Finding the Spark (Pathfinder 1E Quest)

13th of Rova 4707 A.R. (Absalom Reckoning)

The sight of eight symbiotes splashing in an old wooded tub, somewhat unwillingly donated by Captain Caulker, is, one must admit... odd. At least the things are not picky. According to Gorok, they are perfectly satisfied with fish guts from the kitchen. The seagulls had been more of a problem, swooping in close for a bit of the feast, which had finally convinced the captain to also give up his first mate's cabin to Mina so you could 'keep those things out of sight of the crew'. One of the feeder tentacles pokes up for a wave, almost like they recognize that they are the center of attention.

"Maybe it wasn't a bad deal after all," you sigh as Cob nods happily.

Gained 8x Symbiote Mask
Appearance: Appearing as the unusual admixture of cephalopod and jellyfish, these odd living breathing apparatus recall the works of Drow Flesh-smiths, though the slow blinks of their many eyes and the playful waves they exhibit when sated certainly do not match the temperament of those warped and tormented beasts.
Ability: Grant the user the Amphibious Universal Monster Rule. It cannot be dispelled and is not affected by the anti-magic fields

"Odd is the wise man's treasure, more precious than platinum," a voice like smoke speaks from the corner of the room.

"I saw you," Gorok says simply.

"I did not attempt to hide from you, scaled one," Sirim answers and the two of them seem to come to some manner of silent understating

"My... thanks for your aid in the battle." It still feels strange to say these words unprompted to one you know little of and do not wholly trust, but it seems to have been going well so far.

"Do not strain yourself for honeyed words, shadow seer." In another tone the words might have sounded dismissive, here and now they seem... understanding.

The smoke serpent nods to each of your companions. Cob he calls 'magic seared' and Mina he names the 'blind maiden', though when each offers their names he nods like smoke shifting in a light breeze and makes use of both.

"I must confess that I have been made curious by recent happenings. Do any of you know what the priest meant by 'World Breaker'?"

"Priest?" you ask, wondering if he had let the information slip.

"I do not know who or what that one might serve, but the taste of his magic was divine," the serpent offers simply. Not a slip, an offer then.

"Pardon, but you seem a lot more willing to be seen than Kori made you out to be," Mina interjects politely. "What changed?"

"Did you not hear me confess my vice?" Though from him a snort of laughter still sounds like a kettle coming to a boil, you come to recognize it as self-deprecating. "Those content to live uninteresting lives do not come to such a conundrum as I."

"So you want to ask us about our adventures?" That last word still has the faintest tang of disbelief about it, as though she cannot quite believe she is now the sort of person to get into such things.

"In time perhaps, but I do not wish to intrude," he replies, a tongue of paler smoke darting from between pitch-black lips. "Rather I wished to ask for your aid in slipping into the chamber when the time comes for the the interrogation of the ceratioidi priest."

"You seem have been managing just fine on your own," you offer with genuine admiration, but also just a hint of suspicion.

"Curious I may be, but I am not a fool." Again the laugh, maybe he is not so sure of that himself. "A small well-lit room where every eye will be alert for some trick from the captive mage is a daunting prospect. On the other hand, should one of your company aid me all I would need to do is hide beneath the sweep of a cloak."

"Even safer if you do not come at all," Gorok points out. "We could recount the happenings to you later here." Could, not 'would', he is being careful.

"Alas that I cannot see memories and be the eye ever so sharp and the tongue ever so smooth, much is yet lost between them."

"Why do you wish this?" Gorok presses in the way his axe might press through a wooden door. He knows he cannot bandy words here, but also that he does not have to.

"In the magics of the Ancient World? The same reason as many others of my calling, the power and greatness of rediscovered wonders. I have ambitions to fulfill and enemies to vanquish, one of the latter you can certainly guess."

Akorian Sense Motive: 1d20+11 = 21 (???)

"Heshy-Devil," Cob smashes a pair of Goblin and Taldan words together, probably because the latter tongue does not have as short a way to say 'The One Who Holds the Leash of' the devil.

For his part Gorok seems satisfied enough at the answer. Between it and the aid in battle he is inclined to agree to the shadow-spirit's request, though it is not a decision he is willing to make without the agreement of all. The risk of angering your hosts is... considerable.

What does Kori think of the matter?

[] Agree to the request
-[] Try to get more concessions out of him (Write in)
-[] Asking nothing more, without him you would have woken from that trance only at the end of a fish-man's spear

[] Refuse, it is too risky, he will have to make due with an account

[] Write in

OOC: You guys do not get to see his rolls for obvious reasons, even knowing what he rolled would be revelatory. In any case, with the roll above Kori thinks that Sirim is being straight with you. Not saying everything of course, but also not lying.

13th of Rova 4707 A.R. (Absalom Reckoning)

The cloak feels heavier than it should around your shoulders, and certainly not from the weight of Sirim himself hiding within. The smoke-shade, as he had explained his particular form and former familiar was named by those of the physical world, has the consistency of foam without being either wet or oily. The sea is calm today, but the wind is gusting enough that it might carry him right off the ship if he's not careful. Speaking of being carried off...

You glance leftward to see the rope Cob is using, still firmly tied to the mast. He'd wanted to try on a living mask, but Gorok had insisted that he do so in a harness firmly tied to the ship, to which he had agreed to with a minimum of grumbling. It is not that Cob does not understand risk, you had come to realize, it is just that he has an unreasonable tolerance for it sometimes, like swimming in the ocean that enemies had recently come out of intent on killing or capturing everyone on the ship. Whispers from thr sailors fall silent at your approach, but not nearly fast enough...

"At least if they snatch up the devil-damned goblin we'll have warning for next time."

"From your lips to Gorzeh's ear..."

Akorian Perception: 1d20+8 = 14 (Success)

"The god you call to approves of wishing death upon your fellows at sea?" you ask, a willfully unsettling smile twisting your lips. The only sound is that of a mop clattering to the deck in surprise. Why the deck needs to be 'swabbed' so often is another ship-mystery as far as you are concerned, but for now deeper secrets await.

The priest, if priest he be, has been tied to a chair and blindfolded, looking lighter and more yellowish green of scale than when you had glimpsed him on the deck. For a moment you wonder if it's bruising and Caulker's crew had been working him over, but then you realize what you saw had been armor so near the color of his own scales that you missed it.

"If you will, Lady Mina?" Caulker motions at his quartermaster, who would be the one conducting the interrogation though the medium of her gift.

You had considered offering reading the fish-man's mind, weighing the use of information against the suspicion that was almost sure to flare, but Sirim had explained that this undersea kindred cannot be bespelled by those who do not share their odd anatomy. Apparently they have two brains. Must be a comfort in lonely times.

Things do not go as you had expected. The first question Menkir asks is how he would wish the bodies of the dead to be handled, to which the priest replies curtly that their right hands should be preserved to be returned to their kin, while the rest can be given to the sea... or eaten. Offers to eat the dead are not normally how one engages in diplomacy, and from the expressions of the Andorans they find it as unnerving as you do, but that seems to have broken through the stony silence.

Menkir Diplomacy (DC 30): 1d20+16 = 34 (Success)

'Galvo-slayer', a name Mina can only half translate as she has never laid eyed on whatever he had slain to earn it, claims he and his fellows had attacked the ship on a holy mision. His kin dwell under the arches of a city they did not make but found, sundered from the world above and sunk beneath the sea.

You do not need the shadow-tinted whisper of: "Azlant" in your mind to know what he means, but from there the story only gets stranger. The ceratioidi of his tribe do not, by Galvo-slayer's account, use the city as mere shelter, but as protection from some dreadful and singular threat which they will not name, but refer to only as 'mind-hunters' as one might speak of some horror out of Orv. The Echowell of the city is the heart of this protection, so named because at times it speaks. Such matters impinge upon the mysteries passed down from spawnings out of memory and so he will not speak much of them, but something had made the Echowell alight with runes of power and awakened strange stony creatures that befuddled all who looked upon them and shattered the weapons of the defenders. Some other creature of the stony depths? you wonder and from the silence of your passenger you guess he is just as befuddled.

Knowledge Akorian/Sirim: 9; 13 (Failure; Failure)

Starring unblinkingly at you Galvo-slayer explains in his odd gurgling tongue that his master had communed with the Echowell using the old rites, giving blood and flesh, and thus he had learned that one of the World-Breakers, the makers of the city, had called to it, summoned it to war on behalf of the World-Breakers who were. Fearing that this would end their sanctuary, the tribe beseeched their god to find this World-Breaker and bring him to the well as sacrifice, that it may be put to slumber again.

Knowledge Akorian/Sirim: 17, 17 (Failure; Failure)

"As I had feared," you can feel the frustration in Sirim's mind, "trying to guess at the secrets of the ages through the medium of a half-willing superstitious savage is like fishing for scrolls in a mire."

"Ask if there are more of the blighters around and if they are going to try again," Caulker interjects.

"Yes, give us the World-Breaker or we shall break this feeble floating-thing," Mina translates, obviously perturbed, and for a moment it seems like the Andorans are about to believe him, but you laugh, your shadow holding a taloned hand to its mouth as though it can't stop doing so.

"Why then have they not already struck? They would have no way to know that you are a prisoner to make this generous offer once more."

Cleric Bluff: 1d20+1 = 18 vs Caulker Sense Motive 1d20+ 14 =15 (Critical Failure)
Akorian Interupt Sense Motive: 1d20+11 = 31(Critical Success)

"A point, a fair point," the captain rumbles. "Seeing as we've cotton on to the hollow threats, all that's left is to decide is what to to with this one. He won't give up what power he serves, but there is no touch of the unholy to his priest's-mark. Not much we can do with him on land unless he wants to join Aysepir's Astounded Abyss..." he chuckles at his own joke. "So we either drop him over the side when we get closer to land or we cut off his head here and now. What say you Akorian? You are in the most danger from him and his kin."

What do you reply?

[] Enough blood had been spilled and you are not planning to stay on the water anyway, drop Galvo-slayer into the port in Augustana, bid him to tell his people that no sacrifice of blood and flesh will affect the devices, a guess can be made fact if one is convincing enough (Bluff DC 20)

[] No sense leaving a live enemy behind you, ask the captain to execute him

[] Write in

OOC: Man even with four tries the dice were not with you on those lore checks. Still, now you know that the ceratioidi are living in a facility somewhere in the Inner Sea that you may have triggered when you activated the others.