Sara glares at Zhi, eager to say something but not wanting to embarrass her in front of the rest.
She grabs one of the statue's swords, still attached to their hands, and saws off the dead man's head, careful not to dirty her dress.
"I was trying to end the whole thing quickly..." Melodie replies, actually looking somewhat embarassed. "I'll be careful if you promise no more dueling?" She continues, managing a slight smile at that.
"So this should be all the resistance outside of the Royal Quarters. Shall we search the rest of the palace and then leave, or do we feel able to move in today? I can't say I like the sound of this bound creature if we're not prepared..."
"I was trying to end the whole thing quickly..." Melodie replies, actually looking somewhat embarassed. "I'll be careful if you promise no more dueling?" She continues, managing a slight smile at that.
Zhi looks down, a flush filling her face.
"I'm sorry, I said it was stupid. I won't do that again," she says quietly.
The Four Hoods claim the head of Sir Gul Gusairne with grim satisfaction. They place the grisly prize in a sack. Several other bulging sacks contain the gilded birdcages that once lined the veranda. "Pleasure doing business with you! Come by the Beggarwood any time you're in need of a bargain."
You spend quite some time exploring the palace. The carriage house stores Count Lotheed's luxury carriage (worth 500 gp, but difficult to sell) as well as a set of horseshoes of speed. In the game room, you find a set of four ivory carambole balls (worth 50 gp each) and a lesser extend metamagic rod casually racked alongside the pool cues. The back half of this room serves as an art studio, with a half-finished portrait featuring a much younger Bartelby and Martella with their then-living father, Mercater Lotheed.
The library features a number of antiques on display, including a functioning Jistkan timepiece (worth 1,200 gp), a teak-and-ivory globe (worth 400 gp), and the quill used to sign the Treaty of the Wildwood (worth 250 gp), all sealed in glass cases with permanent alarm spells. A locked drawer in the desk (Disable Device DC 35) contains a pair of spectacles of understanding and a headband of vast intelligence +2.
The kitchen is unremarkable, but the well-stocked pantry includes enough beans, flour, rice, and water to feed the entire palace for 6 months, in addition to a huge collection of spices and pickled and preserved produce from all across Taldor and beyond. A small cabinet has been permanently enchanted to remain as cool as a late autumn morning, allowing the kitchen staff to store eggs, milk, and produce far longer than normal. A set of stairs descends down to the palace's considerable wine cellar.
The vault on the first floor is locked, but Bartelby's key opens it. Here lies much of the Lotheed fortune, including countless property deeds and stocks in different companies (mostly useful only for Martella in untangling her family's past associations). Three chests contain a total of 10,060 cp, 12,711 sp, 4,618 gp, 26 pp, an oil of shrink item, a jar of restorative ointment, a scroll of raise dead, and the star of Cassomir, a fist-size amber cut into a four-pointed star and containing a coiled snake (worth 750 gp).
As night falls, you head upstairs to continue your search. In the western wing, an ornate, furnished hallway and small library create a simple space for residents of the palace to gather informally. Portraits of the various Lotheeds of the current generation line the walls, including a scowling Duke Panivar Lotheed VI. In a wardrobe, you find a handy haversack full of Bartelby's clothes: five noble outfits, two pairs of silk pajamas, a wolf mask, a bottle of absinthe, three bottles of wismuth salix, and a pocketed scarf containing 34 gp and a used handkerchief.
Sir Gusairne's private office is here, too. Several whips and restraints decorate the wall, looking intimidating but covered in a thin layer of dust. A lockbox in the desk (opened with a key you found on Gusairne) contains the palace's petty cash: 342 cp, 812 sp, 44 gp, and 18 pp, as well as a mummified pinky finger.
The nearby accounting office looks mundane, but a search uncovers a secret door that leads into an isolated chamber painted in soothing colors--a panic room. A small wooden box labeled "emergency supplies" contains a bottle of gin, five potions of cure moderate wounds, two scrolls of sending, and a sustaining spoon. The spoon's enchantments are unique, producing not flavorless mush but a rotating assortment of rich soups; this unique adaptation increases its value by 1,000 gp.
There's not much of interest in the eastern upstairs wing, save for the armory. It contains masterwork versions of the following weapons: an Aldori dueling sword, five halberds, five heavy crossbows, two rapiers, five short swords, and two shortbows. It also holds 240 crossbow bolts, 144 arrows, a masterwork large steel shield, and a book of crude, salacious drawings.
In the arcane laboratory, you find spellbooks full of arcane spells . A glass case set in the wall contains a well-used wand of dispel magic (13 charges).
The palace's private chapel is dedicated to Abadar but also includes many distinctly Shelynite motifs, such as blooming roses and songbirds.
The shelves and files of the archive room contain a record of every major birth, death, contract, and financial transaction dating back centuries, with spillover shipped to Cassomir's provincial library for long-term storage. The charter Martella seeks is likely here, though it will be difficult to find it.
That just leaves Bartelby's office...
As night wears on, Sara grows uneasy. "I don't think we should stay here tonight. Bartleby said that the whatever-it-is fed Melodie some bad dreams or something on our first night here. With no Lotheeds in the house, there's nothing to stop it from trying to kill us as we sleep."
As the group moves through the pantry, Zhi holds up the tin of coffee.
"Now here's a real find," she says holding her nose. "There are people in the city that will pay serious coin for this stuff."
~~~~
Zhi looks nervously at Melodie when Sara brings up the subject of bad dreams.
"It wouldn't hurt us to get rooms in to town for tonight," she says.
You enter Bartelby's office. Darkwood paneling reaches high up to a frescoed ceiling depicting First Emperor Taldaris's noble conquest of Cassomir. A desk, carved from dark purple wood to look like owls with their spread wings supporting the work surface, occupies the center of the room, while plush, burgundy chairs surround the remaining space. A family portrait on the western wall depicts a dozen scowling nobles—a teenaged Bartelby among them—and a single hound, though the dog is clearly a later and more amateurish addition to the otherwise high-quality artistry. Martella is noticeably missing from the portrait.
In a locked desk drawer, you find a few valuables, including 127 gp, a circlet of persuasion, and a wand of lesser restoration (12 charges).
After you have been in the room for a few minutes, a ghostly moan echoes through the office! The translucent form of a haggard man appears floating in the air, eyes bulging as if in terror. You recognize the man's features from the painting in the game room--this appears to be Martella's father, Mercater Lotheed!
He stares at you for a few moments, then wails and drifts over to a portion of the floor. He continues to cry out as he rotates his wrists back and forth, as if turning the combination lock of a safe.
Looking under the ghost, Sara finds a hidden compartment beneath the floorboards. A safe is here, complete with an elaborate two-dial lock.
Thoroughly spooked by the apparition but getting the gist of its message, Sara searches the part of the room indicated by the ghost, her new contact lenses aiding in her efforts.
"What have we here," Zhi says, her eyes lighting up as Sara points out the safe.
She cracks her knuckles and then pulls out her tools from her thigh bag.
Zhi doesn't find any traps. With several minutes of work, she cracks the lock and opens the safe. As soon as she does, Mercater's ghost sighs and fades away.
Inside are a variety of birth certificates, death certificates, newspapers, royal announcements, and travel documents dating back 300 years.
You identify the birth certificates (for men named Panivar Lotheed II–VI) as forgeries, while the other papers all feature announcements and sketches related to six men bearing the same name and very similar description.
"What the heck is this stuff?" Zhi says in obvious annoyance as she tosses the documents on to the desk.
It's clear that she was expecting something different as she returns to the safe and checks it for secret compartments or valuables that she somehow missed.
There doesn't seem to be anything else in the safe.
Her annoyance growing stronger, Zhi abandons the safe and begins sorting through the papers.
"Shouldn't these be in the records room? Why would someone keep them in a safe? Safes are for jewels, or bonds, or money, or other valuable things like that."
She looks around at the others.
When Sara saws off Gul's head, Zileska wrinkles her nose with some distaste. She nudges the corpse with one toe. "Finally lost your head," she quips. "Well, the long arm of the law caught up with you."
She makes a quick accounting of the various ladies to attend to any remaining injuries or complaints.
~~~~~~~~~~
When the apparition appears in the study, Zileska is quick to grasp her holy symbol, but she pauses as the ghost pantomimes. She remains dutifully watching as Zhi cracks the safe, wondering if it will appear again in an angry form.
She peeks over Zhi's shoulder at the documents, then picks them up and shuffles through them.
"Some kind of official documents? But why keep them in a safe? Unless they're very important... or very illegal."
Melodie hangs back heading into most of Bartelby's private rooms, some instinct making her reluctant, even now to go in without permission.
The ghost startles her and she waits near the door, taking cautious peeks until it eventually vanishes.
Seeing the documents, and remembering about the spectacles they found earlier, Maria voiced an idea when it seemed the others couldn't make sense of the documents.
"Pass me those spectacles we found earlier? And Sara, could I borrow that ring of yours?"
With the magical items in place (and the glasses making her appreciate not having to wear the normal kind), Maria went over the documents.
"Forged birth certificates for five individuals - Panivar Lotheed the second through to the sixth - and the rest of them are announcements and sketches related to six men. All with the same name and all of very similar description. What was the name of the fellow who'd be teleporting into the tower soon?"
"What's that you've found."
"Duke Panivar Lotheed VI," Zhi says as she looks through some of the documents.
"Hey, let me try those for a moment," she says holding out her hand for the glasses.
She puts the glasses on and turns towards Melodie. She slides the frames down and then looks over the top of them at the young woman.
"Does this do anything for you, Princess?"
She then hands the glasses back to Maria.
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Sara makes a face behind the couple's collective back as Zhi shamelessly flirts with her soon-to-be wife, sticking out her tongue, crossing her eyes, tucking in her chin and tightening the muscles of her neck, topping it off with a pantomime of induced vomiting.
She straightens up before they can catch her but blushes nonetheless should they direct any attention her way.
Clearing her throat, she looks over the papers. "It's obvious once you point it out, but I would have just thought, you know, family resemblance and all that. If you shaved my head and caught me in the morning, I imagine I still look just like my brothers."
Zhi turns back to Sara.
"Yeah, but why would that be important enough to keep these in a safe? Obviously someone thought they were extremely important. And it was almost like that ghost wanted us to find them."
She then notices the woman's blush.
"Are you ok?"
She quickly comes up with a plausible lie, something small and embarrassing to add credence to it. "I was just imagining myself with a shaved head, and realized I would find myself still quite handsome. Like, very. I'd date me with a shaved head, all boyish and cute."
Moving back to the matter at hand, she continues, gesturing. "I mean the ghost was madly scrabbling at the floor as if he was turning the safe. It might just be like occult mumbo jumbo but don't ghosts sometimes stick around after because of unfinished business or whatever? And the way he faded after you opened it, I would venture a guess that he died because of this information, and that he wanted desperately for someone else to have it."
Zhi looks at Sara with an odd expression.
"In Minkai, a woman would only shave her head as a mark of shame," she says in a serious tone, reaching up to finger a stray tendril of her dark hair.
She looks back at the papers.
"But why would he want us to have these? What are they supposed to tell us?" She shakes her head in frustration. "I guess we can figure that out later," she finally says. "Let's head back to town."
"That someone in the family is not legitimate?" says Zileska. "What's the relation of this person to the rest of them? Could there be an entire lineage of Lotheeds that is illegitimate?"
"Well lucky for Taldor, wigs are always an option. I knew a great many young girls in the Narrows what had to shave their head cause the nits. No shame in that, just comes from being poor and the neighborhood being a death trap."
Sara thinks on what Zileska has to say. "He could be a very lazy immortal," she jokes. "Oh I'm not me, right, he's dead. I'm my son! Of course you've never met him before, I mean not met me before, not when he was growing up at least: see right I kept myself locked away as a youth, in a 10x10 room with nothing but bread to eat, and then forty years later here I am, right as rain. Hey Nance, how's Roger doing? Everything okay with his heart? Oh see, I'm not me actually, I'm my son: me the sixth."
She puts the glasses on and turns towards Melodie. She slides the frames down and then looks over the top of them at the young woman.
"Does this do anything for you, Princess?"
She then hands the glasses back to Maria.
Melodie smiles, and blushes as Zhi turns the glasses on her and then pointedly ignores the conversation afterwards until the subject of the Duke reappears.
"That's actually not impossible." She says, when Sara mentions the 'lazy immortal'. "Most taldan families pride themselves on strong bloodlines - a strong family resemblance would be a good thing, and if he wanted to keep his power and status then being his own 'son' would be quite a good idea..."
She looks around the room, seeming worried. "And if someone discovered a secret that big... well killing to protect it wouldn't be that much of a next step..."
"Well then I'm relieved that we'll be destroying that circle and this guy won't be able to just show up here whenever he wants," Zhi says gathering the papers and stuffing them in her bag.
She looks around the office.
"We also still need to find the original stewardship agreement, but that's probably in the records room and we can begin hunting for that after we finish with that nightmare creature."
"Tomorrow."
"Probably could work some taxation angle or something with the Bank of Abadar as well - wouldn't be surprised if they have some regulations regarding immortals and compound interest. You should see the mess of red tape an elf has to go through just because they have a lifespan measured in centuries."
"That was not a fun case to work."
You make your way back to Lotheedar and purchase rooms at a local inn to rest for the night. The next morning, you return to the Palace of Birdsong and approach the entrance to the royal tower. Past the waiting room where you fought Titus and company, the doors open onto an overstuffed, roughly triangular-shaped office fit for a king, with every surface an example of expert artistry and all but dripping with gold leaf. A large desk of dark, fragrant wood decorated with golden candelabras fills most of the office, while carved cherubs dance among storm clouds all through the molding above.
Following Bartelby's advice, Zhi is able to find and deactivate the runes of a trap around the entryway that would have zapped intruders with lightning. The power source for the trap is a wand held by one of the cherubs in the northern arch. The office is otherwise devoid of objects of interest.
Past the office is a large sitting room. Alternating bookshelves and paintings line the walls in this large, warm space. Warm colors, plush carpeting, and overstuffed furniture all combine to give the illusion of warmth, while the scent of tobacco hangs faintly in the air. A large, blank canvas in an ornate frame is on one wall. A small plaque on the frame reads, "My Veleto, in loving memory. P."
As the ladies disperse for the evening, Zhi looks down at her own bloodied garments and then over at Melodie's.
"We need a bath and I'm not taking no for an answer."
Zhi is quiet as they prepare and then take refuge within the hot water.
Once they settle in, Zhi turns Melodie around facing away from her and pulls her close.
"Let me wash you off," she says quietly. Taking one of the washcloths, she begins gently washing the blood from Melodie's shoulders.
She leans close and softly kisses Melodie's neck. The changeling can feel wetness there that's not bathwater.
Zhi sniffs and wipes her eyes. "I know it's stupid and doesn't mean anything," she says, the tremor in her voice the only other sign that she's just barely keeping control. "But promise me that no one is going to hurt you tomorrow. Please?"
~~~~
Zhi looks over the blank canvas nervously.
"That's probably not good, is it?"
Melodie, before joining Zhi in the bath, uses one of the scrolls of Sending to contact Martella. "Bartelby surrendered. Gul Dead. Clearing Royal Apartments tomorrow. Suggest you leave at once."
With their employer informed she disrobes to join her fiancee in the bath.
They stay in the bath water a long time, with Melodie abusing magic to keep the bathwater heated.
-----------------
"Is that where Duchess Veleto should be?" Melodie muses. "Bartelby said she was some sort of animated painting rather than a real person. If she's not here we may have to deal with her when we return to Stachys. Perhaps we could persuade her to work for Eutropia? She'd be a wonderful bodyguard that people wouldn't expect..."
She pockets the wand from the trap. "We'll give it to Martella when she comes, the Princess should be able to reset the trap if she wants it."
Martella replies to Melodie's sending. "Splendid. Shame about Gul. Eutropia and I will leave in the morning. We should arrive within a week. Don't forget the teleportation circle and charter!"
---
The door to the west opens onto what seems to be a nursery. Two small beds look over a soft blanket laid out on the floor here along with soft toys, wooden blocks, and various small musical instruments. Painted lions cavort along the walls, moving through simple patterns.
Sobbing comes from under the bed, but shortly after you open the door, something crawls out to greet you. This thing resembles a gray, emaciated child, with cobwebs and dust for clothes and a fox skull for a head.
"Are you friends of my auntie?" it whimpers. "Please, I don't like it here! I'm all alone. Take me with you! You have to take me with you!" An aura of childlike whimpers, sobs, and snippets of songs surround the thing as it rushes towards you.
Its bite can steal your breath, making you fatigued. Its touch can steal your voice, leaving you unable to speak.
"Gods! What is it about making creepy things that look like children," she says, pulling her weapons.
With a cringing expression, she steps forward and stabs at the thing.
Zhi drives her rapier into the creature's skull, fracturing a large portion of it. It sobs and whimpers. "Why? I just want to be friends..."
The creature bites Zhi's hip, and she feels her breath being taken away. It paws at her clothes, trying desperately to cling to her.
Not caring much what it is, Sara rushes behind it, flanking with Zhi. She hefts the stone arm of Abadar once more and brings it down upon the poor creature.
Zhi resists the overwhelming sense of fatigue that washes over her and strikes back at the abomination.
Caught between Sara and Zhi, the undead creature swiftly falls to their punishing assault. Its body crumbles to dust, leaving only the shattered fragments of the fox's skull behind.
"What the heck is going on in here?" Zhi mutters to herself. She turns to the others. "Upstairs then?"
Sara is plainly nervous about the thought of the extraplanar menace represented by the sakhil. "I guess we just push ever onwards and all stay close to Zileska, so she can help us when the time comes."
"Stop being so nervous," Zhi says. "You're starting to freak me out."
Her eyes jump to a shadow in the corner.
Did that just move?
The small woman glares at Sara.
Melodie hurries over and grabs both Zhi and Sara's hands, implanting a moment of psychic power in both of them.
"Any other preparations before we go up?" She asks.
"Any other preparations before we go up?" She asks.
Zhi leans in to give her fiancee a quick peck on the lips.
"That's all I need," she says with a grin that hides her nerves.
"Attic whisperer..." says Zileska slowly. "Likely, something awful happened to a child around here."
She idly spins the light wand in her fingers and then taps Zhi.
"This inscription... 'My Veleto, in loving memory. P.' Didn't the name in the forged documents start with a P?"
"Panivar, I think." Melodie replies. "The same one that might be an immortal... I suppose you would grow lonely for the people you used to know." She squeezes Zhi's hand and tries not to look at the dust pile of the attic whisperer.
"Bartleby's uncle's name is Panivar," Zhi says. "And, according to those papers, he is the sixth of his name."
The stairs lead up to a sumptuous bedchamber. A towering, domed ceiling that curves overhead in this room depicts the shimmering summer stars, with major constellations outlined in gold leaf. A massive bed trimmed with silk sheets and a darkwood vanity fill much of the space, while expensive bric-a-brac covers the waist-high shelf circling the room.
The glitter of the stars overhead isn't magic, but wealth. Each of the 35 stars is a large, white pearl (worth 75 gp each), though this treasure notably belongs to the royal family.
A door to the north leads into a lab. Plush, red carpeting has been cut away from the center of the floor here, and what remains is badly stained. Desks line the walls, covered in bones, brass instruments, glassware, and jars filled with bizarre collections. The stink of old peat and insect activity is rampant.
A few moments after you enter, the blurry form of a horrible monster seems to fade into existence. This monstrosity looks like a massive cockroach made from putrid hair. A humanoid face leers in place of an insectile head. It snarls at you, its gaze filling you with dread.
Zileska closes her eyes and shudders as the creature fades into view. "Ugh," is all she manages to say before she grips her holy symbol and whispers.
The more time they spent in the tower, the more concerned Maria was that they hadn't run into any defences other than the trap and the attic whisperer (which didn't even last long enough to unnerve her before Zhi and Sara destroyed it, though she would be looking into exactly what happened later to make sure it couldn't return or something).
As they made their way towards the bedroom, she drank an extract that caused her form to shimmer while passing her infused strength extract to Sara. "Drink this now, the strength increase will last a while."
The creature's appearance shocked her and, realising that getting near it would be a bad idea, readied Dignity's Barb and fired off a bolt.
Maria snaps off a shot from her crossbow, the aligned bolt piercing the sahkil's horrid body. Zileska conjures an illusory swarm of wasps to distract the monster, but it doesn't seem bothered.
Its eyes bulge, and each of you suddenly feel as if your body is falling to bloody pieces! Excruciating pain wracks you.