The trio enter the mansion finding it far worse than they expected.
Servants walk the halls like brain-washed puppets, stone eyed, stiff-limbed and barely reacting to the three women's presence.
Penelo, still love-drunk from the effects of the libido booster, skips through the entrance lobby with cheerful obliviousness.
"Your apron is sooooo cute!" she coos as she hugs a zombified maid.
Vuvi, Boombuster at her chin, glares at the staff cautiously. "Are they—"
"Spellbound." Veena answers. "Just like you were."
She approaches a lizardkin maid, her horns glowing as she pokes a finger into the woman's scaly forehead.
The maid gasps, surveys the room with eyes bulging from their sockets and then screams as she runs out of the mansion, limbs flailing.
"Awww." Penelo moans as she cuddles a golden statue and coddles its bits. "She needed a hug."
"Can you drop the plums, you damn fluff for brains!" Vuvi scowls while Veena snickers behind her. "We need to find Pip!"
They advance through the grand lobby of Syraleth's mansion, an eerie marvel of marble laced floors creased with veins of crimson, golden statues line the wide hallway and sleepwalking servants trot about with soft smiles and eyes glazed over.
Veena approaches another maid, piercing her forehead with a finger as magic crackles from her palm. The woman gasps, shrieks and runs off into the night.
"Two down." Veena smirks with a thumbs up. "Let's keep—."
"Forgive my interruption." a firm, clipped voice echoes from above. "But I must ask you to stop freeing the staff. Your actions disrupt the rhythm of our household."
All three turn their gaze up toward the top of a grand winding staircase where a tall, elderly demonkin man stands glaring at them, dressed in a perfectly pristine butler's attire. His skin a smooth, slate grey, his hair silver, slick and swept back, and eyes glowing faintly red.
"I am Dodravion." he proclaims, bowing slightly before adjusting his monocle and folding his hands behind his back. "Majordomo of Lady Syraleth's estate. I'm afraid I must insist you vacate these grounds at once. While I do so hate engaging in conflict of any kind, I am obligated to protect my Lady's interests."
"Sure. We'll leave." Vuvi smiles, lifting her Boombuster to her shoulder and pointing it to his head. "Give us back our friend and we'll be on our merry way. Shiny guy? Glowing chest? Pretty hard to miss."
Dodravion's smile tightens as he clenches his jaws. "Of course… the construct. Yes, the Lady has grown quite fond of him. An obsession, I dare say. I'm afraid she won't part with him. Ever."
He produces a staff from behind him, tapping it against the floor once as his mouth parts into a toothy grin. "And I'm afraid your mortal souls will not be parting from this estate tonight, either."
With a blur of motion, the wrinkly, old man vanishes, appearing before them in an instant with a crackling blast of magical energy.
He unsheaths a blade from his cane, sweeping it towards Veena who barely manages to avoid the slash as she blinks backward.
Vuvi doesn't hesitate. She fires off a booming round aimed at his face, but the butler parries it with a quick flick of his sword, sending it flying towards Penelo.
She yelps, diving behind a statue before the blast hits the wall beside her, sending an explosion of charred stone across the lobby.
"Ahhh! He almost exploded me!" Penelo wails, hugging a statue's thigh tightly. "Veena! He really needs a hug!"
Veena fires a volley of arcane bolts before launching herself forward in a spiral of smoke and shadow. Dodravion spins through the air, deflecting each shot before grabbing Veena mid-blink and slamming her into a crater in the marble floor.
"Aaaargh!" Veena screams as pain rips across her body and she coughs up blood.
Penelo gasps, now hanging from the statue's shoulders. "Vuvi! Veena needs a hug!"
Dodravion disappears in another blur as he streaks towards Vuvi. She barely dodges the arc of his slicing blade, rolling across the polished floor before sliding into a crouched position.
She tears two bombs off her belt, tossing it at the butler's feet. They explode, releasing a thick, green fog of caustic gas.
Dodravion cackles as he dances through it unfazed.
"Seriously?!" Vuvi huffs.
But then, Veena appears above him in a swirl of smoke. "Try this!" she yells, pointing two glowing palms toward him.
Dozens of magical chains erupt from her hands, streaking toward the butler like striking tentacles. He tries to weave and dodge but is overwhelmed by their sheer number.
He growls as the bindings wrap his limbs and torso, digging into his flesh.
"Now!" Veena shouts, turning to Vuvi.
Vuvi grins as she pulls three vials from her bag. She lobs them in quick succession, one bubbling blue, the other oozing black and the final one filled with a noxious green.
The liquids burst across Dodravian's face and chest, sizzling through clothes and flesh as he's infected with paralyzing neurotoxins and mind-scrambling hallucinogens.
The butler staggers, his mouth opening and closing as his eyes roll back into his head.
"I do believe… the billy goats… we will be serving… the breakfast… tonight." he mumbles before slumping to the floor with a polite little sigh, drooling and giggling like a mad man.
"Woo! I love alchemy!" Penelo cheers as she jumps out from behind a statue.
"Pretty spry for an oldman." Veena groans, wringing her hands as they sizzle with residual magic energy.
Vuvi, wiping sweat from her brow as she reloads her Boombuster, strolls up to the other two women. "Let's keep moving before something else tries to put us on the menu."
They swiftly advance through the dim-lit halls of the mansion. Veena frees staff from their enchantments one at a time as they move.
Ahead of them, screams echo from a private chamber at the rear of the mansion. The building's foundations tremble, furniture flies across rooms, glass and mirrors shatter, and cracks burst through the floors and walls as Syraleth stands on the verge of an ultimate climax… and a full magical melt down.
The trio strains against powerful winds and wild magic that whips and cracks through the halls until they finally reach the private chamber.
They find it a disaster zone.
Its main doors blown off its hinges, chandeliers and metal trimmings melted into slag, books and furniture burning in piles as the ceiling drips molten gold.
The floor is crumbling, cracked and cratered, and in the center of the room, where a grand bed once stood, a massive hole gapes the ground.
From it erupts pillars of divine light, shimmers of dark magic and manical laughter overcome with madness and lust.
Syraleth's voice bellows from below.
"I love you! I love you! I love you!" she screams in ecstasy. "Aaaah!..... Yes ..Yesssssss….ooooooh… the gods…. I can see the gods!"
"She's losing it!" Vuvi yells over the cracking magic storm that rips through the room.
Veena steps forward, wrapping the three of them in a protective dome. "She's lost control. Full corruption. If we don't stop her now, she's going to implode."
Penelo's ears suddenly perk up.
A single sound seeps out of the hole. Faint, high-pitched and slightly sheepish.
Beep!
Penelo gasps. "Pip?!"
Her fur bristles, standing on end, her eyes light up like twin suns and her body pulses with power as a pink aura erupts from her like a raging wildfire.
"Penelo—" Vuvi utters as she turns to the bunnykin, but it's too late.
"PIPPPPPP!!!!!!"
Penelo screams his name with the force of a dozen roaring dragons.
The sound shatters Veena's energy shield from within and knocks her and Vuvi off their feet as Penelo's power surge sends a gust of wind smashing through them.
The bunnykin leaps across the room in a furry blur and descends into the hole like a rabbit-shaped meteor.
Veena blinks. "... what in the Nether was in that libido booster?"
"No idea." Vuvi mutters as she sits up, her hair blown back onto her head. "Mother makes them."