Storm the Castle!

Goings-on
The portal the adventurers step through leads into the dungeon of the Caesar's summer palace, wherein the companions find themselves locked in an abandoned cell. Malachi picks the lock, and they cautiously sneak up the stairs, where Veris prestidigitates the party to look like guards. The guards in the basement see through the ruse, however, and a brief altercation ensues. After subduing the guards, Padrig turns into a fine mist and scouts out the upper floors via the chimneys, noting that the Caesar is in a lightly guarded room on the uppermost floor. Padrig suspends a rope from the chimney, and attempts to fulfill his demand from Pluto by giving a letter to the Caesar. Upon reading the letter, the Caesar draws on Padrig, and so the party climbs up to do battle in the Caesar's bedchamber.

The battle is long and glorious, though prolonged greatly by the guards' dedication to the Caesar and thus their unwillingness to surrender. Fortunately for the party, Darrak had arrived mere moments later, and was singlehandedly fighting his way up the castle, wiping out the guard from behind. At the end, a small handful of guards survive, having surrendured, and they capitulate to Padrig as the new emperor in the wake of the former Caesar's death.

The party is then greeted by the cowboy, who reveals himself as Mercury. He beckons them to join him on the roof of the palace, where they each encounter their patron deities. Pluto is in the midst of the other gods, and he reveals to the party that they had mutually exclusive goals; as such, while Padrig, Veris, and Orlando are afforded their life back, Grumpsh and Malachi are to forever be his thralls. Mercury, having enough of this shit, shoots Pluto through the face, and beseeches his fellow gods to remove the curses upon Grumpsh and Malachi. The gods agree, and then vanish--but not before Padrig can ask Thor for the ability to remain vampiric. Thor grants his request, but not having domain over death, can only instill a lesser form of vampirism.

Finally, Mercury teleports the party back to their proper place and time, where they are hailed by all as heroes of the realm, and where Padrig is already recognized as the new and proper Caesar of Rome.

Fin.