February 28, 118
With the basic layout of the mansion and the habits of its occupants known to the party, they begin formulating a plan. They don't have the complete layout; they know only what they were able to glimpse through windows. They know that Gorith has five servants: a cook, a butler, a maid, a gardener, and a priest. All five of these servants live on the premises and keep to certain schedules. Furthermore, he employs a total of fifteen guards, who work five at a time in eight-hour shifts. At any given time, two of the guards are stationed at the front gate, two patrol the courtyard, and one is inside the building itself.
Ellyanna points out that she has a spell that can change her appearance, which would be extremely useful in this situation, but she needs time to rest and prepare it, as it isn't one of the spells she'd prepared in the morning. She returns to the inn to do so, and because of this, the party decide that they'll strike at night, after Ellyanna has had time to prepare.
Based on what they've learned, they know that the cook leaves the building more often than the other servants; he is generally out and about between meals. They decide to track him down first. Their hope is that he will be susceptible to bribery or perhaps magical compulsion, and could help them sneak some of the party into the mansion.
Once the cook leaves for the afternoon, Elvish and Calanon tail him to see where he's going. Ash-Daughter stays behind to keep an eye on the guards, so that she can help Ellyanna disguise herself afterwards. Dark Star, with nothing to do yet, returns to the inn to study his book some more.
Elvish is nearly caught by the chef as he follows him through the streets, but manages to avoid detection until the man arrives at his destination, which turns out to be an outdoor park containing a skating rink. Elvish follows him inside and rents a pair of skates to join him, which Calanon stays a bit further behind to keep an eye on things.
Luckily, Elvish knows how to skate, and he quickly makes his way to the cook and strikes up a conversation with him. The cook, whose name is Leris, turns out to be the friendly sort and it doesn't take much goading from Elvish to get him to talk about his job. Elvish quickly realizes that, based on Leris's description, the servants are mostly quite lax about their duties, because Gorith is rarely present.
Turning on his charm to maximum, Elvish befriends the man and proposes that they meet that evening to play games, of the card and dice variety. Leris agrees, and tells him to come a few hours after dinner. After securing this meeting, Elvish keeps chatting long enough so that he can gracefully exit the conversation, then excuses himself.
The rest of the afternoon is spent preparing for the game night, with the party procuring the necessary dice and cards, but also buying up several bottles of extremely strong wine, hoping to get the servants completely drunk so they'll pass out.
A few hours before the meeting, night falls, and Ash-Daughter uses this opportunity to scout the second floor of the building, which they know very little about. Using her ability to see in the dark, she climbs the outer wall of the complex and tries to peek into the windows without being seen. Unfortunately, the very first time she tries, she is spotted by a guard and forced to abandon the plan. The party will have to go into the mansion knowing nothing about the second floor.
Finally, the time of the meeting arrives. They feel it would be too suspicious for the entire party to come, so Elvish, Calanon and Dark Star head out to join the servants for games (disguised and using fake names, or course), while Ellyanna and Ash-Daughter stay behind. The plan is for one of the three inside the building to somehow get one of the second floor windows open, allowing Ash-Daughter to enter later. Ellyanna's plan is to arrive shortly after the guard shift changes, disguised as the guard who was inside the building, and claim that she forgot something inside. Ash-Daughter will enter through the second floor window at this same time.
Elvish, Calanon, and Dark Star arrive at the front gates, and guards are clearly expecting them. They are let in and directed to go around back to the servants' entrance. This entrance leads directly into the kitchen. When they arrive, they see that the kitchen has three other doors exiting it, as well as a stairway down to the cellar.
The cook is waiting for them in the kitchen, and when they arrive, he fetches the gardener and the maid to join them (the butler and the priest having declined the invitation). Unfortunately, this means they have no chance to get into the rest of the building and explore before the games begin.
An hour or so passes, and the three adventurers spend this time trying to get the servants as drunk as possible, with great success. At this point, Elvish announces that he needs to use the bathroom, hoping to use this as a excuse to get out and explore the building. Unfortunately, it turns out the privy is directly connected to the kitchen. Declaring that the smell would be too much if he did his business so close to where they're playing, he grabs the chamber pot from the privy and takes it to the basement instead.
After using the chamber pot, Elvish takes this opportunity to explore the basement. He doesn't have too much time before the servants become suspicious of what he's doing, but he does manage to find something. In the far corner of the basement, behind a large crate, he discovers a secret door. Unfortunately, he doesn't have time to investigate it.
Returning to the kitchen, he convinces Dark Star to go down next; Dark Star claims that he also needs to relieve himself and heads down. He sees the secret door, now obvious because Elvish left the chamber pot right next to it. He slides it open and discovers a narrow passage that goes for about twenty feet before opening into a room. The flickering light of the torch or lantern is visible coming from the room.
Dark Star starts sneaking down the passage, when suddenly a figure steps in from the room at the end. It's Malecar the wizard, and fortunately he doesn't see Dark Star, who is keeping to the shadows. He does, however, clearly notice that the secret door is open. Frowning, he steps back into the room.
Dark Star has only a few moments to prepare, which he uses to summon a weapon and prepare to strike with an Eldritch Blast spell. Malecar steps back into the corridor, this time holding the lantern, and Dark Star strikes. The force of the spell sends Malecar flying back, and he drops the lantern, which shatters on the floor. It does not, however, kill him, and by the dying light of the lantern, he retaliates by summoning a cloud of daggers where Dark Star is standing, as well as shouting out for help.
Up in the kitchen, the servants are luckily too drunk to hear Malecar, but Elvish and Calanon are not, and they start making hasty excuses to go back down into the cellar.
Dark Star retreats back into the main room of the cellar, casting Armor of Agathys to protect himself. He sees a new light appear in the corridor, and Malecar steps out, his staff glowing with a Light spell. Dark Star hits him with another Eldritch Blast, but this time Malecar retaliates with a barrage of five Magic Missiles, which rip through his magical armor and very nearly kill him.
At this point, Calanon and Elvish arrive. Calanon rushes to heal Dark Star, while Elvish casts Faerie Fire on Malecar, illuminating him and making him easier to hit. Dark Star passes his summoned maul to Calanon, then strikes Malecar with a third Eldritch Blast, but it still doesn't kill him.
Now facing three opponents instead of one, Malecar casts a new spell, one which creates a dense cloud of noxious fumes. It covers all three adventurers, leaving them coughing, unable to see or act. Calanon, however, manages to overcome the fumes and stumble out of the cloud towards Malecar. He charges and strikes the mage with a mighty blow, which knocks him unconscious. As he falls, the cloud vanishes.
Elvish immediately heads back up to try to keep the servants from getting too suspicious, an endeavour in which he is aided by the fact that they're extremely drunk. Calanon and Dark Star, on the other hand, tie up the unconscious mage then go to investigate the room that he came from.
The room appears to be a small, all-purpose living area, with a bed, a small table covered in dirty dishes, and a chest of clothing. Most of the room, however, is covered in magical reagents, notes, and other wizardly accoutrements. A door leads out of the room, and into a smaller room, about ten feet square. The only thing in this room is a small stone pedestal, above which floats some sort of magical icosahedron. It is approximately a foot across, and covered in mystic runes. Since neither Dark Star nor Calanon are knowledgeable about arcane magic, they leave it alone for now.
They drag Malecar into the pedestal room, then barricade the door with the chest of clothing, before returning to the kitchen. Luckily, the combination of Elvish's charisma and the servants' drunkenness has served to keep the three servants unaware that anything has happened.
The group continue their games for another hour or so, until finally the servants are completely passed out, drunk. Elvish, Calanon and Dark Star head back into the basement to interrogate Malecar and find out what he knows.
