Meeting Mrs. Foxglove

“Meeting Mrs. Foxglove”
Rise of the Runelords episode
Episode no.	Episode 30
Date	2009
Game Master	Abbe
Characters	Dorothea Honeypot Nathaniel Nell Velicia
Episode chronology ← Previous Next → "In My Room" "Aldern Foxglove"
Rise of the Runelords chapter list

In this chapter the heroes search the top floor and encounter Aldern's wife.

Meeting Mrs. Foxglove

Standing in the hallway on the second floor of the foxglove manor Dorothea looked around and behaved stranger than usual. She then said that something was part shadowfell. I have no Idea what she meant by that. The next room we looked into was a guest room filled with mold. Dorothea put a handkerchief over her nose and mouth and entered. She said that the mold attacked but she knew it was an illusion. Velicia said that I still looked pale and very shook up so she consoled me.

The next room we looked into was a bathroom. In the middle there was a heavy looking iron bathtub. Someone wondered
"How strange to have a bathtub on the upper floor."
Velicia entered the room to look in the bathtub, but before leaving the doorway she heard some creaking and grabbed hold of the door post as the floor gave way. When the dust settled we peeked down. It looked as if there was a bathroom below too and the tub landed on another tub. There were strange scratching sounds coming from below. We figured it was a rat trapped in the other tub, and sure enough soon a rat found it's way out and sat up sniffing upwards toward us. It was horribly disfigured, missing half it's face and obviously ghoulish. Velicia quickly filled both rooms with her magical fire burning everything in there, instantly killing the rat.

Then we continued along the hallway which ended in two doors. Dorothea tried the left one but it was locked. Nathaniel, Velicia and Honeypot tried the other and found a room where all the furniture was smashed to pieces. Most of the room was broken as if hit by someone with a sword in rage, but a painting looked to have beem spared, but hung the wrong way, facing the wall. Dorothea unlocked the door and told us there were stairs leading further up behind it. Velicia used her magical hand to turn the painting on the wall from a distance. It was a painting of a woman that looked different from most of the others of the Foxglove family. She had raven black hair and a definite rhenne look.

The painting of Iesha Foxglove.

Nathaniel, Honeypot and Velicia went up to the painting to get a closer look. Suddenly Velicia backed away and Nathaniel struck out at Honeypot, missing her wildly. Then he snapped out of it. There was a name on the painting, Iesha Foxglove. It seemed to be no older than a few years. Velicia turned it facing the wall again.

We continued up the stairs. The first room we looked into had a broken roof. There had been some repairs done, but there were much still needed. Then there were several storerooms, followed by a bedroom for servants. Those had not been used for a long time. The next room was some kind of study. There were a desk and chair. Two windows were facing the sea and as before were painted. A knocked over telescope lay below a trapdoor in the roof that had been tied down with several wraps of rope. The room had probably been used as an observatory earlier.

The next room was yet another bedroom for servants. The sobbing came from this room. There was a mirror leaning against the wall. In front of it a woman sat staring at herself in the mirror, sobbing. Dorothea who had been first, entered muttering something about taking care of our own. She tried talking to the woman but she didn't react at all. I asked if she was a ghost but Velicia or Dorothea answered that she wasn't insubstantial, whatever that is, and that she probably was some other sort of undead being. Nathaniel moved the mirror and turned it facing the wall. The woman screamed in anger and swore a curse at Aldern. I readied my dagger and got prepared to defend myself in the doorway where I stood. Iesha, as we had guessed that the woman was stood up and walked out of the room with firm steps. When she approached me, I opened the door behind me and backed into the room taking cover behind the door post. She walked right past me and the others followed her closely. Velicia stopped in front of me and stared into the room I was in. I looked behind me discovering that it was a library with strange things and quickly left, dragging Velicia with me.

She led us downstairs, through the entrance hall, where I noted a strange monkey head with something in it's mouth and a big mold spot on the floor. Avoiding stepping in it we continued down into the cellar. As Iesha stopped slightly, opening a door we were attacked by hoards of rats. They came from everywhere flooding the room. I didn't stay to check but I guessed they were as disease ridden as the one we saw earlier so I threw my dagger killing one, making the rats next to it hesitate a little, and then retreated back up the stairs. There were some fighting downstairs and I saw Nathaniel move into view below the stairs. He was sweeping wide with his burning sword killing several of rats with each sweep. Velicia also did something similar with her elven longsword and soon lots of rats lay dead all over the floor. I returned down the stairs and threw a dagger into another moving rat as I moved on, following Iesha. But before I could catch up Honeypot ran past me. Soon I was back to second to last.

We followed her through a room with more painted windows. There were a lot of broken glass and cages with dead rats in them. As we went down another corridor I noticed a stench of rotten flesh that increased. I felt a chill and called out a warning, but I don't think anything happened up front. The corridor led to a structure that was older than the rest of the house. A new set of stairs spiraled down.