Act 2 / Episode 1 - The Wizard's Estate, Part 1 (July 16, 2014)

When the companions arrived at the front door to the late wizard Hunclay’s estate, they found the charred, contorted remains of the dead kobold they had spotted when the Witch Tower first collapsed still lying on the manor’s doorstep. The edifice was unwelcoming and foreboding, made of thick limestone walls and without any windows at all, save for the strange glass dome that crowned the manor three stories up. The clearcut land around the hilltop where it was perched (and nearby ruins of the Witch Tower) made the place seem all the more desolate. Clearly, the wizard had been unconcerned with the views of either the Shelynites or the Green Faith.

As the heroes prepared to check the entryway for traps, a pale-faced old woman shuffled up the path behind them, and asked in a dull monotone whether she could finally dispose of the kobold’s corpse. The companions were puzzled by the request, and asked the woman who she was, and why she wanted to take the remains. She introduced herself, still in the same dull tone, as Calladastina Honas, the undertaker, and declared that she lived at the Sunset House by the cemetery that one passes when going to Devy Manor. She had been instructed to leave the body until further notice, and wondered whether the party had any further need for it... it was rather unsightly and should be disposed of without delay. The party asked Calladastina to leave it until they had completed their investigation of the wizard’s manor, and the old woman just shrugged and shuffled despondently back the way she came.

Calladastina Honas, the despondent undertaker

Iacobus and Jiri inspected the double doors and entryway very closely, and found no activation mechanism for the trap that had burned the kobold alive. They suspected that  after it had been triggered, the trap had not been reset. Holding their breaths and hoping for the best, Jiri unlocked the door with one of the keys found on the wizard’s body, and was relieved to find that the door opened easily... with no unpleasant consequences. 

Jiri (?) and Akiro (?) took a few steps beyond the threshold, into a grand hall illuminated by magical globes set at regular intervals along the walls. The floor of the well-appointed hall were adorned with two expensive Qadiran rugs and decorated with several overstuffed leather sofas. Two dozen paintings with gilded frames hung on the walls, portraits and landscapes and images of colourful globes against starry backgrounds (one of which supposedly represented Golarion?), all of exquisite artistry. A large bird cage sat at the very far end of the room, to the north. Wooden doors opened to the east and west, and an elaborate spiral staircase of iron both ascended and descended in the southeast corner.

A small selection of paintings found in the grand hall

As Jiri and Akiro scanned the room, Shalora (Jiri?) murmured a few words in order to become attuned to any magical auras present in the room... and found that in addition to the feint red aura coming from the light globes (indicating evocation magic), a feint orange aura radiated from the bird cage (abjuration magic)... and a green aura (conjuration magic) in a ten-foot square area where Jiri and Akiro stood! Before they could be warned, a gaping pit thirty feet deep opened over the section of carpet upon which they stood, but both managed to leap off the edges to safety, as the edges dropped inward. After a minute or so, the pit closed and vanished. A thorough search of the room revealed a lever hidden behind one of the paintings deemed to be the mechanism for activating and deactivating the magical pit trap, and a small silver charm (the source of the abjuration aura) attached by a string to one of the dead songbirds found in the cage at the north end of the room (and which presumably died of starvation or thirst). 

The companions then made a quick but thorough investigation of the east wing of the main floor, searching the kitchen and a well-stocked larder, neither of which contained anything of value beyond expensive silverware and dinnerware. They also found a nook behind a curtain in the kitchen, which housed a pair of cots and two chests with cheap locks, within which Iacobus found humble and worthless possessions that probably belonged to servants... which made the companions wonder, where were the servants?

Beside the pantry, the companions expended a great deal of effort pushing open a door that was blocked on the other side by a heavy wooden armoire. The small room beyond looked like a combination of bedroom and linen closet. The companions almost did not notice the man who lay unconscious under the bed. The heroes helped the severely dehydrated man regain consciousness and Shalora provided him with water. The man, whose name was Mathezic, was terrified. He said he was the wizard Hunclay’s valet, and that he panicked, barricaded himself in the room and hid under the bed shortly after the Witch Tower collapsed. Mathezic was originally from Faldamont, where Hunclay hired him on his way to Belhaim years ago. He was afraid of his master, but was also desperate for employment.  Yet he also feared that his master had died in the collapse, as the latter had had been employing kobolds to undermine the foundations of the tower and had gone underground with them shortly before the collapse occurred. Afterwards, a lone kobold crept to the door and tried picking the lock, but was burned to death by one of the master’s traps. It’s at that point that he barricaded himself in his room and hid under the bed. Mathezic kept hearing strange sounds coming from elsewhere in the manor, and he feared to leave his room. He tearfully reported that Hunclay had contact with many other unsavoury and supernatural parties for his research, which he believed “had something to do with the stars.” He did not know what exactly those entities were, as he and the other servants were forbidden from accessing certain parts of the manor... nor had they the desire to. The valet had lost track of time and eventually passed out under the bed. Mathezic confirmed that Hunclay had two other servants--Linus and Saba Ekele, but he did not know what became of them. Now that outsiders had made it into the manor, he did not want to spend a moment longer in it.

Mathezic, the wizard Hunclay's fearful servant

The party agreed that it would be best for them to briefly halt their investigation, so that Mathezic could be escorted to the constabulary, where they could take a statement. Iacobus led him there, explained to Sheriff Benhovy the circumstances under which they had found the man, and asked if the constabulary would look after him and take a statement from him. Iacobus added that he was in a hurry to get back to his companions so that they could continue the task of securing the wizard’s estate, which the Baroness hired them to do, since no one else in town was capable of doing the job. The Sheriff took in Mathezic, but glowered wordlessly at Iacobus.

A search of the west wing of the main floor (dining room and parlor) revealed no threats and little of interest, aside from a huge globe of Golarion cradled in a polished mahogany stand (did the crazy wizard seriously belive the world was a globe?), astrolabes, and paintings of landscapes on the walls--some of vast deserts (dining room), others of unearthly places (parlor). 

Paintings found in the dining room

Paintings found in the parlour

As the party made their way back to the grand hall, they became concerned when they saw a bluish white mist starting to swirl down the spiral staircase from the second floor...