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The Veiled Lady is about to raise her shield when suddenly, boom! Colorful smoke and sparkles appear around her which confuses her at first, but realizes the gnome just behind her has just saved her from being attacked. She gives the sorcerer an approving nod. "Lovely trick you have there!"
"This bugbear-looking fiends will scare the things in you so steel your minds!" se declares to everyone what she knows. She then touches Yellow to siphon the negative energy out of it before she raises her shield again.
◆◆ Cast a Spell, Chill Touch, DC 17 basic Fortitude save vs negative damage to Yellow (and Enfeebled 1 on crit failure)
◆ Raise a Wooden Shield
Swix shoots a big hole in Big Black's body. It looks pretty injured, but it's still standing.
Krinolyn fills Yellow with negative energy, but as a dream-creature, he feels none of it.
Ramona runs into a flank and lashes out with her whip. It cracks loudly against Yellow's head and it falls unconscious! As it hits the ground, the figure bursts into a puff of smoke and disappears.
Inspire Courage is active.
Ramona
Krinolyn, Level 6 Heroism
Wizel
Big bad black, 7 damage
Kieran
Green
Swix
Wizel readies to throw electricity at the mooks, but they disappear before he has a chance to. He then throws a ball of ice at the big bad. It hits him square in the face and his head comes off. He poofs out of existence.
When the creatures are gone, Rain in Cloudy Day crawls from under the table, still shaking.
“I- I took a few steps, then a few dozen more, but I couldn’t reach the door! I shouted for help, but nobody could hear me! Or nobody was there? I don’t know, it was like something out of a nightmare. I turned around, and there she was! I’ve never seen her before, but I knew it was her. Aslynn! Tall, dark, and hideous. She was dragging something, and singing… no, more like reciting poetry. That’s strange, right? And terrifying. Something about my nightmares coming to take me away. I tried to run, but she touched my mind! She took my nightmares right out of me… those things! Just like she said. Right out of my nightmares. I hope she isn’t still over there. I… I can barely think. It feels like the world is ending. I’m afraid I won’t be much use. Could you take a look, see if she’s there?”
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"The World is Ending!" doom and gloom, this one, who elaborates further "And also: Beginning Anew!!" wait, what? "At all moments, She swirls. Swirls! You see!! Blink once, and you Miss!!!"
The gnome's words not meant to be comforting, or useful, or nice... except perhaps in their sheer ridiculousness, inadvertently lightening the mood?
Speaking of lightening: He shines his light in all directions, just in case the hag is indeed looming...
Hero Point to Ramona, for helping other people crit with her performance!
Swix takes a quick look around, but can't find any hags lurking in the shadows.
"Phew, thanks for looking," Rain says. "I'm still a bit shaky from the whole ordeal, but thanks for saving my butt. Here's something as a thank-you."
He produces eight minor healing potions.
You go back to your work sorting the items. Since you've emptied several piles, these options remain:
Assorted items: Arcana, Crafting, Perception.
Weapon shelves: Arcana, Crafting, Gladiatorial Lore, Warfare Lore.
Scrolls and wands: Arcana, Nature, Occultism, Religion.
EDIT: you can make two checks before you're interrupted again. All of these have multiple things to find.
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"Wherever those came from, we should remain vigilant. They are simply lurking around. If we can't leave this place anytime soon, let's prepare for whatever might come," the Veiled Lady informs them before refocusing and returning to work for the mission at hand after she takes two of the potions offered.
Swix carefully sifts through the scrolls and finds a wand of widening hidden between the scrolls. He then moves on to the weapon shelves and finds a +1 spear!
Kieran goes to the assorted items. It takes him a while to find something useful, but eventually fishes out a vine arrow.
Ramona goes through the scrolls, but all of the ones she examines the magic has run out, making them useless scribblings.
The Veiled Lady joins Kieran after regaining a bit of her energy. She finds a potency crystal!
Wizel also goes through the pile of scrolls and finds a wand of heal!
Ramona has one more check she can make. If people want to exchange/claim items, feel free to do so.
Ramona looks through the pile of assorted items, and finds a small pouch containing fine powder. After opening it to examine what it is, she sneezes, and she is covered by a cloud of the powder. It turns out to be itching powder, and like glitter, it gets everywhere! It starts off mild, but then the itching starts in earnest. It gets in your socks, under your armour, and in the most uncomfortable places.
Ramona, please make me a DC 15 Fortitude save or be clumsy 1 for 1 hour, or until you take 10 minutes to wash yourself.
As Ramona starts to twitch and scratch herself in indecent places, a cry from Rain in Cloudy Day pierces the vault. “Oh, no! She’s back!”
Moments later, an imposing figure steps into the vault, striding straight past the cowering Pathfinder. With her wild hair, wicked curved horns, sharp teeth, and glowing eyes, she’s a fearful sight. The bones of her enormous, clawed hands make hideous cracking sounds as she heaves on a chain wrapped around her torso, dragging an iron cauldron across the stone floor. It nearly tips, spilling a glob of vile black ooze filled with vibrant constellations.
She casts her gaze around the vault and rises to her full height. She speaks, her voice like a dying goat by a crackling fire. “What is this? Ah yes, I see. Precious treasures, all for me!
“A dagger, its twin my child wields. I command you, Star: break cities! Burn fields!
“A key, its message yet unclear. Why does it hide? What does it fear?
“Pathfinders! You’ll seek boundless wonder across the land... and find Aslynn’s nightmares, hand in hand!”
Aslynn stoops to grasp the chain once more and proceeds with her cauldron into the vault, still ignoring Rain and anyone else around her. Suddenly, a new voice—a harsh whisper—carries through the air. “Psst! Hey, you! Pathfinders! She’s not real. Well, not too real. Just a bit. No time to explain! You’ve got to distract her! Don’t let her find what she’s looking for! Distract her, then find a way to get rid of her!”
The voice seems to come from every direction at once, as if someone's throwing their voice.
First, you need to distract Aslynn. You can do so with a DC 13 Deception, Occultism, or Performance check, or any other creative skill you can think of. You then need to trap her by making two successful DC 16 skills. They can be Arcana, Nature, Occultism or Religion skills to chant incantations, or Crafting or Deception to swap an item she's looking for for something else. Or, once again, any creative solution you can come up with.
The first time you fail one of these checks is no problem, but there will be consequences thereafter.
Wizel, Kieran and Swix all divert Aslynn's attention three different ways, allowing Krinolyn to trap her. Her form wavers, but it still putters around the vault.
Swix makes shadow illusions of great treasures while Ramona chants more incantations, and Aslynn's form becomes distorted and glitches out, popping in and out of existence. You're putting in a lot of effort, but Aslynn's mind overpowers yours. Her form reasserts herself and continues.
Aslynn shrieks with delight and rushes to the pile of treasure at the center of the vault. “It’s here! I can taste it! Come to me, my dearest nightmares!” She rakes through the treasure with her claws, scattering coins and shredding pages.
“Where is it?! Where?! I must have it! What have you done with it?!”
With a final shriek, she curls in on herself, melding with the ooze from her cauldron. She and the cauldron melt into the floor, bubbling and hissing. The sounds turn to frantic chittering as dozens of rats begin pouring from the ground.
The rat pile surges forward and engulfs Kieran. Hundreds of eerily human-like hands scratch and tiny teeth bite him all over his body.
Kieran, please make two DC 17 basic Reflex saves, once for damage, and once for damage.
Swarm
Wizel
Ramona
Kieran, 2 saves for 2 and 2 damage
Pink
Yellow
Krinolyn
Swix
Green
Wizel, Ramona, and Kieran are up! I'll assume weapons are drawn in case you needed to deal with Aslynn.
Kieran manages to dodge the worst of the rats, but still gets scratched up.
Wizel superheats the air around the rats, making them incredibly thirsty.
Ramona lifts everyone's spirits with Banjo's presence, then hurls a bowtie that can record a few seconds of audio at the swarm. They're not impressed.
Kieran slashes through the pile of rats, and while he does connect, it leaves very little damage, overall.
The pink rat scuttles over to Swix and tries to bite him.
Yellow does the same to the Veiled Lady! Luckily, she manages to avoid being bitten.
Inspire Courage is in effect.
Swarm, 4 damage, 1d6 persistent damage
Wizel
Ramona
Kieran, 3 damage
Pink
Yellow
Krinolyn
Swix, 2 damage
Green
Krinolyn and Swix are up!
Kieran may re-do one action.
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Swix hisses like a cat
The way you cringe or use those puppydog eyes you've been practicing elicits an empathetic response in the attacker. Attempt a Diplomacy check against your attacker's Will DC.
Critical Success: The creature pulls its attack, wasting its action, and can't use hostile actions against you until the beginning of its next turn.
Success: The creature takes a –2 circumstance penalty to damage on the triggering Strike and all its Strikes against you until the beginning of its next turn. The penalty is –4 if you're an expert in Diplomacy, –6 if you're a master, and –8 if you're legendary.
Failure: The creature's attack is unaffected, and the creature is temporarily immune to your Empathic Pleas for 24 hours.
You scour your experiences and learning to identify something that might repel your foe. You retrieve an object from your esoterica with the appropriate supernatural qualities, then use your implement to stoke the remnants of its power into a blaze. Select a creature you can see and attempt an Esoteric Lore check against a standard DC for its level, as you retrieve the right object from your esoterica and use your implement to empower it. You gain the following effects until you Exploit Vulnerabilities again.
Critical Success: You remember the creature's weaknesses, and as you empower your esoterica, you have a flash of insight that grants even more knowledge about the creature. You learn all of the creature's resistances, weaknesses, and immunities, including the amounts of the resistances and weaknesses and any unusual weaknesses or vulnerabilities, such as what spells will pass through a golem's antimagic. You can exploit either the creature's mortal weakness or personal antithesis (see below). Your unarmed and weapon Strikes against the creature also become magical if they weren't already.
Success: You recall an important fact about the creature, learning its highest weakness (or one of its highest weaknesses, if it has multiple with the same value) but not its other weaknesses, resistances, or immunities. You can exploit either the creature's mortal weakness or personal antithesis. Your unarmed and weapon Strikes against the creature also become magical if they weren't already.
Failure: Failing to recall a salient weakness about the creature, you instead attempt to exploit a more personal vulnerability. You can exploit only the creature's personal antithesis. Your unarmed and weapon Strikes against the creature also become magical if they weren't already.
Critical Failure: You couldn't remember the right object to use and become distracted while you rummage through your esoterica. You become flat-footed until the beginning of your next turn.
↺) Empathetic Plea
◆) Exploit Vulnerability
◆) Strike
◆) Step
↺) Empathetic Plea
Swiz shines his light upon the Rat "Let's see Who you Really Are!" and he shanks it with his cane.
Just as the rat is about to hit Swix, he hisses like a cat and the rat reflexively holds back.
Swix thinks about what he knows about rats. They're.. rats. No special weakness or vulnerabilities. He then shanks the rat and it drops dead. He now has a rat on a stick.
Veiled Lady pours negative energy into the rat menacing her. The rat is uncomfortable, but withstands the attack.
Green decides to help its buddy Yellow out and attacks the Veiled Lady.
Now that the swarm doesn't have a tasty Rogue to nibble on, it now redirects its efforts to Swix and Ramona.
Swix, Ramona, please make two basic DC 17 Reflex saves versus and damage.
Inspire Courage is in effect for Wizel.
Swarm, 4 damage, 1d6 persistent damage
Wizel
Ramona, 2 Reflex saves vs 1 and 4 damage
Kieran, 3 damage
Yellow, 3 damage
Krinolyn, 4 damage
Swix, 2 Reflex saves vs 1 and 4 damage
Green
Wizel, Ramona, and Kieran are up!
Ramon's whip cracks in the air and crits Yellow! It falls to the ground, returns to goop, and evaporates.
Inspire Courage is in effect!
Swarm, 4 damage, 1d6 persistent damage
Wizel
Ramona, 2 Reflex saves vs 1 and 4 damage
Kieran, 3 damage
Krinolyn, 4 damage
Swix, 5 damage
Green
Kieran is up!
Ramona needs to make two DC 17 Reflex saves against damage.
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"Aha! You can burn! Burn!! BURN!!!"
Unravelling a scroll to read by the light of his lamp, our incredulous hero ignites the rats in a torrent of flame, purple, arcane marks giving visual manifestations to his words which seem to lift from the page and combust, leaving behind only ash!
◆) Use Scroll Thaumaturgy to Draw scroll of...
◆◆) Burning Hands!
Kieran catches the rat off guard by hiding, then lobs a sling stone at it. It hits it straight on its forehead, killing it!
Swix produces a scroll and torches the pile of rats.
The flames absolutely consume the rat swarm and all that remains afterwards is a big black scorchmark.
With the vault silent again, the same voice from before echoes through the room. “Whew, that was close! Hey, could you help me out over here? I’d like to say hello, maybe explain a few things, but these boxes sure are heavy.”
A disembodied pair of elegant blue gloves busily clears chests off a table. The gloves make a “Stop right there!” gesture before signaling toward the table. They gently pat its surface, then indicate the boxes on top of it. The voice from earlier says, “I see you’ve met Mr. Glovely! He wants you to help clear those boxes. I’m, uh, underneath them. It’s a bit embarrassing. Help a poor guy out? Many hands are better than two! No offense, Mr. Glovely.” The gloves wave dismissively, as if to say, “None taken.”
Once the table is clear, the table changes shape and size and turns into a treasure chest.
"Phew, that was quite an ordeal! Well, for you anyway. Hi, my name is Biglock, and my companion over here is Mr. Glovely." Mr. Glovely waves hi to all of you.
"I'm sure we have lots to discuss! Well, first introductions. As I said, I am Biglock, this is Mr. Glovely. He… you know, I’m not sure. He showed up one day and lent me a hand. Or two! Ha! We have what you might call a mutually beneficial arrangement. I do the talking, and Mr. Glovely does everything else.”