GM Ietsuna's Shadow's Last Stand Part 1 - At Shadow's Door (Inactive)

Game Master Ietsuna

No need to waste good daylight Miseria thinks and does some more discreet inquiring.

Diplomacy: 1d20 + 11 ⇒ (16) + 11 = 27 -4 if dealing with good or chaotic people.

GM Dice: 1d4 ⇒ 2

Miseria makes some discrete inquiries and finds a rough looking man who looks like he wants to be a thug, but just isn't quite up to it. He is weedy and has little actual muscle.

Only thing I know about this Spider character is that she’s supposedly the madam for an illegal brothel in the Theater District. Some place that’s just undergone some strange renovations of some sort.

No leading opinion on where to go. Ship is fine with me in lieu of better suggestions.

Ivan blushes at the mention of the brothel. "I suppose I might have seen the inside of one or two such establishments during me pirate days, but ever since I found the Truth I bin dedicated to a higher callin'. Mayhaps we'd best to the ship? I'd ruther fight with a bunch o' slavers any day than put me paladin code to such a test..."

Ok, lets go to the ship.

At this late hour, the briny sea air of Almas’s wooden docks is void of the daytime crowds of crew members bustling about. Nearly a dozen ships are docked here, and several more are anchored in the calm waters further from the shore. One ship in particular still has lanterns hanging lit next to its gangway, a shoddy wooden plank that connects the old ship to the dock. Red letters scrawled on the side of the ship read Sailswift, and several cloaked men move to and fro on the ship’s deck with uncanny grace, shifting boxes of cargo about and going below deck occasionally.

Map is up, slide 2. Added some bustling sailors too.

Ivan concentrates on the various figures moving about to see whether any of them radiate auras of evil. Detect Evil

Bennett won't brandish a weapon quite yet. He looks around for any suspicious behavior. Looking for any clues in particular for why they only work at night.

perception: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (13) + 5 = 18

Edwin looks around in hope to notice something suspicious.

perception: 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (8) + 1 = 9

sense motive: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (18) + 7 = 25

Miseria whispers, "I could try to convince them that their orders have changed. It's a long shot, but I can be quite convincing at times and it might buy us some time to investigate without causing a ruckus."

Ivan detects auras of evil coming from all of the figures that can be seen on the deck.

To the best that you can tell the figures on the deck are just bustling around working. They occasionally go below decks but otherwise they are stowing ropes, tying lines, folding sails and swabbing the decks.

Edwin also detects evil. Since they are evil He goes to the deck.

"Hi there!"

He pulls out his sword and starts to attack.

Miseria starts to walk up the gangplank and notices the halfling rush up and draw his blade. Here eyes go wide. She'd considered that the need to fight might be required in the end, but that seemed like senseless slaughter.

I'm not sure a paladin would endorse murdering someone who is just working on a ship. Just because your detect evil goes off doesn't mean you can just start killing without reason. They are not currently doing anything wrong. What if were really a good or neutral character with an evil spell upon them?

Miseria if you think the slaughter should be prevented then stop me and convince me to not do that.

Bennett sees the situation intensify as Edwin advances on the sailors. I better channel Edwin's righteousness into some progress here.

Edwin, Edwin. You have to lead with an offer before we start coercing. Bennett turns to the sailors. Tell us friends, what manner of cargo do you manage here? We are interested in trade....of all kinds.

Bluff: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (20) + 4 = 24

Edwin turns to Bennett, looks at him in anger, then he returns his sword back in place.

The sailors on board nod at Bennett. Rug? Katapesh Rug? The sailor is headed towards the hatch to below-decks into the hold. A second sailor approaches and in a much quieter voice he whispers Pesh?

Ivan stands by, miserably. Though he recognizes that subterfuge is sometimes required in the service of the greater good, it still chafes uncomfortably against his paladin code, and reminds him of his former days as a pirate scoundrel.

When the sailor offers Bennett pesh, Ivan blushes deeply - though it's hard to see on his bright red skin - and considers whether they would have been better off investigating the brothel.

Bennett finds small relief as they follow the ruse. Pesh, maybe. Slaves? We need some muscle for a long job.

No slave. Just rug. Just pesh.

The crew moves closer to you, their eyes wary at the strangers on their deck.

"We don't need rugs or pesh."

You see? My friend grows impatient. We are interested in the more illicit of the goods we hear you traffic in. Bennett shows a little gold from his bag to tempt the sailors.

Bluff: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (4) + 4 = 8

Uh oh.

The Yellow sailor kicks the gang plank overboard and they move aggressively toward you.

Combat Round 1 - Bold May Act

Tashi
Ivan
Edwin
Bennett
Miseria
Sailors

acrobatics: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (12) + 6 = 18

Bennett tucks a shoulder and rolls away from the sailor popping up with his bow in hand and fires a shot.

Attempting to tumble 10ft and draw with my move. standard to attack the red sailor.

longbow, pbs: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (15) + 7 = 22
damage: 1d8 + 4 ⇒ (6) + 4 = 10

Bennett tumbles away, coming up firing at Red. The arrow flies true and smacks into the victim with a satisfying THUNK.

Combat Round 1 - Bold May Act

Tashi
Ivan
Edwin
Bennett
Miseria
Sailors (Red-10)

Ivan steps back 5', draws his pistol, and fires a bullet at Red.

swift action to spend 1 grit to add +CHA to dmg for 1 round

pistol vs touch: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (17) + 7 = 24
dmg: 1d8 + 4 ⇒ (6) + 4 = 10 Please let me know if this drops him because that will cause me to regain a grit point.

Edwin draws his sword and hits Yellow.

mwk longsword : 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (13) + 7 = 20
damage: 1d8 + 3 ⇒ (7) + 3 = 10

Ivan's shot drops Red to the deck in a bleeding heap.

Ivan blows the smoke away from the barrel of his pistol and glares at the other sailors. "Aye, me hearties, I think 'We surren'er' is the werds ye be lookin' fer!"

Edwin Who's post I missed because we were posting at the same time makes a very strong attack at yellow, significantly wounding it.

Combat Round 1 - Bold May Act

Tashi
Ivan
Edwin
Bennett
Miseria
Sailors (Red-10, Yellow -10)

[ooc[ I'll give Tashi and Misseria the rest of the day then bot tomorrow. On a similar note I don't remember Tashi posting this scenario. Did we lose Tashi?[/ooc]

Looks like Tashi was never in for this scenario due to having already played it: see post here.

Well, that solves that. Bad Ietsuna. Botting Miseria

Miseria whips her Urami at Yellow.

Urami: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (6) + 5 = 11 Damage: 1d8 + 4 ⇒ (3) + 4 = 7

Miseria misses.

Yellow stabs at Edwin

rapier: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (8) + 4 = 12 Damage: 1d6 + 1 ⇒ (2) + 1 = 3

Red draws and fires a crossbow at Ivan

light crossbow: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (9) + 4 = 13 Damage: 1d8 ⇒ 3

Combat Round 2 - Bold May Act

Ivan
Edwin
Bennett
Miseria
Sailors (Red-10, Yellow -10)

Edwin strikes again yellow guy.

"Will you fall!?"

longsword: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (16) + 5 = 21

damage: 1d8 + 3 ⇒ (5) + 3 = 8

Edwin drops Yellow

Ivan reloads and fires another bullet at Red.

Swift action to spend 1 grit (current pool 3/4) to add +CHA to dmg

ranged touch: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (11) + 7 = 18
dmg, focussed aim deed: 1d8 + 4 ⇒ (5) + 4 = 9
If this drops Red, Ivan recovers 1 grit

Take you grit back Ivan

Ivan's shot takes out Red

Combat over. What now?

What is with blue sailor?

We better get to searching. There may be others, be on the lookout. Bennett will assist a search of the ship for damning evidence of wrong-doing.

Stealth: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (10) + 5 = 15

Edwin helps with the search.

perception: 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (9) + 1 = 10

Looking around the ship you find several things of interest. There are a number of people chained in the hold of the ship. They tell you they are on their way to a foreign playhouse to debut. They seem happy about it, but something about their eyes doesn't look quite right.

You also find a note in the captains quarters. Note is on slide 4

"We need to free those people! Can anyone do it or we will have to break their chains?"
Edwin starts to break the chains with his sword.

Guards?: 1d6 ⇒ 3

You manage to free the slaves. As you exit hold you hear a ruckus on the warf and a group of 3 guards stand there.

The leader calls up to you What goes on here? We had a call that there was a brawl going on. We'll have none of that.

Miseria moves in front of the group.

"It's all been sorted out. Some of them men are eager to be gettin' some shore leave, but others were caught slackin' off. Just a bit of a dust up, that's all."

Bluff: 1d20 + 10 + 5 ⇒ (19) + 10 + 5 = 34

They believe Miseria's story.

You have a handful of people in your care now. What will you do with them? It is also relatively early in the night, you have roughly 32 hours until speech time, so what do youw ant to do?

"People, for now, just pretend you're still tied to chains." says Edwin.

Bennett ushers the people along, we need to deposit them somewhere safely. Are the authorities trustworthy? We must continue our investigation into Jarovar in Almas.

"These people don't realize they are slaves. We need to see if we can do something about that. Otherwise our evidence is scant at this point and relies on our word, members of a group she is attempting to smear. Can any of you determine if they have been enspelled?"

Although it seems unlikely that any of the slaves are intentionally misleading them, just to be safe Ivan scans the group to see if any of them possess an aura of evil.

"Tell us more about yourselves. Who are you and how did you come here? What is it that you are going to perform? And when and where?"

Diplomacy: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (19) + 4 = 23

The "actors" appear to be under some sort of compulsion. Likely it will wear off in a few hours.

We're stuck :)

Ok, I will bump you along.

You take the slaves/performers and place them in the care of the guards who have come to the wharf.

There is still some time in the evening so you follow up on the other lead you have to a person named Jarovar.

Can I have a diplomacy or knowledge local check please to locate his offices?