[PFS] Season 0 run, mixed with Dragon's Demand

Game Master Irish202

Your mission is to explore Hunclay Manor completely, eliminating its dangers so that clerks can inventory the wizard's belongings for the upcoming auction. You are to take nothing - Baroness Origena is paying you a wage for your efforts and you're free to participate in the auction if you wish to purchase items from the estate. You're also supposed to leave Hunclay's property as undamaged as possible. If you manage to learn anything about any strange objects or magic items found within, you have instructions to leave notes near the objects for the clerks to read once exploration of the manor is complete.

Hunclay Manor is the newest building in Belhaim, built of heavy blocks of stone 2-1/2 feet thick. The grisly remains of a kobold, the flesh charred badly and limbs contorted by fire, still lie on the doorstep of the manor house. A tall man with broad shoulder stands nearby and eyes the corpse with a disgusted look. He walks up to you when he notices you. ”Hi! Are you the Pathfinders the Baroness hired? I’m Gregol Lenton. I’m a stonemason and was involved in the construction of this manor. I was asked to give you some info.”

After you confirm that you are indeed the Pathfinders the Baroness hired Gregor goes on to explain the manor’s floor plan. ”It’s quite straightforward, no secret doors or rooms. Here, let me give you a rough sketch of the layout.”

He pulls out a sheet of paper and a pencil and quickly draws up a simple map. After this Gregol retrieves a key from a pocket.

”The manor’s key,” Gregol explains as he holds the key up, and hands it over to you with the map. ”Best of luck!”

You’re reluctant to move straight up to the door after Gregol’s taken his leave, considering what happened to the kobold that now lies dead on the manor’s doorstep. While most of you discuss how to approach the door without triggering the trap, Urbar picks up a couple of stones and throws them against the door. Nothing happens.

”Seems safe,” Urbar concludes, and walks straight up to the door.

Tereze yelps and says, ”Urbar, wait! Ze trigger could be in ze floor!”

Nothing seems to happen though when Urbar arrives in front of the door, neither does anything happen as Urbar uses the key to unlock the door and open it. A sigh of relief can be heard from Tereze and the other girls.

”You’re going to kill yourself one day if you continue to walk into places zat you know may be trapped,” Tereze tells Urbar, but her words are met with a shrug.

”You’ll patch me up again,” the ranger responds nonchalantly.

The floor of the well-appointed entry hall beyond the door is adorned with two expensive Qadiran rugs and decorated with several overstuffed leather sofas. Two dozen paintings with gilded frames hang on the walls, portraits and landscapes, all of exquisite artistry. To the north sits a large bird cage. Wooden doors open in the east and west walls, and an elaborate spiral staircase of iron both ascends and descends in the southeast corner.

”Before we proceed inside I would like to confirm that there isn’t a trap on the other side of the door,” says the multitude of mixed voices coming from behind Locke’s mask. ”Urbar, I suggest you let me do this, as I have brought just the item for it.”

Another shrug from the ranger follows, and Urbar steps aside to allow Locke to step forward. Locke takes the small barrel he received at the Baroness mansion and places it on the doorstep. Locke then gives it a push, and the barrel rolls all the way to the entry hall’s north wall.

Locke nods, a smile hidden behind the mask. ”There is no physical trap. Now we just have to check if there isn’t a ma…”

”Very well, let’s go then,” Urbar says as he steps past Locke, not letting the alchemist finish his sentence. The floor immediately gives way beneath Urbar, revealing a 30-foot pit. ”Aaah!”

Urbar quickly grabs hold of Locke’s arm as he falls, and pulls Locke with him. Before Locke can fully fall over Gwendallyn, Tereze, Fiona, and Eryzule grab hold of Locke’s other arm. Together they pull Locke and Urbar to safety.

”What good was that barrel?!” Urbar exclaims as he gets back to his feet and dusts himself off.

Locke’s head shakes from side to side. ”The trap was magical by nature. It must’ve been set to activate a small amount of time after it had been triggered, perhaps to allow just one person inside the manor and cause a second person to fall into the pit. I was about to suggest scanning the place for magic, but then you stormed inside.”

”Guys, don’t fight!” Gwendallyn chimes in when Urbar’s about to reply. ”I’m glad you’re both safe. Urbar, please be a bit more careful. Now… How do we get past that pit?”

As you discuss how to get past the pit and into the manor the pit suddenly vanishes. A quick scan with detect magic doesn’t reveal the presence of a trap anymore. After throwing several rocks into the entry hall Urbar, this time with a rope around his waist, steps inside. Nothing happens. He’s carefully followed by others, who also all have a rope tied around their waists. Again, nothing happens. It seems the trap’s no longer active, and you all enter the manor without further incidents. Locke’s then able to retrieve the barrel he brought.

”Tereze, could you refill the water for them?” Fiona asks. The cleric nods and cast create water so the birds can drink.

You determine that, alive, the birds are worth 200 gp total. A close look reveals a small silver charm attached by a string to the leg of the largest bird. The charm radiates faint abjuration magic. Fiona removes it from the bird’s leg and, on closer examination, discovers it's a magical key that can be used to open various arcane locks.

You decide to try the east door first and, after thoroughly checking it for traps but finding none, open it. You end up in a kitchen that is well stocked with all the accoutrements needed to prepare gourmet meals. The northeast cubby, obscured by a curtain, houses a pair of cots and two chests with cheap locks that Locke easily picks. Within it you find a deck of playing cards, a pair of normal shoes, and some sheets. A large cabinet along the southeastern wall contains Hunclay's silverware and expensive dinnerware. You determine that, in all, they’re worth 800 gp.

In the kitchen’s south wall sit two doors. One of the doors leads to a well-stocked pantry that contains nothing of any real value. The other door appears to be barricaded from the inside. Gwendallyn puts her shoulder into it and opens the door by dislodging the armoire pushed up against the other side.

”Aaaaah! No, no, no!” screams a middle-aged man with messy brown hair and leaf green eyes, who stands in the middle of the bedroom that’s revealed. He ducks beneath the bed in the southeast corner of the room and cowers. ”Leave me be! Leave me be!”

Eryzule approaches the man, or rather the bed, and starts unpacking his tea set. ”Now now, please don’t scream. We’re not here to hurt you. I’m Eryzule, Lord of Tea. Can I interest you in a cup?”

The man instantly stops screaming and crawls out from under the bed. ”Yes, please,” he says politely as he sits down on the edge of the bed. ”Do you have mint? I sure do fancy mint.”

”That I have,” Eryzule responds as he finishes preparing the tea and hands the man a cup. He then sits next to the man with a cup of his own and takes a sip before asking, ”May I have the pleasure of knowing your name?”

”Yes. Yes, most certainly,” the man replies, also takes a sip, and continues, ”I am Mathezic, servant of master Hunclay. Have you seen him? The kobolds he was working with have been acting weird. They’re the reason I was hiding…”

Eryzule smiles wryly at Mathezic. ”I’m sorry to tell you your master’s passed away. He was found in the rubble of a collapsed tower.”

Mathezic eyes begin to water and he sets his cup down. ”I did not know…”

You give Mathezic a moment to process the news, and after a while he starts talking again: ”Master Hunclay was employing the kobolds to undermine the foundations of the Witch Tower after having been unable to remove it by legal means. He thought the Tower was an eyesore. When one of them showed up at the manor’s doorstep, armed, I was afraid more would follow…”

You ask Mathezic a couple questions and learn that Hunclay had contact with many unsavory parties for his research, which Mathezic believes "had to do with the stars." Mathezic and the other two servants, Linus and Saba, were forbidden to enter many places in the manor. Mathezic also states that no one was to enter the master's bedroom without Hunclay present, though he doesn't know why. During the conversation Tereze gets the hunch that Mathezic is holding something back and asks what it is. With some persuasion from Eryzule, Mathezic admits that he suspects the other two servants headed up to Hunclay's secret cave north of town to try to loot it-Mathezic didn't mention this to you because he was hoping to loot it himself. He then gives you the location of the secret cave.

Eryzule uses clever words to convince Mathezic that it’s a bad idea to visit the cave on his own, using the pit trap as an example of the many dangers the cave could hold. Mathezic seems convinced and, after finishing his tea, gathers his belongings and leaves the manor. He tells you he’ll be heading straight for Faldamont, his hometown, and you do not detect dishonesty in his words.

You head back to the entry hall and open the door in the west wall, which gives access to a small corridor. Within the corridor are two doors, one in the north wall and one south. The door up north gives access to a parlor. In the northeast corner of the parlor is a huge globe of Golarion cradled in a polished mahogany stand. Sextants, astrolabes, and paintings of unearthly landscapes are hung on the walls. You determine that the devices and fixtures in this room are worth 1,500 gp.

The other door in the corridor gives access to a dining room with a long oak table, which is surrounded by ornately carved oak chairs. On each wall hangs a large, framed painting of a desert landscape. You determine the room’s contents are worth 1,200 gp.

The iron bookcase holds several precious tomes. The lock on the bookcase's door has an arcane lock, which Fiona’s able to remove with the charm she found. Locke then notices the handles are warded by a hidden, spring-loaded poisoned needle trap, and disables it. You’re then able to safely open the bookcase. There is a total of sixteen valuable tomes in the iron bookcase. Thirteen of these are extraordinarily rare books on subjects related to astronomy, worth 100 gp each. The remainder of the books in the library are all shelved on the wooden bookshelves. They number over 600, and are
worth 800 gp in all.

After inspecting the door in the east wall of the library and determining it’s locked and trapped with an alarm spell that’ll go off if you force it open, you decide to explore the room on the other side of the library first. The door in the west wall’s not trapped, nor is it locked. You open it and are able to see the master bedchamber beyond. This chamber is richly appointed, with three armoires and three tall wardrobes, a canopied bed with a large locked chest at its foot, a writing desk and chair, elaborate marble tub, and a thick bearskin rug. Gwendallyn’s the first to step into the room, and is greeted by a roar from the bearskin rug.

”Falayna!” Gwendallyn exclaims in shock, but turns red when nothing happens after the roar. She tries to hide her face from Eryzule, but when she takes a quick peek in his direction sees he’s grinning sheepishly.

”Don’t worry, Gwen. Zat also caught me by surprise,” Tereze says as she places a hand on the brawler’s shoulder.

”Me as well,” Fiona timidly mumbles, but unintentionally too soft for anyone to actually hear her.

Erzyule scans the room and discovers the entire room radiates moderate conjuration magic.

”Just to make a rug sound like a grizzly?” Urbar comments while patting his wolf, trying to calm the animal down. ”There, girl. Calm down…”

Locke moves over to the locked chest at the foot of the canopied bed and unlocks it. The moment the chest unlocks there’s a flash above the bearskin rug and, on top of it, an actual grizzly bear appears. Urbar and his wolf immediately charge the animal, the ranger cutting into it with a swing from one of his swords and the wolf tripping the animal. Gwendallyn then moves in to grapple the bear, but the bear gets back to its feet and dodges her grasp. It then hits Urbar and Gwendallyn both with its claws, hurting them badly. While Tereze channels positive energy to heal her wounded allies, Eryzule uses his vines to hold the grizzly bear down long enough for Fiona to finish her slumber hex. The bear falls asleep, after which Gwendallyn ties it up.

”Well that was unexpected,” Locke comments as he opens the chest, which contains 3,200 gp worth of coins and gemstones. ”What about the conjuration aura, Ery? Is it still in place?”

Eryzule scans the room and shakes his head. ”It’s disappeared.”

”As I suspected. Good. That allows us to finish things up here?”

”Should we just leave it here?” Fiona speaks up, pointing at the bear. ”It it breaks loose it’ll damage the furniture, and we’re supposed to avoid damage.”

The bear then, just as abruptly as it appeared, vanishes. Eryzule scans the room again, but the conjuration aura’s still gone. He shares this with the others and concludes, ”That solves the issue.”

You continue to explore the room and find a ring of keys sitting in the top desk drawer. You take it so you can use it to unlock the physical locks you’ll come across during your exploration of the manor. The armoires and wardrobes store rich clothing worth a total of 850 gp. Sitting on the writing desk is a gold ring set with a fat black pearl worth 1,350 gp. A scrap of paper sitting on Hunclay's nightstand seems to contain a few bawdy limericks, but on closer inspection is in fact a to-do list disguised by a secret page spell. You have no idea what the word is that’ll reveal the secret page, and decide to pocket the scrap and continue your exploration.

You head back to the library and up to the east door, which you are now able to unlock without triggering the alarm trap. You open the door to reveal the study beyond. Two long tables of stained oak line the east wall of this room, each cluttered with alchemical supplies. Atop the desk on the west wall are writing implements, ink, sheets of vellum, and several scrolls. A large chest secured by a prominent lock sits just north of the desk.

Inspecting the chest reveals that forcing it open will activate a trap, but using Fiona’s charm allows you to open it without bad consequences. Inside are six spellbooks. You flip through the book’s pages and, inside the book containing Hunclay's 3rd-level spells, discover the incantation of the secret page spell. A gloss in the margin on this page has four words noted: "Eox," "Aucturn," "Carcosa," and "Dominion." Only "Dominion" hasn't been crossed out.

”Probably ze word we need to read ze secret page we found earlier,” Tereze says as she retrieves the scrap of paper you found earlier from her pocket. ”Let’s see if zis works… Dominion!”

The moment Tereze says “Dominion” the secret page on the scrap of paper is revealed:

Conjure accuser devil re. disguising text of Secrets of the Dreaming Dark.

Animate Dominion remains as guardian for cave.

Repair hinges of secret door in cloakwork lab.

Attempt second contact with Dominion via book’s ritual before loan to A.

Confirm demolition date with A’s kobolds.

”A has to be Aeteperax, the dragon. Looks like Hunclay and Aeteperax were working together to let the Witch Tower collapse,” Locke concludes while reading the secret page.

”But what is zis Dominion?”

Urbar shrugs. ”Meh, don’t care. We’ll just cut it down when we meet it.”

”Zat’s quite naïve…”

”Mwah…”

A 1-foot-wide ledge runs around the edge of the dome. Sitting on the southwest portion of this lip is a homunculus that looks like an obese infant, but with leathery skin mottled with spots of grime, curling ram's horns, sharp blackened teeth, and black eyes with no pupils. It grins wickedly when it spots you and makes a series of quick, complex gestures.

”I think it wants us to sit down on the chair,” Fiona says, able to interpret the creature’s gestures. The creature then nods, confirming this.

”A bad idea,” Locke’s voices say, ”I can see from here that the chair is trapped.”

Eryzule uses detect magic on the chair and confirms this: ”A spell’s been cast on the chair. You’ll be electrocuted if you sit down in it.”

The creature claps its hands and laughs soundlessly. It then drops to the floor, an arrow piercing its chest. Locke puts away his bow and comments, ”It was clearly evil.”

Locke’s comment is met mainly with nods and shrugs. Urbar then picks the strange creature up and tosses it onto the chair, causing the magic trap to go off and fry the creature’s corpse with electricity.

”The trap’s gone now,” Eryzule shares after using detect magic again. His comment is met mainly with nods and shrugs.

You start searching the room and find several items of interest. In addition to 50 rare star charts that focus on strangely empty-looking swaths of the night sky, lying on the tables are an exquisite platinum astrolabe, six rare astronomy tomes of aged Taldan pedigree, and two expensive handheld telescopes. In all, this stargazing gear is worth 5,000 gp.

You proceed through the door in the storage cellar’s west wall, and end up in a long corridor that leads both north and south. You decide to go south first and come across three similar storage rooms. The easternmost is a well-stocked wine cellar, with many fine and rare vintages from across the Inner Sea. The middle contains a generous cache of sides of beef, pork, mutton, fowl, and fish, all frozen thanks to a permanent wall of ice cast against the north wall. The westernmost closet is trapped with an alarm spell, but you’re able to unlock it without issues using the keys on the key chain you found. This closet contains a large supply of magical components for spellcasting and research.

At this end of the corridor is a door made of thick, dark iron etched with arcane symbols. Locke recognizes they are obscure glyphs employed to imprison dangerous summoned creatures. However, the door is not locked. You prepare yourselves for combat and carefully open the door. A ten-foot-square antechamber's revealed, its north wall an artfully wrought gate of bright metal that opens on to the larger chamber beyond. The walls of this chamber are covered with strange glyphs and runes, including one enormous word scrawled in one-foot-high letters across the north wall.

Locke’s able to translate the text on the walls: ”The runes on the walls within the main chamber are invocations to various demons, written in Abyssal. The large word on the north wall is also Abyssal: CTHEPALTANGOULGI. I have no idea what that means, though. I suspect it is some kind of name."

The gate into the main room is locked, but you’re able to unlock it with a key from the key chain. A 10-foot-diameter, 10-foot-deep pit sits in the eastern portion of the room beyond the gate. You carefully move up to the pit and take a peek inside. On the bottom of it sits a goat-headed humanoid, covered in a mangy gray hide that only partly covers its gaunt but muscled frame. It sits completely still.

”It looks like it is paralyzed,” Tereze says, when suddenly the creature lets out a guttural cry and starts climbing up the pit’s wall. Tereze jumps away from the pit and yells, ”Not anymore!”

The moment the creature reaches the top of the pit it’s met with one of Urbar’s swords and the fangs of his wolf. Their attacks connect, but somehow the damage they do is less substantial than it should be. As Gwendallyn jumps on top of the creature and grapples it, Eryzule tries to determine what the creature’s weaknesses are.

”It’s a schir, a demon! Use cold iron or something good aligned!” Eryzule announces. ”It’s got a lot of resistances so anything else won’t work as well!”

Tereze meanwhile wrecks her brain to figure out why the creature looked like it was paralyzed. ”Somezing kept it in place when we entered, but what?!”

Fiona’s eyes widen, and she turns her head to the large word on the north wall. ”Its name! It was bound by its name, Locke!”

Locke quickly turns to the north wall and reads the word aloud: ”CTHEPALTANGOULGI!”

The demon cries out in pain when its name is spoken, but continues to struggle against Gwendallyn’s iron grasp.

”CTHEPALTANGOULGI!” Locke shouts again, and this time the demon freezes in place.

Gwendallyn quickly gets out her rope and ties the demon up. She’s barely finished her knot when the demon continues moving and tries to free itself. It yells at you in a guttural voice: ”Just you wait! You cannot keep me here, filth!”

”Never planned to,” Urbar comments as he places the tip of his sword against the demon throat and pushes it down. The demon starts coughing blood as the sword sinks into its throat, but the steel blade isn’t able to do the job in one go. Urbar keeps pushing and the coughing turns into gurgling as thick, black demon blood spreads all over the floor. Eventually the demon stops making sound. It then disappears as abruptly as the grizzly bear you’d fought earlier, leaving only its blood behind.

You leave the chamber with the pit and head back into the long corridor, this time following it to its other end. There’s another door that you unlock, with another chamber beyond it. Six stone slabs sit on the floor of this chamber. Heaped upon each are metal tools, gears, springs, and other parts for the construction of mechanical creations. Investigating the tools and parts confirms the area is for the crafting of clockworks. The tools and resources kept in this lab are worth 2,500 gp.

Gwendallyn points at the east wall. ”That looks like a secret door… Didn’t Gregol tell us there were none?”

”It appears that either mister Lenton didn’t tell us the truth, or it was a later addition,” Locke comments.

”You there!” a voice sounds inside your head while the creature jumps up. ”Free me, please! You just have the distort the circle. Even placing something on top of the lines will do it!”

”Why would we trust you?” Tereze asks the creature, sensing something’s off.

”I just want to go back to Hell, where I belong!”

Tereze shakes her head. ”Ze creature’s lying. It will most probably attack us ze moment it’s freed.”

A barrage of projectiles follows from Urbar’s sling and Locke’s bow, dropping the devil within mere seconds. You then step onto the circle’s edge, thus breaking its magic and sending the devil’s corpse to Hell, where it belongs.

You investigate the contents of the journal on the table. It contains extensive notes on the appearances and behavior of the outsiders he's conjured in this room, and the services he secured from them. Most were conjured purely for questioning. Only the occupants of this room, the room you were previously in, and a room you haven’t yet been in were kept for any length of time. The journal describes Hunclay's plans for two of them:

HUnclay initially conjured the schir in the pit to be his bodyguard on a visit to meet someone named "Barlau," and he conjured a creature named a shae because he believed that she might know about the Dark Tapestry. You wreck your brains for information about shaes, but have no idea what they are.

The journal further describes that other creatures Hunclay summoned run the gamut from devil to demon, azata to archon. The topics of Hunclay's research varied from the creation of constructs and homunculi, investigations into Belhaim's history, and discussions of various magical items and spells, but far and away the most common topic was the Dark Tapestry. Time and time again, the notes mention a failed conjuration of a "representative of the Dominion of the Black." Hunclay conjured it only to have to kill it when it attacked him. The notes show that this took place in "my safe cave." It mentions the same location for the cave as Mathezic gave you earlier, just under a mile north of Belhaim. You conclude the journal is probably worth 6,000 gp to anyone interested in conjuring outsiders, because the names and offering preferences of a good three dozen such creatures are recorded within.

You exit the room with the summoning circle and continue walking down the corridor until you reach yet another door. The door isn’t trapped and you decide to open it. The walls of the room beyond are covered with arcane symbols. In the northern section a wooden table sits against the eastern wall, with several items laid atop it. A bright light shines forth from an opening in the south wall.

The light to the south is a permanent wall of light that runs down the length of this hallway. The wall of light ends before a single small cell enclosed by a gate of bright metal etched with strange sigils that radiate strong abjuration magic. Within the cell is an amorphous cloud of shadow, a shape that's difficult to fix one's eyes on. You figure this is the another creature conjured by Hunclay and
kept here for interrogation purposes - the shae. As you step from the light the cloud resolves into a mostly humanoid shape. A white porcelain mask and elegant white clothing materialize, providing form and contrast to a shadowy woman's body. "What's this now? I recognize you not, mortals. Are you minions of the petty human? If not, I plead with you to release me from this unjust and outrageous imprisonment. Do so, and you shall be rewarded."

You don’t sense any evil intentions from the shae, only that it desperately wishes to be freed. You decide to help the shae and use of one the keys on the key chain to unlock the gate of her prison.

”I thank you for your kindness, mortals. However, merely opening the gate isn't sufficient to release me from my imprisonment. I’m already suffering from previous exposures to the wall of light you see her, and it could easily kill me if I move within 5 feet of it…”

Sounding very bitter the shae continues: ”There is a method to extinguish the wall of light, but it requires hurling a handful of enhanced magical dust through the wall. However, it is not present here. While mocking me Hunclay told me he'd hidden his supply of this dust away in a secret cave somewhere. If you wish to help me you will have to travel there.”

And this is where you take over! :)

Ulfa, that name suits her...

He nods to Tereze to extends her protection and moves off.

Blue: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (14) + 2 = 16
Green: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (11) + 2 = 13
Red: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (18) + 2 = 20