Breath of the Dragonskull (Inactive)

Game Master Grimsnik

Nia will move north and reload her crossbow.

Tanto's dagger pierces into red. Tsuk easily evades red as it snaps at the half-orc.

Bold can Act

Quintus (-6 HP,)
Conney (fatigued)
The Armenian Man
Tsuk (fatigued, -5 hp)

Tanto (fatigued, -6 hp)
Nia (fatigued)
Dragonskull- red (-4 hp)

Tsuk swings his greatsword with a lot of effort at red

Greatsword: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (18) + 6 = 24 Damage: 2d6 + 6 ⇒ (2, 4) + 6 = 12

If that doesn't kill it, Nia fires a shot from her crossbow to aid the next attacker.

Shot: 1d20 + 5 - 4 ⇒ (4) + 5 - 4 = 5

...It's not very effective.

Conney moves forward and attacks....

Morning Star: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (17) + 2 = 19
Damage: 1d8 ⇒ 5

Red shatters and the fire withing the bones dissipates as the greatsword slams into the skull.

Dragbog covered in ash returns with a shiny short sword and an emerald-studded ring. "We go look at stone?"

As you move towards the stone the ground is slick with ash and soot. Every needs to make a DC 15 reflex or take 1d4 points of fire damage as you fall prone in the hot ash.

The flames continue to leap from the stone as you approach but no more of the flaming skulls come to life.

The runes on the stone glow.

Tsuk looks at the Ring and the Weapon.

Spellcraft Ring: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (3) + 4 = 7

Spellcraft Weapon: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (6) + 4 = 10

Reflex Save: 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (11) + 1 = 12

Fail, Fail, Fail

Once the final skull is crushed down, and battle is over, Quintus takes his wand of infernal healing and treats his wounds with devil's blood.

"Is there anyone wounded who would like to receive Asmodeus' gift of healing?" he asks the others while his own wounds are closing.

Then he turns his focus on the magic items the goblin dug up, but is unable to figure out their magical auras.

Spellcraft Ring: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (10) + 6 = 16
Spellcraft Weapon: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (5) + 6 = 11

Quintus starts approaching the stone, but finds the ground very treacherous - and so the cleric falls into the hot ash.
Reflex: 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (6) + 1 = 7
damage: 1d4 ⇒ 2

That damage probablyis dealt within a minute of casting infernal healing, and gets healed by the fast healing?

Spellcraft DC 22 (ring): 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (17) + 4 = 21
Spellcraft DC 18 (weapon): 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (19) + 4 = 23

"That blade is magical; enhanced to stay sharp and drive through magical defenses. Very nice!" He balances the blade, admiring it. "Not The Armenian Man's usual weapon, somebody else want it?"

The Armenian Man can hang onto it in case there's a foe that requires magic to get through DR, otherwise

Reflex DC 15: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (8) + 4 = 12
Damage, fire: 1d4 ⇒ 3

Tanto takes a few moments to recover his flung daggers, trying not to fall in the ash as he does so.

REFLEX: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (16) + 8 = 24

He then extracts his own wand and asks Quintues to apply it to him. "Thanks for the offer, but I prefer white over red, if you know what I mean."

CLW: 1d8 + 1 ⇒ (6) + 1 = 7

DC 15 REFLEX: 1d20 + 10 ⇒ (7) + 10 = 17
Spellcraft dc 22 Ring: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (16) + 9 = 25

"Thats a nice ring. It allows someone who casts spells the ability to memorize another spell."

Quintus, yes the fire would happened during the infernal healing minute.

Tsuk zaps himself with his wand of CLW.

CLW: 1d8 + 1 ⇒ (5) + 1 = 6

Ref: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (11) + 3 = 14 ONE SHORT! AGH!

Nia approaches the stone carefully, and though she gets quite close she nearly kicks the stone as she falls into the ash. fire damage: 1d4 ⇒ 3

She then lets out a gutteral scream before shouting "IT BURNS US!"

"So this stone is the source of all this trouble? Quite peculiar... The presence of those elemental skulls suggests this is somehow linked to the elemental plane of fire."

Quintus carefully approaches the stone, studying it with detect magic

"I believe if we can deactivate the runes, that should cut off the elemental's access to our plane, and put an end to these fires. Do you have any ideas how to accomplish that?"

UMD anyone?

Also, before anyone starts tinkering with the stone, downing those potions we got at the beginning might be a good idea

my UMD sucks, but, yah, quaffing potions not a bad idea...

Tsuk has +2 to UMD. Not spectacular

The Armenian Man retrieves his potion of resist fire from his pouch, then holds it up in the palm of his hand. "Who drinks these should be the ones doing the work! But Magdh leave The Armenian Man with options... many options! The Armenian Man would need to pray..."

No UMD here, so I don't think The Armenian Man will be attempting this. But he has a spell slot open right now; he can pray for anything on the cleric list in 15 minutes time. Nothing really jumps out as elemental protection, but he could grab fallback strategy to give someone a reroll on that UMD check, if needed.

Not a bad idea. Smart even.

Tsuk can cast Guidance on the UMD person That'll be +1 more. And War Mind to give a bonus to saving throws.

No UMD here either.

Nia stands, and the voice of a quizzitive male wizard comes out, "Intriguing. In all my studies, never once have I seen these runes used for this purpose. It must be the source of all this troubling fire, and yet, how to turn it off?"

Also casting detect magic.

Spellcraft: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (15) + 9 = 24

"It seems somebody with more magical aptitude will need to do this. Failure could summon fire elementals. Everybody," her voice snaps to that of a hardened orc general, "READY STANCE! TSUK, YOU ONLY ONE HERE WITH SKILL. DO DA THING!"

Tsuk unstoppers his potion and quaffs it down. He then casts War Mind on himself and Guidance. I am assuming that I have waited the 15 minutes for Armenian, so I will roll twice.

UMD 1, Guidance: 1d20 + 2 + 1 ⇒ (17) + 2 + 1 = 20

UMD 2, Guidance: 1d20 + 2 + 1 ⇒ (5) + 2 + 1 = 8

Can I just take the first one?

After about 30 seconds of fiddling with the runes. Tsuk figures out the correct way to disable the stone. As he does the flames stop leaping from the stone and shortly later the flames extinguish.

Upon closer examination, the monolith appears to be a small statue resting inside a bowl-shape depression being held in place by ash and debris.

The nearby fires slowly start to extinguish as well.

The next day as you make your return to Mishkar, you spot druids working on containing the last bits of the forest fire.

You make it back on the second day around noon to find the centaurs surrounding the town.

A female centaur yells out "hand over the goblins so that they may face justice for their crimes against the forest!"

Can we take the statue? We're Pathfinders, after all - looting everything that isn't nailed down :)

On the approach to the village, Quintus sees the centaurs and hears their claims. As such, he doesn't have any particular love for the goblins and feels they could easily be sacrificed to save trouble. But this smells like a trial, and the barrister in him cannot refuse the challenge.

"Ah yes, dear centaur." he says, standing up front. "The forest has suffered greatly. And perhaps there is someone guilty for this who must answer for their crimes. But for the benefit of both yours and the goblins - we must be sure that it is only the guilty who will be punished. So I suggest a fair trial, on these grounds."

"What say you?"

diplomacy: 1d20 + 19 ⇒ (20) + 19 = 39

Str check to pull out the stone

"The Armenian Man seems to think the goblins did well to help put out the fire. The magic that started it is unlikely to be theirs, either. This accusation does not sit well with The Armenian Man."

The Armenian Man moves to stand by Quintas, and puffs out his chest. "A fair trial is definitely needed today!"

Diplomacy, aid: 1d20 - 2 ⇒ (4) - 2 = 2

"Yeah, as much as it sticks on my tongue, these little guys seemed to be helping not harming...although I don't remember much of the helping when we were dealing with those fire skulls, but sure those things were creepy." Tanto weighs in.

Diplomacy (aid): 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (16) + 8 = 24

the centaur leader looks over the group of Pathfinders, "my men tell me you spared them the other day. If it was not the goblins then who caused the forest to burn so greatly?"

Conney looks around at his companions. He was ready to attack those centaur, so him speaking up wouldn't be the wisest move he can think of.

Earlier, in the forest...
Strength: 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (19) + 1 = 20

Quintus has always considered himself more of a man of brain than of brawn - but he'll be damned if he would leave potentially valuable items juts lying around. He grabs the stone and starts lifting, motioning for the others to help.

----

Now, with the centaurs

"Indeed, there is no need for violence here." Quintus flashes his widest barrister-smile for the centaur leader, and addresses his question. "The source of wild fires was a status, connected to the elemental plane of fire. The stone conjured elementals of fire to the forest, causing the flames to spread quickly. We managed to disable the statue, and therefore stopped any more of the fires to appear."

If we managed to loot the statue, we could show it to the centaurs.

Kaana looks over the stone and snorts in disgust. "I have heard tales of ancient cyclopes that used stones such as these. I thought they were just tales but it looks like there was truth to them. It appears we were incorrect in believing all goblins wish to destroy nature with fire."

With a pair of short whistles, Kaana turns leaving the city with the rest of her centaurs shortly behind her.

Dolok Darkfur calls out, "Dragbog and the rest of the Dragonskull Tribe gather up!" After all the goblins assemble, Dolok continues I wish to continue to grant you protection if you journey with the Farheavens Clan to our village. There the two clans can join as one to rebuild." Many of the goblins cheer at the proclamation.

Turning to the party, "I hope you can find somewhere safe to place that rock."

"Thank you for stopping the fires and the centaurs. I appears the Farheaven clan is again in the debt of the Pathfinder Society. Hopefully, someday we will be able to repay this debt," states Nelket.

And as you try to make your way to an inn for some rest, several goblins run up all talking at once. "Where do you go now? How do we be Pathfinders. We go with you? We know goblin marching songs to help pass the time."

The End