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After a few more minutes, Noetic finds a ledger which appears to be a list of items available to sell. Many of the items have been crossed off, indicating that they've been sold. Their prices range from a few hundred credits to tens of thousands of credits. What next?
A swiftly savaged Sandpoint. Or the overly alliterative game play thread for Savage Burnt offerings.
Jzero and Crastor find nothing unusual or extraordinary, but Crastor is struck by the quality of the stoneworking of the walls, and especially the throne, which was definitely made for someone with a lot of power. Jzero successfully writes down the sounds in the message. What do you do now?
Fortune drops the intangibility, and as the invisibility for both her and Noetic wears off, she listens intently to the sounds of the tumblers on the safe (which fortunately sits right under the window, minimizing her chances of being seen), and opens it up. If Noetic goes tangible, both of you can scan the papers in the safe, but it's slow going in the dim light inside the office. You learn that The Merchant isn't as big a player as his rep indicates. He buys damaged V'Sori equipment in small lots from many different sources for cheap (many times only one purchase per source that you can tell), repairs them, and sells them to whoever's interested. That explains the V'Sori tools (both hand-held and bigger) that you noticed in the shop as you walked thru it - it's those that allow him to repair the V'Sori equipment. His repairmen must be familiar with at least the basics of V'Sori technology as well. About 15 minutes have passed since you entered the building - what do you do?
A swiftly savaged Sandpoint. Or the overly alliterative game play thread for Savage Burnt offerings.
You don't notice anything out of the ordinary other than what's already been described, and the image is speaking in a language you don't even recognize (like, you might be able to recognize Spanish or Italian even if you can't speak it). What do you do?
A swiftly savaged Sandpoint. Or the overly alliterative game play thread for Savage Burnt offerings.
You all open the door and rush in. You see an almost empty room with a dais at the north wall with a marble throne on it. On either side stand statues of a man holding a book and a glaive. A ghostly figure sits on the throne, a human who looks like the statues. He appears to be speaking to an unseen audience as he moves his hands about, but the words he's speaking are difficult to make out because they're barely louder than a whisper, and in a strange language. After a few seconds, the image flickers and starts over - it appears to be on a short but endless loop. What do you do?
A swiftly savaged Sandpoint. Or the overly alliterative game play thread for Savage Burnt offerings.
The north door does not appear to be trapped or locked, but Crastor can barely hear the sound of a voice within. It appears to be talking, probably to someone else. What do you all do?
Yeah, the inside of the safe is pitch black, so no chance of seeing anything.
<We've heard references to 'blue hands' too, but that is something that is ultra-top-secret within the Alliance, and we're not going to dig too deeply into that lest we alert them to our presence. Arabella, give us the details of your husband and daughter - their descriptions, their last known names, etc., and if we ever run across anything, we'll let you know. But it's a large solar system... We can put you up here in the city for a few days if you wish to spend some time out of the ship, otherwise I can be ready to leave for the asteroid base in a few hours.>
A swiftly savaged Sandpoint. Or the overly alliterative game play thread for Savage Burnt offerings.
You hear a loud grinding noise, and the tower of coins starts to drop into the floor (for some reason, the coins do not fall over as the tower starts to descend). They hid an entrance into a room. You see no immediate threats, and so go into the room - there's three doors, on the north, east, and south walls.
Which way?
You pass silently by the guard near the door, and enter what appears to be a small office. There's a desk covered with papers strewn all about, a filing cabinet, and a safe. There's a 3'x5' window in the wall next to the door.
What do you two do?
A swiftly savaged Sandpoint. Or the overly alliterative game play thread for Savage Burnt offerings.
Actually, Velrek - you've been looking at the tower o' coins pretty intently, you can make a Smarts roll too and look at the spoiler if you Succeed.
As you move around, you see a couple of workers busy working on a large machine. There is one guard at the front door you passed thru (literally), and you can see 3 other guards walking randomly around the floor. Before you move south, Fortune catches a glimpse of a guard near the southeast corner.
A swiftly savaged Sandpoint. Or the overly alliterative game play thread for Savage Burnt offerings.
Jzero, you can make a Smarts roll too, and if successful, read the previous spoiler...
After heading straight south, at the south-west corner you think you can see a door in the far east wall.
A swiftly savaged Sandpoint. Or the overly alliterative game play thread for Savage Burnt offerings.
Crastor: You usually put things into slots, and these are slots in piles and piles of gold coins...
A swiftly savaged Sandpoint. Or the overly alliterative game play thread for Savage Burnt offerings.
You see a typical high-end machine shop, filled with small but heavy-duty individual machines (like drill presses, etc.), areas to do welding, and larger areas to work on entire pieces of large equipment. You don't see any interior walls with doors, but your view is obscured to the far east, far south, and far south-east by the machines and equipment. Which way do you want to head? Whoever posts first will decide.
A swiftly savaged Sandpoint. Or the overly alliterative game play thread for Savage Burnt offerings.
Velrek feels his sword's tip scraping up against something, but the gold is not scratched. However, while he is investigating the pile of gold, he spots two small slots created by the absence of gold coins at the bottom of the pile, one on the far left of the pile, and one on the far right. Crastor does not hear anything or detect any traps at the south door.
"We captured a Reaver once, and tried to read its mind. It put our telepath into a mental coma. We've avoided them completely from now on. We have no idea where they come from."
A swiftly savaged Sandpoint. Or the overly alliterative game play thread for Savage Burnt offerings.
Velrek leans in on his sword to put his weight behind it, but nothing happens. The sword tip rests on the stacks of gold coins, which don't move.
A swiftly savaged Sandpoint. Or the overly alliterative game play thread for Savage Burnt offerings.
The sword's tip stops as it touches the surface of the stacks and stacks of coins, and you do hear a sort of a "clink". But none of the coins shift or move at all.
Unfortunately, there are no windows at all in the building (The Merchant probably picked it for this feature to prevent anyone from seeing what was going on inside), and in a previous surveillance Noetic had spotted a huge air conditioner on the roof, which is big enough to handle the entire building.
"So, we would like you to act as a liaison between us and the Unseen Servants, at least for the time being until trust builds between our two groups. Would you be willing to take me to their asteroid base so that I can begin negotiations?"
A swiftly savaged Sandpoint. Or the overly alliterative game play thread for Savage Burnt offerings.
Crastor doesn't find any signs of traps. What do you all do now?
A swiftly savaged Sandpoint. Or the overly alliterative game play thread for Savage Burnt offerings.
There's only one door out of this room, which leads to the hallway, which has only one unopened door (directly across the hallway), which leads to a very short hallway with only one door, which leads to a large hallway that leads south and east. The south end ends with a pair of stone doors carved with the depictions of two skeletons reaching out and clutching a skull between them. The east side of the hallway narrows down to frame a circular stack of tens of thousands of gold coins that rises from floor to ceiling, blocking further passage.
Which direction do you want to explore first?
A swiftly savaged Sandpoint. Or the overly alliterative game play thread for Savage Burnt offerings.
Ripnugget says "Hey - Nualia came to *us* and asked us to attack Sandpoint. We was just minding our own business living in the woods when she showed up and said that we could live in Sandpoint once we killed all the humans. With her gone, I have no interest in Sandpoint anymore."
Lynx invites everyone to sit around a round table in the room and says "Just relax your minds - you don't have to 'not think', just keep your minds idle and not focused on anything in particular." After a few minutes, each of you "hears" her voice in your mind, saying "Good job - now wait for a few minutes for the others to join us." A couple of minutes later you all hear her in your heads. "This is the one method of communication that we are pretty sure the Alliance can't tap in on - altho we don't know the numbers or strengths of their telepaths. We call ourselves the Circle of Moths - because we have learned to move in the shadows, and not to get burned by doing anything too dangerous. Our infiltration of the Alliance is so far pretty shallow, but deliberate. We have dream-walkers that can walk the corridors of an Alliance building to get its floor plan, and have planted empaths in bars adjacent to Alliance military centers to spot the "hard-liners" and those who harbor a seed of doubt that they're not doing the right thing. So far, we've just brushed up against the fringes of the Alliance (and only in the Border, not the Core), but as long as our existence remains undetected, we are willing to do more. We don’t duel secret police in alleys or topple Alliance statues with a thought. We trade in misrouted memos, malfunctioning gates at precisely the wrong moment, a printer that spits out staff IDs when no one is looking, and a gentle nudge that convinces a patrol to linger one street over. Any questions?"
A swiftly savaged Sandpoint. Or the overly alliterative game play thread for Savage Burnt offerings.
Crastor has heard of barghests as tavern-talk, but never seen one himself. They've been described to him as a 400 pound intelligent wolf with a large humpback, who are ferocious fighters. Ripnugget says "As far as I know, there's no other goblins on this floor. There's probably a few outside, guarding the castle. The trap in the hall that led to this room is the only one I know of on this floor, but Nualia hasn't let many of my goblins down here to explore, so I can't say for sure. That's the best I can do."
Around 7 PM (the plant closes around 6), about a block away from the Merchant's processing center, Fortune casts her spells , and Noetic goes etherial. You travel to the center, and enter. There's a couple of workers apparently doing overtime on some rush job, and guards posted at stations (like the doors to the outside) and just wandering around. Where in the building do you want to go first?
Lynx pauses for a full minute, staring blankly ahead, as if thinking very hard. "We know of the Silent Sleepers, they have been trying to find us for some time. We didn't trust their claim that they were anti-Alliance, until we got an operative aboard that asteroid-space-station of theirs, and they were just recently able to confirm that the group is what they say they are. So are we, but you would have no reason to trust us without proof. If you all agree, we'd like to enter into a light telepathic communication with all of you - you can't lie when speaking thru the mind, and you'd know it if we were trying to influence you. We'll show you the depth and range of our organization, and you'll know our true intentions towards the Alliance. What do you say?"
A swiftly savaged Sandpoint. Or the overly alliterative game play thread for Savage Burnt offerings.
Ripnugget answers Velrek's question : "Yeah, it must be, she never took it off as far as I could tell." He continues : "I don't know anything about a Mal-whatever. But Nualia's been spending a lot of time in the southeast corner of this floor of the cave, telling us it's off-limits to everyone but her. Look, I know that's not much, but I will take my minions far to the north and you'll never hear from me again if you'll just let me...us...go."
Sorry to hear that, take as much time as you need.
Sorry to hear that, take as much time as you need.
Sorry to hear that, take as much time as you need.
So, just to confirm, you're going with Fortune's plan she outlined on Thu, Dec 4, 2025, 02:42 pm above?
So, any questions or comments so far to Lynx?
A swiftly savaged Sandpoint. Or the overly alliterative game play thread for Savage Burnt offerings.
As you search the room and the body, you find :
You also find a book that seems to be a journal : Journal: I am Nualia, and I was born an Aasimar . I was a foundling raised by Sandpoint’s previous religious leader, a man named Ezakien Tobyn, and my childhood was lonely and sad. My unearthly beauty made the other children either jealous or shy of me, and many of them took to playing cruel jokes on me. Many of the superstitious Varisians viewed me as blessed by Desna , and many rumors spread that my touch could cure warts and rashes, or that locks of my hair brewed into tea could increase fertility, which led to many awkward and humiliating requests over the years. I felt more like a freak than a young girl by the time I came of age, so when Delek Viskanta, a local Varisian youth, began to court me, I practically fell into his arms in gratitude. Knowing my father wouldn’t approve of our relationship (he wanted me to remain “pure” so I could join a prestigious convent), we kept the affair secret. We met many times in hidden places, a favorite being an abandoned smuggler’s tunnel under the town which Delek had discovered as a child. Before long, I realized I was pregnant. When I told Delek, he revealed his true colors and fled Sandpoint. My shock turned to rage, yet I had nowhere to vent my anger. When my father discovered my condition, his reaction only furthered my shame and anger. He forbade me to leave the church, lectured me nightly, and made me pray to Desna for forgiveness. This only nurtured my growing hate for him and all of Sandpoint. When the minor runewell (whose existence I learned of later) below Sandpoint flared to life five years ago, my anger was a magnet to its magic. The wrathful energies entered my mind and I flew into a frenzy. Seven months pregnant at the time, I miscarried my child later that night, a child whose deformed shape I only glimpsed before the horrified midwives stole it away. I later learned that because the child was conceived in close proximity to a hidden shrine to Lamashtu near the smuggler’s tunnels, the child was deformed and horrific. The double shock of losing my child and the realization that I had carried a fiend in my belly for seven months was too much, and I fell into a coma. As I slept, I dreamed unhealthy dreams. Fueled by the taint of Lamashtu, I became further obsessed with the cruel demon goddess and the conviction that my wretched life was inflicted on me by those around me. I came to see my angelic heritage as a curse, and the nightmares showed me how to expunge this taint from my body and soul, replacing it with wonderful chaos and cruelty. When I finally woke, I was someone new, someone who didn’t flinch at what Lamashtu asked of me. I jammed my father’s door shut as he slept, lit the church on fire, and fled Sandpoint. I later learned that everyone assumed I had died in the fire along with Father Tobyn. Fleeing to Magnimar , I enlisted the aid of a group of killers known as the Skinsaw Cult. With their aid, I tracked down Delek and murdered him. But his death only quickened my need for more vengeance, because Sandpoint and its hated citizens still lived. Seeing a kindred spirit in me, the leader of the Skinsaw Cult gave me a medallion bearing a seven-pointed star called a “Sihedron medallion” . I learned I had a larger role to play in the destiny of Sandpoint. I returned there in secret and found myself drawn to the smuggler’s tunnels where Delek and I had conceived my child. I bashed down a suspicious-looking wall, and discovered the Catacombs of Wrath and the quasit Erylium . I studied under Erylium’s tutelage for many months. During this time, I received another vision from Lamashtu – a vision of a barghest named Malfeshnekor imprisoned in an underground room. I knew that if I could free him, he would not only help me achieve my vengeance against the entire town of Sandpoint, he would be the key in cleansing my body of its “celestial taint”. I want to be one of Lamashtu’s children now - I want to become a monster. To that end, I decided to destroy Sandpoint. I seduced a man named Tsuto Kaijitsu into becoming my human eyes and ears and hands in Sandpoint, and made a deal with a local group of goblins to be my army. Tsuto’s job during the first attack on Sandpoint was to recover the body of my so-called father, which I used in a ritual to Lamashtu, who rewarded me with my monstrous arm. If I can destroy all of Sandpoint, she will turn me from angelic to demonic, which is my only desire now. And the dead goblins will give Erylium fodder to create more sinspawn. At the same time, I am trying to locate and free Malfeshnekor, who I believe is trapped in this goblin fortress. I believe with his help I can raze Sandpoint to the ground.
Six - at a penny per dollar, that'll cost you $600. I assume you paid for overnight delivery... ;)
A swiftly savaged Sandpoint. Or the overly alliterative game play thread for Savage Burnt offerings.
Once everyone is near her, the woman says "My name is Lynx, or at least that is what you can call me. Please come with me so we can talk in private." To speed things along, I'll assume that you all do. She takes you to a small office building that seems to rent suites to small businesses. She takes you down a hallway, opens a door, and brings you into a room which seems to be a reception room, with several other doors in it. She turns to you and says "I represent the group of psychics you have not-so-subtly been trying to find. That datastick had a worm in it that even your hacker could not find that gave us access to your ship's computer system and comms, so that we could determine what kind of people you are, and what your true intentions were. Once we decided that you were probably trustworthy, we decided to keep the meeting so we could meet you in person, otherwise you just wouldn't have found anyone in the bar that was looking for you. Needless to say, we scanned your minds to confirm that you really are against the Alliance. So, any questions so far?" she finishes with a smile.
A swiftly savaged Sandpoint. Or the overly alliterative game play thread for Savage Burnt offerings.
Ripnugget waits until the gag touches his lips before he screams "Wait! Wait! I'll tell you everything I know! It was Nualia who did it all! For some reason, she hated Sandpoint with a vengance. She recruited us goblins as her army. We were just following her orders! If you let me go, I promise I will disappear and you longshanks will never see me again!"
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