Session Three

Kythorn 22nd, The Year of the Crown, 1351 DR

In the late evening of the 21st, the party found themselves being marched off to a rendezvous with High Lord of Arabel Jaster Imbruin. The Palace of the High Lord is an ancient, many times expanded old keep, laid out in a square. Numerous wings and turrets in the style of a half-dozen ages of the kingdom surround a common, flagstone tiled courtyard. The party found the interior of the palace subdued and quiet, with what few courtiers still moving about to be fretful and wary.

After passing through several magical wards designed to dispel magical effects and discover concealed weaponry, they found themselves in a private sitting room of the Lord Imbruin, in company with his ever present bodyguard, a man named Rochefort. The High Lord, a sandy haired young man in his mid-twenties, seemed to vacillate in his demeanor from warmly personable to coolly calculating to suggestively inquisitive. In all, his manner seemed strange and abrupt, and he seemed to know far more about the questions (mostly about the nature of the group and the attack on the King several days gone) he was asking than he should.

The conversation was interrupted by the abruptly interrupted by the arrival of a senior War Wizard, identified by the Lord as Laskor, and the reappearance of the Wizard Melander. Laskor's concern for the High Lord seemed filled with feigned solicitation, and the party took that opportunity to make their exit in the company of Melander. In escorting them from the Palace, Melander took several opportunities to warn the party against crossing the High Lord, or even speaking out against him, because to do so was considered treason against the Crown. Despite that, however, he warned them to stay away from Imbruin, to return to their lodgings at the Dancing Dragon, and when they were able to meet with the Duke on the morrow, to make all haste westward with their charter in hand.

After being again cautioned about the nature of the High Lord, this time by Rohan, the party returned to the Dancing Dragon and spent a small pile of their bandit money on luxurious baths and imported treats from the Sword Coast. Rohan also informed Mariam that by being with them in the presence of the High Lord, he has most likely marked her as an enemy. He extended an invitation to her to join with them in their journey westward. Ka'mil detoured to on an errand of his own, but returned shortly, and the party bedded down to rest after and extremely long day.

Kythorn 23rd, The Year of the Crown, 1351 DR

Disturbing dreams again woke Rohan in the early hours of the morning. Poorly rested he, sought out the source of his difficulties, his family's ancient manse of Hawkshill. Finding the old house to be under the edict of the High Lord, he attempted to break in, only to have an encounter with one of the family legends, the terrifying "White Lady", a spectre said to haunt the men of the Hawkshill family. Shaken and disturbed by the encounter, he returned to the Dancing Dragon to explain what he had seen. The party had... mixed reactions. Some questioned if what he had seen was really a spirit, others advised seeking the advice of the clergy of the temples of Sune or Tymora, and still others sought to just leave the problem behind them and proceed with the mission of the Crown. Rohan couldn't just walk away from his family history, and asked the party to join him in investigating his family's estate. Reluctantly agreeing, the party set out in the pre-dawn hours to the mansion.

The found a ancient gothic estate, overgrown with dying vegetation and rotting leaves. The place had a dying look to it, as if it were somehow falling into despair. Rohan informed the party that recently his father had taken his own life inside the house, and the estate had been forfeited to the High Lord for back taxes. Inside, the group discovered no immediate evidence of a ghost, but that much of the furniture of the home had been stripped away and presumably sold to pay old debts. In the Grand Foyer, they found a painted ceiling depicting a disturbing battle between what seemed to be men and devils, and large mural on the wall showing the decisive Battle of the Wyvernwater at Wheloon, in which Eberton Hawkshill, the builder of the house, battled the forces of the Witchlords in ~900 DR.

The mural contained a little used staircase heading downstairs, into the foundation of the house. There, the party uncovered a burial vault and the remains of a vagrant, partially consumed by rats. There was little indication left of why she died, or how she got into the basement, and the party had little time to discover as much, as John Smith, in searching one of the walls, triggered and ancient and elaborate magical trap on a secret doorway. The trap invoked the summoning of three Abyssal dretches who gave battle to the party. Upon their destruction, a passageway was revealed extending into the foundation. At the end of the passageway was a blacked wooden door, alive with crawling runes like failing embers. The dead guarded the door.

Two dessicated skeletons in rotting plate armor stood guard over the door. As Rohan approached, the surged to life, demanding of him his name. They confirmed that his blood was of the Hawkshills, and the chamber beyond held both his bithright and his doom, before opening the black wooden doors.

The final chamber seemed to be some sort of twisted chapel. In the center of the room, encased behind a magic circle, raged a demon, identified as a nashrou demon, apparently the final guardian of an impressive looking short blade suspended in the air with it. Behind the guardian stood an elaborate suite of masterwork full plate armor fashioned in the appearance of a chimera, and an old locked strongbox. Avoiding the caged demon for the moment, the Rohan and John managed to pick the lock on the box, revealing a small fortune in golden lions (over 2000) and a slim, black lacquered wand with a word etched into its side, annuminas.

As the party turned back, they found the way into the house blocked by the arrival of the White Lady. Her full form appeared to be that of a beautiful human woman, long ago murdered by a cut throat, her translucent form trailing off to a cloud of frost below the waist. Her piercing white eyes seemed to blaze at the party's intrusion into the dark chapel, and with a wail of malice, plunged into the bodies of the two undead guardians of the door. With a bellow of feminine rage, the two skeletal plate warriors surged to attack the battered group...