Following on from the negotiations with the trolls (see KA27. The Manor Grounds), Elias Minch emerged from the hedge maze with a key. He handed it to Arc to inspect, and was then suddenly covered in a strange arcane light.
Meanwhile, in Flamekeep, Bludak Mal K'shaar and Urisys Daergel were awoken from their slumber, and summoned to the chambers of Jaela Daran, the Keeper of the Flame. She explained that one of the church's seers had received a vision, of an undead threat somewhere in the depths of Breland. She asked if the two of them would agree to be transported there, to put a stop to whatever threat could be found before it spread further. They agreed, and a House Orien dragonmarked mage stepped forward, to teleport them to the location. Unfortunately he had a coughing fit as he completed the arcane ritual, causing the spell to go awry; when Bludak Mal K'shaar and Urisys Daergel arrived at Vinehold Manor, they found that they had been swapped with Elias Minch.
The rest of the party greeted the new arrivals, in particular Bludak Mal K'shaar, whom they had not seen in several years. They then explained what they had encountered at the manor, and relayed their suspicions that there was a powerful vampire within the depths of the manor. Using the key obtained by Elias Minch, they opened the front door and stepped inside. As they all entered the grand entrance, the door shut behind them, and they heard machinery whirring as something activated. A voice rang out, in a strong Karrnathi accent, welcoming them to the manor, and informing them that the defences that the original owners of the manor had set up had been activated against them. The party then saw a large amount of water cascade down the double staircase in front of them, and six statues stood on plinths moved into a grasping position. The party quickly tried to get out of the water, as in each of the plinths that the statues were stood on was embedded a rune of lightning, which activated regularly, damaging anyone within contact with the water.
Urisys Daergel moved first, eviscerating one of the statues and placing himself on top of the plinth that it had inhabited. Daellin struggled with another, and then ended up grappled by the stone knight. The rest of the party spread out, trying to damage the statues, but Arc headed up the stairs and discovered the two brass pipes that the water was emerging from. They stuffed some of their spares clothes into one, blocking it, before casting Heat Metal on the other one in order to try and close it up. Smith cast fly on himself, and headed up to Arc's location, to help out, but was unable to crowbar the second pipe closed. Urisys Daergel then joined them, and picking up on Smith's idea, successfully completed the attempt. With the water no longer flowing into the room, the water level dropped off; Arc cast Polymorph on Daellin, turning him into a bird so that he could escape the grapple of the stone statue that held him.
While they waited for the water level to drop, the party searched the upstairs of the manor, but only found long-dilapidated bedrooms, overwhelmed with dust and cobwebs. They then headed downstairs, and searched through the rooms down there. In the dining room, they found the experimentation room that Kiffag had described to Elias Minch, with tables strewn about that had clearly held the trolls for experimentation. They also found a pile of troll limbs, and several vials of dark red-blood. Identifying this as vampire blood, each member of the party took a flask for possible future use. On the table, Bludak Mal K'shaar found a House Jorasco Internal Memo, which detailed some of the recent experiments that had occurred here.
The party continued into the basement. Urisys Daergel activated a Thunderwave rune with a well-thrown ball bearing, so that the spell harmlessly triggered without affecting everyone. The party then found themselves in a room with a brass owl, that posed a riddle to them; in order to enter the family vault, they needed to correctly give the number of legs that were on the floor in a described room. After Daellin initially answered incorrectly, the party was hit by another Thunderwave; but realising that the animals described in the riddle were a mere distraction, but the gnomish tinkerer needed to be included as well as the legs on the bed, the party eventually came up with the correct answer of 'six'.
The next room was the vault of the ir'Tralen family that had once dwelled here at Vinehold Manor; there they found Gustav von Rekkenmark, accompanied by a vampire bear and a vampire wolf, and with an obviously-weakened Maya Furlani held captive. They could see that she was covered in bite marks, as the vampire had obviously been feeding from her for some time. Gustav von Rekkenmark welcomed them to his temporary abode, and explained that he had only remained in the manor while he recovered his strength, and sought information on whom had betrayed him to allow his coffin to be transported to begin with. Before the party could ask much more of him, Bludak Mal K'shaar decided that he could wait no longer, and charged forth to attack the vampire count.
A brutal battle ensued. The trio of undead creatures did much damage, with their undead bites weakening anyone that they bit. Arc fell unconscious from an onslaught from the vampire bear, while a devastating attack from Urisys Daergel brought the vampire count to the brink of his final death; Daellin then finished the vampire off with a trio of well-placed arrows, directly to the heart. The vampire wolf fell quickly to Smith and his flamethrower; the bear proved a trickier opponent, but in the end all three undead creatures were turned to dust. The party then freed Maya Furlani, and returned to Sharn. Arc made the bold decision to desert the Dark Cabinet and Karrnath for good, realising that they were not good things to be associated with (having finally seen life on the outside). Arc allowed Maya to report the news back, thus making Arc an enemy of the state, with a bounty on their head.
The party still had to decide what to do with the information that they had obtained; whether they would reveal what House Jorasco had been up to at Vinehold Manor, and whether they would tell Selene d'Lyrandar of the involvement of House Lyrandar. They did decide that their next step would be to honour Elias Minch's deal with Kiffag, to return the trolls to their homeland of Droaam. As the trolls did not think that they could survive going overland, and refused to consider using an airship after they had been transported on one previously, this would have to involve travelling to the nation of monsters by sea.