Menagerie PFS: Murder's Mark (Inactive)

Game Master Blake's Tiger

Tibitz eyes the contents of the room, "Fortune Cards? Why do you think he had these? Do you think he did magic-fortune-things down here? Or are these belonging to someperson other?"

"Don't human beans like playing games? Maybe playing with the cards helped pass the time or something," Zu shrugs.

You may or may not remember that there were two murders that night (and may or may not care): Archivin Walder and one of the guards at the Locked Box.

You descend down the stairs into relative darkness, in which most of you have no trouble seeing. This bare corridor leads to the double doors of the vault. A hook for a hanging lantern is mounted on the western wall at the base of the stairs, and underneath it is a single chair. True to the widow Walder's words, the vault is locked.

The widow has a spare key to the vault and is willing to lend it to you should you ask.

Tibitz will accept the widow's offer, but takes several minutes to inspect the lock, hinges and door frame for any signs of tampering.

Perception: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (19) + 7 = 26

After making his observations, Tibitz, who can never pass on a test of his own skills inspects the lock from traps and such and then gets to work on it.

Perception (vs. Traps): 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (1) + 8 = 9
Disable Device: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (3) + 8 = 11

"Well @*#*!"

Tibitz will remove the key and open the vault.

"Oh, I remember!" realisation dawns on Aurora. "All that blood is probably from the dead guard who was left behind when Mrs Walder went to look for her husband."

Aurora asks the widow "Is your deceased guard's body also at the temple?"

"Yes, ma'a--m, fish?" the older guard answers with a bit of confusion as to the proper manner of address. [b]"Poor Ben's throat was slit right across. Doesn't even look like he put up a fight."

Tibitz: I'm not going to hold the stated purpose of your investigating against your investigating the door.

The ysoki is confident that there are no traps associated with the door. It is, indeed, locked, and there are no signs of forced entry. If someone did pick the lock, they have superior skills.

Due to the nature of this room, we will move in turns.
I will order you based on Initiative modifier, but you may delay/defer to someone else, just make it clear in character.

1. Tibitz
2. Helvetica
3. Zu
4. Aurora

If you have Scent--this is probably the other party configuration, but just in case--give me a scent-specific Perception check upon entering the vault.

Helvetica moves into the basement and hugs the Western wall. I wonder what we'll find! A hidden body? A killer in the dark? The murder weapon? The possibilities are endless! "Come on slowpokes! We've got a mystery to solve!"
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Perception: 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (18) + 1 = 19
Move 20ft, Standard to search the shelves around her.

Tibitz will enter the vault cautiously, as he usually does, although in this particular case he will also attempt to make as little noise as possible to avoid any unwanted attention just in case there are traps and or guardians contained within.

Perception: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (14) + 7 = 21+1 vs. traps.
Stealth: 1d20 + 11 ⇒ (3) + 11 = 14

Move half speed along the right hand side/wall.

"Not 'fish'" Aurora glares at the guard. "Certainly not. Should I address you as 'steak'? Hmm? 'Sirloin'? 'Rump' perhaps? 'Spicy noodle soup'? Fish are food. I am a merfolk. Or mermaid if you must. You may address me as 'miss Aurora.'"

Having sufficiently scolded the ignorant human, Aurora softens somewhat. "Now, do you have a lantern for me? It looks awfully dark in there." she requests softly in her sweet, sing-song voice.

With a light source provided (or her own torch lit if the house has none), Aurora descends the stairs and brings up the rear.

Zu bebops on down after Helvetica and Tibitz, not particularly worried about traps or locks - because after all, the widow or one of the other human beans hanging around would've mentioned it if there were any, right?

"Hey Tibitz, why all the slow-pokin? Looks like just a bunch of things in storage down here," he remarks as he moves into the room and looks around.

Perception: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (5) + 6 = 11

Tibitz hears a faint click when he enters the vault, but the consequence of that is not immediately apparent until Zu lets out a startled noise. The floor under Zu has tilted perpendicular.

Reflex DC 20 to catch yourself on the edge and pull yourself out of the pit. Else: Falling Damage: 2d6 ⇒ (1, 4) = 5

Inside the pit is a nearly naked, hairless, dark-eyed humanoid trembling in fear. "Ah!" they shriek as the floor turns up. They press themselves as tightly against the wall opposite Zu (whether in the pit or on the ledge) as possible, panting.

Nothing to see here. Carry on.

Meanwile, one of the guards retrieves a lantern from the bunk room and lights it before handing it to Aurora. "Here you go," he says.

Knowledge (Local): 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (20) + 6 = 26

Tibitz looks shocked at the creature hidden inside the whole, "What its doing in there?"

"How curious" Aurora remarks, shining her lantern down the pit and being careful not to slide in to it.

"Do you speak Common?" she calls to the naked creature.

Reflex (DC 20): 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (11) + 5 = 16

Though Zu's usually pretty quick, this time he's not quick enough. With a startled cry he scrabbles at the edge for a moment as the floor tilts out from under him and then drops into the pit below, bruising his pumpkin melon in the process.

"Ow..."

He slowly sits up.

"Fuzzy, ya okay?" he asks of his silent companion. Of course there's no answer but Fuzzy does a little wibble-wobble from atop his usual perch on the leshy's shoulders.

"Okay, great. Uh...guess maybe the human beans forgot they left this hole here..." Zu sighs. As he picks himself up and dusts himself off, he finally spots the strange creature trying its best to meld into the wall on the far side of the pit.

"Oh! What're you doing down here?"

Make note of where you are on the map. Action will take place on a round-by-round scale, but you can post as many rounds worth of actions as you want (within reason, you have more than 2 and less than 10).

Zu finds himself at the bottom of a twenty foot deep pit.

The hairless being in a loin cloth, who looks about as bruised as Zu feels, shakes off his panic in favor of escape and simultaneously answers Aurora's question, "Quick! Get us out of here before it closes again! No way out when it's closed!"

Helvetica is pulled from her browsing at the sound of Zu pumpkin-planting on the floor. "King Zu, decide to plant some se- Zu?" She says as she rounds the corner and her favorite gourd-headed Leshy bean is nowhere to be seen.

"What happened?" she asks getting close enough to the hole to peer inside. "I've some rope, but who is your little friend? He looks like us! What are you doing down there?"
________
Lol, so this is the "locked box?: ;)

"We could help you along with our friend. But I think you first need to explain who you are and how you come to be in this pit." Aurora addresses the creature sharing the pit with Zu.

"Zu, do you think you can climb Hel's rope?" Aurora puts her hand into her belt pouch and closes it around a potion vial, just in case.

Got a potion of Monkey Fish just in case

Actions: one 5' move, and another move action to retrieve potion vial.

"I tried to steal from the vault but fell in here, good? We're sorry. Hurry! It's going to close again!" the humanoid replies, their voice trembling.

"Oh yeah, I think so," Zu calls up. He looks over at his new pit-sharing friend. "Um, if you tried to steal stuff we're kinda gonna have to ask you some questions about that but we won't leave you down here to rot. Come on, can you climb?"

He looks up at the walls of the pit for a moment.

"Heck, maybe I can even do it without a rope..."

Climb (+2 Racial Bonus): 1d20 + 2 + 2 ⇒ (9) + 2 + 2 = 13
______________

Since it doesn't sound like a rope has actually been dropped just yet, Zu will attempt to just scale the walls on his own - with middling results from the looks of it.

Helvetica gives Aurora a nod, hoping that despite it being an incredibly vague gesture, she's passed the message that the Merfolk is playing the part of 'wall' if the thing tries to run.

"Tibitz, I'm durable, but the egg heads in the Dark Archives' basement say it means I'm not ever going to be very strong. A bendy body doesn't give the right angles or something. I don't know, physics and stuff. Think you could add some weight here as an anchor? Oooooooo, we could pretend to be a ship and they're the anchor!" The distractable Ganzi tosses down the rope.

"No. The walls are too smooth for me," the skulk answers. They constantly cast their eyes about each side, nervously.

Zu struggles to find any decent handhold--surprising given the plant he is inhabiting. Fortunately, Helvetica lowers a rope down into the pit. The skulk immediately grabs the rope and begins to climb, but slips and slides down the few feet of progress they had made.

"Yep, they ARE pretty smooth," Zu is forced to agree. He watches the creature attempt to climb up the rope without much success before saying, "Here, lemme show you!"

Assuming the skulk either stands aside or maybe manages to make it up the rope themselves, Zu tries his hand at the rope...

Climb: 1d20 + 2 + 2 ⇒ (3) + 2 + 2 = 7

"S-see, you gotta use the wall here as a brace as you go..."

Tibitz quickly checked out the floor-trap to see if he can keep if closing again- either by wedging something in place or otherwise disabling it.

Disable Device: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (20) + 8 = 28

"Don't worry I am master-fixer and try to keep this bad-thing from closing again. You have to promise not make and bad things or do any thing bad if we get you out of there... yes, yes?"

Tibitz discovers that there are a series of pressure plates inside the vault that activates the trap, explaining why he and Helvetica were able to walk across without fall into the pit. He is not quite sure what turns it off (it is probably on the other side with Aurora), but he figures if he could balance or climb over to the pivot on either middle side of the pit, he could probably jam it with a little work and more than a little time (no need to reroll, just need to confirm doing it).

Poor Zu cannot quite get his feet where he needs them to brace against the corner and pull himself up the rope. If only Helvetica had bothered to knot it sometime in the past.

It takes the skulk a few tries. They seem excessively sweaty and shivering. They do manage to climb the rope and out onto the vault side of the pit, though.

You can go ahead and try again. DC is 10.

"Geeze...am I gonna have to Go Plant to do this?" Zu sighs as he tries again to pull himself up and out of the pit using the rope.

Climb (DC 10): 1d20 + 2 + 2 ⇒ (12) + 2 + 2 = 16

But this time, he's able to do it. Practice makes perfect, maybe?

"Finally! You'd think a kudzu could climb better than that, right?" he asks as he dusts himself off.

He then turns to the skulk. "Are you okay now? What's your name?"

Diplomacy: 1d20 ⇒ 7

Sounds good. Whatever will keep the trapdoor from closing again.

Huh. He went up the other side, instead of the side he could escape from. I hope that doesn't mean my friends are in danger from him. He seems so harmless.

"I don't think I'm getting over there, guys. You want me to wait here, or go ask the guards for something to put over the pit? And we'd better find out if our new friend was involved in the matter under investigation."

"Huh. Do you think I should knot this thing?" Helvetica asks once Zu has climbed out. Nah, someone else will get around to doing it.

"And why are you all sweaty?" she follows up, putting some space between them. "Are you sick or something?"

Zu makes it out just in time. As Tibitz is squeezing along the narrow ledge toward the middle side of the pit, the rotating panel rotates back into place, nearly taking off the ysoki's tail. Fortunately, this also makes it much easier to get to the place he needs to jam the mechanism.

"Rogi. I'm Rogi," the skulk answers looking around nervously at apparent figments. "I'll tell you all I know, if you promise you won't kill me. Maybe you'll let me go? But I'll settle for not being killed. And maybe some shiver? You have any on you?"

"Uh...what's shiver? Looks like you're already shivering," Zu asks. "But no, we won't kill you - why would we kill you? You've not done anything to us and we don't know that you've done anything to anyone else."

He thinks for a moment and then adds, "Oh and I'm Zu. Nice to meetcha!"

Knowledge (Local)(about shiver): 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (20) + 6 = 26

Tibitz shutters and he recalls the few Ratfolk that he has seen become addicted to the drug shiver and far too well knows its connection to the underworld elements of most major cities where it can be found.

"You no wants that nasty shivers-stuff. Make you crazy in the head it will, yes, yes. We no kill you but no shivers we have. We let you go after we sneaky-findy things that needs finding. Maybe give you a couple of coins and things if you help us, yes, yes."

"Hang on!" Aurora cautions with a scowl. "If Rogi was here last night he might have been involved in the murders. We can't just let him go if that's the case.

Rogi, when did you come to the Locked Box? How long were you in that pit for?"

Aurora glares at the skulk and makes ready to note down his answers in her journal.

"I mean, you're right, but if we can't promise him shiver or freedom, do you think he's going to spill the beans about anything?" Helvetica asks Aurora.

"Why don't you have a seat? You like like you're about to keel over at any second!"

The skulk sits down on the floor cross-legged, then jumps up and stares at the stone as if he sat on a scorpion or something, and then slowly settles himself back down. He spontaneously begins to confess despite the lack of a solid promise to keep him safe, "Kyneth and Onamae. They're the two who give us all our orders from the humans. The humans who hired our tribe. Our tribe is the Nisku. The humans hired us. First they hired Kyneth and Onamae. Then Kyneth and Onamae brought us the shiver and the instructions from the humans. So we all do jobs from the humans, whatever Kyneth and Onamae tell us to do, and we get shiver in return. Mmm. We Nisku are not loving the humans, but they have the shiver, and we want the shiver, so we do what they tell Kyneth and Onamae to tell us to do.

"The humans gave us a key to this place and told us to break in and kill all the guards. We came. We used the key. We thought we were lucky because there was only one guard! We killed him fast. Two went down the stairs. The other two stayed upstairs to loot. We just got inside the vault when we hear guards come back and start yelling. I run, but the floor was trapped. Was not trapped on my way inside. Very strange. Then I sit in the dark a long time."

"Then your tribe is also responsible for killing the owner of this place? Where do we find the Nisku? And Kyneth and Onamae?"

Aurora continues the interrogation.

Tibitz shakes his head in disbelief, "You should know betters than to humans trust. They always lie and cheat and kill anyone not of humans blood. You should have knows betters, yes, yes."

"Whoa, wait, back up one second!" Zu suddenly exclaims. "You said two of you came down here, right? Then where's your buddy at?"

To the others, he adds, "The sheriff said the lady of the house and the other guards saw two people running away from the shop but Rogi here says there were four - him and three buddies. Where'd the fourth one go??"

"I don't know. I fell in pit and saw nothing after it closed," Rogi shakes his hairless head. "Maybe she ran away and left me behind. We know we should not trust humans, but they have the shiver and we need the shiver!"

He sighs and continues in a rather pressured manner, "Who is the owner? We were just told to kill the guards here and only killed one guard. Well, maybe the owner came in with the guards and the others killed the owner? I was in pit. Kyneth and Onamae somewhere in city. They work for humans."

Tibitz realizes that Rogi might not be an upstanding member of the sneaky-finders union, "Where do we findz Onamae and Kyneth? Where do you think they might be at? Will you lead us there? Who was the other person?"

"Wait, speaking of numbers not adding up," Helvetica says, doing what appears to be a series of complex calculations on her fingers. "Weren't there other victims, beyond the owner? How did we end up with more corpses than killings?!"

"These shiver dealers, or middlemen, or whatever they are definitely sound like a good lead to me! We're making progress, yay!" she cheers, going in for a high five from whoever is closest to her.

"We need to search the building for your missing accomplice, Rogi. You'll come with us. You must know how to get home, right? You can take us there later.

After all, if you want the shiver you'll have to see Kynaeth and Onamae again. We want to be there next time."

"No. I won't take you to Niska," he asserts with surprising defiance. "Kynaeth and Onamae work for thieves guild. I don't know anything about the thieves guild."

"Uh...Helvetica, you okay?" Zu asks, sounding quizzical. "We know there were two murders - Walder and the one guard that stayed behind to keep an eye on the shop. Did I miss something about there being even more bodies?"

As Rogi shows some defiance by refusing to lead the group back to his home, the leshy shakes his head.

"No offense but y'all aren't really in a good position to be refusing much of anything. You and your friends killed a human bean and the other human beans'll want you all to answer for that. But if you help us out it might help you get a lighter punishment - human beans do that sometimes, I've heard."

But even though Zu is (sort of) playing hardball for a change, he can't help but feel some pity for the skulk's condition. "You know, you and your people don't need that shiver stuff - sounds like it's actually pretty bad for you! How'd that even get to be a thing with you guys?"

Turning to Zu, "But 'uman law isn't fair, yes, yes. We need to figurez out who wanted this thingz done and they are the peoples that need to be investigated out and turned over."

"You know the thieves' guild exists, Rogi, so you do know something about it. Don't lie to us. You're in a really bad position. We could give you up to the sheriff. You're better off cooperating." Aurora scowls, but then her face softens and she tries to win over the skulk with (somewhat uncharacteristic) kindness.

"Look, Rogi, if you and your Niska fellows stay on the shiver then you'll stay pawns of this thieves' guild. Slaves, really. Help us to help you, and you get fried butter instead. Believe me, Rogi, fried butter is a-may-zing! Plus, you'll be doing the right thing by your people by helping put a stop to your exploitation, and bringing those responsible for murder to justice."

Huh, crusaders aren't the only ones who can speechify!

"Hey, I mean you're not wrong Tibitz. Whoever hired Rogi and his clan in the first place needs to pay for all this mess too, especially since it sounds like they were the ones who told these guys to flat out murder the guard beans," Zu agrees. "But, I mean...Rogi's clan could've just...not agreed to that, y'know? Not saying it would've been an easy decision to make, especially if this shiver stuff is as good as he's letting on, but there was still a choice, right? If they'd been forced to do it, it'd be a little different..."

"I know nothing! I promise! I promise!" he kneels on the ground trembling--whether from fear or addition is unclear--and sobbing. "Please. Please. Please let me go. I just want to go home and dream."

I had to double check my ducks to make sure I didn't give you the wrong information: the Nisku are outside the scope of this module.

"You're not going home till we find your bosses" Aurora declares, her gentle, musical tones at odds with the serious finality of her words.

"I know a place you can be safe though."

Aurora turns to her comrades. "Let's take Rogi to Kyra Feldane's office. He'll be safe there. He's a material witness after all, and we can't have Feldane's people go on thinking that the Carnival is responsible. Tie him up. We still need to look for the missing accomplice before we leave."

Recommending taking the skulk to the sheriff. If nothing else he's evidence that the Carnival varisians are innocent.

"Yeah, he'll definitely be safer there," Zu agrees. "Least I hope so. Maybe we can get him some help or something too, let a priest look at him? I'll kick a few shinies to their temple if it'll help."

The leshy sighs and produces a length of rope from his pack. "Sorry Rogi. We gotta do right by the beans that got killed but we'll do our best to do right by you, too."

Once the skulk is properly secured, the leshy then turns his attention back to the vault. "Sounds like Rogi and his friend didn't really get very far in here but we may as well take a quick gander around while we're in here."

Perception: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (5) + 6 = 11