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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sir Brennen" data-source="post: 2033666" data-attributes="member: 553">Second Floor of Haunted Maltus Estate (Same Day)The stairs led up to a small office.  On one wall was a tapestry depicting a woman with a shield, which was decorated with a pegasus motif. We had seen similar images been scattered around the house.  There was also a framed piece of writing, a fragment of poem written by Reveri again, though it seemed to have been done when she was much younger. It was about a cat named Tinkerpaws.The office opened into what looked like the master bedroom, with another fireplace and a huge bed.  On the mantle over the fireplace was a portrait of a woman, almost five feet tall.  Opposite the painting was a shield, again adorned  with the pegasus emblem.As we investigated, Barrick discovered the painting was hinged on one side.  Swinging it back, he revealed large mirror, tilted down somewhat so a person standing on the floor could see themselves fully.Looking at Barrick's reflection in the mirror, I saw he was grinning stupidly.  Wondering what was so funny, I started to walk over to him when the smiling reflection stepped out of the mirror onto the mantle, drawing his battleaxe!Barrick immediately attempted to grab his double's legs and yank him off the fireplace mantle, but wasn't able to get a grip.  The mirror Barrick swung at his head with the axe, narrowly missing.Charlotte brought up her crossbow and fired, followed by a slingstone from Father Al.  Both merely struck the stonework of the fireplace.  Thinking I might be able to eliminate this sorcery at its source, I rushed forward and swung at the mirror itself.  Instead of shattering the glass, the heavy axe-head of my urgrosh merely bounced off!As I tried to recover from my surprise, Blaine deftly stepped into the fight. "This is for that punch in the nose!" he said, swinging at the twin Barrick with his sword, slicing deeply across the arm.We all crowded around the fireplace then, probably getting in each other's way more than anything, because the evil Barrick managed to avoid any further injury.  In a move that would have been uncharacteristic of the real Barrick, he jumped off the mantle over the heads of both we dwarves, then spun and caught Barrick across the chest with his axe.From beside the bed, there was a loud snap, followed by Charlotte's bolt flying into the air at a quirky angle. Her broken string hung loosely from the side of her crossbow.  Knowing that at least we didn't have to worry about her firing into the battle, the rest of us pressed the attack.  The mirror Barrick started to back away, and I went after him, scoring another hit.  Just as he was about to reach the door, Blaine lunged forward and plunged his sword, tip first, through the double's heart.  In a crackle of mystic energy, the false dwarf disappeared.Father Al, who had been holding the warm glow of healing magic in his hand for a bit, tended to Barrick. I went to the side of the mirror and put the painting back in place over it.  In the corner, Charlotte made a quick gesture and her bowstring seemed to regrow right there on the weapon.  Handy, I thought.His wound tended to, Barrick stepped up beside me by the fireplace."Maybe I should open it again and see what happens.""No!" came the instant and unanimous reply.While we weren't certain why such a bizarre device would exist in the bedroom, we did decide that it would be worth taking the mirror with us later, as our magically-inclined sponsors back in Stonehearth might be interested in it.Pressing on, our search turned up a couple of more rooms with nothing of note.  As we were all moving through a hallway, I caught a sound from outside.  It was Bob!  Shouting a warning, I ran back to the master bedroom, looking out of the window to where we had left the pony tied up.  He was loose and heading downhill away from us.  Though my newly purchased (and expensive) smithing tools were loaded on him, my only thought was for my friend Giri's pickaxe I had also stowed on the animal. Barrick ran down the secret stairway without pause, and I hustled after him.Bob was nowhere to be seen when we got to our original campsite.  However, I was able to spot and follow his tracks easily with the ground muddy and soft from the continual drizzle.  A bowshot away, we found him in the trees.  Barrick herded the frightened pack animal to me, and I caught him by the tether and calmed him down.Since he seemed to feel safer in the trees, we securely tied up the pony where we found him, and headed back to the house.  I was so relieved I didn't stop to think about what might have frightened him.Back in the manor, we came upon what was apparently a woman's bedroom, even though the bed was missing.  It was covered with astrological charts on the walls.  Looking around, Marcus discovered a false panel in the wall.  Inside was a necklace with a gemstone of jasper, engraved with a serpent.  There was also a small jar with a clear, thick liquid.  Charlotte worked a little of her hand waving over the items, and declared them both full of magical energy.Another bedroom, this one with a half-completed tapestry, again with a woman bearing a shield with the Maltus crest.  The wardrobe held a bit of a surprise for us: a skeleton huddled in the bottom, the front of its tattered gown stained with ancient blood.  Father Al conducted a closer investigation, and concluded that the person had died here, as the bottom of the closet was discolored from where the victim had bled out.We entered a more sparse room next; another shield with the pegasus emblem hung on the wall.  However, this one had been defaced with the image of some sort of bird drawn over it in blood.  At the end of the bed was a footlocker that contained armor and weapons suitable for a knight of the family.  It all seemed to be in remarkable condition, compared to the other weapons and equipment we had discovered downstairs.We found ourselves back on the balcony overlooking the dining hall.  Trying to determine which direction to take next, Marcus called our attention to a door opposite us.  "A candle just passed by there," he said.  We worked our way around, passing the hall the ghost girl had ran down earlier, and walked into a library that covered the length of the west side of the house.Sitting by the window, the lit candle rested by an open book.  It was more poetry, the current page entitled "Thrice Cursed".  The poem appeared incomplete, and a chill ran down our spines when Marcus announced that the ink was still wet on the last line written.I stood watch by the door as everyone else inspected the library.  In his browsing of the shelves, Marcus paused and asked if anyone else could hear what he did.  Listening closely, I could hear it too: a rasping, crunching noise coming from the bookshelves somewhere.  Marcus saw piles of powder, like fine sawdust, on the shelves near the sound.  Pulling out a book, it practically dissolved into dust in his hand, with just a scrap of the cover left.Sweeping the shelf with his quarterstaff, he knocked away several more disintegrating tomes, the last few falling open with half missing pages, revealing strange, fist sized grubs chewing at the paper.  I recognized them from stories: bookworms.  Dwarven collections never had to deal with them, with our books of metallic sheets, but they were a scourge of human libraries.  Shaking his head, Marcus ground the pale creatures under his boot.There was little else of interest in the library, so we left through the door at the north end.  Here was the upper level of the tower.  Broken and fused glass lay everywhere.  Looking closely, we deduced that it was an alchemical lab, where some sort of explosive accident had happened.We finally came to the bedroom where Lord Blaine had first seen the candlelight on his initial visit.  There was the threatening message still on the wall.  Marcus noticed that the broken window seemed to have traces of old blood still on it.Again, we found little else to help us find the vault, so we moved on to the next bedroom.  Another appointed for a young woman, this one had a writing desk in the corner, and a stack of journals on a shelf.  They belonged to the girl Reveri, obviously the writer in the family.  Divvying them up to glean what we could more quickly, we discovered that the three - Regine, Rebecca and Reveri - were identical triplets.  There also had been two younger brothers, their mother dying while giving birth to the last.  The children’s aunt Jacasta had raised them in their mother's absence.According to Reveri’s journals, Rebecca had been the most social of the three girls, outgoing with the boys and such.  Regine had always been distant and detached, but became more so after the death of their mother. For her fifteenth birthday, Regine had received a raven as a present.  Reveri, however, had hated it, feeling it was always watching her and intended her harm.That was the gist of what we learned from the diaries, but no solid clues as to the tragedy that had obviously happened here.  Pressing on, we found an empty guestroom, and then a bedroom that must have been the girl Regine's.  An empty bird perch stood by the window, and on the vanity, a skull sat staring at itself in the mirror.The bedroom's door opened back into the tower, and Barrick and I ventured up the last flight of stairs and out onto the roof.  Looking out over the back of the house, we saw a pale figure leaning over the fountain in the yard.  Rushing back down, we told the others what we saw, and all of us headed out into the backyard.She was still there, leaning over the empty fountain and scrubbing at her hands, which were covered in blood.  Marcus attempted to communicate with her, but the specter just ignored him, muttering to herself, "It won't come off. It won't come off."Finally she stood up and faced us, and shouted, "It won't come off!"  With that, she ran at us, passing right through Barrick, and disappeared into the wall of the house.Running after her, we cut through the dining hall and into the first small library we had seen.  She was there, sitting in a chair, staring off into space.  The blood was no longer on her hands, and a ghostly raven sat perched on the back of the chair.  Marcus again attempted to speak, this time with the bird.  It merely caw'd, then flew at us, though as it did, it seemed to expand and stretch like a shadow, filling the room.  It disappeared through the door, and when we looked back, the girl was gone as well.After we recovered our wits, we agreed it was time to search the basement area of the manor, to the horrors beneath.</blockquote>

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