CLOSED Pathfinder: Rise of the Runelords, Burnt Offerings

Ameiko looks a little uncertain how to answer, as if judging what to say. After a few seconds she speaks.

"Em... the truth is, my father built the tunnels decades ago to aid the import of items without ... how do I say this ... without ..." she pauses, her face clouds over.

"Look, he is dead now. I guess it doesn't matter any more. They are smuggler tunnels, or at least, the one with the natural cavern is. If you search properly in there you will find a hidden door that leads into a flight of cut steps leading to a small natural cave harbor. He used it to smuggle items into Sandpoint. Tax avoidance, also ... things that shouldn't be brought in. He was a good man, but he liked money more than he liked people."

"As for the collapse - that was once a few storage rooms and what not, but it was always leaking and unstable, and eventually it just caved in. Nobody was hurt or anything, and it just wasn't worth the effort to put it right.

"The bricked up tunnel? I don't know for sure. It was always bricked up. I asked father once, when I was about twelve, and he told me that I must NEVER go in there. I have no idea when it was bricked up or when the bricks were knocked down, but a few years later he confided in me that the tunnel had been an attempt to break into the cellar of the garrison. He had been paid handsomely by some smugglers, who planned to break out some prisoners. He said they got the direction slightly off, and hit a very unstable seam of rocks and thus bricked it over. I could tell he was lying, or at least partly lying, but ... well, I never really cared enough to find out more. I wonder if Tsuto broke the bricks down. He clearly spent a lot of time ransacking the rest of this place. Seems like he was looking for treasure."

She says this last part while pointing at the bags of gold and silver on the table.

Danth ponders Jokad's statement. "Could those tunnels have been where the goblins came from?"

Jokad stops his 'cleaning' to look up at Ameiko. He smiles comfortingly knowing that last was probably hard for her to admit.

Rhun said:

Danth ponders Jokad's statement. "Could those tunnels have been where the goblins came from?"

Click to expand...

He turns toward the priest. "Those were my thoughts originally, and it may very well prove true, but now I'm wondering if Tsuto did indeed re-open that path to get to the guards."

"We should have the mayor send for that elf ranger. If we are careful not to muck up any tracks she may be able to tell if the goblins came through either of those paths. If she's not available there has got to be somebody else in town who can do it."

"Mal can track by scent," suggest Kael, as he kneels down next to his familiar and scratches him behind the ear.

"All the skills of a good hound, plus his conversations skills are improving." Kael says the last bit with a half smile, trying to lighten the situation slightly without being disrespectful.

"If done right, we can avoid mucking up any hard tracks for the ranger when she shows up." Kael says as he looks to each of you.

During all of this Kael keeps a calm demeanor, which is hard for him since family has always meant a lot to him and he is still at a loss for how one sibling could do this to another, let alone to a parent. But, then again, Kael cam from a rather functional family, for the most part.

Jovik has been poking around the room some more while Ameiko talks, mostly to avoid having to look at her, or her glances at her brother. Jovik has to turn away from her when she mentions the smugglers tunnel. He didn't want her to see him smile. He knew that a tunnel existed from his work with the Scarnetti family, but he had never known where it was. That would have really helped him several times. Eventually the young man grows bored as he often does and heads to the store room where Ameiko was bound to search it.

Mandraiv returns, a bit flustered from all this physical activity. An old man is not cut out for this kind of work, lads. Anyway, I spotted a guard just down the road by chance. I asked him to inform the Sheriff as quickly as his feet could carry him. After getting up to speed on what has been discovered, Mandraiv nods his head in silence. He scratches at his beard and takes in everything he has just heard and seen.

OOC: What does Mandraiv know of the woman depicted, assuming it is not of this world?
Knowledge (the planes) 26

Lads, I'm afraid we are dealing with something far larger than mere goblin attacks. The woman depicted in these drawings is not, well, for lack of a better word... natural. He shakes his head from side to side. I don't believe Tsuto simply had an overactive imagination, but rather that this woman was capable of assuming different forms. And it seems she is also capable of working some kind of dark magic as well. I never knew the boy, but something tells me Tsuto would not be capable of this kind of violence on his own. I believe he was clearly bewitched by this woman. What's worse, knowing what I have learned in my travels about beings from other worlds, this woman is likely not acting alone, but at the behest of some greater power.

The old man looks up, his recently reacquired verbosity clearly seeming odd to his companions. Oh! Um, sorry about that, lads. Not trying to scare the lot of ya. It's just been a busy day for me. I'm gonna sit down for a few minutes. Will do my old bones good.

Nualia

Mandraiv picks up the journal for the first time and leafs slowly through the pages. There is something niggling at his mind. The pictures are a little crude, perhaps focusing too much on the lady's "assets" - the work of an infatuated mind, but there is something about her face that is flicking at some ember of memory.

The claw ... nothing ... maybe some demonic transformation. The worshippers of Lamashtu sometimes gain these type of transformations, but it is impossible to know without further research, and, ideally, better pictures.

Lamashtu, the Mother of Monsters and one of Golarion's most notorious deities. After all, she's not just the one the goblins and gnolls and all sorts of other monsters worship—she's the one who MAKES a lot of the monsters in the first place. Among the humans she is known also as the demon who haunts childbirth, and steals babies.

Childbirth ... babies ... suddenly it all clicks into place.

The woman in the pictures looks like Nualia, Father Tobyn's daughter. She was a strange, displaced girl. Some said she was angel-touched, with her silverly hair and the radiant glow that always seemed to follow her around. it was her differences that marked her out for teasing, though, and she was an unhappy child.

You recall a few snapshots from your time in Sandpoint as a close friend to Father Tobyn, and, more importantly, as someone that the young girl sometimes confided in. You were one of the few who treated her well.

You remember many years ago the door to the church furtively opens as a beautiful little girl with silver hair and violet eyes pokes her head furtively outside before timidly walking outside. As she daintily walks down the steps, a stone flies out of nowhere and hits her head. Boyish giggling can be heard in the distance as someone yells: “Freak! Go back inside!” Clutching the bloody welt on her forehead, she runs back inside, her face a mask of confusion.

And then the story she told you once, as she sat alone in her garden at night, knees pulled up under her chin, refusing to cry. The same sad, quiet girl sitting alone in the corner, reading a book. Cruel whispering and giggling can be heard all around her, before she gets up and excuses herself to go use the restroom. Three other giggling girls follow behind her and wait for her to walk into the outhouse before piling tables and chairs outside her door. Her father had found her there three hours after the school had closed, sitting alone, her eyes dry.

You recall seeing her bullied as a teenage girl as she walked back home to the church from the school house. Immediately, the air was filled with lewd catcalls and hooting from the adolescent boys in the area. Extremely uncomfortable with the inappropriate attention placed upon her, she quickly ran back to the church, with her head hung low. You followed her, but she did not want to speak any more. As she grew older, she grew more distant from everyone, and stopped looking to understand her plight.

You heard tales that people would snip her hair off, running up behind her to grab a lock and cut it loose before she could react. The fish-wives said she was an angel-child, and that her hair could bring health. She took to wearing her hair in a severe bun, hidden under a hood. She took to not walking around during the day. She became reclusive.

Her father despaired. You counciled him to be compassionate with the girl, to perhaps take her somewhere where her blessing would be accepted. You offered to travel with her to a church of Desna where she could grow up in sanctuary. At first he refused this idea, but when he finally decided that her coldness to him had reached a limit, he decided, against your advise to force her on her seventeenth birthday to go to the highly prestigious Windsong Abbey to become a nun. He told her that the Abbess expects all young applicants to be perfectly versed in their catechisms, and that she could not leave her room until she had memorized all of the scriptures. This was not what you had meant, this was not the way to do it. You had hoped that she could be persuaded to move with her Father. It was not an abandonment you had sought.

You had heard the rumours. She rebelled, of course, escaped the confines of her father's house, and met a handsome Varisian boy, who had recently arrived at Sandpoint from Magnimar. She ran away with him, for a few nights, until he lost interest in her, and she was forced to return to her by now hateful father.

She was alone. She was heartbroken, and, as only you and her father ever knew, she was pregnant. Father Tobyn was outraged, but he was also powerless. He took to shouting at her every day, as if his harsh words would correct her mistake. You stopped visiting him. He had grown bitter, taking too much to drink, and filling his house with virtiol. You would have liked to have helped Nualia. You tried once, slipping a note through her window to let her know she could visit you.

Eight months later she came to you. She was in early labour, in extreme pain. She came to you at 2am, creeping out of the house, wracked with the pains of labour. You sat with her, bathing her limbs, cooling her brow, talking her down from her fear. She underwent a painful miscarriage. The child was ... was ... a horrific and deformed monstrosity. Still born, twisted, red limbed, almost demonic in appearance. She still wanted to hold it, its tiny, rapidly cooling body, pressed against her. She sobbed. That was the first time you had ever seen her cry.

Two days later her house burnt down, killing her father ... and her?

OOC: Whoa! THAT is a tragic villain. Does Mandraiv share that story aloud or save it for another time?

frostrune said:

OOC: Whoa! THAT is a tragic villain. Does Mandraiv share that story aloud or save it for another time?

Click to expand...

OOC: That is for Mandraiv to decide. If he wants to relate this to people, then all he has to do is make a post saying he is doing so. If not ... the rest of you don't know in-game.

Also, if the guards are coming, a few of you should probably head upstairs to meet them before they walk in on a slaughter-site.

Danth continues to tend to Ameiko. As Mandraiv returns from calling the guard, the young priest turns to his companions. "Perhaps one of you would be so kind as to escort Ameiko upstairs and out of this foul place. Through the back, of course...and it might do well to give the guards some sort of idea what they will be walking into."

A concerned look crosses Danth's face as Mandraiv moves to sit down. "Are you alright, Elder Mandraiv? Are you injured?"