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The jingling of the bell roused Tussle from his focus on putting exactly enough powdered nettle in the rouge. Too much, and the concoction would sting the lady's face, making her quite unhappy. Too little, and she would not get the redness of cheek she so desired, and she would again be unhappy. And if she was unhappy, his master would be unhappy. And his master would make sure that he was unhappy. Such was Tussle's life. He sighed again, wondering what had happened to the application he had eagerly handed over to a Pathfinder what seemed like ages ago.
The gentle forced cough reminded Tussle that someone had entered the shop. He looked up, and was a bit surprised to see a young human lad in noble's finery; this far down in Ordellia, wearing noble's clothing could get you pelted with rocks, or dung, or worse. Tussle wiped his gloves on his apron, thought it might be fun to shake the young man's hand with the gloves still on, then thought better of it and removed them. "Can I help you?"
The young man bowed, which Tussle hadn't been expecting, then asked, "Mr. Tussle?"
"Yes?"
"I have this message for you, sir!"
The young man handed Tussle the message, looked Tussle up and down as if evaluating something about him, then spun about on his heel and left the shop.
The message did not help Tussle's confusion. "Greetings, fellow seeker of adventure! I am Sheila Heidmarch, Venture Captain of the newest Pathfinder Society lodge -- and the only such lodge in Varisia at this time. You have come to my attention as someone who possesses a certain amount of skills and interests that make you an excellent addition to a highly specialized team I'm putting together for a matter of gave import, not only to the Society, but to Varisia as a whole. Please report an hour before noon to Heidmarch Manor -- you will be compensated for your visit, but that reward will pale in light of the riches that await you should we come to an agreement on my proposition to you. I look forward to meeting you soon! Sheila Heidmarch"
As far as he could tell, she was offering to pay him to not work as an alchemist's apprentice in Ordellia, and that sounded significantly better than what he was doing now, so he abandoned the rouge, his gloves, his apron, and the shop, gathered up his "adventuring gear" consisting of a pack of traveling gear and his trusty pistol, then headed out.
He might have forgotten to tell his master that he was leaving. Or quitting. Or to have even checked the time to know whether it was the correct time to go. But such is the life of a gnome.
Tussle crossed the bridge out of Ordellia, past the infamous sawmill that had burned down in a blaze of righteous fire a few years ago, and on into Keystone. He knew his way well, as he'd been in Magnimar for several years (arriving just before that fire, and being ecstatic that he hadn't been blamed for it), then up through Lowcleft and onto the High road leading to upper Magnimar. Now this was a path he had never taken.
In fact, the moment he set foot on it and started trying to make his way up to the Capital District, two guards stopped him. "What's your business in the Capital District?"
"I have an invitation."
He showed them the invitation. Once they'd determined it was genuine, they looked for other reasons to detain him. "What's that weapon on your belt?"
Tussle was happy to tell them about his pistol, show it to them, go into details about how it worked, and otherwise convince them that they were better off just letting him move on. "Just try not to get into any trouble up there. Stick to the main roads, and go straight to the manor."
If he heard murmurs complaining about Lady Heidmarch letting any old riff-raff into Upper Magnimar, he certainly pretended he didn't hear them.
The Capital District was a dizzying assortment of massive buildings, far finer than any Tussle had ever seen, but passersby seeing an obviously work-hardened crafting gnome were happy to point him towards the crafting district, which just so happened to take him towards the Alabaster district as well. The craftsmen were more than happy to help him with more directions, until he came to the gate to the Alabaster district. Once again, he was stopped by gruff guards. Once again, he showed them his invitation. Once again, they complained about the sorts the Lady was allowing into the district, but there was nothing they could do. They assigned Tussle a young page to show him to the manor, and the page led him directly there. There seemed to be no other adventuring types in the district; everyone on the street was either a noble or a servant, so Tussle could see how he might seem out-of-place. The page led him to a large villa with an open front gate, told Tussle that he could go inside, and held out his hand in a strange cuplike manner.
Tussle duplicated the gesture.
This was apparently the wrong thing to do, as the page stormed off, irritated.
Humans.
Tussle admired the topiary, the white gravel walk, and the huge lawn, but he was more interested in the job. He walked in the front door and was greeted by a lovely young halfling woman named Mary. She immediately knew who he was, smiled, invited him in, apologized that the Lady was in a meeting and he would have to wait a bit, and had a human butler named Giles bring him to a small waiting room with assorted furniture for small, medium, and large humanoids. Tussle grabbed a few snacks from Giles, clambered up onto the largest chair in the room, and waited.
PC Name: Tussle
Player: Impus Minor
Race/Class: Male Gnome Gunslinger (Pistolero)
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That is, until he met Nur Einspiel.
Tussle first met Nur at the Swallowtail festival, when Nur was putting on the fireworks show, dedicated to "our poor cousins the oppressed goblinfolk of the world."
Nobody paid much attention to what Nur was saying, because his fireworks really were quite spectacular, but Tussle, being a young gnome lad, was more interested in seeing how they worked than in how they exploded. So he crawled into the cart to find out.
Unfortunately, this was just as Nur slipped (as he frequently did) and dropped a firework into the rest of the fireworks (as he frequently did) and only knocked most of them clear before the ensuing explosion (as he frequently did). Tussle was extremely lucky that he lost nothing more than his eyebrows, and Nur declared it the greatest sign of serendipity he'd ever seen. He told Tussle that he'd grow up to be, "Just like Hi," but then got a bit of a melancholy look in his eye. Tussle learned from his relatives that Nur had a son named Hi who used to travel with him, but now they traveled separately. No one would openly say why, but whispers were that Nur was a bit too dangerous and unstable, even for his own son. Tussle was intrigued. He wanted to learn more!
Nur was more than willing to take on a new apprentice, but Tussle's parents quickly came up with the excuse that Tussle was still too young to travel. Disappointed, Nur left him some "experiments" that he'd been working on involving flash powder, hollow tubes, and bits of potato. The mechanically-inclined Tussle didn't take long at all to figure out how to assemble them all into the Best Potato-Masher Ever. Nur didn't return to Sandpoint the next year, so Tussle had to experiment on his own. The wooden tubes didn't last long, so Tussle had Das Korvut, the local smith, make him a metal one. Potatoes weren't ideal projectiles, so he started using sling stones. After a few years, a traveling adventurer pointed out that Tussle's invention looked very much like a "pistol". Tussle HAD to have one! And Tussle's parents, being gnomes, found him one and let him practice.
And practice, and practice, and practice. Tussle became so adept with the weapon that he could shoot a goblin between the eyes at ten paces. Or at least one of Daviren Hosk's stuffed goblin targets. Life was swell!
Until he met the goblins.
They crept in at night a few days before the Swallowtail Festival, scouting around for reasons unknown, being much more sneaky than usual, but Tussle saw them. Remembering Nur's teachings, he asked them what they wanted. They wanted fireworks! The kind Nur had used at the festival! They wanted to use them, and to know how they worked! They showed Tussle that they had some. He cheerfully showed them how to light them, how to point them, and told them what they did. They thanked him, cackled, and ran off. Tussle was proud of his good deed.
Until the day of the Swallowtail Festival, when the goblins used those fireworks to attack, killing multiple visitors before a group of adventurers (including a gnome named Hi, who was probably Nur's son) killed them or drove them off. Tussle was devastated. How could he tell his parents what he'd done? How could he tell anyone? Mortified, he confessed to Father Zantus that maybe, just maybe, he might have helped the goblins in some way.
Father Zantus was a kind man. He pointed out that the goblins in the attack had not used fireworks. Perhaps Tussle had assisted a different goblin tribe? Maybe they really had gone their own way, and were plaguing other goblins instead of humans. But all in all, now that Tussle was of age to travel, perhaps he should consider, er, "moving on" from Sandpoint before any more trouble appeared.
Tussle took the hint and wandered… all the way to Magnimar. He just wasn't much of a wanderer. He quickly found employment as an alchemist's assistant in Ordellia, working for several years and watching with great relief as the Heros of Sandpoint stopped the Runelord Karzoug from conquering Varisia, and finally realized that THAT was his calling: To be an adventurer, and to save the world from would-be conquerors!
But… how does one become an adventurer? Tussle had no idea. He asked his master, and his master suggested that Tussle join the Pathfinders Guild up in the Alabaster District. That seemed too far to Tussle, so he asked around Ordellia, found a drunken Pathfinder in a tavern, filled out some paperwork the Pathfinder was carrying, and set down to wait...
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Awesome Rise of the Runelords tie-in.
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Xondra broke off a piece of the loaf she had just "liberated" from the baker's stand and tossed it past Micu. Micu darted after it, sprung in the air, and pounced, like a snow fox on a mouse hidden under a fresh frost. As Micu crunched away at the treat, Xondra sighed. It was supposed to be different than this.
Xondra's first memories were of being part of the ubiquitous pack of urchins that lived in Underbridge. She never knew nor cared who her parents had been. They had left her with a slightly curious appearance -- typical Varisian hair and skin color, slightly pointed ears, and strange white eyes -- but nothing else. She was taken in early by the Vulpescu, one of the many Sczarni clans, who praised their luck. For here was a cute little girl whose whited-out eyes could convince even the most skeptical of passersby of her blindness. Even better, the same quirk of fate that had whited out her eyes had granted her excellent vision in the dark, making her a fantastic lookout. As first, as she was in training, she was just a poor blind girl begging for change, either on her own or while the other Sczarni performed more nefarious tasks. A quick whistle was all it took to send them scurrying safely back to the shadows, and no one ever questioned why the young blind girl whistled at random in the streets; perhaps she was just touched in the head.
As she grew older, the Sczarni had greater inspiration, and taught her how to dress as an aged Varisian fortune-teller. They taught her to read people and make vague promises about the future that gullible travelers wanted to hear. Xondra was good at it, and for many years she embraced the life of the Sczarni, bilking random people and providing distractions while her brethren picked pockets. As the years went by, however, she began to wonder... was this really all there was to life? Begging for change on street corners during the day, and swindling gullible sailors or other travelers in the evening? She was tired of being a leech; she felt like there had to be more... a better way of life... but she wasn't sure what it was.
The first Pathfinder she tried to swindle saw through her in an instant. Instead of being angry, he smiled, handed her a slip of paper, and said, "You know, someone with your talents could be of use to the Pathfinders."
Rumors of the newly-formed Pathfinder Lodge in Magnimar reaching out to the Sczarni had spread far and wide; the Pathfinders wanted the Sczarni's information network, and they were willing to look the other way if the information were gathered in a… less-than-honorable manner. Xondra had never expected the Pathfinders to be interested in her, a poor orphan of questionable descent with no particular talents beyond seeing in the dark and bluffing the gullible out of their well-earned coin.
But the Pathfinders traveled. They traveled the world, and saw oh so many things, and had probably even met the Heroes of Sandpoint in person. Imagine that! The most powerful heroes the world had ever known, and people right here in this city had met them! Xondra did not know much about what she wanted, but she knew she wanted that. That very evening she knelt down and prayed to Desna. She prayed for help finding her way... should she work to become a better person? Would that get her out of Underbridge and into the wide world? Would that bring her fulfillment... even joy? And there, under a full moon, with the stars twinkling in the blackness, a small fox approached.
He sauntered up to her and looked at her expectantly. She held out her hand and he sniffed it delicately before giving it a lick. She felt a pulse of emotion from the little animal, a warm feeling of greeting. She picked him up and he snuggled into her arms. "Gheara Micu," she murmured to him "my Little Fang." She felt a soft surge of approval from him at the name. She hoped beyond hope that he had been sent by Desna, but he neither confirmed nor denied this. And with him, he brought power. Xondra could focus on a man and he would be afflicted by unluck. Micu knew magic, and could share some of that magic with her.
She was blessed, and she needed to leave the Sczarni. She needed to become more than a thug so that the Pathfinders would find her and take her in. She went and told the Vulpescu that she was leaving them. They laughed her away. "Good luck to you, little sister," they called after her, "without us you will be dead within the week!" They did not say it, but she knew they would never allow her to return again. That was the way of things. She was no longer Xondra Vulpescu, but once again Xondra Orfanul... Xondra the Orphan.
Unfortunately, the Pathfinders were more interested in Sczarni than ex-Sczarni; one came by and noted that she was now a "witch", which seemed an awfully offensive thing to say, but the woman seemed to mean no harm by it, so Xondra let it go. And while the Sczarni weren't vengeful towards her for leaving, she was no longer under their protection. This marked her as easy prey in the seamy alleyways of Underbridge. So she spent most of her time near the temple of Sarenrae in Underbridge. Everyone knew of Brandi, the gardening paladin, and how a single scream for help would bring her trundling in all her glory, plate armor clanging and gardening apron flapping, until she had dealt justice upon the perpetrator. Although she had never killed a man to the Sczarni's knowledge, being struck by the flat of her blade was likened to meeting an adamantine wall face-first at a full run. And so neither the Sczarni, nor the other more violent denizens of Underbridge, frequented the area near her temple, making it a perfect refuge for Xondra while she tried to figure out her next step.
And that was when the note arrived.
The moment the paladin approached, Xondra prepared to flee. But he was smiling, and his scimitar was sheathed. "Er… Miss Xondra? Formerly of the Sczarni? Lady of the Blessed White Eyes? I've been asked to bring you a note, m'Lady."
Everyone knew the story of Rae'Sheleth, drow paladin of Sarenrae, and how not only had she slain Karzoug with her own hand, but had ascended to demigodhood at her mistress' right hand. So Xondra's white eyes were yet again a life-saver! This paladin would never dare touch his temple's founder's likeness! She accepted the note gracefully. As she looked down to read, she could not help but notice the paladin put his hand on the pommel of his scimitar, watching over her as she was distracted.
When she had been a Sczarni, the paladins at the temple had been a constant annoyance. Now that she was in need of refuge, she found his presence quite reassuring. She read the note. "Greetings, fellow seeker of adventure! I am Sheila Heidmarch, Venture Captain of the newest Pathfinder Society lodge -- and the only such lodge in Varisia at this time. You have come to my attention as someone who possesses a certain amount of skills and interests that make you an excellent addition to a highly specialized team I'm putting together for a matter of gave import, not only to the Society, but to Varisia as a whole. Please report an hour before noon to Heidmarch Manor -- you will be compensated for your visit, but that reward will pale in light of the riches that await you should we come to an agreement on my proposition to you. I look forward to meeting you soon! Sheila Heidmarch"
She thanked the paladin for his service, knowing that was all he would accept from her (which made her like them all the more). She called to Micu, donned the sheer black veil she always wore over her eyes when in full sun, and headed for the High Road. This should be… interesting…
Sure enough, she had barely taken her first step on the road when two guards stopped her. "State your business in the Upper City."
"*I* have an invitation."
The guards pored over the invitation, desperate to find anything wrong with it, but eventually decided they would have to search her.
"Is anything wrong?"
"No; this is just routine," they lied.
Eventually, finding no way to stop her, the guards let her through. She sniffed, "Such a job, keeping innocent Varisian women from going where they will in this city!" She gave them a withering glare from under her veil as she strode on, and overheard one whisper to the other, "Well, at least she looks better walking away than she did walking up."
She swayed her hips a bit more as she walked, just to rub it in.
The entrance to the Alabaster District was no better, with the guards even insisting on providing her with an escort to Heidmarch Manor. She accepted the escort blandly, and mischievously offered to read his palm. She enjoyed getting a rise out of people and guards were typically a superstitious lot.
"I get off work at 5, ma'am."
"I didn't ask when you got off work, I asked to see your palm."
"Not while I'm on duty. I get off at 5."
"Well, you'll be getting off alone."
"Most nights I do, ma'am, but I do get off at 5."
She ignored his further attempts to flirt, and he awkwardly led her to the villa, then took his leave.
Left to her own devices, Xondra decided to "case the joint". She had never really been the one to do this and she wasn't very good, but she wanted to see if anyone would stop her. Xondra and Micu moved through the topiary garden, making note of entrances. If this failed utterly, maybe she could sell the information to some enterprising (and ambitious) cat burglar. After a full circumnavigation of the manor they went in. Mary the halfling greeted them cheerfully and by name, and led them into a small foyer. The only other person there was a small gnome on the largest chair in the room.
"Ooh! You have a fox! Can I talk to it?"
"Yes."
After staring at the fox for a minute, Tussle asked, "It doesn't talk, does it?"
Xondra smiled, amused.
"No, he doesn't."
Tussle was disappointed.
PC Name: Xondra Orfanul
Player: GothBard
Race/Class: Female Half-Elf Moon Witch (Drow Heritage)
Familiar: Gheara Micu (fox)
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Another awesome Rise of the Runelords tie-in.
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Lance Sterling had an unusual childhood from the start. First and foremost, he survived. A half-orc child of human parents in the farmlands north of Sirathu in Varisia was typically a reminder of events best forgotten, and few would remark on the small unmarked grave in the turnip patch. Yet Lance was allowed to survive. And not only was he allowed to survive, he was raised by his parents to be a good follower of Desna, as they knew they would have to travel often in order to ensure his survival.
Sure enough, he wasn't even a handful of years old before the vague threats and condescending comments grew into open acts of vandalism against the farm, and Lance's parents, unwilling to wish ill upon their neighbors, packed up and moved westwards towards Nybor, where they heard that all half-races were welcome. Unfortunately, they quickly found that even Nybor's overall tolerance of halfbreeds did not protect half-orc children from teasing, bullying, and worse. Undaunted, they kept moving westwards, as Desna willed.
Being Varisian, their westward trip was not a matter of days nor weeks nor months, but of years. And Lance grew, and grew, and grew, and by eight years old stood a bit taller than his father. His strong build made him an excellent laborer in spite of his tender age, and he was able to earn coin for the family in every village, farm, watering hole, or homestead along the way. However, he was still a half-orc, and he was still reviled, no matter where he went, nor how kindly he nor his parents were to the locals. While he appreciated that it was Desna's will that he travel the world, he began to wonder whether he would ever find a place that appreciated men (and half-orcs) for who they were, not what they were.
Eventually, his family settled into a farmstead on the outskirts of a quaint little town named Sandpoint. Sandpoint gave him hope, because their main garbage collector was a half-orc named Gorvi, and he seemed to be well-respected (if not well-liked) and did a job that everyone appreciated. In spite of Lance's tender age, Gorvi was more than willing to take on a fellow half-orc in his dung-sweeping, and Gorvi had a job and was content, and might have spent the rest of his days sweeping dung in Sandpoint.
Unfortunately, Jervis Stoot had other ideas.
The eccentric wood carver immediately noticed the new young half-orc around town, and quickly showed an interest: Who were his parents? Were they both human? Why didn't they live in town? Weren't they afraid of the goblins? After several such interrogations, Stoot suggested that Lance might want to visit Madame Mvashti, the local seer. Lance, excited to know what the future might hold, visited her, shiny coin in hand, and if she was repelled by his odor or by the filth he tracked on to her floor, she managed to mask it brilliantly. She asked him questions about what he hoped to learn: Did he want to know of his adulthood? His old age? His marriage? It quickly became apparent that his questions were more spiritual than material: Why was he here? What was his purpose? How could he find greater spiritual health and happiness?
Not being one to pass up an honest coin, Madame Mvashti gave Lance his reading: He had more important things to do in life than shovel dung. Taking the hint from the stars, Madame Mvashti gently steered the young half-orc to Father Tobyn, who was more than willing to take in another acolyte of Desna, and thus Lance's spiritual training began. Unfortunately, Lance did not have the quick wit or gentle patience of Abstalar Zantus, nor the wanderlust of the other acolytes who came and went, so more often than not he was using his skills with a shovel in the Sandpoint Cemetery rather than his skills with the spoken word to provide spiritual guidance.
Then, the Unpleasantness started, and Lance found himself very, very busy. It was on an evening when he was digging the graves for the previous victims that a tearful Abstalar came to him: Lance's parents had just been found.
Abstalar and Lance dug their graves together. Lance took no solace when Stoot was eventually revealed to be the Chopper; he felt only a dull numbness, and a longing to be somewhere else; anywhere else. Over the next few years, he traveled Varisia, looking for a place to call home, but knowing that a half-orc would never have one. Until he came to Magnimar and paid his respects at the Cynosure Tower. Bevaluu recognized the pain and longing in the young half-orc's heart, and suggested that perhaps he should register with the local Pathfinder Lodge, and until then he could work at Serpent's Run as a healer. She'd put in a word for him.
Grateful for her help, Lance started his first official job as a cleric of Desna, healing the gladiators from their mock combats, casting an occasional buff or debuff to make the fights more exciting, or otherwise contributing to the grand spectacle. The gladiators didn't care that he was a half-orc; they knew he was a healer, and he could patch them up no matter how much they were hurting, so he was well-liked and respected. The town guard who frequented Serpent's Run and participated in the annual gladiatorial extravaganza appreciated him as well, and he soon found that he could travel almost anywhere in Magnimar without attracting unwanted attention from the guard, though he still avoided Underbridge because of the Shoanti gangs looking to cause trouble for half-orcs, or the Capital District or Naos because of old prejudices. He had found a home. But he still felt the need to wander.
Thus, when Sheila Heidmarch's note arrived for him, he was overjoyed. He told Axetongue not to wait up for him, and set off to see what the "matter of grave import" was all about. He had no trouble getting to Heidmarch Manor; the guards were eager to help him along the way, but for the most part he knew how to get to the gates leading into the swankier areas of the Alabaster District, and from there his friends in the guard were more than happy to show him the way. As he walked up to the villa, he spotted the tail end of a female half-elf stepping in the door.
The day was looking better and better.
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PC Name: Lance Sterling (yes, inspired by Scott Sterling)
Player: Shiro
Race/Class: Male Half-Orc Cleric of Desna (Healing/Travel Domains, Separatist archetype)
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OK, OK. I know it's been nearly two weeks, but... we have two players who've never done my campaign journals before, -and- they're the two most time-impacted members of the group, so cut 'em some slack.
Their backgrounds are done and out to them for final edits, the wrap-up for session 1 is done and out to the group for final edits, and session 2 is done and out to the group for final edits.
So yes, I'm writing. A ton. And my players are suffering for it.
Once they've conquered the mountainous backlog I've created for them I'm sure further posts will start pouring in.
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Y'all are nuts . . . and I love it.
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Sasha was born on the road, as most Varisians are, under the night sky, as most Varisians are, yet his pointed ears made it clear that his father wasn't a member of the clan. Nevertheless, his birth was celebrated by drinking and singing and dancing and tale-telling, and several of the elders read the Harrow for him, then bickered and argued over the conflicting readings they came up with. All that anyone would say for certain was that he would certainly be trouble. Because all young boys are trouble, and one with elven blood? Well, that was a double dose!
His first few years were classic Varisian: The caravan traveled wherever their whim took them, occasionally stopping in cities to resupply or to trade crafts for foodstuff and raw materials, but typically sleeping in their tents and wagons under the open sky. Sasha learned to dance, and sing, and play the tambourine, but his dancing quickly eclipsed his other talents and, as Varisians are wont to do, they let him abandon his other pursuits in favor of dancing and playing at making cities, building great piles of stones and declaring proudly that he had built Magnimar, or Korvosa, or even Absolom, only to have the structure collapse on the next bump in the road.
Sasha didn't understand what happened next. One night, as he was lying in his bed in his colorful wagon, he heard angry voices outside. This wasn't unusual; he knew that the people in his caravan often had arguments with locals or each other, especially after a few drinks, and in particular arguing over women or items they had "procured", whatever that meant, but this time was different: He heard his mother's voice among those arguing. There were strange words, such as "pregnant" or angry words like, "I warned him that if he ever returned I'd cut off his ears," but Sasha didn't understand. He knew that in the caravan the harsh words frequently led to violence, and he hoped his mother would be OK. She had to be OK!
He lay awake, hoping beyond hope she would return to him, and she did! He heard her come in, sobbing, and he lay there silently as she moved over, reached into her bag, and pulled a small leaf-wrapped item out of it. She spoke softly to it, and it glowed slightly. Magic! Then she came to bed and held him, and everything was better.
There was no mention of the argument the next day, but even Sasha could sense the angry eyes of the clan on him and his mother. What had he done? What had she done?
When the elf with the piercing eyes clamped his hand over Sasha's mouth in the dead of night, he seemed somehow familiar, and so Sasha was not nearly as afraid as he should have been. The man scooped him up and carried him to the hole he'd cut in the wagon's canvas, effortlessly stepped out, and then held out a hand to help Sasha's mother step down. Sasha stayed still, but he heard snippets of their whispered conversation. "Magnimar? Are you sure?"
"The clan will scour the forests for us, and the elves will see no reason not to share our location with them for the right amount of coin. We must flee to a city, one so large that we can be invisible."
"But living in a city? It seems so hopeless. So horrible!"
"It should only be for a few years, my love! The Varisians are quick to anger, but just as quick to forget that anger."
Sasha's mother's arman manifested the very next day: As the three of them slipped quietly through the forest, through trees too dense to allow pursuit by horse or by wagon, she screamed and doubled over, then the scream became more of a yowl as she started shrinking, shrinking, shrinking into nothingness! There, on the ground, was nothing but her clothing, still gently pulsing as if her heart were still there, beating underneath the heaps of vibrant cloth.
Except… something was there! Sasha reached down to move the clothes, and his father did not intervene. He moved back a fold of his mother's dress, and a pair of golden eyes gazed back at him. A hesitant, "Mew?" came from the small calico cat that was all that was left of his mother. He scooped her up, and she did not resist, and the elf said, "Bring her! We may be able to break this curse, whatever it is!"
That evening as the elf was preparing their meal and Sasha was still holding the now-struggling cat, she suddenly grew again, and his mother was back!
Moira was born in a hovel in the bowels of Rag's End, well-hidden from even the lowest of the Sczarni who might be searching for their family. She shared her mother's arman, changing into a black and white cat on occasion and then back again. The first time she changed, her father declared that he "would put an end to this curse once and for all". He never came back. The arman stayed.
For four years they lived as well as they could when two of the three family members randomly became cats. Sasha's mother would take odd jobs to help feed the kids, and many strangers came to "help", but usually the help was asking Sasha to carry this or that thing to this or that place without looking in the bag because it was "dangerous", and because Sasha was strong and brave and wanted to protect his mother and his sister he did as they asked. Then one day their mother didn't come back, either.
At first, some of their mother's "friends" helped take care of them. But only for as long as Sasha would run their errands for them, and those errands seemed to be going to more and more dangerous places, and Sasha worried more and more about leaving Moira alone with them, because he knew that the people in their area of Rag's End were desperate enough to steal and eat a cat should the opportunity present itself. So while he was on these trips, Sasha scrounged and stole, bringing what he could back to Moira, and trying to build a hoard that would get them out of there. Fortunately, her "curse" turned out to be a blessing at this point, because in her arman form she would cheerfully hunt and eat mice and rats, keeping her from starvation, so for the most part Sasha could focus on procuring things he thought were valuable.
Unfortunately, their "friends" knew of Sasha's loyalty to Moira, and used her more and more often to blackmail him into things he wouldn't even tell Moira about. But he kept reminding himself: He was doing it to keep her alive. And they would get out. He would make sure of it. And on the nights where he had done something particularly vile, it was as if she sensed it, because, whether cat or half-elf, she would snuggle against him, and purr, and he would remember that no matter what he had to do, it was to protect her.
Their chance for escape came in the most unlikely of ways, as it always does. Sasha was taking a "package" to a guard near Serpent's Run, and he was supposed to tell the guard that, "The bull always runs faster when fed moldy oats," and hand him the package. He suspected it was some kind of drug to be given to the racing bulls at Serpent's Run, but he didn't care. But then he saw the cracking wall.
Years of experience playing with stones and construction told him that the wall wouldn't last the day. And he still doesn't know why he did it, but he moved up and started moving the stones, and arranging the earth, and trying to repair the damage. A gruff voice behind him asked, "Wouldn't that be easier with some tools?"
Without thinking, Sasha accepted the mallet and chisel from the grizzled dwarf and started to work in earnest. But you can't repair faulty stone with faulty stone; he needed fresh, good stone! As if on cue, the dwarf said, "I suppose you'll be needing these," and pulled an impossible number of fresh-cut bricks from a seemingly-endless backpack. Sasha set back to work, and eventually was satisfied that the wall would last through the day.
"Well, I'd be a liar if I said that was the best work I'd ever seen a half-elf do, but considering you clearly have never had any training at all, it shows you've got an eye for stone. How'd you like to be my apprentice?"
And thus began Sasha's career as an apprentice to Gorlaff Scruffbeard, stonemason. With his very first pay, he moved himself and Moira to a common room in Dockway that was being shared by over a dozen laborers, but the workers respected Moira's need for privacy so a little work with a bedsheet and some nails gave them all the privacy they needed until Sasha could finish his apprenticeship.
However, fate would step in again. Scruffbeard's company was hired to help work on a new expansion for the Arena, and Jorston "Axetongue" Droaeb spotted Sasha smashing stone with a giant maul and figured it was close enough to the weapons the Shoanti used that he could probably hire Sasha to perform in some of the mock gladiatorial battles, as hammers are easy to pad. And thus "The Red Sash" was born, named for the distinctive sash he wore into his battles. Few knew that it was of his sole remaining possessions from his mother. After the first fight, however, he quickly bought new sashes to avoid damaging his mother's. And one of the benefits of working at Serpent's Run was that you could get a simple cell to live in. Axetongue was a bit taken aback when Sasha wanted to move in with his sister, but he saw no harm in it and allowed it.
While Sasha learned stonemasonry and combat, Moira focused on trying to find a cure for her arman. She dabbled in magic and alchemy, searching for an answer, and was more often found poring over scrolls and books in some corner arcane bookshop than in her cell. And if she happened to turn into a cat while researching, she still always found her way back to Serpent's Run.
The pair of them came to the attention of the Pathfinder Society early, as a fighter/investigator combo is an extremely valuable asset, and they started sponsoring Sasha in his tournaments, and recommended well-known, easy-to-explore ruins for Moira so she could learn the ropes of dungeon delving without running into anything too dangerous for her to handle.
Thus, neither were surprised to be called to Heidmarch Manor, but Moira had to finish something up, and so Sasha went on ahead…
PC Name: Sasha Mason, aka The Red Sash
Player: Lara Croft Guy
Race/Class: Male Half-Elf Slayer
PC Name: Moira
Player: She Who Has Yet to be Nicknamed (SWHYTBN)
Race/Class: Female Half-Elf Investigator
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Session 2, Played 24-Nov-2019
It took mere moments for Moira to arrive, explaining her tardiness with a terse, "I was on a job". The Lady Heidmarch, not taken aback in the least, again apologized for her delay in meeting with them, but quickly realized she had something she could set them to do. She led them into an exquisitely-furnished study, with bookcase after bookcase of books, scrolls, and manuscripts. Elaborate vases were placed artistically throughout the room, plus a table with a glass dome, inside of which was a fanged skull and a placard reading, "Demilich - Dormant?"
The most interesting feature of the room was an ornate stone coffer sitting on a table in the middle of the room, with a sheaf of hand-scrawled notes next to it. The Lady Heidmarch explained that this was a "puzzle box", an ancient Thassilonian lockbox that could only be opened using a particular technique that the party would have to decipher. Some responded to magic, some to touch, and others some combination. Although she suspected it was empty, she asked the party not to shake it, drop it, nor smash it open, as that would destroy its value. (She said the last after Lance noted that he knew how to open any box and started drawing his greataxe.) She suggested that the party review Pathfinder Azmeren's notes for clues as to what might open this particular box.
After the Lady and the Pathfinder departed, Moira surprised everyone by actually picking up the notes and reading them. The scribblings across every face of the box were in Thassilonian, and although the elaborate decorations hid them well Pathfinder Azmeren had determined that the most-common rune on the box was the rune for Wrath (or Kindness, depending on whether the box was pre- or post-decline), but the Pathfinder suspected that this just meant that the owner had been a resident of Bakrakhan. Five of the faces were identical, but the sixth had five additional cleverly-hidden runes spelling out CRUEL. Even more interestingly, touching any two of the runes caused them to switch places.
Xondra immediately piped up: "Lucre! It's filthy lucre!"
Without batting an eye, Moira rearranged the runes to spell LUCRE and was rewarded with the sound of a click, and visible seams appearing all around the top of the box. Not one for patience, Lance Sterling flipped off the lid…
...and marveled as two small doglike creatures materialized right then and there…
...and darted past the party and into the room, and started destroying the most-valuable objects they could see! One of the little dog-men climbed a bookshelf and tore apart an ancient manuscript, while the other hopped over to one of the vases and smashed it.
The party decided that this was a Bad Thing.
Unfortunately, not only were the creatures running amok, but the whole party felt clumsy, as if their weapons were slippery and their feet were leaden. Undaunted, the Red Sash grabbed the first creature, making it squeal in anger. It started cursing at the party in a language none of them understood, but the Red Sash held it fast. Tussle, being a gnome, just pulled out his pistol and shot the other one right in the chest.
Lance was appalled. How could these cute little creatures possibly mean any harm? And what was Tussle thinking, shooting one of them? Lance channeled to heal the poor little guy. The gutteral, angry noises coming out of it sure didn't sound like thanks, but Lance was sure it was grateful. Xondra carefully studied the creatures, and realized that they were nothing more than summoned guardians bent on destroying all the valuables in the room. And it made perfect sense for a resident of the kingdom of Wrath: Don't turn the thieves over to the authorities! Cause more damage to them than they caused to you!
Moira, still next to the box after Lance's unexpected unveiling, decided that the box's contents were probably far more interesting than the little gremlins on the outside, so she peered into the box. There were three gemstones, a dagger, and a ring. She chose to take the ring.
The creatures continued their mayhem. The one that the Red Sash was holding pulled out a tiny dagger and stabbed at him, but the puny weapon bounced off his armor. The one on the bookcase found a way to kill two birds with one stone, picked up a massive vase (at least massive for its tiny size), and hurled it at Tussle. Amid cries of, "Catch it! Catch it!", Tussle used his gunslinger's instincts to dive to the side and avoid the falling vase, and it smashed "harmlessly" on the floor. The Red Sash pinned his to the floor, and called to Moira to come over and finish it off. Tussle fired again, but had obviously been distracted by the vase and put a small hole in the wood-paneled wall. Fortunately, he wasn't using explosive bullets so the tiny bullet hole could probably be easily hidden behind a picture or a vase. Xondra hexed the free gremlin, but even this wasn't enough to let Lance get a hand on it, and instead he knocked another ancient manuscript to the floor, hearing its spine tear and its pages disintegrate as it fluttered helplessly down. Moira ran over to try to stab the gremlin struggling in the Red Sash's grasp, but managed nothing more than to put a large gouge in the floor.
Had the gremlins left well enough alone, they might have been able to continue their mayhem. But the free gremlin, seeing its brother's plight, pulled out a dagger and swung at Lance Sterling. Tussle shot it, and Lance had finally had enough, pulled out his greataxe, and laid it low. Moira was going to kill the other one, but Xondra insisted that they let it live so the Lady Heidmarch and Pathfinder Azmeren could see the evidence. Xondra had been burned by being set up one too many times.
The Lady and the Pathfinder hurried in, drawn by the noise, and Pathfinder Azmeren quickly dispatched the gremlin with a clean thrust of her bastard sword. The Lady dismissed the damage to the room as reparable, and her own fault for not expecting such a trap. She thanked the party for their diligence and thanked Pathfinder Azmeren for assisting. Pathfinder Azmeren congratulated the party on their first victory and wished them luck in their endeavors; she remembered what it had been like getting started, and it looked like the party was getting off on the right foot.
Once Pathfinder Azmeren had departed, the Lady Heidmarch started in on why she'd brought them in in the first place. The Pathfinders had been making inroads with the Sczarni, forging alliances in the hopes of using the Sczarni's vast information networks to locate more artifacts. Although the Sczarni's methods weren't exactly kosher, they did tend to avoid violence, and were even helpful in helping police the poorer districts of Magnimar. However, since teaming up with criminals is always frought with peril, the Lady was ecstatic when Natalya Venkaskerkin, a Sczarni cat burglar, offered to be a double agent for the Pathfinders. Natalya told the Lady that her gang was on the verge of finding an item of "great interest to the Pathfinders"… and then vanished.
Lady Heidmarch's request of the party was simple: Find the "item of great interest" and be rewarded 500 gold pieces. Bring back Natalya alive, and the reward would be doubled. As for the items in the puzzle box, the party could consider those a down payment on future explorations.
Tussle asked whether he could be reimbursed for the bullets he'd fired. The Lady agreed. Unfortunately, Tussle did the math wrong in his head and only asked for half as much as he'd spent. Ah, gnomes!
Finally, the Lady Heidmarch provided all the information she knew about Natalya: She had contacted the Pathfinders through a middleman from Washer's Row named the Amazing Zograthy. Rumor around town was that the Sczarni were looking for Natalya as well. There were also rumors that Nidelese slavers were working the poorer districts in town, and she might have been abducted. Or, being a Sczarni, she might have simply been arrested by the town guard and taken to the Arvensoar.
Since they would be dealing with the criminal underground, the party members needed to keep a low profile, as the lowlifes and scumbags they were likely to encounter would be less-than-thrilled to talk to the authorities, or even the Pathfinder Society. Lady Heidmarch knew that the six major Sczarni gangs in the city were the Creepers, Doohan's Lads, the Gallowed, the Tower Girls, the Washside Wringers, and the Wreckwash Blades, with the Gallowed being the most powerful Sczarni gang in the city, though not the most powerful crime organization.
As the Lady took her leave, Xondra asked Moira about the ring, as she'd seen her take it. Moira insisted that she was going to show it to the party, but she'd just wanted to lay claim to it first to make sure it didn't get taken away from her. Xondra examined it, and it was a Ring of Feather Fall. Moira insisted on keeping it and no one argued, though Lance mysteriously said, "That's one."
The group decided that they would liquidate the rest of the items at their earliest convenience and split the funds, but for the moment, they decided they needed to find the Amazing Zograthy. Fortunately, Xondra knew of him, and offered to lead the way.
Unfortunately, the Red Sash had been expecting the visit to Heidmarch Villa to be a more formal affair, and hence hadn't brought his weapons with him. So first there was a long detour back to Serpent's Run to pick up his things, then walking all the way down through Dockway to Beacon's Point and Washer's Row. They made a brief stop at the Bazaar of Sails to convert the gems into gold and distribute it, thought briefly about buying shiny rocks to try to trick Zograthy, but finally thought better of it and moved on. As the party gaped in wonder at the depressing carnival games, worn prizes, bored carnies, and even-more-bored patrons, Tussle spotted a game where he could throw rocks at stuffed goblins to win a "toy sword" that looked more like two pieces of scrap wood held together by a cheap (probably used) nail. He HAD to have one. "How much?"
"A copper for three throws."
Tussle bought thirty throws and started hurling. On his third throw he hit a goblin. The carnie handed him his sword with a curt, "No refunds."
"Who cares?"
As Tussle was obtaining his treasure, the rest of the party approached the Amazing Zograthy's patched and worn tent. Xondra and Moira went in, while Lance Sterling and the Red Sash stood guard outside. The Amazing Zograthy was an aged, bald, Varisian man with threadbare purple robes and piercing eyes. Both Moira and Xondra immediately recognized him as a pesh addict. He went through an entire spiel about telling fortunes, and Xondra responded that they only wanted information. He dropped the act and asked for 50 gold pieces, but Xondra got him to drop it to 35.
He knew that many were disappearing, but they were the poor, the destitute, and the Varisian, and the city was doing nothing about it. He was sure the rumor of Nidalese slavers was false, but the Sczarni were very interested in finding out what was really happening. As Xondra and Moira stood to take their leave, he gestured for one more coin from Xondra.
"Sister, you should never have left us, but for this coin you will be my sister again for a moment."
Moira's eyes widened in surprise at this revelation about Xondra.
For Xondra, the Amazing Zograthy indicated that Natalya Venkaskerkin ran with the Tower Girls, but now they are searching for her as well.
So it was time to find the Tower Girls, but they had no idea where to look.
With no better ideas, they decided to find out more about the Nidalese slavers. It took almost no time at all to learn of a rumor that they would be having a meeting that very night at midnight at the Puffed Pelican, an abandoned tavern in Dockway. Since it was already late in the afternoon, they hiked over to Lowcleft, had dinner at an unassuming (for Lowcleft) tavern, Lance bought 10 gold pieces of food for the party so there were ridiculous amounts of leftovers, Moira prepared a couple of alchemical extracts, and the party headed for Dockway.
The group arrived at the Puffy Pelican at roughly 10:00 pm, and were worried they might be noticed snooping around the place, so Moira started banging on a pot (quite musically, astonishingly enough) and the Red Sash started dancing to the rhythm. Because a street performance at ten at night beside a boarded-up tavern is not suspicious at all. Amazingly enough, it took until around 10:30 pm for someone to threaten to call the town guard if they didn't shut up. During that time, Xondra and Tussle explored around the building and found no obvious entrance (all the doors and windows were boarded up), no sign of current activity, and no sign of previous activity. After their performance was forcibly halted, the Red Sash and Moira joined them, as did Lance (who'd been standing in the shadows watching the performance the whole time).
As they discussed how to get in without being obvious, the Red Sash stepped up and simply ripped the boarded door open. Inside, the dust on the floor indicated that no one had been in the building in quite a while. The group was starting to get more and more suspicious of the rumor. They went in, searched the building, found nothing of note, and decided to lay in wait. Moira re-boarded the door as best she could from the inside (not an easy task), and the party hid. The Red Sash, accustomed to hiding in shadows from his childhood, helped everyone. Seeing Lance attempting to hide, he simply put Lance behind a crate at the far end of the tavern from the back entrance.
At 11:00 pm, someone pried the door open. Amazingly, they did not notice it had been tampered with. Even more amazingly, they did not notice the footsteps on the floor, nor the party lying in wait. By the light of his lantern, the party could see a thin man with a weak chin and a ratty, self-inflicted haircut. He re-closed the door, cast a spell (though Xondra could not tell the rest of the group, she recognized it as Mage Armor), and moved to hide… exactly where Xondra was hiding! The jig was up!
As Xondra and the man stood gaping at one another in surprise, Moira called out, "His name is Plutivarch Dremis! He's a powerful sorcerer, and he's wanted by the guard! There's a reward for him!"
Plutivarch's eyes grew big. Tussle, right behind him, tried to shoot him in the back but his gun jammed. The Red Sash tried to intimidate him into surrendering and moved towards him, but he did not seem inclined to surrender. Xondra started casting something. Deciding that Xondra was the least of his worries, he spun and cast a Color Spray at Tussle and the Red Sash. It didn't work. Lance Sterling came from behind his box to see whether the man would listen to reason. It didn't seem likely that he would. The Red Sash moved up to hit him but he tried to stab at the Red Sash as he moved by. Unfortunately, his blow careened off the Red Sash's armor and he hit himself in the side of the head, temporarily deafening himself. Fortunately his Mage Armor deflected the Red Sash's blow, but suddenly three tiny bats appeared and started biting him; Xondra had summoned bats! She hexed him for good measure. Moira tried to add a crossbow bolt but missed. Plutivarch tried to cast a spell, but the bats were obviously too distracting and it failed. Obviously outmatched, Plutivarch ran for the door. Tussle unjammed his gun, fired, and drew more blood, and Lance moved over and blocked the door. Infuriated, Plutivarch fired two Magic Missiles directly in Lance Sterling's face for near-maximum damage.
But he was STILL STANDING.
Lance, tired of the whole thing, pulled out his greataxe and decked Plutivarch.
The party tied him up and got ready to question him. Lance offered to channel to wake him up sooner, but since he'd be awake in an hour anyway, they decided to wait. Once he was awake, the party kept him gagged as they made various threats as to his body parts and his personage. By the time Lance removed the gag Plutivarch was ready to spill his guts. Unfortunately, the information that spewed forth was not particularly useful. Plutivarch had been rejected by both the Pathfinders and their arch-rivals the Aspis Consortium (for reasons that became obvious once Plutivarch started blithering), so he had concocted a "brilliant" scheme to spread rumors about Nidalese slavers to lure Pathfinders to the Puffy Pelican, and then he would take them down and deliver them to the Aspis Consortium.
The biggest question the party had was whether he was under orders from the Aspis Consortium. In spite of his repeated insistence that no, he'd come up with the plan on his own, the party decided to be wary. Lance slung Plutivarch over his shoulder and they started the long walk towards the Arvensoar.
However, walking the streets of Dockway shortly after midnight with a trussed-up man over your shoulder while rumors of disappearances are plaguing the city was not the wisest of choices; the party barely made it 200 yards before they were stopped by a pair of guards. Moira quickly explained that Plutivarch was a wanted man, the guards checked their list, verified the party's story, and quickly brought in an escort to ensure the party would not encounter further issues with other city guards (or other untoward sorts).
On reaching the Arvensoar, the guard took Plutivarch off their hands, paid them their reward money (20 gold each), and had them wait a few minutes before leading them up to meet Captain Kasadei, head of the night watch. She thanked them for capturing Plutivarch, and asked how they happened to find him in the first place. On learning that they were investigating the missing persons cases, she could provide them with more information: Even though people were disappearing with some regularity, they were also re-appearing one or two weeks after disappearing. They were always found, muddled and confused, living in squalor near Rag's End or Underbridge, with no memory of what had happened to them. Thus, the city considered those cases "Closed", even though Captain Kasadei herself was still very interested in finding the perpetrators. Her investigation was being conducted on the "down low", to prevent the criminals from hiding their activity even more effectively.
Lance asked the obvious question: Why hadn't they used a Heal spell to restore the memories of one of the abductees. Kasadei reluctantly admitted that Mayor Groboras had so far been unwilling to release the funds necessary to pay for such a procedure, and no one in the guard had that kind of money, and since the victims were all vagabonds, vagrants, or Varisians, no one had come forward to volunteer either the money or the casting. Such was life in Magnimar.
The party moved on to other topics, asking about Natalya Venkaskerkin. Captain Kasadei knew her name, and knew that she ran with the Tower Girls, but also knew that the guard hadn't picked her up for anything. Her disappearance hadn't been reported to the guard, but this was no surprise, as the Sczarni tended to take care of their own problems. As for the Tower Girls themselves, they were having problems of their own: They had been staying in the same territory as the Wreckwash Blades, but some kind of falling-out had occurred and they'd moved to Underbridge, living in the warehouse of a known "fix it" man named Fenster the Blight. That was a couple of weeks ago, but Fenster might know where they'd gone, and Kasadei knew where Fenster was, and provided them his address in Underbridge. Once again, Xondra knew of Fenster, and shuddered at the thought of having to meet him in person.
By then it was well after 2:00 am, so the party descended to Lowcleft and checked in to the first decent-looking inn they could find. With their newfound wealth, Xondra, Lance, and Tussle all rented private rooms that included hot baths. The Red Sash and Moira, more cognizant of the fickle nature of fortune, shared a single room.
In the late morning the party regrouped and headed to Fenster the Blight's. His "home" was a half-collapsed warehouse, inside of which was a makeshift shelter constructed almost entirely of rowboats. A crudely-drawn sign read, "LEEV A GIFT AND WATE OUTSIDE", so the party dropped a single gold piece into the pan and stepped out. They heard Fenster emerge from his lair, examine the single coin, start cursing, and call out, "This isn't enough!"
Once he'd scurried back into his rowboats, Lance added a second gold piece, Xondra ten more, and then Moira added a heaping pile of silver.
This time, Fenster was overjoyed, and called out to the party, asking what they wanted him to do. Entering the building, Fenster was a hideous, disease-ridden, rag-wearing, one-eyed abomination of a man. The notion that the Tower Girls could have been his "roommates" for even a day seemed unthinkable. Nevertheless, the party decided to be polite. They asked about the Tower Girls, and Fenster confirmed that he was their landlord, though they hadn't returned in several days. But, "They'll be back… they always come back ta ol' Fenster!"
Several party members may have shuddered at that moment, but not enough for Fenster to notice.
During his ramblings, the party learned that Fenster believed that the kidnappings were being performed by white-eyed "blue dwarfies", and they'd tried to take him as well, but he'd cut off one of their arms and they'd fled. The party asked where the arm was. Then, looking him over, Lance asked, "You ate it, didn't you?"
"Yeah. Tasted bad."
With no evidence of the "blue dwarfies" to investigate, the party asked about Natalya. He said he knew where she was, but it would cost them double what they'd put down before! The party eyed each other, noting that he hadn't seemed to distinguish between any of the coins they'd provided him, so every last copper and silver piece they had went into Fenster's bowl. Fenster was delighted.
He admitted that he'd seen her lurking about in a nearby building with some "green dwarfies" (because apparently everything was a dwarfie to Fenster), but she no longer hung out with the Tower Girls. She was working very hard to stay unnoticed, but, "Nuthin' in th'Shadow gits by me good peeper!"
With directions to Natalya's presumed hideout, the party moved towards it.
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Session 3, Played 01-Dec-2019
As the group neared Natalya's purported hideout, they decided that stealth was the best course of action, so the Red Sash and Tussle moved on ahead, easily hiding amidst the clutter and detritus on the street to get all the way there, apparently unseen.
The house itself was a catastrophe; what had once apparently been a boarding house was now a ramshackle assembly of scorched, mildewed clapboard with a moss-covered tile roof. One side of the house was piled with scree from the decaying Irespan, and someone had attached some kind of shed to one side of the house, possibly in an attempt to prop it up. The Red Sash and Tussle silently agreed that the shed was the first place to look, and indeed, as Tussle peeked through the cracks of one of the boarded-up windows, he found himself staring up at the chin of a human ruffian obviously watching the streets for anyone approaching the house. Fortunately, the ruffian had not thought to look down, so Tussle remained unseen, and confirmed that a second ruffian was watching the second window near which the Red Sash was hiding.
Moving away from the windows, Tussle and the Red Sash signaled frantically to the group. Unfortunately, neither of them were particularly good at pantomime, so other than appearing quite lunatic to any passersby who might have been watching the house, they accomplished very little. Lance Sterling gestured to encourage them to explore the rest of the house before returning, so they carefully circumnavigated it. Cracks in the front door allowed them to see a room with open sewer pipes leaking raw sewage into a stagnant, horrific pool several feet below ground level. Obviously, the floor had rotted away directly into the sewers, an all-too-common occurrence in Underbridge. There was a plank spanning the sewage, indicating that someone was using the place. Even more suspicious, as they moved to the back of the house, the windows were all blocked with dark curtains, so they could learn nothing more about the interior of the house save that there was a chimney on the same side of the house as the shed.
Tussle and the Red Sash rejoined the rest of the group, and they discussed strategy. It seemed likely that the ruffians were waiting for people to approach the house proper, so the group came up with a plan: Tussle and the Red Sash returned to the shed and hid behind the door. The rest of the group walked nonchalantly up the street until they were passing the house, then suddenly turned and ran for the front door. The ruffians, spotting this, hurried out and demanded that the party leave immediately. They were hit from behind by Tussle and the Red Sash.
The battle was quick but not quiet, with both guards quickly subdued, yet the reverberations of Tussle's gunshots echoing throughout the neighborhood. During the fight Moira chose to open the front door of the house, and heard cackling in a language she did not understand coming from the exposed sewer pipes. She chose not to investigate, but instead to wedge some detritus from around the door to prevent it from easily opening, then she moved to join the rest of the group.
A short bit of questioning of the subdued thugs revealed that they were both men who'd owed money to the Tower Girls, and who'd agreed to watch Natalya's front door for her in exchange for forgiveness of the debt. They obviously weren't all that concerned with loyalty to her, so they were willing to talk in exchange for their freedom. Lance felt that this was a reasonable exchange, and let the men flee once they felt they'd learned all they could from them. (They had apparently neither wanted to nor been invited to enter the house proper, so they could give the party no details as to what lay inside.)
Rather than risk the front door with its alerted guardians, the group decided to move around to the back to break a window. They moved towards the back, then reconsidered and moved back towards the front. As Tussle looked up the street to see how many vagrants they were attracting to watch their antics, he saw an attractive blonde human woman in armor far too nice for the neighborhood trip over her own two feet in the middle of the street about fifty feet away, then three rough-dressed men helped her up as she brushed herself off in anger. She and her men stormed towards Tussle, so Tussle called to the rest of the group and they joined him, waiting for the unknown woman to arrive.
She strode up, all confidence, and asked the group what business they had in the house. The group asked her what business it was of hers, and who was she, anyway? She identified herself as Terisha Skiloni, a Tower Girl, and the men puffed up in self-importance as she said that. They were trespassing on Tower Girl property and Tower Girl business, and they should leave. Lance took over the conversation, and soon enough both sides knew that the other side knew that Natalya was hiding within. Terisha wanted Natalya dead. The party wanted Natalya alive and returned to Heidmarch manor, after which they weren't particularly concerned about what happened to her. This was unacceptable to Terisha, as assassinations in the Alabaster District were extremely unlikely to go undetected and unpunished, and she didn't need to see the inside of The Hells to know she didn't want to go there. The impasse might have lasted quite a bit longer had it not been for Lance's slip of the tongue, when he mentioned that all the group wanted was to return the magic item and Natalya to Heidmarch Manor, and after that whatever happened to Natalya didn't matter to the group. The moment Lance mentioned the magic item, Terisha ordered her men to attack.
And attack they did. They pummeled the Red Sash ruthlessly. Lance took several solid blows, but he stayed standing! Terisha first tried to use her hand crossbow, then her whip, but both were totally ineffectual so she moved in to help one of her men flank and drop the Red Sash. Tussle soon succumbed to the onslaught as well, and Xondra's hexes weren't as effective as she'd hoped they would be. Things were looking bleak: Although they had dropped two of the thugs, two of their own were down. Moira had been administering healing potions as she could, and firing her crossbow at Terisha when she couldn't, but finally Lance took a blow that sent him into his orcish frenzy.
At the last of his hit points, with almost all of his friends down, Lance chose to channel.
In a miracle of the gods, the channel woke up every single one of his companions, but not a single one of the enemy. Terisha, badly wounded and seeing the entire enemy party getting back up, chose to flee. Xondra deliberately moved up to one of the thugs in a bid to attract his attention, but unfortunately succeeded too well and was knocked unconscious for her troubles, but that was his final act. In an act of retribution, the awakened Red Sash struck him a killing blow.
The party tied up the survivors and Lance channeled to heal everyone. The men told the same story as Natalya's men had: They'd owed money to the Tower Girls, and Terisha had recruited them. Lance was far less forgiving of them, as they'd nearly cost his new companions their lives. They offered to hide their friend's body in exchange for their lives. Lance accepted, but all of their gear was forfeit. The men staggered off, dragging the corpse between them. No one asked what they were going to do with it, but they were moving towards the water.
Once they were rid of the men and fully healed, they went back to the rear window and smashed it in. They immediately heard casting coming from the attic on the opposite side of the building, but no one could identify the spell. Even worse, a goblin popped out from a hole in the opposite corner and shot Lance clean in the chest with a crossbow bolt! Yes, the heavy crossbow made the goblin fall over backwards, but that was enough of a fall that Tussle's shot missed it. Lance tried to clamber in the window, but he was too heavily encumbered and couldn't get his leg over the sill. A second goblin popped up and tried to shoot Lance again, but this time the recoil from the crossbow caused it to hit itself in the face, dazing it. So Tussle shot it and dropped it. Seeing there was no plank to protect her from the sewage on this side of the building, Moira headed for the front door. The Red Sash tried his hand at getting in the window, failed as well, and decided to follow Moira on the easier path.
The first goblin stood up and started reloading, but Lance managed to get in the window, drop into the waste-deep sewage, and move up to within striking distance of the goblin. The goblin Did Not Like. More goblins started pouring through a door that led towards the front of the house, and Lance, Xondra, and Tussle correctly presumed that these had been the guardians Moira had warned them about. Instead of using knives or bows, however, the goblins hurled bags of excrement (most likely their own) mixed with broken glass, an obvious attempt to give people fatal infections. Fortunately, their aim was terrible and Tussle's wasn't, so they ended up being virtually no threat at all. Nor did the goblin next to Lance, who succumbed to a single blow from Lance's axe. There was a ladder next to Lance and he tried to climb it, but it was rotted through and broke immediately, dropping him back into the sewage.
As the fight by the back window died down, Moira unblocked the front door and she and the Red Sash went in. Right there was a convenient ladder for climbing into the crawl space! The Red Sash tried to climb the ladder and it broke almost immediately, dropping him into the filth. Moira decided she'd stay at ground level and made it across the plank. Unfortunately, the only way across the next room to rejoin the rest of the party was along a narrow ledge, and Moira was not so fortunate, slipping in as well. Tussle lowered a rope through the broken window, and Lance, Moira, and the Red Sash climbed out. Tussle, being a very helpful gnome, cast Prestidigitation and cleaned them off.
The party was already tired of sewage and filth.
They decided to break open the next window along, rather than trying to wade through the rooms. Another room, another collapsed floor. More sewage. Oh, good. However, this one had a ray of hope: There was a fireplace on the next wall, and a ladder led from the sewage to the hearth, then Tussle could see another ladder going up the chimney. Maybe there was a way up! Lance tied a rope around Tussle's waist, and Tussle jumped to the hearth…
...only to be bitten by a goblin-faced snake that had been hiding in the fireplace!
This was just too much. The raw sewage would have been nearly unbearable. Goblins hurling their own excrement mixed with broken glass was beyond the pale. But some horrible wizard had decided to cross goblins with snakes? What is WRONG with some people?!?!?
Lance pulled Tussle to safety and they decided to shoot the snake to death, but it was apparently intelligent enough to hide from them inside the fireplace.
The Red Sash had had enough. He stormed around to the chimney, examined the stonework, pulled out his earthbreaker, and with a single mighty blow knocked a perfectly-sized, completely stable, door-sized hole in the chimney. (Yes. He criticalled his To Hit to hit a wall, which I allowed because he has Craft: Stonemasonry, then rolled a second natural 20 on his Craft skill to determine the size and stability of the hole he created.)
The surprised goblin snake, not being an idiot, fled through the sewage and up a sewer line across the room. Tussle wanted to pursue it (he was still sore at being bit), but Lance pointed out that he'd be alone in a pipe against the snake, so they should deal with it later. Tussle acquiesced.
With a clear passage into the house, and a stable-looking ladder leading up to the attic, the Red Sash chose to climb up first. The rest of the party heard a spell being cast and a woman's voice suggest, "Why don't you convince your friends that they should surrender to and serve me in my battle to conquer the Tower Girls and then all of Magnimar, as it would be far more sensible than opposing me?"
The Red Sash saw the most wonderful woman he had ever laid eyes on making a perfectly reasonable request of him. Even the two goblins standing on either side of him waiting in an apparent ambush did not swing at him; such was the power of this beautiful woman's persuasion.
Lance sighed, invoked the power of Desna, climbed up the ladder, and touched the Red Sash. Tussle and Xondra followed, and the goblins did not interfere. Moira tried to come up, but the platform was too crowded at that point.
With Lance's assistance, the Red Sash shook off the charm, and tried to reach Natalya, but she'd intentionally placed herself out of reach along a narrow beam, and he wasn't sure he had the balance to get to her. He killed one of the two goblins instead. Tussle started shooting her, Moira went back down the ladder and shot at her from below.
The goblin, in a bit of his own miracle, managed to grapple the Red Sash. Unfortunately, Lance killed him before he had a chance to do any other miracles. Natalya raised a Wall of Fire between herself and her attackers, but the Red Sash was angry now, and ran right through it. He immediately recognized it for the illusion it was, but he was more interested in Natalya. He grabbed her, grappled her, and pinned her.
The fight was over. They could take their prey back to the Lady Heidmarch.
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Session 4, Played 08-Dec-2019
Much to everyone's surprise, Lance insisted on collecting all of the goblin corpses as well. But why? The way Lance figured it, they'd done the city a favor, and if they turned in the goblins' bodies and showed that they'd done away with a menace to the city, they might get a reward. The rest of the group sighed and went along with it. Since they were worried about being stopped by the guard again, they carefully rolled Natalya up in blankets and bedrolls so she looked like nothing so much as a massive bundle of laundry, the Red Sash carried the awkward bundle, and the party set off.
For the second time in two days, the party was stopped by the town guard coming out of Underbridge; this time for carrying dead goblins, which were far more obvious than Natalya. Lance insisted that he wanted to take all the corpses to the Arvensoar to show them what a good job he'd done. The guards, not wanting to stand too close to a bunch of dead sewer goblins (the smell was bad enough when they were alive), let the group proceed. Once they were safely out of Underbridge, the party split up, with Moira, Xondra, and the Red Sash carrying Natalya to Heidmarch Manor, while Lance and Tussle took the goblins to the Arvensoar.
The trip to the Arvensoar was brief and uneventful. While killing goblins was certainly worthwhile, it wasn't something the city particularly wanted to encourage people to do, since there were quite literally thousands of goblins a few miles down the coast, and massive hunting expeditions could quickly deplete the city's coffers. However, since they believed Lance that he had found them within city limits, they gave him a 10 gp reward and sent him and Tussle on their way. The rest of the group had politely waited for them outside the manor, so they all got to go in together.
The Lady Heidmarch quickly ordered Giles to prepare tea and invited the group into the meeting room to discuss their findings. They dramatically unwrapped Natalya and were rewarded with the Lady's gasp of surprise. Even better was the great gaping 'O' her mouth formed when Tussle showed her the copper spearhead Natalya had used against them. She excused herself, then returned a few minutes later with a scarlet-and-blue sphere ioun stone, which she placed onto the object. The stone fused with the object, quickly turning the coppery color of the object itself, and suddenly Natalya moaned as if released from a great weight.
"As I thought. You, my friends, have discovered nothing less than one of the shards of the Shattered Star of Xin."
Lance's first question was quite pertinent: "How many are there?"
The debrief began in earnest. The Shattered Star was one of the most legendary artifacts in Thassilonian history, rivaled only by the Seven Swords of Sin. According to legend, the original emperor of Thassilon, Xin, had forged the Shattered Star from the seven skymetals into one unbelievably powerful artifact. When the seven Runelords rebelled against him and overthrew him, they broke the Star into seven pieces, and each Runelord took a piece to hide somewhere in the world. Considering the recent awakening of Karzoug, Runelord of Greed, the Lady Heidmarch felt it was only a matter of time before the other Runelords started stirring, and she wanted a powerful weapon to defend Varisia against them. She wanted the Shattered Star. And she wanted the party to assemble it for her.
The most obvious question was, "How?"
The Lady asked if anyone would volunteer to take ownership of the shard, and Tussle immediately volunteered. By claiming it, he became aware of its powers: He would be more skillful at anything he attempted, and he could cast Major Illusion once per day. Even better, the attached ioun stone gave him greater intelligence, and some knowledge of history, though, being Tussle, it didn't seem like a heck of a lot.
Even better, when the Lady asked Tussle to concentrate on an image of the completed star, he instead had an image of one of the pilings of the Irespan; one with many, many carvings of beaked, winged gargoyles, devils with bird heads, and other feathered motifs. Those familiar with Magnimar immediately identified the piling as The Crow. This was their next destination. Natalya let out an involuntary gasp.
As the party turned towards her to find out what she knew about The Crow, they were distracted by Moira suddenly blinking, wide-eyed, and starting to shrink and grow black-and-white fur, ears, and a tail. Lance immediately asked whether it was part of the Shattered Star's curse, but the Red Sash tersely said, "No. It happens."
As Moira shrank away, eventually becoming a small black-and-white cat who cheerfully hopped up into the Red Sash's lap and started purring, the party was abuzz with questions. The Red Sash answered none of them to anyone's satisfaction. Pretty much all they got out of him was that it was some kind of affliction that affected Moira on occasion, and she would get better, but there was no telling how long it would be. Unable to pry any additional information out of him, the party turned back to Natalya.
Lance clumsily tried to ask her about her trials and travails while under the influence of the shard, but Tussle of all people took over, and reassured her that she didn't need to feel guilty about anything she'd done while under the influence of the shard, and could she please tell them more about it.
Natalya's story was far more interesting. After their falling out with the Wreckwash Blades and their subsequent residency at Fenster's, Ayala had tasked them with finding a new hideout; preferably somewhere that you couldn't reach without some climbing and acrobatics skills, and preferably away from Underbridge and the trouble with the Blades. Having grown up in Riddleport and knowing about the excavations around the Cyphergate, she thought immediately of the pillars of the Irespan and risked death or worse to find an uninhabited one. She found The Crow, and the Tower Girls moved there.
During their time there, they delved deeper and deeper through the maze of passages, searching for (and finding) a number of secret doors, always leading them deeper and giving them an even more defensible position against possible intruders. They were eventually stopped by a door made of a metallic silver metal that seemed indestructible and that was hot to the touch. The Lady Heidmarch excitedly identified this as siccatite, another star metal and likely the passage to the next piece of the shard. Natalya didn't know; Ayala had become obsessed with getting the door open, and one day while she was out buying more tools in the hopes of opening it, Natalya found a secret door in her latest bedroom. Inside was a skeleton with several items, including the shard.
Unfortunately, Natalya grabbed the shard first, and her memories from there were hazy. She realized that she could not face a dirty wererat alone, so she fled The Crow to seek allies, eventually settling on the sewer goblins as better than nothing, but loyal, and likely to be easy to muster into an army. She also recruited men who owed money or favors to the Tower Girls, and started planning how she would overthrow Ayala, take over the Tower Girls, and eventually the city.
Natalya moaned, put her face in her hands, and wondered how she could have been so stupid. Lance reassured her that it was the shard, and could she provide them with any information about the Tower Girls? Considering she was probably marked for death by them, she was more than happy to oblige: There were fourteen girls other than her, with at least three of them (Ayala, Karisa, and Sasha) being wererats. Ayala also kept a number of tame donkey rats in the piling, but they all looked the same to Natalya, so they were hard to count. Maybe a dozen? Since Terisha had failed in both her attempt to kill Natalya and to dissuade the party, she would be unlikely to be back at The Crow; she would more likely be in Underbridge seeking more powerful allies to retaliate against the party and assassinate Natalya within the Lady Heidmarch's Manor.
The Lady was not amused.
Natalya drew a crude map of what she knew about The Crow: Where the watches were, how many girls were in each area, their sleeping shifts, and so forth. If Terisha had returned and told Ayala of her failure, these shifts would obviously have changed. But considering she'd only just failed today, she'd be more likely to make another attempt within the next few days instead of returning "home" empty-handed.
With a map, a count of their enemies, and a good idea as to the watches, the party decided it was time to spend some of that reward. As they left the villa, the Red Sash expressed his reservations about the Pathfinders: No one ever gives you something for nothing, and the Pathfinders were giving them SO much. They'd already received more money than they'd ever seen in their lifetimes, and Tussle was carrying around an artifact worth more than most manors in the city. What was in it for the Pathfinders?
Lance suggested that maybe, just maybe, the Lady Heidmarch was telling the truth and she really did want to build them into a party capable of fighting off the next Runelord. The Red Sash was not convinced.
They moved on to the Bazaar of Sails and went shopping. Lance bought a silver morning star. Tussle bought ingredients to make himself some silver bullets and some flare cartridges, just in case. The Red Sash had the dagger from the original chest, so he upgraded his armor. Xondra bought some silver crossbow bolts. Once they had their gear, they went their separate ways: Lance and Xondra chose to return to Lowcleft, as the rooms there did not seem terribly expensive any more, yet came with excellent meals, baths, and everything they could want. The Red Sash took the feline Moira back to Serpent's Run so that she'd be somewhere familiar.
But not Tussle. Tussle asked where the most expensive places to stay in the city were, and he was informed of the diplomatic hotels in the Capital District. There was no stopping him then. He asked where the "nicest" one was, got directions, and was stopped by a finely-dressed doorman who asked him whether he really felt he could afford it. Tussle assured the man he could, so the doorman let him in. The gentleman at the desk cited the price: 50 gold pieces a night. Tussle gulped, but then pulled out his belt pouch and plopped down the coins.
"Very good, sir. Would you prefer to be carried to your room, or to walk?"
"Be carried!"
A burly, barbarian looking fellow practically materialized behind Tussle, carrying a small, well-cushioned throne just Tussle's size. As Tussle sat, the man stood up. Tussle noted a box of chocolates strapped to his arm, and helped himself. And away he went on his throne-carrying barbarian, first exploring the hotel, then his room (bigger than the house he grew up in), then his personalized crafting station (set up just for him). He finally set to work crafting, and a butler familiar with the finer workings of holding things arrived, and provided extra hands for Tussle as he worked.
Tussle considered his money well-spent.
As for the rest of the group, the only notable event was a note arriving at Xondra's door. The innkeep waggled his eyebrows suggestively, handed her the note, and asked whether he should be preparing dinner or a bath for two. Xondra just glared at him until he started leaving, then tipped him a silver coin. On the front of the note was a crudely-scrawled, "To my beloved Xondra, whisperings of my admirations for you!"
Curious, she opened the note. Inside was a formal letter from Sir Canayven Heidmarch apologizing for the ruse, as he had had no idea how to get her a note in secret, so felt that the obvious would be the most subtle. He had heard from his wife that the party would be entering The Crow, and while his current work prevented him from accompanying them, he would be most appreciative to learn of any new information about the Thassilonian empire while they were there; especially statues, historical murals, writings, and the like. He offered to reward them handsomely (500 gp) for details of the items, preferably with illustrations. Xondra shot off a brief note in return, and the innkeep was more than happy to see it delivered.
The morning dawned wonderfully foggy (Natalya had warned them there would be lookouts on The Crow), so the group performed some last-minute shopping (Lance bought a potion of Spider Climb, Xondra got a nice journal for keeping notes on things she found in The Crow, and Tussle bought an owl. Yes. An owl). They met the Red Sash in Dockway by the specified rowboat, and Moira was not with him. No one asked where she was; apparently the Red Sash's reaction the day before had convinced them that it was a topic best not broached lightly.
They let the Red Sash row the entire 45 minutes to The Crow, either to help him take his mind off his troubles, or because they were lazy. Of course Tussle offered to row, because he knew he could get away with it. Gnomes.
Once they could see the vague outline of The Crow a couple hundred feet away, they did their best to muffle their oars, quiet Lance down, and otherwise approach stealthily. They pulled into a boat dock wherein were three relatively clean rowboats, indicating that there were indeed people living in The Crow. According to Natalya's crude map, the first watch would likely be Sasha the wererat in a room a ways away and up two flights of steps. So they should probably prepare here, then move in. Xondra put Mage Armor on herself.
Lance was the most interesting. Knowing that he would be dealing with climbing and swimming and sneaking and who knew what else, he had foregone wearing any armor. Instead, he'd bought potions of Mage Armor, Shield of Faith, and Spider Climb, and at this point he activated his Mage Armor. The Red Sash, worried that he would be in the front lines against wererats, drank some antiplague to protect himself from their bites.
Once they were ready, the group pulled the rowboat up alongside the others and tied it off. They briefly considered disabling or sinking the other boats, but quickly realized that in the event of a Tower Girl escape, that would mean they'd lose their boat and have none with which to pursue. The entryway was a small alcove whose floor showed the stains of countless campfires, indicating that it was a popular spot with the locals. At the back of the alcove the wall was knocked down, revealing a dark passageway beyond.
Using the light from the foggy sky, they moved through the broken wall and into a chamber that had obviously been used for a long-term camp, including refuse and bits of broken equipment. Nothing looked recent enough to have been used within the last week. There was a passage heading off into the darkness to the left, but Natalya's map indicated that the proper way to get deeper into The Crow was to go right. A curving set of steps led a few feet up, but that was as far as they could see in the darkness. Tussle, ever-so-helpful, quietly summoned some Dancing Lights to help the party navigate.
Up the stairs was a room with three open and looted stone boxes, surrounded by a fine yellow powder. Undaunted, the Red Sash investigated the chests and found nothing of interest, and Tussle could not figure out what the powder was. On closer examination, the Red Sash was pretty sure that the yellow powder had been involved with some kind of trap on the chests, but he couldn't figure out what.
Knowing that the next watchroom led to Sasha's presumed watch, Tussle and the Red Sash snuck ahead with the Dancing Lights behind them. A U-turn in the staircase kept their light from spilling into Sasha's room, but also prevented them from seeing into it. They could hear her, though. Lance, of all people, volunteered to peek in, so they let him and… amazingly enough, she didn't notice him! Lance noticed her, though; a dog-sized rat rummaging around in the refuse in the room. Lance gestured to the group and they charged in, hoping to block her escape route before she could warn the others.
As light and adventurers pours into the room, Sasha knew she had to warn the others. Although they had the element of surprise, none had been fast enough to block her escape passage, so she turned… just as the gnome cast a powerful-sounding spell and the escape route sealed up before her eyes.
Yes, Tussle, never one to conserve resources, used his ONE use of Major Image a day to convince Sasha that her exit was blocked. With no choice but to stay and fight, Sasha transformed into her hybrid form. Unfortunately, the party had been warned and Lance and the Red Sash beat her with silver weapons, quickly knocking her into unconciousness with the help of Xondra's hexing. Lance stabilized her and they tied her up with a bit of rope, then took their bearings. The walls had a mural of humans and giants crossing an intact Irespan, so Xondra took quick notes of it, marking the room as one they'd have to come back to once they'd cleared the building of Tower Girls.
According to Natalya's map, the exit of the room (which Tussle revealed once Sasha was properly bound) was a looooooong staircase up, to what she called the "top level", since she didn't know exactly how many levels there were. At the top they'd find a set of rooms the Tower Girls had used as a residence for a few days before moving deeper into the Crow. Most likely there would be some girls there, but most importantly there was a secret door that led deeper into The Crow that someone would have to block to prevent the girls from escaping.
Lance immediately volunteered.
The party climbed, and climbed, and climbed, and climbed. Hundreds of steps. So many that even Tussle lost count in the dim light provided by the Red Sash's torch (Tussle's Dancing Lights had long ago gone out). Tussle was out ahead, and his quiet feet and sharp eyes eventually caught the flicker of torchlight ahead. The group extinguished their own torch and crept up.
The room they entered was a simple landing for the staircase, and the next room was bare and unlit except by torchlight from the room beyond. A lone table sat in the room, odd in its total lack of chairs or accoutrements. Tussle and the Red Sash crept through the room, peeking into the lit room beyond, and spotted two Tower Girls roasting a pair of huge rats. Apparently food was scarce here.
The party used the same tactic: The whole group raced in, catching the Tower Girls unawares, and as Xondra hexed one and the Red Sash enaged the other, Lance raced for the "secret" door he expected to find and Tussle shot the girl nearest it. The plan once again worked near-flawlessly: This time Lance blocked the exit before the girls could react, and the girl who tried to use Acrobatics to get past him failed due to Xondra's hex. Adding insult to injury, Lance spent his round closing and latching the door, ensuring the girls would have no easy escape. With nowhere for the girls to go and the party carefully avoiding getting flanked, the girls put up little resistance. Perhaps the only interesting event was Tussle introducing the party to his flare cartridges, which did more to dazzle the party than the girls, but gnome. Once they were down, Lance stabilized them and tied them up. Embyr and Nayven were now captive.
Re-lighting their torch and checking Natalya's map, they were supposed to "get outside and onto the wooden platform," where they'd find a secret trap door in the ceiling that provided further access into the crow. Moving to the next room, they found a room that had been thoroughly vandalized and looted; the murals were scratched and graffitied beyond recognition, and pits and pockmarks throughout the room showed places some item or another had been removed. A passage out of the room allowed filtered daylight to enter, so they moved that way. The fog was lifting, and the sun was beginning to peek out, so they had no trouble verifying that all of the boats were still docked. As Natalya had described, there was a wooden platform hanging from four thick ropes, with a piton with another rope attached driven into the ceiling above the platfrom.
Tussle walked over to the platform. The rest of the party yelled at him. What?
Oh. He had the ring of Feather Fall. Which he quite obviously didn't need because he hadn't even bothered with the cumbersome trial of swinging across the expansive drop, but had just walked across one of the tethering ropes. Tussle offered to throw the ring back. Everyone concluded this was a horrible idea. So this time Tussle decided he'd swing back, and he found it rather fun. He gave Lance the ring, Lance put it on, the Red Sash tied a rope around Lance's waist, Tussle grabbed the Red Sash's belt to provide him with support, and Lance swung.
What next happened requires me to step out of the narrative for a moment, because it was truly epic. I have a house rule that on skill checks a natural 20 gives you a +5, while a natural 1 gives you a -5. In my opinion, it makes 1s and 20s more fun even out of combat. So, Lance rolled a natural 1 on his skill check to swing across, plummeting to his doom. The Red Sash rolled a natural 1 on his Strength check to catch him. I was immediately faced with the dilemma: Did a failed Strength check mean that the Red Sash had merely let the rope slip out of his hands, or did he lose his balance and plummet to his death? Or would hanging on to a rope tied to a Feather Falling comrade save him? As I was thinking as to how to adjudicate it, Tussle insisted on rolling HIS Strength check, and he HAD said that he was helping (and could fit and had good footing) and got something along the lines of a 14. So, I ruled that Tussle helped the Red Sash not fall, and the Feather Fall allowed the Red Sash a second check before the rope was entirely gone and Lance would have to make the looooong hike back up. (I wasn't exactly persnickety, since the difference between making him fall and walk back up or letting the Red Sash catch him was only a matter of a couple of minutes of game time.)
On his next attempt, Lance rolled another natural 1 and fell again.
On this third attempt, Lance rolled another natural 1 and fell again.
And the party had been thinking of SELLING the ring of Feather Fall!!!!
Lance got across on his fourth try. The rest of the party made it without incident. But OMG what a crossing!
Once they were across, they had little trouble opening the trap door in the ceiling and once again Tussle went first, verifying that the coast was clear before the rest of the party followed. (And no, this time Lance didn't fall.) They arrived in a long passageway full of looted crypts, and Natalya's map warned them that at the end of the passage was a trap and a guardpost. Since they couldn't afford to be seen, they extinguished the torch and Lance took point, leading the Red Sash and Tussle by the hand through the passage (with Xondra guiding them from the back, and also noting the murals along the walls that no one except her and Lance could see) until the torchlight from the guardpost was enough for them to see by again. Tussle obviously couldn't see very well, because he nearly stepped on the tripwire, but Lance stopped him in time, and they cut the wire just to be sure no one would accidentally set it off.
It wasn't until after they cut the wire that they thought, "Hey, what if cutting the wire makes the warning bell drop to the floor?"
Too late now!
Once again, they rushed the guardroom as quickly as they could. This time the girls had time to react and start running, but Tussle 's accurate flare shot blinded the girl in front (Yazlenda) so she had to pause, and the rest of the party caught up with the one in back (Tellawee). This time the fight didn't go as well, and Yazlenda nearly escaped, but the combination of her need for light, the long straight passage leading out of the room, and the party almost all having ranged weapons did her in before she reached the staircase. As usual, Lance made sure both girls were stable and carefully tied up before they moved on.
The guardroom had a functioning fountain in it, which was rather amazing for a 10,000-year-old building, but the party was in a hurry and moved on. There was a collapsed chamber Natalya had crudely sketched but not said anything about, but the group found a small stash of looted treasure there, including some Thassilonian coins and a bronze statuette of some kind of brutish giant. They pocketed the loot and moved to the next staircase.
This one went down, and again Lance took the lead since he didn't need any light. To prevent any accidents, Tussle and the Red Sash had a torch going, but they were ready to put it out at a moment's notice, and Xondra took up the rear.
Natalya's map told them they'd next be arriving at the "gathering point" for the Tower Girls if they knew that their defenses had been breached, so now they'd know whether or not their tactics had been enough. Peeking into the room, Lance was relieved to see it unlit, and to hear some friendly conversation in a lit room off to his right. According to the map, the left passage across the way led to "Pack Mistress Karisa" and the dormitories, while the passage to the right led to the dining area. No matter what they party did, they would have enemies on both sides. Since they could hear the girls playing cards, but couldn't hear the girls in the dormitory (if any), they decided to deal with the more immediate threat and attack the girls in the card room.
The tactics were identical, as were the results: Tussle used his flare cartridges to great effect, Lance blocked the exit, the Red Sash provided the main melee attacks, and Xondra hexed the girls one after the other. Unfortunately, the girls were a tougher fight than the group had been expecting, and the Red Sash inadvertently out-and-out killed Cassa half with his final blow (a crit). Lance chastised him, but stabilized and bound the other two.
To the group's amazement, they did not seem to have set off the alarm. (GM Note: Seriously. Count the squares. It is 26 10' squares from the location of the fight to the dormitory, or -26 to Perception. The Tower Girls have +5 to Perception, so even if they are alert and taking 10 they get 10 + 5 + 10 (fight is -10 Perception) = 25… ONE TOO FEW to hear the fight. I suspect the author planned this, because the distance is just a little TOO convenient.)
With the three guards down, they moved to the dormitory. Unfortunately, this time the Tower Girls became aware of their approach as they were trying to rush in, and they quickly found themselves fighting three of the girls and two giant rats, knowing full well that "Karisa" would be out in a moment. It was a brutal fight, but the moment Tussle learned he could drop the rats in a single shot and regain grit, he started laying waste to them, eliminating the Tower Girl's needed flanks and slowly turning the tide of battle as Lance taunted Karisa with every rat's death. It was exhausting, it was brutal, it was bloody, but they managed to kill the rats and knock out the girls and Karisa and tie them up.
A quick search of the dormitory revealed little of value, but Karisa's room included some Thassilonian finery she had obviously been using to soak her feet (a platter of food and a basin of lavender-scented water), so they took that and moved on. They checked the food storage and killed a pair of rats there, and Xondra found a magnificent fresco of a tall, redheaded woman impaling a short, hunch-backed man's belly. She noted it for further study and they moved on.
The next set of stairs led to Ayala's room, so the group performed their final buffs and went down. The first room was the room with the burning siccatite doors, but they had more important things to do. Listening at the door to Ayala's room, they heard skittering rats, so Lance guarded one of the doors and the rest of the group opened the other. The two rats in the room quickly moved to attack, while it took Ayala a moment to orient herself and come out. Unfortunately for her, the group had already learned to drop the rats first, and Tussle's flare shots and Xondra's hexes wreaked havoc with her vision and her accuracy. She was finally forced to attempt to flee and was cut down from behind.
Stabilizing and tying up Alaya, they group knew they were done: They'd captured every Tower Girl except Terisha, and, exactly as Natalya had predicted, she wasn't here.
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Okay. That was pretty damn impressive. Your group has a fine sense of tactics and planning. I'm also quite amused at the multitude of 1s rolled to try and get to the secret door. Dice either love players or hate them, it seems. It doesn't matter what group is involved. :)
Thank you for sharing your campaign journals with us. They're a lot of fun to read :)
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Keep in mind that it's Shiro and GothBard together again, and they did all the tactics for Rise of the Runelords as well. So there's a lot of, "You go to that square right there!" "Why?" "Just trust me!"
But yeah, steamrolling happens...
EDIT: The next writeup is in player review, but you'll get to see what happens when people don't listen...
Hint: It involved Xondra, Tussle, and bats...
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(And yeah, I totally want to say, "And today the part of Hi will be played by Impus Minor" for the random destruction he throws in. Because every campaign needs random destruction...)
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** spoiler omitted **
** spoiler omitted **
(1) Natalya was still alive and "owner" of the shard, so even though she was captured, she was the one under its curse. Since it's not sentient and none of the PCs said, "Oh, that looks nice! I'll take that," I saw no reason for its curse to transfer from a living (albeit bound) owner to a new owner. In fact, their plan for the future shards is to tie up one of their own party members then let them pick up the shard with their teeth. Ownership management.
(2) I was pretty darned impressed that my only tactic was to get the alarm sounded, and the party managed to stymie that, in spite of half the party only having 20' moves. But the combination of good Stealth to get close to the girls (how many parties would forsake armor entirely in favor of stealth?), then a simple, "Everyone run for the exit! One of us will be faster!" was an amazingly effective tactic since the girls weren't effective in combat without flanks.
If they'd been up against a group of fighters they'd've been torn to shreds. Against rogues, it was amazingly effective.
And anything that's already happened doesn't need to be spoilered. They already know about the curse, and they've already dealt with the Tower Girls. That writeup is already out to the group as well, but it's the holidays so they're taking some time for edits and approvals.
The first spoiler was for something apparently written in the AP (at least judging from every other PbP I saw of this) that DIDN'T happen here.
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The first spoiler was for something apparently written in the AP (at least judging from every other PbP I saw of this) that DIDN'T happen here.
Honestly, I'm not surprised, because my party is "different".
The description of the curse is, "Each shard comes with a curse that affects anyone who carries it."
So, if Natalya is carrying the shard and you're carrying her, are you affected? I'd say that's a stretch. If someone had specifically taken the shard, I'd've invoked the curse. But a simple, "We roll her up in a carpet and carry her with us and we'll figure out what to do with her later," and then having me respond with, "Well, one of you picks up the shard and is cursed," seems rather punitive.
But honestly, how many parties would just wrap up their quarry without even checking her for loot?
I'm not surprised every other party in every other PbP had someone affected. My party's just weird. They don't loot people until after they've decided what to do with them. So they never actually looted Natalya, nor even checked her gear. They just rolled her up and carried her off to Heidmarch Villa, gear and loot intact.
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Too late to edit: Yeah, when they finally unwrapped her and someone pulled out the shard to show Sheila I probably should've said something, but all in all they were so hands-off it just would've felt punitive.
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That's what I didn't realize -- that actually nobody thought to remove possible weapons from her (which in itself seems kind of dangerous).
You could make a reference to it later, like next time they find one, have whoever pulled this one out remember that for the brief time that they handled it before it got its Ioun Stone, they felt a terrible yet insidious surge of Pride, that would have quickly overwhelmed them if it had lasted longer.
If they used long tongs to handle it and then transported it in a small box made of material suitable for blocking effects such as Scrying or a box large enough to keep it away from them regardless of material, I'd certainly let them get away with that unless the item description says otherwise.
(Of course, my thoughts come mainly from how to handle radioactive or otherwise electromagnetically active objects, although I do also think of how to handle biohazardous objects. After all, I do work in Modern Necromancy Life Science Research.)
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Disclaimer: I got no feedback on this writeup, but it's been over a week so I figure if I said anything horribly wrong the players had plenty of time to complain.
Session 5, Played 15-Dec-2019
While Lance, Xondra, and the Red Sash went through Alaya's gear to determine what was worth selling and what was worth keeping, Tussle started searching for the secret door Natalya had assured them was there. Unfortunately, he couldn't find it. As the party collectively rolled its eyes, he started going inch by inch over the walls of the room, sure that he was missing something. By the time he finally found the secret latch, Alaya's gear was neatly sorted and set aside, and her magical-yet-unidentified scarf was wrapped up and ready for identification and sale.
Tussle, being Tussle, pulled the latch without waiting for anyone to join him, and without checking for any traps. Fortunately for Tussle, the door swung inwards with a loud creak (Tussle said that it sounded "like an old man opening"), and no hideous creatures attacked him, nor did any nefarious traps render him ash. Inside the tiny room was a skeleton, exactly as Natalya had described. It seemed to be clawing at the wall opposite the door, and as far as Tussle could tell, it wasn't animate. That was about all Tussle could get. The skeleton was wearing a strange necklace with a falcon on it that had withstood the test of time, but Tussle couldn't make much of it.
The party put their heads together: What was the necklace, and how had the person died?
The necklace was the easy part: Xondra recognized it as the badge of office of the Prince or Princess of Sails, the "official" unofficial enforcer of the Bazaar of Sails. Considering the age of the skeleton, there was little doubt that they had just solved one of Magnimar's greatest mysteries: What had become of Nazir Kalmeralm, father of the current princess Sabriyya, who had gone missing some 25 years ago?
An extraordinarily careful study of Nazir's bones indicated that he had not died by violence; indeed, the spots marked by decay and disruption indicated that he had been killed by negative energy.
The party immediately became concerned, as they currently had no means by which to fight an incorporeal undead enemy. However, they did not seem to be in any immediate danger, and returning Nazir to his daughter seemed the right thing to do. The Red Sash was a bit concerned about the money or benefits they would lose by returning the amulet to Sabriyya, but Lance pointed out that this would almost certainly be offset by the reward she would give them, and by her gratitude in general. The Red Sash agreed that this was a sensible plan.
As Tussle ran off to search the rest of the tower to find any loot they'd missed (he found some nice whiskey and spices in the food stores, but otherwise came up empty), the party set about discussing what to do with the Tower Girls. For the wererats the decision was easy: Wererats were an infestation that needed to be exterminated, so anyone who had willingly become a wererat would be turned over to the Arvensoar. Examining the three unconscious rats, neither Ayala nor Karisa had any obvious bite wounds, indicating that they had become wererats long enough ago that there was no hope for them. Sasha had a clear bite mark indicating that she had been turned recently, but from its location and the lack of any signs of a struggle, Lance concluded that she had been willing to be turned, so he had no sympathy. All three were for the guard.
As for the rest of the Tower Girls, the party held little animosity towards them. They were petty burglars in a town full of petty burglars, and hadn't done much to the party before being mowed down like wheat before a scythe. The group decided that they would question the girls, and decide their fates based on their answers. Unfortunately, it would be 3-4 hours before the first girl woke up, so they had some time to kill. They decided they'd turn in the wererats while they waited.
Lance stayed at The Crow, watching over the unconscious Tower Girls (they figured that whatever incorporeal undead abomination was around, if it hadn't attacked the Tower Girls yet it wouldn't attack Lance, but he could at least keep the girls safe from scavengers). The rest of the group tossed the three wererats into one of the boats, covered them with a tarp, and rowed back to Dockway. They were immediately greeted by "helpful" longshoremen hoping to earn a few coppers by helping unload the boat, but the Red Sash quickly shooed them away. After a brief discussion as to how to get the wererats to the Arvensoar without making a scene, Xondra offered to run to Heidmarch Villa and get help from the Lady Heidmarch. Tussle and the Red Sash agreed that this was an excellent plan.
Used to a life of being on the run, Xondra set off at a brisk trot towards the Alabaster District. Some workers stared at her as she ran by, a couple whistled, but most stayed clear and minded their own business… except… as she ran, a huge Shoanti in an incongruously-small page's outfit trotted up alongside her, keeping pace easily, and offered in Common: "I see that you are an excellent runner, and you have something important to deliver. For three coppers I can get it there for you faster."
Xondra smiled and responded in Shoanti, "That is very kind of you, my brother, but this requires my hand."
The Shoanti, shocked, grinned. "You speak the noble tongue! Now I am most intrigued! If I cannot deliver the message for you, I will at least run with you!"
"If you can keep up, you are welcome."
The Shoanti roared with laughter. "Well, I will run behind you then, and enjoy myself."
Xondra enjoyed the flattery and the company, and learned that she was running with Many Scars, an exile of the Shriikirri-Quah for failing to protect his hawk during a holy day ritual. Yet his affinity still afforded him great speed, and he could lope along with her easily enough, while peppering every few sentences with flattery and/or flirtation.
The guards at the gates to the Alabaster District, seeing a Shoanti pursuing a young woman, drew their weapons. Xondra reassured them that Many Scars was with her, and they let them past. Many Scars expressed wonder at the Alabaster District; he had never been allowed here before, and the buildings were both horrible and amazing. She led him to Heidmarch Villa and as she ran in she called out for Mary, who promptly produced a small silver pistol on seeing Many Scars. "No, no! He's with me! He helped me get here safely," Xondra exclaimed.
Relaxing, Mary had Giles serve Many Scars a drink and a snack as she learned of Xondra's need. She quickly penned a note and told Xondra to take it to the guards outside. Xondra did so, Many Scars at her side, and the guard let out a curse. "You, sir! You look like a fast and able runner! Take this note to the Arvensoar as quickly as you can! And here's a gold piece for your troubles!"
Many Scars, staring at the first gold coin he had held in his lifetime, was torn between duty and, er, lust. "Where are you staying?"
"I don't know."
"I will find you!"
With that, Many Scars ran off at a full run, which was a truly impressive sight to behold. The guard turned to Xondra. "OK, now that he's out of the way, let's deal with your 'problem'."
The guard quickly gathered a small group of local guardsmen and they escorted Xondra back to the boat where Tussle and the Red Sash were waiting. They put on quite a show of hauling the naked wererats out of the boat and thanking the adventurers for their service to the city. Few dock workers paid any attention; adventurers were always dragging back this or that from some remote sewer or islet, and as long as they were turning the creatures over to the guards for proper investigation and disposal, it wasn't their business anyway.
With the wererats disposed of (and the party did not ask what that 'disposal' entailed), the group returned to Lance and the Tower Girls, and Lance set about waking up one of the two they had first encountered. Embyr was confused. "Well, I'm alive, so you aren't going to kill me, and I don't see any guards, so what do you want from me?"
It took some time for Lance to get his ideas across, simply because they were too difficult for Embyr to believe: The party felt that the Tower Girls had started the conflict when Terisha attacked them, and now that the leadership (and the wererats) were gone, the party was willing to let the girls go, complete with their gear, in exchange for nothing more than a promise to stay out of the party's way forevermore. Embyr admitted that it was a better deal than the girls had any right to hope for; after their battle with the Wrechwash Blades, they had little chance for survival in the Hells, and walking off scot-free with all their gear in exchange for just staying out of the way was too good to be true. She knew that at least 3 of the other girls would go for it immediately, while the 5 others might be more hesitant. Everyone believed her, so Lance channeled and woke up the rest of the girls. With a bit of diplomacy and a bit of intimidation, the girls quickly came to realize just how easily they were getting off, so they agreed to the terms. When the girls mentioned having to go back to Fenster, the party suggested that since they weren't doing anything illegal at the moment, nor did they have any wererats in their group, they might consider taking shelter with Brandi at the Temple of Sarenrae for a while.
Much as they didn't like the idea of forced gardening "for spiritual growth", the alternative (Fenster) was far worse, so they agreed this was the best course. The party freed the girls, helped them with their gear, and saw them off in two of the boats moored at the docks.
Once the girls were off, it was time to get back to business! They returned to the siccatite doors and examined them. Similar to the puzzle box they'd seen at Heidmarch Villa, entwined within the doors' decorations were two words in Thassilonian: On the left door was "LISTEN", while on the right was "THE EYES".
Tussle dug into his trail rations and pressed a piece of bread against the door. It burned to a crisp. In spite of protests from the rest of the party about the smell, Tussle started trying to pull out other foodstuffs from his stores and burn them against the door. The party stopped him.
The first question was whether or not the runes behaved the same way they did on the puzzle box. Tussle touched two runes and they indeed switched places, but he took a bit of a burn from touching the door. The second question was whether or not the runes would switch between doors. This time the Red Sash volunteered and they quickly learned that the runes would not travel between doors. They sat down with pen and paper, and within 60 seconds Tussle suggested "SILENT" for the first door. 30 seconds later, he suggested "THEY SEE" for the second.
With two solid candidates, Lance volunteered to try them on the doors. But not before resting to restore his spells.
The party rested in the tower, then Lance set to work. His hands burned until his eyes watered, but it only took a few swaps to rearrange the letters, and he was rewarded with a loud "click" as the doors swung open.
Their very first concern was the incorporeal undead creature that killed people with negative energy; their guess was that it was a guardian of the door, so they were ready to run. When it didn't appear, they moved forward. Ahead in the darkness, they found a staircase going down into parts unknown. Examining the floors and the staircase, it appeared that no one had used these stairs in millennia. They went down.
At the bottom of the stairs, the Red Sash estimated that they were back at sea level. They arrived at an ancient bath, on a balcony overlooking a green, scum-covered pool. Bat guano covered almost every surface. There were stairs down on either side of the balcony, and at the bottom of each set of stairs a passage led into darkness. More curiously, off to their right a crudely-dug tunnel only large enough for Small creatures led away. The Red Sash determined that this tunnel had been dug by Small creatures with poor tunneling abilities and dull tools, so most likely not creatures that were a threat to the party. They decided they would explore the original Thassilonian passages before searching for whatever creatures had disturbed (and tunneled through) the walls.
As the Red Sash descended the stairs to the right, two translucent blobs burst forth from the water, rolled up to him, and bumped harmlessly against his armored legs. He identified them as giant amoebas, eternally-hungry creatures that were little threat to the party members as long as they did not get grabbed. As the group beat the amoebas to death, Xondra noticed a small blue humanoid watching them from the darkness. He seemed delighted at the party's plight, especially when an amoeba finally landed a blow. But he did not interfere with the fight, nor did he reveal himself once the amoebas were dead.
Unwilling to enter the water to search it, the party ignored their observer and proceeded eastwards. The guano got thicker until the Red Sash's lantern exposed a large room with multiple stalls whose opposite wall was black and seething and pulsing and…
...BATS!!!! Hundreds and thousands of bats swarmed forth as the light entered the room, swarming over the Red Sash and biting him viciously, as well as Tussle and the Red Sash. Xondra noticed that their blue observer was cackling maniacally at this development.
Lance called out that they had no way to deal with the bats, but the Red Sash tried anyway, and his weapon had little to no effect on the swarm. Tussle shot it with a flare cartridge, but this similarly had little or no effect, so Tussle screamed for help. Lance channeled to help those who had been bitten and started retreating. Xondra ran for the stairs, but wondered aloud whether they would be able to make it all the way up before the swarm devoured them. She noticed the blue humanoid laughing uproariously at their plight. She decided she did not like the little monster. Lance followed, cursing their bad luck. Tussle, knowing that doing the same thing over and over again is the right thing to do, created a Major Image of a wall to block off the bats. The bats, failing their save, could not pursue the party.
Wounded and frustrated by a creature they could not defeat, the party decided to go back to town and pick up some armaments that would help them better deal with a swarm of bats. Unfortunately, as they looked at their paltry haul from The Crow, they didn't know that there was a lot they could do: Alchemist's fire was notoriously poor against swarms, scrolls of Burning Hands were expensive for the damage they did, and they didn't have a lot to work with. "Don't worry; I've got this," Tussle responded.
They decided that their first order of business would be to turn Nazir's body over to Sabriyya. Lance was remarkably cynical about the woman: He didn't want to give her any information about The Crow, because she was just another rich noble who'd learn that The Crow held riches and she'd do everything in her power to take it all away from the PCs. They'd just turn over Nazir's body, get the reward, and leave without telling her anything.
Xondra, recognizing the names as Varisian, was a bit more sympathetic. As they arrived in the bazaar, she spent a few of her remaining coins to purchase a bright Varisian funerary tapestry, then the party found a quiet corner and re-wrapped Nazir in the colorful cloth. They started asking after Sabriyya, and it was a matter of minutes before a woman's deep voice said, "I hear you're looking for me. I must admit, you have me intrigued."
The party turned to see none other than Sabriyya Kalmeralm, Princess of the Markets, staring at them with suspicion in her eyes. Lance immediately responded, "We need to talk to you somewhere private."
Sabriyya immediately shooed a pottery vendor out of his tent, invited the party in, and closed the flaps. "Is this sufficient?"
Lance admitted that it was, and Sabriyya admitted that she was even more intrigued. As Xondra tried to tactfully dance around the topic of her missing father and what they'd found (but not where they'd found it), the Red Sash simply thrust the Pendant of the Souk forward. All semblance of power and self control fell from Sabriyya; she gasped and took the pendant. "But… but… this was my father's! Where did you find it?"
Xondra took over from there, explaining that, though they could not tell her where they had found him (yet), they could tell her that he had been killed by negative energy, and that they had brought his remains to her. As Xondra handed over the bundle, Sabriyya started sobbing openly. She looked at Lance with tear-filled eyes. "If I accept a Geas to never speak of this to anyone, will you tell me more?"
Lance's heart pretty much broke at that point, and they spilled their guts.
Sabriyya listened intently. Finally, she said, "I understand. And I understand your need for secrecy. First, I am in a debt to you I can never repay. Here is but a small token of my gratitude," and she wrote them a slip for a credit of 1000 gold pieces at the bazaar, plus any merchant they approached was required to give them full price for anything they sold for the next 3 days.
The party gasped as the magnitude of that statement settled in: Every bit of gear. Every piece of loot. Every. Little. Thing. That they tried to sell, they'd get full price for. Lance was suddenly feeling an awfully lot more well-disposed towards the Princess of Sails.
Sabriyya continued. "Next, you have said that you need but a few days in The Crow. Brandi will be finished with her next garden project in five days, at which point she was planning on taking two days off to meditate on the work she does. Brandi is the most powerful paladin in Magnimar, and asks no questions. In five days, Brandi and I will take a trip to The Crow in search of an undead creature that uses negative energy. Do you understand? Is this time sufficient for you?"
The party admitted that this should be enough, and Sabriyya went on. "If this is not enough time, notify me and I will wait for Brandi's next project to be complete. But I will see where my father died. And if the creature that did it still exists, I will see it ended."
The group acknowledged her plans, made their farewells, and started shopping. Tussle upgraded his regular pistol to a two-barrel variety, then purchased a dragon pistol specifically for dealing with swarms. Xondra picked up four scrolls of Burning Hands. Lance, recognizing that his own abilities weren't sufficient for the party's needs, purchased a wand of Cure Light Wounds.
Since they were in town anyway, Xondra stopped by Heidmarch Villa and mentioned her difficulty in sketching the murals she was finding, so Lord Heidmarch offered her the services of one Andel Gesseran, a scholar in the Pathfinder Society who had been staying at the lodge, and who could be of great use in answering questions and sketching and translating and whatnot. However, Andel was not to be put in danger under any circumstances; Andel would go to areas of The Crow the party had already explored, and would copy images and notes on relics the party had already uncovered. The party readily agreed to this, and Andel joined the party.
Feeling better-equipped to deal with the bats, the party and Andel rowed back to The Crow, and the group set Andel to copying down the image of Runelord Alaznist slaying the previous Runelord of Wrath, Runelord Thybidos. Andel told the group that this mural was an amazingly valuable find, and they simply agreed with him and let him get to copying it down.
Once again, Lance opened the doors, accepting the burns, and they went back down to the room with the scum-covered pool. This time they headed for the hallway where they'd seen the blue humanoid. Although they hadn't noticed him, as they headed up the passage he squeaked in alarm and attempted to flee. The Red Sash had no trouble whatsoever chasing him down and grappling him. He started screaming for help, and, much to the party's horror, after a few seconds the bats came pouring out from the room behind them again. "I got this," Tussle confidently exclaimed.
The first shot from the dragon pistol wreaked havoc on the bats, with hundreds dropping to the floor dead, but it wasn't enough. The bats poured into the hallway and started biting the party, though they mysteriously avoided the Red Sash and his blue companion. Trusting in Tussle, the Red Sash pinned and bound the creature, while Xondra gagged it. Lance stepped out of the swarm of bats and, realizing he could not channel to heal everyone, waited and told everyone to get close to the Red Sash so the bats wouldn't attack them. Tussle moved so as to get another shot at the bats, but not only did his gun jam, but he moved into a position where the bats' only viable location was… on top of Xondra!
Bitten, bleeding, and furious, Xondra cursed at both Tussle and the bats, and used a scroll of Burning Hands to minimal effect on the bats. As Lance and the Red Sash backed away, Tussle unjammed his gun and finished off the bats.
Xondra's glare at Tussle could have killed dragons.
Lance healed up the group and they decided to question the creature. Unfortunately, the only language it spoke was Undercommon. Fortunately, Tussle spoke it. Unfortunately, only Tussle spoke it.
The conversation was as annoying as it was pathetic. Every single thing the creature said was an obvious lie, from how many of its kind there were, to what it was called, to why the bats had come when it called for them. The only thing they learned for sure was that it had some kind of damage reduction, as Tussle had learned by kicking it while the Red Sash had it grappled but before the bats had come. So they carried it on up for Andel to identify.
Andel quickly recognized it as a mite, technically a fey but practically a vermin in its own right, as mites were so ugly that even goblins mocked them, and so vicious that most races exterminated them on sight. Only their cowardice exceeded their cruelty. Their one unique talent was an ability to tame vermin and use them as guardians, so if the party was headed into a mite lair, they would want to be prepared for vermin of all sorts, and antiplague and antivenom would be in order.
Lance asked whether mites flew. Andel admitted that to his knowledge, they did not. So Lance tossed the mite out the window to plummet to its death over a hundred feet below. And so ended the questioning.
The group returned downstairs, found the staircase beyond the now-deceased would-be watchmite, and went down. As far as the Red Sash could tell, they were now underwater. The party could see the end of the stairs ahead of them, past a bend, so Lance peeked ahead and told them the passage opened into a room. The Red Sash joined him and they moved forward, only to see a vast room peppered with huge mounds of dirt and rock that looked like nothing so much as insect nests, but on a massive scale.
As they were deciding whether or not they wanted to deal with insect swarms, a huge ant almost the size of a pony came skittering towards them. The Red Sash engaged it, and Tussle emptied his dragon pistol at the mound to little apparent effect.
With a good bottleneck, the fight with the ants was most notable for its lack of any real danger (the ants could not hit the Red Sash, and he hit them easily) and Tussle's performance. He switched to his double-barreled pistol, but it jammed so he dropped it and pulled out his dragon pistol to start using it. As he moved forward, Xondra kicked the double-barreled pistol over to him, at which point the dragon pistol jammed and he dropped it to retrieve the double-barreled pistol. At one point Lance looked back, saw the weapons and ammunition scattered all over the ground, and said, "I don't think that's how those things work."
With the ants dispatched, the party searched the room thoroughly, finding a well-hidden secret door in the bottom burial niche of one wall (they seemed to be in some sort of catacomb). Opening the door, it was only 2' tall, so Tussle went in first, reported that there was no danger, and the rest of the group slithered through to follow. They found themselves at a four-way intersection, with the path ahead of them being of original Thassilonian make, with "secret" doors to the left and right obviously constructed by the mites, as it was almost impossible to miss seeing them they were built so poorly.
Opening the door to their right, they heard the distinctive ring of hammer on stone and knew they'd found a tunneling crew. They decided to leave the group alone and move forward down the stairs to the room ahead. Once their light was visible from the room, a voice called out in Undercommon, "Is that the adventurers I called for?"
Tussle responded that indeed, it was them, and the voice welcomed them and told them to come on in. Inside the room, sitting on a throne made from the skull of some large humanoid creature, was a mite. But this mite was different from the others. He was a bit taller, and dressed in a red robe, He was wielding a notched, rusted scimitar that looked more likely to break on impact than actually hurt anyone, and on his head his "crown" appeared to be a single bracer for a Medium-sized creature. From its pristine condition, it was either a new acquisition or magical. Tussle told Xondra to cast Detect Magic, but she didn't want to risk offending the "king". Bits of rotting food on filthy, broken platters indicated that people occasionally fed the king, but didn't seem to feel the need to clean up after him.
Then, the real fun began, as Tussle "negotiated" with the king. At first, the king was almost coherent, asking the party to find his "sleeping crown", which was a match for the one he had on his head, but was currently in possession of his beloved pet Clickylegs, who had wandered off to parts unknown. In return, the king would reward the party with a diamond the size of his head. Unfortunately, Tussle happened. As Tussle started in on random thoughts and non-sequiturs, the king eagerly followed, to the point that nearly 45 seconds of the conversation was dedicated to, "Yep,"
"Erm."
"Yep."
"Erm."
"Yep."
"Erm."
The party didn't need to speak Undercommon to understand that the "king" was completely and utterly loopy, but they felt bad for him and didn't want to kill him. They agreed to take his quest, and he gleefully smote his scimitar upon the ground, shattering it, then tossing away the hilt. Tussle told the king that he had some "important" investigation to do, so the king needed to watch the rest of the party carefully. As the king gazed intently, Tussle walked around behind the king, calling out that he was now investigating.
The king's eyes bulged, and he leaned forward, waiting to see what the party would do…
...and Tussle hoisted the "crown" right off the top of the king's head without his noticing!
The rest of the party's eyes bulged almost as wide as the king's...
^That's a new one -- out-nut a notjob.
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A few quick notes as I work on my writeup from Sunday:
(1) As usual, the writeup from last week went out and only Shiro responded, so I'm giving Lara Croft Guy and GothBard a few more days before I post it.
(2) She Who Has Yet To Be Nicknamed has escaped her nefarious fate by deciding to respectfully bow out, since she really feels she could only show up about once a month, and things are progressing waaaay too fast for her. (She last played when the party was level 1, then popped back in and they were level 3, and now they're heading for 4.)
(3) Speaking of that, even though I did the math myself and the progression is "correct", WOW do the PCs level up fast in The Crow, leading to two observations:
Observation #1: The party finished off the entire dungeon at level 2, when it was supposedly designed for a level 3 party. This contributes to my notion that Shattered Star is an AP with kid gloves on
Observation #2: A level 3 party going through the dungeon and the first 9 rooms of the Thassilonian laboratories would be hard-pressed to be challenged by anything other than a single swarm, yet end up at level 4 and curb-stomping the entire level
I think the author made a conscious choice to present the party with a swarm of low-CR creatures (14 mites, anyone?) rather than more dangerous, higher-CR encounters to give them a chance to level up without too many of them dying. Unfortunately, without any seriously dangerous creatures, it really does end up feeling too easy, even for a party as non-optimized as the one I'm running.
We'll see how Book 2 does in that regard.
Too bad about losing a player -- that is going to make things tougher. Any substitute lined up?
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Too bad about losing a player -- that is going to make things tougher. Any substitute lined up?
It's just going from 5 to 4, and she didn't particularly participate in combat all that much, so the main loss will be the skill points. The group's deciding how to divvy those up so they don't lose any skill coverage.
And if they do, they can keep carrying dead things up to Arlen to find out what they are...
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{. . .}
And if they do, they can keep carrying dead things up to Arlen to find out what they are...
Suddenly I have this vision of them ALL turning into cats . . . .
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Session 6, Played 05-Jan-2020
Thinking quickly, Xondra tried to distract King Zuuga with a pantomime performance of the classic Magnimarian routine, "Goblin trapped inside an invisible box" as Tussle desperately tried to figure out what to do with the "crown". Apparently he'd been thinking of putting it in his pocket, and only after the crown was in his hands did he realize that there was no way it would fit in any of his pockets. Lacking any better ideas, Tussle invoked the Shard of Pride and cast Major Image on the crown to make it look like a shotgun. King Zuuga whirled about.
"What was that? What are you doing? Why are you casting a spell?"
"I was casting Detect Evil to find out whether any of those guys are evil," gesturing towards the party.
"But I'm evil!"
"Oh, yeah, right. Well, I was casting Detect Good, but since we're evil I call it Detect Evil so that I don't get confused."
"What?"
BANG!
Tussle shot King Zugga in the face. Apparently negotiations had broken down.
As for the rest of the party, not understanding any of what had just been said, just saw Tussle and the king arguing before Tussle dropped the "shotgun", pulled out his pistol, and shot King Zugga. Lance sighed, "Oh, boy. This isn't going to be good."
As if on cue, high-pitched cries resonated through the throneroom. Although Tussle didn't translate, the party could pretty much tell that the gist was, "Someone just shot the king!"
Speaking of the king, he had to be dealt with first, so the Red Sash strode over and grappled him. The king stabbed the Red Sash valiantly with his broken scimitar, cutting a deep gash across the Red Sash's chest, but the Red Sash held true and pinned and tied up the king as the other mites were doing some kind of preparation down the hall. Tussle started translating for the party that the mites seemed to be trying to herd someone or something towards the party. Lance watched the hallway, waiting to see what came out, while the others were dealing with the king. After a few rounds, the "secret" door down the hall and on the right creaked open and a set of jet black, shiny, spindly legs squeezed painfully out of the tiny space. A black spider the size of a horse crawled impossibly from the narrow crevasse, followed by mites riding more reasonably-sized spiders the size of large dogs or small ponies, followed by more mites on foot wielding daggers. It looked like the entire colony had shown up.
"Uh, guys. There's a bigger spider than I've ever seen in my life coming towards us! Bigger than the one in my bathroom! Does anyone want to come over here and help me block the hall?"
Lance and the Red Sash bravely stood in the hall to receive the rush, but Lance had to yell at Tussle to get behind them and start shooting. Tussle shot one of the smaller spiders, but it didn't seem to hurt it that much. Xondra hexed the large spider, but she could tell it would shrug off the hex momentarily. The only thing keeping them from being overwhelmed was Lance and the Red Sash blocking the entry to the room. If either of them fell, the mites would swarm in and it would be over. They decided not to fall.
The first bite from the large spider cut right through Lance's armor and almost down to the bone, but his orcish constitution shrugged off the venom and he stood firm. He and the Red Sash started cutting into the spider. Tussle moved around and used dragon shot through a narrow opening in the corner. They quickly learned that mites did not do very well in large balls of fire. Xondra spent her time hexing first the other spiders, then the mites as they came up. It could have been ugly. It could have been the end of the party. But after its first blow, the giant black widow spider never hit again, and eventually fell, as did the mites trying to support it. In spite of dozens of darts thrown by mites, one lone dart found its target and did minimal damage. Losing their mightiest creature, half of the mites tried to flee. Some of the remaining mites rushed the party, while others engaged in combat with their own kind, trying to prevent the cowards from getting away. It quickly turned into mop-up duty, but the mites were indeed fast and cowardly: Of the 14 that had attacked them, 7 had gotten away, including one riding one of the dog-sized spiders.
Before pursuing them, it was time to find out what they would be encountering. King Zuuga was reticent at first, but when they offered to find Clickylegs for him he became extremely concerned that they'd kill Clickylegs as they'd killed his giant black widow, so he said that instead of finding Clickylegs, they could find all the treasure they'd ever want if they went downstairs to the kitchen. They couldn't tell whether or not he was bluffing, nor did they really care. As Lance started openly pondering the morals of executing the king or letting him go, Tussle put a bullet between the king's eyes, ending the debate. Xondra reminded Lance that the mites were vermin, and they were doing the city a favor, much like exterminators, as she set about coup de gracing the rest of the surviving mites. If the Red Sash was a bit disturbed at just how good she was at this work, he didn't say anything. While she worked, he collected the "loot" off the mites, though it was nothing but mundane daggers and darts, so they wouldn't get much for all of them, even at full price.
Once the mites were dealt with and the party was healed up, it was time to pursue the rest of them. They went up the passage that the black widow had come out of, wondering at the widow's ability to squeeze through such a narrow space, then came to a T intersection. Although they couldn't tell which way the mites had gone, the Red Sash estimated that the left passage would lead back to the room with the giant ant hills, so it would be more likely for the mites to have gone right. The party agreed, and moved that way.
They arrived in the mites' obvious den, with thick sheets of spiderwebs hanging from the walls and various bits of rubble and garbage stuck together with webbing into makeshift furniture. No mites were there, and a quick search of the room revealed nothing of value, so the party moved on. Past the mites' room was a spiral staircase leading deeper underground. Undaunted, the party continued their presumed pursuit of the mites.
Down the stairs they were presented with two passages: One straight ahead and one off to the left. It wasn't hard to determine which way the mites went: The passage to the left became more and more choked with spiderwebs, looking like nothing so much as a nest, whereas the straight ahead passage slowly cleared of webbing, and there was a very-recently-killed crab-spider thing lying dead in the center of the room ahead. Moving forwards, the party was attacked by the dead creature's three remaining companions, but the group made short work of them. As far as they could tell, the mites had run into the room and kept right on running, but killed one of the crab-spider-things along the way due to pursuit, meanness, or clumsiness. Who knew?
They were at a four-way intersection in some kind of cell block: All directions ahead of them had multiple iron gratings indicating cells, and Lance pointed out that if he wanted to make a vicious incorporeal undead, a cell seemed like a really good way to create one. So they decided to avoid the cells as much as possible, and only move up the passages far enough to determine which one (if any) continued. They quickly determined that the straight ahead passage was the only one with an obvious exit on the other side, so proceeded cautiously past the five empty cells in the hallway. Each cell was outfitted with manacles, a chamber pot, a hard bed, and iron bars. The preservation was impressive, if a bit depressing. Nothing attacked them and they successfully got past the cells and to a large empty room from which a passage off to their left proceeded. A high-pitched voice called out in Undercommon. "Don't take one step more, or we'll release the monster! And it'll devour you all, it will!"
As if to punctuate the threat, there was a loud inhuman gurgling roar from down the passage. Never ones to allow themselves to be intimidated, the group proceeded down the passage until the covered lantern Xondra was carrying could illuminate the "threat". And indeed, it was a threat of Tussle-like proportions: The seven surviving mites and their spider were in the room, and as the party approached three of them ran to the iron bars of a cage and tried to rip the door open by force. Inside the cage was a hideously-deformed creature; something vaguely human-shaped, but with backwards-bending legs, and bizarre fingered mandibles on either side of its mouth. The creature responded to the rattling on its cage by firmly grasping one of the mites and pulling it forcefully through the bars with a loud squishing sound. The mite did not survive the ordeal.
This told the party two things:
The creature was not with the mites, and
The creature did enough damage to be able to get through the mites' damage reduction with its bare claws.
The mites, nonplussed by the situation, fled further into the darkness. The party let them go, and Xondra set about examining the creature. WIth the help of a Guidance spell, she identified it as a "sinspawn", creatures created by the Runelords to be shock troops in their neverending wars. Every sinspawn was related to a sin, and, from its behavior, this sinspawn was a sinspawn of wrath, hence created to serve Alaznist. Considering every sign they'd seen indicated that they were in one of her ruins, this made sense.
Not wanting to leave such a horrific creature alive to cause any further destruction, they stood back a good distance and peppered it with crossbow bolts until it lay still, then stabbed it through the bars for good measure. Once it was good and dead, they searched the room, but found nothing more of interest. The other cell held a long-dead skeleton of some poor soul; probably the body had been there since Earthfall.
There were multiple exits from the room, but the party continued their relentless (if leisurely) pursuit of the mites. The next room was an ancient abandoned barracks, only notable for a staircase leading even further downwards into the darkness. Just how far down did The Crow go? The party's musings were interrupted by the sounds of the mites celebrating finding Clickylegs, convinced that with his(?) help, they would finally be able to rid themselves of their pursuers. Undaunted, the party surged forward to meet the mites on the open field.
It did not go well for the mites. Clickylegs got hexed and entangled (Tussle had entangling shots) and couldn't hit anything. The mites suffered greatly at Tussle's dragon shot and the Red Sash and Lance just hitting them. This time the party showed no mercy and slaughtered every last one of the mites. They collected the various daggers and darts, then found a strange bundle tied to Clickylegs' leg. They had no idea what Clickylegs was; they just knew it had used its claws (utterly ineffectually) in combat, and was a friend of the mites, so they did not mourn it. Inside the bundle was King Zuuga's sleeping crown. It took her some time and consideration, but Xondra finally identified the two crowns as Bracers of Armor +2, which might have been a nice find for a monk, but for the party it was a great big ka-ching as they realized they'd be able to sell the 4000 gold piece item for full price!
The room they were in was rather interesting; it was some kind of amphitheater with another statue of Alaznist at the front, but the back walls were crumbling, and behind the statue was a "secret" door of Thassilonian make that had burst open with the passage of time. The Red Sash didn't trust all the crumbling masonry, and examined it more carefully. It was clear that, just as with much of the Irespan, this masonry was losing its preservative magic and slowly decaying; in another century or two the room would completely collapse. "We're probably good for now," the Red Sash murmured.
The secret door was jammed shut, but a quick shove burst it open and revealed a narrow passage that led to a blank wall. Xondra quickly spotted the latch on the next secret door, the Red Sash opened it, and…
...skeletons! Half a dozen skeletons in servant's livery attacked the Red Sash the moment he opened the door! The finery did not survive their movement and crumbled to dust as soon as they activated. Similarly, the skeletons did not survive the Red Sash's attentions and quickly fell. The party found themselves in some sort of pantry, and wondered aloud who would put in a secret passage leading from the amphitheater to the pantry? What good would it do? Someone finally suggested that it might have been an escape passage and the entire party nodded sagely and moved on.
Across from the secret door was a regular door that led into a regular hallway. Two doors along the hallway led into more storage rooms, and at the end of the hall the passage opened into a large kitchen. The Red Sash moved in, looking for the treasure King Zuuga had mentioned, but heard a disturbing scratching coming from within one of the ovens, as if hundreds or thousands or even millions of creatures were living in the oven and its chimneys. The Red Sash had the rest of the party back out of the room, and he moved away to a safe distance in time to see centipedes start pouring out of the stove. Not just a few, or a few thousand, but a virtual torrent of centipedes, intent on finding what had disturbed them and devouring it. Since Tussle had used almost all of his dragon shot on mites and spiders (behavior that Lance chastised as both unwise and unfrugal), the party had no way to defeat the centipede swarm, so they retreated back into the pantry, stuffed some of the destroyed livery into the cracks at the bottom of the door, then retreated further through the secret door.
Not wanting to go anywhere near the kitchen again, the party returned to the room where they had brutally murdered the sinspawn (or at least put it out of everyone's misery) and followed the passage they'd seen there. It led to a fountain with crystal-clear water and a tiled base with a vortex pattern. Xondra cast Detect Magic on it, and detected faint Conjuration magic. Taking some time to study it carefully, she informed the party that the fountain was a healing fountain, and it would both heal and restore anyone who drank from it. The party marveled at this lucky find, then proceeded past the fountain.
Once again the webs started getting thicker and thicker until the party spotted a large web-choked room ahead. Lance tried burning some of the webbing, but while it burned easily enough, it was not so flammable that a few torches would start the entire room on fire. As he studied the webbing, Tussle spotted a giant spider crawling along the ceiling towards them and warned the party, just as two more giant spiders joined it and all three spit webbing at the party. The Red Sash and Lance were stuck fast to the floor, but Tussle gracefully dodged the blob of webbing and moved forward to fire an entangling shot of his own. Unfortunately, his webbing didn't affect any of the spiders. Even more unfortunately, he was now their prime target!
Fortunately, they spent another round trying to entangle Tussle, and he spent another round dodging their attacks magnificently. Lance had no trouble shrugging out of the webbing, but it took the Red Sash two rounds to tear himself free. Xondra spend her time alternating between hexing spiders or casting Guidance on party members. By the time the spiders finally came down to attack Tussle, Lance and the Red Sash were able to assist him, but this didn't mean that Tussle didn't get bitten several times and poisoned at least once. The party finally put the spiders down, and Tussle raced back to the fountain to restore his depleted strength. Lance wondered aloud how long Tussle was going to survive with his reckless, lunatic behavior. Tussle honestly didn't know.
With no resources to fight the centipede swarm and no desire to go deeper into the dungeon, the group verified that they had explored the entire dungeon area, then went back upstairs and finished exploring the mite area. Finding nothing of interest, they went upstairs, retrieved Andel, and returned to town.
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We may or may not roleplay the last bit of the session: They received 100 gp from Sir Heidmarch for the picture of the mural, 1000 gp from Lady Heidmarch, and Boots of the Cat Burglar from Natalya in return for "dealing" with the Tower Girls in such a way that she would no longer be hunted. They also learned from Sabriyya that Terisha was missing, and no one had seen her since the party defeated her several days ago…
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When they said Mites were to be treated as Vermin, they weren't kidding.
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Session 7, Played 12-Jan-2020
The party spent a great deal of time shopping and planning for how to deal with the centipede swarm. The Red Sash bought many, many bottles of oil and several flasks of alchemist's fire. Lance bought some alchemist's fire for himself. Tussle, being Tussle, bought fireworks. But also some grenades and ingredients for more incendiary ammunition. Xondra, knowing that she could teach Micu Burning Hands from one of the scrolls she had already purchased and then have him help her prepare it in the morning, focused on more important things such as a little ball for Micu to play with and a nice Varisian scarf for him to wear so that people would know he wasn't wild.
When the Red Sash returned to Serpent's Run, he found Moira in their room, engrossed in some dust-covered tome she had found who knows where. After their usual greetings, he showed her the familiar pouch he had purchased for her, the nice towel he had put in it for her, the little treats she could have eaten while in there, and the scratch marks on his arm from when he had tried to "convince" her to go into it. He hoped that showing her the case while she was in her human form would make her more likely to accept it in her arman form.
He then sat down with her and explained everything that had happened since her change, and showed her the vast wealth the party had set aside for her on the off chance she would return. Her eyes widened, and she and the Red Sash went off to do more shopping. Once they felt fully prepared, they returned to Serpent's Run for a good night's sleep.
Lance stated that he was going back to his "usual" inn in Lowcleft, since apparently staying at the same place more than one night in a row made it "usual". Xondra decided she would join him. While Lance's evening was uneventful, Xondra overheard two men come in talking about a "bloody huge barbarian" carrying a bouquet of flowers "he'd obviously nicked from some poor people's gardens" going inn to inn, asking about "a Varisian woman in a veil who runs really well."
Xondra smiled, but did not seek him out, and Many Scars had no luck finding her that night.
As for Tussle, Tussle decided that he just had to be Tussle. He headed all the way down to Ordellia, all the way back to old Master Quigglemuffle's apothecary, and walked in the door.
Master Quigglemuffle could not hide his surprise. "What are you doing here? I fired you!"
"No you didn't. I just left and never came back. So I didn't quit, and you didn't fire me, so I still work here."
"What?"
"Can I sleep with you tonight?"
"WHAT?!?!?!"
"No, no. Not THAT way! I just want to sleep in your house tonight."
"NO! Get out!"
Unfazed, Tussle returned to the Imperial, plunked down his 50 gold, rode his barbarian-carried throne with his delicious chocolates up to his magnificent room. And set to crafting more bullets. And just as before, a well-appointed butler well-versed in the crafting of firearms and firearm ammunition joined him, and assisted him for the evening, even calling for a magnificent roast beef dinner at the proper time, and a variety of chilled sorbet to cleanse the palate, and warm milk and cookies when Tussle was ready to turn in. The butler even tucked Tussle in with his gunpowder-stained hands, just like papa used to do. Or at least that's the way Tussle liked to remember it.
In the morning, the party and Arlen rowed back to The Crow. Even though the fog was fairly thick this morning, the Red Sash was getting accustomed to the trip, and had little trouble navigating them there safely. Even though it was Moira's first trip, she had little difficulty navigating the precarious platform and vertical trap door that forced Lance to wear the Ring of Feather Fall every time, and they proceeded down, down, down, all the way through the interior of the Crow. They had a bit of difficulty getting all the way there, because as they set Arlen up on his next task, Moira wanted to stay and watch and take notes and decipher everything and figure out what riddles the runes might contain. The Red Sash assured her he would show her something cooler, and led her to the siccatite door, then suggested she swap two runes.
Moira was not amused, sucking her burnt fingers as the Red Sash accepted his penance and swapped the other three runes, taking the burns in bemused silence. Reviewing the layout of the dungeon, they decided that the best place to take on the centipede swarm would be the "spider room", where the web-covered floor would most certainly slow the swarm (if not stop it entirely; Lance argued that spiders ATE centipedes, but cooler heads pointed out that once enough centipedes stuck, the rest would be running on the backs of their brethren, rather than the webs). Tussle had already cleaned the northern portion of the room of webbing thanks to randomly-fired shots of destructive fire (for which Moira tsked at him and asked him to be more careful; they were in ruins of incalculable historical value). The Red Sash covered the entire southern portion of the room with oil: 20 flasks' worth, at least. He and Lance prepared alchemist's fire. Tussle and Moira prepared grenades. Xondra stood at the back, Burning Hands at the ready in case the long, slow burn of all the other weapons of mass destruction failed to bring down the swarm.
All that was left was to attract it.
The Red Sash started hooting and yelling and banging his earthbreaker on the stone floor. Much to everyone's surprise, it worked! Lance was the first to see the black mass approaching, and his alchemist's fire hit it spot on, just as it ran over the first patch of oil. Now that it was well-lit (in more ways than one), the Red Sash tossed a second alchemist's fire, and Tussle and Moira tossed grenades. Moira's throw certainly looked bizarre, with a looping, flicking motion of the wrist that made it look like she'd released the grenade by accident, but it ended up landing directly behind the swarm, preventing its escape, so everyone assumed she did it on purpose, and she wasn't about to dissuade them of that notion. Xondra waited, ready to pounce if the swarm got too close to any of her friends before perishing from the onslaught.
The swarm charged further into the room, over another patch of oil, and another, and soon it seemed that every last centipede was covered with oil and burning, and the stench and the smoke were unbelievable, and it came close, and Xondra got ready… and it skidded to a halt a few feet shy of the Red Sash.
They had killed the swarm.
Searching the kitchen while killing the remaining centipedes revealed nothing. Some argued that the mites had lied to them in an attempt to lure them into the room with the swarm and ensure a quick and grisly death for all of them. Others argued that the mites probably thought that the centipede swarm was a great treasure. In any case, there was nothing valuable to humans in the kitchen, so they decided to move downstairs.
Now well underground, they were rather surprised that this flight of steps was rather short, and ended with a clean stone door. Moira noticed bits and pieces of small humanoid skeletons around the door, along with signs of a hurried attempt to brace the door closed using inadequate tools and a sign in Undercommon that read, "Don't."
Listening at the door, the party heard something rather enormous slithering around on the other side of the door. Lance suggested that this was simply the mites' way of balancing the universe: They had millions of centipedes, so they needed something big with no legs. From the evidence in front of her, Moira suggested that perhaps, just perhaps, this wasn't one of the mites' pets.
They called out in Undercommon to try to communicate with the creature, but were rewarded with nothing more than a howling and loud banging on the door. With no other recourse, the party drew their weapons, put themselves in position, and, much to everyone's astonishment, Xondra's raven hair grew longer and longer and longer, much like a trapped princess in a fairy tale, until it reached a full ten feet across the hall and opened the door for the Red Sash.
The huge spray of vomited maggots eliminated any thoughts of princesses or fairy tales.
Fortunately, the Red Sash was quick on his feet and easily avoided the spray, and the creature, whatever it was, fell fairly quickly to Tussle's shots, Xondra's hex, and the Red Sash's blows. Moira studied it and noted that it was an infernal larva, normally a relatively small creature, but this one had obviously been trapped here for millenia, unable to open any of the four doors leading out of the room.
Inside the room, other than slime, maggots, and a giant dead infernal larva, there was yet another statue of Alaznist, this one with a very real-looking ranseur. A quick Detect Magic revealed that it was indeed a real magical ranseur, and with a bit of study Xondra identified it as a +1 cold iron ranseur. Not one to leave a weapon behind, the Red Sash quickly pulled it loose and added it to his arsenal.
Listening to all of the doors, the one to the right had at least two creatures conversing in a language that Moira identified as Ignan, language of the Plane of Fire. The party decided to go that way. Ahead, at the end of a long passage, were two small fire elementals (again identified by Moira) watching the party intently. Approaching, the party recognized a Magic Circle inscribed in the floor, and Xondra quickly identified it as a Magic Circle Against Law binding the two fire elementals within the room. With no way to communicate with them and no reason to leave them to their eternal imprisonment, Lance cast Abundant Ammunition on Tussle and Tussle shot them to death.
Moving on, the next stone door had someone with a high-pitched voice issuing orders in Infernal, and when Xondra opened it with her long, long hair a pair of sludgy, slimy creatures tried and failed to strike the Red Sash. The party made short work of them, at which point the high-pitched voice addressed them in Thassilonian: They were in the presence of the magnificent Suzerain of Little Erebus, and they had passed the first test. If they would perform two more tasks for him, they would be rewarded with high-ranking positions in his domain and wealth beyond measure. The tasks seemed simple enough: Retrieve two "captives" from the suzerain's arch-enemy, Lord Baz, and kill Lord Baz.
Needless to say, the party didn't so much "negotiate" as "nit-pick". How big was the domain? Just this floor of the Crow? What was "immeasurable wealth" anyway? How could they trust an employer they couldn't see? As the suzerain became more and more livid, in Common Lance suggested just killing him and being done with it. Unfortunately, the suzerain spoke Common and became even more incensed. Unfortunately for him, Xondra had Glitterdust prepared, and all his fuming and yelling had told her exactly where he was.
The poor imp (for an imp he was) had little chance. His Suggestion slid off the Red Sash's mind harmlessly. In spite of being able to fly up to the ceiling of the room, Tussle could lay waste to him with pistol shots, and the Red Sash could reach him with his newly-found ranseur. Tussle had added tracer rounds to his arsenal for just such an emergency, so the suzerain couldn't even turn invisible to escape. He lost half his health in little nicks and cuts, flew down to engage the Red Sash in an effort to eliminate at least one of his enemies, and took a ranseur to the face and dropped. To everyone's surprise, his body didn't vanish; he had been gated to the Material plane, and wasn't a summoned creature.
Searching the vile little beast, the party found a pouch with 177 silver (Lance asked why a creature vulnerable to silver would be carrying so much of it) and a scroll of Animate Dead. No one was interested in animating the little imp, so they tucked the scroll away for sale. Given more time, Moira identified the two other creatures they had killed as lemures, the lowest form of devil. Just in case they ran into Lord Baz, they cut off the suzerain's head and took it with them.
Continuing their exploration of the floor but moving carefully, they heard more creatures before they saw them. In a display of stealth only Tussle could understand, he cast Dancing Lights so he could see what they were. Somehow, the two lemures spotted him and attacked. They were no match for the party. Nor was the jammed door across from the lemure ambush.
Inside was a clutter of detritus and discarded equipment and… Tussle's Holy Grail: A fully-intact clockwork servant lying in the middle of a heap of rubble. As Moira explained clockwork servants to Tussle, he got more and more excited, imagining the contraption carrying him about the dungeon, about town, and everywhere he wanted to go. He'd never have to walk again!
Lance suggested that it was a very valuable item, and Tussle would have to give up his most valuable item in return. Tussle immediately agreed to give up the Shard of Pride in exchange for the servant. Eagerly, he searched the room for the servant's crank, found it, and…
...it didn't fit!
Tussle's disappointment was unimaginable. For the rest of the dungeon, he balefully called out, "Crank… Craaaank… Craaaaaaaaaaaaank!" He searched every room, no matter how large, for signs of a crank. Tussle became crank-obsessed.
In addition to the strange crank that did not fit the servant, there was a set of masterwork mithral smith's tools. The party debated keeping them or selling them, but finally added them to the "sell" pile.
Moving on, the next room was a vast laboratory, 30 feet wide and over 100 feet long, A mural of a woman's face on a mountain (the party eventually deduced that it was Alaznist on Hollow Mountain) above a tentacled, fanged mouth meant nothing to the party. Tussle performed his crank search and found nothing, so the party kept going. They chose to go through a door on the near end of the lab instead of out the passage on the other side, then started running into various barriers: The first passage they tried was blocked by a pool of water, across which was the skeleton of a fleshwarped dinosaur, and they chose not to proceed that way. The next passage they followed had a room filled with a deep pool with something swimming in it, so they avoided that. Another try, and they saw the other end of the fleshwarped dinosaur's room. Yet another door, and a room with a sign in Thassilonian that read, "Do not leave cages open," and sounds from beyond the door that clearly indicated that the cages had indeed been left open.
The final passage led to some sort of circular maze with iron plates covering the walls and intricate Thassilonian runes covering the plates. Moira set to work deciphering them, and in a few minutes she notified the party that they were in a "Rift Siphon", a device used by Thassilonians to thin the walls between planes to make summoning creatures easier. Xondra identified the plane as Hell, explaining all the devils. Lance asked whether it was possible to destroy the siphon, and Moira explained that they'd have to move around the siphon destroying iron plates, but the destructive energies were likely to cause additional rifts to Hell to form, so they had to be ready to fight.
As the party got to work (well, the Red Sash got to work and the rest of the party guarded him), a hell hound attacked them. And that was about as eventful as it was. Moira identified it, it managed to breathe fire on Lance and the Red Sash, and it died. The Red Sash finished the job with no further incidents, and the siphon was disabled.
The only passage out of the siphon was blocked by a portcullis with the crank on the other side, but Xondra's hair made short work of that particular barrier, and they found themselves on the other end of the room with the open cages.
Sighing, they gave up, went back to the lab room, crossed it, and took the passage there. As they approached yet another statue of Alaznist, a few sparks and puffs of smoke warned them that something was afoot, so they managed to avoid the fireball that filled the passage. Moira set to work disabling the trap, and only set off one additional fireball before disabling it. Continuing their leftwards journey, they came upon an interesting room: On the left was a statue of seven robed men and women, their faces eroded with age. On the right was a statue of Alaznist. On the floor in Thassilonian it read, "Does true power lie within the one or the many?"
Once they had determined that the statues were indeed magical, the Red Sash went over and touched the status of Alaznist. He was filled with a sense of coordination and power, and knew that he had chosen wisely. No one, not even Tussle, dared touch the other statue.
Continuing through the room, they saw a staircase leading back to the entry room with the dead giant larva, but proceeded until they heard the sounds of fighting. Once again, Tussle snuck ahead and saw nothing, because gnomes can't see in the dark. Figuring there was some kind of gladitorial combat going on, the party stepped around the corner. Two vile, emaciated creatures with hollow, bleeding eyes and wicked-looking spears were fighting each other for the amusement of two imps in the balcony. Distracted for a moment, the imps looked at the party. Tussle, not one for brilliant diplomacy, said, "Hey, uh, we killed that big imp for you!"
Enraged that the party had dared kill their leader, the imps ordered their minions to attack, and flew in to attack as well. One imp Suggested to Tussle that they were most angry at him, and would tear him apart unless he fled the Crow entirely. Tussle fled. Other than that, the fight did not go well. One of the emaciated creatures managed to nick itself in a major artery and bleed to death without harming a party member. The other got one-shot by the Red Sash. One imp took so much damage that he turned invisible and fled, leaving his companion to die at the Red Sash's hands. While all this was going on, Moira was chasing Tussle and grappling him, then Lance was using Liberty's Blessing to try to break the Suggestion, then Tussle was failing his save, tee-heeing and saying things like, "Unhand me!", then slipping loose and running off further down the passage. By the time Lance, Moira, and the finally-cured Tussle got back, the fight was essentially over. The Red Sash had been poisoned a bit, but nothing that the fountain upstairs wouldn't cure.
The party was beginning to think that it was just time to kill everything on this level and be done with it.
Who's running Moira now? I thought her player had dropped as they realized they didn't have the time to dedicate for the game.
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Who's running Moira now? I thought her player had dropped as they realized they didn't have the time to dedicate for the game.
This was her final session.
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Poor Fire Elementals -- looks like this party is turning murderhobo to make up for their non-lethal actions against the Tower Girls. Although it is strange that Magic Circle Against Law would hold them, since they are usually Neutral.
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Poor Fire Elementals -- looks like this party is turning murderhobo to make up for their non-lethal actions against the Tower Girls. Although it is strange that Magic Circle Against Law would hold them, since they are usually Neutral.
Yeah, I found it extremely bizarre, too, but it's how the AP has them stuck there. But the party's feeling was that the fire elementals could spend eternity stuck in that stupid circle or they could kill them and put them out of their misery. There was at least some discussion as to the "right" thing to do with them...
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I though dropping a straw across such a circle was supposed to be enough to deactivate it. Preferably first put some combustible debris next to where you are about to interrupt each circle, so that the Fire Elementals have something to burn when they get out, because after all that time, they are probably going to be nuts. If a straw wouldn't be enough for these circles, then take some time to figure out what is enough (and if necessary, first level up enough to be able to pull it off -- after a few thousand years of imprisonment, a few more months or even years isn't going to make much difference).
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^Also, Small Fire Elementals aren't that big a threat, even if they decide to go murderhobo themselves. (Providing them an offering of combustible debris would be an offering against this, potentially giving you at least time to leave first -- although they are fast, so if they are determined to chase, you would have to fight them.)
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Well, that was the big debate: They knew that they could free them, but they didn't have the spell power to send them back to the Plane of Fire, so they'd just be letting two (probably insane) fire elementals run amok on the Material Plane for no good reason. Killing them seemed to be the "greater good" at that point.
But since Fire Elementals can't cross water unless it has a layer of flammable liquid on it, they would be limited to running amok in the Crow.
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Yet another mini-tirade about authors and editors having no concept of how their own rules actually work.
I'm prepping Book 2 (Curse of the Lady's Light), including the extended web content, which, don't get me wrong, is actually really cool content that I'm adding because I like it quite a bit.
But in the extended content, if the group goes by boat, they encounter a caster who casts preparatory spells on a small boat before taking any actions. The book then sets the PCs' Perception checks at 25 (5 + barrier (10) + asleep (10) = 25).
Sorry, no.
Spellcasting is an automatic Perception DC of -10, so the actual Perception check is -10 + 10 + 10 = 10, which means pretty much everyone on the ship will wake up and hear the caster. Fortunately, the book also shorted the caster a feat, so a quick Silent Spell cleared that up.
Then we move on to the main book, where the PCs encounter an NPC with an initial attitude of Unfriendly (DC 20) who considers helping the PCs to be along the lines of "an important secret" (+10). So, the book sets the Diplomacy DC at 30.
Nope.
"If a creature’s attitude toward you is at least indifferent, you can make requests of the creature."
So, you can't ask for help until you first adjust the attitude up from unfriendly, so there's no such thing as that DC 30 roll.
And then yep, the eternal, "If you shift the NPC from Unfriendly to Helpful," which is one of my HUGE pet peeves because of the whole, "A creature’s attitude cannot be shifted more than two steps up in this way."
So just, "Yeah, we don't know the rules, so make it up as you go along."
So irritating.
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I'll be looking forward to see you proofreading any of the PF2 adventures when (if) you get to that.
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I'll be looking forward to see you proofreading any of the PF2 adventures when (if) you get to that.
I'm afraid we have no plans to migrate to PF2; so much so that I canceled my subscriptions rather than receiving any PF2 stuff. We're old enough and we have enough of a backlog of PF1 APs (plus other settings such as Runequest that we build campaigns around) that we could go at least 20 more years without touching PF2. Considering we're (mostly) in our 50s, that just seems like enough content for now...
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^That works too.
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Session 8, Played 19-Jan-2020
After making sure everyone was OK and the immediate danger from any poison had been taken care of, the group proceeded into the room where the imps and nupperibos had been. It had clearly been originally designed as some kind of surgical classroom, then converted into some sort of fighting pit for the imps' amusement. The party was even happier they'd killed one, and looked forward to finding the other. As Moira peered around, she let out a little "mew" and, much to the Red Sash's dismay, slowly shrank back into her black-and-white feline form. As he tried to coax her into the familiar pouch he'd purchased for her (and shown her), Lance pointed out that it seemed to be happening more and more often, and lasting longer and longer, and wasn't the Red Sash worried that some day she'd just end up permanently a cat?
The Red Sash didn't respond, but instead used a bit of beef jerky and a well-armored hand to get Moira into the familiar pouch. She obviously didn't approve, but he finally managed to get her safe and sealed up.
With that out of the way, the party crossed the fighting pit, went up the stairs, performed the requisite search for cranks, and moved on down the passage. At the end of the hall, the passage widened to a 30' wide room, 10' deep, with three doors facing them. A fountain burbled off to their left. Lance started in. "One of us can only lie. One of us can only tell the truth. There is a tiger behind one, er, two of these three doors."
As he spoke, a loud banging came from the door nearest the fountain. "That's not the tiger!" Lance insisted.
Since whatever was through the door didn't seem to be able to get through it, they spent a bit of time orienting themselves. Tussle examined the fountain, then put a stick in it and was surprised to find a long, thin key made of a pale green material. Tussle nearly squealed. "The crank!"
This made the banging on the door even louder, so Lance called out in Thassilonian, "Are you intelligent? Do you want to negotiate?"
A voice from the door farthest from the fountain called out, "They're not, but I am, and I do."
"Who are you?"
"Lord Baz, ruler of this realm."
The party negotiated through the door for a few moments, just long enough to ensure neither side would be attacking the other when the door opened. Opening the door, the party saw a vile devil with a cherub's top and a bloated fly's bottom. Another imp (maybe the one they had wounded?) cowered next to Lord Baz. As had the Suzerain, Lord Baz started offering them safe passage through his realm and a rich reward if they would only kill the Suzerain. They immediately accepted and produced the Suzerain's head, then quickly pointed out that they'd agreed to safe passage and a reward, NOT to not kill Lord Baz.
Lord Baz was nonplussed. Further negotiations ensued, and he managed to get them to spare his life by handing over his silver coffer full of Thassilonian coins, promising not to leave the room for the next 150 years, promising never to leave his "realm", and answering all questions about the area truthfully. On the other hand, this was all Lord Baz really wanted, as he would be a pitiful demon in any other area, so he felt like he'd gotten a good bargain. Unfortunately, nobody told him that the party had destroyed the rift siphon, so he'd never manage to rebuild much of anything. Ah, well, he'd probably find out in a century or two.
As for the imp, it managed to spare its own life by offering to serve Lord Baz, but Lance was still mad at it for stinging the Red Sash and messing with Tussle's mind, so he told it it had to write a warning on the door in its own blood in order to survive. It readily agreed, and Lance asked whether it spoke Common. When he learned that it didn't, he wrote a long, rambling paragraph in chalk on the door and insisted that the devil trace the entire thing in blood. As Tussle noted, with its fast healing it had to stab itself every time it needed to write a word, and Lance simply responded, "Yes, I know."
Lord Baz's information proved extremely valuable: In the northeast corner of this level were three nupperibos under Lord Baz's control who were guarding "Stinky", a reprehensible creature that Lord Baz would appreciate if the party would kill. He gave them the password to get past the nupperibos. The room with the dinosaur skeleton was home to a gray ooze, as he had learned by trial and error with exploratory missions with his minions. Similarly, the deep pool with the stairs going down into it was inhabited by a number of aquatic sinspawn that Lord Baz and his minions did not feel like coping with. He had, of course, not opened the door to the loose cages because it would obviously be unlawful to do so.
Lance sighed and couldn't help but agree.
Once they were sure that the imp and Lord Baz had been rendered harmless by their promises (not being able to leave the room for 150 years was a pretty strong one, they felt), they relented and let Tussle go to his precious, precious clockwork servant. He wound it up, it stirred to life, it imprinted on him, he climbed on, and… nothing. With great sadness, Tussle realized that he had no idea how to make it work. Xondra held out an open palm, and Tussle handed her the Shard of Pride. She smiled, tucked it away, examined the construct, and suggested a Thassilonian word to Tussle. It made the clockwork servant move to where he pointed! Tussle was overjoyed! He asked Xondra to teach him "attack" and she did. She asked whether he wanted to learn "Stop", but Tussle didn't see any reason he'd ever need his construct to stop, so why bother? Tussle named his new best friend Geary, although he pronounced it Gary just to make sure it was clear he was making a joke. Gnomes.
Once Tussle had his "mount", the party went back to the room next to the fountain where they had heard the noises. Lord Baz had told them that there were two lemures there, not under his control, so he didn't care what the party did to them. The party dutifully opened the door and slaughtered them. Their next stop was the guardroom outside of Stinky's room, and they were pleased to note that the password worked, and the nupperibos did not attack them. They tried to enter Stinky's room, but the door was barred from the inside. As the Red Sash started trying to shove his way in, a high-pitched wailing and fearful sobbing came from inside. Obviously, Stinky was not the monster Lord Baz made him out to be. They tried every language they knew, but Stinky knew none of them. Lance offered that he could prepare Comprehend Languages on the next day, and Xondra said she'd study Infernal.
With no obvious pressing business in The Crow, they collected Arlen and went back to town to shop, study, and put Moira back in her room at Serpent's Run. Because of Geary's weight they had to take two boats, but Xondra was able to deduce how to make him row. Once they were done shopping, they (almost) went their separate ways: The Red Sash went to Serpent's Run to take care of Moira. Tussle went to the Golemworks to learn how to manage the clockwork servant. Xondra went to Heidmarch Villa to do some research. On learning that room and board at the villa were free as long as you were on Pathfinder business, Lance decided to stay there, too. Once Tussle was done at the Golemworks, he decided he'd "slum" at Heidmarch Villa as well, but not before he had Geary outfitted with a saddle.
Two interesting things happened to Xondra that night. The first happened as she was throwing a ball for Micu on the front lawn. She offered to let Mary play with Micu a bit, and, watching the way Mary moved and threw the ball, she suddenly realized that Mary was not "the help". Sometimes, bodyguards are best kept in plain sight. The second happened when she was asleep. She dreamt of a path under the moonlight in the woods, with two paths diverging. One path had stars and silver butterflies and other signs of Desna. The other had wandering spirits, a cool but welcoming orb, and a sense of leading the lost to peace. Micu's voice spoke in her head. "Soon, you must choose."
In the morning she eagerly researched this symbology. It was clearly that of Ashava, an empyreal lord of Magnimar who guided lost spirits to places they could rest peacefully. Apparently, more than one divinity had taken an interest in Xondra.
In the morning, they returned to the door outside Stinky's. Xondra had managed to pick up quite a bit of infernal over the evening, and could work out that he was screaming, "No! Bullies! Stay out!"
He certainly didn't seem like a threat, so Xondra gently coaxed him and convinced him that the party didn't mean to hurt him, so could he please open the door and talk to them. The moment he opened the door, the three nupperibos that had until then been motionless attacked him. The party put them down quickly, before they could so much as scratch Stinky. Unfortunately, not only did Stinky live up to his name, sickening most of the party with his stench, but he was neither very bright nor very useful. He had become intelligent by eating the corpses of devils slain in the neverending battle between the Suzerain and Lord Baz, and both sides had taken to driving him towards the other, sending him into rages that he could not remember, but that provided him with plenty of food.
Lance suggested that they not make him angry until he had Calm Emotions prepared.
The party finally decided that Stinky was an honest-to-goodness threat; a lemure grown sentient and so powerful that he could tear apart an imp or another lemure in a matter of seconds. But they didn't want to confront him without proper defenses, so they convinced him that for his own safety he should continue to barricade himself in his room and they'd come back for him. That they would come back was true, at least.
Moving on, they found a room with a fascinating staircase that descended directly into the water. Water could not come into the room because of a shimmering blue field, but it looked like you could just walk down the stairs and into the sea below. Too bad no one could breathe water! The next room they explored was some kind of observatory, with a huge domed chamber looking out into the sea. The chamber was protected by Walls of Force. Looking about, the party spotted the wreck of a fishing vessel nearby. The Red Sash immediately recognized it as the Liza Jane a fishing boat that had sunk several years ago. Nobody even bothered to ask the Red Sash why he would know such a thing. Still frustrated by their lack of means to breathe water, Tussle started poking about. And found a little scroll dispenser that popped out two scrolls… of Water Breathing.
Since fate would have it, Lance used one of the scrolls to cast Water Breathing on the party, and they proceeded down the staircase, apparently not surprised in the least that the field stopped water from passing but allowed them to pass through freely. As they walked towards the wreck of the Liza Jane, two clawed creatures swam out and viciously attacked the Red Sash. They couldn't seem to miss him, clawing him and poisoning and causing him some distress, but the group was able to put them down before the Red Sash was even half dead, and he figured that was good enough. But he was quite cranky at how slow the whole combat had been, thanks to all the water around them.
Someone finally identified the creatures as reefclaws and recognized that their claws were delicacies, so the party detached same for later consumption or sale.
Searching the Liza Jane, they determined that it had probably sunk by hitting The Crow, which seemed like a pretty horrific navigational error for a fishing boat. In the captain's quarters they found a safe with a locket in it with the initials "L.B." on it, then a masterwork mithral rapier and a magical shield that Xondra couldn't identify. Returning up the staircase, they were all overjoyed to learn that the field prevented all water that wasn't in some sort of container from coming through, so they were bone dry when they returned to the room with the staircase.
Now that they were breathing water anyway, and they had a lot of resources, they decided to deal with all of the rest of the denizens of the level Lord Baz had told them about. They went to the room with the aquatic sinspawn, and, in a particularly odd bit of planning, Tussle managed to put Geary right next to the edge of the water. The sinspawn couldn't resist, and pulled Geary under. Unfortunately, only one of them managed to get a hold of Geary and sink, so the other two faced the wrath of Tussle as he shot one of them in the head at point-blank range with both barrels and the Red Sash dealt with the other. Lance, the Red Sash, and Tussle(!!) all dove underwater to save Geary, but fighting underwater was hard. However, Tussle instructed Geary to crush the sinspawn's head, and Geary did so quite effectively. The party began wondering whether giving Geary to Tussle had been the wisest idea after all.
After quite a bit of effort to get themselves out of the pool (Geary could swim, apparently), they went to the room with the gray ooze in it and lured it out with sinspawn parts, then shot it to death in a running fight. They also tracked down Lord Baz' other nupperibos and killed them, and opened the "Do Not Open" door and killed the fleshwarps therein. Everything on the level with the exception of Lord Baz, his imp, and Stinky was dead. It was time to move on.
What surprised them about the staircase was that it was relatively shallow; they didn't go much deeper below the surface. Even more astonishing was the light ahead; as they peered into the room, it seemed to be some kind of cistern, with water running in troughs in all directions. The entire level seemed to be some kind of sewer, with narrow walkways running over brackish water. But there was an ornamental onyx torch burning in the room, leading to the question: Was it magical, or had someone lit it?
They were distracted from this train of thought by the sound of a man's voice singing in the passage to the left. Xondra pondered a moment and recognized it as Necril, the language of the dead. She raced back upstairs so as to be out of hearing range of the mysterious singer and cast Comprehend Languages on herself. Going back downstairs, she heard a very silly song about corpses and worms crawling in and out and placing card games on your nose. She immediately had a romantic image of some kind of undead merman longing for companionship. There was another lit torch down that way, so they had no fear of darkness as they moved towards the singing. Unfortunately, between Lance and Geary, they were not a quiet party, and they heard the singing cut off and a splash before they even got close to the room. They lined up just outside of the room and Xondra called out in Common, "Hello! Are you there?"
"Ah, a civilized tongue," a deep male voice said from the waters beneath the walkway.
The unseen person proceeded to warn them of the dangers of the sewers: One room contained huge carnivorous eels; another contained explosive poisonous gas. Yet a third had a green slime on the ceiling. Even worse, there were derro lurking about, kidnapping Magnimarians and performing horrible experiments on them.
Once he finished his monologue, he continued, "Now that I have given you something of value, and I am hoping that you will at least listen to me as I ask you a favor."
He identified himself as Lockerbie Brast, captain of the Liza Jane. He asked the party to go there and retrieve his things, then bring the locket to his bereaved wife and tell her that they had found the wreckage of the Liza Jane with no survivors.
They readily agreed, pointing out that they'd already been there and had his things, and he quickly identified the shield as a +1 buckler for the party. They pried a bit as to why he didn't want them to see him, so he climbed out and they saw him in all his ghoulish glory. For he had been bitten by a ghoul, and had ghoul fever, and he knew that if he didn't take himself and his crew to the bottom of the sea they would suffer a fate worse than death. His crew perished. He hadn't, and had been reborn as a lacedon. He didn't want his wife to know that he was trapped in undeath forever.
The party just said, "Yeah, we can fix that."
Lockerbie offered them anything they wanted in return, thanking them for their generosity, but admitting that his hunger frequently got the better of him. So they first fed him the reefclaw claws, but that didn't seem to satsify him, so they went back upstairs and got him some sinspawn because they happened to have a few lying around.
Now that they knew what they would be facing, they decided what to do next...
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^After their murderhoboing of the Mites and the Fire Elementals, I am pleasantly surprised that they spared Stinky and Lockerbie.
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Session 9, Played 26-Jan-2020
The very first thing the party did was to put their heads together about derro. Since she'd been warned about them dozens of times by the Sczarni, Xondra knew the most: Derros dwell deep under most of the surface world’s cities, but keep themselves well-hidden. Derros lust for the comforts of the surface, yet the light of the sun causes them to blister, burn, and die. Derros often abduct surface dwellers to perform hideous experiments on them in their never-ending quest to divine what protects those who dwell above from the burning death. In the end, traumatized victims are returned to their homes, memories not quite completely wiped of their ordeal, to live the rest of their lives in vague fear of a nightmare they can’t quite recall.
Other than being generally insane, liking to use poison, and being allergic to sunlight, Xondra didn't know much about their tactics or abilities.
The party had no difficulty putting two and two together: People in Magnimar were vanishing and returning with wiped memories. The derro were obviously the culprits.
Given the choice between poisonous explosive gas, dripping green slime, or a couple of giant eels, the party wisely chose the eels. Moving down the hallway Lockerbie had suggested, they found a small utility room with a pair of skeletons, picked clean of all flesh and wearing the remains of laborer's garb. "Lockerbie!"
"I didn't kill them! In fact, I really didn't get to each much of them at all! The spiders got to them first."
The party, having no reason to doubt Lockerbie, searched the corpses for some form of identification, but found nothing but a few gold pieces and a well-hidden pearl. However, one of them was still clutching one of the onyx torches they'd been seeing in every room, and it was still burning. Now truly interested, the party examined the torch and finally recognized it as an Everburning Torch. After a short discussion about the value of the torches in the marketplace as opposed to the torches lighting up the sewers for them, the party chose to leave them in place. Since this one was obviously misplaced, the Red Sash picked it up and doused his lantern, just in case they encountered the poison gas.
As they moved farther down the hallway, they heard Lockerbie splash out from his home. As they paused, he called out, "It's OK. I can't smell you from here. I need you to survive and get back to Liza Jane. So I'll protect you as much as I can. From here, where I can't smell you."
The party appreciated both his thoughtfulness and his forthrightness. They had a quick meeting to discuss how much it would be to restore him, but even the initial 10,000+ gold piece outlay was beyond their means at the moment. But they at least wanted to think about it. Ahead they saw stairs going up to a raised bridge, just as Lockerbie had described, and, since he was sitting there 35 feet behind them, they asked him whether this was indeed the eel room, and he confirmed that it was.
Lance told the rest of the party that he would act as bait, luring out the eels so that the others could kill them. He put Shield of Faith on himself and got ready to go in… except… Tussle could see one of them where it was hiding in the pipes. Couldn't he just start shooting it now?
It took a moment to convince Tussle that letting the eels come out of their holes was better than letting them get away and hide, so the party stuck to the plan and Lance went out and baited out the eels. The first eel didn't even reach Lance; between Tussle's gunfire, Xondra's curse, and the Red Sash's ranseur, it was a bloody pulp that weakly bumped against the base of the stairs before even threatening Lance. The other eel tried to race around the perimeter of the room to reach Lance, but he distracted it by climbing to the raised bridge, and as it lunged at him the party killed it as well. They told Lockerbie he was welcome to their corpses, but he regretfully admitted that he preferred the flesh of sentient creatures, and the sinspawn they'd fed him were tiding him over quite well at the moment.
There were passages leaving the room in all directions, so the group maintained their leftward trek. Except this passage was long. After a couple hundred feet they were sure they were no longer even under The Crow. This seemed much more like a passage to Magnimar. Xondra's examination of the floor confirmed this: Something had been dragged through this passage in both directions; likely the derros' victims. They returned and took the next passage, and Lockerbie told them he couldn't follow them any more, as the narrow staircase was small enough he might accidentally run into them and eat them. They sent him back to his pool, then backtracked and took the final passage. They knew that this one led towards the poison gas, but they didn't want to bother with staircases yet. Apparently, they're a fairly lazy party.
As they approached the next junction, Xondra heard voices. It took her a few moments, but she identified the language as Aklo. Unfortunately, no one in the party spoke Aklo. After a disturbingly short discussion as to whether or not to try to use stealth, the party simply raced down the hallway towards the voices.
There were three derro in the room ahead. The first male was wielding a wicked-looking hooked club. The second had a spear with an obviously-hollow tip, and he was loading it with something brown and nasty-looking right at that moment. The female had pulled out a wand, and seemed to be waiting for the party. The party grouped up and formed a front to take on the derros, and this turned out to be just what the derros had been waiting for: A trio of Sound Bursts hit the Red Sash, Lance, and Tussle, damaging them significantly. Unfortunately, things went steeply downhill from there. Atlatia's (the female) wand had no effect on Lance. Portique's injection spear couldn't penetrate anyone's armor. And Caedimus was just generally useless. The party dropped Portique first, and Caedimus and Atlatia tried to run. Caedimus was dropped as he ran, and Atlatia managed to make it to a door, but Xondra's hair held it closed until the Red Sash could drop her.
The party saw no reason to keep the derro alive and coup de graced the three of them. Lance healed them the rest of the way (he channeled a couple of times during the combat). Geary repaired himself.
Once they'd looted the derro of their rather pathetic loot, they decided to start checking all the doors around the vast chamber they were in. Not only were were three doors leading out of the room, but there was a spiral staircase in the middle of the room that led down, a second straight staircase against the north wall that also led down, and Xondra felt the Shard of Pride drawing her to the south wall, even though neither she nor Tussle could see anything there. The first door they checked was the one Atlatia had been fleeing to. It wasn't trapped, so the Red Sash opened it, only to be attacked by a hideously-deformed creature that seemed to be nothing more than bits of underworld denizens stitched together into an appalling whole. Xondra identified it as a carrion golem, but Tussle and the Red Sash laid it low quickly enough. The room beyond was a surgical laboratory, complete with restraining tables and surgical instruments. The group confiscated the instruments and destroyed all the restraints.
They next chose the northwestern door. As they opened it, a voice called out, "Hey! You aren't derro! Derro don' use light!"
"Fenster?"
"That's me! Have you seen a beautiful lil' blue girl around here? She's my girlfriend!"
"Of course she is."
The Red Sash took the lead and saw that Fenster was chained to the wall in all his glory. He tried to get Fenster to cover up by offering him his bedroll, only to have Fenster reply that he wasn't sleepy. He even started stretching to get the kinks out from being chained to the wall. Xondra looked at the bright side: At least Atlatia had washed him off, so he was cleaner that they'd ever seen him. Since Atlatia was in no shape to try to bend his mind any more, they handed him a dagger. As they were talking to Fenster, other voices cried out from down the hall. More prisoners!
To no one's surprise, they found Terisha naked and in a cell. No one was willing to offer her a bedroll except Tussle, to which she rolled her eyes and gave a sarcastic thanks. Another cell held Naverna, a young woman whom the Red Sash seemed quite taken with, so she suggested he visit her at the Pixie's Kitten the next time he was in Sandpoint. He assured her he would, and neither Lance nor Xondra, nor even Tussle, were willing to tell him what kind of establishment it was. They asked Naverna what she'd been doing in Magnimar, and she replied that she'd been visiting family. Pretty much no one believed her, considering her line of work and where the derro were kidnapping people, but they weren't judging. Just like Fenster, Naverna didn't seem particularly concerned about her nudity. Nor did Speaks with Crows, a Shoanti from the Bone Clan who'd been kicked out of his clan and then fallen on ill times in Magnimar. However, as Tussle offered his bedroll to Terisha again, Fenster finally realized what it was for and popped it on, saying that it fit quite nicely. And thus were the Red Hot Chili Peppers born.
Anyhoo…
Of all the prisoners, Naverna had observed the most about the derro. The three derro hated each other, but were kept in check by a really scary female derro who lived downstairs.
Then came the debate: What should they do with the prisoners? If they left them here and failed, Lockerbie would find them. But if they tried to take them out through the unexplored tunnel, something worse might. They gave Speaks with Crows a pair of daggers and Fenster a third dagger. Between the two of them they might be able to deal with Lockerbie. Might. They didn't give Terisha a thing, though they did have a talk about her future, the Tower Girls, and what they should do with her. On learning that she'd been offered wereratdom and turned it down, they felt a bit better about her and made the same deal with her that they'd made with the other Tower Girls. Except she'd been trying to hire Fenster to kill them, and she needed to call the contract off. She did, and Fenster first remembered the contract, then remembered to not do it. Good Fenster.
Now that they were ready, they went downstairs to confront the head derro. And hoo, boy. It was one of those fights where people wished they'd done different builds. Khrysm, derro magister and leader of the band of derro in the Crow, was a levitating derro alchemist, meaning that she could float out of reach of the Red Sash and rain bombs on the party. As Tussle shot her, she put Darkness on herself so he couldn't see her. So Lance and Xondra could see her but couldn't hit her, Tussle couldn't see her, and the Red Sash couldn't reach her. Unfortunately, the Darkness proved to be her downfall. Xondra eventually cast Enlarge Person on the Red Sash, then he picked up Tussle and held him up so he could fire Dragon's Breath cartridges into the darkness. Even though she had a good Reflex save and Tussle was burning through hundreds of gold, she needed to start moving. And the Darkness moved with her. So Tussle knew where to shoot.
It was a long, tedious, "Kill the 70 hit point bad guy who has several healing potions by doing 4 hit points at a time." But once she dropped below 30 hit points I had her start fleeing, and it's a testament to the party's tenacity that they managed to block exits, use powder when she turned invisible, and otherwise delay, harass, and annoy her so that she somehow, miraculously, didn't manage to get away in spite of all of her advantages, and ended up captured and then executed by the party. They looted her quickly and returned to the prisoners. (And it goes without saying that the 2 homunculi that were with her were non-factors, since I totally forgot about them in the initial writeup.)
With most of their resources drained and a quartet of prisoners they wanted to get to safety, the party decided to head out and clean up later. They took the group along the path they'd already followed, calling out to Lockerbie that they were coming through and having him swim to the bottom of his pool so that he wouldn't smell the prisoners. Up, up, up they went, and then down to the boats. They rowed back to Magnimar and immediately called for some guards. The moment they mentioned that they'd found the source of the kidnappings, the guards snapped to it and called a runner. And who should run up but Many Scars. He awkwardly grinned at Xondra and told her he'd been looking for her, but the guards were having none of it and had him run off to the temple of Abadar for a paladin. Before he ran off, Xondra handed him a hastily-penned note. He grinned broadly and took his leave.
It took about half an hour for the paladin to arrive, during which the party engaged in idle chitchat with both the guards and the prisoners (and the guards found suitable clothes for the victims), but eventually a paladin of Abadar in golden plate mail arrived. "Extravagant," was all Tussle could say.
The paladin's name was Barry (Xondra was appalled at him having such a plain name), and he cast Zone of Truth and started questioning the party: Where had they been? What had they found? What were they doing about it? And so forth. The party refused to answer where they had been, and Barry accepted that response, but were more than willing to tell him about finding the derro, finding the prisoners, and dealing with all of the derro they'd found. Barry said that their testimony had been noted and they'd be able to receive the mayor's reward once they could assure him that all of the derro had indeed been dealt with.
As for the prisoners, Barry turned to them and asked what they needed. Fenster just wanted a blade, and the Red Sash let him keep a dagger. He and Terisha headed back to Underbridge, though the party strongly recommended to Terisha that instead of rejoining Fenster she should visit the temple of Sarenrae there. Barry was a bit taken aback that the party would turn to Sarenrae instead of Abadar, but he understood the motivation: The temple of Sarenrae gave out healing for free (shudder), and Brandi specialized in redeeming those that found themselves lost and rescued by adventurers. Naverna wanted nothing more than to get back to Sandpoint, so he arranged a carriage for her. Speaks with Crows wanted nothing more than a legitimate job. This resonated with Barry and his god, and he took it as a personal mission: He would civilize this rough barbarian and teach him to be a proper townsperson, as Abadar would want. Barry departed with Speaks with Crows in tow, and the party was left to their own devices.
Their next destination was clear: Liza Jane Brast. It took only a little bit of checking to learn that she was a down-on-her-luck laundress at Washer's Row. On the bright side, she hadn't quite fallen to Rag's End… yet. But of course the party had to do something about it. Approaching Liza Jane, Xondra first asked her to wash her Varisian scarf. Lisa Jane was hesitant at first, since Varisian fabrics could be notoriously tricky and delicate, and this could be a Sczarni trap, but Xondra reassured her that it was just a travel scarf and was quite sturdy. As Lisa Jane started washing the scarf, Lance took over and told her about her husband. He described how they'd found the wreck of the Liza Jane, and evidence that the captain, her husband Lockerbie Brast, had died a hero protecting his crew. As Lance told the tale, Lisa Jane started tearing up, and then openly weeping, thanking the party for the news. And they didn't happen to find…?
Lance produced the locket on cue. She thanked him even more profusely, and said there was nothing she had that could ever repay them. Xondra reassured her that they didn't need any sort of recompense, and instead paid her a full gold for the scarf, more than twenty times what she'd asked.
As she gaped speechless at the group, the Red Sash very delicately produced a tattered red cloth from his Handy Haversack. "Can you wash this?"
Looking it over, Liza Jane assured the Red Sash that any type of ordinary washing wouldn't do; if he were the well-to-do sort he seemed to be, he should take the cloth to the temple of Sarenrae in Underbridge, and talk to Francisco the cleric there. Francisco was a helpful sort, and always fixing things for the locals, so he always had one or two Make Wholes queued up, and what that cloth needed was a solid Make Whole, and then Prestidigitation. Liza Jane didn't know any magicians, but she figured they were traveling with a gnome so they could probably find one. Speaking of Tussle, as he heard her story and saw her tears and gratitude, he quietly slipped ten gold pieces into her pocket unnoticed.
As they walked away, they noticed the kind of neighborhood they were in. A washerwoman with 11 gold pieces and a 150 gold piece locket was an obvious target. They quickly sent out word that they needed to talk with Sabriyya. It took only a few minutes before she appeared. As they explained the situation, she got teary-eyed herself. "You really do have a way of reuniting people with their lost loves, don't you? Don't worry; I'll watch out for her for you. It's the least I can do."
Reassured that there was very little in Dockway that could threaten Liza Jane now, the party decided it was time to sell their loot, split up the money, and shop.
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Session 10, Played 02-Feb-2020
As usual, the party trusted the Red Sash to convert the various trinkets, weapons, armor, and gemstones into cold, hard cash, then he distributed the cash so that people could shop. Tussle almost immediately scurried off towards the Golemworks with Geary, muttering something about a "turret", whatever that was. Xondra stopped by Heidmarch Villa and informed Mary that if anyone came looking for her, she could be found at the Comfortable Lodgings and Perfectly Good Dining Inn that night, a locale in Lowcleft with an unfortunately-literal owner. She figured she could always eat out. The Red Sash had to check on Moira, and Lance had decided that he needed to try a new place in Lowcleft, because staying at the same place more than two nights in a row would be untowards.
Much to Xondra's bemusement, Many Scars finally managed to track her down. He entered the Comfortable Lodgings in his best page's outfit, one that was ludicrously tiny on his huge muscular body, carrying the requisite bouquet of flowers purloined from people's gardens along the way. As he spotted her sitting at a dark table in a corner alone, his face broke into a huge grin. "Running girl! It is good to see you!"
Well, he might not be the brightest torch at the stand, but he sure was fun to look at. With that, she bought him a drink, watched him belt it down with great enthusiasm, and told Micu to make sure she didn't do anything ridiculously untoward that evening. She accepted Many Scars' arm, and off they went into Lowcleft at night…
The next morning (I know. Boo! Boo!), the party gathered in Dockway for breakfast, and were rather bemused that, in addition to its saddle, Geary now had some kind of metallic mounting on it. Tussle insisted it was a "turret", and if they'd only give him another day it would be finished and they'd all be much safer. Somehow, the party doubted that.
So, ignoring Tussle's repeated requests to spend the day lazing around the city doing nothing so he could finish his turret, the group rowed back to The Crow. They returned to the sewers and first checked in with Lockerbie. His hunger was still mostly abated, so he was able to speak with them rationally, and they told him that they'd let his wife know that he'd died a hero, and told him about her reaction, and Lockerbie blessed them and said there was no way he could possibly repay their kindness. They told him not to worry about it, because it had just been the right thing to do.
Once they were done with Lockerbie, they started in on clearing out the rest of the level. First was the room with the explosive poisonous colorless odorless gas. Using an Everburning Torch the Red Sash peered into the room and immediately figured out what was wrong: The sewer pipes that led into the room had been bent or damaged and were now letting gas into the room. He could see that the stairs in the room had decayed away due to their millenia of exposure, and attempting to use them would result into a plunge into the water. He recommended against even trying to go through the room. So Lance took out his chalk and wrote a warning, "Danger: Explosive gas! Do not bring torches into the room! And the bridges collapse, too!"
Xondra added little cartoon figures for those who didn't speak common.
Content that they had made the room safe (as OSHA wept in the background), they went on towards the green slime Lockerbie had warned them about. The first chamber they came upon was a rather boring collapsed chamber, and none of them had the inclination to do any serious digging; they performed a cursory search of the area, then moved on. The next room in this passage was clearly the one that must contain the slime, as an algae-filled pool filled one half of the room, and fungus and mold grew in profusion, producing an eye-watering stench. Tussle spotted the green slime almost immediately, and as soon as someone mention that fire killed them he gleefully declared, "I got this!"
40 gold pieces and one dragon shot later, and the slime was no more.
Xondra was bemused. "Overkill, much?"
"Of course not! I got this!"
After verifying that there were no more dangers in the room, the party proceeded through it, and found that the passage ahead did indeed connect with the rest of the sewers they had already mapped. Their map was complete except for the spiral staircase that Lockerbie had refused to follow them up, so they checked on that and found that it led to a balcony overlooking the derro room. There was nothing left but to finish mapping the derro leader's room, then check the spiral staircase down, and figure out why the southern wall of the derro room kept beckoning to Xondra.
It beckoned to her again as they passed through the room on the way to the derro leader's room, but still she saw nothing. The derro leader's room had two doors in the back that they hadn't checked before in their hurry to get the prisoners to safety. The first door led to a rather mundane, almost gnome-like bedroom with a large pile of cushions and blankets on which to sleep. The only real indication of anything nefarious was a wooden case filled with 3 doses of cytillesh poison. The other room was far more telling, with several sets of human-sized gear (the party immediately recognized Terisha's armor and weapons and Fenster's "clothing", then decided that they'd confiscate Terisha's stuff for having tried to kill them twice, and noticed that neither Naverna's nor Speaks with Crow's gear seemed valuable enough to be worth tracking them down over. There were no keepsakes nor anything that seemed like it might be of any sentimental value, so other than Terisha's valuables, they left the gear where it lay. In addition they found several bags of coins, a lens of detection, a golembane scarab, and a wand of Spiritual Weapon with 11 charges left. The wand went immediately to Lance; the rest they decided they'd distribute later, though Tussle immediately grabbed the lens as his toy of the day.
Returning to the mysterious wall, Xondra decided to focus on the Shard of Pride and imagine it as whole, as the Lady Heidmarch had instructed Tussle to do, but that only gave her a vision of the wall she was looking at. As she gazed frustrated at the wall, she noticed Tussle going over it with his new lens, then pulling a catch that opened a secret door. "Found it! Tussle cheerfully declared.
Opening the door, they saw a staircase winding down into the darkess. With two staircases to investigate, the party decided to first close the secret door and check the one the derros had known about. Down, down, down they went, deep into the claustrophobic depths of the earth. The Red Sash estimated that they'd traveled about 400 feet downward before they came to a sudden drop-off. A good eighty feet below them they could see a vast chamber filled with luminescent oozes and fungi. "Nope," was all Xondra had to say about that. As far as they could tell, they had found the passage into the Darklands. "Why would someone put that here?!?!?" was all Lance could think to ask.
Making the long climb back up to the sewers, they went to the other staircase. At the top was some kind of mummified corpse, and Xondra identified it as a shriezyx, a horrible aberration that spewed webs that weakened its prey and then bit and clawed it to pieces. She noted their fear of fire to the party, but did not tell Lance that the emergence of a swarm of them from one of the pilings of the Irespan was the reason quarrying had been banned for nearly 100 years. They started going down, down, down again. Fortunately, this time it was "only" around 250 feet. Tussle complained that his legs were getting tired from all the stairs, at which point everyone glared at him on Geary's back. "What? Riding is hard work!"
Although the staircase was pitch black, there was light at the bottom, so the Red Sash extinguished his torch and they approached cautiously. The stairway opened into a room with a pair of burning braziers on either side of a wide staircase leading to an ornate door with an intricately-carved sihedron on it. "Why make us go down all those stairs, just to make us climb up again? Who built this place?" Lance asked, having no taste for aesthetics. Several party members heard the movement behind the door, so Xondra had them back up the stairs some distance so she could cast some preparatory spells.
The shriezyx behind the door were looking forward to finally getting to slaughter something after all these years. Unfortunately, Tussle had other plans. Lance opened the door for the Red Sash, and the two shriezyx spewed their webs. The first missed the Red Sash, and the second hit Lance but didn't affect him, and he immediately used Liberating Command to shed the web entirely. Tussle stepped in and emptied his pistol into one of the shriezyx. (A double-barreled pistol plus Rapid Shot plus alchemical cartridges plus 3 grit points = 4 bullets doing 10d6+20 if all the bullets hit, which they did, even at the -6 for all those shots.) The shriezyx dropped to negative hit points. Xondra stepped forward and used Burning Hands on it to kill it outright, and the Red Sash pinned the other one against the wall. It managed to hit the Red Sash only once out of all of its attacks and was quickly dispatched.
In the room was an amazing altar shaped like a seven-pointed star, with perfect receptacles the shape of each shard carved into the stone. One receptacle was currently occupied with a black shard.
There was much debate over what to do; most of the party wanted to tie up Tussle and let him pick it up, but Lance couldn't abide allowing someone to be bound. Eventually Tussle convinced Lance that he really, really, really wanted to be tied up, so he ordered Geary to follow Lance, then let them tie him up and gag him so he couldn't order Geary around, then the Red Sash held him out so he could grab the shard.
Overwhelming greed filled Tussle, and he was ashamed of the rags he was wearing, and of the general lack of value of anything he owned. He needed more. Fortunately, Xondra quickly recognized the look on his face and told the group that they'd found the Shard of Greed, so Lance started handing Tussle one coin at a time from the hoard they'd retrieved from the derro's room. This kept Tussle pacified as they climbed back up the stairs. Convinced that they were done with The Crow, the party told Lockerbie that they'd be back for him, then followed the final sewer passage towards Magnimar. Sure enough, it led to a well-hidden secret sewer entrance below Dockway, explaining how the derro had managed to kidnap so many Magnimarians unnoticed. The group headed straight for Heidmarch Manor, and no one questioned why the group was carrying a tied-up gnome and occasionally handing him coins.
As they arrived with the bound Tussle, Mary immediately recognized that they had something important and summoned the Lady Heidmarch. She beckoned them into her study and handed Tussle a pale blue rhomoid ioun stone, which he promptly attached to the shard, freeing himself from its curse. Recognizing that the shard granted a bonus to attacks, and the ioun stone granted increased strength, the party recommended that Tussle give the shard to the Red Sash. He said he'd consider it.
The debrief began in earnest: The party told the Lady everything they had discovered in The Crow, and the Lady had the Red Sash focus on the shard to reveal the location of the next shard: The Shard of Lust. The Red Sash recognized the location as the Lady's Light, a massive Thassilonian statue on the southwest corner of Varisia, surrounded by miles and miles of marshland known as the Mushfens. Lady Heidmarch said she would do some research on getting to the Lady's Light, and gave the party a summary of what she'd found: Which shards they were looking for, what they did, which ioun stones were needed to deactivate them, and in what order they'd be getting them. She wanted the entrance to the Darklands kept open, as the Pathfinders did a great deal of exploration there, and she would take it as her personal responsibility to see that it was guarded. Lance didn't like this, and thought the passage should be permanently sealed, but as long as she said it was her responsibility, he didn't push his case.
Finally, the Lady said that now that their explorations of The Crow were complete, they should set about writing their Pathfinder journals so as to gain notoriety within the society. Lance promptly asked Arlen whether he'd write it for him if he dictated it, and Arlen readily agreed. They promised the Lady Heidmarch that they'd get the journals written once they'd taken care of their business for the day, and the Lady deemed that quite acceptable. She told them that each of them would earn 8 Prestige Points, which would allow them to order goods and services from the Pathfinder Society. Looking over the list, the Red Sash pointed out that a Resurrection was exactly 32 Prestige Points, the total the party would have after their journal was done. Without batting an eye, the group asked the Lady Heidmarch to arrange for a Resurrection. "For whom?"
"A friend."
Their first order of business was to notify the guard that the missings persons case had been solved, and they chose to report that to Kasadei at the Arvensoar. This has the particular advantage that they got their reward without having to meet the mayor or otherwise dabble in politics.
Their second order of business was to visit Sabriyya and let her know that they'd finished their business in The Crow, and they were ready for her and Brandi to go there, with two exceptions:
(1) They wanted to come along
(2) They told her about Lockerbie Brast
She agreed that this was worth knowing. When they told her about the tunnel leading from The Crow to the city, she thought at first that it might be useful. When they told her that there was also a tunnel to the Darklands in The Crow that another group had asked them to keep open, she decided that sealing up the tunnel was in the city's best interest.
Next, they finally went to the legendary temple of Sarenrae in Underbridge. There, under a gleaming sun where no sun should be, a blonde paladin in gleaming golden plate mail and a soiled gardening apron directed what seemed like the entire population of Underbridge in a massive vegetable harvest. As the group watched, they noticed that people were filling up their baskets with freshly-picked vegetables, then leaving. Brandi the paladin was feeding the people of Underbridge fresh vegetables, as long as they were willing to work for them!
As they approached, Brandi beamed and asked whether they'd come to participate in the harvest. They said, "Sure, why not?" and joined in. As they worked they mentioned to Brandi that they'd be accompanying her to The Crow, then told her Lockerbie Brast's sad tale. She burst into tears and bemoaned the fact that her temple wasn't rich enough to raise him, but she'd make sure he was protected. They warned her of many of the dangers of The Crow, from the acrobatics getting in to the poisonous gas to the pools they needed to swim through. Brandi thanked them profusely for the information, insisted that they keep the vegetables they'd harvested, and went back to helping others.
Satisfied that they were ready for the morrow, the party retired to their respective resting places to work on their journals. Lance spent a bit of time visiting the temple of Desna and making a donation before going to his inn. Tussle worked a double shift and finished his turret on Geary.
The next morning at an hour after dawn, the group met Sabriyya, Brandi, and her cleric Francisco at the temple of Sarenrae. With them was a surly-looking Vudran in robes. Brandi encouraged him to go ahead and "do his thing", and he put Life Bubble on the entire group, then glared at Brandi. "My debt to you is repaid, yes?"
"Yes, yes, that's fine," she beamed.
He teleported off.
Although the Red Sash noted that he looked like the royal mage of the Vudran envoy to Magnimar, he didn't say a word.
They proceeded into the sewers and through the secret door leading to the Crow. Sabriyya was impressed with its construction, and a bit sad that she had to destroy it, but if some fool was keeping a doorway to the Darklands open in The Crow, she didn't want whatever came up to have easy access to the city. Their first "real" stop was outside Stinky's door. Lance asked Brandi and Sabriyya to let the party take care of him, insisting that he was a real danger to those around him and needed to die. Lance, being an honest sort, called through the door and told Stinky that they were going to have to kill him. When he started wailing and blubbering, Brandi insisted that they should try to redeem him. They pushed the door open, Brandi went in to try to talk to him, and in his hunger Stinky attacked her.
True to her word, she simply ignored him and stormed out of the room, but Lance noted that on her way out she pulled out a Holy Composite Longbow. The party put Stinky out of his misery, collected his few belongings, and felt rather bad about doing good. But Stinky was an inherent danger, and they had no way to let him live.
As they arrived at Lord Baz's door, Brandi asked that she be allowed to speak to him, as she knew a bit about accuser devils. She knocked on the door. "Hello? Lord Baz? Are you ready to hear the word of Sarenrae and consider changing your wicked ways?"
"Get bent!"
Brandi's face broke into a wicked grin. "Excellent! Go ahead, Francisco."
Francisco opened the door and Brandi Smote Evil on Lord Baz and fired. The poor devil was instantly impaled against the far wall and killed. As she walked into the room, Brandi explained, "Accuser devils have destroyed more redemption projects than Sarenrae cares to count, so he needed to die. Now, wasn't there an imp in here as well?"
The party had no objection to her explanation. If some of them smirked at poor Lord Baz's fate, it was probably well-deserved. The imp, petrified at facing an obviously high-level paladin, stood frozen in place. Brandi was perplexed. While accuser devils were absolutely, positively something to be exterminated, imps were frequently used by local wizards as familiars, and while a corrupting presence, she wasn't entirely certain she could kill him with impunity. The imp saw his opening and immediately started trying to bargain with Brandi for his life, offering to be good for her lifetime, or his master's lifetime, or what-have-you, but Lance kept pointing out that the imp kept setting finite timeframes in which it had to behave. A perplexed and frustrated Brandi looked confused enough to burst when a rapier burst from the imp's chest, killing it instantly. Sabriyya wiped off her blade and asked, "Can we move on now?"
Brandi pondered whether or not she had to smite Sabriyya for murdering the imp, but at the end of it all it was an evil outsider, and many of her fellow paladins would have already killed it, and it hadn't once offered to try to become a better being, it had only tried to offer to be good for finite periods in exchange for its life, so at the end of her ponderings Brandi decided to just let it go. Devils were so annoying and confusing!
They proceeded through the rest of The Crow, making sure there were no more dangers, then introduced Brandi to Lockerbie. Brandi gushed so profusely Sabriyya nearly gagged, but she promised she'd find a way to save him. Returning to the top of The Crow, Francisco cast Detect Undead and Deathwatch on himself and started scanning the tower foot by foot to try to find Sabriyya's father's murderer while Sabriyya, Brandi, and the rest of the party guarded him. Once his first Detect Undead ran out, Brandi took over and they determined that there were no undead in the tower. Sabriyya's vengeance would have to remain unfulfilled. "Ah, well. It is was it is."
Brandi insisted that she be the one to kill Lockerbie. Going back downstairs, she asked Lockerbie to come out of the water and be brave and, with the party's help, she'd reunite him with his wife. In an amazing show of sheer will, Lockerbie overcame all his instincts and stood still as the paladin beheaded him. Francisco quickly cast Gentle Repose on the corpse, and Ant Haul on Brandi so she could carry him to the surface. While she was typically a bubbly bimbo of the highest order, it was clear that anyone trying to harm Lockerbie's body would face the full wrath of a paladin enraged.
Returning to town, Brandi and Francisco promised to watch over Lockerbie's body until the Resurrection was ready. Sabriyya thanked the party profusely for all they had done for her, for her father, for Lockerbie, and for Liza Jane, and said they were certainly blessed. The group spent another day in town feeling that they'd had a job well done.
In the morning, they first visited the Lady Heidmarch. Mary was mysteriously absent. She showed them to Mary's bedroom, pledging them to absolute secrecy. In the bedroom, she moved a carpet and opened a well-hidden trap door sized for Small folk; Tussle could slip in easily but everyone else had to squeeze. There, in a secret chamber below Mary's room were her trophies: Half a dozen mantis masks. A handful of Norgorber holy symbols. Broken sawtooth blades or hand crossbows twisted into pretzels. The Lady pointed them to a less-grisly wall, where intricate and amazingly detailed erotic sculptures were tastefully arranged on a set of mahogany shelves. Many of the works involved succubi, either alone, or far more frequently entwined in pairs or even threesomes. The Lady explained: These were works of an artist named Ayavah, an astonishingly reclusive Magnimarian artist who had somehow heard that the party was investigating the Lady's Light, and was very interested in getting her hands on any of the artwork preserved in the ancient structure. She felt the party should see Ayavah's work to know what to look for, and now it was time to quickly get out of Mary's trophy room before Mary found out they'd been there.
On to more pressing business, the Lady had determined that there were two main routes to the Lady's Light: By foot it would take at least three days of travel and they'd need a guide. She'd learned of a guide named Jasper Kandamerus, and although he was a bit touched in the head ever since Karzoug's rise, if the party could calm him down he might be an excellent source of information, or even a guide. By ship it would only be a day, and the Lady found a ship leaving the next day named the Wanton Ways whose captain was willing to take the party and drop them off just a bit north of the Lady's Light. The party thanked the Lady Heidmarch and went back to town.
As they picked up Lockerbie's body, much to their surprise Sabriyya was there. She started pressing the party: Where were they going next? At first they thought she was after the shards, but it quickly became apparent that she was more interested in business dealings outside of Magnimar. When they told her they were headed to the Mushfens, she suggested that many of the herbs that grew there wild were becoming popular in both Magnimar cuisine and medicine, so if they could arrange a trade agreement, even with a race such as the boggards or troglodytes, she'd be most appreciative.
At noon they arrived at the temple of Abadar, and the priests had a very nice and formal ceremony to Resurrect Lockerbie. Brandi insisted on casting the Restoration on him herself, though the diamond dust was provided by the temple of Abadar (for a fee, of course). As the whole group started moving towards Dockway to watch the reunion, Lance held back a bit and paid a priest of Abadar to ensure that Lockerbie would have a steady job for at least the next six months until he got his bearings again.
The reunion was as sweet and wonderful as the party could have hoped, as Lockerbie embraced Liza Jane as a human once more, the couple thanked the party profusely and talked about how they couldn't possibly ever repay the party, and the party insisted that no repayment was ever necessary.
Tears were dried, goodbyes were said, and the group went in search of Jasper. It took almost no time to find him, as Xondra knew where he liked to hang out and preach the end of humanity, and sure enough, there he was. When he spotted the party, he welcomed them as, "The Blessed Ushers of the End of Times," and started moving towards them. Unfortunately, at that moment three thugs with black lips strode forward, threatened Jasper, and started beating him. Bones cracked and Jasper fell before the party's eyes. Tussle used rock salt shot to drop one of Jasper's attackers, but the other two were likely to kill him before the rest of the party could reach, so Lance used his precious Calm Emotions to get them to stop. As they stood calm and peaceful for a moment, the Red Sash moved between Jasper and one of them, and Tussle used another rock salt shot on the other…
...and nearly blew his head clean off! (The problem with trying to use a x4 crit weapon nonlethally.) Lance had to channel to save the thug's life and the other thug was no longer under the effects of Calm Emotions, but facing the party and seeing what had happened to his friends, he quickly surrendered.
With no Calm Emotions to rely on, the party had to turn to Diplomacy. Fortunately, they calmed Jasper enough for him to draw them a simple map of the peninsula on which the Lady's Light was located, and for him to tell them to seek Maroux the witch. Everyone looked at Xondra. "What? It's not like all witches know each other!"
Jasper warned that she looked like Lance. So much so that she might take a fancy to him.
Lance had been warned.
After a few minutes of talking with Jasper, the party decided they'd be much better off trying to make the trip on foot on their own, relying on Jasper's map and their own lack of swimming ability to get them safely there without having to be on a boat. They turned in the Black Kiss Boys for a whopping reward of 10 gold pieces each, but it was something, and it got them off the street.
In a final bit of amusement for the day, the party tried to sell all the poisons and the vile extraction scarificator to a good-aligned alchemist who'd see them used properly, but they couldn't find one. Instead, they sold everything to Tussle's former employer and hoped he'd do good. (They at least got him to promise to try to use the poisons to make antidotes, which was more profitable for him anyway, so he readily agreed to that.)
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Paladin Brandi dumped Intelligence? I hear that is a common problem among Paladins . . . .
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Oh, Paladin Brandi has a long and storied history.
She appeared in our Rise of the Runelords campaign when Raesh found the abandoned temple of Sarenrae in Underbridge and spent 5000 of her own money fixing it up, then appealed to the temple in Absalom for aid. The high priest, not caring for Raesh, sent an enthusiastic but dim-witted paladin to run the temple.
Brandi became a favorite, and proceeded to appear in AP after AP, even facing down a graveknight in CotCT. So she's leveled up alongside several sets of characters, and is now a fixture in Magnimar.
The players love her and her cheerful, always-optimistic cluelessness.