"You're certainly welcome to stay, if you like," offers the Count.

Arkady: Mysteries: +4 Roll: +1 Total: +5

Arkady opens his mind to the chamber, and - knife slicing through the throat, spray of blood - yes, this is definitely a room where a person was killed.

The only intelligent beings he can see are the Count and the other members of his group. There's likely room for an evil spirit to hide under the smokescreen left by the fact that someone was killed in this room... there simply isn't a sign that there are any evil spirits hiding in here.

There's only one place that Arkady hasn't looked - directly behind him. He can turn around and look there too, of course - it's possible that something could be hiding back there if it's smart enough - but that is also where Piper is standing (as per usual). Turning around will ensure that there is nowhere in this room that a hostile evil presence could hide from him, but it also means that there's nowhere for Piper to hide.

After a second, Arkady grins. "Piper, is anything hiding behind me?"

"Nothing that I can see," says Piper, with a giggle. "Except me, of course. Oh, and you know that there's no real danger to seeing my real form, right? I don't cause insanity or anything like that."

Arkady nods, closes off again, then turns around still grinning: "I am remembering that someone got annoyed when Zalasbra lessened her air of mystery. It wouldn't be polite." Then his mood gets more serious, and he addresses the group. "I am not very experienced at this kind of thing, and this place is puzzling me. I can still feel the succubus in this chamber, but it's not here. I am not sure if it's an echo, or a hint that it hasn't gone back to hell. To the count: My lord, could you tell us where your family cemetery is?"

Piper giggles. "You're very sweet."

"Of course!" says the Count. "Right this way!"

"I don't think that you really understand what the succubus was, though," says Piper. "It wasn't some... external being from somewhere else. It was the Count's sister."

Arkady looks at Piper and shrugs. "I was thinking it was part her soul and part something else. So that was just her soul, empowered and twisted? Could she take a new host body, or was she limited to her body come what may?"

He still goes to see the body, though.

"It was just her soul, empowered and twisted," agrees Piper. "When we destroyed the idol in the basement, we cut off the source of that power; she could not leave her own body after that. She might have learned to take on a new host body - but without the power to leave her own, she would not have been able to do it even if she did know how. And she was in her own body after the idol was smashed. I checked."

The Count leads you to the family graveyard - a small plot, with several headstones already in place. There is a closed coffin off to one side, and a half-dug grave.

Arkady looks at the coffin and shakes his head. "She didn't need the power to leave her body, Piper; she was evicted. The question is where she went next." He considers the coffin for a second: "That's always the question, but usually it's not a practical one."

Does he feel anything in particular from the coffin?

Felix remains on standby.

"Azash had a strong grip on her," says Piper. "I think she probably ended up in one of his afterlives. I... imagine it's probably unpleasant."

Arkady feels nothing in particular from the coffin.

"Well, we should see this line of questioning to the end," Felix says. With the Count's permission, he'll move to open the casket.

When Felix asks, Arkady shakes his head. "There's no need. The succubus isn't here. Though I could bless the body if you like, my lord."

What Arkady thinks of Piper's appraisal of the fate of the countess' soul, he keeps to himself. Besides, it's possible she's somehow right. He works for God, not the other way around.

"Call it a hunch," Felix says.

The Count gives his permission, and seems to think that a blessing for his sister will be a good idea; and the coffin is opened.

The body of his sister is there, with the neck half-severed. It's clear that she's been dead for a couple of days.

There's no sign of her soul. At least, not that can be easily spotted.

This is not the first time Arkady has smelled cadaverine, or seen bodies a few days after they died violently. So without further ado he blesses the body, and adds a prayer for her soul on the basis that it couldn't hurt. Then for the sake of completeness (and assuming Piper is somehow not in front of him) he opens himself up to examine the body.