Maruta's page

Round One

◆) Recall Knowledge
◆◆) Fleet Step (to use with Evanescent Wings)

Recognizing the primal magicks used to sustain the wards, Maruta's ashen wings glitter with soft green light, preparing to fly around to all four portals aligned with the seasons.

Then 13 decay damage and Round Two:

He flies to area where the magic can be "touched" and...

GM, where on the map can Maruta be to attempt a Disable Check? If the answer is "anywhere", then I will attempt a Disable check both on R1 and R2 (instead of casting Fleet Step)...

Fortitude vs 13 damage (DC 27): 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (15) + 9 = 24 @ 13 decay damage

◇) Delay

Unable to understand what is happening, Maruta is unable to act

Maruta tries to figure out what will happen.

Even their greeting involve the seasons (and violence).

Maruta points:
Northeast: "Autumn"
Northwest: "Winter"
Southeast: "Summer"
Southwest: Spring"

And follows Cirri and Selena to observe.

WATCHFUL GUARDS (1 of 3 Dance Points)

Overcome Deception or Stealth
A few guards have carefully avoided the dance floor so that they can keep a watchful eye over the festivities. Charting a course past them requires sneaking past their notice or creating a distraction.

Maruta causes a distraction and sneaks past the guards...

...so small a threat goes easily unnoticed when one is bewithed by faerie dust!

Perhaps I am miscounting, but Watchful Guards may be 3/3!

"Achoo!" more snuffing ashy pixie dust spreads into the area where the guards are standing. Our tiny hero points at each of his dancing allies, then points in the direction of the vault, then smacks his own head in frustration, but projects the sound magically yonder.

◆) Faerie Dust (Will vs -1 or -2 penalty to Perception)
◆◆) Figment

Deception (T) w/ Figment (+2) vs Watchful Guards (Pixie Dusted?): 1d20 + 10 + 2 ⇒ (13) + 10 + 2 = 25

Once around this way, twice around the other...

Stealth (E) w/ Terrain Stalker (Underbrush) vs Watchful Guards: 1d20 + 11 ⇒ (20) + 11 = 31

Terrain Stalker

Maruta pauses as the music changes. Really, it sort of "ejects" him from his keening flow. And then, whether it was because he didn't know, or didn't care, the snag complicated his behavior, marking him as an outsider.

Society (U) vs DC ??: 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (7) + 1 = 8 (plus add +6 to result if Forest Lore can sub in?)

Dead-ending near the vault, Maruta attenuates to the air itself, feels the primal beat, closes his eyes, and let's his body get carried away.

Nature (T) vs Perplexing Magic: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (20) + 7 = 27

With the guards dizzied, Maruta - irreverent fey of ashes! - sneaks by underfoot, leaving only a tiny trail behind him…

Stealth (E) w/ Terrain Stalker (Underbrush) vs Watchful Guards: 1d20 + 11 ⇒ (7) + 11 = 18

Terrain Stalker

◆◆) Heal vs Selena

Heal (R1) w/ Sorcerous Potency (+1) vs Selena: 1d8 + 8 + 1 ⇒ (2) + 8 + 1 = 11

Having danced all morning, and made due 'friendships' dolling out crowns, Maruta bores of festivities, and heads straight for the vault "Achoo!" snuffing ashy pixie dust into the area where the guards are standing, he uses his small size, throwing a twinkle of light another direction whilst proceeding underfoot!

◆) Faerie Dust (Will vs -1 or -2 penalty to Perception)
◆◆) Figment

Deception (T) w/ Figment (+2) vs Watchful Guards (Pixie Dusted?): 1d20 + 10 + 2 ⇒ (10) + 10 + 2 = 22

Maruta will shed his own blood. Better than that - he has a special affinity with arthropods! - he asks them "Where?" they would like to be tickled, and triggers multiple color schemes based off their descriptions, releasing a kaleisoscope of color!

Diplomacy (T) w/ Melixie (to sub for Craft/Thievery): 1d20 + 10 ⇒ (14) + 10 = 24

And also asks one of them if they'd like to see inside the king's "Vault?"

Maruta flits around again, not talking, but snooping. Again gathering acorns or other detritus and spinning it into little crowns (in the shape of King Webhekiz's head), offering them as gifts.

Diplomacy (T): 1d20 + 10 ⇒ (5) + 10 = 15

Maruta looks at Selena, and draws one long finger slowly across his neck.

Maruta's wings twitch too. But in joy!

He walks over to Desmond and pats him on the back (of the hamstring) with brotherly gusto, and pantomimes breaking into the vault with an improvised dance, whereupon arriving, he places both hands on his head and pops his eyes wide open with surprised discovery!

Everything comes together for Maruta. He accepts the truth unquestioningly.

And his curiosity for the content of the vault peaks even further - he imagines he could use his size to advantage breaking it open!

And counts - there are at least 4 pathfinders present (a full number of digits on his tiny hands)!

Maruta pretends not to care. As always...

...but he does "happen to be walking by" when Lezelshin leans in talking to Cirri...

...what would that fool Webhekiz keep locked away? Besides his manners?

Diplomacy (T) +10

Dance!? It is infinitely clear to Maruta that "Webhekiz 'Does not see'!" he explains in very few words to Lelzeshin.

Why, it's the bee calling the butterfly pollinated!

Maruta keeps tabs on everyone he has given a crown to - best he keep an eye on them as they keep an eye on him.

He rolls his eyes once more as Serena fawns once again. Unintentionally, he feels as though her actions represent him and his, by mere connection they share to the first world. Though this, he'd never openly admit. Few as words as escape his lips at all!

Reciprocally spiteful, he eyeballs the portly woman with cat ears suspiciously. Until she mentions the acid plant. A rather stylish execution, by his own reckoning. He finds a leaf to settle into, and sits down for the first time since he has arrived, temporarily off his guard.

Maruta flits around.

He is curious to see if all the other subjects of this hostile kingdom share it's leadership's principals as regards welcoming outsiders. Dodging any watching eye whenever he gets the chance.

He gathers acorns or other detritus, and spins it into little crowns (in the shape of King Webhekiz's head), offering them as gifts.

Diplomacy (T): 1d20 + 10 ⇒ (14) + 10 = 24

Maruta storms off at the king’s inability to understand a simple dance.

Wearing nothing at all, not clothes, nor armor, nor weapons, nor items of any sort, he laughs at the idea of being “disarmed” - indeed, his entire being is a magical armament! Nothing so silly as “things” does he need to be fully capable of mischief: or danger!

At the opportunity to make company other than fancy kings and such, he shrugs. Maybe the other subjects of the kingdom won’t be all honey with words but fire with actions. Lies.

Maruta rolls his eyes and folds his arms as the Luminous Exemplar Sprite bows before this king. He allows others to make their case. The ever-diplomatic Cirri, the humble Desmond, the noble Ghardak, the irreverent Fran... even the starstruck Selena.

Once that is concluded, he walks right up to the king, and cranes his neck up, and deems him "Hostile" and proceeds to dance around his feet, re-enacting a princess running away, a renegade marriage, and a beheading of the groom in front of a crowd.

Then! A second dance: A group enjoying a journey through a beautiful wood, and ambush by a clumsy druid, leaping plants, and little armed men, then the surrounding of the group by armed guards, and a forced march to a kingdom.

When he is finished with both dances, he asks the king "Do you see?"

Diplomacy (T): 1d20 + 10 ⇒ (11) + 10 = 21

Maruta narrows his eyebrows at Selena's outburst, and points at "them" "Feykillers" he reminds her, before she gets too comfortable around a king with a twenty-eight-syllable name.

He dodges the carriage's efforts to "clean" him, hovering upon ashen wings a moment with every twist away, and creating more "mess".

Unhelpful.

Maruta sizes up the iron-booted guards as he walks by.

I could take them…

He observes the exchange of blood. His own the source of his power, nearly as primal as it comes: fey of a potent fey bloodline. If they wanted his, they’d have to fight him for it.

Maruta stands before these fey, defiant.

Not smart enough to exactly put his finger on it. But.

Narrowing his eyes, he flutters along, keeping his distance.

Maruta shrugs, already bored. And still angry at being attacked. As if a mere apology was an entire undoing. He makes a connection.

"Them"

Pointing at the dog-faced people with a long, slender finger, Maruta is certain that they are responsible for killing Selmius. He demands "Explain" putting his hands on his hips. Ashes continue to smolder on his tiny form - a magical, gestural, emotion interjection telegraphing just how he is feeling in this moment.

Seeing the newcoming attackers being met by onrushing pathfinder, Maruta flits to the edge of the cliff to pick off the climbing plants, hoping to prevent a whole-party flank once they successfully ascend.

◆) Evanescent Wings (45 feet w/ Fleet Step)
◆◆) Slashing Gust

Slashing Gust (S, 60-ft) vs Black: 1d20 + 10 ⇒ (1) + 10 = 113d4 ⇒ (2, 1, 4) = 7
Slashing Gust (S, 60-ft) w/o MAP vs Blue: 1d20 + 10 ⇒ (14) + 10 = 243d4 ⇒ (2, 2, 3) = 7

Maruta continues to surge around the bankments with ashen wings aflutter, buffeting his foes with powerful slashing winds.

◆◆) Slashing Gust
◆) Evanescent Wings (45 feet w/ Fleet Step)

Slashing Gust (S, 60-ft) vs Yellow: 1d20 + 10 ⇒ (11) + 10 = 213d4 ⇒ (4, 4, 3) = 11
Slashing Gust (S, 60-ft) w/o MAP vs Black: 1d20 + 10 ⇒ (3) + 10 = 133d4 ⇒ (2, 4, 2) = 8

He puts the cliffs between himself and the new arrivals.

Over the river and through the wood, Maruta flees his captor into the bushes...

◆) Escape (rolled above)
◆) Evanescent Wings (45 feet w/ Fleet Step)
◆) Hide (w/ +2 Bush Cover?)

Maruta sprays dust into the... thing's... peepers... and wriggles free!

◆) Escape
◆◆) ?? (Awaiting info from Cirri)

Escape (Arcrobatics, T) vs Athletics (DC 21): 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (16) + 9 = 25

Cirri's wind carries our tiny hero on a gust right out of the grasping roots, leaving nearly as they arrive - and flickering his fey wings, he gathers the spent energy of the impulse, and imbues it with transitive primal energy, rebounding the force into twinned slashing winds to assail the foes behind him.

◇) Four Winds to Stride (Half of 50 feet w/ Fleet Step)
◆◆) Slashing Gust
◆) Evanescent Wings (45 feet w/ Fleet Step)

Slashing Gust (S, 60-ft) vs Yellow: 1d20 + 10 ⇒ (8) + 10 = 183d4 ⇒ (4, 1, 4) = 9
Slashing Gust (S, 60-ft) w/o MAP vs Red: 1d20 + 10 ⇒ (12) + 10 = 223d4 ⇒ (4, 4, 4) = 12

The propulsion of those gusts drive him further by wing along the cliff as Maruta races from one danger and into another!

Tresspass or die?

Holding no disproportional reverence for creatures of the wood such as to instantly forgive sudden and unwarranted violence - for indeed, Maruta feels as though land itself cannot be claimed - he thereby doesn't hesitate to take the affront as a call to reciprocal action.

Energizing his ashen wings, he flutters gently across the ravine, channelling the lift generated by the motion into dangerous winds, directing it at the two closest interlopers. As they approach him, he bends their minds (if they have any) against their own locomotions, slowing their decent unto him with perilous fey magicks!

◆) Evanescent Wings w/ Fleet Step
◆◆) Slashing Gust
↺) Lose the Path (Targeting first creature to Stride towards Maruta; Will lead opposite direction)

Slashing Gust (S, 60-ft) vs Blue: 1d20 + 10 ⇒ (16) + 10 = 263d4 ⇒ (1, 1, 4) = 6
Slashing Gust (S, 60-ft) w/o MAP vs Red: 1d20 + 10 ⇒ (13) + 10 = 233d4 ⇒ (4, 4, 2) = 10

Maruta truds along, keeping underfoot of Desmond Vilks.

“intruders”

Believing the forest speaking to him to warn him of danger, he steadies his gaze against the canopy, looking for the intruder.

“leave.”

Grasping the nearest leaf, and lifting it, then the next and next, he continues his search for the intruder - they must be even smaller than him to be capable of such a hiding place. Not that Maruta is one to make a low assessment of might on so pedestrian a characteristic as size...

...as they approach the ravine, he vitalizes his wings with powerful primal magic...

◆◆) Fleet Step (to use with Evanescent Wings)

...which unfurl and unfold, stretching his body-height-and-a-half in either direction of span, oily and lit by orange flickers of flame, which deposit even more ash onto the ground around him!

Maruta becomes transfixed by the fisttorso-sized pumpkin-like fruit with multiple thorny protrusions. It is, familiar.

He tries to identify it:

Nature (T): 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (6) + 7 = 13

Acrobatics (T) w/ Evanescent Wings: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (6) + 9 = 15

Evanescent Wings

Tiny, Maruta spans his ashen wings which sprinkle black dust and carry him about the air.

Forest Lore (T): 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (1) + 7 = 8
☘️ Forest Lore (T): 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (5) + 7 = 12

Maruta nearly gets hopelessly lost - he nearly loses his party as well.
But.
He does find a lot of interesting and new detritus to collect along the way...

Three.

Maruta points a single, long finger, first at the strix, then at the luminous sprite, then at the human. Marking each one that is here, he selects Cirri, Selena, or Fran?: 1d6 ⇒ 1 Cirri.

Fluttering over to her, leaving a trail of ashes, and produces for her (into her outstretched hand, perhaps) a prize: a perfect acorn!

A talisman to represent Root Magic (Cirri +1c to save vs first haunt or spell this adventure)

Curious, he stays to see where upon herself she will place it...

Carrying an acorn across the yard with both hands, discreet and tactful, an unrobed male body in miniature, perhaps a foot tall, horned and with ashen wings, leaving behind him a zigzag of soot, for it turns out, that not one, nor two, nor three, but several acorns (of different shapes) are to be carted across, before being tossed carelessly into a pile.

It is unclear if he is listening to the briefing...

Maruta walks backstage before the curtains finish falling, conspicuously absent for the remainder of the quest…

Flitting to where Signet pointed, Maruta belches flame beneath Nyak’ toes!

◆) Evanescent Wings w/ Fleet Step (Fly 45)
◆◆) Ignition

"Smoke"

Ignition (Fire) w/ Flat Check (DC 11) vs Final Faerie: 1d20 ⇒ 181d20 + 10 ⇒ (8) + 10 = 183d6 ⇒ (6, 6, 3) = 15

Will (DC 19) vs euphoria that makes them stupefied 2 and slowed 1: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (17) + 9 = 26

Maruta inhales glitter and exhales ash - and continues to buffet the cross fey with piercing wind!

◆) Glass Shield (AC 20 plus Pop)
◆◆) Slashing Gust vs Green and Purple

"Wind"

Slashing Gust (S) vs First Target: 1d20 + 10 ⇒ (14) + 10 = 243d4 ⇒ (3, 1, 2) = 6
Slashing Gust (S) w/ No MAP (-0) vs Second Target: 1d20 + 10 - 0 ⇒ (4) + 10 - 0 = 143d4 ⇒ (4, 2, 2) = 8

◆) Evanescent Wings w/ Fleet Step (Fly 45)
◆◆) Slashing Gust vs Green and Purple

"Wind"

Slashing Gust (S) vs First Target: 1d20 + 10 ⇒ (3) + 10 = 133d4 ⇒ (4, 3, 4) = 11
Slashing Gust (S) w/ No MAP (-0) vs Second Target: 1d20 + 10 - 0 ⇒ (5) + 10 - 0 = 153d4 ⇒ (1, 2, 4) = 7

Maruta flies like it, across stage, and whips up a little storm!

◆◆) Fleet Step
◆) Evanescent Wings (Fly 45)

Maruta’s sparkles with spritely might and flies into the center stage, ready to patch up the wounds of any allies that meet fey tricks or trouble!

Maruta attempts to collect the marbles, and “slips” on them, raising his tiny fist at the Carnelian Signet!

Acrobatics (T) vs DC 17: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (4) + 9 = 13
Acrobatics (T) vs DC 17: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (12) + 9 = 21
Acrobatics (T) vs DC 17: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (8) + 9 = 17
Acrobatics (T) vs DC 17: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (9) + 9 = 18

He “falls” convincingly, but avoids hurting himself, then blasts them away with primal wind magic, spraying ashes onto the front row audience!

Maruta descends from his perch and let’s the glamour fade.

Maruta weaves his primal fey magic into a cunning illusion: Illusory black wings protrude from his tiny ashen winglets, his torso sprouts feathers, his tiny hands grow into grippy claws, his jaw sharpens into a beak, and his eyes glow with crimson intelligence.

All around him, shadows dance in the background as he becometh The Raven, contrasting his out sizing illusory form. He flies around the stage, and descends upon yonder perch to cast fear into the hearts of the Audience with a soul-wrenching screech!

◆◆) Figment

Deception (Trained) w/ Figment (+2) vs DC 13: 1d20 + 10 + 2 ⇒ (20) + 10 + 2 = 32
Deception (Trained) w/ Figment (+2) vs DC 13: 1d20 + 10 + 2 ⇒ (18) + 10 + 2 = 30

Maruta tries to hide behind Nyak or Signet?: 1d2 ⇒ 2 The Carnelian Signet (Sharing a Square) away from view Onstage but facing Welby with his wings to the audience…

◆) Sustain Summon
◆◆) Slashing Gust vs Green

"Wind"

Maruta continues to direct his primal wind magic.

Slashing Gust (S) vs Green: 1d20 + 10 ⇒ (19) + 10 = 293d4 ⇒ (4, 3, 1) = 8

◆) Sustain Summon
◆◆) Slashing Gust vs Blue and Red, else Purple

"Wind"

With an ashy wing flutter, he whips a mini tornado around himself, and hurls it at the pests!

Slashing Gust (S) vs First Target: 1d20 + 10 ⇒ (12) + 10 = 223d4 ⇒ (4, 2, 4) = 10
Slashing Gust (S) w/ No MAP (-0) vs Second Target: 1d20 + 10 - 0 ⇒ (20) + 10 - 0 = 303d4 ⇒ (4, 2, 3) = 9 (CS > 2d4 Bleed)