◆◆) Stride x2
◆) Strike
While Serj reaches again for his shield, Bull Market goes flying tread first to bust over the final hag!
“Abnormal presences have been detected! The focus is close! Rendezvous at the glacial cave, Pathfinders!”
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Eltis heals Serj again but Alya and Rilkin make the point moot as the hag goes down with a desperate flash of the fighter's blade.
Pink woman -88 damage <dead>
Eltis
Peter
Alya
Rilkin -21 damage (7 damage to shield) <diseased, enfeebled 2>
Serj -25 damage <enfeebled 2, wounded 2>
Bull Market -7 damage
--------------------------
While the group heals up, some of you grow curious about the rift still pulsating in front of you.
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Bruised and bloodied, Serj goes Science First on his creation, neglecting his own wounds...
~) Repair
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Rilkin gratefully receives Eltis' healing, and feels much better afterwards. He then takes out his new tools, and with his tongue sticking out as he concentrates, tries to bang the dents out of his magical shileld.
After a while (and Serj has finished seeing to Bull Market), he approaches him with his shield.
"Professor Serj, would you mind having a look at my shield? It's new and I haven't got the hang of it yet"
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”Elementary”
~) Repair
Welding the hairline cracks back together, Serj hands the fighter his shield, and asks ”That’s stronger than steel. Easy enough for me to work with, but what is its constitution? It didn’t smell alchemical…” he asks with honest intent.
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Peter notices the last remnants of the battle against the hags in hazy, episodic review within the edges of the spiraling vortex. The bard forces raw magical energy to test its edges, and the portal twists and turns before blinking out with a blinding flash - overwhelming not just in its intensity, but also with the information it contains. When your eyes adjust back, Lady Alya De-Quinn is gone.
“We’ve sealed the time rift! Excellent work, Pathfinders!”
Venture-Captain Armeline Jirneau gathers the Pathfinders in the remains of a shattered chamber, beneath a starry night sky. “Congratulations on making it this far! You’ve all earned a break. Let’s set up camp. We’ll pick up the focus’s trail tomorrow.”
Before the Pathfinders scatter, Urwal interjects. “Look at the stars. Take it in. You’ll never see a sky like this again. The stars tell us we’re on Akiton, fourth planet from the sun.” He points at a blue dot in the distance. “That’s Golarion. Savor the sky. It’s breathtaking.”
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After a night’s rest, Venture-Captain Jirneau gathers the Pathfinders together once more, just as Ashasar and a team of scouts stride into camp. “We’ve found the focus. It’s beyond a time rift far stronger than any we’ve yet encountered.”
“You heard him!” Armeline shouts. “We’ve got some reality to repair. Let’s move.”
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Dozens of jagged tears in reality cut through the terrain, forming a glowing purple barrier that blocks further passage. Howls, snarls, and voices displaced through time issue from the rifts and movement is visible within. Ashasar and Venture‑Captain Armeline Jirneau spread the Pathfinders out, then reach out with hands, magic, and mind. “Now! Seal the rift!”
• You can attempt an Arcana check to wield magical forces
• You can attempt a Diplomacy check to encourage fellow Pathfinders to greater heights
• You can attempt a Nature check to control primal magic
• You can attempt an Occultism check to understand the nature of the time rift and the Dimension of Time
• You can attempt a Performance check to emulate other skilled Pathfinders
• You can attempt a Religion check to call upon the blessing of a deity
• You can attempt a Survival check to find supplemental components to help close the rift
• You can attempt a Thievery check to detect weakness in the time rift’s defenses
• You can attempt an applicable Lore check to assist as well.
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Serj runs around thinking he can just boss people around as if they were his subordinates.
But the joyful presence of Bull Market - who actually offers to help by giving a boost to a shorter pathfinder, holding a tool while someone works, or even producing his own when needed - all while chirping in binary - renders the unintentional routine akin to "good cog, bad cog" - perhaps inspiring those with magical skills the ability to perform beyond their ordinary capability. Eventually, Serj recognizes what is going on.
"Watch as your Zone of Proximal Development expands through our partnership!" he expounds, meanwhile tandem-searching for prospective "partners" to ply his future financial schemes...
With a flash of light, the time rift vanishes, revealing a snowy expanse. Armeline orders, “You’ve done it! We’ve sealed the time rift. Close in on the focus!”
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As the time rift shatters in front of you, reality rights itself, revealing the focus—a fully dressed, towering draconic being bent over a metal and glass sarcophagus. The dragon turns, brandishing a strange tool. “Get back, you blasted dogs! Wait... You’re not the hounds.” The dragon taps her snout, thinking hard, then shakes her head. “You seem familiar. But if we’ve met, I can’t recall. The longer I’m away from home, the more jumbled my memories become. I can barely remember my name! It’s Heraxia, by the way. Who are you?”
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Aside: "Herexia - that sounds like a good LLC name..."
Serj strides right up to the dragon "My colleagues and I have come to invest our time on behalf of the malfunction of a Beacon which has inextricably led us to you" he smiles here, always enjoying the long route by way of introduction before deigning himself to actually answer questions "I am Councilman Professor Serj Harlequinn of Harlequinn Enterprises appearing before coterminously as an Agent of the Pathfinder Society" puffing his chest to inflate his importance before "And these are my colleagues" the disproportion in time allotted to introductions something our shrewd hero intended out of pure ego - he continues undaunted "I am confident that we can come to an arrangement that my employer and you may find to be compromising to both of you" he snorts at his own pun here "For you see, we are no mere misers here to request the liquidation of your business affairs - No! - we seek only to put an end to the disturbances that reverberate across time and space and interfere with our transportation initiatives back home"
"What say you: " he winks at her as he makes his request!
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♫ My name is Peter
I'm carryin' the wheel
Thanks for being a greeter
But this is how we feel ♫
♫ Come sit next to me
Pour yourself some tea
Just like grandma made
When we couldn't sleep ♫
♫ Things were better then
Once, maybe soon again
We've all left the den
Let me tell you 'bout it ... ♫
Peter will ask about the tool she's holding, and also what "hounds" she's referring to.
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Heraxia eyes the gnome as if she has seen his archetype span the eons. When he finishes she nods half-heartedly. "I am glad you are on my side, perhaps we can come to some sort of agreement."
Turning to the others, she is more forlorn. "I do not know exactly what I have been through. I think I come from your future, your distant future, in fact. I know I was born on Triaxius but that is not where I am now. I remember being linked to an adventurous ryphorian named Felise. We had adventures, but they blur in my memory. Felise was easily bored and insisted each adventure was bigger, bolder, and more dangerous than the last. Somehow, we even traveled the eddys of time itself, and that must be how I find myself here."
Answering the bard, she grows wide-eyed. "Our travels through the temporal byways attracted strange bug-eyed hounds that hunted us. That is where we were separated for good. I believe Felise was shunted back to our home time but I remain here in the past. Sometimes I get thoughts from her, but it is always fleeting and far too rare. But the last message spoke of an arch in the future, the same one, I believe, that I have found here in this time."
Holding the tool aloft, she laughs. "Oh this, it is just one of the many magical relics we have tried to use to help get me back to my time. To no avail yet."
She look off into the distance. "If you truly wish to help me, I have found a stasis pod. If it can be repaired, I believe I can use it to harness the power of the Eternity Arch to travel back to my home time."
Venture-Captain Armeline Jirneau has joined you during this explanation and her voice suddenly surrounds you. "As Pathfinders we are quite accustomed to cooperation, and I believe returning you, Heraxia, to your proper time may even sever your connection to the Eternity Arch and free it from the malfunctions that it has caused in our time."
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"Bring me to this device, but first..." depressing a button from his gauntlet-mounted control module, Bull Market snaps into forced movement, manually overriding his nascient AI "...Please sign below - a customary commision whose fine print barely worth a read protects the Integrity of the Transaction!" the robot prints pages at the bottom of which, below "" lies a big and a "____________________" to sign under.
Our shrewd hero grins, a glint of greed in his eye!
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Serj raises an eyebrow as he approaches ”How difficult can it be? Core principles all share certain axioms…”
”Replicating the effect of Cryogenic Hypostasis by extrapolating the Zeroth Law of Thermodynamics into Temporal Sequency Simulations - it’s a cute trick, but easy to overtune, even epistemically…” grabbing an ohmmeter and soldering iron from his robotic toolkit, our innovative hero rescrambles the central circuit board, causing the entire housing to shutter a couple times before stabilizing once more!
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The group easily repairs the pod and your new companion smiles. Then Heraxia points at the metal and glass sarcophagus. “We need to move this stasis pod to a location near the Eternity Arch. Somewhere close but isolated. The oval-shaped chamber at the back of the area should work.”
Venture-Captain Armeline Jirneau steps in and gestures at the surrounding landscape. “This is a dangerous place, Pathfinders. Perhaps you would rather help us secure the perimeter. I'll leave it up to you.”
”That’s it, Pathfinders! The focus is almost in position!”
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Accustomed to shouldering around fried robot parts made of chunks of welded allows, Serj demonstrates surprising strength for his stature heaving the heavy pod up and bearing it across the gap to where it would be deposited.
”Management of this load is underway - let yourself not be miserly with your exertion!” he scolds, rushing ahead with obsessive-compulsive mania!