Finding the Spark (Pathfinder 1E Quest)

[DragonParadox]

Where Lions Might Wander ​

12th of Kuthona 4707 A.R. (Absalom Reckoning)

Alas, the silence does not grow any easier to bear as the six of you speak with one another about the sorts of bargains you might reach and the worth of them. Mina argues that it is better to have some friends than none and the Pathfinders would be present wherever your wandering feet might carry you, Sirim urges caution and silence above all, for if a man would sell you the names of others who passes through his door than he would sell yours just as readily while Cob grumbles that all this is dumb since you just invited Ulenar to a fun raid yet all he's done is talk.

All you can give him is a sympathetic look and a shrug.

You'd think by now they had learned that caution sometimes dictates that knives should be drawn early. Maybe they had and then they had forgotten, too used to their foes being other humans who just happened to wear a different colored cloak.

"Mention the Governor, see if you can get more out of him," you counsel.

"Did the Governor strike you as more of a gambler than brave, Sir Fahlspar?" He asks after a moment, the answer in the question contained so he continues. "He sent us, strangers of fel countenance, to find a danger to his city on practically the eve of a royal visit. That speaks of a deep desire that this be held in secret. He might be wrong of course, he might be a fool, but we cannot judge after having met the man all of once and things are easier said than unsaid."

The others consider and after a few moments agree, so all the shade says to the Venture-Captain is: "Deal."

Spoiler: Mechanics

Sirim Diplomacy to Convince the Others (DC 25/30): 1d20+13 = 25 (Success)

A pouch of coin changes hands, the weight assayed with a flick of the wrist, and then Ulenar speaks again: "First of all, a few weeks back it was a home cousin of House Basri, that is what the locals call someone from a branch of the family who claims lands outside of Taldor, the better houses give them work for the patriarch to earn their keep. They postured and pontificated, as is their wont, said the Viridian Throne would be most displeased if we kept digging into who was selling purple worm poison to street thugs in the Dog's Teeth. At the time I was inclined to think duergar. We kept digging, of course, and got some pretty strong hints at it being one of the shameful kin, though none so strong as who showed up next."

Ah... it seems that alchemist is doing more than just selling off his rejected batches to the locals. Ironic that they might have not been noticed for months yet if they were just a little less enterprising.

"Deep woods hunter with a tame lion, if you can call it that, white as snow and growling like a blizzard about to fall. I don't think he ever was inside a human city, the elf that is, not just the lion. He informed us that he and his associates would be handling the drow, and much more convincingly threatened the ire of Queen Telandia if anyone interferred. More Society bands than I can count walked into those woods thinking they can just pick through the bones of old palaces and abandoned groves only to fall afoul of silent arrows, and any who thinks elven hunters cannot range beyond their bounds has never seen a man of Avistan and all her forests."

"But you saw him?" Cob frowns. "Showed up with his lion."

"That, master goblin is even worse, a mark of desperation. They are dangerous enough when their hand doesn't twitch on their bowstring."

"And yet you're willing to go against them if we do?" you cannot help but press.

"There's a saying in the Grand Lodge that's been passed down for as long as the Wayfinders have been around: 'A Pathfinder can do anything they put their mind to, but that doesn't mean they can do everything'. I find myself rather short of the sort of people I would trust to kill drow raiders without making a public spectacle of it. With your addition it would be worth the gamble."

But only if we join, and only in exchange for that favor, you add mentally.

"This lion-tamer, was he a knight, a noble of some kind?" Mina asked.

"If someone were unwise enough to bring him to court in Oppara he'd perhaps introduce himself as such, but elves are wise enough not to put a tie a ranger in silk ribbons and expect him to prance. I suspect he was a Lantern Bearer, one of those tasked with fighting the shameful kin and keeping the shame from spreading. I do hope that was worth your gold." For what it might be worth, the words are spoken with sincerity.

***​

"So what do we have?" you ask as soon as you are well past his door and under different glamors to boot. "Kyonin elves working with House Basri, again supposedly against the drow, though they certainly do not seem concerned with Taldan law, the WWC potentially being involved in the slave side of the trade, and Skal up in the Teeth selling leftover drugs and alchemical poisons... Is that it?"

"It's more than enough. The elves are interfering in sovereign Taldan territory, interfering with bringing their fallen kin to justice!" Sir Pisca growls. "My grandmother will be bringing this up in the Senate."

"Lets deal with the trouble in front of us first," Mina tries to calm him. "We still need more hands for the distillery."

"Do we?" Sirim asks. "Stealth and speed might serve more than strength of numbers, especially if we want to keep the incursion away from the eyes of the general public. One assumes the Lord Governor does not wish to greet the princess in an air of generalized panic and paranoia."

Do you call in some backup?

[] Yes, you could use the help
-[] Leontas and company, they are used to fighting demons and their servants
-[] Urgor can probably find some dwarves looking to crack elven skulls for pay, and the short folk are stout against fear and poison
-[] Go to the Guard, they have the numbers and it's their city

[] No, you can do this alone, without risk of spreading news of the drow

[] Write in

OOO: This is another one of those moments when Kori not being in charge means that the other party members get to roll to convince each other. Also, the money has been updated on the front page.

 

[DragonParadox]

Ways of Wealth ​

17th of Kuthona 4707 A.R. (Absalom Reckoning)

"So let me see if I understand this," Leontas stretches his legs from seat to a comfortably padded cushion the tavern keeper had provided. Usually dwarves do not bother with such fripperies, but when someone's spending gold like it's silver, allowances can be made. The whole company is now rich far beyond common soldiery, enough so that each of them could retire to the life of a country squire and Lenotas himself could likely buy a baronet's title in lands at least less stringent than Taldor. "Slums are crawling with demon elves from the festering depths of the world, you lot decided to help for a favor from the big man at the palace, and immediately you thought of us to help. I'm touched, truly I am, but I won't say where since there's a lady present."

A laugh rumbles through the attending riders, though you can see one or two shift uncomfortably, some lingering spark of crusading fervor rebelling against allowing demon-worshipers to run loose through the city's underbelly.

"Count your gold in the thousands, worry about a dozen swords. Count it in the hundreds of thousands, worry about armies instead." Sirim counters. "If there's strife and swords drawn, what do you think the would-be rulers of Cassomir will think of strangers sitting on a mound of metal that can forge three thousand swords? 'Oh what luck we get to bid'? Or will they instead contend you are few and they are many, heads now smiling and sitting pretty atop spikes to warn the mob and to make them feel all warm and guarded all at once. 'Look at how the highborn guard us', they'll all cheer, 'from the strangers who brought strife!' You and we share this day an interest, not just hatred of the Pit."

All through the speech one of Leontas' eyebrows rises until it's lost in his hairline. "You know men quite well, master snake. More than your mistress it would seen..."

"Sirim isn't my familiar," Mina confesses in a one quick breath. "That was a ruse to fool Gavhaul. Once he was dead it felt awkward to admit otherwise."

"So what are you then?" The frown that accompanies the words is more considering that angry.

"A magician, corporeally inconvenienced, of a land which knows enough of scheming to recognize a pot coming to a boil at once." This time he speaks aloud, though the rasping whisper is barely less ominous than a voice in one's thoughts.

"Name it," two words spoken with deceptive gentlenes,s though it's clear his agreement hangs upon them.

"Nidal."

At that Leontas breathes an obvious sigh of relief. "Shade botherers are fine as long as you aren't offering to sew steel into your skin. Met one of those apostles once, creepy son of a bitch, made the Chelish seem normal."

"That was likely the reaction they were looking for. Your band does not strike you as ripe for conversion to the ways of the Midnight Lord, but the servants of Asmodeus have been known to collaborate with Kuthites in search of souls to harvest."

"Our thanks for the insight," Leontas looks visibly perturbed, but if anything that seems to have hardened his resolve to stab something that needs stabbing, both for its own sake and to keep his latest profits safe.

Spoiler: Mechanics

Sirim Diplomacy: 1d20+13 = 33 (Critical Success)

***​

One has to give the drow credit for knowing how to hide in plain sight. Had some unwelcome visitor woken you up this evening and put a knife to your throat to ask where their ilk would sulk, you would have guessed a ruin over-top of an entrance that leads into the deep realms, not a tavern boat still alight with lanterns and candles into the late-night hours. The Floating Bloat is an old river barge turned tavern floating between two of the largest of the Dog's Teeth's islands, as many others which had been put to water in the wake of a legal dispute about taxation on the water between the city and the Imperial Navy which the latter won.

At the very least, Pisca explains, city officials no longer have to worry as much about public disturbances come Firstbloom. Rowdy drunks drowning themselves is much neater than rowdy drunks getting into fights in the streets and causing property damage because that lamppost said something about their mother. A rule perhaps in need of changing given the Bloat was distilling much more than spirits. The way he smiles as he tells that story makes you think he might have been the one who had a bone to pick with a lamppost once upon a time.

"They're definitely still making and selling booze, otherwise the word would have gone out as only scores of drunks going dry can," Leontas says, lowering his looking glass. "How'd you want to handle this?"

"Use magic to push the boat against the shore so that they cannot lift the boards, charge across and meet the enemy so they will be trapped on the boat with us," Gorok replies, already looking across the edge of his blade at the boat.

"I could go scout first, maybe get drink," Cob says a little too eagerly. It's not, you know, that he wants any old drink. Cob is just the sort to be curious how spirits distilled by drow taste like.

What does Kori think would be the wisest course of action?

[] Scout first
-[] Write in with whom

[] Take the Floating Bloat by storm

[] Write in

OOC: Enjoy.

 

[DragonParadox]

In Darkness Bubbling ​

17th of Kuthona 4707 A.R. (Absalom Reckoning)

Cob had never swam in the sea before, even though he's floated on it a lot. Maybe I should've, he admitted mentally as the current yanked him like some kind of water demon. He looked down. Nope, no water demon, just boring old water. He wasn't going to let water beat him. Muscles bulging with strength, or maybe it was magic, Cob wasn't very clear on why those were different words in longshank tongue, he dragged himself out of the current, clawing at the side of the pier. That was another neat thing he could get now that they had a lot of money, claws, iron ones, or maybe that shinny 'sky-iron' they carted all the way here that was worth loads of gold.

Remembering to take a deep breath he dove under the water again to get a look at the underside of the Floating Bloat... and then he remembered he had to say the word stitched on the inside of the cloak. Good thing he was magicked even better hidden than normal. Back up to the surface he went, twisting his tongue around the wired word, then down again and... there, he saw a light on the underside of the barge where it was covered in thick green slime. The magic told him the opening mechanism was on the the other side. Of course you wouldn't want one on this side, it could sink your boat when you didn't want it to. It would be a pretty easy swim to shore if you knew not to let the water grab you at least. The more he looked at it the more Cob got the sense that the slime was part of the door. He'd never heard of a slime door before...

It was perhaps for the best that the magic he was using ticked over one final time to give him an inkling before the thought got closer. Closed slime, slime... closed. The slime was there to seal the hatch after someone jumped in so the water wouldn't come in and sink the boat.

Spoiler: Mechanics

Cob Swim (DC 16): 1d20+6+5 (Encouraging Mythic Heroism)+1 (Guidance) = 16 (Success)
Cob Craft Alchemy (DC 28): 1d20+12+5 (Encouraging Mythic Heroism)+1 (Guidance) = 35 (Success)

***​

The inside of the tavern was about what one would expect: crowded with rough-looking patrons and nobles out slumming it, both perched atop the sorts of stools that would break under Gorok's weight, and filled with the sound of too loud voices and rattling dice. Briefly, the mage wondered how badly one could rig the dice when most of the patrons were too drunk to see color. Then he stopped, it was too depressing, instead looking around for signs of drow. Unsurprisingly, he did not catch any at first glance in the crowded common room, but a second look with a mage's discerning eye revealed the telltale gleam of glamor in the air around five of the 'customers' loitering around the tap room door to the rest of the ship. One could not know for sure if they were drow, but one thing was clear, the weapons they were holding their hands close to were not the crude clubs and simple saps they seemed.

Sinking down through a gap in the boards he found himself in a place illuminated by faint bluish light, not meant for human eyes, that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. There was no doubt about the identity of its sole occupant. Working at a chopping board while whistling an meandering tune in a minor key was a bespectacled elf with silver hair and skin the color of slate suddenly looking up from his work, eyes so red they almost seemed to glow with their own light in the gloom. Something thumped against the side of the barge.

Hope that was not Cob, Sirim thought, the self-consciousness of such thoughts having long since worn away in company. The elf sighed and looked back at his work.

Spoiler: Alchemist

Brass dust, bone-meal, meadowsweet, yarrow, and harebells... Sirim recognized the ingredients, he'd spent long enough labeling and preparing them back as a junior student, even if he never personally had skill in alchemy and was glad to be rid of the duty when he advanced in rank. Why was the drow making dust of appearance?

A suspicious mind would wonder if he'd been expected, but if so he was about three hours too early. The dust would have to be cooked and then exposed to the sunlight for a full hour before the magic would stabilize.

Another creek, this time from inside the ship, heralded the entrance of another, this one wearing a warrior's leathers to ask something. Sirim did not know the tongue, but he could recognize the habitual disdain that coated them like oil. The alchemist gave a curt answer to which the other drow laughed and left.

The sounds of grinding and cutting filled the room once more behind Sirim as he trailed behind the new arrival.

Spoiler: Mechanics

Sirim Knowledge (Arcana) (DC 20/25/30): 1d20+13 = 33 (Critical Success)

It was clear at a glance the room he was in now served as a barracks. No matter their banner or creed, professional soldiers arrayed themselves with a paradoxical mix of practicality and lack of decorum. A quick count around the room showed another three drow present and bedding for about the dozen Skal's thoughts had revealed. They spoke in quiet voices and one of them motioned to what Sirim had initially taken for the washing pail. One does not make a washing pail out of silver. Some kind of scrying or communication method through the water then. Alas, there was no way to trigger it without revealing himself.

Final Count:

• 5 suspected drow in the tap room
• 1 drow alchemist working in a below deck room
• 4 other drow warriors of some kind in an adjoining room in the hold turned barracks

How do you approach the situation?

[] Take the boat by storm

[] Sneak abroad under glamors before giving the signal to Leontas and his soldiers

[] Write in

OOC: Enjoy.

 

[DragonParadox]

Breach from Below ​

17th of Kuthona 4707 A.R. (Absalom Reckoning)

"Good Luck," Captain Leontas whispers fiercely, hefting his borrowed launcher as he heads towards the pier along with his company, an unseen Sirim floating overhead. The soldiers had cheered at the alchemical bounty you shared with them to add to their new enchanted weapons and arms, but it's a grim sort of cheer of those who know they are heading into peril.

For his part, Sir Pisca had thought to go with them until you mentioned the other pincer of the attack would be heading right for the alchemist, the foremost architect of Cassomir's ills. A choice which he may have come to regret a few minutes later. "What is that thing?" The knight leans back at the alien visage of the abductor, gelatinous eyes pooping above the waterline for a better look at its burdens for the night.

"We don't exactly know," Mina admits even as one of Cob's new rings flashes, the captured magic veiling the creature out of sight before the movement of the water. "Got it from some fish-people."

"You people are mad," he shakes his head in mock bewilderment, though the there's light enough from moon and stars for even Mina and Gorok to see the flash of his accompanying smile. A whisper on the wind calls up a trio of illusory doubles that that feign holding a breath along with him.

As the waters close in above you wonder if he's right. All the advice you'd ever gotten on fighting drown can be summarized as 'don't' and 'run'. At least you won't have to wait long for the answer.

"Open!" you command in the tongue of the High Realm and the door splinters open, hinges bending backwards in an instant, flying clean off.

In an instant Cob is gone, and the next thing you hear is a scream half-pained and half-surprised from over-top as you climb up, followed by your friend shouting back: "'E's got eyes in the back of his head! Watch 'im!"

Spoiler: Mechanics

Akorian Caster Check (DC 30): 1d20+8+10 (Knock Bonus) = 38 (Critical Success)
Cob Attacks: 33, 33 (Hit, Hit)
Drow Alchemist loses 20 Temporary HP
Drow Alchemist takes 24 Damage -> Now at 57/81

Then just as the shouts of confusion and anger ring out through the hull, and just as Gorok and an enraged Sir Pisca are climbing up through the film of green, the drow does the very last thing one might expect him to do. In accented but understandable Taldan, he shouts to the knight: "I surrender!"

Rage burns like the midday sun in Sir Pisca Fahlspar's eyes: "Die filth!" Doesn't sound like he's for accepting surrenders.

What do you do?

[] If he's willing to surrender you're willing to accept it
-[] Write in plan

[] You're in position to kill him, so kill him before the others stationed in the hold show up

[] Write in

OOC: I know this is really short, but I can't not have a vote here given what happened.

 

[DragonParadox]

From Nightmare's Gullet ​

17th of Kuthona 4707 A.R. (Absalom Reckoning)

The shock of the drow's words has only an instant to penetrate before Sir Pisca is on him, sword lashing out diagonally to split the bone-burner from hip to shoulder. Then the scene lurches nauseatingly, like a dream dreamt in sickbed, and no longer can the eye pin him. Blood slowly seeps through the black silk of his robes from a shallow cut on his chest. He curses, questions in a lilting elven tongue this time as Cob tries to stab him again, though only managing to stab hid trailing cloak.

"Tangle!" Gorok shouts as he sweeps towards the door to block his escape.

So you do, and with words now grown familiar you call forth chains of memory barbed with guilt to tangle about the legs of the drow. One catches a table leg, but the second, that one snares true, pulling him to the floor.

Spoiler: Mechanics

Drow Alchemist gains Displacement from ???
Pisca to Hit: 36, 26, 16 (Hit, Hit, Miss)
Displacement: 1 Hit, 1 Miss
Drow Alchemist takes 14 Damage -> Now at 43/81
Cob to Hit: 37 -> Displacement Miss
Akorian to Hit (AC 21): 21, 26
Displacement: 1 Miss, 1 Hit
Drow Alchemist Tripped

"Gorok!" Mina's shouts, her voice barely heard above the sound of feet from the other room about to charge in this one. "He's calling us traitors. I think..."

The door explodes in a rain of splinters that almost sends the iruxi flying before a thing out of nightmares bursts into the room: it was as if one had taken a man and flayed him of every scrap of skin, every distinguishing feature, and then with ten thousand hooks attached to every inch of his form it was pulled and stretched into a crude eyeless amalgamation of spider and bat, weeping blood from every pore. Undaunted, Gorok rains upon it blow after blow.

"It bleeds!" He calls out, spitting out the foulness that had sprayed all over his face.

"No shit it bleeds!" Pisca answers, a glimmer of humor breaking through the rage in his eyes. "But what the fuck is that thing?!"

A cat's voice isn't a very loud thing, but Pepper manages to make himself heard over the sound of friend and foe: "Eidolon! Pitborn!"

The words mean nothing to you, but the knight had either heard of or faced such things before. "The monster isn't real!"

Spoiler: Flayed Thing

Mina uses Evil Eye on ???
??? Bull Rush vs Gorok (DC 23): 1d20+10 = 20 (Failure)
Gorok Attacks: 36, 20, 27 (Hit, Miss, Hit)
??? Takes 20 Damage -> Now at 83/103
Pepper Knowledge the Planes (DC 25): 1d20+16 = 27 (Success)
Alchemist Heals 25 Hit Points, now at 63/81

For all that the claws on the ends of its misshapen limbs seem real enough to you, scraping like rusted iron against the deck.

Gorok obviously has the same thought. He hesitates between the alchemist, who had drawn back entirely against the side of the boat and downed a black glass vial, which the fey sword would find him through all glamors he knew as well as you, and holding the door. Behind the horror the sound of steel scraping out of scabbards promises murder. Can Pisca hold that side of the room alone? Dhould I join him? The thought would have seemed mad not so long ago, but you've grown used to stabbing nightmares.

What do you do?

[] Gorok goes for the Alchemist, Pisca can hold the door

[] Gorok stays to hold off reinforcements, the alchemist is still on the floor, the rest of you can handle it

[] Write in

OOC: Aren't Summoners Fun (TM)? They can make their Eidolon look like whatever they want. Whether they should want certain things is still an open question.

 

[DragonParadox]

A Flash of Misfortune ​

17th of Kuthona 4707 A.R. (Absalom Reckoning)

"'E's got a friend?!" Cob shouts the question before cupping his hands and calling to the back. "Catch Armsy-friend!" the fungal grenade flies in a graceful arc, surely too fast and too small for the beast to notice, all the more so with Mina keeping an eye on Cob, a hand on his fate. Alas that fate's a fickle thing.

The monster must have seen weapons like that before, and by luck, by skill, or by the will of some dark power to flings its mouthless head to the side just right, or just wrong, to intercept the vial with a concussive sound and overwhelming light.

Eyes stinging through sudden tears you see Cob barely blink away the consequences as Gorok stomps and claws at his face from the mistimed attack while Pisca is too caught up in tide of battle to be stopped. He slices into the monster's arm and by rights the steel of old Azlant should have passed clean through, but unnatural tendons hold and around the beast that seems to scream without a mouth blades of dark steel both elegant and jagged flick out. Accustomed are the drow to their unholy company, finding gaps in the knight's armor as their bearers call out sing song mockery.

But in among them a one voice rises, chanting with a purpose: "Nallon miruvalyë cantelennin!"

As the beast tries to grab Sir Pisca in a killing embrace, failing by the tips of its fingers, the alchemist hurls himself towards the broken trap gate at the sound, heedless of Cob's dagger sinking into his thigh. Never a good sign that... One of your chains manages to find him and pull him down before he can push past Mina and over the edge, and then the floor stops being wood and starts being fire that clings and burns.

It's glass, molten glass you realize as you hear the groaning of the old ship at the sudden heat, about to burst at the seams like a barrel put to flame.

Spoiler: Mechan... Holy Shit what did you guys do to offend the Dice Gods?

[Image included for proof]
Will Save (Kori, Cob, Gorok, Mina, Pisca): 25, 23*, 12, 23, 23 (Success, Success, Failure, Success Success)
Number of Rounds: 1
Gorok is Stunned
Will Save (Eidolon Alchemist): 20, 21 (Success, Success)
*Forgot to include the Heroism

Pisca Attack: 30, 29, 13 (Hit, Hit, Miss)
Bloody Eidolon Takes 34 Damage -> Now at 49/103

Two Drow attack Pisca: 37, 11, 31, 21 (Hit, Miss, Hit, Miss)
Pisca Takes 16 Damage -> Now at 48/62

Cob AoO: 31 (Hit)
Displacement: Hit
Alchemist takes 22 Damage -> Now at 41/81
Akorian to Hit 28, 31 (Hit, Hit)
Displacement: Hit, Miss
Alchemist Will Save: 1d20+7 = 27 (Success)

Spell Damage vs the Hull of the Floating Bloat: 14/18
Will Save (DC 18 Kori, Cob, Gorok, Mina, Pisca): 21, 36, 21, 23, 25 (Success x5)
Kori, Cob, Gorok, Mina, and Pisca take 7 Damage & are not entangled

"Are they mad?!" Mina shouts at the alchemist, presumably because screaming at a flayed monster isn't as satisfying. "They'll tear the whole boat wide open with you in it!"

His answer when it comes makes her flinch back more than even being sprayed with molten glass: "Do you think they care, little assassin, when there are such handsome heads in the offering to lay before the altar of the Blood Marquis? You have given them a chance for murder and they shall take it. May you die in a strangling embrace!"

Uncorking a vial at his belt he downs it and tries to jump in the water again... this time tripping will do no good, he's too close.

What do you do?

[] Leave the alchemist, you need to cut your way to that mage before he destroys the ship and drowns the people still on the upper deck

[] Cob can handle the alchemist, how much more of a stabbing can be take?

[] Gorok can pin the alchemist down, though it will mean Pisca would have to hold the door and you'd have to trust the old barge to hold

[] Write in

OOC: There is bad luck and then there is one in four hundred chance of something happening, you guys hit the latter. Thankfully the enemy wasn't all that lucky themselves and failed to capitalize.

 

[DragonParadox]

One in Blood ​

17th of Kuthona 4707 A.R. (Absalom Reckoning)

Fey-blessed steel passes through flesh and into the wood below it as Gorok pins the alchemist to the deck with a gruesome blow to the spine, his spectacles flying off to shatter on the wall of the hull, as Cob scrambles out of sight and into shadow, only to emerge somewhere among the other drow, judging from the screams.

Lets see if you can't make them scream some more...

As the bloody claws reach out, you raise a rod of ivory set with marks of silence and will upon them judgement's light. The spell is done, the gift of blindness given, but the monster returns it with bloody claws latching on and tearing like a cruel child ripping the limbs off spiders. The pain makes your head swim, red spilling over the edges of your vision.

Fuck visions, they didn't warn you about this.

As you stumble back, hitting your leg on the low table, you see Pisca desperately try to hack into the monster, his whole sword already slick with gore, turning in his hand as though the ever-flowing blood conspires to keep it alive, just to keep it killing.

It speaks, spitting sharp syllables, though from what orifice you do not dare guess: "Father is pleased, he has sent me a worthy meal!"

It does not seem to notice or care about the poison cloud blooming behind it at Mina's command. One of the guards, who had been about to try to stab Pisca under the arm where the metal plates meet, falls to the ground and starts dry retching. The other's made of sterner stuff... and sharper wit. He calls out something to the others and turns to run.

Spoiler: Mechanics

Gorok to hit (AC 21): 27, 23, 32, 19 (3 Hits, 1 Miss)
Alchemist takes 56 Damage (Roll)* -> Alchemist now at -15/81 (Unconscious)
I had marked the damage as +30 instead of +48, but the roll was still good so I kept it

Cob to Hit (AC 27): 39, 26, 27 (2 Hits, 1 Miss)
Drow Summoner takes 50 Damage -> Now at 42/92

Akorian Caster Level vs SR (DC 22, 13, 13): 28, 12, 20
Reflex Save (DC 18): 14, 15 (2 Successes, 1 Failures)
Drow Summoner and One of the Guards take 12 Damage -> Summoner at 30/92

Eidolon Attack (AC 21): 23, 29 (2 Hits)
*Rend Triggers*
Akorian takes 33 Damage -> Now at 32/65

Pisca Attack (AC 24): 22, 24, 22
Bloody Eidolon Takes 21 Damage -> Now at 28/103

Fortitude Save vs Stinking Cloud: 13, 27, 14
Drow Summoner and One of the Guards are Nauseated

Why can't all your enemies have as much sense as demons and Chelish knights? you think, annoyed even through the agony of torn flesh. It will heal, but your reputation won't if those drow escape to wreak mischief on the city.

"Leontas, how are you holding up?" It's a good thing the spell only needs a whisper to carry to the upper decks.

"Smoke poisoning and the regular kind from the bastards putting shit on bolts. I have three men down, they have three dead, but that was with the charge behind us. How many more of the fuckers are down there?"

"Three... four, but I don't think the big one would fit through the hatch."

"That's not very comforting, you realize that, right?" An edge of wry humor comes through, tinged with an edge of pain, though less than yours.

"If you wanted a comforting job you should've become a gardener," you call back as Gorok swings back to cleave the thing's head off before it can grasp at your limbs again. Now all you have to do is kill the summoner.

Spoiler: Mechanics

Gorok to hit (AC 24): 29, 38 (2 Hits)
Bloody Eidolon Takes 43 Damage -> Banished

One of the drow further in to the hold calls out something that includes the name of their demon god. Really, he should have spared his breath. Cob rams a dagger through his foot and another one in his back as he stumbles. Cob has a lot of daggers.

"I think that's the last of them..." Mina says after a moment, peering cautiously around Gorok and Pisca. The floor and walls are covered with blood and sick, as well as other less recognizable substances.

"How many did you say there were?" You hear Leontas ask after a moment.

The final guard, the one who made it through your and Mina's spells, had also managed to run through a gauntlet of sellswords and fight though Sirim's enchantments to throw himself into the water.

What do you do?

[] Chase after him, let none escape

[] Leave him, one more murderer in Cassomir won't change much, the important part is you stopped the operation... and you even have prisoners

[] Write in

OOC: Man, that one drow underling sure earned himself a name today, literally. He was 'drow guard' in my notes previously.

 

[DragonParadox]

Of Obstacles Unforeseen ​

17th of Kuthona 4707 A.R. (Absalom Reckoning)

A hand twitches on the floor, sending ripples in a pool of blood. Where the blood is cooling the hand is not. He did surrender after all, you think with satisfaction dulled by pain, though soon Mina's hands open, filled with healing light. After a moment's thought Gorok motions to Cob to kill the remaining drow, but you put a hand on on his shoulder as he approaches the alchemist eskelette distiller. "He has much to answer for."

Spoiler: Mechanics

Akorian heals 16 Damage -> Now at 48/65

Mina looks at you surprised before shaking her head. "Oh right, you meant as in questions? Sorry, you were speaking Taldan. I don't usually mistake languages, except..." she slurs her words a little, but she seems unharmed. "Except when it's my language."

To be fair, everyone seems slow and befuddled by the sudden lurch in the happening of things as time seems to settle back from the desperate vicious pace of battle. Underfoot the boards groan alarmingly. There are large sea chests stacked against the back walls, filled with reagents perhaps, with silver certainly, more wealth for the taking if that had been the aim this night, but the question lingers: What's one missing foe?

Truth is you don't know and that's more damning than any other answer. Who has a stake in this and who might sharpen that stake to a point to drive into the backs of strange outlanders if their place in this affair should come to light? So as quickly as you're able you lay it out to the others, sure that Sirim would agree were he here and not floating among the smoke and splinters of the upper cabin.

Gorok nods his agreement and Mina chooses to go with him back into the water, to see through any glamor the escaped elf may be using to slip out. It seems a simple chase to round off the night. Alas, they does not swim for long. From the bridge of the Floating Bloat you watch as Mina and Gorok come up onto the shore to give chase, and ahead of them you see the light of torches.

"Shit!" Leontas curses sharply as he lowers a spyglass that glimmers faintly with power. "It's the law."

Of all the places and all the times to encounter the Cassomir Watch, this is the least welcome.

"They are going to see the drow and..." you trail off. All they would see is an odd looking elf and likely let him through. They'd be more likely to stop Gorok. Or try to at least.

"How many of them are there?" Pisca asks as Sirim rises into the air to get a better look from above.

"I can see eight lead by woman with a red sash."

"That will be a cornicen, a horn-blower, what they might call a serjeant in Cheliax. She's not going to argue with a full knight over damages, though you might want to make the prisoner scarce just in case."

"And all the corpses?" Leontas asks, darkly amused. "Those tell a story all on their own."

"How much air do those magic bags have?" You ask after a moment.

In the end you are off the Floating Bloat before the Watch makes its way to what remains of the upper deck, though in the confusion the last drow did manage to slip the snare, leaving only Pisca to explain that there had been some some kind of fight between the gangs over territory while he had been... in the area, with the implication that he had been drinking under heavy guard yet. Unlike you and your friends, Leontas and his fellows can's exactly melt into the shadows, but they know how to keep their mouths closed and play the part.

Spoiler: Mechanics

Encounter Roll (Who Shows Up): 1d100 = 14 (The Guard, cutting off the pursuit)
Rolls to Loot the Boat: Automatic success (Many Hands+Bags of Holding)
Pisca Bluff: 18, 19 vs Cornicen Sense Motive: 19 (Suspects he's bullshitting but does not know how)

"So when do we get paid for the guarding of your body?" Leontas half-whispers at the knight.

"You already did," he snorts in reply. "Check your spoils. No really, check them in case someone grabbed a contact poison and we need to rush to a mage."

The sellsword pulls out what looks to be a coin, only its made of mirrored silver with the mark of a chalice on it. "What, d'you think this is our first time looking demonaics? Would've turned purple if I was poisoned, same for any of the others."

Alas, dealing with the poisoner is not as easy as the poison. You need to interrogate him, but the dwarf back at the tavern you're staying will not appreciate his rooms being used for such a purpose.

Better to...

[] Bring him to that tavern where you had stopped a brawl on the way to Skal's hideout, he probably isn't too picky about guests leaving blood on his floor

[] Find an empty warehouse and break in. You'll only need it for a short while and be long gone by morning's light

[] Write in

OOC: Back to regularly-sized updates now that we are out of battle time. Your luck wasn't the best, but it could have been worse.

 

[DragonParadox]

At the End of the Lane ​

17th of Kuthona 4707 A.R. (Absalom Reckoning)

The houses of old nobility and deposed prelates rose grey and grim about the square of Abbey Green, the rattle of the wind though the dry grass as though in monkey of the name as a woman wearing the eggshell white shirt and light grey frock of the lettered help moved through the streets, lantern in hand. Anea Ilvor, factotum for the West Winds Company, was as cold and miserable as the weather, wishing for nothing more than a chance to return to her crammed but warm Baker's Street apartment and a cup of warm coca, one of the few indulgences she could afford herself in steep and narrow road of advancement. But the highborn would have their way wouldn't they, their peculiarities? For one not blessed with wealth and a title the request that someone personally pick up their too-soon-arriving luggage in the wee hours of the morning would have been called something considerably stronger than peculiar, mad maybe or at least idiotic. What difference would it make it something that had already crossed the length of Avistan from the shores of Lake Encarthan to those of the Inner Sea would wait in a damn warehouse until a decent hour of the morning?

Keys rattled at her belt as she rose from her seat, informing the coach driver to wait for her, even though they both knew he's bleed her for the fare. They both knew this was no night for a body to be walking the streets of old Cassomir, the rain drove decent folk indoors even as it drew ne'er-do-well out to hunt.

Where others in her position would have brought a manservent to handle the damn crate, Anea had a ring forged to celebrate her twenty-fifth birthday with a touch of magic that would allow her to carry as much as a longshoreman at need, so she had no trouble maneuvering the black walnut chest from coach to the door of Number Thirteen Wisteria Lane. The place hadn't seen an owner in half a decade and a living occupant in four times that long until a mysterious noble from the north had acquired it, very hush hush. Had Anea been more inclined to fancy she would have imagined a spy or a mysterious sorcerer. It was probably just some confidence man working the ignorance of the Taldan gentry to fleece them like that one woman who claimed to be the missing princess of Brevoy before she made off with a small fortune in gifts.

Come to Cassomir for the wine and olive oil, stay for the idiots, she thought forcing the half-rusted key into the lock and turning it with all the anger she couldn't show on her face. The entry room was a thing of peeling green wallpaper and moldering wood that somehow conspired to be even more cold than a winter's night and even more humid than the rain. One would would worry about an infestation of rats though even they had probably moved on to more salubrious dwellings. This whole place could sink into the swamp and leave the world better off for its lack. Now where on earth is the bedroom in this creaking cadaver house?

It wasn't that she didn't hear the sound of the boards creaking behind her. Maybe she'd just been wrong about the mice, Anea thought. She never saw the figure materialize behind her, pale in the lantern's light, she only felt the iron hard grip around her neck, too keep her from screaming.

The coachman left half an hour later, cursing a streak and in the offices of the West Winds Company across town a portly director struck out a name with a familiar sweep of the quill. It was a pity to lose such a good worker, but the customer had been particular about their needs and she had been a bit too keen to advance anyway. It was useful to have clever underlings and ambitious underlings, but not ones that were both.

OOC: It's been a while since I got to do a properly ominous interlude. That was fun.

 

[DragonParadox]

The Measure of Treason ​

17th of Kuthona 4707 A.R. (Absalom Reckoning)

One of the advantages of being garbed in glamor that you had not considered before today is the ability to present yourselves as the sort of folk the governor would see, not bloody and bruised, your clothes still showing newly tender flesh where they had been torn by spell and claw. Not nobles certainly, but messengers or spies of a more reputable sort.

Up narrow stairs you go, and through a door that's hidden behind what Mina tells you is a griffon's wing. To one side you have Pisca and to the other Leontas and his right hand woman, no longer as displeased with your company now the payday had come. That had been replaced with concern over House Basri, the elves, and the WWC. The chamber the seven of you find yourselves in is stone on three sides, encased in marble and glass on the third, a sort of trophy room for curling horns and dry pelts wrapped up tight, cracked geodes like eggs of stone and eyeless faces whittled from bone that still seem to stare into the back of your skull.

"What... why?" you motion broadly at the case.

"Maybe it's where they keep the diplomatic gifts they don't want to display, but can't throw away," Mina offers.

"Or the interests of past governors that the present one doesn't want to be seen casting off," Sirim finishes. "Palaces, I have found, gather treasures like magpies' nests."

"The trophies deserve a better place," Gorok puts in.

"No, they do not," the Lord Governor enters wearing a much simpler robe than his daytime attire, but still seeming awake and alert. "This is what's called the Fool's Hall, as it holds all manner of forgeries, deceits, and curses that were attempted against the Orestes Dynasty, the last Cassomirian dynasty to mount the Lion Throne."

Well... that is a very blunt message.

At least Sirim doesn't seem the least intimidated as he weaves the story of how you had come find the drow aboard the Floating Bloat, leaving out only mention of the steel-toothed halfling who had been replaced with 'gathering rumors'. "We have several dead and one alive. Do you have a warded cell to interrogate him in?"

Over the course of the account Bozbeyli had grown ever more grim until his eyebrows formed a single grizzled line above eyes that glittered dangerously.

"For our own safety we wish to execute the prisoner once you are done interrogating him and dispose of the remains," the shade continues and you know he is about to launch into a polished argument, to be followed by lies just as polished if that does not work, but none are needed as the master of Cassomir gives a sharp nod.

"The elves you spoke of, yes. The Lantern Bearers?"

"And most likely the company you suspect of dealing with the drow. The prisoner should confirm it one way or the other."

"You said he tried to surrender and called you traitors, mistaking you for someone else?" he frowns even as he motions for the seven of you to follow.

"As a ruse," your ethereal companion emphasizes. "I have do doubt he would be wiling to say whatever you wish to hear to keep his life even an hour later. I suggest judiciary compulsion if you have a mage on call for such dealings."

"It would be best to keep this between us if you have the skill..." He sighs and admits: "Such tactics are also entirely inadmissible by law for the seizing of a citizen's property unless they are performed publicly under the watch of a priest of Abadar. I cannot use whatever he tells me if I kill him tonight, and I cannot ask you to bear witness given the danger you rightly fear out of the elf-woods." He rubs his chin, thinking as he leads you deeper and deeper into the palace, taking a lantern from a hook on the wall as he walks on.

Thankfully Sirim has an answer "If you become known as the man who revealed this elven shame your worries will be no less than ours."

"You think I can't deal with some skulking hunter and his pet lion?"

"She who sits on the Viridian Throne holds many threads about her fingers that she does not use, for such is the way of elves, as the years pass them by only slowly. Yet wrath would move them swiftly, shame swifter still."

A soldier's curse spills between his teeth, but he adds. "You're right, it's not worth trying to crack this wide open now of all times. Probably saved me some trouble."

Spoiler: Mechanics

Sirim Diplomacy (DC 25/30): 1d20+13+2 (Pisca Aid another) = 34 (Success)

The cell Lord Governor Bozbeyli leads you to, dismissing guards along the way as show of trust or just the fact of it you wonder, is locked with two doors; one of iron and another of lead which can only be moved by either magic or clever engineering, you're not sure which. The air is thick and still, and even Sirim seems to find it easier to pool along the floor than fly.

Warded indeed.

For once you do not feel the least troubled to let the prisoner out of the sack.

"You..." the drow blinks up blearily, either from the light or from missing his spectacles. "Are not Marian Cicato."

"That I am not," the Governor smiles like a wolf with a haunch of meat. "How do you know that name, elf?"

"Why should I tell you more?" the prisoner challenges.

"Because not doing so could prove very painful indeed."

The threat is only met with laughter. "Mortal, you cannot hope to inflict more pain upon me than I have known in all my years, nor should you even if you spend the remainder of your brief span on this plane for the task."

One might expect a man as powerful as Bozbeyli to grow angry at the defiance. Instead, his manner stays painfully even. "Then I shall have my mages bespell you and the last thing you do in this life will be blithely reciting your life's story, not even aware you are playing the fool."

Spoiler: Mechanics

Bozbeyli Intimidation (DC 29): 1d20+11 = 31 (Success)

"Fair play," the elf nods, his smile wavering though he seems to mean it. "I had hoped that Marian Cicato would would rid me of the... blood guzzlers who had accompanied me from Zirnakaynin at the call of my... former matron. I wished to take up residence in these lands above rather than follow her dictates. The sun is irritating, but tis only up for half the span of hours and less trouble than some of what awaits me below." Unwelcome sympathy touches you at those words, though they are quickly overshadowed by his next ones. "It was my thought that the mercenaries could not tell one drow from another, and then that Cicato was going back on his word and trying to kill me along with the rest... I do not suppose you are open to a similar deal?"

Bozbeyli gives Gorok a look over the prisoner's head. He'll keep to his vow if asked, but it's clear he wasn't expecting this much forthright cooperation and the chance to deal his rival a bad turn.

As your friend ponders the matter he looks to each of you in turn: Mina who's wavering in the face of potential redemption, however unlikely, Sirim interested in where this is going, and as for Cob... well, he looks like he's about to ask for alchemy lessons.

What does Kori think of the situation?

[] No, it's still madness to trust one of the drow

[] If he can be properly warded and bound with a strong enough geas you are willing to see him live

[] Write in

OOC: Man, everyone is rolling high this update.