The Ignoble Noble

The party begins their infiltration of the Must Estate. They manage to sneak past the patrol of guards on the exterior of the property and scale the wall into the central Manor of the estate. The group is able to sneak to the outside of the Must Mansion without being detected and Flynn manages to pick the lock to what they’ve been told is the room of Lord Cornelius Must’s ward. They find the room to be unoccupied. It is filled with books and weaponry that has obviously been used for practice. There is evidence that someone was here earlier that day; an empty teacup and a cooling candle, but no evidence of where that someone might be now.

Ana heads through an open doorway that leads into a hallway with several other doors and triggers a trap in the floor as she crosses the threshold into the hallway; peppering her with darts. While inspecting the 3 doors in the hallways, Ana notices a cool breeze coming from a gap underneath one of the walls on the side of the hallways where there is no door.

Reuben inspects the hall and notices that one of the candle sconces has fallen off one of its upper nails and is hanging upside down. As he rights the sconce, the click of a latch unhooking can be heard and a secret door in the wall swings open. Behind the doorway is a staircase leading beneath the mansion to a basement floor that is illuminated by the light of a flame. Reuben sneaks down the stairwell to see what is going on below and is shocked by what he sees around the corner.

Lord Cornelius Must is conducting some kind of blood magic at an altar with a burning fire, by letting the blood of his Wulven ward who is strapped to a bed. His wife and daughter are on two separate beds across from him and seem to be receiving the results of this blood magic. Reuben reports what he has seen back to the party and the decision is made to rush back downstairs; to stop this foul ritual. Flynn is the first to enter the room and entreats the Assemblyman to give himself up; implying that the Old Faith is not far behind.

However, Lord Must uses this bluff to fein resignation and approach Flynn and lashes out at him with his staff. A melee begins. The party manages to evade some of the more sinister magic that Lord Must throws at them, but manages to sicken Ana; poisoning her. Shoal & Rayna focus on trying to free the Wulven.

Many of the party members attempt to try and reason with the nobleman, but it isn’t until Shoal speaks that Lord Must agrees not to fight if everyone lowers their weapons and backs away from him. However, as the party begins to comply, Adeline, the Wulven suddenly frees herself and cries “Leave my family ALONE!” She leaps across the room and wails on with their massive mace Ana; knocking her unconscious. Lord Cornelius appears to draw some vitality from Ana’s fall and resumes the fight. Flynn and Rayna combine their efforts to distract the Assemblyman and keep his strikes from hitting true until they are able to knock him unconscious. Then they turn on Adeline and strike her down. The question now becomes: what are they to do with this situation?