The Company:
- Amaranth (C1)
- Francesco (F2)
- Claus (T2)
- Jürg (F2)
- Hendrik (MU4)
- Niemir (crossbowman)
- Penelope (handgunner)
- Lukas (heavy foot)
- Jan & Phine (porters)
Loot:
- Plain snuff box
- Iron key
- Sun medaillon
- Jug of golden wine
- Painting of Priscilla Malévol, now ruined
- Wand of cold
Casualties: Penelope, Jan & Phine — riddled by eldritch mirror shards. (Being a retainer in this nameless company of treasure hunters is once again shown not to be without risk.)
Report:
Some retainers whose morale broke during the previous expeditions’ fight with the giant beets return back to town. Others are not so lucky, and no one knows what happened to them after they fled into the darkness of the castle.
Strange men from the deep woods are spotted around town asking around for a man named Blérot.
Jürg asks the spirit of famed alchemist Girolamo Bartholdi about the whereabouts of the Scepter of the Merovings, but the giant ectoplasmic head is of little help in the matter.
***
Hendrik is given control of the expedition. He decides to follow up on some information he acquired earlier about the whereabouts of several laboratories and arcane studies in the castle. The aim is to locate one that is supposed to be located on the upper floor of the castle’s south-east section.
As they approach the castle, Hendrik casts Invisibility on the thief Claus, who will be the expedition’s scout.
They enter through the grand entrance. While crossing the vestibule a bunch of headless manservants stumble into the room. Both sides are surprised to encounter each other. After a moment of confusion, Amaranth begins preaching and turns them away. They slam the door shut and move on.
In the portrait gallery they open a door under stairs heading north. They find what appears to have been a clerk’s room. It is littered with yellowing moldy papers. They search through the piles and also the filing cabinets and desk. Underneath a particularly large pile they find the clerk’s corpse, his mouth stuffed with papers. In the east wall they find what appears to be a bricked up door. Jürg wants to break it down, but the remainder of the party insists on moving on.
They head back into the portrait gallery and go up stairs. They enter the grand dining hall where they had previously faced off an enormous undead that had emerged from the now-smashed plaster statue of a rearing dragon.
They also recall a room to the south where they had found a demonic lady lying, the room itself filled with an appealing jug of golden wine. They decide to make another detour from their goal to find a laboratory, and head towards said room.
After some trouble with stuck doors, the thief Claus — still invisible — manages to sneak into the demon lady’s room, grab the wine, and return to his companions, all the while remaining unnoticed by the lady, who is reclining on her bed, apparently asleep.
They continue their search for the lab and begin to check doors along the south wall of the dining hall. The first one opens onto a sitting room. A thick trail of slime crosses a dusty floor to a couch on with sits a skeleton encased in a gelatinous substance, a glinting amulet hanging from its neck.
The company carefully readies their ranged weapons, enter the room, line up their shots, and absolutely obliterate the ooze covering the skeleton before it can do any harm. The skeleton itself collapses onto the floor in a heap. They gingerly fish out the amulet from the debris. It is warm to the touch and emits glints of sunlight.
Just as they make ready to search the room, someone enters through the south door. It is a young man who closely resembles the wanted poster in the barracks, and the sad-looking fellow they sometimes see hanging around the Black Comedian. But this person is dressed in fine cherry clothes and wears a powdered wig. The boy proceeds to court poor handgunner Penelope, who is undoubtedly the fairest of the ladies who make up the expeditionary force. She is not too pleased with the man’s advances, and looks to her employer Claus for assistance. After some more back and forth, it all comes to a head when the party insists on moving on. The man suddenly transforms into a blob of grey ooze and proceeds to engulf Penelope. However, the company acts swiftly, and before it can harm the handgunner it is evaporated by a magic missile.
They search the room but don’t find anything. Deciding against entering the study to the south because it is deemed too dangerous, they return to dining hall and try the next door in the south wall. This one opens onto a hallway. With Claus scouting ahead, they follow it to the end where there is another door. This opens on what appears to have been the room of a maid. It is very tidy and unremarkable, except for a large mirror that absorbs rather than reflects light, and the portrait of a lady whose eyes follow the company’s every movement. They can also hear a low continuous humming. Worried about the portrait, Jürg and Francesco return to the dining hall to retrieve a tablecloth. Back in the room they cover the portrait with it, and pull it down from the wall. When they do, rays of rainbow-colored light bursts from the mirror, and eight huge tentacles emerge from it. The tentacles begin to whip around the room in search of prey to grab and pull back into the mirror.
One porter is instantly killed by a wet slap from a tentacle. Several companios attempt to flee the room in various directions. Francesco uses his spear to push the mirror from the wall. It drops to the ground but the portal remains open and tentacles continue to thrash about. Penelope aims her arquebus and fires at the mirror. The shot hits, and the mirror shatters into a thousand razorsharp pieces that spray everyone in the room. Penelope is instantly killed, as well as the remaining porter. Claus, still invisible, also drops to the ground. The tentacles have disappeared, and companions gingerly return to the room.
Miraculously, Hendrik manages to locate Claus’s body in time, and Jürg comes to his aid with a healing potion. The thief is pulled back from death’s doorstep.
They search the room, and find nothing of note except for a slim case stuffed in an alcove behind where the portrait used to hang.
Still not satisfied with the expedition’s finds, they open another door, this one leading to the east, and enter a room that appears to have belonged to a butler. They spot a brazier, coal bin and tongs, next to a large bed. The room has been tossed. Personal belongings are scattered everywhere. They open a large wardrobe and out stumbles the corpse of butler, garrote wound around his neck. It collapses to the ground. They search his pockets and find an iron key and a snuff box.
When they are about to leave, Jürg runs back to the maid’s room, and recklessly pulls opens the door to west. He is confronted by the ghostly apparition of a lady with a halo. She attempts to ensorcel the fighter, fails, and disappears with the sound of tinkling bells. They also search this room, which to appears to have been that of a servant, but find nothing.
The end of the expedition is called for at that point. They head back the way they came, and are almost down the large stairs heading to the portrait gallery, when they hear wheezing and shuffling come their way. The company panics and runs back up the stairs. From the dining hall they continue to the balcony above the countess’s suite. When they arrive they expect someone to pull a rope from their pack, but no one thought to bring one! Being a thief, Claus scrambles down the sheer wall without regardless. The rest are left behind. They run back into the dining hall and begin pulling table cloths from the tables, intending to create a makeshift rope. While they are thus preoccupied, wheezing skeletons appear at the head of the stairs. Hendrik takes aim with his wand of lightning and obliterates five of the creatures. Fighters close in to engage the remainder. Amaranth steps forward, raises her holy symbol, and turns the rest of the skeletons to dust.
Relieved, the company make their way out of the castle through the grand entrance, and head back to town.
***
Upon their return Amaranth can’t resist the lure of the golden wine and consumes it. She has deliciously awful visions, which benefit her experience greatly, but also drive her totally insane. She is admitted to the hospital, babbling like an idiot.
Jürg and Claus go carousing. Jürg gets a tattoo, which is cooler than one would at first expect. Something involving a unicorn and a goatrice, best not to go into too many details. Claus nearly gambles away all of his possessions, but at the last moment manages to resist also staking his bow +1.
Referee Commentary:
“We haven’t had tentacles yet, have we?” one player asked when the things burst from the mirror. That was another brutal and enjoyable scene. The thief dropping to zero HP while invisible also made for an interesting moment. I figured an invisible body riddled by eldritch mirror shards would be locatable, and the players managed to get to him just before his two round grace period ran out.
We also had a bit of a back and forth about climbing at the end. I ruled non-thieves can’t attempt to climb sheer castle walls without aid or equipment. But I still had the thief make a thievery check (1d20+level+DEX mod >=15) rather than a straight climbing check (1d6+DEX mod>=5). The odds on the latter are much better than the former. I have since decided, in line with OED, to remove climbing from the list of thief skills, and to simply provide a bonus on a regular climb check. The only other distinction is that thieves may attempt climbs that would be flat out impossible for other classes. Simple enough.