Silverbeard dispatches the Black Goblin, and the smoke clears.
The party slays the goblins sent to kill them, and free to whistleblower with the salve.
They take a moment (or perhaps longer) to rest before heading back to the Party!
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Darwin peers around the hedges. "That fight was closer than I like. Ouch, and the fire did a number to me and my robes." He winces as he approaches the group. "It will probably take me a long time to heal with bandages and salves. I suggest we heal via magical means and rest for an evening before continuing our missions. Any other suggestions?"
1) Rest. Report out the Time it takes as well as your characters' Outcome (HP totals, Focus Points, Spell Slots etc)
2) Decide if you'd like to Full Rest now or save it for the final mission.
3) Click on the "Party" link above and choose a your Third Mission!
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Black Molly's healing improves Darwin's condition by a substantial amount. "Thank you, Molly. My wounds have nearly closed up entirely. But I fear if I am not fully healed, I will not be helpful in combat."
Darwin heads to a room in the Lodge to rest.
Upon regrouping with the party after resting, Darwin suggests the next mission. "I have heard that Fola Barun is very welcoming to new Pathfinders such as ourselves. Let's try to get her attention away from Urwal. I don't think I would succeed in distracting him."
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Captain Kullan gratefully accepts the healing proffered by both Jasper and Black Molly. He then heads home for a good night's rest in his own bed before meeting up with the rest of the team in the morning. And of course he brings enough pandan cake courtesy of his wife for everyone - even some for Tiny. The cakes are bright green and have a sweet vanilla flavor with a hint of coconut.
As those interested try the cakes, the big nagaji nods in agreement with Darwin that they might as well try Fola Barun.
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Eventually, you report back to Fola Barun from the Envoy's Alliance for your mission.
"Ah, good to see you Pathfinders," Fola says when she sees you return. "One of my recent recruits lost his cousin, a nomad priest named Jeko. Jeko went off to purge the infamous Mavedarus estate of its hauntings and ghosts. But he did not return, and we fear that poor Jeko may have died there.
"The manor was built generations ago, and the series of disappearances and deaths in and around the house began before it was even completed. The house has since been slated for demolition, given the number of injuries and casualties that have occurred there." Fola pauses. "This means you won't have much time before all chance of finding the body would be lost, and I promised my recruit that we would make sure their relative was laid to rest properly."
She tells you that Jeko is (or more likely was) a Pharasmin priest, so the easiest way to identify the victim is by the spiral-shaped religious symbol of Pharasma that he wears.
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Captain Kullan discovers a rumor about the Mavedarus estate's former owners from one of his many contacts, the tour guide Teki Stronggut. "I heard the Mavedarus family played with some nasty black magic. You ever hear of Soulbound dolls?" Teki shakes her head. "Creepy stuff. The Mavedarus family were heavy duty makers of them, and were not picky about who they snuffed to get the souls they needed."
”What sort of ‘disappearances and deaths’?”, asks Molly. ”Could help to know what we’re stepping into”
Fola mentions that there have been a number of mysterious disappearances and deaths of neighborhood people, mostly elderly and children.
"How long ago did Jeko disappear, and is that why you suspect he has perished?," the Captain asks.
Fola pauses. "It's been four weeks. He's not returned home, nor been seen in his missionary work. At this point, we're expecting the worst."
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Captain Kullan considers Fola's answer and the implication of her pause. "Four weeks," he repeats softly with a solemn nod. "I agree it's unlikely. But we'll do our best."
He shares some pandan cake with Teki in return for the info, and then relays what he heard from the goblin tour guide to the others.
"Molly, yesterday Cap'n Silverbeard referred to you as a 'sea-witch.' Would you know anything about soulbound dolls?" He's not trying to imply anything. He's just curious, as things like that are waaaayyy outside his wheelhouse and a good leader always defers to the experts on his team.
Black Molly remembers that soulbound dolls are often created as guardians and servants by extracting the souls of unwilling living creatures and putting them into constructs. Black magic, indeed.
★ --- ★ --- ★ --- ★
The Mavedarus home was once a grand, three-story structure with a rooftop veranda and manicured grounds. Now, only the first floor remains standing, the second and third stories having collapsed during the earthquake, and in the years of neglect since, the grounds have grown into a wild disarray.
This old home might have once commanded the respect and envy of its neighbors, but the remaining story is cracked and crumbling. Whatever upper stories it might have once had have long collapsed, scattering stone and debris across gardens grown wild and weedy. Two curving staircases lead to a broad veranda bereft of its railings. Two openings that might have once been doors lead into the faint remnants of a solarium, while two more doors lead further into the creaking house itself. A whiff of rot and decay seeps from the structure.
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On the way to the creepy creepy old house, Captain Kullan refreshes everyone's tactics training by running through a couple of Form Up and Pincer Attack drills. The citizens of Absalom likely consider it a strange sight indeed to see a nagaji teaching a monk, a pirate, a ghost, an orc and a pig. But on seeing that the group is Pathfinders, they probably just shrug it off.
Inside the manor, the Captain raises his shield and proceeds towards the northeast hallway. "Have no fear, my friends. Together we'll sort this out and keep each other safe," he assures them from the lead.
After drilling on Captain Kullan's awesome tactics, you go inside.
The tiled floor, ornate columns, and sweeping staircases of this once-grand hall evoke a distinctly Taldan aesthetic, though the finery has suffered greatly over the past years.The marble floor tiles are cracked and filthy, and the statuary lining the walls has been smashed. None of the three staircases climbs beyond head level before ending abruptly, debris from their fallen upper reaches scattered across the floor.
Darwin and Jasper look around, but neither sees anything untoward.
Alas, the moment that the party walks into the space, the air frosts before you -- the unmistakeable sign of a haunt just starting to launch. Then comes the sound of hands scratching beneath the floor boards. The hands erupt through the floor, bits of rotted flesh falling off them to reveal a smooth white material beneath that is too shiny to be bone.
Scabble-scabble scra-a-atch!
★ ---- ★ ---- ★ ---- ★
Black Molly
Jasper
Darwin
Hands
Captain Kullan
★ ---- ★ ---- ★ ---- ★
As Black Molly makes her sigil of warding in the air, the hands twitch and then one by one, fall over. However Molly realizes that this is only a temporary solution. She hears voices all around her calling, "hElP uS. SaVe uS. tEll oUr sTorY."
As you examine the hands, you realize they are all tiny and made of porcelain...
Not only that, Molly realizes that this haunt will reset at midnight unless the story of this site is told to others. But it is time to move on and continue your explorations.
Everything this room once held now lies jumbled over the floor in a soggy mess: torn pages, scraps of fabric, and splintered remnants of furniture. Doors hang askew in the north and east walls, but the door to the south has been smashed from its hinges.
Jasper finds a hidden compartment in the wall behind a collapsed bookcase that contains a stack of notes about the owners’ work: the schematics for making soulbound dolls.
Nestled underneath the papers is a wand of heal.
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Ivy has overgrown the empty window frame, casting this room into cool shadow. A low shelf, its wood warped and cracked, stands against the south wall, and a desk has been overturned and smashed in the eastern part of the room.
Darwin calls out a warning as he hears the whispers from this room before everyone goes inside.
"Please don't make go into the doll again," a tiny voice calls.
Another cries, "It hurts! It hurts!"
★ ---- ★ ---- ★ ---- ★
Jasper's sweet voice soothes the voices of the soulbound, who sigh and beg, "Tell our story. Don't let us be forgotten."
With mounting evidence of soulbound dollmaking and the tragic history of this house, but still no sign of Jeko, you continue searching through the house.
Only a single, aged worktable still stands in one corner of this room, though the clay fragments of an oven and rusted metal suggest it was once a kitchen. The ceiling has completely fallen in, leaving this room open to the sky above. Doors stand in the east and west walls.
The furniture in this once-fine dining room was crushed by the debris falling from the floors above. What remains is sodden and mostly unidentifiable.
A large, long-cold fireplace stands in the east wall of this expansive parlor, but the furnishings are all rotted. A dank stench of mold lingers in the air. The ceiling overhead has collapsed, leaving the room open to the sky. The floor in the room’s southern end has followed suit, leaving a gaping hole into darkness.
This time, both Darwin and Jasper notice that the whole floor is unstable and likely to crash downwards if weight is put upon it. Furthermore, they see a human-sized body at the bottom of the hole. Could this be your lost Pharasmin priest?
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Darwin very cautiously peers down the hole at the body at the bottom, trying to gauge how far down the next floor is. "I might be able to safely jump down there, but I'll have a hard time getting back up." Darwin fishes some rope from his pack. "This might come in handy. Can anyone stabilize this floor perhaps?"
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Kullan puts a hand on Darwin's shoulder as the monk peers out over the edge. "Hold there, friend. Allow me." He fishes around in his pack and produces a small miniature ladder, like something used as a child's game piece. "This was a gift, but it will transform into a 20-foot long ladder. Easily enough to reach the bottom, I think," he says with only a little doubt as he peers into the darkness below.
"Though perhaps it would be best to shore up the floor first."
Captain Kullan stabilizes the floor enough to prevent it from collapsing, and then provides Darwin with a ladder so that the body may be retrieved.
In addition to a religious symbol of Pharasma, the body carries a block of Pharasmin funerary incense. Black Molly knows she can burn this block of incense and offer your condolences to the priest's spirit to set the soul at rest.
And with that, Molly lays the spirit of Jeko to rest. With your task completed, you return with the body to Fola Barun. "Ah you have returned with Jeko," she says sadly when she sees the body, and then her eyebrows raise. "His soul... You laid it to rest already?" She sighs. "That will such a relief to my initiate when she hears." Fola praises your care for your fellow agents.
Then she asks, "Do you have anything else to tell me about Mavedarus Manor? Is there anything we should know?"
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"We saw a few ... 'soulbound' creatures. Molly was able to calm them. They repeatable asked us to "tell their story". We also found information about how the soulbounds were created. The souls still resides in the house made it clear they wanted to travel to the Boneyard, and definitely didn't want to go back into the dolls. Hopefully this recounting is accurate to let them depart this plane."
Darwin pauses to think for a moment. "Oh, we also found these papers. It seems the former owner of that manor was involved."
"Telling the story is important," Fola nods. "We'll give these spirits their rest and make certain their tale is told. Thank you for your hard work, Pathfinders."
★ ---- ★ ---- ★ ---- ★
It's time to take your final mission with Gorm Greathammer.
Gorm greets you in his office. "Oh hello Pathfinders!" Gorm says, genially. "I'm looking to have you do a job for me in the Precipice Quarter. Tavvar Hamavsi and her research has been a major topic of conversation in the College of Mystery over the last few weeks. She's been working on a ritual to create partially real shadow illusion manifestations of the memories from people, places, and things. Fascinating stuff. I would like you to meet with Tavvar and procure a copy of the Nidalese texts she has been using in her research. "
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Kullan had been hanging back during the debrief with Fola. Perhaps he didn't get enough sleep the night before, in spite of being home, or maybe the concept of the soulbound dolls bothered him. He and his wife had not yet decided what they were going to do about kids, them being from such different ancestries. But they had been talking about it, and the idea of such dolls just creeped him out even more now. With Fola's assurances that the Society could put the souls to rest, he felt better, and steeled himself for their next mission.
The Captain glances over at Black Molly to see how she reacts to this mission, as it sounds more up her alley. "Sir, what do we know about Neng Hamavsi? Any known associates or mentors that we can expect to accompany her?" he asks using the Nagaji term for "Miss" or "Lady" but without any connotations of nobility.