Session Notes (06/07/2022): The Heist on Zeitrich Manse

Introduction

Kastalav, Kingdom of Witches. Couched on a splintered peninsula on the north-east coast, this is a nation of sinister reputation, whose fog-choked lands play host to untold terrors. Its people have garnered a reputation for being sorcerers, poisoners and necromancers, and legends abound of the worship of Outer Horrors in subterranean chapels. 

It's the perfect haven for people like you.

You are the Rattlesnakes, a team of unscrupulous mercenaries, thieves, assassins and criminals from various corners of the continent. You've been hired by the Konsortium, Kastalav's most powerful crime syndicate, to infiltrate the mansion of a powerful Kastalavic noble and steal an item of great import, to the tune of one hundred thousand in Kastalavic kronen. 

However, there are complications. The mansion is heavily guarded by means both mundane and magical. The prize is coveted by a third party, who has dispatched a rival team to claim it before you do. And each of you hides a secret objective, unbeknownst to the rest, that could create unexpected obstacles along the way. Acquiring the prize without detection or capture will be hard. Trusting each other will be harder.

The Rattlesnakes met in the basement of Bertholt's Brewery - a winemaker's shop overlooking the street opposite Zeitrich Estate - where a secret heist room had been set up by the Konsortium. Mr. Bertholt himself was out of town on a trade voyage to Alagost so, in his absence, his establishment fell under the temporary control of the crime syndicate.

The Rattlesnakes introduced themselves to each other, each concealing their secret objectives.

• Salumax: a purple tiefling of Stygian blood, with the power to manipulate time. 
• Stubby 'the Friendly': a bugbear bouncer (and devotee of a war god) with a metal plate in his head, impairing his cognition.
• Sabian Hearthfire: a dark elf thief with a masterful skill at cat burglary.
• Sigmund 'the White': an untrustworthy changeling assassin able to walk through shadows.
• Stefano Cartavani: a halfling gambler chased from Ferin by his mounting debts.

Shortly after, a syndic of the Konsortium by the name of Roth arrived at the Brewery with his thrall servitor and delivered the following speech: 

"Greetings, Team Rattlesnake. You all know why you are here. You have been contracted by an undisclosed client to retrieve an Item of great importance from the estate of House Zeitrich. The nature of this Item is unimportant; all we can tell you is that it is a compass. We do not know its exact location, but it can be safely assumed that it is somewhere within the manor itself. In preparation for this job, you have each conducted independent examination of the property, its inhabitants, and its defences, and the reimbursement for that work is included in the final reward sum of one hundred thousand kronen. 

Under normal circumstances, the Konsortium would not have engaged in face-to-face contact with you before the completion of the job. However, new information has come to light that has necessitated an acceleration of the plan, and this information had to be delivered to you directly for the sake of alacrity. 

A third party has taken an interest in the Item and has hired a rival team to steal it. Our intelligence reports that they intend to move on the item within the next few days. Though limited, I have brought information on the rival team for you to consult and prepare accordingly. Due to this new complication, it is imperative that you conduct the raid within the next two days. You have 24 hours to plan and make any final arrangements." 

"You may use these brooches to contact the Konsortium at any time. When the Item has been retrieved, signal us via the brooch with your current location. It may be likely that the Brewery is no longer safe following your escape from the Manse. You must make contact before sunrise on Lunas. Failure to do so will be considered a breach of contract, and will be grounds for retaliation. Any questions?"

The Plan

The Early Hours of Faustas

Once Roth had left, the Rattlesnakes shared their respective intel on the Zeitrich Manse. Sigmund, whose own private contract required that Lady Attaline be left alive, lied that the contents of the vault beneath the house teleport away upon Attaline's death, so she must be protected.

Stubby, Stefano and Sabian then cased the Manse, looking for holes in the estate's defences. Using a thaumaturgy, Stubby magically opened Valerya Zeitrich's curtains, allowing Sigmund and Salumax (using a telescope in the Brewery attic) to see Lord Alek Steppenfowl - a minor noble twenty years her senior - in Valerya's bed. Stefano peered through the fence into the butterfly garden, noticing the trellis, the gargoyle hounds and the black maiden butterflies within. Meanwhile, Sabian attempted to identify a way in via the River Czern. 

By peering through her window, Sigmund shadow-walked into Valerya's bedroom, where he awoke Lord Steppenfowl and clamped a hand over his mouth. Threatening Valerya with a dart to the throat, he demanded that Steppenfowl dress and come to the Brewery at once. Terrified, Steppenfowl obeyed, and Sigmund took him to the basement where the Rattlesnakes could tie him to a chair and interrogate him. From Steppenfowl, they learned of his meeting with Mr. Kurt Vinter the next day, his budding relationship with Valerya Zeitrich, and the sinister reputation of Reema Adbach, the manse housekeeper. Sigmund assumed Lord Steppenfowl's appearance and knocked the real lord out.

Saturnas

The following day, Sabian, Stefano and Stubby went into the city to the Black Salamander, a high-class casino in the city, where they found Nikolai Zeitrich racing salamanders with his friends. While Stubby ordered drinks, Sabian and Stefano plied Nikolai with alcohol and earned his favour on the racing tables, despite losing a lot of money on betting. Sabian produced a pouch of jittercoal, a black-powder narcotic from the Sunless Lands, and persuaded Nikolai to take them to the Underpalace: an underground speakeasy owned by the local crime lord known as the Caterpillar. In a private booth, Nikolai and his two friends ingested the drug while Sabian and Stefano surreptiously searched his pockets, taking a bag of silver and a gold key. Mission complete, the pair excused themselves from the intoxicated party, collected Stubby from the bar and returned to the Brewery.

Meanwhile, Sigmund explored Zeitrich Manse wearing Lord Steppenfowl's disguise, realising that Valerya is quite lacking in affection behind closed doors. As per Steppenfowl's schedule, he attended a meeting with the cantankerous Kurt Vinter at the Fox and Wildcat tavern, where he was able to use Steppenfowl's natural sheepishness (as well as Vinter's obnoxious behaviour) to maintain his cover.

Finally, the Rattlesnakes returned to Bertholt Brewery at sundown to make their final preparations.

The Heist

The Third Floor

Entry

Sigmund, once again disguised as Steppenfowl, returned to the Manse at seven o'clock, where Valerya met him on the porch and took him inside for dinner with the Zeitrich parents. Meanwhile, the other Rattlesnakes watched from the attic while the chefs left the property and the Caterpillar arrived with his retinue at ten. Ushered from the room when the conversation turned to business, Valerya and "Steppenfowl" went to bed, but while Valerya slept, Sigmund opened the window and the secret door in the armoire.

The rest of the Rattlesnakes snuck across Eisenwein Street to the riverbank, where Stubby carved a tunnel in the water that allowed them access to the back garden. There, Stubby snapped a glass sphere of black maiden butterflies to his back while Stefano scaled the trellis up to Valerya's room. Helped inside by Sigmund, Stefano stole the Eye of Izumrud - Valerya's emerald necklace - from around her neck while she slept, planning to use the priceless gem to pay off his debts. The other Rattlesnakes followed, and when Salumax broke the trellis and fell, he used his hourglass' magic to transport himself into the room. The Rattlesnakes pilfered treasures (and a love letter) from Valerya's desk, Stefano pried a gemstone loose from her bedframe, and the team snuck through the secret door into the Annex.

There, disturbed by the sexual implications of the manacled chair in a padded room, they climbed into the attic and stole a few paintings that were gathering dust within. However, they also found a second chair, recently sat in and bound in chains, with dried blood on the armrests suggesting a more sinister purpose. While inside the soundproofed chamber, Salumax revealed his true intentions - steal the compass for himself and follow it to its destination, promising the Rattlesnakes riches beyond their dreams if they help him. His fellow thieves were sceptical, fearing for their lives if they reneged on the Konsortium's deal. 

In the Master Bedroom, which they accessed via a second door in the Annex, Sigmund found a lockbox under the Zeitrichs' bed. Picking the lock and opening it triggered a poison gas trap that caught Salumax and Stubby in its radius. Inside the lockbox, however, were a few choice treasures, as well as a two-dimensional dog's head made of witchmetal. 

Hans' Tower and the Piano Room

From the Master Bedroom they headed into the Sitting Room, where a stuffed bear stood in place of the expected staircase. By changing his appearance to Lord Hans Zeitrich, Sigmund was able to trigger the bear to lift up, revealing the spiral staircase to the office above. Inside was a large bronze suit of armour - a shield guardian, programmed to protect Lord Zeitrich's office against intruders. When Sabian attempted to pick the lock on Zeitrich's desk, the construct attacked. Stefano pulled open the desk drawer and bolted with its contents - a collection of documents in sealed tubes - while Sabian, Sigmund and Salumax attacked the guardian. Discovering a secret compartment in the drawer, Stubby elected to smash the desk instead, revealing a glass angel figurine and a second witchmetal dog's head. Sigmund ultimately destroyed the construct by slicing off its arm and using it to strike off its own head.

The Rattlesnakes found Stefano downstairs in Nikolai's room, penning a letter to the absent lordling. Stefano had found a sensitive letter amidst Lord Zeitrich's documents and had hurled it into the fire, but - by peering back in time - Salumax was able to read it, discovering a missive written from the Konsortium to Lord Zeitrich that spoke of a meeting with the Caterpillar and alluded to an assassination plot. Stubby was pleasantly surprised to learn of the paper's destruction, as he had been privately contracted by the Konsortium - anticipating House Zeitrich's imminent fall - to dispose of incriminating documents linking the syndicate with the family's plot.

Drawn by the noise made by the fight with the guardian, a pair of guards went upstairs to investigate Lord Zeitrich's office. Sigmund tailed them into the Sitting Room and - in Hans' voice - triggered the spiral staircase to close, trapping the guards in the tower. 

With two witchmetal dog's heads in tow, though unsure of their purpose, the Rattlesnakes proceeded into the Piano Room with the intent of heading downstairs. A cursory glance of the room suggested it was empty, but Sabian's keen eye noticed a rat - one of the Butler's three such familiars - hiding under a vastille table. When Sabian's thrown dagger missed, Sigmund transported himself into the room and attempted to crush the fleeing rat, but the damage instead triggered a transformation into a small, horned man with red skin, leathery wings and a barbed scorpion-like tail: an imp. The imp shot at Sigmund's face, snarling, but was sliced in half by Salumax's scythe before it could do any harm. 

The Rattlesnakes Divided

The Rattlesnakes passed through the Smoking Room to search the empty Ballroom before investigating the Banquet Hall, where Lord Zeitrich hid the key to his study staircase - a human femur bone carved with runes - in a carriage clock. Stefano took the clock, believing it will fetch a good price back home. 

It was at this point that the Rattlesnakes realised they had lost Sigmund somewhere along the way. Confused by his absence, the group nonetheless pressed on into the library, where they eradicated a second rat/imp, found Lord Zeitrich's journal and attempted to ascertain the function of a one-eyed marble bust, which Salumax suspected was connected to a secret door of some kind. They heard footsteps on the stair, and rushed into hiding places, before realising that the footsteps were heading to the east wing.

Moments later, Hans Zeitrich and the Caterpillar entered the Smoking Room, the former regaling the latter with tales of his family history: namely, how his great-grandfather was knighted after his hounds saved the Count from an attacking basilisk. Zeitrich sat at his desk opposite the crime lord and began to talk business when magical darkness filled the room. Sigmund lunged from the shadows, tying a garotte around Zeitrich's throat, and hissed at the panicking Caterpillar not to move. Zeitrich swung fruitlessly with a dagger to strike his attacker, but was quickly choked into unconsciousness. Sigmund then took his own dagger and slashed the lord's throat. He spoke through the shadows to the Caterpillar and made a bargain - in exchange for the Caterpillar choosing not raising the alarm, Sigmund would ensure that the Caterpillar wouldn't take the blame for the murder. Indifferent to Zeitrich's fate but fearing for his life, the Caterpillar hastily agreed. Stuffing the corpse into the nearby armoire, Sigmund completed his secondary mission, given by an extremely important third party - assassinate Lord Zeitrich without detection. Wearing Hans Zeitrich's appearance, Sigmund reunited with the rest of the group while Sabian - led by Salumax's locate object spell, snuck downstairs. Thinking Zeitrich had found them, Stefano threw a knife at Sigmund, who deflected it with ease and revealed what he had done. 

Meanwhile, Sabian hunted through the ground floor for the bust's missing eye. Avoiding the guards in the foyer, he infiltrated the Butler's Office, picking the locked desk and discovering a roll of three pact scrolls scrawled with Infernal runes, as well as the house's guard rota. As he was searching, rattling breathing and the turning door handle heralded the arrival of Drabscallow, the Butler, prompting Sabian to dive under the bed to hide. Drabscallow went to his desk, wrote out some order forms, and was about to leave when he noticed the unlocked desk. Noticing that his belongings had been stolen, he became suspicious and attempted to commune with his familiars, thereby realising that all but one had been slain. Aghast, Drabscallow shot from the room to search the house himself. Sabian ultimately found the eye in Lady Attaline's cloak in the Cloakroom, and rushed back to the Rattlesnakes.

Lady Attaline's Study

With their timeframe vastly accelerated, the Rattlesnakes placed the second eye into the empty socket, triggering a secret door that revealed a crawlspace in the wall leading to Lady Attaline's study. Salumax went inside, but found it led to a sheet of wood, like the back of a piece of furniture. Having heard Lady Attaline enter her study and unwilling to alert her, Salumax returned to the group, and Sigmund went into the study in the guise of her husband. Their conversation revealed that Lady Attaline planned to assassinate her brother, Count Anton Kahler of Gorgarten, by hiring Sigmund through the Caterpillar. After noticing the third dog's head in a cabinet, 'Hans' pretends to go to bed, and returns to the group to plan their next moves. 

Aware of a connective tunnel between the chimneys of the Kitchen and Attaline's Study, the Rattlesnakes went downstairs to scout the room. There, they found Leira - an eighteen-year-old maid who has been feeding intel on the Zeitrichs to Sabian and the Konsortium over the last few weeks - scrubbing the floors. Having made a promise to free her from the manse before the Zeitrichs discover her treachery, Sabian stopped Salumax from silencing the girl and instead walked inside. After reassuring Leira of his intentions, he called Sigmund into the room, still disguised as Hans, and began making a plan to sneak Leira across the grounds and out of the estate. They were interrupted by Catarina, Leira's superior, but 'Hans' was able to curtly dismiss her. Sabian and Leira moved stealthily across the gardens, avoiding being seen by the thralls on the balcony and the patrolling guards, making it to the coach house on the southern side of the estate. There, Sabian saddled her with a horse, told her to meet him at the Fox & Wildcat (where Sigmund met Kurt Vinter the previous day), and sent her on her way with a wish of good luck. 

The group rendezvoused in the Library, where Salumax used his hourglass to peer forward in time and assess the potential breaching of the study. The sands showed him pushing open the crawlspace exit - a hinged bookshelf in the study - and being immediately paralysed by Attaline. To avoid this outcome, 'Hans' returned to the study to distract Attaline, telling her that one of the black maiden tanks in her Butterfly Garden had been shattered. While Attaline rushed to investigate, Salumax, Sabian and Sigmund raided the study, taking Attaline's grimoire, a canticle of worship, and the final Cerberus head. However, breaking the cabinet emitted a burst of lethal black maiden dust into the air, poisoning Sabian, who fell unconscious. 

Lady Attaline returned shortly, prompting Sigmund to use his dust of disappearance to make the Rattlesnakes invisible. They slipped past the confused Attaline into the hall, veering away when they saw Drabscallow approaching from the other end, and hurried down into the Wine Cellar

The Prize

Inside the cellar, they found the vault door with a Cerberus embossment with the heads missing, as well as a strange portion of molten witchmetal, still glowing, as if someone had recently attempted to melt through it. Placing the dog's heads in the correct slots caused the door to open, revealing an empty room. Confused, Sigmund stepped inside and was instantly knocked out by a cold trap, forcing Stubby to revive him. Convinced of a deception, the Rattlesnakes investigated the room and found a draught emanating from the southern side of the room, where a button embedded in the heart of a faded painted angel opened a staircase into the true vault.

This revelation triggered an ambush by the rival gang, who had been lying in wait, invisible: Morlov, a demented former fleshwright; Oleg, his flesh golem enforcer; Drusilla and Druigg Dyavol, tiefling cutpurse twins; and Lodd, a legless goblin contraptionist. As battle erupted, Salumax ventured into the true vault, hoping to find the compass and escape. Morlov cast a spell that melted Stefano's face, welding his eyelids shut; Sabian was killed and revived to recover from the maiden's shade, slaying Morlov with a brutal disembowelment and decapitation; Morlov's death also caused his flesh golem thrall to unravel and crumble to pieces. Drusilla was slain by Sigmund, while Druigg's skull was crushed by Stubby's warhammer.

In a hidden shrine beyond the true vault - which itself was stashed with bags of money - the party found the grotesquely-posed corpse of a former maid, knelt before a glass statue of an angel weeping blood.  Sigmund identified the iconography of the Queen of Glass, a mysterious and ancient forbidden deity, rumoured to still have worshippers in the darkest regions of Kastalav.

In the true vault, as the party recovered, Salumax snatched the compass and time-stepped out of the vault. Pursued by the other Rattlesnakes, Salumax rushed from the mansion, where Drabscallow also gave chase. Summoned by Salumax's sending stone, Erith Cazarian - his right hand - arrived with her carriage; Salumax teleported inside while Sigmund blinded Drabscallow with magical darkness, shadow-walking into the next seat. With Salumax and Sigmund set to escape with the compass, a still-poisoned Sabian rushed to find Leira, while Stefano bolted, climbing over the fence with his money. Betrayed, Stubby attempted to stop Erith's horses with a guiding bolt, but was frozen in time by a regretful Salumax. 

Now, Salumax and Sigmund rush to flee the city and follow the compass to its destination: an ancient vault rumoured to contain secrets beyond their imagination. The fates of Stubby, Sabian and Stefano remain unknown.