After several months of downtime, the party were reunited after Arc, having returned from Karrnath, received a coded letter at a drop box. Decoding the information within, Arc read Letter to Arc from Hassian Tremore, which detailed the request of the Karrnathi government to track down a missing agent, Maya Furlani. She had been investigating some shipments that House Lyrandar had taken out of Karrnath; as best as could be established, she was at Vinehold Manor in the Dagger Wood. However no contact had been received for several weeks.
Elias Minch and Smith met with Arc in the village of Trellick; Daellin was delayed by business, but promised to catch up. Selene d'Lyrandar had not received a letter, due to concerns that she would be loyal to House Lyrandar. On meeting Arc at the village's inn, the rest of the party noticed that Arc had had the end of one finger removed, as punishment for her long absence. None-the-less, she had been given one last chance to show her loyalty.
Arc befriended a local at the pub, and managed to obtain directions to Vinehold Manor, which was the best part of a day's travel from the village. They also found out a small amount of history about the manor; specifically, they learned that it had been abandoned after the last member of the family that lived there had died on The Day of Mourning. Setting off mid-morning, they easily found the path, despite the fact that it had become overgrown with a decade of unuse. They reached the outer wall of the manor around dusk. After scouting the wall, Elias Minch elected to use his monk skills to run up the wall, and then throw down a rope for the rest of the party to use to climb. On the other side, they found the manor grounds overgrown, reducing their visibility. However they were able to clearly hear the growl of creatures ahead; Arc and Elias Minch snuck forwards, to see through the bushes that a pair of trolls were attacking two humans dressed in rags. From their vantage point, they could see that the humans appeared to have signs of having been held prisoner, as they had marks on their wrists that had been left by manacles. The trolls also were slightly unusual; one of them had an arm that was significantly darker than the rest of the troll's green body, and appeared to be slightly oversized.
Arc decided to help the humans, and threw in a fireball at the trolls, while Elias Minch charged in to close range. Smith followed on as soon as he heard the sounds of battle. However barely had the battle started when one of the humans reached Arc; rather than seeking help, Arc found herself attacked, as the humans revealed themselves as vampires. A three-way melee ensued, with the vampires and trolls continuing to attack each other. Arc and Smith used fire-based magic on the trolls, to prevent them from regenerating their wounds, while Elias Minch used his Mace of Disruption to devastating effect on the two vampires.
After the battle was won, the trolls were inspected to find that they had multiple surgical cuts and wounds all over their bodies, particularly where limbs could be separated. They sat to rest while they contemplated what they had found, and begun to formulate a few theories on what had happened here. In the mean time, Daellin arrived, having caught up with them. Elias Minch helped him over the wall, and then they decided to investigate the manor grounds further. Hearing noise in the hedge maze, they decided to leave that for now, fearing that there were more trolls inside. Their first stop was instead a tower, where they could see an airship docked. Investigating the structure, they found the walls covered in blood, and in the centre of the tower a coffin, that appeared to have been unloaded from the airship and then dropped, causing it to come open. Arc noticed a reference to Rekkenmark on the coffin, a city within Karrnath. She recalled that there were dark rumours that surrounded the ruling family of that city.
As they headed up the stairs that spiraled around the inside of the tower, they came across three half-elven bodies, dressed in the clothing of House Lyrandar, who had appeared to be drained of all of their blood. Continuing onto the airship, they found the bodies of the rest of the crew, including two dragonmarked heirs that were presumably the pilots. No records of the airship's routes were found, but they were able to find documentation that identified it as River of Light. Carrying on their exploration, they found three more bodies in a nearby pond; two were House Lyrandar, and presumably part of the crew, but the third was a halfling dressed in a white coat, with no identifying marks. Smith then cast Fly on himself, and went over the hedge maze, which confirmed their suspicions that more trolls were located inside.
Instead, they headed to the clump of trees to the rear of the grounds; here they could see three halflings swinging from ropes with nooses around their necks. The three halflings were all in House Jorasco uniforms, and troll blood could be identified on them. Past the trees, a shed could be seen. It mostly contained typical gardening tools, long since rusted; but Arc noticed a floorboard had been disturbed, and underneath she found a rucksack containing Maya Furlani's notes, which detailed what she had observed in recent weeks. These seemed to support the party's theory; that House Jorasco were experimenting on the trolls and vampires, but the arrival of a new vampire had gone wrong, with the creature escaping and wreaking havoc on the inhabitants on the manor. In the chaos, the trolls had escaped. Maya Furlani herself had fled into the manor on seeing the trolls in the grounds; the party would have to head inside to find her.
Understanding now that the trolls were victims rather than aggressors, the party devised a plan to speak to the trolls. Elias Minch calmly entered the hedge maze, bearing a gift of food. As he went through the maze, he knew that he was being followed on either side by a troll, but they appeared to let him pass unharmed. As he got to the centre, on them rushed ahead and woke the leader of the trolls, Kiffag. Kiffag cautiously welcomed the gift of food, and explained to Elias Minch that they had been kidnapped in Droaam by House Vadalis, before being brought to Vinehold Manor to be experimented on by House Jorasco. They had escaped when a powerful vampire had swept into the manor, but had stayed in the hedge maze due to the fact that they had no idea where they were, or how to get home. Elias Minch explained their location, and offered them help in getting back to Droaam; Kiffag was adamant that the trolls would not go on an airship again, and would not survive the journey overland, but was cautiously accepting about the offer of transportation by sea. He reciprocated Elias Minch's gift, by offering the key to the manor. Elias Minch then left, to reunite with the rest of the party.
Gathering their thoughts, the party headed to the manor's front door, to locate Maya Furlani and the powerful vampire that presumably still lurked inside.