GM Top's Dungeon Delver's (Inactive)

Game Master Pete H.

The Paladin moves to the knocked out guards and tries to start lugging them into the room with the demonic corpse.

Kaztor easily drags the three guards into the room. They are still unconscious.

Dran will inspect the demon to make sure it is not regenerating and if not totally sure it is dead he will stab it again. He also retrieves his greatsword, kissing the pommel before sheathing it. Brandishing a wand of Cure Light Wounds he asks Shall I wake the guards?

"Don't waste charges. I'll do it."

He moves to each and uses the healing hex on them.

CLW: 1d8 + 3 ⇒ (2) + 3 = 5
CLW: 1d8 + 3 ⇒ (5) + 3 = 8
CLW: 1d8 + 3 ⇒ (2) + 3 = 5

Ander watches as the others bring the guards in.

I can wake them...just have to put a bunch o' powder in with no slug...makes a great loud poof.... he says with a grin as he chews a chunk of jerky.

One at a time Grunigon. Lets hope they can now see what has gone on and respond more reasonably.

”Yeah, just one awake at first. Last thing I want to do is have to bash them unconscious again! I’m probably just this close to needing an atonement anyway!”

"Smelling salts would help. Common alchemical item. No, I don't have any.

Anyway yes, let's wake the guards, but one at a time."

One guard wakes up, untied, but weaponless. They cower, expecting to be murdered.

"Hey! Take a look around. Your 'Dakang' was a worm-demon, see?

Sorry we beat you up. We'd have preferred not to have to do it. But, well. "

Never one for polite chit-chat, Halali just points at the carnage in the priest's quarters.

Diplomacy 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (12) + 6 = 18

”Okay, let’s try this again. It’s like I said earlier, this high priest you all have been following is actually a demon, or was a demon, I mean. We aren’t here to smite innocent good people who got duped, but it is important you don’t think too ill of us. We weren’t lying. Look at the corpse for yourself. And your friends will all be okay too. They are just knocked out as well…”

Dran tries to help Kazor with a heartfelt Yeh.

Diplo Assist: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (19) + 3 = 22

He looks pretty skeptical at the evidence. The room is quite bloody. He seems to be considering things though.

He points to the four zombies, ”What about those?”

We can continue to RP how you all convince the temple and such, but mechanically you have succeed in that by killing and exposing the demon. What next?

Smelling salts? Wait...i might be able to make them...gimme a few... Ander sets about trying to make some.

craft alchemy: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (17) + 7 = 24
lol...one off...

Nope...missing some stuff...anyhoo...I figger the demon worm thingy made these critters...best guess anyways... Ander says as he takes another chew of jerky. Jerky? he offers some to the aasimar guard, holding out his waxed bag of dried meat.

Sorry but I’m on the run this morning. IIRC, there were four things WWE were assigned to achieve by the VC. We need to wrap those up.

"Listen, I know I look like I enjoy messing with the undead. But it's just the spirits of long-dead dwarven heroes who I channel. Zombies are just gross."

Grunigon looks at the man, and the zombies, and shrugs. "Zombies? Undead serve evil. Wasn't that in your first class of serving a Good Deity?"

Grunigon continues with his healing hex, healing and waking up the others. "The fake priest was demon possessed. Heck, he was a demon! We beat him. Now we're healing you. Does that sound like we are evil? If so you've got a harder head than any dwarf I've ever talked to!"

The zombies are down right? If not Grunigon goes over and touches each of them with his healing hex.

Aye..if were evil, there'd be a hole right between yer eyeballs...and ye'd be dead...so...yeah...

”Well, there certainly seems to be a fair bit of evidence adding up that the priest was controlled by this parasite thing. I still think there could have been a much better way to go about exposing him though, fighting shouldn’t have been one of the primary choices.”

What next?

"If only we were allowed to confront him peacefully, possibly while all his followers were gathered..."

”Weve accomplished some of what we were sent here to do. Weve found the meditation room and documented any techniques, weve viewed the garden’s layout. We still need to find a way to catalogue the library and still need to locate the crypt and get rubbings of the sarcophagi.”

Kaz turns to the guards. ”Weve seen the library, but could we ask how you catalog it? That place seemed massive when we looked at it earlier.”

Dran stands ready to help or put down any resistance but offers no advise on what to do next.

He replies to Bilos, ”I seem to recall you all demanding to fight our priest in front of everyone. There was no peace then.”

He turns to Kaztor, ”Do what you wish, we can’t stop you.”

"May your god of forgiveness grant you peace" Halali tells the miserable guards.

"We have work to do."

"Library, then crypt. Maybe some of the lay-people here will be helpful. We might have a day's work ahead, but unless the library is full of poltergeists I think we're out of danger."

Grunigon looks at the men in disbelief. "Look at the body! The demon was inside him! He was already dead!!! You weren't working for a man anymore. The demon was in full control."

He turns and heads for the library not waiting for any response....

Maybe one of the scholarly types can say whatever in the Hades that thing was...might be a atart... Ander says with a shrug.

The group heads to the library, not happy with their convincing efforts. Apparently it takes slightly more than 1-2 minutes of arguing with someone you just beat into submission to undo decades of cultist mindwashing.

The library is the largest task left. It will take about fourty person hours of work to catalog it (1 dwarf spending one hour working = 1 person hour).

What do you do?

Try to organize the books. Are any in other languages? If any are in a language that none of us know, does anyone have magic to help understand? Or, are any of the priests here able to help?

The monks and other members of the monastery are keeping a very wide berth from the dwarves.

The books are already organized. Your job (iirc) was to catalog the library.

Dran gets to work cataloging. I got these shelves. he says, picking some low ones.

Grunigon gets to work as well.

Kaz will throw in his efforts to help working in the library too.

6 dwarves, an ectoplasmic phantom, and a bird go to a library...

It'll be 6 or 7 hours, unless anyone has any tricks. But I can't see the resident monks and friends stopping us completing this task nor the rubbings in the crypt.

Can we call it here? There don't seem to be any potential complications as long as we all agree that we are cataloguing the library and then taking the crypt rubbings. Then we'll have completed the mission objectives.

"Let's just get on with the work we were assigned. These people have a lot of soul-searching to do. Leave them to it."

Yeah sure.

It takes the dwarves the rest of the day and a little bit more of the next day (or they could push themselves and leave fatigued). The library is fully cataloged. The crypt etchings have been completed. The habitants of the temple keep a wide berth, but you hear whispers and arguments from closed doors about the events that have occurred here.

Things like...

"What do you mean the priest was a demon? That's impossible."

"So the kitchen is haunted? And the garden test was fake? That explains a lot. I really wish I had my fingers back."

"So what do we do now? Who's in charge? Will the food keep coming?"

What next?

To answer yer questions, yes he/it was, so it was possible. Yes, it was a trap, I spotted it as a setup. And as for the last one, perhaps getting work to get coin to buy food...or try to grow yer own...gonna take some time...but I think you lot can do it...

”Maybe we could set up a deal where the Pathfinder Society supplies you lot with food ever so often, while you all are getting back on your feet again. Fair warning, it would taste like real food, not the dirt flavor that everything has here. If you’d be interested, we could talk to the higher ups for you and try to like things out,” Kaz offers to the fellows.

The voices that the dwarves overheard via whispers and through closed doors seem to go quiet at the unsolicited advice.

What next?

Once they are wrapping things up Grunigon asks Kaztor, "Have you by any chance scanned the area where the priest lived for evil? If a demon was living there it might have had dangerous stuff there. I'd hate to leave with those gullible followers having no idea what might be there."

Scan for evil, magic and traps? If they let us.

”Thats a good thought. I didn’t check the corpse either.0.

The paladin uses detect evil to check the corpse and the priest’s quarters.

Cant scan the corpse for evil but I did stab it a few extra times, you know, to be sure.

”Searching to see if he was carrying any evil items. Maybe if so, that could have infected him with the demon,” Kaz explains while trying to focus.

The room seems to have been left exactly as they left it. Chunks of the demons flesh body. The dead demon. All his gear. The dead zombies.

The group finds no evil items. They do find some books that look like they are from the library.

I think he's still dead...and starting to stink too...someone light a candle...

”Somebody cast detect magic on the corpse and the room. We need to not let his gear go to waste. Anyone else have any ideas on where to go from here?”

Just realized I didn't do a clean ending here. The scenario was finished and all aspects completed and it was reported and chronicles issued and the group was disbanded. However, in case anyone checks back in, here we go.

The dwarves collect the dead demon's gear. A nice staff and a few other items. With everything completed and the monastery residents still mostly terrified of them, they head back to the portal entrance and zip back home.

After a fairly long debrief, the venture captain assigned adds this, "Well, I don't think that went well. The results were adequate, but y'all gotta work on some stuff. To be fair though, if I had known you all would need to talk to people, I definitely wouldn't have sent this group. I think a follow-up group with some supplies and a diplomat will probably need to head in there to smooth things over. At least you got the mission done though."

"True. And they need a new head priest that ain't demon possessed...."