The 6 Seasoned Pathfinders, Episode 6 - Echoes of the Overwatched (#3-07) (Inactive)

Game Master Iff

Elvik puts his wand back into his pack. "We better safe it for later."

Dusklord continues his search for any hidden doors, but doesn't find any. There doesn't seem to be any way to enter the 'missing' part of this level.

Where do you want to go next? Does anyone pick up the piece of jewelry?

Stephani will pick up the gem, in hopes we are able to find the second piece.

Elvik will cast detect magic on the jewel.

"Just to make sure it's not cursed or something. If it can get stone alive, you never know."

"It can get stone alive? That must be where baby oreads come from! But... I don't know. That necklace looks a little small to be a mommy-oread!"

There do not appear to be any entrance to the rest of this level of the tower. Should we try to search for a secret door?

Elvik does not find a magical aura on the piece of jewelry. Stephani does not notice anything out of the ordinary when she picks it up.

The group of Pathfinders has taken quite some time to search for hidden doorways on this level, but did not find any.

Dusklord did a Take 20 earlier, before you were attacked by the statue.

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Serak sighs.
They said there two keys, right? Could this be one of them? It looks like it's supposed to connect to something...

The jewelry quickly loses his attention, though, and he starts drawing a lewd picture of a group of goblins on the wall with scorch marks from a flame-lit finger.

Dusklord looks into the door to the south.

"I had anticipated finding a secret door," he laments. "Unless it is very cleverly hidden, perhaps it is simply inaccessible. Let us try through this way...do I see stairs over there?"

perception: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (18) + 4 = 22

"What's that father? Oh, yes..."

Stephani turns to Dusklord. "Let's try the stairs. It is always possible that access to another area on this level is only available via another level."

"Oh yes! The stares..."

Aeleth stares intently at the wall.

"I am staring at the wall... but it is not opening..."

Those stairs lead upwards, correct? Perhaps we should explore and clear the lower level before heading upwards? We might have missed a piece of the key/amulet on the lower floor.

GM, based on the height of the two levels we've been on, could we estimate how many more levels there are to this place?

Elvik follows the rest of the group to the stairs.

The group of Pathfinders make their way up the stairs, to the third level of the tower. Judging from the height, this must be the top level.

The stench of decay fills the air of this cavernous chamber, a vast hall taking up over half the tower’s area. The withered corpse of a human sits in a marble chair fixed to the floor in the center of the room. The body is clad in ragged but sumptuous black and white vestments worked with the design of a mask. In its right hand, the corpse grips a staff of immaculate design.

I will add the map to this level when I get to a computer tonight.

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Serak peers at the body and smiles.
Twenty gold says he gets up and we have to fight him. Any takers?

Haha, Serak.

I added the map of this level to the presentation.

"I'll not take that bet!"

Stephani begins an attempt to detect evil.

Stephani does not detect any aura of evil on the body in the chair, or in the rest of the room (as far as her detection ability will go).

"I do not sense evil, so this may not be a problem." Stephani moves in to get a closer look.

"Oh I'm sure he's fine. He's just sleeping." Aeleth says cheerfully.

Suprise round - everyone surprised

As Stephani approaches the chair, with the others in tow, there is suddenly a soft scuttering sound across the ceiling. Before the Pathfinder can react, three disembodies hands - claws, really - drop themselves on the ceiling. They land on Dusklord, Elvik and Stephani. The one right landing on Elvik isn't able to find any purchase on the dwar's armor and falls on the ground right before his feet.

The hand launching itself toward Dusklord lands in his neck and scratches the necromancer's flesh. It tries to grab him by the throat, but doesn't find a good grip. It sticks to his shoulder, ready to strike again.

The hand attacking Stephani is more successful. It lands on her helmet, scuttles over her face to her throat and starts to choke the paladin.

2 damage for Dusklord and Stephani. Stephani is grappled by the hand. Because of that, she cannot speak or cast spells.

--

Combat tracker - Round 1 - Characters in bold can act

1st - Dusklord (-2), Elvik
2nd - Crawling claws (-2 AC due to charge)
3rd - Stephani (-2, grappled), Aeleth, Serak, Starling

--

"Hey look! Someone is trying to give us a hand!" Aeleth exlaims when the first hand attacks.

Then more of the claws come down from the ceiling.

"Someone is trying to give us many hands! They must be very helpful!"

Elvik tries to smash the hand in front of him with his warhammer.
Attack: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (19) + 4 = 23
Damage: 1d8 + 3 ⇒ (4) + 3 = 7

Botting Dusklord, so that everyone has a chance to post their next action.

Elvik smashes the hand on front of him, crushing three of the five fingers under his warhammer. The hand still moves, though. Dusklord, seeing an opportunity to deal with an already crippled foe, draws one of his magical wands and sends a magic missile forth at the wounded claw, which kills it.

The claw latched onto Stephani continues to choke the life out of her, tightening its grip. The claw on Dusklords shoulder scratches at the wizard again, but fails to reach around his throat.

3 damage to Stephani, she is till grappled and unable to speak. 3 damage to Dusklord as well. He is not grappled.

Combat tracker - Round 1,2 - Characters in bold can act

1st - Dusklord (-5), Elvik
2nd - Crawling claws (blue, green)
3rd - Stephani (-5, grappled), Aeleth, Serak, Starling[/b]

--

Stephani tries to remove the hand from her throat, by taking control of it.

Grapple: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (16) + 5 = 21

Elvik moves over to Stephani and helps her getting the thing off of her throat.
Aid: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (3) + 4 = 7

Dusklord grimaces as the disembodied hand attempts to throttle him.

"Perhaps we are going about this the wrong way," the wizard observes.

Using Power over Undead if these are undead hands... (DC 15 Will; 6 HD max)

Serak barks out a quick quip before summoning a ball of flame to his hand.
I saw a play about things like these once. It was about a caravan that was flying through the dark tapestry, and then they found this egg-thing, and a monster came out of it, then latched onto a guy's face! Then later, another monster thing bursted out of the guy's chest! It was a pretty good play, actually!

On my turn, I'll cast produce flame and lob it at one of them.

If there are any hands left attacking his allies after Dusklord attempts to control them, Aeleth will walk to the nearest uncontrolled one and attack.

dragon style power attack attack roll: 1d20 + 6 - 1 ⇒ (17) + 6 - 1 = 22
dragon style power attack damage roll: 1d6 + 5 + 2 + 2 ⇒ (2) + 5 + 2 + 2 = 11

Round 2 and 3

Stephani, with the (tiny bit of) help from Elvik, manages to wrest the hand away from her throat and keeps a firm grip on it. Serak doesn't waste time and tosses a ball of fire at it. He seems not to have taken enough time to aim, because his ball of fire flies wide. Aeleth comes to the rescue however. With a brutal attack, he snaps the claw that Stephani grapples in half.

Meanwhile, Dusklord has taken a different approach. With the application of his academic knowledge he manages to pacify the claw and make it obey his commands.

Serak, I rolled for your attack, since you didn't provide any dice rolls.

COMBAT OVER. The last hostile is under Dusklord's command.

--

Status tracker

Dusklord (-5), Stephani (-5), Crawling claw (dominated)

--

I didn't roll any attacks in case they were all dead by the time it was my turn. I don't mind you rolling it. I mostly just posted to show that I hadn't disappeared on you guys, and I hate making posts that don't at least have some type of in character stuff.

Serak growls as his fireball goes wide, and gestures at Dusklord.
You should call it "Thing". It kind of fits, I think.

Dusklord smiles a sickly-sweet smile as the creature falls under his control.

"This is not even an entire corpse, but such an interesting find. Academically, I enjoy this type of exercise. How does it act without even a mind to control? Of course we will destroy it when we are finished here. But it is worthy of our studies in the meantime, is it not?"

The wizard heals himself with his infernal wand, then prepares to continue.

Not sure how you would like to handle the minion here. I'm happy to roll for it if you want to tell me where to find the stats.

Stats can be found at the link below. I'm perfectly fine with playing it as a 'companion'. It has Int 2 though, so don't expect too much fancy behavior.
Crawling hand

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Aeleth holds out the broken hand to Stephani.

"Did you need a hand?"

"Aeleth, do me a favor and slap yourself with that, then open the door to the south," the wizard urges.

The crawling hand sneaks carefully toward the door.

Stephani shudders at the thought of having a helping hand, but rubs her neck gently before pulling out her wand of curing and using it to repair the damage.

1d8 + 1 ⇒ (5) + 1 = 6

Elvik watches the hand carefully, in case it escapes the domination.

The two arches to the west on this level do not contain doors, but are simple passageways to the other part of this room. Like the one that you are in now, it is completely bare.

Map updated.

A closer inspection of the corpse on the chair reveals that the trinket is similar in design to the piece found in the animated statue's eye. This piece is decorated with mosaic as well, and also sports two pins in the back to connect it to something else.

Stephani looks closer at the trinket as she approaches the body.

Heal: 1d20 - 2 ⇒ (10) - 2 = 8

Then she pulls out the gem she took from the other place, and looks to see if these appear to be connectable.

Not completely back from my travels, but I should be able to post more regularly now...
Starling examines the corpse, "It seems to have been dead for a while now, I'd guess for about a year. Let's continue to explore, I'm sure we'll find something related to these trinkets around here."
Heal: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (16) + 2 = 18

Dusklord follows the crawling hand toward the door to the south.

"After all the time we have worked together, I am still surprised I have to ask you strippling lads to go first. But it seems that I still do. Someone else walk in there first! A wizard should never walk in first!"

South side?

Stephani notes that the two parts do not connect to each other, but the mosaic pattern is definitely similar. Perhaps both parts connect to a yet-unfound third part?

Which 'south' part do you mean, Dusklord?

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Stephani pockets both pieces, draws her sword, and follows the hand.

Which 'south' part do you mean, Dusklord?

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On the top map I see two doorways, one on the north side of the wall and the other on the south. I think Stephani and I are both positioned looking through it.

Ah, that may be a bit of confusion. That entire area of this level is empty, is what I posted earlier. Probably didn't make it clear enough that I was referring to the western part of the top level.

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Okay, have we explored all of 3e then? Is there somewhere evident we haven't explored yet?

Yes, you explored all of the third floor. Second floor as well, as far as you could find. There are still parts of the first floor unexplored.

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Serak, getting bored with everyone just standing around, starts drawing more lewd pictures of groups of goblins on the wall with scorch marks, using a flame-lit finger again.
Not much else for Serak to do, especially since he can't be trusted to make responsible decisions about... well, anything really.

Clearly Aeleth should be allowed to steer the party. XD

Stephani starts heading back own to level one. "I expect we have simply missed something."

Starling nods in agreement, "it indeed seems so, let's re-check all levels of this tower more thoroughly."

The group descends down the rope and arrives safely at the level of the tower, where they originally entered the tower. There are three doorwest leading from this room: to the north, west and south. The water level is highest in the south due to the sloping floor. The northern part of this level is not flooded.

I need to know which doorway you're going to take.

Serak, Aeleth, I can understand not wanting to take charge in-character, but that means it always comes to the same people for deciding where to go and move the group along. Couldn't you weigh in as players, to keep things moving?