Can't say I am not interested in Nex' personal apartments. But it is likely to be heavily guarded and maybe arcanely trapped? Although logic suggests trapping the room where you sleep is not the wisest of solutions, an archmage would have ways to make deadly traps harmless to him specifically.
Cob could probably make some sense of it, given some arcane backup.
Contrary to the response a steward of flesh and blood might have given it simply raises one arm... to the sight of hundreds of constructs, a mass of gears and and metal as tall as three men filling a gap in the wall with their bodies beyond which one could hear the moans and shrieks of things no longer among the living. A moment later a black steel lance rams though the weak spot only for one of the trio of constructs that had been acocmpanying you to dart upwards along the wall and fill the gap.
Holy shit, that sounds more like an Undead army invaded Refuge rather than the relatively small group we were first told about. Unless more have been transported here since they first group arrived?
DP, we didn't completely disarm, right? I'm assuming Gorok and Cob still have their regular weapons in their Bags of Holding, since they were specifically armed with their unenchanted Adamantine blades for fighting Constructs in the tunnel.
Yeah, not fighting was probably for the best. It seems like every fight we won against the Constructs would have forced them to divert resources from holding off the Undead forces. It wouldn't take much to tip the scales against the caretakers.
Holy shit, that sounds more like an Undead army invaded Refuge rather than the relatively small group we were first told about. Unless more have been transported here since they first group arrived?
DP, we didn't completely disarm, right? I'm assuming Gorok and Cob still have their regular weapons in their Bags of Holding, since they were specifically armed with their unenchanted Adamantine blades for fighting Constructs in the tunnel.
Oriel is in the same cell as Anippe probably because he refused to be separated from the kid who is the most clearly the kind of charge he should be caring for
Srim was put with Mina probably because he sold the familiar story, of they just took him at his word
Cob was put with Pepper, one assumes because they dislike cats or goblins
Sirim has not tried to leave, he is content to let Cob hack him out rather than try to test his corporeality directly against the wards of an arch-mage. It's one thing to have a spell fail, it is quite another to have a fundamental existence failure when trying to share space with something that isn't sharing.
Okay, we definitely don't need to go looking for a fight or trying to break into the likely warded personal quarters of an archmage of questionable sanity, at least not without retrieving out gear.
I don't want to distract the Construct caretakers right now, either, not when they seem to barely be holding back the Undead forces. Hopefully we can find the one with all of our stuff without raising a ruckus.
[X] Find that bug construct with all your weapons in it.
-[X] If the situation allows for it, Mina uses her Pass Without Trace SLA on everyone and Sirim uses Wild Arcana to cast an Invisibility Sphere spell to hide everyone while we use Stealth to sneak around. Kori will use Inspired Spell to cast Locate Object on a piece of our equipment.
[x] Cob, as the sneakiest among the group and with the engineering knowledge to possibly understand what he finds, will attempt to access the Master's room. Sirim will accompany him to provide arcane support, while the rest of the party regroups and tries to make ready for what comes next.
Not the wisest idea, but constructs seem limited in their responce if we do get detected.
Not a lot of votes, I think I'll leave this one until the morning while you guys think about the options. One thing you may want to consider is that these constructs do not seem to be all that independent. If there is some kind of controlling array it's likely to be in the arch-mage's chambers.
Not a lot of votes, I think I'll leave this one until the morning while you guys think about the options. One thing you may want to consider is that these constructs do not seem to be all that independent. If there is some kind of controlling array it's likely to be in the arch-mage's chambers.
Makes sense, but that also means it is probably the most well secured chamber in Refuge, or guarded by the most dangerous Constructs, while we have none of our gear.
I don't think think sneaking into the master's room is going to be the issue, but rather what happens once we get there. Assuming there won't be a fight seems a bit too optimistic to me.
If this is what y'all want to do, though, we might as well do it right. Without any gear, Cob's base Stealth bonus is +26, but he still has Mythic Heroism providing another +4 bonus. Reduce Person will increase that by +5 (+1 from DEX and +4 from being Tiny-sized), and Bestow Insight will add another +4, for a total of +39. Another +20 or +40 from Mythic Invisibility combined with Cob's Dampen Presence ability means he should be able to avoid any pesky Constructs with Blindsense or Blindsight, even if they have absurdly high Perception bonuses.
Sirim is stealthy, but he doesn't have Dampen Presence, so he needs to ride along with Cob, not just tucked away in his shadow. Riding Possession will let him do that, and he can cancel the effect at will if necessary.
[X] Cob, as the sneakiest among the group and with the engineering knowledge to possibly understand what he finds, will attempt to access the Master's room. Sirim will accompany him to provide arcane support, while the rest of the party regroups and tries to make ready for what comes next.
-[X] Cob uses his Chameleon power to gain a +10 bonus to Stealth, then Kori casts Shadow Enchantment to place Bestow Insight (Stealth) on him, along with Protection from Evil and Mythic Invisibility, and Mina casts Reduce Person and Hermean Potential on him, and uses her Pass Without Trace SLA on everyone. Pepper casts Mage Armor on him. Kori casts Dark Whispers on everyone to maintain communication.
--[X] Sirim uses Wild Arcana to cast a Riding Possession spell on Cob in order to accompany him and fully benefit from his greater stealth abilities while being able to observe and advise unobtrusively.
"How did you do that?" the shadowy voice called in Cob's mind, though closer than it usually was, probably 'cause he was in his brain what that did all the thinking.
"Do what?" he asked clambering over a piece of fallen masonry with weird wizard writing all over it. Cob still didn't get why all the wizards insisted on writing different. Sure if two tribes or nations or kingdoms or what have you lived far apart it made sense for them to come up with different marks or ones that lived close together but hated each other and didn't want to get their marks read. But it seemed to Cob that 'arcane script' was too common for the first and too easily read for the second.
"The... twitch just there?" Came the response.
"Crossed my eyes just so that people's eyes cross when they look this way."
"Are you using an external power source or an internal reservoir?"
There was a big door in front of them, all gold and silver like the branches of a drooping tree that curved back in on itself such that they became the roots with the kind of gaps in it that once might have been gemstone 'fruits'. The kind of door that made Cob's teeth ache...
"I get tired if I cross my eyes that way too many times, inside," he tapped his forehead between the eyes.
"I don't suppose quantification is something you can..."
"Twelve," Cob interprets the squiggly shadow-thought. "Like notches on a belt or..." he jams the pick into the eye of one of the gaps and wiggles it around with what an outside observer might consider an excessive amount of vigor. "Pins in a lock."
He had no way of knowing that the door was possessed of a complex arcane and mechanical locking system which required both the correct pass-phrase to summon and the proper token to uncover as a mere prelude to the opening of the door. Nor would he have had any way of knowing that deep in the guts of this particular door was a work-around for a second smaller door.
Click
It swings open among the silverine roots of the tree and only Sirim is able to read the glyphs that flash above the opening when it does so: a dog's head, a bowl, and an eye. It's a warning to a favored... not pet, but companion to be more careful in the future, and a reminder to spool up the wards when he's done.
The other side of the door is a corridor, its floor bare marble with odd grooves left in the aquamarine tiles, the walls black glass with the barest hint of illusion magic, perhaps to better observe the complex. On a flat-topped dais to one side, tall enough that it might almost be confused with the mastabas which are the resting places of lesser Osiriani nobles, is a bed of down and silk, its sheets as rumbled as its occupant had left all those many years ago.
There is a brass tray floating next to the bed of the same make as all the other constructs which once might have held anything from breakfast to correspondence, though its contents had long since fallen to dust and been polished clean still in place. To the left of that is a handful of splinters that Cob guessed had once been a desk, or maybe a bookcase. Though he hoped it wasn't that last one, it made his friend sad to think about.
"No need to trouble yourself on my account, master Cob."
Cob also didn't know what to make of that one, it's not like it was a bother to feel stuff, you just did or didn't.
"Look there, wardrobe... why's it have the word 'war' in it?" The goblin tried to distract and then got distracted in turn as he approached the double doors build into the back wall, the inner side mirrored.
Looking inside though he saw something wierd... weird-for-this-place, weird. It was dark, but a different kind of dark broken along fracture lines like shards of glass.
"The pocket dimension seems to be damaged. Not unexpected given how delicate building one of these into what is already a demi-plane should be."
"Should be?" Cob asks.
"I am not Nex," the shadowy one admits, the turning of his thoughts behind Cob's eyes making it clear there was a 'yet' behind that sentence.
"Think there's good stuff in there?" he asked, understanding.
"There... might be... if whatever made it collapse is wide-spread then it might lead to an amalgamation of all expanded spaces in the Refuge, or at least in this wing of it, some of which will assuredly contain more precious things than spare robes."
Cob Stealth vs ???: 1d20+59 = 76 (Success?)
Cob Disable Device: 1d20+28 = 42 (Good Success*) *can rearm the trap on your way out if you wish Sirim Knowledge Arcana: 1d20+15 = 22 (???)
Does Cob walk into the spatial discontinuity?
[] Yes
-[] With only Sirim
-[] Bring the others have someone throw him a rope
-[] No, keep searching other rooms
[] Write in
OOC: I'm experimenting with putting the rolls at the end. Tell me if you like this more.
It swings open among the silverine roots of the tree and only Sirim is able to read the ghyphs that flash above the opening when it does so: a dog's head, a bowl, an eye. It's a warning to a favored... not pet, but companion to be more careful in the future, a reminder to spool up the wards when he's done.
I don't mind the rolls at the end, though I can see some instances where it would be better to have them interspersed throughout the chapter to better track what is happening when.
There might be good stuff in that wardrobe, assuming Cob can get the loot without being turned inside out, deposited on another Plane, etc., but we have priorities right now, IMO. We may have to investigate it anyway, if nothing else turns out to be helpful, though risking it should be the last resort rather than the first.
[X] No, keep searching other rooms
-[X] Cob uses his Locate Secret Doors power while examining the rooms.
He had no way of knowing that the door was possessed of a complex arcane and mechanical locking system which required both the correct pass-phrase to summon and the proper token to uncover as a mere prelude to the opening of the door. Nor would he have had any way of knowing that deep in the guts of his particular door was a work-around for a second smaller door.
So Cob found a pet door, bypassing the main lock? Can he open the door from the inside, then -- or how else would the party enter the place?
Edit:
I don't think placing rolls at the end or in the middle means that much. For that matter, I don't think it breaks the narration/immersion to put rolls after actions. The game system is turn-based, and we are prompted for actions a bit too often for my liking, so there are plenty of visible breaks in the pace already. One more or less doesn't make a difference.
I use them as a mechanical description of what just happened, and a measure of success/failure when it doesn't fully come across. It would change things if rolls were absent entirely from the post, but then Goldfish wouldn't be able to guess enemy spell levels from their willpower save bonuses, or vice versa. Whether it's a benefit or a drawback is up to the QM.
He had no way of knowing that the door was possessed of a complex arcane and mechanical locking system which required both the correct pass-phrase to summon and the proper token to uncover as a mere prelude to the opening of the door. Nor would he have had any way of knowing that deep in the guts of his particular door was a work-around for a second smaller door.
Click
It swings open among the silverine roots of the tree and only Sirim is able to read the ghyphs that flash above the opening when it does so: a dog's head, a bowl, an eye. It's a warning to a favored... not pet, but companion to be more careful in the future, a reminder to spool up the wards when he's done.
Ha! Only Cob would break past a magic door through the doggy one.
Rolls at end are fine for me either way.
I don't think jumping into a partly broken pocket plane is a good idea without backup, but we can do so later with party after we check more things out.
Not lightly did man tread within the forests of Kyonin, Thrice Guarded. Oh some there were who traded, from the River Kingdoms and the sky citadels of the dwarfs, as well as their lesser kin of the cities, but only into places and at times that suited the glade lords. If one planned to get up to darker deeds against the lords of the wood an army would be needed, and there was no army in Avistan that wished to test the might of the elves who had already endured the attentions of an Ascendant Demon, one who was near a god.
But if good sense has been the prized virtue of the Sons of Taldaris... well they would likely still be hiding behind walls to this day or else they would have sold themselves to dragons when the Chimera had begun to roar. No, thought the traveler, cloaked and hooded as he was, walking in the lantern light of the caravan bright with the charms and talismans they claimed aided them to round Lake Encarthan, though he was no Variasian and had not come from there. The way to pass out of sight of the elves and into places they'd rather you not be, is to be counted beneath their notice.
"This is where we part ways," the grey-eyed man said gruffly as he spied the tree the the tree forked in twine by lightning, just as the seer had proclaimed. That the caravan leader might have taken the words for wariness and not guilt was probably for the best. Sir Pisca Fahlspar didn't shew flyleaf with drovers and acrobats, he certainly didn't carve little wooden dice for their children. But then Sir Pisca Fahlspar also bore the ancient sword of his house, the which the grey eyed man did not.
"Are you sure? Old Ones are tricksy." With these words Jaerg makes a warding sign of the horns
"I've known elves before," Pisca laughs, or tries to at least, though it sticks in his throat at the look the children peeking from behind the wagon are giving him, the solemn look one gives someone one will not see again on this earth.
"City elves, yes?" Jaerg presses. "Like man, but with pointy ears, maybe sometimes fuck man, make half-man babe. Bah, as different as wolf and dog. Old wolves in these woods man of the east, old wolves."
"And yet you took the chance...?" Before he had come to walk under the strange ascended shadows where oak and rowan gave way to trees that spread out along the ground like great wooden claws tipped with black leaves Pisca would have thought the gold he paid the caravan would be more than enough to cover their part of the ruse, but now... he had seen the elf-posts and the bones that piled at their base as if in offering to a vicious god, or some hungering rooted horror of the deep woods. He no longer thought it was gold alone. One thing to say 'dead men spend no gold', that didn't stop sellswords and adventurers from across the breadth of Golarion from trying their luck at the ruins of Kyonin, but those lads generally didn't bring their families with them into the proverbial lion's den.
"You seek a path yes, path though here, alive or dead, if the Old Ones bring you back dead I can say under their magics that this is all I knew and be believed. If you live you find another way out of the woods."
It was not a request, Pisca could respect it.
He had a sword to find.
OOC: Since we are not in combat (yet) this just popped into my head unbidden. Behold Sir Pisca seeking his sword in the depths of the treacherous elven forest... and even more dangerous for his knightly self image making friends with peasants.
The nice dark elf pointed out that he would need months of study to have some chance to understanding an impacting the result so he has not partaken... yet.
