[PbP Gameday VII] GM Ladile & the Pathfinder Society Present: Treacherous Waves (Inactive)

Game Master Lady Ladile

Guadaloupe bows to Lileone. "Thank you very much for all of your help." He stands back up. "We should get back and tell the others what we found out! Ya think maybe shark man can help us get our point across?"

Imperia nods her head. "That is precisely who I had in mind. I'm not much for convincing people nicely, which seems to be his specialty."

She lets the silence sit before sighing inwardly. He has been respectful thus far... "What exactly is it that you're good at again?" Imperia asks, attempting to make small talk.

Karabo chuckles at the woman's question to the ratfolk.

"I mean, I can talk, just not as good as shark man. I kinda get words mixed up and...." He looks down, remembering a few bad times when he tried diplomacizing with people....

He looks up when he hears Imperia talking to HIM! He perks up, sticking his chest out as he takes his rapier out and poses in the opposite direction needed to return to the rest of the group. "I... can hamper our enemies and use my fantastic rapier to be dashing in combat!"

I say we should investigate about this bureaucratic "laziness", and see if we can motivate people to clean the Sonophore again. But do we have time enough?

A fighter? "I too am good in a fight. Maybe it'll come to that at some point. It's been quite a bit of talking thus far," Imperia comments. And not always with the company I'd like. Not a single soldier to be found in this damn Plane.

"May I?" she asks with a hand open for his tiny sword.
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Just FYI, the talking bit is not a critique on the game!

He thought about it for a second before saying, "Well, what better way to get the populace to want to do something is to show them how. If outsiders clean the Sonophore, that might inspire them to keep it clean." He nodded to himself as he said that, as it sounded like a good idea.

He looked to their informant, "About how long does it take to get to the Sonophore?"

Team Lileone - Guadaloupe, Imperia, Karabo

"Thank you again for being willing to help," Lileone says when she finally returns with directions to Tsomo's home. "Don't worry about it just yet - you've got your investigation to finish. But once all that's done, any help you can round up to help clean up the reefs would be greatly appreciated!"
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To save you guys a little bit of time later, some of the folks you can try to recruit to help with the cleanup effort are Yuka, Honoke, and Razethka. The workers at Tsomo's offices (Chailai & Co.) might also be able and willing to help you out as well.

Team Sonaphor - Baied & Frank

"Oh! Um, well that'd sure be nice but I don't know if they'll let visitors have access to it," your impromptu informant remarks, looking a little puzzled. "Most of them usually don't care all that much about the Sonaphore anyway; they'd usually rather see other sights while they're here."

Then, she shrugs. "But it's not far from here, maybe 30 minutes on foot. Just be sure you've got a way to keep breathing while you're out there though," she continues, jiggling one of jellyfish jars for emphasis.

Guadaloupe nods at Lileone. "Of course. Investigation first... helping you later." He tries his best to give a genuine, non-flirtatious smile.... as hard as that is.

The rat looks at Imperia and gives her a wink in response to her question. "Depends... what do I get out of it, hmmm?"

"Very well, we shall be off then! We have companions to rejoin," Imperia explains as she motions to leave for the Sonaphor.

"To see my own," she responds evenly to Guadaloupe as she pulls out her well-made longsword. "Nothing more, nothing less." Quite the weasel for a mouse.

Now armed with Tsomo's home address and an agreement set to do what you can to round up help for the poisoned reefs, Guadaloupe, Imperia, and Karabo set off to reunite with Frank and Baied. Although it took Lileone some time to track down said address for you, you all still manage to catch up to Frank and Baied at Arrekin's Bazaar. Spotting the pair in the crowd, the three of you come walking up just in time to catch what seems to be the end of a sales pitch from a fishy-looking woman brandishing jellyfish in a jar.
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And now you're all together again! By the way, I'm enjoying the interactions between Guadaloupe and Imperia :3

Imperia gives a curt nod in greeting to her companions. "What have you found out about the Sonaphor? We've learned Tsomo's address and I think it is about time we made a house call. Frankly, I am suspecting violence," she explains to the others, gripping her longsword in anticipation. "I doubt we can talk him down once we expose him, but it will be worth trying."
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Guadaloupe, we can retcon any further sword related RP if you like. We could use spoilers to keep it from detracting from the present timeline. No pressure, just figured since you are still new to the medium I'd explain what options we've got.

"We also agreed to try to persuade the other influential members of the caravan to try to repair the reef as a price for his address," Karabo adds. "After justice is dealt."

Going to give things a bit longer for Baied to check in and then move the action along a bit as Guadaloupe & Frank's players are at a convention this weekend.

Baied gives back the informations she got, namely that the Sonophor hasn't been taken care of because of bureaucratic laziness, or so it seems, and that no one seems to bother or be particulary afraid about that.

Of course, reaching the Sonophore means you need to swim and breathe water

Thanks, Baied! So that's one vote for hitting up Tsomo's home next - any seconds on that motion?

"We are here," Karabo says, "And the dangers of the planar ocean are unknown, so let us continue our investigation of Qorra."

Deciding to table further investigation of the Sonaphor for the time being, the group hurries across the city towards the address Lileone had given to you. As massive as even the air-breathing portion of the city seems to be, you do wonder why there aren't very many ways of getting around besides walking - though you're definitely getting plenty of exercise so there's that silver lining. When you reach the address given to you, you discover that although Tsomo’s home is connected to Vialesk’s air-filled half, the domicile itself is completely submerged underneath the water.

If you have the means to give yourself underwater breathing, now might be a good time to make use of them. Otherwise you’ll have to exit frequently to catch your breath.

Once those of you who are planning to head inside have made proper arrangements for your continued breathing, you slip down into the water. After some cursory examination you come to suspect that the house itself is empty - but it may still hold further clues into your investigation and so you manage to make your way in. Inside, you find a room that’s sparsely-furnished: a chest of clothes is wedged into the southern wall, a carved stone desk sits within the center of the room, and a large saltwater tank extends from the eastern wall. Otherwise the dwelling is indeed empty except for coral and schools of colorful fish.

Within the desk, you find a number of beaded strings - which Frank is able interpret since he understands Aquan. He identifies them as financial records.

As you search the desk, Baied, Guadaloupe, and Frank all spot what appears to be a hidden compartment at the very back! And luckily for everyone, Frank and Guadaloupe also spot the crude trap attached to it - seemingly designed not to harm but to incinerate the contents of the compartment if triggered.

Meanwhile....

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Guadaloupe doesn't have any resources for giving himself underwater breathing, so he would probably stay up top until given a predetermined signal to come down. When that happens, he would probably hold his breath. He would probably "scout" up top for everyone or at least attempt to be a distraction. LOL

Perception to scout: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (14) + 8 = 22

"Baied, Touch of the Sea and Air Bubble, if you please," Imperia requests. After taking her precautions, she quickly explores the nooks of the home until she believes they are safe, then leaves the actual sleuthing to those better inclined to swimming.
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Who is hanging out up top? I think it is just Guadaloupe and me right now.

Although Imperia does enter the water long enough to make sure the home is secure, she doesn't remain under the water and instead returns topside to wait with Guadaloupe. With things seeming more and more dangerous the deeper you get into this strange plot, the little mouser keeps his eyes peeled for signs of trouble. Thankfully, all seems to be quiet - the home is located in a relatively quiet neighborhood and there doesn't seem to be anyone out and about on the street at the moment.
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Right now Imperia & Guadaloupe are topside while I'm assuming Baied, Frank, and Karabo are inside. As always, correct me if I'm wrong on that.

Having found no clues in the house, Karabo returns to the surface for air. He pulls himself onto the street to drip dry.

Baied (Int DC 15): 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (16) + 1 = 17
Frank (Int DC 15): 1d20 ⇒ 20
Karabo (Linguistics (DC 15): 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (17) + 4 = 21

With help from Frank on the translation, both Baied and Karabo gradually realize that these financial records detail a great number of purchases from Yuka by way of a false name - Qormas Root. While you recall that Yuka had mention this fact when you asked him about it earlier, it was before you knew for a fact that the name was tied to Tsomo Qorra. Now, armed with this additional bit of information, perhaps Yuka would be willing to show you his own records - maybe it would lead to where these alchemical supplies have been going?

He smiled as he waved his hand, slowly leaving as he said, "Well, I am glad to be of help, but I don't do... Adventuring things." He grinned to himself a little bit as he left, trying to aim for a more secluded place to do his transformation.

I will be back to travel, and taking Swim Speed and Water Breathing for features.

It's not a problem for Frank to slip away and find a secluded alley or doorway to do his transformation in.

Baied uses the spells on Imperia scrolls as requested, to help her companions

Was wondering if my Profession-merchant could be of help here, to find a pattern in the financial transactions? Won't roll anything if you don't think it could be useful, GM Ladile

I normally don't like a big wall of OOC text in Gameplay but I want to make sure that everyone sees this. As much as I dislike excessive PC botting and GM railroading, we have a little less than a month to finish our game and there are still two additional 'sequences' that follow the majority of the investigative stuff. I know I've not always been a consistent 1/day+ poster as a GM either and the earlier website downtime slowed us up too. I'm not sure if I've failed to make this particular scenario engaging or if there's still a lot of confusion about what's going on or if my nudges need to be less subtle but everyone needs to start posting more often so we can finish this on time and everyone can have use of their characters back. I understand that people are busy and have lives away from the forums but posting once or twice a week is not going to cut it.

To that end, I'm going to start breaking the GM Fourth Wall a bit to help you guys along - aside from the trapped desk drawer, which I now realize no one can open as no one is trained in DD you've discovered everything of significance here at Tsomo's home. However, as a result of your stop here you discovered another link back to Yuka which might merit further investigation. Admittedly this is my first time running a really heavy investigative scenario and perhaps I could be doing a better job but I will say that this one is set up in such a way that repeat visits to certain locations can be helpful and also make sense - and that's outside of your promise to Lileone to rally help to fix the reefs.

And by the way, if anyone here doesn't think they'll be able to meet posting expectations then that's okay - please just let me know if that's the case so I can figure out how to proceed.

"If we have found what we can, let's speak with Yuka again. There doesn't appear to be much left for us to do," Imperia says as she prepares to move on once the others are ready to go.
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Aye aye Captain!

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"Maybe there's something missing at Yuka's that we didn't find before? We did find some new information.." He watches for Imperia's lead, respecting the woman much more after their conversation from earlier.

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Gotcha! I will try to be more active, but with the nudges we talked about, I won't forget! Yay grad school! (only.. not)

Armed with new information you quickly make your way back to Yuka's, but is any sort of travel in Vialesk really 'quick' if you don't have fins? It takes nearly an hour to hoof it back to the submersible shop but to your relief you find that everything is largely as you left it and Yuka lets you back inside, both surprised and pleased to see everyone again.

"Back so soon? Did you come to collect your new friend?" the selkie asks. Over on a nearby chair sits the sahuagin you captured earlier, still securely bound. At the sight of you, he begins crying...with relief!

"Oh thank goodness you're back!" he sobs. "It's been terrible...he's been talking my ears off about submersibles ever since you left! I can't...I can't take much more! It's so boriiiiiiiing! I'd rather deal with the scary shark-man than this!"

Yuka sniffs indignantly. "Hey! I'm trying to do you a service here. Perhaps, after learning enough about submersibles, you'll decide to turn away from your life of crime and pursue a much more noble line of work...as my apprentice!"

To that, the sahuagin simply wails incoherently.

"Sheesh...everyone is a critic," Yuka sighs, turning his attention back to you. "At any rate, is there something else I can help you with?"
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And that reminds me...is Frank back in his scary shark-man mode while you're here visiting Yuka again? Or is he hanging back and making sure there's no more trouble while the rest of the group does their thing? :)

He is back in his scary shark-man mode and will probably be in it for the rest of the scenario, unless needed in other form.

He came back, his mouth filled with shark teeth as his form filled out the armored coat, which now looks a lot more armored than before. He strolled up to the party and into Yuka's shop before saying, "Was told to be here, now, lets get going."

You should thank Master Yuka willingness to teach you some useful skills. He's a master of his craft. This is quite the opportunity for you. So sit, listen and learn

diplomacy: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (8) + 7 = 15

I've been having a hard time following what the scenario wants us to do (and trying to adhere to the statistically improbably high number of failed Perception checks), which is making it hard for me to 'push.' And then stuff collided this week, which was supposed to be a week off...

"We discovered that your client--Quormas Root--is Tsomo Quorra, who was part of the caravan," Karabo says. "Do you have any records that might help us to better understand what he is doing?"

Diplomacy: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (4) + 7 = 11

You should thanks Master Yuka, for trying to teach you something useful. He's a master of his craft, and you should respect that.Just sit, listen and learn.

"Oh! Oh my, you think Tsomo had something to do with the expedition's failure? But then that means..." Yuka pauses and then swallows nervously. "Um, yes, you remember I said that 'Qormas Root' had ordered large shipments of cement and ironflame powder? It's all in my own records, which you can absolutely have a look at...because it sounds more and more like they'll make for useful evidence."

As Yuka quickly steps over to a drawer and unlocks it, he adds, "And I'll even do you one better - the warehouse where those shipments went? Give me 10 minutes and I'll have the address for you, too!"

True to his word, Yuka's documents corroborate everything that he's told you - the shipments and their buyer, all carefully and painstakingly recorded.

Your mission has always been to track down who might've been responsible for the expedition going sideways and figure out why and (hopefully) bring them to justice, clearing Zahra's name. This scenario features legitimate clues and also things that are red herrings and dead ends. You've finally hit on who seems to be responsible (Tsomo) but have yet to discover the 'why' or actually locate the suspect in question. But you've got the necessary information to follow his trail and hopefully get some answers.

The nature of the investigation itself is left open and sandboxy so you can approach the people on Zahra's list in any order and potentially learn things that may not make sense until you visit other locations or talk to other people.

I meant 'to do' as in how to use the information it gives us to progress toward the scenario goal. I think part of it is that I'm not used to making repeat visits to extract the information. At least, not to the extent that this scenario is expecting. So any 'Hey, dummies, this might be useful here,' would be helpful for me. Like when you sent us back to Yuka. I would not have thought of that on my own.

"Sounds like our best option, eh?" The mouser says, looking at his allies and trying not to shiver from the sight of crazy shark man.

Ohhh, okay, I understand now. I've been trying to make it a point to give periodic 'this is what you know' summaries for my investigative scenarios since it's easy to forget something you learned two weeks and two pages ago but I'll also start trying to give a little guidance as to what you can do with the information you learn. This is also something I'll start doing in my games in the future so the feedback is very helpful!

Also I've got an earlier day than usual tomorrow and am starting to flag a little so I'll nudge things along further tomorrow.

After a rather tense ten minutes, where the captured sahuagin does his best to not look at or make eye contact with the scary shark-man while you all wait in awkward silence, Yuka finishes pilfering through his records and scribbles something on a small piece of paper before handing it to you.

"There! That's the address all of those supplies were delivered to," Yuka explains. "It's a pretty big warehouse, right next to the Glass Pit and the Glass Pit is the biggest forge in all of Vialesk so you can't miss it!"

He pauses, thinking. "Oh. By the way, while I think your theory has merit you might want to be careful if you try to break in - the city guard probably won't know what's going on and they'll just think you're a bunch of thieves!"

"Is there anything else I can do to help before you go?"
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So you have another location you can investigate now! And while you're already here at Yuka's shop, you can also see if you can talk him into helping the reef cleanup effort.

Lol we need the fancy shark right now :P

"There is another. While certainly not your fault, the reef has been severally damaged by the very same event that waylaid the caravan. Would you be willing to assist efforts taken to help restore it? Your submersibles would undoubtedly be of use, not to mention the boost to your public image and advertising to new customers," Imperia explains as she stifles a shiver. By the Nine, I hate this sort of groveling, but I can't go back on my word and we needed that information.

Ohhh fine. I will bring him back then use another hour of shifted time after. And can I take 10 for a 24 diplo?

He sees that his comrades need to talk to someone for influence and sighs before running out, trying to cause a distraction before transforming back in the lights and sound show. He comes back with a smile on his face, a perfect merchant extraordinaire! "My good Yuka, is there anyway you can support the reef clean up? Everyone will want to buy your submersibles after, because who wouldn't want something made by the hands of a hero, am I right?"

"Oh! Oh, of course," Yuka remarks with an offhanded smile. "Maybe I can construct some filters to help clean the algae out of the water? It'll be a grand project, yes!"

Sense Motive: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (15) + 4 = 19

"Could you draft a summary of what you have planned or draw a diagram so that we could show Lileone?" Karabo asks.

"We'll take a draft if you have it," Imperia says as she gets dangerously close to Yuka. "and if you forget, this won't be the last you see of me" she says under her breath, pulling her sword just an inch out of the sheathe to make her intentions clear.
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Sense Motive, DC 14: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (20) + 2 = 22
Intimidate (Take Ten via Trait): 10 + 16 = 26
I appreciate your flexibility Frank! To be more conducive to your shifting limit, would it be worthwhile to run through all of our contacts to ask them to clean the reef, or would you rather just keep pushing forward and do the clean up later? We might even be able to ask the rest of our contacts on another day so we don't use any further resources on that. I didn't fully realize you had a limit to the shifting -_-

...since we're not supposed to know that his identities are the same person or that he has a shape-shifting time limit...

Yuka swallows hard and gulps, shrinking back from Imperia. "Um, y-yes, I'll get you a rough draft right away! And I'll get to w-work right away too; j-just come and fetch me when you're r-ready to begin the cleanup. I won't let you down," he squeaks.

The selkie hurries over to his drafting table and quickly begins to sketching out a diagram of his proposed filter systems. Once finished, he hands it back to you and looks on anxiously.

"Will that do?"

Regarding the shifting thing Karabo is right *but* this is a case where I'm happy to metagame a little bit in the interest of greater player enjoyment. If you want to wait and finish the rest of your reef-cleanup-recruitment-efforts at the end (and after some assumed rest) then that would be fine. I just reminded you about it in this situation to try and save you guys a little time; aka, 'While you're already here do you want to try and do the thing?' :)