80. Nude Bernesia

* As a result of their deal with Ibn Qahbe, the party infiltrated the high society of New Bernesia, the capital of the Rumidian Southern Margraviate. They also brought Luciana along to help them out, agreeing to pay her exorbitant mercenary fees and her agreeing to not ask too many questions about the nature of the job or its client.
* Aerendyl, Wilfred, and Luciana ingratiated themselves with the Lady Margrave, a pallid halfling woman who was apparently not too fond of her husband. They went back with her and her other pallid halfling friends to her villa.
	+ Aerendyl and Luciana took to drinking with the other halflings, but since they continued to speak with each other telepathically -- something the pallid halflings apparently can just do -- it was a near silent and intensely awkward affair.
	+ Meanwhile, Wilfred and the Lady Margrave continued their seduction of one another in and beside her rooftop swimming pool. When he asked for her name, she telepathically showed Wilfred a dramatic scene of the clouds in a dark sky parting, light shining through the gap in a golden beam, touching the seemingly barren ground precisely where a hardy plant budded. Thankfully for Wilfred, she also said that she was known as Teresa to those that couldn't manage her proper name.
	+ Eventually Wilfred and Teresa went to bed together. Afterwards, they joined the others in the after dinner drinks and poetry, easing the awkward silence considerably.
	+ The Lord Margrave, a gnome by the name of Simblist Willowisp III, eventually returned from his daily affairs. Teresa had been very insistent in her explanations that the villa was her home, not his; his home had been appropriated by the visiting archmagi and their entourage.
	+ Wilfred asked more about that, learned that Madame Prespescone holds exciting, raunchy parties, and asks if they might attend. Teresa is happy to go with him, perhaps on the following night, though she warns that Prespescone seems to have no interest in inviting small folk to her end of evening orgies.
	+ Aerendyl, Wilfred, and Luciana were eventually shown to their guest rooms.
	+ Wilfred shags Teresa again, so the pair are awake when they are again attacked by a number of the Sea Fury's spirits.
		- Teresa proves herself to be a remarkable combatant, letting fly with her fists and feet, and seemingly able to strike the incorporeal forms of the spirits without issue.
		- The Wailing Spirit gets the drop on Aerendyl and Luciana, forcing Aerendyl to *dimension door* the pair of them as far away as he can, popping them out in the street.
		- Wilfred makes good use of his *pliable summons* and his silvered sword, and together with Teresa he is able to beat back the spirits. They end up slaying the Hungry and Blighting Spirits, while the Wailing Spirit and Stalking Spirit flee.
		- Aerendyl and Luciana eventually return to the Lady Margrave's villa.
	+ Aerendyl goes without rest, keeping watch while Luciana sleeps.
	+ Wilfred falls victim to the Sea Fury's *dream* spell, spending the entire night repeatedly tumbling from a great height into the ocean, sinking down into the dark depths, eventually finding himself unable to stop himself from inhaling lungfuls of water, and then just as the world goes dark and he knows he's dying he again finds himself falling into the ocean, ready to do it again.
	+ The next morning, the trio leave the villa and find a small crowd gathering in the street nearby, all shocked and out of sorts. The source of their disgusted interest is the bloated, ocean-swollen, half-rotten corpse of Clwyd, which has been unceremoniously dumped in the middle of the street. A human man breaks away from the crowd to approach them, tells them 'your deaths are simply a matter of time,' and then returns to his gawping as if that were a normal thing to say to complete strangers -- another agent made by the Sea Fury's *suggestions*.
* At the same time, Cill, Pyt, and Tariq, the oni mamluk loyal to Ibn Qahbe, had ingratiated themselves with a upper class couple by the names of Rodrigo and Bianca. They stayed the night at their villa after enjoying a wonderful meal in their company.
	+ Pyt takes Bianca up on her idea of him joining the couple for some sex that night.
	+ Meanwhile, Cill enjoys some of the drinks they keep in the house and the soft feel of the night clothes they'd lent him.
	+ They otherwise have an entirely uneventful evening -- the Sea Fury only has the means to track Aerendyl and Wilfred!
* 8am the next day, Fallingleaf 41, the party all manage to meet up after a few discrete messaging spells.
	+ They pool their info, the most useful new bit of which came from Wilfred's conversation with Teresa: Prespescone has some sort of vetting process she conducts during the meal and entertainments of her parties; from this she chooses those that will join in the orgy that caps off the evening.
	+ They decide to strike that night! Wilfred uses sending to ask Teresa if she would be up for going to the party that night, and also if she could get Aerendyl in. She is happy to oblige, saying she'll bring a date for the elf. Pyt, Cill, and Tariq had already arranged to accompany Bianca and Rodrigo -- the latter two acting as Pyt's retainers. Thus, they were arriving to the event as two separate groups, all the better for subterfuge. Luciana was going to look after all the stuff they couldn't smuggle inside and keep watch on the outside of the house from a distance, close enough to lend a hand if they should need her.
	+ Next they up hit a tailors. Wilfred and Pyt paid out the ass for an outfit each to be ready by that evening. Wilfred opted for a hideous red and yellow dinner jacket in the local style, while Pyt went some something similar but more subdued, but specifically requested space to conceal and smuggle his small drum and his sword within the fabric's folds.
* Evening comes and the groups arrive at the huge mansion that is usually the home of the Lord Margrave. The grounds are massive, and as their carriages are shepherded up the drive, the party make note of the lone, large tree nearly 1000ft from the house itself that would serve as their escape route. All the party guests are eventually ushered into a large front dining room, drinks are served, Prespescone arrives with Yeebe Sapply Barren, the gnomish man that serves as the abjurer's adjunct mage, and the festivities of the evening begin.
	+ The multi-course dinner simply serves as a pretext for conversation, socialising, and gossip. They all remain at the table long after the last dish is finished, encouraging the food down with digestive wines. All the while, Prespescone's eyes studied the guests and their happenings like a bird sizing up a worm.
	+ Eventually, the archmage throws open a set of doors, revealing a ballroom. She urges everyone inside, a man starts playing the piano, and the dancing begins.
	+ Prespescone proves herself to be in incredible dancer. Aerendyl attempts to impress her by spending a time as her partner, but she quickly grows bored of his attempt, leaving him off with a patronising smile and pat of his shoulder while she spins to her next partner.
	+ Pyt sees what Aerendyl was going for and gets himself in position to cut in and have a go himself. The half-elf knows well the arts of both rhythm and improvisation, and he proves to be Prespescone's best dance partner of the evening. The archmage notices his competence and opts to push Pyt further and further, forcing him into a flurry of steps and countersteps, such that if he hesitated for even a moment he'd be on his ass and more fool him. But he manages to keep up throughout, the song ends, and the attendees clap as one. Pyt bows to Prespescone and takes his leave of the dance floor.
* The night creeps on and eventually it's time for the main event. Prespescone and her adjunct discretely make their way around the mingling party-goers, whispering in the ears of those who have impressed enough (or are suitably attractive enough) to be invited to the orgy.
	+ Pyt and Aerendyl both secure an invitation.
	+ While the majority of the attendees are ushered out the house, Wilfred whispers to Teresa that they should perhaps make their own fun for the rest of the evening. She looks at him, smiles mischievously, takes his hand, and runs upstairs with him, winking at one of the guards as she goes. She goes through a door on the first floor and leads into what appears to be a wall of obscuring fog. Wilfred can't see anything, but the lady appears unhindered. She leads him a little further, he hears a door open, and then he's out of the fog and in a moderately sized bedroom. They close the door.
	+ Cill and Tariq both decide individually to turn invisible and sneak away during the confusion of the crowd being ushered away.
	+ While the excited attendees that were selected for the orgy start filing into one of eight rooms reserved for the occasion and stripping off their evening wear, Aerendyl takes the opportunity to sneak off on his own.
	+ Pyt joins in the orgy.
* While the orgy goes on, the party and their allies have all split up. They seek to find and destroy the shield guardian somewhere in the villa and steal the amulet from Prespescone.
	+ Cill, invisible, sneaks back through the ballroom and into the serving quarters, where a massive clean up operation is underway. He switches invisibility for a *disguise self* based on the form of one of the household staff. Then he heads up the narrow serving stairs to the second floor, encounters a wall of obscuring fog, and ends up in a conversation with someone he can't see from within who is asking him what he's doing. Cill stammers, unsure what to do....
	+ Aerendyl sneaks his way around the mansion's corridors, discretely checking each room he passes. He finds a reading room and a drawing room, and then eventually a set of side stairs that lead to the first floor. Feeling suitably isolated here, he tries to cast *locate creature: shield guardian*, but the attempt fails and is wasted. The mansion had been well warded. Cursing, he goes up the stairs and encounters the fog both Wilfred and Cill had met at that point. It takes two attempts, but he successfully dispels it...
	+ The fog suddenly vanished before Cill. He sees the member of the household staff who'd been talking to him, asking what he was doing there. There's a knightly guard stood next to this guy, three more knights playing cards at a table nearby, and another stood to attention in the corridor. But the thing that draws the eye the most is the hulking form of the shield guardian, stood erect and unmoving in a corner. Cill quickly says he was just checking if the guards need anything, quickly earning some smiles and praise from the shirkers of the group. They are all to eager to accept some of the left over drinks from the evening. Cill nods and takes the trip downstairs, happy to use the time to think...
	+ Pyt makes sure the people he was in a room with had a very good time. Next, he went into the corridor, cast mislead to turn himself invisible and make an illusory copy of himself at the same time, then manages to persuade some other orgy-goers out of one room and into the one he started in, earning a room for himself for his troubles. His *mislead* copy he sent into the room with them, mostly to stand in the corner, watch, and offer instruction and encouragement. Meanwhile, he waited by the door for Prespescone to come into the hallway...
	+ Wilfred continued to have fun with the Lady Margrave...
	+ Cill returns with drinks for the guards then sits in on a couple hands of cards with them at their invitation. Cill manages to spot Aerendyl peering around from the far end of the hallway, where the elf was stood thinking about his next move -- since Cill was disguised, Aerendyl did not recognise him in turn...
	+ Aerendyl decides to play a confidence game. He straightens himself up, walks towards the guards, and tells them in the commanding voice of the sort that someone used to being obeyed makes use of. He tells them Madame Prespescone needs their assistance in the reading room downstairs. The guards grumble a bit but hop to it, all heading for the stairs Aerendyl had used for his ascent.
	+ Cill tells Aerendyl it's him in a disguise. The pair panic for a bit and can't decide how they should go about dealing with the shield guardian. They know the guards will be returning soon. Cill says he'll go and get some rags from the kitchen for them to use in a lie that could buy them some more time. The deep gnome rushes down the serving stairs, goes to the kitchen, but then gets caught by the head porter and gets set to washing dishes!
	+ Aerendyl hears the guards he'd sent away coming back. He tries the nearest door but it's locked. He tries the next and it's locked too. The steps of the guards are just around the corner now!
	+ Pyt's waiting yields fruit. Prespescone emerges from one room and makes to cross the corridor to enter another, but Pyt interrupts her. She's fully clothed, apparently only watching the events of the orgy as their recon said she did. Pyt talks her into the empty room and the pair get naked. Prespescone meticulously folds up her clothes one layer at a time as she takes them off -- her outer cloak is revealed to be made from the hide of a displacer beast during this process. With her dress off, Pyt at last confirms that she has the amber-and-white-gold necklace hung around her neck. She does not take it off.
	+ Pyt has sex with Prespescone and takes the chance to rip the necklace off her. While she's still shocked he tries to *dimension door* out the mansion and feels himself slam into a ward. His spell fails and he remains where he is. Prespescone, eyes are filled with scorn, curses him for his temerity.