The monkeys themselves dart away from you. You end up standing on front of one of the idols, but your chain doesn't do a lot of damage.
"You motherless-son-of-a-monkey-thumping-..", which is about the sanest thing Arcanos has heard the elf tied to the alter say.
The scroll has no effect on the idols themselves, as you read it, you realize it can only be used for the victims. The idols need to be destroyed with other means.
Olivia's and Tavagra's attacks slowly ship pieces from the Tik Taan Idols. As you damage the idols enough. The room suddenly grow silent, before the monkeys escape through the windows.
A minute or so later the man from the top of the pyramid starts yelling again, a bit more sane now though.
"Help, is someone there? Can you help me?"
"Thank you, thank you. Pathfinder agents you say?"
He seems a bit in doubt, but still very grateful. As he slowly climbs down the ziggurat he looks around, at the damage done to his museum.
"Careful, these stairs can be slippery. Oh my. Some damage these idols did."
The giant monkey lies on the floor, he's unconscious, maybe dying.
***
Downstairs he seizes up the rest of the group, he looks at Tavarga.
"My name is Nigel Aldain, I'm the curator here"
Something seems to be bothering him.
"Explore, Report, Cooperate right? Shouldn't they also brief you in advance? Mr. Hestram still works there, right?"
He hesitates, his scorn making place for the gratefulness he is feeling for the resque.
"But don't let me scorn for him diminish the fact that I am very grateful indeed. While I can't give you anything from the museum, I can give you something nice from my private collection, you can report back for your supervisors. To show we can indeed work on restoring the cooperation between the society and the museum."
He scurries to the back of the exposition, opens a door and then comes back with a spear. "This spear is an rare, and incredibly ancient Mwangi spear that Chelish explorers found near the colony of Sargave during the reign of the expansionist Chelish Prince, Haliad I. It would be worth a great deal to the Pathfinder Society and they’d hungrily pay to include it in their collection."
Your trip back to the lodge is uneventful. Adril Hestram seems delighted at the news of a restored cooperation between the museum and the society. He laughs loudly at the report of Teagan being transformed into some monkey-man. He even asks you to sketch the look the pathfinder had.
You've all received a couple of days off to study, train and relax, as you suddenly receive a messenger in the middle of the night on the second day. He carried a summons to Adril Hestram again. You of course wonder what this might be about. You carried out your previous mission flawlessly, so it certainly has nothing to do with that.
You scurry to the meeting hall. Adril’s wild beard wags to the ponderous shake of his massive head as he examines a scrap of ancient parchment on the table before raising his eyes to greet your gaze and speaks,
"Come in then, friends, and thank you for answering my summons so swiftly. I know it is soon again, but the society is in need. You performed great as a team, so we summoned you together again. This is Anuum, he has some experience from other missions, so I'll take he'll fit perfectly in the team."
The man seems to have confidence in you. Some of you might feel some pride because of that, and the Adril continues,
"An old and quite penniless historian, a bespectacled wag-beard by the name of Yargos Gill has recently made a discovery in an old archive that we have a great interest in obtaining: an ancient codebook, left behind in the wake of one of Taldor’s many failed attempts at invasion. This several-hundred-year-old text would prove an excellent addition to our collection, and must be preserved.
He pauzes and looks around as each of you take in this information and when he sees you're listening he continues,
"Yargos makes his home in ‘The Puddles,’ Absalom’s poorest district, suffering from a well-known reputation as a haven for lowlifes. Following an earthquake ten years ago, parts of the Puddles now rest below sea level, resulting in frequent and untimely flooding. Those who can afford not to live there—don’t.
Adril is a bear of a man, with only a few teeth remaining in his head. The human captain outweighs most of Absalom’s half-orcs, and though a layer of beefy blubber coats his frame, those of you who have tangled with him in the Lodge sparring ring know that beneath this thin veneer of fat lies nothing but solid, steely sinew. His seriousness on this issue seem to underline the condition of the district.
"The district is the stomping ground of pimps, harlots, addicts, knifers, and hoards of unseemly derelicts. It’s never been a kind place, but recent reports reveal some new nameless terror on her waterlogged streets. Several persons claim to have seen cloaked, skeletal-like figures marching through an unnatural fog. These reports are fresh, and this fog seems to have nothing to do with the mists you have encountered earlier in the museum.
"Tracking down Yargos is now a priority—--lest some yellow-toothed thug cut him down, or one of these strange wraiths carry him beyond the pale. Find him, fellow Pathfinders, and find the codebook. We know he frequent the Soggy Piper, one of the better diners in Puddle District"
|
The doors slide open as a man enters with loose robes that seem to float about him with wispy tendrils. In his hand he holds a small glowing crystal and as he speaks his voice almost sounds as if they are two voices overlapping. "I am Anuum.
One by one he looks to each of his companions. Slowly probing their minds so that they will not notice.
|
To those who've seen her before, Olivia looks like she's had a total makeover. Her hair's a dark brown now, instead of the flashy green it was before, and up in a loose ponytail. She wears the revealing outfit of a belly dancer, made of red silk and decorated with delicate gold embroidery. She has a crimson scarf tied around her left elbow, and various tattoos cover her upper arms and shoulder.
Varisian girl, dancing - right upper arm (Tattooed Focus)
Fox - right shoulder blade (Familiar Tattoo)
"Good day," she says as she looks at her companions, giving them a friendly smile.
To those she's not seen before, Olivia gives a curt nod and says, "I'm Olivia, pleased to meet you."
|
|
Tavagra looks to Anuum, watching him for a moment, "What an odd guy. Is he a Undine, no that is water. Oread, no. Wait, he is the Slyph from the lodge, Tavagra thinks to herself. She gives him a smile for a greeting.
"Olivia nice to see you," she greets Olivia, "You look rather different. I got Holy Water now to use. Undead won't know what hit em."
|
|
"Yeah, I figured I was past the phase where I paint my entire hair a flashy color," Olivia says to Tavagra, snickering a bit. "Decided to change my wardrobe while at it."
She nods her head. "Good to know you have something to handle undead. I've been practicing my spells so I can deal more damage, versus both undead and living opponents."
"We're not yet certain, they don't seem the average zombie or raised skeleton. They also seem to have some connection to mist."
***
You leave the lodge and find yourself making way to the Soggy Piper. The first part of the journey was nice, but when you get to the Puddles district you find yourself walking through drowned streets. Your boots squash with fetid water as you plod through the Puddles. A thick fog hangs in the air, seeming almost to caress the flesh with an unnatural chill. As you stand outside the Soggy Piper in a foot and a half of brackish brine, you notice some windows are missing, though the openings are reinforced with driftwood planks.
You enter and look around. There are few old folks there, the bartender is a man, you estimate in his forties, but aging badly. Asking around, it seems you just missed him. According to the bartender, a gang of dangerous young tattooed toughs arrived ahead of you. They grabbed Yargos and several of his friends from their dinner table and dragged them to at the sea cliff known as Torsen’s Maw, near the edge of town. The watch was called, but they will arrive too late, as they often do in the Puddles, when they bother to venture there at all.
***
Six brash young toughs covered with tattoos of vicious, snarling dogs are prodding four terrified older men off the edge of a cliff into the sea. The prisoners are shackled together in a line with heavy chains, which shall surely drag them to the sea floor in short order should they tumble from the cliff’s edge into the churning waters below.
Its seems your still in time, but by how much...
The red shirted tough is hurt and is knocked of his feet. While the green shirted tough is hurt, he stands and shouts.
"Get lost, this is war hounder business!"
Olivia scorches 2 of the men, the fall to the ground, burning.
Donal doesn't seem to be in range to use his whip.
Donal moves closer, keeping the red shirted "war hounder" on the ground by tripping the man again when he tries to get up.
The other war hounders are unsure, they aim each at Anuum, Olivia and Tavarga, which they identified as spell casters, ready to fire with their crossbows when they would cast another spell.
The old people who are standing on the cliffs edge are visibly afraid. Their escape route still smoldering from Olivia's Burning Hands spell. Their shackles prevent them from making a unified escape for now, but you think they'll put them in a more safer location next turn if possible.
Donal's chain finishes the man on the ground as he tries to get up and Olivia's burning hands knocks the rest of their feet, they are now lying on the ground, probably dying.
The old men are waiting, unsure what or who you are.
"Are you here to rescue us?" One of the men carefully asks. "You don't seem like city guards."