|
Callan Domhnal the half-orc is a menacing sight. Standing at 6'1 and 270 lbs. of twisted steel and 'angergy', his outwardly human appearance is sharply offset by his full-on orcish demeanor. He is clad in a pit-fighter's hide armor and is armed with a wicked great axe, a stout composite short bow and his trusty dagger 'nail.' It was with this implement of death that Callan recorded his first kill at the ripe old age of six.
"...." , the barbarian says nothing and stands stoically, with the iron discipline learned from thousands of lashes.
|
"Hope I'm not too late!" A redheaded human man enters the dining hall, exhausted. The symbol of Thanzeril hangs off his belt. "There was a wagon with a broken wheel, so I had to head down to this wheeler's home to get a replacement. The owner was glad to, but she needed to deliver some soup to her sick grandma. On the way, I found a beggar who needed someone to talk to, so I listened to him for a bit before I remembered the summons."
He wipes the sweat off of his forehead with a handkerchief. "My name is Jiggo Maelerant. How are you doing?" He readies a handshake for the other Pathfinders in the room.
|
A tall well muscled nagaji walks into the room is snake like tongue darting in and out as to get a seance of the new group he will be working with on this. He has emerald scales and dark leather stitching over his armor and carrying a cold iron great sword in the the design is as two snakes are the blade of the sword. Hisshin walks passed the orc giving his a cordial nod he looks at the humans outstretched hand and looks him in the eye, as hisshin's tongue darts between the mask on his face
"Well met i am Hisshin Sshok from Liberty'sss edge"
Hisshin turns from his as soon as he spoke noticing as companion from his last expedition. He walks over to the dwarf and gives his beast a friendly hiss and tossing a piece oh meat to it
"Well Magrim Torgsssun how have you been it'sss been some time sssincess i lassst sssaw you i sssee Lagertha isss doing well"
|
I was doing better in the Bandu Hills before they called me back to this infernal place again, he grumbles, patting Lagertha on the head as she swallows the meat in one bite. The dinosaur then approaches the other of its kind until sharply called back to the dwarf's side with a loud Heel! . The dwarf definitely seems out of place with all manner of twigs and leaves tangled in his beard, and it seems he hasn't washed the dirt from his face, or clothes, in some time.
They must need something smashed if they're sending us, and that fellow, he says, nodding to Callan, but he raises an eyebrow when Jiggo walks in.
So, you some sort of scholar or somethin'? the tracker inquires, shaking the human's hand with his own callused and filthy paw.
|
As you're chatting, the Venture-Captain Adril Hestram strides in the cosy lounge of the lodge you are in. He looks at you and shouts
"Brave pathfinders! I heard many good things about you recently, but this time..." he says, a smile across the face. After a few instants though, his face expresses only pain and disgust. "You were called because the Blakros Museum is cursed. Some darkness has descended upon the place and those who enter are blasted with evil and left raving through its halls, more beast than men. The curator, Nigel Aldain, is an old associate of the Society, though he chose to leave our organization some years back after a disagreement." Adril looks sheepish, as if remembering some distasteful incident from his youth. "Nigel has long denied the Society access to the Blakros Museum’s considerable collection of relics and scrolls, using his extensive contacts to nab several excellent finds right out from under us... he always had a nose for the hunt. Whatever is past between Nigel and the Society, he needs our help now. Perhaps if we can come to his aid, he may think on rejoining the Pathfinder Society, or at least offering to share his discoveries with us."
"Apparently the trouble at Blakros Museum began this morning, shortly after a wayward Pathfinder named Lugizar Trantos returned to Absalom after months spent in the Mwangi Expanse. Supposedly, instead of coming straight to the Lodge to report in, he went to Blakros, sold his finds to Nigel, and then disappeared with a hefty sum of gold. The few who glimpsed Lugizar claimed he was much changed by his time in the Mwangi... gaunt, his eyes yellowed and unfocused, a strange rasping cough that seemed to wrack his now wasted frame. Whatever he brought back with him, we believe it is the cause of the Blakros Museum’s ills. Root it out."
|
|
"Me? A scholar? No no, I'm just a simple man, here to help. Oh, here comes the Venture-Captain."
Jiggo frowns as the Captain explains Lugizar Trantos's fate. "Who would sell our findings like that? Inappropriate on many levels." He shakes his head. "More importantly, we have a curse to clear out. I wouldn't mind seeing inside this museum. It will be my first time."
"Any idea on what potential threats we may see inside?"
|
|
Callan uses his dagger, 'Nail', to clean the grit beneath the fingernails on his over-sized mitt of a hand. His deep voice rumbles from his throat, "I have traveled from Cheliax to Taldor as a warrior in the KnifeHand Gladiator Troupe, earning my keep in the fighting-pits, but I have never ventured to the Mwaingi. All I know of this region is it is dotted with the ruins of ancient civilizations and inhabited by dark skinned, black haired peoples who revere their tribal ancestry. It sounds as if our opponents on this quest have maligned arcane powers, or evil religious intentions; but at least we have Jiggo!" The large half orc muses.
|
Nimgaji quietly observers his companions from his seat. Very intrigued by the mixture.
My these ones are sure talkative. I did not expect another of your kind Genki.
He looks to his faithful companion and scratches her gently on the head. Nimgaji being a blue scaled with green eyes stands out quite prominently. A scythe of fine craftsmanship adorns his back while he is armored in a foreign style of horn armor. The rest of his clothes bear tribal markings and a covered with feathers, scales and other animal talismans.
"What does this one named Nigel look like? In case he has fallen to this maddness."
|
|
Just before the VC begins his briefing, a stout dwarf wearing goggles over his chestnut hair barges in, panting slightly. He's carrying--and gnawing on--a piece of extremely raw meat.
"Rrrr...*cough*, I mean, good ter meet y'all! Not to late, I 'ope? The name's Graxzos, Grax t'me friends."
He listens to Adril's words with a quirked eyebrow, though his face falls almost immediately.
"Curses...sands, why've I always gotta go t'cursed places?" Raising his voice, he asks, "What was this Pathfinder lookin' into down in that swamp?"
|
|
Looking at you all and your questions, the Venture-Captain seems annoyed but bothers to answer some of them.
"Well here's a portrait of Nigel, you should have no trouble finding him, though."
"Threats, you say? No idea, my pathfinders. But that's why you're sent there. To identify and neutralize the threats there is in the museum. No enough with speaking, let's get to work!" he finishes, before showing you the exit with an angry look.
On your way out, Jiggo takes time to stop by the supplies of the society to buy a wand of cure light wounds.
Adril also gives you a map of the museum and suggests that you head to the offices first to find Nigel as he may have some insight into whatever foul curse vexes the place.
|
|
The Half-Orc has been in town only a short time, but his experiences as a former gladiatorial combat entertainer have provided contacts of the seedier nature. Callan will target a mousy man who he often sees pick-pocketing and leering about for any information he may have on Nigel Aldain.
"You, worm of a man... what can you tell about the whereabouts of a Nigel Aldain?"Callen shows the vermin the portrait of Nigel and continues... "What do you know of his activities, whereabouts, habits, activities and such?!
Lastly Callan will add, "Also, tell me what you know about Lugizar Trantos. He is a traveler who has recently returned from the Mawangi and may be showing signs of sickness or out-of-mindedness. He is a business associate of Aldain's."
|
|
Well that beggar had a little information for Jiggo, while Margrim and Callan have more troubles finding information about the man.
Jiggo learns that Lugizar Trantos spent the better part of a year in the Mwangi Expanse. At first he wrote letters to his brother and wife, but after a few months these stopped coming and most gave him up for dead.
|
|
"We need to find where his brother and his wife live... Exhaust your contacts lest we risk entering into insanity needlessly."
-Posted with Wayfinder
|
|
As you approach the museum, Graxzos remembers some piece of information he heard in a bounty hunter's inn, a few days ago, from a mercenary that worked with Lugizar Trantos himself in Mwangi.
Lugizar Trantos' letters spoke of a lucrative find at one point, three idols of dark wood carved in the shape of bearded monkeys.
The same well-informed mercenary also told you that the last of his letters evidenced an unhinged mind, and was covered in strange sketches of monkey paws. He described dark eyes glaring out from the mists. Shortly after his return to Absalom, many of the monkeys and apes in the city’s menageries attacked their keepers and fled into greater Absalom.
While he shares this information with the group, you eventually arrive at the museum.
Before you, the Blakros Museum rises into the night sky, its single black spire severing the full moon in twain. The black iron gates surrounding the exhibition hall grind in protest against the wind. Beyond, the museum’s large oaken doors stand wide open, a silver-gray mist belching forth from the cavernous darkness within. You wonder how you ended up here, standing at the precipice of unknown terrors.
When you finally decide to enter the building, you reach the atrium. An unnatural cold permeates this chamber and the tendrils of silver-gray mist flowing out the front archway into the courtyard beyond seem to effortlessly pierce the flesh and gently caress the bone in a cold embrace. The grand entrance way’s vaulted ceiling is supported by six great pillars made of black stone. Braziers mounted on the pillars cast white radiance from balls of continual light. The light glimmers eerily in the silvery haze that fills the atrium, giving the impression of something alien watching from the glowing fog.
|
|
Indeed, the door on the left (top of the map) has a placard above it that reads "The Honored Dead" in blood-red calligraphy.
A large placard above the entryway to the opposite hall reads "Hunting the Beasts of Legend" in great block letters.
At the end of the hall, you can barely make out a sign that simply says "North Exhibit Hall".
Without waiting further on the others, Hasshin opens the door on the left. On the other side of the door, there is a large exhibit hall. The mists here congeal into a thick and silvery fog that cools the lungs. Arranged throughout this large hall are exhibits on the funerary traditions of several civilizations, along with preserved corpses arrayed in grim stillness. A giant warrior looms from the haze, his arms crossed at his chest, his helm solemn and still. Beyond lie sarcophagi of varied designs, and a few glass cases wherein withered dead are held upright by rods and string; grim exhibits of long-dead citizens whose fallen empires were erased an age past.
|
|
As Hasshin reaches the middle of the chamber, looking scanning the room, he quickly notices that something is afoot. Callan behind him, helped by Graxzos also notice the threat and they all shout in time "Watch out!" as some of the displays come to life and slowly come forward with the clear intention of attacking you!
One is a withered, mummified thing from beneath Osirion’s sands bearing a jeweled scarab on its chest among its spiced wrappings, a scarab seer and warrior-priest of an old Pharaonic age named Taltuma-Matl. (White)
Another is a hulking skeleton, a towering ancestor of the Kellid race who wields a greatclub fashioned from a mammoth’s ivory tusk. (Red)
The third is a shrunken, emaciated corpse wrapped in rotten silks, and holding a silvered Qadiran scimitar in its bony fists. (Blue)
The fourth is an armored warrior of a long-dead empire, clad in heavy discolored bronze plates and helm. (Green)
Round 1 FIGHT!! Bold may act! The map is here. (and in the header)
Nimgaji
Blue (Dabudee Dabuda) (S2)
Lagertha
Red (Z)
Jiggo + Callan
Green (S1)
Hasshin
White (G)
|
|
Round 1 FIGHT!! Bold may act! The map is here. (and in the header)
Nimgaji
Blue (Dabudee Dabuda) (S2) + Red (Z)
Jiggo + Callan
Green (S1)
Hasshin + Graxzos
White (G)
|
|
As for the charge you readied, it is not possible. You can only ready a standard action, not a move and a standard.
As Nimgaji and his pet get ready for the incoming strike, two undeads come before you. While the one on your left (Red) takes time to reach Hasshin, the one on your right (Blue) comes towards Hasshin and swings his greatclub at him hitting hard the Nagaji rager.
for
At his init rank, Jiggo informs the party about the undeads filling the room.
Round 1
Nimgaji
Blue (S2) + Red (Z)
Jiggo + Callan
Green (S1)
Hasshin [10] + Graxzos
White (G)
|
|
Jiggo utters a prayer. "Ooh, the undead. Clobber those skeletons, hack at that zombie and don't let this thing paralyze you."
Jiggo reaches out and grasps Callan's Axe, causing it to glow pure white. "Oh evil, you never win. Take them down, Callan!"
Jiggo quickly skips behind the Ghoul to set up flanking with Callan.