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Your adventure begins during a meeting in a briefing room in Skyreach, the primary fortress of the Pathfinder Society’s Grand Lodge in the city of Absalom.
Amid all the construction and the scaffolding being put up, Venture-Captain Ambrus Valsin, steward of the Grand Lodge, saunters into the room from a door at the opposite end of a large table. He doesn’t bother taking a seat at the table, instead pacing around while he speaks.
"Welcome. I’ll keep this brief; I don’t have a field assignment for you, but I do have some requests from the three deans. Given that you’re all in-between missions, the deans have requested that you take part in some training upkeep trials. Nothing serious, mind you. We just want to make sure those skills of yours don’t get too dulled!" Valsin ends with a brief chuckle, as though joking to himself.
"You’ll want to go see each of the deans at your convenience. In case you’ve forgotten, that would be: Kreighton Shaine, the Master of Scrolls; Sorrina Westyr, the Master of Spells; and Marcos Farabellus, the Master of Swords. I place you in their capable hands, and may fortune be with you all."
With his delivery complete, Valsin makes way for the exit. "Oh... yes, you’ll find the deans in their respective offices. If you don’t know where those are, then just ask around. I can't stay for long. I need to finish packing my office by the end of tomorrow so that the movers can move my stuff to storage."
As Ambrus heads out the door, you look at each other quizzically at the strangest (and probably shortest) briefing you've ever gotten.
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A taller man with impeccable posture and a stoic expression approaches. His hair is black, shoulder length. On further inspection he seems rather pale. There are strange... tattoos (?), unclear, but inky black markings for sure, peeking out of the collar of his cloak and more framing the edges of his face. They are sharp clean lines, sometimes with angular branching.
Finally, you note that he seldom blinks.
Greetings. I am Lephos. I look forward to seeing what trials lay ahead of us.
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A 5' 10", being enters the room, moves to a nearby wall and pears around. He is clad in explorer's clothing colored green with gold trim and clasping a slightly twisted metal staff. What you can see of his body is metallic colored forest green with golden joints. He sports a sincle, dimly glowing Topaz eye.
"I am called Bustral. I am a Wizard of the 1st Order. It pleases me , to be with you during this adventure.", he says, "My race is unusual even by Pathfinder Society standards. If you have questions please feel free to ask.".
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The elf stands from her chair as Venture-Captain departs, the soft rustle of leather and metal marking her movement. Her presence is striking—hair the deep black of cooled obsidian shot through with ember-red strands, cascading past finely pointed ears. Her eyes, a vivid blue edged with faint warmth, hold the quiet focus of one accustomed to battle.
“Prynn Fyrion,” she says, her voice steady and clear. “Fire-born Champion of Sarenrae”
The crimson and gold of her armor catches the light, its pattern reminiscent of living flame. She inclines her head to the gathered Pathfinders, the faintest smile curving her lips—warm and confident, like the promise of sunrise after the storm, "It’s good to meet all of you." she says.
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A very garrulous bard was here for a moment, and an elf with a longbow on his back, takes his place.
"I'm Henit Dimfoot. I know it's a dwarven name. But, my parents were... a bit odd. I'm afraid that this is my first assignment from the Society. Is it always like this?" He seems apologetic almost.
You may delete J'ndar from this scenario.
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With a long beard over his breastplate and his warhammer the dwarf doesn't look very different than some other dwarven. His story his different.
The dwarf seems to have already experienced trials. He escaped the devastation caused by the whispering tyrant. But he lost everything.
Having become steward of fire and stone, he retreated to a remote place in Golarion becoming an interlocutor of the dead in his overtomb forge.
My name's Brokout Greathood. May the spirits help us in these trials.
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"And I am called Soosan." An air of command is exuded by this dark-skinned elven woman. She takes the time to meet each of her teammates in the eye and memorize their names.
"Henlit, in my limited experience, this seems like a remarkably simple assignment, which means it will challenge us in unexpected ways. Now, everyone: to whom should we report to first? I suggest Kreighton Shaine, the Master of Scrolls, because I believe his office is the closest." She glances around to gauge everyone's reactions. This part of her job is the hardest: gathering input and allowing her team to help make decisions. When one is being attacked, there's no time to take a vote; the most capable should make the necessary decisions quickly and everyone else should follow them. That's the best way to stay alive.
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Kreighton Shaine speaks as the carriages get underway. "We’re off to a facility in Absalom that the Society rents out and uses for training purposes. The location was formerly the domicile of a conjurer with some rather unpleasant plans. That got all sorted out, of course, but it’s still conducive to summoning magic!" As Shaine continues his explanation by going into detailed history of the building’s previous owners and their relatives, the carriages come to a halt outside an abandoned locksmith’s shop in the Coins district of Absalom. Shaine exits the carriage and quickly unlocks the front door, gesturing to a dusty glass-fronted cabinet in the main room, which opens to reveal a descending staircase.
The Master of Scrolls steps briskly down the stairwell into a worked stone dungeon. Ambient light comes from two glowing patterns on the floor, but Shaine doesn’t pause for these curiosities. After a short trip northeast and down another flight of stairs, he halts in a long chamber containing more of the glowing circles. Two circles rest at either end, with others in nooks along the northern wall. The circles come in five colors; red, blue, green, yellow, and violet, with each of the five nooks featuring a different color.
"This whole dungeon is really an interesting place, and it’s worth exploring in full sometime, but that’s not what this trial is about. No, I’m not interested in seeing you untangle traps and unlock doors. This isn’t about what you can do or your physical skills. I’m grading you on what you know. Each of the northern circles is a two-way teleportation device. Four of them, all but the green one in the center, are currently active. Stepping inside an active circle brings you to a matching circle elsewhere in this dungeon, and waiting in the vicinity of each of these is a summoned creature. Four creatures, of four different types. Each of them has an amulet you have to retrieve for me. But this isn’t just a brute force test of forcing them to hand it over! No, no. This is the Trial of Scrolls, and we do things with more... finesse."
Kreighton clears his throat as he pulls out a clipboard.
"A being of law and order has one of my amulets. It’s one of the least of the inevitables, aeons bound tightly by rules and constraints."
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"perhaps an examination of the runes might provide insight into which to choose first.", says Bustral as he steps forward to examine them.
"Good idea. Let's see what we can figure out. If we can't parse it from here, Brokout's idea is a good enough way to start the process of elimination." Soosan joins Bustral in inspecting each of the circles.
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Kreighton Shaine clears his throat. "This is good that you are analyzing the problem before jumping in willy-nilly. However, it is also recommended that you don't overcomplicate the issue. The runes you are studying all serve to stabilize the magic in this facility. They have nothing to do with the task at hand. Just choose a color square and try to determine if the creature on the other side is the one you're after."
You can tell that although Shaine is pleased at your preparation, he is also impatient for you to start...
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This room was clearly once a confluence of the various portals that pepper this dungeon, as all five colors of glyph are symmetrically arranged here. Only the red circle in the southeastern corner is currently activated.
You see a creature hovering in the room’s precise center, slowly revolving and analyzing the room’s symmetry.
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Lephos softly takes one step towards the being and addresses it.
Greetings good aeon! We are told to retrieve amulets from beings such as yourself, but we also wish to observe and abide by any relevant constraints. Perhaps there is an order to our retrieval of them. What amulet do you have, and how and when should we go about retrieving it?