The party spent the night with the Masked Legion in their keep. Warden stayed by the bedside of the unconscious princeling.

In the morning, preparations were being made to raid the royal palace using the newly discovered underground tunnel. Diego would be accompanying the party with 14 of his Masked Legion warriors.

Diego strategized with the team. They devised a plan to take out the bell tower sentries with a synchronized combination of sleep arrows and spells.

After a rousing speech (audio here), they set off into the tunnels to execute their grand plan.

Staying consistent with their earlier strategy, the team used Fizban’s Sleep spell, Warden’s Hold Person and some well aimed arrows. The team was able to fell 5 of the 6 guards. Alas, this was not enough and the alarm bell began to ring.

The guerrilla crew stormed through the palace engaging in intense (and sometimes laborious) combat with the palace security force.

They encountered a massive living statue but Betamax was able to scare it into submission by banging his Drums of Panic.

They eventually made it into the King’s quarters. Diego shouted out “this is for my father!” as he slit the King’s neck. Perhaps Diego’s motives ran deeper than simply trying to help the kingdom’s populace?

In the throne room they encountered the palace wizard who sent a blast of fire into Diego’s chest. The damage was massive and had Diego not saved vs spell to halve the damage, he would have been dead.

After the wizard had expended his offensive spells, he was pretty easy for the team to butcher. Fizban got a nifty new spellbook from the slaughtered corpse.

In the final room they encountered the queen and Khagstad (captain of the guard). Khagstad tried to fight but was overwhelmed and killed.

The queen offered her body in exchange for not being killed and for the opportunity to be reunited with her son. Fizban, follower of the scarab god, took her up on the offer. She was repulsed by the insects that took residence in his mouth but she did not resist.

Diego was furious that Fizban made this deal with the queen but Fizban had some threatening words for Diego and actually intimidated him into standing down.

At this point, Diego went out on they royal balcony to try and assuage the throngs of commonfolk that had begun massing outside the palace wall. As charismatic as Diego is, he was not able to calm them down. Chants of “kingslayer!” rang loudly as the mob began growing unruly. The mob began throwing rocks and climbing the walls.

In an unbelievable display of charisma, Warden went out on the royal balcony and calmed the entire mob down promising lower taxes and better services among other things. He also explained that an election would take place to determine the head of the Kingdom and the mob was agreeable to this.