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Session 2 - The Mansion of Lord Bleakstaff

• The battle with the highwaymen did not last long; Dongella summoned a celestial monkey, however instead of attacking the enemy it fornicated with a tree thanks to the power on an amulet picked up by Khun'tt the half-orc. With the attackers dead, the party looted their corpses and set off in pursuit of Lambert and the stolen skull.
  
• After several hours of riding Fitz the ranger began to notice that the fields on either side of the trade route were becoming more and more barren; until it came a point where they seemed almost entirely void of life. The only features in the landscape were the occasional eerie-looking scarecrow and an old boarded-up mansion some way off the main trade route.
  
• "There's no life, not even insect life", remarked John the Bard scanning the land for the hope of signs any small sign that something lived here; "nothing but these's scarecrows.".
  
• Consulting his years of travelling and bardic knowledge; Hammond deduced that the mansion on the hill belonged to Lord Bleakstaff, a minor noble whom had died several years previously leaving no heirs.
  
• Curious as to why only scarecrows stood in the barren fields, Azreal Shackleton went up to one of the scarecrows and began to investigate. Khun'tt wanting to help out wandered over and set fire to the straw man. Oddly the fire seemed to cause no damage to the body of the scarecrow; it simply remained on fire while not burning. Its hollow pumpkin eyes seeming pointing in the direction of the party.
  
• Somewhat perturbed by this turn of events the party decided to investigate Lord Bleakstaff's mansion; to see if the answer to why the land was so barren and eerie lay within.
  
• Dongella summoned a celestial badger to scout the path leading to the mansion. There was a sudden squeal and pop as the summoned creature fell down a spiked pit in front of the double front doors; unsummoning upon its death. Tentatively the wizard, Djarana pushed open the doors, narrowly ducking under a large, wooden log that swung out - presumably placed there to push the unwary into the pit.
  
• Before entering the mansion, the party surveyed the land once more; was it a trick of the light or had the scarecrows in the surrounding fields now all turned to face the mansion?
  " Fearing something unnatural was taking place in the mansion the party ventured forth. The walls of the mansion were littered with old paintings of Lord Kelvin Bleakstaff and his ancestors while all the furniture and ornaments were laced with cobwebs; no one had been in this house in years.
  
• Scarntlat cast "detect magic" and led the party to a grand dining room completed with a grand piano. The surge of magic came from the piano and a five foot by five foot stone section of the floor.
  
• The party began to search around the room when Djarana spotted that scratched under the lid of the piano was a bizarre phrase "I am the most musical of all vegetables".
  
• After much debating John the Bard concluded that it must be a "cabbage" as all its letters are musical keys. Playing these notes on the grand piano caused a small section of the stone floor to grind open; revealing a dark pit leading downwards.
  
• Khun'tt stepped outside for some fresh air and was greeted by the sight of seven of the scarecrows standing in a circle around the door, totally motionless. One of them was still on fire. Uncaring, Khun'tt begins to wander down the path past the scarecrows and onto the trade route.
  
• Meanwhile inside the mansion, Hammond the bard could hear scuttling noises within the pit; he dropped an arrow with a "light" spell on it to see what was down there; whatever it was there were hundreds of them, they swarmed over the arrow blocking out the light.
  
• Taking no chances, Azreal pours a canister of lantern oil down the pit and drops a lit torch. Hundreds of tiny fires erupt at the bottom of the hole; incinerating whatever was moving down there.
  
• The party begin to lower each other down, first down are the two clerics, followed by the thief, Hammond the bard and Azreal. As John the Bard is about Djarana down the scarecrows burst into the room, no longer inanimate and flailing wildly with their long arms. At the same exact moment several ghouls and a ghast burst through a stone door at the bottom of the pit.
  
• In the ensuing fight Fitz the ranger is paralysed by one of the ghouls but rescued by the holy power of the clerics; Deliah chose the fighting as an opportunity to steal a ring from the possession of Dongella, only to be injured by a ghoul in the process. Meanwhile at the top of the pit, Djarana is mortally wounded by one of the scarecrows while John the Bard is knocked unconscious by another.
  
• Before the scarecrows can kill both of the adventurers Khun'tt kicks through the door and engages into combat with the constructs, destroying several with her great axe before pushing two down the pit where they explode into hay and wood upon hitting the pit floor. She then leads the remaining scarecrows out of the mansion; managing to lock them out, leaving them scratching at the door.
  
• The party members downstairs finished destroying the ghouls while Deliah attempted to flee back up the rope, only to be knocked off it by a falling scarecrow and left in a critical state. Dongella went to heal Deliah; only to notice that the thief had stolen a ring from her.
  
• Khun'tt now turned her attention to the two injured party members at the top of the pit; she sucked the last remaining life force from Djarana and pushed his corpse down the pit. Afterwards she shook John the Bard awake and whispered "I saved your life; you owe me", to him.
  
• In the mud at the bottom of the pit, John the Bard found an ornate violin called "Saracen's Violin".
  
• Gathered again at the bottom of the pit, the party buried their fallen comrade and began to explore the dungeon underneath the mansion. Hammond noticed several mosaics depicting the life of Lord Bleakstaff: he ruled over a small farming village, until times became hard and he was eventually crucified by his own people. The last mosaic shown Lord Bleakstaff reborn; alone in his village surrounded by scarecrows.