Twistin’

The butler spills the tea and it seems the family in question has been whispered about for years. Lurid tales of demonic blood and whispers of slave trading drift about the Noble Quarter. A bit of reconnaissance is carried out and a plan is carefully concocted, discussed, rehashed, deliberated, refined and recapped. Of course, it promptly goes out the window once they actually gain access to the estate. It seems the ground are protected by guards (noted), dogs (planned for) and werewolves (totally did not see that coming).

This precipitates a running battle through the ground floor of the mansion. Guards are encountered and swiftly dispatched by Digin, but it seems there are magical protections and there is an encounter with a mage (maybe a house wizard?) that leaves some of the party badly damaged. They consume healing potions and motor onward, eventually finding themselves in a library. While the alarm is sounded, the party barricades the door and searches for a way out – other than smashing the windows and jumping onto the lawn where the guards, dogs and werewolves are milling around.

What a twist! There is a trapdoor under the rug and it is opened and the party descends. Sniffles buys some time by tossing a few fireball beads through a gap in the door and frying those that are trying to hack through the barricade.

They hit the bottom of the ladder and set about moving to locations further from the ladder. Some doors are involved and a hallway that is absolutely riddled with traps, causing grievous bodily injury to Digin. To hasten them along, it seems that someone has cast a Cloudkill spell into the ladder shaft and the lethal vapors are spreading in to the area. An alternate route takes them into a private prison, where they slay a guard and free some prisoners. They press onward to investigate a newly discovered secret door. This one is difficult to open and eventually reveals a hallway beyond. Placing one foot on the floor nearly ends Finger’s life and the plucky gnome is near death, though Bayga stabilizes him. The hallway is further explored and shows another deadly trap, and then another but eventually the group can interact with a large chest, apparently chock full of platinum coins!

It is about this time that the werewolves attack, then the guards reinforce them, and then there are more werewolves and guards! The battle is pitched and bloody. Digin’s burly armor makes him nearly impossible to hit, though he compensates for this advantage by shattering two axes in rapid succession. The bodies fall and the wounded moan before being silenced, but it seems that the party has won a brief respite. They empty as many of the coins as they can into sacks and then have a hurried dither. To stay and plunder further or to try and flee before others show up?

In the end they plunder on and eventually breach a room filled with art pieces and a pair of bronze chests. They find a hand and a multitude of miniature brass xorns. They take what they can and prepare to try and fight their way back out of the manor. They send an invisible Fingers ahead to scout, but he ends up being nabbed. In fact, everyone gets taken prisoner by Jedica Noor and the guards from the inverted Pyramid that were staying in the manor house. There is a moment of – shhhh, play along, before the party has bags placed over their heads and they are bundled into a jail wagon presumably on the way to the city prisons.