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Muddled Pasts - Pathfinder 3.5
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<blockquote data-quote="jydog1" data-source="post: 5649935" data-attributes="member: 48156"><p><strong>Session #40 - August 8th, 2011 - Did You Say Pit Friend?</strong></p><p></p><p>Notes: Hmmm. On one hand, we have an ancient, malfunctioning dam loaded with trolls and probably much worse, while on the other we have some massive creature of legend, the living embodiment of chaos and destruction, heading toward the hapless town of Turtleback Ferry. What to do, heroes, what to do?</p><p></p><p><em>Split the party</em>. OF COURSE.</p><p></p><p>As you know from the last entry, Londis took off on his own (just edit it in your head, I'm too lazy to go back and remove Jacardos), astride the griffin, to try to thwart the epically huge Black Maggra. And what happened is . . . his tale. If the player wishes to fill us in on his take of the events (which were awesome to watch unfold) he's welcome to. If he wants me to fill you in later he'll let me know, but otherwise you'll just have to make due with what our characters know. And given the tight-lipped nature of the inquisitor, that ain't much.</p><p></p><p>The rest of us made our way through more ancient Thassilonian works (seriously, if you didn't have a character who spoke Thassilonian your wizard or bard would be burning every damn spell on comprehend languages). Some nip and tuck stuff, but did our intrepid heroes survive? Maybe.</p><p></p><p>Dinner was cheddar sausages, chips, and salad. Remembered to toast the rolls this time, so everyone loved the sorcerer, at least for a little while.</p><p></p><p>From the journal of Grezzalik M'Rethen:</p><p></p><p>I could bore you with the details of the fight against the trolls: a web; Tofa freezing the floor with Hadarga; Reznak getting clobbered again but also doing a stunning impression of an angry troll; a Hound Archon showing what kind of destructive force it can be; and so on. In a matter of moments all four trolls were dispatched and we found ourselves descending deeper into the dam. The walls were festooned with crude graffiti that those who understood troll writing translated as 'All Hail Gruznaal the Wet One' or something like that. At the bottom we opened doors to find a large room with what looked like flooded stairwells on either side. Across from us was an absolutely massive set of doors with an equally large sihedron rune carved into them. Also impressive was the stack of skulls piled before the door, consisting of more races than I could easily distinguish. </p><p></p><p>Trixie jammed a tiny elbow into my chest. "There's something in that water," she said. Moments later Reznak said something it what I assumed to be giant speak that included the name Gruznaal, and within seconds a very large scrag rose out of the stairwell, armed with a ranseur that even from here appeared to be made of admantine. Somewhere, I knew, Londis was drooling and didn't know why.</p><p></p><p>Reznak and the scrag exchanged words for a bit and suddenly we were fighting. Later I found out this Gruznaal wanted skulls as a tribute. Wish I'd known that at the time, I would have Major Imaged him the biggest damn skull he'd every seen before we annihilated his distracted ass. Reznak charged in again and once again was handed his lunch. he hit the thing, but the return stroke was brutal. I realized it was going to be able to heal if it stayed in the water and started trying to figure out how to get the thing out. Lightning seemed to bother it, and I followed up a ray with a ball I wasn't particularly proud of. It smashed Reznak again and then carved the hell out of Tofa's shield. Veil got in a shot or two, but the scrag looked pretty tough.</p><p></p><p>Then Trixie took over. </p><p></p><p>Before I knew what she was doing Trixie had scrambled out of my pocket and climbed up on my right shoulder. As she began to shift and weave her kazoo sprang into life, but instead of one of the inspiring songs she played for us something unexpectedly complex started up, a piece that dove over and around itself, somehow telling a story without words. It filled the entire room with layer upon haunting layer, the acoustics somehow perfect.</p><p></p><p>Gruznaal was simply agog. His jaw hung open, and he gawked at Trixie with . . . well, I'm no expert on the facial expressions of scrags, but it look pretty fascinated. The ranseur has stopped in mid-thrust and hung loosely in its massive hands and it soaked in the glory of her music.</p><p></p><p>Then Tofa, with Hidarga glowing and her eyes rolled back and those freaky-ass ravens swirling everywhere, stepped up and absolutely leveled the sucker. Sword, shield, sword again, I've never seen anything hit so hard. It reeled back before an extremely bloody Reznak delivered a coup d'grace. </p><p></p><p>As the scene calmed down I wandered over the the prone, barely conscious Reznak. Leaning on my staff, I rubbed at my jaw and said, "You know, I'm certainly not a warrior or anything, but it seems to be that you keep rushing off in ahead of our more heavily armored friends and winding up either unconscious or close to it. Maybe you ought to rethink your tactics. Just sayin."</p><p></p><p>That earned me an ugly glare. "Aren't you going to heal me?"</p><p></p><p>I shook my head. "Not a healer. Might not need one if you, say, hung out in the back with a bow or something."</p><p></p><p>Now a snarl as Trixie clambered down from my shoulder, pulling out a wand. "That's not what I want to do."</p><p></p><p>I raised eyebrows and shrugged. "Okay." I looked up the runes over the giant doors. In Thassilonian they spelled out, 'ALL HAIL THE GLORY OF THE GOLDEN LORD.' More Xin, probably. Tofa came up behind me, looking ruefully at the splintered mess that was her shield, and nodded at the doors. "Like under Thissletop, yes?"</p><p></p><p>"Likely, but I doubt it'll be as easy as dropping a couple of coins in slots this time." Absentmindedly I put a hand on her shield and, as I gazed at the doors, did repeated castings of my mending cantrip to make the shield whole again. I wasn't really paying attention so it was a surprise when Tofa exclaimed, "Da! Is very good, Grezz!" and nearly knocked me sprawling with what I'm sure she considered to be a playful punch to my arm. Massaging what was surely going to be a huge bruise I cast a quick detect magic and the doors glowed so brightly it hurt my eyes. Looking over to Reznak as he clambered to his feet after being healed, I gestured toward the pile of skulls and the doors. "I'm thinking magical traps. Can you do anything with that?"</p><p></p><p>More glares. "Oh, NOW I'm useful?" <em>We'll see</em>, I thought. He muttered for a few minutes and said, 'yeah, the whole rooms a big magical trap.' If anything physically touches the door, it'll go off. So don't touch the doors."</p><p></p><p>"Right. But we need to get through. Can you disarm it?"</p><p></p><p>"Maybe, if I can make myself useful, right? Listen, don't touch the doors."</p><p></p><p>Right. Tofa, Veil and I cleared away the skulls as he kept telling us not to touch the doors. We didn't, and after the pile was gone we retreated to the stairwell and discussed our options. While we talked Reznak periodically reminded us not to touch the doors. </p><p></p><p>Finally I said, "Screw it," and started to summon a rhino. I figured it could just batter the damn things open - Trixie had tried an open/close cantrip and I had used my mage hand, but neither had worked. Before I could really get going Reznak picked up something off the floor, tossed it at a specific spot - and said the doors were safe now. Well, okay.</p><p></p><p>A bird fluttered into the room, quite out of place. Londis' voice emerged, saying simply, "Maggra problem solved. Will be back soon." That was good news, and certainly an amazing story. We opened the doors - with considerable effort, as they clearly hadn't been opened in hundreds if not thousands of years - to find a very odd room beyond them. The long chamber was dominated by eight huge statues of Xin that served as pillars. At the far end were two massive summoning circles. One contained a pile of rather large bones, while the other held what I believed to be a pit fiend - but one that looked emaciated and had clearly seen better days. It leaped up at our entrance and started to chatter in Thassilonian.</p><p></p><p>I didn't hear what it said because as soon as Trixie caught sight of it she let out an 'eep!' and fired her Rod of Wonder. Nothing came out of it, but she shuddered and slumped in my pocket. </p><p></p><p>"Shelyn's <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /><img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /><img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /><img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" />," I said, rushing back outside over the protest of the pit fiend. Pulling her out I saw she was unconscious, her breathing shallow but still alive. I knew my spells were not something I could toss away but soon I'd emptied almost every one I had trying to dispel the effects, but with no luck. Six tries, all failures. I had a couple of higher level spells I could give up, but there was also the small matter of a pit fiend inside, so with a sigh I eased her back into my pocket and headed back in.</p><p></p><p>[OOC]dispel magic rolls - needed a 13, and rolled 2; 4; 9; 4; 10; 3. lovely[/OOC]</p><p></p><p>I decided to take a little look at the magic here - and woke up a few minutes later, having been knocked out my the raw power gathered. That was . . .impressive. The pit fiend started as soon as I came to. 'FINALLY SOMEONE IS HERE TO END MY LONG AND UNJUST IMPRISONMENT. LET US MAKE A DEAL, MORTAL. SET ME FREE AND I WILL RETURN TO MY HOME. THAT IS ALL I WISH TO DO."</p><p></p><p>Yeah, right. Ignoring it I asked the others if they'd talked to it at all, but they'd been unable to communicate with it. The entire room was covered in Thassilonian and I was hoping it might be instructions for how to make the dam work again. "Reznak, can you check the room for magical traps? I don't want to do anything to free the pit demon."</p><p></p><p>"Oh, NOW you know my name. When you need something. Now you do."</p><p></p><p>I paused from my examination of the runes to see if he was kidding. He wasn't. He'd given me a hassle when I'd asked him to unlock the big doors as well, like he was doing us some sort of cosmic favor. Not the way to fit in, big guy, especially when we're burning our limited healing resources on you at an expeditious rate. I shook my head, took a deep breath, and walked deeper into the room. Nothing happened, except that the fiend continued to alternate between offering me the moon on a string and threatening me. "Oh stop," I said. "if you could have gotten out you would have done so by now. And I'm not interested in letting you out because you've been in here -" I read some runes, did some math - "ten thousand years or so, and I'm sure we'd be a wonderful breakfast for you."</p><p></p><p>This caused it to switch to bribes only, the usual 'anything you wish' variety, but I'd decided to set my limit of making deals with incredibly powerful yet extremely sketchy characters at one. The others wandered in as I read on. "This was a giant battery. It drew power from the contained creatures when the dam needed it. Since they were pit fiends they were able to heal themselves, but when this place was forgotten there was nobody to tend to them. The bones must have been one that ran out of power and died. This one must have been a little stronger." I looked up at the living captive. "Efficient, but somewhat ruthless."</p><p></p><p>The pit fiend snorted. "ON THAT WE ARE IN AGREEMENT, MORTAL. NOW LET US MAKE A DEAL SO THIS GREAT WRONG CAN BE RIGHTED." </p><p></p><p>"Yeah, I'll get right on that. You'd probably love me to offer one of souls here, right?"</p><p></p><p>"OH, WHAT I WOULD GIVE YOU . . ." I shut it out again and kept reading. "Hmmm." I looked at the bones in the otherwise empty circle.</p><p></p><p>"What?" Tofa gave me a little shove. "You make that noise when you are thinking, you should speak it out loud."</p><p></p><p>"Okay." I was still a little distracted with concern over Trixie, and the pit fiend was making me nervous, confined or not. 'Well, if this thing drew power from the confined creatures, we should be able to fire it up again if we get something else in there."</p><p></p><p>"One of us?"</p><p></p><p>"No! No, not one of us. I was thinking I should summon something, maybe." I was distinctly pleased I hadn't used EVERY spell I had trying to wake up Trixie. "I think the most powerful thing I can bring up would be either an elemental or a rhino."</p><p></p><p>Reznak said, "You should get another pit fiend."</p><p></p><p>I chuckled. "That's a little beyond me. Besides, it probably wouldn't like the celestial blessing I tend to add."</p><p></p><p>"YES THAT WOULD BE A TERRIBLE IDEA. MORTAL, I AM WILLING TO TELL YOU OF SO MANY THINGS I'VE SEEN, OF THE GREAT MASTERS OF THIS PITIFUL EMPIRE."</p><p></p><p>"Everyone wants to give me stuff. Medea, you, Loric . . .I must be so wonderful."</p><p></p><p>"You should summon a pit fiend."</p><p></p><p>"Think I'll just go with a lightning elemental. I strongly recommend the rest of you at least back up to the door. i have no idea if this is going to work."</p><p></p><p>After they moved, I started my ritual. The pit fiend went absolutely berserk. "NO! NO! I WILL TELL YOU THINGS I HAD NO INTENTION OF ACTUALLY TELLING YOU, I WILL GRANT YOU ACCESS TO POWER YOU CAN'T EVEN IMAGINE! I WILL GIVE YOU MULTIPLE WISHES, ANYTHING YOU DESIRE! NO YOU STUPID INSIGNIFICANT WORM, DO NOT DO THIS!!!"</p><p></p><p>The elemental appeared in the circle and the pit fiend screeched in pain and anger! "FOOL! I CURSE ALL OF YOU, A POX ON YOUR MISERABLE FATES! I WILL - AHHHHHHHHHHHH" Magic swirled in both circles and with a bright flash the pit fiend crumbled to bones. The elemental had a second to look alarmed before it vanished in a flash. Had it worked?</p><p></p><p>The stone around us shuddered and I realized the sluicegates were opening. I slumped back to the floor, listening to the sound of thousands of gallons of water being properly diverted outside. Feeling lucky, I gently pulled Trixie out of my pocket, get her on the floor, and gave it one my try with my last remaining spell.</p><p></p><p>[OOC]needed a 13 for the dispel. Got a 13 on the nose[/OOC]</p><p></p><p>Trixie popped back to normal Trixie size, although her skin remained a cheery blue. Her eyes opened and she gave a graceful, catlike stretch. "I miss anything?"</p><p></p><p> - - - - - </p><p></p><p>I leaned against a pillar in the church, taking a break as we tried to help the villagers put their lives back together. Trixie had been keeping everyone's spirits up with her music, but now she was in deep conversation with Veil. Magra has killed about 30 or so people, including the mayor-priest, before Londis had somehow destroyed her. On exactly what had happened he was extremely vague, but he insisted both Magra and the Evil Book had been 'handled.' Indeed it was gone from the Bag of Holding, but I would need better answers from the man being hailed as the savior of the town [OOC]I can't stop hearing 'Londis, the Hero of Canton' in my head. Gorram mudders.[/OOC]. We'd been resting up for a day or so, with me recharging my staff and erasing tattoos from townsfolk. There was an old druid who'd been instrumental in holding back the water, and he'd sort of taken over. It was still raining, and I knew that wasn't natural and in fact had an idea where the cause was coming from, so we'd have to take care of that. We also needed to check out that dam again, especially the battery chamber. Sharp eyes find hidden things.</p><p></p><p>Reznak had approached us and, lamenting the apparent demise of his brother, asked if he could tag along with us. he sounded earnest, but I couldn't help remembering his attitude in the dam and also his skill at deception that he displayed at the keep. Not sure how I felt about him yet. Not sure we had enough healing to keep him around if he stayed as reckless as he'd been. </p><p></p><p>Trixie walked up to me as I sat musing, a strange expression on her face. "Hey. Beanpole. Did you really burn up most of your spells trying to save me before you dealt with the pit fiend?"</p><p></p><p>I winced and prepared for the mockery to begin. "Yeah, I was having trouble concentrating."</p><p></p><p>She nodded, then grabbed the front of my shirt and pulled me down to her level. She locked gazes with me for a few seconds, then planted a kiss on my forehead before smacking me hard on the ass. "Thanks for looking out for me, you C student."</p><p></p><p>I stood back up with a half-smile. "Not a problem. Along those lines, I feel i need to talk to you about something."</p><p></p><p>She put her hands on her hips and rolled her eyes. "By Calestria's Nipples, Grezz, this isn't the point where you reveal your undying love for me, is it?"</p><p></p><p>I shook my head. "No, no, I only whisper that to you while you're unconscious."</p><p></p><p>She studied me for a few seconds to see if I was serious, but I couldn't keep a straight face. "What is it, ya big goof?"</p><p></p><p>"The Rod. Your rod," I amended. "If it shrinks you again, I'd like you to promise me that you'll hand it over until I can embiggen you again. You could have died when that effect happened again. In fact you should have, and I'm not sure why you didn't."</p><p></p><p>She snorted. "Because I'm Trixie. Because I'm <em>awesome</em>." She laughed, then sighed and rolled her eyes. "Fine, Mommy, if it shrinks me I'll hand it over until you can make umpteen attempts to dispel it. Are you going to tell me when else I can't use it?" </p><p></p><p>I held up hands. "No. I try not to tell you what to do."</p><p></p><p>"Well, maybe you're not quite as dumb as you look then, eh?"</p><p></p><p>Maybe. Jury is still out on that one.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="jydog1, post: 5649935, member: 48156"] [b]Session #40 - August 8th, 2011 - Did You Say Pit Friend?[/b] Notes: Hmmm. On one hand, we have an ancient, malfunctioning dam loaded with trolls and probably much worse, while on the other we have some massive creature of legend, the living embodiment of chaos and destruction, heading toward the hapless town of Turtleback Ferry. What to do, heroes, what to do? [I]Split the party[/I]. OF COURSE. As you know from the last entry, Londis took off on his own (just edit it in your head, I'm too lazy to go back and remove Jacardos), astride the griffin, to try to thwart the epically huge Black Maggra. And what happened is . . . his tale. If the player wishes to fill us in on his take of the events (which were awesome to watch unfold) he's welcome to. If he wants me to fill you in later he'll let me know, but otherwise you'll just have to make due with what our characters know. And given the tight-lipped nature of the inquisitor, that ain't much. The rest of us made our way through more ancient Thassilonian works (seriously, if you didn't have a character who spoke Thassilonian your wizard or bard would be burning every damn spell on comprehend languages). Some nip and tuck stuff, but did our intrepid heroes survive? Maybe. Dinner was cheddar sausages, chips, and salad. Remembered to toast the rolls this time, so everyone loved the sorcerer, at least for a little while. From the journal of Grezzalik M'Rethen: I could bore you with the details of the fight against the trolls: a web; Tofa freezing the floor with Hadarga; Reznak getting clobbered again but also doing a stunning impression of an angry troll; a Hound Archon showing what kind of destructive force it can be; and so on. In a matter of moments all four trolls were dispatched and we found ourselves descending deeper into the dam. The walls were festooned with crude graffiti that those who understood troll writing translated as 'All Hail Gruznaal the Wet One' or something like that. At the bottom we opened doors to find a large room with what looked like flooded stairwells on either side. Across from us was an absolutely massive set of doors with an equally large sihedron rune carved into them. Also impressive was the stack of skulls piled before the door, consisting of more races than I could easily distinguish. Trixie jammed a tiny elbow into my chest. "There's something in that water," she said. Moments later Reznak said something it what I assumed to be giant speak that included the name Gruznaal, and within seconds a very large scrag rose out of the stairwell, armed with a ranseur that even from here appeared to be made of admantine. Somewhere, I knew, Londis was drooling and didn't know why. Reznak and the scrag exchanged words for a bit and suddenly we were fighting. Later I found out this Gruznaal wanted skulls as a tribute. Wish I'd known that at the time, I would have Major Imaged him the biggest damn skull he'd every seen before we annihilated his distracted ass. Reznak charged in again and once again was handed his lunch. he hit the thing, but the return stroke was brutal. I realized it was going to be able to heal if it stayed in the water and started trying to figure out how to get the thing out. Lightning seemed to bother it, and I followed up a ray with a ball I wasn't particularly proud of. It smashed Reznak again and then carved the hell out of Tofa's shield. Veil got in a shot or two, but the scrag looked pretty tough. Then Trixie took over. Before I knew what she was doing Trixie had scrambled out of my pocket and climbed up on my right shoulder. As she began to shift and weave her kazoo sprang into life, but instead of one of the inspiring songs she played for us something unexpectedly complex started up, a piece that dove over and around itself, somehow telling a story without words. It filled the entire room with layer upon haunting layer, the acoustics somehow perfect. Gruznaal was simply agog. His jaw hung open, and he gawked at Trixie with . . . well, I'm no expert on the facial expressions of scrags, but it look pretty fascinated. The ranseur has stopped in mid-thrust and hung loosely in its massive hands and it soaked in the glory of her music. Then Tofa, with Hidarga glowing and her eyes rolled back and those freaky-ass ravens swirling everywhere, stepped up and absolutely leveled the sucker. Sword, shield, sword again, I've never seen anything hit so hard. It reeled back before an extremely bloody Reznak delivered a coup d'grace. As the scene calmed down I wandered over the the prone, barely conscious Reznak. Leaning on my staff, I rubbed at my jaw and said, "You know, I'm certainly not a warrior or anything, but it seems to be that you keep rushing off in ahead of our more heavily armored friends and winding up either unconscious or close to it. Maybe you ought to rethink your tactics. Just sayin." That earned me an ugly glare. "Aren't you going to heal me?" I shook my head. "Not a healer. Might not need one if you, say, hung out in the back with a bow or something." Now a snarl as Trixie clambered down from my shoulder, pulling out a wand. "That's not what I want to do." I raised eyebrows and shrugged. "Okay." I looked up the runes over the giant doors. In Thassilonian they spelled out, 'ALL HAIL THE GLORY OF THE GOLDEN LORD.' More Xin, probably. Tofa came up behind me, looking ruefully at the splintered mess that was her shield, and nodded at the doors. "Like under Thissletop, yes?" "Likely, but I doubt it'll be as easy as dropping a couple of coins in slots this time." Absentmindedly I put a hand on her shield and, as I gazed at the doors, did repeated castings of my mending cantrip to make the shield whole again. I wasn't really paying attention so it was a surprise when Tofa exclaimed, "Da! Is very good, Grezz!" and nearly knocked me sprawling with what I'm sure she considered to be a playful punch to my arm. Massaging what was surely going to be a huge bruise I cast a quick detect magic and the doors glowed so brightly it hurt my eyes. Looking over to Reznak as he clambered to his feet after being healed, I gestured toward the pile of skulls and the doors. "I'm thinking magical traps. Can you do anything with that?" More glares. "Oh, NOW I'm useful?" [I]We'll see[/I], I thought. He muttered for a few minutes and said, 'yeah, the whole rooms a big magical trap.' If anything physically touches the door, it'll go off. So don't touch the doors." "Right. But we need to get through. Can you disarm it?" "Maybe, if I can make myself useful, right? Listen, don't touch the doors." Right. Tofa, Veil and I cleared away the skulls as he kept telling us not to touch the doors. We didn't, and after the pile was gone we retreated to the stairwell and discussed our options. While we talked Reznak periodically reminded us not to touch the doors. Finally I said, "Screw it," and started to summon a rhino. I figured it could just batter the damn things open - Trixie had tried an open/close cantrip and I had used my mage hand, but neither had worked. Before I could really get going Reznak picked up something off the floor, tossed it at a specific spot - and said the doors were safe now. Well, okay. A bird fluttered into the room, quite out of place. Londis' voice emerged, saying simply, "Maggra problem solved. Will be back soon." That was good news, and certainly an amazing story. We opened the doors - with considerable effort, as they clearly hadn't been opened in hundreds if not thousands of years - to find a very odd room beyond them. The long chamber was dominated by eight huge statues of Xin that served as pillars. At the far end were two massive summoning circles. One contained a pile of rather large bones, while the other held what I believed to be a pit fiend - but one that looked emaciated and had clearly seen better days. It leaped up at our entrance and started to chatter in Thassilonian. I didn't hear what it said because as soon as Trixie caught sight of it she let out an 'eep!' and fired her Rod of Wonder. Nothing came out of it, but she shuddered and slumped in my pocket. "Shelyn's :):):):)," I said, rushing back outside over the protest of the pit fiend. Pulling her out I saw she was unconscious, her breathing shallow but still alive. I knew my spells were not something I could toss away but soon I'd emptied almost every one I had trying to dispel the effects, but with no luck. Six tries, all failures. I had a couple of higher level spells I could give up, but there was also the small matter of a pit fiend inside, so with a sigh I eased her back into my pocket and headed back in. [OOC]dispel magic rolls - needed a 13, and rolled 2; 4; 9; 4; 10; 3. lovely[/OOC] I decided to take a little look at the magic here - and woke up a few minutes later, having been knocked out my the raw power gathered. That was . . .impressive. The pit fiend started as soon as I came to. 'FINALLY SOMEONE IS HERE TO END MY LONG AND UNJUST IMPRISONMENT. LET US MAKE A DEAL, MORTAL. SET ME FREE AND I WILL RETURN TO MY HOME. THAT IS ALL I WISH TO DO." Yeah, right. Ignoring it I asked the others if they'd talked to it at all, but they'd been unable to communicate with it. The entire room was covered in Thassilonian and I was hoping it might be instructions for how to make the dam work again. "Reznak, can you check the room for magical traps? I don't want to do anything to free the pit demon." "Oh, NOW you know my name. When you need something. Now you do." I paused from my examination of the runes to see if he was kidding. He wasn't. He'd given me a hassle when I'd asked him to unlock the big doors as well, like he was doing us some sort of cosmic favor. Not the way to fit in, big guy, especially when we're burning our limited healing resources on you at an expeditious rate. I shook my head, took a deep breath, and walked deeper into the room. Nothing happened, except that the fiend continued to alternate between offering me the moon on a string and threatening me. "Oh stop," I said. "if you could have gotten out you would have done so by now. And I'm not interested in letting you out because you've been in here -" I read some runes, did some math - "ten thousand years or so, and I'm sure we'd be a wonderful breakfast for you." This caused it to switch to bribes only, the usual 'anything you wish' variety, but I'd decided to set my limit of making deals with incredibly powerful yet extremely sketchy characters at one. The others wandered in as I read on. "This was a giant battery. It drew power from the contained creatures when the dam needed it. Since they were pit fiends they were able to heal themselves, but when this place was forgotten there was nobody to tend to them. The bones must have been one that ran out of power and died. This one must have been a little stronger." I looked up at the living captive. "Efficient, but somewhat ruthless." The pit fiend snorted. "ON THAT WE ARE IN AGREEMENT, MORTAL. NOW LET US MAKE A DEAL SO THIS GREAT WRONG CAN BE RIGHTED." "Yeah, I'll get right on that. You'd probably love me to offer one of souls here, right?" "OH, WHAT I WOULD GIVE YOU . . ." I shut it out again and kept reading. "Hmmm." I looked at the bones in the otherwise empty circle. "What?" Tofa gave me a little shove. "You make that noise when you are thinking, you should speak it out loud." "Okay." I was still a little distracted with concern over Trixie, and the pit fiend was making me nervous, confined or not. 'Well, if this thing drew power from the confined creatures, we should be able to fire it up again if we get something else in there." "One of us?" "No! No, not one of us. I was thinking I should summon something, maybe." I was distinctly pleased I hadn't used EVERY spell I had trying to wake up Trixie. "I think the most powerful thing I can bring up would be either an elemental or a rhino." Reznak said, "You should get another pit fiend." I chuckled. "That's a little beyond me. Besides, it probably wouldn't like the celestial blessing I tend to add." "YES THAT WOULD BE A TERRIBLE IDEA. MORTAL, I AM WILLING TO TELL YOU OF SO MANY THINGS I'VE SEEN, OF THE GREAT MASTERS OF THIS PITIFUL EMPIRE." "Everyone wants to give me stuff. Medea, you, Loric . . .I must be so wonderful." "You should summon a pit fiend." "Think I'll just go with a lightning elemental. I strongly recommend the rest of you at least back up to the door. i have no idea if this is going to work." After they moved, I started my ritual. The pit fiend went absolutely berserk. "NO! NO! I WILL TELL YOU THINGS I HAD NO INTENTION OF ACTUALLY TELLING YOU, I WILL GRANT YOU ACCESS TO POWER YOU CAN'T EVEN IMAGINE! I WILL GIVE YOU MULTIPLE WISHES, ANYTHING YOU DESIRE! NO YOU STUPID INSIGNIFICANT WORM, DO NOT DO THIS!!!" The elemental appeared in the circle and the pit fiend screeched in pain and anger! "FOOL! I CURSE ALL OF YOU, A POX ON YOUR MISERABLE FATES! I WILL - AHHHHHHHHHHHH" Magic swirled in both circles and with a bright flash the pit fiend crumbled to bones. The elemental had a second to look alarmed before it vanished in a flash. Had it worked? The stone around us shuddered and I realized the sluicegates were opening. I slumped back to the floor, listening to the sound of thousands of gallons of water being properly diverted outside. Feeling lucky, I gently pulled Trixie out of my pocket, get her on the floor, and gave it one my try with my last remaining spell. [OOC]needed a 13 for the dispel. Got a 13 on the nose[/OOC] Trixie popped back to normal Trixie size, although her skin remained a cheery blue. Her eyes opened and she gave a graceful, catlike stretch. "I miss anything?" - - - - - I leaned against a pillar in the church, taking a break as we tried to help the villagers put their lives back together. Trixie had been keeping everyone's spirits up with her music, but now she was in deep conversation with Veil. Magra has killed about 30 or so people, including the mayor-priest, before Londis had somehow destroyed her. On exactly what had happened he was extremely vague, but he insisted both Magra and the Evil Book had been 'handled.' Indeed it was gone from the Bag of Holding, but I would need better answers from the man being hailed as the savior of the town [OOC]I can't stop hearing 'Londis, the Hero of Canton' in my head. Gorram mudders.[/OOC]. We'd been resting up for a day or so, with me recharging my staff and erasing tattoos from townsfolk. There was an old druid who'd been instrumental in holding back the water, and he'd sort of taken over. It was still raining, and I knew that wasn't natural and in fact had an idea where the cause was coming from, so we'd have to take care of that. We also needed to check out that dam again, especially the battery chamber. Sharp eyes find hidden things. Reznak had approached us and, lamenting the apparent demise of his brother, asked if he could tag along with us. he sounded earnest, but I couldn't help remembering his attitude in the dam and also his skill at deception that he displayed at the keep. Not sure how I felt about him yet. Not sure we had enough healing to keep him around if he stayed as reckless as he'd been. Trixie walked up to me as I sat musing, a strange expression on her face. "Hey. Beanpole. Did you really burn up most of your spells trying to save me before you dealt with the pit fiend?" I winced and prepared for the mockery to begin. "Yeah, I was having trouble concentrating." She nodded, then grabbed the front of my shirt and pulled me down to her level. She locked gazes with me for a few seconds, then planted a kiss on my forehead before smacking me hard on the ass. "Thanks for looking out for me, you C student." I stood back up with a half-smile. "Not a problem. Along those lines, I feel i need to talk to you about something." She put her hands on her hips and rolled her eyes. "By Calestria's Nipples, Grezz, this isn't the point where you reveal your undying love for me, is it?" I shook my head. "No, no, I only whisper that to you while you're unconscious." She studied me for a few seconds to see if I was serious, but I couldn't keep a straight face. "What is it, ya big goof?" "The Rod. Your rod," I amended. "If it shrinks you again, I'd like you to promise me that you'll hand it over until I can embiggen you again. You could have died when that effect happened again. In fact you should have, and I'm not sure why you didn't." She snorted. "Because I'm Trixie. Because I'm [I]awesome[/I]." She laughed, then sighed and rolled her eyes. "Fine, Mommy, if it shrinks me I'll hand it over until you can make umpteen attempts to dispel it. Are you going to tell me when else I can't use it?" I held up hands. "No. I try not to tell you what to do." "Well, maybe you're not quite as dumb as you look then, eh?" Maybe. Jury is still out on that one. [/QUOTE]
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Muddled Pasts - Pathfinder 3.5
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