"I will camp here tonight", Vermundr says when it looks like people are getting ready to retire. "The others will be safe enough at the inn."
Constantin drops in to exchange pleasantries with Kendra, but returns to the inn when the night grows long.
He spends a good half-hour before bed going over his notes in preparation for the trial.
"There is certainly a great deal of evidence in Blând's favor...but then, there always has been. Hopefully the news of the hideous activities of the chymists is shocking enough that the court can see past Blând's appearance and reputation."
With Vermundr staying with Kendra, Kaz feels safe enough returning with the others to the inn for the night.
Vala goes quiet in the wake of her teasing Kendra, and she averts her gaze to the contents of her cup to hide the shimmering in her eyes. "Kazamir is right. We'll do well enough tomorrow, I think. There's plenty to exonerate the Beast in what we've found so it's not the verdict I'm worried about. The bigger concern will be the mob's reaction. Even if we prove definitively that our charge is innocent of all the charges, they'll still be clamoring for blood to be spilt for all the other wrongs and hardships they've suffered. Those are flames which, once stoked, are incredibly difficult to peacefully quench." Her shoulders sag at this and for a few moments it seems like she'll be crushed beneath all the grief and sorrow these events have stirred up. Pyth though flits over to her shoulder and nuzzles her cheek with the crown of his head.
Auntie Vala you will have done what was asked of you, to give that creature the fair trial and living thing deserves. You've spoken for it when it didn't have the words to defend itself. she smiles.
Once again, Father would have been so proud of all of you.
Whatever happens after we must trust in Judge Darramid, the Guard and, I suppose, fate.
She finishes her coffee and, after you spend a pleasant hour catching up with your former charge, she bids you good night.
Zed bids the others goodnight and wanders off into town. Once out of sight he doubles back. Do you truly trust nobody? He shakes off his cynical thoughts, finding a good overwatch point for Kendra's house. He settles in and shrouds himself in a blanket, getting prepared for a long night.
One by one the party retires for the evening, each preparing for the final day in court in their own way but each keeping in mind that a creature's life hangs precariously in the balance.
Vermundr wraps himself in a blanket beside the small stove that kicks out a surprising amount of heat, idly wondering what effect his outburst at the factory might have had on the group.
Meanwhile, Zed alternates between the corner of the street opposite Kendra's and a bench a hundred yards further on. Several hours pass and all is quiet, at least in terms of a threat toward the young lady.
However, the streets are unusually busy tonight and it takes the group longer than normal to drift off to sleep, even as tired as you are from the events of the day. As you slip off to sleep and what dreams may come, you are dimly aware of torch light and voices in the streets beyond your bedroom windows...
...
..
.
.
.
.
THUDTHUDTHUDTHUDTHUD! and then again, but slightly quieter. THUDTHUDTHUDTHUDTHUD! and then a third time, further along the hall. Someone is moving room to room, hammering with urgency on all of your doors.
An ominous, flickering glow of many torches can be seen peeking over the rooftops
It isn't the noise that wakes you, it is the sweet smell of smoke. At first you think nothing of it, that the stove must just be burning down. But then, you begin to hear the shouts and somewhere not too far away, the smashing of glass.
You roll out of the blanket and peer out of the window.
Immediately you see Zed but he has his back to you, looking toward a moving glow of many torches that seem to be heading away from Kendra's house
You swing open the door and see a pale face behind a small candle. After a moment the fog of sleepiness passes and you recognise Kaleb Hesse in your doorway - his pale albino cheeks oddly flushed.
He stands gasping for breath as if he had just been running and beads of sweat shimmer on his brow.
You better get to the courthouse right now. he gasps.
Vala huffs, grabbing a scarf and long coat to throw over her night gown as she scrabbles about in the near-dark for her garments. "They're what?! Oooof! Ouch!" After a few more grunts, she's in the hall with Kaleb, ready to move quickly. She offers tersely to noone in particular as she and the others begin to hurry, "I hate it when I'm right, you know."
Zed turns briefly, then seeing that Vermundr is already awake takes off towards the torches. That many torches at night has to be an angry mob. Knowing that lives may hang in the balance Zed sprints to the source.
Vermundr lowers his weapon when he sees that the danger is somewhat far away.
Vermundr lowers his weapon when he sees that the danger is somewhat far away.
Vermundr, what is it? Kendra aska, her voice small in the darkness.
He looks up to the top of the stairs and sees her standing there in her night gown, looking like a ghost. In one hand she grips a wand that is faintly glowing with arcane energy.
It looks as though she is about to say something else when she begins to suddenly cough, rapidly and hard enough to make her double over. After a moment she regains her composure but covers her mouth when she speaks;
Is it that cult you warned me of?
Kaleb continues hammering on the other party members' doors.
He shouts over his shoulder to Vala and Hazel;
I don't know where the guards are. I sent some of my troupe to find them whilst I came and got you. I think some of the guards are in the mob!
Constantin tries to rub the blurriness from his eyes. He stumbles and slams into the doorjamb, then staggers back, pulls on his boots, and runs out - still in his nightshift - and mumbles "Damn it all, if we stop this the judge could at least give us some consideration for protecting due process."
Kazamir is so thoroughly unsurprised by the announcement that his expression does not even change. Nor, fortuitously, have his clothes - so he merely shoulders on his combat-battered coat (still smelling strongly of bleach), seizes his walking stick and dagger, and rushes downstairs.
When they are all together, he nods. "Now we see if we can truly sway the mob! Lets be about it!"
"I'm not sure", Vermundr says as he gestures for Zelda to join him.
"It looks like folks are moving toward the courthouse. This could be a targeted distraction or it could just be an angry mob. Get down and cover up until the smoke clears."
It's the town, Constantin! The people... they've lost it. There must be a hundred of them heading toward the courthouse. They're bolstered by drink and they're angry as hell! It's not safe for us freaks any more that's for certain.
Me and mine are getting out of here as soon as we can but if you don't get to the courthouse pretty soon they're gonna burn that creature - trial or no trial! shouts Kaleb from the other end of the hall.
By now other guests at the inn are stirring and open their doors to see what's going on. At the sight of you all gathered and armed they quickly slam their doors again and you hear the clicks of several locks.
Still half dazed from sleep, you charge down the cobbled streets - Vala doing her best to keep up.
Eventually you round the corner and enter the courtyard from the south west corner. The scene is worse than you dared imagine.
The entire courtyard is bathed in the orange glow of a hundred torches. Men and women throng together in great gangs all screaming and baying for blood. Just as you arrive you see another mob of townsfolk entering the courtyard from the north, once more bearing a varied collection of weapons and tools but all with murder in their minds. And yet as you look up at the massive Punishing Man, aglow with the light of the flames that would soon engulf it and poor Bland too, you realise they aren't intent on murder, but what they see as justice. Their own brand of definitive and brutal justice.
The doors to the courthouse are thankfully still closed but as you see the screaming crowd closing in you can briefly make out Gustav Kaple on the courthouse steps. He seems to still be dressed in a bed robe but, with foolish bravery, he raises his hands to the crowd;
P p p please. There's no n...n...n... need for this! The Trial ends tom...tom... tomorrow! you don't need to hear his stutter to tell how frightened he is.
One of the men breaks from the horde and mounts the steps of the Punishing Man's platform. He shouts back;
Shut yer hole, mush-mouth! Or ye'll be joining that child-killin' bastard in the flames. Alls we wants is what's right and that thing's gonna burn for what it done!
Yes. Gustav agrees. It will. B..b..b but only if i..i.i.it's g g g guilty. Then justi- he is cut off sharply when a stone or a sling bullet flies from the crowd and catches him just below the eye. He is knocked to the ground and the crowd roar with approval.
Another man, this time at the back shouts; Come on. Let's get that thing! and the crowd surges forward. It's clear there are several ring-leaders among the drunken mob.
Kendra nods, preparing to lock the door after Vermundr has left. Be safe! she says, still covering her mouth.
Vermundr and Zed reach the courtyard at more or less the same time and, seeing their colleagues across the square, push their way through the crowd to join them.
15
8.5
The town square is filled with flame and smoke and anger. Three distinct mobs of angry townsfolk roar and they start toward the courthouse and of course, Gustav. He sprawls on the steps, a shaking hand rising to the bloody wound left by the sling bullet a look of absolute shock on his face.
Three men in particular seem to be riling up the crowd and spurring them on to surge toward the heavy doors of the courthouse.
In this situation the mobs use Pathfinder's troop rules. This basically means they act as a swarm of medium creatures. The exact number of a troop's component creatures varies, but in general, a troop of Small or Medium creatures consists of approximately 12 to 30 creatures.
A troop is not subject to flanking, but it is subject to critical hits and sneak attacks if its component creatures are subject to such attacks. Reducing a troop to 0 hit points or fewer causes it to break up, effectively destroying the troop, though the damage taken until that point does not degrade its ability to attack or resist attack. A troop is never staggered or reduced to a dying state by damage. Also, a troop cannot be tripped, grappled, or bull rushed, except by area effects that include such effects. A troop can grapple an opponent.
A troop is immune to any spell or effect that targets a specific number of creatures (including single-target spells such as disintegrate and multiple target spells such as haste), though it is affected by spells or effects that target an area or a nonspecific number of creatures (such as fireball or mass hold monster). A troop takes half again as much damage (+50%) from spells or effects that affect an area. If a troop is rendered unconscious by means of nonlethal damage, it disperses and does not reform until its hit points exceed its nonlethal damage.
Weapons deal damage normally.
Creatures with the troop subtype don't make standard melee attacks. Instead, they deal automatic damage to any creature within reach or whose space they occupy at the end of their move, with no attack roll needed. Because of the chaos of combat, spellcasting or concentrating on spells within the area of a troop or within its reach requires a caster level check (DC 20 + spell level). Using skills that involve patience and concentration requires a successful DC 20 Will save.
Additionally, some troops may make a ranged attack that causes damage in an area with a reflex save for half. This represents a combination of ranged attacks (such as sling bullets, stones, arrows and so on).
This encounter is somewhat unique and there are other options available to your characters aside from your normal abilities.
Diplomacy
The crowd is drunk and angry - but not evil and can potentially be reasoned with. The DC to adjust a single mob's attitude is 12 and each successful check will cause a number of the individuals that make up that group to break off and leave. In mechanical terms you cause a number of points of damage equal to your diplomacy check, minus the DC. So for example if you rolled 24, you would cause 12 points of damage.
Intimidate
The crowd is drunk and angry - but a firm word might soon send some of them packing, they are just commoners after all. The DC to intimidate a single mob is 8 and each successful check will cause a number of the individuals that make up that group to break off and flee. In mechanical terms you cause a number of points of damage equal to your intimidate check, minus the DC. So for example if you rolled 24, you would cause 16 points of damage.
Defeating ringleaders
Each of these mobs is being riled up by a ringleader. They cannot be influenced by diplomacy or intimidate but if defeated, this causes 6d6 damage to the mob associated with that ringleader.
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Zed's lip twitches and teeth grate at the primitive display. He slows his run and comes to a slow walk. His tetsubo drags across the ground, rattling off the stones menacingly, beaten and well worn by use. His armored coat is reminiscent of the inquisitors of old that hunted down threats to the peace with an iron fish. And his pale skin gleams with the moonlight, flickering in the torchlight, the very color of a corpse devoid of any sense of life. His eyes are filled with the weariness of an old soul that has seen far more than any mortal ought to.
And no longer does he hide behind a stoic mask of civility.
All of the worst fears of the townspeople, the whispered rumors, the stories of what kind of monster he is hiding beneath that stony exterior...
Here they are.
"Leave." Zed looks up, scanning the crowd and meeting gazes, then for the first time since being in the town bares his razor-sharp fangs, making him look every bit the vampire that his unwanted sire is. He lunges forward with fangs bared as if to rip out a piece of neck.
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Vala begins storming forward, looking every bit the furious grandmother who is about to severely punish a disobedient and unruly child. The bun in her hair hangs loose and disheveled and somehow gives her an even more frightful air. She looks to the clamoring group nearest to her and snaps, "I've had enough of this! All of you go home this instant!" As if to punctuate her point, she sends a screaming bolt of roaring white electricity from her hand, the dancing energy leaping and skimming just past the heads of the gathered crowds.
When the wide-eyed crowd turns at her in a mix of surprise and astonishment, the look on her face says quite plainly that she'll bend each and every one of them over her knee if she has to. "I SAID: GO HOME!" She stamps her foot for emphasis at this, though it's perhaps not as evocative a display as the lightning bolt a few breaths earlier.
HP: 27/27
Negative Energy Resist 5
AC: 14 (10 T / 14 FF)
CMD: 13
F/R/W: +4/+1/+8 (+2 vs death effects, energy drain, negative energy, & necromancy)
Monstrous Insight used: 0/7
Wand of CLW: 14/50 remaining
Healing Hex targets: Vermundr
Current Wandering Spirit: Life
Channel Energy (3d6) used: 4/5
Prepared spells
Orisons (4) | DC 14: dancing lights, disrupt undead, identify, read magic
Level 1 spells (3+1+1*) | DC 15: inflict light wounds [X], know the enemy* [ ], magic missile [ ] [ ], produce flame (CL7) [X]
Level 2 spells (2+1+1*) | DC 16: glitterdust [ ], lesser restoration* [ ] [ ], spiritual weapon [X]
Level 3 spells (1+1+1*) | DC 17: lightning bolt [X], locate object* [ ], speak with dead [X]
Ongoing Effects
Vermundr performs a protective sign and sheathes his sword. "This is going to get bloody."
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Electricity crackles in the air, the smell of ozone thick above the stench of smoke. The seemingly frail old woman sends a sheet of lightning streaking over the heads of the gathered mob.
At the same time, a horrific creature of the night begins harrying another group of the citizens but just as they look set to break, the three ringleaders begin to shout and rally them once again.
Don't let those bastards scare you! They are as monstrous as that thing in there!
A dozen or more still cut their losses and run, disappearing into the night but many more stay and continue to surge forward.
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Kazamir, face set in his "Angry official" look, strides boldly toward the (blue) mob, thrusting his walking stick to the cobbles with a 'CLANG" at every step.
he roars in his rich, carrying baritone. "You!" he points at one man near the front. "You know the law better than the Justices? DO YOU? No! You're angry, and scared, and one of a crowd, but DO NOT LET THAT MAKE YOU THINK that those you trust to care for justice, for the law, are asleep at their posts!
You!" He points at another. "Are you a good child of the Lady of Fate? Of the Last Judge of us all? Are you?" Without waiting for an answer, he begins striding back and forth.
" The Lady lends her authority to justice in Lepistadt. In the crowd , or, what we may call it in truth, in the LYNCH MOB, you can hide your faces from the authorities, from your neighbors. Can you hide from She that will judge you as you stand in the Boneyard. What will you say to her when she asks why you defied the Courts that She herself has blessed?"
"FOR SHAME, Lepisatsters! You are better than this, not some country mob in the Palatinates, cowering at every noise the wind makes in the night! Think! Do you think that if the Beast is guilty, your Justices will let it escape the flame? THINK! If the verdict is read at the end of the trial, and the Beast is consigned to the flame, each of you will go to bed a law-keeper, with a clear conscience. Tonight, what will you do? Will you break the laws of the Immortal Principality to break out this prisoner? If some poor guardsman does his sworn duty - AS HE DOES EVERY NIGHT WHEN HE PROTECTS YOUR SLEEP - will you strike him down - or will you have him stand aside as a coward an oath-breaker? Who becomes the outlaw, the sinner tonight? YOU?" pointing again with his stick. "You? You? Who?"
Go home. Go home to your beds as good men and women. Come back to hear the verdict of the court, and THEN decide what you must do. Tonight - go home while you can look your fathers and daughters and husbands in the eye!"
Kazamir steps before the mob and roars, indignant at their flagrant disregard for justice, for the basic tenets of the law. And, appealing to their better nature, he attempts to shame them, to make them think about what they are doing.
But their blood is up, and in their minds they are serving justice and his appeals fall on deaf ears.
Constantin pushes Kaz's argument.
"So how is this going to play out?" he shouts to the mob organizer. "You kill it, burn it? Tomorrow maybe lynch someone from the traveling carnival because they look different? Then the carnival master, he may not look different but he sure consorts with those people, right? Oh and then that fellow who went to the carnival, he's putting money in their pockets and you never liked him anyway? You can always find an excuse to lynch more people."
His eyes harden and his pitch drops and he says, "Until they find an excuse to lynch you."
He sweeps his arm and says, "Might as well use the court building for kindling. You don't need it anyway, right? Mob justice, that's all you need. If you're going to do that, you can tear down the court, tar and feather the judge, and get about the business of just killing anyone you don't like."
Success
Despite their attempts to reason with or frighten the crowd into seeing sense, the mob surges forward toward the courthouse.
The three ringleaders close in behind them, constantly riling them, driving them on like a pack of hounds and for now, despite the fact a few of the crowd peel off and decide that discretion is the better part of valor, there are still dozens in the courtyard.
As two groups form and head to the south of the courtyard, they pause only long enough to pelt the gathered troublemakers who so desperately want to see this monster get away with murder.