|
"Of course. We're all in this together. Let's split everything evenly," Ulretha agrees, though anyone might be suspicious about what his answer might have been if he'd been the one to find the bag.
He eyes Othdan balefully, thinking of the fact that he WOULD have been the one to find it if that little foul smeller hadn't been in the furnace.
He's not in the best of moods when he approaches the final room, flail at the ready and looking for something to smash.
Thyste shrugs. "Works for me!" Much harder to pick five pockets than one, but that's a problem for future-Thyste.
Her head turns toward the final room, and she yawns as she shuffles toward it.
|
Lidia will escort the boy back upstairs -- using the stairs, not the ladder to the Room of Angry Ghosts -- and to the front door.
"Make sure you and your friends don't come back here again." she says to him as they emerge onto the front stoop. "This place is falling apart and filled with vermin. Rats, spiders, and probably worse. Not to mention some bandit obviously decided to use it for a hideout in the last few days."
She hands the boy some of her rations. "We'll meet you back at the Ramblehouse soon. We'll be talking to the Militia when we get back. Try not to start too many rumors before then, ok?"
There is an almost maternal tenderness and concern in her voice, something that otherwise seems out of place in her personality, young and unpolished as she is.
Once he's safely on his way, she returns to the cellar, bow at the ready, standing near the back of the group.
|
This once-grand flagstone hall is filled with statues of different celestial creatures in every corner. An old fire pit in the center of the room is bordered on all sides by moth-eaten bedrolls, while shovels, picks, and other digging equipment lie strewn about a shallow tunnel bored into the northeastern wall. The ceiling above the tunnel has collapsed, leaving a hole open to the sky above a pile of burnt rubble.
You see four rats, their flesh rotting and their eyes red staring at you from the dark room
At the same time, you heard a loud suction cup sound from the room behind you, shortly after, you hear a loud splat before you hear a kind of shuffling suction sound.
The rotting rats all blend into the shadows, almost looking like shadow puppets with glittering teeth and red eyes.
Initiative Order, Bold May Go!
Map Slide
Rats
Little Ben/Buddy
Lidia
Thyste
Salaamati
Ulretha
Ooze
Thyste closes the door. "Nope."
The Pack sees more delicious rats and ones that have been nicely "aged!" They don't understand why the two legs aren't moving in to get them.
They don't really have any interest in the malicious Jell-O in the other room and ignore Ulretha.
"No objection here. One enemy at a time is always best."
Ben is a bit out of position to get to the ooze and, frankly, would prefer to let it come to him. Or even better. If he knew there was an ooze.
"So what are we facing over there? Need some help?"
The hallways is lined from start to end with people and decides to wait a bit for the way to clear- and to make sure the rats stay put on the other side of the door. So Ben closes the door and holds it closed.
Thyste reaches out to close the door and gives a little ”ah” as Ben does it for her. Shrugging, she sets her doru on her back and rifles through her pack, retrieving a small flask.
”Alkali. Never leave home without it!”
|
|
Lidia doesn't seem like she's thinking. As strange sounds fill the cellar and the volumes of her companions' voices rise, she swings into action purely on instinct. She slides past Ulretha, takes up a position behind the statue so she can use it for cover, and fires an arrow at... whatever that big thing is that's glistening in Ben's magical urn light.
|
|
Lidia's arrow slices into the ooze and then stops inside of it.
Initiative Order, Bold May Go!
Map Slide
Rats
Little Ben/Buddy
Lidia
Thyste
Salaamati
Ulretha
Ooze -7hp
Now that Ben hears the sounds of combat he gives Little Buddy the command to attack. He himself remains to make sure the door stays closed, assuming the worst. Little Buddy rushes forward to the sounds coming from the far room at a breakneck speed and comes to a carrening halt, bouncing off the far wall and then standing there in confusion. Is that an enemy? A big blobby thing? Is it edible?
|
|
The nearly transparent cube tries to entirely collapse in on Little Buddy.
Initiative Order, Bold May Go!
Map Slide
Rats, unknown
Little Ben/Buddy, Buddy might engulfed (See above)
Lidia
Thyste
Ulretha
Ooze -7hp
Little Buddy sniffs at the cube and when it moves seems to preternaturally pop backwards, avoiding the slimy surge. With a snarl, he then starts ripping into the blob.
Ben calls out, "Do you need help over there?"
|
|
The giant cube of slime, in its eagerness to eat Buddy comes right in front of Ulretha. He always likes when the thing he's trying to kill makes it easy for him.
He also shouts out an order to the Pack. Отримайте ваш чотирипалі тут і атакувати цю річ!
Onnikka looks lazily in the direction Ulretha's voice comes from then flops down on the floor.
Fazingar sits down and scratches at the flea that's been aggressively gnawing his left ear.
The other male jumps around, nipping at each of them to try to get them to play until Onnikka surges to her feet with a loud snarl and gives him a sharp bite that leaves him skating away with his tail between his legs.
In that case Ben moves up to Lidia and casts a Guidance spell on her (he would not be able to do anything if he did a double move).
|
|
Little Buddy dodges the ooze and all three of it's counter attacks hit the ooze easily, tearing chunks of it out.
Lidia shoots another arrow into the blob, which gets suspended in the ooze after it sprays some slime out.
Ulretha smacks the ooze hard with his flail.
The ooze, instinctively adapting to his agile targets, decides to try and slam Little Buddy.
but it just barely misses little buddy.
Initiative Order, Bold May Go!
Map Slide
Rats, unknown
Little Ben/Buddy
Lidia
Thyste
Ulretha
Ooze -34hp
Ben steps past Lidia and brings his massive weapon down in a ponderous but effective swing.
"Well at least this thing is easy to hit, but is it doing any good?"
Little buddy continues his assault from across the blob, tearing out much smaller chunks.
Ben rummages through the remains of the cube, finding its biology interesting.
"One more room to check out, I think. Ready to kill a few more rats? I think I saw another door on the other side so we could do a two pronged assault."
|
|
Inside the remains of the cube is a skeleton with a backpack. Opening the backpack reveals only two items, a set of golden scales with the holy symbol of Abadar, and a note written in common.
The note reads as follows:
I found some kind of scales today when I was digging in some of the graves at the plague house. They looks pretty valuable, but I can feel the magic radiating off of them, even though I've never studied a lick of magic in my life. I'll have to wait until I get back to town to try and figure out what they do, and more importantly, how valuable they are. Maybe I'll take them to that fancy-pants magic school in Korvosa, someone is bound to be able to tell me what these are.
”That’s such a weird thing to write down,” mumbles Thyste.
"Agreed. Sound more like a 'dear diary' kind of note. He had that diary so he was probably making an entry to transcribe later."
"I don't know much about magic either. I can recognize it, but that's about it." Ben does cast detect magic but with no spellcraft skill he won't be able to see much more than auras.
"So, we good for the next room? I'll be at this door and charge in when I hear a shout."
|
|
"Always better to get your victims from two directions when you can,"Ulretha begrudgingly agrees. He cajoles his pack into the other hallway. They each get a kick or pinch hard enough to make them yelp for ignoring his orders earlier. The bottom male gets 2 because he runs when he realizes its coming.
Perhaps surprisingly, he shows little interest in the scales, valuable though they obviously are.
The gnoll waits for everyone to get in position (and his turn in initiative) then throws open the door he's in front of.
Thyste is torn between her rogue's instincts for the scales and her fox's instincts for the rats.
Settling on the one, she reaches for the scales. "I'll carry these-- I've got the magical talent of a particularly dim gnat , and I'd prefer the big guy with the battle axe not be left reeling."
When Ben does his detect magic on the scales he reals backward and slams into a wall.
"I guess I should have seen that coming. These scales are a bit overwhelming. But I swear they just talked to me. Let me try something."
Ben takes a platinum piece from the bag they just got, writes his name on a piece of parchment, and places it on the scales. The items vanish.
"Hang on, that was just the attuning process. Opening a bank account so to speak."
Ben then takes a longsword they got as loot and places it on the scales too. It shrinks down and he says 'debt'. The blade also vanishes and on the other side of the scales a piece of parchment appears with an amount equal to half the value of the sword listed on it.
"Now, this means that the scales owe me 7 and a half gold pieces. I can redeem it for cash or I can redeem it for a miracle straight from Abadar, like a cure spell or even remove disease for instance."
When the signal is given he pops open the door and if he sees what he thinks he will see, sics LB on the rats and enters himself.
|
|
Abadar’s Grand Scales
Abadar’s grand scales appear to be an entirely normal set of golden scales, however, when closely inspected, it’s true power is quite apparent.
Any item placed on the left side of the scale is magically sized down to fit upon the scales, the user then chooses whether he would like to receive currency or debt. In the case of currency, the right side of the scale fills up with miniature gold coins in an amount equal to 50% of the value of the item. When the coins are picked up, they return to a size and appearance appropriate for gold coins in the current region. In the case of debt, a parchment appears on the right side of the scale, listing how much gold the scales owe you. This parchment can only be destroyed in the same way as the scales and if the parchment is ever lost, the proper owner can simply will the parchment to return to their hands, even across planes, ignoring all effects that block teleportation except for other artifacts or divine interference. This parchment can be taken to any temple or cleric of Abadar and then be redeemed for the appropriate currency which magically appears in the temple’s or cleric’s possession for the sole purpose of repaying the debt.
The most powerful ability of the scales, however, is their ability to cast divine magic, directly from Abadar, upon those that pay for it. Instead of placing an item on the left side of the scale, a character can place coins or the parchment described above to be the target or to designate another attuned character to be the target of divine magic. This functions the same as paying for spellcasting services, except that only spells normally available to a cleric of Abadar are available and that the character can choose the caster level of the effect if they pay the appropriate amount of gold. Any character using this ability must provide either any expensive material component of a spell or the gold required to purchase it. If a character chose to use the parchment, a new parchment is created on the right side of the scales with the updated amount of gold the scales owe you. This ability can be used in combat by any character that has attuned themselves to the scales by placing a single platinum piece and their name written on parchment on the right side of the scale, which then vanish. Using this ability in combat is a free action that can only be used once a round, regardless of the number of people attuned to the scales by simply willing for a spell effect and mentally designating the way the character is paying for the spellcasting services.
The Grand Scales of Abadar (and any of its parchment) can only be destroyed by a chaotic character that dips the scales into a pool of molten gold of at least 10,000 gold in value derived entirely from stolen or otherwise misbegotten gains.
Thyste considers. ”Wonder what would happen if one of us sat on it?”
Little Ben's debt paper lists a total of 157.5 gold pieces for "one masterwork longsword".
"Well, I'm not sure how much you are worth, but I would't advise it unless you want a very long visit to the vault of Aba..."
Starting to understand the nature or his companions, Ben stops himself before he says something he will regret.
"NO! It is NOT a good idea!"
Thyste is halfway into a swan dive when Ben snatches the scales away, landing with an ”oof” on the stone floor instead.
|
|
This once-grand flagstone hall is filled with statues of different celestial creatures in every corner. An old fire pit in the center of the room is bordered on all sides by moth-eaten bedrolls, while shovels, picks, and other digging equipment lie strewn about a shallow tunnel bored into the northeastern wall. The ceiling above the tunnel has collapsed, leaving a hole open to the sky above a pile of burnt rubble
When you open the door again, you no longer see the rats.
You hear chittering coming from the floor
|
|
Ben takes a platinum piece from the bag they just got, writes his name on a piece of parchment, and places it on the scales. The items vanish."Hang on, that was just the attuning process. Opening a bank account so to speak."
Ben then takes a longsword they got as loot and places it on the scales too. It shrinks down and he says 'debt'. The blade also vanishes and on the other side of the scales a piece of parchment appears with an amount equal to half the value of the sword listed on it.
"Now, this means that the scales owe me 7 and a half gold pieces. I can redeem it for cash or I can redeem it for a miracle straight from Abadar, like a cure spell or even remove disease for instance."
Lidia seems skeptical of all this. Perhaps she just doesn't understand it.
"It looks to me like all you have is a piece of parchment." she says.
|
|
Ulretha becomes more interested when he finds out what the scales do. "I'm not converting, though," he grumbles. "You flat muzzles already have enough cities."
He cocks his head to the side, straightening up from his fighting stance when he sees that the room that had the rats is empty. He starts heading toward the hole, assuming they scampered down there.