Chrysa quickly talks to Sootscale "About 100 feet outside of town there is a painted wall. Like we are inside a globe with a wooden canvas painted to be the horizon. The crickets you hear I think is a magical effect. I saw nothing alive in the keep." she quickly relays what she had learned in her flight.
Sootscale feels his body and finds no gaping holes where the powerful bandit had shot him. He responds to Chrysa, and loops in Donovan. "Oh good, Sootscale still alive, for now." He looks around. "Can't say the same for Tikroch."
As Chrysa shares information, Sootscale does as well. "Sootscale went to keep. Not real place, but painted maybe. Like a real keep only from one direction. Horse there looked nice but not real."
He shakes his head, unsure of what to do next. "Bandit very strong. And no Tikroch, even harder to fight bandit. Maybe go outside, learn more. Hope Tikroch returns next time."
"All we can do is try. I'll attack as soon as he comes in, with everything I have, in hopes to see if we ever stand a chance." Mum suggests.
Tess is playing faster, but at a steady pace. The Bandit rounds a corner with his entourage. As they approach, Sootscale notices the one who died in the last pass is now undead of some sort, but can’t do much about it. The Bandit does a double-take as he spots Sootscale standing by the door, but passes in.
When he gets inside, Mum immediately attacks before he can monologue, and is quickly killed. He turns to Benj, ”mercenaries can’t save you, Sandyfoot. You’ll pay for that.”
Donovan and Mum (when dead) can tell that one of the guards is some sort of zombie now.
The Bandit narrows his eyes, seeing Donovan is nearly ten feet tall, and shoots him down as well.
Sootscale slowly follows the tracks of the Bandit, ignoring the screams and the piano playing, but traveling is much slower this way. He seems to be traveling for only about 25 minutes, and is almost to the keep entrance - when there’s a snap in reality, and he starts to walk backwards, the way he came, as if time is rewinding - the same feeling he had before when time rewound, except he reverses his entire path exactly, whereas time reversed as he stood in the same place before.
Tess’ pain has now curdled into rage, and her face is almost horrific, as she turns back to the guards as they are cleaning up.
She raises a finger, and she mutters something under her breath, and time seems to stop, then reverse, slowly at first, and then faster, as she collapses onto the stool, watching for a moment until she swivels back and holds her hands above the keys.
Time moves forward again. The three of them seem to be alive - but there's no sign of Tikroch or Luca.
Instead of a quiet place, the tavern floor is alive with activity. Servers move back and forth. The tavern keep is a jovial older man, and he’s chatting with some patrons seated at the bar. Tables that moments ago had nobody, have patrons seated in quiet conversation. The booths at the edges have patrons in quiet conversation. Some have faces shrouded in shadow by broad hats, others wear veils and masks. The windows appear to be open instead of shuttered now, but there is no light from outside, other than dim lamp light at most. There is a stout iron steeple above the bar. The smell of roasting potatoes and meat comes from the open kitchen, where a number of folks are working on preparing a meal.
The innkeep looks up, ”well - hello! Welcome to the Iron Steeple - the finest inn in the slough. What can we do for you? A room maybe? A drink? Or maybe you want to tuck in some meat and potatoes?” His plump, ruddy cheeks glow with cheer as he smiles, belying the wrinkles around his eyes. The question is directed at the three in the party seemingly.
"I'm not sure how to unwind this. Something is forcing us to replay it but the ghost is running out of power and I don't know how to stop this gunslinger-revenant."
"One of his men became a zombie, a juju zombie to be exact. Does that mean anything? Also he was less precise in is attacks. Did we do anything, other than kill one of his men?" Mum wonders aloud. "We could focus completely on his mooks?"
As Sootscale is suddenly reverse-timed back into the room once more, he explains what he understands.
"That was definitely shorter, right? Only a half-hour or so before reset, not full hour. Sootscale tried to find the trail of where the bandit comes from to look for clues. Will try again. Maybe you try killing lesser guards this time? Or see if Tess can explain?"
Unless anyone stops him, Sootscale exits the building once again and, this time, flies as fast as possible to where the Bandit's trail was previously, before continuing to follow the track. As he flies, he looks to see if he soars over the Bandit and the other men.
There is the sound of weapons discharge not too far away.
Mum hovers in front of Tikroch "What have you discovered?"
"All right, yeah, let's see if we can whittle down his guards. But we need to do something about the gunslinger at some point. I can't think of a way to stop his guns. Without the ability to change my spells, I can't build defenses that will stop him."
Donovan and Mum briefly chat after Sootscale leaves. The Bandit eventually approaches, and heads inside but barely gives anyone a chance to do anything before the murdering starts. Somehow, someone in his troupe knows an ambush is coming. With only Mum and Donovan, they don’t have much of a chance. Mum nods at Donovan and suddenly sees the dead form of Tikroch with Luca. They vaguely make hand gestures at each other, as they can’t speak, and Mum leaves the inn to investigate. She sprints out while Donovan stays behind, waiting for the next reset.
After another shortened reset, Donovan and Tikroch’s spirit see Sootscale dragged back inside as time rewinds, but this time Mum or whomever they are don’t come back while dead
Time restarts, this time with only Sootscale, Tikroch, and Donovan.
Instead of a quiet place, the tavern floor is alive with activity. Servers move back and forth. The tavern keep is a jovial older man, and he’s chatting with some patrons seated at the bar. Tables that moments ago had nobody, have patrons seated in quiet conversation. The booths at the edges have patrons in quiet conversation. Some have faces shrouded in shadow by broad hats, others wear veils and masks. The windows appear to be open instead of shuttered now, but there is no light from outside, other than dim lamp light at most. There is a stout iron steeple above the bar. The smell of roasting potatoes and meat comes from the open kitchen, where a number of folks are working on preparing a meal.
The innkeep looks up, ”well - hello! Welcome to the Iron Steeple - the finest inn in the slough. What can we do for you? A room maybe? A drink? Or maybe you want to tuck in some meat and potatoes?” His plump, ruddy cheeks glow with cheer as he smiles, belying the wrinkles around his eyes. The question is directed at the three in the party seemingly.
Sootscale waves away the enthusiastic innkeep who's about to be murdered. He looks around and is extremely disappointed to not see Mum/Chrysa. "Listen, Bandit and guards are learning. They remember. Not too much, but guard remembered Sootscale, and Bandit tried to shoot Sootscale! Bandit has locked room in outhouse next to keep. Stuff inside room is real, not like the rest of larger world."
He looks to Tikroch and Luca. "Where you go? What happened when you dead?"
Tikroch takes a deep breath, finally able to share what he's learned. "I forced myself to skip the last reset to see what was in that room. I saw him writing in a journal before he got up to murder you all again. He was writing about someone named Carla barely recognizing him and how he was tired of doing all this but that he didn't have a choice. He also wrote about how his enemies were all dead and he was doing this out of some sense of justice. Said he killed a priest before he came after the inkeep here. I seems like he doesn't get any satisfaction from material things like fire or food. I'm hoping we can maybe convince him fighting isn't worth it any more. Especially as fighting hasn't been working."
Donovan seems frustrated and says, "How are we going to do that if he guns us down as soon as he sees us?"
After a moment, he pauses and snaps his fingers. "Write it down. Assuming this doesn't reset instantly upon our deaths—and our ghost state implies that it doesn't—we can leave him a note to read, explaining what we've discovered. He seems to retain information just as much as we do."
"Ah, Tikroch made it inside room, very good. Sootscale tried to go inside with bombs, but bombs would make lights flicker. Seemed too dangerous to keep going."
Sootscale considers Donovan's idea. "Hm, very wise. Maybe could work. But what to say?"
"Hmmm, that could work. Anything we leave seems to reset when everything else does though. That and he seems to shoot us a soon as we try to interfere. My method of diplomacy tends to involve claws and teeth but I can try to reason with him this time unless one of you feel better about doing it." Tikroch thinks about the idea again. "Oh wait, you mean a note for him to see after he takes us out... that will be unpleasant. The note would have to mention Carla for sure. Maybe something about not having to fight. He wrote on multiple pages in the journal but i only saw the last bit."
"Sootscale just doesn't want to die again. Sootscale succeeded two times thus far." He shrugs, uncertainly, tears out a page of his formula book, and sees if Tikroch or Donovan want to give it a try.
Donovan takes the page that Sootscale offers and says, "Think of it as practice. You can die over and over without worrying about the consequences, so that later you can die with dignity when the real time comes and get it right." He pauses as he accepts the quill pen and says, "Unless you're planning to live forever, of course."
Then he scratches a note on the paper.
"We should see about hammering this on to the front door. Somewhere that he can't miss it."
We are all caught in this loop now, but our arrival presages an opportunity to change the narrative. Next time, try talking to us. Perhaps we can escape this repeating nightmare together.
Donovan places the note outside the door, and Sootscale runs off towards the exit to hide and avoid being attacked, while Tikroch and Luca wait patiently.
After a few minutes, the now-familiar shuffling of the guards and bandit becomes clear. This time, however, there is a pause, and a tearing noise. There seems to be a muffled discussion, followed by some final word.
When the door is opened, The Bandit steps in and surveys the scene. He doesn’t say anything for a moment, though he scans the crowd, and his eyes rest on Benj.
He raises a finger, pointing at Sandyfoot, and with a gravelly voice asks, ”what does this mean? Explain yourself.” His eyes seem to have passed over the somewhat passive Donovan and Tikroch, as if he was looking through them.
Tess keeps playing at the normal tempo.
Sandyfoot is polishing the bar but stops, and he looks confused. He blinks ”I don’t know about that sir - “
The Bandit’s eyes narrow - ”was it for me? I nearly missed it - one of the guards had to show it to me - why did you make it so easy to miss if it were for me? . You owe taxes and the only escape from punishment is payment, now.”
Tikroch stands, "This note is from us actually. We understand these tasks must be wearing on you. Is all this still worth it? I don't think Carla would want to see you like this. I doubt she would even recognize this you." he pauses for a moment looking for any reaction.
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His eyes flick over, and he pauses, lowering his hand.
He doesn't seem to relax, and instead he growls "how do you know my horse's name?"
The other guards come in, and the zombie guard gasps, and holds his head, as if confused. "sir - this - I remember this! They attacked us! Here!" He draws his sword, and looks around, as if he doesn't know what's going on.
The bandit doesn't take his eyes off of Tikroch. He flares his nostrils, "I remember everyone I've ever fought - and I don't remember him. And he's talkin' 'bout my horse. He knows me." He draws his pistol like lightning and aims it at Tikroch, and then spits on the floor to the side, "you have 20 seconds to explain yourself - in my reckoning most problems are solved with a bullet. Start talking" He clicks back the hammer, but his mannerism is almost languid.
Your horse? Are you kidding me? thinks Sootscale, who is very much staying out of the way and trying to keep a low profile.
Staunchly ignoring the zombie guard, Tikroch begins, "I know well the bond one can have with an animal. I don't know what I would do if Luca here didn't want to accompany me any longer." he gestures to the dino at his side. "Isn't it better to set her free and allow yourself to rest instead of continuing this grim task? All this has to wear on a person, even one such as yourself. You don't even like the men you have with you, why continue working with them"
Sootscale sighs inside. Dying was so painful. Confronting this bandit was completely against his kobold instincts to hide, lay traps, evade, survive. And yet, as he watched Tikroch stand boldly and just talk to the bandit, Sootscale knew that he needed to find the courage to stand and speak as well. Even if it meant he would have to die. Again.
"You very strong, you can kill all who stand before you. All your enemies dead. Yet you keep killing. Why? You, stuck in spiral of killing. Memories lost in the haze. You can make different choice. Keep bullet in gun this time."
.
Again, The Bandit seems to take in each new speaker, as if they're new people, unseen until they start to speak.
Without saying anything else, he swiftly kills Tikroch and Sootscale. His eyes pass over Donovan, he doesn't attack the cleric.
The zombified guard seems to have a different approach, and he watches Donovan carefully, the confusion and fear obvious on his dead face, seemingly off-put when the cleric doesn't attack or say anything.
The guards get to work on their grim task, executing the people in the tavern. Some of the serving maids seemingly have fled out of the inn in this time, having taken Sootscale's hint, and the screams of horror which occur in the rear of the building are much less numerous.
At about 52-58 minutes since the time reset, The Bandit seems to make to leave, and Tess raises her finger, rewinding time again.
************************
Instead of a quiet place, the tavern floor is alive with activity. Servers move back and forth. The tavern keep is a jovial older man, and he’s chatting with some patrons seated at the bar. Tables that moments ago had nobody, have patrons seated in quiet conversation. The booths at the edges have patrons in quiet conversation. Some have faces shrouded in shadow by broad hats, others wear veils and masks. The windows appear to be open instead of shuttered now, but there is no light from outside, other than dim lamp light at most. There is a stout iron steeple above the bar. The smell of roasting potatoes and meat comes from the open kitchen, where a number of folks are working on preparing a meal.
The innkeep looks up, ”well - hello! Welcome to the Iron Steeple - the finest inn in the slough. What can we do for you? A room maybe? A drink? Or maybe you want to tuck in some meat and potatoes?” His plump, ruddy cheeks glow with cheer as he smiles, belying the wrinkles around his eyes. The question is directed at the four in the party - all of whom are alive and gathered together near the piano.
"Interesting. When I didn't engage, he just... ignored me."
"Ugh, dying is so painful," Sootscale mentions. He explains what the party has learned to Chrysa. "Did Chrysa learn anything while spirit was away?"
Mum opens her mouth to answer, then closes it and gives the kobold a glance. "Chrysa? That evil baroness lady that has NO reason to be here helping good decent folk. Is she here too? Goodness and gracious, we're really doomed now." Mum laments in woe and despair.
" didn't see anything though. I heard something but in then couldn't find the source. An utterly useless excursion."
Chrysa is Mum's real name? That must be what Sophiel was alluding to before she introduced us. An interesting tidbit of information but not something immediately helpful. Perhaps worth pressing if we ever get out of this damned loop. I have to remember that spell she also mentioned to preserve privacy. I doubt she would have mentioned it if it wasn't important. Tikroch's mind wanders a bit before getting back to the matter at hand.
"What was the sound? There didn't seem to be anything real outside the tavern besides the gunman and his guards. And now that I think about it, his horse was there too, the horse he was writing about in his journal. If there isn't any objection, I'm going to change to a bird to get to this animal quickly. Chief Sootscale, you tried to get passed the bandits on one of our previous instances. Did you try to interact with the thugs or did they notice you without you doing anything?"
"That's Governor Sootscale to you!" corrects the kobold quickly, as Tikroch gets his title wrong.
"The guards remember. They ignored Sootscale the first time, then they tried to shoot Sootscale the second time. But! Horse is fake, not real. Made of same magic as the rest of this place. Horse not that interesting. And journal room is locked, you cannot go inside in your physical form. Maybe Chrysa could. Or Sootscale borrowing Chrysa's tools."
Mum tenses and closes her eyes, willing herself to calm. "The sound was of battle, but I saw nothing." she tells Tikroch. Then says to Sootscale "I know my way around locks, so I can try. Should we go now or wait to talk to him again?"
"Might as well go now. I feel like this timeline isn't robust... we don't have an unlimited amount of time. We might run out of resets, so we need to move rapidly and radically, doing big things while we can count on a restart."
"Okay. I'll leave you to your conversation with the gunman." Mum rises into the air and casts vanish at herself, then tries to get out of the inn in an opening she hopefully discovered in her earlier explorations (not the front door) and to this journal room which the other have described to her in enough detail to know where it might be.
Mum slips out and makes her way towards the outbuilding, easily avoiding the approaching guards and bandit. In short order, she finds Carla eating some food, and the locked outbuilding. The lock is opened after about a minute of effort -
The outbuilding, it has a front room, a bedroom, and a privy. The privy handle has dust on it, indicating a lack of use. There is a merry fire in the fireplace of the front room, and it seems somewhat well-used.
The bedroom does not look like it has been used much either.
There are papers and books on the table as well, and books on the bookshelf nearby.
It looks like there’s a few other odd things on the table, like what must be a cleaning kit for something, as there’s a brush with black soot and residue here and there, along with an oily cloth. It must have come from an open satchel resting near the edge of the table, that has some other miscellaneous items.
Looking at the papers, there’s seemingly some notes about the state of the fort, and at least one request directed towards “Lord Drelev” for certain things, like upgraded weapons for the guard and the authorization to train them using “alkenstar weapons”. The Taldan is spindly and careful.
Notably, there is what must be his journal, sitting near the chair.
Mum reads all she can, quickly and efficiently, like someone used to reading the hordes of reports that come from ruling a small country. "Search everywhere, don't worry about neatness." she instructs the others, if there are others.
Lacking any better ideas, Donovan accompanies Mum to the outbuilding. He picks up one of the cleaning tools, then sniffs at it. "Smells similar to that weapon he uses." He puts it back down on the table.
"There's the journal. I wonder if the handwriting matches these weapon requests...?" says Donovan as he moves to pick up the journal and compare it to the papers.
Donovan and Chrysa read carefully, but as quickly as they can.
The Bandit seems to have written a journal at least every week for quite some time. And he seems to have been writing since 4560 AR, 150 years earlier. The language is antiquated Taldan, with odd affectations in the writing, that place the writer as not being from Avistan. It seems like he starts writing to someone named Hatice.
It begins describing waking up after having been murdered.
The Bandit goes into detail of what happened - he and his family had been killed when people sought vengeance against him for some slight - he was a marshal of a city or settlement called “Alkenstar”. He remembers that he had arrested some cattle thieves and shot some down, and one of their brothers and hunted him and his family in turn. As he lay dying, he cursed his misfortune and his murderers, and he describes the rage and hated he felt as he saw his two children and his wife, dead on the floor of their modest home. His wife was named Hatice, and his children were Devin and Jolie.
The Bandit talks about how his hatred caused him to keep living, or get reanimated - it wasn’t clear, and he felt himself consumed with the same anger and thirst for vengeance. He found his skill with a weapon had become supernatural, and that he was almost impossible to hurt. This helped him. He hunted down the bandits that killed his family - but that did not bring him peace. He found their families, and did what they had done to his. Then he found their friends, and did the same. It took decades to exterminate anyone who had wronged him, even tangentially, and he describes the feeling of killing these people - not with joy or pleasure, but grim satisfaction.
He writes after a while as if he seemed to think he was kept on Golarion as a divine instrument, but after three decades - he is disabused of this notion eventually, and writes about how the gods had betrayed him, and he sought to bring order to the chaotic world by any means necessary. Sometimes he wrote that he hoped this would placate the gods, who could release him from his torment, but other times he cursed them, grimly setting about on his task without caring about why he was doing it.
Eventually he became a bandit, preying on weak merchants and the rich, seemingly getting pleasure from robbing the rich and giving the proceeds away, but this angered those in his posse, who resented him. He describes his plan, as he learned as much as he could about them, he became a bandit of bandits, The Bandit. The Bandit did this all over Avistan for forty years, until he was more of a legend than a person. Still he could not get satisfaction. Nothing filled the hole in his heart.
Writing about how he had become numb, he seems to have given up about 30 years ago, and just acted as a mercenary for small-time warlords and the like, the writing becomes despondent and terse, trailing off at times, and becoming less frequent. He describes all the times his anger is triggered again, but he largely does whatever is asked of him, coldly and emotionless Lu. Until the most recent entry.
The ink is fresh on this entry:
“I miss you, Hatice. For the first time in a long time. I looked at the picture in my locket, because I can’t remember your face - it was like staring at a stranger. But I miss you. The children are gone from my mind. Nobody can understand what happened, and I am alone. Something is wrong, but while can’t figure out what it is, I [i]feel for the first time I can remember. But I cannot tell that idiot Drelev - nobody knows of my nature. and that’s why my only recourse is this journal. My only peace…I did not think it possible for my bones to ache… but they do. Food tastes like ash. Whisky like nothing at all. Even a fire is - nothing. Even Carla barely recognizes me - this is a nightmare. And for what? The deaths don’t fill the hole. Nothing fills it - my enemies are long dead. All I can do is mete out this cursed justice - last time it was the priest and now… my bones ache. These guards … they are just like the gang. I hate them. I hate all of them - but what choice do I have?…”*[/i]
Mun finds a lockbox in his satchel after a little rummaging.
"These are the documents I saw but couldn't interact with a a spirit. Let's see if we can find anything useful this time. When I saw I could only look over the shoulder of the gunman."
Leaving the others to searching the hut, Tikroch goes to investigate the horse. Attempting to get the horses attention before touching it, he stands a few steps in front of the horse to not startle it and proceeds to interact from there.
Tikroch can’t recognize the location, but he takes a look at the horse.
It soon becomes clear that while this is a skillful reproduction, it is not truly alive. It seems to be made of painted plaster that is animated to follow a pre-determined pattern of “eating” food, again and again.
"Well a lock almost always hides secrets." Mum wonders alound as she looks over the box.
"Why some of your men now zombies?" asks Sootscale in the inn. He tries not to cringe as he asks the question, strongly suspecting that he was about to be shot.
The lockbox is locked too tightly for Mummy , but at least it doesn’t seem trapped.
*******
The Bandit and the other guards, who have just entered - look very confused when the kobold starts talking. The zombie guard says, ”none of us are zombies - what are you talking about? Who are you? Wait … I remember …” He looks confused himself and closes his mouth. The Bandit looks over at the guard, ”you’re right - kobold. Why didn’t I see that before? He’s dead… What’s going on here?” He raises his pistol at the undead guard like lightning, who looks confused and raises his hands in surrender, ”boss - I don’t know what’s happening either. I don’t feel like I’m dead - but … “ He shakes his head and swallows, then looks back over at Sootscale, as if remembering more, ”wait - I am dead - and he killed me! Here! Or friends of his. But I haven’t seen him before… but I have…” He holds his head, as if he’s having a huge headache, and then sits on the ground.
The Bandit lowers his pistol and turns back to Sootscale, ”mmm. Okay. Explain how you noticed, and guess why I didn’t. What’s going on, Kobold?”
Tess has been playing very quickly since the others left, faster than anyone has heard hear play, her time signature almost impossible to follow. The sound is less like music than noise, but nobody in the bar seems to mind. Sandyfoot looks as confused as anyone.