Peril's Crossing
6th of Lamashan 4707 A.R. (Absalom Reckoning)
It sounds like the Aspis Consortium have enough blood on their boots to set a
stone-maw after them, as the old saying goes, so you signal to Gorok that you're minded to accept. For a moment it looks like he might still balk at the path and if he does you're willing to back down, he's certainly proven himself to be worth more than a score in some far off forest, but in the end he does not, turning his attention instead to making sure that you'll have the hands to do the deed when the time comes.
For this purpose Thea hands him a small silver mirror and explains that it has to be fogged with the breath of a living user who can then write
messages on the glass to be seen by another attuned mirror. At the moment this one is going to be linked to hers, though when you make it as far as Almas it would be wiser to link it to the mirror of Venture Captain Brackett who runs operations in the capital. He's the one who will have to arrange extraction, both with and without the loot, sending agents to dog the steps of the Consortium all the way, or so at least the dwarven Pathfinder claims. Though it does not take knowing Gorok as well as you do to tell he is as dubious at the prospect as he was at the notion of
flayleaf, an acquired taste to be sure, but why would one want to acquire it? Thankfully the three small pouches she hands you do not contain spices for burning, but something with a touch of the arcane.
"Paper?" Mina frowns down at the crumpled strip that hangs from a copper chain in her hand, one of five similar talismans. "Is this a
scroll?"
"I'm no wizard, lass, but if it is it's not a scroll for you to read, but when that have unfriendly eyes on you. The way I understand it, when a wizard targets you with a spell that would read a future you rather they don't read it'll read what's on the scroll, an old Tian proverb I think, then it's wiped away like any other scroll. It says: "A man who plants melons will harvest melons, and a man who plants beans will harvest beans."
"You get what you worked for?" Mina asks bemused.
"You get what you expect to see," you offer knowingly. "The best lie is the one the other person told himself going to sleep at watch-end. After all, if someone is expecting betrayal for other reasons and gets a sign that it will not be, they might try the spell again."
Gain
- Far-Glass (Sending with linked Mirror 3/Month)
- 4x Liar's Script Talisman (You receive a will save against all divinations aimed against you, even those that do not normally allow a save. If you succeed the caster will see what they expect)
The mirror you are expected to hand back when all this is over, as the things tarnish into uselessness if they are not washed in the waters of something called the Fountain of Copper Tears kept in the Grand Lodge in Absalom once per year. In any case they can only speak to other mirrors so treated whereas the scrolls you can keep, assuming they do not get used. All of it, you can't help but notice, is useful without being much of a loss to the Pathfinders should you prove twice false. You can appreciate the caution towards new found allies. Bad luck that smoke can't hold even paper. Sirim will just have to get by staying out of sight or out of mind.
Alas, he isn't the only one that day who manages to be so...
As you cross over the bridge and back towards the Minotaur's Horn the crowds of shoppers and tradesmen thin as they are wont to do, and cart pulled by a lazy-eyed donkey bars your way as the beast seems to have recognized Cob for a goblin and starts to stamp aggressively in his direction.
"Git! Git out of me way you darn...!"
In the middle of the driver's tirade you hear a whistling from your left, see a blur, much too fast to dodge... then the sudden flash of pain, an arrow sinking into your arm just below the shoulder.
You only get a glimpse of a fellow in felt pants and a smock, could have been any one of a dozen sailors and longshoremen you passed on the way here, if not for the fucking war-bow he's holding and the rat on his shoulder... as he
vanishes again from sight under another glamor.
Perception to spot the Rat (DC 16): 1d20+ 9 = 16 (Success)
Akorian takes 11 Damage -> Now at 31/42
Akorian Fortitude Save vs ??? (DC 16): 1d20+3 = 20 (Success)
Screams ring through the street, weapons are drawn... and the cart explodes, the blast hurling Gorok into the wall of the nearest building, while Cob, quicker on his feet, is able to roll away from the worst of it. The driver, you notice, is nowhere to be seen, only the panicking mule more singed than wounded as it dashes with the wreck of the wagon down the street.
Cob takes 8 Damage -> Now at 34/42
Gorok takes 16 Damage -> Now at 36/52
What do you do?
[] This is prepared ground, you need to get out now! Force open the door to the house to your left and get out of the street
[] Invisibile or not, you know where that shot came from. Mina and Sirim can dispel the glamor, you can end this
[] Write in
OOC: It's been a while since that last ambush, it is worth keeping in mind the opposition has plans too and they come right along given enough time. 
