Party 9

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This dark room contains a wooden tub with clawed feet, a small iron stove with a kettle resting atop it, and a barrel under a spigot in the east wall. In testing the spigot, you discover that the plumbing no longer works.
 
Bronria turns her head so Kellen won't see her rolling her eyes. "Like as not there is no basement, or monster. Those children were hardly the most forthcoming witnesses, and our searches have revealed no route leading beneath the house," she reminds him.

Turning to the next door along, she squares her shoulders and prepares to unsheath her longsword once again, only for Kellen's spectral hand to swing open the door to a bathroom. Suspiciously, she steps inside. Bit by bit she runs her hands over the walls, leaning over the tub to get the furthest parts. As she inspects the reddish-brown stains that line the tub's inside, she begins to feel exceedingly foolish.

"Nothing," she reports, already moving out of the room and on to the next door.
 
"I'm suspicious that the children, may not have been children." He grabs his Weasel off his shoulder, "Nimble couldn't see, smell or hear them before I brought him back to me."

He considers this as they wander into the next room.
 
This room is a small storage closet. Shelves run along the other three walls, filled with aged homewares. Folded linens, threadbare in the places not already eaten through by moths, bars of soap, dried and cracked, candles, flaking off into fragments of wax. A layer of dust sits over everything, and a broom lands against the wall in the corner, covered in cobwebs.
 
Kellen thinking he might help, goes in to move the broom, so that Bronria could undertake her routine of checking the walls. Plus perhaps he could make it a less cobweb-y of an experience.

"Let me just move this..." is all he manages to get out before the broom flies free of his grasp, spinning to smack him across the temple, causing his head to rebound off the nearest
wall.

He stumbles back, clutching his head "Watch out!"
 
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The broom swoops Kellen again, battering him to the ground before ineffectually swinging at Bronria. In response, Ordienna casts a brief spell that brings Kellen back to consciousness, and launches an insult at the broom.
"You know, for a broom, you're doing an awful job of keeping this place clean."
The broom seems not to hear her.
 
Bronria breathes a little easier once Kellen is brought back to consciousness, but still hesitates to move closer. She could fight the animated armour easily enough, but she's never attacked anything shaped like a flying broom before.

She stops thinking and goes in for a swing, shouting as the blade completes its arc. There's a sharp snap as a length of the handle is severed, but the squire quickly ducks behind her shield as the remainder continues to hover before them.
 
Frustrated at his showing, last time, unable to land a blow, and this time being knocked unconscious by a BROOM of all things, Kellen stands quickly, and shouting "Templa Qaluma! " thrusts his little hands forward, 3 distinct points of light shooting from them. They strike the broom still hovering near them and it bursts into a cloud of straw and woodchips, and Kellen lets out a little sigh.

"Forgive me for saying that I was looking forward to this adventure earlier..." He says sheepishly to the other three.
 
Three direct hits from those beads of light, and the bristly end of the broom detonates before Bronria's eyes. She hadn't even noticed the gnome standing up. "Impressive," she says, rather underselling the display. "We should be thankful that the thing was not more sturdy. That could have become hectic."

With the room's guardian broken, she sets to work searching the room for things that might be out of place, and eventually comes upon something unexpected. As she raps on the low ceiling, a hollow sound returns; a dust-covered hatch to what might be a loft is hidden above their heads, minus a string to operate it. Bronria regards it for a moment, thinking. "Perhaps this can wait for a minute. We have almost finished searching this floor, after all," she says, lowering her outstretched arm. With that, she backs out of the cramped closet and heads for the door on their left.
 
Dust and cobwebs shroud this simple, yet elegant, bedroom. A neatly made 4-poster bed sits in the middle of the room, and a side table stands next to it, empty of any belongings. One one side of the room, a large glass door looks out onto another balcony, again showing only mist beyond the iron railing. On the other side of the room, a smaller wooden door with a window, through which you can see a small, attached nursery, decorated with flaking paint. The only furniture visible within is an old crib, a dark shroud pulled over it. Finally, on the wall beside the door, and directly opposite the bed, a full-length mirror, the frame decorated by carvings of leaves and berries.
 
Bronria keeps her shield raised as she searches the room, making sure to advance on each conspicuous object cautiously. Maybe it's that which distracts her; she completes her examination of the mirror and is about to move away when Kellen discovers something that she missed — the frame can be moved to reveal a hidden staircase, leading upwards.

"Good grief," she murmurs, quietly furious with her own oversight. "We will discover what this leads to momentarily." Moving more carefully now, she advances to the nursery and checks every inch of the floor and walls before finally drawing close to the crib. Not knowing exactly what about it makes her hesitate, she grips her shield tightly and lifts the shroud.
 
As the shroud is pulled from the crib, a small, wrapped bundle set in the middle of the crib. The relief you feel as you realise that it's not a baby, but just a bundle of rags wrapped to look like one, is short-lived, however, as you hear a shrieking sound from somewhere above you. Looking up, you see a spectral shape swoop down from the ceiling, lunging for you. The figure continues its shrieking, and you see it's a spectral woman, dried and cracking skin pulled tight over a skeletal frame, and wearing a white dress, the front of which is stained dark. Swooping down, she aims for Bronria, claws swiping at the air before her.
 
Without the shriek, Bronria would have been taken completely unawares. As it is she barely manages to look up in time to see the spectral form, gasp, and throw herself to one side just before the thing's claws can cut through her head. Acting purely on instinct, she pivots and unsheathes her longsword in time to slash at the image, only to find that she barely makes an impact.

As she stares at the murderous spirit, the sword begins to tremble in her hand.
 
Kellen leaps back from the apparition. Casting Chill Touch at the creature shouting "Himring!". He is surprised that it does not harm it, then surprised at himself for thinking it would, since it causes necrotic damage.
 
At the wall, Abalister be stumbled backward, his attention turning to the spectre and his chest tightening at the ghastly apparition. He tries to speak, but the scholar finds it hard to force air, let alone words, through the lump in his throat. Eyes wide, he watches as the figure attacks Bronria, sure in the feeling of their impending doom.

Once again, though, his subconscious proved stronger than his weak will or testicular fortitude, as a scroll unfurled in his mind, showing him the way. He instinctually pulled a strip of leather from a pouch on his bandolier and wraps it around his fist. "magicae armis," he incants before tracing something on the leather with his off hand and thumping himself on the chest with the fist. At the impact, a shimmering blue field envelopes his form before disappating into nothingness.
 
Ordienna casts a brief spell at the spectral woman, who seems to shrug it off. The ghostly figure then lashes out at Bronria, fingers passing through shield and armour, drawing the warmth out of her body where they sink into her chest. Bronria feels weak, and her vision fades as she collapses to the ground.
 
In quick succession, Ordienna casts a spell at the woman, who shrugs it off, followed by a spell at Bronria, who's breathing returns and eyes flutter open.
 
Kellen, seeing the ineffectiveness of Bronria's attack, and his own first spell, leans into what previously worked. He holds out his hands "Saila Pilin!" Once again three points of light rush into their enemy.

He doesn't get to have the same grin on his face as previously however. While the ghost looks hurt, it screeches at the pain, very much alive.

Kellen looks at the others, starting to feel a bottom of panic, hoping to finish this fight quickly.
 
Bronria's eyes stare blankly up to the ceiling for a moment, almost unable to grasp what's going on around her. Then her hand trembles and tightens around the hilt of her sword. Shaking and gritting her teeth, she rolls up onto her feet and lunges forwards, slashing at the spectral woman once again. The sword passes through, but seems to at least disturb the spirit a little bit, and Bronria moves in to press the attack. Her eyes are wild, and her breath comes in ragged pants.
 
Panic wells up inside the scholar, seeing Bronria swoon and falter. He struggles to think, his next move coming slowly to him. Perhaps we can slow this thing down, he muses before concentrating on his next cantrip, rifling through scrolls in his mind to find the right one.

Fear started to take root in his subconscious now, however, and as he began to run his fingers through what should have been intricate movements, his trembling betrayed him. "Congelationis," he incants, but the meager dusting of frozen water particles that he managed to will forth hardly phased the apparition.
 
The apparition swings at Bronria again, still screeching. It's form seems fainter than before; more translucent, with fading edges, and three ragged holes where the darts of energy from Kellen had torn through it. Fortunately, in this weekend state, it's claw-like hand passed by Bronria's head, missing her.
 
Acting more on instinct than any logical plan, Bronria jerks her head back just in time to get clear of the ghost's clawing hand and immediately responds with an upward swing of her sword. Another minor disturbance in the thing's image, but not nearly enough to destroy it. Beads of sweat begin to break out on the squire's forehead as she crouches low and awaits another attack.
 
Seeing Bronria struggle with the ghost, Kellen attempts to summon another magical onslaught. He has however, exhausted himself magically, only able to do the most basic of spells. He knows already that his simpler damaging spells will not affect this creature, so in a moment of madness, he draws his knife, and, ducking under Bronria's shield, lunges at the creature. To his embarrassment he misses completely, his momentum bringing him crashing into the crib.

He recovers quickly, just in time to see the creature be enveloped in fire from his fellow mage.

He stands up, trying to put on an air of nonchalance "It seems perhaps there is some benefit to learning magic in a school, rather than with a strange tutor in the forest, eh Abalister?"
 
His head started to throb again from the exertion of manipulating the Weave, a fuzzy haze starting to dull the edges of his vision. Squinting through the pain at the apparition, he watches as Kellen, out of spells useful to the occasion, lunges and misses the spectre. Fear wells up again, this time for his traveling companion and his predicament. The fear that was once blocking the passageways of his mind now helped him find clarity.

He saw the runes on a scroll, their words crisp and the hand drawn diagram clear. Once again he dug deep, speaking the arcane word as his fingers and hand traced their intricate dance, and lobbed a mote of fire at the spook. As it does it's work and the being dissipated, the clarity faultered and his headache came back with a vengance.

He looked to Bronria and then to the gnome before grimacing, "One w-w-would never ssssssuspect that my training was done within great liber-libre-libraries and not combat tt-raining grounds, I g-guess..."
 
Bronria remains poised to fight for several seconds after the fiery explosion, waiting for the ghost to come back out of it and right at her. When it doesn't, she starts breathing more freely, then sags. "You... did well," she agrees, then sheathes her sword, preeses her palm onto the wall and leans against it. Her eyes stray to the crib.

"Perhaps we could take a moment to breathe," she suggests, as if reluctant.
 
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