Mortika's "Severing Ties" Campaign (Inactive)

Game Master Chris Mortika

I made up a MAP, which may or may not be accurate.

Happy Stone scratches his butt with his club.

Nothing beats itching a good itch.

Shel pulls aside the thick velvet curtain, revealing a small antechamber with another curtain to the left (east) She listens, hears nothing, and pulls that curtain aside as well.

The only light in this room is a small wall-sconce oil lamp, currently burning, but providing only the suggestion of anything in the eastern half of the room.

This room stretches 40 feet to the far wall, where Shel can barely see another black curtain. Before that are fifteen double-bunks, each with a rune-embossed footlocker. A heavy iron pipe runs the length of the south wall of this room at about four feet from the ground, disappearing into the eastern and western walls. There is a pungent smell in the air.

Can Shel remove the oil lamp from the wall-sconce? If not, she will ask for a light spell from one of the casters, to check out everything.

Shel moves toward the pipe and sniffs. "This is our ticket to wrecking the place, right here, I'd bet. Find a way to bust this pipe up, and these quarters, and maybe this place will be ruined in no time. Anyone know how to quietly wreck an iron pipe ?"

She moves to the closest footlocker, inspecting it closely, before trying to open it. "We could even put a badge or six into these footlockers, before locking them back. When they are found, someone in our cult here will definitely hit the ceiling and be ready for revenge on Apsis!"

Shel could possibly remove the lamp. It's certainly no more difficult than picking a lock.

Perception: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (20) + 8 = 28; Shel does not detect any traps on the nearest footlocker.

Shel opens the locker, checking what's inside. After opening it, she leaves it open, waiting to hear what the others think about her idea.

"Light, you ask?" Ackbar whispers, taking a small object wrapped in leather from his pouch. Flickering light spills from it as he pulls the leather away, and a flaming stone, bright as a torch, rises to circle over his head.

"Thiss seems like the place to make our move"

Feeling slightly paranoid Chun Hei will cast detect magic into the room from the doorway. Concentrating as necessary.

Shel opens the nearest footlocker, setting off a gout of magical flame. (Sorry, Shel. The Perception DC was 29.)

Reflex: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (10) + 6 = 16; just barely not high enough.

Shel takes 1d4 + 7 ⇒ (3) + 7 = 10 points of fire damage.

Inside the chest are a few changes of clothes, toiletries, and some basic reference works about Lissala and ancient Thassilon.

Maximo's ioun torch doubles the illumination in the room.

Chun, there is magic here. Focusing a little more, you see the same fire trap on all the footlockers. One footlocker, most of the way down the room and on the left, also radiates enchantment magic. Looking specifically at that locker, there is a slip of paper protruding from it.

Admiring his Ioun torch Maximo at first thinks the trap is a manifestation of his magic item. "Good gods, that's bright..." He says, then notices Shel's blackened face. "Good gods!"

He quickly draws his wand of cure light wounds and speaks the command word.

Probably going to need two charges. Also, FYI This is the wand that makes the person healed sing the next few words they want to say. :)

Lol, that's awesome.

"Ah jeez, that really hurts quite a lot, another flame like that, just get me a cemetery plot. Thanks so much for the timely healing, how's my face? It feels like its peeling," Shel answers, then looks around quite confused.

Healing: 2d8 + 2 ⇒ (4, 8) + 2 = 14; all good.

Happy Stone turns his face away from the gout of flame, slowly creaking one eye to examine Shel's blackened face before looking directly upon it.

"Fire bad," Happy says offering his wand as well. "Wand good."

You should offer her father goats and horses before you give her your wand, says Badr deadpan.

"All the lockers sshare the same enchantment, there's some other magic present in that far one with the paper sticking out though. I suggest we check that one, and try not to get too burnt in the process.

Alsso, I wouldn't worry too much about the noisse, considering they didn't notice the gunsshots."

Shel follows Chun's directions and inspects the different chest.

Happy Stone will keep an eye out for trouble while others burn their faces off.

"Fire hot."

Shel, this chest looks much like all the others. There is indeed a slip of paper sticking out. There's not enough of it visible to read anything.

"Everyone back up," Shel sighs. I think we all know what's coming.. Shel tries to determine if there is a trap. If so, she tries to disable it. If not, she pulls on the piece of paper, trying to see what it says.

"This reminds me of a joke." Maximo whispers as an aside to the others. "It was about a wizard who liked to write notes informing people when he had memorized exploding runes that day."

I hear such joke stories too... halfling is very amusing, Badr replies.

Shel does not detect a trap on the chest.

Disable Device: 1d20 + 10 ⇒ (8) + 10 = 18; the paper is fragile and wedged in tight. The lid will have to be opened.

Shel carefully pulls and tugs to no avail. "It's not coming, guys. I'm going to have to try and open the whole thing to get the scroll. I'm going to take this really carefully..."

Can I take 20, DM? I might never get it open otherwise.

wonder what all the commotion is.

Not on your Disable Device, Shel.

Thats fine...didnt think I could, but wanted to be sure. Shel's going to try and open it anyway.

"Be careful, the fire may destroy the paper, try it again with the blessings of Yaezhing"

Chun Hei will move up and cast guidance on Shel.

Even though you can't take 20 on disable device, I think you should be able to try again (until you blow it), and if necessary you can take 20 on the perception check to find the trap if that's still needed.

Happy Stone thinks about scratching his ass again while he keep watch away from the blast zone.

Explosions hurt.

As it turns out, the Perception check to notice a fire trap is beyond Shel's current skills as well.

Disable Device: 1d20 + 11 ⇒ (3) + 11 = 14; that's a failure by 5 or more.

There's another muffled explosion (doing 1d4 + 7 ⇒ (2) + 7 = 9 points of fire damage to our intrepid halfling) amd the chest is open. With one exception, its contents are much like the first chest's.

The paper is wrapped around a slender stick of jade, with jagged chains carved along its length. the paper has writing on it, in Tien.

wonder why nobody is running this direction?

Chun Hei will pull out a wand.

"Perhaps Yaezhing thought it important to punish you for a past crime, right now we need you though."

Chun Hei will use the wand on Shel.
Fast healing 1 for 10 rounds.

"Urgkh, that feels weird. Thanks, i think. Here, Chun, you said this paper might be magical. Can you decipher it, " Shel mutters as she hands the paper and the wand to her friend.

Badr keeps the door covered with his musket in case there is unexpected company.

Chun Hei tenderly unfold the note, before attempting to read it.

I just realized Chun's sheet lacks her languages, she speaks Common, Tian and Draconic.

The letter is not dwoemered, but the jade stick is likely a wand of some sort.

"This letter tells uss more of Asspis treachery, Amara Lee will find this quite valuable in her quest to redeem the choice of the tapestry. Thank you Shel"

Chun Hei will cast detect magic, attempting to determine what the wand is.

1d20 + 5 ⇒ (14) + 5 = 19

Does anyone else think that busting this pipe might help out main goal of ruining this place, or am I barking up the wrong tree?

"Oooo.. intrigue! Ackbar chuckles, slapping the nearest person on the back like the joke is shared by all.

"About this pipe here. Anyone like to hazard a guess as to its purpose? Shel's suggestion break it might be good if it would do some real damage to the operation here."

"From the nasty smell of it, I assumed the pipe is a system for disposing of some sort of foul waste," Shel notes, with a slight shiver, not wanting to think about what foul things from this cult could be considered waste.

"Hmm. From the way these cultists embrace unpleasant things, that might be doing them a favor." Ackbar shrugs. "They'd likely just give thanks to Lissala and stick their noses in it."

Happy Stone chimes in.

"Maybe break pipe on way out. Not want to stink now."

Badr nods gratefully at Sad Rocks suggestion

Chun Hei, this is a wand of delay pain.

James, the chanting you hear rom somewhere else in the complex rises in pitch. It sounds like it might be reaching some sort of cadence point within another minute or so.

"If we bust it, and the plan works, all we'd have to do is hide a couple badges and get out of here. Poof, the Pathfinders would be happy."

Unless I'm missing a point, we just need to wreck the place, and put blame on the Apsis peeps.

Taking note of the change in chanting, Maximo says, "Perhaps the best sabotage would be to interrupt that terrible song before it reaches completion, don't you think?"

Dropping character and getting serious, or what passes for such a thing in his odd world, Maximo begins moving in the direction of the sounds. As he does so, he shoulders his shield, holsters his hammer, and draws out his greatsword. "I think it is time to introduce them to Big Love here. And Chun, if you can get that wand to function, perhaps we should use it to protect ourselves from the likely unpleasant reception."

Maximo, the chanting remains several rooms distant.

Then we fight? Good

Several rooms away... gotcha. Max isn't fond of sneaking around this place anymore, and is proposing the group make a beeline for the chanting.

"Uh, we not kill librarians, right?" Happy asks, confused. "Oh wait, what they called? Libyans? Lizardmen? Lollipoppas?" Happy scratches his hard head.

Lesbians maybe?, Badr says hopefully.