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Age of Ice and Blood: A Pathfinder System Heroic Fantasy Quest

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@DragonParadox , I tried to continue working on chronology, but alas, it is still inconsistent in arc 7. Now it is too much happened in a single day. :(
I propose the following corrections:
7.3 – form 10 Ashinu-ezna to 8 Ashinu-ezna.
7.4 and 7.5 – from 12 Ashinu-ezna to 9 Ashinu-ezna.
7.6 – first part from 12 Ashinu-ezna to 9 Ashinu-ezna, second part from 15 Ashinu-ezna to 12 Ashinu-ezna ("Later proved to be midnight three days later as the light of autumn's first full moon bathed the ship in liquid silver.")
7.int1 – from 15 Ashinu-ezna back to 14 Ashinu-ezna ("In spite of the fact that he had somehow lost not one day but two climbing the main mast somehow Marco felt no pangs of hunger nor thirst")

This, I believe, should more or less clear current mishap.
Alternativly, I can adjust days only in chronology and make footnote "Corrections are right" :V
 
@DragonParadox, editing:


For Arc 14 Post 65: Mercurial Middle:
Mercurial Middle ​

Fifth Day of Olweje-eza (Olweje Ascendant), 1349 A. L. (After Landfall)

"Watch for flying bat-lizard," the last is less a word and more a portrait of the wounded, but still very lively foe. You hope Antonio can understand, but in the midst of battle it's all you can do.

Ice crackles from Inge's hands, grazing the creature's left wing illuminated from behind by the pale moonlight of Esha's conjuring, prayer and sorcery doing together what each alone could not and sending the thing off balance. Its blood is red now, but its words ring with inhuman power: "Thinkest thou that you are wise mortal? You who raised a tower of sand upon the sands standing? Do you not see the tide, do you not see the One it brings? More kinship have you to me and mine than to the one who summoned you with trickery and baited you with the Stolen King..."

The strange spirit is more nimble in the air than its long bat wings might show, passing just over the heavy blow of Wanderer's club and taking but a pinprick from Tom's spear in passing jab. In his defense he is not used to fighting things that fly.

So it is that you are upon the creature just as it reaches the base of the rope and still it speaks even as the bear of Olweje tries to drag it down on the pale-stone body: "Why make a deal with one who would treat you as a tool, who would of the Fateless make thrall for its own ends, for its own amusement?" Though its face can show no emotion you can hear the smile in the spirit's voice. "I have no riddles, only answers to give if you would listen to them, perhaps the tide will not sweep you in if you heed me..."

"A task you have been given, a task you have accepted." Words ring out from the very floor at your feet, from the flesh of the Great Worm, if such it is to be called.

"See, see, he's using you, not a true follower of Father Chaos in the least. It's me you should be making deals with."

Even the thought of betrayal chaffs, but you cannot deny that it is a point well made. Why would the Worm give you more than crumbs and maybe whatever is left of Ansefu? This creature though is skilled in battle and strong in the powers of the soul and might be less inclined to pull the wool over your eyes.

And on the other hand... or is it back to the first one, if you were to take the side of the fleeing spirit how are you meant to get out from under the Worm's shell?

What do you reply?

[] Take this new deal, you have no time for riddles and you have sworn no oaths

[] Your word is your bond even when it is not formally made

[] Write in

OOC: This one is a short one because the creatures of chaos are more than capable of initiating negotiations when it suites them.


For Arc 14 Post 64: A Knot of Serpents:
A Knot of Serpents ​

Fifth Day of Olweje-eza (Olweje Ascendant), 1349 A. L. (After Landfall)

Drums on stone echo, the voice of blood in your ears, the voice of breath drawn too fast, the call of bronze striking flesh, and on your arm the shield grows not heavy but light as a feather with the call of its master. The horn echoes... and war is summoned forth in the spark of red flame and the flash of bright bronze. Strange is the 'hall' and stranger its master, but you know sure at the sight of hulking flesh and twisted metal in this place, you fight and you bleed, you win or you die.

The 'beast' roars and its voice is still that of a man, not as the raiders you have slain, as hands clasped before him Wanderer calls out to the ghosts of his grandsires and Tom speaks a prayer to Saint Michael for victory, as Zaia drinks deep of some flesh-shaping concoction and to your right Esha stands in a darkness of her own weaving, as hard as steel mail.

Light gleams off the edge of poisoned blade, not red and not the white of the mage lanterns, but all the colors flowing off the patina of arcane oils.

"For what we are about to do forgive us if we act in ignorance..." you add your own prayer, softly spoken. With only the word of the Worm that these are foes worth slaying you can but hope that you will find forgiveness if you were ill counseled.

"Now..."

The word is lost in the wet slurp as the flesh of the beast under you opens and a pair of beasts not like any mortal creatures is birthed from the depths. Scaled they are like fishes and the scales part before Tom's spear as he pierces them, horned they are like rams and one of them flies under the blade of Durendal, beaked they are like birds upon the head that grows from their backs and it snaps under Wanderer's blow. Still somehow the first of them does not die until Zaia hurls a vial of flame into its gaping maw, then in a flash of impossible flame and cacking laughing-crying-screaming... it is not.

It is not dead, something inside you proclaims, sure as sunrise, something of that sort cannot die, only be banished for a while even as arrows of light fly from Esha's fingers and glance off the hide of the other.


"All things pass into the depths, all are judged," Inge chants in the tongue of her people and the ice does fall, battering across its scaly hide, but the ice does not bite any deeper. The bear charges it and with claws of steel rips into its guts even as the monster is hurled back from the rest of your company wounded but far from bested.

Swift as an eel in murky waters the thing slips the tearing claws even with Tom shouting a warning. For a moment it almost seems like the thing is tearing itself apart, flesh ripping off bones even as they shift and crackle, but the flaps of skin become wings like a bat yet colored as the tail of a peacock even as the two heads merge into a single one, bone beak long and sharp like a sword. It takes to the air right towards the same opening you had climbed down into.


It is only then that you notice it is not taking wing quite alone. Swift Pebble had somehow jumped onto its back mid-change, cutting the shifting tendons in a shower of ichor-becoming-blood.

What do you do?

[] Write in plan

OOC: For anyone wondering Swift Pebble also contributed to the death of the first Protean but Roland can only look in so many places at once and she is by far the smallest combatant, plus it just looked cooler to have her jumping on the back of a magic pteranodon to be her interaction. She was the only one who rolled initiative before the enemy and so I had her hold it fluff wise until it was distracted, hard to get more distracted than growing wings.

Maybe "blue" instead of "white" here?
not the white of the mage lanterns
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As we've seen before, Inge's magic light is blue:
DragonParadox said:
Pale they are and blue of witching flame, like the willow wisps of tale, save that these ones will lead you true for they too had been conjured of Inge's magic
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Unless of course she can control the light's hue as required.


From before, for Arc 14 Post 63: What Gnaws at Greatness:
What Gnaws at Greatness ​

Fifth Day of Olweje-eza (Olweje Ascendant), 1349 A. L. (After Landfall)

As you follow the swaying thread that still leads out of the shell, out of the grasp of the beast you realize that it is the only way out, and the only way those left aboard the Marcella can aid you. It seems a long way indeed and so resolved, if not at ease you call out: "A bargain then, we shall go through your tests."

"Oh... good, you play the game you win the prize, the stolen thief might yet be yours," the words pass not through air, but through the floor, through the body of the creature. Don't think about it. It's only when Esha gives you a worried look that you realize you must have said or at least murmured it aloud.

"How do you steal a thief, why would you steal them?" Swift Pebble asks, her mind open to all.

Much to your surprise it is Wanderer who replies, tapping his spear on the ground suspiciously. "You take them war bond against their kin behaving right. Hope this thing doesn't try to cage us."

"Oh how clever, but you must know there is more than one pair of hands in the taking, more than one ladle in the kitchen."

You steal a thief from someone else, you take a prisoner from another's hands. What prisoner could this beast have that you would be interested in. The Marcella had lost some sailors overboard, but you cannot imagine... "Ansefu, they have Ansefu king of Lirman," you send to Swift Pebble and she sends it on.

Before any others can speak, in silence or with voice the creature you seem to be... on speaks again. "For the trial of might know that there are parasites that burrow in my flesh and trouble my dreams, rid me of them and their pestiferous breath."

"Breath?" Esha's voice is like soft honey and it too burrows in the ear. "Your pardon great one, but we do not know what troubles you and so we cannot aid you."

"A pair of beast-masked ones that feast on my blood and delight in daring each other to ever more brazen acts of mischief that they might to their elders say 'behold that we have moved the old worm to snap its jaws and slash its tail.'" The great body shudders now with annoyance and not with mirth.

"We do not swim as well as you do through the dark sea," Esha is quick to reply. As the creature starts to grumble and grouse about leeches and may they choke on their heavy breath the sorceress recounts what you are likely to be dealing with, Faceless ones who chose to wear the guise of beasts, not quite fish and not quite land beast, not a frog either for they have power over the air. Her account of how you would normally fight such creatures is frank... you would not, but according to your host when it pushes them out of its body you will have a few moments of confusion when it is they who will not know where they are and then you may ambush them.

"I'll bring them up under my shell then... get ready."

How do you prepare for the fight?

[] Write in

OOC: You get a surprise round before the Naunets can act; they will be pushed out of the flesh of the Great Worm right next to you under the shell.

Maybe club instead of spear here?
it is Wanderer who replies, tapping his spear on the ground
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As Wanderer has his greatclub, unless of course he took both.

Here perhaps "Faceless" should be "Formless"?
Faceless ones who chose to wear the guise of beasts,
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It seems "Faceless" is sometimes used by you interchangeably with the "Formless", is it intended or is only the "Formless" correct?


From before, for Arc 14 Post 62: Leviathan:
Leviathan ​

Fifth Day of Olweje-eza (Olweje Ascendant), 1349 A. L. (After Landfall)

"Whales," you answer, recalling as you do that it is a trial of great strength among the Anwa to hunt such a beast with just such a weapon as you have found. "Sharks also..." Something shifts underfoot by some unseen current as Wanderer snaps his head back whence you had come, but even as you come near to biting your tongue you say, "And other creatures of the sea besides of which there are many."

The shaking stops as abruptly as it had started, the last swaying of the light casting strange shadows on the dark stone of the walls. Wait, the walls... You look down to see black boots on a pale surface covered in a patina that is more than water. As you open your mouth to speak again the same odd voice echoes from the far reaches of the chamber.

"Many creatures of the sea... one is much like the other then?" a thrumming pause hangs there and then a question poisonously soft. "So if I were to slay the creature you call Ripper that even now swims close, then he would be to you much as any other. Curious that he should dare to come so close when you value him so little."

"It's alive... it's all alive," you had never heard that tone in Swift Pebble's manner, as a drowning soul gasping out a desperate call.

That is when you see it... above there is stone arching in a rough-hewn dome, to your left, to your right there is stone, but below the shifting pale floor, too smooth like the underside Ripper had claimed to have seen in the silt that was alive, the body of some titanic beast in armor of pumice.

"You asked a riddle and I made my guess," you answer, your voice more steady than you had expected it to be, perhaps more steady than it aught to have been given where you stand. "If you wish to take it for an insult then I cannot stop you, save to say that I did not mean it so. If you would make threats against one who had lead faithfully and fought with honor then beware, be ye creature of flesh or spirit or dragon of the depths."

A strange gurgling sound echoes under the vault of stone... It takes you a moment to recognize it as mirth. "Three tasks I was asked to put to you: one of mind, one of might and one of will. You failed one, but should you pass through the others then you shall have that twice stolen..."

"What the hell is going on?" Antonio's voice cuts through the strange offer. "All the otter-kin are running around like their tails are on fire..."

"It's not a stone, but a beast with a shell of stone on its back." You get the dubious honor of learning five new curses in the span of an instant. "It's man-clever at least, it wants us to play a game."

The moment of frozen shock spreads like ice over a fountain pool, stilling the chatter of your company, then Esha clears her throat and primly proclaims. "Is it not thought ill done among your kind to make a riddle that only you can be the answer for?"

Again the laughter comes and then a single word: "Choose."

"Should we barge in and make bloody sheets of the fog?" Antonio asks and to be honest you are more then a little tempted and yet you recall well the other words, the talk of rewarding you in something precious is not without its own temptation.

What do you do?

[] Call out to Antonio that he needs to fight it from without as you did from within

[] Try to take the trial, as much for the curiosity as the promise of reward

OOC: You guys were surprisingly close with your guesses.

Maybe this
too smooth like the underside Ripper had claimed to have seen in the silt
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should have Swift Pebble instead of Ripper? It was she who mentioned it:
DragonParadox said:
"The underside is strange..." Swift Pebble sends, "It is smooth as though it had been worn down by silt and silt swirls all around it still,
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Will add the edits in a bit. I just want to get the update done first

Vote closed
Adhoc vote count started by DragonParadox on Jun 22, 2022 at 3:16 PM, finished with 27 posts and 7 votes.
  • [X] We accepted the task and see no reason not to finish it.
    [X] Your word is your bond even when it is not formally made
    [X] Your word is your bond even when it is not formally made
    -[X] It's regretfully, but, alas, necessary. At least this Formless will not die permanantly
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Arc 14 Post 66: A Slip of the Noose
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    • A Slip of the Noose ​

    Fifth Day of Olweje-eza (Olweje Ascendant), 1349 A. L. (After Landfall)

    You hear the words, but heed them not, for you know well the voice of the liar and the tempter. You charge and fire is in your hand and bright bronze and a will forged in the deep places of the earth far from here. The blow lands, but the wing is as old leather under the edge and turns wholly on iron-hard bone.

    "Fool, fool!" the thing caws and hisses in not one voice but many, changing and twisting like the coils of a snake through the air. "Accursed thy..." A hiss of pain is all that escapes it as Swift Pebble continues her grizzly work upon its back. Alas that she slips on the very blood that she has spilled and tumbles down the shaft even as the spirit rises.

    Too damn slow...

    The bundle of blood-stained that is Swift Pebble tumbles onto the slick floor of the cave, though not with the bone-jarring blow you had feared she might take.

    If anything from the timbre of her mind she is more angry than scared. "Muck-sucking, way-shitter!"

    As the thing makes its way up and out of the shell of the Great Worm you hear another in your mind and he is no more well disposed than her. "Christ's limb and the Saint Marco's oar, damn thing vanished as soon as it came out of the rock, bolts in it and all!"

    For her part Esha does not curse, she does not have to, the grim mien that settles over her features is more than enough to give warning: "It could be anywhere under the sea and in the sky now, they can skip on the veil of the world as a child skips stones on clear water. I had hoped it did not have that power."

    "Not while it was within me," the deep voice of the Worm echoes through the mass of pale... flesh you suppose at your feet. "Regardless the second task is done."

    "We scared it off then?" Wanderer scoffs. "Fawn-hearted thing."

    There is no answer from your host, but in the silence that follows Esha speaks again. "I fear we have given the thing new purpose in the slaying of its companion."

    "It's not dead though...." you trail off. You had been sure of that when you had seen it melt into light and flame bewildering to the eye, but now you have to admit that it had been merely a guess, a feeling.

    "Oh it still exists after a fashion, but it is as likely to rejoin its companion as two grains of sand blown on the wind are likely to meet across the wide sea. The Formless are easily distracted, they take on the shape of beasts and birds, of fish and serpents, even of men of every manner that they might learn of them. Some I have heard even take on stranger shapes, a tree standing tall rooted deep, a river flowing swift, a worm of false flesh in shell of stone..."

    The creature speaks and it is sharp and harsh, not with the voice of magic commanding the world, but simply the tongue of a people you have not heard before... though Esha surely has. She reels almost as if struck then, and with an uneven smile adds, "A touch, a palpable touch... but you are still what I said you are and you will not long linger here, you claimed your prize and rid yourself of your unwanted guests, so let us then have Ansefu King and be done with this charade."

    "Ah so you do not think much of games do you? Then I shall make this as simple as can be, sacrifice one thing that was made of that other world of which much is whispered but little is known, of the Desert of Meaning and the Tyranny of Form. It does not have to be of great use to you, weapon or armor or keepsake, just one thing of that realm that you know you shall never see again."

    For a moment silence lies black and heavy on all the company, then Tom shrugs. "It can have my old sword if it wants. Bronze cuts well enough when proper forged."

    You look to Esha and to Zaia for counsel, but none of them can see anything amiss, though both are suspicious that the last trial should be the easiest.

    What of your old world do you give the Great Serpent in exchange for King Ansefu?

    [] Tom's old sword as he offered

    [] Write in

    OOC: Sorry this took so long, between the headache and being busy today it was not a good writing day.
     
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  • Threadmarks
    • Damn, I was really hoping we could finish off the last Formless. That's another enemy to add to the list... :(

    I don't think I'm being overly paranoid when I say that I have serious concerns about this thing's request?
     
    I would be a bit wary of sacrificing any valueless. The condition of the hostage might vary according to the sacrifice. And it is a test of will, remember
     
    I feel like we would be amiss if we didn't at least ask what it gains from such a sacrifice. It probably isn't any sort of Fey, in which case it can lie as easily as it breaths and we wouldn't be able to tell otherwise, but we should still try.
     
    Goldfish said:
    I don't think I'm being overly paranoid when I say that I have serious concerns about this thing's request?
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    I'm leaning that it's just what is says on the tin. It played a silly guessing game with us for the first task, for it's own amusement probably, it is playing the same game again by just fucking with us for it's own sake, forcing us to both make a needless sacrifice and to keep guessing if everything as it seems or not.

    I don't think it likely it needs one thing of our world for practical purposes, it's so immensely powerful it can just take anything it wants, by stealth or by force.

    Nemonowan said:
    I would be a bit wary of sacrificing any valueless. The condition of the hostage might vary according to the sacrifice. And it is a test of will, remember
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    It would be if tests had gradation of difficulty to them, but they did not, the first one was to guess or not to guess that the answer to the riddle is itself, the second one was to either succeed or fail in getting it rid of these two creatures, again no gradation. So why the likelyhood it would harm the hostage would depend on how we fulfill this explicitly outlined task?

    It just as likely could make Ansefu's condition dependent on how we failed the first task or how we didn't manage to discorporate the second formless, I see no connection to specifically test of will compared to the test of mind or might.

    In general, I'm in favor of accepting, but not with the Tom's sword, but something simpler, less useful and more easily replaceable.

    [X] A coin.

    [X] A piece of Roland's clothing, cloak or shirt.
     
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    I like the idea of using a coin instead of a sword. There might even be some symbolism there if you look at it just right and squint a bit.

    [X] A coin.
     
    I'm not sure what to vote for.

    This is called a 'Test of Will', so to me, we're being asked to give up something important from our past. I don't think a sword/coin/whatever is going to be enough because we can give that up easily.

    What do we hold from our past life on Earth that means a great deal to us?
     
    Travler66 said:
    I'm not sure what to vote for.

    This is called a 'Test of Will', so to me, we're being asked to give up something important from our past. I don't think a sword/coin/whatever is going to be enough because we can give that up easily.

    What do we hold from our past life on Earth that means a great deal to us?
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    Anything we still have from Earth that means a great deal to us also means more to us than freeing Ansefu, IMO.

    If the sea monster wants to play fucky games with us, it gets shitty prizes.
     
    Travler66 said:
    I'm not sure what to vote for.

    This is called a 'Test of Will', so to me, we're being asked to give up something important from our past. I don't think a sword/coin/whatever is going to be enough because we can give that up easily.

    What do we hold from our past life on Earth that means a great deal to us?
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    It doesn't seem to be that way, we are explicitly being told that the test is not in the importance, the test is about symbolically irreversible sacrifice:
    DragonParadox said:
    It does not have to be of great use to you, weapon or armor or keepsake, just one thing of that realm that you know you shall never see again.
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    So far there wasn't any hidden meaning to the beast's tests, they were fulfilled or not fulfilled exactly how it said they could be.

    If we are going the way of importance, the most important thing we can sacrifice is people, and why would we do that?

    Though maybe if we are going for symbolically charged things, a bible can be one? Or Roland can sacrifice his own old sword, it also would be more charged than Tom's sword.

    But as I said, I don't think it actually works that way so I'm not voting such.
     
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    [X] A coin.

    [X] A piece of Roland's clothing, cloak or shirt.

    [X] Tom's old sword as he offered

    [X] Roland's steel longsword

    [X] Ronald's damaged breastplate
     
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    This thing was just tasked to deliver Ansefu to us, and now is playing silly buggers with us, like the gods-damned protean that it is.

    These guys are worse than the fey. They fey work on fairy-tale logic. This thing doesn't.
     
    silvanknight said:
    I'm a bit curious now

    [X] A Bible
    [X] Tom's old sword as he offered
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    Not sure about offering a bible, for various reasons. If there was a bible on Marcella when we left Earth, there was probably only the one and it would very precious to most of those who made the trip with us.
     
    I hope I am not right, but the kind of twisted sense of humour this kind of thing has probably implies that we get Ansefu as a Polymorphed any Object coin or sword or whatever we offer.

    It had CR 7 critters as parasites. It definitely is on almost God tier level
     
    Do we still have our original armor breastplate? The one that was no longer mendable by the cantrip?
    That could be a worthy sacrifice: On one hand, it is symbolically important for a knight like Ronald, he must have stood vigil over it before his confirmation. On the other hand, it stopped being usable so we are not losing anything we are counting on, although since our newly recruited smith might eventually be able to fix it, we could be said to be sacrificing that hope too.

    [X] Ronald's damaged breastplate
     
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    myrix said:
    So far there wasn't any hidden meaning to the beast's tests, they were fulfilled or not fulfilled exactly how it said they could be.
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    They were also very difficult ones, an impossible riddle and a fifht against two CR7 opponents.
    This one is suspicious because it seems so simple and so cheap to solve, unlike the others. That's why I raised the possibility that, yes, we get the king back no matter what we sacrifice, so the letter of the challenge is kept, but since nothing was said about his condition the Worm could very well be planning to damage him if we are cheapskates
     
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