A1g. The Guests in the Loft
Location: Loft
Characters: Holly, Juniper
Background: When the players arrive, Holly has just pushed over a statuary bust that Agnes collected in one of her adventures many years ago. Meanwhile, Juniper is searching the boxes for his pewter mirror, which Agnes gifted him before he died.
When the players enter the loft, read or paraphrase:
The stairs ascend to a rectangular loft, topped with a steep-sloped ceiling that angles with the roof overhead. Dim light filters through a frost-covered window on the far wall, its view half-obscured by faded drapes.
Wooden boxes, a trunk, and two cobwebbed chairs stand silently along the perimeter. Across the floor between them lie fragments of a broken statuary bust—the head of a stately-looking man, now shattered into a dozen pieces.
A foot-tall figure, clad in a green tunic, white tights, and a conical red hat, drifts through the room on fluttering blue butterfly wings, casting his gaze from box to box and muttering to himself. A few feet away, something shimmers briefly in the air—and then vanishes.
If the players watch Juniper quietly from afar, he pauses to admire his reflection in a glass ornament hanging from an open box—and is rudely interrupted when the invisible Holly flings the ornament from the box and dashes it against the floor, shattering it beside the statue. (“Oh, very mature,” Juniper retorts, as Holly appears seated along the edge of the box. She then retrieves and shatters another ornament along the ground, claps and giggles as Juniper rolls his eyes, and vanishes using her invisibility as Juniper resumes his search.)