GM Mordred's page

It has been a couple wee....mon...years, but the water elementals are in the rivers - and specifically tasked with guarding the eastern side on the map, next to the redroof district/slums - for some reason, the city wall ends to the south, then picks up way downriver on the other side - not a very defensible setup if you basically let people bypass your city walls by just crossing an oversized moat(or drift downstream on assault floats).

"I can do fish. kind of. If you think wings are a complicated concept for someone not supposed to have them, you never tried fins. But I could go in through the harbor, but then what? How would I find you again? Or you me?"

Lore heads up to the parapets, and all seems quiet, there is nobody there. There is a mobile trolley system - it seems the ropes are used to move heavy things up and down on the side of the wall, a quick pull indicates that currently it is in a locked state.

Hejo.

I am sorry for the prolonged absence.
I finally did manage to get here, and post.

Assuming you two are the only ones left, you already know the gist of it.
In the past month, there was also an unrelated death of a elderly family member - it was not unexpected, but it did take a toll and caused some more lost time and added anxiety.

As you can see, I did finally manage to get a post in, and reply to some PM's. I'll try and apologize across the boards, then we can sit down and have a talk on how we'll go on from where we stand -

True that :p

That said, i am just presenting the options as they are there. Sure, you could search for tracks. You could attempt to follow those tracks, even.
Or you could just straight climb up on the knotted rope. Or try and see what the other rope is for.
Or convince the lady into turning into some Dire Owl and attempt a flyby of the parapet. Or take out your lunch utensils and start digging.

But yeah, basically it's just a matter of getting over a wall, then making 2 or 3 not-too-hard opposed rolls with patrols, and be safe.

Aye, understandable. And I believe V is also gone by this point, so thanks a lot for having dropped in and given notice.

You were close to home base, anyway.

On another note, 2 different illnesses were doing the rounds in my family. I'm pretty certain I got Covid again a couple weeks ago when I was out, because my immune system is not worth s!+! right now it seems(which was pretty much the same the first time around).

But I'm better again, whatever that is worth right before the holidays.
I'll just move forward with a post tomorrow or so, but whoever is still here between Boros and Miranda, feel free to step up to V's spot and decide what to do.

Also, feel free to chime in on what Varuzhan could do scouting ahead, in case he does not post.
Main options right now probably include simply going up the knotted rope(his climb is sufficient to auto-pass), or sending Lore to check things first, or looking for tracks nearby.
Anything that comes to mind, really, just listing out what I think are "obvious" options.

"Phyllis, and no worries. My mate's Darrell. Pleased to make your acquaintance. We...are used to keeping to ourselves, so I should also apologize for not reaching out.", she offers a warm smile to the soldier.
"As for the armor...I could wear it, but the transformation could fail...and I could not cast anything else while I maintain that form. It had passed my mind, too, I'm just not sure it's worth it. As I understand it, he won't be able to wear it inside the city? But I am willing to give it a try if you think it's worth it. Just know that I am somewhat limited - the form I take has to be of sufficient size, but not necessarily a bird."

Varuzhan moves on ahead - for a moment, he believes he sees a silhouette moving away from the wall towards a tree line some distance from the wall, but he is not certain if that was just tension playing a trick on him, or if someone - or some kind of animal - was really there. Either way, the figure had vanished into the wilderness.

Near the wall, he first sees nothing, but then notices 2 ropes dangling down, going all the way up to the parapet, vanishing in a crenelle out of sight.

It should be possible to scale the wall using the rope and bracing against the battlement, if one was inclined to do so.

Aye...aye...I hate to admit it, but the unplanned 4th minion really threw me off course.
My mornings are shorter(because I either have to deliver kids someplace, or watch the little one), and the evenings are a mess(because he still wakes up often.)
I had a much better grip on tempo already before that.

Just compounds temporary issues, then, but yeah, I do fully hope we'll get to book 3(and beyond) within a more reasonable time frame.

@Nez, from the inside, it was somewhat easier to avoid patrols and time your contact with the gate guys - you are more or less blind going in(they won't let you run right into a patrol, but you got some way to go before you are in a safe environment inside). Plus nobody was as bulky and stompy as your Knight, most of you could manage to disguise your gear or duck into some alleyway with the reasonal expectation of not getting caught by a passive perception check - no such luck with ol clunky.

The Lector sighs...the armor was...part of him. More important than he was comfortable to admit. But it also was a liability in the city. He knew that - moving around in it would paint a large target on him, and his men and women, who he hoped to rescue, would perish for his pride and vanity.

He reluctantly - and slowly - takes the armor off, then hides it beneath some sticks and dirt at the base of a tree, the middle-aged couple helping to prepare the hiding place.

Meanwhile, Nezari heads to the gate. She is cautious in her approach, and very lightly knocks on the smaller gate. A small see-through opens, and she believes that she recognizes the eyes - she only has a moment before a small piece of paper is thrown through and the hole closes again. She picks it up and manages to make out the text in the dim light(her darkvision of little use)"Here is no good. Gate is watched. Arrangements are made. Go about 200 meters to the east."

There's a chance again to happily go as a group, or send someone ahead. If you go there. The first person to go there can make 2 perception checks, the others only one.

Someone should still roll a social skill check. He won't block you, but to what extent he'll comply depends on the result.

You spend another day at the ruined Mansion, passing the time reading, chilling, playing.

After all the trouble, the fights, prisons, sewers, swamps, dragons, patrols...it was good to just take it easy for a bit.

So much so, in fact, that some people might be pondering if all of this was really worth it, if risking their lives for the good of the City under such detrimental circumstances was really what they wanted to be doing.

Opposition to Thrune was one thing, being in open rebellion a different thing altogether.
But each member of the party had time to ponder by themselves, or simply enjoy the day.

As evening approaches, you assure your unwilling host that you plan on departing, and he seems visibly relieved.

You gather your belongings, break camp, and make you way towards the city wall, taking a moment to decide on your approach.
Will you all go together and hope "your guys" are on shift? Does a single person approach? In full equipment? Or do you convince the Lector to take off his arms and armor?(There is still martial law inside - aside from the fact he is a man being looked for)?
(The later would take some attempt at convincing - if confronted he'd prefer being ready to go down fighting, not being unarmed and helpless and waiting in a prison to be murdered. Any of the social skills can do depending on how you word things(i.e. you can also "intimidate" him into compliance by presenting the dangers and outcomes, rather than your character being the source of the intimidation))

True that. I was ill a couple weeks ago.

With the way positions were not re-hired or people are still in training, everybody was too busy to pick up on my open topics. So when I came back, I had a s$%%load of work waiting and some ill kids at home(as these things make the rounds).
Then, during the last 2 weeks, I was involved in no less than 5 escalations - usual frequency would be like 1 every other month. And those come with urgent action plans, post mortem meetings/lessons learned, report meeting with upper management.(Luckily I was not the lead for most of those, but it's still a ton of stuff to do.) - and in the middle, a colleagues father died and he took time off to deal with that.(Totally fine and reasonable, just saying that did not exactly make things easier for the rest of us).

I was simply burned out. Some other stuff on the boards further de-spirited me, and I was hiding in my shell for recovery.
I always WANTED to give notice, but figured I'll be back soon, then more stuff went down. Apologies.
(At least I know it'll wind down at work in about 1.5 weeks when we enter holiday system freeze - one issue/reason for the problems is people trying to push stuff out before then.)

@Varuzhan: I am sorry to hear that, but I understand. I will try and keep us moving soon(tomorrow/monday), we'll be at the city shortly.
If either of V or Nezari did not stick around during my unannounced absence, I'll bot you out gracefully.
Then we'll sit down and consider our options, Boros+Miranda.

I had to look it up too, it seems that you have one more day to waste - the next night should be the one with the right shift.

So yeah, you'll just have to pass the day. If you do not say anything, you'll find that he grows increasingly nervous as the hours pass.

Regardless of how much you decide to interact with the squatter you took prisoner, how DO you intend to spend the day? Just pass the time, do something "productive'?

Also, to what extent will you interact with what your prisoner considers his? He does have a fully stocked alchemy lab in the cellar, he has quite a bit of stored food, and the library is surprisingly well-stocked. Of course, aside from the fact that he will not fondly remember you either way, how much you "invade" into his stuff might influence just how much loathing he will feel for you once you depart.

Do give a short input and let me know how you spend this day - I'll assume you break camp and move to the city walls after nightfall, and will move us along once the day is over.

Sorry for the delay, been on a multi-day training last week that turned my brain to mush. Had hoped to find time to post in the evenings there, but my mental capacity was sapped, also needed some time over the weekend to re-adjust.
I am back and will update soonish™

"Oh, sure, you do you.", the former Ghost speaks up when Varuzhan opts to walk up the stairs. Despite imbibing his own mushroom tea, he does seem quite alert. Even while 'phasing out' he quickly takes note of any disturbances or changes in his surroundings.

Question is, are you staying over the day? If so, do you tell him anything? Due to Boros's threats he is too afraid to ask questions, but the implication seemed to be that you are here to rest - if you stay until the next watch cycle and at night, he will...grow nervous, not knowing what your thing is.

I saw as much, yeah, albeit of course it offers little consolation :)

If anything, I hope the "various reasons" are just you "cleaning up" your sparetime stuff, and deciding what sparks joy and what doesn't.

In which case, of course, both me and Sam will be sad that we did not make the cut, but such is life, I suppose.

Either way, your opportunity may soon arrive...there is little else that would prevent you from waiting for the next night shift, then returning to base.

I admit it's tempting to try and stretch it out a tiny bit to keep you around just a little longer, but that would hardly be the nice thing to do, so I won't.

I am sorry to hear that.

If it's something in real life that led you to this decision, all the more - but that seems unlikely if you'll wait for the next narrative opportunity.

If the narrative itself or my way of GM'ing is not to your liking, I apologize - I would offer to open a dialogue on that, but I suspect your decision is made.

Either way, I am sorry to see you go.
I'll still take that as an opportunity for others to give me feedback on their grievances, per PM or here, so I can attempt to do better.

To be clear, you are ALL down in the basement at that point. Unless someone carried Varuzhan up the stairs and placed him somewhere else. Even so I believe at least two people remained downstairs with the mushroom mage, the fun fungi foreseer, the conjurer of caps, the shaman of stems, the thaumaturge of tea.

Varuzhan comes to his senses. He has an intense headache, and no recollection of the last 58 rounds(about 6 minutes) before he triggered the trap. He was likely doing his perimeter check outside, preparing to head back in and check the cellar, telling Lore to keep watch at the entrance.

Your host just sits, sometimes giggling, or watching his hands for what seems a dozen minutes or more, unless interacted with or addressed.
However you set your guards, there is no trouble during the morning.

Did you plan on doing anything during the day, or just wait until nightfall?

No worries, I am definitely not one to complain about downtimes or busy life throwing curve balls :D

I just want to get V back into action and the group ASAP so he doesn't have to sit things out and wait.

And then get you moving forward to return to Kintargo and rescue your new mystery party member... the surviving order knights, I mean!

Also, Alchemy is just a hobby. He's a wizard, hairy.

"Suit yourselves.", he shrugs, before pouring a cup. He drinks deeply, almost downing the hot mushroom elixir in a single gulp.

Then he places the cup back on the table, sits down on a bench, and turns around.
His pupils are visibly dilated as he asks:"Any of you play an instrument?"

Also, just to re-iterate that, he DID give you the potion and salts to wake up V - if you want. You can also not trust the potion and decide to fast forward to the morning at this point. If so, is there some watch order? What do you tell Octavius and his elder-couple buddies? All down here might be crowded, and the couple at least had been eyeing the bed upstairs.

"Oh, lass, trust me, I am absolutely brewing this tea in hopes of making the passage of time hurry up to sunrise."
After a few minutes, he blows out a candle heating one of the vials off to the side, then checks the crystallized remains of the liquid that was inside.
"Smelling salts, and a bit of this liquid here. Should get your birdman right up. He'll feel like he's molting, but he'll be awake."

He hands both to whoever will take it, clearly not intending to be next to Varuzhan when he wakes up.

"Also, you'll forgive me for the oversight, I don't have guests here normally, so you can either fetch some cups from upstairs or provide your own liquid containers into which to pour the tea. It's almost done."

"Ah, tea for everybody. Excellent.", he gets to work brewing tea with a setup including multiple sources of flame heating multiple glass containers that are somehow connected with one another, while humming a song to himself.

"Yeah. Hell is other people.", he comments to Boros first statement. Then takes a few more steps down, unlocking the door and nonchalantly stepping over the passed-out Strix. "Couple hours. And don't bother slapping him, he's entirely elsewhere. Oh, and he'll have trouble remembering the last couple minutes before it happened. Besides that, no problems, unless he broke a wing or something while descending the stairs. Or shat himself while dreaming about a toilet."

He steps inside the room, then to the side to let you enter:"Welcome to my laboratory and bedroom."
The room is larger than expected, about 30 feet wide and 40 long, with the same earthen walls as outside and two wooden pillars supporting a wooden ceiling with 2 holes for smoke to rise up.
One wall is filled with storage units that contain all manner of contents - Bowls with mineral powder, animal body parts in jars, alchemical components - the back wall away from the door is lined with tables, there are some books, but also vials, beakers and other equipment. On the third wall, there is a makeshift bed - it looks comfortable enough, but was certainly not in the top 10 of what effort was spent on in this room.
"I CAN help your friend come to his senses a bit faster, if that means you can leave faster, but it'll take a bit to prepare. Who wants Tea?"
Unless stopped, he fetches some chemicals and a few mushrooms from the storage shelf and approaches the lab tables, holding up and waving the mushrooms.

You return to the main lobby room, where your travel companion informs you that V returned from the perimeter and was currently checking the stair down to the basement.
The mage you captured rolls his eyes, commenting :"More people. Great. Just how many of you are there?", before heading for the basement, with some urgency:"Your friend had better not ruined my trap. It's a pain to reset."
He puts a hand in his pocket, then freezes as Mace and Blade both are ready to strike. Very slowly, he retrieves a Ioun stone, explaining:"For light. My eyes don't do so well in the dark."
He lifts it towards his head and releases it, where it starts shining like a torch.
He moves through a storage basement towards a second set of stairs, then two or three steps down comments:"Of course. Worst day ever. Well, good news and bad news. Good news is you don't need to worry about that trap. Bad news, I'll have to reset it and add a new one once you left. And in "I don't give a f$%@", that Tengu of yours is taking a nap at the bottom of the stairs."

The man remained in the lobby, setting up camp, preparing dinner, that kind of stuff. The lady and the Lector went to backtrace a bit to hide any trail that might lead to the house and setting a false trail, just in case.

Also, just to be clear: There is no Reflex, the "dodging" is simply flavor, as it's inhaled spores it doesn't matter where they go "poof", the associated save is Fortitude, as requested.

Confident in his darkvision, Varuzhan makes his way downstairs. About where one would expect it, there is a cellar beneath the mansion - a storage room. Most of it seems unused, but there are 2 baskets with apples and turnips in the back, and a table is full of dried mushrooms and 2 bowls of berries and nuts.

More interesting than all that, however, is that next to those things, there is a opening in the wall that leads further downstairs, concealed by some linen hanging between two racks but not fooling the Strix darkvision.
This tunnel seems to have been made after the building - the steps are set with stones, but the walls and ceiling are earthen, supported by wooden beams. About 15 meters diagonally down, the wooden beams end in a doorframe with what appears to be a sturdy, closed door.
Halfway down the stairs, he hears a barely audible 'click' as a hatch in the wooden beam above him opens and some mushrooms rain down, exploding in clouds of spores the moment they touch V, the walls or the floor.
The Strix attempts to dodge them, but suddenly, the world turns black as he loses consciousness.
You did roll extraordinarily bad on that :) But that way we'll go with the original script, just that you are waking up again faster than planned. Well, as soon as the other party members decide what to do with the 'squatter'.

Glad to hear it, and welcome back.

To be honest, I planned on having you scout the basement.(with darkvision and all that).
Which would have given me a convenient chance to have you out of commission for a bit longer.

But thats not a very sweet thing of me to do now, off-screen, so by all means, either make your entrance here, or do some perception and possible a fortitude save and you get to see the basement regardless of the group decision :)

This dude sure knows how to make friends :p

But yeah we'll have a guard. Mildly low chance he's actually a sorcerer with still/silent spell and will try and sneak something on us though ... But half of those would work when tied anyhow.

He's living alone in a ruin in the woods.

That said, he did offer you his component pouch. Which of course could be trickery on his part. But MOST sorcerers do get Eschew Materials for free at Level 1, so are not in the habit of keeping component pouches.
So...if he IS a prepared caster, unless he expected to be taken prisoner, there's a low chance he'd have prepped stuff with still/silent. Just saying, you do you, no need to overthink though.

Edit: Also thanks, Boros :) Been a long-time fan of Armored Core and Front Mission. So yeah, curious :)

It's been on my wishlist pretty much since it was available to be wishlisted :)

So with the current rating of "very positive" I am kind of set on getting it anyway, as soon as it has any kind of discount.

But if you want to share a few words in a spoiler-free way, by all means, but I did already read your steam review in case you wanted to say something similar :)

"Oh come on. What, you gonna get scared if I turn translucent again? I'm a pacifist, you cretin."
He makes a step towards the indicated direction, but mostly to place Nezari between himself and Boros, then turns to the ladies:"I dislike that, but you are welcome to take temporary possession of my component pouch. I'd certainly welcome that over getting tied up in a corner."
He turns to Boros again: "And if you're still worried, we can go downstairs. There's only one door leading up, and you're welcome to sleep leaning against it for all I care. Just let me go first, there's a trap." He turns to Miranda, before proudly speaking up:"I installed it myself!"

"Yeah, yeah...listen to your lady friend, Mister Thug. Tying up won't be necessary. Nor those weapons. Let me welcome you as guests. I hate visitors but I can be hospitable. I have some rabbit jerky and I can brew a mean mushroom tea. We all sit at the fire, sharing absolutely no information about each other, you move on, I stay here, everybody remains happy.", the man is hasty to take Nezari's side.

You left the swamp behind some time ago - the area here is lightly forested.
"Not children. Youths.", the man coughs as the grip loosens. "You see, I live here. For years. I do the ghost thing to not have to deal with murderous strangers that want to hasten my demise - ", he glances at Boros, but manages not to point a finger.
"Been doing that a while. Before you know it, youths from Kintargo started showing up having dared each other to visit the haunted house, or stay a night. Needless to say, not great for being left alone out here. So I figured I'll leave them alone, so they can tell the others it'll all made up. But I had to keep track of what they do. One of them had the nerve to piss in my library. Bastard. Gave him a good scare."
He points towards the room with the books, then continues:"So the next thing, there's young couples coming. With youths trying to impress their crush. And they...er...did couple things. But I had to...er...watch so they wouldn't do anything...like that library boy. I admit I may have enjoyed watching and possibly got carried away a bit and there's a chance I had not noticed my invisibility running out, and there was a lot of screaming and throwing things and I figured they told on me and no one was here for the last couple weeks which was very peaceful but I suspected because of that incident and...look, I just want to be left alone here."

"So, just robbers and thugs then. That's cool. Nothing to do with me, so you can let go of me and mind your own business. Sounds great.", he manages to reply, still in Nezari's chokehold.

By now, the transparency and blueish hue have faded for all of you, the dishevelled man looking exactly like a live-version of the ghost from before.

The ghost sounds increasingly frustrated:"About what? You come here and raid me in my own home. Without telling me why you are even here. Yes, I'm squatting in a ruin. Not a crime last time I checked. You'll also not find valuables with me, or I wouldn't be here. So just tell me what you want with me."

Boros feels his bodily autonomy returning to him, and the stench subsides.
No longer paralyzed.

"Look, lets not do anything rash here. Who are you guys? Exorcist? Mercenaries? Did those kids parents hire you? If so, I can explain. I just stumbled on them, minding my own business...definitely didn't stare or anything...", the 'Ghost' starts to try and justify itself.

"I can't if you strangle me. Let go of me and I can fix him.", the Ghost answers.

Nezari rushes at and grapples the ghost.

While Boros remains frozen, and Nez wrestles with the transparent blueish man, Miranda throws a few quips their way - but the Ghost seems preoccupied with trying to escape the grapple, and his only verbal response seems to boil down to :"Let go of me. Stop, Let go!"

Well, lets see your next step. Your move, Miss Greenblossom.

Actually, Arcana again, apologies - but the roll is sufficient either way, he was holding the charge and I forgot to point out the Necromancy Aura. Messed up on my notes but didn't want to give things away by specifically pointing out without being able to explain.

Miranda is pretty certain what just happened to Boros stinks of Ghoul Touch, especially after she sees Nez wrinkling her nose and backing away every so slightly.
The ghost is still recovering and complaining.

Boros and Ghost acted - there's no "real" initiative here unless you want it, but you and Nez can react before the Ghost can do something again. V is busy checking the perimeter of the House with his Familiar.

No worries, V, if you even get to read this.

You come back when you do. It's easy enough to give you an errand.
The dear Lictor will need someone to deliver an urgent message to someone.

And V is the best suited to travelling at night through the wilderness, so clearly, takes the job, eventually returning when you do.

The ghost approaches Boros, who is ready to strike as well. Despite the leisurely pace, the ghost suddenly dives forward towards Boros, almost taking the Veteran by surprise. Almost.
The ghosts touch connects as Boros brings his bludgeon down on his opponent.

Boros feels his body freeze up, as his muscles no longer follow his commands.
He is paralyzed, utterly helpless as the apparition...is hit by the bludgeon, which maintained it's downward momentum.

Very un-ghost-like, it acknowledges the hit with the non-magical weapon with an expression of pain, then backs away, continuing to be very unghostlike in both body language and spoken one:"Oww...what the f$@~...what is wrong with you people."
Nez, behind Boros, notes that Boros suddenly smells worse than he did before. So much so, in fact, that she feels sickened by the stench.

Oh, I'll let someone else chime in before narrating the result for our brave soldier, who never let caution stop him from doing what he felt was right.

Now don't be silly. Weird works like Phantasmal Killer, which means it's instantaneous, not some lingering aura.
What you mean is Shades.

Btw, you know how stuff like demi-lich sometimes pretend they still have bodies using illusions? Or otherworldly beings or Wisps pretend to be humanoid(using, yeah, illusions) to lure victims?

Totally not related, just was thinking of those for no reason.

The ghostly figure focuses it's gaze at Boros, and starts floating towards him with an outstretched hand, clearly intending to touch the Soldier:"You are not welcome here!"

You do have time to react, it floats at you with casual speed, but it will reach you - you can back off, stand your ground, be hostile...I am not doing init on purpose.

With sufficient magical power, almost anything was possible - powerful casters both arcane and divine were able to re-shape reality itself, performing miracles or fulfilling wishes beyond the ability of lesser casters.

So the question was less IF it was possible and more how much arcane might was required to accomplish something.
For the current situation, Miranda draws a blank on trying to determine what spell could be used in such a manner.

It's not being cast currently, so not spellcraft.

The spell effect is in place, so Arcana. 20+Spell Level to identify. Have your roll, in gameplay.