GM Kyshkumen's Carrion Hill

Game Master Kyshkumen

Jeffrey's blade comes down on the dark creeper again, causing a bright flash of light. Everyone but Miko needs to make a DC 13 fort save

Still missed with the attack Vyk so sword is still holding shocking grasp.

Fort: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (5) + 5 = 10 Failed whatever that is.
After the bright flash, Vincent asks the others, "Is it still there? Where'd it go?" He calls upon Gorum to heal his wounds as he searches for a foe.
Basically moving northeast until an enemy blocks his path or takes an AoO against Vincent, at which point he'll attack them back. Also activated Judgment of Healing (fast healing 2)

Power Attack: 1d20 + 9 + 2 - 1 + 20 ⇒ (2) + 9 + 2 - 1 + 20 = 32
Damage: 2d6 + 7 + 3 + 2 ⇒ (2, 1) + 7 + 3 + 2 = 15

hp 27/34

Since you made to move to provoke there is a problem with your strategy. He is currently unable to make AoOs.

Instead of just seeing blackness, Vincent now just sees white. Blind for 1d6 ⇒ 4 rounds.

Fort: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (8) + 2 = 10 Flash of light made Khismia blind, but that hasn't changed much.

Fort: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (16) + 7 = 23

"The heck was that?!"

Fort Save DC 13: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (2) + 6 = 8

Sigh. Blind for 1d6 ⇒ 5 rounds.

"I'll get you next--Yeeow! Who cast the flare?"

Since you made to move to provoke there is a problem with your strategy. He is currently unable to make AoOs.

Instead of just seeing blackness, Vincent now just sees white. Blind for 1d6 rounds.

A fair point. I was alternatively hoping he'd bump into an enemy and maybe locate them based on them blocking his path. Since nothing happened as he moved forward can I change his standard action to "Cast true strike again"?

Another true strike sounds reasonable to me.

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Tuich stumbles through the door, "Vyk where are you? Is this you?" She says as she pats the Teifling on the back. Once she gets confirmation she casts her healing spell.

1d8 + 5 ⇒ (6) + 5 = 11

1d6 ⇒ 5

Oddly the ragmen don't seem to be doing anything.

Everyone is back up.

"Tuich, that you? Be careful we're surrounded."

Vyk turns around and swings at the Ragman behind him, trying to avoid hitting his friend.

Scimitar vs Red: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (10) + 9 = 19
50% Miss (high is good): 1d100 ⇒ 57

Damage: 1d6 + 5 + 5d6 ⇒ (5) + 5 + (4, 1, 2, 2, 2) = 21

Wow. I'm literally more effective while blind. HP 23/38

Vyk's lightning enhanced blade strikes the ragman causing him to convulse for a second before disappearing in a flash of light.

Just one left.

Cool. Is it okay for Vyk to 5-foot-step into the space occupied by the dead Ragamuffin?

Can't really 5 foot when blind, but you still have your move action so you can certainly move into the space.

I'll do it. Seems worth the potential AOO.

Vyk stumbles to the side, hoping one of his friends can step in and help him.

Jeffrey moves straight forward, into the room. He pokes around with his longsword as he does, looking for the last rag creature. "Tell me if I'm poking you, guys. Then I know where not to aim."

Perception: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (11) + 2 = 13

If Jeffrey happens to poke anything that doesn't inform him he/she is an ally, Jeffrey will hack away at it.

Cold Iron Longsword, Tower Shield penalty, IC: 1d20 + 9 - 2 + 2 ⇒ (14) + 9 - 2 + 2 = 23 Damage, IC: 1d8 + 4 + 2 ⇒ (6) + 4 + 2 = 12
Vs concealment (High = good): 1d100 ⇒ 58

Khismia started looking through her possessions in order to find her healing wand.

Standart - take wand of CLW, 5ft north, closer to the darkness

In another bright flash of light the last rag man is reduced to a pile of rags by Jeffrey's sword.

End of combat.

After a minute or so the darkness fades allowing the parties light sources to work again.

"Well that sucked," Jeffrey comments, summarizing his thoughts on the experience.

Jeffrey then proceeds to search the creatures and room for anything of interest.

Perception: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (12) + 2 = 14

"Yeah, no kidding. Those rags packed a mean punch," Vyk said as he handed his healing wand to one of the more divine-magically enabled.

CLW Wand: 1d8 + 1 ⇒ (8) + 1 = 9
CLW Wand: 1d8 + 1 ⇒ (7) + 1 = 8

HP 38/38.

Once he was back in tip-top shape, he joined the others in searching the room.

Perception: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (18) + 5 = 23

Vincent helps Vyk heal up then uses his own wand to heal the initial wound he'd received in the fight.
CLW: 1d8 + 1 ⇒ (1) + 1 = 2
CLW: 1d8 + 1 ⇒ (5) + 1 = 6

He sorts through the remains of the bodies and grumbles with the others, "And then I don't manage to get a single good swing in against them. Not that I'm complaining about a victory in battle, mind you..."

Perception: 1d20 + 11 ⇒ (16) + 11 = 27 checking bodies and looking around the room

Other then their daggers the dark creepers had nothing of interest on them and the room holds nothing but rubble.

"Makes you feel any better, Vin, I didn't hardly get in a good hit neither, and I could actually see them."

Vyk sighs then says, "Don't think there's much else here. Let's move on."

Those three prongs off A11, are they dead ends, or do they go somewhere? It's a little hard to tell.

technically they lead to the under ground labyrinth of tunnels beneath the town, but they were sealed off by iron bars.

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Back up top then. Unless someone has another idea.

The notes say that the five who toiled here believed
the chamber to the north, this “Sunless Grove,” was a site
used by the Old Cults in ancient times to contact entities
of the Dark Tapestry. This group of five, calling themselves the "Keepers of the Oldest," hoped that by opening this portal anew using rituals they found in a book called the Pnakotic Manuscripts they would be able to learn potent secrets of magic and more from those on the far side of the portal.

Now that the party finally has room to breather, Miko ponders what she has learned for a while.

Unless we can find traces of that portal down here, our best shot would be tracing those cultists. Miko offers, Let's get some rest first, though, reading about all these dark secrets has drained me.

Unless of course, we've already found them. One ghoul, three rag men? Did we find any other bodies?

There were two human bodies and it looked like the area the ghoul escaped to was it's way in as the bars had been bent. Jeffrey does have the heads of the two human corpses with him. It is doubtful that the ragmen were the cultist, but since they are all dead and only have rags left behind you have no way of following up on that. There were a lot of clues from the books, I recommend going back and reading through those posts.

Actually, Khismia may ask those bodies some questions, if they are not damaged to point of not speaking

- I can ask those to answer couple questions, - she pointed at ragmen bodies, - but I am not sure, they speak Common and I don't know much languages to speak with them

Jeffrey shrugs. "May as well try, right?"

Let's see. We had the book with spells and rituals, and the list of keeper names. The book seemed to belong to 'keeper Crowe', some wizard of some sort. He might have been one of the corpses. The other one carried magic items, just like the first did, so he might have been a keeper as well.

Miko's face turns to a worried frown: The book was bookmarked to a ritual to open a portal, so that's probably where the slime came from. We've still got three keepers at large, and plenty of dark caves to summon monsters from, I would guess.

These names may help us, that's all I can think of.

So just to recap you were sent to investigate what caused the collapse of the house. From what you have found from the notes it looks like some sort of foul creature was summoned. You also have a list of names of the people responsible along with two heads of what you believe may be part of the responsible party. You can still spend some time studying the book you found on the alter, but you have already been underground for at least 6 hours, don't forget you have local authorities you can report to.

"I think we should head back up and see if the mayor and his staff know anything about these names. Then we can study the books further if we feel that would be helpful at that point." Vincent frowns, thinking carefully.

- Reading this doesn't bring nice feelings, quite contrary, but this seems a way to go for me. Let's speak with mayor and then follow what else do we found. If one of those, - she waived back, - was involved in summoning that creature, other people might be in danger too. It is bad for business, when such beasts appear in the city.

"Okaydokay, let's go."

Jeffrey starts moving back up, eager to do something else than sitting while others are reading books.

Shall we just take the book with us? And cover it up so that nobody sees us carrying it? I'm not very keen seeing this fall into the wrong hands.

Miko nods at Khismia, It's bad for life, when such beasts appear in the city.

"I'll carry it," Vyk says before taking the book and placing it in one of the pockets of his handy haversack.

" Alright, let's go."

As Vyk closes the odd looking book to place in his handy haversack there is a audible click noise. The group then head back up to the ruin building back at the street level. One of the Crows approaches, "Thought you might be dead, you were down there for several hours. Hopefully you found something useful down there."

"The short lady here," Jeffrey says, nodding at Miko, "found a book to read. That's about all for the useful things down there."

"Ohh well we were hoping for a bit more. Should probably check in with the Mayor with what ever you..." The man's words trail off as his attention is drawn to something Jeffrey is carrying. "Are those...human heads?" The man asks as he starts looking at them more closely. "Don't recognize them as Crows. Where did you find these?"

Jeffrey looks down at the heads he's holding. "Oh yeah, these... Forgot about them..."

"We were attacked by some undead and we think they were the ones who started this mess when sill alive. One of our magic gals is going to ask them why the heck they did what they did, and what the heck it actually is they did. Or maybe just the latter, I don't know."

Jeffrey shrugs, then turns to his allies. "To the mayor, or do you first want to do the hocus pocus?"

Miko notices a blush as Jeffrey calls her 'short lady'.

You don't understand a lot about magic, do you? she says to Jeffrey, not sure if she herself understands that much about it. Khismia may need to prepare for her ...uhm... hocus pocus as you call it.

I'm dead tired, really. Let's see if the mayor knows anything, and if not, let's have a rest and study that dark stuff tomorrow. Khismia will have time to prepare as well.

Yes, oracles are spontaneous casters, but what does Miko know?

"Just one second, if you think these heads belong to the people involved with that monster then I have an idea." The guard steps out of the runied home and crosses the street to the fly leaf addicts house.

A few moments later he comes back dragging Tarrig with him. "Look here, do you recognize either of these two faces?" The crow says to the witness as he directs his attention the the severed heads. "Oh how ghastly!" Tarrig says as he tries to look away. The crow turns the mans head back to the severed heads. "Well if you think that's bad then think about what that creature might do to you if it comes back. Now tell these people if you recognize either one of those faces." Tarrig stammers for a bit before pointing to one of the heads. "That's definitely Mr. Marshan, the man who lived here. I recognize those strange googly eyes of his. I have no idea about the other one I swear." He says looking up at the crow. "Can I go now it's been a really bad day and I just want to go hom.." Tarrig is cut off by the crow, "Yeah yeah go back to your fly leaf you've done enough here."

The crow then looks at the group, Well that's one down before you go check in with the Mayor."

"Thanks for the assist. Uh, which way to the Mayor? We're new in town."

Tuich touches Khismia lightly on the arm and asks quietly, "How does that speaking with the dead thing work; does everyone get to hear, or just you? Besides Common I only speak the mother tongue of Varisia, but maybe some of the others...?"

- My prayer invokes some of necromantic powers, making a tiny portion of life to return back to their bodies, but it's just a sparkle, so they may resist the urge to obey and refuse to speak. The most smart of them may answer incorrectly in this case, but they are just a shadow of the former self, so their anger is mostly gone. We can ask each one of them a question.

"Nope," Jeffrey replies to Miko. "No idea how it works and, frankly, I don't even care."

He shows Miko his wand of cure light wounds. "I have this, though. Truth be told, it may be a good idea to figure out how the heck it actually works..."

Jeffrey turns to the other short women. "I speak Common. It gets me around, so I've never seen a reason to learn something else. If people don't understand me, I just talk louder and they start nodding eventually."

The crow nods at Vyk as the others discuss divine magics. "You're going to want to head back up the hill. It's a lot different out there now that word has gotten out about the attack. I'm the only one left here as all the other crows are trying to control all the chaos out there."

Heading back up the hill toward the Mayor's estate the Pathfinders can see just what the crow told them about. What were once empty streets are not bristling with activity as people are loading up wagons or packing their belonging in the driving rain. The Pathfinders even have to take a detour as they run into a mob of people trying to arrange transport from one of the local stables. A few crows are doing their best to maintain order here, but they really have either work cut out for them as tensions are high and fights about who is next are constantly breaking out.

Eventually the Pathfinders find their way through the chaos to the Mayor estate. What few guards remain let the group in, the mayor is still pacing in his office and stops only when he notices the Pathfinders. "Please tell me you know something about what is going on. This city is on the verge of tearing itself apart."

Vincent grins at Jeffrey. "The King's tongue is the best language, after all. Basically everyone important speaks Taldan anyways."

At the mayor's

Vincent grimly replies, "We found some information, yes. The problem may be a bit bigger than just a single monster, but still within our realm of expertise. What's happened while we were investigating?" He hopes that one of the others can explain the specifics better than he can.

Before the Mayor's

Tuich manages to stare at Jeffrey blankly for several seconds, to see if he'll repeat himself more loudly. Then a grin and a giggle escape her, and she puts a hand gently on his arm.

"I'm sorry," she said through one last giggle. "There's... um... different kinds of magic, Jeffrey. And while it comes to some people naturally -- or unnaturally -- others have to study it. I don't blame you for not wanting to go there, it's hard work. But using a wand... there are some tricks I can teach you, to help you sort of fool it into working, if you'd like. It's not really hard, it just takes a while to get down."

She puts her other hand on his upper arm and looks up at him sweetly. "But you don't have to, you know. We 'short girls' can work a wand *cough* and we'll take care of you."

Before:

Jeffrey puts his wand away and turns his ever present big smile at Tuich. "Why would I take forever to study magic to kill things my sword can already kill?"

He shrugs at the Varisian shorty. "But I suppose I wouldn't mind you showing me how you use a wand. Can't be too hard. All I ever see people do, is shake the wand till it does its thing."

At the mayor's:

Jeffrey patiently waits for an answer to Vincent's question, meanwhile smiling widely at the mayor.

"Well as you may have seen on your way back, word has gotten out about the attack and panic has spread with it. As I warned you before this was going to happen and use all our local authorities to keep the city from tearing it's self apart." He looks at the Pathfinders, "I am very grateful to have all of you helping us in this matter. The only thing that we have been able to come up with is that this thing has the ability to hide in plain site. Be it some sort of natural camouflage or magical invisibility. It wouldn't be hard to track if the weather was different, but this down pour is washing away the trail of slime it would normally leave behind." The mayor takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, "I hope you have come up with something more about what it is and where it came from."