Devil We Know, Part 3: Crypt of Fools (PFS) T1-2 (Inactive)

Game Master Mari Clock

Blayne barrels through the steam at Gwen's heels before turning right to go after the thug attacking the gnome. He quickly navigates through the room and attacks with his rapier.

Attack: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (2) + 2 = 4

Swinging somewhat wildly and missing, he shouts loudly into the yellow thugs face to see if he can distract him.

I forget about reach. It would have.

Sweeeet! =)

Nev
Gwendolen
Red Thug
Blue Thug9 dmg
Zinkyudo
Blayne
Yellow Thug
Tashiela

Yellow thug will swing his club: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (5) + 3 = 8 at Blayne but apparently his shouting distraction worked.

Nev and Gwen are up. Two thugs still sand.

Gwen thrusts at the bandit in front of her, aiming for a killing blow.

1d20 + 4 ⇒ (2) + 4 = 6
2d4 + 6 ⇒ (3, 3) + 6 = 12

But her bloodlust causes her to overextend and miss solidly.

Nev takes another shot at the thug in front of him.

Pistol: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (19) + 8 = 27
Damage: 1d8 ⇒ 5

Blue Thug is down! zink and Blayne can take out Yellow Thug before he has a chance to do anything, maybe.

Attack: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (1) + 2 = 3

Blayne flourishes his rapier shouting "Nice shot Nev!" before lunging forward and missing badly. Fumble effect?

Zinkyudo steps forward along the walkway to get a clearer shot, then lets an arrow fly at the last remaining thug.

Longbow attack, PBS: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (13) + 9 = 22
Longbow damage, PBS: 1d8 + 4 ⇒ (1) + 4 = 5

No fumbles in PFS.

Thug Yellow takes an arrow to the knee by zink, then swings at Blayne. 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (18) + 3 = 21 for 1d6 + 2 ⇒ (6) + 2 = 8 points of damage.

Nev runs to the wall near the empty display area and takes a shot at the still-living thug.

Pistol: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (9) + 8 = 17

Damage: 1d8 ⇒ 6

Okay, he's not up anymore! Yay!
Now you can go talk with Queck.

Is anyone going to talk to Queck? or are you going to just leave? Or?

A little description of what's going on would be helpful. I didn't know if the gnome was conscious, and I certainly didn't know his name was Queck.

Zinkyudo clambers down the ladder, calling out, "Is the little fellow okay?" As he gets to the lower level, he moves across the floor quickly and asks the gnome, "Hey! What did those guys want with you? And are all the contraptions here safe?" He pauses and adds, "I'm Zinkyudo, by the way. We're from the Pathfinder Society."

Gwen follows up as Zinky gets in the first word. "Aye. They seem to be quite interested in either knowing what you know or making sure no one else does. Who are you that you are so important so as to draw such fine crowds?"

I apologize for not specifying the Gnome's name was Queck earlier. Forget I asked if you are going to talk to the gnome, once the last adversary was down, what would you have done? I ws waiting ffor anything.

Sorry if that came across as snippy. That was not my intent at all, but tre-reading it now, it sure sounds that way. I would have talked to the gnome once we took care of the baddies, as well as trying to talk to their leader if she's not dead. So let's jut continue as posted, if that's okay.

<hug> Okay. I had a bad week at work. My apologies.

My name is Queck Majet. I'm an engineer here in this place. About an hour ago, these thugs came in and took my six best engineers! The ones that were the most knowledgeable of ancient Cassomir construction!

She looks around furiously, They ransacked the place and stole the ancient city plans!

Still more angry, I overheard that woman telling the cultist who led
the kidnapped engineers away that she was staying behind to find out if we knew anything else about the Crypt of Fools and the tunnels. She then said, ‘Tell Dalirio he can have these.’ What did she mean by that?

No worries, life does continue to happen, doesn't it?

"Curse it!" Zinkyudo cries, "They're a step ahead of us! We came here to find those same plans, though we had no intention of kidnapping your engineers. We're trying to find the Crypt of Fools as well, do you know anything about it? And I can't guess what she meant about giving anything to Dalirio. He's dead."

I know the Crypt of Fools is a secret graveyard, long fallen from use, where traitorous families were buried, or in some cases re-buried, to scrub their stain from Taldan history.

Thinking hard, to recall as much as she can, The entrance lies under an ancient fountain hidden somewhere below Old Cassomir, though the knowledge of its exact location was lost some time ago and finding it presents a bit of a problem. A legend among engineers tells of a series of hidden clues within three Cassomir monuments. These clues yield three locations which, when triangulated, give the location of the surface entrance to the Crypt of Fools; they also show the combination required to unlock the entrance. Look for old buildings built by the Ismacco family, whom we’ve long suspected used the Crypt of Fools as the base of their heinous operations after it fell from use.

Gwen is stunned that they seem to have failed before they started!

"Confound it, man! Can you give us any more detailed leads than some hyper-convoluted riddle pointing to ancient buildings and crime families? Can you at least recount the whole legend, or are we to traipse about the whole of the city looking at ancient monu--Ehgad! The insane cultist! He asked about some marking on the statue! Is that the first one?
Might it be that the cultist already knows? Why would he be interested in one such marking unless he had knowledge of another two?

What think you, Zinky?"

"We should head over to the statue, and work from there, or maybe ask the cultists here about it."

"But we've already seen the statue, and it told us nothing," Zinkyudo responds. Turning to Queck, he asks, "Do you know the location of these buildings built by the Iscmacco family? If that's the only way to find the Crypt of Fools, we'll give it a shot!"

Mari - we don't have any previous information about these buildings, right? I don't recall any, and I don't have time right now to do a dig through the thread.

Did you buy the paintings from the painter? If you did, try showing them to Queck, with the Statue, they will be your guide.

"Gwen, that's brilliant. The mad painter probably knows what were after, and he's still charmed! "

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Gwen sighs heavily.

"Methinks that if we had some of those worthless scrawlings by the insane cultists, perhaps Queck here would be able to make more sense of them than we had. What say you all? Up for a slight retracings of steps? Queck, can you but maintain your presence here anon so we may get clues from the insane?

"That seems like a good idea, " Zinkyudo offers, "though I didn't really think his paintings were much good. " He marches back across town with his companions to the prison, to acquire the madman's doodlings.

"I don't know, for a mad guy in a cell I thought he had a great appreciation for churioscuro. "

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When you show Queck the paintings, she confirms that they are the statue, the Imperial Hall of Records, and the Quickfall Abbey, and tells you that they are all Ismacco designs.

Referring to the map of Cassomir, Queck is able to point out on the map:
1: Swift Prison
2: Hall of Wonders (where you are now)
3: Imperial Hall of Records
4: Quickfall Abbey

If you attempt to convince the thugs to give you any information, they won't. You threaten them with prison or death, and they just don't care. You go back to the statue...

Zinkyudo gives Blayne a sidelong glance, muttering something about, "What's churioscuro? Sounds like some sort of Taldan steak sauce. Knowing the Caydenites, though, it's probably some weird kind of liquor made from rotten darkwood roots."

Turning to Queck and the map, he says more clearly, "Well, it looks like the Hall of Records is pretty close by, and then Quickfall Abbey isn't far from that. Let's start with the Hall of Records, and hope we get there before any cultists who might be on the same goose chase we are."

You travel to Cassomir’s Imperial Hall of Records. You are able to connect the glowing bas-relief at the southwest corner of the building in the painting to the actual bas-relief present at that location.

Perceptions
Blayne: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (7) + 3 = 10
Zinkyudo: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (18) + 9 = 27
Gwendolen: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (11) + 4 = 15
Nev: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (16) + 6 = 22

"Well, we've found a letter "I", like in the first painting," Zinkyudo comments. "Wonder if there's anything else to see around here or if this is supposed to tell us something important?"

He looks to the others for their opinions on the matter, then suggests they visit Quickfall Abbey if there's nothing else to see here.

Is that it for this spot, Mari?

Reminder

I remembered that, I just didn't know if we were supposed to find additional info at this building or not. Though I will admit I'm a little puzzled by the puzzle. Each one is supposed to point us to a different location, and then we'll triangulate these new locations to find a final location? If so, I don't know what the 'I' points us to, unless it's the 'I' hidden on the foot of the first statue.

I'm sorry. Doing two tables of the same game is getting confusing on me, I keep mixing up where each of you are. I left out a key line, my apologies. I tried putting all my game notes into the same document. That was a *bad* idea. I've modified that today so that all notes are in different documents. Please forgive me.

You notice that there is a secret compartment under where the "I" is located.

Ah, that's helpful. And I feel less dense. :)

"Look, a secret compartment, " Zinkyudo says. Before opening it, he studies it carefully for traps or any other surprises.

Not sure if the earlier Perception roll can be applied here or not, so:

Perception: 1d20 + 10 ⇒ (8) + 10 = 18

You already noticed there is a compartment, you now need to figure out how to open it.

In the picture you are seeing, Aroden attempts to soothe children in the picture with music and the notes for that song are shown above him in the painting.

"Can anyone play this tune? I'll bet if we could play this the door would open. "

Blayne will try to whistle the tune, but since he has no ranks in perform and can't read music... :)

Perform: 1d20 ⇒ 20

and of course I get a 20...and I get +2 for charisma

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You whistle the correct tune and the compartment opens. You find a piece of parchment with an image on it.

I will share the image with you when you find all of them, if that is okay.

One of the paintings represents the northeastern retaining wall that shores up some of the ruined towers of the ancient Quickfall Abbey. You connect the doorway in the painting to that actual location along the northeast wall.

I automatically make the Perception check.

"There's another 'I' carved into the wall here," Zinkyudo offers, pointing it out. "And the painting seems to suggest smashing a doorway. Does that mean we smash our way into Quickfall Abbey? Seems like that would not go over very well. Anyone have a different approach to suggest, or should we smash away?"

Perhaps we do not need to smash the whole wall? Maybe if we just break open a small square around the I, we will find the next scrap of map?

Gwen studies the wall, seeing how much force it would take to remove the stone the I is carved in to.

perception: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (18) + 4 = 22

It doesn't look to you like you have to do much damage.

"Methinks that we can make a small enough hole to not bother the Abbey overmuch. Seeing how great the need is, let us be about this business and I shall make amends in Prayer later."

Using the pommel of her dagger, Gwen starts working on the area at the I, trying to crush the stone to get to whatever is behind it.

Make an attack or strength roll, please?

As Gwen gives the wall a good knock, Zinkyudo assists, pointing out what appear to be weak spots or banging on the wall as well, whatever seems most useful. Unfortunately, he stumbles and ends up banging into Gwen, making things harder if anything.

Str check to Aid: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (1) + 2 = 3

Nev narrows his eyes, and then smiles. "Gwen, I've got an idea, but you'll have to duck."

Righteous fury envelops Gwen as she pays Nev's quite reasonable suggestion no heed. She takes a step back, takes a firm grip on her weapon, and launches a firm stab at what she believes is the weakest point.

attack: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (11) + 5 = 16
damage: 2d4 + 6 ⇒ (2, 3) + 6 = 11

You open a compartment, and inside is a piece of parchment with a symbol drawn on it.

This is the second one, assuming you go back to the statue now.

You notice that there is a secret compartment inside the statue’s left foot, just beneath the Ismacco family symbol (the letter “I” you found earlier).

You know that the painting represents Aroden (the lone figure) using a divine power with his holy symbol.

"Hmmm, we've visited all the buildings built by the Ismacco family," Zinkyudo comments, "but I'm not sure where that leaves us."

Mari - do we have all the pieces of the image yet? Is there some obvious next step I'm missing?

You didn't come back to the statue and do the thing you needed to open the compartment, did you?