Sour Nest

The Sour Nest is a stronghold nestled into the Savalirwood, two hours northeast of Shadycreek Run. In 835 PD, it was used as a headquarters by the Iron Shepherds.

Building description
The Sour Nest is two-stories tall, half mansion, half small stronghold. It has a wall that is twelve to fifteen feet high and five-feet-wide with an unsafe rail across the top and enough space for watch guards patrols. There is a ten-foot distance between the wall and the closest outside tree, to force any approaching individuals to be out in the open. There are two double gates made of dark wood that, braced in place from the interior and chained with two locks, one on each side, that usually are closed.

The estate is large, around 50 by 70-80 feet, mostly built out of beige- and grey-looking wood that seems to be old and weathered from rain and dry seasons. There are two entrances, one at the front and one at the back of the building. It has small holes for windows, that are "just big enough to look through and fire through, but small enough to not really allow a person to push through".

The courtyard has space for about six horses and three carts. When the Might Nein first saw the stronghold, the courtyard had a vast collection of brown wooden kegs and a couple of small crates of materials.

Hallway
The main door into the Sour Nest leads into the main hallway mostly carved out stone with sparse decoration. From the front door to the right, there is a curved stone staircase to the second floor and on the opposite side of the entry way, there is a door to the mess room.

The hallway continues around the mess room and comes to a T junction: the right hallway has two doors, one to the left opens a small closet and one at the end of the hallway that leads to the suiting room. The main hallway continues straight at the T junction and wraps around a pantry to the kitchen where a single door leads to the courtyard.

Mess room
The mess room has "a couple of tables", arranged with benches and chairs. There are two doors out: one to the main hallway and the second door to the suiting room. When Nila scouted the Sour Nest as a mouse, she smelled alcohol and stale, dried meat in this room.

Suiting room
The suiting room stores equipment, weapons, armor. There are three doors, one to the mess room, one to the hallway and one to the kitchen. The equipment that was found by the Mighty Nein inside the Sour Nest was not of the highest quality and consisted out of: six shorts words, two longsword, two crossbows, three short bows, eight sets of damaged leather armor.

Kitchen
The kitchen is connected to the suiting room and the main hallway. It has an oven and, when inhabited by the Iron Shepherds, was poorly maintained.

Small closet
The closet is a very small storage of dried goods and a passage to a wooden trapdoor to the basement. It is trapped with a "trigger cable underneath that has been set into a hook", and the door to this room is reinforced and designed to withstand the most pressure on this floor.

Second floor
The top floor has a hallway with two portholes as windows on each side. The hallway leads to three sleeping chambers behind doors with several beds. One of these chambers has four different beds and a mice infestation, another one has just two beds. The biggest room is almost like a master bedroom, with a singular large comfortable bed and makeshift table on the side of the bed. One of the smaller bunks has a chest with a syrupy quicksilver type of potion that looks like a weird, insides of a glass vial. Inside of the biggest room under the bed lays a heavy leather bottomless bag.

Basement
In the basement are three separate chambers, one for holding, one for torture, and one for display if needing a final approval by the Jagentoth family.

At the bottom of the staircase there is a rack that is bolted into the wall that has chains hanging from it, a few other sets of manacles, a few torture implements: long metal brands. There is a table where tools hang and a cage in the corner that can contain two creatures. In the middle of the chamber is a cable that runs through the ground connected to heavy netting that contains a bunch of broken brick and stone that will fall when the cable is tripped. There is a door that leads to a hallway.

The hallway bends right around a corner around the side. There is an archway that leads into a second room. It has a torch and pieces of the protruding stonework where a bird can perches upon. This room contains two cages and has two archways opposite from each other. Both archways can be blocked by portcullises with the use of a lever in the next hallway.

The next hallway goes around a corner and opens in a third camber. In this chamber is another cage and a wooden locked door with metal framing that leads to the fourth chamber. It has a rough-hewn stone flooring, the step right in front of the door has a grooved pattern in it that is mostly filled with dust and dirt which indicates an enchantment on the stone itself.

The chamber beyond the door has a metal barred trapdoor that guards another set of 25 feet stairs that goes deeper below into the sub-basement. There is a table on the far end and a stone bowl that is built into a pillar that contains a small ember. The ember itself is magical, and whenever anybody walks within a certain distance of it, it just sends out a flame in their direction.

Sub-basement
The stair case comes down into a T-shaped red-lit chamber. The red glow is emanating from two furnaces on either side of the "T". There are several torture implements hanging against the walls, that includes metal brands, small blades, hooks, and flaying knives. Further into the middle of the rounded chamber there is a stained, stretch leather-topped table, leather draping over on each side almost to the floor. The table is flanked by empty chairs. There are heavy chains dangling at the front and the back of it, so individuals can be strapped to it and tortured. Two sets of prison locked barred doors flank the opposite ends that seem to have larger containment chambers beyond there.

Iron Shepherds

 * Lorenzo
 * Ruzza
 * Protto
 * Dwelma
 * Wohn

Guards

 * Phil

The Mighty Nein sought out and cased the exterior of the Sour Nest to liberate their friends (Fjord, Jester and Yasha) form the Iron Shepherds. The party decided to send their new druid friend, Nila, in the form of a small mouse, over the wall, delivery via owl. She snuck through some portions of the fortress to gather intel, and to get an idea of where they were going and what may reside within. A few close calls, and some discovery of what can be expected within the interior, Nila made her way back, safely, to join her friends. Upon accidentally spooking one of the outer guards who were walking the perimeter of the wall that surrounds the Sour Nest, the party immediately picked up what they had, fled south, back through the Savalirwood.

The Mighty Nein decide to assault the Sour Nest. They staked out the outskirts of this location, managed to slay some of the guardians who were keeping watch along the outer perimeter wall, not-necessarily-very-stealthily made their way into the entryway, but managed to take out several members of the Iron Shepherds, some of their paid compatriots, as well as at least one of their more elite fighters. Nila, who was searching for her also kidnapped partner and son - and using her Druidic powers, aided them in this assault. And in doing so, found and helped her family escape. As she absconded from the location with her family to keep them safe, the rest of the party remained behind, trying to find out where the remainder of the Iron Shepherds reside within the Sour Nest and how best to deal with their presence.

The party managed to storm the Sour Nest: attack and destroy one-by-one the slavers, leaving the Iron Shepherds down to their last few. In the subterranean basement where these cages contained prisoner including Shakäste. Continuing down in to the subterranean chambers there battled with Lorenzo (revealing his final form, after stalking them invisibly from the air for their entire journey through that fortress) revealed himself to be an oni. Lorenzo found himself unable to escape and a final blow was dealt by Caleb as his arcane cinders burned away the final remnants of Lorenzo's demonic form. They discovered that in two set of prison cells lie Jester and Fjord, and an unconscious Yasha.

The party liberate their friends from the subterranean chambers and loot the basement. Shakäste has taken all the rest of the captives back upstairs, Caduceus has gone up to the kitchen to try and cook food for everyone, while everyone else searches the rest of the Sour Nest. They find the following items in the Sour Nest.
 * Armor
 * Gold
 * Torture implements
 * Weapons
 * Manacles that have the capability of putting someone to Sleep for a day.
 * Receipts from the Iron Shepherds selling to House Jagentoth
 * Yasha’s Glaive
 * Mysterious empty leather looking sack, in Lorenzo's room that what turns to be a Bag of Holding. Inside was:
 * 101 platinum
 * 4 sets of manacles
 * 24 teeth of various species
 * 1 rusted meat hook
 * 1 red gem
 * 1 wax sealed envelope

Jester recognizes the coin pressed into the seal of the envelope as a galley- a gold coin that is produced along the Menagerie Coast. The envelope consists out of a letter with a drawing of a yellow orb

After a night sleep in Caleb’s Leomund's Tiny Hut. The party find one of the Iron Shepherds' carts and discover it has illusory magic on it and heads back to Shadycreek Run with the cart and four horses to report to Ophelia Mardun and complete their mission.