(OOC: This thread is for the Artificer adventure Heart of Artifice--so far we have Anvuss, Aethelus, and Kharas on their way. This first part might be really short, but I decided to break it up into two parts anyway to give a natural place to split threads)
*The woman breathes a sigh of relief when you are all out of the tavern, her whole body loosening up and showing signs of being more relaxed--it seems that she is a bit shy and freezes up around large groups of people with all those eyes on her. With only three, though, she is more at ease.*
*She leads you down and around, circling through the towers and crosswalks of Sharn, while explaining in a steadier voice:*
"Thank you all for helping me. I think my daughter is in danger, and I'm sure the construct creature had something to do with it. I'll show you when we get back to my home."
*Sharn is a huge city, and it takes some time to reach her home, which is a plain and tiny little place, though if she actually owns it as it seems, it probably cost her a relatively large amount, considering real-estate costs in Sharn.*
"Here it is. I know the comforts are not much, but...please make yourself at home. You're here to help me, so if there is anything I can get you to make you more comfortable--refreshments, cushions, anything, please just ask."
*She leads you inside the place. It is small and cramped, but cozy, with little flourishes and signs of care and dedication that make it seem even a bit homey, at least to those who get that sort of feeling--probably not Anvuss.*
*She leads the Artificers into another tiny adjoining room, where you see the construct--or what is left of it. It seems to be entwined by a rope in a very unlikely and complex way and then bashed to dented pieces by a heavy blunt object. What is left on the floor are mainly chunks of metal and little gears and mechanical pieces, and it is almost impossible to make anything of it from a distance and without further inspection.*
__________________ "That's so far over the line between genius and madness, it passed all the way through Cthulhuville and normalcy and all the way back to brilliance!"--MoogleEmpMog
"Might I begin by thoroughly examining the construct and its surroundings?"
Unless stopped, Anvuss will laboriously (taking 20) search the construct and surrounding area, looking for anything of interest but particularly any writing, symbols or marks that might help put the construct in context. Any sort of makers mark, secret compartment or control mechanism, and a determination as to what broke the creature and whether it is repairable would all be of interest.
"By all means," the woman replies with a decisive nod.
*Anvuss does see pieces of a symbol on the shards of a fractured and dented piece of metal. Given time and crafting skill, he could probably figure out how the pieces fit together to get the symbol together the right way. There don't seem to be any secret compartments or control mechanisms, at least that he can find. The creature seems to have become entangled inextricably in the rope, somehow, and then smashed to pieces by a heavy blunt object. His thorough examination cannot give him any more specifics to that, though in this case, perhaps questioning the possible witness might help.*
ooc: 28 is pretty respectable at level 2, or so I thought. If someone wants to make an aid another roll, though, that'd be great. +8 is my recollection, though I'm on my phone at the moment and cannot check myself... the character sheet is hard to navigate on the little screen.
"Did anyone see what happened? Was the rope animated rope in some way?"
Anvuss tries to get an idea of what sort of constuct it is, including size, general shape and basic purpose. Is it some sort of homonculus, or some type of warforged?
"Oh, yes, right. I animated the rope to snare it, and then I beat it with a hot poker until it broke," the woman explains sheepishly.
*Though it is only pieces now, Anvuss thinks it doesn't really look like a Warforged at all. Some of the sheetlike fragments might have been pieces of wings? The amount of material would only really be enough for about a halfling-sized construct, rather than human-sized.*
(OOC: That's all he gets from just an unomodified search--is there any skill, infusion, etc he has that he would like to use to get more of those answers from the last post? Craft, Knowledge, etc?)
ooc: Hmmm. Really sounds like an aid another roll would be worthwhile. Hint, hint!
(OOC: I took a look. Anvuss's +8 is the best in the group. Thus, even if Gwyd's Lyrander Artificer joins up and they all aid Anvuss, it will be possible to beat DC 30 but not DC 35)
Anvuss, not surprisingly given his name, has some skill in blacksmithing. He'll use that knowledge to see if he can reconstruct the symbols enough to read them. He won't use infusions unless all less resource intensive methods are exhausted.
*Anvuss has some trouble, but he manages to find the pieces with the symbol on it based on the fragments of the symbol from before, and he is able to assemble it like a jigsaw puzzle (if not actually repair it instantly), so that the symbol can be extrapolated across the pieces. It is a strange symbol that looks like a personal sigil, but it is not one that Anvuss has ever seen before. Though it is simple, Anvuss has to admit that the symmetry and flowing curves of the symbol is rather aesthetically appealing as a sigil, at least for those who care about such things.*
(OOC: By the way, shouldn't the UMD +2 bonus from tools be only a conditional that applies to crafting emulation rolls? The way you've written it, I might accidentally apply the full +8 to a UMD to activate an item)
__________________ "That's so far over the line between genius and madness, it passed all the way through Cthulhuville and normalcy and all the way back to brilliance!"--MoogleEmpMog
ooc: I just reread the proposal, and it was terminated when we decided the SRD covered it. From the SRD, it *seems* to apply generally, not just to item creation. I suppose we might need to clarify how we want it to work in LEB.
"Does anyone recognize this sigil? Given that it is on a construct, perhaps it relates to house Canith in some way?"
Anvuss continues to look over the construct. Would it be responsive to a repair light damage, or is it too broken for that? He doesn't actually check, he's merely trying to form a professional opinion.
(OOC: Okay--well I won't be giving +2 tool bonuses to things that shouldn't allow tools unless my hand is forced, and things like Bluff or the using-items kind of UMD are top on my list. I'm happy to give it to the actual item creation process though)
*Anvuss thinks that broken constructs can never be repaired by that infusion.*
(OOC: As per the text of the infusion/spell, it doesn't apply unless the construct has 1 or more HP)
(OOC: Okay--well I won't be giving +2 tool bonuses to things that shouldn't allow tools unless my hand is forced, and things like Bluff or the using-items kind of UMD are top on my list. I'm happy to give it to the actual item creation process though)
Understood, and I don't disagree. Though in a multi-dm world, I'm not sure how to write that on my sheet. Perhaps you could propose making that an actual LEB-wide rule, to avoid confusion?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rystil Arden
(OOC: As per the text of the infusion/spell, it doesn't apply unless the construct has 1 or more HP)
ooc: Which means Anvuss has ruled out, to his own satisfaction at least, the construct having the living subtype.
"I do not know that if repaired it could be induced to lead us to its home, but repairing it seems likely to be beyond my skill."
"Let me give you a hand Anvuss. Here this might help too." says Aethelus. He places an infusion on Anvuss' eyes, allowing him to search better with it.
(ooc: aid another on the search (need to roll atleast a 3), use skill enhancement Search on Anvuss to add +3 to his roll. Provided Kharas is aiding another too we'll hit 35.
General Knowledge checks:
Knowledge (arcana) +7
Knowledge (engineering) +5
Knowledge (the planes) +4)
(OOC: Well, I see no reason why Kharas would refuse to help search, and I'm on now and might not be later, so...35 it is!)
*After Aethelus finally finishes his infusion on Anvuss, the three gathered Artificers search again, and this time, with their combined expertises--Anvuss's knowledge of metallurgy and attention to detail, Kharas's expertise with intricate devices and ability to appraise metal, and Aethelus's theoretical and practical knowledge of all things magical as well as sound engineering design principles, they are able to scrounge more information from the fractured construct.*
*First of all, while Anvuss looks for matching cracks and shards in the outer shell, Aethelus and Kharas are able to arrange some of the pieces on the ground in areas of roughly similar function, together constructing a rough skeleton of the infrastructure of the creature. None of them has particular expertise at drawing, but they try to extrapolate from what they see to make a rough sketch of what the construct would have looked like--they can always double-check this with the woman whose name they still don't know if they want--as is often the case with Artificers, they have been paying more attention to the engineering task at hand. Their sketch looks like, in Aethelus's xenotaxonomical opinion, a rather fanciful imp or mephit-like flying construct with slender fluted wings like a mix of a butterfly's or a hummingbird's--great for flying with high manoeuvrability: They might be able to learn more from someone who knows about the principles of aerodynamics (OOC: Perhaps because he studies skyships as a House Lyrander scion). One thing that has all three of them scratching their head, however, is that as far as they can tell, though the design is creative and rather ingenious, from what they have here to go on, it shouldn't work.*
*Additionally, a reaction of some of the metal fragments to several simple smithing tests (proposed by Anvuss) and simple alchemical/magical tests (proposed by Aethelus) indicate that the creature was constructed from several different materials--the wings seem to be a light mithral alloy perfect for flight, which isn't surprising. The main body is mainly steel, with slight amounts of other strong and ordinary yet rarer metals. The insides, however, seem to consist of some sort of alloy of steel, platinum, and an unknown metal that none of the three can identify.*
"A conundrum indeed. Could part of the construct be missing? Also, perhaps it is possible that the creature was animated by external magics rather than as an independent construct. Ma'am, perhaps you could tell us about yourself? Clearly you have some magical skill, but is there any particular reason you or your familly might be the target of hostile magic?"
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