In Which Sorel Also Finds Out That the Manor Has a Pervy Sense of Humor

So once again we’re standing in front of Tegel Manor. It’s a day later, our base camp in the outbuilding is a little better provisioned, and we are the only adventuring party in the world that has identical twin amazons. All day long, they thought it was funny to switch weapons, since that was the only way to tell them apart. It’s not like I ever told any deep dark secrets to either of them, so I saw it as a joke. Sorel, on the other hand, seems even more hot and bothered than usual. Qual sees the whole episode as a meaningless distraction. He just wants to get back into the manor, kill some things, and take their stuff.

We entered by the back door again and decided to check out some of the doors along the long hallway. The first room contained a long-dead orc hanging from the ceiling and some giant rats. Not much challenge there. The room to the south was a bit more of a challenge. In what had been a bedroom, there was a Black Pudding. We had fought oozes before, and we knew what to do, but that did not make it any easier. We knew that the slimy creature would corrode any weapon we hit it with, so we all switched to backup arms. With flame and club, we beat it down. Of course it split into smaller blobs, so that made teamwork really important. Aleandra and Qual both got slimed on her legs, leaving really nasty injuries. Potions helped put them right.

There was a statue of a woman in that room, a real looker. Qual went to check it out once his leg was better, and you could tell that it was magical when he went all rigid upon touching it. A second later, he was talking in such an imperious manner that even Sorel took offense. Then there was the sashaying. Dwarves don’t sashay. Ever. So, duh, do you think he was possessed? We had to give our dwarf a beat-down to subdue him. When we got him to speak clearly, he said that he was Rhian the Remorseless, a Rump from a century before. She was the babe depicted in the statue. I convinced her that she really didn’t want to be a dwarf, but that we would find a suitable host body for her. I told her about the hot serving wench in town whose body she could use. She didn’t really have a choice, as she had a whole party ready to slay her. She went back to the statue. Then we smashed it. I mean, really. Don’t fuck with my dwarf.

The next room was artificially chilly. It was a well-preserved bedroom. This one had a wax effigy of Rhian on the bed. We did not touch it. If I got one lesson from Tegel Manor it was this: DON’T TOUCH ANY FREAKIN’ STATUES!

The next room was even colder. It contained a bunch of weapons, some of which detected as magic. We stashed them—a hand-axe, a dagger, and a short sword—for later. The door slammed shut behind us, and we faced the unpleasant prospect of freezing to death. Judicious application of brute force on the door eventually opened it. I suggested to the Amazons that we huddle together for warmth. I’m not sure which one of them kneed me in the nuts, but it was totally uncalled for.

A giant frog was in the next room. Why, I don’t know. We were far from a swamp. But I had given up on using logic to make sense of my manor. As if to reward me for my suspension of disbelief, the slimy bastard nearly ate me. I found out what the inside of a frog looks like, and I got bludgeoned as Qual and Aleandra cut me out.

The next room was kind of cool, if somewhat frustrating. It was nothing but quarters for the servants, but it looked like someone had trashed it. Turns out that gravity periodically reversed in there. So we fall up. We fall down. We fall up. We fall down. We fall up... well, you get the picture. We eventually caught on, too. I sort of want to keep that enchantment when I take over this place. Could be fun, in the right circumstances.

We found a grisly trophy room next, where two giant beetles were hiding inside a stuffed octopus. Not too much trouble. A painting in the next room came to life. It was a battle scene, and a few arrows came flying out of it. One hit Sorel. I thought that was funny. In response, he threatened to turn me into a pig.

Next we find a chapel or something, off that hall with the talking pictures. Not much to say about it. No lingering evils or bound demons to menace us. We did find three magical animal masks—a falcon, a wolf, and a tiger. Sorel convinced me they were safe, so I tried the tiger mask on. OF COURSE I couldn’t get it off, and it transformed my face so I look like a tiger. On the plus side, it made me stronger and quicker. On the down side, I had to put up with the laughter of everyone else. I said it was a good time to go back to town. Everyone reluctantly agreed. So it looks like our little camp is never really going to see any use if we keep getting transformed like we do.

In which Ev getws a new start as an Amazon babe

Well, the next day could have gone better. We found a priestess in town who had the ability to dispel curses and evil magic. She was a doddering old grandma’, but the locals spoke highly of her. She certainly seemed to know her curses. Anyhow, she spends the better part of an hour looking at Evrian, then comes out and tells us there’s nothing she can do. There’s no trace of magic left on her to dispel. In other words, the statue didn’t just polymorph Ev, it completely changed her essence. Without a wish or a miracle, Ev was going to be stuck as an Amazon babe.

(Have I mentioned that I was not complaining? Sorel seemed happy with the situation, too. )

Ev went completely off the deep end. She even cried, right there in front of us. Then when I pointed out it was a girly thing to do, Aleandra goes and belts me in the mouth. Then they both start bawling. Gods. Ev is more upset about being human than about the sex change (I’ll stand by my remarks re: Elven androgyny). I guess I could see where she was coming from. Elves live for centuries, so becoming human for her would be like a human losing 50 years of their lifespan. I’m not so sure about Amazons, though. I’ve heard that they are a separate race altogether. No-one has ever seen an old Amazon, so maybe they age differently than the rest of us. Anyhow, so then I go and point out that Ev will have to get used to the same mortal span as the rest of us, and both the Amazons slugged me. For a second, I was facing down a wall of boob. It was worth it, at least until the pain started.

Well, no-one thought much of my plan to go back to the manor that night. So we paid for rooms and stayed at the inn. Aleandra had a long talk with Ev that night, and they shared a room. I don’t know what girl-talk they shared, but Ev was in a much better mood the next day. She even laughed more than she used to (and certainly a lot more than Aleandra ever did). Aleandra insisted that we refer to Ev as her sister from that time on. I caught them holding hands a few times and caressing each other when they thought we weren’t looking.

Yeah, I’m the pervert. I think Sorel is going to die of nosebleeds.

In which we fight a bunch of toys and Ev loses something important

Well, one look at the manor and my *ahem* loyal companions started to laugh. “You’ve been had,” Qual said, and I had to admit he was right. In its day, Tegel Manor must have been worth a fortune. It perched atop a seaside cliff, one of the largest buildings I had ever seen. Low and sprawling for the most part, two high towers stood watch against the sea. Several styles of architecture were in evidence, and even to a non-expert like me, I could tell that the manor had been built over the course of several centuries. Those centuries had not been kind to it, however, and it would probably take a thousand pounds of gold to restore it to even a shadow of its former glory. Sir Runic had said that the place was untouched, with all furniture and treasure still intact, so I had hopes that a renovation fund could be started with what lay beyond the doors.

I’m glad we arrived early in the morning on a sunny day. Though I am not a morning person, arriving at night would have made my heart sink even further. Of course I believed Runic’s stories about the walking dead, but they did not seem quite so threatening in the light of day.

The others wanted to go in through the front door, but I held them back until I could scout around the entire building. This alone took some time, as the gardens were overgrown and the house was several hundred paces from end to end. There were a few outbuildings, one of which we decided to use as a camp, as it was clear from the size of the place that exploring the manor would take several days. This at least saved us from having to camp out (which I loathe) or from having to make the five-mile walk back to town every night.

I decided that we should make our first entry through the garden door rather than the front door. I could not help but think that something malevolent was waiting for us inside, and that it might be better if we took a more indirect approach. The back door had no traps, and the key turned readily enough in the lock. The old boards had warped so badly, however, that it took Qual and Aleandra working together to pry the door open. They had to practically lift it off its hinges to open it. I know I saw Sorel snickering at this damage to my home. I bit my lip and let it slide, eager to start exploring.

The door opened to a long hallway. Many doors opened off of it, and it twisted around corners and out of sight. We decided to explore the entire hallway to get the lay of the building. As fate would have it, the corridor went almost the length of the building, but it twisted and turned and branched so many times that we had doubts about the rudimentary map we had made along the way. Still, it was better than nothing, and I was glad for it, as none of the layout of this place made sense to us.

Every so often, a strange sound would startle us: laughter, a thunderclap, crying, or the sound of machinery. At first these sounds set us into a panic, causing us to arm ourselves and prepare for a fight. After these fights failed to materialize, though, we began to ignore them, and eventually accepted the noises as part of the manor’s dubious ambiance. Definite sniggers from Sorel this time.

We found some stairs going down, but no-one objected to my suggestion that we save the basements for last. I’m sure that whatever was down there was important, but I wanted to make sure we had exhausted the above-ground possibilities before we went underground. Besides, we found a much more interesting hallway to explore.

The gallery that ran up the western side of the manor was filled with portraits of Rump ancestors. By the styles and costumes evident, Sorel estimated that over seven centuries of Rumps were depicted. The paintings were a little unsettling, and they detected as magic, so we wisely gave them a wise berth. Aleandra, however, could not resist giving one depicted a fully-armored knight a touch. For a few moments, the image came to life, and the knight began spinning tales about the great hunts he had been on. We could see something horrible happen to the picture, too. While he spoke, the knight—the label named him “Randver”—began to take on the aspect of a monstrous undead. Just at that moment, Aleandra began raving about how the “portal is open.” It took all of us to subdue her and calm her down. We agreed not to touch any paintings after that. When left alone, Randver returned to his normal state.

Some stairs led up from that gallery, and since our survey of the building outside indicated that there could not be more than a room or two above us, we decided that the stairs would be a good place to begin.

There was only one room at the top of the landing, eerily lit by sunlight streaming through stained-glass windows showing an idyllic fairyland. Tinkly music, as if from a child’s toy piano, filled the air, but we never did find the source. This was clearly a nursery or a playroom. Toys were strewn everywhere. A crib and two small beds showed where younger Rumps must have taken their naps once. I noticed that some marbles on the floor appeared to be gemstones of some sort, but when I bent over to grab one, a stuffed bear came to life and bit me on the calf. I howled and tried to stab it. Qual lined up to hit it with his axe, which I thought was a very bad idea. Meanwhile, toy soldiers sprang into action, a doll with fangs tried to jump Evrian, and a snake menaced Aleandra.

Sorel blasted the snake (seriously, who gets a snake for their kids to play with?) with an arcane bolt, freeing up the Amazon to strike at the demon doll, which was busy tearing holes in elf-flesh. Ev is all but useless unless he can put ten yards between himself and his enemy, and it was all he and the Amazon could do to put down ten pounds of lace and porcelain. Meanwhile, Qual took my advice to NOT cut my leg off in an attempt to de-bear it and fought against the little toy soldiers. They went down easily enough—Qual reaped them like wheat with his mighty axe, but there were a lot of them, and by the time he was done, he was bleeding from a dozen small cuts. Meanwhile, there was a frikkin’ bear chewing on my leg! Fortunately, my blasé was sharp, just the right tool for tearing the stuffing out of a toy, but I lot one trouser leg and about a pound of flesh in the process. The dust settled, and we stood bloodied and panting amid the carnage of disassembled toys. Not what we were expecting to fight. At least no-one died. Can you imagine the shame?

Turns out the marbles really were gemstones, worth a bundle, too, by my estimation. Of course Sorel could not let me gather them by myself, but he ‘supervised’ me, along with Qual. So while they were watching me put shiny stones into a pouch, Ev and Aleandra check out the one remaining feature in the room: a statue of a winged elf. Ev figured that since he was an elf, he should be the one to touch it. Bad idea. As soon as he touched its outstretched hand, he freezes in place, and beams shoot out of the statue’s eyes, hitting the next closest person to it: Aleandra. Then, before our eyes, Ev started to morph and change. His shrieks became increasingly high pitched, but he was otherwise powerless to move. Sorel advised us not to touch him, and for once I agreed with the jackass. It was all over in a minute anyhow. Where that had once been a male elf archer now stood an exact duplicate of Aleandra, right down to the chainmail bikini. Only then could Ev find the power to move.

We didn’t stop laughing for quite some time. Ev was not amused at all, and Aleandra seemed to be pretty pissed off about it. I thought Sorel was going to faint dead away at the thought of two nubile Amazon twins. Of course, if I ever voiced a like sentiment, I’d get called a pervert, or worse. Anyhow, Sorel was useless in trying to undo the magical trap (and, really, as inappropriate as the snake was in the kids’ playroom, what possibly could have gone into the parents’ mind to install a gender-switching statue in the same place)? So all in all, it was a total nuthouse. Qual and I were laughing our asses off. Aleandra was all huffy, and Sorel was doing his best to hide his arousal. Ev freaked out if we so much as looked at him, or her. Not that I could always tell the difference before the transformation. Elves always freaked me out with their androgyny. Not there was any mistaking Ev for a man now. Aleandra had a spectacular rack. So as far as I was concerned, Ev’s transformation was an asset to the party. I tried to explain to him…her…whatever…that since she still had her bow and her skills, she could still fight like she used to. No dice. She wanted to find a priest or a mage who could undo the curse right away.

So even though we weren’t really banged up, we decided to call it a day. We had to go back to town, so our plan to stay in the outbuilding did not even see its first night. We had gems worth a few thousand gold, though, so as far as I was concerned I had already met my initial investment. We could buy some proper supplies now, and we could even afford some magical help for Ev (not that I saw such help as necessary. I mean if it was me, I would find a mirror and some privacy and go to town…yeah, you think I’m a pervert, too, don’t you? Well just pretend you wouldn’t!)