Party 8

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Tazkul coughs a bit from the dust in the air, in spite of being used to caverns and ruins. He looks around the room, and heads to the far end of the hall. "Perhaps we should be looking for a key or something instead of beating down doors..." Tazkul, seemingly a bit more bold in his approach than a few moments before, opens the door on the far end.
 
Cassia puts her hand on Gaarek's shoulder. "Calm yourself - we should try to put these spirits to rest, not agitate them further." She then addresses herself to the door. "Sorry dear children - we mean you no harm. We are here to help, to put this place at ease..." she then notices Tazkul opening the far door and goes over to guard against more surprises.
 
Attic Hall:

There's a few seconds of silence as Gaarek's shouts echo through the halls, before the crying of a young boy can be heard from behind the door. Soon after another quieter voice appears to try and hush the first one, though it is difficult to make out.

Spare Bedroom:

The door squeals open onto a spare bedroom choked with dust, complete with a slender bed, nightstand and small iron stove that's cold to the touch. The wardrobe lies open and empty, the writing desk stained red -- old wine, perhaps? A nearby rocking chair rocks slightly with the draft Tazkul brings in, flowing towards the drapes surrounding the window. There, slouching slightly, sits a small smiling doll in a faded yellow lace dress covered in cobwebs.
 
Baltair grabs his bagpipes, saying "Come now kids, there's nothin' to cry about! Cheer up now, would ye!" Then, he starts playing. A cheerful, happy and maybe a bit silly tune comes from his instrument, performed quite masterfully compared to even himself. By the time he is finished, one kid sounds happier and the other one had stopped crying. Well, that's an improvement!
 
A shiver goes down Cassia's spine as she spies the eerily smiling doll. Unsettling...but at least it's inanimate. As Baltair's strangely soothing bagpipes fill the hall, she smiles and goes back over to the locked door. "There there, isn't that better?" She pauses, recollecting. "Are you the ones we spoke to outside? We want to lift the darkness that covers this house - can you help us?"
 
Tazkul looks into the room that he opened the door to, and takes a step or two inside, cautiously if nothing else, eyes scanning the immediate area. "Doesn't seem that likely that a key's in here...but, wouldn't hurt to look...may get some more clues about what sort of darkness we're dealing with here..."
 
Attic Hall:

"...Outside? What about the outside?" A small female voice pipes up, close to the door but hard to pinpoint an exact location. "We don't go outside, not really. Papa told us to stay here to while he dealt with the monster in the basement. He read all about it in his fancy books I think." All the meanwhile the second child seems to have stopped crying, at least for the moment. "Dunno how we can help... he told us not to leave," she repeats with a hint of disappointment.
 
Spirits, it must be...their memory is clouded... "Ah, yes, the monster...we'll be going to the basement soon, to help against the monster. Can you tell me your father's name? In case we see him."
 
Attic Hall:

"Papa's name? I don't know, it was always just Papa..." she starts, then pauses as Cassia mentions going to the basement. "Wait, you're... going to leave already...?" There's a tinge of fear in her voice, like she just realized the situation. "Please stay a little longer, it's been... so long since we had someone else to talk to..."
 
Tazkul seems a little annoyed as his search of the room concludes with no key, no information, no anything, and then he hears something from one of the children. Something about reading? That was when it hit him. He makes his way back downstairs. "Hold on, I will be right back." Tazkul then heads downstairs for the library, quickly scanning to find that desk that was here. Their father probably had the key, and if he tended to read, he probably did so at his desk...blah blah deduction deduction...

He comes back upstairs after finding it in the main drawer, holding up the key. "Eureka!" Nerd. He has a key, though.
 
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Gaarek watched as Baltair and Cassia effortlessly calmed and talked to the children and felt embaressed he was just another source of fear. He dejectedly walked down the hall looking for a way to feel useful again. He chose to investigate the door on his right, this time knocking before reaching for the door handle.
 
Spare Bedroom:

Gaarek opens the door to find another spare bedroom, smothered by cobwebs as spiders crawl back into the shadows. Looking around there doesn't seem to be anything of note in the room, and after a minute he's drawn to the "Eureka!" exlaimed by his teammate back in the hall proper.

Children's Room:

Having come back up with the iron key from the library, Tazkul finds that it easily fits into the lock barring the children's room. The children's voices slowly hush again in anticipation once more as the padlock clanks to the ground and the door is opened.

There is a strangling gloom about this place. You spot two child-sized beds, a toy chest, and a dollhouse -- a smaller scaled house which, you noticed, seems to look eerily similar to what the manor itself looked like as you walked into its front door. What's most unsettling is that the room's sole window is bricked up -- that is until you spot the small skeletons dressed in tattered but familiar clothing. The smaller of the two cradles a doll as if it alone could've changed the future.

As you take a step inside, trying to make sense of it all, a sudden chill seizes your spine. You look back down over the bed and see... Rose and Thorn appear out of thin air, but this time ever so slightly ethereal, like they could fade away at any time. Rose looks over to you all curiously, still holding her brother in her arms. "So... are you here to play with us? It's been so long since we've had visitors."
 
On seeing the skeletons, Cassia's eyes well up. Not unexpected, but it still hurts. She looks over to the two children, their ethereal form now clear. "We...what game did you want to play?" Perhaps it could put their spirits to rest...
 
Baltair is at first taken just the slightest bit aback by the realisation that hit him, before speaking up. "Well, since we're here, we might as well play with ye! I'm barely an adult meself and I miss being a child!"
 
Gaarek still feeling guilty and clearly holding back tears manages to speak despite the lump in his throat. "Please forgive me little ones"
He then walks just outside the room and can be heard slumping down, back against the wall outside.
 
Tazkul was...unsurprised to find that whoever was here it was too late for. But when he saw the more familiar faces in ethereal form, he couldn't help but feel his heart break a bit. These were the ones he was the most certain had found some kind of safety. Cassia was better with children than he was, so he would let the paladin handle that while Tazkul, with all the logic and reasoning in his mind, tried to figure out...just what on earth he could even say. But something did come out, choked as it was. "Sure."
 
Children's Room:

Rose tilts her head curiously at Gaarek when he leaves, then turns to the rest of the group with a hint of excitement. "Hmm... how 'bout hide and seek? Or a treasure hunt! I bet there's still lots of treasure around the house, right Thorn?" She nudges her brother as if to encourage him to speak up. When he withdraws a bit more, she frowns and looks back to the group. "...Sorry. It's been so long since we've seen other people, living people... I think he's scared, he doesn't know what's out there."

"The monster's still out there, that's what," Thorn mumbles in reply, tugging at his ghostly clothes. "It got louder. I think the basement is open." He glances longingly at the doll in the smaller skeleton's hand but says nothing of it.

Rose pouts, then floats off the bed and forward into the room. Her head tilts as she tries to peek outside the doors, but she seems confused at something. She looks back to the group. "I don't suppose I could... go outside with one of you? We can't really... leave by ourselves..." As she says this her brother perks up, looking towards his sister. It seems like he doesn't want to be left alone without her.
 
Cassia gives Rose and Thorn a firm nod. "Of course, we would gladly lead you two out of this place. No one should be cooped up in a house such as this." She then turns her gaze towards the stairs, hefting her shield. "And we must deal with that monster, too. If you follow us, we can protect you on the way."

Stepping outside the door, she notices Gaarek slumped against the wall. "It's not your fault, Gaarek. It's this place, under some curse for who can say how long...but we have a chance to help them. Come, let's face whatever this monster is that they fear so much." She offers her hand to the half-orc.
 
"It just seems like I am always too slow to save them.." Gaarek says putting away the boar tusk he had been looking at, as if it were to blame for everything.

Seeing Cassia extend her hand he shakes himself out of his foul mood as best he can. "You are right though, we must do what we can" he says clutching her hand and rising to his feet.
 
Children's Room:

Rose starts to follow Cassia but stops short of the door, as if she can't bring herself to cross the threshold. She glances over her shoulder at the pair of skeletons in the corner, then turns back to Cassia with a slight pout. "I... I don't think we can just leave by ourselves like that. We have to be *with* one of you, or like..." She fidgets a bit, not sure how to word it correctly. "...in one of you."
 
Tazkul hears the explanation of what she wanted to do, and Tazkul, still in the room at this particular moment, takes his usual position of pondering. This was...probably a bad idea. Probably a very bad idea, in fact. But he couldn't resist the potential on having notes on being the target of a possession like this, so... "I'll...er...carry one of you." Well. that was the only way he knew how to put it.
 
"I'll volunteer too. I live for stories and I haven't read many that begins like this. So I'd like to one day write one." Says Baltair in a solemn voice, stepping up ready for what's to come. He has never before seen a ghost, not this close up anyway. The idea of being possessed by one, however grueling it sounds, would sure make for an interesting story. These poor lost souls won't be forgotten.
 
Children's Room:

Looking at the two volunteers, Rose nods, before starting to float closer. "Thank you," she says, before approaching Tazkul and seeming to phase into him. Thorn seeming to watch his sister subsequently floats up from the bed and does the same to Baltair, bowing in apology before he does so. Both feel themselves draw a foreign breath as the room suddenly falls to silence; a chill runs down Cassia's and Gaarek's spines as it happens.

Boonslayer Boonslayer
"You said you wanted to go to the basement, right?" Tazkul can hear Rose's voice clearly in his head, though errant thoughts can also be felt swimming in the background. "It's that way." Tazkul feels his gaze drawn towards one door at the end of the hallway. "Into the room and to the right. I don't know why they built it like that but Papa always reminded us that we should never go down there."

RuneRW RuneRW
"Um... hi..." Baltair can hear Thorn's voice clearly inside his head, though it is accompanied with faint hints of emotion, like he was recalling his childhood days. "I... I hope this isn't weird... I've never really done this before." He seems content to observe passively, though it feels like he's on edge, not sure what other scary things they would run into. "Oof... I hope the monster isn't too too big... I wouldn't want you to be eaten."
 
Tazkul draws his first breath as, for the moment, two beings, At least, that's how he could describe it in summation. His eyes go towards the door at the end of the hall, and he makes his way towards it, signaling to the others that this was where they were headed. They weren't supposed to go down there, but they were going down there now, that was for sure. He would be the first to enter the room, eyes scanning it for...well, anything.
 
Gaarek follows Tazkul out of the room full of curiousity. "Tazkul can you still hear me?" He pauses before asking, "What about you Rose?" He isn't sure who is in control of Tazkul's body right now. He isn't even sure if it would change what would happen next.
 
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