JoshB - Shattered Star AP

Game Master JoshB

Nocki rams his head into the wall.

"Uh, what-what are you talking about? The wall is-is there, is it not?"

Mikkitar looks at Sandu and Nocki with some confusion, then runs his own paw along the wall.

Will?: 1d20 + 1 + 4 ⇒ (5) + 1 + 4 = 10

The wall seems solid to both Nocki and Mikkitar.

Neither of you are sure what Sandu is up to.

Nocki scratches his head where it bumped in the wall and says "Quit your playing priest man."

Sticking his head through the wall Sandu decides to look out the window, surely a safe action.

Sandu appears to push his torso into the wall, disappearing from the waist down.

and while this is obviously the Tower Girl's leaders quarters, there's no sign of her.

Nocki says to Sandu "What sorcery is this? How can you get past the wall and not I?"

Nocki notes "They must be downstairs. I say we chase them before we attempt to open the door. I don't want to be surprised by them once we're inside."

"It is not a wall, it is a window, but hidden."

Olander goes up to it and starts putting his hand on the wall, trying to investigate it empirically.

Another will save at +4, Olander

will, another +2 vs illusion it it counts: 1d20 + 2 + 4 ⇒ (10) + 2 + 4 = 16

"It is just a window, why would you hide a window? I didn't see anyone out there. Where else could she be?"

Nocki says "Downstairs, we still have one level to check." He seems impatient, wanting the group to follow him down.

There's no way down from this level that you've seen.

Seeing that he sort of said something stupid, Nocki comments "Well then, I suppose they went out Sandu's magic wall?" He still thinks they might sneak on them from the back, but now starts to feel that it would be too much waste of time to chase them through a secret ruins they know better than him. "So, how did we solve the box back at the mansion again?"

"There were letter-words and a puzzle to link-connect them. And yes-yes, if there is a magic passage-window, no stopping them from climbing-jumpong out. If they have a were-rat like earlier, their rodent form-form should climb just fine-fine."

Mikkitar looks around for hidden doors, switches, or anything the party may have missed.

There was a rat that you saw slip past you and head up the stairs.

Mikkitar, give me a perception check.

Perception: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (18) + 8 = 26

Sorry, I thought I had posted

Mikkitar finds a hidden door in the back of the wererats bedroom!

The secret door opens into a small closet that holds the mummified body of a dead man!

The body is dressed in dusty clothes and has been here for some time, but the clothes are of recent style so it must have been an explorer from the recent past.

Map updated with secret closet

Nocki jumps at the body's appearance. "By Abadar, what is that?" Is he dead?"[/b] he asks stupidly.

Looking at the puzzle door, Nocki tries identifying the runes meaning "WRATH" and "CRUEL" they had found on the box in the mansion.

He is indeed dead

Nocki: you recognize some of the same characters. It occurs to you that you could copy down the characters and get some help back in the city translating them.

"Yes-yes. Dead and long mummified, I'd guess. I mean, recent era dead, not ancient burial moind type dead, but long enough ago-ago."

Mikkitar rummaged through the corpses pockets and checks the clothing for value in and of itself.

A disturbed Nocki turns away from the corpse saying "You... deal with this, I'm going to write down this puzzle." He asks Mikkitar for some parchment (I'm assuming the alchemist carries parchment around) and starts drawing the puzzle with as much fidelity as he can. As he does so, he comments "Well, I might be actually good at this."

Mikittar hands over a sheet of paper and some charcoal.

"Here-here, this should work. Maybe this dead guy has-has something to help us here."

@Mikkitar: on the corpse of the mummified man you find a masterwork chain shirt, a masterwork rapier, a pendant crafted from gold beaten into the image of a lanner falcon and suspended upon a gold chain, 50 feet of silk rope, and a leather pouch containing 250 gp.

@Nocki: you copy down the characters from the puzzle on the hot doors.

Nocki says "Well, we're not in a hurry, I think. Maybe we want to check out the other rooms here... You know, before we take the ferry back to the city and try to decipher these scripts."

He thinks a bit about the pendant Mikkitar found, but can't think of who might want it. "Do you know if this symbolizes any noble houses in Magnimar?", he asks.

Meaning: Does anyone have knowledge local and/or nobility?

Sandu will take a quick look, "It is not a Sczarni I have seen."

"No-no idea whose sigil this is. But the pendant is-is valuable, we could sell it for-for some decent gold I'd guess. Theres also coin-coin here, a sword, and some armor. I could use-use the chain shirt, but if one of you needs it more-more, that's fine by me."

The pendant seems foreign. It looks like it is Osirian.

Nocki thinks they should hold on to this pendant for now, but doesn't say it. Instead he says "Well, come with me, we're going to check the other rooms as we wait for our ferry back to the city."

The dwarf leads the group to check all the other rooms they skipped in the ruins.

Lead the way sir. I feel like we are missing something.

You head back up to the third level where you had the big fight with the Tower Girls.

From this room, there is a door to the east, one to the northeast, and one to the northwest.

Everything is quiet down each of the passages.

"Let's go-go to the northwest, then clear the room-level in a clockwise rotation, yes-yes."

Mikkitar makes a bit more jingling noises as he moves, happily wearing his new chain shirt in place of his leather armor.

Silently, Nocki follows Mikkitar's indication.

Sandu follows along quietly, wanting to break the silence but knowing better.

As Nocki enters the northwest room, he looks to the sides, afraid an ancient trap will spring at him.

Nocki looks around trying to see what is special in this room and what was its purpose.

"I dunno, what-what do you think this place was for-for? Giant vault of treasure? Portal to-to another plane? Some vicious monsters jail-jail?"

To the northwest you find an empty room, the only real feature of note is a window looking out over the water.

You continue to explore in a clockwise fashion, finding a hallway that leads to room that served as a dormitory for the Tower Girls.

A dozen bedrolls occupy this large chamber, and a few pieces of crude wooden furniture have been set up between them—a couple of scavenged chairs, a bench, and a short table. Torches mounted on brackets in each wall burn merrily.

As you enter, a pair of oversized donkey rats that had been eating an abandoned meal scuttle off to avoid you.

Behind an unlocked door, you find a bedroom for one of the Tower Girl lieutenants.

This room smells strongly of rats—a mix of spoiled food, dander, and the pungent sting of rat feces, all under an incongruous scent of lavender. A blanket has been spread on the floor, and a recovered antique brass platter holds a few bits of rat-gnawed food.

"Yes-yes, this place feels like a rat-lived Warren. Too open, though, much-much too much space for one or even two people-living. But I wonder-wonder, where did they go-go? Run away? Hiding?"

Nocki twists his nose at the place. It makes him remind him of the search for Natalya, and he hates remembering that. He pokes things a little bit, semi-protecting Bear.

Perception: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (15) + 8 = 23

The bedrolls and blankets spread around look like they would be sleeping quarters for all of the Tower Girls that you fought earlier.

Nocki comments "This platter is of decent quality... I think I'll take it." He takes it and drops the contents on the floor. He is about to wash them in the basin as he stops himself and asks "Say, Mikkitar, this scented water was being used by the girls. Can you use it to find them?"

After Mikkitar confirms that he cannot, he washes the platter with the scented water and stores it away.

Mikkitar can't think of any way to use the water from the foot washing basin to track the Tower Girls.

It does appear the basin is probably a valuable antique.

Exhausting the search of these barracks without finding anything more interesting than the two antiques, the party proceeds to the final passage out of the central room on this level.

A short passage leads to an empty room. Beyond that is a room that the gang seems to have been using for food storage.

Several crates, barrels, and sacks lie here, stacked in an orderly
fashion in the middle of the room.

These consist of barrels of salted fish, dried beans, and stale bread, sacks of rye flour, two casks of Varisian whiskey, and boxes of traditional Varisian spices.

Several rats scatter as you enter the room.

Nocki's belly rumbles as he says "Well, this is more like it!" and helps himself to some salted fish. He says "I think I'll be taking this cask of whiskey to my pa! Now this is the real treasure!" He searches the room in case someone stashed even better quality food so no one would find it.

Perception: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (11) + 8 = 19

"Well-well, looks like we must head back-back down to investigate more. Did we clear everything on-on the way here? I seem to recall we missed-missed some rooms on the lowest level-level."

Level 1? I think we may have a few undiscovered rooms down there.

Following you, Mikkitar.

"I hate to admit it fellows, but I have gotten quite lost. Mikkitar I will follow your lead."

You are presently on the 3rd level.

To get to the first level, you need to go up to the fourth, cross back out of the secret door above the water, and then head down the long stairs back to the first level.

The second level is where you found the burning door with the puzzle. It is below you presently, but you explored everything except whatever lies beyond the door.