Reigan pulls out his wand of Cure Light Wounds and says the special word, hoping to activate it.
As he tries, the wand merely spits out a cloud of grey smoke and he purses his lips. "Uhh... This might not be a great plan." he says, unsure of what to do, though he stays back.
Gerard double moves across the north, getting behind Grimmir, so that he might be able to cast Bear's Endurance next round.
*Ribbit Ribbit* The Ribbiting continues.
Grinner starts summoning using Summon Nature's Ally IV.
Grimnir channels his connection with the stone, calling upon its power to bypass some of the creature's defenses.
Terry moves into a flank with Grimnir and lashes out as best he can.
Swift action to add +1 to weapon using arcane pool.
+14/1d6+10 Rapier [crit 18-20/x2/+2; P) , weapon is good.
Hasted attack
Extra Attack
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Terry is able to land a single blow as his rapier slides through the thick coagulated blood. Though it resists a small bit of the damage.
Reigan pulls out a wand and and tries to activate the magic within, though the sight of such a creature has his nerves on end and fumbles the activation process.
Grimnir fails to connect with his Dorn Derger as he just manages to splash small pools of blood about the room.
Gerard moves behind Grimnir to try and help the dwarf with a bit of his magic.
Grinner continues to chant as he begins to summon an ally to the cause.
The Blood Golem turns its attention to Terry as he visibly wounded the golem.
The Blood Golem can't seem to get a hold of Terry as well. Some supernatural force seems to limit its natural luck and lethality.
Haste
Bless
Gerard
Grinner
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Dreamspawn Blood Golem (-9; Misfortune)
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Terry
Reigan
Grimnir
His spells useless and well protected by the misfortune, he pounds on the bloody mess some more
+15/1d6+10 Rapier [crit 18-20/x2/+2; P) , weapon is good.
"I think I'm getting the hang of this. Just forget all the fancy stuff and swing hard!"
Gerard moves into position behind the dwarf and casts Bear's Endurance on him, steeling him to absorb even more punishment, should it come to that.
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Reigan stays near the back of the fight in order to minimize his chances of being squished by the fearsome golem as he realizes that his bolts are useless.
Grinner finishes his spell and a Medium Earth Elemental appears.
*Ribbit* *Ribbit* Grinner continues to ribbit with all his might.
The Earth Elemental attacks!
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Terry is able to get another pair of small nicks into the Blood Golem's mass as the coagulated blood oozes all along its body.
Reigan stays clear as he attempts to stay out of sight from the fearsome creature.
Gerard moves behind Grimnir and makes the dwarf's body far more sturdier than it once was.
Grinner continues to chant the song of his people as the earth elemental proves ineffective against the Blood Golem as it is just too slow.
Haste
Bless
Gerard
Grinner
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Dreamspawn Blood Golem (24; Misfortune)
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Terry
Reigan
Grimnir (+14 hp)
Having failed to strike the construct thus far, Grimnir bellows and swings his weapon again, multiple times.
His elemental also does what it can.
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The misfortunate golem shudders for a moment as Grimnir's flail connects over and over again. The golem erupts in a spray of blood that covers the room as the Golem returns to nothing more than a puddle of blood within.
After the blood golem’s defeat, Asnaan peeks out from his hiding spot and begins to stammer. "Frell Tann pillaged a magic book and key from the wreckage left behind after an occult ceremony where the cult betrayed and exiled some of their own members. Frell bartered the mithral key for shiver, which he shared with his friends in Fever Dream Alley (the key made it back to Myra through Greeley), and that night died in the Rook’s Roost, so we disposed of his body in the hog pen."
"When the cult learned of the missing book and threatened to withhold payment to Barvasi, he realized its importance and sought to leverage the tome. Soon dangerous entities appeared in gang members’ lucid dreams seeking the book, forcing both the cult and the gang into hiding."
"After your defeat of the cult and their inquiries into his gang, Barvasi became frightened he was their next target and sold the book to the Winding Way. This bloodbath followed soon after. If you wish to pursue those responsible,” notes Asnaan, bowing and motioning
toward the macabre lucid dreaming apparatus, “I offer my services to you.” Asnaan gives a detailed description of what the book looks like. “Now, we have grim work ahead,” he says, as his men draw knives to dismember the corpses and prepare to feed the hogs.
Terry's head is spinning after that explanation.
"Let's keep this simple. Frell had the book and key and sold it to the cult, then was murdered. The cult botched things and had a schism. In the mess Barvasi stole them from the cult. Then we murdered the cult. Barvosi sold the book to the Winding way and then was murdered. The Winding Way has the book but not the key and the cult splinter is still out there looking for the book and murdering anyone who has it."
"Is that the gist of it, adding in the observations that this cult splinter likes to use demons and dreams to do its dirty work."
"So it looks like we are in the same predicament as before except it is a race between us finding this Winding Way (instead of Barvosi) and the cult splinter group finding them first and, probably, completing their own nastier version of the ritual. I swear, if we ever catch up to this book, I'm just going to burn it."
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"The Winding Way is a shop here on the Bridgefront. Where Shale Street and Hook Street meet." Asnaan points out the door.
"Is that the gist of it, adding in the observations that this cult splinter likes to use demons and dreams to do its dirty work."
Asnaan looks to the ground as his men begin the cleaning process. Tossing piece after piece out into the slop.
"Yes, That's about it." His mustache quivers as he shakes his head.
Cleaning blood from his armor and weapon, Grimnir says "We know where we need ta go," he says.
"Yep. at least we have that mercy. No more waiting. Let's hurry!"
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With the more recent news the group exits the Shiver Den and quickly makes their way through the busy streets as several people whisper and talk along the way at local shops.
"Awe crap. Did you guys hear that. They beat us there and killed someone else. I fear it was the book carrier."
he shakes his fist at the sky, then thinks better of it and shakes his fist at the ground.
"Who knows? It could be a coincidence. A lot of people dying in the city now. Even if it is, we need to get there fast and check for any possible clues!"
"One way ta find out," Grimnir says with determination as they make their way toward the shop.
*Ribbit* "Let's roll out!" Grinner casually walks alongside the party with his amazing speed.
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Skidding out from an alley near the Winding way is a large group of people gathered around a clearly agitated Korvosan Guard squad.
Making your way through you notice an Ashen and shredded corpse mangled in the streets below. "That's Diogorgio, the owner of the Winding Way....at least it looks like him."
Sergeant Cora Crandon holds her hands up. "Clear out now already!" She says with a commanding voice. It's is nothing more than another suicide brought on by a shiver overdose. The poor man simply jumped or fell from the shingles above.
The assembled throng grows increasingly agitated by authorities’ dismissive talk. “Suicide? What about all those cuts?” becomes the crowd’s increasingly hostile refrain. Crandon declares the slices self-inflicted or due to his fall through the splintered planks of the bridges above, and she speeds up the guards’ efforts to remove the body for cremation while casting dark glances toward your group as you recently arrive to join the ever growing mob.
Terry casts a detect magic, looking for the signature of the book, while waiting for Reigan to smooth talk the group into a more active role into the investigation.
While the others tried to talk their way in, Gerard wanted to be sure nothing sneaky was waiting for them. He casts See Invisibility to check out the area in a bit more detail.
Grinner tries to examine the body if he can to see what caused these wounds.
"Can ye make ought of those wounds?" Grimnir asks, seeing nothing helpful himself.
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Grinner scales one of the walls to look over, much to the amazement of many bystanders. From the angle that Grinner can get it looks as if some creature caused these injuries rather than from any sort of a fall.
Seeing your interest, Grimnir notices a young girl standing nearby, she looks to have been crying hard for some time. She pulls Grimnir to the side. "That is...was my father. The guards don't know or really care what happened to him...."
After climbing down and hearing the girl's story, Grinner tries to console the little girl.
"There, there. I'm incredibly sorry for your loss." Grinner take immediate interest regardless of what the rest of the party thinks. "What is your name? Perhaps we can help out and get to the bottom of it for you."
And it is probably related to what we're looking for anyway.
Assuming there is some kind of headquarters here, Terry will try to get inside and look around, using stealth if necessary.
"We need to get to the bookstore before our opponents do. There is a good chance he was not carrying the book and left it there. Can we talk on the way?"
"Yes, young lady. Take us to your father's shop and we will talk as we walk..."
Poor kid.
"Stay close to use, though, and do as we say. We don't want you to get hurt."
"Sorry for yer loss, lassie," Grimnir says. "We'll help ye figure out who did thes to 'im!"
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The young girl trudges back to the Winding Way as Grinner holds her hand while Grimnir consuls her. Inside the Winding Way are an indescribable amount of tomes and books of all shapes and sizes. Several dozen boxes are stuffed to the brim as they nearly split open with books while others are crammed onto the nearby make-shift shelves that are nailed to the wall.
"As you can see my father liked to gather esoteric tomes from all over the place." She sniffles as she sits down in a rickety chair. "I just knew today was going to be a bad day. I had nightmares last night. Dreamt there was something strange snuffling around my door. Then I saw some dark skinless hound lurking about.....I woke up this morning drenched in sweat from such a sight." She clutches a hand at her chest. "Sorry, i don't know why I am telling you all this. How do you think we can figure this out?" She asks curiously looking at Grimnir.
Well, look at that. The dwarf made a friend. I hope the kid doesn't dull his edge. Dreams, huh. Lot of that going around, though I suspect that hound was more on the real-world side than the dream-side.
Reigan listens to the girl's words and tries to figure out what she could have seen from the description.
As he ponders, he moves around the store, looking for a sign of the esoteric tome that might have caused this murder.
"I hope we can find this tome and then locate Barvasi. He needs to have his life snuffed out for the good of the district..." he muses aloud as he flips through books.
*Ribbit* "Agreed, Reigan."
Grinner looks at Grimnir with a raised eye, waiting for his response to the girl.
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From the description it sounds more and more like there was a Hound of Tindalos nearby. The wounds on her father's body does seem to match that of a Hound of Tindalos, though there seemed to be injuries not matching such a creature itself as well. Perhaps a second sort of creature was also involved.
Looking around Reigan does find a small ledger lying nearby that has a recently delivered box of books that have been purchased. Taking a few moments and shuffling some boxes around Reigan ends up locating the box.
Lifting open the flaps of the box are nearly 36 books, none of which match the description of the magical tome by sight as it just looks to be a set of Golarian history set in a series of encyclopedias.
"Hurt?" The young girl looks to Grinner but is quickly distracted as Reigan begins to rummage through her father's shop unannounced. "Wha...what are you doing?"
"Your father was killed because he bought a magical book wanted by some very evil people who want to do very evil things with it. We desperately need to find it before they do and do the evil things they want to do, or kill whoever has it now."
Terry describes the book to the girl in hopes that she may have seen it.
Odd how she just popped up like that. I sure how she is not a plant. Damn, you're a suspicious thing.
Grimnir tries his best to console the girl. The information she has provided has been useful.
"Aye, we need tae fin' it whaur thes book is. It will leid us tae yer faither's killers. Did ye see heem wi' a new book recently?" the dwarf asks.
Sense Motive on the child
Gerard also wasn't sure if this girl showing up was a coincidence or not. He paid particular attention to her story, wanting to be sure this wasn't a trap as well.
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The girl shakes her head. "Pa bought a lot of books. Why would someone kill him over a book?" She begins to sniffle again as she does her best to remain strong, even though her body is fighting every urge to collapse and give in to the massive amount of grief.
Gerard feels that she is being genuine. She just seems a bit distraught after finding her father's body several hours earlier in the day.
"You...you can have a look around but Pa has a lot of books. I doubt he would have bought an evil one."
"Thanks kid. I'm sure your Pa never meant to get involved with all of this. I wish for your sake he hadn't."
Terry will start a methodical search, casting heightened awareness and detect magic (of course) as well as common intelligence to see if he can find the book. He is also on the lookout for a secret room or hidden caches.