This locked room holds sensitive personnel records. While they probably make for interesting gossip in Pathfinder circles, they certainly don't advance the current phase-shifted situation.
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Now you must decide how you want the students to help you. To gather the Material Failsafe items you've found? To open the door to the second level?
Ghardak is very articulate with the chair, fully spelling out his vague message.
Hari frowns.
What materials? I think we're done with our assignments.
Thevenin then adds more words. First describing the shield and water. Geltra retrieves a pitcher from the kitchen and fills it up at the fountain. Likewise Tels retrieves one steel shield, and they both arrive back in the main hall with their items. They give each other curious glances that clearly say Now what?
Thevenin's final message instructs the students to head up the stairs, and they open the door to the second level allowing you to pass through.
Geltra and Tels stand by carrying their two items.
The environment upstairs in the lodge is decidedly more chaotic, with shifting patterns in the carpet that change color; strange smells of the ocean, swamp, and desert wafting through the level; and odd noises of all types ringing through the air. The windows are shuttered. Lanterns with continual flames illuminate the area, as on the lower floor.
Eltis approaches the door to the first room in the corner that he indicated. The Strange Door seems oddly out-of-phase, he can sense it! Trying to pass through it, he gets a jarring feeling and suddenly...
He appears outside of the door to the room at the opposite (Southeast) corner of the level! Of course the rest of the party notices this but the students or none-the-wiser.
Thevenin and Ghardak cannot directly figure out a way to interact with the door. However, they do recall that they just had the students open up a similar Strange Door to access this level!
Thevenin convinces Geltra to open the first bedroom door...
This is a simple living quarters for the staff of the lodge, with little unusual about it. Thevenin then gets the young kobold to proceed to open the doors to the subsequent six rooms and they are all also staff quarters. The only difference is the last chamber , which is set up to house visitors. Its wardrobe, footlocker, and side tables are empty.
A large bed covered in fine linens is the centerpiece of this well-furnished room, and a sturdy table surrounded by three chairs sits in its northeast corner. Several eye-catching curios rest on top of the room’s chest of draws, including a mirror with a gilded frame, a mother-of-pearl box holding talcum powder, and a polished lodestone more than a foot in diameter. Two lamps in wall sconces light the room and a thick carpet woven with a wayfinder pattern lays on the floor.
Looking at the room for long is disorienting: Shimmering images of the bed dance across the floor, loose papers float through the air in slow processions, and the walls ripple like a pond’s surface each time someone in the room takes a step. The pile of the carpet grows six inches deep in the course of a second, and then subsides back to normal.
Yuan Wu and Thevenin determine that this room is the center of the chaotic forces that have plagued this field trip. They also realize that they’ll be unable to interact with whatever is inside the room unless they enter the room themselves, due to these powerful reality-warping effects.
Thandmere Krelsun lies on the bed, unconscious. The nearby gasps indicate to you that the students can also see him.
Everyone can also see a ghostly, serpentine creature wrapped tightly around his body. Disturbingly, the creature’s head appears plunged into Krelsun’s temple.
Nobody is immediately sure what it is. Its long tail hangs down over the side of the bed. The end of its tail is entirely on the same phase as you, appearing to emerge from a “ripple” in reality. It sways back and forth in the general direction of your party.
Yuan Wu knows that this is a pelagastr tail. It has weakness to spirit damage.
The creature pulls off of Thandmere and prepares for the Pathfinders' advance!
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COMBAT TRACKER
Round: 1
Tactical Map
Active Conditions:
Before Your Turn:
After Your Turn:
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The bold may go
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Round 1
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Yuan Wu (2 actions after exploit)
Eltis
Thevenin
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BLUE
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Ghardak
Billy
Yuan Wu finds the creature quite nimble, its shifting form dances away from his asp coil deftly. He can't tell if it phase shifted and let the coil pass through it or if it's really just that fast.
It has even less trouble with Eltis' divine lance.
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After the frustration of the creature dancing about and phase shifting in and out to dodge the prior attacks, Thevenin's arc of electricity connects with it, stopping it where it floats mid-air. It then seems to twitch and convulse for several moments in response.
It's tail begins to lose its current shape and shift, fold on itself, and twist. When it stops morphing, the shape of the tail looks like a lightning bolt, vaguely at first and then moreso the more you look at it.
It turns to Yuan Wu, whipping the tail at him...
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The tail rocks Yuan Wu's body, strangely he feels it all through and even to his extremities.
He notices just in time that the tail is trying to grapple onto his arm and shakes it off!
Its body again begins to vibrate, still focused on Yuan Wu. It seems to be sending out some manner of waves... of phased reality? Of chaos?
⇒ Clumsy 2 for 1 round
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As if having been racked with pain wasn't enough, he begins to feel loss of balance in his body. If he were to fling his asp coil forward again, would it strike his prey true or would he slash himself or a trusted companion?
Your movements become clumsy and inexact. Clumsy always includes a value. You take a status penalty equal to the condition value to Dexterity-based checks and DCs, including AC, Reflex saves, ranged attack rolls, and skill checks using Acrobatics, Stealth, and Thievery.
The introduction seems to indicate that this creature who has brought chaos to the lodge means business.
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COMBAT TRACKER
Round: 1 -> 2
Tactical Map
Active Conditions:
Before Your Turn:
After Your Turn:
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The bold may go
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Round 1
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Ghardak
Billy
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Round 2
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Yuan Wu -17 (Clumsy 2)
Eltis
Thevenin
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BLUE -9 (AC 19+?)