Shayna prepares a scroll and imbues Yuan with divine guidance.
Yuan carefully crosses the floor of the wizard's tower and whips the asp coil into the shrisk.
The shisk drops her crossbow and draws a kukri to begin swiping at Yuan with.
◇ Drop hand crossbow
◆ Interact: draw kukri
Yuan feels the familiar dull pain rack his body. His vision is already fading when the second hit comes. That seals it and he drops to the ground.
------------------
COMBAT TRACKER
Round: 2
Tactical Map
Active Conditions:
Before Your Turn:
After Your Turn:
------------------
The bold may go
RED -31
BLUE -21 (frightened 1)
------------------
Klara (knowledge question)
Cragorn
Shayna Quickfingers
Rose Goldenoak -14
Yuan Wu (dying 1)
The shisk isn't intimidated by Rose's nasty glare, though her grim expression does indicate that she knows Rose means business.
Rose's pistol shot catches her in the shoulder .
Cragon advances on the shisk with his curved blade, and she responds in kind
Don't worry... I'll get to you.
Given how things are going you're not entirely sure she's convinced.
Klara piles on and the party can tell the shisk's confidence is further diminished.
But... it doesn't appear that she will give up!
From across the tower, Shayna batters the shisk with arcane force.
Can the party get to Yuan in time?
Yuan slips a little further away...
The shisk turns to Cragorn, growling under her breath. Then, suddenly smiling she turns back and holds her kukri over Yuan, as if she might plunge it into him.
At the last minute she turns back and swipes the blade at the dwarf!
◆ Trick attack
The first hit is particularly lethal.
On the backswing she gashes him in the neck and now... Cragorn joins Yuan on the floor!
------------------
COMBAT TRACKER
Round: 3
Tactical Map
Active Conditions:
Before Your Turn:
After Your Turn:
------------------
The bold may go
RED -52
BLUE -21 (frightened 1)
------------------
Klara
Cragorn (dying 1, dc 11 recovery)
Shayna Quickfingers
Rose Goldenoak -14
Yuan Wu (dying 2, dc 12 recovery)
|
Klara sighs in desperation seeing mates are dropping like flies.
- We need to stop her, Rose!
Klara shouts trying to be louder than pistol shot.
Is there any solution? Her mind quickly calculating...
The plan to shoot now is not good. Klara drops slingstaff at the same time finds an Alchemist fire in her pocket ((Interact)) . She moves closer to Yuan Wu, using furniture in her advance.
Not liking the look of things, Klara draws an alchemical bomb and skulks along behind furniture in an attempt to close the distance to Yuan.
Shayna thinks that Yuan's condition is a little worse than Cragorn's, so she thinks to soothe his wounds first. Weaving through furniture, she just passes Klara and gets Yuan in sight.
Rose lodges another bullet in the shisks chest , whose breathing becomes intensely labored. However, her willpower is still intact and she's able to move her body just in time for the next shot.
------------------
COMBAT TRACKER
Round: 3
Tactical Map
Active Conditions:
Before Your Turn:
After Your Turn:
------------------
The bold may go
RED -56
BLUE -21 (frightened 1)
------------------
Klara
Cragorn (dying 1, DC11 recovery)
Shayna Quickfingers
Rose Goldenoak -14
Yuan Wu (-22, wounded 1)
Finish her!
Not knowing precisely who Shayna cast Soothe on, the shisk rapidly looks back and forth expectantly trying to predict which Pathfinder will pop up.
Unfortunately for her, Yuan catches her off guard and delivers the final blow.
A sense of relief washes over the room, and Shayna rushes to restore Cragorn to consciousness. With the party's wounds tended to, they search the shisk and recover the final piece of Alyreha's rearch!
The PCs fulfill their primary objective if they recover at least five research fragments, enough to complete Alyreha’s true name and return her to her true form. Doing so earns each PC 2 Reputation with their chosen faction.
The PCs fulfill their secondary objective if they defeat Liaskra, stopping her from getting her hands on the rest of Alyreha’s research. Doing so earns each PC 2 Reputation with their chosen faction.
If the PCs successfully collect all eight fragments of Alyreha’s research, they impress Alyreha, convincing her to trust the Society even more, and gain 2 additional Reputation with the Envoy’s Alliance faction.
If PCs successfully convince Alyreha to keep her research safe at the Grand Lodge they gain an additional 2 Reputation with the Vigilant Seal faction.
This will be reasonably easy once you get back to the Foyer. There are two more things we were supposed to have done to complete the treasure bundles that can be completed in short order.
--------------------
After recovering the last bit of Alyreha's research, the party stops off at a couple of rooms they'd missed on the second floor of the manor...
--------------------
While Alyreha spent most of her actual time in her research tower in practice, she originally set this room up to be a quiet reading room where she could focus on her numerous magical tomes. Most of the books have been moved upstairs to the Research Tower, but a few still remain, namely several complicated books on magical theory, many of them focused on interactions with the plane of positive energy and study of living constructs.
The room holds many fascinations for you, particularly those trained in the arcane arts. Taking a few moments to look around, you find a cantrip deck consisting of five stabilize cards in one of the desk drawers.
--------------------
On the far eastern wall of this small room, a board covered in complex magical runes in geometric arrangements is barely visible, nearly faded with the time this room has been untouched. The desk on the eastern side is covered in books, dried up inkwells and other writing implements. The room pulses with spiritual energy and wisps of airy magic all coalesce around a semi-transparent humanoid form sitting patiently at one of the chairs facing the desk.
The young woman’s spirit stares longingly at the wall. As soon as you enter, she turns around to look you, asking desperately if they have any news of her missing teacher.
Perhaps you might convince her that you know Alyreha and are trying to restore her. You may also try other methods (though less straightforward) or ask her other questions (though perhaps that is a less direct route to answers anyway).
You then inform her that you've confronted this group in combat and prevailed. This does seem to bring her some measure of comfort.
Neibiat doesn’t know what the intruders were after, only that she tried to stop them from ransacking Alyreha’s house, but they just pushed through her. She laments that she is not far along enough in her studies to stop them with magic.
She also gifts you a scroll of magic weapon that she knows is buried among the papers on the desk... it takes several minutes for her to rifle through them and recover it for you. :)
--------------------
Finally back at the Foyer, where you all first entered the manor, Alyreha is overjoyed to hear of your victory over the intruders. You have now recovered all eight pieces of her research and she can proceed to recover her true name, perhaps her true form.
You then remember your Vigilant Seal mission, to convince her to keep her research safely at the Grand Lodge
Each of you can attempt two skill checks to convince her, chosen from the following options (or other creative submissions you have that I didn't think of).
* DC 18 Diplomacy check to Make a Request
* DC 23 Deception check to Lie (I hope it doesn't come to this :) )
* DC 20 Intimidation check to Coerce (expressing the gravity of the consequences rather than directly threatening Alyreha— threats against her are an automatic critical failure)
NOTE This check can only be made once by the party.
Success The PCs earn 1 Persuasion Point.
Critical Failure The PCs lose 1 Persuasion Point.
Because you recovered all eight pieces of her research, you begin with 2 Persuasion Points. You need 5 total. You need to earn 3 more (or earn 3 more than you lose).
--------------------
IF you succeed, you convince Alyreha to turn her research over to the Pathfinder Society for safekeeping.
--------------------
You work alongside Alyreha in her tower to sort through the puzzle of words and runes to recover her true name. This takes a substantial time and requires great focus.
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 all of you and the Pathfinder Society, particularly because 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 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 you 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 (Pathfinder Lost Omens Pathfinder Society Guide 96), and a dose of oxygen ooze (Pathfinder Lost Omens Impossible Lands 306).
|
|
Rose walks through the next rooms with her gun loaded, she does not trust it to be over. She searches the reading room in look for any clues
When spotting the ghost she tries to convince her
"We have come here with Alyreha or at least how she is right now. Who are you?" she listens to her story and tries to comfort her.
==========================
When back to Alyreha she tries to convince the Arclord about what they were after
"I think we made it, we secured your house and we have found Neibiat your student, now we need help from you Alyreha."
Rose is able to calm Neibiat, though now she’s just curious what Rose means by “as she is now.” She will ask that you have Alyreha stop off by this room next you speak with her.
—— —— —— —— ——
As Rose lays your team’s accomplishments at her feet it becomes harder to resist. Still, this is a tough skull to crack.
I’m a tough skull to crack, you know? Keep going! You’re starting to make sense, but I need more warm fuzzies.
Hmm, but can I move in there and bring all of the spirits of my apprentices and interns?
|
|
After all magic is... magic.
The halfling suddenly provides water and first aid to everyone until Aryleha came soon becomes clear it is... clear around.
- We could give some helping hands to clear up the mess. I am sure it is plenty of place in Skyreach, but if you are truly intravertic typo, better stay at found again home. We always could think about portal if you are okay with further cooperation!!
Klara spends few hours more (at least) to clean up, sort books and maybe find soke researches or misterious lead...
Rose keeps on talking with the skull, maybe it will respond to more pleads
Eh. Okay! The Grand Archive can be my knowledge bank. I hope it draws interest!