Alamander IV was the final member of the Lion's Dynasty, which ended in the uprising of the IVth taking out the IIIrd. Zaranda's family dynasty rose out of the ashes of the failed Alamander dynasty.
It isn't clear which of the many Alamanders this estate once belonged to.
The estate is in ruins, clearly untouched for hundreds of years.
Kira recommends investigating the ruins before beginning the search in earnest, presumably with a ritual of some sort.
We started exploring around the moat and found a path inside, but then paused to give Kira a chance to cast her spell. The air around her grew a bit chilly.
While patrolling, Barrick noticed some tracks from, likely, a day or two ago. The trail found the ruins, circled it, investigated, then moved further north. Focusing in on the trail, Barrick also found indications that people dismounted and went into the keep.
Kira finished the ritual. Normally, the indication of the spell is pretty unambiguous. She determines that there's intense mugwort about 50'-60' NE.
We tried crossing a collapsed wall and, with the exception of Gavin, successfully cross. Gavin ate some dirt, but was able to stand back up and walk along to moat to investigate some of the standing water, which (when he touched it) was weirdly cold.
Bikke started chopping the mudwort we found by the well near the eastern well of the keep.
Gavin called out to the rest of us asking us to come over and check out the water. Hugh jumped back across the moat to ask Gavin, "What's wrong?"
Kira climbed down into the moat to talk to GAvin. Gavin told her to touch the water and she touched it, immediately experiencing a cacophany of voices and sound from the contact.
Kira: "Did you jump in?"
Gavin: "No, but what do you think happens if we drink it?"
Kira considered the voices. The noise came from inside her mind, but was like she was standing in the middle of a crowded market square. The weirdest part is that there was no consistency in the experience.
Bikke pulled out the mugwort's root ball, about the size of a football, and there was more going deeper.
Kira decided to detect magic. She detected tendrils of magic in the pond, as though the magical thing is a liquid that was poured into it. The school of the magic is unclear, but it seems like the same type of magic from the mirefen and the elementals.
Barrick's patrolling revealed that the footsteps had shown a lot of interest in the well and in the upper level of the collapsed keep ruins.
Gavin examined a second puddle in the moat and it had a similar effect.
Barrick, Hugh, and Kira returned to the well near Bikke to examine the well for its connection to the water.
Gavin took a sip from the third puddle he touched, with the weakest sensation so far. Gavin's reaction to the water is immediate regret. He said the water changed what he thought happened in his life.
Examining Gavin closely, Hugh sees no sign of physical or magical impact on Gavin. It does not look like a curse or poison, but it is clear that Gavin is processing a traumatic shock.
Hugh climbs down into the well and feels the same experience of the water when it touches his skin. The cavern is flooded and a foot or two deep, so navigable but unpleasant.
Barrick asked Gavin to come down the well, but GAvin replied that he believes this water could be used to plant memories into people. He has a memory that makes no sense for him, but it happened. It would have the effect on others as well.
Kira knows that Mugwort is used for dreaming and that there's a relationship between dreams and memory.
Barrick came down the well promptly after Hugh. The cavern looks like a wide path that's been flooded.
Bikke and Kira climbed down the chain after us.
As we move through the fissure where the water drains, Kira and Barrick noticed that there are pick and shovel marks. Someone tunneled from the well into the second space.
As we stand after the fissure, we see that there's a large room down here.
The room has a carved dragon head in the floor under about 6 inches of water. This looks like a mausoleum for a noble or a reliquary, perhaps? There are some caskets in the spaceand there's no obvious sign of something happening except for the center of the raised platform at the focus of the room. There's a statue, a sculpture made of stained glass, appearing like a man. The legs are shattered, there is a broken stained glass sword near him, and he is lying on his side with a pained expression on his face.
Barrick examined the statue more closely, and nothing much is going on. Stepping out of the water was a relief, though.
As Kira approaches the statue, she notes the beautiful, exquisite eyes made of pearls and glass. As Kira moves the statue, the eyes roll toward her and it animates. The effect is uncanny and inhuman, but also uncomfortably human in its own way. It pushes itself away from Kira, dragging its shattered legs behind it.
Hugh asks, "Can you speak?"
It opens its mouth as though speaking. There is no sound. It makes a face of concentration. Hugh then hears a sound somewhere between nails on a chalkboard and a sack of broken glass. It forms words with vocal chords of glass chimes. It says, "Scagliano". Hugh and Barrick introduce themselves as well.
Hugh: "Who did this?"
Scagliano: "I don't know names. Dozens, too many."
Barrick: "What are you?"
Scagliano: "Skaglianno. Gift to and protector of the Lion dynasty, gift to the Lion from the Zaiden family of Amn."
Hugh returned his broken sword to him.
Barrick: "How long have you been down here?" and continued to interrogate.
Scagliano: "I was made a gift in Darromar in 1302. I served in Darromar until 1312. Then the young prince grew bored and I was moved here. Peasants broke my legs. I saw two men come down into the well. They did not speak to me. They were searching for something they did not find.
Scagliano: "I protect the family. To protect the princess, I had to be still. The princess does not know her name anymore. She is not here.
Scagliano: "The men that came down said little, just of their search. They were thorough and intentional with purpose and discipline. They talked of what they looked in and didn't find.
Skag must have been a dazzling sight to behold. The light filtering through his colored body as he names every member of the family, their legacy, and the stained glass portrait above each casket.
Kira: "Is the princess still alive?"
Scagliano: "Yes. I serve the blood of the Lion's dynasty. I feel the pull.
Gavin understands from our conversations with Orazio, Armitage, and the history of thethyr that Zaranda Star married an Alamander, so her line carries their blood, meaning Ottilie is the princess he must still protect.
Gavin notices a dim light within Skag such that it's quite nice. In the core of SKag's chest there is a glass compartment, small and cylindrical, that the light does not pass through.
Barrick: "The last descendant sent us to retrieve the item inside of you. Will you give it to us?"
Scagliano's face clouds over. "I know you are lying to me, but I don't know why."
Bikke: "What do you know about the voices in the water?"
Scagliano: "Memories of villagers, traders, anyone they can find and catch.
Bikke: "Who's they?
Scagliano: "The princess, her servants. They take them and pour them down here, from little bottles.
Kira: "If we remove the item, what happens to you?
Scagliano: "I will be without purpose. I protect the princess.
Some further discussions suggested Skag was protecting Ottillie's name.
The men that come are two: One silver haired, pale skin, blue eyes, and older soldier. The other young, dark haired, dark skin. Wearing leather road armor.
Scagliano also mentioned that the mugwort roots reach the memory water, suggesting the reason the mugwort was so large.
The princess and her people opened the fissure. The well filled the crypt and then they came with the memories.
Scagliano: "Head and sword are what matter. Head think, sword protect.
Kira broke her way up Skag's leg, trying to gain access into his torso. Kira slices her hands, but is able to withdraw a bottle filled with a semitransparent, lavender fluid containing tendrils of color swirling inside it. The bottle is presumably the princess' memory. Skag knows it only as, "The Princess".
Bikke takes a sip of The Princess.
Bikke: "I feel like a princess. That's pretty wild. I'm not sure why I would've done that, but I did it? It's a moment of time, fractured from the rest of my memories- a thread that's woven into the wrong quilt. The memory isn't terribly specific or illuminating- it's a collection of feelings, thoughts, sensations, and the narrative attaching them. I remember a time I came down the stairs in the castle in the morning. My hands were mine, and also they were a girl child's?"
Gavin: "Do you remember anything specific about your hands?"
Bikke: "Not much. I remember my hands were soft and holding the sword was uncomfortable. I don't know why the princess would package up her memories and hide them in a bottle in a tomb, except that they must be valuable to her."
Ottilie is in her early 20's and the heir to the Rhinduan family. She is, to the limited extent of our knowledge, sheltered, cloistered and delicate. She is a frail blonde girl who has been married off to a bloodsucker by her family- a bird in a gilded cage. We have no learned she was learning martial skills as a child and recently snuck miles out of Riatavin to pour her memories into her family's old tomb.