Castle Ruodlieb
While Harald is still cooking up his death jar he decides to get his act together and send some folks on central quest missions. First up: Lion-dragon wing from Castle Ruodlieb. Various divination spells had indicated that he still had the necessary beast in his basement, so a party is assembled: Alfodd, Lila, and Famous Hamish. A guy from Tibet who had wandered into the tournament looking for a spiritual leader takes Harald as his guru. His name is Dawa, and we send him along with the team in case they run into any yetis.
A short hop into Venice and one Dominated horse trader later we are riding through Italy. Locals mention that a couple of years ago the Castle caught on fire, and the Count has been anti-social since. However, he recently had a bunch of guests, some of them foreign. Also, there was a big explosion at his castle on the 9th. After a peaceful night and continued journey we find ourselves at Castle Ruodlieb. It is a bit ramshackle, and black/green smoke pours forth from one of the two castle towers. We check out the stables, finding a bunch of dead horses and a pen that used to hold a lion-dragon. We start sneaking around, sending in a Wizard Eye. The Count surprises Hamish as he is sneaking, and invites everyone in. He seems a little daft, but we go to the front door and enter.
The Count's butler is a Frankenstein, and we are served drinks by a banshee with it's jaw wired shut, including a potion that Alfodd snags. Hamish picks up one of the Count's few remaining books: The Life of Hagen. We chit-chat, and the Count keeps up a low level of crazy. A very lithe lady with a big cloak and hood comes in, and makes significant eye contact with Alfodd. She is Quiteria, a newly converted Haraldite. She's been hanging out with the Count for a few days, as it seems they have a common interest in bringing folk back from the dead.
More guests show up: Serafim and his 8ft tall invisible friend, Sparfried. After he checks us out he asks us to come up to the smoking tower to check out if his boss is ok up there. See, his boss, Baron Ovadu, went up into the tower and said "Whatever happens, don't open this trapdoor". The next day the tower exploded. We go up into the tower and send up a Wiz Eye. The tower room is covered with giant maggots with the faces of the damned. Smoke lingers in the ceiling, and purple goo coats the walls. There is a pentacle, maggot-free, in the middle of the floor. We fireball the whole mess, clearing out the maggots, and the room is otherwise empty. Serafim mentions that his buddies Dole Iru and a mummy are around as well, and he claims that coming here was Ovadu's idea. Oh yeah, and he fesses up to eating the horses while in wolf form. We also learn that the count never sleeps, and he seems to be collecting his excrement in mason jars stacked through the house. The Countess is sexy, running the show, and not to be disturbed.
We explore some more, and fight a bunch of gargoyles and ghouls. A failed Dominate on the human cook results in her freeing the banshee, but we take it down after everyone(!) in the party makes their save versus her scream. We go into the abandoned other tower and find ourselves talking to Pezuzuazezz, who is some kind of bird God who wants to talk with Harald. We set up a meeting at the Tournament grounds, and he gives us a Symbol of Hopelessness to show his good faith. During some other sneaking we find and take a box with "Abraham" written on it in Hebrew that holds two leathery eggs. Lion-dragon eggs?
We find the Count again, and we ask him point blank to take us to the lion-dragon. He says that he'll do it for a spellbook (he is the necromancer, not she), since his wife took his. We give him a page from Philip IV's pyramid book, and say we'll give him the rest after we get out wing bits. He takes us into the basement, and tries to lead us to "Loki, the firey guy. You want to see him, right? He keeps this place warm. Blah booga pthfbbb!" and so on. We ignore him and open the trapped door with lion noises behind it that he is trying to get us past. Inside is the lion dragon, and it is pretty tough. We fight it, Quiteria Blade Barriers the corridor so the Count can't go get Loki, and the Countess and her pet Stone giant show up. We use the Symbol on the Countess, who blows her respectable MR and then rolls a 1, and we Reduce the giant to a very small midget. After many attempts a Shadow Monsters medusa "petrifies" the lion dragon after it takes down Hamish and Alfodd, and we cut some wings. The count throws his Hopeless wife over his shoulder and snaps into lucidity for a moment. "That's right! I have a pentacle in the tower. I can show her what for now. Don't open the mason jars!" He and his folks all disappear, but not before Hamish risks a heart explosion to pick his wife's pockets. What did he get, I wonder? Our folks Teleport out without waiting around to see what goes down next, happy to have crossed another item off the Ikkulu's List.
