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!)
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