The team sees nothing dangerous here, and presses into another flooded chamber to the north. There most of the Pathfinders can spot several sets of muddy footprints in the bottom of the virtually still waters.
Walter and Gunther identify these as belonging to a barefoot dwarf, and the others are the distended prints of several humanoid creatures, some with claws or other strange appendages.
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Walter peers into the shallow water from a distance, speaking a short prayer to Abadar.
School divination; Level bard 0, inquisitor 0
CASTING
Casting Time 1 standard action
Components V, S
EFFECT
Range 30 ft.
Area one 10-ft. cube
Duration instantaneous
Saving Throw none; Spell Resistance no
Paizo Peripheral
This content is from material published by Paizo Publishing, LLC, but is not part of the Pathfinder Core Rules.
DESCRIPTION
You examine an area at range as if you were searching for fine details with the Perception skill. Make a Perception check with a -5 penalty, modified as normal for conditions. No penalty is applied for distance. Apply the result against the DC for any hidden features, such as secret doors, traps, or hidden treasure. You must be able to see the area you are attempting to search, and you only find details that can be perceived with sight or touch. Sift detects only objects and features, not actual creatures.
Section 15: Copyright Notice - Advanced Player's Guide
Advanced Player's Guide. Copyright 2010, Paizo Publishing, LLC; Author: Jason Bulmahn.
The tracks lead into the water, which gets deeper. whoever made them left through a hole in the wall that is completely submerged. It is impossible to tell how far the underwater passage might lead, though it seems likely that it connects with the Sellen River outside the city.
Walter's spell doesn't turn up any additional items of note.
The walls of this room are lined with steel bookshelves bolted into the polished stone. Books rest comfortably against each other, each given ample room to be removed without risk of damaging the contents within. Two black leather chairs next to the western wall are positioned around an ostentatious wooden table supporting a single glass tumbler. There are two identical, reinforced wooden doors along the western wall.
Walter, Tyraneus and Dimitra work together. After a little over half an hour of reading, they learn a great deal about Thurl's "work".
First, Thurl has experimented for years in the creation of Abyssal hybrid — dissecting demon corpses, sewing pieces back together, soldering and animating them with essence derived from Abyssal larvae, and often discarding imperfect creations. Annotations and notes scattered across a dozen volumes reference how he has “devised a technique to rival the creative power of Lamashtu’s womb,” “gone beyond the limited theories he purchased from Aslynn,” and even “discovered how to harness the power of the marilith.” In addition, the ledgers seem to track fluctuations in the price of larvae, the souls of those condemned to the Abyss, which the group recognize as valuable planar trade goods. In fact, the texts indicate that Thurl actively participated in the larvae trade.
Valais becomes increasingly unsettled by the discoveries the team makes regarding Thurl’s experiments, and the revelation about the larvae’s use in animating a construct cause her to withdraw emotionally in quiet introspection.
In searching the room, the group discovers that several drawers in the bottom of the southern bookshelf contain 20 bottles of fine liquor as well as several potions for emergency use: an oil of magic fang, two oils of magic weapon, a potion of cat’s grace, a potion of fox’s cunning, and a potion of cure moderate wounds.
The party opens one of the doors, Walter having ensured they are not trapped. The walls here are polished and smooth, unlike the stone block construction elsewhere. The floor bears a strange symbol of concentric circles and compass-like stars, and the entire carving glows with a steady, red light. Writing covers much of the walls, some of it in dark blue charcoal and the rest in deep red paint. A shallow tray along the north wall holds several sticks of steel-gray chalk.
The contact I told you about warned me that dark days are coming for Nerosyan. He has advised me to leave in all haste.
And you believe him?
I have little choice. I have much to gain by acting on this knowledge and everything to lose if it’s true.
You are so quick to trust someone you have only known for a matter
of months — especially one such as he.
If I didn’t know better, I’d say you sound jealous. Heh.
My sisters would take offense at your calling me jealous, and even I believe you are taking liberties. I value our relationship, runecarved one, so I tell you this free of charge. Even if you follow his advice, guard yourself well. You are preparing to abandon your cover, and your so-called friends are known to dislike being duped.
Trust me. I know. I heard what happened in Varisia. Look, I know what I’m doing, and I think I can trust this one. He doesn’t lie all of the time, you know.
Exactly. He tells the truth often enough to make you believe his
other lies.
And if he is lying, I’ll lock him up for another ten thousand years.
Just remember our bargain. If I don’t find those reagents waiting for
me in the usual place, we’ll have words.
But of course, Thurl. You know how to contact me.
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Although the circle is capable of trapping an outsider conjuring into it, the circle currently does not appear to contain anything...
Walter holds his hands up.
I detect A dim aura in the room, suggesting a powerful creature or other source of chaos and evil occupied this area in the past.
He scans the room for any exits from the doorway.
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Johann looks over the transcript, and exclaims in horror. "These abyssal runes, well, it looks like Thurl was in contact with a Night Hag!" He proceeds to read it to the party.
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Just as Basalts asks his question, his eyes fall on a few pieces of steel grey chalk. The hue is not dissimilar from that of half the writing. Johann sees it is close in color to the bluish writing that seems to be Thurl's.
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"Strange, though, why would they both have written here? Were they unable to hear each other's words?"
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The chalk doesn't emit an aura, and the presence of magic is too strong in this room to pinpoint anything specific via detect magic.
Johann recalls there is some magical means that allows parties to communicate over vast distances by writing on a smooth surface, like a wall.
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"Send words to another... of course! Brilliant, Dimitra! You just reminded me that there is a way to do that, that must be what this is. Yes, alright, then, this still does implicate Thurl. Or it could be that, Gunther, as well. Hmm."
Johann tears a blank sheet from his formula book and transcribes the Abyssal, translates it into common, and marks the lines to indicate who was apparently writing in each case.
The contact I told you about warned me that dark days are coming for Nerosyan. He has advised me to leave in all haste.
And you believe him?
I have little choice. I have much to gain by acting on this knowledge and everything to lose if it’s true.
You are so quick to trust someone you have only known for a matter of months — especially one such as he.
If I didn’t know better, I’d say you sound jealous. Heh.
My sisters would take offense at your calling me jealous, and even I believe you are taking liberties. I value our relationship, runecarved one, so I tell you this free of charge. Even if you follow his advice, guard yourself well. You are preparing to abandon your cover, and your so-called friends are known to dislike being duped.
Trust me. I know. I heard what happened in Varisia. Look, I know what I’m doing, and I think I can trust this one. He doesn’t lie all of the time, you know.
Exactly. He tells the truth often enough to make you believe his other lies.
And if he is lying, I’ll lock him up for another ten thousand years.
Just remember our bargain. If I don’t find those reagents waiting for me in the usual place, we’ll have words.
But of course, Thurl. You know how to contact me.
"There it is then."
"I'm afraid I don't know much about Night Hags though. Are they some sort of Demon?"
Dimitra remembers the following about night hags:
They are evil aligned outsiders, usually about the same general size as humans. They are terrifying murderesses and greedy soul brokers who prey upon mortals while they're most vulnerable. Preferring to kill their prey slowly, haunting their dreams night after night, these hags trap the tormented souls of their victims within dark gems so they might be sold in the infernal markets of the outer planes. They are strongly resistant to attacks from weapons that are not BOTH enchanted AND cold iron.
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"Night hags are evil aligned outsiders, usually about the same general size as humans. They are terrifying murderesses and greedy soul brokers who prey upon mortals while they're most vulnerable. Preferring to kill their prey slowly, haunting their dreams night after night, these hags trap the tormented souls of their victims within dark gems so they might be sold in the infernal markets of the outer planes. They are strongly resistant to attacks from weapons that are not BOTH enchanted AND cold iron." Dimitra tells her fellow pathfinders.
She shudders "if we would meet one I have just one advice, run! Let's hope it does not come to that and see what we can unearth here."
Glass cases, each a three-foot cube, line the walls of this L-shaped five-foot-wide stone hallway. Each sealed alcove contains the slowly wriggling form of what appears to be an oversized insect larva that has a vaguely humanoid head wrinkled in pain.
Abyss (Chaotic Evil): “Larvae” are perhaps the most hideous of petitioners — they appear as pallid, maggot-like creatures with heads similar to those they possessed in life. Larvae that feed long enough on Abyssal filth eventually transform into demons. They have cold, electricity, and fire resistance.
In this form, the creatures pose no threat to you. A slain petitioner such as a larva is gone forever, its essence dissipating to the Positive Energy Plane. Although planar philosophers debate whether killing a petitioner equates to destroying a soul, wantonly destroying these larvae may not sit well with some.
At the end of the hallway is another door...
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"These are 'Larvae', which are the form that 'petitioners' take in the Abyss. When a soul migrates to the outer planes, they take on a form dependent on which plane they find themselves. This was the soul of a chaotic evil mortal. I don't know whether it would be better to destroy it or not. It is no particular threat."
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"Regardless of their nature, they are no threat to us as you say. We leave them alone. Come now. " simply says the oread as he ventures further in the complex.
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