[Pathfinder] Return of the Runelords, part 6: A Disturbance at the Manor

After we examined the creature that Lady Corstela transformed into, Hunter commented on how glad he was that he'd paid an armorer more gold to re-size the small mithril breastplate to fit him in time for the party. Zinovia then told us about the man she'd gone upstairs with and how he'd ensorceled her and afterward turned into a red-skinned horned being. We found a wand, which Hunter asked to have as he can use its magic to power his own. 

Sinspawn

The creature had been holding a sword we thought might be the Sword of Pride while it was in the form of Corstela Rostrata, but when it collapsed the sword proved to be as false as the person, revealing itself as a broken rapier. 

Most of the nobles who'd gone into a frenzy when the statue was revealed were only unconscious, not dead. It was a long fight to defeat all the bald women. They were very skilled at avoiding blows and spells. Zinovia and Hunter fought them fiercely, Zinovia at one point nearly slicing one woman in two, but she took many wounds from them and was sorely hurt herself. Fox and Hunter expended many charges from their wands to help her recover her health, and Lonn also used his knowledge of healing to benefit her. Zinovia is an amazingly strong warrior. After she was knocked down by the woman, she drew out her warhammer and dealt one of them a fearsome blow without rising from the ground.

Zinovia

The hairless women proved to have many talismans on their persons and those we took. When all of the women in the ballroom had been dealt with we decided it would be wise to search the rest of the manor. We crossed the entry hall and found our way to the kitchen, where several cooks in livery were busily preparing food. They seemed unaware of what had happened in the ballroom, though there was no indication of the magic that had silenced sounds from downstairs when I went up to the second floor. The cooks didn't react when Hunter entered the kitchen and didn't respond when he spoke to them, but when he tried touching one of them the cook he touched tried to cut him with a cleaver. Lonn realized they were under an enchantment. We left them behind, intending to return later to see if we could free them.

Beyond the kitchen lay a dining hall, where an assortment of commoners and workmen were dining with a few nobles, oddly. We realized they too were enchanted when we heard them repeating the same conversation over and over. Hunter encountered a trace of Sir Roderic's ghost in an empty study, which he thought indicated that the spirit was somehow confined there. We left them as well and crossed back to the wing where the ballroom lay to investigate the rooms that let off the ballroom. 

Kitchen, dining hall & study

Hunter overheard more voices coming from one of those rooms. When he opened the door he found several guards and more of the oddly dressed women inside. The guards seemed surprised by the intrusion. Lonn had already observed that the guards we had seen outside the manor when we arrived were nowhere to be seen. It seemed they must have come inside. When Hunter tried to tell them about what had happened in the ballroom they immediately became combative and another fight ensued. 

While Hunter, Zinovia, and Fox fought with the women and guards, Lonn ran outside to open a window to gain access to the room another way. I followed him, firing my spell through the window at women who seemed entirely too agile for me to touch them. One of the guards took the opportunity to climb out the window after me. Fearing for my life, I drew my recently acquired wand out of the sheath on my wrist and directed the bead of fiery energy into the room. I wasn't aware that at that moment Zinovia was lying on the floor inside that room, badly injured. 

The flames rid us of all of our foes, but very nearly took Zinovia with them. After my comrades had used all the healing skills and magic at their disposal to restore her, she came outside and began shouting at me angrily for having used the wand. When I objected that I had no other offensive options at my disposal in that time, she began telling me that I should at least be able to use a dagger or a staff as a weapon. I kept trying to interject that I had left my staff at the inn because I didn't think I would need it at a party, she shouted me down. I felt humiliated, and also ashamed that I hadn't prepared better for this occasion. I had selected spells with no thought to any danger, assuming that we were only going to a party where we would talk to the Peacocks, not fight them. I walked over to the front entry steps of the manor and sat down, feeling rather full of self-pity. 

While I was sitting on the steps, more of the women appeared and Zinovia went back inside to face them. After a few more moments of reflection I realized that I couldn't just sit there and let my friends face them without helping. Master Taeral, I hope you can forgive me for failing to use the skills you taught me in a better fashion. I ran back up to the open window, and managed to hit two of the women with my frost. When the woman were done, Lonn went into another smaller room and emerged with a pearl that radiated a fairly strong aura. I realized it was a pearl of power, capable of restoring cast spells. The others encouraged me to take it. I hope I can use it well to aid them.

Pearl of Power

We then went up the stairs to search for the real Lady Corstela, but she wasn't in that wing. In the room that Zinovia had entered with the man, Hunter found an elven man bound and gagged in a closet. Zinovia identified him as the man she'd gone upstairs with, but he claimed that a red-skinned man with horns had put him in the closet. This fit the description of what the elf man had turned into after casting a spell on her. This man from the closet proclaimed himself Alden Tilaresk, one of the Peacocks as exemplified by the showy cape of peacock plumage he wore. Upon being questioned Alden stated that the Peacocks had existed in Roderic's Cove for years, and Sir Roderic had even been a member. They had always met at his manor during his lifetime. He claimed to know nothing of what had happened downstairs. He told us he is a sorcerer, and very proud of his magic he is, too. But he gave us a wand that can cast mage armor as a reward for rescuing him. Fox has taken charge of that wand.

Master Alden Tilaresk

We took Alden downstairs, intended to cross to the other wing to check the upstairs rooms there. To do so we would have to go outside the manor and ascend by an exterior staircase. First we took Alden to the ballroom and showed him what had happened. He was quite appalled to see the other Peacocks. He told us the women had served the Peacocks for many years and always obeyed Lady Corstela. He didn't understand why they would have tried to keep us from leaving the ballroom. It was Alden who recognized the creature that had been disguised as Corstela as a sinspawn of wrath. He also sensed the magic coming from the statue of Alaznist, though he resisted it, and he didn't understand why that statue would be in the manor as the Peacocks are admirers of the Runelord of Pride, not of Wrath.

Alaznist, Runelord of Wrath

We made our way outside and climbed up to the second floor of the other wing, Alden accompanying us. Hunter carefully opened the first door at the top of the staircase, immediately sensing that the room was unusually cold. Two of the warrior women waited within, both moving toward him threateningly as soon as they saw him. I had managed to be just behind him on the stair, but I hung back to use the pearl to restore my spells. Alden ran into the room and began trying to dissuade the women from starting a fight but they paid him no heed. Zinovia stepped in and swung her sword mightily at one woman while Fox sent a ray of flame at the other. 

From another room down a short hall I glimpsed another person appear. I couldn't see him well but I did observe that he had bright red skin. Both Fox and Lonn saw him better and warned us that he was a cambion demon. Hunter and Lonn added to this, advising that cambions are immune or resistant to many types of energy and are capable of casting quite powerful spells. Alden exclaimed angrily that it was the cambion who had rendered him unconscious and presumably bound him and put him in the closet as well. When Hunter headed toward the demon he took cover in a room and Hunter called out that the cambion had shielded himself. 

Cambion

But the women had no such magical wards and I used my missiles to lay one of them out on the floor. Alden ran into a room to the other side of the hall, followed by Lonn, and I went after them, to find that Lady Corstela sat in that room conversing with them. Zinovia meanwhile pursued the demon and her sword dealt with him just as it had dealt with almost everything else it met. I'm relieved that she is not my enemy, but I'm not sure I want her to try to teach me fighting skills either. 

Lady Corstela Rostrata

Next: part 7, Lair of the Horned Fangs