GM BPC's Deepmarket Deception PbP (Inactive)

Game Master Black Powder Chocobo

Wyeth slides the pan back under the bed, then sidles over to Gob. "There's not enough bedpans in this entire hamlet for how deep it's getting in here," he opines under his breath.

Sense Motive: 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (2) + 1 = 3
When the sheriff identifies the maker of the dolls, Benson brightens. "Yes sir. Strangely out of place, so we figure they took it from someone. Where may we find her? The craftsmanship is excellent. I would love to see some of her other creations."

Ignoring Wyeth and Gob's side conversation, the Sheriff answers Benson's question. "Don't know. Every month, she goes into Alkenstar to send letters to her family. Amenira's been there a might long time; I would've thought she'd be back by now. I thought maybe she decided to go back to city life was just being rude and not stopping by and saying goodbye first. Now, I'm not so sure... it's been two months now since she last left."

He looks over his shoulder towards the painted house. "That place was her's. Painted it herself while she stayed here. She's not a proper one of us, but she's nice enough, followed the rules, and made those good toys for the children."

He looks down, sharing his thoughts with his body language. "... well, used to I guess."

With a sigh, the Sheriff stops slumping against the wall and tips his hat. "Well, if you folks don't got anything else to ask, I reckon I better make my rounds while you get yourselves comfortable. I wouldn't go to far as curfew's coming quickly."

Last question time, otherwise, start planning on what you want to do and when.

Wyeth raises one eyebrow and he turns to look out the window at the orange house.

"So the place is empty at present?"

"That would be correct. Although if you want to look through the place, I'd prefer to be there with you. Amenira wasn't one of us, but she's good folk and I don't know the lot of you; no offense."

-Posted with Wayfinder

Wyeth nods. "None taken. Is hers the only painted home in the township? And does she own it, or was she renting, or was there some other arrangement?"

Aspex also ignores the side conversation; she nods and puts the doll away. "We will need to look through her home once the curfew is over and we can move around town again."

Sorry for the lack of a real update; some training I had today to far longer than expected. I'll have something tomorrow!

The sheriff nods at Wyeth's statement. "Ayup. Was her little way of trying to fit in somewhat. The townfolk found it sort of inspiring she was trying a lot harder than most outsiders to be among us."

Looking at the darkening sky, Molune stands up straight again. "Well, you get yourselves comfortable and get a good night's rest. Curfew will begin shortly." The sheriff then closes the door and the sounds of his footsteps walking away are prominent in the quiet evening. In only a few minutes, a trio of bells ring from the center of town.

RP or note any preparations you wish to do for tomorrow, including unique spells prepared.

While the party is awake and starts their morning routine, a trio of bells ring out, ensuring that anyone sleeping is now awake from the echoing clangs. There is a sound of scampering footsteps leaving near the front of the door.

When the evening bells rang, Marduk sat in slight absence of thought.
Thinking over the possibility of the rumors of vampires in these parts to be true, he wondered if he would be effective at all.
Vampires liked to get up close for a nibble after all.

"Well, as long as we don't let any weird people in, we'll be fine. Good night everybody."

------Cue night passing------

In the morning, Marduk woke up relatively early and decided to do some stretching exercises.

"Good morning.", to the 1st and following to arrive.

"Did everybody sleep we....wait, did you hear that?"

"Probably just a guard at the door to ensure we followed curfew." Gob replies as Marduk points out the foot steps near the door. "Did anyone else come to the conclusion that Amenaria could have been one of those gnolls we saw on the road? She did mention some sort of illness, perhaps she was slowly mutating."

"There's way too much that's off about all this," Wyeth says with a frown shortly after Molune leaves. "The obviously false god, almost cultish behavior... if the tree protects them so well then why is the sheriff such a stickler about weapons? And curfews? What don't they want us to see? Even the house, why would she paint it... I mean... the only one in town like that, really?"

He peers out the window thoughtfully. "I think we should check her place. I'd rather do it without a chaperone, but I guess we take what we can get, at least at first. If something doesn't seem right we can always go back, and we'll know what we want to focus on." He pauses to tap his chin. "That paint job... I wonder if there could be some significance to that. Some sort of magic barrier, maybe?"

He shakes his head. "Like I said, way too much stuff that's just not right."

I take it we're not going to try any skullduggery tonight?

In the morning, Wyeth ponders Gob's question. "I hadn't considered it, but who knows what could happen out here in the mana wastes. Good out-of-the-box thinking, Gob. Even though I hope you're wrong!"

His brow furrows in thought. "There weren't any wood shavings in the cave, were there?"

Before they had gone to sleep but after the sheriff left, Aspex shared her observations with the group.

"First, the tree... all of the plants of Mercy are exceptionally healthy, which is odd given the harsh climate of this area. Further, they are growing crops out of season, have mismatched plants growing together that should not yield good results, and have fruits and vegetables that require a lot of pollination thrive in an area that lacks bees regionally. Very odd."

"Second, their thatched cottages are not suitable for surviving the horrors of the mana storms I have read about."

-----
Aspex nods slowly at Gob. "From what I have read, the mana wastes can have strange effects on people. Entirely changing species is a much more spectacular effect than what I have read about, though."

@Wyeth: You do not recall any wood shavings in the cave.

Gob shrugs at all the paranoia regarding the locals. "Some people just like privacy. It they aren't hurting anyone I see no reason to pry into their business. Let's focus on what we are here for and if that leads us to finding out what the locals are up to then we can cross that bridge."

Benson rests up after the trials of the trip. Once the sheriff, leaves, he does a little out loud thinking. "We will obviously want to look her house over. No need to ruffle feathers right away, so we might as well let the sheriff gives us to tour and see what's there. If there was foul play that did her in, I doubt they would leave her house unoccupied."

He pulls out the letter and jots some notes in his notebook, occasionally making a few counts on his fingers.

"It's now the month of Calistril. According to the sheriff, Amenira was last seen two months ago, so that would be Kuthona. The letter is dated Lamashan, which is two months before that. According to the letter she had been in Mercy for six months, which would put her arrive in Gozran of last year."

He stares at the notes. "The sheriff said she sent a letter every month. But if so, she would have sent another letter in Neth. So either she left town and didn't mail a letter or the Sheriff is lying about when she was last seen. I guess we can ask around and see if others give the same account."

Benson reads back over the letter from Amenira. "She mentions a feud between craftsmen: carpenters and blacksmiths. I wonder why she found that worth mentioning. Then there's this business of infiltrating the weaver's home. Follows that comment with mention of an ointment. Perhaps that was to treat her illness. The illness might have taken her while traveling to Alkenstar, which might explain the dolls."

"We'll need a story about why we're in town. Anybody got any ideas? We could use the idea of scouting for trade goods like we did back in Mendev. That's a hard one to check and gives us a good excuse to ask after the odd produce of the town and the crafted items. We could tell the truth that we are Pathfinders, sent to find out why the storm did not take out the town, which is the truth, but it might put people on guard if they are hiding something like an artifact."

"Those are all good points, Benson... But I see no reason for obfuscation... The truth is always preferable to some fabrication. However I will leave it to the majority to make such a decision."

"Mine's easy and not a lie. I'm on a quest in pursuit of knowledge and self perfection, but Benson's general story of scouting for trade is as good as any.
While it might not be the 'main' goal to visit the place, it can be an aspect of it, thereby we'd not be lying technically."

Wyeth turns from the window to look at Benson. "Given a deluded society that worships a tree, one has to wonder at the existence of carpenters at all."

"As to 'stories' I'll defer to your judgment, Benson. Though I'm not sure why we can't just tell the truth -- the other truth you didn't mention -- that we're here investigating Amenira's disappearance."

"And Gob, I agree with you in principle, but there's something odd here... maybe lots of somethings odd. We don't know what might be connected with Amenira. We need to keep eyes and minds open to everything."

He turns to look out the window again. "Including curfews and cults and false gods. Something's wrong here."

Aspex nods at Wyeth. "I am very interested in how they came to worship a tree, especially if that tree is somehow able to protect them from the mana storms."

She glances at Benson. "I think the problem with telling them the truth is that they and their false god may have had something to do with her disappearance. Then again, they may not, and not being able to openly ask about her whereabouts may hamstring our efforts. Either way we face a risk."

When Wyeth looks out the window, he sees several townsfolk milling about. One oddity is that he sees several people wearing wooden armor and thick gloves heading out the gate and towards the cashew groves they party walked past on their way to town.

He also spies that the box near their door has been filled with a couple jugs of white liquid, homemade bread, raw carrots and celery, berries, and cashews, as well as a jug of water.

Keep it up, this is interesting to see :) I'll wait another day until some sort of consensus on how the exploration is to occur: by whom, and if there will be party splitting. Otherwise, I'll at least head towards the painted house as that's the one thing that everyone seems to agree on exploring.

Wyeth points at the window. "Scouting party or something headed out of town; take a look. Must be expecting trouble, they're armored up a little."

A puzzled look crosses his face. "Except why heavy gloves and no weaponry?" He turns to look at Marduk. "Is there some monk sect that wears gloves to protect innocents from their deadly weapon hands or something?"

He turns to look out the window again. "Also, breakfast is served."

Benson shrugged. "If we tell them we're looking for Amenira, they might wonder why we didn't say that when we first found out the dolls were hers, although only the sheriff would know that. But that might not be a problem. If they really did have no hard feelings about her, then they might help us look for her. Hard to say with a group so odd. Why don't we play it by ear and just be vague about why we're here. We can say we're Pathfinders doing what Pathfinders do, "Explore, Report, Cooperate." We can spend the day shopping, chatting, and seeing what we can learn. We can offer to try to find out what happened to Amenira, if we find enough people who speak well of her and nobody seems to clam up at the mention of her. Eventually, of course we should break curfew and see if we can find out what goes on at night."

Let's just ask around about finding out what happened to her and see how they respond. See if anyone offers information suggesting she was sick.

"Is there some monk sect that wears gloves to protect innocents from their deadly weapon hands or something?"

Mrduk shrugs. "Not that i've ever heard of. Self protection of anything out to bite them in the hands, sounds more likely."

Ooh, I actually have a pertinent random fact about cashew harvesting! Let's see if Aspex might know.

Kn:Nature: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (9) + 8 = 17 Yeah, probably. I can delete this if this isn't true for Golarion cashews or if a 17 isn't good enough to know it, DM.

Aspex looks in the direction of the patrol. After a moment's consideration she says "Cashews are actually somewhat dangerous to harvest. Their shells are acidic. That's likely why they have the gloves."

It's so close, I'll give it to you :)

Aspex recalls a truthful fact about cashews according to the scenario, caustic enough to burn flesh! which explains the strange gear.

Last chance for any input on what to ask, where to ask, or where to look!

"Well, nuts," says Wyeth. "I guess I'm swearing off cashews."

Sounds like at least some of us are going to her house (with supervision). Are others just going to "mingle" to see what they pick up?

Gob is going to check out the house with the local law.

To keep things simple, let's be truthful that our mission is first and foremost to locate Amenira. Probably if we find that out we'll also find out other leads that might connect to our secondary mission, which we should not tell them about, to find out what keeps the city safe from mana storms. Let's all visit the house first and then do general information gathering. If we need to split up for efficiency, let's send whoever has the best perception to the house and the best diplomacy to gather info.

Well, I dunno where Wyeth falls on those scales, so if it's needed: Diplo +6, Percep +9.

Hakime has +7 diplo, +10 perc... so she will go where she can do the most good for the party.

-2 diplomacy. +6 perception.
I know what i'd go for. ;)

Aspex definitely wants to check out Amenira's house. Plus her Diplo is nonexistent. She's been missing for a while, so it's not like we're under a time crunch. We should have time for everybody to check out the house.

Diplomacy +1, Perception 0

It sounds like the general view is everyone is going to check out the house, and with Sheriff Molune supervising.

It takes about 15 minute to spot Sheriff Molune as he's making his rounds across the village. Making their request, he nods approvingly. "Can't see any harm in that.", he explains as he leads the party over to Amenira's home. No check needed as you got him to friendly yesterday and you are asking nicely for permission :)

The well-kept wooden building, painted in festive shades of orange, is the only painted structure in Mercy. A pair of cashew trees flank its front entrance. Molune opens the door, and a mess of workbenches, tools, toys, and dolls in various stages of completion.

The majority of the dolls bear the markings of the same face; in fact, the faces are the same as they are for the dolls.

Near the toymaking workbench is a desk that has a journal and a spellbook!

Also inside the desk are a scroll of make whole and a jar of defoliant polish.

Perception, DC 15: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (15) + 2 = 17
Linguistics, DC 12: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (14) + 8 = 22
Perception, DC 11: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (20) + 2 = 22
Perception, DC 23: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (1) + 2 = 3 Not that she can hit 23, regardless, but I might as well roll. ...hahaha.

"She left in a hurry. Her adventuring gear was gathered rather hastily." She nods at the bed. "Even her bed is unmade."

Aspex lingers over the journal and spellbook. Not wanting to share Amenira's observations in front of the sheriff, after a few moments she says "It will take some time to decipher her notes." She glances at the sheriff. "Do you mind if we take these to the guest house to investigate further?"

@Aspex: I'll need a Diplomacy check for that (or taking anything else for that matter), although he's friendly so it's not terrible. Someone else can chip in, too :)

perception dc 15: 1d20 + 10 ⇒ (16) + 10 = 26

perception dc 15: 1d20 + 10 ⇒ (8) + 10 = 18

perception dc 11: 1d20 + 10 ⇒ (7) + 10 = 17

perception dc 23: 1d20 + 10 ⇒ (17) + 10 = 27

Hakime makes note of the journal page and nods to the sheriff. "There is much to read here, and we hate to take up your time to sit here and study her journal in depth. It would be a great favor if you would allow us to study it back in our assigned quarters, where we can take the requisite time and effort to read it more thoroughly."

diplomacy: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (16) + 7 = 23

As she examines the bed and notes the slightly rumpled condition and the small indentation... she says, "Someone small has been sleeping here..." SHe turns to the sheriff and asks, "Are there any children in town who might have come here? perhaps for a new doll, or a one to be repaired? any missing children?"

Then she tilts her head to one side, as if noticing some slight sound or scent and drops to her knees... she looks under the bed. "Hello? what's this? Hi sweetie. Are you hiding from us? Who are you? Come out, my dear, no one will harm you." She holds out her hand.

Noting details, does the child bear any resemblance to Amenira - hair and eye color perhaps? just curious.

perception to compare the child to Amenira: 1d20 + 10 ⇒ (15) + 10 = 25

@Hakime: You haven't seen Amenira in person, but as your keen eyes focus in on the child, you realize that it is a doll, one shaped and designed like the others. It clutches a bound, crumpled scroll. Locking eyes with Hakime, the doll then speaks with a soft voice. "I am Nira. I do not know you. You are not from Mercy. You find Mercy. Will you find murder?"

"What in tar-nations was that?", a bewildered Molune calls out.

Perception DC 15: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (5) + 9 = 14
Perception DC 15: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (12) + 9 = 21
Perception DC 11: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (18) + 9 = 27
Perception DC 23: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (10) + 9 = 19

Wyeth frowns as he reads one of the journal pages over Aspex's shoulder, but says nothing.

An eyebrow goes up when Hakime discovers the hidden occupant, and arches even higher when the new voice speaks. He drops to one knee and bends to look under the bed, then glances at the sheriff but decides his best option is to stay quiet.

And this is why having a chaperone along is A Bad Idea.

"Mind if I take a look at that." Gob says as he relieves Aspex of the spell book. The half-orc is fully engrossed in the spell book when the sheriff calls out. "What about what?" Gob says as he looks up from his spell book.

That, dear sheriff, is why dolls are a thing of horror themes.

"That was a talking doll, obviously.", Marduk replies with his calm demeanor. "However it's a first for me to see one."

"A talking doll you say?" Gob kneels down to take a look.

Know stuff: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (16) + 9 = 25

Gob hands the spell book back to Aspex and taps a page.

Most of these are probably covered by others, but I'd like to see what Benson notices independent of the others. Then I'll read the posts in order.

Perception: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (16) + 4 = 20
Linguistics: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (16) + 4 = 20
Perception: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (19) + 4 = 23
Perception: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (2) + 4 = 6

Benson glances at her notes and adds, "I'd like to copy some of these statements into my notebook. When we were talking last night, we remembered there was a Pathfinder named Amenira who was in the area a number of months ago. Probably not a coincidence that two people would have the same name, so we'd like to do what we can to locate her. Perhaps these notes will help."

Diplomacy: 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (4) + 1 = 5 Perhaps the events involving the location of the child happened close to this point and the sheriff missed Benson's polite request.

Who all could hear the child's last statement, the one mentioning murder? Is there a roll needed to hear it if one is not as close as Hakime was?

Perception: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (7) + 4 = 11

Hmm. The DC to hear a whispered conversation is 15. To hear a normal conversation is DC 0.

As everyone peeks under the bed, the animate doll backs up ever so much, a curious fear in its eyes as it looks at Hakime pleadingly.

@Gob: That is either the tiniest, cutest golem you've come across or a soulbound doll

The sheriff looks down with the others, surprised at what he sees. "I admit I've seen a few strange things out here in the wastes, but this sure is something."

I'd still like to know if Benson could understand what the doll said.

Benson tries to distract the sheriff with a bluff. "Aminira had a reputation for having a way with little mechanical dolls. At first glance they could fool you into thinking they're real--at least that's what I heard. This is nothing compared to what I've witnessed. One time, I touched this giant statue and my consciousness went into the Goliath warrior statue and I went out and fought a similarly huge ape with four arms!" Benson will keep up with the story if the sheriff seems distracted.

Bluff: 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (14) + 1 = 15

"Relieves Aspex of the spellbook" = no. She's not going to let someone take a spellbook out of her hands while she's reading it. I'd be fine with reading it together as it sits on the table, but Gob taking it from her to read on his own isn't going to fly.

Aspex looks over at the bed but stays by the table where she was reading the books. "You might want to give it some space to come out."

I'll say barely; the voice is soft, but everyone's attention was grabbed by Hakime's prompting.

"Now, that'd be might strange since she never made any mechanical dolls during her stay here. Always carved them out of wood." You get the feeling he doesn't buy your explanation Benson.

Giving the doll some space or doing anything else to try and coax it out from under the bed?

Sorry if my role play was a bit distracting. Seemed appropriate since everyone one else was focused on the journal and Gob would find the spell book more interesting. My apologies, but you really should look at that spoiler I left you.