|
____________________________________________________________
Knowledge (local) 26
Called "pelican warehouses," these buildings perch at the end of piers, allowing a ship to load and unload farther out from the busier docks. Many of them either accommodate smaller vessels that are in a hurry or larger ships unable to find an open dock. Rare these days, most pelican warehouses lie in disrepair, withered from storms and salt, and every year it seems another one falls into the harbor. An increased tax on this type of property keeps many of the owners from rebuilding and some have even relinquished the titles to their small warehouses, allowing them to fall into the hands of squatters, smugglers, or into the bay itself.
|
|
The party heads out!
The pier this pelican warehouse sits on stretches 100 feet from the boardwalk and the docks proper, and stands 15 feet above the water. The planks on the pier are sturdy but weathered. A few local fishermen and some kids sit scattered along the pier casting nets or bobbing lines into the waters below.
The building looks abandoned and in disrepair. The windows are dark and dirty and provide no view into the structure’s interior. A small boat bobs in the water below, tethered to the pier by a stout, salt-crusted rope. The warehouse’s heavy wooden front door is locked.
|
I walk over to the fishermen and beckon one to speak with me. I confide in him: The owner of this warehouse was supposed to deliver a crate to us. If you can you help us retrieve our shipment, there's a few silver in it for you.
Diplomacy (Student of Philosophy)
If he agrees to help: The door is barred, but there looks to be another entrance accessible by boat. Unless you have a better idea, maybe you can steer over and open the warehouse from inside for us. We're hopeless landlubbers or we'd try ourselves.
|
|
Tacitus approaches a disheveled, fish-smelling, and wild-eyed man who constantly talks out the side of his mouth while blowing thick gouts of grey smoke from an aromatic pipe. When Tacitus speaks to him, he begins screaming at the top of his lungs... at the sea...
"You're a harsh, unfaithful mistress! Sure, things were better when we were younger. Now, you don't care about Old Tanner! Nobody cares about Old Tanner! You just let any old sailor into your bay. But, not Old Tanner. Anytime Old Tanner wants to go for a sail, you deliver rain, or rip currents, or even GASP! devilfish!"
____________________________________________________________
While this happens, Harrow and / or other party members eventually open the door. As soon as they do so, a hidden key that was sandwiched between two rickety slats on the building near the door frame falls to the pier.
____________________________________________________________
Darkness fills the warehouse, the ambient light from outside blocked by a filthy, oily film on the structure’s few windows. Darting illumination comes from light reflecting off the water through a splintered hole in the floor. Throughout the warehouse, crates, boxes, and barrels lean against each other in vaguely sorted stacks. A lingering smell indicates some of the contents are certainly spoiled.
Perched in the middle of the hole, teetering on split planks, sits a large crate stamped with three crows arranged in a triangle—the very crate the party has come to find. Handholds cut into the stout wooden crate ring the rim. Other barrels, boxes, and crates sit stacked along the walls of the warehouse. Just inside the door sits a handful of crates and kegs of beer. Most of these smaller crates and barrels contain foodstuffs in various states of freshness. Some crates reek of rot. Stacks of simple coffins sit against the east wall. The rest of the crates stacked along the north and south walls contain simple sundries including, but not limited to beer, blocks of clay, coffee, coils of rope, dried fish, lead ingots, nails, nets, raw cotton, rough wool, spare sails, timber planks, various pulleys and tools, and cheap weapons.
|
Serwe's eyes once again take on a gleen glow as she focuses on the target of their current mission.
"We need something to slide through the hand holds that way we can perhaps lift it and get it away from the death trap it currently sitting on. Perhaps if we find a slender long pole to slide through to the other side...yes, maybe. Two of you taller folk could lift it from the safety of the side planks that aren't falling away?" the dark little woman says aloud.
|
|
Serwe, that might be imprudent. We need two poles to prevent the crate from keeling into the water and the floor near the crate looks unsafe.
I pause and look around the warehouse. I know this didn't work so well last time, but maybe we can hire a couple (sane) fishermen to steer the boat underneath the warehouse and then lower the crate in.
|
|
As Harrow moves to gather planks and whatnot to shore up the crate, a trio of dire rats, clearly upset by the activity, crawl out from behind various stacks of crates.
Initiatives!
Serwe is up first, then Arrack. Then the rats. Then Harrow and Tacitus. The rats are atop the crates and currently benefit from "higher ground."
|
|
The little wayang woman slides back, points a cloaked hand at the closest rat and utters some words in her native tongue.
|
|
Arrack: 5-foot-step, Attacks Rat 3,
____________________________________________________________
Rat 1: Zzzzz...
____________________________________________________________
Rat 2: Move, Attacks Arrack, , ,
____________________________________________________________
Rat 3: Attacks Arrack, , ,
____________________________________________________________
Harrow and Tacitus are next.
____________________________________________________________
Since Tacitus is traveling IRL...
Tacitus: Acid Splash on Rat 2,
|
|
Squish!
Rat 3 decides he's not actually all that upset about the disturbance the Pathfinders make in his home. After all, there's plenty of mess to go around, right? Especially since there are 2 fewer rats to share with! He runs away. :-)
____________________________________________________________
Harrow takes 20 to lever some boards underneath the chest and prop the structure.
The rescued crate holds a smaller mahogany box inside, which contains five books and a few loose sheets of paper in a leather folder. The titles and subjects seem completely unrelated to each other: Practical Thaumaturgy In Accordance with Creation, Geographic Anomalies of the Inner Sea, Under Kaer Maga: A Trial and Travel, Physiology of Dragons: An Illustrated Reference, Lost Sarusan. The leather folder contains cargo manifestos, warehouse inventories, and other financial logs from a dozen different merchant houses and trade guilds.
The crate also contains 10 sets of masterwork thieves' tools, three flasks of alchemist’s fire, a flask of acid, a dozen jars of various inks, a footprint book, adamantine weapon blanch, three bags of powder, a deck of marked cards, and two sets of average loaded dice.
|
|
The bloodlust in the strange dark woman's eye's subsides a bit as she watches with a look of admiration at the work being done. After loading her hand-made cob pipe with herbs she lights it and inhales deeply before exhaling - filling the area around her with a pungent aromatic cloud.
She visibly relaxes as she smokes.
"Excellent work. We work quite well together. Was anyone scratched or bitten? If so allow me to have a look, my grandmother once showed me how to treat such wounds...." the dark woman trails off, taking in the sights of her compatriots rigging up the lever.
|
|
Serwe nods by way of agreement.
"Yes, that would be prudent. I'll have to see what I can do about finding you a remedy for your sleeplessness. I am well versed in herblore. A bit of prune to untighten the bowls, a pinch of dried pasture mushroom for nightmares, hmm, yes. Perhaps I can brew you a tea to help you rest easier friend." she says in all seriousness.
Once again you see the strange wayang woman draw deep on her burning pipe before releasing her smoke to drift off and away.
|
|
()
____________________________________________________________
The next task on the list is to retrieve an item on loan from the Pathfinder Vault to Paracountess Zarta Dralneen, an influential diplomat from Cheliax.
Arriving at Paracountess Zarta Dralneen’s townhouse in the Ivy District—one of several homes the noblewoman keeps around Absalom—you come upon a magnificent gothic structure three stories in height. The ebon lacquered double doors wrought with gleaming silver fixtures greet the characters, a prickly brass cone hanging from a chain serving as the door chime.
Moments after ringing it, a servant in loose casual attire opens the door, greeting you as if expected.
"This way, please." He says in a dreamy, faraway voice.
|
|
Casting her eyes about as she follows the servant, Serwe examines the fine home with an almost envious demeanor. The fact that she did not grow up in a place like this is etched in the expression on her gaunt little face.
"A whole tribe of my people could fill these halls." she muses aloud, walking side by side with Harrow.
|
|
Indeed! You are led through well-appointed sitting rooms, ballrooms, and a grand stairway granting a view of an elaborate study. You finally arrive on the third floor of the house. Knocking upon the door and announcing his presence, the servant opens it.
A large intricate carpet dominates the marble floor in this sitting room. A chaise sits along the north wall and a desk spans the southeast corner, its chair positioned with its back to the southwest corner of the room. Three comfortable chairs are positioned around a small, low circular table.
____________________________________________________________
Sitting in the chair behind the desk, Paracountess Zarta Dralneen regards the group with a wry smile. She puts away a few papers before standing to address you hopeful Pathfinders.
"Aldor, you are dismissed. Close the door behind you and attend to your other tasks." She then turns her attention to the group. "It’s always so incredibly adorable when I see a fresh-faced batch of Pathfinders. I mean, look at you scrumptious little teacakes. I could eat each and every one of you up. Well, maybe not you." Zarta points at Arrack. "I assume this isn't a pleasure visit since most of you are terribly overdressed for that manner of occasion, so that must mean you are here for that trinket Valsin has been nagging me about. Seems I can’t get that man around these parts anymore," she gestures, sliding her hand down her body and widening the gesture to sweep out and across the room as if her home were a secondary thought. "On the good side, he always sends me all the precious new recruits."
"Many think we in Cheliax serve and worship devils, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, we use the creatures for their power. They serve us and we sculpt their power in our own interests. The world must come to terms with the order of things. People need to know their place and operate accordingly. It is the only way to make order from this world. Too many people stretch too far beyond their station, making waves and eroding the true order."
As the paracountess talks, a cacophony of booms and crashes sounds from beyond the room’s west door. She sometimes pauses at an extended eruption of these noises before continuing with the conversation.
"A servant is greatly misbehaving. You’re going to have to deal with it in order to get the trinket." She goes over to the desk in her study, opening a drawer and drawing out an exquisite silver letter opener shaped like a dagger (treat as a masterwork silver dagger). "You might need this to get it to submit," she offers with a sly grin.
|
|
"Oh. My dear, we have more delights to sate your appetite here than you could handle," Zarta promises Harrow warmly.
When the party opens the bedroom door, they see that Zarta's bedroom is decorated in the colors of Cheliax—ebon black and crimson red. Silk, rare woods, and carefully carved marble compose every bit of furniture in the room. Goose down now litters the room, covering almost every surface and the silken shreds of the cushions that contained it lie about like flayed skin . A post on the massive screened bed is snapped in half, collapsed on the bed and drawing the screened curtains into a ripped slope of formerly fine cloth. Vials of perfume and crystal jars of other cosmetics sit smashed on the marble floor around the dresser. A prominent fixture in the room, a large “X” made of stout wood sits along the west wall, complete with leather shackles and chains. A table sits to its left strewn with various items intended for pleasure, but outwardly resembling implements of pain.
A tiny creature is throwing a box around the room. In the process, he's smashing things and causing a ruckus. It is very obvious that creature desperately wants to get inside the box, and it hopes to smash the thing open. Though dented, the case doesn’t look like it will be opening anytime soon.
|
|
Serwe gazes intently at the creature, its wings and a whipping scorpion-like tail lash behind its red-skinned body. She realizes immediately that this is a devil. Specifically, it is an imp.
It is surprisingly hardy against attacks except when the source is from the higher planes or silver (DR 5/good or silver). It is not easily affected by energies or unnatural substances (Immune fire, poison; Resist acid 10, cold 10). It can also fly, become invisible at will, and change its shape.
They delight in any opportunity to travel to the Material Plane and subtly tempt mortals toward acts of ever-greater depravity.