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Story Hour
The Tale of an Industrious Rogue (updated 3-12-2014)
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<blockquote data-quote="Cristian Andreu" data-source="post: 6249248" data-attributes="member: 23822"><p><strong><u><span style="font-size: 15px">Part XIII: The Hags' Haggle</span></u></strong></p><p></p><p>So the two months fly by at the speed of fast-forwarding, and in the Directorate Meeting of Erastus -the Golarion equivalent of July-, Twice-Cursed Irina arrives with a demand: Her covenant, the Hooked Fathom, desired an increase in their profit margin due to the regular difficulties they have to endure for using the unstable rift as means of transportation (they could perfectly teleport by themselves, but hey, business are business). The party said they would consider it.</p><p></p><p>Hassan and Valanar began discussing on how to avoid having to pay the Hags more; they were worried both about the decrease in their profit and about the fact that the Hags were starting to realize they had enough leverage to start pulling stuff like this (and truth be told, the STC had been getting the bigger part of the deal for quite a while now). Valanar proposed stabilizing the rift and turning it into a permanent portal into the Deep Ethereal, and so they travelled back to Katapesh to find someone capable of such a feat. That would serve as both an argument against the Hag's demand and tone down the everyday problems caused by having an unbound wormhole.</p><p></p><p>A lot of talking and money later, they were back in Saltspit with a team of mages who assured them foolproof portal security. They closed the salt operations earlier to avoid anyone growing suspicious and began working on the rift (which was now completely exposed as the extraction had depleted about 2/3rds of the remaining salt).</p><p></p><p>According to the magic-users, their <em>“Infallible Interdimensional Sustaining Pylons”</em> would solidify the cosmological nexus of any portal, thus making it permanent so long as the pylons were kept in place and filled with mercury once per year. Apparently, though, the system wasn’t tested on dissected rifts. </p><p></p><p><em>“The rift starts humming as a thick, heavy fog pours through it, signaling the ethereal discharge to come. Reflex saving throws, everyone!”</em></p><p></p><p><em>Hassan:</em> Success, check.</p><p></p><p><em>Valanar:</em> Success, check.</p><p></p><p><em>Jack:</em> Success, check.</p><p></p><p><em>Rakhim:</em> Success, check.</p><p></p><p><em>Vorgok:</em> Utter failure*. Vorgok was fully exposed to the blast from the Deep Ethereal, and immediately began hearing voices; he already had several voices in his head prior to this (<em>“Vorgok never pays attention to his head. If he did, he would be insane!”</em> he often said), so the incident didn't make him particularly worried. The effects of this exposure would later play a bigger role. But for now, he just felt <em>“lighter”</em>.</p><p></p><p>As the rift kept discharging ethereal fumes from the depths of the between-worlds, the party began noticing a lot of stuff that previously wasn't there now was: Ghostly towers half-buried in the ground, phantasmal creatures frolicking around, semi-transparent vistas, lush forests that faded in and out between blinks… things were turning quite weird.</p><p></p><p>The event also attracted the interest of two other covenants of Night Hags, which scented the nightmares being brewed and went into a harvesting frenzy, which quickly evolved in an all-out battle between dozens of Hags and their servants literally made out of bad dreams, catching the characters in the middle, who used Slimy as a mean to turn many of them insane and thus were able to keep them at bay while support came from the Hooked Fathom Covenant.</p><p></p><p>They lost a lot of prisoners and valuable nightmares during this fight, but the treasures retrieved from the invading Hags (mostly souls and dreams, which while useless to them, were eventually traded off-world through the Emir’s contacts in the Dismal Delve) made up for some of the expenses. Also, most of the warring took place in the bunkhouses away from the city, which helped keep the whole thing quiet (the party already had hired a band of vudrani illusionists to create diversions whenever trouble happened, so the populace –and, more importantly, the religious leaders that were always trying to find a way to screw with the STC- wouldn't know what was really going on. This time they made it look like a bunch of chimaeras from the Brazen Peaks had attacked).</p><p></p><p><span style="font-size: 9px">*: The player behind Vorgok has a long tradition of critical failures in the worst possible moments. In fact, one of the reasons he gave during character creation for him picking up the feat Animal Fury -which grants a natural bite attack- was the fact that he always had critical fumbles and ended up tossing his weapons into a friend or breaking them up somehow, and he had started to wonder if his roleplaying career was doomed to rely on bare hands.</span></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Cristian Andreu, post: 6249248, member: 23822"] [B][U][SIZE=4]Part XIII: The Hags' Haggle[/SIZE][/U][/B] So the two months fly by at the speed of fast-forwarding, and in the Directorate Meeting of Erastus -the Golarion equivalent of July-, Twice-Cursed Irina arrives with a demand: Her covenant, the Hooked Fathom, desired an increase in their profit margin due to the regular difficulties they have to endure for using the unstable rift as means of transportation (they could perfectly teleport by themselves, but hey, business are business). The party said they would consider it. Hassan and Valanar began discussing on how to avoid having to pay the Hags more; they were worried both about the decrease in their profit and about the fact that the Hags were starting to realize they had enough leverage to start pulling stuff like this (and truth be told, the STC had been getting the bigger part of the deal for quite a while now). Valanar proposed stabilizing the rift and turning it into a permanent portal into the Deep Ethereal, and so they travelled back to Katapesh to find someone capable of such a feat. That would serve as both an argument against the Hag's demand and tone down the everyday problems caused by having an unbound wormhole. A lot of talking and money later, they were back in Saltspit with a team of mages who assured them foolproof portal security. They closed the salt operations earlier to avoid anyone growing suspicious and began working on the rift (which was now completely exposed as the extraction had depleted about 2/3rds of the remaining salt). According to the magic-users, their [I]“Infallible Interdimensional Sustaining Pylons”[/I] would solidify the cosmological nexus of any portal, thus making it permanent so long as the pylons were kept in place and filled with mercury once per year. Apparently, though, the system wasn’t tested on dissected rifts. [I]“The rift starts humming as a thick, heavy fog pours through it, signaling the ethereal discharge to come. Reflex saving throws, everyone!”[/I] [I]Hassan:[/I] Success, check. [I]Valanar:[/I] Success, check. [I]Jack:[/I] Success, check. [I]Rakhim:[/I] Success, check. [I]Vorgok:[/I] Utter failure*. Vorgok was fully exposed to the blast from the Deep Ethereal, and immediately began hearing voices; he already had several voices in his head prior to this ([I]“Vorgok never pays attention to his head. If he did, he would be insane!”[/I] he often said), so the incident didn't make him particularly worried. The effects of this exposure would later play a bigger role. But for now, he just felt [I]“lighter”[/I]. As the rift kept discharging ethereal fumes from the depths of the between-worlds, the party began noticing a lot of stuff that previously wasn't there now was: Ghostly towers half-buried in the ground, phantasmal creatures frolicking around, semi-transparent vistas, lush forests that faded in and out between blinks… things were turning quite weird. The event also attracted the interest of two other covenants of Night Hags, which scented the nightmares being brewed and went into a harvesting frenzy, which quickly evolved in an all-out battle between dozens of Hags and their servants literally made out of bad dreams, catching the characters in the middle, who used Slimy as a mean to turn many of them insane and thus were able to keep them at bay while support came from the Hooked Fathom Covenant. They lost a lot of prisoners and valuable nightmares during this fight, but the treasures retrieved from the invading Hags (mostly souls and dreams, which while useless to them, were eventually traded off-world through the Emir’s contacts in the Dismal Delve) made up for some of the expenses. Also, most of the warring took place in the bunkhouses away from the city, which helped keep the whole thing quiet (the party already had hired a band of vudrani illusionists to create diversions whenever trouble happened, so the populace –and, more importantly, the religious leaders that were always trying to find a way to screw with the STC- wouldn't know what was really going on. This time they made it look like a bunch of chimaeras from the Brazen Peaks had attacked). [SIZE=1]*: The player behind Vorgok has a long tradition of critical failures in the worst possible moments. In fact, one of the reasons he gave during character creation for him picking up the feat Animal Fury -which grants a natural bite attack- was the fact that he always had critical fumbles and ended up tossing his weapons into a friend or breaking them up somehow, and he had started to wonder if his roleplaying career was doomed to rely on bare hands.[/SIZE] [/QUOTE]
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