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The Kordovian Adventurers Guild
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<blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 6812695" data-attributes="member: 508"><p><strong>ADVENTURE 14: THE INFILTRATOR</strong></p><p></p><p>Game Session Date: 23 January 2016</p><p></p><p> - - - </p><p></p><p>The group continued north through the Vesve Forest, still two days out from the kingdom of Kordovia. It was nearing twilight and Binkadink and Finoula, astride their respective mounts, were looking for a good place to make camp for the night. Behind them the overladen wagon, filled with various treasures collected among their travels, was dutifully being pulled by the tireless efforts of the mules Franco and Tantrum. Concerned about the additional weight of the treasure, Darrien and Castillan walked on foot beside the wagon. Concerned not at all about the comforts of beasts of burden, Gilbert Fung sat in the back of the wagon, kicking his feet and humming a wordless tune while ensuring nothing crept up behind them.</p><p></p><p>A rustle of leaves alerted the group to a disturbance up ahead. There was a large clearing just ahead, where a pair of dirt roads crisscrossed in a junction - a good place to stop for the night, it occurred to the rangers. But the underbrush to the right of the path the group had been traversing began to jostle and shake, and the dirt below it buckled as if under the throes of an earthquake. But it was no earthquake causing the motion, as evidenced by a bullet-shaped head emerging up from the ground, undergrowth spilling down the sides of its hardened carapace as it clambered up to the surface world. Then, with a snort of dirt, it headed straight for the adventurers.</p><p></p><p>Binkadink and Finoula brought their mounts to a halt; Ingebold did the same with the mules. Castillan immediately headed for the lowest branches of the nearest tree, snapping the fingers of his left hand once secure in his perch to release the shortbow stored in the magical glove he wore on that hand. Darrien, for his part, reached behind his back and grabbed up an arrow to slide into his <em>Arachnibow</em>.</p><p></p><p>Finoula's wolf companion Wrath was the first to approach the bulette. Sensing a danger to his mistress, he leaped out at the creature, jaws snapping at its foreleg. But the bulette was surprisingly fast and it snapped down at the attacking timber wolf, crushing the poor creature between its own powerful jaws. Wrath whimpered in pain, extracted himself from the bulette's snapping beak, and limp-trotted away from the beast.</p><p></p><p>By this time Finoula had leapt down from her pony Daisy and unsheathed her intelligent longsword, Malaterminus. "The beast is not evil," reported the sword through the telepathic channel it had with its owner, but the news meant little to the elven ranger; the bulette had hurt her wolf and it would pay dearly for the transgression! She flashed out with Malaterminus, cutting a groove in the bulette's thick flank, while her other hand stabbed out with a short sword.</p><p></p><p>Binkadink, in the meantime, had remained mounted on his jackalope and spurred Obvious around to the back of the bulette, grabbing up his gnomish glaive from the harness he had fastened for it when riding. His blade bit deep and Obvious gave the creature a stab with his antlers for good measure while he was at it.</p><p></p><p>Faced with an elf at one end and a gnome on a jackalope at the other, the bulette opted to attack the most delicious morsel: the antlered rabbit. Two swipes with its vicious claws and a bite with its serrated beak, and Obvious was in considerable pain. He dropped to the side, spilling his gnome rider to the forest floor.</p><p></p><p>Jumping down from the wagon, Ingebold cast a <em>divine favor</em> spell upon herself as she approached with her warhammer in hand. Castillan and Darrien each sent arrows flying at the bulette, one from the ground and one from the trees. Gilbert begrudgingly used one of the last few remaining charges from his more powerful <em>wand of magic missiles</em>, and together they slew the bulette before it could kill any of the group.</p><p></p><p>But just because none the group had been slain, it didn't mean none had been harmed; Wrath still limped painfully and Obvious was unconscious on the forest floor, his life-blood spilling into the dirt. "Heal him!" pleaded Binkadink and Ingebold quickly complied, channeling one of her most powerful healing spells through her hand and into the jackalope's flank. Broken ribs mended, torn flesh repaired itself, and after two such spells Obvious was awake and back on all fours. The dwarven cleric applied her healing spells to Wrath as well, and before long he was back to his normal old self.</p><p></p><p>"I think we camp here tonight," decided Gilbert, seeing as the sun was going down. Nobody argued against his plan.</p><p></p><p> - - - </p><p></p><p>A few hours later the clearing had taken on quite a different appearance. At Darrien's suggestion they had dragged the bulette's corpse over to the hole he had popped up from and stuffed him back down it, covering the top of the hole with stones in an effort to keep scavengers at bay. The wagon was now in the middle of the clearing with a blazing cookfire beside it. Daisy and the two mules had been tethered to the wagon with long enough ropes to give them plenty of space. Five tents were arranged in a semicircle on the other side of the fire; Darrien's had been destroyed months earlier in a fight with a group of bandits attacking caravans between Garonis and Berenford, but Castillan willingly lent his to the half-elf ranger, stating his desire to sleep up in a tree for the night. <em>Where it's safer!</em> thought the bounder, but Darrien was more than happy to take Castillan up on his offer.</p><p></p><p>Darrien cast an <em>alarm</em> spell around the campsite, triggered to silently alert him should anyone enter the warded area. Despite this, the group decided to keep two-hour watch shifts throughout the night. Ingebold volunteered to take the first watch, since she needed an uninterrupted block of sleep in order to replace her depleted spells in the morning. Finoula offered to take the next shift, with Castillan and Binkadink taking the next two, in turn. And so, about two hours before midnight, the others turned in for the night, leaving Ingebold to tend to the fire and guard the camp.</p><p></p><p> - - -</p><p></p><p>Two hours later, Ingebold woke up Finoula as planned. "It's been quiet," remarked the dwarf, removing her outer armor and laying it out on the ground next to her bedroll. "It's a nice night out, too – I think I'll just sleep out here under the stars, instead've in that stuffy old tent." She made her preparations, said her evening prayers to Moradin, and then climbed into her bedroll. "G'night, Finoula," she said.</p><p></p><p>"Good night," replied the elven ranger, sitting on a rock by the fire and pulling out Malaterminus to give him a good polish during her watch-shift.</p><p></p><p>About ten minutes passed without incident. Ingebold drifted off to sleep and began to snore quietly. Then, in the still of the night, Finoula heard a telepathic call as her intelligent longsword spoke directly into her head: "Finoula, it is absolutely imperative that you do not answer me aloud. Make no sound at all, as your life and those of your friends are at stake. If you understand, please acknowledge me silently in your mind."</p><p></p><p>Finoula froze, eyes roving around the campsite to try to detect what threat might be imminent. But she saw nothing and silently complied with her sword's request. "I understand," she thought to her sword, confident that his telepathy would pick up her silent response.</p><p></p><p>Apparently satisfied that he had her attention, Malaterminus continued his telepathic conversation. "I am unsure of how it happened," he said sadly, "but sometime during the last two hours Ingebold was apparently slain and her body removed from camp. That creature sleeping there, wearing her form, is an insidious, shapeshifting creature known as a doppelganger."</p><p></p><p>Finoula stifled a gasp, worried that the slightest noise might wake the doppelganger wearing her friend's form. She turned her head towards Ingebold's bedroll and saw to her relief that the creature hadn't wakened.</p><p></p><p>"I'm afraid you're now in terrible danger, but I have no choice," continued Malaterminus. "Dopplegangers are telepathic in nature, which is why I had to wait until it was fully asleep before I dared warn you. And now that you know its true nature, if it wakes up and reads your mind, it will know that you know of its duplicity."</p><p></p><p>"What should I do?" asked Finoula over the mindlink they shared.</p><p></p><p>"I'm afraid our options are limited," replied Malaterminus. "You dare not try to wake any of the others, for doing so might make enough noise to wake the doppelganger. Even if you just screamed and woke everyone all at once so you'd outnumber the doppelganger, it would just assume one of your forms and grapple its look-alike victim so the others won't know which one to attack."</p><p></p><p>"How can you be sure it's a doppelganger?" asked Finoula.</p><p></p><p>"I read its mind as it was drifting off to sleep. It was thinking about how it dragged Ingebold's body away from camp and covered it with a bunch of branches. Furthermore, it intends on killing off one of you each night from now on, occasionally shifting into the form of the recently-slain person to keep the rest of you off guard."</p><p></p><p>"But it didn't detect you reading its thoughts?"</p><p></p><p>"It didn't, possibly because mine is not an organic intelligence, like yours. As I am a crafted weapon, a device, it would seem that the doppelganger is unable to read my thoughts. Which is fortunate, else it would already know we're on to it. But it plans to take out either you or the gnome next, probably tomorrow evening, since neither of you has any prominent spellcasting ability - especially the gnome, who has none. The doppelganger can easily fake being a warrior, but it does not have the capability to fake spellcasting and it is aware that if it tries to use Darrien's <em>Arachnibow</em> the weapon will attack it in spider form, so it will likely save him for later. Right now, its biggest worry is that it will be put into a position tomorrow where it - as Ingebold - will need to cast a spell of some sort, and possibly be found out. But once it kills you or the gnome and takes over the shape of its victim, it will be much easier for it to maintain the illusion."</p><p></p><p>"So what should we do?" repeated Finoula, saddened at the thought of the death of her friend and eager to avenge her.</p><p></p><p>"I see only one course of action. You must quietly go to the doppelganger's sleeping area and dispatch it yourself. I suggest a downward thrust directly through the creature's heart. Since it's taken on Ingebold's form, its heart will be in the same place it would be on a dwarf." Sensing Finoula's hesitation, Malaterminus added, "I will help guide your hand, that we might slay it with one blow."</p><p></p><p>Finoula swallowed once and steeled herself for what had to be done. "All right," she said over their link. "Let's get this over with." She was already thinking ahead to what she'd need to do afterwards: awaken the others, search the vicinity for Ingebold's body, have Gilbert cast a <em>gentle repose</em> on her corpse to preserve it during the remaining two-day trip to Kordovia, where hopefully the clerics of her dwarven church could restore her to life.... </p><p></p><p>"Focus," suggested Malaterminus.</p><p></p><p>Cautiously, Finoula took slow, careful steps towards the form of the sleeping doppelganger, well aware that the fate of her entire adventuring group was in her hands. She made it to Ingebold's bedroll without waking the impostor, then quietly shifted Malaterminus in her hands for a downward thrust. "I will guide you," reminded Malaterminus. Finoula took in a deep breath, raised the sword high above her head, and then thrust down with all of her might.</p><p></p><p>As the blade struck through her chest, Ingebold's eyes and mouth opened wide in shock. She locked her gaze with Finoula, a look of abject betrayal on her face, as her head fell back and she breathed her last breath.</p><p></p><p>What happened next occurred over the span of a mere second or two. The elven ranger heard a terrible laughter in her head, as the longsword in her hand writhed and shifted form. A crack split the blade from its tip, spreading it out into a pair of leathery wings and the upper torso of an incredibly handsome man. At the same time, the sword's crosspieces bent down and become a pair of powerful legs, leaving Finoula still holding what was once the sword's hilt – and was now a throbbing member of the demon's anatomy.</p><p></p><p>"You foolish mortal," sneered the incubus. "I knew I could count on you to perform the act of betrayal needed to free me from that accursed form."</p><p></p><p>A thousand thoughts went flooding through Finoula's mind all at once: the way the sword had called out to her telepathically from its slot in the underground dungeon complex, claiming to be a tool for good and the fulfillment of a prophecy; the fact that it had been hidden away like that, in a narrow slot in solid stone protected by a pool of acid and a pair of animated suits of armor deep below the ground, specifically to prevent it from finding a way back to its true form; Finoula's prophecy from the magic mirror in the manor of the Purple Mage: "Beware, for the betrayal of a beloved friend is the worst kind to bear...."</p><p></p><p>One thing was sure: there was no longer any need for silence. Finoula screamed as loud as she could, a cry that combined anguish over the death of her friend at her own hands, disgust for the cruel trick that had been played upon her, and hatred for the perfectly-formed demon standing before her. She stepped back away from the incubus, grabbing for the short sword on her back, as the other members of the group were jolted instantly from their sleep.</p><p></p><p>Malaterminus's eyes flashed in anger; he'd been hoping to be able to charm the elf into instant obedience and lead her away from the camp, where he could do to her what he loved most to do. Yes, he was an incubus, whose job it was to seduce mortal women into sin, but his name - meaning "Evil Slayer," not "Slayer-of-Evil" as he'd told Finoula when they had first met - had been given to him because he preferred performing the standard acts of an incubus until his mortal victims had been slain.</p><p></p><p>"Ah well, it was perhaps not meant to be," he sighed, flapping his wings and rising a good twenty feet into the air, out of the range of the infuriated ranger. Then he cast out a summons across the planes, smiling in satisfaction as his call was answered and two goatlike humanoid demons appeared around Finoula.</p><p></p><p>"What going on?" demanded Gilbert, climbing out of his tent, his sleep-befuddled mind having a hard time fitting together the two goat-demons attacking Finoula and the bat-winged, naked man hovering in the air above her.</p><p></p><p>Castillan had awakened from his elven trance and snapped instantly to full awareness. He had no idea what was going on, but he did see Finoula battling a pair of goat demons armed with nasty-looking halberds just below him. Leaping silently down from his tree perch, he snapped the fingers on his right hand, summoning his own short sword as he landed behind the nearest demon, and plunged its blade deep into the fiend's back.</p><p></p><p>By then, Darrien and Binkadink had also crawled out of their respective tents. The gnome grabbed up his glaive and leaped upon Obvious's back, sending the jackalope hippity-hopping across the campsite to the battle between Finoula and Castillan against two goat-headed schir demons. Binkadink leaped to the ground, speared his glaive into the side of the demon Castillan had just backstabbed, while Obvious bit into the scruff of the other one's neck. Flinging his head up and down, he dropped the second schir demon to the ground and began leaping up and down upon him, to the satisfying sound of breaking bones. The schir demon's halberd was dropped to the ground as the fiend fended for its unholy life against the enraged jackalope.</p><p></p><p>While grabbing up the <em>Arachnibow</em>, Darrien mentally activated the new <em>amber amulet of vermin</em> he'd recently taken from the cave of the giants. Instantly, a giant praying mantis manifested by Castillan's side, causing the bounder to jerk in surprise as the giant insect stabbed out rapidly with its claws, catching the schir demon still standing in its spined embrace.</p><p></p><p>Gilbert had cast a <em>mirror image</em> spell upon himself and now five identical Gilberts came creeping up around the back side of the campsite, skirting around the panicked mules and pony still tethered to the wagon. He cast an attack spell at Malaterminus, who was hovering in place watching his schir demons take a pounding, but the incubus's inherent spell resistance caused the wizard's spell to harmlessly fizzle out. Still, the wizard was a potential threat, so the incubus focused his will upon Binkadink, while simultaneously telling the gnome telepathically, "Beware, friend, for that is not Gilbert: a spellcasting doppelganger has taken his form and now approaches to slay you all!" Binkadink, his mind befuddled by the <em>charm person</em> effect just planted directly into his mind, took this information at face value: that wasn't Gilbert, it was an enemy. Still, that wasn't as important at the moment as seeing to the safety of his friend and trusted mount Obvious, who was still grappling with the second schir demon. He filed the information as to Gilbert being a doppelganger away in his head, to be dealt with once Obvious was safe. After all, he'd almost lost his furry friend once before the previous day and wasn't about to lose him now!</p><p></p><p>Darrien began pumping arrows in the schir demons, while Finoula, Binkadink, and Castillan stabbed at them with their weapons and Obvious and the mantis struck out with teeth, antlers, and claws. Even Wrath got into the action, snapping at a cloven-hoofed foot as the demons gave their primary attention to their humanoid enemies. But the schir demons both fell to the onslaught, each dissipating in a puff of rancid air as they were slain, only to reform back in their Abyssal realms.</p><p></p><p>Still hovering in the air, Malaterminus shook his head sadly at the fact that neither of his subservient demons had managed to slay even one of the heroes. In an instant, he teleported to Finoula's side, thinking to grab her up and fly away with her, but she evaded his grasp, snarling, "Get your hands off of me!"</p><p></p><p>Malaterminus now found himself the sole target of the band of six - well, five now, as it was Ingebold's death that had freed him from the indignity of being trapped in the form of a sword - heroes and a trio of animal helpers. He knew his inherent spell resistance and ability to shrug off damage from weapons that weren't especially crafted with good-aligned enchantments or of cold iron should keep him from serious harm for some time, but he wasn't willing to take the chance. He'd been freed from the sword form he'd been bound into by a rival demon and it was high time he planned out a fitting revenge. Plus, he had been gated to the material plane way back when - any death he suffered here would be permanent. And there would be ample time to reward Finoula in a proper fashion; demons were, after all, virtually immortal. So he teleported away, this time to a spot in the air some thirty feet above the group's wagon, keeping himself aloft with strokes of his powerful wings.</p><p></p><p>"Farewell then for now, my sweet Finoula," he called down. "When next I find myself back on this dreary mortal plane, I'll be sure to look you up. After all, I have <em>so much</em> to thank you for! You know, I could just love you to death - and some day, perhaps soon, I just might!" he added with a knowing smirk. And with that, Malaterminus's perfect body exploded into a puff of rancid gas which dissipated quickly in the night air.</p><p></p><p>"What the hell happen here?" demanded Gilbert, dismissing his <em>mirror images</em> and dispelling the <em>charm person</em> effect on Binkadink, who had turned menacingly to face the "doppelganger threat" now that Obvious was safe. Everyone turned to Finoula for answers, but she had dropped to Ingebold's side and was brushing the hair out of the dwarf's face, tears of regret leaving trails down her face. She sobbed to herself quietly before turning to the others and explaining everything that had happened.</p><p></p><p>"It wasn't your fault," offered Darrien, placing a hand on his fellow ranger's shoulder. "With the information you were given, you did what you thought was right...." Finoula didn't answer, just hung her head lower.</p><p></p><p>"I go get <em>gentle repose</em> scroll," remarked Gilbert, trudging back to the wagon to fetch the Omnibook, where he had absorbed the scroll he'd found on the body of the Purple Mage.</p><p></p><p>Nobody slept any more that night. As soon as the sun rose they placed Ingebold's magically-preserved body up on the wagon, Darrien took the mules' reins, and they were on their way. Finoula rode on ahead astride Daisy, as usual, with Wrath trotting along good-naturedly at her pony's heels. But one thought kept rolling around and around in the ranger's head as they made their way closer and closer to their little kingdom: <em>What am I going to tell Aerik and Helga?</em></p><p></p><p> - - -</p><p></p><p>I had been patiently waiting to spring this adventure onto my unsuspecting players, and onto Vicki in particular. This wasn't sudden deviousness on my part, either; I had planned for this betrayal from the first moment I created the longsword Malaterminus. (I tried covering my tracks from the beginning, too; not wanting a <em>detect evil</em> spell to be able to "spill the beans" about the longsword's true nature, I had Malaterminus the sword able to mask his own alignment and that of its wielder, spinning it as a way to prevent evil fiends from being able to detect the inherent goodness of the sword and its wielder.) But I had thought, when I was first planning out the broad course of the campaign, that I wanted to make sure that within the first several levels each PC got a "cool" item to use, and then followed that thought up with "And wouldn't it be cool if one of those 'cool' items was in fact something nasty instead?"</p><p></p><p>My initial idea was that Malaterminus might be a pit fiend or a balor, but I soon ruled that out because I didn't want the sword's true nature to only be revealed at the very end of the campaign (which is when I'd have to do it if I wanted the PCs to have a chance of surviving a fight with Malaterminus in his true, fiendish form). None of the lesser demons and devils seemed like a good fit, though...and then Paizo came out with their <em>Pathfinder Bestiary 3</em>, which included stats for both the incubus and the schir demon. An incubus, I decided, was the perfect fit: a seducer demon, perfectly suited for lying as needed and arranging conditions for its own release. Plus, it was of a low enough CR that I could spring this plot twist on the players relatively early on and still have plenty of time for them to recover. (I didn't want "being tricked by Malaterminus" to be Finoula's defining trait.) So I introduced Malaterminus as a plot element in adventure #7 and let the truth come out in adventure #14. Considering I intend to have about 50-60 adventures during this campaign, that felt about right.</p><p></p><p>I had come up with a reason for having Finoula take the second shift of watch duty but Vicki beat me to the punch by having Finoula volunteer to do so. That certainly made things easy! So I did what I've done several other times to my players when I had information only one player could know about: I banished the others to Joey's bedroom and gave them the understanding that I'd be swapping out players based on whose PC was on guard duty at the time. So, after getting Vicki to have Finoula kill Ingebold and revealing Malaterminus in all of his demonic evil, I suggested to Vicki that there was no real reason for Finoula to remain quiet anymore and it would actually be kind of funny if she screamed at the top of her lungs for help, just to see the expressions on the other players' faces when they came running back into the kitchen. So she did, and in they raced with expressions of panic on their faces. (I later learned that Dan had not gone to Joey's bedroom with the others, but rather to his own bedroom - they're both down the same hallway from the kitchen, where we play - and had almost fallen asleep on his bed when Vicki started screaming for help. That certainly explained <em>his</em> expression!)</p><p></p><p>Anyway, my biggest concerns were that Vicki was going to hate this turn of events and that the other players were going to give her grief for "foolishly" slaying Ingebold. To address the second concern, I stressed to the other players after the event occurred that I had intentionally led Finoula down a specific path by carefully misleading her about the true nature of Malaterminus and the "Ingebold doppelganger." (I even, after the adventure was over, read them everything I had read to Vicki so they could see how easily it would have been to be fooled.) As for Vicki hating the turn of events, I confess: I got lucky. She had originally been overjoyed upon finding Malaterminus and being told Finoula Cloudshadow was a prophetic figure destined to one day save the world; I admit to wincing a little at her initial excitement, knowing in advance that I was just setting her up for a fall. But at the end of this game session, as we were packing up, she said she had been totally surprised at the reveal, and said it was kind of like something bad happening in a really good book: you were sorry to see the bad thing happen, but at the same time it was fascinating to see it unfold and see what would happen next.</p><p></p><p>But bottom line: I've been blessed with a great group of players who let me get away with stuff I probably wouldn't get away with in just any gaming group. And to make it up to Vicki (later, in an adventure down the road), I have a cool idea for a replacement sword for Finoula. Now I just need to find a way to get Vicki to trust me enough to have Finoula claim it as her own....</p><p></p><p> - - - </p><p></p><p>T-Shirt Worn: The same "Chaotic Evil means never having to say you're sorry" T-shirt, since this was the same gaming session as "Playing With their Food." But it was just as appropriate for this adventure, given the chaotic evil nature of Malaterminus.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Richards, post: 6812695, member: 508"] [b]ADVENTURE 14: THE INFILTRATOR[/b] Game Session Date: 23 January 2016 - - - The group continued north through the Vesve Forest, still two days out from the kingdom of Kordovia. It was nearing twilight and Binkadink and Finoula, astride their respective mounts, were looking for a good place to make camp for the night. Behind them the overladen wagon, filled with various treasures collected among their travels, was dutifully being pulled by the tireless efforts of the mules Franco and Tantrum. Concerned about the additional weight of the treasure, Darrien and Castillan walked on foot beside the wagon. Concerned not at all about the comforts of beasts of burden, Gilbert Fung sat in the back of the wagon, kicking his feet and humming a wordless tune while ensuring nothing crept up behind them. A rustle of leaves alerted the group to a disturbance up ahead. There was a large clearing just ahead, where a pair of dirt roads crisscrossed in a junction - a good place to stop for the night, it occurred to the rangers. But the underbrush to the right of the path the group had been traversing began to jostle and shake, and the dirt below it buckled as if under the throes of an earthquake. But it was no earthquake causing the motion, as evidenced by a bullet-shaped head emerging up from the ground, undergrowth spilling down the sides of its hardened carapace as it clambered up to the surface world. Then, with a snort of dirt, it headed straight for the adventurers. Binkadink and Finoula brought their mounts to a halt; Ingebold did the same with the mules. Castillan immediately headed for the lowest branches of the nearest tree, snapping the fingers of his left hand once secure in his perch to release the shortbow stored in the magical glove he wore on that hand. Darrien, for his part, reached behind his back and grabbed up an arrow to slide into his [i]Arachnibow[/i]. Finoula's wolf companion Wrath was the first to approach the bulette. Sensing a danger to his mistress, he leaped out at the creature, jaws snapping at its foreleg. But the bulette was surprisingly fast and it snapped down at the attacking timber wolf, crushing the poor creature between its own powerful jaws. Wrath whimpered in pain, extracted himself from the bulette's snapping beak, and limp-trotted away from the beast. By this time Finoula had leapt down from her pony Daisy and unsheathed her intelligent longsword, Malaterminus. "The beast is not evil," reported the sword through the telepathic channel it had with its owner, but the news meant little to the elven ranger; the bulette had hurt her wolf and it would pay dearly for the transgression! She flashed out with Malaterminus, cutting a groove in the bulette's thick flank, while her other hand stabbed out with a short sword. Binkadink, in the meantime, had remained mounted on his jackalope and spurred Obvious around to the back of the bulette, grabbing up his gnomish glaive from the harness he had fastened for it when riding. His blade bit deep and Obvious gave the creature a stab with his antlers for good measure while he was at it. Faced with an elf at one end and a gnome on a jackalope at the other, the bulette opted to attack the most delicious morsel: the antlered rabbit. Two swipes with its vicious claws and a bite with its serrated beak, and Obvious was in considerable pain. He dropped to the side, spilling his gnome rider to the forest floor. Jumping down from the wagon, Ingebold cast a [i]divine favor[/i] spell upon herself as she approached with her warhammer in hand. Castillan and Darrien each sent arrows flying at the bulette, one from the ground and one from the trees. Gilbert begrudgingly used one of the last few remaining charges from his more powerful [i]wand of magic missiles[/i], and together they slew the bulette before it could kill any of the group. But just because none the group had been slain, it didn't mean none had been harmed; Wrath still limped painfully and Obvious was unconscious on the forest floor, his life-blood spilling into the dirt. "Heal him!" pleaded Binkadink and Ingebold quickly complied, channeling one of her most powerful healing spells through her hand and into the jackalope's flank. Broken ribs mended, torn flesh repaired itself, and after two such spells Obvious was awake and back on all fours. The dwarven cleric applied her healing spells to Wrath as well, and before long he was back to his normal old self. "I think we camp here tonight," decided Gilbert, seeing as the sun was going down. Nobody argued against his plan. - - - A few hours later the clearing had taken on quite a different appearance. At Darrien's suggestion they had dragged the bulette's corpse over to the hole he had popped up from and stuffed him back down it, covering the top of the hole with stones in an effort to keep scavengers at bay. The wagon was now in the middle of the clearing with a blazing cookfire beside it. Daisy and the two mules had been tethered to the wagon with long enough ropes to give them plenty of space. Five tents were arranged in a semicircle on the other side of the fire; Darrien's had been destroyed months earlier in a fight with a group of bandits attacking caravans between Garonis and Berenford, but Castillan willingly lent his to the half-elf ranger, stating his desire to sleep up in a tree for the night. [i]Where it's safer![/i] thought the bounder, but Darrien was more than happy to take Castillan up on his offer. Darrien cast an [i]alarm[/i] spell around the campsite, triggered to silently alert him should anyone enter the warded area. Despite this, the group decided to keep two-hour watch shifts throughout the night. Ingebold volunteered to take the first watch, since she needed an uninterrupted block of sleep in order to replace her depleted spells in the morning. Finoula offered to take the next shift, with Castillan and Binkadink taking the next two, in turn. And so, about two hours before midnight, the others turned in for the night, leaving Ingebold to tend to the fire and guard the camp. - - - Two hours later, Ingebold woke up Finoula as planned. "It's been quiet," remarked the dwarf, removing her outer armor and laying it out on the ground next to her bedroll. "It's a nice night out, too – I think I'll just sleep out here under the stars, instead've in that stuffy old tent." She made her preparations, said her evening prayers to Moradin, and then climbed into her bedroll. "G'night, Finoula," she said. "Good night," replied the elven ranger, sitting on a rock by the fire and pulling out Malaterminus to give him a good polish during her watch-shift. About ten minutes passed without incident. Ingebold drifted off to sleep and began to snore quietly. Then, in the still of the night, Finoula heard a telepathic call as her intelligent longsword spoke directly into her head: "Finoula, it is absolutely imperative that you do not answer me aloud. Make no sound at all, as your life and those of your friends are at stake. If you understand, please acknowledge me silently in your mind." Finoula froze, eyes roving around the campsite to try to detect what threat might be imminent. But she saw nothing and silently complied with her sword's request. "I understand," she thought to her sword, confident that his telepathy would pick up her silent response. Apparently satisfied that he had her attention, Malaterminus continued his telepathic conversation. "I am unsure of how it happened," he said sadly, "but sometime during the last two hours Ingebold was apparently slain and her body removed from camp. That creature sleeping there, wearing her form, is an insidious, shapeshifting creature known as a doppelganger." Finoula stifled a gasp, worried that the slightest noise might wake the doppelganger wearing her friend's form. She turned her head towards Ingebold's bedroll and saw to her relief that the creature hadn't wakened. "I'm afraid you're now in terrible danger, but I have no choice," continued Malaterminus. "Dopplegangers are telepathic in nature, which is why I had to wait until it was fully asleep before I dared warn you. And now that you know its true nature, if it wakes up and reads your mind, it will know that you know of its duplicity." "What should I do?" asked Finoula over the mindlink they shared. "I'm afraid our options are limited," replied Malaterminus. "You dare not try to wake any of the others, for doing so might make enough noise to wake the doppelganger. Even if you just screamed and woke everyone all at once so you'd outnumber the doppelganger, it would just assume one of your forms and grapple its look-alike victim so the others won't know which one to attack." "How can you be sure it's a doppelganger?" asked Finoula. "I read its mind as it was drifting off to sleep. It was thinking about how it dragged Ingebold's body away from camp and covered it with a bunch of branches. Furthermore, it intends on killing off one of you each night from now on, occasionally shifting into the form of the recently-slain person to keep the rest of you off guard." "But it didn't detect you reading its thoughts?" "It didn't, possibly because mine is not an organic intelligence, like yours. As I am a crafted weapon, a device, it would seem that the doppelganger is unable to read my thoughts. Which is fortunate, else it would already know we're on to it. But it plans to take out either you or the gnome next, probably tomorrow evening, since neither of you has any prominent spellcasting ability - especially the gnome, who has none. The doppelganger can easily fake being a warrior, but it does not have the capability to fake spellcasting and it is aware that if it tries to use Darrien's [i]Arachnibow[/i] the weapon will attack it in spider form, so it will likely save him for later. Right now, its biggest worry is that it will be put into a position tomorrow where it - as Ingebold - will need to cast a spell of some sort, and possibly be found out. But once it kills you or the gnome and takes over the shape of its victim, it will be much easier for it to maintain the illusion." "So what should we do?" repeated Finoula, saddened at the thought of the death of her friend and eager to avenge her. "I see only one course of action. You must quietly go to the doppelganger's sleeping area and dispatch it yourself. I suggest a downward thrust directly through the creature's heart. Since it's taken on Ingebold's form, its heart will be in the same place it would be on a dwarf." Sensing Finoula's hesitation, Malaterminus added, "I will help guide your hand, that we might slay it with one blow." Finoula swallowed once and steeled herself for what had to be done. "All right," she said over their link. "Let's get this over with." She was already thinking ahead to what she'd need to do afterwards: awaken the others, search the vicinity for Ingebold's body, have Gilbert cast a [i]gentle repose[/i] on her corpse to preserve it during the remaining two-day trip to Kordovia, where hopefully the clerics of her dwarven church could restore her to life.... "Focus," suggested Malaterminus. Cautiously, Finoula took slow, careful steps towards the form of the sleeping doppelganger, well aware that the fate of her entire adventuring group was in her hands. She made it to Ingebold's bedroll without waking the impostor, then quietly shifted Malaterminus in her hands for a downward thrust. "I will guide you," reminded Malaterminus. Finoula took in a deep breath, raised the sword high above her head, and then thrust down with all of her might. As the blade struck through her chest, Ingebold's eyes and mouth opened wide in shock. She locked her gaze with Finoula, a look of abject betrayal on her face, as her head fell back and she breathed her last breath. What happened next occurred over the span of a mere second or two. The elven ranger heard a terrible laughter in her head, as the longsword in her hand writhed and shifted form. A crack split the blade from its tip, spreading it out into a pair of leathery wings and the upper torso of an incredibly handsome man. At the same time, the sword's crosspieces bent down and become a pair of powerful legs, leaving Finoula still holding what was once the sword's hilt – and was now a throbbing member of the demon's anatomy. "You foolish mortal," sneered the incubus. "I knew I could count on you to perform the act of betrayal needed to free me from that accursed form." A thousand thoughts went flooding through Finoula's mind all at once: the way the sword had called out to her telepathically from its slot in the underground dungeon complex, claiming to be a tool for good and the fulfillment of a prophecy; the fact that it had been hidden away like that, in a narrow slot in solid stone protected by a pool of acid and a pair of animated suits of armor deep below the ground, specifically to prevent it from finding a way back to its true form; Finoula's prophecy from the magic mirror in the manor of the Purple Mage: "Beware, for the betrayal of a beloved friend is the worst kind to bear...." One thing was sure: there was no longer any need for silence. Finoula screamed as loud as she could, a cry that combined anguish over the death of her friend at her own hands, disgust for the cruel trick that had been played upon her, and hatred for the perfectly-formed demon standing before her. She stepped back away from the incubus, grabbing for the short sword on her back, as the other members of the group were jolted instantly from their sleep. Malaterminus's eyes flashed in anger; he'd been hoping to be able to charm the elf into instant obedience and lead her away from the camp, where he could do to her what he loved most to do. Yes, he was an incubus, whose job it was to seduce mortal women into sin, but his name - meaning "Evil Slayer," not "Slayer-of-Evil" as he'd told Finoula when they had first met - had been given to him because he preferred performing the standard acts of an incubus until his mortal victims had been slain. "Ah well, it was perhaps not meant to be," he sighed, flapping his wings and rising a good twenty feet into the air, out of the range of the infuriated ranger. Then he cast out a summons across the planes, smiling in satisfaction as his call was answered and two goatlike humanoid demons appeared around Finoula. "What going on?" demanded Gilbert, climbing out of his tent, his sleep-befuddled mind having a hard time fitting together the two goat-demons attacking Finoula and the bat-winged, naked man hovering in the air above her. Castillan had awakened from his elven trance and snapped instantly to full awareness. He had no idea what was going on, but he did see Finoula battling a pair of goat demons armed with nasty-looking halberds just below him. Leaping silently down from his tree perch, he snapped the fingers on his right hand, summoning his own short sword as he landed behind the nearest demon, and plunged its blade deep into the fiend's back. By then, Darrien and Binkadink had also crawled out of their respective tents. The gnome grabbed up his glaive and leaped upon Obvious's back, sending the jackalope hippity-hopping across the campsite to the battle between Finoula and Castillan against two goat-headed schir demons. Binkadink leaped to the ground, speared his glaive into the side of the demon Castillan had just backstabbed, while Obvious bit into the scruff of the other one's neck. Flinging his head up and down, he dropped the second schir demon to the ground and began leaping up and down upon him, to the satisfying sound of breaking bones. The schir demon's halberd was dropped to the ground as the fiend fended for its unholy life against the enraged jackalope. While grabbing up the [i]Arachnibow[/i], Darrien mentally activated the new [i]amber amulet of vermin[/i] he'd recently taken from the cave of the giants. Instantly, a giant praying mantis manifested by Castillan's side, causing the bounder to jerk in surprise as the giant insect stabbed out rapidly with its claws, catching the schir demon still standing in its spined embrace. Gilbert had cast a [i]mirror image[/i] spell upon himself and now five identical Gilberts came creeping up around the back side of the campsite, skirting around the panicked mules and pony still tethered to the wagon. He cast an attack spell at Malaterminus, who was hovering in place watching his schir demons take a pounding, but the incubus's inherent spell resistance caused the wizard's spell to harmlessly fizzle out. Still, the wizard was a potential threat, so the incubus focused his will upon Binkadink, while simultaneously telling the gnome telepathically, "Beware, friend, for that is not Gilbert: a spellcasting doppelganger has taken his form and now approaches to slay you all!" Binkadink, his mind befuddled by the [i]charm person[/i] effect just planted directly into his mind, took this information at face value: that wasn't Gilbert, it was an enemy. Still, that wasn't as important at the moment as seeing to the safety of his friend and trusted mount Obvious, who was still grappling with the second schir demon. He filed the information as to Gilbert being a doppelganger away in his head, to be dealt with once Obvious was safe. After all, he'd almost lost his furry friend once before the previous day and wasn't about to lose him now! Darrien began pumping arrows in the schir demons, while Finoula, Binkadink, and Castillan stabbed at them with their weapons and Obvious and the mantis struck out with teeth, antlers, and claws. Even Wrath got into the action, snapping at a cloven-hoofed foot as the demons gave their primary attention to their humanoid enemies. But the schir demons both fell to the onslaught, each dissipating in a puff of rancid air as they were slain, only to reform back in their Abyssal realms. Still hovering in the air, Malaterminus shook his head sadly at the fact that neither of his subservient demons had managed to slay even one of the heroes. In an instant, he teleported to Finoula's side, thinking to grab her up and fly away with her, but she evaded his grasp, snarling, "Get your hands off of me!" Malaterminus now found himself the sole target of the band of six - well, five now, as it was Ingebold's death that had freed him from the indignity of being trapped in the form of a sword - heroes and a trio of animal helpers. He knew his inherent spell resistance and ability to shrug off damage from weapons that weren't especially crafted with good-aligned enchantments or of cold iron should keep him from serious harm for some time, but he wasn't willing to take the chance. He'd been freed from the sword form he'd been bound into by a rival demon and it was high time he planned out a fitting revenge. Plus, he had been gated to the material plane way back when - any death he suffered here would be permanent. And there would be ample time to reward Finoula in a proper fashion; demons were, after all, virtually immortal. So he teleported away, this time to a spot in the air some thirty feet above the group's wagon, keeping himself aloft with strokes of his powerful wings. "Farewell then for now, my sweet Finoula," he called down. "When next I find myself back on this dreary mortal plane, I'll be sure to look you up. After all, I have [i]so much[/i] to thank you for! You know, I could just love you to death - and some day, perhaps soon, I just might!" he added with a knowing smirk. And with that, Malaterminus's perfect body exploded into a puff of rancid gas which dissipated quickly in the night air. "What the hell happen here?" demanded Gilbert, dismissing his [i]mirror images[/i] and dispelling the [i]charm person[/i] effect on Binkadink, who had turned menacingly to face the "doppelganger threat" now that Obvious was safe. Everyone turned to Finoula for answers, but she had dropped to Ingebold's side and was brushing the hair out of the dwarf's face, tears of regret leaving trails down her face. She sobbed to herself quietly before turning to the others and explaining everything that had happened. "It wasn't your fault," offered Darrien, placing a hand on his fellow ranger's shoulder. "With the information you were given, you did what you thought was right...." Finoula didn't answer, just hung her head lower. "I go get [i]gentle repose[/i] scroll," remarked Gilbert, trudging back to the wagon to fetch the Omnibook, where he had absorbed the scroll he'd found on the body of the Purple Mage. Nobody slept any more that night. As soon as the sun rose they placed Ingebold's magically-preserved body up on the wagon, Darrien took the mules' reins, and they were on their way. Finoula rode on ahead astride Daisy, as usual, with Wrath trotting along good-naturedly at her pony's heels. But one thought kept rolling around and around in the ranger's head as they made their way closer and closer to their little kingdom: [i]What am I going to tell Aerik and Helga?[/i] - - - I had been patiently waiting to spring this adventure onto my unsuspecting players, and onto Vicki in particular. This wasn't sudden deviousness on my part, either; I had planned for this betrayal from the first moment I created the longsword Malaterminus. (I tried covering my tracks from the beginning, too; not wanting a [i]detect evil[/i] spell to be able to "spill the beans" about the longsword's true nature, I had Malaterminus the sword able to mask his own alignment and that of its wielder, spinning it as a way to prevent evil fiends from being able to detect the inherent goodness of the sword and its wielder.) But I had thought, when I was first planning out the broad course of the campaign, that I wanted to make sure that within the first several levels each PC got a "cool" item to use, and then followed that thought up with "And wouldn't it be cool if one of those 'cool' items was in fact something nasty instead?" My initial idea was that Malaterminus might be a pit fiend or a balor, but I soon ruled that out because I didn't want the sword's true nature to only be revealed at the very end of the campaign (which is when I'd have to do it if I wanted the PCs to have a chance of surviving a fight with Malaterminus in his true, fiendish form). None of the lesser demons and devils seemed like a good fit, though...and then Paizo came out with their [i]Pathfinder Bestiary 3[/i], which included stats for both the incubus and the schir demon. An incubus, I decided, was the perfect fit: a seducer demon, perfectly suited for lying as needed and arranging conditions for its own release. Plus, it was of a low enough CR that I could spring this plot twist on the players relatively early on and still have plenty of time for them to recover. (I didn't want "being tricked by Malaterminus" to be Finoula's defining trait.) So I introduced Malaterminus as a plot element in adventure #7 and let the truth come out in adventure #14. Considering I intend to have about 50-60 adventures during this campaign, that felt about right. I had come up with a reason for having Finoula take the second shift of watch duty but Vicki beat me to the punch by having Finoula volunteer to do so. That certainly made things easy! So I did what I've done several other times to my players when I had information only one player could know about: I banished the others to Joey's bedroom and gave them the understanding that I'd be swapping out players based on whose PC was on guard duty at the time. So, after getting Vicki to have Finoula kill Ingebold and revealing Malaterminus in all of his demonic evil, I suggested to Vicki that there was no real reason for Finoula to remain quiet anymore and it would actually be kind of funny if she screamed at the top of her lungs for help, just to see the expressions on the other players' faces when they came running back into the kitchen. So she did, and in they raced with expressions of panic on their faces. (I later learned that Dan had not gone to Joey's bedroom with the others, but rather to his own bedroom - they're both down the same hallway from the kitchen, where we play - and had almost fallen asleep on his bed when Vicki started screaming for help. That certainly explained [i]his[/i] expression!) Anyway, my biggest concerns were that Vicki was going to hate this turn of events and that the other players were going to give her grief for "foolishly" slaying Ingebold. To address the second concern, I stressed to the other players after the event occurred that I had intentionally led Finoula down a specific path by carefully misleading her about the true nature of Malaterminus and the "Ingebold doppelganger." (I even, after the adventure was over, read them everything I had read to Vicki so they could see how easily it would have been to be fooled.) As for Vicki hating the turn of events, I confess: I got lucky. She had originally been overjoyed upon finding Malaterminus and being told Finoula Cloudshadow was a prophetic figure destined to one day save the world; I admit to wincing a little at her initial excitement, knowing in advance that I was just setting her up for a fall. But at the end of this game session, as we were packing up, she said she had been totally surprised at the reveal, and said it was kind of like something bad happening in a really good book: you were sorry to see the bad thing happen, but at the same time it was fascinating to see it unfold and see what would happen next. But bottom line: I've been blessed with a great group of players who let me get away with stuff I probably wouldn't get away with in just any gaming group. And to make it up to Vicki (later, in an adventure down the road), I have a cool idea for a replacement sword for Finoula. Now I just need to find a way to get Vicki to trust me enough to have Finoula claim it as her own.... - - - T-Shirt Worn: The same "Chaotic Evil means never having to say you're sorry" T-shirt, since this was the same gaming session as "Playing With their Food." But it was just as appropriate for this adventure, given the chaotic evil nature of Malaterminus. [/QUOTE]
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