Finding the Spark (Pathfinder 1E Quest)

The Season of Still Stone

"We take them alive!" you call out. Two goblins you can deal with, and once there's a dagger to their throats you can find if they are indeed hunting you.

Things go Orv-way almost instantly. As Mina runs up behind you the farther goblin raises a filth encrusted javelin, his aim true. She stumbles, her face a mask of pain. "P...poison!" she manages to gasp out.

Mina takes 3 damage and 3 Constitution Damage -> Now at 11/14

Should I have cast a warding spell? The question passes through your mind even as you charge forward, dagger at the ready. No time, not if you want to end this quickly. Dwarf steel strikes against the side of the lead goblin's head like a chisel against stone, but the blood does not spray, it drips, viscous like week old worm oil...

Goblin takes 4 Damage -> Now at 6/10

How Mina manages to whisper soothing words through bloodied lips you will never know, but sing she does. A moment later you are rewarded with the heavy thump of her attacker landing unharmed on the cave floor.

Goblin 2 Unconscious for 2 rounds

"Git up! Git up! It's here stupids!" the wounded goblin shouts at his companion, seeming to expand with sheer rage at the sight of him sleeping... and then he explodes.

A wave of stones burst from his warty skin, each no larger than a pebble, most of them bouncing off your armor, but a few bouncing off your face instead, sure to leave a hell of a bruise. As you cautiously open your eyes you realize two things, one far more welcome than the other. Firstly, that the damn goblin didn't blow into chunks in sheer indignation, it's still there, if looking a little winded. Secondly, Mina is somehow still singing...

Akorian takes 2 Damage -> Now at 16/18
Mina takes 1 Damage and 2 Constitution Damage -> Now at 6/10

The second foe falls, just in time for you to kick the weapon out of his hands and rush to his companion, holding the dagger just above his eye as he wakes. "Don't move!" you bark, drawing on your still sparse grasp of goblin tongue.

Out of the corner of your eye you see Mina slump against the wall as she draws the javelin from her shoulder. "D-didn't think l'd need that spell so soon."

Relief washes over you as Pepper darts in, a vial of antitoxin in his teeth, but you cannot afford to take your eyes off the stone-skin goblin in front of you. So, clearly still unsteady from the poison, the sorceress has to draw her own dagger to capture the second foe before the power of her sleep spell can fade.

Used Vial of Antitoxin
Mina heals herself -> Now at 10/10
(Constitution Damage will heal with rest)

After asking your prisoners if they speak dwarf tongue, they don't, you ask Pepper to wake up the others. How he does it you are not sure you want to know, but it is fast. Cob shows up with rope and Gorok with his axe, just to make sure the little bastards understand the stakes.

"Ask them why they hunt us," the lizardman hisses.

What follows is a long back and forth what involves as much waving of hands and stomping of feet on Cob's part as it does shouting. The prisoners would likely do the same, but he had tied them up, leaving little choice but to wiggle energetically to make their point.

"These are from Stone Gobbler Tribe. They say big bat came in sleep, told them to come this way and find me, eat me. If they eat me they get heap big treasure," Cob explains, swallowing words more than usual in his annoyance. "I ask why they listen to sleep-bat. They say I look tasty and treasure sounds good."

Gorok gives a thoughtful rasp. "Treasure, which-treasure... ring? Show them."

With a shrug Cob takes out the black steel ring, sending the prisoners babbling... and licking their lips.

Already pale from the lingering effects of the poison, Mina bleaches white as chalk. "Let me look at that again..." She mouths something, tracing the runes on the ring. "It has the mark of Zura the Vampire Queen. The bat in the dream, the statue up above, the death magic tainting the stone..."


Tales of blood drinking undead are common fare for frightening one's peers in the Hall of the Young, but the way Mina speaks echoes of the sorrow and hatred of generations uncounted. "It walks among the people unseen, unholy hunger behind a familiar smile, beast in guise of man and corpse at the dinner table sitting, watching and waiting. It is mist outside the window swirling, the wolf glimpsed in moonlight, the nightmare that that leaves young and old alike bedridden, too weak to fight, too weak to call for aid, and at last too weak even to move as its shadow looms. Then again, when the pallbearers come to take the bloodless corpse and take it into the earth it wears a mask of sorrow, and from among the grieving chooses its next victim. A plague and pestilence upon the living world." She takes a deep breath before continuing. "Their lady is Zura, to whom they toast in befouled cups, tp whom they glory in the symphony of screams. They are the teeth of the Tyrant's Guard."

"If we let you loose will you not hunt us more?" Gorok asks in the grim silence that follows.

The two tied up goblins nod and nod again, the wounded one starting to bleed a little from the sheer force of the act. It does not take Cob to tell you they promise not to come after you again. But can you trust them to keep that promise if the dreams come again? you wonder. Looking upon them you see no enchantment so perhaps it had been mere blandishment and promise of power that had lead them here. How many others could it lead? Perhaps it is best to get rid of the ring while you still can, before something worse than goblins is draw to its trail.


What does Akorian say?

[] Advise Cob to get rid of the ring
-[] Find a pit to throw it in
-[] If these two had come so far for the ring, give it to them and thus be rid of it.

[] Suggest you let them go and continue on to Cauldron as fast as you can (Forced March)

[] Gorok should execute the prisoners. They cannot be trusted not to follow you and next time you might not catch them arguing

[] Write in

OOC: Since you went capture and not kill Mina focused on putting them to sleep with her hex instead of dealing with her poisoning, but hey at least now you know why they were after you, or rather after Cob.