Freeday, Planting 7, 592 CY

Where to begin? I think Trap slipped something in my drink over at the Rat’s Egg Tavern last night, as I am sure I wouldn’t normally agree to such a daring quest. After a long week of patching up “adventurers” on their way back through Smallville from Parts Unknown, I needed a bit of cheer and revelry with the townsfolk that frequent the Rat’s Egg. It was a wee bit crowded, but I saw some friendly faces and plunked myself down with Ghelt, the blacksmith’s daughter and Fafnir (of Chicken Powered Butter Churn fame). Perhaps it was something Fafnir put in my drink, now that I think about it. But I digress. There was some talk about the old Everston Estate on the outskirts of town, as is often the case with townsfolk trying to engage the adventurers passing through with the local lore, only this time, a group of these adventurers had been to the place. Upon seeing ghostly lights and hearing the sounds of a woman crying, they decided adventuring was not for them and returned to Smallville’s only tavern to apparently test their mettle at drinking.

Fafnir said something about this being a “perfect opportunity” for an adventure of our own, and Ghelt mentioned she’d be willing to provide some muscle should the need arise. I suddenly, and very badly, wanted to make sure that the ghostly lights were not, in fact, ghosts. Even Trap, who had stopped tending bar at some point and was sitting at our table, was already scheming with Fafnir about how to best tackle the old mansion.

And tackle it we did. By the time we arrived at the estate, it was well past noon, and storm clouds had formed overhead. The large front door stuck a bit, so we ended up removing it by applying way too much force to it. The door, apparently, was in no better shape than the first big room we came to. The inside of the mansion was festooned with webs, rotting furniture, rotting tapestries on the walls, dangerously crumbling balconies around the great room, and rotting floorboards and ceilings throughout. The kitchen was in a similar state, and while nothing looked actually “looted” before we arrived, there wasn’t anything usable left either.

We found some spiraling stairs to the next floor, where there were more spider webs. It appears that our first major decision would be whether or not to walk through the room or avoid it in favor of another. During the ensuing, but brief, verbal debate that followed, two extremely large spiders decided that yes, at least some of the humanoids should enter the room. One bit Fafnir while we were pulling weapons to defend ourselves, but the quick-thinking gnome cast a spell, causing the spiders to fall asleep before either could make another attack. We quickly dispatched the spiders and I healed Fafnir’s wound. We looked around the upstairs of the mansion for a bit before deciding, after having a look at the really rotten roof, that we’d be safer trying to look below the mansion.

We followed some very small footprints until we came to a door leading down below the mansion. We encountered some goblins, equipped with javelins, who attempted to stab Ghelt and Trap. There were four, which were a bit tougher to dispatch than the spiders. One got away, but after a headlong chase down some corridors, we dispatched that one too. We managed to acquire 16 silver pieces for our efforts. We then found ourselves in a room containing the base of a damaged statue (there was not enough debris to identify the statue, though it had humanoid feet), and a table that looked like it was set up for lab experiments. It was obviously long out of use. Trap, living up to his name, managed to find a door leading to a room with a summoning circle on the floor, and two horrible, melted-looking creatures that immediately attacked us. Ghelt was able to do minor damage to one with her axe, but my arrows bounced right off the creature closest to me. I suggested we vacate the area, and was happy to discover that the creatures either wouldn’t or couldn’t leave the room that we found them in.

Fafnir was suggesting that we stop for the day, as he had no spells left after those skirmishes. I had healed everyone myself and would have been happy to rest as well. However, Ghelt and Trap saw some interesting looking doors, five all in a row, and simply could not rest until we had seen their contents. Flinging open the first four doors provided us with some very small cells, one of which contained a three-armed skeleton. While I don’t know what it was, I could tell at least that it was dead, and not undead. Trap, once again living up to his name, yanked the fifth and final door open, and emerging from the final cell doorway in a cloud of gas with a stupefied look on his face, suggesting that he too was ready to call it a day. After the gas cleared, I noticed a trap door carefully set among the stones of the floor. But, we are tired and out of spells, so that will have to await investigation until tomorrow.