|
Tucking his spell book under one shoulder, Eldrin enters the building and takes a look around. On hearing of the map he goes over and examines it. "Does anyone recognise this language?" When no one can read the text he pulls the book from under his arm and flips through to a specific page and begins speaking arcane phrases and gesturing with his free hand.
While the Armenian man takes the lead searching the ruined building, with Zailus, Gillie and Tanbu providing able assistance, Eldrin studies his spellbook to aid him in understanding the strange map.
The Elven arcanist is a quick study indeed, but the searchers prove to be almost as fast. Eldrin reads the map again under the influence of the spell and this time can understand the annotations as directions; proceed north until you reach the cave mouth shaped like a skull, north-east until the petrified stump, ... and so forth. They are listed as directions to a strange foul smelling tree that one of the villagers cut into just before the disease struck the village.
Soon after he's finished reading, the group searching the house make a discovery. With all the muscle moving beams and clearing out leaves it doesn't take long before The Armenian Man spots a glint of a reflection. Nestled underneath another corpse is a small polished stone with a mottled pattern, exactly as Nelket described. Moving efficiently and with a careful eye, the search took no more than five minutes, all told.
|
|
Pulling out his notes, Eldrin translates the directions from the map and ticks off the stone on his list of items they are searching for. Packing away his things he joins the others as they head to the next building.
"Perhaps once we are done here we should go examine the tree. We may be able to determine the cause of the plague and maybe stop it from happening again. It may also help us with the spirit or god we are planning on summoning."
The building to the south west has almost entirely collapsed, just a few planks marking where the walls once were. The remains of a stone tower stand in the corner, perhaps once a rookery or similar.
Similar to the last building, the partially rotted debris is piled around, and vegetation has attempted to overgrow everything.
|
Zailus gives a frown at the information about map and the tree. "Personally would prefer not to mess around with something that wiped out an entire village and quickly. Sounds like a great way to become one of those lost pathfinder expeditions. But if we need to then I guess we could."
She then stamps up to the new rubble pile and helps people look around in it for anything useful, and hopefully conclusive enough the group doesn't need to mess with the odd tree.
The party all pitches in, and methodically go through the remains of the building. With each party member taking a small portion they make short work of it, and it's Gillie that finds the only notable item: in a nook at the base of the stone portion of the building are a number of clay jars.
Some of the jars are smashed and broken, but one remains intact and sealed with a stopper made from some kind of treated bark. It appears to contain honey.
Approaching the final building (or at least the final building that hasn't been thoroughly destroyed and reclaimed by the forest), the group can see that the eastern wall has a gaping hole punctured in it, and what was once a doorway in the southern wall is just a hole through which you can see in.
From outside it's easy to see that the building has been overtaken by vines with brightly coloured leaves sprouting from them. They hang all through the interior, winding around beams and puncturing floorboards.
It's also easy to see from outside that there are a number of leather necklaces attached to a ceiling beam in the middle of the room at a height of around seven feet. A few appear to be made of spun gold and set with valuable gems, while one is strung with bear claws and black feathers and fits the description that Nelket gave you.
|
Gillie will quietly move up to the hole in the eastern wall and learn around the edge to look inside, checking for any movement.
Thats a lot of plants! he thinks to himself Anything could be hiding in there! He sniffs and pricks his ears up.
He looks back at the group with his head cocked in a Are you coming? gesture.
|
|
"What do you think, Lyrio? Is that plant something to worry about? Or can we just walk in and get the necklace?" Tanbu eyes the plant warily.
Tanbu looks around and lights on Eldrin. "Perhaps our mage can conjure up something that can get the necklace for us?" "I have heard of mages that can make servants no one sees. Or perhaps a spectral hand to go forth and grab the necklace."
He turns to Eldrin, "Any magical solutions to this dilemma?"
Tanbu prepares for the inevitable trip into the plant laden room. He too will attempt to pin point any dangers from the unintentional window.
|
|
Zailus tipples up to the building, still trying to find a good way of walking across the mud and dirt in heels, admittedly short ones. She looks over the plants having no training on what they might do. "Might be my inner pyromaniac speaking but we could also try to burn them away if they look like they might be poisonous."
|
|
Careful, team... - says the druid, analyzing the plants - This is poison oak. Some sort of mutation of it, I guess, and they probably carry the same strong contact poison. It could paralyze one of us, or at least make one clumsy. We should try to avoid them, definitely. We might be able to simply jump, or go around them acrobatically.
|
|
"I have heard of such magics, but the conjuring of such servants is something I have not yet had the opportunity to learn. However if it is not secured, I may be able to retrieve it."
Pulling out his spell book once more, Eldrin flips to a page near the beginning of the book and studies it for a short time. Moving to look into the building he raises his hand and speaks a series of arcane words, his gaze fixed on the necklace.
|
|
Zailus frowns at the suggestion of getting it via magic but does ultimately step down. "I know I'd be able to fly through there gracefully as a swan, but if you have an option that might save us the risk then I guess I can wait for you to try."
As the arcanist works on studying his books, Zailus starts to limber up.
Eldrin studies his book again, and after a few seconds stands ready to try his spell. Uttering the arcane words and shifting his hands in the precise motions he just read about, he conjures a telekinetic force and one by one the necklaces lift of the hook and float through the room to his outstretched hand, sparing Zailus from having to brave the posioned plants.
On closer inspection one is clearly the ritual necklace Nelket described, and the others appear to be fine and potentially valuable work.
|
|
"Maybe we see if we can find the bowl in the house, but leave a note that we will bring it back." "Would that be an acceptable way to obtain the bowl. We could also explain that we are on a time schedule and need the bowl to help with problems around the world wound."
Tanbu shruggs, "Perhaps an IOU redeemable at any pathfinder society headquarters."
Tanbu heads towards the locked door again. He will knock and wait a few moments and start with the lock again.
Take twenty for a 30 total.
Gillie will find that the house is locked up tightly. The windows are boarded up, and the doors locked, so it's hard to get an idea of what might be inside. While the others discuss what to do, Tanbu once again takes a few minutes to fiddle with the lock. He's getting used to this one now, and quickly has it open.
On entering the house, Tanbu finds it quite pleasant inside. Animal skins and woven rugs adorn the walls and the floors, helping to keep out the weather, and dried flowers and pleasant-smelling herbs hang from parts of the ceiling. Venturing further in Tanbu finds a small table against the eastern wall upon which sits a large silver bowl.
|
|
Zailus traipses into the house, kinda curious as to what might be in a place like this. She looks around and asks, "Anyone mind if I peek up stairs? I won't disturb anything but I'm curious what a person who lives here like this is like. And, well, you can get a lot about a person from what their bed room looks like. I mean mine's mostly wigs'n'dresses."
The group enters the house, wanting to get done as quickly as possible. Being polite visitors you leave a note explaining that you're only borrowing their silver bowl. Zailus explores the structure thoroughly and finds that despite being very well maintained on the inside, it isn't that large and there are no stairs. Gillie stands just inside the door, while the others gather around the bowl to inspect it and prepare the note.
Lyrio is first to leave, and as he does he spies two humans approaching from the west. One is a middle aged man, dressed in furs and leather, with a scroll case at his hip and a shortspear on his back. The other is a young woman wearing a chain shirt with a bow over her shoulder and a carrying a pair of rabbits that she has presumably just hunted.
Lyrio makes eye contact with the man, who looks immediately enranged, and both begin to jog over.
"THIEVES! Get out of our house right now or so help me I will rip you limb from limb. If you've damaged anything..."
He turns to his companion and says in a quieter tone. "Adula, cover them with your bow. If they move towards us, aim for the neck. It'll be OK". She takes up a position behind a ruined wall of the building in the south-west and draws her bow.
"Come on out now. That's it. Leave in peace and don't ever come back. Try to stay and we will kill you. This is our place, you find your own."
|
|
Zailus strides out of the building, "What's all the noise back... Oh the residents came back! Perfect! We were afraid you'd be gone for days." She holds up her hands in a universal sign of not intending to hurt someone. "We're Pathfinders investigating the plague that happened to the Farheaven Clan here so many years ago. We met with Nelket in Mishkal. She said we should summon and talk to Dolok Darkfur and we needed some things for that. We searched but couldn't find a silver bowl. We were going to bring it back as soon as we were done with it of course. There's even a note about that in the room. Now please calm down and tell us why you are living here? Also I recommend not shooting someone as fabulous as me."
|
The Armenian Man waves his empty hands in front of his body, clearly showing that he brandishes no weapons at them. "You weren't home, and we're kind of on a clock, so we made the best decision we could at the time!"
Apparantly, though, he unknowingly recreates an incredibly offensive gesture with his casual hand-waving.
|
|
"Look, see we are all out." "We are very sorry for intruding and we truly intended to wait for your return. However, we are under a time crunch and very much need to borrow your bowl." The note is in there on the table as was said before." "Perhaps we can rent it. How about that?" "We could even leave something of ours valuable as colateral guarenteeing we would return."
Tanbu will offer double the value of the bowl up to 50 gold to rent it and will offer one of the wood carvings to guarentee they return it.
"We certainly don't want to fight. We just have a need for your bowl."
The man looks blankly as Zailus mentions Nelket, and as she continues he seems to get more and more irate.
"No no no! Just get out, leave us alone!"
As it becomes clear none of you are intending to attack them, tensions ease slightly. The two strangers talk to each other and from their hushed conversation you'll pick up that the man is her father. He stands between you and Adula and ushers her into the house, while he glowers at you.
From inside Adula calls out "There is a note father, it's very polite."
Although clearly still angry, you having left a note before they arrived seems to settle his demeanour somewhat, and he man looks interested when Tanbu mentions money.
"That bowl is a very important to us. We need it for our own druidcraft, but I suppose we could make the trek into town and purchase a replacement. It would be very expensive and time consuming for us though, so I will part with it for no less than 150 gold pieces"
He looks expectantly at you.
|
|
Zailus looks flatly at the man. "We aren't thieves and we aren't trying to buy this. We won't be more than a few hours with it and you can have it back. If we give you money will you give us the money back when we bring the bowl back... And actually as we're going to do the summoning in front of your front step would you like to watch?"
"No!"
The rugged looking man is red-faced with rage. It's clear that it's only his avarice that's keeping him talking, and in fact he looks like if there weren't six of you that he might have attacked already.
"No I won't give you your money back, and no I don't want to watch you ruin it with your devil rituals. Give me back my bowl or pay me a fair price! If it will get you off my doorstep I will take 100 gold pieces"
|
|
"Well, I think we can part will 75 gold." Tanbu pulls out his reserve stash which has 75 gold. "it is much more then I entended but we did get off on the wrong foot so to speak. I think the extra will more than excuse our social blunders.
Tanbu hands the man the smaall sack.
[B]"Good day to you sir." "You have helped without intending to. We apprecaiate you patience."