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"And she's suffering in her head," adds Sieglinde.
Turning to the creature, Sieglinde speaks gently. "We are not here to harvest you, or your friends. We wish to examine the statue behind you, and to depart in peace. If we can assist you in any way, please tell us how. The water here is bad, and it has probably clouded your thoughts."
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"I'd like to have one of those watermelons if you don't mind. Gotta compensate for that dwarven shortness somehow."
The dwarf isn't sure what the plant creature is either, but he sure is confused by what she is saying.
"I'm afraid there's a mistake. We're no gardeners and we don't mean to harvest any of you. If said gardeners do come over and give you any trouble you can tell me and I'll show them out."
"Right, I don't know what all that means even! We just need to see that statue, please?"
All together, the group is able to convince the plant lady that they are not a threat, and her magically enhanced paranoia fades to more reasonable suspicion. She stands down her threats and explains her situation.
"Very well, I apologize, this place may be secure, but the ill effects make me somewhat not myself at times. My name is Khaya, and I escaped from faraway Nex with these companions here, smuggled away as seedpods. I sprouted first, and found this place, hidden away from prying eyes to wait for my kin to sprout as well." She motions to the healthy-looking plants in the raised beds.
"Of course, you probably care little for this, I only explain so that I can ask you to keep our location a secret. Once the others are up and ready, we can leave this cursed area and treat with the rulers here for a safe place, asylum, and consideration to help our people. We mean no harm, so if you can promise us secrecy for the time being, I can allow you to examine that statue."
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"When your people are ready, you may want to ask our superiors at the Pathfinder Society to help you approach the government. We are an organization of explorers, and more familiar with life forms very different from our own."
Eminesa sternly reminds Jumpy that he must leave the plants here alone, and then encourages J. to go over with Grisham to investigate what they came here for.
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This is the most intelligent plant creature I have ever encountered.
Nox seconds Sieglinde's concern for reducing the taint of the rain. "We are happy to keep your secrets and help you and yours. Would it be possible to tell us what your people are called?" She considers Khaya's condition. "Perhaps we could find an alternate safe location in which to secret you, one with fewer side effects. The Society may be aware of such a place."
Khaya doesn't have a complete explanation for the rains. "It takes a great deal of my magic to stave off the rain, and it is still very taxing... We are Ghoran - we were created so that we could be eaten by other decadent sentients, a wicked fate I believe. Secrecy and privacy is all I ask, though if you have dealt with that root man in some way it will be a help - he was treacherous and wanted us gone."
The druid steps aside to allow J. access to the statue.
Carefully tipping over the Red Lion statue on the fountain reveals that it is hollow. Inside is a small package wrapped in many layers of wax paper: Grishan’s intelligence packet. J. grabs it. "This is it, lets leave these Ghorans and take a look."
Once out of the room and somewhere dry, J. opens the packet and browses the notes. Grishan manifests again and looks over her shoulder. J. grimaces several times as she reads and Grishan looks sullen as well.
J. tells her phantom partner "I want to show them too, after they came all this way for us." She hands you the notes.
Khaya responds. "We have a unique way of propagation. We each house a seed, and we can transfer our life into it and emerge several days later. Somehow this gave our captors the moral cover they needed."
Grishan's notes reveal his collection of secrets on many of Absolom's aristocratic families.
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.
Grishan looks at the floor as he says "I hardly believe it, but that is my writing. Lets be gone from this place..."
J. agrees and readies to head to your next destination.
Grishan explains what he can. "I don't remember the details. I was spying for my family though. Including on J.'s - the Dacilanes. Maldris there is my own family - at least sort of it would seem. I think this was all to gather dirt to use against the other families..." He shakes his ghostly head, still looking at the ground.
J. looks like she could cry, but tells Grishan "It's ok Grishan, since the earthquake you've been completely different than this. It doesn't matter to me."
J. doesn't seem to want to talk any more about the documents yet. "We still have more to see. We can talk about the notes again later... Now that we've helped Grishan, lets go to the Drownyard."
You leave the Arboretum Arcanis behind, and make your way to the entrance to the Drownyard. A tall fence surrounds the area, but the key provided by Dreng earlier opens the locked gate.
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. falls silent as she steps on the grounds of her old school. Then she gathers herself to ask "Could we take just a moment in silence? I haven't been back here since I was rescued, and I'd like to remember the others that weren't so fortunate..."
After a few moments, she nods with some resolve. "I want to see my old classroom. I hear it's haunted, but I can sense something there that I need to learn."
The Pathfinder Society is running archcaeological digs around the Precipice Quarter, and the locker likely has some of their supplies.
The lock appears broken, so the shed isn't actually locked anymore. The place appears raided, and the shovels and other supplies you would expect to see appear to have been stolen. But toward the back of the shed you find a sign:
"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"
The yellow box is the among the only things not stolen. In it are two haunt siphons.
To capture a haunt’s energies within a haunt siphon, you need only twist the metal casing to open the vial in the same round that the haunt manifests (a standard action)— this can be before or after the haunt has acted. You must be within the haunt’s area of influence to use a haunt siphon.
When you activate a haunt siphon, it deals 3d6 points of positive energy damage to a single haunt. If it deals enough damage to the haunt to reduce the haunt’s hit points to 0, the mist inside the haunt siphon glows green—if it does not reduce the haunt to 0 hit points, the haunt siphon is still expended and becomes nonmagical. It may take multiple haunt siphons to destroy powerful haunts.
A haunt siphon that neutralizes a haunt can no longer be used to harm haunts, but it can be used as a grenadelike splash weapon that deals 1d6 points of negative energy damage with a direct hit. Every creature within 5 feet of the point where the haunt siphon hits takes 1 point of negative energy damage from the splash.
"I think most of our classes were in there. I remember liking the history the most. But now I mostly just remember the disaster, and how so many people died there, but I didn't..."
J. shakes her head. "Are we ready to go?"
It's creepy in here, and J. is good with going slow enough for Sieglinde to detect evil.
As you approach the classroom, J. points it out. When Sieglinde looks into the room, before any of you enter Sieglinde detects the presence of an evil haunt inside. It's all about the classroom, but you have not entered its area yet since you are still outside.
J. looks drawn to the classroom, and seems like she will enter despite any warnings.