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Finding the Spark (Pathfinder 1E Quest)

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Arc 10: Post 6: Beneath Still Waters
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    • Beneath Still Waters ​

    22th of Kuthona 4707 A.R. (Absalom Reckoning)

    Among the wealthiest and most esteemed houses in Cassomir were those who could trace their lineage back to the founding of the city, the perches of their dwellings atop the low hills of the city proper guarded with all the tenacity of an eagle within its nest. Even when their fortunes ran dry they would sooner pry the gems from the pummel of dueling swords, replace silks with linens, and silver with tin rather than give up the land upon which even the most creaking abode now rested. Thus the House of Basri, relative newcomers to the rarefied heights of Taldan aristocracy, which is to say only older than most other Avistani realms and not all of them, had to make due with the marshy soil beyond the city walls. However, centuries of landscaping had shaped the tangled mangroves and brackish waters of the Bladwood Swamp into an altogether more appealing picture of pale walkways and clear ponds whence lily pads floated to the songs of 'blackbird,' 'wren,' and the more familiar croaks of Warty's smaller kin.

    The hues of trees, shrubs, and flowers are brighter perhaps than it aught to be in the month named for grim Zon-Kuthon, enough that one suspects a touch of illusion magic to enhance what sun and wind had given. Oddly enough, there seemed to be something of a family outing, a picnic as Pisca calls them, set up under the open sky. If the folks smiling and laughing, clinking glasses, and picking out buns and cheeses from the baskets know about the doings of their lord than they most be the most skillful actors in all the land.

    For his part, Cob pays less attention to the 'longshanks' in fancy dress and more to the fact that the gardeners had allowed a spiral of green to climb up the façade of the main house, skipping whole floors of dining rooms, wining rooms, and who knows what else to get to the heights to which so many noble folks are drawn. Something about being able to survey all their domain, mayhaps.


    Not that any of you really need the help to get to a window; Cob can translocate, Mina can fly, loaning out the spell if she must, though one must consider none of these would be skills unknown to the ones who raised these walls, not to mention those who dwell inside them. The last such estate had fey eyes and ghostly trouble, after all. What would this one hold?

    Sirim had argued that at least one of the people going in should be able to both recognize and break magical effects. A wand will do when there's no mage at hand, but it had no wit to know what to break and what to leave be. Gorok resolved to be part of the break-in, a sword to hand should swords be needed. Granted, you're not wholly unfamiliar with the concept, but as they say in Andoran, 'you can't hold a candle' to the iruxi.

    When you had parted Eutropia had explained that she prefer that no one know anything was taken, the better to surprise the Basri patriarch with the news of his treachery, but should it come to blows she vowed to deal with any legal trouble that may cause. Given that she did so in the company of a newly revived drow alchemist, you are inclined to believe she's willing to tolerate quite a bit of trouble, though that's not to say her request that you not kill anyone unnecessarily rings false. Much as her thoughts on war with Cheliax, the heir apparent of Taldor would rather have peace for all she is willing to wage strife if she must.

    What path do you take and who do you send?

    [] The lower path, will allow the party to spy on the picnicking nobles, but it will require that you pass through the most heavily trafficked part of the estate before you can get to the lord's study
    -[] Write in party composition

    [] The upper way, by vine or by window start at the second floor, faster but having to deal with whatever protections the builders set up to guard against window entry
    -[] Write in party composition

    [] Write in

    OOC: Enjoy
     
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    • Arc 10: Post 7: Scales of Green
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    • Scales of Green ​

    22th of Kuthona 4707 A.R. (Absalom Reckoning)

    It's not an easy argument to make, persuading Gorok to stay behind. Too well does he recall the dangers of the crypt, the evils that lurked in Breolia's boudoir, but Sirim is nothing of not reasonable. Discovery would be a greater risk in his presence than the aid the iruxi's arm might offer in the moment. 'What of wards?' Gorok asks and the shade laughs with scorn, naming them 'bright-eyed' and 'mirror seen'. The Taldans, he argues, would not want to cut their flowerbeds with ward-lines. The house at most is warded, and was he not swifter of foot than he had ever been?

    Reluctantly Gorok allows it, eyes unblinking with that uncertainty which upon the faces of the iruxi is not motion but stillness. "We'll see ourselves out just as we do in," you proclaim confidently before in one long breath bidding farewell to both gesture and form. Thus you become a shadow though the air.

    Sirim Diplomacy: 1d20+14 = 29 (Success)

    The edges of your new substance flicker and boil in silent patterns that beguile the eye even with the morning sun already casting its face upon the world, but even that transformation seems commonplace compared to Cob who puts two fingers in his mouth as though to whistle but no sound comes out, only one long breath that seems to carry with it three fourths of his mass. As he floats through the air on the power of Mina's spell he seems more fairy than goblin, if one without wings, and then be promptly adds those with a flourish of bound glamor.

    Both of you pass under shadow unseen, following the vine up until Cob stops about halfway and wonders strangely: "Huh, wonder what they feed it? Picnic? Picnic people?"

    "What?" you ask... or start to.

    Cob is smiling at a particular spot on the vine where a red flower seems to have bloomed... "Wonder if it can taste smell of shadow on air?"

    Only then do you realize that what you see are eyes on an the arrow shaped head. What you, and one assumes the whole city, had taken for a carefully cultivated vine is in fact a titanic serpent with scale-leaves and and fangs like pale stone in gums of moss. A slow patient guardian, but terrible when roused. One wonders which druid had decided to rouse this thing out of the primeval woodlands or grow it by their strange rites and how long its been here.

    But that wondering wouldn't have been enough to keep you here if it hadn't been for Cob slowing far too close to its head for comfort and peering his brand new sprite's head down.

    "Doesn't look like picnic people skin, too red." Now that he points them out you can see up a few scraps of ragged red skin that are caught in the thorns that masked the head of the snake.

    He pokes it with the tip of one of his many daggers, now held with both hands in a posture that might make you smile if he weren't tempting the ire or hunger of something that could swallow him whole.

    "Get away from there!" you hiss reflexively, but it's too late, the piece of skin had started to smoke and spark. A moment later it was gone.

    Guardian Perception(Sees the Invisible): 1d20+24 = 38
    Cob Stealth 1d20+46 = Automatic Success
    Akorian Stealth: 1d20+26 =     44
    ...
    Akorian Perception: 1d20+11 = 12 (Critical Failure)
    Cob Perception: 1d20+17 = 37 (Critical Success)

    "Knew I recognized it," your friend declares triumphantly. "Devil skin. Imp tried to get in, got munched by snake, bit of wing caught on the thorns."

    The vine shakes ominously, though none of the folks outside seem to notice, and after a moment of seeing nothing, tasting nothing on the air, the guardian stills. The people below probably think it was the wind.

    Guardian Perception (Sees the Invisible): 1d20+24 = 35
    Cob Stealth 1d20+46 -10 (Messing around) = 49

    "Do you think there are more devils inside?" Cob asks once you are finally past the window and into a narrow humid chamber filled with deep narrow plant pots, most of them empty, though a few sickly looking flowers hang on in one.

    "One hopes not..."

    You are reminded again that House Basri is apparently most opposed to war with Cheliax and you begin to wonder if it is more than fear of House Thrune that guides them. Though if that's the case why would their own guardian kill the imp whose remains you found?

    What do you do next?

    [] Try to read a servant's mind for directions

    [] Check all the rooms systematically, starting with the ones that have a good view

    [] Write in

    OOC: Lets just say it would have been fun times if you tried to climb that 'vine.'
     
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    • Arc 10: Post 8: What Drink Reveals
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    • What Drink Reveals ​

    22th of Kuthona 4707 A.R. (Absalom Reckoning)

    With a little help from some grease on the hinges the door opens without a squeak into a corridor set not with torches as you had seen for the first twenty four years of your life, not even with lanterns with which you had grow accustomed to in the Burnlands, but mage lights, false embers of gold and green that cast changing shadows over tapestries that recount a history writ in wool, flax, and silk of far off lands. In the changing light the birds seem almost alive upon branches woven and the lions peering golden-eyed between false trees carved of decorative half-pillars. Not the servants quarters, that much you can be sure of. But in the absence of anyone to follow you start checking the doors... that is Cob starts checking the doors, both to keep from raising any alarms and because he, unlike you, still has solid hands to do so.

    For the most part what he finds is bedrooms, each showing the personal touch of their occupant; there a desk piled high with parchment as though the owner could not stand to ever be more than a few steps from a scribe's labors, there a canopied bed whose perfumed depths hints at scandal, there a narrow table bearing wine glasses and strange powders.

    "Don't," you raise a hand before Cob, who looked like he'd been about to taste the latter.

    Not that passing through said hand would be any trouble, but he huffs and loops in the air impatiently. "No, see under there?"

    Now that he had pointed it out you can see a hinged lid in the surface of the table, not quite closed all the way thanks to the carelessly placed goblet.

    Over the next fifty heartbeats, as you are all too aware of the veil running thin, he fiddles with a tangle of steel gears and metal wires until at last biting back a triumphant call he makes the wheels spin. The bed flips upward in almost perfect imitation of the lid on the table to reveal a secret staircase to a windowless door below.

    3 Minutes Spent Searching through the Rooms
    Cob Perception: 1d20+17 = 30 (Success)
    Cob Disable Device (DC 30): 1d20+ 24 = 29, 41 (Failure, Success)
    Time Taken: 4d4 = 12 Rounds, +1.2 Minutes
    Total Time Spent in the House: 4.2 Minutes

    It's... most certainly not any kind of study, deep and dark like a well and opening into the stone. The circular chamber is meant to be lit by torches, and there in the center of it is carved a circle edged in lambent flame, though you cannot guess its meaning or read the symbols all around it. There are also shelves pressed into the walls, heavy with tomes and parchments. Perhaps clues as to what you'd stumbled on... perhaps, as Cob is quick to say, worth taking.

    Akorian Spellcraft (DC 16/21): 1d20+9 = 13 (Failure)

    "Probably not the lord's study," you muse, not unless he has another much more public abode.

    Meanwhile, Cob starts to call the third of your company. It's hard to say for sure what looks stranger, the bag on Cob's belt unfurling itself to its full size when he sets it down like some strange shroom, or a winged cat fluttering out of it to look down at the hole. He takes one look down the hole and sneezes in disgust: "Cabal markings, flawed ones. See there and there, the lines break at odd angles. A mage, if such a fool could be called such, was attempting to summon not merely one of the baatezu, but an uniila. It is to their great good fortune that they seem to have failed."

    "Failed to summon, or failed to bind?" you ask worriedly.

    "To summon," he answers firmly.

    "Bigger devil than the imp trying to get in?" Cob asked, frowning in turn at the hidden room.

    "Or trying to get out," you say in a flash of insight. One would be well-served using a long spoon to sup with the devil, and better still for the spoon to be in the hand of another. House Basri might shelter a diabolist, but it is perhaps not wholly beholden to Hell or to house Thrune, though the full answer is likely to be found in those scrolls.

    Pepper Spellcraft (DC16/21): 1d20+15 = 31 (Success)
    Akorian Wisdom (DC 10): 1d20 = 11 (Success)

    What do you do?

    [] Loot as much as you can

    [] Search though carefully, seeking answers not profit

    [] Close the secret compartment and keep looking down the corridor

    [] Write in

    OOC: A bit short, but I figure this was worth a vote since you found something quite unusual, even if Kori can't quite tell what with that roll.
     
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    • Arc 10: Post 9: Secrets in Small Hands
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    • Secrets in Small Hands ​

    22th of Kuthona 4707 A.R. (Absalom Reckoning)

    Down and around you go, taking nothing. The corridor turns at the statue of an antlered youth with every point bearing a candle, some kind of shrine most like, but also you are quick to find a door and not really a hidden one for all Cob has to search for the leaver, the single horn whose candle had blown out. The carpet continues unabated, obvious to those with eyes to see, and raised voices echo from up ahead. Secure yet in the privacy of their domain the members of House Basri debate their fate in worried tones as children argue with their parents, and they in turn with their elders.

    "Why do I have to go alone?" one little girl with lightning blue hair asks, voice cutting through the others only for her... brother, you think it's her brother at least, almost of an age to elbow her as a reminder that she will not be going alone.

    "Like I said, alone," the girl insisted.

    There's a sense of hurried activity wholly unlike the abandoned wing you had come from, one that makes you glad to be able to slink along the wall and out of sight, but more importantly you are starting to wonder just how much of House Basri Eutropia would even get a chance to speak to. If they have blackmail on her, why would they be sending their relatives away? Is the lord of the House worried that she would threaten his family if she had them in her grasp?

    Stopping for a moment you bid Cob to warn the others through his... pebble to warn the princess. Hopefully she won't do anything rash, but it feels like she has proven herself enough to take the risk. No sooner had you said that that the shifting tapestries abruptly freeze, the thread bereft of glamor-craft that flows from them like a blush mist, and through it passes a man with robes of the same hue adorned in gold so beloved of the highborn of Taldor. His eyes gleam with pale light all too familiar, the sight of unseen things.

    Akorian Spellcraft (DC 17): 1d20+9 = 17 [Success)

    But much to your relief his attention doesn't linger in the shadow of a tall urn where you and Cob now crouch, he looks to the girl: "Do you remember what I told you to say?"

    The child nods and recites with the sing-song gravity that only the very young can master: "I'm to excuse myself for seeking an audience under false pretenses, but inform His Majesty that the princess has been conspiring with Andoran rabble-rousers and the dragon Sonthonax. There's proof of that right there in Oppara, at the Drunken Weasel," she giggles. "There's a man who sailed with the pirates who would bear witness under truth magic to having seen her in the company of the dragon, including a delivery of a large amount of s..sp..pc...spie... "

    "Specie, it just means gold, say gold coin," the wizard says softly. "And remember you are to say all this unless I tell you otherwise in your head. Don't worry about anything else, the audience it already arranged, but you will be the only one who knows the truth. And just in case they get to the witness..." he drew a single coin from his pocket and places it into her hand. "Reading the history of this should give the highlights of the story."

    With that he unfurls a scroll and begins to chant a spell of translocation.

    What do you do?

    [] Cob tries to steal the coin out of the child's hand (Slight of Hand opposed to the Perception of everyone present -5 against the girl)

    [] Grab the coin openly and run
    -[] Write in plan

    [] Write in

    OOC: How do you plot against a paladin? By using a small child whom you know they will not harm and will have trouble impeding as your messenger. Rolls hidden since seeing his Perception bonus would be spoilers, but you guys have been doing very well with stealth since entering.
     
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    • Arc 10: Post 10: Snares in the Dark
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    • Snares in the Dark ​

    22th of Kuthona 4707 A.R. (Absalom Reckoning)

    "Ger the coin!" you whisper urgently.

    Cob does more than just take the coin; a flash of gold between glamored fingers, replacing one coin for another before the girl-child could even notice.

    Alas the wizard, even in the midst of his work, is not so easily deceived. Eyes widening with shock he almost seems to stop speaking before your friend had even started his dash.

    "Come here, pest!" Not missing a single heart beat he starts to chant again words heavy with spite.

    "Ware, bindings!" Pepper calls out, seeming to vomit out a wave of darkness as he does so, though one that the deep-dwelling eyes of the People can still pierce. Spiraling down from the ceiling like some strange cobweb you set your own spell in motion to bind the mage's limbs and still his weaving.

    Alas, his will proves the stronger, forcing limbs to work and tongue to twist through arcane syllables. Twistingly comes the tendril of rubbery false-flesh that bursts from the carpeted floor to the screams of the gathered family members to grasp and bind the thieving little 'sprite'. The coin goes bouncing on the floor.

    Cob Slight of Hand: 1d20+15 = 26
    Hermea Perception: 1d20+2+5 (Circumstance) = 9
    Lord Basri perception: 1d20+20 = 38
    ...
    Akorian Initiative: 1d20+6 = 26
    Lord Basri Initiative [Forwarned (Su)]: 1d20+1 = 9
    Pepper Initiative: 1d20+3 = 13

    Akorian Spellcraft (DC 19): 1d20+9 = 10 (Failure)
    Pepper Spellcraft (DC 19): 1d20+15 = 22 (Success)

    Lord Basri Will Save: 1d20+9 = 22 (Success)
    Tentacle Grab (VS CMD 20): 1d20+15 = 31 (Success)
    Miss Chance due to Deeper Darkness (DC 50): 64 (Success)
    Cob Takes 9 Damage -> Now at 66/75

    "If you value your existence in this world or another you will inform me of who sent you here, threshold fey," the mage proclaims with icy courtesy as he turns to look towards the source of the thrashing. "Which druid or greater sidhe saw fit to meddle within our own home in so brazen a manner?"

    Whatever power he had to have reacted so quickly doesn't allow him to pierce the darkness and see you or Pepper, but you don't think Cob will be able to pretend to be a faerie thing for long. Maybe long enough for Pepper to grab the coin though. On the other hand, if he dashes away with it you'll have to rescue Cob on your own.

    No doubt the first thing Lord Basri is going to do now is dispel the darkness so he can get a good look at who he captured.

    What do you do next?

    [] Pepper grabs the coin and tries to run (Stealth vs Lord Basri with a -3 penalty for distraction)

    [] Dispell the tentacle so Cob can get out, grabbing the coin as he goes

    [] Write in

    OOC: Well that didn't go so well, it's not even that you guys rolled badly, it's that he's on your level and got just a little more lucky. You still have options though, he thinks that Cob really is a sprite since that's all he got to see before the darkness fell and the flash wasn't enough to roll Sense Motive vs his Disguise.
     
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    • Arc 10: Post 11: The Watcher Behind
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    • The Watcher Behind ​

    22th of Kuthona 4707 A.R. (Absalom Reckoning)

    Cob's shirt gleams with an oily sheen and in a moment he is lose, diving for the coin he'd dropped only to dart upwards before the mage had even finished his next incarnation and hit him in the eye. Seeing him blinded, you strike: a conjured chain around his ankles to drag him into the reach of his own spell. In the darkness the fleshy whips fails to connect as one of the other men present pulls their lord back out again, a sword half drawn at his side.

    "Never mind me!" He shouts, managing to keep his feet with surprising grace despite the floor now being covered with a fine layer of grease. "Spread out and find it!"

    As though mortal eyes could spot Cob, you snort inwardly, slinking along the wall. Then something about the spell those words flow into catches your ear, familiar and more deadly than any blade or blast of fire could be; a wandering wizard's eye, tool of spies and supervising clergy left to deal with lazy novices alike. The guards, you realize, are a distraction for the true way he means to track the trespassers in his domain.

    Cob Attack (vs AC 19): 1d20+15 = 21 (Success) -> Cob does 19 Damage
    Lord Basri at 31/50 [Nonlethal]
    Chain of Perdition (Vs AC 16): 1d20+15 =     17 (Success)
    Guard Initiative: 1d20+4 =     9 (Failure)
    Tentacles Grab: 1d20+15 =     23 (Success)
    Tentacles Miss Chance (DC 50): 1d100 = 2 (Miss)
    Pepper Spellcraft (DC 19): 1d20+15 = 18 (Failure)
    Akorian Spellcraft(DC 19): 1d20+9 = 22 (Success)

    So as you follow Cob you look over your ethereal 'shoulder' and willing that you might see the unseen, pyros bright in your veins and in your eyes until you can see the spark of his attention and try to burn it out. Alas, like a white hot coal it proves tenacious, no matter how much you might blow on it.

    Again... words come... purpose comes, the spell behind you dies out and with that slipping out of the house is as easy as a greased eel through a noose. Lord Basri no doubt knows someone was minded to steal his thunder, but with any luck he won't be able to connect that to an odd group of mercenaries who are working with Princess Eutropia.

    Akorian uses Inspired Spell x2: See Invisibility and Dispel Magic x2 -> Mythic Power at 3/5
    Akorian Dispel (DC 15): 1d20+7+2 =     14 (Failure)
    Akorian Dispel (DC 15): 1d20+7+2 =     25 (Success)

    Speaking of Eutropia, she is shocked to hear about the diabolism and at once horrified and grudgingly impressed when she hears of Basri's plans to reveal her dealings to the Emperor. "This must be getting quite the old hat for you now, but you have my thanks once again, masters Akorian and Cob."

    "Hat?" your friend asks hopefully.

    The princess, who had been leaning against the rim of a fountain not far from the Basri estate where she had bid you meet her, says something to one of her guards in what you assume is the Ulfen tongue. The man laughs, nods, and pulls out a large fur hat seemingly made out of a whole badger out of his pack to throw it to a very happy Cob.

    "You can use that hat as a distinguishing sign if you ever need to get to me in a hurry through all the purple ribbons," she says, referring, one assumes, to the custom in Taldor to bind official documents with purple ribbon to signify the Imperial family.

    What do you do next?

    [] Return to Augustana in order to rebuild the Dancing Slurk and recover Gorok's tribe

    [] Spectate Pisca attempting to drink the fluids recovered from the pirates under the supervision of a resurrected Saenar

    [] Write in

    OOC: Kori's Spellcraft pulled through when it had to. Without that even Cob's perception would have struggled to see an invisible sensor zipping along behind him, which would have lead to Basri to knowing who had just broken into his house and maybe even being able to continue to spy on the princess and her plans before she paid him a visit, giving him further advantage.
     
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    • Arc 10: Post 12: A Sketch Most Sinister
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    • A Sketch Most Sinister​

    23th of Kuthona 4707 A.R. (Absalom Reckoning)

    Though the city's arcane merchants have not yet recovered from your last bout of spending what had so recently been the governor's gold, you are able to find the two more scrolls of far travel, one stained rust red as though it had failed to save it's previous owner fast enough, and two conjurings of a more maritime bent. 'Superstitious sailors scorn binding the wind to their will, but we are a more discerning sort,' a man who smells and looks like he had recently bathed in perfume oils informs Mina again in her Osiriani guise, only stoking her suspicion more, but as far as she is able to discern the magic does what one would expect it to. A pity there were no mirror mages abroad, but they more common in Korvosa where rumor holds the young queen keeps them busy plying to her vanity. Your own journey won't take you quite as far as that...

    Gained
    Lost
    • 5,500 gp

    The world twists and in a moment you're back outside the Hog's Side, the din of the Shipyard District absent the nasal quality of metropolitan Taldan, which many along the inner sea mark as a sign of imperials having their noses in the air. All in all you are looking forward to sleeping away the day....

    "Ah... Gorok, Kori, I think we have a problem," Mina tipped her head towards where a ragged piece of parchment clung to the wall of the inn, hammered in place with nails already rusting in the salt air:

    Ten Ten Thousand Sails for apprehension of proof of death of the Sorceress Most Vile, purveyor of poisons bone-boiler, and drinker of blood, the savage flesh-ripper lizard-beast, and their ghoulish thrall. They find themselves accompanied by a goblin-demon of cretinous countenance and reek most rotten.

    The drawings that accompany the rather sparse description leave no doubt as to who they mean, even if Mina appears to have her hair replaced with a pile of straw, you had gained the pallor of a corpse, and Cob has a toothy maw that takes up more than half of his face. Even Warty's there, feasting on a corpse while Gorok raises a bloody axe above them.

    Interested are given what looks like a solicitor's address in Old Town, not the kind of person one would expect to be able to deal with 'crazed murderers' or the corpses thereof.

    "Aspis?" you ask, your glamor already shifting into the first generic human face you can think of rather than the human-like iteration of your true features you normally use.

    "Who else would it be?" Mina, who had done likewise and making herself seem much older in the bargain. "How is this legal? Isn't Andoran meant to have laws?"

    "Who says it has to be legal?" you muse, as you were are hardly in the best part of town. "Not the worst, but we aren't dwarves either... I think we should try to get our bearings before we make anything of our new infamy one way or another...."

    What do you do?

    [] Seek out the Pathfinders, if it is Aspis they will know and have reasons to help you, but that would also be the first place any associated of Gavhaul might look for you

    [] Go to the Forester's Endowment, having helped them in the matter of House Vaelyn they might be inclined to at least share some information

    [] Try divining some answers before you speak to anyone
    -[] Write in question

    [] Write in

    OOC: Enjoy.
     
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    • Arc 10: Post 13: Tales Upon a Goblin's Tongue
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    • Tales Upon a Goblin's Tongue ​

    23th of Kuthona 4707 A.R. (Absalom Reckoning)

    As Mina lays a blessing of swift passage on each one of your company as though on untamed paths and not in a city surrounded by people, Sirim allows his will to diffuse like shadows through the morning air to spy upon the seer. Nothing yet, but the ward lasts through a full turn of sun and moon through the empty sky.

    Setting out to find another inn along the docks there's another blessing that might serve, giving ear not to what may be but what is. So even as Gorok peers inside the ingeniously named and patchily roofed Hooked Angler, Cob sits perched on a barrel listening. True, it earns him a disapproving looks from the seagulls he'd displaced, or maybe they're just wondering at the way his ears twitch this way and that through the disguise as no halflings ears should listening to what rumors the wind might bring.

    Up in the loft, smelling of hay and not fish guts thankfully, your friend begins with five ominous words: "Mother's been 'Doin' Stuff," your friend proclaims with the lightheartedness that still troubles Mina, though personally you'd rather this than name one of the great demons of the Pit into the open air. "You know that spook we talked to, the one who wanted to grow mold men but then his own lot killed him 'cause that was dumb?"

    "That's not exactly..." you start, thinking back to the ill-fortuned Ergriso Vaylen, but Sirim surprisingly waves you off, as much waving as one can do without hands at least. "Close enough..."

    "Turns out one of his kin, Lynea her name was, found herself under the Mother's Moon..." He wiggles one hand in what might be a warding gesture. "That's when a welp comes out blessed, you see, which ain't always good to her that bears it. Sometimes they come out teeth-first, see?"

    "I'd rather not," Mina shudders.

    "It was her that killed her father, Mem... Mem something. Doesn't matter, he's dead. Anyway, I think the spook was the father, before he was spook at least."

    "Wait...?" Mina recalls the name. "Weren't they cousins?"

    Cob gives a very expansive shrug. "Eagle Knights only pieced together the whole thing after she ran off with a bunch of the gold and shinnies down in the vault-hole. Flew off really, on the back of a chimera. Came down to pick her in its claws, killed and ate a bunch of those... Night Eagles? Eagle Knights, that was it. Musta' been a really strong welp. Town found out in bits and pieces, and now half of them are sure they're cursed by demons."

    "Why do they think that?" Given that you are in the city, however brief the stay may be, the question strikes you as more important than the precise degree of familiar relationship between a dead man and a runaway priestess of Lamashtu.

    "Fishing's bad, they're not getting as much fish, but they're getting eyes sometimes," seeing the confusion Cob explains. "They're getting fish eyes in the net without the rest of it, like something's been eating all the fish around the eye."

    "Death of beasts, even strange death, would not be the mark of the Brooder of Beasts," Gorok says firmly.

    "Mayhap the seafolk know more," Sirim says, curiosity clearly piqued.

    "What about the reward on us?" you try to steer Cob back on track.

    "Oh, that's the Lumber Concert. How's lumber singing? Druid?" your small friend looks up at Gorok expectantly.

    Cob Perception: 1d20+23 = 36 (Full Success)

    "That's Consortium, I think, the folks we worked for before and Forester's Endowment count foes?"

    "Right, well they're saying we shanked the wizard I took the Cob magic from, which we did, and they're calling us Taldan sneaks? We're not always going to work for Taldor-folk, right? Sounds kind of boring."

    "No, master Cob," Sirim sighs, a faint hiss like gas escaping from a hidden packet underfoot. "Espionage laws, that explains the bounty with no trial. The fact we spent the last several days in the company of Eutropia and her Ulfen Guards probably won't help once that news gets to Augustana."

    "What about Goldgather though, shouldn't she have done something to...?" Mina stops, considers the name of the Venture Captain and the fact that you are not even finally affiliated with the Pathfinder Society. "We should clear our name of the espionage charges and explain what... what the Aspis Society is."

    "Taxpaying merchants?" Sirim's mind voice has an edge of cynicism to it, but not unkindness. "If we want friends in this town, we'll have to buy them. Thankfully, we have the coin."

    What do you do next?

    [] The Pathfinders are still your best bet for learning more than rumors tell

    [] What you have found is all the more reason why the Foresters' Endowment would side with you, seek them out

    [] Seek out the Azarketi, at least there was no war such as you foretold at the ill-fated wedding but this talk of fishing up eyes troubles you

    [] Write in

    OOC: Plot threads keep spinning whether you are around or not.
     
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    • Arc 10: Post 14: Spirits of the Past
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    • Spirits of the Past ​

    25th of Kuthona 4707 A.R. (Absalom Reckoning)

    However you cut it, there's just no way to deal with this quickly. Between the intricacies of Anodran law, the power of the Lumber Consortium, and the secretive hand of their Aspis allies, there's just too much arrayed against you to deal with head on. Not to mention, as Sirim recalls with a wry touch of humor, "We are guilty of the sin if sin it be."

    So instead you come up with a veil to wear while in Augustana, that of a young widow of Galtish blood driven from her new home in the River Kingdoms by the ever-swirling wars of those realms. The commonly known and commonly disdained standoffishness of Galtan nobles would go far in excusing why the lady will not leave her chambers and where she has all this Taldan coin from. It might not make for pleasant meals in the common room of the Hocked Angler, but the fewer questions asked the fewer lies need be told.

    So thick and true runs the Andoran dislike of the Galt's deposed nobility that the carpenter you seek out for commissions of a pair of 'heirloom ship models' doesn't ask questions even when one of those models is clearly an Ulfen Longboat drawn by Cob from examples bobbing at anchor in the Salt Harbor. He just hikes up the price by half again as much.

    Akorian Bluff: 1d20+22 +4 (Heroism) +6 (Bestow Insight) = 40 (???)

    Cob Knowledge Engineering: 1d20+13 +4 (Heroism) +6 (Bestow Insight) = 29 (Success)
    • Lost 3,000 gp
    • Spell Foci Being Crafted

    ***​

    28th of Kuthona 4707 A.R. (Absalom Reckoning)

    Alas, that is where your good fortune ends. Teeming through the markets of Fleet may be Augustana counts fewer mages than Cassomir, and of their number most are engaged with its various guilds and trading houses, above selling their wares openly to strangers. It is only after declining the services of a dubious fellow with a wide-brimmed hat covering up a cheek scared to the bone with a very keen interest in your religious affiliation, necromancer looking for work or Eagle Knight fishing for trouble, you are not sure, that you find a lead.

    "Oh aye, dearie. No one knows more about more than Nexians," a colorfully dressed old woman, scarves floating behind her in the high breeze.

    A chill of memory goes down your spine.

    "Eshe River Runner knows those spells, assuming your pouch's heavy enough to pay for an Archlord."

    There it is.

    Turning around head already tipped down in thought pay the elderly 'fixer' the common rate. Thus you consider what if anything you should tell the woman whom you had never met, but whose door you had broken though and upon whose floor you had bled. Hopefully her daughter had conveyed your apology note... Would she take advantage of the fact that you are now fugitives? Or covertly would she see an approach under a glamor poorly? Most people aren't quite so keen to trap their homes as the Nexian mage had been.

    What do you do?

    [] Approach Eshe to try to buy the spell
    -[] Openly
    -[] Under your assumed guises

    [] Do not approach the Nexian mage, try to hire a living crew

    [] Write in

    OOC: Enjoy.
     
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    • Arc 10: Post 15: Soul's Price
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    • Soul's Price​

    26th of Kuthona 4707 A.R. (Absalom Reckoning)

    A dozen voices rise in boasts and arguments, the clink of arcane instruments from Absalom to the clang of Varisian glasswork, there's plenty to be bought and sold yet in Fleet, but what your company is after is most particular. She had fixed the door at least... you think, noting the unfamiliar runes marking the lintel, the thickness of the threshold, blue granite that must have been dragged here from hundreds of miles for arcane purposes. At first you had reasoned that Sirim should linger and keep watch, both for any who might meddle in the trade and in case of a poor reaction from the arch-lord. Mina had proposed 'arch-lady,' though apparently the Nexian dialect of Osiriani preserves the term as male in all cases due to the original arch-lords all being men.

    Thoughts of etymology do not last long as Sirim motions to a rain gutter high up above the tea-shop across the way. At first it just seems the shadow of a weathervane moves then, seemingly gaining couture and substance the more you look at it. Lithe it is, like smoke, and yet sharp-edged as though it alone is cast by the light of a single wavering candle, seeming to slip in and out of existence as the shadows around it move, though the experience of many battles tell you not to doubt the substance of those dagger-sharp claws.

    "Behold, our watcher."

    "Dragon?" Gorok asks, though he sounds unsure of the prospect, less at its strange guise perhaps and more at the notion that a dragon would deign to play guard duty because your friend wishes it.


    "More like the dream of one, or perhaps a nightmare. Dragons claim to be the first mortal creatures given breath upon this plane. Whether that be true or not it cannot be denied that they are ancient and long in dreams of mortal man. Some of the insights I gained at the temple of Abadar allowed me to summon this one as more than simply shape or a puppet to my will."

    "What do you mean some of the insights? Does it have a soul or not?"     you ask, fighting the urge to look up for a wrathful draconic parent looking to free their get from bingings. The watcher, while impressive, is only about seven feet at its greatest extent.

    "Were I a touch younger I would leave that question with a 'yes'." Even for you, having known him this long, it is difficult to read the shade's alien mannerisms, but in this case you are reasonably confident the slow blink of ember-eyes is a wink. "Alas that time has robbed me of the simple pleasures of a young wizard. It has the semblance of a soul derived from my own and thus perfectly loyal. True, it requires a sacrifice, but I will hardly miss my capacity for avarition. There are far more precious things than gold to be found and treasured."

    "You broke your soul again?" Mina's scandalized question earns a giggle from Cob, but you do not miss the worry in her eyes.

    In response Sirim muses slowly: "Come now, do you think I will miss the urge to pinch pennies? Why now that I think of it, wouldn't Desna approve of excising that part of myself? That and a quarter thousand golden sails."

    "By being more generous, not soul surgery!" she exclaims. "Gorok tell him..." the iruxi looks intrigued, most likely weighing the worth of this new and unexpected asset to the Ghosts.

    She then turns to you, almost pleading. "Kori?"

    [] You do not see the problem, seems to have worked fine

    [] Sugest that Sirim consult with the rest of the party before he does more soul surgery

    [] Write in

    OOC: The reason I did not do the draconic ally last update is because this conversation would not fit with all the rest. Enjoy.
     
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