Welcome! We will start at the beginning of Gameday, but after the party is chosen, you may introduce yourselves while you wait.
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A halfling wearing simple travelling cloaks answers the tengu.
"Good morning to you too, mate. I'm Sir Lee, knight of Taldor. No need to stand on ceremony here though, my friends call me 'Lucky' and that will do just fine."
"Lucky" Lee hardly looks like a knight. His face is scarred; his nose has been broken too many times to set straight. And his clothes are dull and dusty. His weapons, however, are clean and in good order - a long polearm, a folded three-section-staff akin to those used by monks, and a traditional halfling sling-staff.
"I'm here to make sure the rest of you don't get killed. I'm no healer, but I can defend you in a melee."
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A bald and beardless Ifrit walks up with a flaming pony creature? clopping along beside him, "Pathfinders I'm guessing? I was given this location as well for my next mission. I am Micah and this is... well I haven't named him yet." His voice cracks and spits, almost like a campfire popping as it burns.
Micah Elum keeps his bright red hair and beard shorn to the skin. Fiery red eyes give away his otherworldly ancestry, but most pay less attention to that and more to his imposing presence. Tall with toned muscles, he wears simple armor and has a polished walnut crossbow slung across his back along with a well crafted pack. He appears to be quick tempered and ready for a fight. The image carefully stitched on his cloak shows a triple-headed ibis, with wings that burn and eyes of flame. Those with some rare knowledge of religion or planar beings may recognize him to be a follower of Atreia, an Elemental Lord.
The equine-ish creature hisses, "My name is Ponya, you daft fool. How I got roped into caring for a clueless ifrit I'll never know."
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An attractive Tian-Min woman armored in a suit of red haramaki armor over a red yukata, with a paired daisho at her right hip arrives shortly after Micah and his flaming pony. Possessed of pale blue eyes and wearing her platinum hair in a chin-length layered bob, Kiyoko has the toned, athletic body of someone raised in the martial arts. A distinctive beauty mark is visible to the right of her chin. Looking around, she seems to decide that she is in the right place, and moves to take a seat in silence.
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"Oh hello again Lee - good to see you haven't been indoctrinated into the secret lupine task force yet!" A thin man pushes the hair out of his face and looks at the other agents through half-open eyes behind large spectacles. The air around him smells vaguely of cinnamon, chemicals, and garlic. As if a thought just occurred to him, the man's eyes widen in alarm. "Oh! But how do we know the rest of you aren't sleeper agents for the serpentfolk? Or worse! Do you know the Pathfinder Password? And the secret handshake?"
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"Good to see you, mate" Lucky says to Joe. "I am still not a werewolf. How about you?" Lucky grins at the psychic.
"Nice sword-work, To-to. I can handle a blade, but it's not my weapon of choice. Hammer, sansetsukon, or the traditional slingstaff. By the way, mates, don't be alarmed if I catch fire in a fight. It's only the flames of Hell that I'm bringing to sinners." Lucky's face is stern and his expression deadly serious. "Wasn't my choice. Devil nuns of Isger poisoned my blood. I hope to purge the infernal filth one day."
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Looking at Barrabas you'd think he a human. If you watch long enough you notice his features change occasionally, a nose to a snout, legs change shape, teeth grow to husks. Most of the chance is subtle and small but has potential for more permanence. He is mostly clad in a simple chain shirt and a small bag for a few items.
Barrabas rummages around his bag for a paper and something to mark with. I am Barrabas. I like to take notes.
Your boots squash with fetid water as you plod through the Puddles. A thick fog hangs in the air, seeming almost to caress the flesh with an unnatural chill. As you stand outside the Soggy Piper in a foot and a half of brackish brine, you try to recall what was so important as to demand your presence in the half-flooded slum during Absalom’s rainy season. You remember your meeting at the Lodge just a few hours earlier with your Venture-Captain, Adril Hestram.
A bear of a man with only a few teeth remaining in his head, he motioned you into the meeting hall with a casual wave of his grizzled hand. The human captain outweighs most of Absalom’s half-orcs, and though a layer of beefy blubber coats his frame, those of you who have tangled with him in the Lodge sparring ring know that beneath this thin veneer of fat lies nothing but solid, steely sinew. Adril’s wild beard wags to the ponderous shake of his massive head as he examines a scrap of ancient parchment on the table before raising his eyes to greet your gaze and speaking:
“Come in then, friends, and thank you for answering my summons so swiftly. The society is in need. An old and quite penniless historian, a bespectacled wag-beard by the name of Yargos Gill has recently made a discovery in an old archive that we have a great interest in obtaining: an ancient codebook, left behind in the wake of one of Taldor’s many failed attempts at invasion. This several-hundred-year-old text would prove an excellent addition to our collection, and must be preserved. Yargos makes his home in ‘The Puddles,’ Absalom’s poorest district, suffering from a well-known reputation as a haven for lowlifes. Following an earthquake ten years ago, parts of the Puddles now rest below sea level, resulting in frequent and untimely flooding. Those who can afford not to live there—don’t. The district is the stomping ground of pimps, harlots, addicts, knifers, and hoards of unseemly derelicts. It’s never been a kind place, but recent reports reveal some new nameless terror on her waterlogged streets. Several persons claim to have seen cloaked, skeletal-like figures marching through an unnatural fog. Ill tidings indeed. Tracking down Yargos is now a priority—--lest some yellow-toothed thug cut him down, or one of these strange wraiths carry him beyond the pale. Find him, fellow Pathfinders, and find the codebook. Your exploits will be recorded in the Chronicles if you succeed.”
The memory fades as a fresh deluge of cold seawater rounds a bend in the lane and assaults your knees. After searching for Yargos at his favorite eatery, the Soggy Piper, you learned you just missed him. According to the Piper’s staff, a gang of dangerous young tattooed toughs arrived ahead of you. They grabbed Yargos and several of his friends from their dinner table and dragged them to a nearby cliff at the edge of the Puddle District. The watch was called, but they will arrive too late, as they often do in the Puddles, when they bother to venture there at all. It is early evening, the first Wealday of the month of Desnus, an old man is about to face some awful fate at the sea cliff known as Torsen’s Maw, and you are no closer to finding the codebook Adril sent you for.
Ponya snorts as he easily keeps pace, "I could say the same to you hotman, it'd be nice to get off these hooves for once."
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"Have we considered the possibility that he was abducted by Thuvian shadow agents because he ignored their plants' whispers that he should die and is on the cusp of discovering that he truly is immortal and thus ruining the alchemical cartel's chokehold on the market?" Joe wheezes as he brings up the rear.
Six brash young toughs covered with tattoos of vicious, snarling dogs are prodding four terrified older men off the edge of a cliff into the sea. The prisoners are shackled together in a line with heavy chains, which shall surely drag them to the sea floor in short order should they tumble from the cliff’s edge into the churning waters below.
Joe Public, To-to-obika, Kiyoko, Barabas, and Micah may act.
Ponya seems to have made up his mind, darting around the fray to suddenly turn and snap at one of their enemies with a freakishly long neck.
for
Kiyoko's strike slays orange, Barrabas slays purple, and Ponya removes red.
Two of the remaining three thugs are knocked unconscious by Joe Public's magic, and will stay that way for long enough to not be a problem any longer.
The one thug who remains flees in terror.
"Thank you so very much!" he exclaims. "Let me fill you in on what I know. Eight hundred years ago, a hidden armada of ships from Taldor floated off the coast of the Isle of Kortos like a thousand locusts, waiting for the signal to invade Absalom. The plan was simple, but deadly: When the misty weather of Desnus (May) took hold, a fifth column of infiltrators known as Black Echelon would weaken strategic defense points and destroy Absalom’s warning system from within. Once their bloody mayhem was complete, the hidden saboteurs planned to signal the fleet, welcoming them to lay siege to a city now brought to its knees. Prearranged signal lights were prepared for each phase of the offensive. A red flashing light was the sign for Black Echelon to poison Absalom’s granary. A violet light with three pulses was the signal for a prearranged team to destroy the city’s bell towers, and so on. But when the mists of Desnus descended, the prearranged signal lights never appeared. Unbeknownst to the hidden strike teams, the leaders of the Black Echelon infiltration cell were discovered and assassinated by brave heroes of Absalom. The signal lanterns lay dark, and the rest of Black Echelon sat idle. Several hours later, the fleet’s hiding place was discovered. A quick counterattack by Absalom’s navy ambushed the would-be invasion force and Taldor’s armada was destroyed to the last mast. In the coming weeks, Absalom’s constabulary rooted out the remaining hidden members of Black Echelon and put every last one to the sword."
"Now, the current problem: Prior to entering Absalom, each member of the Black Echelon cell swore an ancient oath, known as the Binding Word. Black Echelon pledged to fulfill their duties, no matter the barrier, no matter the cost. And as recent events have begun to demonstrate, in this case, the power of the Binding Word compels these deadly saboteurs from beyond the pale. Recently, I found a copy of the ancient codebook detailing the signals for the Silent Tide, and made the mistake of replicating them. Imagine my horror as I saw Black Echelon rise from the dead and begins to fulfill the tasks the spies swore to complete so very long ago. Even worse, the marines of the massive armada that now rest on the sea floor have also sworn the Binding Word. Once Black Echelon finishes its final task, the invasion force will rise and the Silent Tide will roll across the city, bringing death to all of Absalom. I tried to alert the city and avert disaster, but before I could hurl the codebook into the sea to abort the Silent Tide once and for all, a young crime lord named Nessian intervened. He intends to manipulate the undead operatives and take advantage of the disruption their sabotage wreaks. As the bearer of the codebook, Nessian alone knows the lantern signal to abort. The codebook is his chance to blackmail the populace as he wishes and finally secure his place in Absalom’s underworld."
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"So... you decided to experiment with the codebook and now the whole city faces death and destruction. Yeah, great job there mate.
Now, you said you were going to abort the Silent Tide by throwing the codebook into the sea. Any reason that won't work now?
And most importantly, where do we find Nessian?"
Lucky shakes his head, shocked but not surprised at the recklessness of the old scholar.
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"Oh dear, I think you just confessed to causing danger with recklessness, at least, and if the prosecutor is mean then he could plausibly press indictment for treason. So if you help us find this codebook and lord Nessian *before* any loss of life, then I see your charges would be dropped completely in best case or at least your sentence mitigated." To-to-obika explains to Yargos
"Someone will need to activate the abort code."
He looks properly chastened, and waits for you to decide what to do next.
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If their contact they fought and killed to save is useless, Micah will shrug it off.
"Well, if you can't help us we still won't give up, many lives are on the line. I'd suggest you all make yourself scarce in case we fail." He turns to his allies, "Let's go dig around town for more information. Someone ALWAYS knows something."
"You didn't ask how to find Nessian; you were too busy worrying about blame to try to solve the problem. I'm not sure where Nessian is, but Grandmaster Torch usually can provide information if you are willing to pay his price."
One of the thugs, who you wake up, says that Nessian is usually in the Puddles district.
I need a perception check from each of you, please. Because of its importance, I'll let you roll it yourselves.