26th Session
General Summary
Tasha pulls Ellie with her to the secret passageways she found to get into the princess's room. Caspian, hearing the commotion, heads back to the house. The Colonel comes with Theo to the locked door. He says, "the nursery," and goes into the small room that Theo and Caspian have been staying in. The hall door is open, but the door into the master bedroom is locked. Between the two of them, they break the door down. Theo gets gets his glaive.
They don't see anyone in the room. The bed cover is rumpled, the princess's veil is on the floor, a window is open as are the doors to the closet, bathroom and wardrobe. Theo only sees the open window and doors. The Colonel peers out the open window and says "Someone is down there." before jumping out. Theo follows, but falls decidedly less gracefully and they both enter through the broken window. They find the maid, Maria in one of the study rooms. She had been stabbed, stripped down to her underclothes and left to bleed out, an officer's uniform crumpled next to her. Ellie, hearing about it through the magic earrings, comes out of the ground floor guest bedroom wardrobe and stabilizes Maria. The colonel runs on looking for the intruder. Ellie stays with Maria, casts cure wounds on her and gets her awake.
Caspian made it to the study and goes to check out the broken window. The broken glass is on the inside. Outside, there are 2 long scratches from the open window to the ground and 3 sets of footprints. He walks away from the house to check if there's more intruders out there.
Tasha goes into the secret room in the library to renter the passageways and finds the princess there sitting with her face between her knees. Tasha comes in the room, closes the room and tells the others through the earrings that she's found Eirianwen.
Theo runs across the courtyard to the other side of the house. He finds house staff running into the servant quarters screaming. Running on, he sees the colonel pursuing someone into the chapel and goes to join in, saying "We found the princess. She's okay." softly in hopes that Old Ones really do have great hearing. Caspian starts running back and Ellie makes her way to the fight too. Between Theo and Colonel, they get the changeling, who looks like Maria, to break a window and flee. The men pursue. Caspian lands the finishing blow with his longbow. Goldblade calls out for Ellie to attend to the would-be assassin and she is already running. Goldblade then asks for details on where "she" as he apparently did hear Theo earlier. Ellie stabilized the changeling and Theo ties him up with rope as the colonel goes to check on the princess.
Goldblade goes to check on the princess. He kneels by her for a bit before getting up and waiting outside the door. Galla comes and sits by her. Ellie tells Caspian through the earring to get Selima, the princess's dog. He brings it to her highness. After a bit of having the puppy whine and paw, she reaches her right hand out and starts petting her without looking. She eventually lets Galla touch her and lead her upstairs.
Goldblade goes picks up the unconscious changeling upstairs and further ties him almost excessively to a chair, which he ties to another chair. He orders that 2 people watch the prisoner and come get him when he wakes up. The party watches him as Ellie goes to take Maria to clinic and gets her settled before coming back.
When the changeling wakes up, he pretends to stay asleep, but Caspian finds a member of staff to get the Colonel. Who comes in and tells Ellie "no" to using magic and smacks the changeling to attention. Through the interrogation, you learn, he doesn't know who hired him exactly, but it's on the colonel' "behalf." He came from Midriver and knows the employer paid well. Theo is sharpening a silver coin, as silver burns changelings when they're cut with it. Goldblade threatens the prisoner some and knocks him out with a backhand. Goldblade then leaves to go sleep some more to recover as he made a journey that should take 9 days by horse on foot in 4 and hadn't slept much before that as he was dealing with uncovering another assassination plot. Ellie follows the ask about what the assassin might have meant, how long he'll need to recover and if she can use magic on the prisoner now. He says he does have some fanatics, but he didn't think they'd ever go this far and gives her permission to use magic.
They find out the changeling's name is 15. He got the uniform from the employer. His order will likely send another as the job isn't done. His order got 800 for the job. He is supposed to meet some "overlord" in the west graveyard of Pikemound, the Lashian city across Epoch Lake. The party picks up that 15 is a slave solider and makes attempts to begin rehabilitating him. Ellie gives him the name of "Nova" and Tasha convinces him that he may be free of his overlords. He says he remember 7 different voices for overlords.
In the afternoon of the next day (19/4/8499) Galla comes into the prisoner's room and warns the party, "On the off chance any of you have hemstaim, don't give it to him. You don't want to be party to this." Before standing in the corner. Goldblade soon comes in, his long hair cut to his chin length, unshaven and asks for hemstaim. When questioned, he reveals that, after considering facial piercing or tattoo, he's settled on a facial scar and with hemstaim, it would be permeant. Theo, misunderstanding his intentions, suggests he dye his hair black and no will recognize him. The colonel clarifies that he's concerned that the changeling used his face to attack the princess so he wishes to alter his appearance to keep from upsetting her, not that he's talked or seen her yet. Ellie has apparently convinced him to not disfigure himself and instead talk to and possibly hug the princess. Galla whole heartily agrees, especially about the hug.
TLDR: Party and Colonel Goldblade capture the changeling assassin. The princess is unharmed. Assissan is interrgated. His employer wants the colonel in power. Ellie wants to rehabilitate him. The colonel is hard core.
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