Pathfinder - The Crusade part 8

Taking a break from #RPGaDAY to catch up on Pathfinder. As mentioned the other day, had a bit of a migraine during the game so am writing OC because I'm even more muddled on the details than usual.

Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4 / Part 5 / Part 6 / Part 7

Before we began the game proper, our GM presented us with a bit of loot from the Sky Lizard battle a few sessions earlier – the prop hadn’t arrived in time. To Husbit’s delight and frustration: a modified deck of many things! Svetlana, of course, grabbed this first. I was more than a little nervous, not wanting to damage such a beloved character, but couldn’t see any reason why she wouldn’t. So, 3 cards announced…

‘The Foreign Trader.’ As the card is drawn, a strange voice speaks behind Svetlana “You cannot trade your Soul. Draw again.”

‘The Owl’ – an opportunity to scry on any being in any plane for one minute. This may come in very handy shortly.

‘The Waxworks’ – so far, no revealed affect. Have to admit, I’m a little nervous about this one…

The second card drawn to replace the Foreign Trader was ‘Sickness’ – leprosy. It would appear someone was keeping an eye on Svetlana and pulled this from her (phew! Charisma damage is bad). She accepted the offer to draw again and got ‘Queen Mother’. 2 Giant Ants appeared, vowing to serve her until defeated (it didn’t take long – they’re pretty weak).

Evander, Alexei and Aaron all took cards too, but lawful Kieran refused, and his entourage-menagerie (Brutus the griffin, Apollo the hawk/eagle, and newly acquired Bernadette the basilisk) all also declined.

And so we return to where we left off: in a badly damaged cathedral to Baphomet, surrounded by the still-bleeding corpses of his followers.

We’d explored the eastern side of the complex already, so it was time to head west. We were fairly confident there wouldn’t be any more demons, Templars or general bad guys around, but we’re as paranoid as most players are so were still being careful. Lots of looting.

Found a room with a locked door – fiddled with it, but realised I couldn’t open it (a role of a 19 and a comment of “nope”) so summoned the next best thing: “Evander, bet you can’t trip this door!” (Evander, with a flail and short sword, is a trip attack specialist. This is why he tripped the statue in the previous session – because one of the other characters said he couldn’t.)

Inside is a magic circle, complete with drippy candles; a load of bookshelves; a writing desk of the sort we have previously stolen useful papers; a load of mummified worm husks and some fresh and slimy worms… And in the corner, a hooded figure from whom the worms dropped. The paladin wanted to charge him, but Alexei stopped him to try to speak to the strange creature. A deal was reached: an answer for an answer.

The creature – Xanther Vang, by name – wanted to know how Alexei had “gained powers beyond the mortal” (ie, become mythic) Alexei was vague and sought to find out where the Nayndrian crystals were mined – ‘The Midnight Isles’, a domain within the Abyss – but when he accidentally asked two questions and Alexei answered and returned the favour, he vanished to all but Alexei (some weird thing he has going on, think it’s part of his oracle tapestry or curse or something) and took flight, summoning a mist of sapping constitution (which is what wiped out my giant ants before I even got to use them).

Svetlana legged it out of the room and drew her seeking crossbow, relying on Alexei to point at the guy and relying on the crossbow to do its thing. Aaron, realising the mist wasn’t dispersing as fast as he’d thought, joined her. Kieran attempted to dispel the magics protecting Vang, eventually managing to get rid of the invisibility. He and Evander eventually managed to swat Vang down and we were back to the looting thing. Many papers that would assist the efforts of the Crusade, and Vang’s journal, in some horrible code. It would take some time to decode.

Back to Drezen to prepare some downtime. Alexei went off to do whatever Alexei does, Kieran sorted out his town in the Dawnlands and Aaron did assassin-leadery stuff.

Svetlana made sure Irabeth, Aenivia, Aurashelae (sorry Rich, having a major inability to remember how to spell names) would be ok if she went home to her husband for a few weeks – she’s been pretty homesick and missing him. She’s very aware that they’ve spent more of their married life apart than together and she misses him so any opportunity to spend time with Noleski is important to her.

Whilst there, I thought it might be a good idea to try and figure out what the pretty necklace Svetlana pinched from Jerribeth actually did. I had a pretty good idea and – as Svetlana tried it on with Malliard in the room – I was proved right. A cursed necklace that slowly closed around her throat. He laughed at her as he released the curse.

“Thought that would happen” she gasped as the necklace fell off.

“Why’d you do it then?”

“To see if I was right”

“Well, at least you’ll be more careful next time”

“Probably not.” The rest of the group were amused by her honesty, anyway. The GM pointed out Malliard was talking to their queen in this manner. Svetlana likes that Malliard talks to her normally – she’d not used to being treated with deference (it’s something else she’s going to have to learn).

Eventually, Mr Tiddles (who had been leading the translation of Vang’s journal) arrived to each to teleport them home. We always have to ‘vogue’ when he TP’s us, which began for entertainment but we finally realised may have another purpose, in that if someone uninvited runs into the TP circle, they won’t come with us unless they also know the trick.

Anyway, we ended up going to a temple-place with a rift that would let us into the Midnight Isles. We’d learned the name of the demon lord and that she was unaware of the mining. Irabeth wanted us to go through the rift and speak to the demon lord to make sure Vang’s minions didn’t manage to convince her to join an alliance with Baphomet. She’s going to close the rift behind us so we’ll have to make our own way back (Alexei’s confident).

So that’s where we’ll begin next time. When I should be all ok and migraine-free.