Arty Fox

Avonshire - D&D Based Adventure

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Baronfjørd "Blackberry" Chedgusah Dragon Born, Monk (Astral self), Level 05 HP: 32 / 40 Armor Class: 16 Conditions: N/A Location: Taproom Action: Reading Bonus Action: Serving tea Reaction: N/A Ki: 2/5

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

"Ah, my apologies Master Mosswater. I do admit that I have the memory of a bucket with holes in it today. Ah! Thank you Kosara, worry not though I shall sort out the tea once the water is boiled."

With Kosara having filled the kettle and put it onto heat, BlackBerry quickly shuffled into the kitchen to claim a few more cups and utensils for serving the tea. Plus some honey for his own. He called out to the taproom, "Forgive me once more for my head is full of nothing useful today, and I do not believe I was present when this was all arranged." BlackBerry returned with cups, saucers, spoons and honey deftly balanced on a tray.

While the kettle slowly came to a boil BlackBerry struggled his way through the books of the late Master L'Rose's writings. His struggles were equal parts trying to follow the dead man's writings that shifted from calm collected recollections to scrawls of desperate rage, and BlackBerry's two fold headache of a cold and being kicked in the face. The dull throbbing of his skull made it hard to concentrate and he ended up rereading a few lines multiple times, the dull throbbing of his skull made it hard to concentrate and he ended up reading a few lines multiple times, and the dull throbbing of his skull made it hard to concentrate and he ended up rereading a few lines multiple times.

BlackBerry put down the book. He needed a moment to gather his thoughts (and unblock his sinuses). Most of what the old tome contained was a bit beyond him lying in the realms are Arcanic symbols and Runic equations which he didn't quite have the heads pace for at the moment, but what had been in his reach had confirmed a number of troubling thoughts.

"I admit I had had forgotten about the shoes but I do remember a strike also." He winced at the memory.

The rattle preceding the kettles cry pulled him from his thoughts and back to the room at large. He wondered what exactly Barbal had referred to at the mention of 'Sharing what we know.' There he was trying to keep things somewhat quiet for Madame L'Rose's sake, and yet here they all were having tea with the neighbours around a collection of magical objects, incriminating documents and quite possibly several more headaches than they already had had. The kettle had properly began its song by the time BlackBerry managed to pull himself out of his chair.

"A lesson in knowing when one should step back and retreat from a battle may be of use in addition to fighting." BlackBerry patted Young Lizbeth on the head as he passed. His anger from earlier had passed and left only the worry behind. "Now then, who would like some tea? Oh, before I do forget. Victoria, there are a number of things in the book that may be of interest to yourself or Kosara; I have folded the corners to mark the pages if you will forgive my manners."

He was asking for a lot of forgiveness today.

BlackBerry of course obliged to anyone who wished for a cup of tea, "Sugar? Or honey perhaps? No, oh very well. Milk? Ah, Master Mosswater, what blend is this? It does smell delightful". Only once everyone else who had asked for a cup had been served did BlackBerry serve himself using the last dregs of water from the kettle and two heaped spoonfuls of honey. BlackBerry sipped his tea thoughtfully as Lizbeth began to read the letter aloud, and then watched in horror as the crystal drank her blood.

"Young Lizbeth." Blackberry put down the teacup. He moved towards the table making sure to arm himself with a tea cloth in case he needed to smother damn rock. "Are you quite well? What happened?"

"Pages in the booked marked of interest"

Mostly Magical related notes and things BB hasn't made a check for, but below are snippets in Common that he felt might be of interest.
"...I was promised magic and wealth if I remained quiet. I had to do was turn a blind eye when strange things happened. I was promised safety..."

"...The Prince whispered truths and half-truths to me. Sometimes there were dreams. They showed me terrible things. It was months later that I realized he was showing me things that actually happened upon this land..."

"...spellcraft I could not understand, arcane tools I could not use, and he said this fulfilled his promise to gift me magic. He promised me riches and plentiful harvests, but I strongly suspect that the bounty yielded from the earth is due to our knowledge and the hard work of decent men. I know now I have been used..."

"...the sharp eyes and tawny skin of only the eldest persons of the villages always left me with questions, when most others were fair of hair and face. Now I see those eyes in my dreams, wielding the curved swords of the Southern Deserts..."

"...they don't seem to hurt me, so I must learn everything I can about them and the magic of their people. May the gods of goodly folk forgive me for my work. I fear for my soul as I experiment with what remains..."

"...sometimes I find myself smiling. I am beginning to truly enjoy many of the things I met originally with horror and revulsion. I fear for my soul, but I cannot just stop..."

"...my granddaughter has been gifted by the land. Or by the Prince. They might be one and the same now; I do not know. She was born here, drew breath from the land, ate of its fruits from her beginning. I found myself wishing to put my experiments to her, but sanity found me in time..."

"...no one is to touch her. She cannot leave the grounds. To disobey is to invite wrath. I am not strong enough to stop him..."

"WHY IS SHE GIVEN THE GIFT AND I AM LEFT WITH NOTHING?"

"...I can barely hold on. I know the Prince has plans for Lizbeth. I only hope he doesn't realize I have my own. She won't be helpless, even if I am..."

"...don't let the dead lie on this land overnight..."

Avonshire - D&D Based Adventure

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Baronfjørd "Blackberry" Chedgusah Dragon Born, Monk (Astral self), Level 05 HP: 32 / 40 Armor Class: 16 Conditions: N/A Location: Taproom Action: N/A Bonus Action: N/A Reaction: N/A Ki: 2/5

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

"It is not I who does look for trouble." BlackBerry said mocking offence. "But it is trouble which does look for me. My life would certainly be much poorer without it though I must say."

Kosara meanwhile, as ever, raised a very good point about securing the place which BlackBerry nodded to. He didn't like how the creature had tried to escape rather than stay and fight, maybe it had simply been trying to find a better fighting spot? A place with more room to move and attack from but...no, it had tried to do something to them just before it ran away. A point to bring up later once they were all upstairs.

While the others made their way up, BlackBerry instead gingerly stepped over the shards of bone back towards the study where he cast an eye over the desk, the cells, and the magic circle in turn, committing the last item to memory. BlackBerry wondered if there were anymore Guests in the cells as the creature had far too many bones to attribute to just the two skeletons. He grimace at the thought and left the study.

Before he went upstairs, where he could hear the others and a few more fairly recognisable voices, he began roughly barricading the doorway. First the door went back into more or less where it had been, but at an angle so there was enough room to grab the sides, and then across the bone and dust covered floor he pushed some of the heavier barrels and boxes in front of it. The barricade obviously wouldn't enough to stop any Guests left inside trying to get out but anything trying would make enough of a racket to alert anyone in the coach house. At least, that was what BlackBerry hoped.

He pointedly, purposefully ignored the lock and the prybar key. He didn't trust whatever magic or mechanisms in place wouldn't break and lock them out entirely. It had been hard enough getting in to begin with.

"My goodness now this is a marvellous surprise." BlackBerry tried to inject some energy and life into his voice when he arrived back upstairs. "Masters Mosswaters, my this is a lovely surprise. And Master Urmdurus too! How are you all? To what do we owe the pleasure of this little gathering?"

His traitorous eyes latched onto Urmdurus a moment to long. He dragged them away. BlackBerry drifted into the room carried in part by a frantic need to keep moving and the lovely spread set about the table. But he side stepped them to instead head towards the little study group of Victoria and Lizbeth.

"I do apologise in advance for I have a bit of a cold, you see, so best keep some distance. I should not want to pass it on to anyone. But if there are any little morsels on offer well..." He chuckled while sitting down hard in a free chair. "Well, it would be rude to refuse, yes? But do give a call if anyone would like a fresh pot of tea brewing. Here, Young Lizbeth, pass over that book if you would please? Now ,let us see if we can put our heads together and figure out something?"

Avonshire - D&D Based Adventure

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Baronfjørd "Blackberry" Chedgusah Dragon Born, Monk (Astral self), Level 05 HP: 32 / 40 Armor Class: 16 Conditions: N/A Location: Secret Basement Action: N/A Bonus Action: N/A Reaction: N/A Ki: 2/5

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

"Well you see, Lady Kathryn." BlackBerry stared down at the smouldering fragments of bone strewn about e room. He looked up at her and stated, "I simply have not the vaguest idea. One moment there we were investigating and making admittedly not as much progress on such investigation as one would have liked, the next some skeletal villains were attempting to cause some trouble for us."

He kept his sword out for a moment as Victoria, Lizbeth, and Kosara each made their presence known and voice their own ideas on the matter. He noted with some relief and appreciation for Victoria when he saw her quickly swooping in to comfort Lizbeth. BlackBerry meanwhile chewed his cheek to stop himself from scolding the silly girl for not getting herself out the fight as soon as it had started; there would be time for that later once the dust had settled.

Blackberry simply clicked his tongue while sheathing his sword, and the fiery limbs at his shoulders flickered out of the world. Not for the first time today he seemed to visibly wither from exhaustion with an appropriately pathetic sniffle.

"Tell a lie. There was something before actually; Victoria had been trying to ah..communicate with one of the cell occupants, that was when it was discovered it was ...well... not entirely dead."

Yet another piece of the puzzle. And yet still there was no obvious answer. Blackberry frowned heavily at the thought but brightened at Kosaras suggestion of a cup of tea.

"Oh and a good slice of honey on bread or something to go with it would be marvellous." Blackberry smacked his lips despite shattered bone at his feet. "I say is everyone quite well? Daxos, good sir I must say you took a nasty attack in there. Do you need a hand up the stairs at all? If anyone could please grab the books and wands on the table please before we head upstairs, I should still like to read them for anything that may help us."

Avonshire - D&D Based Adventure

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Baronfjørd "Blackberry" Chedgusah Dragon Born, Monk (Astral self), Level 05 HP: 32 / 40 Armor Class: 16 Conditions: N/A Location: C5 -> J7 Action: attack! (Hit 1: 15 dmg: 10, hit 2: 27 dmg: 6) Bonus Action: N/A Reaction: N/A Ki: 2/5

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

As if things couldn't get any worse! The grim delight seeing one of the villains felled quickly turned to horror at the monstrosity it became.

BlackBerry found himself swaying to the grotesque skeletal snakes movements. Left then right, then left, then right. The ribs and bones that made up the horrible creature looked almost fuzzy from behind BlackBerry's astral limbs and for a moment he thought about lowering them, until his eyes met the empty sockets of its skull.

Where the hell had the other skull gone?

The thing fled. The spell broke. BlackBerry swore, almost as colourfully as Lady Kathryn, as he lunged to strike the creature only to miss. If they didn't act soon the localised apocalypse could quickly become regional!

"After it!"

BlackBerry tore after the creature past the others and through the tunnel out into the basement proper. There he saw it had reached the bottom of the stairs, surrounded by crates and boxes it was knocking over, and turning its great mass towards the room above.

It had to be stopped! They couldn't let it get away!

His eyes snapped towards the door they had removed and left against the wall. No, it wouldn't do much, if anything, to slow down the creature.

He settled for the old faithfull approach instead; hitting it until it stops moving. He continued on towards the creature and crashed an Astral fist into its bony body. Cracks formed under the blow with a satisfying crunch. The second fist struck the same place more square on than the first but could do quite as much damage.

"Stand and fight, villain!" BlackBerry snarled up at the empty eye sockets.

He withdrew his sword from the scabbard. The Viscious blade shone brightly in the madened flickers of torchlight.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

A slightly late post is better than no post...@Sigil roll for the save!!

Avonshire - D&D Based Adventure

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Baronfjørd "Blackberry" Chedgusah Dragon Born, Monk (Astral self), Level 05 HP: 32 / 40 Armor Class: 16 Conditions: N/A Location: D6 -> C5 Action: Shove (22) Attack (hit: 21, dmg: 5) Bonus Action: N/A Reaction: N/A Ki: 2/5

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Blackberry barely had a second to feel smug at smartly stepping out of the howling corpses reach before it got its revenge. The wooden sandal, spiralling with glee, span around his guarding arm and cracked against his skull.

Shock and surprise both from the force and nature of the attack uprooted him in the second it took to take the stars from his eyes. A shoe! He'd been hit by a shoe!

Another threat appeared then in front of him shrouded in silvery solidifying into aged and dirty bone. BlackBerry swore in time with Kosaras scream. He hoped there wasn't a third hiding somewhere. Beyond it all he spotted Lizbeth screaming silently against the wall.

"Lizbeth!" He had to shout above the undead roar. "Out! Now!"

Turning his attention back to the fight he saw Kosara preparing her spell and he closed his eyes. Even behind closed eyelids the sheer power of Kosaras spellwork burned with brilliant light. BlackBerry surged towards the skeleton. One astral limb enveloped the skull, his flesh hand grabbed the wrist of which held the rust and blood drenched dagger. In one swift movement Blackberry took another step forward, slipping between Daxos and the assaulting skeleton, left foot hooking behind the skeletons right, twisting the skeletons dagger bound hand up to its chest. He shoved the creature.

The skeleton was briefly airborne and then clattered to the ground like a bag of sticks. Blackberry raised his astral limbs and brought them down upon the creature like a club.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

@Sigil the spooky skeletons attack again!

Avonshire - D&D Based Adventure

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Baronfjørd "Blackberry" Chedgusah Dragon Born, Monk (Astral self), Level 05 HP: 40/ 40 Armor Class: 16 Conditions: N/A Location: E5 -> D6 Action: Attack (hit:19. dmg: 9) (hit:24. dmg:5) (w/ Stunning Strike) Bonus Action: N/A Reaction: N/A Ki: 2/5

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Once again Kosara was there with her startling accurate ability of foresigt.
Blackberry didn't even have a chance to raise a half-baked argument before she was proven right.

The scream, the wail, the horrifying roar filled the room and set BlackBerry's teeth on edge. He watched with the rising dread as the corpse shed its flesh, still burning and melting from the divine light that had assaulted it barely a moment before. For a horrible second BlackBerry found himself back on the road, surrounded by snow and darkness, with a grotesque parody of a dead man, bearing down on him.

"Lizbeth." Blackberry shouted above the roar filling the room. "Upstairs, now!"

The books and wands he had found could wait on the table.

The weak flames at his shoulders suddenly flared into life, limbs of fire imposed themselves with fury onto the material plane. BlackBerry settled down into his usual boxer stance and arm brought up to his face. He wasted no time and struck an astral fist between the cell bars towards the creature. It struck! Solid fire crashed into the creatures torso. The first hit was then followed up with another, twisting at the hip, the other astral arm smashed into the creatures face with a satisfying crunch.

The creature's head snapped back and for a blissful moment silence fell upon the room. Its head came forward and the wail began to rise again to full volume. And seemingly being no worse for wear from his hits!

"Kosara, Victoria. Move quickly!"

The creature was stepping towards the bars and BlackBerry did not want to be within grabbing distance. He danced backwards a few steps, keeping in mind not to step on the magic circle in the centre.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

@Sigil spooky bois time!

Avonshire - D&D Based Adventure

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Baronfjørd "Blackberry" Chedgusah Dragon Born, Monk (Astral self), Level 05 HP: 40 / 40 Armor Class: 16 Conditions: N/A Location: Secret Study Action: N/A Bonus Action: N/A Reaction: N/A Ki: 3/5

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

"Oh blast." He turned his gaze upwards while packing the wands back into the oiled roll cloth. "Do take care Lady Kathryn, should you need a hand do give a call but make sure whomever it may be does not get in, let alone come down here."

While more exciting things were happening with the others own investigations Blackberry took Lady Kathryns advice and began gathering the books he had been looking through, and a few others he hadn't, into a neat stack on the table. Perhaps, he hoped, one of them would contain the answers to all their questions; he was worried about whatever glow had been in the pendant Lizbeth had been holding. Not for the first time, and certainly not the last, he wished he could see well in the dark.

Not dead!

The two words got his attention faster than he would have liked. He was glad to note Victoria pushing Lizbeth to back of the room just in case.

"Not dead?" BlackBerry repeated like an echo. "By the Gods, but how? Come now quickly we must get this open. Come now good man get this door open. Who knows how long the poor creature may have been in there." He patted Daxos on the back trying to urge him to work faster. "I say, excuse me? Excuse me can you hear me?"

As the why someone was in there or even the how they had survived so long without their knowing Blackberry left the thoughts to deal with later.

Avonshire - D&D Based Adventure

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Baronfjørd "Blackberry" Chedgusah Dragon Born, Monk (Astral self), Level 05 HP: 40 / 40 Armor Class: 16 Conditions: N/A Location: Secret Study Action: Investigation (20) Bonus Action: N/A Reaction: N/A Ki: 3/5

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

"Here here, well said, and all that." BlackBerry nodded in affirmation to the others own replies to Lizbeths offer. "As I have said before, Young Lizbeth; providing us hearth and home for the winter months is more than enough payment and we would simply be remiss not to lend some aid however we may."

Victorias explanation as to where she had vanished top earlier made his eyes go wide with shock and horror for the moment, but he held his tongue. That was until she began laying out her own thoughts on Arnaud L'Rose's learnings and what they had seen thus far. BlackBerry held his chin and tiled his head as if rolling a thought around his skull. He let out a frustrated sigh when nothing came to him.

"No, no I will defer to your judgement on the matter Victoria. I am simply trying to understand the terms of the contract which may I remind everyone we have been tasked to fulfil and an as of yet indeterminate amount of time to do so." His headache was not treating him well from the strain of trying to read in dim lighting, and everyone's voices bouncing off the walls in the enclosed space. Blackberry pinched the bridge of his snout in an effort to relieve the pain. "Perhaps the room, or the runes together may hold some answer Lady Kathryn. Or maybe even the Guest in the cell?"

He followed Victoria's instruction then and took to searching the desk. Initially he couldn't find the draw until his knelt down and ran his hand along its front, under the overhang of its top, which shifted slightly under his touch; a drawer! He pulled it open to find a long oblong parcel with a note tied to it.

"Untested. Unidentified." BlackBerry read allowed the note. "It would appear Monsieur L'Rose took quite the interest in Wands. Do you suppose this would answer the many types of magic you sensed?"

Even BlackBerry, self confessed 'uneducated in matters of the arcane', when he had gently unravelled the oilcloth atop the desk could tell that the revealed items were Wands. The were four of them each wildly different in appearance but still roughly the same shape and in surprisingly good condition. BlackBerry held up each of them in turn both to get a better view of them and to show the others; the first decorated in mouths and ended with vicious fangs he hoped were just stylised wood, the wood of the second appeared braided and was wrapped in metal twisting through colours of bronze to steel before ending with a cluster of multicoloured gems at the tip,. The other two were comparatively plainer; one being of white would with a single cut orange and purple jewel, and the second had small amber spheres running along its length. Blackberry held the last one up longer squinting at one of the amber jewels and tried turning it towards the light.

"I do believe there may be a bug in this one. Well anyway. If no one would object I would like to take these and some of the literature upstairs." His gaze turned towards the occupied cell and then towards the centre one. "It would not do to lose anything that may contain answers should the...unexpected happen."

Avonshire - D&D Based Adventure

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Baronfjørd "Blackberry" Chedgusah Dragon Born, Monk (Astral self), Level 05 HP: 40/ 40 Armor Class: 16 Conditions: Ill Location: Secret Study Action: Investigation Bonus Action: N/A Reaction: N/A Ki: 3/5

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Despite himself, Blackberry allowed himself to feel vindicated by Victoria's admission of her...earlier inaccuracies but stopped short of actually saying, 'I told you so!', in favour of as infuriating a smile as he could muster with a blocked nose.

"Worry not Lady Kathryn, it is just my cold again from this morning." For emphasis, he blew again into his handkerchief. "I shall be quite well after a hot bath and a very early evening, I should hope anyway."

He trudged back down the stairs after the other three and then hesitantly into the small room beyond. With so many of them now in there it was getting hard to move around one another, let alone the strange glyphs and symbols etched into the floor which Kosara had warned them all against.

"Three cells and yet only one Guest." Blackberry noted aloud with some grim disgust. "Currently, anyway." He grimaced when the thought slipped out.

While the others were discussing the magical nature of the study's contents, Blackberry was more drawn to the more mundane looking books sitting on the shelf, on the wall opposite. After stepping around the suspicious symbol to reach them he cast an investigative eye over each of the worn and weathered spines hoping for one of the to jump out at him in the dim light. When none did he plucked the nearest one, turned it over, and gave it a shake, and then opened it roughly midway to skim the pages. Nothing of what little he could actually read in such dim light came to him as suspicious or of any interest, and he moved onto the next book.

Blackberry was hoping for two things; 1, the 'final gift' to Lizbeth Master Arnaurd had mentioned in his letter, and 2, some note of what exactly Arnaurd had offered and been offered in his deal with the Prince. what BlackBerry saw while flickering through pages were diagrams, numbers, and writings varying from well thought out and organised paragraphs, to the frantic scribbles and thoughts scurrying over one another. Frustratingly though there was little to be gleamed from the books, not even a sentence of That Language appeared to be lurking within the shadows of pages.

The sound of metal striking stone made him jump, he turned to see Lady Kathryn picking a hand axe out of the magic circle though thankfully without any apparent harm.

"Daxos is right." BlackBerry snapped the book closed but kept a hold of it "Let us take stock of the immediate situation before we go any further. Master Arnaurd L'Rose was fearful of The Prince and unfortunately with good reason as we have seen. I do wonder though if The Prince had in fact been teaching Master L'Rose some magic or if the man had been trying of his own initiative. Possibly a combination of the two now that I give it some thought." BlackBerry opened the book in hand again but it still withheld any secrets it might have had. His gaze settled again on the shelf and the many books still covered in dirt and dust from years of forgotten neglect. "I wonder if it is of any use searching these books for any hidden meaning or cipher."

"Three cells, one Guest, several books of notes, a desk with restraints, some crates, and finally a strange arcane circle." Blackberry listed off everything he could see at that moment hoping for some idea to break through the headache that wound around his skull. Aside from all they could see the room appeared empty little storage to speak of. "Perhaps the gift, Master L'Rose wrote of is not a particular item?" He indicated with his chin toward the Guest locked in its cell.

Avonshire - D&D Based Adventure

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Baronfjørd "Blackberry" Chedgusah Dragon Born, Monk (Astral self), Level 05 HP: 40 / 40 Armor Class: 16 Conditions: N/A Location: Hidden Study Doorway -> Coachhouse taproom Action: N/A Bonus Action: Ill again Reaction: N/A Ki: 3/5

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Daxos seemed to have his head screwed on right in the aftermath of whatever had happened to them all he called for calm in the emotional storm around them. It would have worked too had everyone not already acted upon their instincts of 'Nosey Adventurers' by immediately moving and running about.

"The effort is appreciated, Daxos." BlackBerry patted the mans shoulder. "I would however suggest you could have better luck herding cats. Regardless. Currently we are missing our esteemed bard, and Young Lizbeth is feeling rather upset."

Blackberry added, while resuming his hunt for said Bard by looking through the shelves, between barrels and even lifting a few boxes despite Kosaras statement Victoria wasnt there. "Lady Kathryn has gone to help the later. While i continue the hunt for the former, might I suggest yourself and Kosara investigate the study?" There was more than a touch of worry in his voice. He then shouted, "Victoria? Where are you?"

When BlackBerry received no response he began to chew his cheek, his fingers began tap, tap, tapping feverishly against his thumb. Where had Victoria gone? He was certain she wasn't invisible, and even she had shrunk down someone would still have seen her wouldn't they? Kosara seemed certain Victoria wasn't down in the basement anymore which left only one other option...she had been teleported somewhere.

Like a bolt, he dashed up the stairs, reassured his idea was sound following after Morty who had just beat him to the first step by a hair, he arrived to the scene of Lady Kathryn comforting Lizbeth thankfully without any disembodied commentary. A small part of his mind not focused on restraining rising panic noted this change with relief that whatever strange things going on were temporary at least.

"Can anyone else hear a crow?" Tilting his head to the sound.

Alarmingly this sound was then followed by a short scream, and then even more alarmingly by a loud 'thud' from above.

"What was that?" BlackBerry asked the other two while looking up to the rafters as if they would answer. "Would you suppose that?..." A pause followed the question, which was then shortly answered by Victoria making her grand entrance. BlackBerry let out a releaved sigh. "Ah there you are Victoria. Whatever happened? One moment you were with us and the next you had vanished. Are you well? Nothing broken at all? Good gracious you are bleeding." He pointed to his own mouth, signalling to Victoria where he had seen the blood on her face as he continued to fuss about her. "At the very least we can say the rest of us have not had such exciting afflictions."

Only after assuring that Victoria was actually okay, likely needing to be verbally beaten back, did he relent and step back.

"Well if we are all ready and feeling well enough for it." BlackBerry cast a sympathetic eye over to Lizbeth still under Lady Kathryns reassuring care. "Daxos AND Kosara both otherwise appear well and unaffected, or at the very least not negatively so. Both ar-ah-Ah ACHOOO!"

BlackBerry momentarily disappeared behind a flash of blue lightning, fiery limbs flaring wildly for a second before fading to a pathetic dim shimmer on the world. BlackBerry once again felt, and looked, as if he had been hit by a wagon.

"Oh a pox on it all." He sniffled.