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Muddled Pasts - Pathfinder 3.5
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<blockquote data-quote="jydog1" data-source="post: 5450024" data-attributes="member: 48156"><p><strong>Session #23 - January 31st, 2010 - Tell Me if You've Heard This One Before</strong></p><p></p><p>Notes: as mentioned above, I had a long post essentially finished and my computer just shut down. So, here I am again! This was a very fun session that featured some wild ideas that seem brilliant now due to excellent rolling, but once again the group worked well together and at least now we know one of the groups after us. Dinner was sausage and peppers and dessert was a chocolate chip cookie pie. NOM. I apologize now for the length of this and the frequent interruptions for OOC comments.</p><p></p><p>From the Journal of Grezzalik M'rethen:</p><p></p><p>The mob before us continued to mutter and yell as they picked up things to throw and swing at us. Besides us the woman - at second glance not quite as stunning, but still cute - laughed and seem to meld with the shadows. I didn't know who she was but I doubt she had anything pleasant planned for us.</p><p></p><p>Speaking of dealing unpleasantness, Londis stepped forward to confront the crowd while casting a spell - I recognized it as <em>Silence</em>, and moments later the singer's song was abruptly cut off. The mob buzzed with confusion but only for a bit. The bard cast a spell of his own to negate it, and the tune recommenced. Dozens of unfriendly eyes swung back to us. Damn, I knew I should have learned <em>Fireball</em>.</p><p></p><p>That's a joke.</p><p></p><p>Instead I opted for crowd control, and a beautiful web spread almost the width of the square, catching just about all of them. I smiled, satisfied that I had averted a dangerous situation.</p><p></p><p>Well, then the people started freaking out. I really hadn't figured on that. Lum stepped forward and started reasoning with them. Meanwhile Tofa stepped up, drawing her bow, and said (OOC:This should be said in your head in the voice of Natasha Fatale), "I do not care for this music." The arrow she nocked had runes for acid etched int he head, and it flew from her in a straight line - right into the bard's lute, shattering it into a million pieces (OOC: okay, this was a called shot. Tofa's player announced her intent and while the GM was trying to figure out what was going to be needed to hit it - a 50'+ shot over a webbed mob at a small instrument - she rolled a natural 20 and made it all moot. I don't doubt for a second that the GM would have come up with a way for there to be a chance, because roleplaying/cinematic aspects/coolness trump hard rules, but again, a 20 makes decisions simple).</p><p></p><p>Th bard looked pretty put out but I give him credit, he managed to string a series of colorful cursing into the lyrics of his song. I heard Firendrin's not-owl make a not-owl noise behind me and Tofa, Firendrin, and Trixie took off in that direction, the latter climbing up a building via Shotsie. Cyrith gave me an apologetic shrug, said "I have to go report to the Dean," before blipping out of sight. </p><p></p><p>Londis tried the silent treatment again, and this time our foe moved outside the range to reestablish the song - then vanished. I was already heading in that direction and tossed a pit where I'd seen him last - and had no idea if I'd gotten him or not. I kept going, confident that Landis would cover my back, and caught a quick glimpse of the bard crawling out and scampering away from the square. Ducking behind a tent I tried to cut off his escape, but when I turned the corner I didn't see any sign of him. I did see, over the blacksmithy we'd been at, a huge cloud of scintillating colors. That couldn't be good. I moved back toward the square and I could hear someone chanting, but I couldn't tell precisely where he was. Good thing my <em>Lightning Spray</em> doesn't require precision (OOC: The air elemental sorcerer has the option of turning any elemental type of damage to lightning. I'm like Palpatine, bitches!). </p><p></p><p>There was a squawk of outrage and I saw a shifting form briefly outlined in the magic. i wasn't sure where he'd moved to and another spray clearly missed, but this time I heard him running away and could somewhat see his passage as he fled. I didn't feel safe chasing him alone while I couldn't see him, so I turned for Londis - who was nowhere in sight. And here came the guard.</p><p></p><p>To summarize - Trixie and I sweettalked the guard and extricated ourselves from that mess. Kina - that's the not-owl - had spotted the woman called Alastrina before she tagged it with a poisoned knife. Tofa followed her into an alley and used a sunrod to negate her ability to meld with shadows (OOC: what a great idea BTW). Trixie, from the roof, made her collapse with laughter by spelling the following joke: "Hey, how Many Dranns does it take to fall in a pit? Just one, you stupid cow!" After a bear trap and other odd stuff they put her to sleep and knocked her out, and Londis and Tofa took her back to the house under cover of invisibility.</p><p></p><p>When I got back there Londis had her restrained in the basement and had evidently gathered every bit of metal with an edge in all of Magnidaar and put them on a table in front of her. I didn't need to watch that, so instead I gathered her stuff and went upstairs to ID it (OOC: first 6 ID rolls - 18;18;20;19;20;18. That's nice, but in combat would have been better). </p><p></p><p>When they came back up I turned to Trixie and said, "They knew you. What are they trying to kill us?"</p><p></p><p>Tough as nails Trixie promptly burst into tears. Around several profuse apologies she explained it thusly: a while back she'd been recruited into the Exaulted Troupe, a traveling band of actors/bards that did some thievery on the side - although it was sometimes the other way around. She and Drannalew, the former lute owner, had become lovers but that was evidently just part of a plan to eventually set her up, as he was also with Alastrina. Trixie turned the tables on them and fled, not telling us about her past because she was too embarrassed. She's known they'd found her in Sandpoint as 'Strina sent her a letter that said they would discredit then kill all of us before destroying her mind. </p><p></p><p>When she finished there was an awkward silence before Londis walked over and said gravely, "I will never be able to trust you again." I guess my own hurt was written all over my face because Trixie looked at me before waving a hand dismissively.</p><p></p><p>As for 'Strina, she'd been terrified to say anything out of fear of Drannalew - then again, she's a professional liar, so who knows? - but the four of them, aided by some sort of ash trick by Firendrin, managed to break her. Today's attack was to taunt us and maybe get a couple of us hurt, and clearly had not gone as planned. They had members coming in from all over Varisia to help, which caused Trixie to swear. At least we'd know who to look for. They didn't know where we were living yet, and this was a matter of revenge and the belief that Trixie had some huge amount of money she'd stolen from them. Oh, and the new play opening up about us? Drannalew had his hands all over that. Probably not going to be too flattering.</p><p></p><p>I checked for blood. 'Okay, where is she?"</p><p></p><p>Tofa patted her <em>Bag of Holding</em>. "We keep her in here, hopefully I remember to open for air sometimes." She shrugged. "Maybe not."</p><p></p><p>Tough call, keeping her alive. I'm not one for slitting someone's throat but they weren't inciting that crowd to toss rose petals at our feet either.</p><p></p><p>We didn't have too much time to dwell on it or how Trixie's admission that she'd kept us in the dark while our lives were threatened was going to affect the group, since we needed to go check out the sawmill. 'Strina had said that they were NOT behind the previous night's attack, so we had an as-yet unidentified someone after us as well. Probably those scumbag Scarnettis. In any case, we headed off to take a look at Seven Borthers Sawmill.</p><p></p><p>-------</p><p></p><p>"I'm really not a fan of this plan."</p><p></p><p>"Oh Grezz, quit bitching." Trixie paused from applying makeup. "Don't be a baby."</p><p></p><p>"Baby! I'm just not sure me going in first is a great idea. I don't know if you've noticed, but I don't wear armor."</p><p></p><p>I definitely DID NOT like the plan. The sawmill was one of several on a island in a river, with said water providing power via 4 huge water wheels. Under the guise of Tofa being an agent for a shipbuilder we got a tour of the place, and it wasn't encouraging. The guys walking around had items that radiated necromancy (to be fair, so do I) and there was definitely a lot of blood mixed in with the sawdust comeing from the upper floor. That reeked of necromancy as well. Kina has spotted several caged ravens in the cupola, no doubt infected with phage. </p><p></p><p>So we'd shifted to a stakeout before our midnight meeting, with Tofa and Kina under the docks and the rest of us hidden in nearby bushes. Around 10 or so a barge snuck in with 6 guys and someone wrapped in a blanket, and Tofa overheard the name Nordebur. When Kina relayed that Trixie knew (of course) that he was an evil god for an old Chelxian cult of murderers. They favored weekly sacrifices and that's probably what old Foxy had been dropping off each week. They also referred to Father Skinsaw. Hurray. More straight razors.</p><p></p><p>Which brings us back to the plan. Disguised as Alderin - I even had his coat - I'd try to bluff my way in and . . . well, I don't know, but hopefully I wouldn't get killed right off the bat. Trixie finished touching me up and peered at me critically. "Not bad. might work."</p><p></p><p>"Would it help if I got on my back and you got on to -OWWWWW!"</p><p></p><p>So, I knocked on the door and a guy in an odd orange and black robe/hood combination opened up. "Yeah?"</p><p></p><p>"It's me. Foxglove. here for the weekly dropoff."</p><p></p><p>There was a moment's pause before he ushered me into the building. It was a 80'x60' building of three floors. This level was dominated by the massive waterwheels and all sorts of belts and machinery on the ceiling. As I stepped in the guy in front of me jerked his head at a guy off to the right and said, "Funny, but we killed Foxglove three weeks ago," before trying to slash my jugular with a straight war razor.</p><p></p><p>He didn't get it, but he came pretty damn close. His deep cut left me reeling, but as I'd hoped (prayed) the companions surged in behind me. A few moments later a grappling hook was dropped by Kina (OOC: oy, the debate on this one. I am in the camp that a creature the size of a beer can couldn't fly a grappling hook up a narrow space, but the other side talked the GM into it) on a railing as we battled 5 of these cultists. Tofa appeared briefly but had thrown a chain into the waterwheels, as they were powering a number of traps as well - including one that mangled Londis somewhat - and managed to destroy ALL of them. As they tore free and fell into the river she was trapped by the debris and went down with it. I sent an octopus to help her and Firedrin dove in as well. Soon afterward a greatly larger Tofa appeared and we listened to shouts from upstairs. knowing we weren't done yet.</p><p></p><p>more notes: ought to be interesting to see what we run into upstairs. Londis and Firendrin have to be pretty low on spells - we didn't have time to rest up from the earlier fight - but Trixie and Grezz are in pretty good shape and Tofa has like 18 rounds of berserk at her disposal. I managed to roll a 1 for a save against a Suggestion spell and was happily trotting into the trapped area before the prone Londis was able to grab and stop me. Who says having a low CMD bonus is always a bad thing?</p><p></p><p>7th level not too far off. Expanded Arcana again or Intensify Spell? Sigh.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="jydog1, post: 5450024, member: 48156"] [b]Session #23 - January 31st, 2010 - Tell Me if You've Heard This One Before[/b] Notes: as mentioned above, I had a long post essentially finished and my computer just shut down. So, here I am again! This was a very fun session that featured some wild ideas that seem brilliant now due to excellent rolling, but once again the group worked well together and at least now we know one of the groups after us. Dinner was sausage and peppers and dessert was a chocolate chip cookie pie. NOM. I apologize now for the length of this and the frequent interruptions for OOC comments. From the Journal of Grezzalik M'rethen: The mob before us continued to mutter and yell as they picked up things to throw and swing at us. Besides us the woman - at second glance not quite as stunning, but still cute - laughed and seem to meld with the shadows. I didn't know who she was but I doubt she had anything pleasant planned for us. Speaking of dealing unpleasantness, Londis stepped forward to confront the crowd while casting a spell - I recognized it as [I]Silence[/I], and moments later the singer's song was abruptly cut off. The mob buzzed with confusion but only for a bit. The bard cast a spell of his own to negate it, and the tune recommenced. Dozens of unfriendly eyes swung back to us. Damn, I knew I should have learned [I]Fireball[/I]. That's a joke. Instead I opted for crowd control, and a beautiful web spread almost the width of the square, catching just about all of them. I smiled, satisfied that I had averted a dangerous situation. Well, then the people started freaking out. I really hadn't figured on that. Lum stepped forward and started reasoning with them. Meanwhile Tofa stepped up, drawing her bow, and said (OOC:This should be said in your head in the voice of Natasha Fatale), "I do not care for this music." The arrow she nocked had runes for acid etched int he head, and it flew from her in a straight line - right into the bard's lute, shattering it into a million pieces (OOC: okay, this was a called shot. Tofa's player announced her intent and while the GM was trying to figure out what was going to be needed to hit it - a 50'+ shot over a webbed mob at a small instrument - she rolled a natural 20 and made it all moot. I don't doubt for a second that the GM would have come up with a way for there to be a chance, because roleplaying/cinematic aspects/coolness trump hard rules, but again, a 20 makes decisions simple). Th bard looked pretty put out but I give him credit, he managed to string a series of colorful cursing into the lyrics of his song. I heard Firendrin's not-owl make a not-owl noise behind me and Tofa, Firendrin, and Trixie took off in that direction, the latter climbing up a building via Shotsie. Cyrith gave me an apologetic shrug, said "I have to go report to the Dean," before blipping out of sight. Londis tried the silent treatment again, and this time our foe moved outside the range to reestablish the song - then vanished. I was already heading in that direction and tossed a pit where I'd seen him last - and had no idea if I'd gotten him or not. I kept going, confident that Landis would cover my back, and caught a quick glimpse of the bard crawling out and scampering away from the square. Ducking behind a tent I tried to cut off his escape, but when I turned the corner I didn't see any sign of him. I did see, over the blacksmithy we'd been at, a huge cloud of scintillating colors. That couldn't be good. I moved back toward the square and I could hear someone chanting, but I couldn't tell precisely where he was. Good thing my [I]Lightning Spray[/I] doesn't require precision (OOC: The air elemental sorcerer has the option of turning any elemental type of damage to lightning. I'm like Palpatine, bitches!). There was a squawk of outrage and I saw a shifting form briefly outlined in the magic. i wasn't sure where he'd moved to and another spray clearly missed, but this time I heard him running away and could somewhat see his passage as he fled. I didn't feel safe chasing him alone while I couldn't see him, so I turned for Londis - who was nowhere in sight. And here came the guard. To summarize - Trixie and I sweettalked the guard and extricated ourselves from that mess. Kina - that's the not-owl - had spotted the woman called Alastrina before she tagged it with a poisoned knife. Tofa followed her into an alley and used a sunrod to negate her ability to meld with shadows (OOC: what a great idea BTW). Trixie, from the roof, made her collapse with laughter by spelling the following joke: "Hey, how Many Dranns does it take to fall in a pit? Just one, you stupid cow!" After a bear trap and other odd stuff they put her to sleep and knocked her out, and Londis and Tofa took her back to the house under cover of invisibility. When I got back there Londis had her restrained in the basement and had evidently gathered every bit of metal with an edge in all of Magnidaar and put them on a table in front of her. I didn't need to watch that, so instead I gathered her stuff and went upstairs to ID it (OOC: first 6 ID rolls - 18;18;20;19;20;18. That's nice, but in combat would have been better). When they came back up I turned to Trixie and said, "They knew you. What are they trying to kill us?" Tough as nails Trixie promptly burst into tears. Around several profuse apologies she explained it thusly: a while back she'd been recruited into the Exaulted Troupe, a traveling band of actors/bards that did some thievery on the side - although it was sometimes the other way around. She and Drannalew, the former lute owner, had become lovers but that was evidently just part of a plan to eventually set her up, as he was also with Alastrina. Trixie turned the tables on them and fled, not telling us about her past because she was too embarrassed. She's known they'd found her in Sandpoint as 'Strina sent her a letter that said they would discredit then kill all of us before destroying her mind. When she finished there was an awkward silence before Londis walked over and said gravely, "I will never be able to trust you again." I guess my own hurt was written all over my face because Trixie looked at me before waving a hand dismissively. As for 'Strina, she'd been terrified to say anything out of fear of Drannalew - then again, she's a professional liar, so who knows? - but the four of them, aided by some sort of ash trick by Firendrin, managed to break her. Today's attack was to taunt us and maybe get a couple of us hurt, and clearly had not gone as planned. They had members coming in from all over Varisia to help, which caused Trixie to swear. At least we'd know who to look for. They didn't know where we were living yet, and this was a matter of revenge and the belief that Trixie had some huge amount of money she'd stolen from them. Oh, and the new play opening up about us? Drannalew had his hands all over that. Probably not going to be too flattering. I checked for blood. 'Okay, where is she?" Tofa patted her [I]Bag of Holding[/I]. "We keep her in here, hopefully I remember to open for air sometimes." She shrugged. "Maybe not." Tough call, keeping her alive. I'm not one for slitting someone's throat but they weren't inciting that crowd to toss rose petals at our feet either. We didn't have too much time to dwell on it or how Trixie's admission that she'd kept us in the dark while our lives were threatened was going to affect the group, since we needed to go check out the sawmill. 'Strina had said that they were NOT behind the previous night's attack, so we had an as-yet unidentified someone after us as well. Probably those scumbag Scarnettis. In any case, we headed off to take a look at Seven Borthers Sawmill. ------- "I'm really not a fan of this plan." "Oh Grezz, quit bitching." Trixie paused from applying makeup. "Don't be a baby." "Baby! I'm just not sure me going in first is a great idea. I don't know if you've noticed, but I don't wear armor." I definitely DID NOT like the plan. The sawmill was one of several on a island in a river, with said water providing power via 4 huge water wheels. Under the guise of Tofa being an agent for a shipbuilder we got a tour of the place, and it wasn't encouraging. The guys walking around had items that radiated necromancy (to be fair, so do I) and there was definitely a lot of blood mixed in with the sawdust comeing from the upper floor. That reeked of necromancy as well. Kina has spotted several caged ravens in the cupola, no doubt infected with phage. So we'd shifted to a stakeout before our midnight meeting, with Tofa and Kina under the docks and the rest of us hidden in nearby bushes. Around 10 or so a barge snuck in with 6 guys and someone wrapped in a blanket, and Tofa overheard the name Nordebur. When Kina relayed that Trixie knew (of course) that he was an evil god for an old Chelxian cult of murderers. They favored weekly sacrifices and that's probably what old Foxy had been dropping off each week. They also referred to Father Skinsaw. Hurray. More straight razors. Which brings us back to the plan. Disguised as Alderin - I even had his coat - I'd try to bluff my way in and . . . well, I don't know, but hopefully I wouldn't get killed right off the bat. Trixie finished touching me up and peered at me critically. "Not bad. might work." "Would it help if I got on my back and you got on to -OWWWWW!" So, I knocked on the door and a guy in an odd orange and black robe/hood combination opened up. "Yeah?" "It's me. Foxglove. here for the weekly dropoff." There was a moment's pause before he ushered me into the building. It was a 80'x60' building of three floors. This level was dominated by the massive waterwheels and all sorts of belts and machinery on the ceiling. As I stepped in the guy in front of me jerked his head at a guy off to the right and said, "Funny, but we killed Foxglove three weeks ago," before trying to slash my jugular with a straight war razor. He didn't get it, but he came pretty damn close. His deep cut left me reeling, but as I'd hoped (prayed) the companions surged in behind me. A few moments later a grappling hook was dropped by Kina (OOC: oy, the debate on this one. I am in the camp that a creature the size of a beer can couldn't fly a grappling hook up a narrow space, but the other side talked the GM into it) on a railing as we battled 5 of these cultists. Tofa appeared briefly but had thrown a chain into the waterwheels, as they were powering a number of traps as well - including one that mangled Londis somewhat - and managed to destroy ALL of them. As they tore free and fell into the river she was trapped by the debris and went down with it. I sent an octopus to help her and Firedrin dove in as well. Soon afterward a greatly larger Tofa appeared and we listened to shouts from upstairs. knowing we weren't done yet. more notes: ought to be interesting to see what we run into upstairs. Londis and Firendrin have to be pretty low on spells - we didn't have time to rest up from the earlier fight - but Trixie and Grezz are in pretty good shape and Tofa has like 18 rounds of berserk at her disposal. I managed to roll a 1 for a save against a Suggestion spell and was happily trotting into the trapped area before the prone Londis was able to grab and stop me. Who says having a low CMD bonus is always a bad thing? 7th level not too far off. Expanded Arcana again or Intensify Spell? Sigh. [/QUOTE]
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