::"Come on Blue time to go air-born"::
She steps out after her Dad but where he walks she goes vertical.
We'll have to give this place a better look-over once the immediate danger is taken care of, Terexaltherin comments.
He also takes off, flying low to the ground to try to avoid notice as he gets closer to the doll to perform his planned magic switch-around.
Arlo reaches the gargantuan (from your perspective) kitty cat. It's crying in fear and naturally ignores him and he can attack.
Terex goes forward, reaches the proper range and is able swap sizes with the doll if he wishes (at which point he'll be at the relative size of the cat).
Gift alights out of the barn and Armaund follows her, taking dragon form.
Some of the "tribes" people are emerging from the small fort and a closer look shows they have more of a "Mad Max" style of dress than simple primitives.
Ignoring the cat right now, Arlo makes his way toward the downed being. The dwarf bends down to cast cure light wounds on him to rouse them.
A closer look shows the warrior's clothing resembles a tribeperson's but it is made of civilized material - plastic jacket, printed cotton T-shirt etc.
When Arlo casts cure light, the warrior opens his eyes and says "Dear gods, that cat! Are the others OK?"
Gift headed for the "tribes" people are emerging from the small.
When Arlo casts cure light, the warrior opens his eyes and says "Dear gods, that cat! Are the others OK?"
"I don't know of any others. Come on, we need to get you some cover!" Arlo helps the injured man up and back to the others.
Terexaltherin knows that he should avoid scaring people. He knows his plan was to just distract the cat with a suddenly-'enlarged' toy while making the doll not a threat. He knows that suddenly being a 'big' dragon will probably not help solve any problems right now, and might in fact make some new ones.
He knows all this... but he can't help himself. The little dragon has only the patience to land somewhere difficult to observe (in hopes the people here won't notice he suddenly grew) before connecting with <Shimmer> and swapping sizes with the doll.
Gift was still racking the cat's mind with horrors of 'dogs' the smell of the bite, packs of them bearing down on the little kitten that was the cat. But this was the most humane way, the other was to broil its brains in its head.
::"Terexaltherin! what have you done to yourself?"::
Seeing the Doll shrink she changed directions and ported to the DOll.
::"Sorry Blue change of plan, you keep heading to the tribe, Rollo, you want to port and meet me by this Doll?"::
Flying off Gift's right side, Blue nods absently, then remembers to reply. ::Yeah...:: What is Terex doing? he thinks to himself, while continuing to head toward the tribe.
The Warriors from the fort and Arlo come together. They stop directly in front of Arlo and a larger man who appears to be the leader says, "Thank you my friend. You have saved M'them. Who are you? The reinforcement that company promised us? We'd have captured these operators if it weren't for this weird shrinking effect..."
Gift ports to the position of the life-sized, animate doll. It's walking in circles saying "Oh dear, oh dear, what shall I do, what a strange situation!..."
As this happening, you can hear a motherly voice from outside the room you're in saying "Is everything OK in there?"
Gift does not hesitate she seeks to take over the mind of the doll.
Constructs were hard to control but as they either, had a soul or an AI And Gift had powers that could control do both.
If she does not save Gift will get her to say
"Yes mother"
The Warriors from the fort and Arlo come together. They stop directly in front of Arlo and a larger man who appears to be the leader says, "Thank you my friend. You have saved M'them. Who are you? The reinforcement that company promised us? We'd have captured these operators if it weren't for this weird shrinking effect..."
"Well..I'm part of an independent adventuring party. I don't know anything about a 'company'", the dwarf shrugged. "Name's Arlo."
Rollo seems to be having a difficult time containing his mirth! The dhampir has had a perpetual smile on his face since they arrived.
He looks to Gift.
Ok. I am having difficulty concentrating here. What is the plan?
He will Dimensional Door whomever is near him also.
to everyone
:;"Rollo, I'm Keeping this little girl from calling her mother, I suspect mum got her some new toys and the cat has been feeding on them. So while I buy us some time, why don't you head over to dad and work out what's going in."::
Gift remembers that now the Girl was small and sound would be a problem so she changed tack, using a power-on her mother.
Gift is able to send the illusion of a happy purring kitty to whoever or whatever is behind the door and it seems to walk away.
The party proceeds forward to meet the strange "barbarian" warriors. Their leader is carrying a sharpened electric cattle prod mounted on a stick and the rest of the group is armed with similarly motley, Mad-Max-style weapons.
The leader is somewhat suspicious but gradually becomes friendlier though he continues to occasionally look suspiciously at the group. "I can't tell you much since you don't have company clearance but we were hunting some bad people embezzling very valuable merchandise and got caught in this dimensional trap while our targets transmitted their goods and got away. There's nothing to do now but return, put in our report and get a tiny consolation payment. Where did your group come from? I see you came from our target's transmission area. Perhaps we should take a look but fleeing while we can might be good too."
Terex just barely resists the temptation to roar triumphantly as he swells to massive size! ...in relation to the toy-like structures and shrunken people in the room. For just the briefest moment he considers asking <Shimmer> if he could stack the effect by shrinking the cat as well, but quickly dismisses the thought. He'd probably made things enough harder already.
He telepathically reaches out to the party while crouching down behind the barn, torn between glee at his new perspective and embarrassment at the inconvenience his actions might cause.
It sounds like they're from the Transplanar Consortium, he comments to the party, So they're definitely hunting the same people we are. I'd suggest we look around the area for clues as to where they went. This spot seems a bit too well-set-up for them to abandon easily.
With his own, much changed perspective, the dragon looks around for clues that might not be obvious from nearer the ground.
From a full-sized perspective, Terex can see that the room is indeed set-up like child's playroom, with a few additions, hangings with strange, magic runes, toy-like things whose purpose is mysterious and so-forth.
He can see there are a couple small holes, maybe mouse-holes, next to the full sized door. Also, the now-shrunk doll-girl is headed for the mouse hole but it will take her quite a while to reach it (at least 10 minutes) given her size.
Okay, keep an eye on the doll, she's headed for a small exit, Terexaltherin informs his companions. Keep those people distracted for a second, I'm going to break cover to check on something I can see from here.
Doing his best to minimize how long he's in line-of-sight of the Transplanar Consortium people, the dragon makes his way over to one of the rune-covered oddities and examines it.
Gift heads to the Doll.
Armaund and Minna join the rest of the party talking to the warriors. Armaund offers, "I believe that we too are seeking these 'embezzlers'. Let us not give up so quickly. Maybe they will return to this area again or perhaps you know other areas they would go to. What else can you us about them? "
With some hesitation, the leader says, "They have been impersonating workers at the flux mine. In their true form they can shrink and grow at will, coming down a series of tiny gates that end outside the village that contains this cottage (for this is where we are). But we have to report with a day or lose our positions so waiting isn't option."
Gift ports in front of the doll, it's still saying "Dear, dear, oh my, what will I do?" but you can see it's headed to towards the sort of mouse-hole Terex described (quite a ways away).
Meanwhile, Terex fairly visibly is looking around but so far unnoticed by the other group. The runes on cloth also help the dimensional shrinking and create a variety of other other magical effects in the area.
Rollo notices the path that the confused doll is taking, so the Sage waves a hand creating a Wall of Ice across the foundation of the exposed bottom of the door.
LAnding next to the Doll Girl Gift asks
"Hello there, I'm Gift who are you?"
For the time being Terexaltherin keeps himself busy looking over the magic around the room, trying to assemble an idea of how best to remove it from the entire group at once if it were to seem prudent, and also looking for any clues as to who had set this up, thinking it likely it could be the work of their target.
Terex: Looking the various runes, modifications would take a bit of time, ten minutes or more. Looking further at the magic, it seems it's already modified a significant - the original spell served who knows what purpose but the modifications allow those who know some password access to the house and the little barn without being bothered by the inhabitants. As to who did it - you'd recognize their magical signature, they're some kind of chaos-oriented caster and ... maybe a gnome?
The Doll: The doll turns to and says "I am Doll. I am very upset, somehow completely ruined the house arrangement and now I am small and I cannot tell mother and I cannot leave. It was bad enough the tiny people sneaking in but now things are terrible. Did you do this? Can you please stop?
With the Warriors: Armaund says, "Shrink and grow at will yes. But you tell us what they looked like?" to which the warrior leader replies, "Usually - white cloaks and white conical hats - with no one in the them. We tracked the energetic merchandise they carried, mostly.
"No I, this was the work of another, I just wanted to meet you."
She will push over her mind, is she a construct?
Terexaltherin narrows his eyes. It couldn't be... could it?
Minna... the dragon telepathically calls out, You wouldn't happen to have noticed anything familiar around here, would you? Like... maybe that doll...? Because some of the magic here seems familiar...
He considers the enchantment, seeing how difficult it would be to alter the modifications so that the protection from the password would suddenly fail a minute or so after it was used. Not his prefered solution, but a good backup in case they couldn't track them down.
Minna was first focused on the cabin and then came out to help Arlo and Armaund talks to the warriors (maybe working for "Transplanar"). When Terex comments, she says "Oh yes, of course, I need to analyze that dolls, sorry, I should have thought of that." And she quickly transforms her thin adamantite strips into bird-like wings and comes flying over to where Gift is speaking with the girl/doll.
Meanwhile, Gift analyzing the dolls gets ... it's definitely a construct but has something like a mind or a soul attached. Maybe somehow stolen from a person, maybe simulated. In any case, mental manipulation might be possible but very difficult...
So, when Minna touches-down, she approaches the doll cheerfully (she's actually slightly shorter than the thing, with both in the shrunk condition). "Look at you" and she takes out a little wrench thing and the doll collapses and she starts poking at it with the wrench and a large needle and then says shouts "Oh, Mother Gaia, Oh, Hades, Fentor, I swear I'll get you somehow." then turns to Gift, "Yes, there's soul stiched up hear and who know when else in this house. My ex-Boyfriends' tricks, I swear..."
At the same time, Terex is getting that he could set up a trap around the password.
Gift felt she had found a kindred spirit.
"She is a soul-powered doll, I know because I am one too. Not in the same way, my soul parts were gifted. While I suspect its taken. But still, we are the same."
She gets close to the doll
"Mina, Do you think you can free the soul without breaking the Doll. I want to replace it with one of my follower AIs once I have a memory scan."
She places her hand on the Doll and nineties stream out.
[ooc]Mind read DC28 + Autohypnosis to take a peronality copy to carft a copy AI and place it back in the doll[/dice]
Gift felt she had found a kindred spirit.
"She is a soul-powered doll, I know because I am one too. Not in the same way, my soul parts were gifted. While I suspect its taken. But still, we are the same."
She gets close to the doll
"Mina, Do you think you can free the soul without breaking the Doll. I want to replace it with one of my follower AIs once I have a memory scan."
Arlo steps forward. "You can do that?!"
Rollo claps poor Arlo on his back.
You seem surprised?
The Sage will also look over the doll.
Source Adventurer's Armory 2 pg. 3
Requirement(s) Katapesh
Your experience with magic items clues you in to their properties more quickly than others. You can identify the properties of a magic item using detect magic in 1 round.
Arlo steps forward. "You can do that?!"
"I don't see why not, her mind is encoded in her form, it would be a data transfer. with some work on her internals, she would be a robot and not some kind of evil abomination such as she is now"
Terexaltherin informs the rest of the group of what he's doing. If we succeed in sabotaging the next shipment I may have to undo this, but I figure it's a good backup in case something goes wrong.
He's careful and methodical with his alterations.
The dragon takes a moment to examine his handiwork. Hmmm... I wonder if I could add a new password for us to this? he 'thinks aloud' to the rest of the party.
Rollo detects that the doll is indeed a construct that a living soul has been attached to and that the construct is attached to the magic of this entire place. Also, Minna is modifying the construct through her gear gnome mastery of constructs ability - breaking the connection but leaving it open.
As this happens, Terex is able to add the password enhancements though something seems slightly strange as he does this.
Meanwhile, Minna says, "Wait, Terex, you don't understand something. If this structure was created by Fentor, then one can be sure he left the entire thing with a horrific and difficult discover trap at the very heart of it - anything interfering will cause the entire structure to begin to unravel and then release one of his chaos spirits. These are usually vast amorphous cloud of destruction and transformation but each is different in it's own terrifying way. I know you've checked this place but unless you knew exactly what to look for you may have missed. There's she's free in this little chalice. You or Rollo should make me big now and I can help with this!" You can see Minna's excited, near panic, but holding it together.
Rollo acquisitions to Minna's request.
Rollo frowns.
Never had this problem before.
You could have warned me earlier... Terexaltherin grumbles to Minna, but she can tell he's not actually annoyed. What should I look for? If you concentrate hard enough on sending them to me I can kind-of get images instead of just words.
The dragon looks himself for signs of what Minna is referring to.
Minna leaves the doll and the flask with the soul with Gift Once Minna is large (she's only a bit larger than Terex, however), she works with Terex and together they determine that the subtle, deadly trap she described indeed seems set-up somewhere else in the building (you guess the basement). You can sense it will trigger in about ten minutes. As this is happening, she says "I'm so sorry, I should have looked at the dolls sooner but I was distracted by our starting chamber. Until I looked at her, I didn't have a reason to suspect this kind of mischief. Now we need to get to the key chamber soon. Still, if we move fast we should still be able to make this area a trap for our enemies. We may need the others if the rest of the house has dangers."
As this is happening, Armaund is still talking with the company warriors. He sends a message to Gift. ::Do you think you could get the information about "dimensional material runners" that we need from the minds of these people? We can then send them on their way. I don't know if they'd like our idea of sabotaging the shipment."
Gift takes the soul flask but leaves the Doll deactivated.
::"Yes it should be no problem, but what is a priority stopping a death trap of getting the intel?"::
Gift pulls out a cystal and uses it manifest Bend reality with which she manifests dispel-psionics DC27
Gift struggles to use psionics to end the dimensional effect and then some force from Armaund ends the effect, making her large.
Meanwhile, Minna places the frozen-with-fear cat in a leather bag and moves to the door to listen.
Armaund tells the warriors to set tight, "Some forces possibly beyond you may manifest soon, you can sit say or find your way to these effects and join us. I think you will be safe here." They agree to find shelter though they offer help if the party wants it.
Armaund then assumes dragon form without ending the dimensional effect - ending up somewhat smaller than Terex or the cat. "At least I won't have trouble fitting here..." he comments.
Gift thanks Armaund.
::"Can never get along with mixing with magic, just seems weird"::
She then heads to the door as well.
::"Blue you think you can invisible out there and have a look-see"::
Arlo follows Armaund deeper into the strange environment.
Rollo joins Arlo.
Terexaltherin sends Armaund a sense of wordless amusement at difference in their current sizes. He quickly sobers, however.
All right, so are we going to need to sneak past someone here? he asks, swooping over to the door. Probably best if the rest of you stay small for now, then. How did negotiations with the Transplanar Consortium people go?
Minna, by the door, thinks and say "Let's all be invisible, cast an illusion of the door still closed and open it, moving towards the spell's center, which we think is the basement. If we get a better idea of the center and the basement, dimension door in. Me and Terex probably are the one who could disable this magic, so if we hit opposition, the others can stop it and we'll sneak by. I don't think the mouse leads where we want to go. But what if it does, well being large, we can move more quickly so let's stick to the regular door. If anyone can see through walls, that could be useful"
Armaund comments, "They'll stay 'till we deal with this. After that they want to go. I think that's fine if we learn all we can from them.
Armaund begins making people invisible.
Blue is just about to follow up on Gift's suggestion when Armaund starts making people invisible. ::"Well, I guess we all can."::