Cultist's Kiss (Inactive)

Game Master Feral

Percep: 1d20 + 16 ⇒ (8) + 16 = 24
Heal: 1d20 + 15 ⇒ (11) + 15 = 26

Giving out info via thoughts, waiting for local gameday to start

Pallas raises an eyebrow at the perceptive Dwarf, and nods at Daxter's comment. "Hmm, that is very interesting Mr, McLarson. Do you think he would want that?"

Amira notices the same thing as Harsk.

So do we have a consensus?

I think so.

Pallas look around at his companions to make sure he sees assent in everyone's eyes.

Assuming no one objects ...

The Keleshite man smoothes out his clothes and walks back to the cell door. He leans in to the window and speaks, sotto voce: "Mr. Tomasz, I think we have a deal. We will return tonight to ... let the mouse out of the trap. Does a few minutes after the midnight bells sound agreeable?"

No objections here. Valeros doesn't care so much for legality as long as the job gets done.

Tomasz silently nods.

If he was never admitted here, then there's likely no paperwork-oriented option to getting him out; He's just a drain on the institution, like some kind of squatter. No objection here.

"Yes, so now that it's settled, let us leave."

The party exits the asylum without any trouble.

Do you guys want to do anything in between now and Pallas’s midnight rescue mission?

Nope, I'm good.

Ale and wenches?

That night the group sneaks out of their temporary residence and quietly makes its way to the back of the asylum. Quite uncharacteristically, Pallas is dressed all in a matt black bodysuit with only a narrow slit for his eye. "I picked this up in Goka," he comments, "very fashionable for going out at night, or so they told me." He checks his three scimitars, one at his side, and two strapped across his back to make sure they are tight within their sheathes and won't rattle.

Pallas then pulls out a wand from seemingly nowhere beneath his shinobi shozoku and shakes it for good measure, saying: "Work, damn you." He then touches the wand to his forehead.

Use Magic Device check to activate wand: 1d20 + 19 ⇒ (8) + 19 = 27

A silvery cocoon appears momentarily around the Keleshite man then fades away. "Best to take some precaution in case it gets dicey." He then stows the wand back in his garment. (He cast shield)

"Be right back!" Pallas' concentrates for a moment then says "يأخذني بعيدا" and disappears before your eyes.

Feral: Barring anything very strange, Pallas appears in the cell with Tomasz.

The asylum is eerily quiet when Pallas and the party arrives.

A brief word of power later, the keleshite bard finds himself inside Tomasz's cell.

"Hmm? Who's there?"

Pallas assumes that the blind man with recognize his voice and does not explicitly identify himself. "It is I, Tomasz. Are you ready to go? If so, come over here and touch my arm."

Tomasz nods fervently and reaches for Pallas.

Unless there's a problem I dimension door him back to the rest of the party.

Pallas's spell works without error and the keleshite bard appears in front of the asylum with a blind straight-jacketed Tomasz.

"Well, let us remove ourselves quickly." Pallas guides Tomasz back to our refuge, unless someone else objects.

With a little effort, the party is able to get across the dark Palin's Cove streets without being detected.

"Now can you tell us what we need to know?" After the party is in a safe location.

Tomasz spins as he listens to all the new sounds he's never heard.

"So this is 'outside'? What does it look like?"

Pallas describes the various things the group passes on the darkened streets to the sheltered young man.

"I've been in that other place my whole life. I have dreams of seeing but all I can remember is darkness", he explains.

"I used to think I was alone until my mother started coming at night."

Pallas gets a chair for Tomasz and offers it to him. "Why were you put in there to begin with? And what does it have to do with the Lissalans?"

"I don't know", Tomasz says with the tone of one that's accepted his fate. "But I do know about Lissalans."

"When my mother comes to visit, she tells me about things. Things like a group calls the Feasters of the Heart who worship the goddess Lissala."

"Really? Fascinating. Does she tell you where they conspire?"

"She tells me tales of my father and the great things the Feasters of the Heart will do when Lissala deems their service adequate. She says their numbers are growing and soon I will be able to join them. When it’s safe. When the sun won’t hurt me anymore. She says that's why I cannot see."

"My father has never come to see me, and I wonder whether my mother speaks the truth. You are not the first to ask about the Feasters of the Heart. I spoke with a woman with a honeyed voice a few weeks ago and told her much the same thing. She promised to help me find my parents but she never came back."

"I told her what my mother said of how new blood join the Feasters of the Heart: don a black robe and wait by the standing stone on the coast on the night of the new moon. Whether she did so and was led to my parents’ holy sanctum, I don’t know. I only know I never heard from her again, and I remained in my cell."

"That is... very helpful actually. Well we have an idea about where our colleague is now. Many thanks. It looks like we have the information we need."

To the others, Valeros says "What was that about restoring his sight...? Can't we do that?"

"Yes, we can have a surgeon work on him. But for right now we have to focus on the task at hand. Which is donning black robes and infiltrating the cult."

"Clearing his sight should be a simple enough procedure, though our nobleman is right; We're here to do a job."

@DM: Remove Blindness/Deafness, or just a Heal-check later?

"Have we got a plan at all for what we do once we're IN the cult? I don't much like the idea of being surrounded by evil cultists without a goal."

"We are to merely learn about them and their rituals and plans, yes? 'Our prodigious noble' wishes to join them, shouldn't that be enough?" Amira adjusts her sleeves of Many Garments. Her clothes take shape of Lissalan cultist robes. "That is, assuming they even notice they've got more members than before."

I'm assuming we're doing all of this talking about of Tomasz's earshot.

"Just make sure you leave all the talking with the Feasters of the Heart to Daxter and myself. I'm sure you are all very proficient fellows, but you are terrible liars."

"Being a healer and tradeswoman by profession give me little reason to learn the art of deceivery. Lies don't sit well in either the marketplace or with the sick. Silence is an easy enough job, though."

"What?" exclaims Pallas in obvious surprise at Amira's remark, "have Qadirans forgotten how to haggle?"

"One can haggle without any deception whatsoever. In fact most cases it is preferable. People tend to not make deals with you once they find out you have ripped them off."

"'Balanced and fair prices may keep the most frugal of customers away, but even the most unwise of sheep learn such mistakes from trusting the disguised wolves. Be the shepherd and not the hungry wolf.'" Amira pulls down the hood from her new clothes and adjusts her glasses again. "Chapter 7, paragraph 4, line 26 of page 179 in a 17th edition printing of the Order of Numbers."

Pallas shakes his head, "Nonsense. Haggling is no deception. It is a simple bit of street theater that makes both parties feel they have participated in a meaningful exchange of courtesies. People who do not haggle are being rude in this Osirian's opinion."

After this lively discussion, Pallas will go out and haggle with some local clothing merchants to get black robes that will fit everyone.

Harem listens to the discussion and jumps in. "Haggling is indeed a noble exercise. Why, in the mounytains of Golarion, one can find dwarfed engaging in the activity all the time. Now haggling with other folk? Well, we don't do so well. Seems we tend to come across a bit gruff or what have you. Why, I remember a time..."

He eventually gets to his point, "So, in dealin' with these cultists, I'll let my crossbow and axe do my talkin'. But I'll keep 'em quiet until Daxter and Pallas have their say."

Valeros nods.

"I'll play along...Strong n' silent only suits me halfway, but I can do it in a pinch."

He thanks Pallas for the robes when the Kelish man returns, and finds them to be slightly tight on him.

Good. It'll highlight his muscles.

Valeros is ready.

"Yes, that is the plan." Daxter says as he slips the black robe on. Robes were never Daxter's style despite the rumors of his death-eating. He preferred more functional garb like his simple tunic and breeches.

Harsk tries on his robe, only to find that it's too long. "Well, can't have that." He then proceeds to carefully tear the bottom foot or so to allow the robe to touch the ground, but not trail behind the dwarf.

"Hope this cult doesn't value neatness."

That night while at the coast by the standing stone.

"It feels like we have been here for hours. I thought cultists were punctual."

The party arrives at the mention location, bedecked in their black robes. Also waiting here are four others, two men and two women. They say nothing as the hours pass.

Shortly after midnight, a lone person in similar black robes makes his way along the path to the menhir, his approach signaled by a bright lantern. The robed figure arrives and states simply, "Follow me to prove your devotion to the Feasters of the Heart."

He then turns and walks back toward Palin’s Cove along the same path. The four others that had been waiting alongside the party seem excited to be so close to joining the cult and eagerly follow the lantern-bearing figure.

Pallas uncharacteristically keeps quiet, keeping a close watch on both the cultists and his fellow acolytes, trying to glean anything he can about their personalities. Sense Motive: 1d20 + 12 ⇒ (2) + 12 = 14