objects attacking, three large beasts, and a half-orc. Tork makes quick work of the rug and moves to intercede with the animated armor. The table strikes out at Seraphina, who bites down on it, damaging its once flawless finish. Leo, watching the windows of the house, can't see any signs of the party (alas, the drapes are closed). His next question is if they are upstairs (two meows), or downstairs (one meow). He gets back two barks, and Leo's eyes snap to the second floor, though a bit confused by the feline to canine change.
Stavos thins the swarm of books, the rug is dead, and Tork is rapidly dismembering the suit of plate mail, while Seraphina continues to be frustrated by the table - made of sturdy oak and lacquered she has a hard time connecting with an effective swipe of her claws, though it seems to be having just as much trouble hitting her. Stavos finishes off the book swarm, and Tork moves from the now discombobultaed pile of armor to help Seraphina with the table, taking it down as well.
Leo asks Stavos if they are in the front of the house (1) or the back (2), and a single bark forms on the page. Leo starts walking across the street to get a better look at the windows, when Seraphina slashes aside the drapes, a claw catching and ripping the entire fixture and ripping them off the wall. Unfortunately, Leo was avoiding tripping over roots and picking his way through the small copse of trees and does not see the tiger looking out the window trying to spot him.
Once finally through the small copse of trees, Leo finally notices the now curtain-less window and attempts to Misty Step into the room, but the spell somehow fizzles. He begins to worry a bit, remembering that there were some kind of dogs that went a bit crazy when the cats entered the lawn. He looks around nervously while Tork unlatches the window and lowers a rope. Leo runs up to the rope, dreading the inevitable climb, but Tork easily pulls him right up - if only every climb was so easy!
Leo arrives to a destroyed room, bits of furniture and books everywhere. Tork shakes his head, saying "don't ask" and hands Leo the book, which is titled tilted Corporeal Animation & Secretes of Ye Necromancie in several languages in several languages, though Leo can only read the Thyatian writing. He doesn't bother trying to open it, as he has had less than stellar luck with such books in the past, and instead puts it in his bag to check later.
Meanwhile, Elincia has altered the animals again to be less of a hindrance within the house, turning the three still under the effects (herself, Seraphina, and Stavoes) into regular wolves. Seraphina resumes opening doors, exploring the hallway, and finding more doors. These open to a storage closet and a bathroom, containing nothing eyecatching. Around the hall corner are stairs to the first floor - the wolves lead the way, then Tork, Leo following from behind as usual.
The room at the bottom of the stairs seems like a normal sitting room, with two doorways. Seraphina senses the smell of food coming from one of the doors and heads in that direction. This door opens to the main hall with three more doors - one obviously the front door, one smelling of a kitchen, and another to the east. Entering the kitchen, Seraphina finds a pantry door and stairs to a basement. Tork dissuades her from heading into the basement just yet, so she instead heads over to the pantry, finding some odd-smelling jars inside. She brings one of these to Tork, who looks at it briefly before setting it down on a counter.
Meanwhile, Stavos and Elincia are struggling with the other door off the main hallway, so Leo comes and opens it for Stavos, who strides into the room. Here they find a nice study or library, with a desk and a large amber statue of a great cat. As Stavos heads toward the desk to examine it, the statue comes to life, begins brightly glowing, and attacks. When Tork hears sounds of combat erupt from the other end of the house, he asks if everything is alright, bit Leo says he thinks they can handle this!
Elincia upgrades the menagerie's defenses once more, transforming Seraphina, Stavos, and herself into Dire Wolves again. Seraphina heads towards the combat, Tork moving to follow, though things are getting pretty crowded with the Dire Wolves taking up such a large percentage of the room! Leo casts Hex on the statue and blasts away happily. The three Dire Wolves engage the Statue, Seraphina getting a vicious bite on one of its limbs, but find it is immune to their bestial attacks! It glows brighter and brighter, blinding Elincia and striking out at her. Elincia turns off the animal forms and the party makes quick work of the golem with their magical weapons.
Leo and Stavos search the desk to see if there is anything of interest there, but it is not covered with evidence of the crime, much to Leo's disappointment; it is instead esoteric history texts and other studious materials. Draped over one of the chairs in the study, Seraphina finds an aviator's jacket tailored for a Nagpa, along with goggles. It doesn't appear magical, so Seraphina moves on to the last remaining room on this floor, off of the sitting room they first entered on this level.
This is another bedroom, obviously sized for a gnome, though no one is here and all the clothes and belongings they find are mundane. However, they do find a small coffer under the bed. Leo unlocks it with his picks, but triggers a trap that pricks him with a needle and releases a noxous gas cloud. Luckily he has a Periapt of Proof against Poison, though Seraphina is caught in the cloud and feels noticebly weaker. Inside the coffer is a small stash of gold, platinum, and jewelry. After a mild debate, Leo puts this in the Bag of Colding.
Heading down the stairs from the kitchen to the cellar, Leo notes that the stairs seem to go beyond the outer boundary of the house itself. As he ponders that, Stavos and Seraphina get into a tight quarters combat at the base of the stairs with some wights and skeletons.
Seraphina lets out her frustration at missing the table earlier, and lands a critical hit on one of the Wights. Between the critical hit and her smite, compounded with Smites bonus against undead, the Wight is overkilled with a single blow, it's ribs collapse musically to the floor. Tork, Stavos, and Seraphina continue to pick apart the remaining three undead. By the time Leo realizes that a fight is happening, the combat is over and Seraphina has opened the next door.
This room adjoining the landing resembles a meat locker. There are about a half dozen flayed, headless pig carcasses suspended from meat hooks around the room, seemingly aging. As Seraphina moves into the room, having spotted a door on the south wall, the torsos somehow lift themselves from the hooks and attack the party.
Flayed pig carcasses do not hold up well against a well-trained fighting group such as the party. The party quickly picks the pigs apart and they leave yet another mess behind.
This door opens to a zig-zagging hallway, Seraphina immediately going to the first door. Opening this door she is greeted by the sight of four well-armored pegataurs who are clearly hostile.

Report Date

25 Aug 2024