Finding the Spark (Pathfinder 1E Quest)

Season of Rushing Waters

Mina does not quite walk right for a xulgath, holding her head too still rather than twitching it up and down occasionally to keep an eye out for burrowing threats or cloakers and stranglers above, and she does not seem to have much of an idea what to do with her illusory tail. Gorok tries to advise her on the matter, but he makes it clear that his suggestions are no more good than learning to speak drow is in speaking to duergar, for the scaled folk their tails speak to everything from their origin to their mood to how well fed they are. Alas. her affinity to language does not stretch that far so she will have to contend herself with not moving her tail too much.

On the other hand one might almost suspect Gorok of having his own magic speech, beast-speech, or at least slurk-speech. The iruxi somehow manages to get the tusked amphibian to understand the need to be careful and quiet as you move up to the ruined kitchen. Quiet Warty is indeed on soft, sticky pads, he hides by ducking his head behind an overturned stone table just as you and Gorok find your own nooks out of sight of the door.

Gorok Animal Handling: 1d20 +4 = 24 (Critical Success) -> Warty does not have to roll Stealth due to how well he follows instructions

"Come here, Bat-Ear Sneak-Thing!" Mina shouts as she seems to struggle with a seemingly terrified Cob... well either that or he is trying to make like a fish, trying to wiggle itself out of the fisherman's hand and back into the lake. Not that it matters that much, the vision slit is narrow and the guards are more likely to judge by what they hear.

After a few moments you hear the telltale signs of claws scratching on stone then the clank of bars shifting and a trio of guards looking not much different from the cooks you have defeated other than the color of their scales and the fact that they have proper spears as well as heavy chitin shields. Raw chitin thank the warding dark, not fine plates as tough as dwarf shield that the drow sometimes sell at exorbitant prices, but still more than enough to make trouble for Gorok and for you if you were minded to use a knife, which you are not.

Mina's lie: 1d20 +1 +1 (Guidance) = 13 vs Xulgath Sense Motive: 1d20 = 11

The faces of the guards are not as mobile as those of caligini, goblin or burnlander, but still you read the enormous surprise and growing fear when they see you and Gorok rush out weapons at the ready, but pointed at the wrong things.

What do you do?

[] Command Warty to attack (Costs a standard action from Gorok to let him at it)

[] Fight them as you did the cooks (Chance of the chief being alerted by the commotion)

[] Rush past them and then use their own door to lock them out as you deal with the Blackscale Sshesh (Due to surprise the enemy does not get Attacks of Opportunity; Sshesh also surprised, but you leave enemies at your back)

[] Write in

OOC: A bit short, but you guys have more options here than I am comfortable taking in your name, especially as surprise would be very valuable against the chief but so would a speedy escape afterwards.

Season of Rushing Waters

As the bewildered guards charge through the four of you spring into action, not upon them, though you have little doubt battle would favor you. You are not here to carve out one scale at a time. Cut off the head of the snake in one blow and the body will wither. The thought carries you past the door, accentuated with the thud of its closing and the clang of the bar fitting into place. The storeroom is filled with many of the same things one might find in the kitchen, if in a form more fit for storage than consumption: sacks of gristle meal, heavier on the fat and lighter on the bone meal and fungus dust than you are used to, creeper-stalks not get split for the sugary core so they would last longer, dead bats, gutted and played winged then salted whole, though the salts smell a bit too much of brimstone for your taste, gnarled roller roots still in the form that gives them their name and ability to go down windy tunnels to catch root in new soil.

All this you see in passing down into the egg room. Here, for the first time there is some semblance of light, and not the smoky torches or even worm-oil lanterns you had expected. Small even crystals of a make far finer than anything you had seen in these caved had been hammered into walls adorned with sharp-edged pictograms of xulgath life, harvesting fungus, raiding, hunting lizard, bat and many legged thing. They give ooff a burnt orange light and a harsh dry heat that you assume is proper for such eggs

Gorok stops dead and looks around in confusion, tail lasing at the air. "Sstrange.... eggs too warm, not wet enough. Why?"

"Maybe it's different for the Xulgath?" Mina offers, stopping to catch her breath, reaching out to lean on you for just a moment.

"Perhapsss.."

The hiss seems to catch on a life of its own twisting and curling though the air, an unseen presence summoned by your trespass. "Ware guardian!" you call, looking around hither and yon, but there is nothing in the room but eggs gleaming in the orange light, set row upon row on shelves of stone.

Rather than lessen as you speak the hissing echo only grows, unfolding in complexion until it is language, xulgath tongue, echoing from the stone. At the back of the room a pair of lights burn brighter, like fire, like baleful eyes.

"There is something in here, it is asking us if we are enemies of Sshesh," Mina translates, sounding as perturbed as you are.

"Does it want us ta be?" Cob asks reasonably. "'S it like 'old lizard good' or 'old lizard bad'?"

"I don't know, it's some kind of ghost." There's fear in those words, strong but worn smooth as river stone, as your own people might speak of the madness of the derro or the cruelty of the drow.

You are as surprised by Gorok's next words as any of the others are. "Spirit of tribe, scale of soul, we hunt the one who drove you from your place of honor and bound you to this place. Who is taking the future of your people from you."

Akorian Wisdom: 1d20 = 9 (Failure)
Gorok Wisdom: 1d20 +2 = 15 (Success)

There is a moment's watchful silence as the air grows warmer and warmer then in a voice that is the rattling of shell against shell the spirit speak again. Gorok it seems had guessed aright about the nature of the presence and at the fact that She who Lurks Above has no love of this usurper from ages past, but she had been bound here for...

"It's to make the baby troglodytes smarter, this stuff it is scavenged from the old ruins. Sshesh is trying to hatch more like him. It is offering to help us if we break it free... We should free it."

At this it is Gorok's time to be silent and you know well why. Another ally against the Blackscale would be of great use certainly, but it would come at the cost of condemning the unborn xulgath to an existence as limited as that of their fallen kin. Enemies they might be now, but in ages past they had been peers to of the iruxi, trading partners, more than just raiders making meat of their neighbors.

What does Akorian think should be done?

[] Free the spirit, you are going to need all the help you can get

[] Leave the spirit in place, you can deal with the chief on your own

[] Say nothing, let Gorok decide

[] Write in

OOC: To break out the spirit you just have to pry the crystals out of the wall.