The Skinsaw Murders

The group follows Li Kao back to the main room with the stuffed manticore in it. He seats himself in roughly the centre of the hall, behind the huge trophy, and in front of the stain of darkly coloured mould, and takes out a scroll. As he begins to read and chant, Xer and Sasha continue to banter back and forth.


As the two continue to flirt with each other, Yola snorts and begins to pace the room. “There it is again,” she says to herself. “Does anybody else smell burnt…hair?”

Li Kao stands up. He scans around the room and lets out a low whistle. “That scroll lets me see undead auras. Minor undead, like zombies, give off a faint glow, while stronger creature give off a glow that can bee seen through walls.” He looks up and down slowly, his gaze detached as if he is not really seeing what’s in front of him. To him the house looks almost alive. The pale green of residual undead auras shift dimly, like phosphorescent shadows around the room. Two very strong auras burn through though, one coming from somewhere above, and the other from somewhere below. Also troubling are the dozens of weak auras shining through the front of the house – as if coming from outside the main doors. “That’s very odd. Maybe we should see what’s going on . . . By Irori! Yola, look out!”

Suddenly the slowly shifting residual auras all coalesce with blinding speed onto the stuffed manticore. Only Yola and Li Kao see what happens next.

The stuffed beast suddenly lurches to terrifying life. Its fur burst into flames, it rears back on its hind legs, and the grotesque humanoid face warps and stretches until it resembles a furious red-haired woman. She turns on Yola with a withering shriek of pain and rage, and the scorpion’s tail whips around, engulfing Yola in flame.

To Malvick, Xer and Sasha, nothing seems amiss at first. One moment they are listening to Li Kao, the next the older man yells out a warning and lurches towards Yola. Then Yola screams and bursts into flames!

Yola drops to the ground and rolls around as Li Kao tries to smother the fires with his cloak. They are quickly extinguished, leaving Yola wounded, but not grievously so – her clothing having suffered the worst of the heat.

The manticore has returned to its normal stuffed self. The shifting auras have also vanished, depleted for now, leaving only the two stronger auras above and below, and the dozens of weaker auras shining through from outside the house.

***

Yola has taken 14hp of damage from the burning attack. Li Kao can detect a strong undead presence somewhere on the floors above you, and another equally strong presence somewhere beneath you. Also, he can see a whole lot of weak undead auras coming from outside the house. He can use these auras to track undead, with location getting more specific as he gets closer.  Below are two maps - one of the main floor and one of the second floor.