Alright, so maybe there should be less of what we do (sans buffing, always a sensible choice), and more of what we want to achieve. What are our intentions towards the guy? From "Beware the Dancing Slurk" I get the impression of "greet cordially, explain your missed rendezvous with tales of your journey to intrigue and maybe intimidate him a little".
This is adequate, though it cedes the initiative back to him.
[x] Beware the Dancing Slurk
We could be more forward and tell him about the demon threat outright, with the implication that all hostile actions would be treated as demonic influence.
I want to gauge his reactions and behavior, even if it does cede the initiative somewhat.
As for the Demons, I would rather he be on board our ship before sharing that news. No need to announce it to everyone on his vessel before we get a better read on the man. If he's exceptionally stupid, he might use our interaction with the Demons as an excuse to attack.
The rush of power in your veins from Mina's spell doesn't make you sit straighter, ready to face the world, but instead slouch a little to one side as though you'd like to lean on the side of the boat, but check in such exalted company as a knight of Taldor. "Hail good sir, and well met. You must be Duchess Fhalspar's representative. So good of you to track us down, Sir Prisca."
"No less than was asked of me. It's not like there's a inn every ten miles out here, is there fellows?" he calls back to the soldiers, eliciting laughter that has the touch of genuine amusement and not just the duty of bearing one's superiors as you'd heard at times around the wealthy in Augustana.
Now to explain yourselves, in a way that doesn't make you look like too suspicious or too much like an easy mark. "I'm afraid our schedule was made a mockery of between a curious dragon and a tribe of invading ogres. By the time that bloody mess was dealt with, our planned rendezvous had passed."
"Dragon?" the knight frowns, though you can't tell if it's worry or anger.
"She's about three and a half days back the way we came, roosting in an old watchtower, but don't call it that unless you're looking for a fight by the by. The ogres were around there as well, or at least the parts that didn't burn properly, the rest of them is on the wind." There, a boast not so obvious as to ruffle feathers and not so subtle as to fly over his head if he's slow to the uptake.
The frown deepens and for just the span of a breath it feels like you're back to tugging on the older children when you were young, before you learned the trick of it. They'd only believe you when you lie, so lie you do: "We were hoping to make contact with the Duchess' representative downriver, or to arrange for a message to be sent to her grace, but you've neatly solved that problem! If you would like to come aboard, we were just about to launch the Dancing Slurk for her maiden voyage. It will be a comfort to have an escort vessel as we embark on the next leg of our journey."
-Roll Won by more than 20: Rolls Revealed- Akorian Bluff: 1d20+17+3 (Bestow Insight) +4 (Mythic Heroism) = 32
vs
Pisca Sense Motive 1d20-1 = 6 (Success)
"Pardon, are you the caravan master?" It feels like some other words are hovering on the tip of his tongue, probably like, 'you look rather shabby for the part.'
"Alas," you sigh with, one hopes, all the appearance of sincerity. "Loric Gavhaul is dead, fallen to the malice of devils that... well, that is a long story to be shouting from one boat to another like this."
"The younger Gavhaul is dead? Lord Pairo will be displeased, or at least he'll make a show of it," Pisca answers in an eerie and, as far as you can tell, unintended echo of your thoughts. "I would speak with your..." He looks between the obvious magician, the iruxi wearing demon horns, the one-eyed giants, and the goblin arguing with a cat by the stern before settling on: "leader."
After conferring with Urgor and Leontas you decide to go, alongside Urgor and, unbeknownst to the Taldans, an unseen Sirim.
***
"If I may be blunt," the knight says after his apprentice-knight, you forget the word but the boy looks nervous, hands you a winesack and some biscuit garnished with raisins.
"Please," you motion for him to continue.
"The asp wasn't meant to die yet. The papers for getting past Arenway Isle have his name on them, so it is going to be inconvenient to get downriver with your cargo uninspected with all the risk of confiscation that implies."
"Could you open that up for me, lad?" Urgor growls. "What do you mean by confiscated?"
"I mean any officer with sticky fingers can claim you got your salvage off the Taldan bank and no one without the services of a master seer would be able to gainsay them. Those don't grow on trees hereabouts... or maybe they do, damn fey are strange as they come. Either way, they are not getting a hearing and neither are you, not a fair one at least. I would be willing to take responsibility for the cargo myself, with the implicit risk to my reputation, for a small fee. Attempting such tactics against an imperial knight and close kin to a peer of the realm is more than a kalistocrat's greed would be worth."
"How small is small?" you probe.
"Two thousand crowns, to be paid on arrival. One can hardly expect merchants to hollow out their coffers before they sold their stock." The implication that you are, of course, 'honest merchants', as long as you take his deal is not lost on you.
-Social Rolls Hidden-
Urgor seems like he is grudgingly, very grudgingly, considering it. The adamantine is worth tens of times that amount, if not hundredfold.
What does Kori think?
[] Take the deal (Paid from the paychest)
[] Refuse the deal, you'll take your chances getting downriver
[] Actually you are willing to pay, but for more of a service than this. You could use someone to grease the wheels in Cassomir, introduce you to collectors and scholars (Sirim makes his appearance and attempts diplomacy)
That went a lot more friendlily than I expected. I don't trust it.
DP, so we expect to be meeting these inspectors within the week?
After this conversation I'd like to do a Divination on the matter, or later on in the journey, a week before we expect to reach them.
What's the aim of the 'collectors and scholars' option? Is it to get us better access to magic items/spell scrolls, leads to help Sirim, both or something else?
---
With regards of sneaking the eggs past customs if Sir Pisca is tricking us (I doubt it) or fails to get us through; are the capsules smaller than 16 cubic feet? (18 cubic feet with Sharesister from Kori)
1. There's 8 capsules, so Sirim would have to cast the spells over two days, regardless, it might be worth having some hidden in an extradimensional space even if the inspection goes well, just so an inspector doesn't try to get greedy if they see eight rather than three.
2. We might want for two/three party memebers to have flown invisibly off boat before the inspection, in case it's an indepth magic one (demons stirring up trouble against us)
We should hide the Book of flesh shaping, maybe the demon mages book (though that's legitimate loot and also evidence to point at the Coven), maybe also Sirim.
Then 3rd level communication spell/prearranged to come back. Kori's invisibility spell is good for stealth.
3. For the customs check, maybe Mina offers to drop a Mythic Heroism on Sir Pisca (letting him know about the duration limit)? I kind of want this guy vaguely aligned with us.
If we're scary enough I think he wont try and screw us, but instead will try to be useful, in return for too much gold.
----
Oh! If we do vote to have Sirim talk, he should Wild Arcana: Shadow Enchantment: Hermean Potentail on himself. That's a CL of 10, so it will give 3 re-rolls.
Sirim's hidden, so all Kori has to do is bluff to distract from the sound of the spell being cast.
Well, with a Sense Motive roll like that at least we know WIS is probably Prisca's dump stat. He could even be in debt because someone convinced him to invest in a project to build a bridge across the Inner Sea...
Just because he couldn't Sense Motive his way out of a wet paper bag, doesn't mean he isn't rocking a huge Bluff check high enough to fool Kori's own buffed +19 Sense Motive bonus.
Damn it, I absolutely hate paying people to do the job they're already being paid for (tipping ridiculously underpaid servers doesn't count). Whether we attempt to get more work out of him later can be determined after interacting with him for a couple days.
Cassomir is a Taldan city which means it's a lot more status conscious. The Empire of Taldor is second only to Osirion in age at almost five thousand years old having been founded in 1281 years before the raising of the Starstone. Unlike Osirion which is going through a revival at the moment Taldor has maintained continuity of government and the royal line for all that time. There are commercial laws on the books in Cassomir that are so ancient the language resembles more than of Ancient Azlant than the Taldan of today.
@DragonParadox I'm still a bit confused here, is the intention of the introduction to collectors and scholars vote a general "basic foot in the door to this group, and see what we make of it, if anything (even just rare scroll purchasing)" or is this Sirim's idea and he has a vague hope of getting access to stuff that can help with his body issue?
The reason I ask is that if it's for Sirim's benefit and is his idea then I'm fine with him revealing himself, but if it's for the party's benefit or not Sirim's idea, then I don't want to ask him to make the sacrafice of revealing himself to this guy... who probably isn't great at keeping secrets.
[X] Actually you are willing to pay, but for more of a service than this. You could use someone to grease the wheels in Cassomir, introduce you to collectors and scholars ( Sirim makes his appearance and attempts diplomacy)
-[X] Kori "goes to get Sirim", and uses that time away to quietly cast Shadow Enchantment: Bestow Insight: Sense Motive on Sirim (+3), and Sirim uses Wild Arcana: Shadow Enchantment: Herman Potential on himself, which is CL 10 and gives three re-rolls.
Edit: I admit, I do want to take as many chances to roll for uncommon spell scrolls in as many cities as we reasonably can, because I imagine stuff like Deathwine and Spellsister are going to need good rolls on the luck checks.
----
Edit:
Before we go to the inspection, I'd like for Kori to cast Mythic Invisibility on that evil fleshcrafting book and Cob having it, because I'm paranoid of demons possesing beaucrats and ordering a very in-depth investigation of our goods.
@DragonParadox I'm still a bit confused here, is the intention of the introduction to collectors and scholars vote a general "basic foot in the door to this group, and see what we make of it, if anything (even just rare scroll purchasing)" or is this Sirim's idea and he has a vague hope of getting access to stuff that can help with his body issue?
The reason I ask is that if it's for Sirim's benefit and is his idea then I'm fine with him revealing himself, but if it's for the party's benefit or not Sirim's idea, then I don't want to ask him to make the sacrafice of revealing himself to this guy... who probably isn't great at keeping secrets.
[X] Actually you are willing to pay, but for more of a service than this. You could use someone to grease the wheels in Cassomir, introduce you to collectors and scholars ( Sirim makes his appearance and attempts diplomacy)
-[X] Kori "goes to get Sirim", and uses that time away to quietly cast Shadow Enchantment: Bestow Insight: Sense Motive on Sirim (+3), and Sirim uses Wild Arcana: Shadow Enchantment: Herman Potential on himself, which is CL 10 and gives three re-rolls.
I don't think introducing Sirim is the way to go here, even if you do want Prisca to help more in Cassomir. Sirim is less PR friendly than the rest of the party, and we've been maintaining the fiction that he's Mina's Familiar this whole time. No need to change that now, IMO.
[X] Take the deal (Paid from the paychest)
-[X] If the inspection looks to be incredibly in-depth (as if a shadow demon set the bureaucracy against us), Kori casts Mythic Invisibility on The Thousand Faces of Arad Lili (Book of Occult Rituals).
@DragonParadox I'm still a bit confused here, is the intention of the introduction to collectors and scholars vote a general "basic foot in the door to this group, and see what we make of it, if anything (even just rare scroll purchasing)" or is this Sirim's idea and he has a vague hope of getting access to stuff that can help with his body issue?
Vague foot in the door stuff, Sirim does not want to start asking randos to make him a body, that is how you end up trapped in a magical lamp or worse.
Vague foot in the door stuff, Sirim does not want to start asking randos to make him a body, that is how you end up trapped in a magical lamp or worse.
Would the at-will Alter Self power gained from the 3rd tier Mythic path Many Forms ability allow Sirim to assume normal form?
Many Forms (Su)
You can alter your appearance at will as if using alter self. You can expend one use of mythic power to change shape as if using polymorph, with a duration of 1 minute per tier. Your caster level for this ability is a number equal to 10 + your tier. At 6th tier, the duration of the polymorph ability increases to 10 minutes per tier.
It's not exactly a normal 2nd level spell, after all, and reaching 3rd Mythic tier is no small feat. If Sirim can just grow powerful enough to return to his Human form while retaining the ability to become a Smokeshade whenever he wants, that would be pretty cool.
Would the at-will Alter Self power gained from the 3rd tier Mythic path Many Forms ability allow Sirim to assume normal form?
It's not exactly a normal 2nd level spell, after all, and reaching 3rd Mythic tier is no small feat. If Sirim can just grow powerful enough to return to his Human form while retaining the ability to become a Smokeshade whenever he wants, that would be pretty cool.
I kinda hope that in the long term we can recruit one of those Face/Meatshield combinations into our actual party, rounding us out to a solid six members.
On the other hand, keeping all our people as outcast weirdos is a nice theme in itself. Having the Lizardfolk with negative Charisma as our public face is kinda funny.
[X] Take the deal (Paid from the paychest)
-[X] If the inspection looks to be incredibly in-depth (as if a shadow demon set the bureaucracy against us), Kori casts Mythic Invisibility on The Thousand Faces of Arad Lili (Book of Occult Rituals).
There are, one must admit, worse deals to be had than this one, and worse company to keep than Sir Pisca. Ignoring the unconscious sense that he counts every moment in his presence to be a gift he gives the world, his propensity to care too much about honey stains on his doublet or wine spills from particularly enthusiastic toasts, he offer brings wine and honey, two things you haven't had much taste of, of late. Gorok seems surprised at how eager you and Mina are to accept meal invitations from the knight, wondering if you had seen some subtle sign of treachery he has missed, to which you must sheepishly confess that you are sick of travel rations. meat of deer, and wing of wild bird.
"Sick?" he looks at you in askance, maybe a little worry too, to which Mina sets him straight in his own native tongue so as not to tangle in the assumptions of men or dwarves.
"I see now," he turns to you. "It seems we do not taste the same way, iruxi and warmbloods. We partake deeper of meet and fat for which we have many names of feelings, tastes, that you do not and we feel little from fruits and nuts, but that they are sweet or bitter. I will keep in mind to find more berries and honey when next we must forage."
Just when you thought you knew everything about someone, they can still surprise you. Once that thought would have come with worry, now there is just the vague warmth of companionship.
Alas, there's other cause for worry on the horizon, almost literally. Arenway Isle, which you must pass to the south of here, is home not just to a base of the Taldan River Guard, but also the holy ground of the 'Wildwood Lodge', a circle of druids distinct from the keth you had already encountered.
Long ago, when all the forest was under the power of the Taldan crown, they made a deal with the empire to protect the loggers from the curses and machinations of the fey and help keep the river free so that the lumber could be delivered to Cassomir. In exchange, the Empire agreed to guarantee the 'autonomy in perpetuity' of the Verduran Forest, which is, as Sir Pisca blandly puts it, 'a state of entirely natural bloody anarchy'.
Things had become markedly more complicated when the Empire had lost control of first its western reaches entirely to the Even Tongued Conquest and then bore witness to that Chelish state collapse among others into the states of Andoran and Galt. Anodran in particular presented the Wildwood Lodge the axe of the Lumber Consortium hanging over their ancient groves. While none of you are Andoran by birth or allegiance, your road did start in Augustana and passed through the wounded groves. Odds are good you would have to bear at least a few pointed questions from the druids, though not as many as if you had carved a raft of wood.
Yet in that trouble lie the seeds of opportunity. The fey giants would not be welcome beyond the boughs of the Verduran, indeed by their own telling they are hardly welcome in many parts within it, but the Druids of the Wildwood Lodge can find use for them. Sir Pisca had even heard from officers ashore in the harbor that they had selected a new leader recently. Surely they would have a use for giant guards.
"Why, there was an Emperor with that same idea, Honorius the Eight I think, though you probably shouldn't take too many lessons from him given how he ended up... heh," the knight chuckles into his cup.
"How...?" Mina starts to ask and he doesn't need much prompting.
"The Oparan mob fed him to his favored horse. You see, the story was that he ignored the wants of the common folk and would organize lavish chariot races even in the midst of famine and plague, the guests well-fed annd warded against illness with magic or else healed by the priesthood of Abadar. So when the common citizenry had finally had enough of him they broke into the palace, dragged him into the stable in his nightclothes, and there the druid Habgar the Lame gave 'Star Strider' a taste for man meat and a great hunger. Ate him right up."
Cob nods very seriously at this confirmation of equine perfidy while Mina looks a little pale.
"What about his giant guards?" you ask, curious in spite of yourself.
"Oh, they ran away with the contents of the Imperial pantry and were never heard from again," he answers airily.
"Not a very hopeful tale when it comes to giant employment." You share your head, amused despite yourself.
"Ah, but you seem historians have long contended that the perfidious Habgar swayed the hill giants to betray their master before the mob launched their attack. Since the ones on the island are druids..."
"I don't think we should be telling that story," Mina says to you in the tongue of the People, like so much foreign jabber to Pisca.
Likely not. Still, you wonder, is there sense in bringing your 'vassals' to the druids, or should you keep them with you for as long as they might wish, perhaps even to Cassomir?
[] Speak to the druids about the Ohancanu, perhaps they are interested in their services
[] Carry on past Arrenway
[] Write in
OOC: No rolls in his one, just a bit a local history as you travel.
Good thing we crafted the Dancing Slurk from stone rather than wood. Never mind that it was actually safer and easier to use stone in the first place due to the magic available to us.
@DragonParadox, how far away is Cassomir from us, time and distance wise?
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