The Slave and Her Sovereign

[darkbard]

Quick bookkeeping update:

Milestone achieved, C & P each gain 1 AP.

Short Rest: Chanvati uses Inspiring Word on Pa'avu, praising her for her decisive role in defeating the Herald of Caiphon; she spends 1 Surge (15) & regains r(3) = 18 total HP. 43 +18 = 61/61, 10/11 Healing Surges remaining.

Chanvati retains his 3 remaining Surges and loses 5 THP. 41/44 HP, 3/7 Healing Surges remaining.

Bita-Bousseh spends 2 healing surges (24 HP). 21 +24 = 45/49, 5/8 Healing Surges remaining.

Character XP: C 8807/10,000, P 8808/10,000

Loot: 1751 gps, 5 gems (100 gp each), Brooch of No Regrets +1 (680 gp), Jade hairpin (250 gp) (plus the 15 gp Pa'avu still has secreeted away from character creation).

Chanvati Minor Quest: Convince Bita-Bahlin and his masters that Chanvati is not a dissident-traitor but a true patriot.

Chanvati Major Quest: Discover what besets the Empress such that she cast out counselors (such as Bita-Bousseh), contracted to an inner circle of advisors, and initiated the new Inquisition that besets the Empire of Hageri.

@Nephis is still contemplating a new Major Quest, which will be forthcoming, but has this nearing completion:

Pa’avu Minor Quest: Get the girl to the Sect of Omthala (L+1, C2 Skill Challenge suspended, 5 Successes (0 Hard DC Available)/0 Failures/1 Secondary Skills Available).

 

[Manbearcat]

1 Successes (0 Hard DC Available)/0 Failures/2 Secondary Skills Available/0 Advantages Available)

---

While the dogs are bellying up and getting scritches, one Goliath seems less stupefied than the rest.

An elderly woman, betrayed by a minor bend of the years and a small hitch in her giddyup, is tending a “rock garden” in the open air of the cold night. Most stones require a small heft, but some are quite large. She keeps looking over at you all, she was in fact doing so as you were being poled to shore, perhaps as a muse or perhaps her “gardening” is an appeal for a sign?

The gardener arrays the rocks with a meticulous eye but finds a struggle with the largest. As the encounter with the canines draws to an abrupt close (they run off playing and yapping), she attempts to hustle. Despite her strain, the near-boulder defies her.

What do you do?

---

MEDIUM DC

 

[darkbard]

While Pa'avu's attention is rightfully drawn to curtailing the threat of roused, aggressive canines, CHANVATI takes note of the milling Goliaths, freed from mind control but stupefied by this sudden shift, and the elderly Goliath and her struggles with the garden of stones. If ever there was an opportunity for generosity of spirit to also serve as a show of strength, this was it!

"Grandmother," he calls out in the Common speech, "you look like you can use some aid." He strides across the snow-blanketed slope to face the imposing glacial erratic with which she struggles. "My people must seem as children to yours, and I am no paragon of physical form even amongst my own, but you will see that my power of mind can project itself to perform great feats even in the physical realm."

The silver filigree of his bracers glows with an electric blue light, and the Merchant Prince wraps his arms around the boulder with which the ancient Goliath struggled, heaving it up and placing it in her desired position in an act that defies all physical laws and logic.

---

Chanvati uses a Free Action to activate his Bracers of Mental Might, allowing him to use Intelligence in place of Strength for the ensuing Athletics check.

Primary Skill Athletics check to lift the boulder in Herculean fashion, r(6) +10 = 16 vs 15 Moderate DC. Success.

 

[Manbearcat]

2 Successes (0 Hard DC Available)/0 Failures/2 Secondary Skills Available/0 Advantages Available)

---

She smiles a genuine smile that takes her face in full. She slaps her knee and turns away to move more stones in her garden.

Over her shoulder, "I have seen you, you know. In that very stone, in fact."

She shifts a few stones, looks consternated, shifts another, looks content. While looking down at her work, "why don't you look into that big stone. Tell me what you see."

---

MEDIUM DC. On a success, tell us what interesting and useful vision of yourself you see. On a failure, I'll tell you something interesting that sucks!

 

[darkbard]

CHANVATI seems perplexed. "Seen me?" he asks. "In the rock? What do you mean?"

The old Goliath, even bent with age, is more than two heads his superior. She doesn't turn but merely waves a hand distractedly in the direction of the boulder. "Look," she repeats.

The Merchant Prince regards the great stone, dragged here aeons ago by ice retreating across the region. Perhaps. Alternating striations run their course. Slight fissures and folds, protuberances not yet yielding to the slow, steady grind of weather. For long moments he stares into the rock, scanning its surface for some hint of what the old woman must mean.

And then he sees it: one of the protuberances resembles a goliath's head, no is a goliath's head in miniature, beneath the surface. And the closer he looks, the more his vision is drawn into the boulder, to a place beyond. The Goliath is surrounded by others of its kind, and they form a phalanx around two figures standing before a raised seat. Closer. The larger figure is Pa'avu. Then his own form. The woman on the seat the Empress herself looking down upon him, a smile upon her regal face. Her beauty astounds. But beyond the guards that flank her throne lies something darker in the shadows, inscrutable. As Chanvati sharpens his focus on this presence, he finds himself staring once again at simple stone.

---

Chanvati makes a Primary Skill Arcana check to tap into the primal energies of time that are centered within the stone, r(7) +13 = 20 vs 15 Moderate DC. Success. This vision seems to suggest that something hidden and dark besets the Empress, that she is neither mad nor a fool but a victim herself, a possibility indicated by Bita-Bousseh many days before.

 

[Manbearcat]

3 Successes (0 Hard DC Available)/0 Failures/2 Secondary Skills Available/0 Advantages Available)

---

Without regarding you but gesturing toward the open-air cave of the oracle, the old stone gardener says "take what you have seen with you. She brought us here when the purple rock fell from the stars. Who can know what master she serves?"

Your eyes are naturally drawn to the cave. As are Pa'avu's as she finishes with the dogs.

Faint traces of colors emerge in the darkness within. The grating sound of chiseled stone or relief-work.

Several, disparate figures gather in front of the cave. Two. Then Four. Then Six. Their faces trade a mask of stupor for menace as they turn to face you, a vanguard between you and the oracle within.

Hazard growls.

---

MEDIUM DC

Take +2 circumstance bonus when Chanvati's vision is used in this conflict.

 

[Nephis]

As the goliaths make a shuffling exit from the cave to stand in defensive formation, PA'AVU notices a few disparities: the purple dust on their clothing, the chisels in their hands dropping flecks of purple dust, the faint purple glow flickering unsteadily behind them. Narrowing her eyes at their faces, she realizes that - while their faces show menace - there is still a dullness to the focus of their eyes that - coupled with stumbling of their footsteps - suggests puppetry of some kind.

The runes on her armor begin to glow and emit a piercing noise as Chanvati's sahtree raises her fists in the air and bellows in fury and frustration, shaking the branches of the trees, the hairs on everyone's heads, the very air around them: "Is there no end to the alien dominance of my brethren?" Then, she points her finger at the "honor guard" and orders them in giantish to stand down and wake up, as the purple menace from the stars has been vanquished and they are free.

---

* Secondary Skill Perception (autosuccess vs. Easy DC) to notice the purple dust, the pervading alien influence on these goliath to gain a +2 bonus

* Screaming Armor (encounter power) to as a + 2 circumstance bonus

* Primary Skill Intimidate check (untrained) to dominate the goliaths and "wake them up" from their foreign influence: r(13) + 7 + 2 (SS) + 2 (SA) = 24 vs. 15 Medium DC Success!

 

[Manbearcat]

4 Successes (0 Hard DC Available)/0 Failures/1 Secondary Skills Available/0 Advantages Available)

---

The vanguard, stupor arrested and senses fully restored, parts like a curtain. A figure sits in the dark cavern, backlit by an obscured fire, colors dotting the wall in front of her.

"The dread star warned of your arrival, and it is upon us.

Come. Sit. The profit of eyes and ears were stolen from me in the womb. But I have been gifted this.."

The wall before her is a tapestry of illuminated runecarvings. Omens of prophetical significance are interspersed with rote moral lesson are interspersed with pictographs of all manner of things are interspersed with simple conversation (reading via touch). Widely varying colors and glow lie within the chiseling and the kept fire pours light onto the efforts.

"My hands bore it earlier this morning."

She points to a pictorial representation of the meteorite sundered, her people leaving the mountain redoubt, an orgy of blood and violence as Goliath corpses pile before a human throne.

A hammer and various chisels with color-laden tips are in a bucket on the ground near an unoccupied flat rock next to her. What do you do?

---

MEDIUM DC

 

[darkbard]

CHANVATI motions for Pa’avu to step back and let him handle this situation. He picks up the hammer—almost too heavy for him to wield effectively—and selects the smallest, most slender chisel he can find. Father had said he was wasting his time with that semester of sculpture and engraving at Xerxes’s, but the Merchant Prince held a strong faith in the idea of the well-rounded individual from a young age! He projects his thoughts into the old woman’s mind directly.

<<Visions abound near Stoneroot’s Perch. I too had one, more recently than yours. Let me show you in the manner to which you are accustomed.>>

With his typical confidence, Chanvati chisels away at an unmarred section of the stone surface, near to this seer’s vision of destruction. He takes a step back, cocks his head to the right, then returns to chisel an additional flourish.

It is a crude scene of himself and Pa’avu standing among a throng of Half-giants before the throne of a smiling woman. A scene ripe with promise and hope.

He places the old woman’s hand upon the etching. She moves her fingers across gingerly, probing and tracing carefully. Then she frowns and turns her sightless, soundless head to him.

“Everyone's a critic,” he mutters under his breath and sighs.

---

I’m utilizing the +2 Circumstance bonus for invoking Chanvati’s vision in the challenge. Primary Skill check Dungeoneering to chisel the scene of his vision, r(4) +7 +2 = 13 vs 15 Moderate DC. Failure.

 

[Manbearcat]

4 Successes (0 Hard DC Available)/1 Failures/1 Secondary Skills Available/0 Advantages Available)

---

When the runecarver turns her dull eyes upon him, the moment of levity is abruptly stolen from him as there feels like a reflexive recoil takes Chanvati...or at least the impulse of it. Whether this is real or imagined, he cannot suss out.

Then...a terrible smile widens upon her face.

Where those dull eyes shed no light before, molten rock pours forth, spilling on the cavern floor, threatening to consume the carver and Chanvati both.

This must be a hallucination...right? Some sort of manifestation of Vezzuvu through the merchant prince's reality-distorting, magical disease? Mustn't it?

His skin feels like its crawling...shifting. His own eyes wreathe with purple fire...

What do you do?

---

Chanvati loses a healing surge. If you accrue another Failure in your move here, make an Endurance Check at Medium DC for Chanvati. If you fail, Chanvati moves to Stage 2 (nothing happens on a success).

MEDIUM DC