Castle Xyntillan Session 8 and 9: The Party's Pre-Wedding Plunder

In the last session, the party returned to town with their biggest find yet, gathered information on the wedding guests, and slew one of the bridesmaids in her boudoir. With newfound experience and hirelings, the party continues to plunder Castle Xyntillan before the wedding begins. What will they discover next in the castle's haunted halls? 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

None

Loot

Gilded puzzle box, 1000gp

Unidentified Scroll

Sapphire eyes, 1100gp

Lawful Longsword +1

Signet ring, 600gp

Gold buttons, 300gp

Golden sweet box, 1400gp

Pile of silverware, 1750gp

The Game

• After putting down the ghoulish junior bridesmaid, Beatrice, the party made a closer inspection of her room. Besides the valuables in her coffin, they found an obscured alcove hiding a gilded puzzle box.

Corby: Just watch Beatrice be the Beast's favorite Malevol.

Boroth: How many hit dice is a Cenobite?

• Opposite the privy they found earlier, the statue of a caveman and the inscription below it intrigued the party. After cutting it open and inspecting the plaster statue, they sliced off its buttocks, and out popped a magic scroll! Its exact function was obscure, but it appeared to be a scroll of protection of some kind.

Idred: Rip him a new one, as they say.

• The privy led up a chimney to the next floor. Boroth dared the climb, but halfway up, one rung of the ladder gave way, and a scything flashed flashed out. In a remarkable display of agility, the fighter dropped and made a one-handed recovery, neither dropping his torch or getting cut in half. Climbing back up and avoiding that rung, he peered out of a toilet seat into a musty room decorated with images of the danse macabre.

Boroth: Nope. I've had enough of grim reapers.

• Descending back to the first floor of the Gothic Wing, they found themselves in a  long room, decorated with stone busts of family members. After careful experimentation, they withdrew a longsword which had been impaled in one of the busts, and popped out the sapphire eyes of another bust, which began to bleed.

Idred: Just a practical effect, pay it no mind.

• The party ran about the floor like headless chickens examining nearby rooms and their loot with Detect Magic. Returning to the bottom floor, they found themselves on the opposite side of the skeleton's mess hall they fled from in their first expedition, and heard the skeletons being lectured on freedom and philosophy. They retreated back upstairs.
• Returning to the talking bust of Medard Malevol, they reported back to him on the successful killing of Beatrice.

Medard: Wonderful sport, she was quite a dick indeed. Unfortunately, she's still alive. Horribly resilient, those ghouls.

Party: ... 

• High on their recent success and new levels, the party ignored Medard's warnings and entered the room people tend not to leave. They found it bare except for a shattered, bleeding mirror and boarded-up windows. As they removed the boards to let some sunlight in, the PC's shadows came to life, and attacked!
• Luck was once again on their side, and between Boroth's new magic blade and Corby's turning, they succeeded in cutting the spirits to ribbons. They exited the room to kudos from Medard, who was altogether impressed with them.
• Returning to the first floor, they looked for James in the vestibule, but he was missing. They took the opportunity to explore the rooms nearby. A living room nearby bore a dead fireplace, writing desk and a grandfather clock. The fireplace held the rotten body of a young gentleman, which crumbled as they tried to remove it. Idred investigated the clock, and barely dodged out of the way as the mechanical compartment turned out to be full of human bones, which almost crushed him.

Boroth: OHHH MY GOOOD! Someone's been murdered!

Corby: That's not how clocks work.

Idred: Very astute, Corby.

• Behind the fireplace, they located a secret bedroom: blankets on straw and dirty clothes, hiding a Malevol signet ring and a vial of poison.

Boroth: Someone was planning to kill someone.

Corby: Are they looking for a job?

• They investigated the vestibule in further depth, and located a closet which emitted a rumbling sound. They carefully opened up, and found a snoring, leathery cloak on a coat rack, which they subsequently left alone.

Idred: Closets have only led us to bad fortune. Or no fortune. Or a taxidermied rust monster.

• In a study room decorated with arcane symbols, piles of occult paraphernalia and a stuffed raven on a writing desk. Idred examined the symbols, and his prodigious 18 INT allowed him to comprehend their meaning, even as Gwynefa muttered horrifically to herself, "The tangents. The tangents man, THE TANGENTS!"

Idred: You all don't have to worry about understanding all of this, it would go over your heads.

Longo: Everything generally does.

• Longo speculated idly on the similarities between ravens and writing desks, and the raven spoke to the party; it welcomed them to its room, and offered to give them some information on the local area. The party conversed with the ungainly fowl, but got little intelligence out of it, as every detail it spoke about related to the party's inevitable heinous doom.
• Nearby, they encountered a smooth, head-sized stone rotating of its own accord on a pedestal. Idred messed with it, and it jumped off the pedestal in an attempt to crush him. The wizard made a Van Damme split in mid-air, and the stone barely missed him; a comical scene ensued until the party managed to trap it in a sack, and trapped it in the secret closet behind the fireplace.
• They discovered a bedroom, likely belonging to a young lady, from which issued a local folk song, from an indeterminate source. A large oval mirror, dried cosmetics and a trunk filled with motheaten clothes dominated the room. They recovered a pouch of golden buttons, and after Longo sang along to the tune, the mirror shattered, revealing a hidden alcove. It contained a golden sweets box, but inside were a nearly full set of human fingers and toes, with the nails tastefully painted and lacquered, the flesh candied. 

David Perry: Okay, this is my favorite treasure in a while.

• Exploring once again around the portrait gallery, their mapping indicated the presence of a hidden area. They eventually located a secret entrance underneath the stairs, which led to a clerks' room, disorganized and broken down. Another bricked up entrance intrigued them, and they broke it down, finding yet another archive room, piled high with debt records and tax demands. Throughout the whole ordeal, Farida the hireling was shoveling random papers into her sack. When questioned, she insisted she had a dream of becoming an accountant, and was looking for practice material.
• The party was interrupted by Vincent Godefroy-Malevol, who took interest in the party snooping about the family records. In no mood to start a fight with the lawyer, they handed over the sack, and went on their way, much to Farida's disappointment.

Pavel Filimonov

• Exploring near the tower, they found the jails, row on row of cells. And inside two of them, were Ysabeau, the lost hireling, and Ranucci. Ysabeau was in bad shape, but Ranucci appeared to be in good spirits. 
• Longo attempted to break them out, but failed his roll; portcullises slammed down, although they had thankfully already spiked one of them open in the direction they came. The tower bell rang above, and the sound of dozens of marching, skeletal boots came their way. 
• The party bolted, leaving their companions back in their cells, removed the spike and exited the cell block. They surmised that the skeletal reinforcements came from the mess hall they located earlier just to the south, and entered back through that door. They found just three skeletons left in the room, which they quickly took down. The corpse of a young gentleman from town hung from the ceiling, which the party left. They followed the marching skeletons up the hallway, careful not to be detected. Another doorway led to the west, and they figured that something else must have joined the skeletons from that direction. None too eager to find out what it was, they bolted and left for safer grounds.
• Hoping to find salt to fight the acid slugs in the east, the party returned to the kitchen in the servant's quarters, which they had noted down in their first expedition but never entered. 

Idred: Okay, this doesn't need to be a fight, if there's nothing aggressive on the other side, we'll be cool.

GM: Rolls snake eyes on the reaction roll: AHAHAHAHAHAHA!

• Inside the kitchen were five ghoul chefs, chopping up a human cadaver with knives. They leapt at the party, but luck was once again with the Groomsmen; they pummeled the ghouls with ranged fire and turned them. Three went down in short order, but two more managed to escape through a nearby bakery. Unwilling to follow the ghouls past the magical ovens, the party set sentries in case they returned. 
• The party disarmed a makeshift guillotine trap weighed down with a basket of severed heads, and treated themselves to the spoils within: mouldy and hard cooking supplies, as well as a pile of fine silverware.
• With high spirits, lots of valuable loot in convenient, easily sold transported goods and no further injuries, the party is riding high. The wedding is at the end of the week; will they continue to plunder the castle? What complications will arise? Will their lucky streak hold up? All that and more in the next session of Castle Xyntillan. 

Takeaways

The party has generally gotten lucky with combat encounters so far, winning initiative in the first round, avoiding large fights and using their cleric's turning to its full effect against the castle's common undead enemies. 

I screwed up the mapping in a couple places several sessions ago, which I only discovered now. It led to substantial dead time in the middle of the session as we tried to get the map back in good shape, but it eventually got fixed. I'll make sure to be specific in the future when dealing with unusual room shapes.

This is the second time the party has interacted with a meta-trap I didn't even understand myself. The FOE GYG incantation they heard a rumor about was an old community meme, and the stuffed raven is an Alice in Wonderland reference. The suit of armor with an arrow in its knee was another which I already knew about. The inclusion of features or traps which trigger on meta-knowledge and blur the line between PC and player are a strange inclusion, and I love them.

Next Chapter: Porcine Portents