Apologies for the radio silence - I'm back from my vacation and will try to catch up.
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Happy holidays indeed.
Ah. My apologies, I had missed that. To be clear, Zeldrith's short fuse does not extend to his player out-of-character - frankly, I think that if we managed to redeem Nualia, it would be great. Much like Ano said, however, as the worldliest and likely most cynical of the group (though Donimah is strong competition), Zeldrith takes a bit dimmer view of the situation than I think OoC is necessarily justified. Besides, the situation very strongly reminds him of his time in the wars. Since this attitude carried him through a four-year tour of duty alive, he is taking a bit of an 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' approach to a similar situation many years later.
Thought I should clarify in the Discussion area about what I'm trying to do here. Part of Zeldrith's... strong feelings on the matter are due to his own experiences with similar situations in the Goblinblood Wars. Also, to my mind, the wrath-linked tiefling's adjacency to the wrath-linked Runewell and his intermittent visions might supernaturally shorten his fuse, so to speak. To a certain degree, though, it's an OoC attempt to get us back on track for the module. We've known our next target for over a month, but we've been moralizing about if we can kill an evil person who's been trying to kill us for most of that time. Frankly, I think we should start looking at moving on, if only to give our GM a chance to actually post something related to the main plot.
Zeldrith scowls as Ano storms off, turning to Arrian as he speaks up about convincing Nualia to change her mind. "And what then? If we talk her down, who knows if she'll truly change, or if she'll go back to planning an attack even bigger and more destructive than the last? Even if her little tryst in the smuggler's tunnels made her what she is, she still managed to fool everyone in Sandpoint for months! Even gone five years, she's still got that fool Ano in her pocket!" He shifts his glare to Juriya, crossing his arms in an unspoken dare for her to argue with him. "As for what Ano said, about what I'd do if our roles were reversed? I'd still kill this Nualia in a second. During the wars, when Corporal Marin turned on us at the Spire, I didn't stop to see if some wizard's spell had scrambled his mind. Didn't ask him if his head was turned by hobgoblin gold. One of us was going to die - it was him or me. I chose him." He glances down the street where the furious catfolk had just retreated. "Pretty soon, Ano's going to have to choose. I pray to all the gods she makes the right choice."
As the group leaves the Cathedral and continues their discussion of Nualia's circumstances, Zeldrith follows behind, seemingly not interested in their conversation but still unwilling to leave his friends behind. At Juriya's words, he scowls, speaking up. "Look, why she's trying to kill us isn't important. I'm sure that back in the wars, you could have written whole books about the hobgoblins we fought, why they decided to bother organizing the tribes into a unified force, all that. A soldier on the front doesn't care about all that - the key point here is that they're trying to kill us, and that we know where they are massing so we can kill them first." His mismatched eyes flick back and forth, searching for enemies, and his hand strays close to the hilt of his sword as he shifts his stance to put the comforting mass of the Cathedral's stone walls at his back. "If we're bound for Thistletop, let's go already. Those little psychos are quiet when they want to be - the more time we stand around jawing about it, the more time they have to sink their grubby little claws into Sandpoint's underbelly."
Again, the +1 longsword is probably the bulk of what Zeldrith needs - I don't think much else would be necessary on him, especially given his low ranged attack modifier. The longsword is probably better than anything else he can use in melee, and he isn't built for range, so bombs and such are unnecessary.
Zeldrith: The +1 longsword unfortunately might be the source of most of the party's wealth. :( Apologies - I can sell it, if you'd like. I seem to recall that Zeldrith was using it, though - I hadn't thought we'd be selling it if it's in active use.
Zeldrith already has a chain shirt, and I'm more or less saving money until he unlocks medium/heavy armors (2/3 caster in full plate will probably be helpful), so with the +1 Longsword, I don't think he needs much in the way of gear. Juriya, if you're looking solely at weight and Dex caps, might you want to consider the haramaki? Spidersilk bodysuit really only has +1 Dex cap and -16 lbs on a suit of studded leather - a haramaki would allow you to add magical enchantments onto your armor, weigh a quarter as much as the spidersilk armor, and remove Dex cap entirely.
As Ano heads into Father Zantus's office, Zeldrith stays behind in the main area of the Sandpoint Cathedral, glancing around idly as he waits for Ano to finish. Seeing that Father Zantus was interrupted in the middle of sweeping the vast cathedral's floor, he picks up the broom resting against the wall and continues the old priest's work, quickly falling into a rhythm as his mind strays back to when he would do the same task as a child in his family's store. As Donimah enter with her query, he glances briefly up from his task before nodding to the exceptionally boring door Ano and the Father had retreated through. "Meeting about the troubles. The assault on Thistletop won't be easy - you want to make peace with your gods beforehand, then there's altars around here." Returning to his sweeping, he continues for several more minutes before addressing Arrian. "To be frank, I'm more than a little worried about how that kid ended up - the one from Ano's vision, I mean. My family's had generations to get used to having a strange child every once in a while, but... you hear stories about what people generally do to monster children. Midwives drowning them, mothers going nuts - I'll be honest, that kid's future wasn't exactly promising. No matter how much of a freak they look, little babies haven't exactly had time to do anything worthy of death, right?" He shrugs, shifting position to sweep the area around where his hooves were. "I mean, who's the real monster in that situation? The baby or the parents? Makes you think."
"I don't think so? Other than the pregnancy vision, all I saw…well, heard and smell…was weird. I heard moans, and I smelled something…like… Oh Gods…Father Zantus better have the answers I need…" Zeldrith grimaces almost imperceptibly, interjecting quickly to distract his friend from the nauseating thoughts. "Well, maybe... maybe it's not your friend's fault, then, yeah? I mean, after all, I think us two were the only ones to have visions down there - proper visions, I mean - so maybe your friend's head got blasted full of all those evil thoughts, like ours were but worse? None of this would really be her fault then - all this would be on those crazy old wizards." Glancing behind him, he sends a death glare at Donimah, daring her to interrupt with another tangent about how great the Thassilonians were. The ex-mercenary puts an arm around Ano to console her as he quickens his pace to match hers, the sound of his hooves on the hard-packed dirt of the road drowning out the softer sound of her footsteps. "Look at it this way, if your friend can't be held responsible for her actions, we'd be doing her a favor by killing her, right? Stopping the thing that's taken her face before it can taint her memory? We can talk with Father Zantus, but I think he'll say the same thing. And the longer we delay here instead of taking Thistletop, the more likely it is that someone's going to put two and two together, same as we did."
Leaping up from his seat, Zeldrith rushes after Ano, redirecting her down a side street so that she doesn't pass near the Clovermark house with all the subtlety the other members of the group have come to expect of him. "Hey-Ano-I-think-I-heard-that-High-Street-will-be-closed-how-about-we-try-R aven?" He clears his throat as he catches up with his catfolk friend. "You know, Ano, since I'm new here in town, I was thinking I might try and see some of the sights down this street here at this specific moment for some reason. It's on the way to the Cathedral, too, so there's that." Steering her down the side street and away from another violent confrontation with her mother, Zeldrith casts about frantically for something to justify his intervention in Ano's affairs. "There, aren't you glad we came down this way? Now we can see... um... that alchemist's shop that-" Narrowing his eyes, the tiefling sniffs the air experimentally. "-smells like cheese for some reason. You know, I don't think I even want to know..." He laughs nervously. "Well, Ano, how many people can see they've set foot inside of a Thassilonian ruin and lived to tell the tale? And then there was that freaky little imp - it's definitely something to remember for the future. Hey, did you feel anything weird when you stood near that flame pool down in those catacombs? I thought I felt a little tingling in my hand here, and I was wondering..." He trails off, looking hopefully at Ano to see if his babble is helping to distract her from her recent confrontation with her mother or the prospect of having to kill her old friend.
Sincerest apologies - I thought it was more or less plainly laid out for us from the way that the visions plus Tsuto's journal, Donimah's inferences and such had been set up. My intention is not to metagame.
Zeldrith glances skeptically between Ano and Donimah. "Ano... you didn't see what was in that book we found down there, did you? These Lamashtu cultists are bad news, even if one of them was your friend. Now, whether having her tiefling child made her snap or whether she was hiding it from the town for so long... I doubt any of us can know, but the fact remains that she's involved with all this Lamashtu stuff." He looks apologetically at Ano. "I'll help you if I can, Ano, but I suspect that your friend as you knew her is gone. I know it's hard, but trust me - I've lost plenty of friends in the Goblinblood Wars. You've been through enough already, and if you hold out hope for something that can't happen, it will be all the harder for you. Five years ago, you made peace with the knowledge that your friend is dead - what's returned now... isn't her, and you know that." Putting a comforting hand on her shoulder, the older tiefling clears his throat. "...Look, I'll gladly help you through whatever you need me to help you with, but trust me - I've lost friends before, and false hope can magnify the pain you feel a hundredfold."
Sincerest apologies for my delays in posting - it's been a singularly long week. I'll try to get better about posting in the future.
As Shaelu emerges from the tunnels with and the party in tow, Zeldrith follows close behind, his blade sheathed. In the Rusty Dragon, he scowls at Ameiko's query, glaring in the direction of the Glassworks. "Ameiko, there was something in those old smuggling tunnels - something old. Something evil. If you want my advice, you'll brick up those old smuggling tunnels - collapse them outright, would be better." As Ano collapses, Zeldrith rushes to help her into a chair - as Cherry leaves, he glances curiously in the little bird's direction, but does not pursue. At Shaelu's words, he looks concerned. "Ameiko, you said that Tsuto was offering you a place with his army at Thistletop, yes? Shaelu, have you heard of this place at all?"
Bump: Any other shield users besides Arrian? Not Zeldrith - magi mostly use one-handed weapons because Spellstrike. From the looks of it, I think Arrian's the only one in the party who actually uses a shield - they're generally Str-based melee combatant things, and as we discussed with Enlarge Person, Arrian's really the only one (other than Zeldrith, who has a bunch of caveats and conditions as a native outsider magus) who can effectively use that sort of thing.
Zeldrith is now a 3rd level Eldritch Scion, with changes as marked below: BAB: +1
As Juriya snarls at him, Zeldrith's brow furrows in confusion, only for a sheepish look to come over his face as realization dawns. "I wasn't supposed to tell anyone you were a shapeshifter, was I? That makes more sense..." Noticing Shalelu leaving with the rest of the group, he raises his sword to bring it down on the accursed pool, but at Donimah's protests, he scowls, backing away. "Look, Donimah, you're young. You may have all that book-knowledge, but I tell you, if you had those visions in this place, if you saw half of what I've seen about the Thassilonians, you'd be down here with a torch right now, ready to burn this place to the ground. That well, that hole in our world... it's about as close to pure evil as you're likely to find around here." Glaring at the wizard, he sheaths his blade and goes to follow Shalelu. "You'll see - with all your scrolls and tablets, you'll see soon enough. There will come a day when you realize you've delved too deep, when you wish you had destroyed this damned place when you had the chance."
As the quasit falls, Zeldrith gratefully sheaths his blade, frustrated at his inability to reach or even see the annoying creature for what felt like an eternity. Juriya shapeshifting again causes him to look over at the kitsune, raising his eyebrows in surprise. "You can shapeshift into a fox, too? You sure have some strange powers, Juriya." Shaking his head as he dismisses it as another eccentricity of his newfound ally, Zeldrith's hooves clatter up the crumbling Thassilonian stairs again as he ascends to the second level and examines the shimmering triangular pool. "Whatever that demon was doing down here, she seemed to place great importance in this pool here - she said something about how 'her queendom will come when her pool will be recharged again.'" The warrior kicks at the corpse of the dead sinspawn with one hoof. "Blood goes in... big ugly comes out. Seems pretty straightforward. And that dimming - this thing looks like it's filled with flame, almost. Maybe each time it makes one of these things, it's like taking another log off the fire?" The seven fingers of the tiefling's left hand twitch, and he scratches his jaw as he tilts his head to consider the pool. "Way I see it... we should probably try and break it if we can. Smash a hole in the side... cover it up with a boulder... anything to make sure this thing doesn't stick around and make more of those 'sinspawn' thingies."
As the quasit reappears, Zeldrith scowls, his eye flashing white with arcane power again as his seven-fingered hand weaves an intricate pattern in the air - thrusting his palm forward, he sends a beam of icy particles at the demon.
At Ano's instructions, Zeldrith scowls, stepping alongside Donimah and slashing his sword through the air in the hopes that it will find demon flesh.
Nobody has ever accused the pitborn warrior of being a coward. Nobody has ever accused him of being particularly smart either, but oftentimes, these two go hand in hand.
At Ano's shouted words, Zeldrith's eyes narrow, and he holds his sword in a defensive guard as he backs up against a wall.
Zeldrith bolts up the stairs after Arrian, taking a flanking position with the half-orc with his longsword at the ready.
As the others peer at the bizarre creature, Zeldrith scowls, drawing his blade. "Queen or no, I don't think I like your tone. We've dealt with all the others down here easy enough - we don't fear you!"
"Demon... Child... uh... isn't that combination specific to one religion?" Juriya says while checking for traps. She is... still as oblivious as ever. Zeldrith shrugs. "Not necess..." He gives a pained yelp as Juriya steps on his tail, turning to glare at the kitsune. "Watch where you're stepping! Anyway, I don't think it's that specific - I'd probably count, and my family's been Desnan for generations."
Zeldrith blinks as Ano seems to stumble, stepping forward to help the catfolk to her feet. "You're having visions, too? Something bad happened here, for sure - two somethings bad, sounds like." He shrugs, nodding at the gruesome bas-reliefs that cover the walls of the Thassilonian complex. "Maybe the one's connected to the other? My mind's getting blasted full of my great-something grandfather and all the demon worshiping he did here; maybe your friend got a head full of that 'psykill' stuff, too? From what you say, it sounds like it gave her child demon blood or some such..." He shudders, shifting his weight from one hoof to the other as he glances around the sinister chamber. "All those evil thoughts floating around, passing through our world... can't be good for the mind, not at all." He pats his friend reassuringly on the shoulder. "Look, Ano, your friend's probably safe and sound in Desna's realm. We'll track down the source of this, clear her name, don't you worry about that."
Zeldrith glances disinterestedly around the small shrine, nodding towards the befouled altar. "Basin there was probably for the blood. I've seen some Bakrakhani murals in Magnimar - their priests were not nice people." Moving to the double doors, the old soldier draws his blade, grinning back at Arrian and the others. "This has the feel of an ambush. Ready to fight, my friend?"
Zeldrith shrugs, stabbing the dead head-thing one last time for good measure before scraping the thing's dead form off on one of the decorative skulls at the pool's edge. The more intricate discussions of the complex's purpose and a passage to the outside are largely beyond his rather limited imagination - instead, he nods down the corridor they came from, sheathing his blade. "Some sort of third passage, wasn't there? I'm a little concerned - unless this head-thing was this place's creator, I doubt whatever's down that last passage will be friendly."
Zeldrith strides forward, his hooves splashing through the rippling water of the skull-lined fountain as he draws his longsword and slashes in one fluid motion. Not being terribly bright, a good portion of Donimah's warning goes over his head, though he does raise his eyebrows at one part. "Kiss me? This thing? Donimah, there isn't enough beer in the world for that."
As Ano reaches across him, Zeldrith freezes, his hand going to the hilt of his longsword as he looks at the catfolk for instructions.
OoC, I've also been keeping track - IC, Zeldrith is an outsider in town, and he isn't notably quick on the uptake in any case, so while I've been keeping fairly detailed notes for my own gratification, I've been careful not to act on them. Honestly, though, I don't think Ano will be persuaded that it's actually 'evil Nualia' we're fighting and not 'evil demon possessing her corpse' unless she has a proper villain monologue about how she deceived her friends for so many years.
When Donimah returns to the rest of the group, Zeldrith follows close behind, glancing nervously around the strange circular room again as his hooves once again land on the crumbling stone slabs of lost Thassilon. "Thank Desna - I'm not great with heights, though I probably should have thought of that before I went." He shakes his head, looking apprehensively back at the room. "Still, at least we're out of there - and none the worse for it. I don't think so, at least." As the group asks about the Abyssal language, Zeldrith takes a curious peek over Donimah's shoulder, furrowing his brow. "Some sort of strange script, you said? What do you mean? It's right there, plain as day!" He glances around the group, coming to the logical conclusion somewhat slower than most of the rest of the motley group. "Oh! This is one of those sorts of things like the 'psykill' visions! Give me a minute..." Snatching the book out of Donimah's hand, he rifles through it, skimming the pages. After a moment, he blanches, and he turns the pages slightly slower. Perhaps another minute passes before he firmly closes the book, shuddering. "Desna's name, I didn't realize humans had so many colors on the inside... It's a book of monsters, for monsters, full of pictures of people dying in horrible ways - apparently, the goddess Lamashtu considers such agony to be holy somehow." He tucks the dark tome safely away in the satchel slung over his shoulder. "Well, I think the Sandpoint Cathedral would like to get hold of this. I don't quite know what they would do with it, but I'll hazard a guess it involves a lot of holy fire."
Zeldrith's brow furrows as he peers closer at the wine's label. "Wait a minute - this was bottled a few years ago! Old as this place may be, there's someone still here - not those 'sinspawn' warriors, I think. Someone who still uses this place, still lives in this crumbling ruin - and whatever they're up to, I doubt it's good for Sandpoint."
As Donimah enters the room, Zeldrith steps up to the entrance, raising his eyebrows as Donimah becomes untethered from the pull of gravity. As she looks through the book, he steps into the room himself, moving to examine the bottle of wine. "If this bottle's been around since Thassilonian times, it might be worth something to the right collector - maybe that storyteller Brodert? I can read Thassilonian - a bit of it, anyhow - so hopefully, there's a label on this thing."
When Arrian opens the door into the strange room, Zeldrith's mouth twists into a doubtful expression as he raises one eyebrow. "...This room's pretty ominous - I don't think we should linger in this area. Some of those things do look interesting, though - could be important." After a moment, he grins. "I think I've got a solution. ದೂರದ ಕೈ!"
With a shouted word in Thassilonian, the tiefling extends his seven-fingered hand, and wand stirs, flying into his hand as though pulled by some unseen force.
"What is happening right now?" Zeldrith blinks, glancing around at the rest of the group. "Wait, did the rest of you see it, too? The supplicant before the demon lord? The bloodshed in the valley?" He shakes his head, rubbing at the back of his skull with his seven-fingered hand. "What Donimah says sounds right, I guess - I don't know enough one way or the other."
After a moment, he clears his throat. "...Maybe I should take point down here - might be for the best. A couple years back, I met some scholar who had a sword strung up on top of his cottage - said when the lightning started looking for somewhere to land, it would hit the sword instead of setting fire to his home." He taps the side of his head, raising his eyebrows. "I was the only one to get the visions earlier, and the one I had this time was a bit bigger than a bunch of angry dogs. Maybe the 'psykill' stuff Donimah's talking about sees that little piece of Great-Granddad buzzing around my head, thinks it's a good place to land. If I go ahead, I'll soak up all the 'psykill' stuff and there won't be any left to bother you, right?"
As the group travels down the southern passage, Zeldrith glances at the blocked-off staircase, raising his eyebrows. "Looks like this old place is falling apart. Probably for the best - after all, we..." As he talks, his crimson eye flashes white with arcane power again, and he staggers, bracing himself against the wall. Strange emotions and otherworldly memories race through his head - fear, anticipation, then, as he looks from on high at the cities below sliding into ruin, he feels only... pride? Shaking his head to clear it as he returns to reality, he gives a loud sneeze, which dislodges his floppy hat from his head and sends it fluttering to the ground below. Blinking, the pitborn glances around at the rest of the group, noting their confusion. "Laizhyk asilo shikna, it happened again, didn't it? Okay, what did I say this time?" He shakes his head, kneeling to pick up his wide-brimmed hat from where it fell. "I'm starting to come around to Ano's point of view on this - having your wicked great-great-whatever-grandfather's words coming out of your mouth every five steps starts to get old fast."
"I don't know how you two can have any interest in this place? It's a nightmare!" Zeldrith glances apologetically at Ano. "This place is horrible, it's true - but there's... something about it that feels familiar. Like I should be here. Like I have been here. Or someplace very much like here, in any case. My ancestors were kings, they say, perhaps in this very land - they left it behind to sell trinkets in a squalid Magnimaran warren. You spoke of your ancestor from Tian Xia, the great priest who fought the vicious tyrant, yes? Horrible as it may be, this is my history - I'd like to know it, if I can."
His hooves finally finding purchase on the crumbling Thassilonian bricks, Zeldrith finally clambers out of the pit, dusting himself off. "This place is a deathtrap! These old Thassilonian ruins are practically coming apart at the edges - still, it's impressive they've stood so long." As the other adventurers eliminate the zombies in the pits, Zeldrith steps forward to help, blasting the pits with his ice magic. When Donimah examines the cloak, Zeldrith looks around at the pits. "What sort of structure was this, I wonder? There can't be many Thassilonian structures that had zombies in pits."
Zeldrith might be able to help - he has enough movement to move into the reserved space for the flanking maneuvers. His only other attack is a +2/1d3 Ray of Frost, so it might be better if he and Juriya swapped out.
Zeldrith tries futilely to climb the walls of the pit, looking for a handhold along the old Thassilonian wall.
As Zeldrith strides forward, one of his hooves goes through the rotted wood of a trapdoor, and he plummets to the ground below with a torrent of Varisian curses, raining down imprecations on whoever put the pit there and their lineage going back three generations.
Zeldrith draws his sword, his hooves clacking against the ancient stone of the Thassilonian complex as he charges forward, bringing his blade up in a powerful strike that cuts deep into the malformed goblin's side. "I tell you, four years in the Goblinblood Wars, and I've never seen one of those little fools twisted like this. Something is very wrong in this old ruin..."
Zeldrith moves forward beside Ano, his sword held at the ready. "Let's close ranks - this place doesn't want us here any more than we want to stay." He turns, glancing back at the spellcasters and archers of the motley group's back rank. "That goes for the rear guard as well - keep your eyes peeled." His asymmetrical gaze returns to the path ahead, and he scowls. "They got Tavish and his squad like this at the Sunken Queen, you know. He thought he heard one of our scouts calling for help - turned a corner and walked into one of them. I didn't see it, but I heard enough. The screams, mostly - and that horrible chittering laughter. At times, it almost seems like these sorts of ruins have a mind of their own - a cruel, malevolent mind, one with no patience for those who seek death."
I'd like to apologize for my delay in posting to this campaign - I've been trying to settle into my new career and get accustomed to a lengthy move. I'll try to get better about posting more frequently.
Zeldrith also has Read Magic, if it comes down to it - I was also under the impression we were waiting on Persephone, though.
Zeldrith glances around the room, grimacing at the nightmarish array of devices on the walls. As he steps forward to follow the others, he stumbles again, his crimson eye blazing white for a moment, and as he regains his footing, he shakes his head. "I... think I know how to use these devices. Things come to my mind unbidden - diagrams, memories..." He scowls. "These things are evil. If we have the time, I'd rather like to come back and smash them - they shouldn't exist in this world."
Zeldrith moves over to one of the cells, his blade held ready as he peers over Arrian's shoulder. "Whatever it is, from the looks of this place, I doubt anything good will come of it." |