One benefit of a day off is that I found the stable door in the east wall, mostly overgrown by brush. We cleared it away and had another access point. Before we can open the door we hear what sounds like a fight coming from within, along with the screams of horses. We charge in to find a unicorn and a nightmare locked in combat. We were used to things being not what they seemed in the manor, so we watched for a few moments. Then, however, Qual, Ev, and Alaindra began to change. They grew and their bodies elongated, and before two seconds had passed all three of them had become unicorns. Sorel and I just stand there stupidly and watch as the four unicorns proceed to completely gore the nightmare to death. Its body instantly burned to ash a second after its chest stopped heaving. Gradually, the drawrf and the two amazons morphed back into their usual forms, but the girls were in completely different armor. Now they wore golden plate that was perfectly molded to their bodies (down to their immense bosoms). Atop their shining helms was a unicorn horn on each. Turns out that because they were virgins (ha!) they were rewarded by the gift of lycanthropy, only now they were were-unicorns. They seemed pretty pleased with this. Aleandra whispered something in Ev’s ear and they both started grinning wickedly. I don’t want to think about it. Qual was pretty bummed about things by this point. From his point of view, if he’s going to get changed into a horse, he should at least get something cool out of it. I told him to be patient. He’s going to wind up a bimbo sooner or later. He laughed, but he looked a little worried, too.
Ev and Aleandra seemed to think it was great fun “playing unicorn” with each other. One would transform and give the other a ride, and then later they would switch. Since one wound up carrying both bow and poleaxe, it was growing increasingly difficult to tell them apart. I mean, if I were turned into an exact copy of someone, I would do whatever it took to keep my individual identity—tattoos, a haircut, new clothes, whatever. But Aleandra has been training with a bow and Ev has been sparring with the poleaxe. They always dress alike. It’s as if they want to forge a single identity between them. On the plus side, they seem to have an almost psychic link in battle, and the two of them are far more lethal together than they would be separately. On the down side, Ev has started to cop Aleandra’s belligerent attitude towards anything with a penis. And those are increasingly hard to find in our party, so I take the brunt of it.
Our path took us north through the carriage house, where a ghostly procession stormed past us. These apparitions are horrible for my nerves. I get all ready for a fight, only to have the threat disappear. It’s almost as if the house is mocking us.
We found some stairs going up. We seemed to think it was important to clear the upper levels before everything else, so we decided to explore above. We entered a dining room that had a mummy in the middle of cooking something in a pot. He ignored us for a while while he finished his stew. Then he tried to drink it. That’s when we decided to attack (see what I mean about this place getting to you? It’s next to impossible to know when an encounter is dangerous and when it’s just a bizarre event). Ev and I took a beating, but we avoided contracting mummy rot, so I score it a victory.
The next room had one of those freaky apparitions, a ghostly woman who accused us of killing her son. Nothing lootworthy. The next room, though, was some kind of prison where a half-man, half-bear was chained to the wall, dying before our eyes. Suddenly the chains in the room sprang to life (and there were a lot of chains in the room. They were too slow to grab the Amazons, Sorel, or me, but they grabbed Qual and lashed him to the wall. The chains put a bear-shaped helmet on his head. We cut him down before they could do further damage, or so we thought. Qual took of the helm and smashed it to bits. It should have occurred to us at the time that this was an unusual display of temper for the Dwarf.
We found stairs going up, but it was immediately apparent that a secret door concealed half the level from our sight. Even without Ev’s elven eyes, we found it without too much trouble. There was a library, full of magical books. Sorel, to her credit, did not rush inside. There was a stuffed sabre-toothed tiger in the room which *surprise!* came to life just as we decided to hack it to pieces in order to prevent it from coming to life. As usual, it was a straight up fight, and that brought out the best in us. We all knew our roles and set to work…and then Qual turned into a bear. In a way, I guess he got his wish to turn into something cool. But unlike the girls, who seemed to keep control of their wits when they became unicorns, Qual just went completely berserk when he transformed. He ripped the tiger apart (after I had already done a lot of damage, mind you). Then he turned on me and nearly mauled me to death before we could calm him down again. We were both freaked out by that little episode. Qual wanted to rid himself of that curse, while I saw certain advantages in his condition, if only he could control it.
Beyond the library lay an artist’s studio, a room I wish I had never visited. There was a huge lump of clay, roughly human sized and shaped but without features on one side of the room, while on the other, a skeleton appeared to be painting a portrait of it. It threw a canvas over its work before we could see it. Naturally we tried to smash the skeleton, but it kept reforming and trying to shoo us out. I took the canvas off the painting, and the skeleton crumbled to dust.
That’s when things got weird. The clay thing animated and picked up the palette and brushes and gave them to me. Then it blocked the door until I started to paint. I was at a loss as to what to do, until I saw Sorel. The light coming through the window made Sorel look sexy and angelic at the same time. Inspired, I started to sketch her form. Somehow, the brush knew what to do. I’m no artist, but each stroke of the brush made the painting into an exact likeness of Sorel, almost as if I were looking at a reflection of her in the mirror. She seemed happy to pose for me, but the others were on guard in case any threat should materialize. Then, in less than ten minutes, I was done. No painter had ever captured such loveliness with such precision. I turned the portrait around so that Sorel could see it, and that’s when the clay thing changed until it became an exact duplicate of Sorel, wings and all.
Well, Qual wants to cut it in half right off the bat. It panics and runs behind me, seeking protection. That’s when Sorel gets pissed off and wants to kill it also. But it doesn’t do anything to threaten us. Instead, it seems perfectly happy to follow me around, smiling at me with Sorel’s angelic face if I so much as look at her. So, over the objections of Qual and Sorel, we decide to allow her to tag along. After all, we decide, she might be important later. And the Second Sorel seemed perfectly content to carry things for us, though she apparently knew none of Sorel’s magic and she seemed incapable of speech.
Aleandra said something like “Well, Quinn, at least you have a Sorel who will play with you now.” Sorel got unbelievably pissed at that, and from where I sat, it was a pretty rude thing to say, and I said so. We decided to call the fake Sorel something else and cut her hair, to keep them distinct. So fake Sorel became “Golem,” and it was a shame to lose that sexy long blonde hair, but I figure it was for the best.
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.
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!)
