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The fourth and final day of training has come to a close at the Grand Lodge of Absalom, heralding the end of this year’s Torchbearing. Pathfinders the world over attend this annual symposium to share their knowledge, teach each other new skills, and reinforce their connections across the Inner Sea and beyond. To celebrate the end of festivities, the lodge has hosted a grand banquet in the visiting agents’ honor. A refreshing winter breeze blows through an open window, flickering torches and sending papers scattering. The smell of freshly baked desserts fills the air while initiates clear away the remnants of the first course.
Everywhere you look around, you see smiling faces, good cheer, and as always during these festivities, that one group of Pathfinders that has somehow managed to mess it up and find themselves on guard duty during the final meal before you all return to your regular assignments.
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Valoria leans back in her chair. Her armor creaks and she adjusts the straps on her agile breastplate. She takes a moment to place her hand on the darkwood tower shield emblazoned with a rampant horse dexter which hangs from the back of the chair.
She swirls the wine in her glass before taking a sip.
"That was an excellent meal."
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Sitting around as you await for end-of meal refreshments to be served (along with the much-awaited desert), you cannot help but reminisce upon the meaning of the Torchbearing gathering. Although some of you, having recognized that such knowledge is beyond you, did take the opportunity to ask around previously.
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While Valoria is sitting there getting comfortable and enjoying her wine there is someone doing a terrible job creeping up behind her. The clatter of her outfit making any hope of sneaking utterly futile.
This is Seren, a gutter snipe that looks barely old enough to be working for the society. She is dressed as if she fell through every closet in the Grand Lodge, with mismatched attire meant for everyone from a scholar's frock and Kalkamedes' night cap to a knight's boot on one foot and a well-worn traveling shoe on the other.
The only consistency in her clothing are seven colorful scarves tied all over her body. She likewise carries a hodgepodge of equipment meant for every sort of adventurer, including more than one holy symbol and a pair of wakizashi at her waist that have clearly been tied to her belt incorrectly.
When she reaches the back of the chair she'll reach out and start poking experimentally at the image on the tower shield. "Yeah, it was! I borrowed all kindsa good stuff from people's plates." She offers a conveniently timed burp. "Ya think anyone is gonna snuck off to get a fancy wayfinda' this time? Cause I think I'm great enough to deserve two, maybe three o' those."
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Lounging in a chair and sipping wine is a Varasian whose looks make you double check your coin pouch. He's dressed in a loose-fitting linen shirt and seems to carry only a slim dagger. Scars criss-cross his arms, but dont seem to give him any pain. His slicked hair and oily beard give you pause, but when the man smiles at you it seems genuine and you think he might be a wonderful friend.
"Yes, a wonderful little repast. Now the real games begin though. Rumor has it that the Three Masters use this event to spot promising Pathfinders. Some of honored publicly with special Wayfinders. But the real mystery is those who vanish for hours. You think it's true that they are brought before the Decemvirate? Undoubtedly. But for honors or rebukes?"
"Pardon, I should have introduced myself. I'm Teric Cain, Trade Prince for the Prince of Princes, Aaqir al'Hakam, and a cousin of Guaril Karela."
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Valoria looks askance at Seren.
"I generally try to not judge a book by its cover, but you don't seem to fit in here. What was your name again?
Valoria turns to regard Teric and inclines her head.
"I'm Valoria Lackland, a cavalier of the Order of the Dragon. I've heard those same rumors, Teric."
She shrugs at Teric's observations.
"It really isn't my place to speculate. I'm sure that they have good reasons for their actions, whatever the outcome."
Valoria pauses, and takes on a faraway look, as if listening to something only she can hear.
"My bloodline has the privilege of spreading light throughout the world, so if any of you are in need of a continual flame please let me know. I can create one once per day."
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Narika's eyes narrow a bit. "Messy business? Do you have any idea what it costs people? Most of my family has been killed. My sister caught master's eye, and wished to die before she was finally allowed to. And those of us who live through it and escape are never the same." Narika holds out her wrists, showing scarring from manacles.
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As dessert is finally served, a variation upon the chelish Struedel, a small origami swan flutters through the room and lands on the center of your table. In moments, it unfolds itself into a crisp and creaseless piece of paper.
My apologies for interrupting your feast, but Nigel Aldain has just informed me that there is trouble at the Blakros Museum. Once your bitter laughter has subsided, let us continue. Nigel says it can’t wait until morning. We don’t want to jeopardize our relationship with the Blakros Family, so we will do what we can to aid him. Please gather your gear and meet in the main hall within Skyreach. I will give more instructions then.
Venture-Captain Ambrus Valsin
Based on the contents of the missive, your subconscious brains already begin processing the information and unbidden to you, knowledge of the case at hand comes to you.
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"It's Seren right now." She peers over Valoria's shoulder to read the origami note at the same time, having to practically crawl onto the other woman to actually get a decent few of the scribbling. "And I fit in! Half the people here can't even dress themselves, but I can. That's already pretty good by Society standards, yeah?" Staring at the paper for longer than the rest, Seren practically falls over as Valoria stands. Only the pinwheeling of her arms spares an unceremonious tumble.
She adjusts the set of her pack on her shoulders and trots after the rest towards the main hall with a glance over her shoulder to Narikia and Teric. "Y'know, I was a servant once... for a couple days. Pretty messy stuff, too. Then they kicked me out for eatin' some food they left out for a party. Ain't my fault it was just there, what did they expect?"
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Museum
Nigel
The elf pushes herself away from the table. A tiny monkey poked its head out of robes, as she stood up and followed the others who received the missive. As they left the room, she shared her knowledge with the others.
”You all probably know that Nigel runs the place, although the Blackros family owns it. It’s been closed for the last few weeks while they’ve been getting the new exhibit ready. It’s called Legacy of the Shining Crusdae. You know it’s much bigger on the inside than the outside, some weird shadow magic makes it shift sometimes, too. I guess that comes from the curse of Ralzerous the wizard, the first owner of the place.”
”And don’t get me started on that Nigel. He’s a friend to the society, I guess, but he’s really put time in researching the Silver Crusades for this exhibit. He used to be a Pathfinder, but he married into the Blackros family and started at the museum. We have to lend him a hand all the time, though, as something always seems to go wrong. Maybe the curse, maybe Nigel gets over his head.”
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A portly fellow with bluish skin and a jovial expression comes bustling up, bearing a platter covered with a simple cloth. ”Sorry to be late, so sorry, though I believe when you see what delayed me you’ll forgive me.” He pulls the cloth aside, revealing an array of... well, it’s hard to say what these concoctions may be: clusters of rice and vegetables and mysterious-looking lumps of fish meat. Seeing the quizzical expressions on his companions’ faces, he throws his head back and roars with laughter. ”Aye, not many in Avistan have acquired the taste yet, but believe you me, it won’t be long before the Kings and Queens of the Inner Sea and beyond are all hankering for a taste! Undiana Jones is the name - Undy to my friends - and I aim to be the sushi king of all Golarion; it’s just a matter of time before I’ve got a franchise in every hamlet this side of Katheer. But as you can imagine, it’ll take some cash to get the ball rolling, which is what brought me to the Pathfinder Society: hard to find a better way to make a quick buck, don’t you know? But where’s my manners? I’m sure after hearing all this you must be famished - he casts a skeptical glance at the offerings the Society has provided - which is why I hope you’ll forgive my lateness - if you want to harvest the freshest baby reef claw you’ve got to wait until the tides are just right (and it doesn’t hurt to wait until mama reef claw has gone out neither!).” He offers the platter towards the group, and as he does so, a small dragon pokes its head out of his robe and slurps up half the samples in a flash. ”Riddywipple! Those are samples for our new customers, I mean friends!” Sheepishly, Undy offers the remaining samples to the group, while the faerie dragon smacks his lips with gusto.
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Riddy manages to glean some useful information about the event and shares it with the group.
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After the note has been received:
Both Undy and Riddy share with the others whatever they have learned.
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The front doors of Skyreach burst open with a loud crack. Venture-Captain Ambrus Valsin strides to the edge of the platform, with a slender elf dressed in practical but expensive clothing trailing meekly behind. The red-faced venture-captain addresses the crowd in a booming voice.
“Pathfinders, I regret interrupting the festivities, but we have something of a situation. Approximately twenty minutes ago, unknown forces invaded the Blakros Museum. Fortunately for everyone involved, the Torchbearing is about cooperation and helping our colleagues, so let’s think of this less as an inconvenience and more as an opportunity to practice what we preach.”
The elf, Nigel, exhales sharply, then speaks, “Now, Ambrus, I’ve spent a king’s ransom fortifying the museum from all sorts of invaders: sentinels from the Golemworks, magical wards from the Arcanamirium, and even contracts for guard beasts, both magical and mundane—spared no expense. I didn’t want to come here, but I’ve got no choice.”
Valsin’s forced smile cracks slightly, showing his annoyance. “Out with it, Nigel. Get to the point.”
“Someone broke into my museum and set off the magical protections! I was preserving priceless Shining Crusade pieces for our new exhibit when the first alarm activated. I sent for district guards and went to investigate, but by the time I arrived, the thieves had already locked themselves in my study. They somehow caused the Shining Crusade relics to fly around the museum and attack my sentinels. Everything is going haywire! The magical traps started to target me, the sentinels are not responding to my commands, and—”
Valsin holds out a hand to steady the increasingly agitated elf. “The last you knew, the thieves were still in your study?” Nigel nods. “Very well. Pathfinders: the Seekers should prepare to teleport directly into the Blakros study—“
“That won’t work,” Nigel interrupts, “The study is magically sealed. After that dreadful Numerian exhibit, I turned it into a magical safe room. The robbers must have figured out how to activate it; no one can get in or out while the wards hold. I can work on breaking the wards, but meanwhile my sentinels are smashing up the collection. Some of those priceless relics are on loan from your own Society lodges, so helping me is really helping yourselves.”
“Fine.” Ambrus Valsin takes a deep breath and then turns to the assembled Pathfinders. “Pathfinders, go to the Blakros Museum, secure any relics you can, disable the security systems, and apprehend the looters if possible. Stay safe.”
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"Ya forgot to cook these!" Despite the comment, as Riddywipple eats half the sushi, Seren not-so-subtlely shoves two into her mouth and begins sliding the rest into the side pouch of her pack, humming rather loudly as she chews as if it will distract Undiana from what exactly she's doing. The girl will give Riddy a full-mouthed grin and a thumbs up before scooting away and pointing off in the direction Valoria is facing.
"To the Museum! I've been lots... it tends to break. Last time I was attacked by a carpet!" She offers the last bit with a touch of pride, then finds herself suddenly staring at the flank of a horse. This causes her to tilt her head awkwardly to the side in consideration. "Well, I dunno where she kept it..." Then she glances over her shoulder and scowls at the empty air. "No, I'm -not- goin' to ask, it'll make me look dumb. -You- ask her!"
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Imposing in it's midnight black stone, the Blackros museum looms ahead. Dozens of Wise District guards surround the edifice, as a scar-worn Ulfen man in the uniform of a sergeant nods to Ambrus Valsin as he approaches, a subtle smirk dancing across both the venture-captain’s face and the man's own. in the background, the museum itself is alight with swirling whorls of color and the sounds of metal and stone clashing. Occasionally, brief flashes of light burst from the front entrance, illuminating a toppled banner that says “Legacy of the Shining Crusade.”
"And on cue, our Pathfinder friends arrive to put out the magical hijinks. Welcome. I am sergeant Svaralk of Asleifar, and while it is good to meet you, if you are here to put an end to the magical shenanigans you might want to get started. I've seen the shadow of some sort of clockwork creatures on the second floor, heard a bunch of fighting coming from the main hall and sounds like there's a menagerie that's been unleashed in the side room. Not to mention the magical shenanigans coming from out back. Aldain's been telling us that the weave that powers the magical defenses is placed there but I told him "I'm not a wizard, you supposedly are, how about you disable them?" to which he replied a bunch of things that went way over my head, but I think that meant he couldn't."
He shrugs pleasantly, before offering a swig of heretofore unnoticed hip flask, adding: "Or you could do what I've been doing, and wait for all that nonsense to wear itself out before stepping on in."
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Seren blinks as if suddenly realizing something, and it has nothing to do with the guard captain before her. She jumps up close to Tessara, practically in the witch's face. "TESS! Hi! I didn't know you were followin' us. How have you been? How's ya monkey?" The smaller woman is attempting to look into the sleeves of the witch's robes in search of Zeriah.
She pauses midway through her efforts, losing focus on her new task as if something unseen is distracting her and drawing her attention in several directions. "Mmmm, we don't really know how to work with animals, yeah? But the others say we can go there if ya want. Katsu might have to beat them silly..."
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Tess grins broadly at seeing Seven again. ”You seemed busy earlier and I didn’t want to bother you. I know someone will be happy to see you again,” she says as she holds up her left sleeve, and a tiny chittering head pokes out, followed by the entirety of the tiny monkey. She hops on Seven’s shoulder and rubs against her neck.
”You’ll have time to catch up later, Zeriah. We’ve got another situation...”
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From astride Arazni Valoria nods.
"Very good Sergeant. The menagerie seems as good a place to start as any"
She checks her lance in its saddle boot and loosens her longsword in its sheath.
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Seren seems rather pleased by the presence of the monkey and presses her cheek against it while patting the little thing with one of her hands. "I'm always busy, you shoulda ignored that. Lotsa important stuff goin' on." She didn't say it, but she was obviously happy to have the familiar in hand. Though she shuffles it back to Tessara at the reminder there were bigger issues to deal with.
She gives her hand a funny look, the stares at the other for a long moment before wandering over to Valoria and slapping the mounted woman on one of her legs. "Hey, we're gonna be pretty heroic and I dunno... save some art or somethin', yeah?"
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Entering the museum through the massive front doors, you find yourselves in the foreroom. Dozens of black stone pillars support the heavy ceiling above, and a multitude of paintings of scenes of the Shining Crusade adorn both walls. Before you, standing between two double doors is a ten-foot tall statue of Aroden, arms wide as he looks down upon you with a raised eyebrow, as if appraising your worth. Above both sets of doors to the north are banners stating "The battle against evil borne of this world!" with a more permanent sign stating "Grand Exhibition Hall". To the right, and where the Ulfen sergeant said the animals seemed to be running loose, is another set of double doors, with a sign that reads "Secondary Exhibition Hall". Striding towards them, it isn't difficult to see that the doors have been left ajar. Long shadows cast by ruined displays and broken furniture litter the floor beyond the open door. A humanoid-shaped figure made of shattered clockwork lies slumped over a bench. Above, an elaborately painted sign reads “Crusader’s Chronicles.”
Two feline looking creatures peer from around cover at you. "နှမ, ငါ့နှမ, ကျနော်တို့ကျူးကျော်သူတွေကရှိသနည်?" says one of them to the other.
"ဖြစ်ကောင်း။ ဖြစ်ကောင်းဖြစ်နိုင်ဘူး။ အမှုအရာကဒီမှာကအရမ်းထူးဆန်းခဲ့ကြပြီ။ ကျနော်တို့ကိုသူတို့တားမြစ်ထားတဲ့အရပျ၌ကဒီမှာဘာလုပ်နေတယ်ဆိုတာကိုသူတို့ကိုမေးဖ ို့ပြောကြပါတယ်။" replies the other, before addressing you, flicking it's tail with irritation.
"You. What you do in this place. Is forbidden to strrangers."
Map of the first floor of the museum.
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Undy easily notices Seren making off with the platter of sushi and smiles to himself. Ah, it's easy to reel in new customers, ain't it? That one'll be a sushi addict before we get this museum cleared out...
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Undy uses a wand of Mage Armor on himself and Riddy, taps himself with a wand of Heightened Awareness, and casts False Life on both himself and Riddy. Undy also slathers Alchemical Grease all over himself
At the doorway, Undy looks up at the imposing edifice and smiles. "Well, let's head in. What could possibly go wrong?"
Riddywipple speaks Sylvan. He chirps to the group, "These sisters are wondering if we are intruders. Apparently this is a forbidden place and things have been very strange here."
"Ah, he adds, these are dweomercats. Proud but intensely curious creatures."
Riddywipple bows low to the two felines and offers to translate anything the group may wish to say into Sylvan, if it will be more comfortable for such esteemed creatures to speak in their own tongue.
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Undy also bows in acknowledgment of the dweomercats and speaks in Common but has Riddy translate into Sylvan. "Oh my, are you dweomercats? I have heard of such noble creatures, but this is my first chance to actually see you in person. I must say that the lore books do not do you justice! Truly you are even more remarkable than I had heard. But forgive me, where are my manners? I am Undiana Jones; my friends and I are Pathfinders and we have been sent here by the Museum's curator, Nigel Aldain, to help deal with whatever strangeness is occurring. It seems that you too are concerned. Perhaps we can assist each other. As a token of our sincerity, please let me offer you some of these delicious raw fish delicacies."
Riddy also attempts to aid Valoria. "It is fortunate to meet such brave guardians as yourselves. What can you tell us of what has been happening here?"
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The two creatures step out, tails whipping through the air. "There is much that is not the right here. Much chaos" says one, before the other purrs: "Hush for now; I smell the fish." She approaches Undiana , tail upright and shaking slightly, before sniffing at the sushi and quickly snatching it out of his hand. As the other approaches for her share, the more confident one gulps down her portion and chuffs "Guardians is yes very much. Nigel Aldain promise us much if we guard. But metal man come and attack us. It not last much time. Nigel Aldain promise you much too?" she asks, before nudging at the undine's hand for more food as her sister picks up where she left off. "Nigel Aldain's other many creature has much trouble caused after alarm start. Many things happen. Much magic coming from back of museum, where wards made and powered. Creatures like clawed owl with paws, but not alive, have killed one of the intrrrruders. Then attacked others. Now they rest. We hear much from upstairs, the metal men like this one. But you are first ones of flesh that have come in after intrrrruders. Yes yes."
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Seren was apparently distracted during the conversation with the cat creatures, busily poking at different inanimate objects with the end of a sword while muttering bits of a conversation to herself before jumping away from them in a fighting pose. About the time the group reaches an agreement she's become satisfied that nothing in their area is about to come to life and try beat them all upside their heads.
"I don't like not alive things bouncin' around hittin' folks. Maybe we should go deal with the owls they mentioned?" She tries to adjust her grip on her swords with little success at looking like she knows how to use them and points off towards the far side of the building. "Wynn says to check the privies, too. Could be people hidin' there."
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Undy is pleased to see the two sisters scarfing down his sushi. This mission may turn out to be the best marketing I've done in ages. He makes a mental note to himself to talk to Nigel when everything has settled down in the museum about the possibility of opening a concession stand.
"Aye, let's go see what these owls are up to!"
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"My bloodline has the privilege of spreading light throughout the world, so if any of you are in need of a continual flame please let me know. I can create one once per day."
Undy acknowledges Valoria's kind offer. "Yes, that would be most helpful. Most of my creations are served raw, but there are a few dishes that need a bit of flame applied. Thank you."