Dungeons and Dragons: The House of Farwood (Part 2/4)

[Pilgrim]

I'm bringing this series back! Click link for character descriptions.

The adventuring trio headed into the town of Falmont with decidedly mixed levels of enthusiasm. Zio was exasperated and not terribly looking forward to what she was fairly confident would be a wild goose chase. Kyube wasn't overly excited, but had fair hopes that they would stumble into something worthwhile. Edea, on the other hand, was shaking with excitement.

"Ooooh yes, I can feel this one's gonna be great! The tip of my nose is so tingly," she punctuated her statement by rubbin it vigorously, "this town has just got to have some serious loot!"

"That's as may be, but it doesn't mean they're going to part with it easily. You get too carried away with your allergy..." Zio attempted for the fifth time to try and temper Edea's expectations, but the treasure hunter was having none of it.

"Eh it'll be worth whatever trouble we get ourselves into! Just look at my nose!" She sniffled wetly and pointed at her running nostrils. "And can you hear how congested my voice is getting? This is a big score!"

"I think you mean whatever trouble you get us into..." But Edea didn't hear the elf's protest and already began accosting the owner of a fruit stand that had unfortunately attracted her attention.

"Alright mister, gimme the scoop! What's ahh-aaah-Aahkt'schhhsh! Ah, 'scuse me. Whad's the treasure aroud here?"

The merchant regarded Edea the same way anyone would regard a stranger who had just sneezed all over a bushel of their apples. Kyube quickly stepped forward to attempt to smooth the interaction over.

"Ahem, what my associate means, sir, is that we are adventurers seeking fame and fortune, and have good reason to believe that there is some great treasure somewhere nearby this town. Sooooo, we were wondering if you would possibly have any information regarding such a thing?"

"S'right!" Edea nodded excitedly as she wiped her nose with a fine pink silk handkerchief.

Zio could see that this conversation was unlikely to end well, so she distanced herself from her traveling companions and began pretending to browse the other stalls in the market. In reality she was sizing up the town, trying to infer what she could about its layout, the behavior of the people in it, essentially trying to learn about her environment through quiet observation. She was first and foremost a hunter, after all.

Before too long, Edea and Kyube caught up with her, and she couldn't help but smirk at their dejected faces.

"Learn anything useful?"

"Ehhh, it turns out that you can only sneeze on somebody's merchandise so many times before they get fed up with your presence..."

"Haaahk'tchhhsh! S-sorry...Ahhtschhhh! But see, there's definitely something h-here haa-Ha-Haa'tschaaash!"

"Well, you might be right about that. I've been looking around and here's what I've determined:

• Everyone here is human, which is unusual for a town around here.
• Between that and the lack of variety in this market, it seems like this place is pretty isolated, though I'm not sure why that would be since there's a city not too far from here.
• These people seem way more supersitious than normal; in just observing them for a few minutes I've seen more than a few make some weird gestures or little prayers, and a ton of these stalls sell talismans, potions, and other little items of homegrown magic."

"Oh ho ho, very interesting! I wonder if perhaps this place is built on top of some ancient burial site? It could also be that there's a specter of some kind haunting one of the nearby hills. Oh oh or maybe it's—"

"OR maybe we should try getting some more information before jumping to conclusions. Ideally without aggravating the locals, hmm?" Zio glared at Edea, who responded with a rude hand gesture and a sloppy "Hah'KTCSHHHHH!" directed in her direction. Ignoring this, the elf approached a ruddy middle-aged woman selling home remedies for everything from gout to lost keys.

"Hey, traveler. Need help with something in particular? I can almost gaurantee I've got the cure right here..."

"Actually, we'd heard rumors about some kind of treasure in these parts, and we were wondering if you might know something about that?"

The woman inspected Zio warily and answered slowly, "No, can't say that I do. Not sure where you would've heard something like that, this is just a simple town..."

By this point Edea had walked up beside the woman's stall and was leaning in close to her, sniffling as already moist nose began to run in a stream.

"Um, excuse you?"

Edea took a sudden gasp for air and quickly turned her head to the side as the itching in her nose spiked high. "Hheh'tschhhh Hehh-eh-ehhkt'shhh Hehh-Ahkt'schhh Tschh eh'TshChhh Haah-aahAk'tCHHH! Sh-she Aaeech'tschhht! Definitely knows saah-Ahhh-AhhK'Tschhh Haah'tschhh something Tschh!"

"Ew, back off, what is wrong with you?"

The merchant's protests were ignored as the dripping-nosed Edea and a leering Kyube closed in on her.

"Sooooo, miss merchant, there is something you're keeping from us. Why might that be, hmm?"

"Ugh, you two are so embarassing." Zio sighed.

"You're all a buncha weirdos! I ain't hiding anything. Now back off from my stall or..."

"Aha!" Kyube exclaimed, turning around and pointing at a hill in the distance, on top of which was sitting the silhoutte of a grand castle-like building. "So, it's in there somewhere, huh?"

"How did you..."

"Ehehe, nothing escapes a real witch's keen eye for detail! You glanced over in that direction when you were lying to us about hiding something. Now then," the young witch clapped her hands together, "are you going to explain to us exactly what that building is, or are you going to make things difficult for all of us?"

"Why are you so intent on hiding this from it's cursed isn't it, that's what it is, it's cursed." Zio almost asked, interrupting herself.

And so the trio learned of the rumors surrounding that haunted estate which formerly belonged to the Farwood family, how they had built it using ill-gotten gains reaped from dark rituals, how the mansion's innermost vaults were in truth a temple to old and malevolent forces, and most importantly, how after the family had vanished off the face of the earth they had supposedly left the entirety of their fortune within their former home...

Edited January 8, 2016 by Pilgrim

[Blah!?]

Well if it isn't another case of "just what I needed." I've really missed Edea and her treasure allergy, and I'm really glad it's already come up as a plot point. I'm really excited to see what comes of this haunted house setup you're building toward. It's been too long since I read a good story of that nature. Just do what I wouldn't do and, you know, actually finish it.

[poiub]

Glad to see this back!

[Pilgrim]

Thanks for the compliments you guys! Here's part 2!

"Edea, hold on..."

"You guys are sooooo slow!" Edea shot back at Kyube, sniffling congestedly. She pointed at her dripping nose. "Can't you hear how stuffed up I am? I could barely breathe all last night! That treasure's gotta be worth...ehh-heh, worth...ehhh'HHH..."

With Edea temporarily frozen as she squinted in concentration to try and get the stuck sneeze out of her nose, Kyube and Zio finally caught up to their partner, who had been running ahead of them since they set out for the mansion early that morning. Despite her excitement, Zio was insistent they rest at the inn and recover their strength before tackling the cursed Farwood estate. However that excitement had tripled over the course of the night, and now it was all they could do to keep up with the much more athletic young woman.

"I know you're excited, but come on! Do you really wanna go barreling headlong into...that?!?" Kyube gestured towards the door of a huge, gloomy-looking mansion with gargoyles leering from high towers, frightful carvings on its enormous oak doors, and a sense of lurking power despite the overgrowth and disrepair evident on its surface.

"Hehhk''shTchssh! Hehh-ehh'tschhh Hetshhh'shh Ehh'tsschhh!" was all the response Edea could manage.

"Kyube, what do you make of these carvings? This place looks more evil than some of the underground dungeons we've visited!"

"Hmm..." Kyube examined the building up and down. Her eyes widened, and her breath caught in her throat. "This place...was imbued with some seriously ancient magic. We are talking the oldest of old gods, the Nameless Ones that nobody remembers except as ideas..."

"Yeah, yeah, ancient evil, darkest dark, big scary monsters and so forth. We'll just have to be careful." Edea waved her hand dismissively and strode confidently up to the door...

***

"Blaze it, Edea, why were you not more careful!" Zio shouted accusingly as she shakily readied another arrow to shoot at one of the many animated skeletons shambling menacingly towards her and her friends.

"I'm sorry! I c-can't...HAHH'kTschhh Ahk'shhh! Control—Tk'tschh—it haah-ahh'tschh ahh-Ah'hhaa'schhh!" Edea said incoherently through a film of allergic runoff pouring from her streaming nose and eyes as she swung her sword wildly at another gang of undead warriors. Fortunately, as they were armed with little more than broken boards and pieces of rubble, they could do little to block her powerful blade whenever she did manage to land a hit.

"Y'know, you two really need to spend less time bickering with each other and more time thanking me for saving your butts. Magic door's open now, by the way, you're welcome. Now hurry over here so I can close it on these bags of bones!"

The other two retreated down one of the mansion's innumberable twisting hallways towards where Kyube had been working on disenchanting a magically-dealed door. The instant they were through the doorway, she snapped her fingers and it swung shut behind them with a golden aura enveloping it.

"Well, that solves one problem. Now hopefully Edea's nose will finally take us to that treasure so we can start working on how to get out of this place! I've had quite enough skeletons, traps, magic doors, tentacles, living shadows, and decades-old smells for one day, thank you muchly!" Zio returned her loaded arrow to her quiver and ignored Edea's look of disdain.

"Hmm, the weird thing is, the magic on that door wasn't at all like the stuff we've run into so far. I wonder who put it there?"

"Ah, that would be me..."

The three spun around just in time to see a formerly motionless lump down the hall rise and light a lantern, revealing itself to be a woman dressed in grime-covered gray robes with an orange sun pattern adorning the chest. Bangs of straw-blond hair clung to her face, which was somewhat gaunt and had an unhealthy palor, making the sore redness of her angular, high-bridged nose stand out even more than it might've normally. She walked closer to the trio, her breath panting and then steadily becoming shallower.

"I-I hh'am glaaah-haah-Hihtishiiiew! Heht'ishhiew Hehh'tshieew Ehh'tshiiew-Tchieew-tch'ieew Ehh'hehhtschiiew! Ah, sorry," the woman snorted grotestquely and attempted to wipe her dripping nose on her filthy, already damp sleeve, though it provided little traction or meaninful relief, "I was holding that in for a while. Didn't want more of those things to find me. I'm glad you're here!"

"Just who are you? I thought everyone who lived here left a long time ago..." Zio inquired suspiciously.

"Ah, well, my name is Ilistriel. I'm a cleric of the Sun Order. Ehh'hhTishiieeew! Forgive me, I have been lost down here for some time..." she indicated her running, chapped nose and wheezed slightly as she tried sniffle back the urge to sneeze further, "And caught something of a cold. Hehh'ehTschiiiew! I came here with my fellow templars for I imagine the same reason as you," she continued to wipe at her nose, wincing slightly as her tender raw nostrils suffered under the friction. Now that she had come closer, Zio observed that the woman was sweating, and her robes were damp. It seemed like she was being honest about having been lost.

"We came to discover the secret of this mansion, and purify...hhh'iitshiiiew...the evil bound to it. But it was too hhh'hii-hhh...strong for us. A demon, barely...contained by the magic used to summon hihh-ihh-it here..."

"A demon?!?" Edea gripped her sword more tightly and grinned mischieviously. "Where there's demons there's Hehhh-hhh'Ktshhhh! Treasure! Hh'tchShhhh! Where is it, huh? Ahh-ah'kTSCHHHH!"

"What? You want to fight...Hheh-heh-Hh'tsihhieew hehh'Tchiiew the same th-thing Hiih'tshiiiew Thaah-that ehhh-hehhh-killed-heh'hhh-four...hhHeh..templars..." The ill cleric attempted to maintain an air of indignation as her face contorted in a drippy struggle to stop herself from sneezing. Unfortunately she lacked the willpower to accomplish this, and she concluded her statement with another round of sneezes, blushing in humiliation as she struggled to contain their spray within the sleeves of her robe. "Eh'kTshiieew EhTchiiew Hetschiiew Tch'sheew! Eh'hehhhtchieew!"

"Maybe we should listen to her, Edea. If there's really a demon down here, we might not be able to beat it. I did think the curse in place her was suspiciously strong. If a demon is maintaining it," Kyube frowned, deep in thought, "I hate to say it, but our odds look pretty bad. If it's been feeding on the adventurers who came here it's probably pretty strong by now."

"But...Aaat'tschhh! but...Hhh'ktschhh! my nose...Hh'tschhh Haah-a'Tchhhsh!" Edea sputtered.

"I for one am certainly not going to be doing battle with any sort of demon for any reason, least of all for some as-yet still unidentified treasure." Zio shook her head. "We picked up plenty of gold and trinkets that should sell for some coin on our wandering through this horrible place, that will have to suffice for now."

"B-but..."

"Ah, if it's just-hehhh-coin you're seeking hh-ih-hhiiih...I might...Be able to h-hhhelp. The-hehhh Order...will..I'm sorry HIIITCH'SHIEEW! Hih'ihhtschhiew Hehh-ehh-hetshhiiiew! The Order will reward you if you aid me in my return, I promise. And I will need-Tchiiew your help.

"Mm. If you did see the demon's face...it will do everything it can to destroy you..." Kyube mused.

"So, you say you're worth something, hm?" Edea leaned forward and gave Ilistriel a wet sniff. Immediately afterwards, the knight realed back, waving a hand in front of her face as tears pourted from her eyes and her wet nostrils flared wide. "Haatch'schhh! Hah'ktshhh Aah'tschhh Hah'kTchhh-Hektchhh-Tshhh Ahhh'shTchhh Akt'chhh!"

"That certainly confirms you're valuable to someone, although it doesn't neccesarily mean they're going to be capable of paying up..." Zio shook her head.

"Ahh, I think that'll be good enough, Zio. Don't worry, Ilistriel, just stick with us and we'll get you home safe and sound, no problem!"

Zio eyed Kyube and leaned over to whisper in her ear. "Why are you so keen on helping her, Kyube? I know we're always taking risks on Edea's, um, precognition, but generally you've struck me as a bit more of the money up front type than this..."

"Well..." Kyube looked nervously into the shadows. "Let's just say I have an idea of what it's like to have a price on your head that you're simply not capable of paying off by yourself."

"Hmm. Well alright then. If we're getting out of here, we'd better get a move on, before more of those skeletons show up."

[Blah!?]

The plot thickens...

I can hardly describe how glad I am that you continued this so quickly. And unfortunately it felt like it ended so quickly too, I just couldn't stop going through it. As always, I'm really excited to see what happens next.

For a while I had a hunch that Edea was actually catching a cold and her sneezes weren't going to lead them anywhere, but it seems like that's probably not the case. I guess nothing's impossible though, so I'll just have to wait and see...