[Outpost II] GM PaleDim's PFS#10-10 The Shattered Shield [Tier 1-5] (Inactive)

Game Master PaleDim

The high wall surrounds the entire estate; Nalaia sees no further entry-ways.

"Can someone disable that broken lock? If not I think that we will need to break that door down."

Styrian looks about the ground for the other half of the key, hoping it was discarded instead of taken away. "If we can find the other half I can repair the key."

Perception: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (14) + 6 = 20
Hoping to use the mending cantrip, which requires all the pieces...

If he can't find it he will examine the door for any other clues to open it.

Knowledge(Engineering): 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (12) + 7 = 19

The other half of key is nowhere in sight. However you note that someone good with lockpicking could unjam the lock.

Break it down and unjam it are the two options discussed so far. Your rogue will be posting a little later today. The other obvious option is attempt to climb it.

Disable(Aid): 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (14) + 2 = 16

Styrian isn't particularly good at picking / unjamming locks, but he's familiar enough with the theory to offer some helpful tips, and knows which tool to grab when asked.

Uroon scratches at his moss beard and looks pensively at the door.
"If you can not unjam the lock Kyunjiro, I might be able to kick the door in. Assuming it is not a thick wood."
knowledge nature: 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (17) + 1 = 18

After they try to unjam the lock with finesse, whether or not they succeed, Styrain will cast enlarge person on himself before they open or try to break the door, or even climb over it.

It sounds helpful if there's trouble on the other side, and in breaking the door or hoisting others to climb over the wall.

"I can help you!"

disable device, aid Styrian (his roll was better): 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (4) + 9 = 13

"Ooh, this is pretty hard."

Kyunjiro is slow on the uptake finding Styrian already at the lock, trying to get it unjammed.

They just avoid pushing the broken key further in, rendering it stuck forever.

Assuming that Kyunjiro aided Styrian (the higher roll), you didn't succeed, but you got within the permissible range of the DC to try again. So you're both permitted to try again.

disable device: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (12) + 9 = 21

"I think I got it!"

Styrian helps Kyunjiro if he needs it.

Disable Aid: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (19) + 2 = 21

After the first close call, Kyunjiro and Styrian jump right back in, making short work of the lock with what they learned. The kitsune dislodges the damaged lock, allowing him to easily reach the locking bolt and move it to open the door.

The party enters the courtyard. Map updated

One dead guard lies slumped against the inside of the gate, another is facedown about 20 feet away, and the remains of both the live-in gardener and the part-time stable hand lie messily draped over the shrubs.

All of the doors leading from the courtyard are closed, though there are signs of activity. There is a set of bloody footprints leads to the western stable door.

Perception: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (13) + 5 = 18

"People are shouting in the west wing, and they sound desperate! We should help them!"

heal 1st: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (19) + 2 = 21

"They were torn apart by raking claws , and they both have flakes of golden dust caked along the edges of their wounds."

heal 2nd: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (15) + 2 = 17

"This is shed skin from someone suffering from Aurum death disease. Further, the way in which the golden tinge seems to have spread from the wound suggests that these bodies are now afflicted by the disease and could rise as undead within a matter of hours."

perception: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (17) + 7 = 24

"Yes I also hear that!" replys Bartolomey to Kyunjiro .

perception: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (15) + 6 = 21
"This must be the golden monster we've heard about. To the west wing!"

Gint un-holstered his pistol and loaded it.
"I'm right behind ya big guy, let's get this thing!"

Giant sized Styrian follows the others, lamenting that the doors to all these buildings are just normal sized.

Styrian has a large reach weapon now, so the threatened area is the 3rd and 4th square from him. Minus whatever line of sight he loses from doors.

Okay, so... just to be clear you've all lined up at the entrance to the *east* wing. Is it safe to assume that you do actually want to head to the west wing? :P

Styrian, enlarge person lasts 3 minutes (30 rounds). It's kind of rough to estimate how many rounds passed in the courtyard. Each heal check would have been a round (parallelizing the party members, so we take the max). The lock unjamming, given two attempts at the DC...

Then a round to approach east or west wing: 16 rounds total, 14 rounds remaining when you enter the manor's interior. That's minimal, assuming everything posted happened in quick succession. That's assuming you guys didn't mean to go to the east wing and *avoid* the trouble indicated by the noise :P

Well fam, I heard "to the west wing", so here we go :)

You enter the burning manor through the end of the West Wing. Interior walls are made of stone, and ceilings are 10 feet high. You pass two small side rooms as you follow the aforementioned sounds into a large bedroom.

The master bedchamber is filled with a massive canopy bed draped with silk sheets and littered with an assortment of small trinkets and relics, all scattered among piles of scrolls and parchments. To the west, hunched at the foot of a small reading table, lies a bespectacled man with a sinister-looking dagger protruding from his abdomen. The man’s right hand is chained to the right wrist of a woman who screams frantically as she thrashes to pull a second chain binding both parties to the flue of the fireplace. The chain rattles but doesn’t give. Smoke billows throughout the room, as flames lick from burning overhead timbers.

knowledge local: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (11) + 2 = 13
Gint stays where he is, looking around the room, puzzled.
"What tha hell happened here miss?"
Gint's tone of voice does not disguise the fact that he is bummed they seemed to have missed all the action.

knowledge local: 1d20 ⇒ 2
Uroon runs up to the fireplace and heel drops the chain.
Unarmed strike: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (10) + 2 = 12

Know Local: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (7) + 8 = 15

Giant Styrian recognizes the game. "Looks like someone was playing knivesies. Brutal game, that... But that's not what happened to your"

He then looks to the chains to try and unlock or unfasten them in some way.
Disable Device: 1d20 + 2 - 1 ⇒ (17) + 2 - 1 = 18

Spear at the ready, Nalaia enters the room fully prepared for combat, but matches the disappointment of Gint. "Where's the beast, miss? What did it do?"

disable device: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (6) + 9 = 15

Why do you think it would do such a thing?"

Inusi Mendalari, you presume, is fighting hysterical fits and fighting the chains when you begin questioning the pair. After the initial shock of taking in the scene you notice she’s nearly vomiting, and not only that by trying to. For the time being she ignores Gint’s query.

Uroon’s attempt to damage the chain appears futile as the lady continues to pull helplessly on it while nearly vomiting. After Styrian and Kyunjiro unlock their chains, she sits down to gather herself while Torvad is still gasping. He looks down at the dagger sticking out of his abdomen, with resign slowly setting in. Seeing her settling down, he chuckles and struggles to taunt her a bit as the blood continues to trickle down his reclined body.

Well, I guess you don’t need to worry about getting the key out that way anymore. Though I don’t imagine it will feel great coming out the other end.

He shudders visibly as Inusi turns and glares at him. Holding her hostile gaze on him, she begins answering the party.

This idiot told her everything! Then he was going to try to cut the key out of me. It’s appropriate that he should die this way instead.

Torvad begins convulsing violently, and Inusi rushes to the bed and begins gathering as many of the trinkets scattered about her bed as she can.

Through the windows, you can see that fires in various other parts of the manor are starting to get out of hand...

"Quick Torvad, we need ta know where tha next Sacred Cobra auction is gonna be."

Assuming you approached Torvad in asking this, reasonable since you can tell he can't speak very loudly.

Torvad quickly asks for your names, confirming that you are indeed the society agents he expected. His breathing gets more and more labored as he whispers to you.

The Sacred Cobra auction house is currently being staged right under the Pure Legion’s noses, on the second floor of Azir’s Museum of Philosophy, Logic, and Natural History in the Grand Souk—and is scheduled to begin at approximately 10 a.m. in the morning.

He also surreptitiously hands over his bidder’s banner to Gint.

You'll need this to get in...

"I am Uroon from the pathfinder society. Thank you Torvad."
He turns to Inusi
"Did you see where the thing that killed the guards went?"

Bartolomey pull dagger sticking out of Torvad's abdomen out. Then he takes out his wand for healing and he touches him.

clw: 1d8 + 1 ⇒ (3) + 1 = 4

"Do you feel better now?!"

Bartolomey also tries to detect magic on dagger. detect magic

Gint takes the bidders banner.
"Yep, that's us. Didja see the monster come through here?"
Gint looks around, still a little too excited for his own good.

The rafters are on fire right? Like it looks like this may collapse if we don't get them out?

Styrian also tries to get the two to safety and find out if there are others to save. "If you can move now, we should get you out of this building. Are there others we need to look for to save?"

Torvad gets temporarily better, but the bleeding does not slow down. He glances over at Inusi, before speaking to Bartolomey.

I think it's going to take more than that to slow it down. I might be able to make it outside if you'll help me up, but are any of you good with a healer's kit?

Styrian: this room is not presently on fire. You can see fire across the way through the windows, but it will of course spread.

Inusi first responses to Gint.

There's no one monster. There's a horrible woman named Zaashakar who came with golden undead! They ransacked our home and see set it alight! After she bound Torvad and I here in our precarious situation, she left. I have no idea what minions she left behind elsewhere on the estate.

At Styrian's question she gets a sudden, panicked look of desperation and ceases her collection of items from the bed.

My daughter! I think she was playing out in the stable!

She rolls her eyes at Torvad, her arms still full of trinkets.

Somebody help him up! She heads for the door.

perception: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (13) + 8 = 21
"We must be careful when looking for the girl. Zaashakar may have turned the dead below into her golden zombies."
Uroon turns to Inusi before she exits
"Will you show us where these stables are?"

Yes, it's just out here across the way where you came in.

She proceeds towards the stable for whomever follows her.

Decide who is following Inusi, who is helping Torvad out of the building, who can heal him once you get him out there, and what are the rest of you doing at this time?

Gint grins and leans on his pistol like a cane.
"I'll watch yer guys' back on tha way to tha stable."

Bartolomey helps Torvad to exit the building and then again tries to stop the bleeding.

heal: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (12) + 2 = 14

Styrian goes with Inusi to the stable, but also gives a look at what trinkets she took.

"We should go check on your daughter at once!"

Perception, looking at trinkets: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (14) + 6 = 20

No healer's kit here

Nalaia grips her longspear harder and follows out to the stable. She says in a hushed tone, "Can the guards see us in here? I'm.....not really welcome to use my magic in the city."

Perception: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (19) + 5 = 24
Kyunjiro follows the rest of the party outside.

"Guys, Inusi didn't like us using the wand on Torvad, maybe we should be more careful next time."

Bartolomey, you detect an aura of faint necromancy on the dagger, give me a spellcraft check for more details.

Styrian, you don't notice anything particularly interesting about what Inusi swept up off the bed.

In the stable...

Styrian, Uroon, Nalaia, and Gint follow Inusi to the stable. No sooner do they enter than she spots her daughter, in the back stall.

Nulalla! she screams.

In front of her, blocked the way, is a stallion who has been whipped up into a frenzy by the nearby fire, blocking her safe exit.

Anybody good in handle animal?

In the courtyard...

Bartolomey and Kyunjiro help Torvad away from the burning building. As soon as he gets far enough away from the building he collapses and the profuse bleeding continues.

Bartolomey, pulling out the dagger requires a heal check to avoid damaging further. You didn't make the check and so he is a little worse for wear and continues bleeding. You may continue to make checks to try to stop his bleeding, though failures may damage him further.

At the same time, several members of the Pure Legion arrive on the scene, led by Captain Kazima Rufah. The Legionnaires begin to ask questions about what happened, forming a perimeter around the courtyard.

You there! They point at the two of you that are with Torvad. What is going on around here? How did this fire start?!

Spellcraft: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (16) + 4 = 20
Heal: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (1) + 2 = 3
Heal: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (5) + 2 = 7
Heal: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (20) + 2 = 22
Heal: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (16) + 2 = 18

"I'm trying to save a man's life. Now there is no time to talk."

"Kyunjiro can you talk to them?"

Gint slowly backs away from (to him a massive freaked out animal) the horse.
"Nice horsey...good horsey.
He keeps moving to the back of the group and whispers
"Not a fan of animals, got any ideas?"

Styrian isn't good with animals either, but he tries a spell to help.

He casts Auditory Hallucination, creating in the horse's mind the calming voice of his favorite trainer saying calming things to the horse. Will DC 14 to disbelieve.

It's a cool spell that lets me make the target hear a sound the target knows without having to know the sound myself. Dunno if its enough to solve the problem, but maybe it can help at least...

"We do not have much horses where I am from."
Uroon shrugs his shoulders, scratches his moss beard, and looks around to make sure that there isn't anyone else around.

Bartolomey works frantically on Torvad, but everything he does only seems makes it worse i.e., your first two heal checks. At about this time, he realizes that the wound left by the dagger seeps with black, ichorous blood and refuses to close or clot. On re-doubling his efforts he is able to stop the bleeding. Your next two checks. Huzzah! Torvad seems to notice the change and relaxes every-so-slightly, but definitely isn't in a hurry to get up or otherwise exert himself.

Meanwhile in the stable, Styrian directs a quick spell at the horse's mind. Clever :)

Very soon, the horse settles and trots back over to its assigned stall. As soon as the girl sees this, she runs to her mother, who accepts her with wide open arms. After holding each other in a relieved embrace for a few moments, the two retreat to the courtyard's open air, tears still streaming down their cheeks. Inusi takes hold of the stallions bridle on the way out to lead it too, to safety.

Come quickly, Nulalla, our home is being consumed by the flames.

Cool spell!

"I'm glad she's safe, but I can't help but feel like we should still be on guard. A smart person would stick around to ensure their work was effective."

Upon seeing the Legion, Nalaia sighs and attaches the longspear to her back again before marching forward. "These people were attacked. We had business with this man here. We saved his life as well as the life of this little girl. Somebody jumped them and set the house alight after collapsing it on these poor individuals."

Diplomacy: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (13) + 9 = 22

Gint walks over to the dead employees and pulls at his moustache lost in thought.
"Wasn't there somethin bout that gold plague that makes gold zombies?" he thinks out loud.
He pokes at one of them with the barrel of his pistol and examines the body.

One Legion officer breaks off and approaches Inusi and her daughter, recognizing them as the primary residents. He seemingly employs a level of compassion as he deals with them. She incredulously and hysterically describes the attack by a powerful woman and her strange, gold-tinted undead crew.

Meanwhile, the nearby officer who first approached Bartolomey and Kyunjiro keys in on Nalaia.

I see. And who are all of you? Do you live here with the good lady Mendalari, or are you visitors here? Who is this injured man and what is your business with him? Did you see who set the house ablaze?

You notice that a couple of the officers in the background begin watching this conversation carefully, Torvad in particular, and whisper something between each other.

Gint, per the party's prior experiences, recognizes that the fallen grounds-people will likely rise as gold-flaked undead within a matter of hours.

I will move us forward to the auction sometime late tomorrow! I'm going to attempt to pick up the pace a bit from here.

"We were passing by and we heard weeping. We run to save these people and here we are now."

bluff: 1d20 - 2 ⇒ (19) - 2 = 17