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Finding the Spark (Pathfinder 1E Quest)

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Goldfish said:
It's one thing to poke around looking for traces of magic, trying to find tracks, a scent, etc., but sticking around to try to run a full investigation, including interviewing witnesses, while burning through a lot more Mythic power, is just being excessive.

We've already put a lot of effort into reaching the assassin and we don't have anything to show for it. Pouring more resources down a hole isn't going to do us any good when we don't even know what is really going on.

Better to get to the palace and keep ourselves as fresh as possible for whatever comes next.
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It did occur to me that one of the possible culprits might be the governor and/or princess, for whatever reason. And in that case suceeding wouldn't actually benefit us.

Ok, so I'm now onboard going to the palace and offering Divination.
Except I do want to ask birds about if they saw anyone pop out of nowhere (short range teleport) or change shape/size. We might get lucky and one saw through a window or the teleport/shapechange was done in a 'deserted' back ally.

@DragonParadox Is the place the attack was launchd from within one mile of the palace, and if not, roughly how far is it?
You utter a question in the form of a low-pitched bird call that can be heard up to a mile away, and can understand the responses given by birds in the area. Over the next 10 minutes, the birds reply as if you had asked them the question using speak with animals, giving you a general consensus answer to the question based on their knowledge. For example, you could ask if there is drinkable water in the area, the location of predators or other creatures, directions to a mountaintop or other natural feature, and so on, and the local bird communities would answer to the best of their ability.

If there are no birds in range, the spell has no effect and you do not get a response. Any creature using speak with animals (or a similar ability) who hears this bird call can understand your question, though it may not be able to reply in a way you can hear.
Follow up question. Can a bird who maybe saw someone pop up/change shape in the area a moment ago be the target of Share Memory? (The bird would need to be Animal Handle'd into being a willing target, even if so, I suppose?)
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I mean, chances are that it's still not the attacker's real form, but we might get lucky.
 
Ah, the obligatory part of any criminal investigation: reading tea leaves and fortune-telling.

Any distraction where it'd be unimportant if a governor lives or dies needs to cover for a much bigger event, and the only one currently happening that we know of is the princess' visit. Grabbing her attention to do... what exactly? Take over the city and make a fool of herself, maybe?
In hindsight, since we were forewarned about her visit, and each and every one of us knew there was going to be trouble, we may have divined for it beforehand. Then again, there is an overabunbdance of anti-divination amulets in this city, so I wonder how effective it'd be at prevention.

Gorok's ghosts should probably take notes if we want to do takedowns without leaving traces.

It'd be nice to do some groundwork, at least try to see if there are magical trails to pick up (which could be left if the assassin left via a short-ranged spell), but if that's a bust we can start from the other side, the motive. And for that we'd need someone with a better grip on politics.

[x] You should join the others in withdrawing to the palace, this is almost certainly connected with the spiders' nests the governor has been poking with your help
-[x] But first examine the area from which the assassin fired, searching for magical auras and traces of Fiendish power. Pepper will attempt to discern any scents he might be able to recognize later, and Gorok and Cob will search for tracks or other clues the assassin may have left behind.
-[x] Once we reach the palace and speak with the princess, Kori will offer to perform a Divination to gain some information about the assassination attempt, if that's what it really was.
 
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Another good reason to get back to the palace quickly is that Kori's Locate Object spell still has almost 8 minutes of duration. With it's range Extended to 1,280 feet, he might detect the bow near to the place if the attempted assassination was just the first part of a larger attack against the princess.
 
@DragonParadox, can you weigh in on this when you get a chance?
Goldfish said:
I've been looking at another feat for Mina to learn at 7th level. I still want her to learn Improved Familiar at 7th level, so if she learns another one it would require retraining. Potent Hex, maybe?

Anyway, the feat is Summon Guardian Spirit.

Summon Guardian Spirit – d20PFSRD

www.d20pfsrd.com www.d20pfsrd.com

It's a pretty neat feat that lets the caster gain a Guardian Spirit.

Guardian Spirit (CR varies) – d20PFSRD

www.d20pfsrd.com www.d20pfsrd.com

Basically, it's an enhanced form of Summon Monster spell that lasts for one minute per level instead of one round per level, along with providing all sorts of additional abilities. The Guardian Spirit is always the same creature, too, so it remembers its existence from one Summons to the next.

What if in addition to being an Improved Familiar, Pepper could also become a Guardian Spirit when Mina casts an appropriate Summon Monster spell, like magical steroids? He could gain real combat ability in addition to extra utility. Could that work, @DragonParadox?
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Goldfish said:
I agree that it's strictly mechanically better. I like it for that reason alone, but I don't think it works for Mina's character. Pepper is the cat who saved her, died doing it, then was brought back as a cat powered by her magic and imagination. He's important to her as he is.

Luckily, the Silvanshee option lets him stay as an effectively identical cat while upgrading him significantly. His innate alignment will even match hers.

If we could have picked her Familiar from the beginning, I would probably chosen Faerie Dragon, too. Pookas, Pipefoxes, Chuspiki, or Pseudosphinx would have also been great. Silvanshee are pretty good, though, so we can work with that. Wouldn't be the first mechanically sub-optimal decision we've made for the group.

EDIT: That said, if @DragonParadox confirms that Mina and Pepper would be just as happy with him becoming a Faerie Dragon, I would by happy for him to transform into a Faerie Dragon.
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DragonParadox said:
The first one sounds reasonable, as for the second though, he could become a fairy dragon mechanically, but appearance wise he would remain a cat... just one with wings and a SLAs
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That would be ideal, if he could become a cat-shaped Faerie Dragon.

Would he still be eligible to get the Guardian Spirit upgrade, too?
 
Yeah, cat with butterfly-wings is somehow both very draconic, and will offend any True Dragons who see it, if it claims to be draconic.

PERFECT.
 
'Cat with wings' was my first thought after seeing Sylestrix' attitude, so that's on the money.

On the other hand, I can't get over how ridiculous cats look with insect wings.
 
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I'd like to have Gorok cast Commune with Birds (Hermean Potential) on the off chance that there were any birds that saw an incoming short range teleport or shapechage happen in the area (maybe in a 'deserted' ally or through a window?), and if there were, then Gorok could (with buffs) try to convince the bird to come and let Sirim cast Share Memory on it to see what the bird saw.

(Mina doesn't have the "freak animal out aura" but Sirim has the illusions needed to project an image of what the bird would have seen). We could spend a second Surge Point to send the memory from Mina to Sirim, if need be.

@DragonParadox was the attack launched from within one mile of the Palace? I'm asking because if it was, then Commuen with Birds is trivial to attempt, but if it was further away then it will need a bit of back-and-forth on ferrying people, and a mix of RoSS stuff, and an Extened Hermean Potential.

But the back and forth is bittt "the wolf and the sheep and the hay need to be brought acorss the river", so I'd rather know the distance before bothering to type out the squence of events.
Note to self: Remember to have someone cast Delay Poison on the frog.
 
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BeepSmile said:
@DragonParadox was the attack launched from within one mile of the Palace? I'm asking because if it was, then Commuen with Birds is trivial to attempt, but if it was further away then it will need a bit of back-and-forth on ferrying people, and a mix of RoSS stuff, and an Extened Hermean Potential.
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No, you are basically just inside the walls, it's about twice that to the palace.
 
BeepSmile said:
I'd like to have Gorok cast Commune with Birds (Hermean Potential) on the off chance that there were any birds that saw an incoming short range teleport or shapechage happen in the area (maybe in a 'deserted' ally or through a window?), and if there were, then Gorok could (with buffs) try to convince the bird to come and let Sirim cast Share Memory on it to see what the bird saw.

(Mina doesn't have the "freak animal out aura" but Sirim has the illusions needed to project an image of what the bird would have seen). We could spend a second Surge Point to send the memory from Mina to Sirim, if need be.

@DragonParadox was the attack launched from within one mile of the Palace? I'm asking because if it was, then Commuen with Birds is trivial to attempt, but if it was further away then it will need a bit of back-and-forth on ferrying people, and a mix of RoSS stuff, and an Extened Hermean Potential.

But the back and forth is bittt "the wolf and the sheep and the hay need to be brought acorss the river", so I'd rather know the distance before bothering to type out the squence of events.
Note to self: Remember to have someone cast Delay Poison on the frog.
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Dude, that is really excessive.

At most some birds may have seen a person, but that isn't going to tell us anything useful. Whoever did this wasn't using their regular appearance when they showed up. You're talking about using a lot of time, spells, and Mythic power to see a throwaway disguise. Now isn't the time to burn through more of our resources before the fighting even starts.
 
Goldfish said:
Dude, that is really excessive.

At most some birds may have seen a person, but that isn't going to tell us anything useful. Whoever did this wasn't using their regular appearance when they showed up. You're talking about using a lot of time, spells, and Mythic power to see a throwaway disguise. Now isn't the time to burn through more of our resources before the fighting even starts.
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My intention is for Gorok to be left behind to cast Commune With Birds, the party to be dropped off near the palace by an invisible abductor (not too near so as to prevent alarm), visibly walk/jog in to offer divination.

Cob flies back to Gorok with the abductor, and the bird thing is attempted. If it fails, they fly to the palace (we'll have gotten someone to let the gate guard to let them in).

Cost at this point:
0 additional time, since Divination takes an hour for Kori.
one scroll of Commune with Birds.
one Hermean Potential on Gorok for the Animal Handling check.
invisibility cast into a ring to use on the abductor. (Kori can provide this) (I'm fine with having Gorok and Cob being flown on an invisible being, as long as they stop a save distance from the palace and walk the rest of the distance).


If we get lucky, and a bird saw someone change into a new form and/or teleport into a place, then we use one Mythic power point....
Or we can get the governor to use his political power to get someone with the Share Memory spell/scroll to use on the bird. Honestly, it would be to his benefit to do so, since us saving Mythic power here benefits him.

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If need be/we think that Gorok and Cob visibly flying in on something invisible might be too alarming, we can just have Gorok and Cob jog in, since they're probably(?) less than an hour's quick jog from the palace.
 
BeepSmile said:
My intention is for Gorok to be left behind to cast Commune With Birds, the party to be dropped off near the palace by an invisible abductor (not too near so as to prevent alarm), visibly walk/jog in to offer divination.

Cob flies back to Gorok with the abductor, and the bird thing is attempted. If it fails, they fly to the palace (we'll have gotten someone to let the gate guard to let them in).

Cost at this point:
0 additional time, since Divination takes an hour for Kori.
one scroll of Commune with Birds.
one Hermean Potential on Gorok for the Animal Handling check.
invisibility cast into a ring to use on the abductor. (Kori can provide this) (I'm fine with having Gorok and Cob being flown on an invisible being, as long as they stop a save distance from the palace and walk the rest of the distance).


If we get lucky, and a bird saw someone change into a new form and/or teleport into a place, then we use one Mythic power point....
Or we can get the governor to use his political power to get someone with the Share Memory spell/scroll to use on the bird. Honestly, it would be to his benefit to do so, since us saving Mythic power here benefits him.

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If need be/we think that Gorok and Cob visibly flying in on something invisible might be too alarming, we can just have Gorok and Cob jog in, since they're probably(?) less than an hour's quick jog from the palace.
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That is too many moving parts to be practical right now, IMO.

This isn't just a run-of-the-mill mystery that needs adventurers to poke into it. Someone just tried to assassinate the governor of a major Taldan city with the princess standing within spitting distance of him. Things are going to be in motion now.

The entire party needs to get to the palace, not split up to chase a lead that isn't going to go anywhere.
 
There is, I believe, no need to Commune with Birds right this instant. The premise seems to be that the assassin was competent and escaped. Whether he didn't leave a single trace is something we will be briefly checking for, but as we seemingly have already decided to return to the palace, the culprit will not be in the vicinity by the time we can act on any of our finds.

After we have our talk with the princess and fish for divine insights, then we can take birds' testimonies and add them to the case if it makes sense to do so.
 
Goldfish said:
The entire party needs to get to the palace, not split up to chase a lead that isn't going to go anywhere.
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I'm not trying to get a lead and then chase it, I'm trying to take a stab at the chance that the assassi attackers made a mistake, and/or got unlucky, and then take that lead (the bird) back to the palace.

Yes, when switching down from Huge -> nautural sized, and then natural sized -> medium, there is probably no point at which the attacker was in their actual form/the 'escape form' they used was a throaway one that they dropped a minute later.
But we might get lucky.


If you're confident that we're having Kori do a divination, then the expenditure of a Hermean Potential and a Commune with Birds here on this gamble is trivial, because his divination would take an hour.

And if you think that it has too many moving parts, then that's because I went a bit overboard in describing the 'how' because I overfocused on trying to make the attempt and return to the palace with any witnesses asap.

Actually, if you're not confident that we're having Kori do a divination, but then we do vote to do so at the palace, then I'm 100% in favour of sending Gorok (and Cob) back out on an invisible Abductor Beast in order to make the attempt, because getting there, trying to get a bird and coming back would take less than an hour.

If we were to do that, it would literally cost one level 1 scroll, one Hermean Potential in a ring, and one (Extended) Invisibility cast on the Abductor Beast.
 
Nevill said:
After we have our talk with the princess and fish for divine insights, then we can take birds' testimonies and add them to the case if it makes sense to do so.
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You know what, I think that I'll add this conditional to the current vote, a "if we're taking the time (one hour) for Kori to attempt a divination"

[x] Goldfish
 
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BeepSmile said:
I'm not trying to get a lead and then chase it, I'm trying to take a stab at the chance that the assassi attackers made a mistake, and/or got unlucky, and then take that lead (the bird) back to the palace.

Yes, when switching down from Huge -> nautural sized, and then natural sized -> medium, there is probably no point at which the attacker was in their actual form/the 'escape form' they used was a throaway one that they dropped a minute later.
But we might get lucky.


If you're confident that we're having Kori do a divination, then the expenditure of a Hermean Potential and a Commune with Birds here on this gamble is trivial, because his divination would take an hour.

And if you think that it has too many moving parts, then that's because I went a bit overboard in describing the 'how' because I overfocused on trying to make the attempt and return to the palace with any witnesses asap.

Actually, if you're not confident that we're having Kori do a divination, but then we do vote to do so at the palace, then I'm 100% in favour of sending Gorok (and Cob) back out on an invisible Abductor Beast in order to make the attempt, because getting there, trying to get a bird and coming back would take less than an hour.

If we were to do that, it would literally cost one level 1 scroll, one Hermean Potential in a ring, and one (Extended) Invisibility cast on the Abductor Beast.
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It's not just that it's wasting time and resources, it's that it's wasting them while also splitting the party up when the next phase of this plot could go into effect at any moment. Cob and Gorok could be on the wrong side of the city when the princess is attacked, if she is attacked, or they could be on the other end of the city and get ambushed by the assassin's accomplices while the rest of the group is safe at the palace.

Chasing extremely unlikely leads isn't necessarily a bad thing. Doing it at the wrong time, however, very much is.

What do you even hope to gain from all of that effort?

Someone just attempted to assassinate the governor of Cassomir, and they almost pulled it off. Expecting them to have shown up using their own appearance is beyond wishful thinking, not when covering their tracks is so cheap and easy.

A Disguise Self potion would last 10 minutes and cost 50 gold, and that's assuming the assassin couldn't cast the spell or owns an item like our extremely cheap Hats of Disguise. A Pass Without Trace potion lasts 1 hour, eliminates scents and tracks, and costs 50 gold.

That's all it takes to completely negate almost anything we could hope to find here using the means currently available to us. Nevermind that it's also storming, which messes with tracks and scents, and encourages birds to stay dry as best they can.
 
Fair enough on the split the party risks. Slim they might be, but I care more about the party than actually getting to the bottom of any of this.
 
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BeepSmile said:
Fair enough on the split the party risks. Slim they might be, but I care more about the party than actually getting to the bottom of any of this.
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I hope this is just Taldan politics, one faction poking at another faction to see what advantage they can wrangle for themselves, either by causing a crisis in the wake of an assassination, seizing power with the governor's faction rendered leaderless, capitalizing on the governor's faction being thrown into disarray by his death or just the embarrassment of nearly dying in front of the princess, or maybe even implicating another faction or power to weaken their position.

As cutthroat as all of those options can be, none of them should involve crazy Drow running rampant, Summoning Demons, etc., so things might stay relatively tame. And a small group of mercenary adventurers may slip by without being noticed.

If anyone here is likely to draw attention, it's Leontas and his fellow ex-crusaders. They did just purchase a big chunk of land and minor noble titles, all facilitated by the governor.
 
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Damn, this assassin is good to disappear like that, but as said weird they didn't finish job or do it more quietly if they are this good at vanishing.

Sneakier and easier ways to take someone out after all.
DragonParadox said:
The shot had originated from one of 'the green' for which the neighborhood was named, the former grounds of the ruined Arodonite abbey, but that too is empty of all but evening shadows and birds untroubled by the doings of the city's other residents
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Oh! @Goldfish could Gorok use the speak with birds spell to ask what they saw since they are around? Maybe they know who attacked and where they went?
 
Massgamer said:
Damn, this assassin is good to disappear like that, but as said weird they didn't finish job or do it more quietly if they are this good at vanishing.

Sneakier and easier ways to take someone out after all.

Oh! @Goldfish could Gorok use the speak with birds spell to ask what they saw since they are around? Maybe they know who attacked and where they went?
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@BeepSmile had a similar idea, but I don't think it is a good use of time when we could be heading to the palace. Casting the spell is quick, but then it takes 10 minutes to get information from nearby birds, if there is any to be found. Whatever is going on, the assassination attempt was just an opening maneuver, IMO. We should get to the princess sooner rather than later or we're going to miss the main event.

Whoever took the shot definitely wasn't using their normal appearance, so whatever any birds in the area saw would have been a disguise, plus there probably weren't any birds in viewing range anyway. It's stormy weather, so birds are going to be hiding under eaves, in trees, etc., trying to stay dry instead of paying attention to strange giants who pop up then vanish a few moments later.

The assassin must have teleported away or had other means of very rapid travel, since Kori's Locate Object spell isn't finding the bow anywhere within 1,280 feet and it only took us probably 4 or 5 rounds (24 to 30 seconds) to reach this place. They weren't doing that on foot. Like you said, it's weird they didn't finish the job, after putting in the effort to make the attempt and get away so cleanly. That's why this feels more like theater, or someone going through the motions to setup something bigger. More reason to get back to the place quickly.
 
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