SESSION 20E: INTO PYTHONESS HOUSE
April 27th, 2008
The 9th Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty
Tee and Dominic returned to the Ghostly Minstrel only a few minutes before Ranthir emerged from his room. Ranthir introduced Erin to his friends and grabbed a bite to eat for himself.
Then they headed towards Oldtown and, within a quarter of an hour, they were standing on the street before Pythoness House.
The keep-like house seemed dreary beneath the noon sun – grimed and crumbling from years of neglect. Tee and Elestra were able to slip through the iron gate facing Emmitt Street, but Agnarr was forced to shove the rusty metal to one side causing it to emit a horrible shriek.
Looking through the stone arch on the front of the house they could see through a short passage into an interior courtyard. As the others came up the hill, Tee took the lead and headed through.
She was halfway through the stone passage when some instinct caused her to look up: A small, black metallic sphere was being dropped through a small murder hole!
Tee leaped forward as the powder bomb landed behind her and exploded. She managed to avoid the worst of the blast, rolling into the inner courtyard as several small mice scattered ahead of her. Agnarr and Tor, seeing the explosion, came running up – only to dash headlong into a second powder bomb.
Tee rolled to her feet and tried to find a target with her dragon pistol – but the opening was too small and the angle poor. She couldn’t see anything.
“COME TO ME…” The disembodied voice seemed to spring up from all around Tee – echoing through the courtyard and dancing through the empty windows and doors of the house. Tee whirled around, trying to find the source of it… but there was nothing there.
Elestra, Ranthir, and Dominic dashed through the passage into the courtyard. Agnarr and Tor pulled a rear guard, and barely managed to dive out of the way as a third bomb filled with dung was dropped.
Agnarr hauled himself to his feet, wiping a few flecks of disgusting excrement off of his armor. “That was digusting. Wait—listen!” His sharp ears had caught the sounds of skittering claws racing across stone – whoever or whatever had been using the murder hole was running off to the west through the upper passages. Then something large was thrown to the floor, and there was a booming noise – a large door being slammed.
Then there was silence.
They took stock of the situation: The walls of the courtyard were so high that it almost seemed like an interior chamber – except that it lacked a roof. The noon sun was beaming down almost directly onto them, but despite that the place seemed to have a palpable chill and an uncomfortable dampness. Mosses and fungi covered the stones moreso than weeds or grass.
Looking up they could see several windows, terraces, and towers arranged in a seemingly haphazard fashion. Off to one side there was a short flight of stone stairs leading to an elevated platform with a well in the center of it. In the opposite direction there was a large, open archway leading into the interior of the house.
Elestra took a moment to run up the stairs to the well, but nearly lost her balance as the moss-slick stones cracked and tilted wildly under her weight. She barely managed to stop herself from sliding back down to the cobbled courtyard, instead righting herself and then carefully backing down the stairs.
Tee headed cautiously through the archway into a damp room filled with leaves and refuse that had apparently blown in through the open doorway. A red carpet, dark with moisture and grime, covered most of the floor. A staircase along the far side of the room led up to a stone walkway which joined two platforms twelve feet above the floor. The room also curved to the right, although a green, mildew-stained curtain in that direction blocked the passage.
Between the stairs and the curtain there were two doors of battered, weather-beaten wood. There was also a third door just to the left of the arch from the courtyard.
Tee headed towards this third door first. Agnarr had followed her into the room to keep an eye on her, but the rest of the party stayed in the courtyard waiting for the all-clear.
This door was somewhat better shielded from the outside elements, but was still in rather poor condition. Tee eased it open, revealing a small room of barren stone and drift debris. Another door – this one of iron – lay in a curved wall on the far side of the room. Tee crossed to it.
It opened onto the lowest level of the eastern tower. A rickety wooden ladder bolted to the wall led up through a hole in the ceiling. Tee crossed to this and looked up – the ladder went up three flights.
Tee backed out and used her thieves’ tools to lock the iron door behind her.
HAUNTINGS
Crossing back through the room with the moldering red carpet, Tee checked the first door on that side. The weather-beaten wood wouldn’t even fasten properly, so she easily pushed it open to reveal what had once been a boudoir: Four beds covered with silk sheets and pillows – now layered in grime, dust, cobwebs – were surrounded with ruined draperies of silk and moldy paintings in wooden frames. Two brass braziers lay dust-covered and overturned in the corners of the room. The floors were carpeted with thick, worm-ridden rugs. A thick smell of mold and mildew hung in the air.
A glint of silver caught Tee’s eye. A small locket was lying half-buried in the dried muck between two of the beds. Tee bent over to pick it up—
As her fingers brushed against it, however, one of the braziers suddenly jerked into the air as if held by invisible strings. It abruptly righted itself, slammed itself to the floor, and burst into flame.
Tee jerked back, leaving the locket laying on the floor. Agnarr standing in the outer room, yanked out his sword.
From the courtyard, Dominic – seeing Agnarr suddenly draw his sword – called out: “Is everything all right?”
Tee eased out of the room, pulling the door shut behind her. “Yes. Everything’s fine.” She glanced meaningfully at Agnarr and moved onto the next door.
This also opened onto a ruined bourdoir. After making sure that none of the braziers were going to start flying around, Tee started poking around. The paintings in this room were in slightly better condition. All of them depicted disturbingly lewd scenes, and although Tee estimated they might have some minor value she didn’t really want anything to do with them.
Tucked under one of the pillows on a ruined bed, however, she found a small book with a tattered, dark brown cover. Flipping it open she found that its contents were written in a nearly illegible scrawl that could only have been born of hopeless madness. The first several pages were covered in repetitions and variations of a single phrase: FACELESS HATE. (They wait in faceless hate. We shall burn in their faceless hate. The faceless hate has consumed me.)
Tee glanced at several more pages and blanched. The entire book left her feeling vaguely disturbed and with a sense of deep disquiet. She decided not to mention it to the others just yet and tucked it away for later. But as she emerged from the room, it was obvious that something had worried her.
“What is it?” Elestra asked.
Tee shook her head. “We’ll talk about it later.”
Tee crossed over to the moldering green drapery and pulled it off to one side. The hall continued beyond it, with another door, a wrought iron spiral staircase leading up, and – at the very end of 
the hall – a life-size stone statue of an obese, naked human man.
The statue’s pose and expression seemed to show a diabolical confidence. It stood on a round platform three inches high and four feet across. Just walking up to it, Tee could easily see that there were deep scratch marks in the floor leading away from the platform – leading her to conclude that the platform could be moved out of the way, revealing a hidden way into Pythoness House’s basement.
After a brief discussion with the others, it was decided that they would leave the statue alone for now. It seemed too risky to head down and leave potential danger lurking above them.
So Tee headed to the last door on this level. By this point, most of the others had gathered in the center of the hall (near the green draperies) – the only exception was Tor, who was still keeping a wary watch in the courtyard.
This door had been more sheltered from the elements than the others, but when Tee swung it open it revealed the same ruined, tawdry boudoir as the other rooms on this first level…
But only for a moment. An instant later the dusty vestiges of age seemed to be swept away, leaving everything as it must have appeared years ago – luxurious and clean. Three beautiful, scantily clad women stood in the middle of the room looking aggressively seductive. They opened their arms towards Tee and, with seductive whispers drifted across the room towards her.
Tee’s senses seemed befogged, but she shook her head and the illusion began to drop away – now everything seemed to become transparent to her, and through the beauty she could see the ruin… and the three dry, desiccated corpses lying on the beds.
Tee pulled her dragon pistol and fired at one of the apparations. The shot passed right through it.
One of the beautiful, illusionary spirits had reached her now and it reached out its arms and tried to wrap them around Tee’s throat. “Love me… Love me forever…”
Agnarr – his firm ground in reality allowing him to quickly shake off the illusion – stepped forward and pulled Tee away from the apparition. The ghostly whores turned to their attention to him, but their seductive whispers didn’t dissuade him for a moment: His sword slashed through them.
Tee, seeing that Agnarr’s sword had seemingly had as little effect on the spirits as her pistol, shifted her aim: She fired at one of the corpses laying on the beds inside the room. As the shot struck true – sending a cloud of corpse dust into the air – the expressions of the apparitions transformed into gaping maws of rage and pain.
Elestra, seeing the effect of Tee’s shot, pulled out one of the modified dragon rifles they had taken from the Shuul. She ducked around the apparitions – which were now drifting out into the hallway – and into the room. Lowering the rifle she bathed one of the bed-ridden corpses in flame.
With a terrifying, spectral scream one of the ghostly whores vanished. The other two, with an air of desperation in their movements, reached out to those around them. “Love me… Hold me… Stay… Stay…”
One of them headed towards Ranthir, who stumbled back against the wall. As her hands wrapped themselves around his neck, he could feel the breath turning cold and dead in his lungs as her pale lips reached for his—
Elestra swung the flaming dragon rifle around, bathing the other two beds in its flame. The remaining apparitions vanished. Ranthir stumbled forward a step, gasping for breath.
A SECOND AMBUSH
Hearing the commotion from the courtyard, Tor had come running into the house – but he arrived just in time to see the last of the ghosts disappearing.
Elestra stumbled out of the room. The flames were beginning to spread and the entire room was filling with acrid black smoke. Tee took the time to quickly glance around the room and – seeing nothing of value or interest – quickly slammed the door shut.
“Do you think it’s all right?” Agnarr asked. “Will the fire spread?”
“I don’t know,” Elestra said. “Do you think I shouldn’t have used the rifle?”
“I think it will be all right,” Ranthir said. “The walls here are stone. The door is thick. I think it will burn itself out.”
Tee turned to Dominic. “Do you have any spells that might put it out? I’d rather not—“
A powder bomb landed directly behind Tor. His armor took the worst of it, but the blast knocked the breath out of him. He stumbled forward half a step, and by the time he got turned around Agnarr had already raced past him and back to the eastern end of the hall.
A ratman was standing on the walkway above. As Agnarr reached the base of the stairs, two more of the ratmen raced out of the shadows to the south, dropping additional powder bombs as they crossed to the far side of the walkway and pulled out crossbows. Agnarr threw himself to one side as the powder bombs went off.
Tor broke into a run for the stairs as well, but was nearly crushed when a massive ratbrute hurtled off the upper level and nearly landed on top of him. The creature stood at least 8 feet tall and was nothing but rolling mounds of muscle and fur. Six inch, yellow fangs protruded from its stinking mouth and its grime-encrusted claws lashed out at Tor.
Agnarr regained his balanced and launched himself up the stairs. As he mounted the upper level he swung his sword at the nearest ratling – the one still standing on the walkway – but the creature ducked under the blow, hissed, and launched himself at the barbarian’s face.
The ratbrute’s claws weren’t finding their way through Tor’s armor, but its powerful blows left him staggering. Then one arm caught Tor and hurled him into the stone wall. Tor felt the sharp pain of a rib breaking, but then he snapped up his sword and began circling warily around the creature.
Up above, Agnarr stepped deftly to one side and let the ratling careen past him. The ratling’s claws skidded on bare stone, turned and leapt again… directly onto Agnarr’s sword.
Tor feinted, and then – catching the ratbrute off-balance – slashed his sword across its chest. The wound was shallow, but electricity crackled along the blade and the faint smell of burning fur filled Tor’s nostrils.
And then Elestra – who had snuck up behind the ratbrute – pulled the trigger on her modified dragon rifle. From Tor’s perspective, the creature was suddenly limned with flame – and the stench of burning fur was overpowering.
The ratbrute, enraged, whirled towards Elestra. Tor, despite his battered ribs, dived to one side. Elestra stumbled back a step, worked the dragon rifle’s mechanism, and then pulled the trigger again.
The ratbrute – writhing in the pain of the flames – collapsed. A few moments later it stopped moving entirely.
The others had been kept pinned down by the crossbow fire from above, but with the ratbrute down Dominic was able to rush up to take cover under the stone arch.
The ratlings, however, were routing: Both of them tried to rush back across the stone walkway, but Agnarr was ready. The barbarian yanked his sword out of the first ratling’s chest, pivoted, and with a single swing of his sword decapitated them both as they tried to scurry past him. Their heads rolled off the walkway in opposite directions, landing to either side of Dominic.
UNWELCOME TAINT
Elestra reminded them of the bounty on rat’s tails, but Agnarr had already set to work chopping them off.
Tee, meanwhile, remained curious about the brazier which had burst into flame. Had its motion been connected to the locket she had touched?
She asked Dominic to use his holy sight to detect the presence of supernatural evil. The priest murmured a prayer and looked into the room: The room appeared completely normal.
But when he turned back to tell Tee this, Dominic was shocked to discover powerful auras of evil clinging to many of them: The modified dragon rifles they had taken from the Shuul were tainted… and so was Tee’s soul.
The news nearly reduced Tee to tears. She hated the very idea of this filth crawling across her soul. But as the others had not yet been corrupted by it, she dutifully collected the modified dragon rifles from them.
Dominic also carefully checked the unmodified dragon rifle that Elestra had taken, but this appeared to be free of the taint. Ranthir concluded that the modifications the Shuul had made must have used chaositech.
RAT WARRENS AND DINING ROOM
There were two doors on the second level – one at either end of the stone walkway. One of these was an iron door leading to the second level of the eastern tower, but the other – slightly ajar – led to a room that stank of stale urine. It appeared that the ratlings had been nesting here, with trash and scraps seemingly pulled from all over the house. Plates, pots, cutlery, towels, and shredded paper and cloth of all kinds.
Trying to breathe as little as possible, Tee stepped into the room and began poking around through the trash. (She thought there was at least a small chance that, if the key had been in Pythoness House, the ratlings might have found it and added it to their stash here.)
Disturbing the garbage, however, caused at least a dozen rats to come pouring out into the open. They swarmed around Tee, biting at her feet and legs and trying to crawl their way up her body in a frenzied mass.
Tee drew her longsword and swept them off her. Agnarr stepped in and helped to finish them off.
“Careful with that sword,” Tee said, glancing around at the drifts of refuse. “We don’t want to light the whole place on fire.”
The flames of the blade died down and Agnarr set to work hacking off rat tails while Tee resumed her aborted search of the room.
There was nothing of value, and certainly nothing that looked like a key. But she did find a small crawl hole that had been smashed or gnawed through the west wall at floor level.
Looking through it, Tee could see into what had once been a well-appointed dining room – a long, dusty table with a dozen chairs covered in moldy cloth took up much the room, and she could see that there were two doors leading out of the room on its far side.
Agnarr offered to go first, but Tee pointed out that his broad shoulders weren’t going to fit through the narrow hole. Even with her slim, elvish frame it was going to be a tight fit.
In fact, it took a good deal of wiggling for her to work her way through the hole. Standing up with a clearer view on the far side, her eye was immediately caught by the cobweb-ridden chandelier that hung above the table. It had once been set with many gemstones, and she could see that at least six of them still remained.
Unwinding her rope and grappling hook, Tee cast it up and easily caught the chandelier. Her first thought was to climb up and pry the gems out, but after a quick test of the rope she was fairly certain it wouldn’t support her weight. So, instead, she gave it a short, sharp yank.
The chandelier easily pulled free from the damp, moldering plaster of the ceiling, crashing spectacularly into the rotten wood of the table and breaking it like a twig.
“Tee! Are you all right?” Agnarr was trying to peer through the hole in the wall.
“Everything’s fine!” Tee called back, choking on the cloud of dust that had filled the room. She pulled out one of her daggers and quickly pried loose the semi-precious gems. Then, comparing her mental image of the second floor to what they knew of the first, she crossed over to the northwestern door and swung it open.
Her suspicions were confirmed: She was standing in an empty hall of plain stone. The spiral staircase from the first floor passed through this hall and up to the second floor. A window looked out over the courtyard and there was also another door at the far end of the hall.
Crossing back to the hole, she called for Agnarr to tell the others to come up the spiral staircase and then went back to meet up with them.
SECOND HAUNTINGS
Agnarr headed back down and let the others know. They headed towards the spiral staircase.
Tor, who had gone back to watching the courtyard, took up the rear. But as he came back into the house, one of the decapitated ratling heads floated into the air, turned itself towards him, and seemed to stare with its cold, dead eyes – dripping blood down onto the moldering red carpet.
With an instinctive gasp he swung his sword down in a crackling arc, slamming the ratling head to the floor. As his sword connected with a sickening crunch, a horrible spectral howling ripped through the upper levels of the house.
The others whirled at the sound, and Elestra – seeing Tor with his sword drawn –- called out, “Tor?! What happened?”
Tor was looking around warily, circling in place. “I think we’re being watched by something in the upper levels of the castle. I think it was using the ratling’s head to spy on us.”
Agnarr prodded the other head with his sword. It didn’t respond. Nor did anything else seem untoward now that the howling had passed. They turned back to the spiral staircase and headed upstairs to meet with Tee, quickly filling her in on what had happened.
Tee summed it up in one word: “Creepy.”
They headed back into the dining room. Tee quickly inspected the other door in the room and then Agnarr opened it, revealing another ruined boudoir. A small alcove projected out from the south wall, holding a window seat that looked out across Oldtown.
The lewd paintings that had decorated the lower boudoirs were missing here. Instead, recessed shelves were built into the walls. It looked as if these shelves had once been covered with a variety of tiny, doll-like figurines, but now only a few of them remained: A pair of matched acrobats. A porcelain angel. A young girl. A small terrier dog.
Tee idly crossed to the shelves and leaned in to take a look at one of the figurines. Her face was less than a foot away from one of them when it suddenly leapt from the shelf and clawed at her eyes!
Tee jerked back. “Agnarr!” The angel figurine had leapt from the shelf and was now flying towards her. She reached up and snatched it from the air, crushing it easily in her bare hand.
The small figurine of the dog began running around in circles, yipping. Yip! Yip! Yip! Yip! Yip! Yip!
The acrobats launched themselves off the shelves – Tee ducked to one side and the two figurines landed near Agnarr as he came charging into the room… and then skidded to a halt in confusion.
Tee grabbed the figurine of the young girl, which was still trying to claw at her eyes, threw it to the floor, and crushed it beneath her foot.
Agnarr, realizing that the dolls were a threat, tried to smash one of the acrobats with his sword… but it twirled up onto the top of the blade and ran toward his face. It wasn’t quick enough, though: Agnarr quickly whipped his sword around and smashed it against the wall, sending flaming bits of debris flying through the room. Then he pivoted and brought the sword crashing down onto the second acrobat (sending even more flaming debris into the air).
The dog suddenly ceased its circling and leapt for Agnarr’s throat.
Agnarr beamed: “A dog!” He caught it deftly in his hand.
The dog continued struggling, trying ineffectually to claw and bite at Agnarr. It also continued its shrill barking: Yip! Yip! Yip! Yip! Yip! Yip!
Tee grimaced. “Agnarr…”
Yip! Yip! Yip! Yip! Yip! Yip!
“It’s a dog! Not a real dog… but a dog!”
Yip! Yip! Yip! Yip! Yip! Yip!
Tee grabbed the dog from Agnarr’s hand and smashed it to smithereens on the floor. Agnarr’s face fell…. but at least the incessant yipping stopped.
