How does one define "in need of rescue"? Two silver pieces are on the line based upon semantics! That may or may not make Faerxan and me bad people...

Allynia, being a kinder and more considerate soul, agreed to wait outside and protect the children, Rosa and Thornbolt Durst, while the rest of us went inside to look for the children's parents. The pair were terrified that a monster was in the house and that it was going to hurt their baby brother. It was agreed that we should go inside, try to find their parents, or at least ensure that the baby was safe. From outside, yes, the manor house looked a bit spooky, but one could say that of many things during a thunderstorm. Right?

We went in rather cautiously. Cassandra was tall enough to peer into a window, while I and Faerxan entered the foyer. There was a portrait of a family: mother, father, and the two children, although a few years younger than they were now. I, logically, assumed that the painting was simply done before baby Walter was born. Faerxan decided that the children were liars, luring innocent bystanders to their sticky dooms, and that there is no brother, only devious falsehoods. We argued about this off and on as we wandered from room to room, looking for the elder Dursts. Ultimately, this led to a small gentlemen's wager on the existence of said brother and/or his need for help. I... honestly don't remember exactly what was said. See above comment that we may or may not be bad people.

Regardless! We searched through numerous rooms and made such a ruckus doing it, that I almost doubt there's actually a "monster" in the house. It would surely have come after us as we tromped about for a couple hours with no real attempt at subtlety. We went through pretty much every room in the place and found quite a bit of interest:

On the first floor, Faerxan booped the snoots of several taxidermied wolves with little result, while Avery eyed some bottles of wine labeled "Purple Mash" and "Dragon Crush". We found a dining hall laid out with an elaborate but untouched meal, a cupboard, a kitchen with food and implements of preparation all laid out but abandoned. As we walked through, Avery did that magic thing of his and searched about while the rest of us did it the more mundane way. He pointed out a magic harp and piano in some sort of ballroom or music conservatory on the second floor. A journal was resting on the magic piano that had begun playing a tune when we entered. A quick inspection of the journal proved largely fruitless, as it detailed only the dull day-to-day activities of one Elizabeth Durst. The final passage, however, was written in a shaky script, saying something about "his" betrayal and "SHE did this to me" and people were "going to pay for that." The date on the journal was 200 BC, which was quite unusual, as we all agreed that the date was 1480 DR. So. That's a thing.

Faerxan reiterated his suspicion of literally everything in the house.

Across the hall was a library with a painting of a windmill, a desk with an iron key that Faerxan pocketed, numerous ledgers, and bookshelves with various treatises on mercantile...things...that I didn't care about. I was much more interested in a false book that I found hidden amongst the others. Behind it was a bizarre, octagonal key slot. Unfortunately, despite my best efforts, I wasn't able to pick the lock. Everyone was informed to keep an eye out for an octagonal key as we continued our search. Fortunately, Avery continued his ritual magic detection thingy-do as we made our way up to the third floor. There, he was then able to point out the most beautiful, perfect, gorgeous suit of magical full plate armor on the third floor landing... which then tried to shove Faerxan off the landing.

By "tried to shove", I mean Faerxan took a painful dive down two floors. Happily, a large stone statue broke his fall. Ouch. Together, we were able to make fairly fast work of it, and I cried as the armor fell apart into nothingness.

Unlike the floors below, which had been pristine, the third floor was filled with cobwebs, broken furniture, wallpaper faded with age, and cloth on the verge of disintegrating. In the first bedroom there, Faerxan found a jewelry box with some jewelry and a suspiciously octagonal gemstone. Unfortunately, in that room, we also found a skeleton hanging from the chandelier, its skull fallen to the floor a few feet away. Clutched in its hand was a letter naming him as Gustav Durst (presumably Elizabeth's husband), and he expressed his regrets for cheating on his wife with the maid, Matilda. He said that his wife had been obsessed with some sort of cult, and he hoped the children "didn't suffer". Cue Faerxan's insistence that this place was suspicious, the children were suspicious, and there wasn't actually a baby Walter. I said there was, he said there wasn't, I said uh-huh, he said your mom, and now there's a whole 2sp on the line re: baby Walter and does he need saving from anything. See above comment on what "needing help" means.

Possibly the most interesting thing that we found was a mirror in the other bedroom on this floor. When we looked into it, we could see the...ghost? Spirit? Apparition of a woman with all her fingers removed and her tongue cut out. She was able to communicate that she was Matilda, the maid; that Elizabeth Durst had done these things to her; and when asked where Walter was, she pointed to the side where a door began to open on its own.

There was a brief discussion amongst the group: is it smart to follow the ominous directions of a ghost, should we go upstairs, are we all stupid? The short answer appears to be yes. We looked in one more room before heading upstairs. There was a small side room off of Matilda's bedroom which held a crib, from which we could hear a baby crying. Against Avery's advise, Faerxan went to investigate. Again, 2sp are on the line! Unfortunately for me, there was no baby in the crib, so we all headed upstairs into the attic. And that's where this crazy shit got worse.

In the locked room, which oddly enough opened with the key Faerxan found downstairs, we saw a pair of child-sized skeletons on the ground, one of them clutching a misshapen plush toy in its tiny hands. A magnificently detailed dollhouse caught my eye, while a chest immediately drew Faerxan's attention. As soon as he began looking through it, however, the ghosts of the two children appeared in the room. They had been locked in by their mother "so the monster wouldn't get them", but then Elizabeth never returned to let them out. They still insisted that their baby brother was trapped inside with a "monster" (my silver is not yet lost!), and they begged us to take them with us to find baby Walter. Surprisingly, Avery caved, the big softy, and the bones were wrapped up for travel. The spirits were able to point out a few key locations on the dollhouse, which was an expertly crafted replica of their home. With a well-laid half-assed plan, we set out once more, heading back downstairs to take another look at that secret panel in the library now that we had the key.

On the way down, we ran into Allynia, who had come back into the house in a flustered state, saying that she and the children had gotten separated. She was very upset about having lost them in such a dangerous place, but Faerxan helpfully told her not to worry because the kids were dead. He's a blunt dragon, and a dragon on a mission to find more treasure. We did find a few nice things hidden away in that secret room and a few not-so-nice things in there. The Dursts had a rather extensive secret library of fairly evil tomes on necromancy. Something about the Priests of Osybus. The magicky people in the group put their heads together, and consensus was that the name struck a chord, but not really? Something about a powerful necromancer. While they debated, I investigated the chest in there with the dead body draped across it. The very dead man had nothing useful on him, but in the trunk were some scrolls (passed out among the spellcasters), a letter (which I kept), and a thick packet of papers that went to Faerxan.

The packet was a will and deed to the Durst property, naming Rose and Thorn the heirs who would inherit their parents' holdings. Not so useful to them, since they're dead now, too. The letter was from one Strahd von Zarovich, which chastised the Dursts for their involvement in a cult, sacrificing people on a bloody altar in an attempt to seek immortality. Basically, this guy refused to help them in a rather snarky tone, going so far as to sign it "your dread lord and master". Whoever he was, he certainly knew how to tell someone to piss off.

About that time, Moss informed us that he could hear something going bump-in-the-night upstairs. Cue us all turning around and hustling back upstairs to search the three remaining rooms in the attic. There was little there. Faerxan found an exquisite ceramic doll with a tag reading "von Weerg", presumably the crafter's name, and in another room, he found the body of the maid, sans phalanges, stuffed in a trunk. Adding her skeletal remains to the bundle of children's bones, we headed for the only remaining passage -- a staircase leading down into darkness.