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Stitch kicks the mimic right between the legs "Damned thing nearly destroyed Meat Wagon!" He curses "And not to mention Pal and Bella here." He adds in after the fact as he takes out his surgery tools "Who needs a new kidney? Transfusion? New nose maybe?" He looks Bella's way on the last question.
It takes him 20 minutes to get the heap started again, but once he does it roars out some stodgy black smoke and purrs like a fat alley cat once more.
"So, who else needs a tune up?"
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As you catch your breaths after the grueling fight, you hear another scream coming from the outside. Rushing outside, you find Solvatar all smiles as the carriages pull up to take you back to the Grand Lodge.
"Well done, fellow Pathfinders! You’ve defeated the threats assaulting my manor. At least, that’s how it appears. In case you haven’t gathered by now, this attack was staged. This manor is ritually warded in a manner akin to the arena that Farabellus had you fighting in earlier, so there was no risk that you or any of the mercenaries you fought today would come to lasting harm. I say this to set your mind at ease, but not to diminish the value of what you have accomplished here. Had this attack been real, you would have saved the lives of many of my staff, and for that, I am grateful. You acted swiftly when a seemingly safe situation turned awry. It goes without saying, of course, that I would ask you not to talk about this training program, especially about the last challenge and my role in it. Doing so would taint the exercise for the new group."
As you are about to board the carriage, the three deans emerge from the gatehouse, applauding.
"You acted very swiftly and decisively during the attack on the manor!"
"Very well done, especially during the Scrolls trial. You also get a passing mark."
"I applaud your innovative way of getting past my dragon. You will do well in your adventures."
As you board the carriage to take you back to the Grand Lodge, the door to the manor opens and the chair waddles out, heading for another building. The mimic looks to Finn and asks with what could be described as a wink. "So do you really want to keep that rapier of yours? It wasn't really very effective, you know. You make too much noise, by the way, and the smoke really gets into my eyes. I'll be spending days cleaning out my upholstery," it mutters to Meat Wagon.
The deans escort you back to the Grand Lodge for a formal debriefing. They, along with Ambrus Valsin confirm that you have passed your trials.
"Better get some rest. I'll be sending you on real missions soon enough!"
Thanks for playing!
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Bella looks at Steeltoe, a bit hesitant. "My sister would say my standards are too high, but I will take your offer, Mister Steeltoe."
"We should inform the masters at once about their guest. I wonder how many servants they snatched away."
Stitch holds his thumb up to Miss Bella's nose, trying to get a good read on just what sort of adjustments could, and SHOULD be made when another set of screams cuts his planning short. "Guess the rhinoplasty will have to wait, don't worry, I'll find some good noses to spruce yours up a bit girly!"
Roaring atop Meat Wagon outside Stitch is quickly into a bad mood "Just another training exercise? What a load of crap!" He drops his ride down into neutral and remains silent for the duration, except when the mimic comments about the smoke. Meat Wagon sends out a blast of smoke and fire from all sides in response.
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The chair is a collaborator?
The chair is a collaborator!
Bella's mind debates between propriety and curiosity. "Upholstery, is it like fashion? Are you embarrassed if you are caught undressed? What about wine stains?"
Bella's coach pulls away before she can get a response, but she's certain the chair made some kind of gesture she can't quite interpret. "Bah! My sister could tell me what that is." She harumphs onto her seat.
She checks her armor for blemishes to pass the time on the ride back. She picks at a piece of dirt the size of a pea, only for it to stretch. She picks off the piece of gelatinous goo and realizes this was part of the mimic - must have been left behind when it knocked her out.
A devilish grin forms across her face. "Perfect. The final ingredient."
As it turns out, your first 'real' mission assignment comes much sooner than you might've expected. It's only been a few days since finishing up the various Pathfinder trials that you're summoned to a spacious meeting room within the Grand Lodge. Three individuals, whom you all recognize, enter the spacious meeting room. These three are the deans of the Pathfinder Society. Kreighton Shaine, the elf Master of Scrolls; Sorrina Westyr, the oread Master of Spells; and Marcos Farabellus, the human Master of Swords.
Kreighton takes the empty seat at the head of the table, while Sorrina takes an adjacent seat to his side. Marcos half-jogs to join his colleagues, but after a few seconds of awkwardly trying to seat himself and his panoply of back-mounted weapons, he pushes his chair in and stands behind it with a wide, if apologetic, grin.
"Regrets for the sudden nature of this meeting. I’ll try to be brief," Kreighton begins. "One of our most enthusiastic Pathfinder initiates, a fungus leshy by the name of Rain in Cloudy Day, was recently approved for his Confirmation. In case you’ve forgotten, a Confirmation is a mission we send initiates on as a final test before recognizing them as full field agents. It was a mission to the nearby nation of Taldor to search for some ruins in a swamp near the city of Cassomir. Standard fare for a Pathfinder mission, but Rain hasn’t reported back, and it’s been a week since his expected check-in."
Sorrina Westyr extends a hand. "This is where you come in. Even though Rain in Cloudy Day is still an initiate, the Pathfinder Society doesn’t leave its own behind. Us three masters have agreed that a special exception is necessary. For those of you who haven’t finished your own Confirmation, we’re willing to offer each of you a place in a group Confirmation. We’ll provide a stipend of gold for you to book your passage to Cassomir, and from there, you’ll need to find out what happened to Rain." The Master of Swords, Marcos Farabellus, chimes in with a chuckle. "Exactly what my associates have just said. Find a boat, head to Cassomir, enjoy a bit of the city’s livelier elements, and then head into the swamps to find our missing initiate. Of course, if you find little Rain alive and well...then you can really prove yourselves by helping him discover those ruins and finish his own Confirmation!"
"Oh...and I'm afraid Miss Rosemont won't be joining you," Kreighton adds, almost as an afterthought. "Her particular talents are needed elsewhere for a time, but she did send her regards and hopes to rejoin your little team after your respective assignments are complete."
"Oh wow. Swamps. My fur is going to be soaked. Definitely will need a bath when I return." Khiari writes more notes into her journal, pacing around a seated Bella.
The ritual was a success. Bella and Khiari found fetishes that linked the First World with Bella's, and they were able to call to each other. Oh, the reunion was glorious. Khiari can now exist outside the castle, and Bella can explore beyond the Glade.
There are a few catches. They have to stick together or the visitor snaps back to their homeland. If one person is hurt, both feel pain. A glowing purple rose pulses upon their torsos.
And of course, the infighting.
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"We'll need plenty of soap, then." Bella sits prim and proper, fighting back her grin. Khiari replies by "accidentally" kicking her chair, but Bella corrects herself. "The last time I hit a chair it knocked me in the face. You may have hurt its sibling." Now the grin is on full display.
Master Farabellus clears his throat and the two finally fall quiet.
Bella continues. "So, we are to locate this leshy and complete his mission? We would be honored to help." She pauses. "Is there anything we should know about these swamps?"
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These three again? When do we get out from under their thumb already? Stitch brushes off some dirt from his bony elbows, left over from all the repairs he needed to make to Meat Wagon after that chair clobbered him.
"Hold up, so you're saying we need to spend a few days enjoying ourselves in Cassomir as part of the trip? What's the catch... you guys never send us to do anything fun outside Absalom..."
To be sure, besides some night time tinkering in the alley behind the Grand Lodge, Stitch has been up to his dirty elbows in medical classes. While this place was way too restrictive to Stitch's interests, it does have a world class library and all the free instructors you could ever hope for.
"So party it up, get a ship, hunt down the free willed fungus. Sounds like a nice change of pace, just make sure to keep the coin purse heavy, Meat Wagon ain't cheap on fuel to run."
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A cheerful tengu sticks his beak into the room and sees his old friends, Bella and Stitch around a table. He bounds into the room with a delighted squawk.
"Aha! Bella! Stitch! Didya miss me?!"
He sees someone else in the room. Wondering who it might be, he heads over and stares at her with inquisitive avian eyes.
"And who might you be? I'm Roark! Roark Thunderbird!" he introduces himself exuberantly.
He also looks around, as if trying to find something. "Has Mister Midnight come back yet?"
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Nicole, stills looking at Master Kreighton into a daydream, is snapped back into the reality of the mission at hand, thanks to the energetic introduction of Roark. She then looks around and finds an unfamiliar face next to Bella. She approaches Bella and whispers into her ear. "Miss Bella, who is she? Do you happen to know her?" she asks.
"So, we are to locate this leshy and complete his mission? We would be honored to help." She pauses. "Is there anything we should know about these swamps?"
"It surrounds Cassomir on all landward sides," Kreighton answers. "It’s a rotting marshland that’s filled with dense overgrowth, quicksand, giant carnivorous plants, monsters, and all sorts of other lovely things. The perfect place for Pathfinders to prove themselves!"
"Aaand it's another story." Khiari grins and scribbles another note before turning to Nicole.
"I'm Khiari. Bella's sister. Uh... the other Lady Sidare." She bows a bit, just low enough to show her goat horns. "We're twins."
"I am seven seconds older." Bella interrupts. "My apologies for taking so long to introduce her. But she is bound to the First World and I am bound to this one."
Khiari rolls her eyes. "Thanks for the correction, sis. But yeah. Outside our home, we can't meet. So we found a workaround." She points to the pulsing purple rose on her furry torso. "Pleased to meet you."
She turns to Roark. "Oh, my sister told me all about you! You must be Mister Thunderbeak!" She gives a sly grin as Bella turns red from embarrassment. "Bella wrote the wrong name, Mister Thunderbird. She fixed it later but..." She chuckles.
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Stitch looks up as the noisy bird makes his entrance "Roark's back, louder than ever." He mutters something unintelligible before giving a welcome head nod. He does listen a bit more intently as Khiari and Bella explain their situation to the group.
"First world? Huh, and here I thought all that stuff about your sister in the mirror was just crazy talk. Guess you showed me!" He introduces himself to the younger siblings, trying to figure out just what kind of baby factory was able to pump out twins with only seven seconds between them. Must have been like a daisy chain.. or maybe slightly conjoined? I'll take a look next time she gets KO'd.
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Nicole's jaw drops, like literally. She squeals in excitement to see Bella's twin, not minding the three masters with them. "Oh my! So it is you that Miss Bella is talking about?! It is nice to meet you in person at last! How I wish I have a sister too!" she squeals again with some jumping actions, however you describe it. She quickly behaves herself when she realizes that the three masters are still with them. "I'm sorry, just got excited for today's unexpected meeting." she apologizes to them.
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Walking in, Finn's deep concentration on his magnifying glass causes him to nearly fall over Stitch. He laughs nervously, remembering that one time with the bacon. "Ah! I see the pals are all back together for another adventure, eh? And looking stronger than ever."
Eyeing Shaine up and down, Finn scoffs. "Isn't this the guy who thought he could confuse the Great Detective Finn Gumshoe -- and pals -- with some thoughtless amulet mission? We sure showed him!"
"Good to see ya, Roark!"
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"It seems we're being ignored," Sorrina muses as she observes the group's spirited meetings and remeetings, her lips twitching as she tries to keep from smiling. Marcos nods in agreement, still grinning. "Ah, let 'em chat for a minute. It does my spirits good to see such a young group already getting along this well!" Kreighton simply shakes his head and makes a big show of rolling his eyes skyward...though anyone watching gets the feeling that he's just as amused as the other two.
After allowing the group a few minutes to get acquainted and re-acquainted, Kreighton sudden claps his hands together to get everyone's attention.
"WELL THEN! We won't keep you further but before you go, I should share the details of Rain in Cloudy Day's confirmation as well as the itinerary he planned as the information will surely prove useful in tracking him down."
The elf pauses for a moment to make sure that at least one of you is actually listening and then continues.
"Rain uncovered evidence of ruins in Taldor's Blackwood Swamp, just north of Cassomir, that may date back to the time of the ancient Azlanti Empire. The Azlanti civilization effectively ended when a swarm of meteors descended on our planet in an event known as Earthfall. These ruins were likely built by Azlanti who survived the event, and are possibly 6,000 years old, or older."
"We know that he chartered a vessel from here to the Taldan port city of Cassomir. He was to check in at the Three-Legged Frog, an inn in the city’s Imperial Naval Shipyards district. From there, he was going to have a guide lead him into the adjacent Blackwood Swamp to start searching for the ruins. And as we've already explained, we haven't heard word from him since he left Absalom."
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Stitch hops down from his perch atop Meat Wagon, takes a few steps back and holds an extra long cigar out towards his creation "Lighter."
On command Meat Wagon belches out a roar of flames before an obvious malfunction dulls the impressive show. "Friggin' cheap wire harness. Don't they use heat resistant fasteners around here?" He takes a couple puffs on his now lit cigar.
"Someone right down those buzz words on Meat's flank while I fix that wiring." He crawls underneath and gets to work.
"Dancing? Well, Bella's a better dancer than I, I stick to more reporting and storytelling."
"But what kind of faun would I be if I couldn't prance?" She hops, skips and clicks her hooves in a lively rhythm.
"Well Nicole, I can't be your sister- I only have room for one. But I'll certainly be your friend. You saved my sis so many times."
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Bella lets Khiari handle the introductions and focuses on the masters. She still needs to curry favor. "Sounds like we should travel to the Three-Legged Frog. Maybe I'll ask Mister Steeltoe if he can reattach the missing leg."
Bella stands up and makes a mental note to get a minor healing potion from the Pathfinder Society store. "We will complete our task to your highest levels of satisfaction."
Meanwhile, her foot animates on its own and taps to match Khiari's hooves.
You know that though Cassomir is the second-largest city in Taldor, its people mostly live in squalor. With widespread poverty, the port city also faces a major crime problem. Con artists or desperate citizens seeking to eke out another few weeks of living often take advantage of foreigners who don’t realize how desperate things are within the city.
Before you head out to the docks, Kreighton passes out small bags to each of you that contain 6 gold pieces apiece. "A little stipend of sorts, but with one stipulation - use this *only* for booking your passage to Cassomir and acquiring information about where Rain in Cloudy Day might've gotten off to. No using your own personal gold! Part of your own mission is to (hopefully) succeed at those two endeavors using only Society-provided funds."
"Now that's only for the trip out there," Marcos chimes in. "We've already got a boat chartered for you for the return trip from Cassomir, so no need to worry about that part of it. Oh and here's a little something else if you need it." As he speaks, he produces an everburning torch and slides it across the table to you. Sorrina also reaches into a pouch and produces two minor healing potions while Kreighton adds a single wayfinder to the pile. "Normally these are reserved for fully recognized Pathfinder agents but you might need it as proof of your allegiance to the Society as well as out in the wilds."
As Kreighton speaks, Marcos goes back to rummaging around in his pack and then suddenly - "Think fast!" He lobs two more vials across the table at the group!
Meat Wagon rumbles ahead to catch the flasks in the heavily soiled driver's chair.
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Stitch scrambles out from underneath the chassis "Hope those things are filled with something fun.. liquid frost to keep the beer cold maybe?" He grins.
"Oh, just so you know, I've heard of this Cassomir place before. I may or may not have worked there in a past life doing perfectly LEGAL things." He wipes grease off his hands and onto his face and overalls.
"Cassomir is the second-largest city in Taldor, its people mostly live in squalor. With widespread poverty, the port city also faces a major crime problem. Con artists or desperate citizens seeking to eke out another few weeks of living often take advantage of foreigners who don’t realize how desperate things are within the city. So keep your purses held tight and avoid the back alleys."
"Oh, this is Stitch. And this is... Meat Wagon?" Khiari frowns for a moment. "Sounds like a new city with its own story. Sis, watch your purse."
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Not sure how Pal can sniff out anything but his last meal through that soup strainer over his lip there.. "We all better keep eyes and ears open, some little sneak tries running off with my coins I'll have Meat mow their lawn extra short!"
He smiles and offers a grimy handshake to Khiari "Stitch Steeltoe, master inventor and emergency surgeon. Ever think about getting those horns clipped off? Or some feet instead of hooves? Lemme know, I can make it happen."
Khiari bristles when Stitch mentions his services. "Ah, no, that will be fine. But uh, thank you for the offer." She shakes his hand, keeping an eye on his other hand. Maybe Meat Wagon will sprout a pair of clippers and go after her horns!
There's a bit of a scramble for the vials as Marcos tosses them to you and they bounce from hand to hand until safely landing in the driver's seat of Meat Wagon. "Hah! That thing's quick, for a construct," laughs the Master of Swords. Inspection of the contents reveal them to be two lesser antidotes.
After Stitch mentions Cassomir's crime problem both he and Finn try to recall if they might know anything more specific about the city's criminal element, but aren't able to come up with anything. Having covered everything you can think of to cover, the group takes their leave from the Grand Lodge and heads down to the Docks District. Though you've been left to make your own travel arrangements there are plenty of notices and criers at the Docks, all informing crowds of open spaces onboard vessels set to travel across the Inner Sea region and beyond. Surely it won't take too long to find a suitable ship!
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"Crime is a symptom of unfortunate circumstance." Bella steps onto the docks, prim and proper. "Given a reminder of the merits of good society and the generosity of those fortunate, I am certain they will see the error of their ways."
Bella presents herself as a trustworthy figure, and manages to get a few legitimate recommendations on sailing ships. Or maybe she thinks she's rich.
Khiari takes lots of notes, asking the dockworkers about their habits and jobs, flirting with a few of them before Bella yanks her away.
As it turns out, finding good information about ships heading to Cassomir is more challenging than you initially expected. Roark's swaggering demeanor comes across as off-putting, Finn's intense staring is creepy, and poor Nicole is too shy and quiet to make herself heard about the noise of the crowds going about their business.
Luckily Bella, blessed with the gift of gab, has better luck with her polite and straight-forward approach. When you all reconvene two hours later, she has quite a few details on three potential ships:
First is the Mimosa with a ticket cost of 5 gold per person. The Mimosa, its polished whitewood hull glinting with golden filigree, is a powerful and speedy sailing vessel originally constructed in the dockyards of Detmer in the nation of Druma. It is captained by Javinda, a chatty Kellid who is well-known for catering to her passengers' every need.
Next is the Powerful Hector, a large wooden barge named after the father of its current captain, Eduard Tabrin. Its more basic amenities, including three square meals a day and shared cabins, is reflected by the ticket cost of 2.5 gold per person. That said, you know that barges aren't always the swiftest of vessels.
Last is the Opportune which is a rather rickety-looking vessel of questionable quality, its hull dotted with scrap metal and wood - signs of patchwork repairs. Captain Oderon Payne proudly advertises the lower costs of travel - 1 gold per person - on his vessel and boasts of its speed. Unfortunately, the amenities leave something to be desired - 'usually' two meals a day and a single large communal space serves as quarters for all of the ship's passengers.
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Finn listens closely to the breakdown of the potential ships, but his eyes widen at the idea of the last one. "It might look and sound shoddy, but I say it has charm. Rather save our coin for a few beers after the trip. No need for extravagance! We ought to see about taking the Opportune."
"Now you're talking Pal, if you always start at the top you'll never learn to climb." Stitch adds in an unexpected bit of wisdom. He may be old, greasy, and a bit crass, but the Dwarf has seen some things.
"So long as it can fit in Meat then I'm game. If something needs a bit of work on the ride I'm sure I can fix it."
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Seeing Bella as her role model ever since, just shy to admit it, she agrees to whatever Bella decides. What could go wrong anyway?
"I'm okay with Opportune, we could save a lot from it. If we reach Cassomir fast enough, we will have enough time to find Rain. I just wonder if the ship's really that fast given the repairs it had."