; fantastic.
Shel can Take 20 on the Perception Check. With the assist, that's a 29.
; good enough!
, +2 = 21.
The Seven Needles looks abandoned, but stray dogs avoid it. After several hours of observation, you're surprised to see a tall, dark-skinned man in working clothes step out of the building and head out of the wharf district. You're pretty sure you'd recognize him if you see him again.
Local scuttlebutt (Aya, missy. An' thanks for the biscuit.) suggests that there are indeed corridors and passages under there. ("Caridion,one of the better thieves I've met, was exploring down there last winter. He was all goin' on about how he found a lit area with some prison cells, and figured there might be something of worth there. Last I saw o' him.")
; good enough!
, +2 = 11; just enough!
Riddleport has a number of ship's crews looking for work, and it's not too hard to find a ship's navigator willing to talk for some coin.
"What y' got there is a bad map, ya scaly critter. Those over there, those be the Little Felicities, a chain of islands out west and south of us, maybe 18, 20 miles. That island there, though, it's part of the chain, but it's drawn wrong. It should be the same size as this one over here. Whoever made this map drew it twice as big as it ought to be. Them's the kind of mistakes that get ships turned around, and crews killed"
Badr, that costs 5 gp.
Maximo, as mentioned, you don't quite know where Celvan is, only that he's part of a gang.
; good enough
; no luck
, +2 = 25; but then, you would expect no less from yourself.
Celvan is working for Boss Croat, a crimelord who runs a number of rackets down on the wharfs, usually protection, but some smuggling on the side. Getting in to see the forger requires finesse.
; good enough
; no luck, but not a disaster, either
, +2 = 18.
The gang -- all orcs or half-orcs, most of them speaking in the Orc language -- accompany you to Celvan. You explain what you want.
"By this evening?! Let's see them."
"Well, I don't do hats or fabric. You'd want to just shop for one of those. Or, I can talk to somebody, and we can have one of the boys rough up a Taldan dandy out on the docks and steal his hat.
Honestly, I'd recommend the same with the tin cup. Find one out in the market and dent it.
"Regarding the dagger -- that I can help with. Give me 3 or 4 hours with it, and I'll see what I can come up with."
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"Let us say three hours, my old friend. It does not need to be perfect. In fact, we are hoping it will fail upon close inspection." Maximo says with a wink. "Oh, and if anyone asks, it wouldn't hurt to say that someone carrying the badge of the Aspis Consortium came to you for this." He briefly displays the fringed badge with a mischievous chuckle.
" Max where would a Dandy like yourself buy a hat? " Darvin chuckles as he speaks.
Celvan looks at the box and extends his right hand. "Key?"
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"Yes.. About that." Maximo says with an apologetic smile. "We don't have the key, and the box is likely trapped. I am confident in your ability to recreate both box and knife without opening this one. In fact, it might make the job easier if you cast the knife from lead or wax and spend more time on the box."
Celvan breaks into a wide grin. "There is a story behind this, I trust. I will do what I can, and I will enlist the aid of a colleague on the box, which is beyond my expertise."
After five hours, Celvan presents you with a reasonable replica. The box is two shades lighter in wood, and a little heavier. The detail of the metal traceries around the edges is missing. The blade inside looks similar, but the style is wrong in many of the particulars.
Celvan asks for 75 gold. "And another 50, if you'd like to know what we found out about the dagger you brought in."
"I'll pay the 50, so what do you know sir?"
I wonder why I was not asked to pick the lock, I'm almost as good as Shel, probably would have saved us some gold to boot
That earns another grin from the half-orcish forger. "I know that you are not the first to ask for a replica of this dagger. Three weeks past, another was commissioned, with higher demands on the forger's expertise. What I can't tell you is whether this dagger is the genuine relic, or the masterpiece replica. You might want to reflect on how easy you got ahold of it."
"Also, Boss Croat is taking an interest in all this."
Yes, you have materials in hand -- the hat and cup are pretty generic -- and you're all by the docks as the setting sun paints the western seas in scarlet and crimson.
Tenements sprawl across the portion of the Wharf District between Zincher’s Arena and the solid-looking Gas Forges. A shop with a sign reading “Seven Needles” stands at the end of a dim, trash-strewn alley. The sailwright's shop is abandoned, its windows cracked and portions of its wooden trim looking like they were removed long ago.
Although it's been years since there's been anyone mending or sewing sails here, there are several sets of footprints tracking through the dust inside, both coming and going.
Badr, James, and Shel take no time to find a trap door in the floor. Badr also locates a switch on the wall nearby.
Shel can't find any dangerous traps on the switch, and it unlocks the trap door.
A staircase leads down to a dry stone floor. It is dimly lit by some yellowish-green light source, not itself visible from up top.
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Happy Stone, not liking the idea of traps, takes his heavy wooden shield off his back and affixes it to his right arm. He practices walking while trying to draw his club, but fails.
Instead he stops walking and draws his club, then walks again.
Ah! An insidious trap, no doubt designed to take down foolish and unwary intruders, just like us. We should remain vigilant.
"Happy Stone not like it here."
Happy takes a position in the middle of the party.
Back in character, Akbar takes up position behind Shel, twirling his moustache with narrowed eyes and fingering the monkey-handled hilt of his whip.
The stairs lead down to a stone room, with an arched roof suggesting that this might have been part of a sewer system back when Riddleport was founded. The room is 35 feet east-west, and ten feet north-south. You come off the stairs along the east wall.
This room is lit by a globe sunken into the center of the ceiling, 15 feet above you. By the way it's flickering, there appears to be some sort of flame, perhaps continual flame, inside.
There's an open archway on the north wall, 10-foot wide, a little bit to the west of center. Where you're standing, you can't be seen by anyone down the hall, but you can hear voices, indistinct and distant.
A couple of questions:
1) Who has the fake relics?
2) Who is carrying the real relics?
3) Shel, what is your default speed / caution down here? Full walking speed? Half-speed and rolling for Perception, half-speed and Taking 10, or very cautiously Taking 20?
You turn the corner and look north. You see a corridor ahead of you, 10 foot wide, about 50 feet long. At the far end, you see a metal door against the east wall. The muffled conversations, which sound like singing(?!), are coming from that direction.
Shel
Maximo
Killian
Badr
Sad Rock
James
(Where would Chun Hei be?)
+2 = 20; you detect no traps, but you do see an ancient mosaic design built into the stonework of the ceiling, halfway down the corridor.
; Maximo, fom about 20 feet away, you can tell it's not a religious symbol. It appears to be entirely decorative.
Shel, from 15 feet away, you can tell it's a decorative geometric design.
"I do not suppose anyone can detect magic auras?" Akbar whispers as he eyes the design.
"Intrigue, my friend." Akbar whispers with a grin. "And that intrigues me."
" Is it ever just a delivery?"
Sure thing, Chun Hei.
First round: Is there magic here: yes. But then, that comes as no surprise.
Second round: How many auras? A few.
Third round: What school and intensity, and where:
There are moderate evocation auras coming from the lights in the ceiling.
There is a moderate abjuration aura on the entire hallway, approximately in the same area as the sigil on the ceiling. There's some other, minor effect there as well, being masked by the abjuration, either divination or illusion.
Given the location, it's plausible that a secret cult might want to disable scrying sensors. Or it may be an alarm system of some sort.
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After concentrating for nearly 20 seconds Chun Hei snaps out of it and speaks once again in a low voice.
"There'ss ssome ssort of protecsive magic in the hallway near the ssigil. Could be to prosect them from being lisstened in on or broken in to, I'm having trouble telling , I recommend we procseed with caution."
"Good work you two." Akbar whispers. "As every Aspis Agent knows - Trust no one."
Chuckling softly he suddenly does a double-take at Sad Rock's neck. Coughing suggestively, he eyes the cup, then juts his chin at Sad Rock's backpack while miming with his hands to take it off.
Sad Rock, the spell description reads: "The summoned ally ... attacks your opponents to the best of its ability. If you can communicate with the creature, you can direct it not to attack, to attack particular enemies, or to perform other actions as you command". Do you have means to communicate with the pony?
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Totally your call, of course. I think the spell is a bit more flexible than that, but leave it up to you. To think that SR couldn't ask the pony to walk down the corridor is somewhat restrictive...but maybe SR could walk behind it, shooing it forward.
In either case, I think the bare minimum would be SR summoning the Pony in the reported spot of the magics where it may or may not set off whatever troubles exist there, stand around for 6 seconds, then disappear.
I'm happy with however you interpret things.
Sad Rock summons a pony and marches behind it, shooing it down the hallway. (We'll count that as communicating.) When it gets just past the sigil on the ceiling, things happen.
A mote of light sizzles into existence and whips around the pony, inches above the floor, leaving a faint white trail behind. It takes not more than two seconds for the mote to complete a glyph of warding which activates with a gentle pulse of light.
; a section of the left (west) side of the wall immediately fades from view. (So, from the south, there is now 15 feet of wall, then 15 feet of something else, then 20 feet of wall.)
The "something else" revealed is probably the storage area for Zircher's arena. It is a dank, large room divided into large cages, each with corroding rusty bars. The fifteen feet that are exposed along the wall are all barred, and behind them squats a grumpy-looking reptile, about the same size as the crustaceans, which immediately flies into a rage and starts gnawing on the bars.
You all can act before the reptile.
The corridor runs from D1-E1 down to D10-E10. Shel begins in E6, Maximo in E7. Sad Rock is in D6, and the pony is in D4. The rest of you start in D8, E8, or points south.
We'll say the monster is in C6. Its cage is A5 - C7. D5, D6, and D7 are all next to the bars.