Rappan Athuk [Pf]

Game Master Chris Manos

Bradley goes up to Reynaud and whispers to him, "This place is a tomb for us if we spend to long inside. There does not seem to be a way out. I'll try looking again just in case, but we're going to need to think of a plan to vacate soon. I doubt that their patient,... but then again their dead. They have all the time they need.

Bradley goes back to rifling through the tomb to see if he missed anything.

Knows there pretty much nothing in here, but being proactive helps Tony think

Relax... you. We have a person who can heal our wounds and the supplies to last for a few days. We can last a while. Panicking is not going to help any of us do anything useful.

Oh, names Tony.. He says off-handily after Reynaud calls him you.

"Because you want a freshly dead body, that's why. If you don't want us to take it with us and bury it in consecrated ground, then give us a good reason not to."

"Yes, yes. One secret, fair trade, and we promise not to tell the servants where they are."

Reynaud immediately perks up and starts motioning with his hands as if he were writing.

Assuming Belle doesn't object to giving it to him.

He then writes a note on a piece of paper and shows it to Magnus.

I don't mind scamming the ghouls for information, but I'm not giving them Tessai's body.

You won't tell the servants because if you do, we will tell them you told us the secrets. Is what the servants will do to us really worth what the servants and us will do to you?
EDIT: Intimidate maybe?: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (14) + 7 = 21

"Servants? Do to us? No."

Another voice. "We are not the things, are we? They hide like rats in a hole. Come out here, do to us, yes."

That intimidate is a little too thin, sorry.

"No servants. We will tell them three things, fair trade." The leader of negotiations, as it were. It seems a little petulant to have been called on its bluff.

After scanning Reynauds note, Magnus writes on the other side,

and how do you propose we carry it back to civilization? Even at full strength, we would have difficulty without the mule. If we bury her here, the ghouls get her anyway. At least this way, we get something out of it.

After a moments thought, Magnus asks,

"and what do we get for the gargoyles we left you?"

"Worthless rocks, they are. Nothing. Deal or no?"

"It can't give us what we already have. What will it give us for its eyes?" Another ghoul agrees.

Why not just leave the door sealed for a few days, lick our wounds, and go out and fight them off if they try and take her? We got supplies.

"Would someone PLEASE explain to me what exactly they are offering... in plain Common?"

"They give us the dead mortal, we tells them the things. Secrets. Treasures, what they want to know. Three things."

Magnus writes on the paper again,

For what it's worth, even if we agree a deal with them, we will need to be prepared to come out and fight them. I wouldn't trust a ghoul to keep a bargain, and I certainly wouldn't open that door until we're ready to do so. I still think it's worth trying to find out what they know. They've already told us they've left the gargoyles alone, maybe we can trick them into telling us more.

"How do you know we don't already know those secrets?"

There's some deliberation, the ghouls 'talking' amongst themselves with quiet growls and low, shrill sounds.

They appear to have an idea. "It can tell us what it wants to know! It should ask for things it knows it doesn't know, yes?"

"The mortals can refuse, if they already know..." one of them hedges.

Belle will add to Magnus' paper dialog, Look I know dead is dead and all, but I just don't have it in me to feed Tessai to a pack of ghouls, even if it is only a piece. And if we gave them the whole body I fear it would not stay dead. *shudder* I don't know what I would do if I was faced with a Tessai ghoul And though the ghouls seem like they will stick to a deal, you never know what twists might appear later. It could be like bargaining with a devil.

Reynaud nods and points to Magnus' writing, indicating agreement.

I'll go with what you suggest, Magnus.

Tony has been listening to the group go back and forth, wondering what he should tell them. He basically led the ghouls over, and he doesn't want to be blamed for it. Not till he really knows them. And with no holy warriors around let's see how forgiving they are.

"Guys! Their flesh eating crimes against the living, I bet they rush in as soon as they get the chance and start chewing your faces off. I'm for getting strong and fighting back. But I'm willing to use your dead friend to give us a better chance."

"How will we know what to ask for if it's a secret? or are you suggesting that it's not really a secret?"

"Why would it ask if it knew? Is it stupid? If it asks for we don't know, we will tell it. It can ask another thing. It pays for answers, not to ask. Fair trade." A voice declares, impatience clear.

"Stop asking stupid questions, and decide, sweet thing."

One of the ghouls decides to be helpful. "It can ask 'where is tresure, gold', 'where is secret ways'. We knows."

Tony perks up when he hears about the secret ways.

"Magnus, right? Ask them about the secret paths, it's probably another route into Rappan Athuk. These poor dead bastards probably been around long enough to find better paths around."

"OK, Where is secret ways?"

There's a hiss. You've clearly affronted someone.

"Cheating filthy mortal. Does it agree to the bargain? They will ask three things. We will tell it half; we will go away, they place body outside door. We will tell it other half. Fair trade."

"We will swear to trade fair by the master. They will swear by their Phra-..."

"They will swear by their gods. Fair."

"I formally object. I am opposed to this plan. It seems... unholy to me. I'd rather take my chances with the ghouls and finding our own way in."

Dang. Outfoxed by a pack of ghouls
"I don't know about that, but opening the door? are they serious? How could we ever trust them to keep their bargain? swearing by their master? the one they were planning to cheat by dealing with us? they'll have to do better than that! No, if there is a deal it is that we will leave the body behind when we go...if we deem their information worth it."

Ghouls are SMART - I kid you not, they have Int 13 :O

"This is a damned if you do, damned if you don't guys. We have to do something, and I think we can use their hunger to their advantage", he says as he shows them his array of acid and alchemist fire.

He mimes the door opening, and using a prepared attack to focus fire the closest one down.

"No. Not maybe pay if it wants to. It gets half of knowledge first, other useful half after it pays. We don't trust it. It tried trickery, it did; we know it cheats if it can. It does not know we cheat; we do not, so it should be the one to trust us."

"Damned if it doesn't, oh yes."

Magnus looks at Tony's collection of bottles and sneers;

"That won't do much. What you really need is one of these", he quickly rummages in his bag and pulls out an iron pellet grenade.

"But its expensive, so only use in dire need."

Tony points at the door, at Magnus' comment. He has a what do you think this is look on his face.

"We need what? What is expensive?"

So it takes 3 hours to copy a spell. 1 hour to decipher and 2 hours to copy. Belle failed her first decipher and wasted one hour but she still has an hour she can use. She won't be able to do any copying, but at least this will be out of the way. The snapdragon fireworks looks pretty interesting to her so she will spend an hour on that.

Spellcraft: 1d20 + 12 ⇒ (20) + 12 = 32

It's almost as if she already knew that spell. Just a variation of the glitterdust spell as far as she can tell.

We are also quite wounded, remember. We probably can't fight them today.

I'm thinking the same

"Well, I am certainly not opening the door today, I am far too tired. Maybe tomorrow. Come back tomorrow and we can continue our negotiations."

You hear them talking amongst themselves, whatever foul tongue they're speaking.

The next hour is filled with the sound of ghouls doing various things outside, with intermitting conversation between them, and then the sounds retreat.

"That does not sound good at all, like maybe they are laying traps."

I wouldn't be surprised, and we'll certainly find out. Unfortunately, unless Magnus can transport us outside, I don't think we have any options but to open the door and take our chances.

"Bah! Let them do what they want for now. I don't know about you folks, but I need to relax for a bit.

Tony moves to the make shift bed area he made from shuffling through the rubble. He lays down to let his bones knit themselves back together.

"You guys should count yourselves lucky. The party I was with didn't even make it this far. Rappan Athuk, better be worth all this grief."

Agyen remains silent, gauging the correct time to use his ability. When the ghouls cease conversation and begin unknown activities, it is the perfect time.
Detect thoughts on as many ghouls as I can, duration of 4 minutes-2 rounds, each ghoul gets a DC 18 Will save to avoid having their particular thoughts read. Unless the doors are big enough to block the spell or have lead in them or something.

I was under the impression that you were out of spells? either way.

Agyen waits until he's sure that there's a couple ghouls right outside the door, then tries to read their minds.

As far as he can tell, there is no minds to be read.

I was under the impression that you were out of spells? either way.

I believe he used the Detect Thoughts spell-like ability he gets at second level, which he can use once per day without expending a spell slot - I just looked it up to be helpful and because I don't know all that much about Psychics and wanted to learn.

thanks! I don't know a lot about psychics either, so that's probably why I ask a relatively large amount of questions about Agyen.

I don't have much experience with psychics. Seems they are quite good for gathering information, which is quite useful in this game.

"My guess is that they are making sure we don't escape while they are away, probably piling stuff against the entrance. The sooner we are strong again the better. I have some ideas on what to do when it's time to leave, but I'll leave that to writing in case they leave eavesdroppers"

Oh. Detect thoughts is mind affecting. Probably a good thing to check before I used it, but oh well. It's not like I was going to use it today anyways. Btw, yes, that was the 1/day psychic class feature. THing about psychics is that although they can be confusing, they're actually one of the least complicated classes in OA.

I am down 22hp. Are we getting any healing? are we using the wand?

After a good nights sleep, Magnus addresses the question of what to do next. Tearing a page out of his Journal, Magnus writes in a small, neat hand,

The entrance is a bottleneck; if we go out, they can take us down piecemeal, surround us and we will be slaughtered. If we get them to come in, we are the ones who can take them down piecemeal; trapped at the entrance we can concentrate fire from Tony's alchemical weapons, my grenade and my spells to burn out most of them, the rest will be easy to mop up. I vote that when we are ready, we open the door, station our best 2 fighters either side of it and let rip at anything that moves. To prevent the front rank being hurt by splashes from our own weapons, I can cast Resist Fire on them, but I would have to give up my best spell to do so.

night isnt over yet. Please wait up for a bit. Am running some stuff via PM.

Important question: Do the doors open in or out?

Doors open in. You need Tony to pick the lock open or closed though - you don't have this key.

~11:10pm, Belle's watch.
The rest of the party comes awake at a half-croacked warning from Belle. You open your eyes to a strange sight.

Belle's corner of the room, at the door, is well lit, but on the edge of light, over Tessai's corpse, stands a two-dimensional blot of oily darkness. It is distinctively Tessai-shaped. Despite the obvious lack of a facial expression, you have the impression that shadow-Tessai is watching Belle with curiosity, taking a floating half-step towards her as she speaks to warn you.

Tony jumps at having another complication thrown at him. He rolls away some distance to gauge the situation. Seeing the paladin shaped darkness, Tony pulls the necklace from his neck.

"Spirit do you remember this, do you remember your code?"

He holds up Tessai's holy symbol.