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A few days ago, a runner from the Pathfinder Society came into your path and eagerly handed you a letter from Kreighton Shaine describing your next mission at hand.
Illustrious Agents—
Thank you for agreeing to travel south to Quantium, the capital of Nex, on critical Pathfinder Society business. I hope you’ll find the destination agreeable; Nex is an ancient land steeped in powerful magic and Quantium is a cosmopolitan city of merchants and wizards.As promised, this letter details the specific requirements of your excursion. Your first order of business is to meet with Sebnet Sanserkoht and deliver her the sapphire I’ve included with this letter. She is the venturecaptain of Nexus House, one of the earliest Pathfinder Society lodges. In fact, she might refer to herself as “vash-vatom,”a very old title that predates venture-captain. You could demonstrate respect by referring to her by this title; providing Sebnet with a good impression is critical to strengthening the relationship between the Grand Lodge and Nexus House. The sapphire I’ve given you is encoded with information we have in the Grand Lodge about Nexus House’s founding, and Sebnet is eager to obtain it.
Your second task is to acquire information from the Nexus House archives on some of the very first Pathfinders. Our records from the early days of the Society have been frightfully damaged or mislaid in the numerous recent attacks on the Grand Lodge. Specifically, you’re to recover information about:
• Expedition records of Durvin Gest, one of the most celebrated early Pathfinders, regarding his treasure hunts in the Mwangi Expanse.
• A cargo manifest of spices penned by Selmius Foster, who opened the Vudrani spice trade to Absalom.
• City permits drafted by Adolphus, Selmius’ Foster’s apprentice and founder of Nexus House.
• Written records of early Pathfinder Kerinha Napsunar.Although this trip is primarily a research assignment, we’re sending seasoned agents like yourselves to show Sebnet how seriously we take Nexus House’s aid, but also because the information you’re to collect is critical to the Grand Lodge.
For amity and erudition,
Kreighton Shaine
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Today, your travels brings you to Quantium, the cosmopolitan capital of the nation of Nex. A diverse city in thought, trade, influence, and composition, Quantium hosts vaunted arcane universities, bustling markets, millennia-old architectural marvels, and the long-empty palace of the legendary archmage who founded the nation that bears his name.
The building in front of you, presumably the society lodge known as the Nexus House, definitely represents Quantium in her glory. A beautiful opulent manor that seems to spare no expenses in it's construction. Golden roofs, gold window frames of intricate design, stained windows, life-like statues on beast, are some of the few objects to immediately catch your eye of this magnificent place.
“There are my honored guests!” cries a bronze-skinned gnome with bright streaks of gold in her dark hair, a vibrant red tunic, and enough glittering earrings, bangles, and necklaces to supply a modestly sized jewelry store. “I was concluding some urgent business here, or I would have met you at the dock. Sebnet Sanserkoht, at your service.” The gnome gives you a gracious bow and a large grin. “Alas, my last-minute business didn’t permit me to review Kreighton Shaine’s letters to me. If you don’t mind, please remind me how I can help you and— oh!—I ought know your names as well. Rude of me to have omitted proper introductions.”
Anyone who looks at Luke will see a half-naked strong man. His face is dyed in color. He carry his large Bastard sword. "Sorry! I did not introduce myself. My name is Luke! Luke Redwood!"
Ezren bows low. "The honor is ours, vash-vatom Sebnet Sanserkoht." He stands back up. "My name is Ezren. Shaine sent us on a number of errands which might be best discussed with more privacy. Over a glass of something, perhaps?"
The elaborately-dressed Keleshite woman with a stern look gives a curt bow. "Well met, vash-vatom Sebnet. I am Kyra, servant of the Dawnflower. We have been sent here from Absalom by Kreighton Shane to offer you a gift - and pass on a humble request on his behalf."
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Her eyes widen somewhat suspiciously, but nonetheless, she allows you into the halls, "Well met agents. Hmm.. Kreighton Shaine has always been a peculiar one, I hope your visit her does not go to waste." She then turns to guide the way through what seems to been an extremely luxurious house.
Inside the halls, the decorations are equally lavish, if not more, than the exterior. Gold frame magical pictures where the picture plays itself in a loop, magical trinkets float from the ceilings, exotic carpets are just the few of the many luxuries inside the Nexus House. But what really catches your eyes are the noble looking marble statues of what looks to be a prince and princess that flank an ornamental waterfall that flows upward, from floor to ceiling.
"Please have a seat, the unseen servants will tend to us shortly with drinks."
Sneaking through the door at the last minute. {b]"Sorry I'm late, name is Lura Larwenys." Said the young elf girl. Dressed in dark leathers, a rapier at her hip, and more daggers than you can count stashed all over her body, she points back down the hall. "There was this man and a dog and a cake... Oh nevermind" She adjusts her rapier than flops into a chair.
"I'm here now."
Ezren comments approvingly of the many magical luxuries throughout. "This is an incredible house, Sebnet; may I call you Sebnet? What would you prefer?" He asks as they await the drinks. He makes small talk and offers pleasantries regarding the house, her appearance, and her reputation as a venture captain of stature far beyond what her physical stature would imply.
Once the servants bring the drinks, he gets down to business. "This is delightful; truly Quantium is a city of wonders. Now, let's get to it. This" he pulls out the sapphire "is for you, from Kreighton Shaine. It is the first and possibly most important part of our mission. The next is more mundane, though of great interest to the society and myself. We are to request access to the archives here and see what records we can find regarding past events in the history of the society; we have lost many records in the Grand Lodge in recent years, sadly. Venture-Captain Shaine hopes that there may be duplicate or overlapping records here."
Luke nods to all that.
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"Excellent, it looks like we have a full party. And yes, of course, Sebnet would be fine." She responds cordially in conversation and is happy to make small talk for the short amount of time.
Upon her possession of the sapphire, Sebnet's eyes widens and glimmer while her facial expression changes to one of excitement. Immediately she asks one of the unseen servants to carry the item up into her personal chambers.
Sebnet taps her chin with a ringed finger as she thinks about request. “Well, those records all sound quite old, which would put them in our Orrery Archive. Please come this way.” The venture-captain strides through one of the archways off the great hall, gesturing for you to follow and chatting as she goes. “There was something of an astronomy craze around here about three hundred years ago, but the apparatus at the center of the rooms that became the Orrery Archive has been gathering dust for quite a while. That is, it would, if we didn’t have enchantments to repel dust.” Sebnet runs a finger along a decorative table as she passes, then holds up her clean digit to showcase her point. “I’ll take you to the archive entrance and leave you to perform your research in peace. Gather any records you need, and we’ll have scribes transcribe copies of whatever you find. The records might be something of a jumble, I’m afraid. As I said, the Orrery Archive is where we store older records, and they might not have been accessed in quite some time. While we’re walking, do you have any questions?”
"Yes, I want to know who are those guys Durvin Gest, Adolphus, Selmius Foster and Kerinha Napsunar?" asks Luke.
"And can we get more details about that Nexus House. Is it dangerous there?"
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She looks at Luke rather funnily with an eyebrow raised, "You do realize that this is the Nexus house? The second Pathfinder lodge founded, after the Grand Lodge in Absalom. So it’s nearly 400 years old. A Pathfinder named Adolphus commissioned its construction along with his wife, Princess Ganjay. I quite like it here. Lots of magical surprises.”
Without skipping a beat, she then answers the questions with regards to the the aforementioned Pathfinder agents, [b]"Who is Durvin Gest? He’s the most famous Pathfinder that ever lived, and that’s even after 400 years! You probably recall that he, along with Selmius Foster and Gregaro Voth, are the subjects of the first volume of the Pathfinder Chronicles. So, what do we know about him around here, you must mean. Well, for starters, he launched several expeditions into the Mwangi Expanse from here in Nex, including ventures to discover long-lost structures and one journey to lock away a dangerous artifact.”
“Selmius, well, He’s one of the three Pathfinders mentioned in the very first Pathfinder Chronicles along with Durvin Gest and Gregaro Voth. Selmius was an explorer who was instrumental in connecting Absalom to the eastern spice markets.”
“Adolphus was an assistant to Selmius Foster but became an influential Pathfinder of his own right. His meeting with Princess Ganjay, their theft of Bhopan’s royal treasury, and their eventual marriage are all well-documented, even though their story sounds like two parts folktale and one part romance novel. They founded Nexus House together, and it was their statues you saw by the water-rise in our great hall.”
“And of course, Princess Napsunar. She was a contemporary of Durvin Gest and the other Pathfinders mentioned in the first Pathfinder Chronicles. Truthfully we don’t know a lot about her. I’m not entirely sure why, but I believe that Kerinha was much more politically active than her peers, and records of her discoveries may have been intentionally withheld to protect her contacts and sources.”
Looking to the Venture-Captain "So I'm guessing you don't have any idea where we should start looking for this information in the Orrery Archive, but could you leave one of these 'Unseen Servants' to hold the records we find until we collect them all?"
Kyra nods along Sebnet's tale, but one thing makes her arch an eyebrow:
"Esteemed vash-vatom, was there anything special about Gregaro Voth's history? I am curious why our mission did not mention anything about him.
And if the Princess Napsunar's records have been withheld - does it mean they might not be in the Orrery Archive at all?"
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"The Pathfinder Gregaro Voth is most famous for exploring several locations in the jungles of the Mwangi Expanse. Ambitious if you ask me.” She responds as you make your way closer to the archives. [b]"You might be surprised what you can find in the Archives, it is a very large library that has forgotten history. Like I said, it's been gathering 'dust' for quite some time. And of course, you are free to make use of one of my sercants." She then says giggling to herself.
At the end of long winding passage, she stops and gestures to a wide passage—the entrance to the Orrery Archive. The sprawling library is clean and tidy; its most striking feature is the massive brass-and-steel orrery atop the main staircase. This model shows the movements of Golarion and the other planets around its sun, along with moons, comets, and other celestial bodies. Each glides easily along well-oiled tracks when pushed.
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"Well, happy hunting!" She muses as she turns around to leave you in the vast troves of journals, chronicles, and papers, that is the Orrery Archive.
With incredible amounts of volumes to forage, the Pathfinders needs to decide on a method to uncover the archive's secrets.
Acrobatics: The steps to the highest shelves are so worn smooth with age as to be dangerously slippery.
Arcana: One of the tables is enchanted to aid in research, magically flipping pages in any book placed upon it to relevant passages.
Athletics: Some of the bookshelves in this area have collapsed and must be hefted upright
Lore: These shelves have several relevant works that are poorly organized.
Nature: The orrery is magically enchanted to aid in research; manipulating its arms into appropriate celestial configurations causes the other arms to swing toward shelves containing related knowledge.
Occultism: Piecing together unexpected correlations between relevant works
Society: This section of the archives has been filed and re-filed by different caretakers many times.
Survival: The tidying enchantments in Nexus House make tracks or other evidence of past use difficult to find.In this particular spot, the enchantments are disrupted and clues are more evident.
Thievery: Books in this section are protected by glassfronted shelves secured with complicated latches;
Lura spends a bit of time trying to get into the glass cases, then when she is through attempts to get the books from the higher shelves.
Luke tries to heft collapsed bookshelves.
Then he goes to see what is in orrery part.
Ezren approaches the magical book. He pings it with detect magic and then studies any runes inscribed in, on, and around it. Then he raises his hands and makes a few arcane gestures to manipulate it.
Ezren then tries to make sense of the records.
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Kyra takes to her strength's starting mental test of understanding the crazy method of organizaiton. Unfortunately she causes a commotion as she pulls down the books out of frustration"oops." She then tries to old fashion method of attempting to search but fails to find any useful information for the time being.
Fortunately for her, as a whole the Pathfinder's two hours of research work proves to be extremely useful as they uncover a whole lot of documents pertaining to the mission.
Lura's nimble hands finds a few documents with the location of the material related to Durvin Gest’s Mwangi expeditions. Oddly they also include references to the Open Road Pact: some sort of agreement between Durvin Gest, Selmius Foster, Gregaro Voth, and Kerinha Napsunar when they were all in the Mwangi Expanse together. This Open Road Pact is completely unknown in the Grand Lodge as far as you are aware. On the high shelves are some old catalogues of records kept at the archives that refer to a Pathfinder named “Kerinha Napsunar”. Although at this time the records themselves are nowhere to be found and were said to be next to the locked glass of Durvin's Gest maps. Likewise missing is the Open Road pact, and several other sections of works regarding Nexian ooze-crafting. All Supposedly in the same area.
As Lura yells her findings from across the room, Luke oddly picks up a 2-year-old bill of sale for a treatise called “Living at the Shore of the Sentient Sea,” regarding the sentient lake of ooze at the center of the Nexian city of Oenopion. The treatise was sold to someone named Bijan Ohrlavi. Affixed to the bill is a note. Further search in same area discovers the cargo manifest of Selmius Foster’s first Vudrani spice trade.
Ezren isn't very lucky in his search but does picks up some civic permits about the Nexus Lodge. As a whole this time, the party believes they've gone through all research avenues in the lodge.
"Well at least we found the civic permits. We must ask the vash-vatom if she knows of any thieveries from these archives. Many important documents are missing."
"Yes, yes I agree with Ezren."
"Iam liquescit, te iubeo consumite!" Ezren shouts as he raises a hand and points it at the statue in the corner over the stairs. A jet of acid leaps from his fingers in the shape of an arrow and flies at the statue. His staff glows fiercely and a moment later it flies from his hand at the same statue. After striking (or missing) the statue, it flies back to his outstretched hand.
plus
Luke goes closer to the statue on the south ready to attack.
Seeing the statue to the north move Lura Draws her bow and fires 3 quick shots.
I will be away on a holiday from Sat to Thu so may not be able to post until I return.
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The Pathfinders are quick to react, but find themselves making hasty decisions without understanding the creatures that have just animated. Acid sprays all over the room and a volley of attacks seemingly miss the slow moving targets. A single arrow knocks into a statue and barely dents it!
Kyra turns to the perceived danger and throws a fire ray at the northern statue, burning away it's outer shell. The creature's skin cracks badly from the heat.
The stone figures begin to react and seemingly move towards anything that moves with their stone hands attempting to attack and subdue the group.
As a whole, the statues seem to be unable to get a whole of the Pathfinders, but after much effort from the one closest to Luke, he knocks and grips Luke with a strong arm.
From the other side of the archive, movement, indicating more statues! One immediately comes into view while the sounds of another still lies somewhere beyond the bookshelves.
~~~
Ezren tries to remember if he has heard of these statues before. "Cum potestate et animo et percutiamus" he says as a crossbow bolt goes flying from his gear to strike the statue.
"Oh no! I will show you something!"Luke tries to free himself.
And then he tries to attack statue.
He moves back.
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Ezren finds that these animated statues, constructs made of magical means, have no weaknesses. However he does know that the magic creating them has weakened over time, if taken enough hurt, their hardness is no more. With that in mind, he telekinetically blast his bolts into the closest statue and breaks it apart with a powerful blow!
Meanwhile Luke breaks free from the grasp and turns to use his sword to break down the construct that held him.
~~~
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From afar, Lura continues to fire away arrows. However her shots do more damage to the environment, piercing some books as oppose to hitting the moving statue.
Realising the groups poor luck, and that more danger is amidst, Kyra spends a moment to cast Bless calling upon her deity for favour in the fight before she moves slightly to her left.
The construct in turn continue to fend the Pathfinders off. One moves against Luke and the other Kyra. They strike but prove again to be not as reliable as 'guardians' of the archive.
~~~
Feeling the pick me up from Kyra, Lura continues to fire shots at the construct.
"On no, again! Now I will not run away! Aaaaa!"
And then he attacks the statue while holding his sword with 2 hands.
Kyra's expression is a mix of confusion at the vault guardians' aggression and determination to protect her allies. She calls upon Sarenrae to bless her allies as she steps closer to them and attacks the nearest statue.
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With an exertion of raw power, Luke the barbarian crushes the statue within two powerful strikes with his large sword. The stones crumbles at his feet, removing the threat of the animated construct.
Lura and Kyra focus on the closest enemy and test their weapons mantle against the hard exterior shell of the rock-like figure. Their weapons create barely scratches the shell, chipping only pebbles away but creating small cracks with each strike.
~~~
Ezren strides toward the nearest wall, trying to get a look around Kyra at the statue. "Cum potestate et animo et percutiamus." he says again and another crossbow bolt flies towards the statue by Kyra.
Luke moves so that he can flank with Kyra.
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Getting into the rhythm of the fight, Ezren projects another bolt. The sheer momentum from his strike causes the earlier cracks on the statue to propagate, exposing most of it's soften layer on the inside.
Nonetheless, the constructs continue to retaliate as they were likely designed to. But they consistently miss their aim as the pathfinders deftly dodge out of the slow reaching arms.
~~~
"Now you are mine!" Luke strikes the green statue.
And then he moves a little back.
Watching the cracks on construct get wider, Lura decides to renew her effort by firing more bolts at it.
"With the blessings of the Dawnflower, we will prevail!" Kyra exclaims as she whirls in a flurry of slashing moves with her scimitar.
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Luke would soon be heralded a destroyer of statues as he banishes one more animated figure out of existence with a crushing swing. Rocks fly into Kyra's face.
With only the threat of one remaining, the Pathfinders coordinate the attack by moving forward to strike the creature. But perhaps it's because this is their first fight together that they slightly hesitate in the team effort causing their strikes to be weak, bouncing off the creature's hard exterior shell without breaking it.
Lura from afar, manages to get a few arrows on target, but they barely put a dent in the stone.
~~~
Ezren moves to where he can see the statue and sends another crossbow bolt hurling at it.