Castle Xyntillan Session 10: Porcine Portents

In the last sessions, the party plundered room after room of Castle Xyntillan's main floor. They discovered their old compatriots in the castle jail, but failed to free them, instead filling their pockets with wealth. There's plenty of daylight left, and they've gotten lucky enough to avoid serious injury so far. What will the party stumble upon next? Find out in this week's session of Castle Xyntillan.

The Party

Longo Lightfoot, Halfling Thief, wears a sky-blue headscarf. Played by CaptainSabatini.
Corby the Joyful, Human Cleric of Sucellus, wears a short, conical hat. Played by diregrizzlybear.
Idred the Most Omniscient, Human MU, wears a full-visored greathelm. Played by David Perry.
Boroth Swinney the Joyous, Human Fighter, wears a masked helm depicting a happy human face. Played by Justin Hamilton.
Francois, Light Footman, noticeably dogless. 

Hilda, Heavy Footman, an ex-miner.

Rodolfo, Heavy Footman, running from a warrant in town.

Hubert, Heavy Footman.

Gwynefa, Arbalist.

Herman, Arbalist, escaped convict from Chamrousse.

Farida, Arbalist. 

Eckhart, Lightbearer.

Bruno, Light Footman, a talented sharpshooter.
Raymond, Mule.

Casualties

Herman, polymorphed

Loot

Bag of uncut gems, 7500gp

Two cut rubies, 1000gp

Bags of silver pieces, not retrieved

Pearl inside of Herman, 50gp

The Game

• After routing the ghoul cooks and recovering the silverware, the party took note of their surroundings and the map they had made. They had filled in much of the empty space in the servants' quarters from their first expedition into the castle, but some notable gaps remained in their map. 
• To the north lay a room decked in flowers, withered petals in pots and baskets. The party was startled when, upon entering, a woman ran across the room, blood running down her side, before she stumbled and disappeared. The party dug around that corner, lifting up the flagstone and finding a metal under a thin layer of dirt. They dared to lift up the lid, and inside was the bloated corpse of the same woman they had just seen, clutching a leather bag. 
• Boroth put his sword to the corpse's clavicle while Longo clutched at the bag. The corpse pulled back, its eyes opened, and a rotten stench immediately filled the air. A ghast! 

Boroth: Turn it!

Corby: Hello, did we wake you?

Boroth: WHAT KIND OF PRAYER IS THAT?!

Corby: Is it trying to kill us?

Longo: Is it in this castle?

• They annihilated it. Winning initiative, the front line also all made their saves against the ghast's stench. The action economy and lucky damage rolls worked their magic, and before the monstrosity could make a single swipe, it was speared through the heart. As the ghast let out its final rattle and gas, Longo grabbed the leather bag and opened it into a clay bowl.
• Inside were dozens and dozens of uncut gems. A massive score, by far the largest since the Libram itself. 
• With yet more convenient and easy to move valuables in their pockets, the party was riding high. A hidden closet nearby contained a portrait and a wall of knives; careful experimentation determined they were also psychotic flying weapons. Cue slamming the door shut and almost getting impaled.

Longo: Corby, where’s your box? 

Corby: In town. 

Longo: Now we need nine of them. 

Corby: We can put them in a smallish box. 

Longo: You can’t let them conspire together they’ll rise up against us! 

Corby: These can be our wedding present!

Boroth: We should find Maltricia and ask if someone else is going to be the new junior bridesmaid.

Longo: THAT'S A TERRIBLE IDEA!

• Filling out rooms implied by their map, the party traversed a corridor south, bot far from the castle exit. Eckhart the lightbearer swapped out one torch for another, and in that one moment of darkness, a figure appeared before them; a vaporous specter floating in the shape of an ancient crone. She introduced herself as Sybille Malevol.

Idred: Do you mind spelling that?

GM: In character?

Longo: fucking loses it

• The ghost didn't appear hostile, and asked the party if any of them had a boar snout. Nobody did. She lamented that she needed a snout for a recipe she was preparing for the wedding. She then offered the party a deal: a week's wages for their nose.
• The party recoiled, but some of the hirelings seemed interested in the extra pay. The party made no attempt to stop them. Finally, Herman the convict stepped forward. He made a deal with the ghost, and screamed, shaking. He fell to the floor in a fetal position, and in a few moments, his clothes and equipment lay limp on the floor, and out popped an adolescent boar.

• Sybille cooed and knelt down in front of the confused animal. Then with one clean slice, she cut off Herman's snout. It ran about, bleeding all over the floor until the party caught it and bandaged the wound. Sybille then conjured a pearl, and forced it down Herman's throat. Her deal concluded, she transformed into a cloud of vapor and floated past the party, underneath the doorway and out of sight.
• Knowing that the only way to undo the spell would be to go back to town and beseech either Jacques or Ben to dispel it, the party choose to keep on keeping on, and delved into the castle.
• The bronze statue of a zombie dominated a small nook, across from a pedestal and an incense burner. Fresh out of incense and not prepared to burn anything weird there, the party moved on, keeping an eye on the statue to make sure it didn't move.
• They came across a room filled with steam, littered with linen-covered corpses and a boiling tub in the middle. They rooted about, and became convinced that a body was being boiled inside. More ghoul cooking, which encouraged the party to bug out.
• Reflecting on the immense amount of money they had gathered on that expedition alone, the party began to speculate on the possible uses for such wealth. One idea was to buy a large boat, set it afloat on the lake and besiege the castle with cannons.
• The sounds of an army on the march issued from another room; close to where they heard the same sounds in a previous expedition. A spare bedroom decorated with scenes of military conquest, clean and orderly. They raided the personal effects and found incomplete drafts of letters, but that was it. However, their map indicated that the room shoudl extend northwards. Checking the north wall, they found a button hidden in the frescoe, and a hidden door swung open.
• In the space beyond was a pile of sacks, and a trapdoor leading to the basement. The sacks were filled with piles of silver pieces, perhaps more than was worth carrying out. 

Longo: What kind of sacks?

Idred: Alto sax?

• Inside one of the sacks was a pair of gemstones, however, which the party pocketed. Boroth descended the trapdoor into a pantry, filled to the brim with ham legs and sausages hanging from the ceiling. Herman remained up top, but the rest of the party joined Boroth in the dungeon proper. 
• To the south, the party could hear porcine squealing, which they avoided. In a room littered with broken and useless objects, they conversed briefly with the portrait of the jester, Guy Malevol. He gurgled out strange non-sequiturs, and the party decided not to investigate the room next door.

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• Exploring north, they found a wind tunnel, and a set of stairs leading upstairs. Now less worried about being caught underground without an escape, they took a breath. The sound of water brought them east, and they found a giant underground lake, with a light way off to the north. They bet that was the entrance they discovered underneath the chapel. Having discovered a new floor of the castle, temporarily lost a hireling to a polymorph, and pulled yet more valuable treasure from the castle, the party ended the session.

Takeaways

This week's session had a good deal more joking and OOC interaction than previous sessions. Namely, I live in Spain, while my players live across the US. The latter half of the session, especially after the ham room, included lots of pictures of Spanish cuisine. I reminded the party that a hungry GM is a vengeful GM, to no avail.

David also missed the first part of the session because of the early access release of Hardspace: Shipbreaker. He recommends it.

I continue to be surprised at the roll the party is on this expedition. I had originally meant for this to be a quick jaunt between finding the Libram (and the jump in power it brought) and the wedding, since previous expeditions had only lasted one or two sessions. This one is on its fifth and counting. The increase in character level seems to be only a small part of this, as hireling death was only a substantial issue in the expedition before this one. Previous expeditions were called when the party got enough loot, and that almost always meant 'as much as can be carried out'. Every piece of good loot found during this expedition has been relatively light, almost all in jewels, and the only cash found has been the silver coins, which may not even be worth taking. In that sense, it really does seem to be the result of luck.

Also, they keep getting lucky with combats. They aren't frequent, and the party has a penchant for winning initiative in the first round and blitzing the enemy. Clerical turning in particular has cut fights short.

Next Chapter: Weddings and Witticisms