Preparing for the ball, Kayl leans into his primal power of lust in an attempt to play a better Drow bard and, unfamiliar with the power, goes a bit too hard and succumbs to the overpowering sexuality. After attempting to attract the attention of a few young ladies without success, both Kayl and Frederick are approached by Zyra and escorted in.
They make their entrances and Kayl's Dipzt makes a bit of a fool of himself, attracting the ire of the attending nobles, it seems due to their ego not liking to be upstaged. Frederick's Dwarve is presented to the crowd and attracts less ire, but more questions.
Odila Vallos infiltrates the vault and phases through the floor on the ethereal plane. But there she comes up against a ghost, chained as a guard dog. After defeating it, it's chains fall to the ground and she discovers she cannot get through the floor or the password door by phasing through.
Dipzt and Dwarve begin to mingle, to varied reactions. Dipzt continues to struggle to make connections after his flamboyant entrance, while Dwarve is quite the curiosity as the nobility are quite interrogative of an unknown dwarf mining magnate.
Odila attracts the guards by rattling the chains and get them to check out the vault. They cannot get through the password door either and send out messengers: one to a Nightmother to commune with the ghost to figure out what it wants, the other to alert the Princess' retinue about potential situation at the vault.
The party has Psilos waylay the messenger headed towards the Nightmother.
The Princess, Jaia Nightshade makes her appearance at the ball to much acclaim. After awhile, Dipzt and Dwarve are approached by one of her advisors to go meet her. They do and she admits she is curious as they are the only two she does not know of at the party. After some conversation in which Dwarve makes an off-color comment and Dipzt plays music to much applause, Dipzt is kept close while Dwarve is pushed into the crowd by Gravel, the Duergar Captain of the Guard.
As such Dipzt is close enough to hear the messenger alert the Princess of an inconsequential alarm at the vault. Dwarve steals Gravel's locket.
Odila wait out her etherealness and then fetches Bengt Sunwalker and Soma-Rai out of the Janitor's Closet. While investigating the vaults she sees a book made of skin with a face (a real face on the cover) but chooses to avoid it and instead grabs the Eyes of the Spider and puts it in the closet with her and Bengt before Soma-Rai Misty Steps past the password door and heads down into the Vault.
Downstairs she is met by a brightly-lit room with a few small vaults off on the sides, and Qedan Shadowhame hanging, manacled, from the wall at the far end. In getting Bengt and Odila out of the closet, she accidentally trips a laser alarm that sets off security. The three quickly work on freeing Qedan, Bengt struggling to break the manacles but Odila making quick work of the locks.
Back at the ball, Kayl is close enough to see that Princess Nightshade is immediately alerted of the Vault alarm, and she dispatches people to deal with it as Dwarve takes his leave from the crowd and the crew at the Vault slips everyone inside the Closet. Odila then uses the Dimension Door stored inside her ring of spell-storing to make her exit and meet up with Psilos.
Everyone meets back at Gurgleglark's warehouse (though it takes Frederick a little while to do so as he makes an appearance as himself to brag about his Purple Worm slaying) and congratulations abound as Qedan thanks them for rescue and Gurgleglark takes the Eyes of the Spider.
Their celebrations are cut short, however, when a pair of Penitents burst into the warehouse, causing wreckage as the party tries to fend them off while making their escape. Gurgleglark curses himself for not thinking of locating spells on the Eyes of the Spider and hands it back to Frederick, who slips it into the Bag of Holding. While flinging attacks and spells at the Penitents to delay them, Bengt connects with a solid spell, only to witness the magic course over the Penitent's armor and into it's spell gem. With a sudden realization he knows where the 2 tons of DragonsteelForgehammer Dwarves gifted to the Silver College went.
After making their escape onto the water of the Black Loch, the party once again grumbles at leaving a city in chaos behind them, and Bengt's Scale begins to itch on his hand.
