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"I would love to learn more about your culture. We Pathfinders come from a diverse group," Bedisa gestures. [/b]"Each of us brings different experiences to the table."[/b]
Bedisa decides to tell a bit about herself, hoping to draw more out of him. "Me? I'm just a humble half-orc. When I was young, I started hearing voices. At first, I could make no sense of it. I thought I was crazy. But as I aged, the voices became clearer. My ancestors were talking to me. Some voices would ramble on and on making no sense. But others were firm and direct. I learned to work with these spirits. They have taught me many things.". Bedisa holds her sword aloft. "Everything has a spirit inside of it. This longsword here included. I can feel the life and energy it gives off.". She closes her eyes to soak in the spirits around her.
Bedisa opens her eyes. "We would love to learn more about you and where you come from."
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"Our ancestors are extremely important, Bedisa. I am glad you understand and have a connection to yours" he smiles as he looks to her.
"I wonder if there are spirits in my grandmother's ittho bread. It was certainly delicious and made with the finest honey. She used her own bees and fed them from blossoms of the Western Colonies...oh pardon me for getting nostalgic around this time. Peacock's Dusk reminds me I need to take my boys to visit the Western Colonies so they can see the cities their little-folk nannies people built long ago. At least we can look up at the same red planet." he talks wistfully about his family for some time before a thoughtful pause.
“My wife is always trying to tie my chiton like an imperator, not like a general. See how it goes over, around, then under? I ask if she wants her husband flogged, and she just says she’d rather have her husband sit on the senate. Not a… not a subtle lady. Gods, I miss Vanaschen. I know, I know—am I crazy to have married a woman of the Eastern Colonies? I thought mother was mad when she arranged the marriage. I shouted out the garden blessing, I was so damn mad. But I suppose we’re all like that at that age. Once my whiskers came in and I stopped thinking of myself, I saw her for who she was: this fiery, passionate woman who didn’t need any of my excuses. Her father and my mother still argue over whose family officially joined whose—if we’re still Azlanti or perhaps tainted by Kellid blood. I swear Vanaschen would conquer both peoples just to quiet them, if she didn’t find it so damn funny. The way she pushes me to step up into mother’s senate seat, I think we’re still Azlanti.”
He continues for some time talking about his family and the lands they were from till the topic was thoroughly exhausted.
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"What was your name?" he says looking down a bit at Derkhan, but he does take the opportunity to talk on more serious matters when he is prodded...almost as if complaining.
"You wonder why I miss my wife and kids...it isn't just the distance that keeps us apart. We married to help avert a war. The dissent in the colonies is always growing, that is the only thing Imperator Emalliandra was right about. Better than her father even when drunk! Who cares if his great-great-great-something or another gave us ioun stones and water itself...he was still a damn headstrong fool who wanted to raise mankind to godhood. What would we do if we were all gods?" he raises his voice as a vein pops out on his forehead.
He lets out a deep sigh...
"Lost a brother to the Silent Servitors too. Urterre ran coded messages to the colonies but one trip he was lost at sea for weeks. It changed him...he spoke like a half-mad man at that point. Still, when I found him with a dagger still warm in his back he gave me a message before he died. [i]'Minister Erodel wears the veil. Amaznen save the senate'[i]. I still wonder what it meant."
Apparently Krahnaliara Lac Suhn has been bottling up many topics which he speaks freely on to strangers.
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A crack of thunder and the tang of ozone cut through the complex. The figures before you, and indeed the walls, the floor, even the air itself seem to crumble and fall away like glittering sands through an hourglass. Unfamiliar figures—their heavy, hooded robes embroidered with the symbol of a winged eye—stand about the field, their hands crackling with lightning. Dozens of Pathfinder spellcasters lie dead at their feet.
A gargantuan image of a woman appears and shimmers like a desert mirage. She has a regal bearing, but her features are lined as if by years of endless duty. “Arrogant Pathfinders! Your ridiculous Society spends fortunes and lives to reassemble a treasure that turns time itself like the pages of a book—a key that could undo all the misery and suffering our world now knows—and you use it for this? Poking at snakes and playing at heroism? Golarion knew a true hero once! Our Lord Aroden—who raised the Starstone from the sea and imprisoned the undead tyrant Tar-Baphon—could already walk the world again were it not for your petty games and delays. Every death in your hours of playtime now hangs as a weight around your collective necks, you spoiled children.
“I am Lady Arodeth, and on behalf of the Harbingers of Fate and the God of Mankind himself, I have seized your Sky Key. Its defenders threw their lives away trying to stop compassion and destiny from returning to this world. I advise you not to throw your own lives away attempting to do the same.
“Behold the return of the Last Azlanti! Behold Aroden!”
The robed Heralds begin casting, and arcs of lightning leap to the rods made of skymetal. A deep thrum from somewhere below reverberates with chest-tightening force, then the earth begins to heave and quake. Emerald green miasma lashes out, snaking back along the arcs of arcane lightning and infecting hooded casters throughout the crowd. Your body—or perhaps the whole world—crumbles to dust and you hear a distant scream of “She’s overloaded it!”
And just as swiftly, the world is whole again, but in place of a flower-speckled field stands the sprawling marketplace of a small city. Ivory-white buildings and columns feature reliefs and endless statuary all depicting physically perfect human specimens in poses of glory over serpentfolk. A chiton-clad crowd of gawkers stares, both at you and at the roiling dome of green light that encompasses nearly a square mile of territory, beyond which this strange city stretches on.
Robed Heralds panic as they sprint beyond the edges of the glistening dome, only to collapse just beyond its border. There they scream and writhe, their bones cracking as flesh and sinew age to dust in mere moments. Meanwhile, those unfortunates consumed by the green miasma scream and stagger, their features warping and bloating as if the power seeking refuge within them were too big for mere flesh to contain.
And high overhead, a looming stone glows with a light visible even in the growing light of dawn.
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The vision of Lac Suhn begins to slowly fade as the Ophidian Rectory starts to crumble. Your group is able to navigate the tunnels sloping downward to get close enough to ground level and avoid any serious damage as you crash into the earth.
You recognize the embroidered eye symbol as they holy insignia of Aroden, the vanished and dead god of humanity.
As the temporal bubble shifts away from the Sessegishoss, any equipment gathered within (like any remaining Potions of CMW) turn to dust. However, you feel some measure of rejuvenation as time begins to twist and turn again.
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The Pathfinders have a few scarce moments to realize the significance of the situation they have been thrust into.
The stone looming in the sky above is almost assuredly the star-stone asteroid that caused Earthfall.
The stone will likely impact within 2 hours judging by the height it is at. After Golarian will be plunged into a thousand years of darkness.
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The buildings surrounding you are of ancient Azlanti make meaning this is likely one of the cities that once existed on the Isle of Kortos.
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The citizens are at first shocked by the appearance of the cultists and Pathfinders, but they soon turn to anger after the chaos takes hold. Hostilities are likely to break out soon if the Pathfinders do not de-escalate the situation.
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The stone looming in the sky above is almost assuredly the star-stone asteroid that caused Earthfall.
The stone will likely impact within 2 hours judging by the height it is at. After Golarian will be plunged into a thousand years of darkness.
The crowd only yells louder as Voices attempts to reason with them, apprehensive of the scaled humanoid.
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"HOLY SHINIKEES THAT'S THE STAR-STONE THAT CAUSED EARTHFALL!!!"
"Uh so, I think I know where we are location wise. The buildings surrounding us are of ancient Azlanti make meaning this is likely one of the cities that once existed on the Isle of Kortos. This is not good."
He speaks calmly to the crowd, "Easy now, there is no reason to get crazy. We've got some really big magical anomalies happening. Take a breath and let's all figure this out together."
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The crowd starts to grow and swell around as Dexter attempts to help calm them down, yelling louder. Luckily, Bedisa steps forward and breaks through to a good portion of them. They start to disperse and talk amongst themselves as a familiar figure limps out from between two buildings. The weight of years seems to hang over Kreighton Shaine, the Pathfinder Society’s illustrious Master of Scrolls, his face more deeply lined than it was this morning.
“My apologies for not reaching you more quickly, but I have been quite distracted,” he pants. To the left and right across the ancient marketplace, other versions of Kreighton Shaine are speaking to other, equally bewildered Pathfinders. It seems redundant to say so at this point, but the Harbingers of Fate have seized control of the Sky Key, and we all appear to be trapped in what the Isle of Kortos used to be eons ago. The same sort of temporal bubble that brought the serpentfolk city of Sessegishoss to us now keeps our forces pinned down here. We are attempting to uncover the Sky Key Vault now. While the vault itself seems to be here in this time period, our entrance to it wasn’t projected back, and we’ve lost our bearings relative to its location in this new landscape. What’s more, I worry simply reclaiming the Sky Key will not be enough to allow our escape— that green surge we all witnessed seems to have invested many of the Harbingers with enough of the Sky Key’s energy to maintain our chronological exile.”
Shaine looks worriedly up at the sky. “We will need to work together to uncover the vault and cut the tethers that anchor this time period to the Harbingers’ spellcasters. We must do both so we can use the Sky Key to escape.” A crack of thunder sounds overhead as the dome of green light twists and arcs down to the surface with a thunderous crash, and strange, hairy beasts stride where it struck. “And we would be wise to move quickly.”
The image quickly hands out a single Potion of Cure Moderate Wounds to each Pathfinder and stays for a moment to answer any questions.
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The group says their farewells to the Master Shaine image before darting through the maze-like city streets towards the first green beacon of light, they notice that many of the courtyards share a design.
They finally arrive at the location of the first beacon, a sickeningly green pillar of light tears from the fountain and into the sky. The water churns and bubbles like a vat of acid.
Standing nearby, entranced by the spell they are maintaining, is a small man of Varisian blood. In front of him fluorescent green images of harrow cards float in formation.
"Aha, yes, everything is as it says! The Tower and the Reaper! A coming oblivions that looms over us all!" he exclaims before noticing the Pathfinders out of the corner of his eye. Rather than turn to them he continues his work while speaking further.
"What is it you have come here for? My readings haven't foretold this...perhaps you wish to take your chance with Binui Skostravalus? Have you ever played Towers?" he asks.
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The Rouge Rogue steps up, willing to try his hand at a game of Towers.
"Good good! Let me set the scene..." he says dealing out images of Harrow cards into the air, tapping them to flip various ones over.
After a few moments of learning the rules, Voices and Dexter make an extremely convincing diversion as even Binui looks away. Taking the moment of advantage TRR checks his cards to make the optimal play.
"What?! Oh yes...of course there is a messenger of doom hurtling towards us. That is obvious. Back to the game." he exclaims before being bested by the Kitsune.
He quickly waves a hand as the energy cards are pulled back into a runed deckbox. The beacon's energy begins to weaken before blinking out of existence.
"Something is off today...everything pointed towards me winning that game. I won't be taking anymore chances...I bid you all adieu." he says before disappearing in a cloud of oily green smoke.
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The group quickly makes for the next closest beam of light, this time the one standing near the beacon is more hardy and flanked by two elementals. Beneath the feet of the man is a sizeable hoard of trinkets and items from the various stalls throughout the city.
One of the elementals starts to crackle and point at the group.
"Halt, who are you lot? You don't look like Harbingers. My contract told me that I would just be maintaining the spell while others fought! Still if you press me...I finish my jobs." he says warning the newcomers.
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"Not much of a singer, but..." Derkhan shows empty hands, before revealing 10 platinum pieces, which he begins running across the back of his knuckles.
"100 gold might buy you a lot of entertainment. Call it recompense, for your polite and fair dealings with us, despite these...unusual circumstances."
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"Aye, the name is Romnus Vagarti. I come from a lineage of the Band of Blades...our loyalty wasn't for any true belief in this mess but it was good money with how fast they grew. My family have all been sword swingers but the arcane has more appeal to me." he says taking a seat on the pile of goods.
He shakes his head at Derkhan, "My fees are a bit too high for you it seems...if you doubled it I would have taken ya up on it easy! No worries though as things are turning south here....what say you let me take as much of this abandoned hoard as I can carry as I leave for good?" he asks the group with a shrug.
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Assuming the group lets Romnus take off with the items (which you know will likely turn to dust), you dash through the streets once more before nearly running into the next anchor sorceress.
Before you have the opportunity to speak to her, the dome crackles with fluorescent green lightning. The cacophony of thunder pauses before a bolt shoots down in front of you. Two azlanti skeletons step out of time distortions.
"It has succeeded! This is the true future, corrected. Even the magic of the world acts to protect a great sorceress as myself, Omandi Mil." she cackles assuming the time distortion to be of her doing, overcome with the temporal energy.
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N Medium celestial/fiendish animal
Init +2; Senses darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision, scent;Perception +8
DEFENSES
AC 13, touch 12, flat-footed 11 (+2 Dex, +1 natural)
hp 13 (2d8+4)
Fort +5, Ref +5, Will +1
SR 5
Fiendish - Resist Cold and Fire 5
OFFENSE
Speed 40 ft.
Melee bite +3 (1d6+3 plus trip)
Special Attacks Smite evil
STATISTICS
Str 15, Dex 15, Con 15, Int 2, Wis 12, Cha 6
Base Atk +1; CMB +3; CMD 15 (19 vs. trip)
Feats Skill Focus (Perception)
Skills Acrobatics +6 (+14 jumping), Perception +8, Survival +1 (+5 scent tracking); Racial Modifiers +4 Acrobatics when jumping, +4 Survival when tracking by scent
SPECIAL ABILITIES
Smite good 1/day as a swift action (adds CHA bonus (+0) to attack rolls and damage bonus equal to HD (+2) against evil/good foes; smite persists until target is dead or the celestial/fiendish creature rests).
Woof! The hounds latches onto the skeletons leg.
, if hits, and
But can't decide which leg to bite and misses both.
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The attacks of the summoned hound and Derkhan fail to connect with the skeletons.
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The purple garbed skeleton shambles up to Derkhan to swing in tandem with the skeleton with the orang cloak...
...the first misses but the second opens a wound across the halflings chest.
Omandi begins to cast spells upon herself.
"The world could always use more of me!" she says as extra images of the sorceress appear.
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Woof! The hounds latches onto the skeletons leg.
, if hits, and