|
1) I am based in Southeast Asia (UTC +8) so my posting hours may be unusual (especially for those in North America). I usually update at least one or twice per day. Just to keep the game moving, please post at least once every day and at least once during the weekend.
2) Please keep all posts and communication in all channels limited to a PG-13 level and be both positive and inclusive.
3) Please label all three of your actions. Even if you think what you are doing is obvious.
4) If I am unavailable for longer than 24 hours, I will let you know in the Discussion Tab. Out of respect for your fellow players and myself, I ask that you do the same. Real life happens, and real life will always take priority over the game, but out of fairness for your fellow players, please let us know if you will be unavailable for an extended period of time.
5) Please note that on the following days, my posting can get unpredictable:
Tuesday/Thursdays - all day, as they are the 2 busiest days of my work week
6) Please complete the Macros and the Slides linked at the top of the page.
7) Questions, concerns? Feel free to share them in the Discussion tab.
8) Let's have some fun and tell a great story together! After all, that's what we are here for.
|
|
As you check into the Lodge in Absalom, you spot the following message on the board:
"I need some agents to travel with me to the Shackles on an important mission that will affect the future of the Society in western Garund. I need people who aren't well-known as being Pathfinders, so you'll do. Meet me at the Glorious Payoff as soon as you can.
It is signed "Capt. Calisro Benarry" and has note of which pier the ship is docked at."
As you assemble at the docks, you take some time to get to know your traveling companions.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The low-level industrious hum of the docks was shattered as a pearly fish-headed person with bright orange splotches burst from the sea, before splashing down on one of the piers, landing in a hero’s pose.
“Tadah!” cried the athamaru. Great word, ‘tadah’. Works without translation across several languages. The athamaru planted its dancing spear like a pole on the deck, and rose up in a jumping jack pose, balancing one heel on the pommel of the spear. Spinning gracefully yet slowly around this fulcrum to scan the horizon, with one hand shading its eyes, the athamaru realized that it was first to arrive. Or had it arrived too late?
“Hey, you.” The athamaru glared suspiciously at a crate that sat nearby as it orbited its spear. “We’re not late, are we?”
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
"Huh?" The athamaru stumbled, stepping down from its pirouette. "Well, it is a fish-eat-fish world down there."
It suddenly recalled its manners. "Sorry, I mean - hi! I'm Koi. Koi Polloi." Koi paused a moment to collect some words. "Some people call me a linguist."
The athamaru shrugged. "Others just say I'm talking carp."
|
|
"People who aren't well-known for being Pathfinders, huh? Gee thanks," says the most popular Pathfinder in history a brand-new elf agent of no renown. "Well, sounds like they want this one to stay close to the chest."
Merisiel finds where the Glorious Payoff is docked, and sees she isn't the first to arrive. "Hi!" she says brightly. "Looks like we'll be traveling together for a bit. I'm Merisiel." She wears leather armor designed for high mobility and carries an array of weapons, none of them very large.
|
A large humanoid creature with the head of a bull, crowned with long, powerful horns, arrives. His muscular body is on full display, encapsulated inside a shiny breastplate and sculpted by years of labor in the lumberyards. Large weapons are stowed behind him, adding to his imposing presence.
"Brutus." he shortly introduces himself to them.
|
|
As you gather on the docks, Calisro Benarry herself arrives and beckons you all to board. Once all is ready, she casts off the lines and you set sail.
As a splash of salt crashes over the bow of the Glorious Payoff, Calisro Benarry deftly steers her ship through a hidden channel, carefully navigating through the barely visible rock and coral that protrude slightly from the water’s surface. Behind the Payoff, a slightly smaller ship—the Sea Sparkle—follows, making every effort to follow Benarry’s course as closely as possible. Off the port hull, the deep green of the Garundi coast is illuminated by the late afternoon sun.
"See those gulls?" Benarry shouts over the flapping of the sails, "that’s the sandbar we’ll be dropping you off at. Barely sticks up over the waves, but the seabirds flock over it to feast on crab. As I explained earlier, Vidrian—you might have known it as Sargava not that long ago—needs explorers to chart the trade routes to the south that they couldn’t use back when it was ruled by Cheliax. Simple enough bit of adventuring, but the new nation’s been having trouble with the Free Captains of late. Turns out when Vidrian broke free of Cheliax, the locals stopped paying the pirates protection money, and now they’re the number-one plunder target in the Shackles. What’s more, the pirates have set up a blockade preventing our ships from making it down to Vidrian to assist."
"Thankfully, we’ve got someone on the inside. Stella Fane, a Free Captain with ties to the Firebrands and the Pirate Council, has been in contact with the Society. She and members of the Society’s leadership have put together a fairly clever plan to help the Society’s ships pass through the pirate blockades unharmed. The Wind and the Waves willing, the Payoff and the Sparkle can sail to Vidrian, no problem. While we’re doing that, I’ve arranged transport for you to Port Peril to meet with Fane and get her to sign this contract making the whole thing official—she may be a pirate, but she’s the kind that holds to her word. You’ll need to avoid drawing too much attention until after the deal is done. Once she’s signed the contract her friends in the Pirate Council will ratify it and there won’t be much the lesser captains can do. Be careful. Anyone looking to put a stop to this need only ensure that contract never gets signed."
"It’s a long-term trade agreement; we tell her where we’ve had reports of slavers—she hates them and it’s no skin off Society members' backs to let her know—and she approaches us first with any information she receives regarding archaeological sites and historical discoveries. Our obligation requires us to make the information exchange each time one of our ships passes through the Shackles, so attacking a Pathfinder ship is the same as attacking Stella and her allies on the Pirate Council. Smartest deal we’ve made, if you ask me."
"Any questions?"
"Careful with that contract, by the way. It’s all magicked shut, so only Fane can read and sign it. Now if there isn't anything else, you can all jump overboard and swim to the sandbar!"
|
|
Slavers, archeology, pirates- it was a lot to try to keep up with, but Koi did the best a young athamaru, so far from home, could do. None of these things mattered as much back home. On the other hand, right-of-way deals were as common as barnacles. Safe passage, in exchange for gifts, was guaranteed to travellers by Koi's shoal back in East Xidao. It was how the old world worked with so many threats beneath the waves. Exactly how it worked though was never explained. Perhaps there was slavery, and archeology, and contracts that got signed. But why had nobody mentioned it?
"I have lots of questions!", cried the athamaru. "I... I get the archaeology thing. But Fane is a pirate? And we work with Fane? Mom called me a grave robber when I left to join the Pathfinder Society. Am I a pirate as well?" Koi's eyes got even wider as wildly imagined fine print swum in a wandering reverie before its eyes. "Wait! If we pirate a pirate contract... are we contracted to pirate from pirate contracts too...?"
Before Koi could have a proper aneurysm its attention was captured by the magical sparkles of wavelets breaking on the sandbar. The word 'too' hung unfinished on its maw as it stared in wonder out to sea.
|
|
Merisiel lays a friendly arm around Koi. "Ah, don't let it gum your gills. It's all just, you know," she gestures vaguely in the air, "technicalities. We're doing good work here!" Good for somebody, at least.
"Is there anyone in particular," she asks Bennary, "we should watch out for to stop this deal? Any free captains who are, like, more ambitious than the rest?"
|
|
Brutus blankly stares at the psychic's inquiry to Calisro. Makes sense, he thinks. But when it gets to the part about pirating and the pirate contract, he merely shrugs and leaps overboard toward the sandbar. His large stature displaces a voluminous amount of water, sending splashes toward anyone nearby. He doesn’t mind. In truth, he prefers the woods over the sea, but this isn’t so bad either.
|
|
Merisiel lays a friendly arm around Koi. "Ah, don't let it gum your gills. It's all just, you know," she gestures vaguely in the air, "technicalities. We're doing good work here!" Good for somebody, at least.
"Is there anyone in particular," she asks Bennary, "we should watch out for to stop this deal? Any free captains who are, like, more ambitious than the rest?"
"I'll let Stella Fane tell you about them." Bennary says with a grin. "Now all of you, jump overboard! I won't ask again!"
The water isn't particularly deep or cold and you eventually make it. It's a small strip of land literally in the middle of nowhere.
DC 18 Perception:
|
|
Brutus paddles his way to the sandbar, splashing water to the side. Upon arrival...
he looks around and finds that the sandbar is just a small strip of land literally in the middle of nowhere. He then shakes his body to remove some water.
"So we wait here until somebody picks us up? Hopefully, the tide won't go high soon enough."
|
There is another thing to notice on the small sand bar…
…a low glow of faint orange, barely visible, beneath the surface…
…you dig below the surface, and recover what looks to be a metallic head with a crystal affixed into one of it’s eyes!
And it begins to whirr!
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Koi smiled at the friendly elf while she asked about the pirate, and grinned at Benarry's reply. "Of course, Mr Benarry. We should expect Stella Fane to be transparent!"
Seeing the goblin paddling with his flotsam, and already soaked by the minotaur's wake, the athamaru wasn't going to stay on deck. It smiled at Merisiel's arm draped over its shoulder. "Like a ride?" Koi bent down for just long enough, then bounded in a flat dive over the balustrades. Skipping once on the surface of the water before swimming through the waves, Koi Polloi quickly caught up with the other swimmers.
With one last mighty breaststroke, Koi beached itself on the sandbar, catching its chest on something buried in the sand. Looking under itself and seeing orange, Koi imagined in horror it had lost some skin! But no, that was not fishskin, that was a glow. Koi rose up on all fours and pulled a metal object out of the sand.
"Ooh shiny." It whirred.
"Ee whirry!" The athamaru barrel-rolled away in fright, dropping the metal head with its glowing eye back on the sand.
|
|
"A ride? What do you MEEEAAAN!" When Koi charges forward, Merisiel instinctively clenches her arms together to hold onto the suddenly-moving thing. This is, perhaps, the wrong move. Before she can give the moment a second thought, the two of them are off the deck and over the railing and into the water.
SPLASH!
The lithe elf had been in the water before, had in fact considered herself a fairly adept swimmer. This is nothing like those other times. Koi slips through the waves and currents like a-- well, like a fish, she supposes. Merisiel can only cling to it and hope it remembers that she needs to breathe.
* * * * *
"Wow," she says between breaths of fresh air once the two of them are on the sandbar. "Thanks!"
She stands up, brushes off the worst of the sand, and looks around at their measly sandbar, surrounded on all sides by vast stretches of empty ocean. "So what do we-- oh hey, there's something buried here!"
|
|
Remaining somberly quiet during much of the voyage, when directedly to do so, Masuuk plunges into the water. The heavily armored orc splashes into the water, quickly sinking deeply. He remains below the waves for some time, leaving some question whether he would ever surface. Eventually, his toothy mug breaks the surface and he tromps up the sandbar.
She stands up, brushes off the worst of the sand, and looks around at their measly sandbar, surrounded on all sides by vast stretches of empty ocean. "So what do we-- oh hey, there's something buried here!"
Finding something physical to place his immediate focus, Masuuk pulls up the buried object. He attempts to open it.
When, it fails to budge, he allows it to sink back into the wet sand.
|
|
When Koi Polloi drops the metallic head, it seems to hang in middair a moment, tumbling just so, and out of the lone eye socket, a laserfire doubleblasts into the sand!
◆) Flurry of Blows w/ Energy Beam
Boring a sizeable hole, where moments later, first a single a metallic hand, then a second, followed by a lithe torso, pull itself up and out, followed by two metallic legs, which gathering themselves, amble into an erect posture, a creaking and cranking escaping the knees and elbows, tiny deposits of rock and sand pouring out, and walks towards the athamaru with outstretched palms, whereupon it looks as though ready to attack!
...But instead, bends down at the waist, with yet another creak, and grabs the metallic head where it had plunked down, and wrenches it into it's neck with a precise 90 degree rotation, causing the linings throughout it's chassis, now a dull brown, to glow instead with that same orange arcane energy, the whirring sounds increasing in hum, loudly at first, before fading into a supersonic frequency over the matter of moments, stabilized.
The laser-turret for an eye glows with equal radiance, and panoramas around the crowded sand bar, and spotting the box that nobody can seem to open, grabs it with intent, and presses it's fingers into pincir shape, applying an exacting force...
...and hands the box back to Huh Shouldadied.
And it speaks! "What is the current calendar year?"
|
|
Amon opens the box and you find a bottle of Lesser Bravo's Brew and a bottle of rum with a stamp of a dragon turtle on it . The other bottles inside are broken.
About an hour later, a small boat appears, sailed by an elderly dwarven woman. She anchors the boat at the sandbar and begins moving around sacks of shellfish and crab traps to make room in the cramped vessel. She looks over at you.
"So you younguns are jus' gonna watch an old woman move all this without helping? I figgered you younglings would at least help out an old lady. If you wanna get going to Port Peril now, get over here and help move this stuff around to make some room! Hlar's the name, by the way."
"Y'know, Calisro Benarry made me come out here earlier than normal so you might as well help me row!"
|
|
The emergence and self-assembly of the humanoid box-opener had the athamaru utterly transfixed, until it spoke. "The year? I think... Year of the Swallow maybe? Or could it be the Cherry Blossom? Actually, I'm not sure. I missed the celebrations during Abadius. I just call it 4725."
The box of broken bottles was much less intriguing, but with two treasures uncovered in no time at all, there had to be loads more. So Koi spent an hour searching the waters around the sandbar, and would not have even noticed the arrival of the small boat if not for the smell. It reminded the athamaru of more odorous neighbors back home.
"Hello Hlar! It's a pleasure to meet you. Sorry, I was just being Koi, not shellfish. I would love to take crab from you."
|
|
Hlar looks grumpily at Koi. "Hmmpf. You young'uns have some weird humor. Since yer all in the boat, we might as well get started.
Hlar sails her boat in a meandering path to shore along the submerged rock formations. Occassionally, she would suddenly jump overboard and dive to the bottom of the ocean and returns with an oyster, sea urchin, or squid.
Hlar gruffly declines. "[b]Been doin' this for years. I don't need no hocus-pocus to help. 'Sides, it takes the sport out of it"
Eventually, Hlar’s boat arrives in Port Peril around sunset. As you drift into Crescent Harbor, sailors disembarking for shore leave remain clearly visible, singing rowdily as they work. Hlar soon lands at a smaller dock to unload her catch and gestures at Fane’s ship in one of the docks—the Risen Albatross.
"Stella has a penchant for riotous nights on the town once she’s returned to port are well known. But I don't know where the kids go these days. You can talk to the harbormaster, Tsojmin Kreidoros. He might have a better idea of where Fane disappeared to."
Tsojmin, a dwarf, is close by, checking off tasks written in a ledger. Hlar points him out to you and sends you on your way.
|
|
"Gooooood evening harbormaster. We're looking for Stella Fane and her crew." Though it's unlikely anyone in the trade would take Merisiel for a sailor, the swagger of her hips puts her as no pampered noble or cautious tourist either. Among the rough-and-tumble is familiar ground. "No trouble, 'least not from us. We're wanting to strike a deal with her."
|
|
A surprise move of empathy from one creature whose soul is encased in stone to another: Sensing his spiritual defeat, Amon Amaryth 5 moves to put it's hand on the gorumite's heavily-armored shoulder.
"I know what it is to lose everything, for I have in this moment done so" and "But our protocols remain integral to our constitution, even in the event of their foundational obsolescence, to adapt to reprogramming conditions" finally "Let your inner crystal guide what remaining decisions you have been imbued to make"
The "pep talk" is a little matter-of-fact, but despite it's monotone, intended to be comforting. In any case, our automaton hero let's the moment present and pass, fully present for both.
It hops in Klar's boat, nonplussed, and helps to row.
|
|
with Intimidating Glare
Brutus steps silently off Hlar's boat as they reach their destination. Finally, solid ground again. As Hlar points out the harbormaster, the one they need to learn their target’s current location, Brutus sizes up the dwarf from head to toe, considering the best approach.
He strides over, joining the others in the inquiry. When the time is right, he fixes the harbormaster with a smoldering glare, nostrils flaring, wordlessly demanding answers.
|
|
The athamaru watched as its allies sized up the harbormaster. Something Massuuk said seemed less intimidating than it could have been. Perhaps should have said 'may be found' instead of 'can'?
In any case coercion was not Koi's forte. The athamaru hung back just out of frame in case a more diplomatic approach would be needed shortly after. It could not speak Dwarven but perhaps it could convince the dwarf that it had an urgent secret message for Stella Fane if it asked conspiratorially in Jotun.
|
|
Tsojmin looks up suddenly as he notices the group descending onto him. "Wha-" is all he gets out before Brutus glares him and a talking fish is also in his face asking about Stella Fane. Slightly flustered, he manages to blurt out "Fane, ye say?! She's at the Last Catch! When you see her tell her she still owes me her mooring charges!"
Turning around toward the harbor, the you can clearly see that one of the docks leads out to a small islet. Walking down the dock, they find themselves at an open-air tavern with a large open space facing the sea. Several fishing boats have docked directly at the restaurant, unloading both ingredients and customers. Many of the patrons appear to be amphibious or otherwise from aquatic ancestries, and a few enjoy their drinks while bobbing up and down in the water off the pier. In a corner, you see Stella polishing off an absolutely massive plate of what looks to be calamari.
As you enter, Stella notices you and beckons you to her table.
"Ah, you’re just in time! Like little baby cleaner fish, not knowing that the shark might decide it wants a meal more than sparkling teeth. Let’s see what we’re dealing with. But first, a toast!"
Stella orders a round of drinks and offers them to you. Who partakes in the toast (and who does not wish to drink alcohol)?
|
|
Brutus takes a glass and sniffs it. Smells safe to him. He has been mindful of what he drinks or eats whenever he is on a mission, especially in a place he is very unfamiliar.
Brutus shrugs and chugs the contents of the drink he is holding until the last drop.
He feels... he wants to vomit afterward.
|
Koi trails the party by a short way again, greeting and waving at any athamaru as it passes by. While Koi's allies join Stella's table, Koi pretends not to know them and finds another table of aquatics with a free seat along the way, within earshot of the team.
Seemingly made very welcome, Koi makes small talk with the patrons, listening to Stella from afar. When Stella buys a round, Koi signals the attending barperson that it'll buy one of what they're having too.
Speaking in Common, Koi exclaims, "Arr! That be drinkin' like a fish!"
|
|
Brutus knocks down the drink Stella offers. The drink is powerful, pungent and has an aftertaste not unlike very old tar. He chokes down the drink, but the aftertaste gets the better of him and he doubles over in a coughing fit, much to Stella's delight.
Stella glares at Amon and knocks the drink back without batting an eyelash.
Everyone else sees the hint of a smile on Stella's lips as they knock back the drink and, although their eyes are watering, manage to keep from gagging at the pungent taste.
"So you Pathfinders can hold your liquor. I like that. Now then, I like to be entertained while we do business. Let's play some darts." Stella takes her place at a line on the floor in front of a dart board and challenges you to beat her at darts.
|
|
The athamaru thought for a moment. The orc and the minotaur seemed reticent. Merisiel absolutely bristled with darts, there was a win. But could the box-opener even throw a dart? Koi wasn't ready to give up its bystander disguise. It decided instead to subtly Message some tips to help Brutus. The minotaur wasn't graceful in the water, but then Masuuk sank like a stone.
"Uh, hello? Is this thing on? Hi. Sorry to be the fish in your ear, but can I offer some darting advice?"
"Stand with your hooves hip-width apart, with your dominant hoof pointing towards the center of the dartboard. Hold the dart with three fingers, ensuring a steady but not overly tight grip. Use your hand and wrist to throw the dart, snapping your wrist as you release it. Follow through with your hand after the release."
Tadah. Speed darting.