"Whoa," Sarqen yelled as Yirki took a shot at him. "Yirki, you have tried shooting me."
Nate took a few steps back and quietly moved up the stairs as Yirki yelled and tried to fire again before his pistol misfired.
At the top of the steps, he stood and listened for a while. After a cheer and an exclamation about a key, the party moved further into the house. Nate took a look at his surroundings and saw a few doors and a stairwell up to the attic.
"Where were you keeping your writings, Kandor," Nate said as he walked without a sound.
The first door was slightly ajar, but a quick look through the opening showed that the entire room was caved in, and the door rendered unopenable.
Let's hope they weren't in there, he thought.
The next room was a room full of dolls and a large crying portrait. He popped his head in the room and blood started to pour from her eyeballs as the dolls' heads all turned to look at Nate.
He grunted as he nodded at the inhabitants of the room before stepping back and closing the door.
He heard Yirki yell from downstairs, followed by the sound of a cleaver striking the kitchen counter.
Nate shook his head and moved to the final door. The door was locked, but he picked the lock with ease and moved inside. He found himself in what looked like a study: a large wooden desk was in the center of the room, and bookshelves lined the walls except for a large bay window that had a view over the trees. The room smelled of stale death, with a trap door uncovered in the corner with blackened bloodstains streaked across the floor towards it.
Nate heard the party moving back into the hallway towards the stairs, so he grabbed what looked like a small ball of vines from his pocket and threw it at the door. As it hit the door, vines started to grow and entangle the door, wrapping it and the surrounding wall in a strong interlocking pattern.
He turned back to the desk and moved over to it and began to search for the switch he had read about. He ran his fingers along the wood grain, tracing the lines as they ran along the desktop and over the edge like a waterfall.
Then he saw it: a small, almost imperceptible indent in the woodgrain. When he looked up, he realized he was no longer alone.
In front of him stood a pale figure, hunched forward, wrapped in royal robes. He had three additional arms, white hair that hung over his face, and a circlet with red jewels rested on his head. As he reached out, it looked as though his arms were wrapped in pulsing red veins. He moaned as he stepped forward.
"Feed the beast," the figure said as he stepped forward, revealing extra legs under the cloak. "We are the feast."
The figure launched forward at Nate, who pushed the button on the desk. The desktop unlocked, revealing it to be a hinged lid. Nate lifted up the top, hitting the figure in the face just as it was about to bite him, which caused the figure to stumble back.
Nate quickly glanced inside seeing an ornate black and silver reliquary, next to a black leather book, both wrapped in the same pulsing red veins as the figure.
He swiped both out of the desk, closed it quickly, and glanced back at the figure who was now stumbling. It seemed as though he was struggling to keep his form intact as portions of his skin almost started to ooze like his body were a lake and the dam holding it broke.
"We cannot sustain," the figure moaned in pain. "We need more of us. We need to feast!"
The figure charged forward again, his form quickly changing from the multi-limbed humanoid to more of a blob. Nate took some steps to the left and cast a spell over a dagger as he unsheathed it. He sidestepped the figure who had lost control of his momentum, and Nate stabbed him in the back with an explosion of bright radiant energy sending him at the trap door in the corner.
The figure tried to regain his composure as Nate quickly scanned the mechanism, tracing it to a hidden lever within his arm's reach.
"We must—" the figure started to say just as Nate pulled the lever, causing the floor to drop out from under the now amorphous blob as it plummeted into the darkness, landing seconds later with a wet thud.
Nate reset the trap door and looked at the book and box now in his possession. He opened the reliquary to look at what was inside before being interrupted by the sounds of Sarqen and Cedric becoming frightened in the next room.
He tucked the items away and moved to the bay window. Just as the party started smashing dolls next door, Nate smashed the window and climbed down to the ground floor. He waited for a while until the party came down the stairs, and he walked in following close behind.
They made it to the basement and saw the writhing figure, now almost tripled in size from when it fell down the trap door. The ghosts of the house surrounded and banished him as the group looked on in disgust and surprise.
"Wow, that was fucked," Nate said as the group realized he had come back. "What'd I miss?"