Sense Motive
Gnitt steps into the doorway, but stops at the threshold as the small room grows more crowded. He's never been comfortable around soothsayers, and this one in particular intimidates him a bit. As Tania rushes away, Gnitt slows her down, with a quick hiss.
"Sometimes young lady when one sees their desire nearby they are more willing to share their insight just before the reward is dispensed. Let's get two bottles, and give her one, but let her see that another's available if she continues to talk truthfully and fruitfully".
Gnitt's request for more of the same but better is initially met with a wrinkled brow and confusion - after all the liquor she drinks is not meant for taste but strength. After being pressed though, they are able to furnish him with an older, dustier bottle that serves for purpose.
The return of Tania is met with a softening of her features and a smile "Bless you child" holding out a hand to take the bottle, then licking her lips before opening it and drinking of the rot-gut's aroma. "Ah yes, ze spirits speak to me now... you are in luck my children, Madame Larua remembers."
Taking a tot of liquor before setting heavy in her chair "Zis Bill which you speak of, he came here many times... troubled he was, always intense and dark. Madame did not enjoy the readings, no... ze spirits were not calmed in his presence."
Lucetta closes her eyes as Tania produces the rotgut, nodding to herself in understanding, before listening intently to Madam Larua.
It is fortunate indeed your recall is so great, could we trouble you to elaborate on the woes of Old Bill? Perhaps you might speak of why the spirits were so agitated or whether the readings always spoke of the same fate?
Growing melancholy and sombre with recollection Madame Larua expounds "Always asking about sin... how he could find ze 'naughty children'. Pressing pressing, where are zhey, how can zhey be found. It iz why I remember him..." taking another swig of her libation "Perhaps zhat is why Madame remembers after all zhis time... intense, dark and pressing pressing 'Where are zhey... ze naughty ones'. Zhat and zhe talk of Bloody Jack Carver all over Festival..." grunting a dirty chuckle "Madame Larua had always had a thought, what if zhe Bill was actually Bloody himself no?"
Tania waxes uneasy and steals a glance in Gnitt's direction.
20 years... Could very well have been me!
Fiterri takes off his glasses and cleans them, giving him a moment to compose himself. This is some f+@@ed up s*!+. No wonder the Inspector is taking a pass, AND he is not paying us enough. A tinker with a cart full of knives and children...Bloody Jack Carver indeed.
Placing his glasses back, Fiterri took a deep breath as he stepped forward. "Best you don't dwell on the Carver aspect. But what did he mean by 'naughty'? How were they naughty? What sin interested him so much? And how exactly could you have helped him find these children?"
"Indeed wise one. Search your memories, as this could be very important". Gnitt lets the bottle of fine spirits be easily seen.
Enhanced Diplomacy
ED - Bit of Luck.
Madame Larua sighs "He did not share and Madame Larua thought best not to ask too deeply on zhese things. He came once a month for years, sometimes twice or thrice a week even... times as zhey are, one does not want to scare away zhe custom no?"
"Of what the readings where... I do not know. Sometimes someone come in, gives me five pils, I close my eyes, say some grand words, and send zem on zeir way no better or worse zan zey came. Zey came wanting entertainment and a touch of mystery, and I gave it to zem..." pausing to wet her lips with an aged and leathery tongue "But sometimes... sometimes someone come in, and ze Spirit world really want to talk to zem. When zat happen, I say zings... zings I don’t know and don’t remember. My mother had ze Sight, and it touch me sometimes like zat. I don’t charge anyzing more for zese readings because if ze gods want to talk to someone, far be it from me to interfere. But when ze spirits decide to talk, you don’t get your own front row seat. You’re just ze carriage; ze spirits become ze driver.”
Eyeing Gnitt's bottle hungrily "When ze spirits drive me... might be zhat Madame keeps quill and paper for zhe writing... not for me to read but for zhe posterity no? Bad luck for Madame to read of zhese, so I have kept them locked away..." you get an inkling that for the price of the fine liquor Gnitt has, she might overlook what luck might come from letting you read the scroll.
Tania, hanging on the not-so-charlatan-after-all's lips, thinks of the gods, and the things they would do and say to a man who keeps children locked in his tinker's cart and shivers a bit. She would have scoffed instead, but this felt to... unreal? not to be real.
She turns and gives Gnitt a knowing look.
Lucetta's face remains impassive, even as Larua reveals the extent of Old Bill's involvement. Of course it was always difficult to remain objective when experiencing events third hand, but the others seemed to believe the Madam.
I should think that we would very much like to see your collection of papers kept for posterity...
Lucetta too now looks to Gnitt, nodding in appreciation of his thought to get yet more liquor to bargain with.
"Well that might take some time. Here is something to help keep you occupied while we read these papers".
Gnitt uncaps the bottle and takes a swig, his eyes widening at the bite, then coughing a bit under his breath, he smiles and looks at the lable again. His voice is a bit horse as he hands the bottle to the Soothsayer.
"Ah this is delicious. I'm sure you'll find it pleasurable".
Gnitt presents the bottle to her lable sided up... all proper like.
The Madam Larua stands and accepts the liquid encouragement, sequestering it to the side of her hovel before ushering you through the curtain into a small room in the back of her stall. It actually sits upon wooden scaffolds out over the precipice. It has only a rude cot, a small table and chairs, a single window with a thin curtain, and a locked steamer trunk. A bolted door leads to stairs descending down into the Skew.
She produces a key from her girdle and opens the steamer trunk. Within are dozens of parchment rolls secured with bits of string or ribbon. Each bears a date carefully written on the outside. "All of zhese are the 'true' readings that Madam has had... so many portents and possibilities no?"
The washed up teller of fortunes then rummages through the bottom of the trunk until she finds one pulling it out. The outside of the yellowed parchment shows a date 30 years ago. She pauses and considers with shaking hand for a moment before thrusting it towards you. "Take it, it is yours now..."
Tania follows the exchange of liquid, then the charlatan's shaky hands as she rummages for her key, then for an old piece of parchment. She feels a chill in the air. All those pieces of paper, all those omens. She said something spoke through her. Something...
The young bravado once more gathers her cloak around her, feeling vulnerable, as the air dances around her leg and her neck, like chilly tentacles, making her shiver.
I wish we could just leave this place... she mouthes, but no sound escapes her blueish lips.
She gathers with the others as the parchment is unrolled, its words revealed after so many years.
She reads, but make little of it. With a whispering voice, she asks: "He was a killer was he? Not just a kidnapper. A murderer."
Fiterri flicks the top of the page where she seems to have scrawled a date. "This is from just after the last Bloody Jack killing. Thus solving the old case with Old Bill the killer but not the new. Still leaving us with 'why' would someone take up the mantle after so many years? Old Bill sounds crazed and driven, yet was damn quick to give it all up and ditch his cart. Is all this voluntary? Could the urges leave him and enter another even after all this time?"
Tania nods, agreeing with Fiterri, then, finding some courage, she adds: "Yet, the message seems to imply another one taking up the killing... Was there another murder spree in the wake of Bloody Jack's?"
"We need more information than we have now. Maybe talking to one of the old guards might help. Wouldn't hurt to consult with a city sage if anybody knows one. Might be a history of this going back further that the two we know about".
Tania again nods, then looks at the fortune-teller. "Perhaps we could also ask the spirits..?" she asks with an uncertain voice, certainly not wanting to be the one exposed to the darkest of entities!
Tania again nods, then looks at the fortune-teller. "Perhaps we could also ask the spirits..?" she asks with an uncertain voice, certainly not wanting to be the one exposed to the darkest of entities!
"Well there is that".
Keeping to the back of the room so as not to put too much strain on the slim supports of the room, Lucetta nods at Gnitt's words, though a small frown creeps on to her visage.
I think I was perhaps not the most... open to the Madam's claim to channel the spirits when first we crossed her palm with silver, but would those beyond the veil not have already spoken to us when given the chance?
she shrugs
Fiterri, Tania, I think the answers to your questions can only be found in the recollections of those with more history in their heads than us. I suggest we move to the watchman as intended, whilst there is still candlelight to burn and folk are not yet abed...
Tania hears Lucetta, but refuses to move. She waits instead, waiting to hear what the others think and if one would be brave enough to sit at the fortune-teller's table.
"Hells, I'll do it. If she tells me Bloody Jack is hiding around the next corner to kill me, all the better."
Fiterri steps up and takes a seat at her table. He lays out a spread of three coins. "Well Madame, you answered Old Bill's questions about naughty children. How about telling me where to find his successor? I'll double your fee. What do you say?" With a smile he nods to the note the group has been passing around, "Have your ink and parchment ready, I doubt you will want to be here for it."
His smile fades when he has a thought, "A few more coins if the Spirits can find Old Bill for a few questions...but you know, if they can't, I might be fine with that."
Waiting for her response Fiterri will lay his hands on the table seeing how sturdy it is and covertly look about for any tricks of the trade such as wires, mirrors and the such.
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A shiver runs down Tania's spine when Fiterri asks for Old Bill. With all her heart, she hopes no one answers. Yet, she can't pull her eyes from the scene, drawn like a moth to the flame of dark curiosity.
Gnitt steps in behind Fiterri to lend a supporting hand.
"I'll be here with healing, and support if things turn south brave one".
As far as you all can recollect, the Bloody Jack killings stopped at the time that coincides closely with the date of the soothsaying of Madam Larua. Killings obviously occur all the time, even ritualistic killings... but none that matched the Bloody Jack fingerprint.
Fiterri's offer draws an avaricious furrowed brow from the Madam. "Zhe true sight, I cannot call to it... sometimes it comes.. sometimes I cannot see wha.." her pronunciation interrupted by the whole flimsy building shaking as if it had just been struck by a gust of wind from a violent storm front.
Before any of you can react or act, a large tentacle bursts through the hovel's tiny window and wraps itself around Madam Larua’s neck. She is able to let out only a small, “Urk!” before being pulled bodily through the window with the sound of much snapping of bone.
Like lightning, Tania reacts to the violence, her hand going not for her weapon, but for her pocket, where she finds a small flask of oil she unstops as she whistles a pure note, concentrating on the fortune-teller.
Suddenly, oil seeps from the old woman's pores, drenching her in a thick, brownish, disgusting coat.
"" she warns.
The spell done, she feels the tug of the Ancestors. She can hear their warnings and their plea to help. She lets them in, and feels new inspiration.
Eyes wide as the house shakes and window smashes, Lucetta hesitates for only a moment, hand hovering over her alchemist's pouch, before she lithely darts across the room.
Drawing a knife from its sheath at her hip as she moves, she places one hand on Larua's shoulder and viciously slices the blade across the edge of the tentacle, hoping to cover as many nerves as possible so the thing lets the Madam go.
Fiterri had been listening to her excuses, chin upon his walking stick.
With the blast of glass and violence, he splays backward tipping over his chair. His stick is before him in a defensive posture, and in the moment before the jarring crash of hitting the ground, the bird's eyes on his stick glow red. It opens its beak and a hot red beam streaks out at the tentacle, but not before he hits the ground his limbs akimbo.
Gnitt's eyes widen with surprise at the appearance of the unwelcome appendage. He takes a step back into the ramshackle hut and eyes the area outside the hut for a moment, before drawing forth his Holy symbol and speaking the words of a prayer.
Well that was unexpected
Croc
Crocodile CR 2
XP --
N Large celestial/fiendish animal
Init +1; Senses darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision; Perception +8
DEFENSE
AC 14, touch 10, flat-footed 13 (+1 Dex, +4 natural, -1 size)
hp 22 [28] (3d8+9) [3d8+15]
Fort +6 [+8], Ref +4, Will +2
SR 7
Celestial - Resist Acid, Cold, and Electricity 5
Fiendish - Resist Cold and Fire 5
OFFENSE
Speed 20 ft., swim 30 ft.; sprint
Melee bite +5 [+7] (1d8+4 [1d8+6] plus grab) and tail slap +0 [+2] (1d12+2) [1d12+3]
Special Attack death roll (1d8+6 [1d8+9] plus trip), Smite evil/good
STATISTICS
Str 19 [23], Dex 12, Con 17 [21], Int 1, Wis 12, Cha 2
Base Atk +2; CMB +7 [+9] (+11 [+13] grapple); CMD 18 [20] (22 [24] vs. trip)
Feats Skill Focus (Perception, Stealth)
Skills Perception +8, Stealth +5 (+13 in water), Swim +12 [+14]; Racial Modifiers +8 on Stealth in water
SQ hold breath
SPECIAL ABILITIES
Death Roll (Ex)
When grappling a foe of its size or smaller, a crocodile can perform a death roll upon making a successful grapple check. As it clings to its foe, it tucks in its legs and rolls rapidly, twisting and wrenching its victim. The crocodile inflicts its bite damage and knocks the creature prone. If successful, the crocodile maintains its grapple.
Hold Breath (Ex)
A crocodile can hold its breath for a number of rounds (68) [84] equal to 4 times its Constitution score before it risks drowning.
Sprint (Ex)
Once per minute a crocodile may sprint, increasing its land speed to 40 feet for 1 round.
Smite evil/good
1/day as a swift action (adds CHA bonus (+0) to attack rolls and damage bonus equal to HD (+3) against evil/good foes; smite persists until target is dead or the celestial/fiendish creature rests).
Joe spins around at the explosion of noise, instinctively drawing his sword as he moves quickly into the room. Taking in the broken window, he plows through it to find the source of the attack, and do as much damage as possible to the perpetrators.
Lucetta hesitates for a single moment, before seeming to drink a concoction from her belt.
In moments her form has shifted in to that of a bipedal feline animal of some sort, it is difficult to get any details as she springs quickly and fluidly out the window, following closely in Joseph's wake.
Lucetta:
Joseph:
Gnitt:
Fiterri:
Large and Tentacly:
Even before you can react you hear the bonesnapping squelching sounds of an old fortune teller being subjected to masticative attention. The lack of screams or protest casts a pallor of certainty over the fate of once was Madame Larua.
Tania sees the folly of dispensing a greased missive to follow, holding to a call unto luck...
Lucetta invokes a call to bestial nature and dives through the freshly opened window - rolling into the open area before the cabin. Fiterri expends a blast of fire ineffectual into the darkness as Gnitt begins a call upon otherwordly assistance. Finally Joseph joins Lucetta outside the cabin... frustratingly for the other inhabitants of the cabin as he too prefers the use of the fractured window than physically opening the door.
Round 2: Large and Tentacly, Tania, Lucetta, Fiterri, Gnitt, Joseph
The foul creature before you is a writhing mass of tentacles and snake heads, flying by some eldritch talent above the kiss of the earth. Disgusting as it appears... half covered now in the blood and viscera of a recently disembowled mystic, one of the three heads and three of the six tentacles bursting from the core of it limp pale and withered, unusable. flying creature resembles a large writhing mass of tentacles and snake heads. Normally possessing three such snake heads and six tentacles, this particular gohl has been the victim of some wasting condition that has caused one of its heads and three of its tentacles to wither into pale, dangling, useless appendages.
It launches it's bulk into the air ponderously, rising just above your heads before settling heavily onto the structure of Larua's hut... threatening to send it topping from it's precarious perch and into the tangle of the Skew some thirty or forty feet below.
Tania, Fiterri and Gnitt hear the bones of the shack groan ominously and sharp cracking sounds start to fire like wooden muskets...
Joe grimaces in disgust at the sight of the grotesque being, but reacts quickly and unhesitatingly as it passes overhead, leaping up and swinging with all his strength at its exposed underbelly.
Allowing the force of his swing to turn him around, he keeps his eyes on the creature as it settles on the roof. His gaze narrows as he thinks about what happened to Madam Larua. He hadn't particularly liked the old woman, but she hadn't deserved to die like that. And he was not going to let it get away. With a yell of rage he charges towards it and chops directly at one of its ugly faces.
Joseph's opportunistic strike scores the creature deeply down one flank, though the blood flowing from the wound doesn't come as gushing or swiftly as one might expect.
Springing up at the belly of the creature, the feral form of Lucetta snaps its jaws along the underside...
...yet fails to injure the beast.
As the creature lands on the hut and the timbers begin to give way, she roars
Leave the hut now!
then her odd-boned and muscled legs have brought her to the creature again, she lashes out, all instinct and red-eyed fury.
Before releasing her spell, Tania hears the fortune teller's neck crushed beyond hope. Instead, tossing her extravagant hat to the side in order to save it from muck, guts, and worse, she jumps after the horror and through the window.
"Not. So. Fast!" she bellows, her fear dismissed by thrill.
As the mass leaps to the air, so does she, her fingers reaching for one of the limp appendages, hoping to prevent the nightmarish creature from escaping its fate.
Fiterri joins the rush to clear the door and reemerges on the street. Turning takes a moment to steady his glasses on his nose as he takes in their disgusting opponent, looking for any weakness.
Gnitts move outside to get a better eye on things, as his holy crocodile begins it's assault on the enemy. (Copy Cat and move outside. Two Gnitts now).
Celestial Croc
Bite
Teeth
And I'm going to spend a Bit-o-luck on that attack roll.
Bite o luck
Tail Slap
Leathery whip
If bite successful
Death Roll Grapple
Turbo roll & Trip if applicable (NOTE: up to large creature can be death rolled).
"Sick em! Sick em"!
Tania's attempt to grapple the creature is foiled by some unctuous and slimy secretion coating it's form forestalling her from getting a grip. Lucetta's opportunistic strike and follow up attack fail to puncture the creature's skin either.
Fiterri scurries out of the teetering building to gaze upon the beast... and is left dumbfounded by it. It doesn't conform to any known creatures that come to frenzied and quickened mind... though he kens it is unnatural of source.
Gnitt's otherworldly call is answered by a similarly endowed beast as he abandons the collapsing building. The crocodile fails to crunch down upon the creature with it's teeth, but it's heavy tail does crunch solidly into the core of the flying monster.
Joseph's follow up strike is less successful than his first, striking naught but air.
The shack beneath the beast then groans and with a series of gun-shot cracks and a sustained ripping and shearing sound it gives way to fall into the Skew below. The maimed and atrophied creature does not flee, instead keeping it's position floating above the open space below it where Larua's shack once stood... and turns it's toothed and tentacle wrath upon you...
Bite at Joseph: for
Bite at Lucetta: for
Tentacle at Croc:
Tentacle at Croc:
Tentacle at Tania: for
Crit on Joseph:
Crit on Lucetta: for additional
Both maws of the beast close upon their targets, though Lucetta is more sorely marked and damaged by it's attention.
Round 3: Large and Tentacly, Tania, Lucetta, Fiterri, Gnitt, Joseph
Snarling as the many-toothed entity tears strands of flesh and fur from her, it is notable that despite the grievous wounds, the worst of them close over almost immediately.
Eyes blazing, Lucetta tears in to the creature with fangs and claws.
Tania curses as she hears and feels the shack crash into the Skew behind them, then as she gets slammed by a tentacle, barely keeping her feet on the ledge.
She rolls under a sweeping tentacle and grabs some of the unidentified grey muck and gravel on the ground then throws it at the tentacly's impossible eye to blind the beast.
Dusting himself off, Fiterri steps up behind his battling comrades and raises his walking stick above their heads. He mutters to himself, "Whatever it is, it should burn."
The bird on the end of the stick opens its beak again and gouts of flame roll out at the beast. Fitterri raps the stick against his palm in aggitation, "Is something stuck? Is that all you got in there?
Joe grunts with pain and disgust as the filthy creature bites him, then leaps straight up into the air and brings his sword down in a huge overhand chop.
Gnitt's celestial friend, lunges at the creature despite it's terrible taste.
Bite*
Teeth
Tail Slap
Scaly Whip
If bite is successful:
Death roll tearing and rending
Also, grappled and tripped if that matters
"Sick him Fido... sick him! The twin Gnitt's snarl