After all the punishment he's taken, Garret's latest fusillade is too much for the remaining knight and he collapses into a heap at Ketra's feet.
Ketra groans and checks quickly to see if the knight is outright dead from that barrage of force bolts or only taking a painful snooze. "We made a good bit of noise. Lets check if we can work out where they were heading, then start moving on before someone comes to investigate."
A few more expert blows from Rosalind and Zsofia finishes off the golem--by luck or providence, this one does not explode, perhaps its internal mechanisms are too damaged to detonate properly. Ketra for her part checks on the fallen knight, leaving her just in time to hear his death rattle.
As the adrenaline rush of battle fades and you start to tend to your remaining injuries, you examine the fallen knights and their strange bonelike armor. Recognition--and disgust--flash across Sanduro's face as he examines the ring of Necril runes engraved on the breastplates.
"Pharasma protect us--these are Seal Breakers! They're, well, they're not part of the Whispering Way, exactly, but sages say they were allies of the Whispering Tyrant even before the Shining Crusade, and they've dedicated themselves to unraveling the Great Seal in Gallowspire that keeps Tar-Baphon imprisioned." The druid looks uncharacteristically grim; even Zsofia refrains from cracking wise after a look at his face. "Them being in Vigil is a really, really bad sign..."
"What are they doing here, then?" Silvia asks, clearly perplexed. "Gallowspire's over a hundred miles away."
The Great Seal is an incredibly powerful ward created by the combined efforts of literally hundreds of capable mages, priests, and other spell-weavers in 3827AR, in the aftermath Tar-Baphon's defeat when the Shield of Aroden was Shattered. While the Great Seal itself binds the great tower-city known as Gallowspire, it has kept the lich imprisoned for almost nine centuries--but it does not work alone.
The Great Seal at Gallowspire cannot be touched or even examined due to the layers of protections woven around it, the so-called Three Lesser Seals. Each bound to an artifact, these Lesser Seals protect the and feed power to the Great Seal and each of them were given to heroes of the Shining Crusade to be hidden elsewhere on Golarion. Who those heroes were, the location of the Lesser Seals, and even what the Seals look like are some of the most valuable secrets in the world.
Garret shrugs his shoulders and casts Detect Magic, searching the cultist knights for anything of use.
"Seal Breakers? They might not be part of the Whispering Way, but those two groups might as well be bosom friends, with how well their goals align. If they're here, I guess that means they must think there's something here in Vigil that'll help them unravel the Seals." Ketra only takes a moment before realizing "Of course... there was all this elaborate skullduggery with the Crows to steal the remains of the Shield of Arnisant. And then silencing the Crows. And now that we're following their silencers, it's this lot. They think the shield's shards will help them."
"I guess then the real question is - what are they still doing here if all they wanted was the Shield? Maybe there's something else in Vigil they want." As she speaks, she checks over the knights to see if there's anything useful that might help either lead the group onward or provide some hints as to the roles of the two. She briefly considers whether the armor might even be reusable as a disguise.
Garret's scan for magical auras reveals a trove of magics on each of the knights; your ambush prevented any of it from really being used against you.
[2] potions of Barkskin +2
[2] +1 full plate
[2] +1 longsword
[2] +1 light steel shield
[2] Lesser Talismans of Arrow Protection
[2] Lesser Talismans of Danger Sense
[8] javelins
[2] silver unholy symbols shaped like a humanoid skull
[2] wooden holy symbols of an angled rapier crossed with a rose (Religion DC15)
Ketra scoops up the potions and other consumables, as well as the longswords and shields. The javelins she leaves behind, fairly confident that the group won't need them. That leaves the holy symbols. "If someone forced me to guess, I'd say the second set of holy symbols is for a cover identity... though their armor is pretty unambiguous, which might've made it rather hard to pull off." She passes them on for the others to inspect.
Afterward she asks the team "Not sure how good you all are at orienting yourselves, but does anyone have a sense for where these two might've been going?"
Examining the holy symbols you determine that the silver skull symbols aren't for a specific deific being but rather an invokation of the powers and beliefs of Abaddon--the home of daemons and the seat of those who seek the end of all life in the multiverse. The rapier-and-rose is more curious, though; it's a variant of the symbol of Arazni that you found in Roslar's tomb all those weeks ago, possible one used by the crusaders? Though you can't imagine these wooden symbols surviving that many centuries in such a damp environment as this.
This mystery will have to wait though; when you're ready to move on Sanduro moves to examine the trail. At first he's able to follow it just fine, but it gets harder and harder as the sewer tunnels get cleaner--less and less grime and muck coats the walls and floor as you move on, which makes the tracks all the more difficult to follow and within ten minutes Sanduro is no longer sure he can find them at all.
Just as you're all starting to ask yourselves what to do next, you hear a sound--a sort of faint grunting...? After a moment you realize its a pair of deep gutteral voices whispering, or at least trying to.
Ketra raises a hand for quiet and then listens carefully to the guttural voices. Down here, it seems likely that anything else the group is crossing paths with is likely to be aligned with their foes. If she can't hear well she'll sneak a little closer, knife at the ready.
As he stops, Garret hears something too. He tries to determine what direction it came from.
At Ketra's raised hand, Silvia stops to listen, but hears nothing unusual. Nothing unusual for a sewer, at least, she thinks, correcting herself.
Still, she trusts her allies' senses, and keeps her rifle at the ready if they need her support.
Trying to catch a glimpse of the speakers, or at least hear them better, Ketra sneaks forward but her boot slips on a patch of slime before scuffing on stone. Abruptly the voices go silent, and a long moment of silence lingers before a gutteral voice calls out.
"WAIT, WAIT, NO FIGHT PLEASE. CALL, UH, PARLEE? YES, PARLEE!"
"Guh." Her sneakiness blown, Ketra advances toward the voices asking for parley. She figures if they turn out to be hostile, she'll face them head on. "Parley? I wouldn't mind skipping a fight either. Who are you?"
Stepping forward toward the unseen speaker, Ketra sees a huge, lumpy form looming out of the darkness. A trio of thick elephantine legs supports a misshapen round body, itself eyeless but boasting a massive set of jaws full of broad teeth. Three muscular tentacles rise from its back, held out towards Ketra like hands in a placating gesture--though the effect is ruined somewhat by the three eyes in one tentacle, and the barbs crowning the other two. Ketra can also just make out the shape of a second somewhat smaller creature of the same kind lurking behind its larger fellow.
"YOU-MANS CALL GRIME-TONGUE, OF SEWER GUILD. YOU...NOT WITH CITY?" The creature's tone is wary as its three eyes closely scrutinize Ketra.
These creatures are otyughs, ugly but intelligent scavengers who have become ubiquitous in the sewers of cities all across Golarion. Though fully capable of killing an adult human, otyughs are not particularly violent by nature and typically form a symbiotic waste-disposal relationship with the inhabitants of the communities above them.
Garret remains silent, but prepares to jump in if Ketra wishes negotiation backup.
Though the creatures are abominable, Ketra's seen... stuff... over the last few months. She's able to keep a fairly straight face as she answers "Hello Grime-tongue. We're working for the city right now, trying to find a bunch of troublemakers who've taken to hiding in the sewers in this area while they do ill to those up above. I'm Ketra, by the way. You wouldn't happen to know of any place you've seen a lot of people congregating in the sewers recently... have you? People followed around by fleshy golems and in distinctive armor." She tries to describe the armor of the knights the party just fought.
”Indeed, we have no quarrel with you unless you are part of this cult that seeks to do harm to our city,” adds Garret, stepping up with empty hands open to show a lack of hostility.
"US NO CULT!" Grimetongue huffs indignantly, to a grunt of agreement from its fellow. "ARMOR JERKS IS CULT, YES? ARMOR JERKS STEAL US PRIESTS! US SHOW HOW TO FIND, YOU-MANS KILL ARMOR JERKS, YES? RETURN US PRIESTS?"
”An excellent idea,” suggests Garret to Ketra, ”Especially if we have a way to identify ourselves as allies to these priests when the time comes—perhaps as simple as ‘Grimetongue sent us to rescue you’?”
"GRIMETONGUE ALREADY TRY THAT. NO GOOD. ARMOR JERKS ALSO MAGIC JERKS, CHANGE US PRIESTS THINKING," The creature taps its 'head' for emphasis. "YOU-MANS USE MAGIC TOO."
”Ah, we will have to either use magic to free your priests from the mind control or dispatch the cultists exerting the mind control,” says Garret.
”That does make things more complicated, especially if your priests are forced through the mind control to attack us. Still, I think we should try,” adds Garret.
"Armor jerks is a great name for them. Why do you think they stole your priests? Do you know what they're doing with them?" Ketra asks before agreeing with Garret "We'll do our best to try to free them, but if they're controlled with magic it might be hard. The good part is that magic like this usually runs out eventually. So they'll be back if we can deal with the armor jerks."
"What kind of powers do your priests have?"
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Silvia snickers quietly at the otyugh's nickname for the cult, thinking about just how many different groups in Vigil could be accurately described as "armor jerks."
"THEM STEAL PRIESTS SO WE NOT TELL YOU-MANS ARMOR JERKS HERE. SAY THEY KILL PRIESTS IF US NOT BE GOOD." It's a bit hard to tell, but Grimetongue sounds like they might be a little ashamed to admit this. "ARMOR JERKS PUT GUARD TO WATCH US, MANY WEEKS. BUT THEN SOMETHING CHANGE--BIG GROUP GO OUT, MARCH THROUGH SEWERS. GUARD LEFT BEHIND. WE DECIDE, TIME TO TRY RESCUE PRIESTS. KILL GUARD, BUT OLD LEATHERBACK NOT LET US TO ARMOR JERK CAMP. THEN BIG GROUP COME BACK--THEY NOT CHECK ON GUARD YET BUT SOON. THEN THEY KILL US PRIETS!"
At the question on the otyugh priests' powers Grimetongue turns and confers with its fellow in a series of incomprehensible grunts before turning back to you. "NOT SURE? PRIESTS VERY WISE, VERY STRONG. SEE FUTURE, KEEP OTHERS IN SEWER FROM MAKE TROUBLE. CAN HEAL, IF US HURT."
Silvia's head tilts to the side, seemingly struck by a curious thought.
"Grimetongue," she asks, finally speaking up, "who do your people worship? Who do your priests speak for?"
"PRIESTS SAY THEY HEAR SPIRIT--STONE, WATER, CITY EBB AND FLOW. YOU-MANS NOT SO GOOD AT HEAR SPIRIT. THAT OKAY, GRIMETONGUE NOT SO GOOD AT HEAR EITHER."
"Very wise, very strong, huh? And you're right, I'm really bad at hearing city spirits too." Ketra admits with a small smile "We've heard all about the big armor jerk group going out - they did some bad things on the surface. When did they end up coming back? And how many were there?"
"UMMM... ARMOR JERKS COME BACK LESS THAN ONE SLEEP AGO. THEM COME CHECK ON GUARD VERY SOON GRIMETONGUE THINK. THEM HAVE, UMM, DUH-ZEN PLUS FOUR MORE US THINK? SOME NOT GO OUT SINCE THEY GO IN, WEEKS BACK. ARMOR JERK LEADER IS POINTY-EAR YOU-MAN, WITH BIG BIG HAMMER."
Since you all seem amenable to helping, Grimetongue dips one of its tentacles into the flow of filth and draws you a crude and frankly reeking map. "YOU HERE, GRIMETONGUE HERE TOO. ARMOR JERKS GO THIS WAY, HIDE SOMEWHERE HERE. OLD LEATHERBACK LIVE HERE, PRIESTS MAKE SURE HIM BEHAVE SO YOU-MANS NOT BOTHER HIM. US THINK ARMOR JERKS NEED PRIESTS SO THEM CAN GET PAST." The creature points out some chambers, but can only gesture vaguely at where he believes the "armor jerks'" hideout to be.
Ketra asks "Old Leatherback? I'd guess that's an ornery turtle with a name like that. Any chance we can get by without meeting him?"
"OLD LEATHERBACK BIG LIZARD. VERY BIG, MUCH TEETH. CRANKY ALSO. ONLY LISTEN TO PRIESTS, TRY TO EAT GRIMETONGUE ONCE."
Garret looks a bit worried about the upcoming fight, but he puts a brave face on the situation, saying, ”I know we are in a rush to foil the plans of the cultists, but I have used much of my magic today. Could we rest for what is left of this night and start the assault in the morning at full strength?”
"There's certainly wisdom in that, Garret," Silvia says, then looks around as if trying to get her bearings. "Not sure what's above us, though. Hopefully we don't climb up into some place we're not welcome."
Ketra nods her thanks to Grimetongue, then responds to the others "The problem I see is that these armor jerks finally decided to strike at the dyeworks and the Crows just recently. Meaning they've decided they don't need them anymore. So whatever their plans are here, they must be more or less done or ready. Can we risk that they're not about to put them into motion tonight?" Ketra is visibly uncomfortable, knowing that Garret's own argument is just as compelling. "If we could get a sense for how imminent this all is..."
"But there's also no sense rushing in and dying to overwhelming odds. Now that we know where they are, roughly, another option might be waiting for a bit of backup so that we're not completely going in alone."
"It sounds like we'll have to deal with the big lizard first, one way or another," Silvia points out. "And then fight whoever's left, which might include the priests they've turned."
She looks down the tunnels into the darkness, chewing her lip in thought.
"Unless there's a way around the big lizard. Or even better, a way to get the big lizard to go against the armor jerks." Ketra thumbs the end of her nose as she thinks.
With a long look at the rest of the team, Ketra suggests "Hmm, you all are looking a bit worn down. Should we take a short rest and then strike in the morning? Before then though, I do have an invisibility potion I could use to slip around the edges of their domain and see what exactly is waiting for us."
”Good idea,” says Garret.
"Unless there's a way around the big lizard. Or even better, a way to get the big lizard to go against the armor jerks." Ketra thumbs the end of her nose as she thinks.
"I think that counts as 'dealing with it,'" Silvia says, grinning. "While you're out on your scouting mission, I'll try to come up with some ideas on how we can make that happen."
Grimetongue is distressed by the idea of you falling back to rest--it seems the creature fears that the priests will be executed if the Seal Breakers discover that the guard they'd posted to monitor them has been killed. The otyugh doesn't seem willing to press the issue, though, especially when you promise to bring reinforcements back with you.
Resolving to scout ahead, Ketra follows Grimetongue as it leads her to the tunnel that it believes leads towards the 'armor jerk' hideout. Creeping forward, Ketra's progress is blocked a massive cistern fed by four tunnels coming in from different directions, including the one she now stands in. Easily fifty feet across and probably forty to fifty feet deep, the cistern is mostly full, with only about five feet from the edge of the brickwork Ketra stands on down to the water below. Next to her and on the ledge opposite rest a pair of long wooden planks, weathered with age and likely pulled from some larger structure like a bridge or building years ago. They look roughly long enough to form a crude plank bridge if you could swing the board out over the cistern to the opposite side.
That plank is not the biggest obstacle, however, for Ketra also spots an enormous shadow into the dirty water of the cistern, as well as a set of nostrils and enormous black eyes watching her impassively--a massive alligator, over twenty feet long from nose to tail. Old Leatherback floats with most of its huge body hidden under the water, watching the dancer with a predatory patience.
Ketra reassures Grimetongue that the time to rest will give the party a better chance of rescuing anyone. She peeks into the cistern and sees Old Leatherback rather clearly. Rather than approach she returns to the otyugh and asks "Any other ways around? And how close after Old Leatherback is the hideout of these Armor Jerks?"
"Close, us think. Can hear them sometimes, on other side. Priests keep Old Leatherback calm so can cross, give him meat and use magic." Grimetongue hangs well back from the cistern in the tunnel behind Ketra, clearly uncomfortable with approaching any closer.
”Ketra, I have an additional potion of invisibility, and I can grant you the power of flight for 8 minutes, if you still want to try this. Or we could just wait and deal with it in the morning—I don’t have the type of magic needed to calm the creature, though, so it would have to be a very quick recon,” offers Garret.
"No... I was hoping there'd be more cover to get close without attracting attention. This is a fair straight shot through, all exposed, and would be on the way back out too... Plus I'd hate it if we found out that this is some mutant alligator that can see invisible flying people, and reach them besides." Ketra gives a half smile "How about we bring some meat tomorrow when we return and use it to distract or befriend big scaly?"
She looks to Grimetongue "Thanks for hearing us out and helping. We'll be back before you know it to take these Armor Jerks down."
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You all turn back and return to the dyeworks, making far better time now that you're not tracking. Twenty minutes after leaving Grimetongue behind you're being assisted out of the manhole by Lastwall guards. In your absence another score of soldiers have arrived and a cordon established around the Erstwhile compound. They receive your report with the calm urgency of professionals and immediately dispatch messengers to the War College and the Sancta Iomedaea.
You take your rest as best you can amid the bustle of Vigil's guards transcribe your reports to deliver to various leaders and commanders of the city, and reports start to filter back in. The first comes from Precentor Martial Heliu, reporting that several attempts had been made to scry the Seal Breaker's base but that all had failed. She does include a short explanation of what little is known of the Seal Breakers' history and the nature of the Great Seals that organization seeks to destroy. Enclosed with the papers is an elegant wand of dark-stained oak, identified in Heliu's notes as a fully charged Wand of Magic Missile VII.
As you waken, you're met by Lieutenant Doeswen who's been working her own angles; she looks exhausted but shows you maps of the city sewers we was able to get ahold of--but frustratingly, the maps don't show any areas that seem likely to be an enemy base in the areas you indicated.
"Those areas aren't well-maintained or patrolled, so it's not impossible but it's just old tunnels, no big chambers or spots to bivouac over a dozen armed soldiers. I don't doubt this Grimetongue fellow, the otyughs know the sewers better than anyone, but I just don't see where these Seal Breakers could be. I've heard stories of wizards able to create hidden spaces that normal people can't see or reach; I pray we're not dealing with anything like that!"
More information comes in from the Sancta Iomedaea; a full commission placing your party in formal command of a platoon of church templars for the next 72 hours, as well as an informational report. It seems divination proved more successful than scrying; a note in Varvatos' own hand lays out the results of the casting:
An echo of the Herald slain, empty halls honoring blackened heart
Now hide the servants of he who murdered Her
Tools of greater evil still, they guide the blade but do not wield it
Time grows short, you must hurrry
Below this is a hastily scribbled note, "The gods and their servitors are mighty indeed, but not omniscient. I'm evacuating the city."
Garret reviews their resources and girds himself for battle, casting Mage Armor on himself as they prepare to move out.
"'They guide the blade but do not wield it,'" Silvia repeats, brows furrowed. "I do not like the sound of that one bit."
Ketra asks for new barkskin and heroism for the day as the party approaches the sewers once more. Her mind though is on that cryptic divination. She mentions to the Lieutenant "I don't doubt that they had plenty of time to explore down there and find a hiding place that's not on the maps, or even to create one. And thanks to the otyughs, we know more or less where it is. The problem is we've kind of leaked that we're coming, so I can only hope that this hasn't given them too much of an edge in preparation."
She surveys the knights and the Lieutenant looking at their group to lead the way and feels intensely uncomfortable. None of which is helped by thinking about the immensity of what the Seal Breakers might be here to do. The only part that makes her feel slightly better is that Varvatos seems to be taking things seriously enough to evacuate the city.
As the group descends, she murmurs "A slain herald of someone... Aroden maybe since its all about the Shield? Blackened halls. I wonder if there was some space dedicated to the herald down there. Something secret that they've now taken over. The part about hurrying at least is clear enough." She frowns "Tools of a greater evil is obvious, but the blade they guide...?"
"I hope I am wrong, but I worry 'the blade' may be a sibling to whatever weapon was used to kill Roslar's Coffer,"/ Silvia whispers.