A cold and miserable night, with the damp getting into every crevice left everyone exhausted. Krisanna picked the left side of the villa to explore, with everything covered in moss and barely recognisable. We could just about make out some weather worn frescos of some large black hounds loping through a forest leaving red footprints. Mmmm, suspicious.
There was a large tree growing through the roof of the first room. Makander spotted some glowing masks hidden amongst the roots while all Orla spotted was a midge that flew into her eye. Krisanna wanted to try one but Makander insisted on a more cautious approach.
The masks turned out to be suspiciously life like (and somehow warm) alabaster death masks of various figures, male, female and androgynous, including one with a crown. Could this be Lucius the Cryptwood tyrant? Suspiciouser and suspiciouser.
Leaving the stairs for now, we looked at the next room with a stone door and some more detail visible in the frescos with some horrific looking dogs. Krisanna knocked politely and entered, seeing some old books and a heraldic crest on the wall depicting a rearing brown bear with an oak crown. She found an old genealogy book and a stoppered tube. Meanwhile Aodhan heard huntsmen approaching so we bravely hid while they rode into the courtyard. One of them shouted what sounded like 'Elora' which was answered by someone at the other end of the villa.
Krisanna greeted them to see if it was Sly George but the leader claimed to be someone called 'Dave'. Elora turned out to be in a sorry state but we didn't have anything to heal her grievous wound. We decided not to attack 'Dave' and shared a bit of information about the hounds.
They rode off and we continued exploring the villa, finding a bath house with a more or less intact ceiling with another fresco of three mermaids with green eyes. There was a large wheel that turned out a sort of tap and turning them unleased a torrent of stagnant water which was swiftly turn off. The last room contained two very dead flying monkeys. Yuck.
It had been too long without treasure so Krisanna wiggled her nose and confirmed that there were shiny things waiting downstairs. We made our way down into a dark chamber with more frescoes visible. This one had several figures of different kinds, each one mutilated in some way. Even more yuck.
We followed the sound of running water into a room with a pool with some ominous splashing from something moving around (and possibly squawking). We then headed east, then north into a room with broken glass and a wall lined with mirrors. Krisanna immediately went to check her reflection noticing that something was snoring. She unfortunately crunched some of the glass and the snoring stopped. Fortunately whatever it was went back to sleep.
The mirror turned out to be magic containing Lord Lucius himself, claiming to be king of all the woods. He tired of Krisanna's attempts to find out about his treasure and the mirror exploded, as the sleeping beast exploded from the passage to the north. A eagle-bear! (Definitely not an owl bear - who would believe something stupid like that?)
The Eaglebear was tough, but Krisanna managed to back stab it while Aodhan loosed off a surprisingly effective fireball followed by Bastonn's dragonslayer move covering Krisanna in entrails. Yuck yuck yuck.
We pushed on into its lair, with some grim taxidermied heads on the wall. Krisanna straightened the crooked bear's head and was rewarded with a satisfying click from somewhere (possibly to the west) where (possibly) there were some animated skulls playing I spy. We took them out to a nicer spot (with more choices for I Spy words) and in return they told us of a secret door in the bottom shelf of the ossuary.
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