You all begin your mission aboard the Grinning Pixie, a floating Pathfinder lodge, en route to the Gloomspires, for yet another chance to explore the ruins. You are all gathered around the Captains map table, filled with goblets of liquor plates of bread and cheese, waiting for Venture-Captain Calisro Benarry to return from handling an issue involving her crew.
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With his arms behind his back, Dunkel paces the main deck while maintaining a good distance from the ship's rail. Excusing himself, he descends below deck to the cargo hold for the hundredth time since setting sail on the Pixie before returning above deck.
"Ahl'right lads n' lassies.. good news is all th' diggin' gear's still secure n' ready fer whatever tunnelin' we'll need 't tha' Spires this trip. Ah've been thinkin' maybe ah nice 10x6 would be jess right."
Dunkel glances towards Jair and Imrana. "-t'd let the taller folk among us have a comfortable height, and t'd let two o us stand abreast 'n work at th' same time."
Dunkel then nods towards Doubtful.
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Doubtful merely scowls in response. He does not seem to have mellowed much, in the time since you're last adventure together. His skin is a little darker, clearly having gotten some sun recently, but otherwise, he's the same gloomy dwarf most of you have known for some while.
"You start digging around in that cursed place, you'll probably drop right into that negative energy pit, or a secret cache of ravenous undead." He offers, grumpily.
"Or both." He adds a moment later.
"Couldn't they find some other 'experts' to send to this awful place?" He sighs. "I think they're trying to kill us off."
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"Other experts, you say?" A voice floats up from belowdecks, from which emerges a halfling in a voluminous purple robe and a pirate hat. He looks a bit sullen for whatever reason, but is working to override it for the sake of appearances and mission morale. "Hi there, I'm Forlorn Zamoros. Most just call me Forlorn, though. The VCs saw fit to add me to your team. I know a lot, I help my allies get strong, an' I make people see my way."
"Can't say I know as much 'bout these Gloomspires as you all, having never been, but I tend to remember random tidbits here and there. I've heard tell of curses an' dead people around, I kinda feel like they sent me here as a punishment." At this, Forlorn's form flickers, suddenly shifting to that of a similarly dressed goblin and back again. He continues, a bit more to himself than the others present. "'Oh, Forlorn, stop pretending to be a goblin, Forlorn. Oh, Forlorn, you turned a Pathfinder into a statue on accident.' Shouldn't'a sent me to that vault, then. An' they said it like he didn't survive. He did! Although he wasn't too happy about it..."
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"Gloomspires'll make you eat corpses... then the corpses'll try to eat you back." Doubtful offers helpfully, echoing part of the comment Jair made earlier.
"Punishment for sure." He adds, nodding at Forlorn's assessment of why he got sent here. "You don't send anyone you like to this rock."
"And we're getting sent for the third time." He sighs.
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Wyatt doffs his hat, and bows to Forlorn.
"Well met."
He then shrugs as he listens to Doubtful's pessimistic oration.
"Whilst my Dwarven colleague has a tendency to be a tad verbose when it comes to pessimism, there is more than a grain of truth to his words; this place is a real meatgrinder, and will test body, soul, and sanity."
Wyatt then holds up a thick scroll.
"This time, I came prepared. Hopefully, it will be enough..."
He then nods to Imrana.
"However, as always, the chance to mine another's spellbook is always appreciated, whatever the circumstances!"
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Dunkel digs around in his satchel before producing one of his tomes and tossing it towards Wyatt. The cover bears smudges of mud and the leather has parted along several gashes riddled with sand and debris.
"Aye, th' usual? Copy what ye don't have and fill in what ye do 'n ah don't?"
Dunkel turns back to smile at the halfling amongst them.
"Aye 'n sometimes yer lucky n' diggin's t' be done. Ye look like maybe a fine detail work digger?"
Dunkel glanes at Forlorn's fingers, seeing little signs of brown wedged up beneath the nails.
"Or perhaps ah diggin' songbringer? Ah met this dwarf once who knew th' best songs t' get our diggin' on..."
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Imrana finishes reading her current passage on the arcanarchaeolgy (the study of ancient magical structures) of Nex and annotating it.
"Oh! Hello everyone. My apologies. This tome has a number of inaccurate assumptions based upon the faulty premise that Nex had derived his building techniques from exclusively Shory designs. I needed to correct them before I forgot again."
She packs away her tome and pulls out her spellbook, passing it along to Wyatt at his request, and then to Dunkel after.
"I am afraid that I am low on funds at the moment after the purchase of my headband, so I will not be able to copy spells at the moment. Perhaps when we receive our recompense at the end of our expedition. Should we not all die, of course. Well, die and not come back. Well, die and not come back as living." Her mind clutches onto that track of "ways/reasons we might not come back" and she zones out of the conversation again, conferring with herself whether Astiophes's philosophical definition of nonliving placed flesh golems within the same epistemological category as undead.
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"Little ray of sunshine, aren't we?" Forlorn grins at Imrana's comments, all the while marveling at her reckless bravery leading her to read, especially when it wasn't necessary. "But from what I've heard, I suppose two prior visits to the Gloomspires does that to you. I guess we'll see, and you'll all show me. Have you uncovered anything of value or importance from this place before now? Could prove useful this time around."
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Yeah, don't eat dead people... or let them eat you.
Says lovely Jair to the newcomer.
Also, the Gloomspires are a strange place, and the walls don't seems to be where they must be. The interior is also bigger or smaller than the outside. A very strange place but I imagine perfect for a pirate like Sevenfingers to hide his treasure !
Calisro barges into the office, "Ah, strategizing, I like it" She stops to listen the sounds of the sea. “Hear that, my friends? The winds here howl like no others on Golarion. It’s a sound that haunts my dreams. We’ve arrived.” Calisro Benarry, Pathfinder venture-captain and master of the Grinning Pixie, smiles grimly and gestures for everyone present to take a seat at her captain’s table. As the Grinning Pixie lurches back and forth amid the storm-tossed waves, Captain Benarry happily produces a silver chalice, pours herself a drink from a clay jug of Sargavan spiced rum, and passes the jug around the table. Benarry’s smile fades as she looks through a nearby porthole. The skies beyond the aperture are a roiling black and gray, scarred by frequent streaks of lightning that spread across the sky like the web of some massive demonic spider.
Benarry takes a long swallow of rum and clears her throat. “Well, most of you probably know where we are and why we’re here, but for the uninitiated, let me be the first to welcome you to the Gloomspires. We’re in the middle of nowhere—half-way between Tempest Cay and the southern tip of Mediogalti Island. We’re also practically hugging the Eye of Abendego, which is why the weather’s so inviting.”
The captain pauses to drain the rest of her chalice. She then peers inside the empty cup and her face twists into a disappointed frown. A moment later, after a particularly bright flash of lightning illuminates the cabin, she recovers her focus. “Right, then, the Gloomspires. I’ve spent half my life studying these mystical stone spires and in recent years I’ve sponsored several Pathfinder expeditions to unravel the secrets of the most ill-famed of the lot: the spire containing Old Sevenfingers’s tomb. We’ve been successful for the most part—though the tomb has claimed more than a few Pathfinders. To date, we’ve explored and mapped the upper two levels of the tomb and we’ve uncovered an impressive array of treasures and secrets. Secrets belonging not only to Old Sevenfingers but also to the enigmatic race that raised the spires when the world was young.”
“So, now we’re back. This time our focus is the third level of the tomb, a place known as Hrethnar’s Throne. Hrethnar Olvaradsson was a pirate from the Land of the Linnorm Kings who made a name for himself three centuries ago raiding ships and settlements along Broken Bay and the Ironbound Islands. He eventually made his way south to the Shackles and fell in with Sempet Sevenfingers. He served as Old Sevenfingers’s first mate and chief advisor for many years until the two had a violent falling-out. Legend has it that Hrethnar grew greedy and hungry for power and tried to lead a mutiny against his master—a mutiny that failed miserably. In retaliation, Sevenfingers had Hrethnar entombed alive on a special dungeon level he mockingly named Hrethnar’s Throne.”
“Our mission is to explore and map the third level of the tomb and pull as many secrets and as much loot from the place as we can. I’m particularly interested to know about Hrethnar’s fate.”
Benarry then settles back into her seat. “Okay, then. That’s the shape of things. Does anyone have any ––.”
A loud crash fills the cabin as the Grinning Pixie’s starboard hull suddenly explodes inward, filling the cabin with wooden shrapnel. A massive ballista bolt lodged in the Grinning Pixie’s hull has split the heavy oak captain’s table in half.
“We’re under attack!” cries Benarry as she rushes for the door. “Prepare to repel boarders!”
Benarry leads the pathfinders onto the deck and reveals a scene of Mayhem.
"You take the rear, we will cover the front," She then leads off towards the front of the ship.
Across the rear plank is a group of humans lead by what appears to be a hobgoblin.
Initiative(bold may act)
Wyatt, Dubtful, Imrana, Dunkal
Buccaneers, GM
Forlon, Jair
GM
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"Ooh, pirates," Forlorn mutters to himself while the VC explains the situation. "I met some pirates once before on assignment, that's where I got this hat-" Before the halfling finishes his sentence, however, the massive crash rocks the boat. He pulls his shield and a strange rod with a likeness of a serpent coiling around it from his haversack and follows the team above deck.
"Great, a hobgoblin," he mutters as his forms twists once more into that of a goblin. Before the fight proper can break out, he hollers over to Benarry. "Were you going to ask if we had questions? Well, here's one: Do we know these idiots?!"
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"Prolly jess th' tip o' th' iceberg in terms o' trouble, eh Doubtful?"
Dunkel smirks at his dwarven companion as he begins weaving a spell.
"Ah bet we've got ah kraken or two waitin' for us 'afore we arive still yet..."
Dunkel holds his ground, knowing Doubtful is a split second away from rushing forward to the planks spanning the ships.
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Doubtful merely looks at the attacking pirates glumly, all that Dunkel says obvious to him.
"Probably want their hat back." he adds, with a sidelong glance at Forlorn.
He waits just long enough for Imrana to give him a protective spell not unexpectedly, launches himself across the gap between ships right into the thick of the invaders, leading with a boot to the hobgoblin's sensitive bits.
, for plus Stun (DC 17 fort negates).
The hobgoblin is stuck with an arrow and assaulted before it can even react.
Three of the pirates rush the gangplank and head over to The Grinning Pixie. Two harrass the Dunkel while the other goes after Jair.
The two attacking Dunkel lands a strike each, one gets a lucky strike in.
The one attack Jair, lands a vital blow as well.
The three remaining on the other ship go to surround Doubtful and each take a swing.
Only one of them gets a luck blow in on the dwarf.
Initiative(Bold may Act)
Forlon and Jair(8 damage)
GM
Wyatt, Doubtful(9 damage), Imrana, Dunkal(14 damage)
Buccaneers, GM
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"Well, they're not getting my hat, they should have their own!" Forlorn yells. He then turns his attention to a pirate menacing Doubtful. "Hey, ugly! How do you make a pirate angry? Take away the 'p.' Although I suppose calling him ugly would do the trick better than a bad pun, and I did both...Maybe I should stop telling jokes in fights."
The little Pathfinder then creates the pleasant rhythms of a string instrument, causing his allies to brim with confidence and courage. Perhaps it is because even if they are all doomed to die today...they will not be the first. Their foes and the strange goblin will, more likely.
Black drops to the ground and begins laughing.
Red stands there with blank eyes.
Another creature explodes from below deck, a mass of slithering eels.
Knowledge Arcana
Initiative(Bold May Act)
Wyatt, Doubtful(9 damage), Imrana, Dunkal(14 damage)
Buccaneers, GM
Forlon and Jair(8 damage)
GM
The Galvo goes off to fight Captain Benarry and her crew, while the pathfinders attempt to mop up the rest of the pirates.
Red falls to the flames, while yellow avoids most of the burn.
Initiative(Bold May Act)
Wyatt, Doubtful(9 damage),Imrana, Dunkal(14 damage)
Buccaneers, GM
Forlon and Jair(8 damage)
Wyatt plants another arrow into the chest of the hobgoblin.
Initiative(Bold May Act)
Wyatt, Doubtful(9 damage),Imrana, Dunkal(14 damage)
Buccaneers, GM
Forlon and Jair(8 damage)
The hobgoblin falls and doubtful throws a punch at one of the buccaneers.
At the sight of their leader fallen, the rest of the pirates stop and drop their cutlasses.
One of the pirates plead with the PC's, We gives. We didn want to, we forced to by Faroon
Benarry interrupts, Ah, Faroon huh. I have had run ins with her before. Bad business partner, I tells ya. Where is she.
Not here Another pirate call out. Dis was sposed to be a distraction, while they went off ahead of yea's. They got bout an hour on yous. To seven finga's tomb.
A search of The Black Whisper captains chamber,the ship that you just ran into, leads to Faroons journal, confirming that they are indeed headed to seven fingers tomb. The journal also reveals that Faroon recently interrogated and murdered a Pathfinder agent who Captain Benarry routinely used to pass important information along to her superiors in Absalom, a woman named Skaela Karvo. Benarry noticeably blanches when she learns of Skaela’s murder.
That gal knew everything, she even had copies of all the maps of previous pathfinder expeditions. This is not good at all.
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Jair draws her wand of cure light wounds and heal herself while chatting.
That's terrible! Knowledge must remain in capable hands, like ours. Not pirates like them.
What about our mission Captain? And How they were able to get to the Gloomspire ? Last time I've checked, it was at the Solstice or with the Artifact we get that we can access the place, did this Faroon also stole the Orb of the Stars ?
That I do not know, maybe they have access to something else, that can mimic the effects or show them away.
Benarry pauses for a moment to look over the ship, and the crews begin to stare at the Pathfinders and the captain.
What are you looking at. You all got water to bail out and a ship to try and fix. Lets go, get the lead out of yer trousers. She pulls the PC's out of the way. The situation has changed a bit, Captain Benarry says, eyeing her crew as they begin making necessary repairs. “I originally intended to join you for this trip into the tomb. But with the Pixie taking on water and all of this other damage not to mention the time it will take to thoroughly search the Black Whisper—I’m going to ask you to venture into the tomb on your own.
“Your primary goal is the same: explore Hrethnar’s Throne. I want every inch of the third level of Old Sevenfingers’s tomb thoroughly mapped and documented.” Benarry pauses for a moment, and then lowers her voice. “Feristal Faroon’s involvement certainly throws a goose in the rigging. I know you’re not hired killers, but she and her team must be taken out. She knows too much and this tomb holds some dangerous secrets. If she ever decided to sell her secrets to our enemies, the Society could suffer greatly and everything we’ve worked for here would be for naught.
“Also, find out how Faroon gained access to the tomb. There are only two ways I know of to secure access, which you have already pointed out, wait for the solstice, or use the Orb of Stars, which I have right here. As you can see,” she says, gesturing to the spires as they shift into different positions again, “the Gloomspires are still moving. If Faroon has indeed reached the tomb already, she and her team have somehow figured out a way to reach them safely and accurately, even when the damned things shift. Faroon’s smart—a lot smarter than me— so I’m thinking she’s uncovered a secret way to reach the spires that we don’t know about. I want that information.”
Benarry then hands the PCs the Orb of Stars, and each one of them gets a small package.
"Inside that package is something that will help you descend the pit known as the Oblivion Shaft. Just so you know it doesn’t last long and ye’d be unwise to squander it.”
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"So they're an hour ahead, and we're to catch and kill them - Sounds like a plan," Forlorn notes, stowing his rod and shield. "Plus also explore the place and figure out how they got in. Wuss in these packages? I can keep everyone safe from falls with my magic, is there something else to worry about at the bottom of this pit?"
Just rumors that the pit will suck the life out of you as you descend. It help your resolve. Keeps the warmth in ye bones.
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Doubtful pulls out his slightly faulty wand purchased at a discount from Abdul's Discount Wand Emporium, and attempts to get it to work by himself...
Succeeding, much to his surprise on the second try. Which if course immediately makes him suspicious that something is wrong...
"Oblivion Shaft?" Doubtful mutters, with a snort. "Haven't you people learned nothing about naming this damnable place?"
"Flesh Eaters... Hungry Ghosts... Give it a name, its obliged to live up to..." He stops suddenly, scowling.
"Wait, your not talking about that big pit where that ghost was hanging out are you?" He asks, incredulously. "That thing was full of negative energy, we wouldn't make it down there alive, and it could go down for miles!"
He looks at Benarry, then sighs. "Of course you're talking bout that place."
"Ropes probably won't last long enough for us to get down." He observes. "Or back up."
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Doubtful disappears for a few minutes. When he returns you can barely see him, he's carrying so much rope. He has it looped over over his neck, hanging off of both shoulders, some tied to his pack, and hanging on his belt, and you're pretty sure some being used as a belt. Not to mention carrying some in one hand.
"Probably not enough." He mutters, "But was all I could find."
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Hmmm, that's not good as always in this damned cursed place... I have a rope in my equipment but may be magic will help us in case of emergency?[/ b]
She turns to her wizard's comrades. [ ]Have you prepared any soldes able to procure a safe landing in case of emergency?
Then again to Doubtful But other rope will be best as I'm not a good climber. I prefer knotted rope will be best but demands more of them and I will buy something to help me climb better.
She asks the Venture Captain Do you have that on your floating lodge ?