[Outpost VII] DM Carbide's PFS2e 5-04: Equal Exchanges - Necessary Introductions (Inactive)

Game Master John Woodford

Deerslicer frowns. "This sound fishy ... If person need help, why d'ey not being more useful. Me t'ink d'is is trap." He glances around. "Me is smallest, so probably best to squeeze through there, and not cause all treasure to shift."

Deerslicer proceeds into the room, climbing across the mounds of treasure as needed, eyes peeled and thieves' tools at the ready in case he has to stop any kind of trap he might find.
Balance(Acrobatics): 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (3) + 9 = 12
Perception +10, Thievery +9 if needed

Gracie sits back by the doorway, looking after her goblin companion with concern.

Deerslicer edges in carefully while the rest of the party watches. The goblin doesn't think the pile will come down, and he's correct...right up until it does. A massive slide of incredible wealth pours down on Deerslicer, but thanks to his warning no one else is caught.

Deerslicer, DC 20 Reflex save vs. 23 points of damage.

Reflex save: 1d20 + 11 ⇒ (15) + 11 = 26
I forget how halving rounds. Do I take 11 points or 12 points?

Deerslicer does his best to basically surf down the flowing treasure.
Athletics (Balance): 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (4) + 9 = 13

But it's more of a head-over-tea kettle sort of effort, though he does keep form landing on his head.

Round down, so take 11 points (and more importantly, you're not buried in treasure).

Coming out on the top of the pile is a tiny humanoid figure made from folded paper; it is the source of the noise.

Zac moves over to investigate. Deerslicer, what did you trigger now?

Anyone with the Arcana skill or the Magical Crafting feat recognizes this as a guardian fulu, a magic item used to detect intrusion and give an alarm unless the proper password is spoken.

Deerslicer blinks at Zac. "Now? D'is de first t'ing me trigger t'day." He frowns at the paper. "Great, more paper. D'is one have writin' on it, like da paper d'at smelly lady get earlier?"

Try the password on the paper, "persimmon." I can't read, so don't know what it says, and don't trust it anyway.

How close does Mrs. Crinkle get to the marked spot?

Ah. I hadn't realized we had a map yet. She would've stepped just inside the door, to where her token is now. Also, she's trained in Arcana.

"Ohhh myyy. This is a guardian fulu. I think we're supposed to tell it 'persimmon' so it doesn't scream that we're intruders." When she says 'persimmon', she makes sure to address it directly. Then she cocks her head slightly, waiting to see if it worked.

At the word, the guardian fulu goes silent.

Where to now, and is anyone going to patch up the ranger?

Deerslicer begins pulling out bandages, which smell vaguely of herbs, but also like maybe they've been soaked in pickle juice, and begins wrapping his wounds in them. "You ask paper guy if he know where kobold is? Look around room, now d'at me do all de dang'rous work."

Nature (Natural Medicine Treat Wounds): 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (1) + 8 = 9
Ack! The pickle juice burns! Spending a Hero Point to re-roll that
Nature (Natural Medicine Treat Wounds) reroll): 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (14) + 8 = 22
Healing: 2d8 ⇒ (6, 2) = 8

Let your medic patch you up! Hopefully you can keep your hero point.

Desmond fusses over the little goblin, swatting his hand away from the bandages. "Now what did you go pulling the whole thing down on you for? Let's see what we can do for coin-bruises..."

Treat Wounds DC20: 1d20 + 11 ⇒ (15) + 11 = 26
Healing: 2d8 + 10 + 5 ⇒ (1, 2) + 10 + 5 = 18

Nikma sighs.

I knew that pile would collapse!

Eldryon is glad to not have been at the goblin's place.

Does this thing talk? she asks pointing at the guardian fulu.

"Do you talk, dearie?" Mrs. Crinkle asks the guardian fulu. "And are you hurt? Do you want Desmond to work his magic hands over you?" She leans in towards it conspiratorially. "And trust me, those hands work wonders. On wounds, that is. I haven't had the pleasure of learning what else they're good at. Heehee!" She pulls away with a wink.

Both Eldryon and Mrs. Crinkle know that these items aren't sapient.

Bending down to listen closely, Mrs. Crinkle shares a significant look with the guardian fulu. "Ooo. You don't say, dearie? My, myyy!" Turning back to the group with a mischievous glint in her eye, she declares: "Well, let's go find Purrypurring or whatever their name is. Desmond, dearie, did you do Deerslicer up dandily, or shall we dilly dally 'til the day is done? Heehee!"

Her name is Purepurin.

'Magic hands' Desmond repacks his medical supplies and nods to Mrs. Crinkle. "All done, ma'am. Let's keep doing and find the kobold."

Nikma again draws his sword and heads to the front of the party to lead the search, continuing on.

Moving down the passage to the East, he stop before the double-doors to the left, and as the passage opens up to see what dangers may lurk before proceeding.

Search (Perception+7) if applicable

Deerslicer stretches and nods. "He do a great job fixin' me up." He looks down the hall. "Go this way?"

To clarify--Nikma is no longer trying to Avoid Notice, but is Searching instead?

Yes, being honest I think he's been doing that since he was leading the way down the hallway.

Eldryon follows Nikma investigating the place.

Eldryon has trap finder

A broad hallway branches south from the narrow passage the party has taken, double doors directly opposite the branch. Further east, Nikma can see a door on the south side of the hall before it turns south.

In the interest of moving things along, this is on the other side of the double doors to the north.

Large gaps mar the canopy of gold on this vault’s floor, revealing cold natural stone where treasures once sat. On the far wall is a blast of soot around the outline of a humanoid with raised arms, melted coins and singed tapestries painting a neat picture of an uninvited guest’s untimely demise. A beat-up old mop leans abandoned against the wall, still dripping ashy water from its user’s futile attempt to clean off the blackened evidence of Valashinaz’s wrath. Near the mop, a discarded and well-singed satchel spills its contents onto the floor. A curtain blocks an opening to the east.

Looking more closely at the silhouette on the wall, Deerslicer thinks that this is what's left of his designated prey.

"Well, I don't want to end like that unless I'm good and properly drunk. Yoooohooooo! We're Pathfinders sent with a giiiiift! For that meeting todaaayyyy. Hellooooooooh? See, thieves don't announce their presence, so that should keep us safe, if they heard me. Heehee!" Her giggle sounds a little nervous, but her eyes still twinkle with excitement.

Deerslicer sniffs the silhouette. "Yeah, d'is guy make da dragon mad."

Desmond just stares at the silhouette. "Whoa. I don't know if I can fix that..."

All Mrs. Crinkle hears are the echoes of her call, followed by distant scratching sounds that don't seem to come from anyplace in particular.

Which wall on the map is it. The "vault" is the room we opened to the North?

Nikma sighs audibly. I suppose that means there is a short temper or limited patience at hand. We'll have to tread carefully.

He carefully searches around the room for other, less obvious clues.

What are the differently-colored vats in the middle of the room?

Desmond pulls aside the curtain in the room to see what's behind it.

"Just make lots of noise as we go, and keep calling their names. That way they'll be more likely to give us a chance to explain ourselves before getting the ketchup. Heehee!"

I'm thinking about hiking in bear country and tying a bell to one's pack. ;P

There are so many doors and covered doorways here, and Mrs. Crinkle is *positively itching* to poke her head in each and every one of them. It's so hard to hold back and wait for the slow pokes others to do a mind-numbingly tedious thorough search of each area. Buuut, of course, there's the whole 'don't want to become a soot stain on the wall' thing to consider. Maybe she can nudge them along. "Hey kids! We don't need to stare at the goo-gahs. Pop your head in, look for live bodies, move on if there's none. Stick together. Oh, and look for traps. Let's do a speed round!" She follows her advice to stick together, as difficult as it may be, as Desmond investigates the east curtain. (It's a nice curtain, but certainly not the nicest the dragon could afford.)

"How do you identify <powerful evil dragon> scat?" "Smells like pepper and has little bells in it."

Are there any tracks of either the kobold or the dragon in the area with the soot? If so, I'll designate whichever one I can find as my prey.

Nikma, would you want to switch over to Scout? My Perception is higher, so I'm more likely to find a trap if I'm Searching instead of Scouting. If not, feel free to dismissively ignore Deerslicer and he'll go back to Scouting.

Deerslicer sighs. "Me find da first trap, so me take da point. You--" he points at Nikma "Keep eye open in general for trouble comin', an' warn us." He crouches down, checking for any possible traps as he moves along.

Perception +10

The differently-colored vats aren't really there--drawbacks of using existing maps.

Deerslicer--no tracks. Perhaps they've already been mopped up.

Desmond pulls aside the curtain. The vault on the other side is filled with large mounds of gold, carefully arranged to create a happy face across the floor. The smile is lopsided as one mound has collapsed, taking its neighboring pile with it. Various fulus and talismans line the wall in perfect rows that stretch up toward the unreachable ceiling, disappearing into shadow. The only signs of life are a few empty pickle jars left over from an enthusiastic meal.

Is anyone going into the room that Desmond has found?

Nikma can switch to scouting :)

Scout!

Nikma will step just into, but not very far into the room Desmond found and just listen.

More piles that can topple...

Deerslicer frowns. "Hmm... trying to lure us in with pickles. Will not work!" Deerslicer doesn't go into that room and continues along, checking for traps.

Mrs. Crinkle calls to those in the far room. "No intelligent life forms? ... Any doors? ... One? Where's it open? ... Over there? Hmm. I wonder if it connects over here? Let's see!" She bustles down the hallway, envisioning the rooms in her head, and sure enough, there's a door where she expected one to be. She checks for traps and if it's clear, she pokes her head in to see if she can spot her allies.

Perception +6: Any traps on the door? (And yes, she was preoccupied and forgot to check in the hallway.)

Don't get too far ahead of things. Nikma has had an Encounter.

As Nikma enters the room, one of the jars suddenly begins to move!

Round 1 (ongoing):

Initiative order
ROUS in Jars-acted
Deerslicer-
Desmond-
Zac-
Eldryon-
Other enemy-
Nikma-
Mrs. Crinkle-

Before Nikma can react, the jar rolls towards him and tries to run into him. Take 7 HP bludgeoning damage, with a DC 17 basic Reflex save to avoid some of the damage. The ranger realizes that there's a large rat inside the jar as its head pops out to bite at him, but its teeth scrape off of his armor.

Everyone but Nikma and Mrs. Crinkle can act!

ROUS in jar: AC ? HP taken: 0
Other enemy: AC ? HP taken: 0

Nikma pivots to jump out of the way of the jar...

DC17 Basic Reflex: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (16) + 9 = 25

Just checking if there's a map. I don't see anything on the slides.

Demsond is surprised by the movement. "Is...Is that a rat inside the jar?" He quickly moves up to it and tries to grab at the vermin inside the jar.

Athletics: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (15) + 6 = 21

Flurry: 1d20 + 10 - 4 ⇒ (10) + 10 - 4 = 16
Damage: 1d6 + 1 ⇒ (1) + 1 = 2

Flurry: 1d20 + 10 - 8 ⇒ (7) + 10 - 8 = 9
Damage: 1d6 + 1 ⇒ (6) + 1 = 7

◆ Move
◆ Grapple (if successfully, it's off-guard)
◆ Flurry

Slide 6. Currently in a car, so unable to check the results of the attacks.

Move
Pull out Glaive
Attack green jar hit: 1d20 + 12 ⇒ (11) + 12 = 23 dmg: 1d8 + 4 ⇒ (5) + 4 = 9

Zac, I don't think those colored areas are the jars that are attacking us. Nikma walked all the way into the next room, and that's where he got attacked, if I'm following the map ... where Nikma and Desmond are.

What's not clear to me is if this is an enemy creature or a hazard. Is the only way to deal with this to attack it? Or is there a way to disable it?

Deerslicer sighs. "D'is not what I meant 'bout look for trouble an' warn us!" He pulls out of his backpack a the long rifle with a curved blade mounted on it, his +1 piercing wind. "C'mon, Gracie, let's go help 'em out."

◆ Interact: Draw +1 piercing wind
◆ Stride
◆ Command companion: ◆ Stride, ◆ Stride

Right, the GM explained on my asking that those jars/pools are not really there, they are an artifact of re-using another map. I wasn't entirely clear on which room was next, but Nikma did intend to follow Desmond closely.

It's a creature; I was in a rush last night, and forgot I hadn't put up an icon for it. The icon is there now.

Zac, I've got you starting at the nearest point where you could reasonably be investigating the guardian fulu/treasure collapse. Please take your turn from there.

Round 1 (ongoing):

Initiative order
ROUS in Jars-acted
Deerslicer-acted
Desmond-acted
Zac-?
Eldryon-
Other enemy-
Nikma (25/28)-
Mrs. Crinkle-

Nikma manages to avoid the worst of the impact. Desmond steps up, grabs the jar, and pummels the rat inside, hitting it once. His fist slips off of the heavy glass, though.

Zac and Eldryon to go!

ROUS in jar: AC 17 HP taken: 0
Other enemy: AC ? HP taken: 0

Yeah, you had me one square to the east, I moved 25 feet into the room with the 3 vats, drew my weapon and swung at the jars. Confused.
Anyway, if to redo, 40 foot doublemove into the room with the 3 jars and pull out Glaive.

As noted above, the vats aren't really there.

sorry, kid sick nights are sh*t try to recover from that...

Eldryon moves as fast as she can and strikes the creature.

+1 Elven branched spear: 1d20 + 7 - 1 ⇒ (12) + 7 - 1 = 18
Damages, P: 1d6 + 2 ⇒ (3) + 2 = 5

Round 1 (ongoing):

Initiative order
ROUS in Jars-acted
Deerslicer-acted
Desmond-acted
Zac-acted
Eldryon-acted
Other enemy-acted
Nikma (25/28)-
Mrs. Crinkle-

Zac advances and readies his weapon. Eldryon moves up and strikes at the rat, but can't quite maneuver his polearm past the doorframe. The wall provides cover for Eldryon's attack.

Then what at first looks like a carpet of coinage and other valuables surges forth from the pile. It quickly becomes clear to Desmond and Nikma that it's actually a mass of rats that have small items of jewelry sticking to their matted fur. They swarm indiscriminately over their larger cousin, Desmond, and Nikma, biting and scratching. Nikma and Desmond, take 7 HP piercing damage with a basic Reflex save to avoid some or all of the damage.

Nikma and Mrs. Crinkle can act!

ROUS in jar: AC 17 HP taken: 0
Rat swarm: AC ? HP taken: 0