Cornelia heads off, while the rest of you step back and observe the plant woman. She seems to have forgotten you at the moment, as she coos and sings to several plants that seem to have carnivorous tendencies.
When Cornelia returns, J takes the scroll and studies it for a moment. Her eyes widen as she says, "I can read this! Shall I cast it?" Without waiting for any response, she murmurs the spell and a pale light rushes from the scroll to the plant woman. Immediately the plant woman seems to straighten and her features focus. She turns around, looking puzzled. "Hello? Who are you? Why are you standing there?"
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Milwyne steps forward, "Master Gardener Khaya, I presume. My name is Miltwyne Heatherstop, and we are Pathfinders. We talked with you not long ago when we found you in a confused state. Hoping to help with the confusion, J here has cast a remove disease spell on you. Do you remember anything about what happened here?"
She nods, slowly. "I fled here from Nex, where my people are enslaved. I brought my family's seedpods and planted them here, but the rain came and... I don't remember much after the rain. But my family, I need to allow them time to grow. Please, please do not make me leave this place. It would kill my family!"
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Milt smiles, "We are here to do nothing of the kind. In fact, if there is anything we can do to help your family, our organization has considerable resources in that regard. We are actually here to help this young woman find some papers that left here a long time ago."
The halfling turns to J, saying, "J, would you describe them for Master Khaya?"
J starts to speak, but then Grishan appears, flowing from J's body into ethereal reality. His voice once more echoes, from far away. "It was here. I think... that lion statue seems very familiar."
You examine the statue and discover that its base is movable. Moving it aside, you find a small leather sachel with several scrolls inside!
Case M7 In process, expect updates after Stilonius’s birthday party.
Case D4 Lady Miranda Dacilane is rumored to have committed numerous amorous indiscretions during her youth. The most outrageous was that she was the mistress of Orias Deckland, a scandalous member of Absalom’s upper classes, and bore him a child. She is also rumored to have belonged to a secret society known as the Harbingers of Fate. Rumors come from a drunken but reliable source.
Case A1 Badru let slip that his sister is heading to Osirion to participate in a secretive excavation of a tomb from the time of the Pharaoh of Forgotten Plagues.
Case M12 It is well known that the Morilla family runs the Guild of Wonders, Absalom’s most prestigious espionage and assassination organization. What is less well known is that the Aspis Consortium, a Chelish band of fortune-hunters, hired the Guild of Wonders many times to spy on the Pathfinder Society and the Blakros family. I successfully created a diversion for the servant’s attention, and was able make copies of several documents that prove that Lady Annasendra personally oversaw contracts to assassinate members of the Pathfinder Society. If the number of events I am invited to is any indication, they haven’t caught on yet, but I’m afraid to dig deeper in to this situation.
Case N4 After hours of searching and days of asking subtle questions, I’ve turned up absolutely nothing of interest. Surely people this boring must be hiding something.
Case L3 The servant in charge of the kitchens has a penchant for gossip.
Information Broker I read in a diary that that an information broker lives in Absalom named Torch. I hear he’s well worth his coin, but is not to be trusted, because he’ll sell information to anyone.
Case Maldris 8 To my shame I have learned that my own father, Merrin, is a charlatan who used the chaos of the Andoran’s People’s Revolt to change his name from Vanoecker. I later learned that the Vanoeckers were an Andoren noble family with a tyrannical reputation. The worst part was that I discovered that my brother knew about this all along. So much for his glorious, egalitarian ideals and Andoren purity. We’re just as guilty as the rest of them!
Case T3: There’s some big ceremony coming up at the temple of Asmodeus in a few months. People were muttering about a great fire to honor him, but I couldn’t hear many details. I can’t shake the though that those devil bootlickers are planning to burn slaves in that pyre. I must investigate further.
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Cornelia shakes her head. "We have no such motives, lady. We would prefer to help you and yours so that this malady does not affect you again."
The young Chelaxian pauses thoughtfully after reading the scrolls. "This is dangerous information contained within these scrolls. Grishan do you remember anything more specific about these case numbers and who they may be about?" She points to the case containing information about the Consortium. "This case allow would cause great consternation to Aspis agents. It could potentially bring a great deal of heat down upon them from the Society."
Grishan shakes his head. "I cannot recall much about my life. Things fade in and out. That's definitely my handwriting, but I don't remember writing them." Looking over your shoulders, J's face falls when she reads her own mother's name there. She goes quiet and doesn't speak.
Khaya allows you to retrieve the letters, then has one last request: "Please, do not tell anyone of my presence here. Once my family has grown, I will petition the Lord Mayor for permission to remain here, but until then, they are vulnerable."
You leave the Arboretum, but do not spot the mandragora on the way out. He seems to have hidden himself away. You head instead for your primary location, the Drownyards.
The grounds of the old Tri-Towers Yard have been cleaned up in the last several years, and several old ruined school buildings that stood too close to the cliff’s edge were demolished. All of the gnarled old trees were removed and new flowering bushes and trees have been planted in their place. Despite these efforts, the few ruined classrooms that remain look sad and forgotten. Just inside the gate sits a small, locked storage shed marked with the Pathfinder’s Glyph of the Open Road.
J seems to withdraw into herself as you approach, but Grishan becomes brighter and more distinct, his eyes open and focused now. You use the key Dreng gave you and push open the gates, pausing at the old shed. The storage shed was once locked, but its lock is damaged and no longer functions. It contains various supplies used by the archaeological teams that work here including large rolls of twine, wooden stakes, brushes, sacks, shovels, trowels, and various measuring implements. A large sign hanging on the back of the shed reads:
"Entry to above ground structure in the ‘Yard is strongly discouraged. It contains an dangerous supernatural force. Items in the yellow box are for emergencies only. Signed, V-C Dreng”
Inside the yellow box you find 4 haunt siphons. There are slots for other things, but they are currently empty.
J looks up now, toward the school. "I had classes here. There's... I feel like there's something in the classroom that I need to learn." She leads the way, growing bolder and more animated as she goes.
The small classroom is all that remains of a once great school. School benches and chairs are scattered about in a haphazard fashion and a chalkboard hangs crooked from a single nail on the western wall. The sound of the ocean beating against the cliffs in the distance is the only thing that breaks the silence.
... And picks it up. Nothing strange happens.
Grishan suddenly looks around. "Do you feel that? That tremor..."
Suddenly the ground begins to shake! Outside the windows, the sky darkens and the ceiling begins to drip dust. All of the sudden dozens of spectral children rise from unseen desks and races haphazardly to the exit, but before they can get there, the ceiling collapses!
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Cornelia looks upward toward the ceiling when the rumbling begins and the dust begins to fall. She gasps as the children appear and then suddenly screams as the ceiling begins to cave-in around her, large pieces of debris battering her head and shoulders... Cornelia sprints out of the room as quickly as she can, blood streaming down her face in rivulets from a large, open gash on her scalp...
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Torrag looks around at everyone cowering and the half elf on the ground and sighs.
If J is not frightened, Torrag will pull out a wand of Cure Light Wounds and ask her to heal up everyone starting with our downed half elf.
If she is frightened, Torrag will get out a potion of Cure Moderate and feed it to Inira.
Both J and Grishan seem more shocked by the sight of their former classmates than fearful, but they both feel the stones fall, watching as those they left above so long ago perish beneath the rocks.
J's HP: 0/16
Grishan HP: 9/27
J is shaken awake by Torrag, who hands her a wand and first uses it to heal herself, feeling unconsciousness too close.
J's HP: 4/16
Grishan HP: 9/27
Wand Healing (Use as needed)
With help from those who are not frightened, the poor party members are shaken awake and healed and retrieved from the rockslide, which fades away after a minute, leaving wounds and memories and the unshakable sense of fear that the dead children must have felt in their final moments.
AFter you are all healed, J shakes herself, seeming to bring herself to the present. "I feel something... below. Something calling me. I need to go down where we all were... where Grishan and Cassi died."
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Cornelia is found outside the building, hugging her knees to her chest with a wild, terrified look in her wide eyes. Upon closer inspection one might notice that one pupils is shrunken to the size of a pin-point while the other is grossly dilated... She whispers in a strange, guttural language (Aboleth).
After the moment is over, Cornelia shakes her head and blinks several times, her pupils returning to normal shape and size. She wipes at the blood on her face and then removes her own wand for healing purposes. "Could one of you assist me with this...?" She asks sheepishly while rubbing at her face with a rag to wipe away the blood.
Once healed up, Cornelia immediately begins a very regimented ritual of straightening her hear and clothing back into their immaculate presentation, her hands shaking slightly while she sets about her task.
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I'll use some of the wand charges for myself. If I scratch 11 charges that should be enough to heal J, myself, and 1 other. If I need to spend more let me know. I want to make sure everyone is healed. I'll also tell J to hold onto the wand for future use.
I take it there is no way to heal Grishan? Did Grishan take full damage or half damage from that?
J nods her head slowly. "I can still feel them here. They're in such anguish, such pain." She shakes herself and nods toward the exit. "This way."
She leads you a passage, half concealed by rubble. A winding stair takes you down into the dark, where a long passageway opens up. The reek of death chokes this narrow stone corridor, where a trio of corpses slowly rots into the stone.
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Inira's time spent in the temples helping others has proved to have added value today, as she recognizes a few things about the deceased.
"I beleive these bodies have been here for about two months." She points to two of the corpses. "I don't see any cause of death for these two, but this one here was injured. I am afraid he just succumbed to the damage."
A quick check of the body reveals they are indeed dead, and what's more, they seem to be the people that took the missing supplies from the Pathfinder box above. You find the following:
three suits of leather armor, three short swords, three oils of magic weapon, two potions of cure light wounds, a scroll of remove disease, a wand of lesser restoration (6 charges), and a wand of protection from evil (18 charges), a collection of excavation tools and sundry items, 105 gp, a pair of ghostvision gloves(Pathfinder RPG Ultimate Equipment 236), two potions of cure moderate wounds, two potions of remove fear, and a scroll of breath of life. The magic items are each marked with a small Glyph of the Open Road, the symbol of the Pathfinder Society. You don't find any other Society symbols on the bodies; you surmise these may have been thieves.
Gathering yourselves, you move onward, where the hallway opens into a larger tomb. Standing in the middle of the tomb is the ghost of a young girl with pale blond hair. She points at J, who freezes in terror.
“I’ve been waiting for you a long time, Junia. Waiting for you to come back. Why did you leave me? Won’t you come back to me? Then we can all be friends again.”
Junia is frozen in terror, but Grishan moves in front of you protectively. However, he seems to be rendered mute by J's terror.
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Cornelia stops when the girl suddenly appears. She looks at the terrified look on Junia's face, then thinks back to the dead men upon the stairwell. "Hello there. I am Cornelia d'Malheur of the Pathfinder Society." She pleasantly greets the young ghost. "What might your name be, dear?" She kneels down, but does not approach the ghost.
"My name is Cassiel, miss. Have you come to be my friend forever, too? Like Junia? We'll all be happy here in the dark forever. Where Junia left me."
J begins to shake and rock back and forth, murmuring 'I'm sorry, I'm so sorry,'" over and over.
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"I am glad to have met you, Cassiel. You do not need to call me, miss. Please, call me Cornelia." She smiles. "I would love to be your friend, sweetheart, but I do not believe we must remain in the darkness. Perhaps we could go up into the light? Is there something keeping your down here all alone?"
The ghost points at Junia. "I can go as soon as she comes with me. It's not fair she lived and I died. It's not FAIR!" The ghost stomps her foot on this last word and for a moment she looks much less childlike and much more wraith-like.