16-09-2012

Arkona Manor

Beginning
This chapter, the party sits at the now abondoned house of Salvator Scream. However, in the cover of the night, the partys wizard Tosti has disappeared and the party is trying to decide where to go next.

Xian shares with the rest of the party that there are addional reasons why he is in Korvosa. He says that there might be something wrong in the Arkona's residence. Dispite distrusting Xian for not telling the whole story, they were confident that he had his reasons.

Before traveling to Arkona Manor, Zyriel goes to scout for the guard routines. He finds that there are few guards at night, and the three entrances to the house: The main entrance, the outhouse entrance and the servants entrance.

The Entry
The party decides to sneak in through the back entrance, but they want to distract the servants and guards before entering. The plan is to make it appear as though the servants house might be on fire by using smokesticks and alchemist's fire. Jamroar skillfully sneaks in and sets it all in motion, then use his glamered armor to disguise himself as a servant, and alarm the entire house, the guards and servants.

While Jamroar is sneaking to the servants house, the rest of the party tries to go around the house through the grounds. The Barbarian Kyeran clumsily walks into an sleeping elephant that makes some noise. A servant hears the sounds and close in, and Kyeran think it wise to climb up a tree to avoid him.

Zyriel, seeing the potential for disaster, stealth behind the guard and knocks him out cold.

After starting the smokesticks and the alchemist fire and alarming the servants Jamroar tries to enter the house where two of the Arkonas, cousins to the primary branch, left the house and an unlocked door.

Under cover of the confusion the rest of the party tries to enter through the back door, which are unfortunately locked. Xian in the front tries to gain entry by punching the glass as hard as he can. As soon as the glass breaks they hear a magically amplified sound that some recognizes coming from an elephant.

Jamroar realizes that the alarm has activated and hurries to the back door and enters.

Inside
Inside the party is met with a jungle. But the room seem to be much bigger than the outside dimensions suggest. In the middle they see a huge stone elephant statue. Jamroar spots a fountain with coiling snakes forming the center. In the mouths of the snakes there are precious gems and he jumps forward to try and get them. He stands in the fountain and use his skills in sleight of hand to snap the gems out of the mouths of the stone snakes.

Xian, Zyriel and Kyeran walks further into the room. Xian detects the doors exiting the room, and that the symbol for Chamidu, the Vudran Goddess of Wild Beasts carved into the doors. Xian walks up to the door that the elephant is looking at. Looking close at the elephant statue he see a small thing hidden underneath. It looks like a pressure plate that might either activate a trap or a door?

For some reason Jamroar crawls under the statue and activates the plate, while Zyriel is perched on top of it and all hell breaks loose. Instantly the plate on which the elephant stands begins to move, and worse the elephant itself starts to come to life. Out of the fountain a figure starts forming. Kyrean recognizes the figure as a water elemental and runs towards it with his hammer.

Combat
The now alive elephant starts charging, with Zyriel on top, trying to trample Jamroar and Raeland. From outside the two cousins Jamroar saw earlier charges in. One immediatly casts invisibility on himself, the other fires an acid arrow on Kyeran.

Zyriel tries to shoot one of the people, but after a mastershot that the visible person easily dodge, Zyriel becomes scared and thinks these foes are too great to battle. He shouts for the party to flee into the hole left by the moved elephant statue. Jamroar jumps straight into the hole, allowing his ring of feather fall to slow his descent.

The elephant charges towards the party that have formed a straight line toward the hole where it stood before. It hits every party member but now falls into the hole itself. Jamroar is almost dodges the falling elephant that suddenly appear over his head.

Xian jumps into the hole after Jamroar and landing on the back of the elephant, he attacks it. Jamroar fatally backstabs the stone elephant and it starts shrinking into a small stone figure.

The Cavern
Down in the cave Xian and Zyrial tries to run away, while the rest tries to fight the two cousins chasing them. Every blow misses, and acid arrows fly around our heroes.

After noticing the inversed hands of their opponents, Xian is now assured that they are Rakshasas, a dangerous and powerful Outsider, native to Vudra.

Calling on the Dawnstar herself, Raeland dispels the cousins' magical protection, and Jamroar backstabs one of them twice. The entire party moves in for the kill, and the two cousins start transform into their animal-like heads.

The party starts beating on the lizard cousin, combining the powers of Xians stunning blow and Jamroars backstabbing the party kills the lizard-headed Rakshasa. In an epic jump attack Kyeran land a critical hit against the other while screaming a fearsome Shoanti war cry.

The second creature, with the look of an orangutang, casts an invisibility spell, then tries to escape. The falk-eye of Zyriel spots him, and the Eversmoking Bottle of Jamroar annulls some of his concealment. In an attempt to run Xian trips him and when he starts getting up the entire party gets to hit him.

After killing the orangutang the party decides to retreat. They go back to the house of Salvador Scream to rest.

Round 2
After resting, the party returns to the Arkona palace. They decide to go the diplomatic route and ask to enter the house. They are escorted inside by the Majordomo, who presents himself as Chan, but before the he leaves, Xian grapples him and the party forces him into the visitor's lounge.

The party fails at interrogating their prisoner and suddenly a magical mouth appears, with an dangerously calm voice asks the heroes to release the buttler and come upstairs.

The heroes tries to get informaition out of Glorio Arkona. He remains calm in spite of diplomacy and intimidation and reveals a startling amount of information about the partys antics. He also suggest that he knows not only about Vencarlo and Neolandus, but also the missing Tosti. He tries to make the party go down into the basement and find the missing friends. Xian, suspecting his true nature, confronts him with why they shouldn't just kill him right then and there. Glorio facade finally seems to crack and he retorts: "This is my house. If you come here and think you can make the rules, destroying you shall be my pleasure" as his voice grow deeper and more growling. Kyeran does not want to hear anything and draws his weapon. At the sight of this provokation Glorio rises 10 feet straight up in the air, and starts casting lightning bolts towards the heroes.

The Offer
After a long fight, where the remaining Rakshasa are defeated, Glorio seems almost indestructable.

After unleashing numerous Lightning Bolts against the party, Glorio flies out in the middle of the grand center and extends a final offer to lay down their weapons. The last sentence of the chapter goes: "Everyone of the heroes shared a look and the grim realities were clear to everyone."