Session 18: Under Assez Manor

The party enters the last room, a circular chamber sixty feet across with a golden statue on a pedestal in the center. The statue depicts the lady of beasts, a heretical version of Ryanna with the head of a lioness, ears of a donkey, and the legs of a goat. As they enter, the statue transforms into a Naunet before their eyes. Guy springs into combat faster than the foe can react and knifes it in the gut. Unfortunately, the usual organs seems to be missing and the creature barely notices. Barth charges forward to hold it in place while Clooney hits it with a touch of idiocy. Naunet strikes back with its tail, grabbing and squeezing Clooney in its tight grip. Gnick charges in to rescue him, casting Scatterscree to pelt the weird unnatural creature with stones. Ash also advances, and enchants Barth's weapon. Guy moves around to the other side of the beast, but cannot land a blow. Barth's attacks are also repelled by the creature's strangely repellent hide, but Clooney does manage to use the distraction to change into a spice weasel and --- BAM --- escape. 

The creature pounds Ash with its tentacles, but Ash holds his ground, and it bites at Barth in frustration. Gnick heals, and Ash shoots it with a Ray of Enfeeblement. Guy stabs it again, while Barth is finally able to land a solid blow, enhanced by Ash's magic. Clooney gives it an intimidating glare, but the creature is able to land a tail strike on Guy, grabbing him while he lands a tremendous bite on Barth. Gnick tries to remember where he's heard about this sort of creature before, but can't come up with anything. He then wraps up Ash's wounds, helping him somewhat. Ash begins charging up his chakra, while Guy wriggles free, though Guy's trip attempt does not succeed. The Naunet charges forward to attack Barth, landing a blow that Barth is able to shrug off. Ash kamehameha's the creature, giving it pause as the rest of the party prepares to flee. 

Guy moves up to assist their flight, trying to trip it again. The minion of Chaos grabs Barth with its tail and drives him into unconsciousness with the tightness of his squeeze. In response, Gnick moves back up to regenerate his comrades with divine energy. Guy steps up to help Barth escape from the creature's tail, and Barth retreats back. Clooney creates an illusion to slow it down, but the illusion only slows it down, and it's bite incapacitates Guy. Ash is able to let out another torrent of inner radiance. Gnick treats Guy, and Guy scatters caltrops in an attempt to cover the Barthknockers' escape. Meanwhile, Clooney fires off some magic missiles to slow it down. The protean however charges through the caltrops, knocking Clooney unconscious. Gnick heals Clooney, then continues his retreat. Clooney casts another phantom cloud, and Guy grabs weasel-form Clooney to run.

Session 17: Secrets

So, without warning, the swarm of rats attacked! Gnick threw up a swarm of rocks at them, but the rocks went wide, narrowly missing Guy. But a poison cloud from Clooney dazed the rodents, and Barth was able to kill a truly amazing number with just one swing of his axe. The remaining rats scurried up in his armor, biting and clawing the unfortunate dwarf. In response, Gnick summoned a swarm of insects, which killed the remainder of the rats, but left Barth with a lingering itch. After the fight, the Bartknockers are divided about what to do next. Barth wanted to go underground, but Ash was worried about some enemy burning down the building around them. Baby Bear wanted to finish exploring the first floor, so the party followed the bear.

Around the corner from the ballroom, the group found the winemaker's quarters, where Remi's parents lived. The room was much neater than the rest of the house, with a map of the vineyards on the wall and a bare desk in the corner. The desk is locked and trapped, but Guy is able to untrap it, and Barth, showing more skill than he had with the wagon, sawed off the lock to open the drawer. Inside there was a diary along with 100 gp in jewelry. The diary is in a language no one can read, but Gnick is able to recognize it as abyssal, the language of the demons.

Exploring further, the Bartknockers find the kitchen set up with extra tables and chairs, presumably to serve as a sort of ersatz dining room. Ash went to investigate the dumbwaiter in the corner, but noticed nothing out of the ordinary. Finishing up their search of the ground floor, the group went into the parlor. There the walls were decorated with the heads of animals, and there was a full-sized stuffed bear in the corner. Ash threw a sheet over the bear to spare Baby Bear's tender feelings. On the far wall was a fireplace and in the fireplace was the head of lynx. On entering the room, Clooney noticed it quiver, but couldn't tell what had caused it, so Gnick went in to investigate. Upon getting close, a grayish ooze reached out from the fireplace with a pseudopod, grabbing Gnick and squeezing him tight. 

Baby Bear slashed and Bart dealt a mighty blow to the slime, but it held tight and continued to squeeze Gnick. However, Gnick was able to reverse the hold, and Clooney ended the ooze's life with a well-place ball of flame. Barth searched the room, and found a pair of rubies in the head of the lynx. The group went up to the second floor next. In the master bedroom, they found a skeleton with a silver mirror held up over its thin hair and a four-poster bed with three posts missing. The dumbwaiter terminated in this room behind a pair of shutters. Barth walked up behind the skeleton as quietly as a well-armored dwarf can manage, only to find it a true skeleton, held together with wires. Frustrated, he searched the room, and tore the fourth bedpost off the bed, but he found nothing. However, they did find a pair of Boots of Elvenkind behind the desk.

Finally, the group followed the ramp in the ballroom down into the cellar. It led into a small, well-appointed tasting room, and from there into the barrel room. The barrel room still contained dozens of barrels of wine, but Guy warned that if they opened them improperly, they risked vinegaring the wine, and indeed it appeared that many of the barrels had been improperly opened. Behind the barrel room were rooms for gathering and crushing the grapes. Deeper in, the cellar turned into a natural cave, and as the Bartknockers entered this area, they were accosted by 10 zombies covered in an olive slime! Unfortuntely for the undead, they were no match for the party, and Barth's native constitution was enough to throw off the effects of the slime.

Going further down, the party entered a larger cave that seemed to be designed to serve as some sort of amphitheater. The floor was cut roughly into tiers as it descended towards a square platform 30 feet on a side, covered with arcane symbols and a dark script written in a brownish red ink. On the stage stood a gigantic bowl with long rusty chains hanging above it. The Bartknockers skirted the edge of the room and continued downwards.

Session 16: To Assez Manor!

 

Continuing on to Perrin, the group found a town under siege. It was nearing nightfall, but the streets were too quiet. The houses were shuttered, and while there was light peeking out from under the shades, the voices were muted. Guy scouted out the town, but found no one stirring, so the team moved immediately to Assez Manor. There, the walls were starting to crumble for lack of maintenance, and the proud iron gate that bore their words "Assez Bon" was rusting, and one of the doors was off its hinges. The grounds inside walls were in bad shape, the small family vineyard severely overgrown, and not a sound came from the cooperage or the barn. The party moved up to the manor house, and started towards the large, battered oak doors when Barth noticed something on the roof. Two of the gargoyles, gargoyles Remi had assured them were decorative, were moving to attack.

Barth stood in front of the party at guard, but the gargoyles showed a marked preference for gnome flesh, swooping towards Gnick and staying out of the reach of the dwarf's axes. Gnick found it difficult to retaliate, but Clooney was able to hurt the beasts with magic missiles, and Ash threw flames when he wasn't healing Gnick. Barth moved to guard Gnick more closely, and was able to land some opportunistic strikes, and the party eventually felled the beasts and moved into the manor. 

The foyer had been the scene of a battle, with bloodstains and broken weapons littering the red-carpeted floor. The door leading out were intact, but open, and the party went into the ballroom to the west, leaving the spiral staircase for later. The ballroom still showed some of its old charm, with marble walls and and elegantly carved wooden frieze above the fireplace depicting the Assez family. But the floor was littered with broken furniture, apparently cannibalized to barricade the windows of the room. Ash examined the fireplace and the frieze, but found nothing. Barth searched the floor and found a menuki, but also disturbed some rats that had been sleeping peacefully. Annoyed at having their slumber disturbed, the rats immediately attacked!

Session 15: A New Threat Arises

After the fight with the vampires, the party sorely needed rest, and so they holed up in the Proud Home for the rest of the winter. The next spring, after the roads had cleared sufficiently to allow for travel, they left for the Inn of Bonne Jouissance. There, they met the Rain Scribe, who fills them in on what's been going on. Equanimious Slurp has goons wandering the whole area collecting taxes and generally making life miserable for the people of Perrin. No one knows where he is staying, but he has a minion who somehow took over Assez manor without a big fight. Most of his servants are at least part slime now, and it seems like his end goal might be to convert the whole town to oozemorphs. The group thanks him, and sets off for Perrin the next day.

On the way to Perrin, the gang encounters four men in the road. They
demand cash for "taxes," and turn belligerent when the gold is not forthcoming. As the party readies for attack, their foes transform their arms into weapons and start attacking. Their initial attacks are surprisingly effective, even on Barth, but the party's greater tactical abilities are sufficient to put them down and end the fight. Afterwards, it's clear that their foes had been infused with ooze, making them harder to damage precisely and enabling them to transform their arms into weapons.