Rather than examine the single room, Nelson begins running up the stairs to the top of the lighthouse several steps at a time.
If they left their boots, cloaks, and lamps then nothing good can be going on here. Either someone wanted to put the lighthouse out, which means I want to put the lighthouse on; or they backed up these steps fighting someone and that's why the door is open?
Khalia steps past Garrick and walks into the entry hall, taking a sweep of her gaze around the room. Without warning, Nelson barrels past her and rushes straight through the door ahead and the group can hear him stomp his way up the stairs. Khalia turns to the others in the group and shakes her head in annoyance, and this is returned by a lot of eye rolling and shrugs. For whatever reason, Nelson operates on a different plane of thought than the rest of the group, and thus they have to just let him do his thing. They all silently think to themselves, "Yep, that one's a Luttin all right."
Khalia starts her examination of the room by turning to the small table next to the door. She lifts the two lamps and finds them cool to the touch. When she tries to turn them on, she discovers that neither of them work. Opening one of them up, she finds that it no longer holds any lamp oil. The second lamp is also discovered to be dry as well.
[sblock=Nelson: ]You rush up the four flights of circular stairs and bound through the top door to the lookout loft (Room #1). You find that the light is indeed not on, and is not spinning either. A quick examination of the workings of the light tells you that the gears appear to be still in working order, but when you try to start it up you discover that there is no oil to be found-- not to make the gears work, nor to actually light the light.[/sblock]
Ari keeps his eye on the stair as Nelson takes off and takes a look around. "I'm going to do a floor by floor sweep. I think Nelson has the top already. Taviss, stay with the Lady and Zan; I'll take Garrick with me."
[OOC: CW sweep starting on this floor, just looking for survivors or hostiles. Move up floor by floor. More indepth search after.]
OOC: If you're all splitting up, then please if you don't mind post the order of rooms you each want to travel to so I know where each of you are each round. Just list the room numbers in order (making sure there are doors to get from each of the rooms), plus how long you stay in them to look around (i.e. a single round per room for a Search check roll, taking 20 on Search etc.) Thanx.
Ari warily searches the lighthouse floor by floor, his new sword in hand. Hopefully, Garrick follows as asked.
[OOC: As stated, floor-by-floor sweep clockwise. Not searching, just checking for survivors/hostiles. So, order would be: 13, 14, 15, 11, 12, 13 again; up to 8, 9, 10, 6, 7, then up to 5, 2, 3, 4.]
[OOC: As stated, floor-by-floor sweep clockwise. Not searching, just checking for survivors/hostiles. So, order would be: 13, 14, 15, 11, 12, 13 again; up to 8, 9, 10, 6, 7, then up to 5, 2, 3, 4.]
OOC: Searching the top level further, including looking outside to see if there is anything to see in the distance, and then moving on to 2-3-4-5. I'll also run a skill check/bardic knowledge inbetween there somewhere to see if Nelson knows anything that might take/use/whatever all that oil. The idea of monsters licking the gears comes to mind, but otherwise I'm drawing a blank. Or do they look like they've just naturally dried out somehow? Is there an odor from where they smell like they might have been used once before, or is there the lack of odor you might expect if everything had just been sucked up into the air along with some other bit of magical moisture creepiness?
Edit: The only actual Search check I suppose Nelson is doing is on the lighthouse mechanism proper. The top rooms are just to see if there's anything like dried up lighthouse keeper husks, oily-lipped monsters that want to eat him, or more empty lamps/oil containers to make Nelson go "Hrm".
His longbow in hand and drawn back, Taviss follows Khalia and Ari, motioning for Zan to come along with the group. He scans each room for any threats, and while he will hang back with the spellcasters if Ari continues forward, he'll run and catch up with the swordsman if he hears any sounds of trouble.