Zhi indicates that she wants to talk about it in a different room than the body - still holding a hand over her nose.
She apologizes as soon as they're out of the room. "Sorry about that. It was just ... she smelled so ... " The girl shudders and does look a little green, but seems to shake it off.
"We've got a beast," she says after a couple of deep breaths. "I'll check around the city and find out how much it would cost us to get someone to construct a trap for him." She grins. "Maybe they'll take an old tea shop in trade."
"Then we just need a trophy."
After some discussion over the group's options in regards to the Lord of Filth, Zhi summarizes the discussed plan.
"So Melodie uses her enhanced natural charm to lead the giant snake down the tunnels to Gulreeh's lair. Zileska will cast a defensive glyph of some sort for him - more flashy than deadly, please. Then we buy a scroll that contains a 'magical mouth' spell, announcing to whomever triggers it that they're 'Entering the lair of the Lord of Filth. All bow down ... ' yadda, yadda, yadda. It'll only work once, but Mel should be able to convince him that it takes some time to recharge."
She looks around at the others.
"Did I miss anything? We should move the snake right away if those phantoms downstairs will come back."
Sara frowns at the statement that they'd sell the old tea shop for a fancy trap. That was her tea shop now, after all, and she'd have a thing or two to say if they planned on selling it, but she holds her tongue for the moment.
"The snake does seem to be happy in the sewers," she says, idly petting said creature.
Sara frowns at the statement that they'd sell the old tea shop for a fancy trap. That was her tea shop now, after all, and she'd have a thing or two to say if they planned on selling it, but she holds her tongue for the moment.
When you return to the sewer cistern, the King of Filth is pleased by all three of your gifts to him. "Oh, ho, ho! Gulreesh is pleased with these testaments to his might! Now Gulreesh will fulfill his end of the bargain."
A long tentacle plunges into the fetid muck at the massive beast's feet. It roots around for a few minutes before plucking an object up and presenting it to you. It is a broken +1 human‐bane dagger with a horsehead‐shaped pommel, a symbol commonly associated with House Pythareus. It appears to be a match for the broken-off tip still lodged in Tae Amalon's body!
"So, thirty years ago, this woman, Tae, was murdered by someone," Zhi says as the ladies exit the sewers. She looks at the dagger again. "Someone in the Pythareus family. And the last thing she saw was a teenage boy. Does that mean that General Ass-hat was that boy and was a witness to the act? If not an accessory?"
"Hell of a skeleton in that closet, General," she adds with a knowing smirk. "We need to find out more information about who this woman was."
Once they reach the mansion, Zhi finishes wiping the blade clean and then produces the shard of blade that Melodie had found previously.
At the raised eyebrow from her wife, the rogue shrugs. "What's yours is mine, Love. It's not like you put it somewhere I couldn't get it."
She puts the two pieces of metal together to verify their fit.
"Oh don't worry dear, its not as though I'd get cross about it." Melodie responds calmly. Was it too calm? Hard to tell...
"Let's see what happens with this first and then we can go out asking around after that if we need to." Melodie suggests, nodding for her wife to go ahead. One hand rests on the Scion's Dagger, just in case...
Sara spends a few hours kissing the right gossipy older women and asking the right questions, double checking whatever they hear from Tae's corpse the second time they question her, for fun and in case the Lion's Blades need witness testimony.
As the dagger pieces are reunited, the spectral form of a middle-aged woman appears. "Thank you for making my spirit whole again. I am Tae Amalon. In life, I was a noted scholar and tutor often hired by noble families of Zimar to ready their children for entrance exams for of cer’s school. I helped tutor a teenage Maxillar Pythareus in history and philosophy, and brought several concerns about the boy’s moral compass to his father after the lad assaulted a female peer. More concerned about Maxillar’s future and the family reputation than the woman’s safety, the elder Pythareus first ordered silence from me, and when that failed, he attempted to bribe me. When I still refused, he plunged a dagger into my back in a fit of rage.
"My husband... My sons... Tell them the truth. Tell them what happened to me..." Having finally divulged her secrets, the spirit passes on to the next world.
Sara discovers that Amalon’s husband died of a heart attack 5 years ago, but their children still live: both Aramatus and Quinn live in the city and work as tutors in the Scrolls District.
"Well well. I mean, we kinda knew that Pythareus was an abuser, but this is just great," says Zileska as the drama plays out.
"I have half a mind to stage an elaborate ruse using an illusion to convince him that we have resurrected Tae Amalon and see what kind of crazy shenanigans he gets up to while crawling up the walls. Probably wouldn't get us anything and not very practical though."
"If only all murder victims were so readily-able to identify their killers," Maria remarked, thinking back on how many times her father had been either unable to find a priest to cast speak with dead, where the body was too badly damaged for the spell to work, or where the victim just didn't have any useful information.
"In all honesty, though, I was hoping that it was Maxillar who'd killed her, would have given us some additional leverage to work with. Trying to smear the reputation of his father - who I assume has passed away - is just going to look petty. So I wonder how, exactly, this dagger is supposed to be his downfall? Beyond psychological warfare, at least. It's not magical, is it?"
"At the very least, he helped cover up the murder," Zhi comments. "We should let the Lion Blades know what we've found. We have evidence that shows his complicity in a murder. What does that do for them?"
"His complicity in murder, sure, but more importantly, evidence of his assaults on a young woman! That is a right bit more personally damning. Pythareus is going to rot in Hell and we are gonna put him there."
Sara fumes and paces nervously, the clicking of her heels an accompanying drumbeat to her anger and anxiety.
With all the evidence you have collected against Pythareus, it is enough for the Lion Blades to agree beyond a shadow of a doubt that the High Strategos is a threat to the nation’s safety. When you inform her of your latest discovery, Kathann asks you to meet her again at Panemona’s Windmill Inn, outside the city.
The vishkanya waits for you in a small booth inside the inn. "Thanks to your efforts, we now have conclusive evidence against Pythareus. His actions—ordering unlawful attacks on Taldan settlements, murdering Taldan citizens, threatening rivals, and trying to drag Taldor into a war—constitute treason. He is unfit for command and must be arrested before he causes more damage to our nation. You’ve already done so much for the Lion Blades, but I must ask you for one more task: place High Strategos Maxillar Pythareus under arrest! He operates in the city’s most fortified stronghold: Abadar’s Pillar, on the river.
"If the situation demands it, you are authorized to kill him. But if there’s a decent man left inside him, I hope you can persuade him to surrender."
"If we're going to try and arrest him while he's in the Pillar, we're going to need to find out everything we can about that place. I'm sure they're not going to just let us walk in unopposed and walk out with him in chains. We're either going to have to sneak in or bluff our way in."
Zhi recommends spending at least a day scouting out the location as well as doing as much research as possible.
Abadar's Pillar is an enormous spit of basalt jutting from the sandstone bedrock of Zimar, which the Taldan army long ago cra ed into an impregnable fortress. Both Taldor and Qadira further augmented the fortress’s defenses over the centuries during their respective dominions over the city, and it is now one of the most unassailable fortresses in Golarion.
Zhi spends some time scouting the place out. There are many guards on the keep’s walls and battlements, and careful observation also reveals that birds in the area noticeably avoid the space above the fortress thanks to unnaturally strong winds. The stronghold’s outer walls are 40 feet high except for the keep, which is 80 feet high.
A sturdy wooden drawbridge reinforced with steel provides access to the castle across a moat. The drawbridge is raised each evening at dusk, and lowered against dawn. Two sentinels stand guard at this entrance day and night. Zhi spots something moving beneath the water of the moat.
From notes gathered by the rakshasas and hags, you know even more about the keep's defenses. Special wards set in the outer walls and the keep shield the entire structure against extradimensional intrusions (as per dimensional lock) and spells of the scrying subschool. Specially enchanted glyph necklaces allow specific individuals to ignore the dimensional lock effect for themselves (though not for any additional creatures or passengers). You have three of these necklaces--creating more is beyond your abilities without specific arcane notes.
The outer walls are enchanted with an invisibility alarm spell, and while they are not powerful enough to dispel invisibility spells or effects, it immediately alerts guards to invisible intruders within 20 feet of the walls.
"These glyphs will allow three people to teleport into the Pillar." Melodie explains to the group after a long and exhausting session with the various notes retrieved from Jeroth's spies. "So I have to get in along with someone else and then I can teleport the rest of you inside. It should probably be Sara and I to begin with - we're the most likely to convince our way in."
She purses her lips. "We need to decide what our goal is. If we want to talk Pythareus down then we need to prepare, come up with lists of all the evidence we have against him and our arguments in favour of Eutropia. If he's anything like Bartelby was we'll need to be well prepared."
Melodie's agents, meanwhile, set about whipping up local dissent against Pythareus, leading to a number of small but noisy protests in the streets.
She also, drawing on preparatory work that Bartelby has been doing, attempts to infiltrate a group of her agents into the fortress itself.
"Our mission is to arrest him. We can try to talk him down peacefully, but I don't think that's how it's going to go. My guess is that he's somewhere in the tower. With his ego, probably somewhere at the top. The winds up there are pretty strong, but with flying magic, I think Sara and I could land on the roof and deal with the few guards up there. We could then give you a reference to teleport yourself, Maria, and Zil up there. That way we wouldn't have to fight our way up to the top."
"The dagger can only bring people to me." Melodie points out. "Either one of you has to have the dagger, or I need to go in first. We could simply ask him for a meeting." She suggests. "Given the amount of resources we've amassed and expended in the city, as well as the warning I sent him, he must be aware that there are some new players in the city, even if he doesn't know who we are. That might be enough to get a meeting and if we want to resolve this peacefully..."
Zhi looks thoughtful.
"A meeting? Hmm... You could probably get him to agree to that, but I don't think he would let you near him with weapons." She smirks. "And he knows how deadly a dagger can be in the right circumstances."
"Sara and I could fly in invisibly and I could be carrying the dagger. We land on the roof of the tower and use the dagger to bring you, Maria, and Zileska to us. We could either deal with the guards on the room or we get inside first before bringing you along and ignore them entirely."
"Let's try a meeting first." Melodie proposes. "If we can't gain reasonable terms for a meeting then we can try something more... unusual."
She takes the wand and activates it easily.
"General Pythareus. As representatives of Princess Eutropia I request a meeting with you to discuss the succession. The Lion Blades back this meeting."
Pythareus replies:
"So, the Lion Blades have sided with the petulant princess as well? I will not fall for your trickery. Surrender and I may show mercy."
"You are a murderer and provoking war. I seek to end this without bloodshed. Let us meet and discuss this. Or are you a coward?"
"Far from it. My men are scouring the city for your hiding spot as we speak. This will end, but not the way you expect," Pythareus replies.
Melodie declines to waste any more magic on a lost cause and ends the conversation.
"Well, we learned a few things at least..." She says, looking at the rest of the group. "We'd better be careful moving around for a little while. At least without his seneschal and the head of the Vault and Chain he's going to be a lot weaker."
She glances towards her wife. "So sweetheart, what's the best way to get in?"
Zhi raises an eyebrow at Melodie and crosses her arms.
"So now you want my opinion?" she asks with a small smirk. "When there's no other choice theeeennn turn to the woman who's been breaking into places since she was three years old?"
She harumphs.
"Maybe I need to be persuaded now."
Zhi recommends finding a scroll of bull's strength and then her (with the spell cast on her) and Sara should be able to fly over (through the strong winds) and land (invisibly and with non-detection cast on them) on the roof of the main tower building. They sneak down to the first room they can find that's unoccupied to use the scion's dagger to summon Maria, Melodie, and Zileska to join them. They then attempt to catch General Pythareus unaware and take him into custody.
Zhi raises an eyebrow at Melodie and crosses her arms.
"So now you want my opinion?" she asks with a small smirk. "When there's no other choice theeeennn turn to the woman who's been breaking into places since she was three years old?"
She harumphs.
"Maybe I need to be persuaded now."
"I always want you my dear." Melodie responds, seemingly 'misunderstanding' Zhi's point. "I was just hoping we could arrange a peaceful solution first."
She steps closer to her wife and whispers in her ear.
”You won’t need to find a scroll of bull’s strength, I can brew up extracts of it. Flight as well. I think I can brew up enough for you to take Safina along as well - even one more crossbow may make all the difference, especially a considerably powerful one and in the hands of a gifted markswoman.”
"Oh, you flatterer!" Safina laughs, playfully punching Maria's shoulder.
Zhi smiles at the thought, but current pressing matters bring her back to reality.
"The only real negative is this is an all-in proposal. There's not really a plan 'B' exit option. We have to end up with the General in custody or dead. There's no viable way to fall back, regroup, and try again."
"We could acquire a scroll of some sort - perhaps one of etherealness? Something that we could use to escape in an emergency?" Melodie suggests. "That might not be the worst idea in the world anyway."
----------------
"Hmm..." says Zileska casually. "Is the teleport barrier only in or both in and out? If the teleport barrier doesn't stop people from leaving, I can prepare a word of recall to escape back home if needed. I can take... four other people with me, so we'd need a way to summon everyone else as well."
"Most arcane barriers like that are universal - they affect teleportation through them in any direction," Zhi says, pondering. "I don't know for sure in this particular case, but that's what I'd expect."
"If we got a chance to hunker down for a day, we could use the non-detection spell and invisibility on everyone and walk out the front gate, but we don't know for sure if we'll get a chance to do that."
Ever a reserved, patient woman, Sara throws forth her own option. "I think we can take a castle," she shrugs. "Why not just march right in and start killing?"
"Because that's a lot of effort, has a high chance of going wrong and we won't have much in the way of retreat available?" Melodie asks in a teasing tone. "On the other hand I know how lethal your footwear is..."
"Can we at least agree to trying the sneaking in trick and working from the top of the fortress down? That should be the safest option." Melodie suggests. "And would it be worth getting more sigils made? With some time someone could probably do it, but I imagine it would get back to Pythareus." She finishes with a sigh.
"So then with flying and invisibility elixirs from Maria and non-detection enchantments from Zil, Sara, Safina and I attempt to fly on to the roof of the tower. We gain entrance and at the first opportunity we summon you three via the Scion's dagger."
She looks at the others for their agreement. "Safina and myself will also need elixirs of strength to push past the high winds. Either that or we stay as low as possible to fly under them. I can't imagine those winds blow at the roof-top level or the guards up there would be getting knocked over all the time."
Zhi notes the concern on her wife's face.
"We'll be fine, Princess," she says with a smile. "We're bad-assed b*#**es." She grins at Sara.
The next morning, Safina, Sara, and Zhi quaff various extracts and accept warding spells from Zileska before stealthily approaching Abadar's Pillar. Zhi turns the trio of women invisible, and as one, they fly up towards the battlements of the fortress's keep.
Unfortunately, the wards around the keep prove stronger than the nondetection spells. The sound of a ringing bell fills the air as they get within 20 feet of the walls, alerting the defenders to their presence! On the lower levels, numerous soldiers scurry about, making their way to defensive positions. The four sentinels atop the battlements produce smokesticks and wave them in the air and pour oil down the walls to try to find these invisible intruders--on the opposite side of the battlements from where the women are approaching. Zhi can see that the four guards here are actually her agents in disguise, paving the way for their entry into the Pillar.
They still have to deal with the gusting winds, which work to keep the flying women at bay. Safina and Sara are able to make it to the battlements after a few tries, but it takes Zhi quite some time to push her way through the winds, even with her enhanced strength. Safina and Sara don't wait for her, heading to the door into the keep--which has been conveniently left unlocked.
A darkly roiling air elemental rises up from the lower courtyard, gripping a longbow as it attempts to find Zhi. Not trusting to her invisibility alone, the rogue stealthily creeps towards the door, reaching it and slipping into the stairwell just before the elemental turns its gaze on her!
Heading down the stairs, Safina, Sara, and Zhi find themselves in a room on the keep's fourth floor. Holy symbols of Abadar, Aroden, Cayden Cailean, Norgorber, and Shelyn—the so‑called Taldan pantheon—decorate the walls here, and it features a shrine with elaborate brass statuary and filigree in the room's center.
Doors exit to the west and the east, and the stairs continue down to the keep's lower levels.
Melodie waits nervously. Her only major preparations have been to purchase a small portrait of General Pythareus, which Zileska and Maria have seen her studying intently while they wait.
See no one in the chamber, Zhi pulls out the Scion's Dagger and concentrates on it for a moment, using its power to summon the remainder of their forces.
"The sand's running," she says curtly, but quietly. "The alarm spell still detected us so the hornet's nest has been stirred up. They don't know where were at, though, as far as I can tell."
"The guards on the roof are ours, so our escape that way is clear if need be."
"Let's start with the tower room," she says, moving to the door to the west.
As Melodie and Zileska appear in the room, one of the statues suddenly casts off its gold shroud, revealing a sleek, one-eyed construct. Its arms end in weapons—a rapier and a compact crossbow bolt launcher.
Before you can react, it thrusts its launcher forward and fires a volley of projectiles at Zileska! They stab into the cleric, laying her low!
Melodie arrives with her eyes glowing softly from magic. She's just reaching for the Scion's Dagger when Zileska is felled! She also grasps Sara hand briefly before her form begins to flicker like her wife's.
"Clockwork Assassin!" She yells. "Electricity and adamantine weapons or it will repair!" She grabs the Scion's Dagger from her wife and focuses all of her will-power on the construct, lamenting the fact that she is going to be almost useless in this fight.
Zhi moves quickly to the contruct's rear and attacks with her rapier and then appearing, her enchantment of invisibility broken.
"Electricity? Really?" Zhi responds with a grin. "Have I got something for you," she mutters to herself.
Still invisible , Sara falls beside Zileska and force feeds her a potion.