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We get there at Noon, sun's out guns out. There are tents down near the castle, but we're too far away to see how the patrols look.
Challenge
Kihra sneaks closer to get an eye on their patrols. **Sneak** check. Stamina as the resource. Success: -3 Stamina.
She sees that the guards are patrolling the perimeter, and are guarding the gate from the outside. They're looking into the castle as if they're worried about something in there.
Challenge
Perception challenge for Khira. Consequence is that there's no unguarded entrance. Success: -1 Adventurer's Kit, -3 Stamina
Kihra finds us an unguarded window, it'll be a bit of a climb but she doesn't think that the window's going to be an issue. Leanne comments that this is more of a prison than a fort.
We decide to wait until nightfall - but the guards are doing something interesting: apparently a fair number of guards know restoration magic and are healing the other guards reasonably frequently.
Time to head in:
Challenge
Everyone Sneak check, with Advantage. Difficulty 8, stamina resource Kihra: Success Casts: Success Leanne: Success -1 stamina Terfir: Success
Casts tries to get a look at what spell they're casting:
Skill Use
Casts identifies through **Restoration** they're casting both Restore and Cure
Once we get to the window in the castle, we need to climb up there.
Challenge
Climb check for everyone, Alteration Check for Casts to get the rope up there. Casts: Success -2 magicka, Success (climb) Terfir: Success Kihra: Success Leanne: Success
It's very dark in here, which is no problem for Kihra.
Skill Use
Casts-No-Shadows uses **Illusion** to detect life. -1 Magicka.
Detecting life shows that there are no living things in the building except some rats. Seeing that there are no living things in the building, Casts creates a light using Illusion.
Challenge
Perception time for anyone who wants to. Difficulty 7. Casts: Success Leanne: Success Kihra: Sueccess, -2 Magicka Terfir: Failure
Turns out there were some skeletons nearby, that come shambling out and immediately attacks Terfir.
Fight
Round 1: Terfir is attacked by the skeletons and uses **Light Armor** to defend. Leanne uses **Alteration** to do the needful. Success Casts-No-Shadows attempts to achieve stealth with **Sneak**, success -2 health Kihra: Punches a skeleton's head off. **hand-to-hand** Terfir: Rips its head off with **hand-to-hand**
Meanwhile, while the group was finishing combat Casts-No-Shadows found signs of a fireplace that had recently been in use, with the remains of charred documents in it. He took it back to the group to examine.
We find 3 pages that were semi-legible.
(first page) ... been from thee too long, my heart doth ... (second page) ... you loveth my lips, but forget the words they breath... (third page) ... she doth suspect you cuckold her ... and I worship and adore all parts of thee but thy hollow crown and thy hollow wedding ring, those two empty circles that trap and bring thee pain ... an I be so vain to be Lysandus' Medora evermore ... body and sip nectar from thy hand ... love m ... forever ...
While we're handling this, Casts's detect life spell (after a perception) check the number of the guards has dropped from 4 to 3 and they're now in the building, down below us.
After we head in further, another one of them dies, and they break into a full out sprint (instead of a tactical retreat).
Skill Use
Kihra uses **Sneak** to get a glimpse as they run out
Turns out the guards were being chased by a headless zombie, which is dispatched by the gate guards. We decide to head down and finish what they started, and we can see into the courtyard because they didn't stop to close the door - there's a dead zombie.
We head down and get a waft of decay, and Kihra decides to scout ahead.
Skill Use
Kihra uses more **Sneak** to skeak ahead. Sneak. Sneeeeak. Difficulty 15. Stamina as a resource. Advantage. Failure - She sees a thing with Glowing red eyes that was slurping a corpse.
Kihra shouts "you with the weird glowy eyes, why are you doing that?".
Casts summons a Bound dagger on the way into the fight.
Fight
Round 1 Kihra and a Zombie are going toe-to-toe. Ox comes in and fights another zombie. Casts-No-Shadows: Uses one-handed to slash at the throat of the glowey-eyes - and succeeds! Leanne: Casts soul trap - Success! Terfir: Uses **Destruction** to use Flames on it. "Where did you hide the journal?!" - It does not answer. Round 2 Zombie Attacks Kihra. Uses 4 stamina to succeed on the defense. Vampire attacks Terfir. She dodges and succeeds with a bunch of stamina uses. Kihra uses hand-to-hand to kill the zombie. Pretty simple head removal. Ox fights a zombie. Casts-No-Shadows presses the advantage against the vampire and stabs it straight through the heart, killing her. (one-handed) Leanne attempts to kill the zombie and fails. Terfir uses Conjuration to have Ox finish killing the zombie by dismembering it.
We debate what to do with the Vampire's body but ultimately decide it's not coming back so we keep investigating around. We find an altar to Namira - both an altar and a tomb. Terfir decided this was a good time to...worship...Namira.
Namira granted her a disease, as well as vision from the Vampire's memories, which discovered that some of the letters were still in a journal that weren't burned.
The group gets back out of the castle, leaving Terfir and Leanne to rest, while Casts and Kihra sneak back into the camp to retrieve the journal and letters.
Challenge
Get the letters and journal. Stealth Casts uses **Illusion** to charm one of the guards into getting the letters for him while Kihra goes to the captain's tent to retrieve the journal...which is in a horse's sachel. Both succeed!
Eventually we get the rest of the Journal pages:
(fourth page) ...rcs. But they did assume the worse of the settlement, even after all the stallion orcs had been killed and the stro ... (for mare orcs are seldom weaker than stallion orcs in an ... only old and sick remained in the rude cam ... who could speak base Cyrodil [sic] ... ied and begged for mercy for the children, but Prince Klaius said that the children would grow strong and hearty and and [sic] only an unwise leader would show mercy to the subhumans. He gave his men leave to make sport with killing the children, and they were all murdered in ways that I cannot pen. I witnessed it, my lady, and though I beg your pardon, your father did great evil th ... the shame of mine that I didn't say no ... shame to all ...
This entry is penned in a different hand:
(fifth page) ...shall abandon mine responsibilities. You and... together. The rest of the world be damned. Let me put this...Betony behind. I shall crush them at Cryngaine. During...dead. No one will suspect that a king would give up...