The omniscient Living God foresees this alternative fate and circumvents it with a timely ray! It dissolves before ever swinging and the room returns to its placid state.
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Luisila’s counterfeit twin *winks* and blows everyone a kiss before vanishing. The real deal exclaims, “Good job, everyone! How about we keep going into the next room, while the anti-venom and strength buff on Cleaver are still up?”
She does take the time to search the new doorway for traps before proceeding.
Luisila, standing near the personal bar (which isstocked with a large number of foreign spirits, teas, coffees, and whatnot) examines the open doorway. Noticing nothing wrong, peering in the hallway lets her know there's a narrow, single-person-width path to another (this time double) doorway!
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Luisila stops the ‘Living god’ just outside the narrow corridor with an upraised palm. “The spirit may be a tiger. But the vessel is oh, so fragile. Why is that, Sandy?”
“Gozrehan fundamentalists would have us believe tigers are in danger of becoming extinct on Golarion.” She shakes her head. “Seems odd that such a mighty creature can’t even defend itself.”
When Ander signals the door is unlocked, Luisila drinks her antitoxin before *casting* invisibility purge, prayer, blessing of fervor and copycat.
Detecting no traps on the doorway or walkway, the first wave gets to and opens the door with no trouble, though Anders notes that the doors were closed but not warded, as if someone were to already have entered but then close the doors (be it behind them or as if they have already left).
A collection of crates, bookshelves, and various sundries lies scattered throughout this cold vault. Stretched out on a table, several dog-eared papers strain to flutter under the weight of a heavy candelabra. Hundreds of tiny sigils line the inner walls of this sanctum, and they glow, though only to a faint degree.
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Luisila purges invisibility as she follows Ander into the room.
She BoLs the magus as she calls “Found you, Venture-Plumber Kalim! Hiding in the cellar with all the other sewer rats, I see. Istraxis has been captured, Torch has a price on his head and the Spider is dead! Your little scheme is over before it even began. We found VC Dreng and your son still alive at the Black Mask. The Reaper of Reputations will be VERY unhappy with you.”
“Sidri plans to move HIS outhouse business to Korvosa and start an Otyugh farm. I’m quite taken with him. What would you say to a cleric of Calistria becoming the new queen of your empire … Dad?”
As Luisila enters, her aura reveals a man who was invisible! His big, pointy mask pokes past the edge of the roll of cloth, making it plenty obvious. Possible unaware that his hiding place is horrible, he responds attempting to throw from the far corner of the room (a skill at which is he actually pretty capable, comparatively speaking in regard to his stealth).
"So, you're the brains behind Sidri's little outburst. I knew he couldn't figure anything out himself, but I never would have guessed one of the Whore Queen's hive would have been behind it. Maybe I will let you live to succeed me when I die in the golden decades, if this proved interesting enough..."
He motions to begin sneaking around the group, which is inits!
Ander: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (16) + 4 = 20
Lin: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (18) + 3 = 21
Lui: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (19) + 5 = 24
Panf: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (17) + 5 = 22
The In-Law: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (9) + 8 = 17
Varg: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (14) + 2 = 16
Inits!
Luisila, Linnea, Ander, Panfalcon are before him!
Invisi-dad
Varg is last
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"Hey! My friend here," Linnea points at Luisila, "is not merely one of the 'Whore Queen's Hive' - she's really good at it. Or so the graffiti I've seen would suggest..."
Linnea stomps in and quickly unfurls her whip at the double-imaged man, hoping to disarm him of his wicked-dark sword.
...or that is what the spunky young fighting bard meant to do. However, she manages instead to catch the whip on a nearby chair.
"D*MN furniture!"
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Luisila arches an eyebrow at her sister. “Why, thank-you, Lin … I think?”
Luisila weaves 30’ around the crates and barrels, deciding she doesn’t have time to check for cats this time and *casts* dispel magic on Kalim, hoping to *pop* an image.
Luisila says wryly, “For all your invective about the Savored Sting, I spy a large candelabra on the table, Pops. Do you know Ms OursCâlin-Cambrioleur? Or is she a friend of Declan’s? I understand you two used to be very close.”
- Luisila moves around and dispels the Copycat!
- Linnea moves close enough to disarm the man, but instead tangles her weapon in the chair behind her!
- Ander moves up and almost doesn't connect! Thanks to the man being briefly distracted by the seemingly-random chair shifting, Ander barely connects!
- Panfalcon
conjuresevokes scalding beams! -
The man stands after the initial (Varg-less) assault and it finally sinks in that he's in over his head. He begins to pray to Skinsaw, "You win here, Pathfinders, but know that where there's one Spider, there is usually a nest..." He steps north and attempts to cast defensively!
He fails to confuse anyone, but just barely! He attempts to refresh his Copycat as his move action!
And he does!
Inits!
Varg, Luisila, Linnea, Ander, Panfalcon are set up to finish this!
Invisi-dad
- Varg connects with one of the two enemy clerics and successfully takes a sizable chunk of his abdomen! He is dead and is
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If he had one singular point of AC from something else, he'd be alive. What odds.
The man carries only has a few things on his person, masterwork breastplate, short swords (currently under the effects of a CL 10 Greater Magic Weapon), an amulet of natural armor +2, and a metamagic rod (extend) whose uses for the day are expended.
The room still unexplored holds seating for nine around a large table. Several maps of regions both local and exotic suggest this room would make an ideal area for planning important missions and adventures. The door to area C3 (the inner vault) is open The desk holds many notes that should be in a to-do listing: a wedding invitation requesting RSVP that has collected no small amount of dust, a list of leads to investigate in the Coins district, a ledger of agents lucky enough to be selected for "museum guard duty", etc.
~~~
About 15 minutes after the fight, another group makes their way through the front door. A still-one-eared Dreng makes his way to the bar accompanied a very tired honor guard. They do a brief scan while maintaining a defensive circle around the Venture-Captain while he makes his way directly over to the bar. He takes a glass from the table, removes a few chunks of orange peel from his pocket, and drops them in a glass as he fills with one of the whiskeys. The old man promptly downs the drink as quickly as he made it.
After finishing the nightcap, the Venture Captain finally notices the group already inside. "Oh, Linnea! Varg!" He pauses a bit, at male elf, "Jander! Are we clear?" He is monumentally pleased at the news of the successful rescue of the Prospectus!
During the congratulatory offer of drinks from his personal stock, the leader of the guard politely asks Luisila and the gang to leave "for security reasons," which greatly angers the Venture-Captain. He slams his glass on the bar and waggles a finger at the man twice his size, "Excuse me, sir. This team is under my command and is still clearly undertaking a mission of utmost importance. I've confirmed the Prospectus is safe and here's my report of the current status." He pokes at his ear-area and scrawls the phrase "O.K." on a bar napkin. "Take your men and go confirm the Vault wards. My team will confirm everything in order in the outer vaults. We need to make sure none of the books were taken or destroyed." He looks back to the bar, "Or the booze. We have to make sure the entire room is in working order and nothin's trapped."
"Sir, I don't think the booze was a-" the guard speaks, but stops when Dreng leaves the conversation to ask each of the party to join him in the "Staging Room", as he likes to call it. The guard attempts to get his attention again, but Dreng appears to be incapable of hearing him, or at least well-versed at being stubborn about hearing things he doesn't want to hear.
~~~
In the meeting room, Dreng speaks as if this were some kind of mission debriefing. "All of you, you've done excellent. Sidri's back to consciousness and got me up to speed." He paces back and forth in front of his maps. "This Shadow Lodge business is a web that even I can't figure out. It appears taking out the head so many years back clearly wasn't enough. Whether this is some kind of Aspis front, a second coming from Torch, or just the direction someone's using to control folks is beyond me... and we might never figure it out. If that means we've eradicated the threat, though, then I'm pleased as punch."
"Though the 'book and whiskey check,' I'm completely serious about. Some of Sidri's regulars reported a break-in at Sidri's current residence and positively ID'd one of you. As the highest authoritative figure in the Society awake at the moment, I'm the one who gets to decide your punishment for breaking into Society property."
He turns around and looks to the maps. "And I have just the task. For the next 24 hours, you all will stay here and ensure none of my books, bottles, or historical records are trapped. I recommend you all get read and rested up; this library is a compendium of all the information I've gathered over the years and I doubt you'll find anyone with books as rare as his liquor collection."
A knock at the door interrupts the meeting. "Sorry, sir! We've finished our sweep! Confirmed threat, Nordris Kalm. Requesting permission to return to headquarters." Dreng verbally gives them the affirmative. He gives the group a final comment before opening the door to get back to the bar. "And, truly, thank you. I'd be dead if it weren't for you all. I owe you one." He pauses, "Oh, right. You were askin' about Zarta and Ambrus. Well, we don't thunk have any record about Zambrus, as we used to call 'em. He might'a missed something, no promises."
~~~
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Luisila dumps her longbow and efficient quiver in a convenient corner and plonks herself down on a bar stool. “Whiskey. Straight up. With a mead chaser, please VC Dreng. Gotta make sure it's not poisoned, ya know.”
The priestess raises her glass to her companions. “Here’s to all your smiling faces – even yours, Panfalcon.” The spirit’s gone before you can say, ‘Threv.’
Luisila puts down her glass and takes a long pull of mead. “So Candy, the ranger(?) and the big guy were friends of Sidri’s, Venture-Captain? That makes sense in hindsight. I’m glad you didn’t have to hospitalize them, Cleaver.”
The priestess puts down the larger glass and thinks over the problem she has with her high priestess. If a strumpet like Candy is more in favor with Lady Dyrianna than I am, I need to take a long hard look at myself.
“VC Dreng, as a part of the library stocktake, would it be OK to research some of the more divisive issues of my Faith. If I could shed new light on controversies like:
• Is Threv a True Protean or a throw-back Slaad?
• Who were the three dead gods that kneel before the Savored Sting to beg Her Forgiveness every century?
• Did Velvet Wing, the first of the Vendenopterix race spring fully formed from Calistria’s brow? Or was she born of the Lady’s seed in Elysium’s womb?
• Just how friendly is Cayden Cailean with the Unquenchable Fire?
and then give all the credit to my High Priestess, I might have a chance of getting back in her good graces without losing my hide.”
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Panfalcon pours himself some sherry and strolls through the stacks. His well manicured figures dance along the books' spines. The All Powerful then withdraws a tome to glace at the cover.
The Extra-planar and The Inner You.
Panfalcon cradles the book in his hand before congratulating his fellow Pathfinders.
"That was straightforward. No unwanted deaths. All is right in the realm. Well done, minions."
- Dreng has a sizable of verbal talespinning input on the Caydenite interpretation of His divine Purpose, though it has far more fistfights than actual results (which technically counts as "winning the discussion" with "talking points" in the halls of the Drunken Hero.) The other three topics give very strong arguments to any given answer, but such is the way of the plane of Chaos. Dreng asks, though, "So, how is the Lashmistress? Still as fine as I remember, I hope. I bet the couple decades are far kinder to her than to me, though! Heh!"
- Panfalcon's scan quickly finds him at "Chapter 15: Invisible Stalkers."
- Varg picks finds the heftiest, most picture-articulated picture of thrilling hunts into the Mwangi and further south into Garund. Alas, the series ends as the writer tells that his next installment would depict the fauna of Arcadia.
- Linnea briefs herself with the lore of the more recent Pathfinder Chronicles, many of which are pre-editorial stage and more informative (and misspelled) than most. Dreng asks her and Luisila to refrain from bothering "that chubby kid Zey's sending down here while he's rejiggering the beasts in the doors and everything. After, though, is fair game. He's getting paid in book access as well."
- While most of the temporary Master of Scrolls' books pertain to the usage of magic items, he also has an extensive collection of data learned from studying the few artifacts collected by the Society.
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Luisila rises from her stool to curtsey at mention of her high priestess. “Lady Dyrianna certainly never need partake of the sun orchid elixir and remains as fine as a stiletto, Venture-Captain Dreng. I will give her your compliments when next I have the pleasure of waiting on her.”
At mention of a ‘chubby kid’ coming to do some research in Dreng’s vault, Luisila exchanges looks with Linnea. “Are you thinking that might be who I’m thinking, Lin?”