Iocopo brings up mage armor.
Toral begins summoning.
The books fly away from the sudden fire and towards Igor.
Kn: Arcana once you can see it to identify it.
Bolded may act.
Round 3:
Grelthe
Ela -6
Toral
Round 4:
Igor
Iacopo
Elris -9
Paper Cuts 40 damage
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Grelthe continues moving as fast as her heavy armor will allow her to... finally breaking out into the hallway where she can see the thing... but she didn't train in magical knowledge, so she has no idea what the swirl of pages she's looking at actually is.
She "yells" (not trying to make more sound than the combat is already making) and waves her arms trying to get the books to fly towards her instead.
N Tiny construct (swarm)
Weaknesses vulnerable to fire
Special attacks bleed (1d6), distraction (DC 14)
You would also realize bludgeoning, force, or sonic damage would be less noticeable than other forms of attack.
Just looking at it, fire seems effective as well. Certainly is a lot of smoke and ash.
Elris heals a little more as he strides towards the flying books.
Grelthe and Iacopo make it into the hall where they can finally see what is happening.
Kn: Arcana once you can see it to identify it.
Bolded may act.
Round 2:
Grelthe
Ela -6
Toral
Round 3:
Igor
Iacopo
Elris -5
Paper Cuts 40 damage
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Igor whips another fiery projectile straight at the swarm this time. Unless this destroys the creature outright he runs into the room for safety.
Assuming that this is a miss. 1 square drift.
The vial explodes all over the northern wall splashing the book monster with fire and smoke!
7 points of fire splash damage to the swarm or 3 with a DC 16 Reflex save.
Although not a direct hit, it is enough to end the threat of the flying books. The last of them flutter to the ground, slowly turning to ash.
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Grelthe's jaw drops open as she sees the books first into flame and drop to the ground as ash. She appears angry, and asks what happened?
First, she gets very quiet and listens to see if she can hear anyone reacting to their combat sounds.
Then (assuming she doesn't hear anything) she grumbles to herself something about messing up her first mission, and tries to tidy up the ash as best she can without a broom. She looks thoughtful as she says "Hey, I bet there's a broom in the caretaker room... we still have those stealthy potions Muesello gave us... anyone want to try?
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Igor grins at the Paladin's idea that a broom can clean up the mess of fire and brimstone left in the wake of two castings of Burning Hands and a bevy of vials of alchemical weapons thrown about.
"You are joking right? Those burn marks are never coming out."
As he speaks to Greithe he pulls out a pearl and recovers his casting of Burning Hands.
"Ah, much better. That spell comes in handy from time to time."
"We need to get back to work. I can hear the performance progressing as we speak."
(Igor has been tracking time with the casting of his Light spell. How many 30 minute intervals have we expended so far?)
Grelthe doesn't hear anything past the faint sounds of the performance. The performance must be loud for you to hear it even down here.
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Elris stares silently at the mess for a moment...he shakes his head, "I hope those pages weren't of great importance but I have no means of restoring them or cleaning this mess."
At the mention of checking the Caretaker's room, "I would prefer to get back to work and accompany those who were in the hidden chamber, if Igor's dagger is still alight then we have some time yet. That was only the second time you have had to enchant it, yes?"
He pulls out a wand to heal their wounds before departing for the hidden chamber. It is clear his frustration at the difficulty of stealth missions is putting him on edge.
You all go back to your respective research. There are no further attacks by the books you are researching.
Just before the music reaches it's peak, Igor replenishes the light spell on his dagger.
In B9 you find three things that look interesting, but one of them is damaged. Unless you find a way to restore the books that attacked you, you don't think there is any more information to be found there.
In B11 you find only a single book on the topics you are interested in. The filing cabinets in this room house dossiers on Lion Blade agents past and present. To do a thorough examination would take weeks, but even a cursory search shows that Taldor has spies in nearly every nation in the Inner Sea region and numerous nations that lie beyond.
You think there is more to be found here.
You also have the secret door and lion statuettes in here.
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Assuming Grelthe shared the information when I joined their search in the room, Elris will start searching for a clue among the plaques for the fourth statue.
"So we need to place these statues into the slots? I think I understand the reading lion to be our first statue and the lion pulling the yoke to be the third. The other two confuse me somewhat." he talks to Grelthe as he looks for more plaques to read.
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"Try to leverage some of those clues to finish that room up quickly. This might be a terrible idea but my curiosity to what is inside the keeper's office is getting the best of me. Unless the librarian sends more swarms of books at me...perhaps I can ask for their help." he says looking towards the door at the end of the hallway, still unsure himself but if no one stops him he will attempt to slowly open the door.
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"So we need to place these statues into the slots? I think I understand the reading lion to be our first statue and the lion pulling the yoke to be the third. The other two confuse me somewhat." he talks to Grelthe as he looks for more plaques to read.
Grelthe shakes her head at Elris as if confused. "What do you mean first and third? Please be more specific which virtues you think each represents.
The crouching lion could represent sublety, or cunning, as in 'A cunning lie is never told twice.' "
She points to the first statue that crouches as if preparing to ambush its prey.
She skips the second for now to point to the third statue, which wears a yoke that is chained to a large block that the lion strains to pull. "I think this one could represent tenacity, or in other words perserverance - 'Persevere, Persevere, Persevere' "
She looks confused for a moment. " 'To serve Taldor, I must first learn the history of Taldor.' That could be either the fourth statue" (points to a lion wearing a tiny pair of spectacles and reading from an ornate scroll) "or the fifth" (points to the lion draped in the flag of Taldor). She looks thougthful. "It depends if the important part of that sentence is 'history' or 'Taldor.' I'm not sure 'Taldor' is a virtue though. Nationalism, maybe. But that's not in any of the quotes we have."
So if we assume it's the one with the book, then that leaves aggression" (points to the second roaring statue that is leaping at prey), "Royalty" (points to the sixth statue sitting erect and wearing a crown), "and Nationalism" (points to the one with the flag again).
"We only found 3 plaques, but the weird art in the hallway said "Our monarch’s virtues are our own.” so if I had to guess the last one, I would think maybe the one with the crown? Or we can check the caretaker's room. So those are my guesses, but I don't know if they are correct or not." Grelthe shrugs, having said her opinions she will leave it to the group to decide what to do about the rest.
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If Elris looks like he is heading to the caretaker's room without everyone else, Grelthe will remind him about the sneaky potions they got from the Pathfinder VC. "Although the boat 'being unnoticed' might have already sailed due to the fight...
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"Oh my apologies...it is all a bit jumbled in here. Yes, I was thinking the one reading the scroll was learning the history and the one pulling the yoke was indeed persevering. The cunning one had me stumped but you seem to have it."
He stops as Iacopo joins in the puzzling, "Well, we have a 1 in 3 chance to get the last statue right. I don't think it would be the aggressive one. The crown or the tabard...the tabard represents Taldor as a whole. Shall we give it a shot. I won't wander off if so."
It takes 5 minutes for Ela, Toral and Igor to find one more clue in B8. They believe that is all there is to be found there.
It takes 5 minutes for Grelthe, Elris and Iacopo to find one more clue in B11. They also believe that is all there is to be found there.
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When they agree that they have found all their clues for this room, Elris begins placing the statues.
"Let us get this out of the way, shall we?" he says moving around the room.
"First it learns history." he says lifting the lion with glasses in to the first slot.
"Cunning lies are never told twice." he says moving the crouching lion next.
"Persevere, Persevere, Persevere...oof tell me about it." he groans after the third lion pulling the yoke is in place.
"And now for some luck. It ain't the angry one and that painting mentioned the monarch...but these have all been on plaques. The proud lion it is!" he nods, saying a prayer and making his decision to place the lion wearing the tabard into the last slot.
Once in place he quickly grabs his own shield to hopefully protect him from whatever painful trap he triggered.
The secret door behind the lion opens revealing a new room. It does not appear any traps nor alarms have been activated.
Chests of expert craftsmanship line the walls, and on the far side of the room stand two bookshelves burdened with yellow- paged tomes and sundry ancient trinkets. Banners and tapestries cover nearly every inch of the walls, each representing long- dead nations or depicting conflicts left not chronicled.
After six minutes of searching, you find two items that look extremely interesting.
One of them is a scroll titled Lines of Succession. It details the rules of succession through the history of Taldor, helpfully noting times when the nation chose an heir in a way that was an exception to the normal rules. It certainly looks like the sort of information your sponsor wanted!
The other one is a thin journal detailing the origins of Tar-Baphon and analyzes what the author knew of his necromantic techniques fro the perspective of a scholar searching for a weak spot in the Whispering Tyrant's defenses.
I didn't think anyone was of this faction. Please verify the information you gave me in discussion.
There is a faction specific boon for this faction.
The group also discovers a heavy bronze shield decorated with a lion's head in the same style as the Guardian's. It doesn't appear overly valuable in comparison to the other items here, they must have had some other reason for storing it in this secret chamber.
You think you have found everything pertaining to your assigned task here.
Toral is about half-way through his checking in B10.
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"Fantastic finds and we made quick work of it!" Elris says putting his own shield on his back before picking up the new one. He examines it with a smile.
"Perhaps this is exactly what Glorymane had in mind. We should help Toral finish his research but I would like to head directly to the guardian in case his ritual takes some time." Elris says leading their way back through the previous rooms. He holds up the shield and smiles as he passes Toral then continues to Glorymane.
He takes it in both hands and presents it before the guardian, "Is this fitting to receive part of your essence, Glorymane?"