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Peter casts his standard wards on himself, in addition to the veil. Immediately prior to entering the Villa he casts an extended heroism and a heightened awareness.
When he sees the party, and the drunkards, he goes up to them to make casual conversation. " The two of you look to be the life of this pary. Are you friends of Strake or just attracted to the party?
The man in the eyepatch hmphs and says nothing to Marta.
”’Friends’ is such a strong word.”
“We come because Strake has been throwing this 24-hour party for the last decade—”
“Two decades. And it’s still going.”
"Why do you care, little devil?"
"You're...kidding, right?"
The half-elf woman points to the young man with the shoe.
"Now, shoo; I don't wish the uneducated masses to taint my presence any longer."
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"Ah, now this is what I'm talking about!" Arnaut is clearly in his element as he weaves through the crowd to the young man with the shoe. "Now why would such a dastardly handsome young man be sitting all by his lonesome in such a festive setting? It can't be because he wants to be alone, or he'd not be sitting out in the open where everyone can see him."
The young man looks up at Arnaut then immediately looks down at his feet.
”Goodness!”
He carefully places down the shoe he was polishing and flops onto his belly as he examines the Shelynite’s footwear.
”These are horrible! The aglets are coming apart, the lips are in dire need of repair, and the soles—heavens! You wear such excellent clothing, but your feet are deprived of the attention you have given the rest of your body! How horrible!”
The man jumps to his feet, at which point Arnaut notices that he is only wearing a single, meticulously polished shoe—it seems he was in the process of polishing its twin.
”Name’s Kirhed, a humble Absalomic cobbler. The next time you’re in the City at the Center of the World be sure to stop by so I can give you some proper footwear—you know, once I figure out where I am and how I got here. But first,” He picks up the shoe he was previously polishing. ”I can’t think in unpolished shoes.” He proceeds to attentively polish the shoe once more.
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Peter looks offended, “ I’ve had a decent amount of formal schooling , maybe more than yourself!” Peter attempts to impress her as he launches into a pedantic lecture about the nature of magical influences on wine brewing across the inner sea. If that improves her disposition, he follows up, Why would I be kidding?
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As an aside to Hendric and Arnaut Keep him talking, I'll be right back.
Zanice steps outside, out of sight, casts Detect Magic and concentrates on the spell as he comes back in, specifically looking to see if Strake is under some sort of spell, compulsion or possession or magic jar, etc.
Kirhed, do you know why everyone at this party thinks that you are Stanton Strake?
The half-elf and human stand agap at Peter’s intellectual prowess.
”Oh...my apologies. The host has been like that since this morning—“
“No, it was last night.”
“How would you know?”
“The bottle from 4632. Remember? Or did you have a bit too much 4599?”
“Right! Strake disappeared sometime last night and came back having lost his mind. I think...are you sure it was last night?”
“Maybe we did have a bit too much last evening...”
Kirhed slams the shoe in his hands onto the table!
”I don’t know! Everyone here keeps talking to me about this Strake fellow—I don’t know who he is! Wait...did you say ‘thinks I’m Strake?”
The grizzled man looks Hendric in the eye and hmphs.
”I have nothing to tell you.”
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Peter thanks her and says maybe he should look Strake over. He examines “Strake”.
He quietly tells his allies through a message spell,” a powerful magical effect has transferred another consciousness into Strake, and dispelling it here would harm, not help. We need to find the originator of the spell and break it on them.”
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Aside to the people talking to Strake. There's no magic on him that I can see, so whatever did this has dissipated.
Some sort of magical effect that transfers consciousness between bodies? I think we could put his memories back if we had the body they were transferred to with a Break Enchantment or similarly powerful spell. Casting it on this body will send these memories back to their original body and leave this one an empty shell.
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"This is my judgment too. So, how do we go about discovering who did this to him. I think the servant knows something."
Marta decides to take a different approach and this time gives the grizzled man a menacing stare. Her eyes fairly blaze with indignation.
Marta fires up her Discern Lies ability, deciding she does not care if anyone knows she is using magic and figuring it might make her a bit more impressive. "You know something. Do not try to hide it from me. I have ways of extracting the truth. What do you know about what happened to Strake?"
The grizzled man looks between Hendric and Marta and just smiles. ”You know, there’s more efficient ways of employing the good-cop/bad-cop routine, but you did pretty good nonetheless. I like you guys. What happened to Strake? I guess it mostly started last night. For the most part, it seemed like a normal night. Strake has been hosting this party for years, you know, and new people come and go each night. I do remember that a large palanquin, carried by a dozen servants and nearly fifteen feet wide, stopped in front of the gates for a while. Two servants wearing red robes came into the party for bit, but they didn’t mingle much. Sometime after midnight, Strake disappeared. When he came back, he seemed to have lost his mind.”
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"Nice to see that someone appreciates good work. Thank-you for your aid."
Though polite, her visage is nothing short of severe and the stare lingers for a little longer than necessary, as if to make a point.
She returns to the other members, one by one if necessary, and passes on the newly acquired information.
”Carried away? Was he carried away?”
“Um…No…No! No he wasn’t. he went of his own accord. The servants in the red robes—”
“Right! Some of Strake’s servants wearing red robes handed him a missive and he went right with them.”
“He also looked as if he’d seen a ghost as he was reading it.”
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Sir Hendric goes to find Arnaut. "That grizzled man there knows something about what happened to Strake, I think. Care to make a friend of him? He's a tough nut to crack."
"I think you did just fine," Arnaut says as he gently pats the knight on the head before turning back to Strake. "It must be terrible to suddenly find yourself somewhere with no memory of how or why you got there - doubly so if everyone keeps getting your name wrong. Hang in there. You'll be alright, or I'm not the finest dancer this side of Absalom."
Humming a well-known sea shanty, Arnaut weaves his way through the partygoers again until he spies a fellow pirate. He bows elegantly to the halfling woman, offering a hand. "My dear, would you do me the honor of this dance? I fear all these landlubbers simply can't appreciate a dress - or eyes - as magnificent as the sea."
”My my. Aren’t you a charmer?”
The halfling woman accepts Arnaut’s offer to dance.
"Such an unfortunate thing that happened to Strake," the bard murmurs as the two whisk around the party, somehow singing a jaunty tune to accompany their footsteps. "You wouldn't happen to also be in any danger of losing your memories, would you? Or did Strake have some particularly nasty enemies that wanted him gone without being dead?"
”Well, I have done nothing to anger the church, so I feel myself safe for now.”
The woman looks on Arnaut’s confused face and sighs.
”You’re new here, aren’t you?”
The human and halfling complete their dance and go to a more secluded area of the party.
“The red-robed individuals are not servants at all. They’re priests from the Pagoda of the Red Mantis, the main temple to Achaekek here in town. Absolute fanatics. They call themselves the Claws of Achaekek and they always travel in pairs of two. Each wields a single sawtooth sabre, and they think of themselves as the arms of the Mantis God. I hear they cannot speak or hear, and that they use a secret sign language to communicate.
“Not everyone knows, but I have heard rumors about the palanquin. It is said to belong to the Master of the Pagoda of the Red Mantis, who arrived years ago from a distant land to worship the Mantis God. Some say the Master is not human at all, but rather a terrible creature covered with hundreds of watchful eyes. Strake’s condition is not unique. Others have entered the Pagoda of the Red Mantis in the past and emerged with different memories. I have heard that somewhere beneath the pagoda is a great hall with many prisoners, each filled with stolen memories of those the with knowledge damaging to the church.”
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Assuming Arnaut will share that information with the rest of the group:
Sounds like a Hayakume, a corpulent creature with thousands of eyes. They can remove memories from a creature, store them, and transfer them to a new body. He considers for a moment. Seems like we know where to go, no? We're heading for the Pagoda of the Red Mantis to investigate.
I'm only a child in these matters, but we should be able to come up with a pretext for entering the temple.
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Peter agrees as they leave the party, “ Indeed we should head for the Pagoda. A reason for our visit seems vital, any thoughts? If this is a Red Mantis representative, and we need to break his spells, I fear violence is the most probable outcome. We should also prepare a quick escape. ”
On the way there Peter takes 15 minutes to prepare Break Enchantment , such that they can restore Strake’s memory.
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"I think time will be of the essence.
My guess is that the message was something like 'The Master of the Pagoda demands your presence.' We did hear that he was terrified upon receiving the message.
I am not sure how long our deception can last. We can try. We can say that, as Aspis agents, we wish to speak with Strake regarding Torch's whereabouts."
*
The Pagoda of the Mantis, while on the other side of town from Strake’s villa, is a difficult sight to miss. Two enormous statues of Red Mantis assassins stand on either side of an open gate, leading into a courtyard. Inside the courtyard stands an enormous stone pagoda. A crimson and white banner depicting crossed mantis arms hangs from the front of the temple.
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Peter casts extended See Invisibility and uses his ring to turn himself Invisible.
He then attempts to be stealthy and asks through message , “ Are any of you good at disabling and/or finding traps? I feel we should be very cautious in the Pagoda, of both mundane ambushes and from enemies. This is a place to tread lightly. ”
Immediately before entering the Pagoda he casts Anticipate Peril. He moves cautiously, attempting to both hide from perils and detect them.
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"I'm no good with traps, but if anybody needs a bit of help in the combat department, let me know. Also, if arrows happen to fly through your body when s&*(% goes down, it's me. Also, if you find a weird urge to dance when I sing, that's also me. Don't resist it or you'll find an arrow in your back."
"Also, if you need some help in the non-combat department, I can give us some Good Hope and a few of you who don't have it yet can have some Heroism. I don't have a lot of spells, but I've got a few."
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"I do have some skill with locks. Not very good, but more competent than most. Hopefully they are not odd enough to trap their front door, but the skill may come in handy eventually. Does anyone have any poison? If this particular god wants a donation, I suspect that would be fitting. "
As she says this she eyes the worshippers entering the temple intently, provided there are any, to see if there is any ritual required.
"Perhaps I should go first and see if there is anything to be wary of. If something happens, at least it will only affect one of us."
The moment any of the Pathfinders set foot beyond the threshold of the gate to the courtyard, a slight pain upon their forehead as a glowing, blood-red sigil the size of a clenched fist appears upon their forehead, depicting a pair of crossed mantis claws—the unholy symbol of Achaekek. The Pathfinders manage to hide behind a hedge of bushes just inside the courtyard’s wall before anyone can see and begin to assess the situation.
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Peter uses detect magic and returns to the party huddled by the bushes. He resumes being visible.
He suggests, " And they say my horns are obnoxious, not that you can see them now, but unfortunately I can't change the veil to cover this harmless, but obvious mark at this time. As you've seen, I can make myself quite hard to see, between my innate skill at hiding and magic items. I could summon something that could potentially dispel the mark, as it is possible from what I can see, but that is probably not the best use of our magical resources and likely to draw attention. Instead I suggest that one of the bards attempts to dispel the mark. I can help make your magics more effective."
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Arnaut tunes out the drivel, focusing instead on the priests in the temple courtyard. ”Pairs always, not hearing, sign language...” he mutters to himself as he watches, trying to get a sense of how the worshippers communicate and if he can understand (and perhaps imitate) their language. ”Red marks probably show who are not clergy, so those would have to go... Probably need red robes and a sawtooth sabre to complete the look... Hmm...”
A minute of spellcasting passes and an Achaekek acolyte checks on the Pathfinders.
”Everything alright here?”
As they look around, the Pathfinders find only five among their ranks, for Peter, who still had the sigil on his forehead, turn invisible just before the acolyte came to check on them.
With some minor excuses , the acolyte leaves them alone and the Pathfinders make their way toward the Pagoda of the Mantis proper, none of the Achaekek worshipers pay them a second thought—as far as they know, they’re supposed to be here.
*
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After a relatively brief search of the ground floor of the pagoda, the Pathfinders find a set of four unguarded staircases arranged in the corners of a large square that descend down underground for a long ways—long enough that the bottom of the stairs cannot be seen from the top. Nearby carvings depict pilgrims of Achaekek descending the staircases and bowing before a giant purple creature covered in a thousand horrific eyes all over its body. There seems to be no acolytes anywhere nearby.
What is quickly determined, however, is that each staircase is absolutely silent—the silence begins at the first step of the stairs; where or if it ends cannot be determined without descending the stairs.
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Normally, Marta would have a detect magic going as she enters a location of dubious safety, but she's not sure that would't trigger problems in this case so she does not. Just for the heck of it she will cast one more buff before proceeding, a shield of faith spell.
Greater Magic Weapon on UC (when she wakes up, 24 hours)
Greater Magic Weapon on handwraps (when she wakes up, 24 hours)
Greater Magic Weapon on spear UC (when she wakes up, 24 hours)
Mage Armor (when leaving ship, over 24 hours)
Halo (reactivated every 10 minutes)
Heroism (when entering villa, 240 minutes)
Freedom of Movement (when entering villa, 240 minutes)
See Invisibility (when entering villa, 240 minutes)
Heightened Awareness (when entering villa, 120 minutes)
Shield of Faith (when exploring pagoda, 12 minutes)
Tongues (when entering villa, 240 minutes)
Marta will also proceed on high alert, moving at the same speed as Peter, looking for traps.
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Arnaut sighs dramatically. "I must say, this is no fun whatsoever. Let's just get this over with." He trails behind Peter and Hendric, careful to stay towards the middle of the group. "Do we want a decoy scout?" A drunken dwarf suddenly appears, tipsily making her way down the stairs in front of the party.