[PFS] #7-01 GM Iff's Between the Lines (Inactive)

Game Master Iff

Eveything happens so quickly that Dimira barely realizes what's going on. "She...I had the impression that she was not quite real...I mean, I know she was real, but...It was like she was made of shadowstuff..."

Dimira seems confused by the recent events, and when she sees the Venture Captain again, she experiences some difficulties in believing that she's not a real threat.
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Will save: 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (13) + 1 = 14
Fortitude save: 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (8) + 1 = 9

will: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (11) + 6 = 17

Zandu furrows his brow slightly as the Varisian storyteller ponders that previous encounter. Tapping his lip he speaks up after a moment.

"I concure, the breeze wasn't real, the hag was some sort of shadow? I have no idea what is going on here."

As he finishes his observation the scene suddenly changes and they are now staring at a child's bedroom. Before he can comment they are met by the Venture captain and he sighs.

"Dimira my dear, need any healing?" He then turns to the Venture captain and gives her a disappointed glare "You were too rash, as we mentioned and now we are trapped, how are you fixing this?"

Bottles finds that the scroll is empty. The writing that they saw was on there at the start of the ritual, seems to have gone. There is still a dormant magical energy in the scroll, waiting to be tapped.

The scroll can be used as a Boro bead, Pearl of power or Page of spell knowledge, all at level 1. (The potential for either of the three items is there, to be 'locked in' by whoever will use it. If used as a Page of spell knowledge, the caster chooses which spell it should add when claiming the item, shaping the dormant energies to his wishes.)

I think there is some magical energy left in this. Lady Dimira, Mr. Magnum? Perhaps this will interest one of you? Bottles holds out the now blank scroll.

....

"How do we know ya ain't another trick, playin' our minds like harp strings, neh?"

"But this venture captain ISN'T a green hag!" Bottles objects, and then looks thoughtful.

Saleem looks at the proffered page.
"Perhaps I'll hold on to this though I'm not sure what use I'll be getting out of it." he ponders.

Looking at this venture captain.
"Care to tell us more?" he asks wryly even as he holds on to his wand of mage armor ready to activate it on himself as needed.

Saleem, if you're claiming the scroll, please choose the spell it would add for you.

Wulessa holds up her hands in defense at the accusing tone of Zephyr and Zandu. "I can assure you-that wasn't me," she replies. "I can feel some entity controlling the archive—I was correct in that much. But invoking the scroll seems to have caused it to add me to the archive rather than granting me access. I can feel the days of my life being transcribed. Pulled from my body and stored here. I don’t know if there will be anything left of me when it is done. I can’t even move around. I’m simply trapped inside my own memories." Her words seem sincere, and she's more concerned than she lets on.

"I seem to be in no state to do anything about my own predicament. However, I am glad to see that you still have control over yourselves. I can feel an entity overseeing the transcription. This... archivist, for lack of a proper name, should logically have a presence inside this mindscape, at least during this process. You may be able to find the archivist and challenge or persuade it to stop. Hopefully that would release us all."

The Venture-Captain growls in frustration. "If only there was something I could do to help you!" She blinks in surprise suddenly. "Wait. There is something I can do... Try the drawer of the vanity. There should be a potion in there, I just felt it manifesting. Something I did, apparently..."

As always motivated by curiosity of all things magical, Bottles reaches up and opens the drawer of the vanity, examinging the potion inside.

Craft: Alchemy to identify: 1d20 + 11 ⇒ (19) + 11 = 30

Badly wounded, but realizing it just now, Dimira smiles to Zandu. "I could use a bit of healing, Zandu, thank you" she answers to the Varisian storyteller.

"We'll do everything we can to get out of here...And free you, Venture-Captain, if that's possible." Dimira is still shaken by the sudden attack of the hag, and something inside of her keeps telling her not to trust her Venture-Captain, but she cannot blame her for things she has not done voluntarily. Perhaps it's just as she says...

Dimira carefully follows Bottles as the gnome opens the drawer of vanity, looking curiously at the potion.

Jann nods slowly and stares at the VC. "This is all inside a mind, is it? A trapped mind in the Archive? Yes... It makes sense. A mind alone would go mad without interactions. We are in a mad world." Jann suddenly smiles widely and laughs. "Madness I understand."

Doesn anyone else want the Scroll? If no? I'll use it as a Boro bead though I don't see myself using it anytime soon.

"Could you conjure up anything else?" Saleem asks.

Dimira could use it for the spell back on burning hands, ive got some bard spells and a summoner spell left

With a smile and a short bow, Zandu snaps his left wrist forwards, catching a slim ivory wand gracefull in his free hand. Reaching towarda Dimira in the strange planescape room he gives her a slight wink and a jovial laugh.

"Hope you're not ticklish"

He says before playfully poking her in the ribs.

clw: 1d8 + 1 ⇒ (1) + 1 = 2

"Yes..." Yulessa agrees with Jann, tentatively. "It's not a single mind, though. The archive is a collection of minds. As it is, your current environment seems to have drawn from my own mind. You're standing in my childhood bedroom in Quantium, in fact. Or at least, a mental projection of it..."

Bottles opens the drawer, and finds a potion of Blink within.

"I'm sorry, Saleem, I'm not even sure how I managed to conjure up this one. I will try to experiment some more, but please allow for the fact that I'm also otherwise... occupied for the moment. You will have to find your own way around here."

"Well, then," Zephyr said with a shrug, to the mention of all of this nonsense about minds and memories and things. Give her a ship's deck and a clean shot at somethin', but... this wasn't her sea to sail.

"So, neh, we're to find this over-mindin' thing? Well. If it innae in here then there's the windows, and the door, yonder."

Zephyr moves to the windows, peering out and sticking her hand out as well as if to try and see whether the grand spires of the city below are actually there.

Dimira's puzzled expression reveals her inner concerns and fears. So, we're in her childhood bedroom in a ficticious Quantium. I have no idea how to get out of here!

Seeing Zephyr moving to the windows, Dimira moves to the door and tries to open it.

Zephyr looks out the windows. All the sights and smells of the city seem quite real. When she sticks her hand out of the window however, the hand appears - as if from thin air - coming back into the room from the other window.

Dimira examines the door and finds that it is not actually a door as all. There is only a solid wall, with the look and feel of a door.

Bottles clears his throat.

"Ahem. It is somewhat dangerous, but this potion of blink (assuming it works as a tangible potion in reality works) allows limited access to the etherial plane. It is possible through the ingestion of the substance to travel through solid object. But let us make sure we have exhausted other options before attempting it."

"We're trapped here! The door is not a real door at all! It's just a wall, solid as rock", Dimira says in frustration softly knocking her head on the false door.

Bottles' words bring her back to reality. "Ethereal plane you say", Dimira thinks out loud, looking at the gnome with a pensive expression written all over her face, "Maybe that's our way out of here. After all, that would explain why our Venture-Captain has somehow conjured it in this room."

After spending a few minutes carefully pondering the situation, finally Dimira steps forward. "If no one else will, I'll be the one to drink that potion. This place gives me the creeps. If this is our only way out, then we have to try, at least".

"If we're in her mind or her memories then It should be reasonable t expect her to create a door for us out of here?" Saleem reasons. His own magic cackles and begs release but he keeps it quenched with an iron will born and forged of the harsh desert lands he hails from.

If no one else will, I'll be the one to drink that potion. This place gives me the creeps. If this is our only way out, then we have to try, at least".

"The danger I spoke of is the chance of ending up in a solid object. A more robust person can survive the painful shunting to the nearest free space, where you might perish outright." We're talking about HP damage, 1d6 per 5 ft shunted.

"Oh, but you are still hurt..."
Bottles hunts around in his backpack, until he accidentally triggers his wrist sheath, and a wand pops out. He taps is perfunctorily on her knee.

UMD: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (17) + 8 = 25

Cure Light Wounds: 1d8 + 1 ⇒ (7) + 1 = 8

"Before we do something chancy, like try the blink potion, does anyone have a spell or arcane ability that might gain us some insight on this peculiar circumstance? Detect Magic?"

Jann nods. "I have that gift." He casts detect magic and slowly revolves, shedding his attention up and down and all around.

Jann sweeps the room while seeking magical auras. Besides the auras that the Pathfinder have brought themselves, the entire room seems permeated with faint Illusion and Enchantment magic.

The image of Wulessa Yuul in the mirror looks pensive at the suggestions to use the potion. "That might work, although I have no idea how far this realm of the mind would follow the reality we know. I agree that it might be risky, but I also see no other option..." She strokes the chain connecting her earring to her nose piercing, lost in thought. "You mentioned an attack by someone, which means you didn't come here initially. How did you get from there to here?"

"I'm not entirely too sure. After we fought a hag, we just sorta shifted here for lack of a better term." Saleem offers

Zandu breaks from his reverie, mentally taking notes fornhis next tale of a stout tower and no way out for the passages keep twisting an morphing, with a start. He begins to think about the current problem at hand for a moment and smiles.

"Well yes, we realised your office was wrong due to the wind with no cause and more importantly you were a hag. This room has no door correct? Now anyone know anything about these mind realms? Can you morph us Captain?"

Dimira shakes her head in frustration. "How can you stay so calm when you know here trapped in a mental word with no way out except for a dangerous potion. Bottles is right, should I end up in a solid object, I would probably fall. But please, do something, now! I can't stand this place any longer!"

This is the first time in which Dimira finds herself in such a hard situation. Inside of her, she blames everyone for her current situation: her Venture Captain, herself, her companions. But she knows that in the end it's nobody's fault and that every energy focused on blaming the responsibles is wasted. They just need to find a way out of that world and focus their energies on that alone.

"Easy on, shuai," Zephyr says calmly to Dimira. "Last mission I was on, wound up in the belly of a frozen funeral ship a-sailin' in the North where the air itself can freeze yah blood. Came back alright. Sure an' this won't be neh worse; Pathfinders find the path out."

Zephyr pulls her hand back from the strangeness of the window and begins moving around the room, poking at the walls and investigating things for any secret doors or other strangeness.

Perception: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (4) + 7 = 11

"I am truly sorry, Zandu, but in my present state I seem unable to help you further. And my knowledge of mind realms do not go much beyond the ritual I knew. Or thought I knew... The only thing I might offer is to consider that all you see, everything around you, is merely a mental construct. An illusion, if you will. I doubt that any physical action might get you out."

Zephyr takes a good look around the room. She does't find any secret passageways. The room seems in all respects to be the bedroom of a young girl: The bed with pink sheets, a large pile of dolls in a corner of the room, and several books on the bed, showing cute pictures on the cover and titles in big cheerful lettering, some of which include Pathfinder Chronicle Volume 44: Darklands exploration by Koriah Azmeren, Understanding the Jistkan caste system and The G'Harna fragments - A treatise on the magical arts of the Mwangi Expanse.

"Illusion and enchantment. This place is full of it." Jann mutters. He pauses and closes his eyes, concentrating on being somewhere frozen in the North, where he is most comfortable.

Saleem watches his companions even as he own eyes roam about the room.
The entire thing just doesn't seem right to him. He couldn't put a finger on it but he was guessing something was missing tht they haven't put a finger on it yet.

Percpetion 1d20 - 1 ⇒ (17) - 1 = 16

Zandu smiles and sits down on the bed, looking at his shoes as if to work out whether they need replacing or not, he seems unfazed by their current state of play and the Varisian smiles, his eyes twinkling.

"Why can I be so calm? Simple, think of the endless potential for adventure in this place, previously uncharted minds of some of the greatest thinkers aionce civilisation existed! The material in this archive is enough to keep me occupied for years! Think of it as an interactive story, though being able to move on would be a great help..."

"Zandu, Zephyr, care to try the potion?"

Bottles holds it out to the two most robust looking Pathfinders.

"S'pose I can," Zephyr says with a shrug, gazing at the books on the bed.

"Oi, Venture Captain-- ya read these as a child, ayuh?" she laughs, tapping the book on the caste system and looking towards the mirror. "Must have been a smart one."

The Venture-Captain smiles at the mention of her books, then looks embarrassed. "What? The travels of Janna Fairstride? I would lie in bed, reading adventure stories of brave explorers and warriors. Childish treacle, but still... I think that was what sparked my ambitions to be a Pathfinder."

It quickly becomes apparent that these are definitely not the books the Wulessa Yuul had in her actual childhood bedroom.

will: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (3) + 6 = 9

The Varisian storyteller looks at the titles with interest, having seen them himself buy shrugs slightly, mind wandering at the adventure tale that could be spun.

will: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (8) + 3 = 11

Standing at the back of the room, Ogmios watches the panicking patjfinder agents with a mixture of boredom and inevitability, the Psychopomp knowing that one day he would collect Zandu's soul and lead them to the river, standing as witness to the Varisian's judgment.

Will: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (8) + 2 = 10

Zephyr's pale brows arch at the fact that the titles don't line up with what Wulessa says she read. Bemused, the sylph looks through a few of the pages, but academics has never been her strong suit.

"Anybody know a lotta book learnin'? Maybe there's some code or whatnot, neh?"

Will: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (5) + 2 = 7 Jann shrugs and goes back to wishing it would change to the frigid north, where the clear sky shows the stars... and the things between the stars...

Seriously? What did all of you do to Paizo to suffer their dice roller jinx? :P

Will: 1d20 - 1 ⇒ (5) - 1 = 4

Dimira, growing increasingly frustrated, walks back and forth through the mental chamber, completely unable to find a way out of that stifling place. Zandu's words, for once, are not enough to calm her down. Since she was a child, she had been claustrophobic, but she never found herself into such a desperate situation.

Her mind unable to piece together the information she gets from her surroundings, she starts to look nervously at Bottles and his potion, in an attempt to take advantage of a moment of distraction in order to take the potion from the gnome and drink it.
____________________________
Will save: 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (2) + 1 = 3

Will save1d20 + 2 ⇒ (13) + 2 = 15
Fiery eyes blink. They blink once more as they bring into focus that the room isn't there at all.
Bringing his wide bream hat to cover most of his features, the ifrit speaks.
"Look carefully my friends, the whole is an illusion. A very good one. The clue is in the books Zepyr is holding. They do not match for lack of a better word." he feels his tongue for any strange sensation as he speaks, feeling the fires rage within him, begging release.

At Saleem's realization and disbelief of their surroundings, the room shimmers and changes again. The shape of the room remains the same, but the walls and floor resolve into a series of glass tiles that creates a checkerboard of luminescent blue and light-swallowing black. The door vanishes, revealing a passage filled with the same half-light. Opposite this, the room breaks away entirely. An entire wall is missing, leaving a jagged hole overlooking a void occupied by nothing more than deep purple mist, seemingly born out of and reabsorbed by the darkness. Somewhere in the depths, a tremendous crystalline shape flashes through the mist. The room is otherwise featureless, devoid of all angles. Even the floor has a slight curvature, melding smoothly into the walls.

New map added, to give a better indication of your environments.

Jann nods slowly. "Yes, the madness deepens. I approve." He smiles and waves at the crystalline shape and goes wandering down the hallway.

As the scene warps and shifts, Zandu hops to his feet off the bed to avoid landing in a undignified manner. Looking around their new surroundings the Varisian storyteller smiles and gives Saleem a bow.

"See, I knew one of us would figure it out, well played sir! Now let us press on"

As Jann wanders to the entrance of the hallway, the pattern of tiles on the floor shifts. The blue-glowing tiles first coalesce into one bright blue light, leaving the rest of the floor in the hallway dark. The glowing tiles then shift again to form patterns; first an eye, then a question mark.

Bottles scurries after Jann, eager to see what else is around.

In response to the glowing floor tiles he says, "Yes, floor, I can see you."

"Err, can you hear me? Or does that question have any meaning while we are in this zone of illustory mental figments?"

"Err, can you hear me? Or does that question have any meaning while we are in this zone of illustory mental figments?"

The pattern on the floor changes from the question mark into an exclamation point, then turns into a picture of a person's head, with a cloud above it.

-Posted with Wayfinder

Zephyr blinks when the room melts to nothing. "Huuhh."

She follows after the others, looking quizzical when Bottles starts talking to lights on the floor, though she keeps her mouth shut.

Beneath his hat, Saleem glances at Jann as he speaks, wondering briefly about the man's deepening insanity.
Responding to Zandru
"I'm guessing that my time with the mages of the society may have unconsiously taught me how to look past illusion but I suspect our opponent maybe such a skilled user of one. I could be wrong and it could be our Venture Captain's memories of things she has encountered. And now they're after us." he adds the last blandly.

When Bottles starts talking to the floor and the floor responds, Saleem resists a sigh to himself.
"Perhaps the best questions to ask would be; Who are you?, Where are we?" he queries.

"Perhaps the best questions to ask would be; Who are you?, Where are we?" he queries.

At this question, the pattern turns into a set of scales. The scales are wrapped in chains, which break and fade, only to appear again.

After that, the image of a person with a cloud above its head reappears. The face and cloud morph into the image of a book, then zooms out to show an entire room filled with books. The image becomes larger and larger, showing the room as part of a grand mansion.

After a moment the image vanishes, to be replaced by an arrow pointing at your feet. The arrow is accompanied by a question mark.

Following the others at a leisurely pace, the Big Man at his side Zandu looks at the images quizzically and lets out a laugh as he tries to puzzle out the images on the floor.

"It's Charades! Ahh a great many hours spent at candlelight after dinner with this game. Hmm balance? Freedom? A librarian? Well one thing seems easy, the Librarian is that way."

Zephyr watches, then chuckles, a little uneasy. "It's askin' about us, neh?" she questions.

"Well heyo, ya eye thing. M'name's Zephyr. Like a wind, aye? And we're here in ya library lookin' for a woman. Came in with us."