Damned in life - A Pathfinder 1E Adventure in the Infernal City of Dis

A Rotten Embrace​

Bloom season

"Hold until the walker strikes the earth!" You half-shout, half-predict, and you visibly see Thrag'Ka having to restrain herself from simply plunging herself and her glaive into the water. The creature rushes with feral, yet otherworldly cunning, for it must surely have seen Thrag'Ka's sharp implement pointing in its direction.

As the hobgoblin stands her place, you spy the slightest slump on her shoulders as the Bog-Walker outright tries to ignore her and go towards all of you standing on her back.

So far everything has been according to the plan.

A couple flicks of your hands, a sigil to conjure forth the concept of size, a couple words in a tongue mixed with the straight staccato of Baator, and Thrag'Ka's size grows until she is twice as tall as you. The collection of weeds and branches finds its trajectory impeded by the very same glaive it had tried to evade, a finding that takes back Thrag'Ka too. Yet what could have been a masterful stroke is rendered little more than a slab of hellforged steel hacking at the branches.

By virtue of it all, a two-foot long blade does not need to be wielded skillfully to slice through branches and rotten wood, and so it does.

Bog-Walker takes 20 damage! Now at 47/67!

Pieces of vegetation then splash out from its head, as an arrow glances dangerously near one of its glowing eye sockets. Nasha's mien is serious, likely already adjusting her next shot.

Bog-Walker takes 15 damage! Now at 32/67!

If anything, this is the first time you have seen weeds so enraged. Tendrils made of reeds grasp for the glaive, yet whatever instinct the creature has towards potential threats, instead of pulling it away from its body, it pulls it back into itself, Thrag'Ka outright unable to react in time. You had not foreseen this!

Thrag'Ka is disarmed!

A ball of ice hits the creature squarely in its chest, Seldlom trying and failing to direct the creature's anger towards something else.

Bog-Walker takes 8 damage! Now at 24/67!

"Shrak!" You hear the hobgoblin curse under her breath. The Bog-Walker seems to be utterly focused on her now, vengeance in the baleful light of its eyes.

[ ] Write in battle plan

A/N: I had hoped this would be a simpler encounter, but right now you have spent a lot of resources, and Thrag'Ka has been deprived of her main weapon. Apologies for the delay.

Trying to carve a path ahead​

Bloom season

There are many things flaring in Thrag'Ka's features besides anger. The collection of rotting plant matter had managed to incense the hobgoblin warrior besides the calculated rage she so efficiently uses to strike down her foes. In the end, wounded pride wins, with a silent oath to rectify matters. She rushes towards the creature, her charge ending in a jump and outright punches out, shield arm extending to hopefully catch the thing with an edge which should hopefully prove, if not as much damaging as her stolen glaive, at least damaging enough.

The rustle of branches, the wet crunches of things too rotten to name properly, the Bog-Walker shifts, and the shield comes out barely carrying some degraded matter, while the rest of the creature stands bent to one side, its insides rearranging as one arrow goes through an orifice briefly formed. You hear a gnoll grunting in frustration behind you.

A pair of baleful yellow eyes look back at Thrag'Ka, a hateful intent on them. Yet the creature is still rearranging itself, and that's when you unleash your own ball of ice. Not towards its head, but its center of mass, loosely hanging together by some vines.

The frozen mass not only hits, but outright explodes its center, causing a whole arm made out of rotten twigs and reeds to fall to the ground lifelessly. The glowing light in the Bog-Walker eyes falters for a brief time, then flares diminished, as it scrambles to get afoot again with one limb less and throws itself into the water. So the thing can feel fear.

"The thing is useless dead, do not pursue!" Seldlom interjects, a hobgoblin stopping halfway amongst the indecision between picking back her glaive and finishing off the stuff that had so insulted her. Even in anger, she has the sense to reach for her fallen weapon first.

Ellac Crits the Snowball spell! Bog-Walker takes 22 Damage! Now at 2/67!

Bog-Walker chooses Full Withdrawal!

---

The recovered glaive brings the boon of sweeping a circle of foul vegetation from around you, giving you the decency to at the very least seat while you take stock of the situation. With the Bog-Walker nowhere to be seen, likely vulnerable enough to be finished by Dispater knows what else lurks into the pond, Seldlom had explained to you that this monstrosity was little more than a manifestation of the local conditions.

"It would be more usual to witness an amalgamation of plant matter given evil intent in Stygia, where the flow of the river of souls stagnates many of the Damned." The elf had said. It had piqued the interest of Nasha, who had witnessed Stygia in person, but not for long enough to 'appreciate' the deepest works of the Baatorian ecosystem there. For your part, you are particularly curious regarding the possible interaction between degrading soul matter and normally inert materials to…

A whack at the back of your head interrupts your thoughts. Ouch!

"That's for your stupid predictions making fun of me." Thrag'Ka says, mockingly chiding you.

"Ouch! I barely saw a better chance of us winning, I could not possible reach for each and every-"

"I know." She says with a smile that shows both of her small shark tusks coming out of her lower lip. "Next time this better not happen in front of anyone, you get it?" The faux threat brings some levity to this all, and you simply raise your hands in defeat.

"I can't promise anything-" Ouch! The jab at your arm was not malicious at all, yet some part of you wonders if the hobgoblin is too used to playing rough, or if indeed the noodles you call your arms are in such need of some exercise.

You file the concern for later, for you have to retrieve whatever treasure you had just fought the Bog-Walker over. In the end it takes a long stick to poke whatever is below to make the hateful vegetation to latch onto the stick instead of anyone's limb, and some careful application of some cantrips so that no-one has to actually sink fully into the pond. The reward is some loose bones, a skull somewhat worn that you could not possibly guess the origin of, a box containing, oddly enough, some golden disks…

You blink in confusion. "Why would someone deal in metallic currency within Dis?" You ask aloud.

Between a thoughtful hum from Seldlom, it is Nasha who answers. "Wouldn't the wildlife see it as little more than food?"

"They knew about the condition of the neighborhood, and came prepared for that." Adds Thrag'Ka.

"Didn't serve them much…" Comes some mumbling from Seldlom.

"They knew the risks, they were probably smugglers, or at least the stupid one that got hunted here."

You turn your attention towards the other interesting piece among the deprecated clothing. The pair of boots are oddly untarnished by the environment, and yet are utterly unremarkable, save for the faint glow of enchantment that shows to both Psilo and you.

To finish the fortuitous looting of a dead fellow, you find a sealed glass flask carrying a piece of parchment, fortunately conserving it. Upon opening, and ignoring the faint marks of what appears to be an ear on it, you read the note:

"The last batch disappointed, the experiences were almost shared. I need diversity, don't stretch your materials again. I will notice."

It appears that you have found a hint towards the mystery of the Potions of Elsewhere, and the Maleficus Ward is at the very least entwined with it.

Loot:
1000 Soul Shards in Gold Coins
Daredevil Softpaw Boots
A hint
The Smuggler's Skull (for questioning purposes)

---

It is Nasha who volunteers to go out from this marginally more advantageous position, with the intent of finding something you could use to hopefully fix your plague problems at the Garden. When she arrives back, she finds you meditating on your various spells and refilling the mental projections to refresh them. She has found various interesting things from afar:

Choose one to explore, or to go back and abandon the expedition:

[ ] An utterly unremarkable, silent and monotonous large patch of grass.

Normally you would dismiss the notion of a normal-looking patch of gray grass, yet it can only be described with an eerie sense of wrongness here. How could it be that no weed is growing among these grass blades? What could be found within? How could something so homogeneous be among such growing wilderness?

[ ] A small procession of the Damned, four souls shambling among the tall grasses.

Nasha swears by the Elder Brother himself that yes, there were souls freely moving through the predatory grounds of the Main Plaza. Upon further questioning by Seldlom it is discovered that the souls were not actually emitting sounds of any kind, their faces were a blurred rictus of fear, and that the kholo ranger did not manage to see below the head level, the weeds being so high at that point. The druid suspects that this might be shape-shifting plants of some kind, ones possessing some natural cunning to adapt as much. He concludes that they could be of utility to his Garden. If anything, their remains might hold some value.

[ ] A large, impossible to miss tree made out of bones juxtaposed to form a trunk and branches, shielding the Damned from the world outside.

Nasha managed to reach a position from where she could see both the tree, and a score souls languidly sleeping on the floor. The tree almost covers them all with its lower branches, and piles of Soul Embers are seen amongst the souls, likely the remains from degraded Damned. The bounty of souls does have some value, but on the other hand the osseous tree could be negotiated with instead?


A/N: survival rolls hidden this time. Believe it or not, I had even more encounters to throw at you here.