"Her plan has crashed. She will come after us out of spite, but snakes are cunning, not rash, so it wont be soon. It will be when we are split up and with our guard down"
Well, I would like to quickly stop by the library, as a group without splitting up, and see if I cannot quickly gain some insight on what powers exactly we will expect when facing her - other than mirror images and flight. Then we either make for a tavern together and leave the Lord-Mayor to his personal guards, or we seek out the Lord-Mayor and see whether he is willing to let us assist him.
"Simply alert the Guard and the Mayor, then our time is our own, so the Library then the tavern. Tavern would probably be a likely spot to strike us"
"Actually in my experience that's a horrible place to strike anyone. You remember how many big muscly guys we've had to drop out on the street when the ale flowed too fast and the Varisian women just a touch too loose? And the group of adventurers after? If that one halfling wasn't drunk completely out of his mind my son would be a single child."
"Very true Sir Karlan, but we know how bad a tavern is because we have spent so much time in them. For the uninitiated it might seem a place where we had our guard down and half stuck in an ale mug. Can't think a Naga has popped down to too many alehouses for a quick pint and a counter meal"
"I still reckon leaving town will be the most likely place to hit us, she knows we will return to Sandpoint and that we will probably have to ship it there so a quick look at a few shipping manifests will tell her where to be and at what time. Either hit us sleeping just before we awake for our journey at a dockside Inn, or nail us on the wharf in the light of dawn"
Kessan simply follows the group but keeps a wary eye out. He is content to let them discuss what is going on as he is still an outsider. At the mention of having to sleep however, Kessan grins. "If you allow me to accompany you, I can provide protection while you all sleep. I don't have to sleep actually."
"That's a handy ability, I reckon I could do with learning that one one day, save me waking up late and not being able to escape a bedroom before the dawn" Harry offers cheerfully.
"Oh its not an ability actually!" Kessan replies with equally cheeriness. He then holds up his left hand and points out a ring. "Got this from helping a wandering mage who was beset by bandits. He called it a Ring of Sustenance. I don't have to eat, sleep, or drink unless I want to."
Harry looks at the ring, possibilities ticking over in his mind.
Whether or not you need to sleep, we need to figure out what we are going to do.
I assume we will head to the library. Assuming I can redo the check on the Lamia, I will take 20 on my Knowledge check. (30 Arcana, Planes and Religion, 29 for all others). This is only a standard action using Lore Master, so using the library, I assume I can do it fairly quickly, but a few minutes and my total will be 30+ on any check.
"Tavern would probably be a likely spot to strike us"
"Are you sure that we could not detect evil on this creature?! This sounds like she is willing to break all the rules of decency! We should have attacked while we had a chance!"
"He called it a Ring of Sustenance. I don't have to eat, sleep, or drink unless I want to."
"Well. I sure hope that doesn't prevent you from raising a celebratory glass in toast back at the pub! What a curse it would be to never yearn for drink!"
"We didn't really have the chance or sh'd be dead right now. We know what her defences are now at least, as well as how she likes to fight. She can't say the same about us. Could we detect her as an evil presence? Suppose you'd know more about how that might work, but don't you need to stand around meditating?"
"Where is that Library? Gotta get to the Guards too, and that tavern!"
Smiling, Kessan shakes his head. "I can eat and drink should I choose to. I just don't have to anymore." He then glances around at the group sheepishly. "I just realized that I am tagging along, and you all haven't formally invited me along...thats rather rude of me."
Don't worry about it, Harry needed someone to throw at traps. Celestra and I vote you were it.
Perform(comedy):
"Good thing I am light on my feet!"
"The enemy is cunning and ruthless, they are also capable and bloodthirsty. I assumed you were working for the Guard and had ties to them, but if you are a free man then there's bound to be more fighting wherever we end up. As long as you don't expect a guarantee of safety then you are welcome along. Sir Karlan is the boss though, what he says goes"
"Oh and don't get between me and the objects of my affections or the objects I intend to deliver some bloody minded violence upon and we will get along swimmingly"
Kessan nods at Harry's words. "The guards hired me to investigate, and you all were already on the case. You have basically done my work for me. I would like to repay the favor. Besides," Kessan pauses, and cracks his neck. "I could use the practice against something challenging."
"The creature was evil, the thign we could not detect was the illusion. That worries me. You can do quite a lot of damage with illusions if your smart enough I think. Anyway, I'm heading back down to the guardhouse with the name list if anyone wants to come with me. Need to alert the proper authorities of the assassination plot so we can get homeward bound. We wiped out the cult, but the puppet master pulling their strings is loose. It's a bitter sweet victory."
With that Karlan makes his way to the guard tower.
I head by the library and then to the guardhouse figuring that Karlan will still be there when I finish as the research should only take a few minutes with Lore Master.
@ The Library:
Magnimar's grand library is just a magnificent place of knowledge. With a bit of help and advice from the librarians Ailetha quickly finds an old leather-bound tome, written by Solo Morasso, a Varisian loremaster.
Flipping through the book you are worried by the condition of the pages, luckily the lamia-entry is quite readable:
The Lamia
The hate-filled inheritors of an ancient curse, lamias appear as lean and attractive women from the waist up, while below they possess the bodies of powerful lions. Even their humanoid features bear distinctly feline traits, their eyes slitted and feral and their teeth like predatory fangs. A typical lamia stands over 6 feet tall, measures more than 8 feet long, and weighs upward of 650 pounds.
Lamias are attracted to the ruined and forsaken parts of the world. Crumbling keeps, abandoned cities, and forgotten monuments all satisfy these deadly hunters' cruel aesthetic—particularly those in arid or otherwise lifeless environs. Foremost, though, lamias favor decrepit temples. They delight in seeing the shrines of good deities in ruins and go out of their way to bring hardship to thriving holy places.
Lamias look to the eldest female of the group as their leader, mother, and shaman, cleaving to her with fanatical reverence. While lamias shun most religious followings—viewing such as the source of the curse that blighted them with bestial forms—lamia elders claim to hear the whispers of the scouring desert winds and know the cold whims of the stars, drawing upon such mystical sources to lead their people.
The lamias presented here are but the most common and least powerful members of this cursed race, with others bearing serpentine, avian, and even more perverse forms.
The most powerful lamias are called lamia-matriarchs. They don't have to possess feline bodies, known are also reptiles, scorpions, spiders etc. They have varying powers but besides their normal power to drain the wisdom of their victims, many are extremely powerful spellcasters, most often sorcerers.
@ The guardhouse:
The the grey silhouette of the spire of the watch is nearly invisible in the stormy weather that keeps Magnimar in its clutch.
A single sentry stands watch at the large portal of the structure.
After finishing in the library, I head to the guardhouse to meet with Karlan and the others.
I believe that she is an elder lamia known as a Lamia-Matriarch. She is likely a powerful sorcerer, although what type of spells she may know I cannot tell you. However, I have the ability to cast silence on an area, so as long as I know where she is, I might be able to keep her from using her magic. More importantly though is that lamias have the ability to drain your wisdom through their touch. Thus, if we have time, I think that it would be wise for Celestra to ask Cayden to grant her the ability to cure any draining that this horrid monster may cause.
I also mention the rest of what is posted above.
KArlan walks up to the guard.
"Hello, did we meet before? I think I was here earlier with information about the recent so called skinsaw murders? I'm here to inform your superior officer that the majority of the cult has been destroyed but their leader has fled and we have evidence that she may be plotting an assassination attempt on the mayor. Might I speak with your superior officer? Nix that, might I speak with your superior offcer's superior officer? That's a good chap."
"More importantly though is that lamias have the ability to drain your wisdom through their touch. Thus, if we have time, I think that it would be wise for Celestra to ask Cayden to grant her the ability to cure any draining that this horrid monster may cause."
"They drain wisdom?! You cannot be serious? I pride myself on having the wisdom to negotiate most situations, but this could be disastrous for the work I do for Cayden Cailean. This monster sounds very dangerous. Well, in my prayers to Cayden, the hero has granted me a spell called lesser restoration. Let's hope that I do not need to put it to the test, otherwise we are going to need to seek some greater help!"
"Lamias look to the eldest female of the group as their leader, mother, and shaman, cleaving to her with fanatical reverence."
"So who do you think she would look to as the leader of our little band of adventurers? I don't mean to ask such personal questions, but how old are you, Ailetha?"
I have seen 27 winters, most in the hellhole that is eastern Cheliax. But I think that I have already shown myself to be her first target. After all, I am the one who pretty much laid out her great plans to bring back her Runelord.
"Twenty Severn winters?! Well that settles it! She is sure to look to you as the shaman mother. I wonder if she will cling to you with fanatical reverence?"
"If you lot are that worried about it I suppose we can try find a way to track her down and finish this for once and for all, reckon if she is going to come for us though it won't be too soon because she knows right now we are on the lookout. Worst thing we can do is try remain overly vigilant and prepare for her imminent arrival, as we will eventually tire and become afraid of every shadow. Best we just add her to the list of people who hate us, until we get to trim that list again"
There is only one flaw in your analysis Harry. A person who would wait out a prepared enemy is a calm logical person. She is insane and seeking to raise a many thousand year old archmage. I would not consider that to be something a calm logical person would do. Personally, it would not surprise me if she made an attack on the Lord-Mayor, or us, within the next few hours.
"Insane? Lets have a look at just how long and far her reach has extended. Her agents in Sandpoint, her infiltration and subversion of Ironbriar... years, this would have all taken years of plotting scheming and move after move in a very long game. I think she is sane, very sane, and very controlled. Like a snake, she will strike from the darkness when we aren't alert. If she launches an attack before sunrise I owe you five gold. I reckon she will try hit us when we go to leave, or when she is ordered to. We are assuming their is only one crew on this caper, but she could well just be part of a bigger guild"
"So would it be best to set a trap for her? Maybe go out into the woods on a wilderness outing and see if we can lure her out? Or do we set a trap using one of her possible intended targets as bait?"
"Not the wilderness, we need to be easy to follow. Thats why I reckon she might hit us dockside. We killed all her hounds, so theres only a few points she knows we have to eventually pass through, like the docks as we plan areturn to Sandpoint. She only has to watch the very few ships headed that way befoire we turn up... as easy as that. Similarly she would be wise enough to set aside those targets and consider some new ones. Those targets are no doubt not just there at random, she would have a reason for them all which points to research, and research is something that takes time and patience, another clue she wont rush in"
"You sure seem to have thought a lot about this, Handsome. I will do whatever you suggest! Mind you, I could use a rest soon, especially if you plan on getting hurt."
Unless one of the other names on the list appears to be a better mark, I think that the Lord-Mayor is her chief target. And, if she thinks that we are on to her, I would expect her to go for the biggest target before we get a chance to spoil her fun.
I turn and look at Harry. While I do not disagree that we are a target for her, she is a lamia on a mission. She, and I assume that she has seniors and coconspirators, seeks to bring back the Runelord of Greed. And remember, he is but one of seven Runelords who controlled this area. If she attacks us and fails, then she fails. On the other hand, if she ignores us for the moment and continues to find greedy people as sacrifices to power the Runewells that power the Runelords, then she has succeeded and can come after us whenever she wants - with the power of the Runelord behind her.
"Before I came to your good influences of yourself and Sir Karlan, Miss Zomesco, you might remember my job was debt collecting and enforcement. You get used to thinking about how to find people who don't want to be found, and just when the best time to shake them down for the rent might be"
"Are you saying you'd like to hunt her down Miss Auracalam?"
My vote would be to set a trap at the place she is most likely to strike. Where the Lord-Mayor is. While we do not have direct contacts with the government here in Magnimar, we have already gained a bit of a reputation showing that one of their high Justicars was a murder god worshipping killer. In addition, I can be quite persuasive and the good paladin is bound to tell the truth. These things combined should at least get us a brief audience to explain the dire danger that the Lord-Mayor is in, and hopefully to convince him to allow us to bait the lamia into attacking, in a position where we can surprise and hopefully trap her.
I understand your background tracking down those who do not wish to be found, but how many times were you tracking a powerful sorcerer lamia who can fly? And even if we can track her, we might well just track her to the Lord-Mayor's home and find that we were too late.
You know my opinion. But, if the majority wishes to take another tack, then I will work with the group to help guarantee our success whatever the decision is.
"Why would the Lord Mayor trust us, a bunch of complete strangers from Sandpoint to use him as bait for our trap rather than simply entrust his security to what are probably as good or better agents in the employ of the City and with all the resources of the watch at his disposal? I think the Mayor is too obvious a trap, but a trap upon us"
Well then, pick another name off the list, let me see. Hmmm, hey, isn't Titus Scarnetti from Sandpoint? As I recall he lost the last election for mayor there.
"Thats the point, the list is really long. She has a dozen likely targets and all of them equally valid... we can only be in one place at one time. Laying in wait at any of them will only ensure we are nailed to one spot indefinitely whilst she has free roam and all the time in the world to plan. To be the defender at best only ever ends in a stalemate, you can't win this one by defending, only lose it when your guard drops. Either she is threat enough for us to go after, or we decide to leave it to the authorities to remain eternally vigilant"
Of course, she might not realize that we have her list. The reason that I mentioned Titus is that he is from Sandpoint. If we want someone who we might be able to get into contact with and set up a trap, he might be willing to work with us. He may not love the current mayor of Sandpoint, but it is his home and I am sure he knows that we are the Sandpoint Saviors.
"Too many names, too many possibilities. If we really want to trap her we need to find something vital, something there is only one of, as that will ensure she comes to us good and proper. Pirates don't just sit in the ocean and hope a vessel passes, they enure they sit around a known lane where the prey HAS to move past; at the moment all we have is a list of oceans, it would only be by sheer blind luck that we got her. We need to take the luck out and make it by design."
"If you are really keen to face her, then find a hook in that Library, find a ruin or lost temple she might be either hiding out in or that her masters might be operating from. Find me a reference to some long lost relic they will need that we can go seize. Then we can come up with a real plan that relies more on tactics than blind luck... otherwise we might find ourselves watching frustrated as she picks off the easy targets while we are stuck in defence"
"Once we have that information then we can go a raiding upon her seas and see her off the plank"
I think that it is time for a knowledge check to see whether I do know anything about any of the names other than Titus and the Lord-Mayor.
Knowledge(local):
Since you have only recently arrived in the region, I'd say you need some more days in Magnimar to get a decent knowledge about the more important citizens. I'll allow a roll though, if you ask people in a tavern or at a market etc.
The guard looks at Karlan...he quickly realizes that this is really a piece of information for his superiors.
Yes sir!
he shouts and quickly moves inside the spire
Follow me, it's dry in here.
Inside you wait for about twenty minutes - annoying twenty minutes - until the guard returns with a plump man sporting a large moustache, wearing an extremely expensive ermine cape.
Welcome, welcome to the city of Magnimar, the City of Monuments, the best place to be in Southern Varisia. I'm Haldmer Grobaras and I was informed of your great deeds! It is a shame that we didn't meet earlier, mayor Deverin of Sandpoint had already informed me of your coming, but I had so many commitments, I was just unable to welcome the Sandpoint Saviours!
"Yes, well I'm sure a man of your duties has more important thins to do. I was simply hoping to inform one of your watch commanders but I wished to inform them of the plot behind these "skinsaw murders" and how they had selected you, among others, as a target. Justice Ironbriar was a part of this plot, along with his fellow cultists. However they too were merely manipulated by their leader who in and of herself was a crazed cultist of an entirely different sort."
Karlan continues. "Sadly, this creature, a lamia named Xenasha faced us at a tactical and strategic disadvantage and would have been suicide to engage her. So we retreated back..."
Diplomacy:
Ailetha nods her head and adds her two cents whenever appropriate to give the good paladin's dry recital of fact some more color.
The gregarious lord mayor lays his right arm around Karlan' shoulder and seems genuinely interested in the story the paladin tells.
Yes yes...ah...mhm...well...who would have thought that?...For real? Yes... once you have ended your report he smoothes his moustache and seems a bit concerned My bodyguards are Hellknights, I don't think she will dare to attack me, but I still, I think hiring another one or two is a good idea...anyway, I spoke to Kendra Deverin, mayor of Sandpoint and her sheriff, this...uh...Shoanti...I forgot his name - both told me, that you are very experienced and skilled adventurers, exactly what I'm looking for - so, I will ask you frankly, are you up for a mission into the mountains?
"I love the mountains! Both the mountains and the sea have been the two aspects of nature that have kept me inspired. However you better tell us more about this mission before any of us commit to it."
Karlan's defenses immediately rise at the mention of another mission. Lessons involving cracked ribs and bruises reminded him very sternly what upper class interests were. And then there was the fact the man had hellknights in his employ. Not that he had anything against them really. But he had stern ideas on what law was without any sense of compassion or compromise. "That depends m'lord mayor. That depends. Perhaps if you could give me more information I could confer with my officers and consider it. I do hope they told you that we are all deputies of the watch in sandpoint, myself a Captain, we may need to return home for rest and to attend to our duties there if m'lord mayor feels safe behind his wall of ruthle-I mean brave assh-I mean hellknights."
Diplomacy.
Captain of the watch? Not bad, bot bad...but this mission is of highest importance and I'm sure that your employer, the mayor of Sandpoint, will make you available. Why don't we discuss the specifics of this new - very important - mission during breakfast tomorrow? At my villa?
I cannot speak for my companions, however, I think that at least some of us should stay with you for the night. This Xenasha is a follower of Karzoug, the Runelord of Greed, who ruled this land many thousands of years ago. She is also a monster known as a lamia matriarch, a creature of hatred and evil who has the powers of a sorcerer and the strength of a monster.
Your name appears as one of her planned sacrifices. I would be surprised if she did not attack this night and I expect her to make an attempt on your life or on the lives of one of these other people who she has decided to be greedy enough to warrant sacrificing to her lord. While I have great respect for the hellknights martial prowess, I do not know how well equipped they are to fight this type of unnatural threat.