Kristev's page

So this is essentially a weakened form of multiclassing. Now I get it. Thank you. Both of you.

My brother, the DM, convinced me to look into the occult system at last. I bought the occult book and Occult Origins, and found a druid variation I love because I can pick up Shield, Spell Turning, and several other spells I've always wanted druids to have but that they never did.

But I find myself confused by the wording on the animal spirit. When I reach level four with my druid, does she gain my choice of one of those options, or all of them at once (which seems rather broken)?

Animal Spirit (Su): At 4th level, a supernaturalist can perform a seance to call an animal spirit of any animal with which she is familiar to serve as her companion and guide. The supernaturalist gains spirit, spirit bonus, spirit surge, and taboo abilities as a medium (Occult Adventures 30) 3 levels lower than her druid level. The supernaturalist’s allies cannot participate in this seance. This ability replaces wild shape. The spirit abilities of the animal spirit are as follows.

Spirit Bonus: Your spirit bonus applies on attack and damage rolls with natural weapons and on skill checks relating to animals and plants.

Seance Boon: Your natural armor bonus to AC increases by 1.

Favored Location: Native terrain of the animal type being invoked.

Influence Penalty: You become wild and savage, taking a penalty equal to your spirit bonus on caster level checks, Charisma- and Intelligencebased ability checks, and skill checks.

Taboos: Choose one: you must not speak (except with animals and plants); you must not wield manufactured weapons; you must not eat anything you did not kill or harvest yourself.

Totem Transformation (Lesser, Su): You gain any of the following abilities possessed by the animal you select as your animal spirit: bite (1d6 for a Medium druid), 2 claws (1d4 for a Medium druid), darkvision, improved land movement speed (up to a +20-foot enhancement bonus to the druid’s base land movement speed), low-light vision, scent, and swim (up to 30 feet).

Pack Leader (Intermediate, Su): When you summon animals that match your animal spirit, they gain a +2 bonus on attack rolls, damage rolls, and saving throws.

If anyone wants full context, below is a link to the Archives of Nethys page. https://www.aonprd.com/ArchetypeDisplay.aspx?FixedName=Druid%20Supernatural ist

Hello. I don't know what the rules are because it never came up before, but can I use Summon Nature's Ally 2, and on my next turn, Summon Swarm, or will the swarm spell end the ally spell?

How do you know when Doctor Mengoak is lying? Easy - every word she says is a lie one way or another, including her ands and thes.

"This was my Bloomie," she laments, holding up his shirt for you to see. "It was a shark attack. These things happen. It's the sea. But still, I loved him so."

But if this were a shark attack, wouldn't they have closed the public beach and have hunters and their version of the coast guard out?

A search of the beach reveals Dr. Blumenthal's clothes, with a selection of his favorite poisons beside them.

And there is Doctor Mengoak before the clothes and the poisons, weeping.

What do you guys do next? Rest at Red Letter Night and go to sea toward the island tomorrow? Keep interviewing people?

Yes, there were ten criminals set free. Nine of them went right out and obeyed the bargain, though most of them did not come to a happy end.
The tenth, Madame Roxanne, did not agree to the terms of her release because the terms were evil, and is working for a way to stop the great evil. Of course, I should probably tell you that Madame Roxanne always wasn't actually guilty of what she was in prison for.

"I can see that it's pure evil. It lurks under the surface, waiting to strike. And it calls to people, somehow. It calls and they come. But when I try to see what it is, all I can see is miasma, and a fearsome lash of some sort that moves so fast, I can't even try to get a good look at it.
"Then the fear takes over and the vision is pushed from my sight."

Marlin sighs. Then he picks up the kettle and pours tea, taking a drink from his cup.

"I have seen its handiwork in the attacks. The people who died or disappeared were people it, or those it touched, wanted gone. They were in its way, somehow, and so they were targeted."

Then he quakes and shivers, dropping his cup on the floor so that it shatters. The tea spills out, and Marlin doesn't care.

"Ten were freed and nine obeyed. Then tenth one ran the other way. Aware of the evil and wanting it banned, she fell into a better plan. Now of the nine, so few remain. Some recaptured, some killed, some down the drain of this thing's sewer, this demon of the sea. You're not ready. Steer clear of the thing!"
[b]"One of you is leaving at midnight. Where she goes, you cannot yet follow, so do not try. As for the castle, I can't see it still. She's not letting me. Any attempt to look at the castle, or even around it, is somehow reflected back.
"Evil is not where you'd expect it. And good can hide and still be good. The question is, do you know who is lying? Someone that you've met is on the demon's side."

Then he collapsed, and hit his head. The vision faded, and Marlin looked at his shattered cup and ruined tea, and gives you all a look of sheer embarrassment.

The party manages to find Sheriff Brady's house, which is on a hill just above the beach.

Marlin is there, preparing a meal for his family. He's already pulled up chairs and has the kettle on for tea.

"It's so nice to have company for a change," he remarks as you walk in. "What questions can I answer for you today?"

Again, what will the party do?

Well, what will the party do?

Kate gives you the information she has. It seems that Sister Eugenia had begin making connections and went searching for help online. And she found a biomancer on the island who asked her questions more than Sister Eugenia got answers.

But what answers she did get indicated to a dangerous type of maritime creature with deadly mutating properties. The biomancer seemed quite concerned that this was becoming viral, and could lead to an epidemic if not careful.

There was also a strong warning not to go around telling anyone what she knew until she had conclusive proof yet. A warning Sister Eugenia had chosen to ignore.

The biomancer did not know that she died, because she continued to send queries to Sister Eugenia for two days before she seemed to reach the conclusion that she was incapable of response, and discontinued.

But one other thing is brought up. Sister Eugenia suggests they go find Dr. Mengoak and speak with her about this. The biomancer strictly forbids this, on the grounds that she's worked with her before and that she's so unethical, she should be in politics. Sister Eugenia replied later that she went and talked with her anyway, though she said that she told Mengoak nothing about the biomancer. The biomancer then informed Sister Eugenia that even talking to her was a serious mistake, because logic alone should be enough to suggest that Barbara Mengoak knows exactly what this creature is, and is on its side.

When Sister Eugenia asks what that means, she is given only a cryptic answer she does not understand. "There are minds in the sea that can drive humanoids to madness. If you don't go in the water, they can't harm you, but put one toe in the sea, and you're in their world now, not your world. And, except for dolphins, you've no friends on that other side."

It's all right.

Kate is trying to be prudent and cautious, because she learned a long time ago that those who speak of what they know find too late that prudent silence is wise.

She is not deceiving you, though she may be trying to protect her under-nurses, which fits her personality quite well.

So, since Nurse Kate is telling the truth, Dr. Mengoak lied. And, based on her books, she's too good of a marine biologist for her lies to be a mere mistake or a premature conclusion.

You would have come with Cathran unless you specifically choose not to. Then where you go is up to you.

"There's been a lot of strange things going on of late," Kate bluntly declares. "Living by the sea, you have to learn to accept that. The sea is ruthless and unpredictable. Treat it like a tiger, beautiful, but deadly. Interact with it, and there's a good chance it'll swallow you up.
"But what's been going on in the last month or two feels different. People vanish in a coastal town. Drownings, shipwrecks, shark victims . . . but this feels different.
"As for tetrodotoxin, no, it's not pufferfish venom making people disappear. Even in an expedited form. Where did you get that from?"

Then she sighs and wipes her brown, and carefully checks Cathran for symptoms of poison of any kind. She finds nothing, then finally sighs.

"Okay then, kid. Yeah, I agree, people are being targeted for disappearance. I wasn't willing to believe it. I thought Sister Eugenia was going batty. Then she joined the disappeared."

Kate closes her eyes and begins to twiddle with her fingers, not at all sure what she should or should not be doing. She then plays with a pen and puts it on the examination table. Quickly, she spins it around and it stops, pointing to Cathran.

"Okay then. Fine. Why in the world not? I'll level with you. Sister Eugenia was convinced that a pathogen was purposefully being spread. She didn't confide in me, but in another nurse, Rachel. No point in asking. Yesterday, Rachel vanished, too. That raised my suspicions, so I looked into it myself. I've got access to secret places even the new doctors can't go. It pays to work somewhere for thirty-five years.
"So it seems Sister Eugenia had gone searching for information and instead, she found a contact on an island off the coast of here. Which shouldn't shock you in the least.
"She was in regular communication with this person, and like most people who go searching for information, she told whomever she was talking to more than she learned, but that was all I could find. Someone went in and tried to erase all of Sister Eugenia's computer use and all evidence of her efforts.
"Rachel, like a fool, went and opened her mouth, so somebody deleted everything that she did, too. Luckily, Rachel did do one thing sensible. She gave me a copy of everything she had gotten from Sister Eugenia. Nobody knows that.
"What Eugenia gave Rachel was incomplete, and Rachel didn't know what she was looking at. New nurses don't understand anything. But I understood it. Someone's making mutants, playing with genetics to turn people into some kind of sea creature. Only the experimental mixture doesn't work right. It doesn't hold together correctly. It's the kind of thing you'd need the likes of Doctor Blumenthal to get right.
"There weren't any new clerics around here, and really, to offer any medical care here, you'd have to check with the head of the hospital. Unfortunately for you, that's Father Myrrath.
"That reminds me. There was an orcish nurse who offered her services here, but Father Myrrath sent her away because she was a druidess. Best nurse I ever knew. We went to school together, you see, and she was the best and brightest. She even had qualified as a biologist before she decided to become a nurse. But he only accepts members of the faith of Gozreh as workers here, and gods are something druids just don't do. So she went to work as a private nurse for Mayor Durro."

A look of horrified revelation comes across Kate's face. She clutches her chin.

"You don't think she did this, do you?"

"I don't understand what you mean by poisoned cups. Were you in contact in any way with the notorious Dr. Blumenthal?"

He looks at her, confused but concerned. Then a much older nurse, a gnome lady, passes by, and he breathes a sigh of relief.

"Oh Kate, this woman thinks she might have been poisoned. Can you have a look?"

The gnome stops and goes directly to Cathran. She puts her hands on her hips.

"Where did you come into contact with the poison and what are your symptoms?" Kate asked.

"She said she was queasy," the male nurse adds.

"Why don't you come with me over here where it's quieter and we can focus, all right?" Kate asks to Cathran.

Kate is one of those old-school nurses who doesn't trust the modern method of doing things, knows more medicine than most doctors ever will, and has seen and heard just about everything.

So you go to the hospital. You see a handsome young nurse at the reception desk. He's a half-elf, with blond hair and blue eyes, and a charming goatee.

"May I help you?" he asks brightly.

Then you see two paramedics, one a man and one a woman, a female nurse, and a male doctor rushing a patient on a gurney down the hall. It is screaming and in awful pain, but becoming difficult to identify. While the doctor steps away, the others rush it into a room and close the door.

Father Myrrath is present at the hospital, in the hallway beside the closed off waiting room, speaking with a doctor. It was the same doctor that you saw earlier at the mansion, the one who needed Dr. Mengoak's help because he had no clue what had happened.

The doctor comes to the doctor speaking with Father Myrrath, and they whisper. Then together, both doctors rush off to the room.

Wait . . . why are you being so rude?" complained Father Myrrath.

"Call Dr. Mengoak! Immediately!" the leading doctor directs, saying nothing else as he and the other doctor disappear into the room.

There are also, of course, the usual roster of sick people, most of them in the waiting room.

What do you guys do next?

I'd suggest leaving, personally. You can all hear the jack-booted stomp of the needlessly expensive and perfectly polished Big Boss coming down the stairs, and it's easy to guess the reaction from the already understaffed and now janitor-less employees.

It's permanent, as long as you don't drink a second shot - ever.

What you learn from your knowledge of religion, is that most gods abhor them and their use and consider them diabolical, but the exception is among gods of magic and prophecy, such as Nethys and Pharasma, and among the druids, who have no objection to divination arts because they don't care about the gods, or what the gods think, viewing nature as the mother of the gods rather than the gods as the parents of nature.
And, of course, that oracles feel free to use divinatory tools, such as tarot, runes, and astrology.

As for the exact meaning of the card, though your knowledge of the arcane did not provide you an answer, as an oracle, you have an intuitive flash.

This is the card of rest and illness, and in this case, hope for healing after a time of rest. Today, you see glimpses, images, visions too quick and fleeting to last, of a hospital-type place, where the ill are brought for treatment and care.

And, as the visions fade, that the woman who dropped it was Madam Roxanne, out to expose the man who lied and had her falsely convicted for causing a fatal accident she and her spirits had no hand in.

Yes, the bottle is exactly what it says. You'll level up if you only drink one shot. But drink two, and you're back to level 1. You guys don't have to drink it yet, but you may as well. You don't know what I'm planning in this game. Just that you're not ready for it, even at level 2. So let's see how you do at three.

And no, you won't find the spell in any Pathfinder book. It's a 3.0 D&D spell from Masters of the Wild.

"No you won't," said a woman who is dressed quite eccentrically. She's in a purple and blue cloak of stars, and you can't see her face.
She hands the party a pair of things, but keeps a strange, glowing rope for herself.
"When you get to the tower, return the wand to its rightful owner and until then, use it yourself. The owner really won't mind."

She then turns to Tilly.

"Be a good girl and put them on my bill," she says, with a heavy accent.

"Yes Madam . . ." She glares at Tilly, and Tilly stops speaking. "Sorry. Don't forget to sign your name on the back of the card, Miss . . . what was your name again?"

If she gets Cathran's name, she will go back to the service desk and fill out the computer work to enter Cathran as an official V. I. P. cardholder.

The objects you are given, you realize, are a wand of Regenerate Serious Wounds, with 50 charges, and a bottle of full elixir of "Level up."
There are directions on it as well. "One shot will boost your power, giving you strength in battle and, if you're a caster, new spells. But don't drink a second shot, for the second shot will not only take away what you've gained, but reduce you back to a mere beginner."

There is enough fluid in the bottle for five shots.

Now, how Regenerate Serious Wounds works is that it's a level 3 spell that, rather than a one-shot healing that rolls 3D8 + 1 point per level up to 15, it regenerates 1 hp per round per person for a total of 39 rounds. In other words, rather than rolling so you might get all 8s or you might get 1s & 2s, you heal 39 hp (the maximum number) right out. It just takes you 39 rounds to do it.

Alfred, Krastov, and Cathran can use the wand.

Anyway, the mysterious woman looks at you all again.

"You really have no idea what's in the tower, or what's happening here, do you, my dears? Well, it's not my place to interfere in others' destinies, but I will give you one clue." She reveals a single finger, gloved and covered in multiple scarves of rainbow colors, and she drops a tarot card onto the floor. "This is what you'll find there. That's what the tower is. Enemies are never where you expect them. I must dash, little ones. Someone has told too many whoppers and needs to be exposed before everyone, but that is not your concern. Reputations and lives are at stake."

She shakes her gloved, hidden finger at the party, then walks away in a surprising hurry, leaving the card on the floor in her haste.

The tarot card is the Four of Swords, which shows a man in a kind of cathedral with a painting of three swords above his bed. He is laying on a hospital-type bed, and is clearly ill, with his armor and his own sword down on the floor around him. Off in the distance, a woman is bringing him something on a tray, and because it is green and the tray full of herbs, it is most likely medicine. But you don't know about the woman, for she is wearing a green robe and a green veil even over her face.

"Come here," Tilly, the girl at the service desk whispers as soon as Big Boss returns to his office to be absolutely useless. "For what you've done, I'll take you to the back room where we keep the good stuff. Big Boss said only people who have the V. I. P. card can enter it, and I just happen to have a V. I. P. card that I can give away, as long as Big Boss doesn't find out."

Tilly smiles and hands Cathran a gold and silver card with prints of sunken treasures lost at the bottom of the sea.

All right. You can buy what you want, including you, Zacariah. Your wish list is fulfilled. You won't have a copper left if you don't check yourselves, but any item you wanted, even if I said you couldn't have it before, you can have.

Of course, you may have to deal with Big Boss.

Sorry, all. I'm not a bully. I'd just wondered why it seemed everyone had quit posting. I'll follow whatever lead you guys want to take.

I'd just like to know what everyone wants to do. And yes, you are allowed to split the party if different people want to do different things.

It's not quite noon yet.

Sheriff Brady nods.

"If you all feel this way, very well. You can go at dawn."

You have several possibilities.

1) You could ask Penny what she knows about the chalice, or at least, who set her and the other crooks free and gave her the chalice. since you know now that she has one just like Amy, Colonel Yellow, & Dr. Blumenthal did. She did offer this knowledge in exchange for being let go. Sheriff Brady refused to hear it, but that doesn't mean you have to.

2) You could go to the public beach and see if you can still capture Dr. Blumenthal before he poisons someone else.

3) You could decide to go to the hospital and ask questions of the people there.

4) You could decide that you don't trust someone in town and follow them around. Since you know she's hiding something, Dr. Mengoak might be wise. After all, for all you know, she may be Dr. Blumenthanl's lover, or worse yet, his assistant.

5) You could ignore Penny and continue collecting criminals to complete the five Sheriff Brady asked of the party to capture to win her blessing to investigate the Viridian Castle.

6) You could ignore her and go to the Viridian Castle on your own right now.

7) You could go press the mayor, or anyone else in town, for information. Perhaps ask to search his house to see if the vanished son and his equally vanished half-orc nurse may have left something behind that no one's discovered.

8) You could try to track down what little you know about what's going on with books at the library.

9) You could go have a chat with Marlin Brady. I hadn't meant to quite bring this out yet, but you can have it for free: His psychic powers are actually true. He's an oracle of the waves. He just doesn't know it, so neither does anyone else.

10) You could leave town and decide that this isn't worth following up on and force me to come up with a new plot idea.

These are only ten of the choices you have wide open to you.

Everyone's quit posting. Is something wrong?

Yes, that is a play on Carmen Sandiego and Waldo. I'm the DM. I can do things like that.

Well, I don't know what to say. You have non-violently defeated Penny Pincher.

Naturally, the smoke is gone by now, and Big Boss has come down and berated the staff for the poor guest experience.

"Someone will be fired for this!" he concludes.

The janitor shakes her head, removes her apron, throws her name tag at him, and grouses, "I agree. Too bad it won't be you. Take this nonsense and shove it. I quit." She also hands him the mop.
Being upper management, he has no idea how to use it.

Luckily, while his idiotic creation of a mess rather than cleaning of it provides entertainment, it doesn't last long.

Sheriff Brady arrives a few minutes later, bringing with her the captive Dawn and Bruno Grayson, who are quarrelling and arguing with each other as to who is to blame for them being caught.

"Sorry I'm late," Sheriff Brady explains. "These two were at another con job, but the near-victim got smart and called me when she smelled something fishy."

Penny's heart sinks as she realizes that she, too, is going back to prison. Suddenly, she gets a gleam of light in her eye.

"Sheriff, I'll make a deal with you. Cut me loose and I'll leave town for good, and I'll tell you who freed us. Isn't that worth losing little old me?"

"So you can go running back to Cassandra Santiago, Pincher? No way. She's the world's best thief, and a master world traveller, but we can never find her. Then she took off with Wally, a man who can hide in plain sight and is the star of many self-published game books, and they've never been found since.
"But we have you, Penny, and we're not letting you loose again."

400 XP for the party.

My how clever.

"No! Let me go! This isn't fair!" Penny breaks into a host of profanities as she is captured and lands at Cathran's feet.

All right. Penny throws an object from her pocket, revealing itself to be a smoke bomb.

It is clear from the sound of her footsteps that she is trying to escape.

"Would you mind if we checked the cart for stolen stuff? We know she likes the five-finger discount," the girl at the service desk asked.

"Are you sure we actually want it back after it's been with her for so long?" countered the janitor, after she hangs up the phone. "Sheriff Brady is on her way here personally."

"You called her? But I . . . I . . . I can't believe it! How could you? Wait until I write Big Boss one of my scathing complaint letters! Oh, he'll fire all of you!" Penny protests, reaching into her pocket.

Zacariah, you've actually dealt Penny a serious blow. She's still alert and conscious, but only just.

Fortitude: 1d20 - 1 ⇒ (17) - 1 = 16 She resists being knocked prone, but it's clearly a strain on her.

She hears Alfred mention the chalice, and grins as she backs up to the door and puts her hand on the handle.

"You can have it if you want it. You can have everything in my cart. Just let me go."

5 won't do it.

You succeed in tripping her in the second try, but she attacks, since you gave her the chance. Attack of opportunity: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (10) + 4 = 14

Potential damage: 1d6 + 1 ⇒ (2) + 1 = 3

"We'd love to," the girl at the service desk says, "but someone once called the cops on a shopper who tried to kidnap his ex, who worked here. Big Boss fired both the ex, and the guy who called the cops, saying that he alone would decide when the emergency services were to be called."

The janitor throws down her mop and goes to the phone.

"I'll do it. Yeah, it'll cost me my job, but it'll be so worth it." With that, the take-no-nonsense cleanup woman calls the police.

Now that it's her turn again, Penny realizes the deep trouble she's in. Using a double move, she tries to crawl out of the store. To prevent the party from following her, she overturns the cart full of things she brought in. Among the scattering objects is a chalice, just like the first two.

Krastov is now removed from the initiative roster this combat.

I'll give Krastov one more day to post before I remove him from the initiative order (which means he goes last and only offers healing).

Okay, just so I'll understand, how am I doing as a GM so far? Do I need to change anything?

Initiative: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (16) + 3 = 19

Penny, Zachariah, Cathran, Alfred. Now we just wait for Krastov.

Penny is surprised by Zacariah, but she's a quick one and dodges his attempts to strike her.

"How dare you attack me like that, mister? Security!"

The employees simply drop what they're doing and watch, transfixed.

"Fine, I'll do this myself!" Penny snaps. She draws out her rapier and attacks Zacariah with it.

Attack: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (9) + 3 = 12

She uses combat expertise to give herself a +1 to AC as she attacks.

You guys get to Gifts From the Sea.

It's quite a place. It has fishing nets all over the walls, and the stuffed bodies of all kinds of fish. It also has broken pieces of boats all over the walls.

And what wonders. It stocks some mundane things, after all, it is a store. But what it really sells is unusual and magic items. It's an import store, basically. If it's ocean-related, you can buy it here. If it's a magic item, you might find it here.

But yes, you can get wands of low level spells here, and you can get the kind of armor Cathran is looking for.

And while you are shopping, you hear the employees groan.

"Watch your back, Tilly. Here she comes again," the male clerk complains. He was actually very busy at the moment, washing down his register with a rag and some cleaner in the downtime between people to ring up.

"She's not a customer, she's a cost-umer! Why can't we just ban her?" Tilly complains. She's busy working too, at the service desk, sorting out the returns so that they can go back to their proper departments, almost to the point she's buried in them.

"Big Boss safe in his upstairs office said we have to make the curse-tomers feel welcome. All of them. Even when they are liars and thieves."

"But she's a scammer! She's ripped us off at least a dozen times, Max!"

"I know it, Tilly, but she's also quick to fill out complaint forms. You know Big Boss. He always reads the complaint forms but can't be bothered to ask the context."

Another woman employee, the janitor, emerges from the bathroom that she's just cleaned, carrying her mop. Then she sees the woman the hard-working staff are all complaining about.

"Well, there goes this week's profits. Why doesn't Big Boss ever get upset about that?" the janitor asks.

"He does," Tilly replied, "with us. As if it's our fault his refusal to require receipts for returns and whatnot, and bending over backwards for people like her causes the store to need loans from the bank! And you wait until he installs that self-checkout, Max!"

"Not only will it cut my hours so I can't make my rent, he's practically begging to be scammed with it," Max added.

And here she is. She has an entire cart full of merchandise, and a laundry list of complaints with it. Tilly sighs, knowing that half of this stuff won't even register in her computer, meaning it didn't come from here. But she'll demand a refund on it anyway.
What the woman does not have is a receipt to prove she paid for any of this stuff.

As for who this woman is, who could she possibly be? Why it's Penny Pincher!

"It's the she-orc at the Viridian Castle," she admits with a worried sigh. "She's doing weird experiments and making monsters. What she's doing to those poor little creatures!
"I've seen the evidence in the bodies of some of these mutated corpses. It would take me hours explain my findings in detail, but yes. She's a biomancer in the Viridian Castle and you have to stop her. That's as much as I dare say.
"And if you want to find Ezra Blumenthal, he's at the public beach."

And with that, Dr. Mengoak flees back into the estate.

Very well. You may enter the game.

You know this scene, too, from "Operation Razortooth," about an army that used scientists to turn piranha into super-killers that could live in fresh and salt water, only to have the piranhas evolve before the scientists could stop them. Then they went on a flying killing spree . . .

The only scientist on the project who survived, largely by not being at the compound when the others were because she knew what was happening (and Dr. Mengoak never quite makes clear if she merely foresaw the evolving of the piranha or caused it on purpose without warning anyone) later tells the heroine of the novel, who challenges her and asks her if she's covering up, that she's afraid of what the army will do to her if she comes forward.

But, of course, as it turns out, she's not afraid. She's an army official's wife, just as in on the project as he is. The conversation, as you remember it, between the heroine and the doctor went like this:

Dr. Tronsam looks at the map alongside Mister Roark, Missus Roark, and the soldiers.

"There is still no hard, factual evidence that the piranha can fly, Mister Roark. The barrier the army has put up should contain them quite well. Then Dr. Tronsam leaves, going to the part of the compound that had been prepared for her and, now that she was here, Missus Roarke.
Not at all satisfied by Dr. Tronsam's answers and quick dismissal, Heather Roarke followed her into the women's section of the compound and found Dr. Tronsam taking off her high heeled shoes to begin going to bed.
"You know as well as anyone that the piranha can fly! Why would you tell the army that?" Heather challenged.
Dr. Tronsam looked up at her.
"We're not going to enjoy being bunkmates after all, are we?"
"Answer my question, Doctor . . ."
"Carolyn, please," Dr. Tronsom requested.
"Carolyn." Heather sat down on her own bed, immediately opposite from Carolyn Tronsam's. "But really, my husband is right. The piranha won't leave the barrier until someone comes near, but this is a popular trail. Someone's going to come near and once they do, the piranha will start flying again instead of staying in the river. We're so close to the beach now . . ."
"Why should it worry you? Piranha cannot survive in salt water."
"We know what Doctor Barnes and his team were into, what they'd done. I'd seen reports on the table, including a review by you, that they survived salt water immersion, so why would you tell me that . . ." Then a lightbulb went off in Heather's head and she leaned forward, staring at Dr. Tronsam. "You're covering up, aren't you? Why would you do that when you know what these things can do?"
Dr. Tronsam sighed and looked Heather in the eye, then began to cry.
"The piranha can do more than fly, my dear. They're nowhere near finished evolving yet."
"Then you have to tell some . . ."
"I can't! If I tell anyone what I know about Dan's project, the army will turn on me! You've seen what they can do! What are flying piranha compared to men like that?"
"Dan? Doctor Barnes?" Heather asked.
"The love of my life," Dr. Tronsom said, glad of the reprieve and the chance to deflect Heather's interrogation. "How ever did you meet Mister Roark, anyway?"

"It's Dr. Blumenthal. I'm afraid of what he might do to me if I get too involved."

Alfred, you may roll to recognize this scene, too. :)

Alfred remembers this. It's a scene right out of one of her own works, "The Toothy Grin," about a killer shark that enters a fishing village and won't go away.

In that scene, the marine biologist was talking to the police chief and the mayor. He was telling the truth about how someone actually died, in this case, Grand Dame St. Claire really was killed by puffer-fish venom, but was deliberately leaving out crucial information about the second death because he wanted to protect the shark from hunters by making people think it wasn't that dangerous. The reason was that the scientist wanted to study the shark, because it was a rare shark that had no business in the waters it was in, and was behaving atypically.

Of course, in that novel, the biologist is exposed by the town's other marine biologist, a woman who worked at the aquatic park (like Sea World) and was far more willing to be honest about what the shark was and what it could do once she got access to one of the shark's humanoid victims. (Marine biologists can learn a great deal about a shark by looking at bite patterns on victims.) Naturally she told the police chief what kind of a shark they were really dealing with and how deadly it really was once she'd studied the victim.

And, of course, the crooked biologist met his end in that novel by trying to go into the water with the shark alone and not lasting long after he accidentally cut himself.

"The ocean won't help you find Dr. Blumenthal," Dr. Mengoak indicates. "He's the one who did this, obviously."

No. Nothing you can pick up on, either.

"It was just an accelerated form of puffer-fish venom. Really sped up. But it's not contagious and it wasn't long-lasting. There's nothing left to fear."

Then she smiles.

Okay, I wrote this wrong. Let me fix it. You may always make a sense motive check. It's just that if you read her books, you get a +10 to the roll.

At 21, you just happen to catch the eye of Dr. Mengoak. She sees you, Krastov, and comes to look at the cup. It's the Gather Information roll.

The female dwarf smiles when she sees the cup.

"So that's how the poison was administered. Notice, there's a gem missing from the sequence. See, this is designed so that a chemical, if it is fashioned to look like a gem and fit into the cup, is released into the cup when it's got enough liquid in it. It just dissolves into what you're drinking and you probably don't even notice."

She pushes through the gap with her finger, revealing the non-magical triggering mechanism.

"It's an ingenious way to deliver poison. Hello. I forgot to introduce myself. Dr. Barbara Mengoak, marine biologist and novelist extraordinaire. Oh yes, you're the man who saved me from that ruffian the other day. How do you do?" she asks to Zacariah.