Back on the banks of the river, the Charter Lords continued their discussions with Ilora. They established that Gaetane had probably been heading North to Whiterose – and Rudy wracked his brains for tales of the Abbey, and he remembered back to his history lessons. The Abbey had been dedicated to Cayden Calain, and had a reputation for making some of the best wines in the region. However, he also knew that it had been abandoned for years. They spoke briefly about heading to the abbey to try and disrupt Gaetane’s plans, but eventually decided to press forward with plans for a regime change in Pitax. They intended to infiltrate the Palace and remove Irovetti - with extreme prejudice, if it was required.
They headed down river and Ilora used her skills and local knowledge to get them close to the city walls –and then they used Dimension Door spells to get themselves inside. However, they needed two spells, and they got them slightly wrong - so they finished up in two different rooms. Rudy’s group were in a Library. He spent the next little while grabbing books of ribald poetry and sultry stories while Hebrin was sent out to search for the others. Cassandra’s group were in a small bedroom, and Cassandra went invisible while she looked for the others. The two groups weren’t separated by much and it didn’t take them long to get back together again.
They took a staircase downwards from the library, and discovered the dungeon and the torturers chambers. While the torturer himself was asleep, his pets (a pair of huge Hell hounds) were awake – so there was no element of surprise, just an out an out battle. Worse, when the torturer himself awoke, they discovered he was a gargoyle - and a vicious gargoyle at that. That battle went in the party’s favour, but the noise had raised the alarm, and they were soon under attack from a group of Pitax Wardens, supported by a patrol of Pitax Heralds. Again the battle went for the Charter Lords, but the sheer weight of numbers was starting to take its toll and it cost them quite a lot in terms of spells and health.
They took one of the Pitax Heralds prisoner, and he was happy to tell them where to find Irovetti, although he wouldn’t tell them much more than that. They left him tied up still, in one of the dungeon’s cells.
There were bodies in some of the cells, however only one was alive. It was the missing Diva, Asmeranda, whom Rudy had been asked to search for. She had spurned Irovetti’s advances and had been handed over to the torturer as a punishment. She was given a CLW, a bag of honey cakes, a wine skin, a poncho made from bedding and Rudy’s best silvered dagger - before Rudy dimensioned doored her out to where Ilora had left them. But Ilora had gone - so Asmeranda was released to take care of herself while Rudy returned to the Palace Dungeons.
In front of the grounp is a corridor with two sets of double doors off of it and large stairs leading up to the ‘Fighting Pit’.