GM TOP #10-14: Debt to the Quah (Core)

Game Master Pete H.

Lini notices the edge of some writing on a flat stone near the entrance. It is covered in broken bones and will need cleared.

The animals smell all the smells!

They spend a fair bit of time sniffing about the room, but no hidden creatures jump out and attack.

"Writing? That's interesting! Before we move the bones, though, are they human remains?"

Not sure what to roll to tell that.

What about me? What about Raven? Err.. what about my summoning spell, coming to completion right as the ogres die?

What about me? What about Raven? Err.. what about my summoning spell, coming to completion right as the ogres die?

You are welcome to narrate the summon occurring as you wish, and complain as much as you want about your allies being toooo awesome. :P

@Salvio - The skulls, at least, appear to be from a variety of animals. The bones are thus presumably from their bodies.

"Thanks," Bobbie raises a tentative hand to her chest, and finds that she can no longer feel any pain in the area of her plexus. Satisfied, she sheathes her blade. "I've got a healing wand. I gave it to Desynthia."

"Anyone understands what this means?" she stares skeptically at the writings on the wall.

The writing is on the floor and is still mostly covered in bones at the moment.

The druid shrugs.

"Perhaps clear the bones away Bobbie and we can see if we can read it."

Lini casts Detect Magic to see if the writing on the floor is magical.

There does seem to be some sort of magic.

Desynthia sends the magnificent eagle that just appeared a little farther, as a scout.

She shrugs as she isn't as much helpful as she hoped, but keep her good mood

I thought my spell could help, but you were tooooo much awesome for these ogres. They stood no chance. Probably because they couldn't stand at all.

The sorceress cast a spell, and her eyes glow while she looks around for magical auras. Her hair, on their own decision it seems, decide to become pink.

Know Arcana: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (16) + 9 = 25
Spellcraft: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (16) + 8 = 24

There is some permanent illusion here, a kind of permanent magic mouth, a spell used to deliver short messages.

Salvio casts another cantrip, invoking magic to clean the area.

Casting prestidigitation.

The bald eagle appears, resplendent in a red and white striped coat with a blue hat covered in golden stars, screeching in American. You instantly have to look away from its glory. The bird seems annoyed you haven’t found oil yet.

After about a minute the bones and the stone are now clean of dirt, dust, cobwebs and tiny dead insects. Salvio slowly starts moving some of the smaller bones, but the going is slow and the big ones definitely won’t get moved by the spell.

Mage hand would probably work better at moving the bones without touching the stone, if that is your intent.

Desynthia sends the magnificent eagle that just appeared a little farther, as a scout.

She shrugs as she isn't as much helpful as she hoped, but keep her good mood

I thought my spell could help, but you were tooooo much awesome for these ogres. They stood no chance. Probably because they couldn't stand at all.

The sorceress cast a spell, and her eyes glow while she looks around for magical auras. Her hair, on their own decision it seems, decide to become pink.

[dice=Know Arcana]1d20+9
[dice=Spellcraft]1d20+8

There is some permanent illusion here, a kind of permanent magic mouth, a spell used to deliver short messages.

"Like a kind of alarm system if intruders come in?" Bobbie thinks aloud.

Salvio tsks and casts mage hand, moving the rest of the bones.

It will be a couple minutes total for the cleaning, which is completely fine. But does anyone else wish to do other things in that time? (the eagle will by gone by the end, fyi)

Seems like a lot of bother to avoid touching a few bones. Then again, there's a lot Iladora doesn't know about magical traps and wards-- perhaps touching the items around it would set it off.

She wipes off her blade and leaves the mages to their work while she scouts around the room.

Perception + urban terrain: 1d20 + 8 + 2 ⇒ (4) + 8 + 2 = 14

Corba checks the doors for traps.

Perception: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (17) + 6 = 23 northwest
Perception: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (7) + 6 = 13 southeast

Once the writing is clear, Salvio gets out pen, paper, and ink, ready to copy it down.

Corba feels the two doors are completely void of traps. Totally one hundred percent safe.

Iladora is pretty sure this isn’t a city, town or even village. Underground would be more applicable. She sees nothing of concern or interest in the room.

As the last skull is pulled off the plate a sparkling blue force ghost pops up above the stone. It is of a female Shoanti and she speaks, ”Be welcome, my cousin!”

Then realizing half the group is inside alread, she spins around to the group, ”Ah, there you are too. Be welcome, my cousins.”

The stone below the woman has two sets of writing. One faces the entrance and one is upside down, to be read as one would leave the sepulcher.

Linguistics check (or other method to translate things) if you want to try to read what the words say.

The wizard writes it down, pondering as he does so.

Taking 10 on Linguistics for a 23.

"Do you have any idea what the words mean, Salvio? If not, I have a wand that will help with that."

"Er," Bobbie hesitates, then replies with an awkward wave. "Thanks."

"Who... are you?"

Salvio begins working out the words (1 minute to do so) and Bobbie talks to the ghost!

She responds with a genuine smile, ”I am Hearth Keeper. How can I help you today?”

Everyone can now see the stone with the writing has a large crack through it.

Salvio works out the words on entering to be 'Be Welcome, My Brother' and exiting to be 'May Your Spirit Guide You.'

The spirit projection thing patiently waits.

"We're here because this place was profaned, some time ago... We're working with Shoantis to set things right."

[b]"We've just found a couple of ogres in this room. Did you see other people coming in? Any danger we need to be aware of?"[b]

As the ghost doesn't like threatening, Desynthia watches around, and waits until the spirit answers her friend Bobbie

"We're here because this place was profaned, some time ago... We're working with Shoantis to set things right."

”Oh that’s nice dearie, it is a bit of a mess.”

"We've just found a couple of ogres in this room. Did you see other people coming in? Any danger we need to be aware of?"

“Hmm, I think so? It’s been a while, but I tend to lose track of time. There was a skeletal beast who looked over this place, but judging by the looks of things, it’s been blown up. And judging by the fact that I’m here, seems like something has gone wrong!”

"Gone wrong? Aren't you supposed to be here? All we did was trigger this mechanism."

”Oh sweetheart no, I am not supposed to be here. I was resting so well under my stone. It was definitely not broken and the guardian was not in pieces.”

"Oh, that doesn't sound... Good."

"Were other tombstones broken?"

”I can’t really say, I haven’t been anywhere else. Can you fix mine before you go look? I don’t want to be stuck floating around here forever.”

Bobbie shoots desperate glances at her teammates, hoping that someone will step in with a miraculous solution to the ghost's problem. She has no idea how to fix her tombstone.

"I see. In that case, we are fortunate to have a solution." She indicates Salvio's (I assume backpack?) where the glowing red stone is tucked away. "This item is supposed to mend any damage that's been caused here." She balks. "Um, maybe it's supposed to touch the tombstone?"

The aforementioned wizard starts as he realizes someone is pointing at him. "I'll see what I can do with the device, as soon as I finish this translation."

The translation is now complete.

I missed that. It's been a busy couple of days.

The wizard draws out the repair stone and tries to invoke its powers on the broken tombstone.

No worries!

Salvio pulls out the stone, points it at the crack really hard and tries a few common command words.

”Abracadabra! Allakazam! Reparo! Fixus Thingus!”

When none of those work, the wizard takes a breath and examines the magical stone.

Salvio taking ten with spellcraft reveals the following information about the stone.

Scavengers Stone (50 charges): This jagged, egg-shaped stone emits a faint red glow when not in direct sunlight. By rubbing a scavenger’s stone against a damaged (but not destroyed) construct or object as a full‑round action, you repair 1d6 points of damage to the object or construct. If this brings a broken object’s hit points above half its maximum hit points, it loses the broken condition. As a standard action, you can smash a scavenger’s stone against a destroyed object or damaged construct. Doing so immediately repairs the object to full functionality or heals a damaged construct of 10d6 points of damage. Destroyed magic items can be repaired in this manner if their caster level is no higher than 3rd—more powerful destroyed magical items cannot be repaired by a scavenger’s stone. A newly‑created scavenger’s stone has 50 charges—smashing a stone against an object uses up 10 charges.

The wizard evaluates the damage to the stone.

Taking 10 on Knowledge (Engineering) gives a 20--can Salvio tell about how much damage the tombstone has taken?

you think it should take about five uses to fix.

"So it's going to take about a tenth of the power in this item to completely repair the tombstone. Should we do that, or see what else needs to be fixed?"

"If it's done quickly I would say yes. Otherwise, I can repair it within a little more than 1 hour, casting that mending spell I know seven times..."

Lini agrees with Corba.

"Sure, fix it with the stone and then we can move on."

"If the tombstone has magic on it, will your spell still work?"

"Well, it's damaged, not destroyed, so... yes, i think?"

Try Mending or Use Stone or Leave It? Let me know, seems to be a lot of differing opinions.

[B]"I think to be fair to Hearth Keeper I'll fix this stone now. Even if we run out of charges later, letting her spirit take its rest is the right thing to do."[b]

Object HP repaired, 2 charges: 2d6 ⇒ (1, 3) = 4

Phooey.

Salvio shakes the stone and frowns at it.

2 more charges: 2d6 ⇒ (4, 4) = 8

How does it look?

The stone is mostly repaired, but a small crack remains.

About 1-2 more charges needed.

———————————

The scenario, at least so far, lists how many charges of the repair stone for each thing that needs repaired and not the HP required. I am happy to advise how many charges are needed on a repair.

Earlier when comparing mending to the stone, I was able to reverse calculate the average HP needed for repairs to figure out about how many mendings would be needed, mainly to answer Corba’s ‘how long to use mending’ question. So I can calculate the HP required, if you all would prefer to make the rolls (or use mending instead). Rolling of course gives the possibility to use fewer charges OR more charges, so there is more risk/reward there. I would prefer the decision as to either roll for everything or just go by charges be made now.

I don't feel lucky, so let's go with charges.

I second that - let's go with charges.

Agreed! If a situation arises that the mission doesn't account for, like a broken weapon or something, we could roll for that. But I'm fine with just tracking charges otherwise.

The magic stone rubs the broken stone once more, completely removing the crack. Hearth Keeper seems relieved, ”When you all are ready to move on, please wish me well so I can return to my rest. Just say ‘May your spirit guide you!’”

Which door?