As you push through the vines, you can see more of the skeleton that is lying on the porch. Its head is too large, and the arms are so long, it looks like this creature had knuckles that may have grazed the floor when it was alive.
The door appears to be untrapped, and so you open it, whether by hand or with Gallako's cantrip. A cold hearth dominates this large room. Between the mostly collapsed internal walls and separate jumbles of crumbled furniture, it seems that this large room may have once been several smaller rooms. A rickety ladder leads to what looks like an upper loft above, visible through several large holes in the overhanging ceiling above. A large wooden cage sits in the southwest corner of the room.
A single cultist is sitting on the floor, playing some sort of solitaire game. “‘Bout time you lot showed. Hild saw you comin’ up the path though, so I wasn’t too worried.” He tosses Gallako a key. “Glad that you got your bird. He give you much trouble?”
Sense Motive, Gary the Green Solitaire Guy:1d20 - 1 ⇒ (1) - 1 = 0 Sense Motive, Distance, Hild the Blue:1d20 - 1 - 2 ⇒ (20) - 1 - 2 = 17 Sense Motive, Distance, Rula the Red:1d20 - 1 - 2 ⇒ (9) - 1 - 2 = 6
The Solitaire guy nods. “Good. We can hide Shel out here for a few days and pass the story that the Love Birds done ran off!”
Hild laughs from the loft, and hangs his mask-enclosed head over the floor. “Love Birds! Ha! You guys kill me!”
“It’s not you we’ll be killin’ Hild, and you know it.” An exasperated third voice, a woman’s, comes from the loft. She climbs down the ladder in her cultist robes, and stares coolly at Hikaru through the mask. “Speakin’ of killin,’ lock him in the cage already. I’ll let the Mayor know we got our trussed peacock, all ready to cook.” She touches Sarano on the shoulder. “You gonna be ready for this Shel? I know it’s your first time, but stand strong for the village, okay? You can’t let sentimentality stand in the way of what needs doin’.”
The woman slaps Sarano on the back. "Buck up! You'll do fine! I'm glad it's not you goin' in. We've cut too much of our own blood. Maybe we'll luck out and Magnimar will send out a few more waves of tax men 'fore they give up."
The Purple stirge sees him, and starts angrily buzzing as it flies in the direction of the arrows. Blue mills around for a second before it double moves, following its stirge companion. Purple enters Chak's square, triggering an attack of opportunity from Chak's beak! Blue ends its turn just out of Chak's reach.
Stali, do you come out of delay as the stirges fly towards Chak?
Hild shoves his head back down from the loft. "Those stirges out there sure are buzzing a lot. It could be wild pig or somethin' but maybe you lot should check it out, just in case."
The woman nods. "Saul, get the bird locked up so we can go check it out. Hild, can you hand me down my sickle?"
Male Tengu Shaman L3/Fey Sorcerer 1/Duettist Bard 1 |HP 29/29| Init +2; Per +15| AC 16, T 12, FF 14 | Fort 2, Ref +6, Will +12
"Excellent. Boring conversation anyways :-)"
If either of the two don't go down to the colour spray, Gallako will cast daze on the one standing (Will save DC 15). If two happen to be up, HE'll colour spray them himself.
Hikaru grabs his blade from its scabbard in Sarano's hand and draws it... sighs as he sees there's nothing to fight, the cultists on the ground being down... Instead, he makes for the nearest ladder/stairs to get to the upper level where the dazed cultist is.
M Tengu LG Rogue 9 | HP 66/66 +14 temp | AC 25 tch 18 fl 19 Mobility | CMB +5 CMD 22 (23 vs grapple) | F +8 R +15 W +11 | Init +5 | Perc +22 Low Light, Trap Spotter | Speed 60 | GM reroll used | clover 1/3 | Active Conditions: Haste
@Hikaru There is a cultist still active -- it is just Dazed!
Seeing that Chak wasn't able to take out all the stirges, Stali decides it is best to end the combat quickly. He sprints at the stirges and attacks Blue.
Chak bites the Purple Stirge, but does not outright kill it. Purple attaches to him, and immediately begins to suck Chak's blood! Chak feels light headed as it drains one point of constitution damage.
Meanwhile, Stali sprints to Blue, and kills it!
Vralk, Stali, and Chak are up!
TEAM DISGUISE
The rickety ladder leads up to a 5-foot-high crawl space, which runs along the western facade of the farmhouse. The windows here are boarded up, but the slits between the boards still afford anyone in here a fine view of the western and southern fields surrounding the house.
Hild is up here, dazed... What do you want to do with him, Hikaru?
This crawl space appears to have an attic closet that contains a fair amount of discarded junk. My goodness there is a lot of stuff crammed in here.
"That's a good boy," Hikaru mutters... "Now tell me where the others are.. and what your exact plans were going to be. I mean, I know you were planning to kill me, but where and when and how?"
Andrietta, having been caught off-guard a slight bit by how fast things have developed, does what a good non-murderhobo Pathfinder would do, pulling out rope to tie up the opponents and starting on the two downstairs, making sure they aren't going to bleed out or die.
Andrietta, since they weren't even wounded, you think they may be alright. Just disoriented from the Color Spray. And hey... There's a handy-dandy cage to which you all now have the key.
"Others?" Hild asks. "What kind of others are you talking about? Alizna's hanging around here, I expect. Maybe you could check her room. Most of the others are going to be gathering in the maze. Ceremony's just before dawn, 'bout three or four in the morning."
Andrietta saves her rope and ushers the surrendered folk into the cage after acquiring the key to it and locks them up.
Before doing so, however, she will examine the new prisoners for gear that the rest of the party could use, such as disguises or the like. After all, if the entire party is in disguise, then the cultist at the ceremony could be approached unawares, then perhaps subdued mercifully as well.
"Alizna, you say? What would she be doing out this far into the fields, doesn't she have a clothing shop for her weaving in town?"
M Tengu LG Rogue 9 | HP 66/66 +14 temp | AC 25 tch 18 fl 19 Mobility | CMB +5 CMD 22 (23 vs grapple) | F +8 R +15 W +11 | Init +5 | Perc +22 Low Light, Trap Spotter | Speed 60 | GM reroll used | clover 1/3 | Active Conditions: Haste
Stali makes a quick check that no one is coming through the maze, and then joins Chak at the rear of the house. He listens a moment, hoping to hear something of what is happening inside.
Three perception checks at maze and same at back door. You probably want to roll them in secret.
Male Tengu Shaman L3/Fey Sorcerer 1/Duettist Bard 1 |HP 29/29| Init +2; Per +15| AC 16, T 12, FF 14 | Fort 2, Ref +6, Will +12
"Where is Alinza's room?"
Is it reasonable for us to know the others are outside right now? Maybe we heard something? Or the Vralk/Gallako empathic link means that we both know that something exciting happened but that everything is now fine?"
As Hikaru ushers Hild down the ladder, he notices the corner of a what looks to be a richly embroidered quilt sticking out of the closet.
If Hikaru examines it:
The embroidered designs depict mosquito-masked cultists and stirges circling a central figure covered in black tumors caressing a bound prisoner. It’s really fine work, and mostly silk. Maybe Alizna, or some other skilled village seamstress made it. The embroidery depicts the victim smiling pleasantly as a ghostlike form leaves his body and accepts the embrace of a grinning cult leader. Other scenes depict flourishing crops beneath the watchful gaze of the sacrificed victim’s spirit.
Such lovely folk art!
___
The group strips all three cultists and locks them in the cage.
Gear on Cultists:
3 antivenom
3 sets of white robes
3 mosquito masks
3 broken sickles
6 doses of what look to be the shiny oil you noticed coating the blades that hit Hikaru earlier (aka Blue Whinnis poison).
Hild notes, “Just ‘cause Alizna has a shop in town doesn’t mean she can’t hang out somewhere else, right? She got stuff to tend out here. You can find her in the northwest corner, past the horti... er... plant lab she’s got going.” He points the door in the North of this room.
The other cultists look angrily at Hild. The woman kicks him. “What!? OW! Stop doin’ that!”
TEAM STEALTH
Stali listens at the maze, but only hears the very soft chanting and the sound of mosquitoes and other insects. At the door, he hears nothing in particular. When he opens the door, he and Chak find a dimly lit room that smells dank and herbal.
This long room is empty save for a large mound of compost covered with tiny black mushrooms heaped nearly to the ceiling in the southeast corner of the room, while to the north, an old kitchen seems to have been repurposed into some sort of indoor garden. A workbench cluttered with pottery stills and glass alembics stands below small alcoves filled with vials and beakers. Dozens of clay vessels rest haphazardly on wooden boxes, each sprouting neatly-pruned shrubs or large, exotic mushrooms. They appear surprisingly well-tended, given the state of the rest of the building, though the roots of several have burst through their pots.
M Tengu LG Rogue 9 | HP 66/66 +14 temp | AC 25 tch 18 fl 19 Mobility | CMB +5 CMD 22 (23 vs grapple) | F +8 R +15 W +11 | Init +5 | Perc +22 Low Light, Trap Spotter | Speed 60 | GM reroll used | clover 1/3 | Active Conditions: Haste
Mushrooms? I wasn't expecting that...
Stali carefully moves forward to examine and try to identify the compost materials and the mushrooms. He is careful to not disturb them, keenly aware of how some mushrooms can exploded into a cloud of spores when disturbed.
If he decides it is safe, he moves past them to check what sort of plants and other mushrooms are being cultivated here. Most plants should want more light than is in here...
is that in the module, or did you just throw that in? Did you know I am a quilter? lol... well i am... check out my blog to see some of my quilts
Hikaru examines the quilt, and takes it with him as he ushers Hild down the ladder... "Is this Alizna'a work? Macabre and unsettling, but beautiful nonetheless."
Stali easily identifies many of the plants that are in this dank but well-tended horticultural lab.
Stali or Knowledge Nature DC 20:
Your examination of the plants growing here reveals a large collection of poisonous mushrooms and other strange fungi, including several containers of the pale blue mold known as blue whinnis. When distilled, it makes the weapon poison you've seen on the Cult's sickles.
Also in one corner, there are four strange puff ball-like spore cases, gray and the size of a man's fist. Stali has no idea what these plants are. Among these four sits a fifth, recently emptied spore case, defated like an old balloon.
Knowledge Planes, DC 20:
These innocent looking balls are not plants at all, but immature cythnigot qlippoth. If planted in a tiny dead body, these spore cases quickly grow into newborn cythnigots. Until then, they can be destroyed with ease. You can stomp them with your boots or something else equally destructive.
In the southeast corner, the mound of black compost has a ton of mushrooms growing on it, including many of those that you enjoyed at the feast. But it appears to be quivering slightly, like a slumbering creature.
Knowledge Dungeoneering DC 12:
This is a dangerous slime mold.
Knowledge Dungeoneering DC 17:
The slime mold is part of a strain that is sluggish and inactive in dim light. If you shine a light on it, it will suddenly become rather active and violent.
___
CHAK
Impatient with Stali's quiet study of the lab, Chak just opens the nearest door, and dozens of grey moths fly out.
Alizna stands in the centre of the room, naked but for hundred of grey moths crawling all over her wrinkled, drooping skin. Horrifically, she is also in hybrid form, with four pairs of black eyes cresting her wispy haired head, large curved black fangs distending the corners of her mouth and dripping with venom and gore from the corpse of the pig that she has been feeding on in a back corner, and a black, pulsating spinneret curving up from between her legs. She immediately shrieks with rage, and the moths on her body and elsewhere in the room whirl into a maelstrom.
Knowledge Arcana DC 18 (Alizna):
Alizna is an aranea -- an intelligent, shapechanging spider with sorcerous powers. In its natural form, an aranea resembles a humpbacked spider a little bigger than a human, and weighs about 150 pounds. The hump on its back houses the aranea's brain. Like spiders, aranea can spin webs to entrap their prey and their venomous bite saps strength.
Knowledge Arcana DC 23 (Alizna):
All araneas have a single alternate form as well— this alternate form is that of a Small or Medium humanoid. Although an aranea can assume a spider-hybrid variant of this form, it cannot use its change shape ability to assume multiple humanoid forms—this additional shape is locked into one unique appearance.
___
TEAM DISGUISE
You hear an old woman shout with a blood curdling and furious scream that echoes through the house.
Chak, having no idea what Alizna actually is, assumes that she is some sort of creature changed like the pig they saw either. Fearing it is too late for her, Chak steps forward and tears into her before she can hopefully get to anyone else.
Chak claws Alizna twice and misses both times. His bite hits, though, causing the old woman to shriek, "You are the pollutant! We do not want you here, you loathesome batch of birds! I will pluck you all and turn you into feather pillows!"
M Tengu LG Rogue 9 | HP 66/66 +14 temp | AC 25 tch 18 fl 19 Mobility | CMB +5 CMD 22 (23 vs grapple) | F +8 R +15 W +11 | Init +5 | Perc +22 Low Light, Trap Spotter | Speed 60 | GM reroll used | clover 1/3 | Active Conditions: Haste
As the others come rushing in, Stali quickly warns them "Watch out, seems there is something asleep under the mushrooms!" waving towards the mound of compost.
He then rushes into the room where Alizna is. Keeping his guard, up, he moves beside the creature and attacks.
Fight defensively, so base AC is now 22, AC 26 vs. AOO with mobility. My movement DID provoke an AOO.
