Session 3

The party wakes and proceeded downstairs for breakfast, still full of confidence form their recent victory over the Hobgoblins. During breakfast, they notice crowds starting to rush past the inn and the distinct sounds of voices being raised. They hurry out the door and follow the crows down to the shore near the Green Market to discover a body of a female that had been wahsed up on the shore. The body was dressed in slave rags and her hands were still bound out in front of her, she had obviously drowned.

You listen carefully to the crowd gathered around and you strike up conversation with an elderly couple standing nearby, who inform you that the the body looks very much like the femal half of a brother and sister adventuring duo who entered town just over a week ago. They had discovered information that treasure might be for the taking in a local haunted house about half a days march to the north of Saltmarsh. Whilst you are speaking with the old couple, you notice that Eda, Eliander and three other official looking people arrive and start to examine the scene.

Aftwer a short while, you are approached by Eda, who indicates that her companions are members of the town council, Anders Solmor and Gellan Primewater, and Anders' butler, Skerrin Wavechaser. Eda asks if you would be interested in assistign the town council in investiating this unfortunate event and to see if the brother might still be at the local haunted house. She invites you to the town council and you arrive there about an hour later. You are told that the house was once the residence of a local magic user, however strange goings on and noises have the town convinced that the mansion is now haunted. During the course of your briefing, another member of the town council arrives, introduced to you as Manistrad Copperlocks (head of the local dwarven mining expedition). Eda asks you, on behalf of the town council, if you would take up the investigation, go to the mansion and look for the brother of the unfortunate sister, or at least find out what might be going on.

A reward of 400 gp is offered, and you gladly accept the task, first taking the time to provision yourself from the local stores. You eventually start the trek to the house and arrive late in the day, but still during the hours of daylight. You carefully approach the house and notice that much of the garden is overgrown and start to searcht he premises. You are unfortunately surprised by four giant weasels that you eventually manage to fight off. You vow to be more careful next time. You continue your search of the garden and notice a well in the back yard of the mansion. You approach the well and are set upon by two giant snakes who manage to poison you, causing you another scare, and you have not even entered the house yet. After fighting them off, you do manage to find 14 sp at the bottom of the well.

You enter through the back door into a short hallway with a door in the northern wall and hallway leading around to the south. You carefull check the door for traps, find nothing, and enter, approaching the door in the northern wall. You open the door and find yourself standing in a kitchen. This kitchen is dirty and damp, with patches of gray mold and cobwebs on the floor, walls, and ceiling. In the southwest corner is some iron cooking equipment with a chimney above. Next to it, under the window, is a cracked and discolored stone sink. To the right of the sink, a small, closed wooden cupboard is fixed to the wall about five feet above floor level. Against the far wall, a flight of wooden stairs leads upward from west to east; the woodwork of the staircase is decayed, and a few of the treads are missing.

You rummage through the debris and are set upon by four giant centipedes, that you manage to dispatch, but not without taking severage bites from the creatures. You decide that you have taken enough abuse for the day and set up for a long rest, which passes without incident.

You continue your search of the house and find a dining room, that contained nothing of interested with a door opposite, that looks to be some type of relaxation room for the long gone occupant. Two stuffed armchairs stand near the fireplace of this room. The covers of both have been torn and the stuffing has been pulled out, but the wooden frames are intact. A broken table lies on the floor near the north wall. As you examine the stone fireplace, you are set upon by a swarm of spiders that flood forth and attack you. You eventually manage to deal with them, but again, not without taking several stings. You carefully examine the fireplace and locate 30 cp and two pouches of alchemical powders worth about 5 gp each.

You continue to venture forth, entering the entrance hall are at the fron of the house. The front door opens onto a musty, dirty entrance hall. To your left, a corridor leads into the west wing of the house. The walls are bare and bits of smashed furniture lie upon the floor. Ahead of you, another corridor leads toward the rear of the house. A staircase on the eastern wall climbs to the next story, reaching it at a balcony that overlooks the entrance hall along its north and west sides; the stairs appear safe to climb, though the balcony rail is broken in several places. Under the stairs at the north end of the hall, a third corridor leads east.

As you enter the entrance hall, you notice two sets of humanoid made tracks, one set of tracks travels from the entryway towards the kitchen you just came out of, and other dissapears along the hallways to the west. You decide to head west and follow the tracks. You first come upon to closed doors, one in the north and south wall of the corridor, and the tracks continue to a doorway at the western end. You decide to check the north and south doors first, leaving nothing unexplored behind you. The southern door opens up into what was once a library, and upon examination you locate three intact books, worth about 7 gp each. You then search the norther room and see that it was once a writing room or study. Careful searching of the room identifies a secret compartment in the desk drawer cotnaining two potions of healing.

You then continue to the western door, check for traps and carefully open the door to reveal what was once a living room. You notice that there is a trap door towards the centre of the room and you carefully approach it. As you draw close to the trap door, a booming voice yells out into the room "Welcome, fools-welcome to your deaths!". Rattled somewhat by the voice, you decide to press on, and examine a door in the northern wall, which you see leads out onto a small balcony overlooking the backyard and the well which gave you so much trouble earlier in the day.

You backtrack along the halllways, through the entranceway and down the hallway leading to the east. You see that there are two doors in the southern wall of the halway, the first leading into a living area, that you searched and found two cut pieces of quartz, that you estimate to be worth about 10 gp each. The second door also opened up into a living room, however you find nothing during the search of the room. Having now exhausted your search of the ground floor, you have a decision to either proceed down to the lowever level, or up to the second level. After discussing amongst yourselves, you decide to proceed upward.

You walk carefully up the stairs, however Beeza steps on a weak part of the floor and almost falls through, however her dextrous abilities allow her to avoid the fall. The hallways goes east and west, as well as north. You decide to proceed west and search the two doors in the south. The first door opens up int a bedroom and you locate a cloak tooled with a design of coiling ivy leaves, and Beza, unable to control her compulsion, hastily grabs the cloak. As she does so, a puff of yellow mold explodes from the material and Beza starts unctrollably coughing. She cotninues to cough and choke for some time, and if was not for the quick thinking of the party to cotninually provider her with healing, she may no longer be here to tell any tales.

Unfortunately the cloak was just a moldy old piece of clothing and had no magical properties. You press on to the next room and find nothing of interest inside. You return to the hallways and head north and ope the first door on the east wall. This looks to have once been a bedroom and you find noting of interest You open the second door and see that this must have once been a storeroom and find nothing of interest, except some old clothes on the floor. As you searched this room, you are set upon by three bandits, two move into melee and one stands at distance with a crossbow. After a hardwon fight, you manage to dispatch to the bandits, one quite violently, and manage to catch one of them alive. You interrogate the bandit who initially refuses to tell you anything. Johama loses his patience and dissmembers one of the dead bandits in the hallway and drags the body parts into the room. The captured bandit loses all sense of bravery and starts sobbing, telling you anything that you ask. You determine that this mansion is not haunted, but is instead used as a hideout for a local group of smugglers under to command of someone important in Saltmarsh, however this bandit does not know the identify of the ulimtae leader. He does tell you that there are still several of his band in the lowever levels of the house, led by someone known as Sanbalet.

You bind and gag the bandit and check the corridor to the north, which opens up into a landing and an attic area in the roof, although the stairs have long since collapsed. Beza wants to explore the attic but the party thing that caution is the name of the day and you should instead finish searching this level. You then head back to the landing and proceed along the hallways to the east. opening the first door reveals a bedroom and again, as you approach the fireplace, you are set upon by a swarm of spiders, this time easily beating them back. A search of the fireplace reveals a small crystal bauble, you estimate to be worth 5 gp.

You enter the second room, which is also a bedroom and a close search of the room reveals that there are fresh scratches on the window sill and scuffing on the floor and dust immediately near the window, as if someone stands at this post on some type of regular occasion looking out to sea. You surmise that this might be a window used to signal ships off the shore given the unobstructed view it provides of the surrounding area.

You open the last door on this level, which opens up into another bedroom, however thsi time, you see that there is a humanoid figure bound and gagged on the floor. He starts to grunt furiously as you approach, obviously wanting you remove his bonds. You take of the mans gag and he idnetifies himself as Ned shakeshaft, a travelling book seller, who was travelling to Saltmarsh when he decided to seek rest inside the mansion. He said that he was set upon from behind, knocked out, stripped of his cloathing, and left bound and gagged inthis room. You questin him further as to what he might know of the bandits, and he says that he has not seen them, only heard then talking, but he did say that he believed someone in authroity attended the manison recently and spoke in a strange way, constantly clearing his thoat before he would talk. You realise that this description, matches that of the council member, Gellan Primwater.

You distrust Ned, and leave him bound for the evening as you decide to fortify the room and take a long rest. Ned stresses hsi anger at being caught by the bandits and begs for you to allow him to seek his revenge. You decide to untie him, but keep a close watch and retrieve his clothing from the storeroom that he searched previously. Neds beds to be armed, and you decide to give him a small knife with which to defend himself. Visibily angry and determined, Ned begs you press on further so that he can seek his revenge at his captors, and you reluctantly agree to allow him to join you. You have finised your search of the upper level and decide to proceed to the lower levels.