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After a hurried summons to the Grand Lodge in Absalom, a quick conversation with Venture-Captain Alissa Moldreserva, and a wet, stormy trip across the Inner Sea to Andoran, the small, warm Pathfinder Lodge in Augustana is a welcome break from travel.
“I can’t believe we are wasting our time on this matter,” says Caudron Wallace, the venture-captain of Augustana as he paces the main hall.
“Frankly, I want as little to do with it as possible, so I’m passing it on to you.”
Wallace nods toward a door at the back of the room. “The vagrant through there was found collapsed on our front steps gripping a wayfinder of all things. We still don’t know who he is. Talk to him, for the tale he tells is amazing if true, and then come back here.”
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As you enter the room at the back of the main hall, you find a small sitting room with six comfortable chairs and a few bookshelves filled with the latest Pathfinder Chronicles. An old, withered man sits in one of the chairs, half-dozing when you enter. His skin is shockingly pale and his features are sharp with high cheekbones and a jutting chin. Despite his incredibly filthy visage, matted white hair, and infirmity, when he awakes and regards you he does so with a look of absolute, confident superiority.
“My loyal subjects, welcome! I know that some of you might" not recognize me in my current state, but it is truly me, Gandros, the long-lost Prince of Augustana. I have been in hiding since the untimely death of my father, the Emperor, preparing for my return to glory. Unfortunately, I bear ill news. The army I have been gathering in the otherworld has been infiltrated by agents of our enemies. When last I called my forces together for inspection, dark assassins attacked me and I barely escaped with my life.”
He takes this opportunity to roll up his sleeve and reveals a series of recently inflicted claw and tooth marks on his right forearm. He then launches into a breathless retelling of how he came to be in the Lodge, without pause or acknowledgement of interruptions.
“I fled back through the magic portal to this realm. Grievously wounded, and with the assassins in close pursuit, I leapt into the dark river. I floated past the Almsman’s Sanctuary, but couldn’t climb out of the water. I did manage to grab one of the bridges, but a plank fell in with me. I held on for dear life and continued to drift downstream. I went over a waterfall and then emerged in the lake of ships and crawled to shore. Augustana has changed since I last walked my city’s bright streets, but I managed to find this house, bearing the symbol of my father’s empire.”
He holds up the wayfinder hanging from a chain around his neck. “I knew I would find help here! If you remove the threat from my kingdom below and help restore me to my rightful place as Emperor of Andoran, I will grant you any boon within my power!”
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A burly tiefling with a magnitude of vials in two bandoliers plops down on one of the comfy chairs. He is a feral looking individual but his eyes show a high intelligence behind all the claws, horns and fangs.
"So you claim to be Gandros... what proof do you have of this. Also you have been gathering some sort of army in the otherworld? Tell us more of this army. Then you can inform us of these assassins, for they must not be humanoid if they bite and claw you."
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"You know..." Tarquin starts brandishing his claws and sticking a particular large nail between his big fangs, demonstrating both clearly.
"The last person that ignored me ended up with more claw and bite marks then those small ones on your body. His face especially got quite ruined. Why no one could even recognize him anymore even though he is a rather famous fellow. Or rather was..."
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Seinto could pass for a handsome human if not for his golden eyes and hair. Symbols of Iomedae are engraved in his breastplate.
Before entering the room, he whispers a brief prayer, and his hand glows with a golden light for a brief moment, while he touches his chest.
"Wait a moment, my friends, I'll extend the peace of Iomeadae onto us, for She will help us to understand and be understood"
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"Ugh this spineless creature is wasting my time, good luck with him."
Tarquin says in disgust as he stands up and moves out of the room. As he passes Seinto with his back to the crazy man, he mouthes "I tried...". He will wait outside to see if his friends have better luck, his presence would only have made it worse.
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"Ah..a civilized man, you my good man I can talk to.
"The portal you say...it was..beautiful..a swirling yellow, cutting a hole in the air with it's square purple edges and turning round and round ..the color of the skies, while it stood still. Sparks shooting out of it while it absorbed all surrounding light"
Once you are finished talking to Gandros (which at some point you will be since all his answers will be as useful at the one giving above), you can return to the main hall to converse with Venture-Captain Wallace.
“My diviners say that there is some truth to his story. There has never been a Prince of Augustana, nor an Emperor in Andoran, but the old fellow has a surprising amount of knowledge of the pre-revolution noble families of the city. He may be the lost scion of some noble line. If so, he’s fallen far. From the filth and stink on him when we found him, we’re fairly certain he’s been living in or near a sewer. The wayfinder is also a mystery, but for now, it makes him one of ours. However, I’m more interested in his supposed gate to the otherworld. If it exists, I want to know about it. Implausible as it may seem, I’m certain that his injuries were caused by otherworldly beings.
We must take the possibility of a portal seriously. I don’t want to dirty my hands with this, but you don’t have that choice.
Retrace the old man’s path through the sewers. The Almsman, whom he repeatedly mentions, is rumored to be an eccentric priest who runs some sort of hidden beggar’s sanctuary in the sewers. He may know where our prince’s portal is, if you can find him. But be warned; a local gang calling themselves the Steel Wyverns claims the sewers near the Almsman’s Sanctuary as their own territory.”
The Steel Wyverns
were once the most powerful criminal organization in the city, but they have been in decline for decades. Now they are a rag-tag gang of thugs and petty crooks. The wyverns prefer to fight with spiked chains, which they call “Wyvern stings.”
The Almsman has recently started providing sanctuary and assistance to the city’s beggars. He is a mysterious figure who wears
a mask, but most folk believe he is a priest. Most of the city’s poor do not know where his sanctuary is—those who do know won’t tell.
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Finding the right sewer access point that's big enough for you all to fit through takes some time.
As you walk along the docks looking for a sewer outlet you finaly manage to locate one, but the pipe extends under a breaker and is hard to see from land. If you enter the sewers by the outflow pipe the first 100 feet are a major passage without a walkway, so you'd need to wade or swim through the filth...or find another way in to bypass this.
The sewer tunnels under the city are divided into two types, major passages and minor passages. Both types have a single walkway running along one wall (the west wall of a north-south tunnel, or the north wall of an east-west tunnel). The ceilings are generally about 6 feet above the walkways. Minor tunnels have a channel 5 feet wide and 3 feet deep through which effluvium flows.
The channels in major tunnels are 10 feet wide and 5 feet deep. Where passages meet, there are usually planks laid across the channels to allow pedestrians to cross from one walkway to the other.
The water in the channel is revoltingly filthy.
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The smell of waste and rot is strong in this large chamber where filthy water flows in a series of cascades between tiered stone tanks. A raised platform along the east wall is connected to the passage’s walkways by several thick wooden planks creating a makeshift bridge. On that platform is what looks to be a makeshift alchemy lab on a rough-hewn table—beakers, glass vials, dirty bottles, and moldy buckets cover the entire surface of the table.
There are 3 humans in here, 2 are wearing leather armor and are wielding spiked chains, the other one is wearing some though leather apron and is tinkering with some vials.
As soon as they see you come close one of them speaks to you
"Hey there, this be our turf..now if you drop everything of value that you are carrying...you _might_ make it out of here unharmed"
init
Nivik, Tarquin
Enemy
Hawk,Lymwin
Another enemy
Seinto (+Nivik and Tarquin again)
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Before entering, let me link with you all. This will not harm you, but will let me take in any injuries you may receive. Do not however abuse this gift or you will find yourself without it.
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To Hawks offer Tarquin responds "That will be useful Hawk I could gladly use that. I think that of those present I will be the one in melee most."
Ruffians:
Tarquin eyes have an evil glisten when he notices the one in the back with the alchemical items. This will give a nice explosion
"Oh but of course, let me just..."
He says as he feigns putting down his bandolier, but instead throws one of his bombs at the alchemist in the back, hoping to explode some of those alchemists potions at the same time.
"Woops! Butterfingers!"
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Hawk summons some magic from within him.
You there, you want to APPROACH!
[spoiler=Approach]On its turn, the subject moves toward you as quickly and directly as possible for 1 round. The creature may do nothing but move during its turn, and it provokes attacks of opportunity for this movement as normal.[/dice]
Hawk then moves up, drawing his adamantine longspear, anticipating the enemy's approach.
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Lymwin moves forward and throws a bomb across the water..but it misses it's target..landing next to her target and is able to avoid most of the blast
Hawk casts a spell and readies his long spear , but his target seems to be able to focus his mind enough to not follow Hawk's command to jump in the water and swim towards him.
init
Nivik
Wyvern Thugs
You guys
Wyvern thugs
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Hawks' attack as the thugs approach has the thug in front reeling as he get's the tip of a spear in his chest..but they are still determined to continue
Nivik summons a sheet of flame that washes over the 2 thugs
..one of them seems to be able to dodge out of the way slighlty while the other one takes most of the flames full against his body.
Hawk then follows up his longspear attack with a smack from his morning star...dropping the closest thug
init
Tarquin
Remaining Thug
You guys again
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The remaining thug does seem to be a bit intimidated by Tarquin (it takes a minute to intimidate someone into doing what you want..the only thing you can do as standard is make him shaken)
The thug takes a step forward and swings his spiked chain at Hawk but he only manages to have Hawk sidestep easily before the chain hits the wall and bounces off
You guys
The thug if for some reason he makes it another round
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Hawk swings his morning star through a wide arc and caves the side of the thugs skull in..dropping him to the floor.
As you look around the area and loot the bodies you find:
2 spiked chains, 2 leather armors, 1 though leather apron (counts as leather armor) 2 acid flasks, 4 alchemist’s fire, 2 smokesticks, 2 tanglefoot bags, 2 thunderstones, and 4 vials of filth fever tonic. . Sitting open on the workbench is a large tome titled Toxins and Countermeasures, written by Giacomo d’Enzinas . The alchemical materials on the workbench constitute an alchemist’s lab, plus 240 gp worth of raw materials for Craft (alchemy).
There is only one way to travel upstream from here: an eastward-running major passage that exits the area in the northeast corner. This tunnel runs for a considerable distance before reaching the next sewer junction.
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Ahead is a junction where a smaller sewer line once joined the main passage. The ceiling of the smaller passage partially collapsed, filling most of that tunnel with rubble. The surface of the rubble pile seems to shift strangely and closer examination reveals thousands of tiny vermin fleeing into cracks and shadows.
The area of rubble is difficult terrain to traverse.
Although the stones block the tunnel, some sewage does manage to trickle through.
(There is no light source here, so you'd need to bring your own if you want to see anything.)
The ceiling here is stable, having already collapsed as much as it is likely to.
You think that a hollow point in the ceiling above the rubble could present a bigger danger as it traps sewer gas.
As you approach a LOT of small beetles start to crawl out from under the rubble and start to crawl and/or skitter towards you