Session 21 – Successfully Completing the Hole Mission

The party split up to look around the house and try to locate Daisey.

Tiv decided to hide under a table in the kitchen where Jack was cutting vegetables. Even though she was shielded from view by her cloak of elven hijinks, she was wary of someone else entering the room and spotting her.

Jack feigned some tummy troubles and asked to use the privy, and Bertha directed him to the nearest one, just off the dining room, which just happened to be the first door that Vedica, invisible, opened.  In the dining room were two guards and three servants laying the three large tables in anticipation of the party.

As the nearest guard’s attention was drawn by the door to the privy seemingly opening by itself and Jack wandering around, Murchad (also invisible) took the opportunity to slip in through the door behind him (the one he was guarding), remembering to close it behind himself. Shortly after that, Jack bypassed the privy door and followed him through the other door.

Unfortunately, that door lead to Tum Bouquet’s library, where Tum was standing at a table in the middle of room, looking over some books.

“Who the devil are you?” shouted Tum as he wheeled around to stare at Jack, his hand on the hilt of his sword.  “What are you doing in my house? Guards!” The guard came into the room right afterward, saying “I’m sorry, sir, he’s one of the musicians for tonight who arrived early. He was looking for the privy, and I think he just got confused about which door it was.”

“Well, can you please show him to the privy, as this, quite obviously, isn’t it!”

“Yes, sir!”  The guard escorted Jack to the privy. Jack closed himself in there, looking for a way out of the house, but there were no windows. If only he knew where Murchad had gone with the portal, he could have used it to get back to Catsby’s!  Jack makes sounds of intestinal distress as he searches, causing some moderate worry on the part of the guard who was listening intently from the other side of the door.

Back in the kitchen, Tiv listened in on the conversation between the servants, Aidan and Bertha, each speaking more freely now that they believe themselves to be away from prying ears. She (and Dwårfy, who’s also still in earshot) is able to learn that Tum’s got a terrible personality, but he's got money, and he’s got influence, and he's actually pretty good fighter if it ever comes to it, so nobody ever goes up against him, and he’s one of those guys who just gets away with everything.  In some way, he suspects that Daisey’s been having some type of affair, which of course would be accurate, but he’s unsure of that and thinks it might be something else.  Whatever the case, there's definitely something going on in his house, and so he's basically keeping her under lock and key in her bedroom (they keep separate bedrooms). The servants like Daisey as a person (whereas they don’t like Tum), and they think it’s sad the way he’s treating her.

While that’s going on, Vedica made her way to another door and found another loo behind it.   Dwårfy made his way across the dining room to discover a liquor storage room and a sommelier sneaking a drink of port. He also saw some stairs heading downward just beyond.  Slipping down them, Dwårfy found the wine cellar. He took a moment to enjoy the coolness and dampness of being underground before deciding to help himself to two bottles of Tum’s fancy port. He figured Tum would never miss them, and even if he did, he deserved it anyway for being a jerk.

Tiv left the kitchen and carefully picked her way through the dining room. Fortunately, the only person who could spot her despite her cloak was Vedica.  Jack left the privy and went back to the kitchen.

In the room with Tum, Murchad sought to slip through an interior door, but he didn’t want to be noticed. Since Tum was facing the door (albeit with his attention absorbed by his books), Murchad decided to throw a copper piece against the far wall to create a distraction and then slip into the next room while Tums attention was elsewhere. His plan worked, and Tum opened the window on the far side of the room, asking the guard outside why he was tapping on the wall. The next room revealed Tum’s study and a private restroom, and the room beyond that was his bedroom. Murchad looked over the papers and journals on the desk in the study, but didn’t waste too much time there. He opted to break a glass in order to attract Tum’s attention, which worked (as no one was supposed to be in those rooms, and he slipped back out as Tum looked around the rooms to ensure he had no intruders.

While that was going on, Tiv entered the main foyer of the house (the party had entered through the rear kitchen door), but this time, one of the servants (the only one in that room) noticed her despite her cloak. He questioned who she was and what she was doing in the house, and Tiv played it off like she was a guest who arrived early. She began talking about Jack, a famous musician who was supposed to be at the party and how excited she was to finally meet him in person. The servant, Garthe, had no idea who or what she was talking about, as he hadn’t been in the kitchen and had not encountered Jack. He brought Tiv to the kitchen to see if Aiden knew anything about her, and there he met Jack, who was back to chopping vegetables.  Garthe left her there while he went to find out from Tum what he wanted to do with her.  In the end, it was decided that the guest and the musician were to be shown into the salon to wait for the party to start and be provided some refreshments. In the room, there were many musical instruments. Garthe offered to get them drinks and told them that hors d’œuvres would be brought in shortly.

As Garthe left the room, Vedica slipped inside the salon.  Jack and Tiv were making music (badly), but seemed to be enjoying themselves well enough. Vedica went through the salon to the door on the other side, which she opened and passed through. Jack and Tiv saw the door open by itself and knew it must have been one of their friends (but, as Vedica was invisible, they didn’t know which one).

Beyond the door, Vedica found a small study containing a desk near the window and a small round table and two chairs in the middle of the room. The desk was a mess, with papers strewn all over it, including the floor, a spilled inkwell, and papers both crumpled and flat tossed around the floor and trampled underfoot. Looking through the papers, she could see that most were written in Elfish, but a few were written in Latin, a rare language for use in Tír na nÓg. She couldn’t read the Elfish, but she could read the Latin.  All were written in a florid, feminine hand. It would seem that she found Daisey’s personal study.

Briefly reading a few diary entries that were in Latin instead of Elfish, she saw references to being worried about “Tum’s temper” and “not being sure what he would do.” One such entry read:

“Tum’s horrible temper is growing more horrible by the day. I think he knows – I’m sure of it. I’m starting to worry that he will resort to violence. Not against me, of course, as he would lose his ‘trophy,’ but C. Oh, C, my dear C!  What he would do to you, if only he knew!”

Another read:

“Tum’s got those horrible hellhounds now. I told C not to come anymore the usual way, as the hounds would surely destroy him. He said not to worry, that he had a plan. Oh, how I hope he does!  Oh, how I wish he could just whisk me away, but I know that’s not possible. Still…”

Jack writes on a piece of paper: “Have you seen Daisey? Do you know where she is?”  He then went into the next room, where he knew one of his friends was, and he was surprised at the disarray of the place. He laid the note down on the little, round table. Vedica saw him enter, and she read it to herself. Then, she whispered her answer to him: “No, not yet, but this was her study.”

Vedica finds the other door in the room to be locked, and listening at it, she heard a woman’s voice on the other side. She was alternating between soft crying and seeming to argue in hushed tones with someone who’s not actually there. Vedica figured out pretty quickly that they have located Daisey.

Jack hastily scribbled another note: “We have come to rescue you,” and slipped it under her door. Then, he quietly knocks on the door three times to be sure to draw her attention.

At that same time, Dwårfy entered the room, having exhausted the rooms where he was looking and knowing that Jack and Tiv were brought to the salon. Murchad, having exhausted the rooms in his wing, came to the salon as well.

The party spent some time debating the best course of action while Vedica tried repeatedly to pick the lock on the door. Their first thought was to slip the portal under the door to Daisey, but that would deprive them of their easiest way back out of the house. They started discussing the possibility of tying a rope to the fabric bearing the portal and then slipping that under the door, escaping through the portal and leaving it to Daisey to pull the portal under the door herself. As they discovered that the rope would be too wide to fit under the door, they heard a voice from the other side.

It was Daisey. “Hello? Is there someone out there?”

After a brief explanation of what their purpose was and Catsby’s plan with the portal, they suggest that Daisey call for something to drink using her servant summoning bell, as that would presumably get the door open and allow them to slip into the room with the portal.

She used the bell, and Tiv and Jack went back to the salon. 

Only too late did they realize that they left the door to Daisey’s study open!

Bertha ca,me into the room, remarked with surprise that that door should be closed, and went into the study, closing the door behind her.  To the remaining party members’ chagrin, she talked to Daisey through the locked door. Daisey asked for wine – a lot of wine, and Bertha said she would get her some. After a tense five minutes waiting for Bertha to leave and return with the wine, Vedica, Murchad, and Dwårfy all breathed a sigh of relief when she returned with a bottle and a glass and did indeed remove a key from her apron and opened the door. Daisey instructed her to bring the things in and set them on the table in front of the fireplace. As soon as she was well clear of the door, the three slipped into the room, and all were locked in by Bertha when she left again.

They found Daisey, dressed in luxurious white and gold from head to toe a tall, slender elf who was stunningly beautiful.

They revealed themselves to her and showed her how to work the portal. She asked for Murchad’s help spreading it out under her bed (she felt that would be a good place to conceal it and avoid surprises should Catsby use it sometime, not knowing who was in the room on the other side). After that, Murchad, Dwårfy, and Vedica used the portal and found themselves in Catsby’s walk-in closet. Catsby was standing right there, overjoyed at their return.

At about four in the morning, a tipsy Tiv and tipsy Jack returned to Catsby’s mansion. They had stayed at the party until about two in the morning, and they picked up Ceangal once back outside the walls. He was less than amused.

Once everyone had returned to Catsby’s mansion, Catsby explained that he had found a source of ugallium, the glowing green gemstone that the party needed to help the sailors aboard the Eldridge to get home.

Unfortunately, this stone was set in a valuable necklace that was the prized possession of a local gangster and scallywag named Wolfsheim. He was known for being dangerous and violent. Even more, he was known for being a werewolf, and exceedingly rare thing, as elves are supposed to be immune to lycanthropy. While his lycanthropy seems not to be a genuine case of the disease, his henchmen and servants are all lycanthropes of various kinds (often infected by him on purpose to keep them dependent on him), and this poses a risk of the disease to the party members.

The party now must come up with a plan to infiltrate his two-storey mansion and seek out the necklace – an item which may be in the house itself or hidden away, deep in the labyrinthine compound under the house…