She nods to Mig's headless remains. "He kept them cowed and under his control by promising them a cure. Now the Watch does the same thing. Do you believe they will think they are cured when the temple releases them still looking like monsters, still foggy of mind and unable to think clearly? Will they not rather expect that a 'cure' will return them to what they were before they were attacked and think the Watch has lied to them just like the graverobber did? Will you sleep well tonight and think yourself a hero, having left guiltless victims in such a state?"
"So all of you just ... followed him here?" Khismia asks a bit incredulously. "After he attacked you, and before you showed signs of infection and he had anything to hold over your heads? Was there no one to whom you believed you could go for protection and justice?" She looks back at the working girl, given pause for a moment. "He lied," she tells her bluntly. "He had no more power to stop what was happening to you than he could stop it when it happened to him. The Watch," she gives a wry smile, "intends to follow through on its promises. Stay calm and stick together, and you'll be taken to the temple of Pharasma to be cured. The Watch wants no more monsters on the city's streets."
Assuming no further information is forthcoming, Khismia goes back out into the main area of the warehouse to find Phillip (and Heward and Laya, if they're back inside the warehouse by then). "If the temple intends to do no more for them than it did for the graverobber, it would be kinder to barricade the doors and burn this place down with them inside it. These women fed themselves by selling their bodies on the street corners; how drunk or desperate would a man have to be to pay for the favors of a woman with a bald head and tentacles sprouting from her face? The men who have families: would you send them home to their wives looking like monsters and even less able to earn a living than they were before? Or does the Cryptmistress intend to shield them from public disdain and support them on charity for the rest of their days?"
Khismia grimaces at being sent into the midst of the deformed creatures but nods grimly. She pauses at the doorway to take a breath and compose her face in a calm and neutral expression before walking in amongst the blank and tentacled faces. "The Watch stands ready to cure you of your infection and save your lives," she assures them, "but before you can be taken to the priests, they need any information you can provide about the creature that infected you. In his former life, he was called Mig. Did any of you know him? Did you know each other before falling prey to him? Where did he find you? How did he overcome you? What were his intentions in holding you imprisoned here until you had been transformed?"
Shriek (Su) Instead of biting, a vargouille can open its distended mouth to shriek. Those within 60 feet (except other vargouilles) who hear the shriek and can clearly see the creature must succeed on a DC 12 Fortitude save or be paralyzed for 2d4 rounds or until the monster attacks them, goes out of range, or leaves their sight. A creature that successfully saves cannot be affected again by the same vargouille's shriek for 24 hours. The save DC is Constitution-based.
Actually, Laya shouldn't have been affected by the shriek at all from the doorway, should she? Phillip had to move into the building and around the staircase railing before he could see the vargouille.
Fortitude 1d20 ⇒ 1 *sigh* Go, Heward. Ironic that I built this character specifically to be more combat-useful than Auriel and she's not going to get a chance to make an actual attack.
The instant the shriek echoes out the open door and down the alleyway, Khismia darts to the entrance. Although she can't see the catwalk, she can follow Phillip's horrified and hopefully not frozen gaze upward and dashes to the nearest set of stairs before the infected can block the way.
Tactical movement:
Double move to -H 11, if the staircase doesn't collapse beneath her. (Reflex save? Acrobatics roll?) No AoO from the infected in -I 9 since it's still flat-footed. Is there some sort of closed door at the top of the stairs, or what's blocking line of sight?
Watching Phillip walk down the street, Heward mutters to Khismia, "That's a good man, not a piece of meat to bait a trap."
When Phillip turns the corner into the alley, Heward urges everyone forward to keep the ex-pirate in sight.
Khismia looks at Heward as if he, and not Robal, has suffered the mental debilitation caused by the vargouille. "He volunteered; I didn't suggest him. I wanted to use the criminal."
Already stated she was readying her crossbow and following.
In the wake of Phillip's confession, Khismia cocks an eyebrow at Heward. "Pirate and thief. What ... interesting people the Watch sees fit to employ." Holding her crossbow at the ready, she follows behind Phillip more slowly, moving as quietly as possible. Stealth 1d20 + 10 ⇒ (10) + 10 = 20
If Phillip's going to be our bait, Laya ought to put a light spell on something of his. It'll light up our target for us if he can successfully draw it out and eliminate everyone's 20% miss chance for fighting in an enclosed warehouse at sunset.
"No problem with using a confessed criminal," she corrects him. "He unleashed this danger upon the city; part of his recompense could be helping to end it."
"Send in a low-value target to draw the creature from hiding and let everyone be prepared to attack it and eliminate the threat quickly," Khismia repeats pointedly. "Or, alternatively, let us all enter in a great clump so that we may all fall prey to its paralyzing shriek together and possibly lose valuable team members in a confusing scrum."
Turning to Heward and Khismia, Phil ventures "Reckon we can cut the tagalongs loose now?" drawing his heavy bladed cutlass as he speaks, readying himself to move forth in wary haste.
Khismia shakes her head. "We should send him ahead of us as bait," she countersuggests, nodding at Robal as she checks over her crossbow. "Let him draw out his fellow criminal, and we can be ready to attack."
Are we waiting on the word from Heward to move out? With the boss standing right there, it's not like one of us can say, 'Well, let's get going, guys'; he's got to give the order.
Metagaming, vargouilles aren't a terribly tough encounter, unless everyone fails the save, in which case we might be glad to have the party split so some of us survive. ;) Assuming the warehouse has a higher ceiling than the meeting room, more than one of us might actually get to participate with ranged weapons instead of sitting around while one guy bashes it out of the air. Khismia's not going to get to participate in the interesting part, as she's only cohort-on-loan and not MSI and thus doesn't have the security clearance for the meeting. So I'll be sitting out some more whether we regroup or not.
I disagree. Neither Phillip nor Khismia know about it, but MSI has a secret meeting with a member of the Magnimar council at 19 00. Heward needs either to get this vargouille thing taken care of beforehand (and I don't know what time it is, but this was at least our 4th tavern so it took some time to get this far) or to split the party further to send some of us after Mig and he and Laya get to go have the important-conversation encounter again (and what we do with Robal, I don't know). Either way, wandering around to look for Awgin and Calatin takes time we don't have.
Smirk bedding into his face Phil muses "Aww, you do care for some things then" before forsaking the assistance of Khismia and picking up the waitress in a fireman's hold for the short trip back to the tavern.
She shrugs. "I see no reason to attract unwanted attention. I have no authority in this part of Magnimar." She follows him back, keeping an eye on any curious passersby.
"Pick her up and carry her like a person for whose well-being you are concerned rather than dragging her through the filth like a piece of meat," she hisses at him. "You look like a slaver and will attract the attention of those willing to stand up to a ruffian to defend a woman's virtue."
Khismia pauses to catch her breath at the sudden end of the chase, eyeing the buccaneer with his cutlass and prize. "Not the first time you've chased down a terrified woman, eh, pirate?" she asks Phillip cuttingly.
Perception 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (15) + 9 = 24
Khismia comes to a skidding stop outside the kitchen door and stops a moment to listen carefully before taking off again at a run.
Acrobatics 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (17) + 8 = 25
Khismia takes the path of least resistance, stepping up onto a table where she kicks a drink into a patron's lap, then leaping to the surface of the bar and over the back.
"Oh no, Wallas. I might be working for you on the vargouilles thing, but those Mage attacks were my case first, and I'll be damned if the freak squad is going to take it from me."
Khismia stares at Wizzo coldly. "Then you are undoubtedly honor-bound not to make use of the information you failed to research yourself," she remarks, glaring at Calatin for speaking so openly without considering the company. Barely acknowledging Phillip's existence, she adds to his suggestion. "If we can find what is left of the tomb robber before dark, we might prevent the plague from spreading. But are we looking for one, or two? The original source of the contamination is still unaccounted for, is it not?" She looks at the two who were at the cemetery for confirmation.
"'Small quantities?'" Khisimia asks with a frown. "With a school for wizards in the city, Magnimar would need fields full of these herbs to dose so many."
Khismia shrugs. "As one day you will lie before your successor in the same manner. We all die and are eaten by worms. In the meantime, I prefer to serve the Princess, who treats me with respect, than be beholden to someone who introduces herself to a complete stranger by insulting her intelligence and pouring contempt on her associations."
Khismia seems startled by the interjection from the stranger in the room. She stares at her coldly, then turns to Heward with a smirk. "I have always heard that the Watch is full of old women; I did not realize the saying was to be taken literally. It is little wonder you are unable to keep order in the City, unlike the Princess who employs the young and the strong." She takes a step closer to Heward and breathes in his ear, "You realize she is a woman in gray robes. She has been searched for a blade and a vial?"
Perception DC 15 + distance modifiers for the old biddy to overhear. I know she's one of your NPCs and has high Wis, so she probably has a +35 to Perception. :P
"I still say the timing is suspect," Khismia snaps. "What better way to throw the Watch off a few random murders than by starting an epidemic they will have to drop everything to deal with?"
"The Princess has already been alerted," she responds. "I stopped by the Bazaar between the Stone of the Seers and here. The Princess's Court is at high alert for signs of infection."
No, I was just assuming: "Here's the valuable information we spent all morning looking for to cure those guys."* "Oh, those guys? Yeah, we already did that; they're fine now." ;)
*:
Which is, after all, what Calatin was sent to research. The infection information is just gravy he picked up while he was looking up how to stop the transformation like Heward told him to.
Hm. The information I just spent 24 days to deliver is completely redundant now, isn't it? Typical. :P
As she hands over Calatin's urgent note, Khismia is annoyed to find that Heward simply glances at the information contained within, then tosses it aside as old news. "What does the Watch intend to do?" she demands. "There are already more infected than you have to command on your whole team. The full resources of the Watch will have to be put on the streets to deal with this matter. You must hand the matter over to your superiors."
Calatin's findings:
Remove disease, remove curse, or break enchantment will all cure someone infected by a vargouille. Sunlight or a light spell of third plus level will pause the transformation, which typically takes between 4 and 24 hours to run its course.
Vargouilles can spread their taint quite easily and as often as they wish, making an epidemic very likely, especially in a place such as Rag's End. Assuming a very modest infection rate of only 10 people in the first night, that would make for 22 vargouilles by tonight, 220 by the next night, 2,200 by the 17th...the entire population of Magnimar could be vargouilles in a little under a week.
And Khismia, who is alone, having left the library en route to MSI. And Calatin who is busy researching and thus not talking to Awgin. With research and Gather Information checks, not much you can do but make your roll and wait your xd4 hours. (When you're told to guard the person doing the research, there's even less to do.) The rest of us aren't "sticking together" at all and won't be together again until after Heward and Laya catch up closer to our timeline; Phillip and Khismia are alone in different parts of the city, and Awgin is watching Calatin read books in a library. :P
"Hey! You don't have to go. There's plenty of paperwork to shuffle through. We could do that while Caly boy does his thing. That way when we do get back there you can impress Law Boy with what you know."
"From what the wizard says, the threat to Magnimar is severe, and the Bazaar of Sails itself is in danger," Khismia responds. "I am not interested in 'impressing' your commanding officer; his approbation or disappointment has no effect on my advancement. The Princess needs to be warned, to have her Court on guard against those showing signs of infection; then I will take word to your superior."
Khismia will stop by the Bazaar to inform the Princess about the danger of the epidemic; then continue on to the Summit to deliver the information to Heward. Of course, the only cures are spells that we're not high-level enough to have access to, so I don't know how much good it will do.
information delivered first to the Princess of the Market, then to Heward:
Remove disease, remove curse, or break enchantment will all cure someone infected by a vargouille. Sunlight or a light spell of third plus level will pause the transformation, which typically takes between 4 and 24 hours to run its course.
Vargouilles can spread their taint quite easily and as often as they wish, making an epidemic very likely, especially in a place such as Rag's End. Assuming a very modest infection rate of only 10 people in the first night, that would make for 22 vargouilles by tonight, 220 by the next night, 2,200 by the 17th...Calatin's idle figures quickly run cold as he realizes the entire population of Magnimar could be vargouilles in a little under a week.
Khismia nods in approval at the mage's inclination to get the job done; she certainly doesn't want to spend another day standing around a library accomplishing nothing. "Do you go report to your commander, or do I?" she asks Awgin. "The other stays to continue protecting the wizard."
Whichever you want to do, Dax -- report on the vargouille information or continue bodyguarding -- Khismia will take the other.
Khismia waits and doesn't speak unless spoken to. She's on duty and not much for small talk even when she's not. If you need a Perception check or anything from her, feel free to roll it to move things along. She's following Heward's orders to the letter: protecting Calatin is her priority.
Awgin brightens up a bit. "Then I'll have something to do while Calatin looks at books"
"While he looks at books, you will be looking at him," Khismia retorts. "Did you not hear your commanding officer? Your sole task is to stand and protect the wizard, not go looking for trouble."
"And every wizard a possible killer," Khismia remarks darkly. "No doubt, most everyone there will be wearing robes. It is the perfect hunting ground for the woman in gray, and the perfect place to hide."
"Why quarrel?" asks Calatin, mildly. "We all have a job to do. Let's get on with it. Have either of you visited the Stone of the Seers before? Been inside, I mean."
"No," Khismia replies flatly. "I have never had reason to go."
She shrugs. "I see no reason for personal feelings to come into it at all. I have worked with many of your kind in the Bazaar and have found them to be extremely efficient: quick to do what must be done and unlikely to be paralyzed by doubts and qualms. The Princess appreciates such an attitude. I trust you will find me the same."
If Khismia's on bodyguard duty, she can't simultaneously be gathering information. Both require concentration for 1d4 hours. So instead of rolling 2 Diplomacy checks, she's taking 10 on Perception for 19.
Khismia looks sullenly at the fat wizard but nods reluctantly, checking that her dagger is correctly loaded in her wrist sheath.
Khismia looks around her at the gore- and vomit-splattered room, the halfling inventing acronyms, and the half-orc caressing his weapon lovingly as he eyes his colleague. "I no longer wonder why the Princess was forced to take matters into her own hands to protect the Bazaar," she smirks at Heward. "You are in charge; give an order for something to done, before it is too late to accomplish anything."
Only way to find out if the robbers can be saved is to spend 1d4 hours in the library. Might be too late for them, but we have a 4th tomb robber unaccounted for, plus the original vargouille. If they left the tomb open when they ran, that's 2 vargouilles to be tracked down before they start an epidemic in the streets. Magnimar's going to go all zombie-movie, only with vargouilles instead of zombies. Still have to deal with the mage-poisoner, too.
Khismia eyes the halfling warily, but realizing that she was in the hallway with her when the creature was crushed and that her hand ought to be clean, she takes it gingerly. "Khismia," she says, rather pointlessly, since the halfling has just spoken of her by name. She is clearly still a little uncomfortable with the Avistani custom of shaking hands and can't keep her head from bobbing in an abbreviated Garundi bow of greeting.
Yeah, Calatin's not qualified to any of that information without a rank in Knowledge (planes).
Quote:
You cannot make an untrained Knowledge check with a DC higher than 10. If you have access to an extensive library that covers a specific skill, this limit is removed. The time to make checks using a library, however, increases to 1d4 hours. Particularly complete libraries might even grant a bonus on Knowledge checks in the fields that they cover.
Vargouilles are rare enough they can't even be identified with a DC 10. Shall we pretend he comes back with that information from the library after 1d4 hours? Should be plenty of books on the planes at the Stone. Of course, since the gestation period for a vargouille is a matter of hours too, it's likely to be too late.
"They were sent either to kill you or to distract you from the matter at hand," Khismia insists to Heward about the tomb robbers. "Either way, you have enemies working against you in the Pediment Building."
Khismia's got nothing. Only Knowledge she has is Local. If she cared, I guess she might be able to ID the tomb in question if the village idiots were further questioned and she rolled high enough. Only she doesn't really care. Doesn't seem to have anything to do with the Bazaar or the attacks-by-mage.
Frustrated that people are taking time out for casual conversation when two threats are still in the room, Khismia keeps her crossbow trained on the interlopers. "They could turn at any moment, as swiftly as did the first," she insists. Are you ordering Awgin to lock them up, Heward, or going to take one of them yourself? Calatin and Laya aren't qualified to manhandle anyone dangerous to the cells, and Khismia is neither authorized to imprison anyone or aware of where the cells are.
Khismia lowers her crossbow but doesn't drop it, as she pushes past the halfling to see what's going on in the room. Bringing her weapon to bear on the corner containing the two remaining tomb robbers, she urges Heward tersely, "Give the word to kill them now before they do the same thing."
Must be nice to have people introduce themselves to you. Khismia's in her second day of the silent treatment. No one but Heward has even spoken to her. :P
