Amandine has little confidence in Count Lotheed's word, but she leaves her weapon in its scabbard while ascending the stairs. There might be some value in a visible display of good faith on her part, and she sees little risk in the attempt as she's very well protected.
She does keep alert though, to the point of Psychically enhancing her senses.
As you cross the transept hallway past the gallery, Amandine can hear Lord Titus and his petulant friends muttering further down the western wing of the palace. However, they do not emerge to cause you any trouble, allowing you to cautiously climb the spiraling staircase up to the second floor.
The stairs deposit you in a long hallway leading right to the upstairs parlor. Broad bay windows overlook the exquisite gardens, the rolling hills beyond, and - of course - your cadre of supporters patrolling the grounds. A pair of sofas and armchairs furnish the parlor, each one accompanied by an end table.
Count Lotheed sits in one of those chairs, a bottle of wine and untouched glass sitting upon the adjoining table.
"Twice I've welcomed you into my home," the count muses, idly tracing a finger along the rim of his wineglass. "Invited you into my halls as honored guests, respected you as peers, and now you return to stab me in the back. Even now, I show patience and mercy by inviting you inside and still treating you as guests rather than traitors and invaders."
Mira remains silent, for now, but trusts Greenly and Drogan to remain alert about their surroundings, while she subtly focuses her gaze on the Count.
Amandine remains standing.
To the Count she replies [b]"You believe this is personal. I did not bring a case against you in court. I did not review evidence, listen to testimony, or deliver a verdict. We are here simply to carry out the will of the court in Oppara.
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Greenly tries to glower impressively beside Amandine and give her statement firmer credence with a supportive "Yeah!"
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Dro'gan remains quiet and observant for now.
Amandine pauses for a breath and continues.
"Every decision has already been made except one, how you will exit The Palace of Birdsong. You can leave of your own volition now, salvaging your dignity and perhaps your life, or you can be removed by whatever means are necessary."
"There is no argument you can make that will reverse the decision of the court, nor can I reverse its decision. If you have some protest or appeal that you must make, there is a court in Oppara where you can go to be heard after you have vacated this palace."
Count Lotheed's Determination: 15/19
Count Lotheed's response is one of arrogance rather than elegance. He meets her legal rhetoric with bluster, wielding his authority like a mace on the battlefield. While this strategy may have served him well for many years, it fails him now.
Of course, his efforts are hampered as he becomes visibly distracted by something behind you.
As Amandine and the Count made their verbal exchange, Lord Titus and his cronies - Dame Carodd Hellebore and Syras Cockleburr, Esq. - crept up the stairs and slid behind the party. Even without direction from his powerful cousin, Lord Titus slips his dueling sword away. He seems eager to join the debate, probably assuming that he has a better chance against the party in a verbal battle than a physical one.
He will likely soon be proven very wrong.
When the new set of people arrive, Mira turns her attention to them, addressing Lord Titus as he slips his dueling sword away and steps forward towards the assembly. "Ah, what little honor guard could be mustered arrives as well. And if you are not here to fight, then doubtless you came to bear witness to your cousin surrendering the Birdsong Palace? Worry not, safe passage will be granted to all of you. I mean, surely you would not presume to speak in place of your cousin, right? Or did you mean to imply he can't hold his own in a verbal exchange?"
Lord Titus proves all too eager to speak in place of his cousin, much to the Count's frustration. His input only serves to distract from the heart of the debate, steering the topic off course with jeers and mockery.
"You're overlooking one key detail, Mr. Count. There's an army of unhappy nobles and commoners outside calling for your head. Assume you made it past us, would you and yours, like, live another minute?"
She names several of the Count's long term allies and their various grievances against him.
Nodding at Greenly's statement, Dro'gan adds to it.
"Additionally, not only has most of your guards retreated, leaving you nearly defenseless, we also know ALL your tricks and hidden cards in this political game today Count. Including your household traps and teleportation circle. You have ALREADY lost, and you have just have not accepted that eventual future yet. Maybe if you throw yourself on the mercy of the court, and throw most of the blame upon your servants and allies..."
Dro'gan glances at the Counts' flunkies standing nearby and waves his crossbow generally in their direction.
"...who did not follow the letter of laws as they are written in our country? It does take more than ACTING noble to BE true nobility, most especially in Taldor. Even born as a lowly commoner myself, I understand that. Don't embarrass your family name any more than you already have Count."
Obvious sarcasm creeps into his voice when he gets to the last part.
Count Lotheed Determination: 3/19
Count Lotheed attempts to apply Rhetoric techniques learned from his extensive schooling, but they pale in the face of the sheer facts being presented by Greenly - especially since evidence backing up her argument can be seen right out the bay windows.
Lord Titus jumps in again to wield his Presence against the party, putting on airs and using the confidence of nobility against Dro'gan's rejoinder. Lord Titus barely registers that his attempts fall flat, but the impact is felt by Count Lotheed, who's looking increasingly resigned.
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Meraki, feeling an unusual fire ignite in her chest, steps forward and raises her gaze to look the Count dead in the eye.
"Count Lotheed, your defeat was certain long before we ever stepped foot on these grounds. We knew it, your subjects knew it, and I can sense that you have, finally, realized this yourself, even if your cousin is too dim to see it. It is clear that you no longer have any fight left in you and that any further argument is a waste of your time and ours. Either go and face the consequences of your actions, or fall upon the blades of those you have spent a lifetime abusing."
Mira leans against the Wall near the Window, observing the situation while absent-mindedly playing with her hair while keeping her other hand near the Longsword at her hip.
She attempted to take in the whole picture - the Count, his cousin, the others - their arguments and responses fell short, and they knew that. She did not expect them to throw their lives away, but if anybody was about to do something rash, it would be now...
She was quite unable to get a read on them, which made it all the more important to be ready for anything.
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Count Lotheed offers a halfhearted rebuttal of logic, trying to reason that his family's long history of servitude as custodians of the county and palace somehow vindicates him. However, his defeated tone and slumping posture make it clear that even he knows that Meraki's closing argument has spelled the end of his tenure.
Mira recognizes that Count Lotheed has begun to inwardly but rapidly question a great many decisions he's made in life.
He quietly surrenders, asking for mercy and dignity. He also summons the last of his remaining authority and commands his good-for-nothing cousin and his friends to also surrender.
Dro’gan makes sure to search and disarm every one who surrendered, and catalog everything taken so there are no disputes later on for such things.
Amandine assures the safety and integrity of the Count, his relatives, and his retinue, telling him she is happy no blood needed to be spilled.
She also requests that Sir Gul Gusairne be summoned so he can turn over the key to the safe where the deed is kept. She takes the deed into possession first and foremost.
She remains with Dro'gan to "assist" the departing with gathering of personal belongings for travel as a way to subtly ensure only personal items are removed from the palace.
Amandine sends Sir Greenly out to announce the resolution of the dispute and its outcome to their waiting allies.
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Greenly steps out to a balcony overlooking the palace greens and shouts
or whatever
"How eloquent. Truly, you touch the souls of the common folk, Miss Greenly.", Mira teases her companion, albeit in good spirits.
Then she turns to the Count:"Are there any personal effects you wish to retrieve? You were civil about this matter - if allowed, I'll return the favor. You understand we can not let you or your associates roam freely right now, but If you name some things of sentimental value and where they are, I will go and fetch them for you."
"The palace is not yours. Not yet," Count Lotheed says to you quietly after Greenly's loud pronouncement to the crowd.
"Although I can command the more...ordinary forces that guard these halls," he says, casting a dismissive glance at his cousin and seneschal, "there are things in the royal apartments that I have no sway over."
"Curious. What kind of things would make their home in the royal apartments that are beyond the control of the master of this place?", Mira inquires with genuine curiosity.
"My uncle the duke...does not allow me in that portion of the palace, at least not without him being present," Count Lotheed says, clearly embarrassed to admit that he has not been the complete lord and master of the Palace of Birdsong. "All I know is that the west wing tower with the royal apartments is guarded by a creature known as Ehlers, one of my uncle's most trusted servants."
Count Lotheed describes some manner of outsider that delights in tormenting mortals via nightmares, feeding off of dread and fear.
"My uncle summoned the creature long ago, and as part of its binding, it is forbidden to harm any Lotheed by blood or marriage. As you are no kin of mine, you will have no such protection."
Greenly chaws away at a wad of chew, ignoring the Count and the general goings on. This creature was certainly the subject of some lesson she once sat thru but she had paid as much attention to it then as she is now.
"An Ehlers? Never heared of that kind of creature, but it sounds awful.", Mira responds after shortly trying to recall her lessons in religion and magic.
She then turns to Amandine: "I may be mistaken, but I believe we should also attempt to undo these...modifications of a summoned nature, before we hand over the estate - at least if we are able to."
Dro'gan swears silently to himself. It is never JUST a milk run...
Openly he smirks and waves at the count.
"Whatever it is, we will have to kill it or banish it to do what we need to do. So...anyone want to get married? I believe the Count here is single. No? Poor luck then. I think it would be bad form to use the Count's living body as a shield I fear."
"Your uncle was a fool, then."
You kneel down to examine the lock, and suddenly you're glad the rest of the party isn't nearby. This mechanism is well beyond your ability to overcome, even with assistance, so you don't have an audience when you admit defeat.
However, before you even have a chance to give up, you hear a soft metallic jingling by your ear.
You turn to find Lady Marthane dangling the key to the vault beside your head.
"Swiped it from the Count as he was being marched outside," the Night Swan says with a proud, wolfish grin.
Upon opening the vault, you find that the lion's share of the Lotheed family wealth is represented by countless property deeds and stock certificates for various companies. These would be of no use to you and the party, instead serving to fund Martella and Princess Eutropia's operations.
However, you do find three chests loaded with currency, as well as some other curios upon shelves.
It looks like the Lotheeds do much of their personal entertaining in this cozy room, whiling away cold or rainy days playing billiards or cards. A small office in the back of the room serves as an art studio, and you find a half-finished family portrait that depicts a much younger Count Bartelby, his half-sister (and the party's patron) Martella, and their then-living father.
In the nearby captain's quarters, acting on a hunch, you find that one of the bedposts is hollow - and the compartment inside contains a spare set of keys for the palace, including the archives and royal apartments. The shelves in the quarters also contain books on elven history, organization, and psychology.
As for the armory itself, it contains an array of masterwork-quality weapons: an Aldori dueling sword, 5 halberds, 5 heavy crossbows, 2 rapiers, 5 short swords, and 2 shortbows. The armory also contains 240 crossbow bolts, 144 arrows, a masterwork large steel shield, and - for some reason - a book of crude, salacious drawings.
The library features a number of antiques on display, including a functioning Jistkan timepiece (worth 1200gp), a teak-and-ivory globe (worth 400gp), and the quill used to sign the Treaty of the Wildwood (worth 250gp). These items are sealed in glass cases protected by alarm spells, but these defense measures have been inadvertently disabled when the Count was deactivating the hazards in the palace within his control.
There is also a locked drawer in a desk, and with some help from your allies, who have recovered some keys, you find that the drawer contains a pair of spectacles of understanding and a headband of vast intelligence +2
Everything that makes sense to grab, goes into my magical backpack for sorting later.
Meraki hesitates for a moment, before realizing the antiques are safer in the hands of her compatriots than anyone who may come looting the place in their wake. She gathers everything she can before rejoining the others to show them her find.
Before she collects anything in the armory, Greenly knocks over the clockwork soldier, removes its weaponry and puts some heavy things on top of it just in case it resumes movement.
Amandine frowns slightly as the Count describes Ehlers.
Hm, a Sahkil, a renegade former psychopomp. That will not be easy."
Addressing the others, Amandine cautions them about facing him solo.
"Let us look through the rooms aside from the royal apartments first. Afterward we can go to the apartments together. None of us should approach Ehlers alone."
Amandine accurately extrapolates from the information provided by the Count, and she deduces that this Ehlers is a variety of Sahkil known as an Ichkoh. Ichkohs savor the fear of the failure of the flesh, and enjoy tormenting those who take pride in their bodies. When an ichkoh selects victims, it torments them with the knowledge of how they failed to maintain their bodies in their youth.
You recall a few guests who stayed on the palace grounds overnight during the Tanager Jubilee who awoke haggard and haunted. In hindsight, it now becomes clear that in their dreams, this creature must have been tormenting and preying upon their fears of mortality.
...
In the count'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.
Examining the painting more closely, Amandine discovers that Martella was once included in the family portrait, but at some point she was covered up with the addition of the hunting dog. Considering what you know about your patron's strained relationship with the rest of her family, this erasure is not too surprising.
Whilst leaning close to the painting, Amandine hears a frightful moaning from behind her, centered upon the office's desk.
Amandine draws her weapon as she spins around.
Mira was not sure what she was expecting to find in the game room - or even what exactly to expect from the room itself, but she figured it was likely to be some place for recreation - and inebriation - or, and those were not mutually exclusive, for some high-stakes gambling and games.
The balls she found seemed to be relatively valuable, and with the set not being full, it seemed quite reasonable to take those as well, and find them a good new home with a paying patron.
The rod racked with the queues, however, was an astonishing find. How it ended up here, she had no idea, but it was definitely coming along with her.
Amandine turns to find a spectral figure floating above the desk. Dressed in the trappings of nobility, the ghostly apparition fills the office with terrifying shrieks and flails his arms.
Amandine remains resolute despite the pang of cold fear that briefly grips her upon beholding the ghost. As she stands her ground, she finds that the apparition makes no move to attack her, and instead remains hovering around the desk.
Keeping her wits about her, Amandine recognizes the ghost's contorted visage as being the family patriarch depicted in the portrait. This is the ghost of Mercater Lotheed, the father of both Martella and her half-brother the Count.
As she watches the ghostly pantomime, Amandine realizes that the ghost is trying to draw her attention to something about the desk.
Amandine has to work hard to resist the urge to flee from the apparition. Even though she manages to to stay calm enough to realize the ghostly man seems to be trying to communicate, she's still feels cold sweat in her skin.
She stays where she's at, ready to move at the first sign of hostility, but also tries to see what Mercator Lotheed's spirit is indicating about the desk. She also risks asking.
"Is there something you want me to see?"
There is a locked drawer set in the ornate desk, but this doesn't seem to be what the ghost is concerned about.
Amandine watches the apparition's wild gesticulations, still fighting against the instinctual fear that its frightful moans kindle, and tries to parse out what the ghost of Mercater Lotheed is trying to communicate.
Finally, Amandine intuits that the ghost's flailing limbs might be directing her attention beneath the desk. She crouches down and finds a floorboard that has less dust upon it than its neighbors. Prying it loose, she finds a reinforced safe inside the hidden compartment that's been revealed.
The safe is guarded by a pair of combination locks, but as Amandine watches the ghost's ethereal hands, she realizes he may also be trying to convey elements of the combination.
Amandine watches what the ghost is doing with his hands until she thinks she understands what he's conveying, then she tries the lock. It isn't easy working so near a ghost...
It takes some time for Amandine to crack the high-quality safe, even with the aid of Mercater's ghost. Of course, having a gesticulating, moaning ghost hovering over your shoulder is sure to distract anyone. Of course, this does give time for your assembled posse of nobles and commoners to secure the rest of the palace, apart from the royal apartments.
The rest of the party also uses this time to secure their spoils from the selected rooms, before moving to the county archives to locate the county charter for Martella.
Finally, the tumblers click into place for Amandine. The room suddenly feels warmer as Mercater's ghost vanishes, his spirit finally unshackled now that whatever waiting secret has been discovered.
Inside the safe, Amandine finds a cache of documents. These include birth certificates, death certificates, newspapers, royal announcements, and travel documents. The oldest of these records seems to go back some 300 years. What information is hidden in these documents that kept the former count's ghost bound to the material plane?
The drawer in the desk, by contrast, is much easier for Amandine to unlock. She finds that Bartelby Lotheed keeps a few valuables inside that may be of use.
Putting her ample education to use in the only manner she ever found engaging, Greenly sets about decoding the documents, quick and simple.
"These aaaare fake. All 'em, like, these men like, never got born but one dude kept getting new paperwork every generation or so." She pushes forth sketches of five men, each identical but labeled "Paniver II," "Duke Paniver III," etc, going on until the sixth. "Looks like Mr. Cou- Mr. Bartleby's father was investigating this before he passed."
Dro'gan frowns.
"An immortal: Some near-ageless monster in human-like skin. I've heard of vampires in Ustalav that do such things."
Amandine rifles through the documents quickly to see what's there. She's been away longer than she had planned to be, and there are more important things to find like the palace deed.
She takes the contents of the safe and the desk with her, obviously they meant something to the ghost, but since he's not looming over her anymore they will have to wait.
"Hu...are you sure, Greenly? They look real enough to me...you think no one questioned them, all these years? Why do you believe they are forged? I mean, how'd you notice?", Mira inquires, unable to notice anything off about the documents, but quite willing to learn.
After all, she had no documentation for her alter ego, herself, but wanted to make sure if she got any forged documents, they would pass inspection.