They should know which part they aren't allowed in and can point in the direction, no? Unless they have been cut off from most of the facility.
I suppose we'll have to find other denizens, then.
[x] Sirim asks the Xorn if they can fashion a stone platform large enough to fit our group, or just find a suitable slab of nearby stone. If not, he will use Wild Arcana to cast Stone Shape to create one himself. He then uses Wild Arcana to cast an Imbue with Flight spell on the platform.
They should know which part they aren't allowed in and can point in the direction, no? Unless they have been cut off from most of the facility.
I suppose we'll have to find other denizens, then.
[x] Sirim asks the Xorn if they can fashion a stone platform large enough to fit our group, or just find a suitable slab of nearby stone. If not, he will use Wild Arcana to cast Stone Shape to create one himself. He then uses Wild Arcana to cast an Imbue with Flight spell on the platform.
Oh yeah, they know the rough direction they are not allowed to go, it is just they do not know how all the upper rooms connect for the people who can't just go through rock.
Adhoc vote count started by DragonParadox on Apr 7, 2025 at 1:47 AM, finished with 16 posts and 6 votes.
[X] Sirim asks the Xorn if they can fashion a stone platform large enough to fit our group, or just find a suitable slab of nearby stone. If not, he will use Wild Arcana to cast Stone Shape to create one himself. He then uses Wild Arcana to cast an Imbue with Flight spell on the platform.
With the aid of the odd but helpful stonefolk it's easy to repurpose one of the larger stone tables into a slab large enough for all of you to stand on: Gorok in front, you in the back, and with Mina and Anippe in the middle where they can reach out to use their magic on any who need it, the child no less serious than the mage beside her. For all her powers may be slight, the last battle has proven they are not to be discounted.
A moment later Sirim gives the call to be ready and with a hiss of flowing syllables the slab begins to float gently in place. Rather than hang on as best you can when the platform flips with the changed falling direction Cob suggests using one of the tanglefoot bags to hold your feet in place. Given what the stuff is made of the danger is that it might hold your legs fast for more than you'd like, but your friend proves as good as his word with his odd idea with Gorok being able to tear out a leg with effort even while the seal can hold him fast.
Cob Alchemy: 1d20+13 = 18 (Success)
Lost 1 Tanglefoot Bag
The Party is not Entangled
This time it's Avarice who calls out as Pepper sticks close to the door in the ceiling and Sirim passes on word to the Xorn merged with the walls, the better to turn the gears of Nex's contraption by muscle-power alone. Stone power? some pedantic part of you wonders, though only for a moment as the slab flips, your stomach briefly considering doing likewise only for the door to clang open and the word itself to seemingly invert, down once more below your feet even as you see the three-sided head of a xorn emerge from the ceiling now turned floor.
"Moving through at half walk speed, mage sight open, and watch for traps. "
The instruction is certainly a good one but... scrap and stone, splintered wood and broken brass gathers in heaps in a chamber tall enough for a giant to stand up in without their head grazing the ceiling and several times that size in length and width. Space, much like orientation, seems to have taken second place to the whims of the architect in this place. Here and there the auras of sputtering magic give the piles of junk the eerie appearance of eyes hidden under sand drifts while scrolls as long as a man is tall emerge from some piles, weapons from others, leavers and cranks from more others in what looks like every piece of junk in the Refuge that the constructs couldn't make use of. Still an arch-mage's junk...
"Is that a sh.. ship?" Mina asks as you crest the nearer of the piles of junk and Sirim turns the slab once more with another gut twisting lurch moment before the door now properly below closes.
It certainly looks like one, or at least like the front half of what's called a wind-breaker galley on the Inner Sea, a common sight in all the ports you've visited from Augustana to Cassomir, though here the waves around the prow are metal and glass as though a forge and a glassworks has crashed together into jumbled piles. Upon her deck, making ready for company, are more of those clockwork soldiers, but these ones have crossbows too. Great.
"Ahoy! Whoever be captain of that there stone ship speak yer business or be ready to speak it to Pharasma' bloody boots!" The cry from one of the figures aboard the ship, in archaic but understandable Taldan takes you all aback, though Gorok recovers faster than the rest of you.
"We are a company of delvers seeking that which was taken from us as well as a means of getting to the center of the Refuge!"
The speaker turns his head more than any flesh and blood creature could to get a good look at you, allowing you in turn to get a look at him. Definitely a construct, though his face is sculpted to be more human-like, including a gleaming brass mustache and a battered officer's tricorn he'd recovered from somewhere. A clock turns in his chest, showing noon in some distant realm where the sun still shines.
"Well now, yer after Crank-Turned Crick's treasure, are ye? And why would the likes of me be sharing it with the likes of ye?"
"What a novel form of malfunction!" Sirim exclaims, seemingly without an ounce of sarcasm, though only in your minds. You are not even sure if he can project a mind voice into whatever the construct is using in place of a brain.
"We should ask it... him what he wants for our things?" Mina asks. "No sense getting into a fight when we don't have to, there are at least seven constructs on that ship and who knows how many hidden in the piles."
"He stole our things!" Anippe exlains offended. "We shouldn't have to pay ransom for it!"
How does Kori think the party should deal with the scrap crew?
HA! Malfunctioning magic pirate animatronics! We are officially in Disneyland people, hehe.
As for what we can offer... @DragonParadox would they possibly accept us repairing their ship? We have enough raw material around us to work with, and goodness knows we made one before that was pretty good, lol.
[X] Try to bargain with them
-[X] "It seems like your ship has run aground and taken some damage. We have skilled shipwrights among us that could help make her shipshape again."
As for what we can offer... @DragonParadox would they possibly accept us repairing their ship? We have enough raw material around us to work with, and goodness knows we made one before that was pretty good, lol.
HA! Malfunctioning magic pirate animatronics! We are officially in Disneyland people, hehe.
As for what we can offer... @DragonParadox would they possibly accept us repairing their ship? We have enough raw material around us to work with, and goodness knows we made one before that was pretty good, lol.
Haha, I think that's what they are. 'Pirates of the Inner Sea' was probably really popular with the Nexian children. Anippe doesn't seem to be a fan, though.
I would rather avoid a fight here if possible. We don't have our equipment and we are probably going to need our resources for serious combat soon enough.
[X] Try to bargain with them
-[X] "It seems like your ship has run aground and taken some damage. We have skilled shipwrights among us that could help make her shipshape again."
That is too much of a time commitment, IMO. Now if you wanted to use a Bluff to convince them we would repair their ship, that would be different.
That's how I want to approach this exchange, with the power of dishonesty and misleading truths. I would go for a Hidden Diplomacy + Intimidate combo, but Crick might be immune to the spell. Intelligent Constructs generally lose their immunity to Mind-Affecting effects, but it's not guaranteed. Also, since has the skill as well we can boost it higher, so Bluff it is. +29 Bluff isn't our best due to our lack of gear, but it's still pretty damned good.
[X] Try to Bluff them
-[X] Sirim casts Shadow Enchantment to duplicate Bestow Insight (Bluff) on Kori, and Kori casts Channel Vigor starting with the Spirit effect, the combined spells raising his Bluff bonus by 10, to +27. Sirim will also help using Aid Another to provide an additional +2 bonus.
--[X] Once prepared, Kori answers, "Because we are here to prevent the destruction of this place at the hands of the enemies of the one who created it." If necessary, he will go on to explain that an army of Undead are seeking to overwhelm Refuge's defenses as we speak and we need our gear to fight off their leader while the other Constructs are distracted with the mindless Undead soldiers rather than the true threat.
I don't think that will work well here given they seem to be stuck 'in character' and will only care about what they 'want' as they are programmed, since they were thrown in trash for reason.
They are pirates and are not gonna give our stuff back for free, and as far as I know we aren't on a time limit.
Besides, nothing says we have to make it 'seaworthy', just make it look fixed enough for them to accept it.
I don't think that will work well here given they seem to be stuck 'in character' and will only care about what they 'want' as they are programmed, since they were thrown in trash for reason.
I admit to believing that as well. I do not think they will care about protecting this place either unless we frame it in the way that corresponds to their programming. However, all constructs we saw here possessed at least some degree of martial capability, and these ones must be capable of putting on a show, at least.
I wonder how they would react if we offered them a pirate raid on the undead menace with the promise of looting and pillaging, which would naturally require us getting our gear back so we could provide meaningful assistance.
...I also kinda want to see the Gebbite's face when he is backstabbed by Cob screaming YAR-HAR-HARRR as Gorok and Co boards them.
@Goldfish is there not a chance that these pirates will see the spells being cast?
As an alternative/addition, Mina uses Fortune Hex on Kori[1], and Sirim uses Aids Another?
(Also/alternatively, might the Xorn get confused that we're telling a different story to these pirates that we told them? Maybe Sirim (might be busy with Aid Another: Bluff) or Avarice (+5 diplo skill) could telepathically inform the Xorn that what we told (looking for Eishe) them is the truth, but we think these pirates aren't likely to care about that. And we need our stuff (and that scroll we promised them) back.
[1] I ask for this to be done a lot. I'm going to have to make something to track who it's been used on each day because I have zero idea if Kori is still a valid target for it right now.
@Goldfish is there not a chance that these pirates will see the spells being cast?
As an alternative/addition, Mina uses Fortune Hex on Kori[1], and Sirim uses Aids Another?
(Also/alternatively, might the Xorn get confused that we're telling a different story to these pirates that we told them? Maybe Sirim (might be busy with Aid Another: Bluff) or Avarice (+5 diplo skill) could telepathically inform the Xorn that what we told (looking for Eishe) them is the truth, but we think these pirates aren't likely to care about that. And we need our stuff (and that scroll we promised them) back.
[1] I ask for this to be done a lot. I'm going to have to make something to track who it's been used on each day because I have zero idea if Kori is still a valid target for it right now.
I don't think the Xorn are here with us, and if they were, I don't think they understand Taldan?
It's possible one of the Constructs could see us casting, but it would be very unusual for any of them to have the necessary skills to understand what we're casting or the ability to see the magic aura.
[x] Try to see what they are about.
-[x] Sirim casts Shadow Enchantment to duplicate Bestow Insight (Bluff) on Kori, and Kori casts Channel Vigor starting with the Spirit effect, the combined spells raising his Bluff bonus by 10, to +27. Sirim will also help using Aid Another to provide an additional +2 bonus.
-[x] Play into the role. Say that you plan to take on an undead crew roaming these seas, and offer them to take part in the daring raid alongside you. Theirs will be glory and plunder greater than any of your meager tools.
"What a novel form of malfunction!" Sirim exclaims, seemingly without an ounce of sarcasm, though only in your minds. You are not even sure if he can project a mind voice into whatever the construct is using in place of a brain.
[x] Try to see what they are about.
-[x] Sirim casts Shadow Enchantment to duplicate Bestow Insight (Bluff) on Kori, and Kori casts Channel Vigor starting with the Spirit effect, the combined spells raising his Bluff bonus by 10, to +27. Sirim will also help using Aid Another to provide an additional +2 bonus.
-[x] Play into the role. Say that you plan to take on an undead crew roaming these seas, and offer them to take part in the daring raid alongside you. Theirs will be glory and plunder greater than any of our meager tools.
[x] Try to see what they are about.
-[x] Sirim casts Shadow Enchantment to duplicate Bestow Insight (Bluff) on Kori, and Kori casts Channel Vigor starting with the Spirit effect, the combined spells raising his Bluff bonus by 10, to +27. Sirim will also help using Aid Another to provide an additional +2 bonus.
-[x] Play into the role. Say that you plan to take on an undead crew roaming these seas, and offer them to take part in the daring raid alongside you. Theirs will be glory and plunder greater than any of your meager tools.
