Mizhena continued to investigate the wall mouldings, and discovered a scene of writhing snakes. The mother, however, looked at the baby with obvious scorn on her face. The father held in his arms a small bundle which was obviously a baby - the children's baby brother. The party found a large portrait of the Durst family - the owners of the house - showing the two children they had met, standing in front of a stern looking couple who were obviously their parents. Asimi recovered some valuable-looking armour shards and they pressed on. The fight was short but brutal, ending in an incredibly frustrated Rowena striking the helmet from the gorget, and destroying it entirely. Asimi moved to investigate, and the armour animated and began to attack. Furthermore, they were confronted by a black suit of armour fashioned with a wolf's head helmet. The floor was rotten and spongy below their boots, and the walls were faded and damaged from mould. Thick dust, as if from centuries of disuse, covered everything. The party reached the third floor, where they discovered that the well-kept nature of the lower two floors did not reach the third. She didn't know what the mechanisms did, but made a mental note and they continued upwards. She had been inspecting the harpsichord and had discovered that several of the keys were rigged up to trip lines throughout the construct. Further, the more she looked at these scenes, the more she became convinced she heard them - the fluttering of bats wings, and the howling of wolves.Įventually, the party reconnected with Asimi who had found herself in an old yet elegant ballroom with an ornate harpsichord in one corner. The animals weren't frolicking, but running from hungry wolves. The youths weren't dancing, but fending off bats as they bit at their hands and faces. Each one at first seemed beautiful - depicting scenes of youths dancing among orchards, or animals frolicking in the forest - but the longer Mizhena looked, the more darkly twisted they became. Quickly, they began to ascend the central staircase to reconnect with Asimi, but on the way Mizhena inspected some of the wall hangings and moulded plaster scenes decorating the walls. Everything seemed in good repair, but abandoned. Inside the house, they discovered that all the rooms were dark. When they turned back around, the child-illusions were gone. Informed, yet playing along, they entered the house and instructed the children to wait outside. She managed to pry open the window shutter and slip inside to relative safety.Īrkaeous also noticed that the two children were in fact illusions, and secretly gave this information to Rowena and Mizhena. Seconds later, a great wind and a grim presence, spread over the area and threatened to tear Asimi away from the building and dash her against the ground. Arkaeous sensed magic emanating from the house and the bird, and shot at it with his Eldritch Blast, but the bird evaded and flew away. At first it cawed and danced back and forth, but when Asimi tried to shoo it away, it nipped at her ear. However, when she made it to the second story, a raven flew onto the perch she was hanging from. The party couldn't turn away.Īsimi scaled the front of the building, attempting to get to the top landing - in and out - with the baby. They'd heard the sound of monsters in the basement, and their baby brother was still in his room in the attic. Though they were cold, wet, and injured from their journey through the woods, they could not ignore the pleas for help from the children - Rose and Thorn. Face to face with a looming townhouse, with not another soul around except for two lonely and frightened children, our heroes had little choice.