Finding the Spark (Pathfinder 1E Quest)

[DragonParadox]

Secrets in Swollen Pages​

18th of Abadius 4708 A.R. (Absalom Reckoning)

While Gorok still isn't entirely at ease with letting the pair go from the way his right hand lingers near the hilt of the fey-blade, the fact that you hold no animus against them carries some weight, the fact that it would be either time consuming or dangerous to drag them back in chains carries even more.

"Go now and know we will be at the keep at least on the morrow. If he does not find us there, I will find him."

"Yessir," the words flow together with the speed that only fear can breed.

While the deaf donkey certainly doesn't hurry down the path, it isn't for lack of trying on the part of the two smugglers.

As the land continues to sink the more you meander southwards soon the path transitions from clay to a collection of haphazardly placed logs, preserved by the same mud that pulls at your heels with the mantle of soft evening the air that comes alive with all manner of buzzing life, most of it unwelcome. Oh what I wouldn't give to be blessed with scales right about now, you think as you try to distract yourself by following the path of the luminous dancers in this twilight procession. 'Fireflies' they are called, though the name hardly seems apt to you, they are far more bright than warm as they swarm with what one might imagine to be a sort of curious awe around Warty. Whimsy aside, it's not long before the regular lines of mortared stonework rise from the mire ahead.

Some of the towers are high enough that one can still catch a glimpse of the original plan, with a fair bit of imagination and allowances for the merciless hand of time. What had once been a square fortress boasting an inner and outer wall, both about twenty feet high with the towers reaching up a further ten above those, now more resembled a collection of islands of moss-covered stone. Most of the rooms within are bare of both the remains of original habitation and later interlopers, unless one counts the bones which, according to Gorok, might have been the doing of swamp snap-jaws as easily as more discerning hunters. There are two exceptions to the pattern. Someone had set up a platform by the south gate sturdy enough for half a dozen archers and dragged over a brazier for them to light their arrows aflame there, as well as a few simple snare traps along the stairs leading up. And near the middle of the structure....

"Books! Lots a moldy books!" Cob reports, having keep the fastest into the various nooks and crevices. "Magic all over. Maybe it broke down?"

Being far from an expert himself, Cob couldn't tell you what kind of magic, only make a guess as to its power, More than the faint gleamings of petty conjurer, but less than the steady glow of the most powerful magics you posses, a dim half-light of enchantment.

To the southwest, opposite to where you had entered the ruins, is another oddity: a patch of blue-green fungus tall enough to reach almost to Gorok's chest. Ironstems he calls them, poisonous to everyone, but particularly virulent against the fey. Finally there are two pools of deep water right where the pair you met on the road say there are and the carp aren't shy about showing themselves there.

Spoiler: Rolls and Map

Rolls
Cob Perception (DC 24): 1d20+19 = 27 (Success)
Gorok Knowledge Nature(DC 17): 1d20+10 = 21 (Success)

Map​

"Library?" Gorok motions towards the larger tower.

"I'm not Sirim, but I'll see what I can make of it..."

Waterlogged tomes sag on shelves that seem too ancient to bear their weight and yet they do. Trails of greenish black slime ooze between their spines like ichor as the air is laden with the scent of arrested decay... and with the magic that Cob remarked on. A spell of preservation... sputtering to an end, though the fact that it had lasted so long is remarkable, as is the fact that none of the ruins previous inhabitants thought to take any of the tomes.

Spoiler: Rolls

Akorian Spellcraft: 1d20+9+1d6 (Mythic Surge) = 28 (Success)

What do you do?

(PCs can be assigned to only one action, though more than one can be assigned to any single action. The iruxi will attempt to perform any action left over within the limits of their skills)

[] Start refurbishing the ruins
-[] The South Tower
-[] The Central Keep

[] Try to take out the books and find the source of the magic

[] Harvest the mushrooms, no reason why you can't add them to your alchemical stores

[] Start fishing

[] Write in

OOC: Enjoy.

 

[DragonParadox]

By Feather and Fur ​

18th of Abadius 4708 A.R. (Absalom Reckoning)

The keep of Baron Seat, so named by iruxi custom for all it has no seat for the baron in question to take, has no doors according to Cob, hidden or otherwise. Unlike the logs half-sunk into the black mud of the swamp, the doors had long since rotten away and what hinges have not been claimed by the keep's former inhabitants and opportunist visitors had long since rusted into uselessness, now only adding the odd creak to the buzz of caddisflies and marsh treaders and the whistles and squeaks of black feathered birds that the Taldans call 'rails,' and rail they do indeed at the interlopers in their domain. That's not to say they do not answer that most common of common tongues, bribery: stew stock and bread from the evening cook-pot.

Alas while that might make them more friendly, it does not make them less noisy just because Gorok can now understand their words. Your friend tilts his head in askance and calls back something in the same bird-ish tongue before listening to the reply with ever more intent looks in the direction of the library tower. The birds are very insistent that you do not go in there, though for what reason they cannot say, only that if you enter you will not return.

"There's no doors, swear that on my nose and ears," Cob proclaims, a goblin's oath more serious than if he'd said his eyes you know from the lessons in that tongue. He continues: "Maybe they came out veiled-like, not seen by bird eyes. Where there's one spell there's maybe more. Any idea how many got lost?"

You bite back a snort of laughter at the words, as though the strangers had been misplaced by the raucous birds.

"More than three." Gorok sounds frustrated in spite of himself. Most beasts or birds you know cannot count much that.

Meanwhile your eyes drift to the southern gate, to the firing platform and the remains of what seemed to be fire arrows. What manner of beast would need to be hunted with fire? A moment later you ask aloud and Gorok passes the question on. The birds know not for none of them recall when the platform was built anymore than the walls of stone. For those used to roosting among reeds, wood, and stone are of much the same permanence, but when Cob spends more time looking around there at your behest he finds a patch of strange fur wedged between two half rotten planks, sniffing it before dropping it with a sneeze.

"Bugbear, big!"

How he could smell the size of the creature on weeks old fur you're not sure, but he seems convinced that that's what he was smelling so you ask what manner of foes they are.

Cob looks at you almost bewildered before replying. "Everything smaller than them, bigger than them too if they can kill it."

What do you do about your new discoveries?

[] Cob should stay close to the heart of the camp tonight, if there's something out there with a grudge against goblin-kind he should stay clear

[] Seal the library as best you can with magic until Mina and Sirim arrive

[] Write in

OOC: Sorry this took so long guys, internet troubles.

 

[DragonParadox]

Black Wind Blows ​

18th of Abadius 4708 A.R. (Absalom Reckoning)

Sometimes the solution to one's problems is a pile of stones, or so at least you hope it is as the Blackscales get to work piling loose rubble from around the broken walls against the entrances of the library with a little help from Cob to ensure the piles hold together. You gather such works are typical of goblin 'construction', though most wouldn't think to add deadwood for support. Either way, with the sky looking to stay clear and the chill of winter held at bay by the warm waters of the Sellen River, everyone chooses to sleep in the open or, as the case might be, keep watch. A touch of magic is all that's needed to ward off dreams. You wonder idly what the Densans say of such magic, that the power of their goddess is so easily denied. Something to ask Mina, maybe....

***​

It's no sound that gives a warning, but silence. The slow chirps and buzzing, always buzzing of the swamp, trailing off to nothing as a thin cold fog rolls in from the east. Something is moving out there in the dark, slow sucking steps that dragged up from the mud, though not from the tower. Behind you.

"There's someone..." You turn, the next word sticking in your throat. The shambling grey-green figure of bog withered skin wearing pond scum for a cowl and lichen upon its bare bony brow opened a mouth still bearing a handful of blackened teeth and let out a sound that did not belong in any living throat of man or beast, from screeching highs to deep and haunting lows that spread out towards the moor.

Spoiler: Bog Mummy

Bog Mummy Stealth: 1d20+11+5(Distance) = 18
vs
Akorian Perception: 1d20+11 = 23

And it was not alone.

Another calls out from behind it, still clambering out of the pool, and from the east another trio of horrors are emerging from the other patch of deep water, eyeless faces grinning of death, the glint of gold among them. Is that a king directing his fellows? A shaman or priest of some accursed lineage that held sway here before the Taldans came to build with stone and mortar? You could not say and from its lips issue no words of challenge, not even curses for those who had stepped on their watery graves, only the same unearthly sound that seems to crawl under your skin.

Spoiler: Bog Mummy Noble

Sil's song replays through your mind as fear clenches your heart, then like brittle ice it shatters and from the surge of anger, mocking words: "Those don't look like carp. Time to put 'em down!"

Cob's war-cry is a merry giggle while Gorok charges wordlessly, not that even his speed though the water can match to embracing the shadows, but soon they are among the nearer of the horrors, reaping steel through bony stalks. Whatever had woken these things from their slumber the sound of Cob's war razor cleaving weathered skin and bone is a promise to put them back... one that is drowned out by a deafening boom, as if someone had brought thunder down to the waters of the swamp.

The pile of stones that had blocked in the library flew out like marbles, casting grit and pebbles into your eyes.

Spoiler: Mecahanics

Cob, Gorok Will Saves vs Drowning Aura (DC 15): 26, 10 (Success, Failure)
Gorok Begins Holding His Breath
Gorok Attacks: 33, 32, 27 (3 hits)
Bog Mummy Takes 34 Damage
Cob Attack: 29 (Hit)
Bog Mummy takes 19 Damage
Bog Mummy Destroyed
Library tower blockage cleared by ???

What does Akorian do?

[] Attack the other nearby mummy

[] Attack the seeming leader

[] There has to be some kind of unseen foe here, cast See Invisibility

[] Write in

OOC: I finally figured out something AI is good for, making undead monsters in horrid mockery of the living. I feel like there might be some kind of deeper insight there.

 

[DragonParadox]

That Shadows Might Snatch ​

18th of Abadius 4708 A.R. (Absalom Reckoning)

"Apocalypson ta Aorata," you chant in the tongue of Old Azlant even as the Blackscale guards spring to action, reaching both for weapons orand torches to put the dead to flame. Yet neither flame nor light of magic reveals an unseen hand as the nearer of the corpses tries to smash in Cob's head with age-toughened limbs, however it is too slow and clumsy by far beside the half-sized killer with a smile sharper than the razor he had taken from the corpse of greater horrors.

All the while the unearthly knelling grows, as if the land itself were groaning in pain through dead mouths. Gold rattles in the hand of the adorned one and marks of alien dread burn within it, a ward, a curse upon all strangers who would dare call upon the Otherworlds in this place. The fire inside reaches forward... and gutters out like sparks set to a waterlogged corpse.

"You are without Breath, Sea-Child!" Unspoken malice rings in your mind.

It moves with almost stately slowness as the others splash forward, dead hands gripping the air with their eagerness to kill, but Gorok and Cob had already turned to face them. Gorok slices the arm off one while Cob holds out the fire gem, motioning at the adorned one: "Git 'em!"

Spoiler: Mecahanics

Mummy Slam Attack x2 -> 2 Misses
Akorian Will Save (DC 20): 1d20+9 = 15 (Failure)... +1d6 (Mythic Surge) = 1 (Not Enough)
Akorian Effected by the Negated Spellblight (SR 16; Cannot be lowered; Must roll all spells against SR to cast)
Gorok Attacks: 32, 35, 11 (Two Hits, 1 Miss)
Mummy takes 30 Damage -> Now at 22/52

Maybe the thing could have been prepared for fire blooming in the air behind it just shy of the edge of the pool, its wrappings scarcely smoking, but several hundred pounds of leaping slurk are another thing entirely. Had this been a foe merely of brittle bone and blackened skin his adamant wrapped tusks would have ripped it apart. Even so, it cracks against the bone.

Through haze of hate, through song of dread, you slip like a shadow between the notes, sending shadows skittering over the foe. Not to bind, since it's his voice and power you fear, but to steal the golden talisman from his grasp.

A shiver goes through it from its feet, still hidden in the mire, to the top of its skull, and now it speaks with the tongue of man with a tone of dread that you did not expect:

"Flee, flee this place Child of the Sea! Lest you join us in the blight's embrace!" The words, for they are words indeed and spoken aloud, are close enough to the tongue you hear in your dreams to understand, bearing perhaps the merest seed of Taldan tongue.

At this sound, or perhaps an older instinct, whispers some sign unheard by you. The other corpses turn towards it with grinding hate, like soldiers might on hearing treason... or puppets might when one comes unraveled.

"We will not flee," you say.

Spoiler: Mechanics

Elemental Attack x2: 1 Hit 1 Miss
Noble Mummy Takes 4 Damage -> Now at 99/103
Warty Attack x3: 1 Hit 2 Misses (Bite)
Noble Mummy Takes 9 Damage -> Now at 99/103
Akorian 1d20+8 = 23 (Success)
Searching Shadow Disarm (CMD 25): 1d20+14 = 30 (Success)
Cleric's Focus Taken ???

And from that answer perhaps Gorok guesses the shape of what was said.

"We will not flee!" the scout and opener of paths who had brought his people all the way from far off Cheliax calls out even as he cleaves one distracted horror in twain and removes the hand from another. "If you want peace, show it!" He hesitates a moment in the midst of the battle before calling out: "Warty, to me!"

As you look on in some surprise, the adorned one makes no move to strike the retreating slurk, even though he had the chance.

For its part the elemental's rage will not be undone and more arrows aflame come from the black scales, though fire has little power on the corpse priest.

"Who we killin' now?" Cob asks in some confusion. He does not speak any semblance of Old Taldan.

"The dead, they are being compelled and trying to warn us off," you call back and look to the gold in the grip of your nimble shadows.

Spoiler: Mechanics

Gorok Atacks: 34, 36, 30 (!14)
Gorok Damage: 30 and 11
Mummy Destroyed (2 Remaining+Noble)
Mummy Takes 11 Damage -> Now at 42/53
Elemental Attack x2: 2 Misses

What do you do?

[] Attempt to put down the remaining undead

[] Recover the golden charm, maybe you can break the compulsion further if compulsion it be

[] Write in

OOC: Most humans on Golarion wouldn't stop fighting a horrifying swamp undead just because they might have shouted a warning. Gorok isn't a human, and the history of his people is replete with others thinking them monsters so he took a chance.

 

[DragonParadox]

Drone of Ancient Spite ​

18th of Abadius 4708 A.R. (Absalom Reckoning)

As you flip the pendant into your hand geometric golden patterns revolve into the image of a winged insect, a fly stretched out around the outline of a human skull set with dark ruby eyes, the mark of Urgathoa still mocking in its decadence amid slime and rot. Gold imperishable to age and yet so malleable to fire's touch. On instinct you throw the pendant over the heads of the dead and directly into the heart of the elemental. Its flames hiss like the voices of the damned, leaping purple-black, then it explodes outwards with vicious rage, sending the piece of unholy gold buzzing towards Cob, who ducks under it like he'd been expecting it, leaving it quivering in the log ten feet behind him that he had been just using as a bench, one wing bent out of shape. There is a breath of stillness, then another, and another as the the corpses aren't attacking, but they aren't doing anything else either.

Spoiler: Mechanics

Akorian Lore (Azlanti) (DC 15): 1d20+11 = 31 (Critical Success)
Throwing the Pendant (AC 15): 1d20+7 = 22 (Success)
Elemental Death Save (DC 20): 1d20+ 8 = 12 (Failure)
Fire Elemental Banished
Cob Reflex Save (DC 21): 1d20+15 = 31 (Success)

"Are... you... whole... of mind?" Even Gorok, you note with distant amusement, heart still pounding in your ears, isn't free of the tendency to speak slowly and loudly when he's not sure if the other person understands the language one is speaking. Then again, he might have a point. Who knows how well dead ears can hear.

"We are as the blight has left us, scaled one," the adorned one speaks. "I have but a little time to speak before the veil of rot falls over my eyes. Do not enter the tower. When morning comes, leave this place and do not return."

"The tower?" you ask. Perhaps curiosity will be the death of you some day, but it is manifestly not this day.

"It wishes for us to kill most, not all. Drive the rest into the tower and..." Wave upon wave of violent pain wracks his form, dislocating joints as he can barely keep his footing in the murky waters. "I can say no more. Do not enter the tower, do not linger."

Spoiler: Mechanics

Mummy Lord Will Save (DC 26): 1d20+11 = 16 (Failure)

"Dead 'Uns under mind spell?" Cob frowns as if he is not quite sure what to make of this revelation. Thankfully the remainder of your company are Blackscale iruxi who keep their weapons close, yes, but do not react with violence now that the enemy has stopped attacking. Indeed, they are starting to turn and return to the swamp.

The trouble is you are still cursed. "What of the spell...?"

"Thy fire will burn free long before dawn," the priest says as he approaches the pool once more.

"Come on after 'em!" Cob shouts. "Get the air squids!"

As it happens you had brought the strange living masks along, reasoning that the tribe should be able to make use of them more often than the five of you would on the road. Is that cause enough to chase after the unliving who had just given warning?

"Do you have any way to let them speak more?" Gorok asks you urgently.

[] You can try something
-[] Write in

[] Follow the undead

[] If there are answers to be found they are in that library, warning or no

[] Write in

OOC: Enjoy.

 

[DragonParadox]

In Circle Narrow ​

18th of Abadius 4708 A.R. (Absalom Reckoning)

Glyphs of power taught, iterated, and taught again in the great academies of Azlant write themselves into the air and upon the muddy ground under the muddy water, forming a perfect circle around the retreating dead. For a moment it seems to have no effect, mummified legs carrying on with the inertia of whatever curse bound them here, then the one you had been fighting stops. A creak of bone scraping against bone as the hollow eyes turn on you once more.

Mummy Lord Will Save (DC 26): 1d20+11+3 (Encouraging PfE) = 31 (Success)

You do not know the words he speaks then, the sounds are rounder and more flowing than in any of the human languages you know, though not near the singing verse of elven speech. Yet the gratitude is clear in them and more, as well as the fear that follows in its wake.

"Why dost thee do this?"

Before you can stop yourself you feel yourself blink in bemusement. Isn't it obvious? "We certainly aren't going anywhere, and it would be nice to know what manner of evil needs staking so that our scaled friends here can plant stakes of their own."

Maybe you'd come around to Cob's way of thinking more than your thought.

"It is the blight of Her Garden. Once it was the fate of the traitors, oathbreakers. The Priest Kings would keep it chained between the Sister Stones..." One withered hand points east, though even your eyes aren't sharp enough to see at what through the gloom. "But in time its hunger grew and grew, like the river, each soul a trickle while the magics that held it crumbled like dikes in a storm. When your people came from the sea we threw them back with a hale of darts and cloying poison. When the Northeners came on chariots like reaping blades we befuddled and broke them. but when the Sea Children came on one side and the Northeners on the other upon great canoes we knew our time was over. The Wise read the stars and knew the fates. A warrior I was then and scoffed at their tellings as I marched to war. Many of the Koridin I sent to their gods in pieces atop broken wagons, but it was not enough. They divined a path through the swamp and our children were lost... all lost... blood in the river streaming."

"So you freed this blight, this oathbreaker's punishment?" you guess, unsure if you should feel scorn or pity.

"Our kin were slaughtered. What good were oaths sworn to the keening winds?" Gold clanked on the wrists of the ancient corpse. "It promised us vengeance... vengeance eternal and our land to keep. I broke the wards, it came loose, and we became the prisoners and the blight became our jailer. We killed and we killed until we grew sick of killing. None could dwell in this land while our spirits lingered, no hearths set, no children playing. The blight kept its word, the blight kept its word... but now we are the oathbreakers. Go now and live in a better land than this."

Pity it is then, you think. For all the good it's going to do them. "And the tower?"

"The remains of the last soul who set itself against the blight, a man of the south beyond the sea, wise man and war-weary both. Perhaps he had the power in his limbs, the deep-eyed wisdom, but he was only flesh. Then the sickness came, of body first, then of mind. We were not permuted to kill him. He was hung in shame, the taste of debasement still on his lips."

After you quickly translate the conversation to the others, Gorok asks if that means there is a way to deal with the 'blight' inside the tower.

The warriors start wheeling their eyes as if to ward you off, but their leader quiets them. "We may not enter, but we were commanded to kill some and drive the others into the tower. It wants you to discover what lies inside. It wants you to find it, as others have. Turn back to land not cursed."

"Ain't no maggot-brain blight know us! We killed that vampire and then we killed that ogre twice. It was dead the second time and then we killed the other vampire. We're the best at killing spoiled meat! We'll kill this right proper too!" Cob spits out the words so fast he almost has to gasp for breath when he's done. He looks between you and Gorok. "Right?"

[] Right, Gorok got the rights to this swamp and he is going to use them, old curse or no

[] Better to warn the governor, he has wizards and soldiers and does not have a small child whose mother is lost beyond the borders of the world

[] Write in

OOC: Enjoy.

 

[DragonParadox]

Of Scale and Fur​

18th of Abadius 4708 A.R. (Absalom Reckoning)

"We could end this now," you offer, hoping tis true. For all the times the Ghosts had met in battle those who were truly lingering shades, it's hard to say when death is final to the dead. Mina would probably know a better way to say it.

"We are bound, Child of the Sea, it is our bargain," the dead man answers with a voice that echoes pain far more than living flesh can hold. "If we return defeated, our pain will be greater still. Flee now and you shall not join us."

So they return to the pools, the bodies they had left behind already sunk into the bog without a ripple nor, as Cob would discover with some exploratory poking, any physical trace. What the bog claimed it keeps, a clever verse to add to the song you'd heard from Sil perhaps, tales depositing like silt. Only that is not quite true, for still buried deep in the old rotten log that you had been sitting on is the golden talisman of Urgathoa, one ruby eye knocked loose as it seems to peer at the mage light you bring close to investigate it with a jaundiced eye. So being as you didn't fall out of a crack in the wall yesterday, you put the thing in an old pouch for safe keeping and drop that into a proper magic bag, slightly out of tune with reality. Even if something can look through it, there's going to be a whole lot of nothing to see until all of you make it back to Cassomir where Mina and Sirim can do their own poking.

Gained Broken Golden Talisman of Urgathoa

***​

19th of Abadius 4708 A.R. (Absalom Reckoning)

Before you can embark on the long road back though, is the meeting with 'Boss Hrastor'. Not wanting to linger near the keep too long, Gorok decides that you'll wait until midday for the smugglers to show up. They get there with room to spare. Approaching from the south there's about a dozen all dressed in browns and muddy greens to better blend into the swamp, though approaching without subterfuge, so it's clear long before they reach the gate that some of their number are human, some are halfling... and one is a bugbear with a longbow made for his long arms slung over his shoulders, a man of wild hair framing sharp goblin features that you are only used to seeing from Cob.

A quick, familiar look over reveals at least four other daggers strapped to various points on his person and that is where you can see them. There's something almost comforting about having that look reciprocated as the group approaches. Too long a time spent in the company of those who either assume the other side isn't armed or that weapons don't matter in the face of the crushing weight of the realm's laws, be it Taldor or Andoran.

"You Gorok?" the fellow asks, still out of bow shot of the walls, but more than loud enough to make himself cheard clearely.

"I am," your friend answers.

"You say you're the baron? A lizard baron?"

A few of the Blackscales hiss in annoyance at the word, they had heard enough Chelish woodsmen use that word to last them a lifetime, but Gorok just repeats. "The baron."

"Name's Hrastor, most just call me Boss. Lookin' to make some gold off this pile of old rocks the gov'nur foisted on you?"

"Come in, talk if you wish to talk," Gorok shoots back, motioning with his left hand, the right still on the hilt of his sheathed sword. "Eat, drink."

At the mention of that last of Hrastor's company becomes distictly more lively. If it weren't for your magic, for having seen Mina and Sirim cast the spell a dozen times before, they would be disappointed since the Blackscales see no reason to travel with wine. It is not that they do not partake in draughts, mushrooms, and stranger things to 'paint the light another color' as the saying goes, but they do not partake when there is peril afoot and this is the end of a long and perilous journey indeed.

Hrastor looks behind at one of the halflings and you recognize Sil strumming what looks like a lute someone had stolen half the chords from. Whatever sign he'd been looking for he gets since agrees to treat with you. But as the two sides settle down once more for some serious bargaining something becomes clear: the haste to return to Cassomir makes Gorok seem weaker than he otherwise might.

Should you explain what you had found and who you had spoken to to even things out, or keep silent in case 'the blight' has its hooks in more than just dead men?

[] Mention the night's events to the smugglers

[] Do not mention the night's events to the smugglers

[] Write in

OOC: Enjoy.

 

[DragonParadox]

Right of Way ​

19th of Abadius 4708 A.R. (Absalom Reckoning)

After ensuring that everyone there has a pulse you rub your hands together as if from the cold, calling forth the liar's melody bound in your bracers for the first time. Instead of the flashes of insight you had used for the purpose before you feel the urge to move yourself and to declaim, a tickle in the back of your throat and an itch in the soles of your feet as you lie and lie with skill. "Those Gougers your man told us about tried to have a taste of us, coming up from the water last night."

Bluff: 1d20+22+32 = Automatic Success

Unease passes through the small clump of armed smugglers. Some reach for their weapons, less a threat and more looking for reassurance, while those farther back start to back away. Not Hrastor though, he looks over at Gorok with a fresh gleam of respect in his eyes. "Knew to use fire did ya? 'Course you did, ye had one of the Little Cousins with you."

"Who ye callin' little?" Cob bristles, speaking his own tongue.

"Would ya rather be called floppy-eared?" the bugbear snarls back.

But just when it looks like things might get ugly, Cob giggles: "Come for my ears and I'll pin yours to your ass."

"My ass has fur. What's yours got?"

"Eyes on it," he motions to you and Gorok, then after a moment makes a slightly broader gesture to include the other iruxi.

"Sure they aren't warts from that big toad a yours?" Hrastor throws out as a handful of the others seem to be able to speak the tongue and follow along, but for the most part they are throwing their 'boss' uneasy looks, watching for a retreat order in case things break down.

"Nah, his name is Warty, but he doesn't belong to no one but his own self and if you think different we'll skewer you pretty!" Cob boasts, chest puffed out such that all of them can see the silvery elf scale he's wearing, liable to turn every weapon they have and they know it.

"Not here for huntin' on two legs or four!" Hrastor shakes his head slowly from side to side, not taking his eyes off Cob, but acknowledging that there's deals to cut here, not just threats to throw over the wall by day and arrows by night.

Cob Diplomacy (DC 12/17): 1d20-1+1d6 (Mythic Surge) = 13 (Success)

"Right lads, you heard the baron!" There are, you note, four women among his band, but goblin tongue has as sloppy a hand with genders as it does with numbers higher than can be counted on two hands. "Lets see how we can speed him along his way and keep his seat warm!"

***​

Over the next two hours you learn several things of note from the smugglers: they aren't the only people passing through the swamps with gangs from the Dog's Teeth often hiding loot or fugitives out here when things get too hot in the city, having enough in the way of priests and oils to ward off the dead. Speaking of the dead, the story of the Eye Gougers is about as well rooted in truth as a floating log is to the bank of the Sellen. There has been brigands who tried to claim the old keep before, but none of them with a habit of stealing away children in particular, and the whole halfling escape part had been made up by Sil one night when he was practicing his craft of 'pulling on that string like it's a cat's tail'. Other people who sometimes wander through here are Varisian tinkerers looking to get around road and river rolls and eel fishermen who have learned enough to know which parts of the swamp are safe during the day.

The reason Hrastor's Crew knows so much is that they are made up of odds and sods from all the rest; they will take in anyone who knows the swamps, can keep their mouth shut, hold their booze when the silver comes it, and are willing to work under a bugbear. While you certainly wouldn't call Boss Hrastor a particularly kind leader, he dealt with the problem of one of his underlings tearing into the meal before he was done speaking by slapping the man in the back of the head so hard the morsel flew out, he certainly seems trusted by his fellows.

Gorok must have spotted the same thing you did since he offers to buy a stake in his operation, or looking at it from another perspective, 'tax' the smugglers, though one suspects even the most permissive of Taldor's nobility would be aghast at the notion of paying smugglers to give the fealty.

"Well now, I'll be looking for five thousand pieces. Gold, and none of that cut shit..." Hrastor settles down to haggle.

He's probably not familiar enough with iruxi to tell what the thoughtful hiss means, but you and Cob are. He's not of a mind to haggle at all, just to pay them straight.

On the one hand, it would be useful to have people who know the lay of the land with connections to the local merchants. On the other hand, 'merchants' is a bit of a euphemism. These are smugglers, some of which have at least dabbled in darker deeds than smuggling.

Does Kori speak up?

[] Yes, it's not worth the risk

[] No, Gorok buys the gang's services for 5,000 gp

[] Write in

OOC: Behold mythic goblin diplomacy.

 

[DragonParadox]

Of Sanguine Anchors ​

19th of Abadius 4708 A.R. (Absalom Reckoning)

"We don't shit gold. You shit knives?" you snarl back in the goblin tongue, catching Hrastor by surprise before adding in trade tongue. "They say silence is golden. You'll have plenty of that from the Blackscales."

"Does the grey-hide speak for you?" the smuggler asks, the tufts of his ears slinking back against his skull in anticipation of the answer.

Gorok doesn't answer at once, but weighs his words. "Answer what was asked." You're pretty sure he hadn't understood what that was. For the trust, my thanks, you think quietly. Hope I can pull this off.

"You wear more than steel, dog-skinner," that last is a subtle insult in goblin since it has the implication of finding dead dogs to skin and wear instead of killing them, but he says the words in Taldan so the rest of his mates can hear it."Or's it tin and sparkle?" He grabs a knife and sticks in the sliced open log you're using as a table.

Briefly you consider making the point that the reason all of you are in enchanted armor and wearing fine blades is that you don't spend gold like water, but that's not really what's going on here. "Sounds to me like you're looking for a mark, not a lord. Poor luck to you if you are."

"That a threat?" one of the burlier smugglers asks, peering through locks of greasy hair that look like they had somehow conspired not to see water for a month.

"Just a prediction," you lean back in your seat.

Akorian Intimidation(DC 33): 1d20+21 = 33 (Success)

"Three thousand," Gorok offers. "Comes with a place to hide, tend your wounded, and we'll be dealing with the dead."

"That so..." the bugbear's golden eyes glow with cunning, but not, you think, with deception as he extends one gangly arm towards Gorok. He might be sizing you up to loot your bodies if this 'blight' should prove the stronger, but he isn't about to stick the knife in himself. "Deal."

Lost 3,000 gp

For the remainder of the day and your journey back to Cassomir the sun slips into and out of clouds, though each time it seems to linger more in the dark. Just as the highroad opens up onto firmer ground, almost in sight of the city walls, Cob reports seeing lights in the distance, like pale torches in the haze of gathering twilight. For your part you're content to leave whoever's out there to their own travels, but Gorok looks a lot more worried at the mention and orders the strung out company to gather closer.

"Corpse flames," he spits, then seeing Cob's interest goes on to explain the shapeless lights which lead travelers astray to feed on their despair, though he adds that the wide road so near the city is a strange place for them for they hate all light but theirs and those that are too large or too numerous to snuff out they avoid like a plague.

Gorok Knowledge (Nature) (DC 21): 1d20+11 = 24 (Success)

***​

Back on the inside of the city gates and a sturdy tavern door beside, Mina and Sirim are at first surprised that you had all come back instead of the Blackscales beginning to settle, then worried about the undead. This is the second time you've stumbled over the servants of the Pallid Princess and this looks to be an old haunt, deep rooted if what Gorok's new 'subjects' said was true. Mina suggests looking into who the people you met were in life and what they might have consigned their 'oath breakers' to.

"Dead men will keep, for a while at least. We should seek out Magistrix Eshe first," Sirim cuts in.

"Have you figured out how?" you ask, not holding out much hope.

"The start of the road at least." He explains that after interviewing Anippe and studying tomes from the governor's collection and that of the local temple of Abadar they had come up with a theory for how Eshe planned to find the Refuge, the principle of soul anchoring. A demon banished from Golarion would end up in the Abyss, an angel sent adrift to Heaven and so forth. Certainly, as material beings, the Archlords belong to the Prime Material Plane most strongly, but at least some of their ancestors must have been born in the Refuge, which would mean they bear the faded soul alignment of the demi-plane. So if one could somehow counter the planar attachment of Golarion, Eshe could banish herself to the Refuge... and so might her daughter be cast there.

Knowledge (the Planes) Mina, Pepper: 29, 34 (Failure, Success)

Sirim theories that he could use the Arodonite Holy blade as the core of a 'Rite of Nullification' to unmoor Anippe's soul and the girl is game to try... in spite of the risks.

"I could end up getting sent to Hell or Heaven, but probably Hell if there are other stronger anchors once we removed the Prime one," the child admits perturbing equanimity. "There is far more of the infernal than the celestial in the blood of mortals. If you ask me, that's the fault of the Empyirial lords for letting the fiends steal a march on them."

"Or we collect enough minor outsiders to rule out the obvious candidates," Sirim sighs. "Granted, that sort of conjuring is frowned on in Taldor, but..."

"Illegal? It's highly illegal," Mina cuts in.

"But we have now the privacy that noble rank allows," Sirim laughs, though not at anyone present, more perhaps at the absurdity of the whole notion of nobility.

"Better to do it where there are few eyes then, at the keep," Gorok points out.

"But we don't know how long it would take to deal with this 'blight,'" Mina points out. "Better to buy the scrolls we will need for the summoning first and do the rite here."

What's does Akorian think should be done first?

[] Deal with the Blight and claim the keep so that you may do the rite there undisturbed

[] Perform the rite here in Cassomir

[] Write in

OOC: You guys may also want to think about how many scrolls of Lesser Planar Binding you are willing to buy to hedge against sending the little girl on a tour of the Lower Planes, but that will be for when you have a ritual location chosen.

 

[DragonParadox]

Mundane Position, Arcane Attunement​

19th of Abadius 4708 A.R. (Absalom Reckoning)

Lanterns burn low deep into the night as plans are made, picked apart, and made again.

The swamp is quickly dismissed as a place for any ritual that counts upon a delicate balance of energies when you do not even know what befouls the waters with the ancient dead, the finding and the fighting of which would take time that Eshe might not have. At the same time, performing strange magics within the walls of his city is unlikely to endear you to the governor, Sirim's glib words aside. You bring up the Dog's Teeth beyond the breakwaters, the islands are lawless havens for a dozen gangs and as your previous foray into them has shown they are no strangers to mages of a more dubious sort. On the other hand, your part, or at least Gorok's part, in the end of the eskelette trade has become common knowledge and it has earned him few friends among the gang bosses even as most of the people of the isles may quietly cheer. Illusions you might have, but those are only as good as the eye that beholds them is poor.

"Steelbite should be able to find us a place," Gorok says, not bothering with any courtesy in front of his name, which is, one imagines, fair enough when speaking of a Norgorberite under what you assume is an identity as thin as a paper mask. "If we can find him at least..."

"Do we want to be in his debt?" Mina asks pointedly.

"We still have gold aplenty," you shake one of the pouches for emphasis. "He stayed bought the first time."

"The stakes are higher, and the prize of Nex himself," Sirim seems to agree.

Then Mina's face lights up. "Wait, the reason we want privacy is so we won't get interrupted, right?" A nod trails smoke through the air. "But also so the place from which we open the way into the Refuge isn't available to meddle with later if there are any traces? The water's good for that, but why use a island when we can get access to one of the hulks out in the harbor? Once they go down they'll take any of our secrets with them into the sea's embrace, salt and water scouring its memories."

Spoiler: Wisdom Checks

Cob: 1d20+2 = 7
Sirim: 1d20+1 = 13
Gorok: 1d20+2 = 20
Mina: 1d20+1 = 21
Akorian's contribution is covered by the vote

***​

20th of Abadius 4708 A.R. (Absalom Reckoning)

That leaves you and Cob wandering among Cassomir's Locker in search for one of the unfortunate souls in possession of the half-wrecks anchored just outside the harbor chain. Some of them are merchants down on their luck or the kin of such, but for the most part it's a altogether more unusual sort of scavenger, the 'insurance creditor'. When Sirim had explained the concept of maritime insurance it had left you blinking like someone had thrown a fungal stun vial at your feet. The concept of moving 'risk' around like that without even a wisp of magic is enough to make your head spin, but you have long since learned that one doesn't need to understand all the intricacies of a people or a city to take advantage of them. You trade coin for time with a soft palmed dwarf so very unlike Urgor's sturdy lot and are now the proud owner of the Gull's Gullet, a small galleon whose claim to fame is that it had been laid 'more than an age of the world ago,' which is to say more than a century before the death of Aroden.

In the meanwhile, Mina and Sirim had spent considerably more gold acquiring the scrolls of binding for the second part of the rite, nine in all rather then the three Sirim had at first meant to acquire. Though you hadn't lent more than half an ear to that argument this morning, you gather that Sirim considered being sent to Axis or the Malestrom, much less to the various realms of paradise, to be an acceptable test for a young wizard's talents while Mina was less sanguine about sending the girl potentially hurling across the spheres if her ancestors happened to have some dalliance with the denizens thereof. The way she finally got the last word in was by pointing out that if you did lose the girl so would go access to the Refuge and all that might be contained therein.

From what you had seen of Anippe the girl is caught between perturbed at the notion of sharing the legacy of Nex with those not of the Archmage's students and wanting to rescue her mother as fast as possible. Unsurprisingly, the latter impulse won out. She makes no argument against treating this as a salvage expedition as the six of you, eight counting Pepper and Avarice, descend into the belly of the old ship, her timbers groaning with the weight of every step, air heavy with the scent of salt and things more bitter. Perhaps regret.

Spoiler: Trade

Lost 500 gp
Gained Gull's Gullet (Merchant Hulk)
Sirm Diplomacy/Haggling (DC 20/25/30/35): 1d20+14 = 30 (Good Success) 10% Discount*
Lost 11,385 gp
Gained 9x Scrolls of Lesser Planar Binding
Gained 1x Wand of Dismissal (Three Charges Remaining)
*No buffs since the wizards he was haggling with would have noticed and called him out on it.

The first part of what you have to do here is summon the nine beings that you are going to use in order to eliminate anchors to the Outer Planes. After that, Sirim had laid out a ritual in chalk, ash, and goat's blood, not even a goat he killed, any goat's blood will do apparently, that is to be cast ten times one after the other. Unfortunately, each casting requires forty of the Taldan minutes and each distinct casting only will only suppress Anippe's alignment with a plane for eight hours, which means any casters involved will only have an hour and twenty minutes free over the next eight hours of continuous channeling.

Spoiler: Ritual of Unmooring

School: Abjuration Level 4
Casting time: 40 minutes
Components: F (Inner Circle Greatsword of the Knights of Ozem; Native of Targeted Plane, for planes other than the primary ones), M (1/2 lb of Ash, 1/2 lb of Salt, 1/2 lb of goat's blood)
Secondary Casters: Up to 4
Skill Checks: Knowledge the Planes (DC 27) 2 Successes Knowledge Arcana (DC 27) 2 successes
Target: Individual to be stripped of their planar anchors
Range: Touch
Duration: 8 hours
Saving Throw: 27
Spell Resistance: Yes
Backlash: The primary caster becomes unable to cast Conjuration spells until the ritual has run its course.
Failure: The primary caster takes 8d6 Damage aligned with the relevant plane (Force for the Material Plane)

Upon the tenth success you can all slip inside one of the bags of holding for the child to hang onto while someone 'banishes' her, hopefully to the Refuge. While any one of you could muster the spell by shaping raw spell power, that would leave them on Golarion while the others go into the unknown. Your friends had instead acquired a wand with the relevant spell bound to it, though only thrice. That is how many tries Anippe will have to use the wand on herself once all of you are sealed inside.

What, if any, additional preparations do you make to ensure you and Anippe pass the ritual tests?

[] Write in

OOC: This was fun to design, hope you guys enjoy.