My silver is safe, and Faerxan needs to pay up! Which, um, is, um, absolutely not more important than our rescuing baby Walter. For sure.

After clearing out the rest of the Durst manor, there was only one other possible place for us to check: the secret stairs in the attic leading down, down, down, deep into the depths of the house, beyond the foundations and into the crypts below. Because of course the "monster" threatening the certainly-dead baby would be in the creepy basement. It's always in the attic or the basement. Villains never politely introduce themselves, extend a hand in greeting, and suggest tea before engaging in combat. That would actually be... a really nice turn of events that I'm not holding my breath waiting for. In the meantime, creepy basement.

At the bottom of the stairs, there were six crypts. Four coffins were in perfect little cubbies, complete with name plates, just ready for the children's bodies to be interred. Rose was having none of it, however. Something about the place being too scary to want to stay forever. Maybe what she really said was that the place was cursed, po-tay-to, po-tah-to. The smell of putrefaction and guttural growling sounds and general ambiance of horror lent a note of credence to what she said. Despite LITERALLY having an engraved invitation to bury them in their own crypts, we kept going with the children and Matilda's bodies in tow.

The source of the stench was found to be a two-fold problem. On one hand, the elder Dursts were, apparently, dirty, filthy people. Being part of some horrible cult of necromancers aside, they were just disgusting people. The entire basement floor was littered with chewed on bones, giving one the impression that these cultists killed a lot of people. Then just left the bodies/dismembered parts lying about wherever! Nasty enough by itself, even without the possible implication that maybe these cultists were EATING their victims?? More good news, the other source of the stench was from four ghouls that rushed us from the next room.

Avery was the clear hero of that fight. While I greatly appreciated all the magical resources my friends spent on me to keep me alive, and as always, Moss was a whirlwind of deadly hands and feet... I never would have thought of putting a bloody campfire in a doorway! That's brilliant! But the best thing that's happened in this whole house was getting to watch Avery attempt to maintain his manly composure while making tiny squeaks and bashing a slug-monster to death with a stick after it jumped out of a cupboard at Allynia.

Further into the cultists' lair were some long-abandoned "bedrooms" filled each with a rotting bed and footlocker. There were a few trinkets of value: a silvered short sword, an eyepatch with a jewel in it, an ivory hairbrush, a pouch of coins, and an assortment of gemstones. As we made our way further into the depths of the cultists' maze of halls, a low chanting could be heard from the west.

He is the ancient; he is the land. He is the ancient; he is the land.

Oh, and I also found an utterly bullshit pit trap in the floor, dropping 15 feet onto a bed of spikes. Because who puts that in their home?? Fortunately, I was the one wandering in front. I have a pretty thick head, so landing on it doesn't bother me as much as it might to some of the others. But damn, that really hurt.

Around another series of corners was a statue of whom I can only assume was the aforementioned "He". There was a very elaborate wooden statue of a handsome man, perhaps some sort of noble dressed in crimson and black, with one hand atop the head of a giant wolf, the other turned up holding a crystal orb. The room looked to be some sort of torture chamber, with skeletons chained to the walls.

It took all of us about two seconds to look at the massive crystal and go "traaaaap", backing away slowly. Yeah, we touch that thing, and poison darts shoot up from the floor, our eyeballs melt out of our skulls, rocks fall, and everyone dies. Or you touch the sacred orb on the evil altar, and the statue comes to life. Even if he's a hottie, he's probably an evil hottie that would then murder us all.

So Faerxan was ushered out of the room under threat of violence so he couldn't touch the thing.

"Safe" once more, we made our way into what appeared to be the "master bedroom"? There were large portraits of the Lord and Lady of the house on the walls, a large, decaying bed, and a chest full of more goodies. Because you really can't take it with you. Unless you become a lich.

Cassandra picked up some sort of cloak to examine when we have more free time. Avery took a hooded lantern, and Moss took a set of thieves' tools. Allynia picked up a leather book that she said was some sort of spellbook. There was a mess kit and a chain shirt, as well as a flask of Liquid Boom Juice and four portions of I'm Not Dead Yet.

There was also an angry note, presumably from Elizabeth Durst, stating "she" did this to me, and that she would "make her suffer" by taking "the thing she loves most". We all assumed the lady of the house was off her nut and killed the baby in some horrifying cult ritual to the hottie statue with the bedroom eyes and killer crystal orb. Or at least, that's my assumption. May not have shared that with the group yet.

In the lowest depths, there was a bizarre circle of what could only be described as ritualistic ... garbage. Seriously, garbage. A rusty dagger, a broken feather, some eyeball-thing, what looked like a fang. None of it appeared to be magical. With a great deal of effort, we were able to force open the portcullis separating the Circle of Mundane from a sunken room with standing water and an altar.

As I approached the altar, a dozen or so ghostly forms of (presumably) the dead cultists appeared. Their chant of the ancient and land changed to "One must die" instead. Decision made, I drew my sword, pointed at the one immediately across the altar from me, and declared him as the target marked for death, ready to charge him. Unfortunately, the undead chorus didn't approve of my answer. Instead, they hissed back, "Then all must die!"

And then that's when shit really went wrong.