Desmond tries to knock one enemy to the ground, but can't get into a good position to do so.
Mrs. Crinkle wriggles out of the unwanted hug and puts her shield in the way of another.
Razzm tries to use his shields as cymbals again, but neither one makes contact this time.
The grey creature neatly dodges Mas' bolt, while the blue one only manages to duck away from part of it.
Zac swings his polearm at the grey creature, connecting twice before going too far off-balance to strike.
The blue creature explodes in a burst of energy which seems to give the grey one more vitality.
The grey creature swings its tentacle at Razzm.
Razzm's shields are too busy elsewhere to intercept the blow.
It then steps away and solidifies the mist around it. It especially becomes thick around Zac.
Round 3-4 - bolded may go
Razzm Tazzm (-15 HP)
Bertram (-2 HP, shield broken)
Grey (-33 HP, 2 temp HP)
Blue
Zac Freelan (Reflex save)
Mas Radikal
Desmond
Green
Mrs. Crinkle (-19 HP)
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She must be referring to the mist. It sounds so weird to hear Mrs. Crinkle's laugh coming out in a rough, deep bass.
Pink tongue lolling (it kinda clashes with her dress), Mrs. Crinkle Wolf bounds forward to flank the grey mass of tentacles with Razzm so she can bite its butt while he's occupying its front end.
With her last snap of the jaws, all she manages to do is give the gray creature a solid whiff of wolf breath. Eew.
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Bertram enlarged his warding spell once more, filling the room with its protective magics, then peered through the mists to see the creature in the middle. He wanted to bog it down in mud, but he wasn't sure his companions wouldn't be mired as well. Instead, he pulled a small chunk of iron from a pouch and concentrated. Damaging spells were much more difficult for him than protective wards, but he knew a few. Spitting out the words in a strangled voice, he sent a stream of small metal needles at the creature in the center of the obscuring mists.
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Desmond recoils at the creature in front him 'exploding'. He spits. "Gah, I hope none of that got in my mouth." He ducks his head and circles around the remaining one to help encircle it.
He tries to slap away more of the tentacles to keep them from hurting the others, then he raises his shield to defect any attack coming his way.
Mas and Bertram both slice into the creature with magical darts.
Mrs. Crinkle and Desmond have more enthusiasm than accuracy.
Zac escapes the mist and lands his first swing on the creature.
Razzm senses that it has only one hit point remaining and goes all out with his shields.
The GM has no idea how many times he can attack, but the first crushes the spirit.
Razzm Tazzm (-9 HP)
Bertram (-2 HP, shield broken)
Mrs. Crinkle (-19 HP)
Razzm discovers that each mural skillfully hides the creases of a hidden compartment in the wall containing some notes. Finding one compartment allows the rest to be discovered easily without requiring any further checks. The four sets of notes can be combined to make one research fragment.
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The now-back-to-normal-size Mrs. Crinkle allows Desmond to bind her wounds before putting her dress back on. Thank goodness she's wearing bloomers, because her chain shirt and the shift under it aren't *quite* long enough for most folks' sensibilities. "Thank you, dearie. That feels so much better. You've got quite the magic fingers. Heehee!" She gives him a wink, then begins bundling up her dress again. "Where to next, boys? Hopefully there'll be a chamber pot in the next room, or I'll have to go visit the garden, if you know what I'm saying. Heehee!"
To the northwest, Mrs. Crinkle can live her dream of finding more chamber pots. Nothing more than information about the Arclord's sanitation facilities is located there.
To the northeast, the semitransparent image of a small, elderly Garundi woman dressed in typical Nexian garb stands at a podium on the eastern side of this room before an empty lecture hall. Her form doesn’t move, but three obvious runes on the podium glow with a pulsating light, alternating between pale blue and rose. Before the figure, magic shimmers over a sheaf of papers, as if the figure were waiting to speak from prepared notes.
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Mrs. Crinkle takes her own sweet time in the northwest room. She emerges with a twinkle in her eye, shooing the group onward ahead of her. Once they're on their way, she tiptoes back to place the pungently full chamber pot...*somewhere*... before hustling back to catch up with the group. Heehee!
Seeing the ghosty person about to give a lecture, Mrs. Crinkle quips: "Well, looks like she's been waiting a mighty long time for her audience to arrive. Come on, boys!" She bustles to the front, aiming to take a seat but expecting something to go wrong that'll require gross motor skills to resolve. I wonder what ghosties taste like? Guess I'm likely to find out here in a jiffy! Heehee!
The lecture begins...
The instructor tries to force everyone to take a seat.
DC 22 Will save for everyone
Critical Success No effect
Success Must spend 1 action moving to a desk
Failure Must spend 2 actions moving to a desk plus stupefied 1 for 1 hour
Critical Failure Must spend 1 turn moving to a desk plus stupefied 2 for 1 hour and fascinated 1 minute
Round 1 - bolded may go
Zac (Will save)
Razzm (Will save)
Ghost
Bert (Will save)
Desmond (Will save)
Mrs. Crinkle (Will save)
Mas (Will save)
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Razzm resists the worst of the ghost's lecture - "I've heard better before I was even out of me egg!" - but he still advances forward, first to find his desk and then to approach the podium to complain about his grade. Once there, however, he roars his dissatisfaction! "I'll have you straight before the Dean for this tomfoolery! Don't you know that students have rights!?!" He flexes his dorsal fins ominously.
HERITAGE
LIZARDFOLK
You can flare your neck frill and flex your dorsal spines, Demoralizing your foes. When you do, Demoralize loses the auditory trait and gains the visual trait, and you don’t take a penalty when you attempt to Demoralize a creature that doesn’t understand your language.
Zac takes a seat and starts to listen, but decides that he isn't all that interested.
Razzm heckles the teacher. She briefly looks taken aback, but continues to lectures on incredibly advanced topics without pause, overwhelming the minds of those listening while compelling them to continue to pay attention.
plus a DC 22 Will save
Critical Success No effect
Success Half damage and stunned 1
Failure Full damage and stunned 2
Critical Failure Double damage, stunned 1 round and fascinated 1 minute
Round 1-2 - bolded may go
Zac (Will save)
Razzm (Will save)
Ghost
Bert (2 Will saves)
Desmond (2 Will saves)
Mrs. Crinkle (2 Will saves)
Mas (2 Will saves)
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Mrs. Crinkle plops into a desk and promptly begins staring off into space. Suddenly, she lets out an ear-splitting screech. "IIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! I'm going to heckle you 'til the end of time!"
Mrs. Crinkle's display is cut short, however, by a sudden splitting headache. She takes deep breaths for a bit while it clears (thankfully), then transforms into a large wolf again. Within moments her silver-furred knees are rising above the too-small desk, and her red dress is woefully unprepared for such a situation.
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[dice=DC 22 Will]1d20 + 6
Mrs. Crinkle plops into a desk and promptly begins staring off into space. Suddenly, she lets out an ear-splitting screech. "IIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! I'm going to heckle you 'til the end of time!"
[dice=Intimidate to Demoralize]1d20 + 4
[dice=DC 22 Will]1d20 + 6 - 1
Mrs. Crinkle's display is cut short, however, by a sudden splitting headache. She takes deep breaths for a bit while it clears (thankfully), then transforms into a large wolf again. Within moments her silver-furred knees are rising above the too-small desk, and her red dress is woefully unprepared for such a situation.
Or at least, that's what happens in her head as she sits daydreaming in a desk.
Bertram, Desmond and Mrs. Crinkle all take seats and listen intently, though they start getting headaches when the professor explains that the magical wards at that point should be supported enough by the energy flux to contain the entity, though if the resulting frequency shift were to send magical feedback up the flows, the you would need to stabilize it with an anchor thread at the appropriate energy crux.
Razzm keeps yelling, and the teacher writes his name on the blackboard under DISCIPLINE. Still, she begins to falter.
Round 1-2 - bolded may go
Zac (Will save)
Razzm (-4 HP)
Ghost
Bert (Will save, stupefied 1)
Desmond (-8 HP, stupefied 2, fascinated 1, needs to use 2 more actions moving to a desk)
Mrs. Crinkle (-8 HP, seated, stupefied 1)
Mas (2 Will saves)
Mas feels like he's in one of these dreams where you forgot to study for a test, and you're late, and aren't properly dressed, and your quill has turned into a ...
Zac just wishes that he could hit something.
The professor continues explaining that the array of magics would cascade into a chain reaction of positively charged energies, but the weave would unravel if not properly anchored before starting the casting, so you must used three foci in the tyrean pattern...
Round 2-3 - bolded may go
Zac (Will save, -8 HP, stupefied 1)
Razzm (Will save, -4 HP)
Ghost
Bert (Will save, -8 HP, stupefied 1)
Desmond (Will save, -8 HP, stupefied 2, fascinated 1 minute, needs to use 2 more actions moving to a desk)
Mrs. Crinkle (Will save, -8 HP, seated, stupefied 1)
Mas (Will save, -16 HP, stupefied 2, stunned 1 round, fascinated 1 minute)
Razzm continues to berate the professor, and though Desmond and Mrs. Crinkle look ready to take notes, Zac and Mas also get up and move toward the podium. The spirit finally departs, complaining about kids these days.
In the room, you are able to find some useful notes, though. Having explored the entire building, you think it is time to report back to Alyreha. The Arclord states that she can definitely recover her own true name and restore the wards from her research tower.
The Pathfinders can also safely bring the skull up into the tower, at which point Alyreha notes that she recognizes the shisk as Liaskra, the one who interrupted her name erasure ritual, causing it to fail. She explains that she got wind of Liaskra asking around about her research, so She did what why they were after the true name research. She learned that Aslynn apparently wanted to somehow learn to “cook” multiple true names, essentially “boiling them down” to raw material or combining them, and thus “molding” individuals according to her desires, which is why Alyreha decided she needed to act and hide herself from them.
She begins poring over the noted you found, but you seem to recall a certain venture-captain wanting you to convince her to keep her research with the Society...
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"Umm, mistress Arclord Alyreha? Would you be umm, interested in storing those notes with the Pathfinder Society? Only, they've been the target of theft already, and um, the enemy knows where they are and how to get them now. That Liaskra woman talked about her mother Aslyn and how she wanted those notes. Don't you think the vaults in in the Grand Lodge would be a good place to store them and keep doing your research? I know it's a long ways from here, but maybe you could take the Maze?"
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"Oh, yes hon. Just think: You're only one skull. What if Aslynn sends a bunch of folks next time, and you're all alone here, with no one to tote you around to get them all out of here? And if you try to hire help, they could be Aslynn's agents, or manipulated into serving her after you've vetted them. Besides, think of how funny it would be if Aslynn sent her toadies back here to get your notes again and they just ran through your house of horrors and got humiliated all for nothing! Heehee!"
Alyreha agrees to bring her research to Skyreach.
As soon as she has the knowledge of her true name, she invokes it, causing a brilliant arcane light to burst forth from the skull she inhabits. As the light fades, sitting on the desk before the Pathfinders is a small, elderly Garundi woman dressed in flowing desert robes bearing the symbol of a Nexian arclord. With her previous form returned to her, she quickly rummages through her shelves and books and spends the next several hours going room-to-room and restoring all her wards and defenses. She is incredibly grateful to you and the Pathfinder Society, especially since you recovered all eight research fragments.
After putting together the pieces of Alyreha’s true name and saving her research from falling into the hands of Aslynn and her daughter Liaskra, you can return to the Nexus house and report your findings to Sebnet Sanserkoht. She thanks you for preventing the research from falling into the wrong hands. She also assures them that she will continue to work with Alyreha to recover any of her other work that might still be left behind or needs to be recreated.
Sebnet is impressed enough that she grants you a Ganjay book and a dose of oxygen ooze.
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Mrs. Crinkle's eyes light up at the sight of the oxygen ooze. She can't help herself. She immediately grabs it and pops it into her mouth, chewing ecstatically before blowing out a large green bubble that encases her head. "Look guys! A snot bubble! Heehee!"
A short time later, she sneaks up on Bertram and offers his spellbook one last poem. It's a classy one this time.
It is done by us all, as God disposes, from
the least cast of worm to what must have been
in the case of the brontosaur, say, spoor
of considerable heft, something awesome.
We eat, we evacuate, survivors that we are.
I think these things each morning with shovel
and rake, drawing the risen brown buns
toward me, fresh from the horse oven, as it were,
or culling the alfalfa-green ones, expelled
in a state of ooze, through the sawdust bed
to take a serviceable form, as putty does,
so as to lift out entire from the stall.
And wheeling to it, storming up the slope,
I think of the angle of repose the manure
pile assumes, how sparrows come to pick
the redelivered grain, how inky-cap
coprinus mushrooms spring up in a downpour.
I think of what drops from us and must then
be moved to make way for the next and next.
However much we stain the world, splatter
it with our leavings, make stenches, defile
the great formal oceans with what leaks down,
trundling off today's last barrow-full,
I honor $hit for saying: We go on.