"Of course it will!" Eleven-Sun-Truth says, as though the answer should be obvious.
The arbiter floats a little higher while proudly responding, “As the foundation of order itself, Axis is an expanse of districts and departments, each connected to key partners by means of myriad forms of public transportation and sets of portals. I can provide you clear written directions.”
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"Certainly. “One engram stores a portion of my client’s creative innovation, and as an experiment, authorities in the Adamantine Forge granted it to now somewhat…” Eleven-Sun-Truth scowls with disappointment. “…eccentric inevitable in order to explore new inevitable-forging techniques. That inevitable frequents the domain of demigoddess Chaldira Zuzaristan in its downtime.
"Let's start from the top - the innovator"
Eleven-Sun-Truth blinks in acknowledgement and gives you verbal instructions to the Hearth-Grown House, Chaldira Zuzaristan's domain in Axis and writes down how to get to the other places so that you don't have to return to him again and again.
The travel portal deposits you on a side-street a short distance from the Hearth-Grown House. The narrow alley is crowded with petitioners, all of whom seem to be heading for a single destination: a large, wooden gate in the twelve-foot-tall hedge wall that surrounds Chaldira’s divine home. Past the gate is a large, grassy common area surrounded by numerous large and inviting structures that look like the homey country taverns found in Golarion’s more peaceful hamlets and towns. A singing voice accompanied by string instruments and flutes can be heard from within.
When you step inside, countless chairs and tables are arranged in this large room around a central stage upon which sits a lillend azata singing a wistful song while accompanied by an unusual collection of natives of the Great Beyond playing an assortment of string and woodwind instruments. The air is thick with sweet tobacco smoke and the smell of good food and drink, while the audience of largely remade petitioners watches the singer with obvious enthusiasm.
“Pretty good, eh?” says a metallic voice just to your left. “Emelliana the Muse, that’s the singer, she only comes here to the House when she visits Axis. It’s the only place she’ll perform! Everywhere else is too stuffy, she says.”
The voice belongs to an unusual ivory-colored kolyarut inevitable with two additional attached arms and is currently leaning against the back wall of the room watching the performance. Covered in dozens of small cuts, scrapes, dents, and scorch marks, she is wearing a leather apron long enough to be a skirt and is tapping her foot to the music.
The inevitable looks questioningly to Diazepane then down at her form. She shakes her head. "Oh no. Hazards of the trade, I'm afraid. I'm an inventor and smith and tinkerer. You can call me the Maker," she explains before turning her attention back to the lillend on stage.
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As Impasha enters the courtyard where the azata performs, she seems more uncomfortable than she was at the other locations. She watches the performers with a wary, even suspicious eye for a bit until the Maker speaks.
"It's a little surprising to find a conclave of Chaldira here in Axis." she observes. "But that may only be my misconception. As you see, we are visitors to the City. I am Impasha Relenne, a servant of Iomedae."
"You may perhaps be the very person we were looking for. We seek an Inevitable who holds some of the memories of Hao Jin the Sorceress. Our mission is urgent and one of mercy. Would that be you, Maker?"
The Maker only nods in response to Impasha's question but then she motions them to be quiet.
"We can talk more when Emelliana finishes her performance."
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The Ganzi follows quietly, somewhat disconcerted by the levels or structure and organization. Oppressive. Where is the freedom of expression?
As Emelliana sings, those thoughts drift away- finding himself suddenly much more comfortable in Chaldira than previously.
"I could use a pipe, if one is being offered" and settles in haphazardly to enjoy the rest of the performance.
There is always time for a little enjoyment
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"We can talk more when Emelliana finishes her performance."
Impasha is surprised by this response and looks like she's about to press the matter. She glances around at her companions, who also seem inclined to listen to the singer, then gives a curt nod and settles in to wait at least until the end of this song.
As she waits, she periodically glances over at the inevitable, trying to work out if she is motivated by more than love of music.
Once the song ends, the Maker sighs in appreciation of the music then gestures for you to follow her to a secluded, well-lit courtyard behind the tavern.
"Now, what is it I can help you with?" she asks when everyone is settled.
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"Thank you for taking the time to talk with us. As I mentioned, we are seeking the Inevitable who holds a memory engram of Hao Jin the Sorceress. If that is you, we have an urgent mission. Her Tapestry, which is home to many innocent people, is on the verge of utter collapse and cannot be saved. The only way we can hope to rescue the thousands of lives inside the Tapestry is to perform a ritual that involves the engrams like yours which were taken from Hao Jin."
Impasha indicates the badge given to her by Eleven-Sun-Truth. "These badges were given to us by Hao Jin's ... tender, I suppose you'd call them. We are operating with Eleven-Sun-Truth's knowledge. To come to the point, we would like to borrow the engram of Hao Jin for a short time to assemble this ritual and save thousands of innocent lives inside the Tapestry."
When she learns that you are looking for Hao Jin’s memory engram, the Maker becomes defensive, each of her arms reaching up to grasp at the engram where it is implanted at the base of her neck.
Focusing on the loss of life you're trying to prevent seems to have no effect but with Diazepane's aid, Impasha causes the Maker to waver.
"I don't know, it's been incorporated into my form for decades. I've become quite fond of it," she says.
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"I don't know, it's been incorporated into my form for decades. I've become quite fond of it," she says.
"I understand. Our request is unsettling. And you don't know us. I might react the same way if things were reversed." says Impasha gently. "But we only wish to borrow the engram for a short time."
The Maker is hardly convinced by Frost's comments on loss of life but seems more swayed by discussion of lost art and culture and with Kal'Ryon's and Impasha's words and Ingrge's winning smile, you can see her wavering further.
Then, Diazepane presents a monograph regarding the so called "stirge effect" (which is really just the layman's term for Law Theory) vis-a-vis rippling boundaries between demiplanes and the fabric of the multiverse.
"I suppose I knew this day was coming. I was only borrowing it all along," the Maker says, using all four hands to release catches that hold the engram in place.
She hands it over and her motions have already become more structured and rigid, losing some of the fluidity of creativity.
Travelling to the Stylite via portal you come to land in a large open plaza comprised of octagonal, glossy black flagstones sits between a small, colonnaded building on one side and the dizzying vista of the Eternal City on the other. The wind whistles sharply over the drop down to the city thousands of feet below. From this vantage point, nearly all the major sites of Axis are spread out below like a pristinely-ordered painting: the tower of the Adamantine Crucible, alight in blue flame, the Grand Market of Abadar near the concentric circles of the golden city of Aktun, the nearly two-thousand-foot-tall Citadel of Resplendent Clockwork that serves as Brigh’s domain, the crystalline Threefold Pillars of the Axiomite Godmind aglow with infinite calculations, and Pharasma’s Spire behind it all, stretching up, seemingly infinite, all the way into the Astral Plane.
Besides the colonnaded building and the travel portal, the plaza contains no other features and looks like it doesn’t get many visitors. Heading inside the colonnaded building, the you find yourselves in a large, semi-circular entrance hall supported by more columns and decorated with a large floor mosaic depicting geometric symbols. Numerous colored balls of light illuminate the room, floating about at random, and a single desk has been placed in the middle of the entrance hall. At it sits a wizened-looking petitioner wearing cream and silver robes. Behind him are four closed steel doors. The petitioner does not look up when you enter, busy scribbling feverishly with a large quill in an enormous book set before him.
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Business-like though she is, Impasha is not immune to the grandeur of the vista overlooking Axis. She spends a few minutes looking at the citadels of the gods, satisfaction and encouragement suffusing her soul.
But she then returns to the matter at hand, entering the colonnaded building with the others.
She approaches the scribe at the desk and presents her emblem, laying it on the table. ”Good day to you. Sorry to bother you. We have been commissioned as advocates of Hao Jin the sorceress — we are here to claim her engram for a matter of very great importance. Can you help us with this?”
He looks up with a slightly perturbed expression on his face.
“Can I help you?” he asks in a stern and impatient voice. “I wasn’t aware of anyone having a scheduled visit today. Who would have ever expected so much chaos in the Perfect City? That prodigious devil overstays his scheduled visitation, and now more mortals wandering in without so much as an appointment!” As the petitioner blusters through his tirade his voice and tone clearly convey his righteous indignation, but his quill never stops scratching away at the tome before him.
Only then does he notice that Impasha has presented one of the badges given to them by Eleven-Sun Truth and explained why they’ve come. The
Librarian purses his lips and eyes them shrewdly before saying “Well now. Well now indeed. It turns out perhaps you do have an appointment after all. The engram you seek is in the possession of that prodigious interloper overstaying his welcome in my lecture hall. If you were to agree to escort him off the premises, I can see to it that the engram is remitted to your possession. Don’t worry, the Stylite won’t allow the devil to take it with him since all receptacles of knowledge here can only be removed with proper authorization.”
"The Stylite’s main lecture hall is currently occupied by a heresy devil named Beyschosz. Beyschosz has been using the lecture hall to study one of Hao Jin’s legally acquired memory engrams. However, Beyschosz’s reservation of the lecture hall has long since expired, as has his claim to the memory engram. Unfortunately, I have been unable to convince any of the aeons responsible for securing the Stylite to remove the devil. Since the devil acquired the room through legitimate means and has not caused any disturbances beyond overstaying his appointment, he simply has not been a high enough priority for some people to deal with. They always listened when Tabris had something to say.”
When they prove agreeable to evicting the lingerer, the Librarian quickly ushers you to a large door which he opens with a wrought-iron key. “Best of luck now! I’ll be closing the door behind you, just knock three times when you’re ready to leave. Don’t worry if you have to get a little rough with the devil now but make certain that you don’t break anything!”
The lecture hall is dimly lit by sconces set at regular intervals around the room, and its vaulted ceiling stretches 60 feet high. There are four windows set 20 feet above the ground; one on either side of the southwestern corner, one on the northern end of the west wall, and one on the northern corner of the eastern wall. These windows are currently covered by heavy drapes.
When enter the room, Beyschosz chortles, a wet, phlegmy sound. “I told that delightfully broken little soul that I’m busy. Did she not pass along the message?”
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Impasha had already put on her helmet, knowing that a devil was within the lecture hall. She wastes no time with words. As she steps into the room, she lowers her visor and her grey blue eyes pierce outward through the shadowy eye-slits toward the grotesque creature across the room.
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"That sounds quite chaotic, if I do say so. Creatures overstaying reservations. Legal entities failing to enforce binding regulations... Maybe I have a place here in Axim after all!"
Kal laughs at his own joke- the small motes of entropy flash around his form.
"Isn't the solution just for us to make a reservation of our own? Once another group has a conflicting appointment, surely the enforcers of law and order would recognize the grievous wrong that was being committed!"
They are immune to fire and poison, resistant to acid, cold and any nongood physical attacks and resistant to spells.
"Oy go $%@# yourselves while I *^$% on your mothers, you @!$% licking *&%$# faces!" Beyschosz answers, apparently in no more mood to negotiate than you.
Ingrge's first two and last shots hit, though the devil is clearly somewhat resistant to the damage.
Beyschosz then uses some of his inherent magical power to cast the room into a deeper darkness, a darkness so intense that even darkvision is no help.
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Diazepane will throw some bombs blindly, targeting the center of the squares they last occupied. If it sounds like even the splash damage misses, Diazepane will aim subsequent bombs closer to the group, figuring it would have moved closer.
vs touch
plus DC 23 Fortitude vs prone
vs touch
plus DC 23 Fortitude vs prone
vs touch
plus DC 23 Fortitude vs prone
Diazepane doesn't do so well in the dark.
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"Frost, go east and head for the eastern aisle. I'll head south down this aisle. Between us we should eventually run into him. The coward can't escape us."
Impasha begins moving purposefully down the aisle, sword drawn and ready for action, but feeling along the wall to steady herself from stumbling on the steps.
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Standing firm, Kal allows a burst of engery to emit from his position- as he begins to grow to twice his usual size as the motes of energy leap about his form and begin to coalesce on his form and blade.
An invisible attacker gets no advantages related to hitting you in melee. That is, you don’t lose your Dexterity bonus to Armor Class, and the attacker doesn’t get the usual +2 bonus for being invisible. The invisible attacker’s bonuses do still apply for ranged attacks, however.
The Pathfinders deal with the darkness in their own special ways.
It's hard to tell if Diazepane's bombs hit anything directly or not, but from the grunts of pain, the creature is at least being caught in the blasts.