Pathfinder: The Crusade part 11 - Endings

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The dragon dismembered, we continued on our way. The passage was slightly too small for the giant Evander so Alexei stone-shaped a larger route for him. This backfired when the passage opened into a chamber at the bottom of a slope. As Evander started to slide down, we spotted a large beastie – a floating body of tentacles surrounding a large mouth with rows and rows of sharp teeth. The tentacles, we soon discovered, could be pressed into the ground around us to grab us even when we were a distance away. It was not a nice beastie, surviving a vial of Ezekiel’s alchemist’s fire being dropped down its throat by Aaron and many other, smaller attacks from the rest of us. We defeated it eventually, though, and clambered back up the slope to carry on our way.

Entering a large cavern, the paladin made a bee-line for a winch he’d spotted at the centre by a deep pit, wanting to know what it raised. It was hard work – even for him – and I soon got bored watching him work and started to explore. There was a hidden door – locked, so I set about picking it… I’d missed a potent trap, a flame burst that knocked me to the floor, close to death. Fortunately, Aaron spotted me and got Alexei over. Neither of them could see the door and seemed a bit confused when I insisted on continuing to work through it. The flame that nearly singed me convinced them I wasn’t mad, at least.

As I finally got the door open, Paul (Kieran’s player) left to join a birthday meal. We decided the winch may have been cursed and left him raising and lowering the small platform whilst we continued.

The door swung open to reveal a room decorated with maps, with a large heart-shaped purple crystal (nahyndrian, we assumed) on a desk and a minotaur sitting there. She wasn’t best pleased to see us, realising our purpose immediately. Throwing up a blade barrier, she ran through the door at the rear of the room. We chased, using various means to bypass the barrier (hurray for Shadowstep!). The next room had tieflings within, who slowed us down. This continued – with blade barriers and smaller demons to slow us – until I realised we’d come full circle: by turning left, we would be back in the cavern. I could see Kieran still raising and lowering the winch, but patrolling now were several demons.

It felt as though my heart paused before resuming at a hundred times its usual rhythm: they were the same species as the one that killed me just a few months ago. I threw myself back, pressed as close against the wall as I could whilst I tried to calm myself enough to message warn the others. I crept to the right, finding a storeroom. I could see it led round, giving another entrance to the main cavern. Controlling my breathing, I suggested Aaron and I use this to creep round and ambush them from behind whilst Alexei, Evander and Ivan keep them busy. It was a delaying tactic, but fortunately unnecessary: I’d underestimated how powerful Alexei and his brother can be, as the room filled with lightning that left no demon standing.

There was no sign of Baphomet’s minotaur daughter.

There was only one way left to go. The first door we found led to a torture chamber, with a male demon attended by three succubi making use of one of the tables for pleasure. Aaron threw in another vial of Ezekiel’s fire before closing the door tightly behind… But the power of the blast could still have killed us if it wasn’t for Alexei’s contingency spells throwing up a protective wall around us. It’s very powerful stuff. At least the torture chamber was destroyed.

Next room had several tall posts with humanoid slaves chained to them. Flying above were 6 demons. They weren’t very strong and once they’d been defeated we set about freeing the poor slaves. We gently shepherded them back to the main cavern. I set up my tent from the Rod of Splendour and we ushered them inside. The unseen servants were tasked to make sure everyone ate slowly and left Yanielle to watch over them (with a degree of uncertainty but little choice) before continuing to hunt down Baphomet’s daughter.

Heading back down the corridor revealed nothing beyond a few bedchambers and some minotaurs; just not the one we were looking for. We walked back to the main chamber to find (as I’d dreaded) the pavilion torn up and the freed slaves dead. Yanielle was barely alive, but still breathing. We stabilised her but there wasn’t time to mourn the slaves: their fragile bodies had taken too much punishment and all I could hope was that they were with their gods.

Kieran came to from the trance he was in at this point (Paul got back from his meal) and I went back to the door I’d opened when we first arrived: it was locked but rather than spend time picking it again, I jammed it so she wouldn’t be able to escape that way. I was starting to feel sick and the deaths of the slaves had stung – I knew it was a risk but had hoped to save them.

We went around the other way – another blade barrier barred our way, and she’d lit the route so I couldn’t Shadowstep my way past but Ivan got us past and we went after her. The battle was brutal and bloody. As it neared the end, her body started to crack and fracture, a fiery red light spilling out. She screamed out as the air behind her twisted and pulled her through. Baphomet spoke, angry at the loss of his daughter but saying whilst we’d been distracted he’d managed to take the Herald of Iomedae. Unaware of who this was, my mind turned to Queen Galfrey and my stomach lurched again.

Baphomet was pissed off and ready to wink us out of existence – until the visage of Nocticula reminded him this was her realm. He backed off, but we didn’t need her to tell us we’d made a powerful and dangerous enemy.

Nocticula thanked us and left a shimmering image behind for us to step through when we were ready to return to the Fain from whence we’d journeyed to the Abyss. We realised Evander had vanished somewhere along the way – Alexei advised he’d be back soon and vanished, Ivan vanishing with him.

Aaron, Kieran and I stood for a moment, then started taking down and securing the maps from the walls. Aaron tried to take the nahyndrian heart, but it was difficult to hold. Eventually, he managed to kick it towards and down the pit at the centre of the cavern. I was feeling more and more nauseous so cracked the emergency escape device Alexei had made and found myself back in Drezen with the maps.

The city was nearly rebuilt. I quickly pressed Irabeth for information on the Herald of Iomedae and learned who this was and that they’d only just learnt he’d been taken from the heavens and pressed the maps on her before heading to find Brutus so I could meet the others when they returned through Nocticula’s image to the Midnight Fain. He was looking older, so I cornered the nearest person and asked how long we’d been gone.

Five years.

Still feeling sick from the mines, I don’t know how I kept myself from throwing up.

Five years.

I raced back to Brutus, wished he would take me back to my husband but knew he wouldn’t. I told him where we would find Kieran and we set off.

Five years.

They’d come back through before we got there, and Kieran had called for Brutus. I tried to convince them to go straight back to Brevoy, but Alexei hadn’t returned by the time they left so they figured he’d be waiting for us in Drezen and flew me back there.

Five years.

Queen Galfrey had been summoned and was on her way, but no one seemed to realise.

Five years.

It’s been a few weeks since I last saw Noleski and he hasn’t seen me for five years. I can’t imagine what he’s going through and all I want right now is to see him and no one is helping me get there.

Five years.

It’s worth bearing in mind Svetlana is a half-elf and Noleski human, and that there was already about 10 years between them when they got married so she knows she’s going to outlive him by a long way and is dreading losing him. The biggest reason she tries to stay alive is not because she’s afraid to die but because she knows if she does she won’t want to come back again and wants to have as much life with Noleski as she can before that. Five years feels a big chunk to have stolen from that. Also, they hadn’t been together long and part of the reason for their marriage was to stabilise a threatened kingdom, so it feels like very bad news – what if he’s had to marry again? And once she’s dealt with all her Noleski fears, she’ll realise Anya’s daughters aren’t babies any more, and who knows how old Vlad will be, and that all of her friends and family will have aged and missed her and she doesn’t want them to have gone through that pain. She’s pretty heart-broken and afraid, right now.

And this is where we’re leaving the characters for now (I believe, there may be a slight ret-con about exactly where we are for story reasons, but AFAIK it’s five years later and we’re in Drezen rather than Brevoy like Svetlana wants). We’ll be playing through those five years back on Golarion using different characters – level 10, non-mythic people. I shall introduce you in due course. I am going to miss playing Svetlana!

Pathfinder - The Crusade part 10: Abyss Travels

The first part of my Pathfinder write-up is here. The current adventure, the Crusade, starts here; this section (within the Abyss) starts here.

As a quick recap, we’d been tasked with getting to the Midnight Isles and gaining enough notoriety that Nocticula, Demonlord of this Abyssal realm, would want to speak to us. So far, we’d managed to reach her capital city and Alexei had won some significant renown within the arena there.

His hands raised above his head, bushy beard moving in the wind, Alexei addressed the cheering crowd as the blood from the previous champion sank into the dirt at his feet. He spoke eloquently of his power and the choices he supported – the ways people could live like him and the benefits that gave. Keiran looked shocked that he was attempting to recruit followers even here, but I’ve known him and his ego longer. He invited everyone back to the place we were staying for a party, renaming it Alexei’s Arms and offering the owner an unspecified recompense.

I quickly grew bored of this gathering and eventually convinced Aaron to join me (see? I am learning not to rush off into danger unattended). For something to do, we sought out some bounties. The name of “Shifty Neil” caught Aaron’s eye. He’d stolen a book from some demon called Valexia and she wanted his head. Aaron spotted certain aspects of the crowd giving me unwanted attention so we spent a bit of time perfecting a generically demon disguise for me – something to keep me blended into the crowd. We found a couple of demons in a pub who’d heard of him and were similarly unimpressed: he’d stolen a purse from one and necklace from the other and they wanted his guts. They had an idea where we may be able to get some more info, though: ‘The Blushing Mermaid’.

There, it became clear that the clientele was predominantly human or at least humanoid and our demonic appearances were going to get us nowhere. We returned a bit later, me back as me and Aaron taking even more steps than before to hide his Tiefling heritage. Sure enough, they were far more forthcoming and gave us an address.

To access his hidey-hole, we had to climb the side of the building and open a sky-light. Inside, he could be heard sleeping so I made as careful a search of the dusty attic as I could before determining the book was gone – probably sold on already. A purse and necklace matching the descriptions given, however, were easy enough to locate. Aaron, meanwhile, woke him by sitting on his chest with blade to his throat. Neil was surprisingly calm, but confirmed the book had been sold to “some bloke” – no idea whom. Aaron cut off his head.

I probably should have told him sooner my plan was a bit more of a double-cross: Neil might be a thief, but this is the Abyss and he didn’t seem to be a bad guy. This guilty feeling was only exacerbated when I found an amulet of hide alignment round his neck, and a few Iomedae trinkets.

Aaron removed his guts and placed them in the purse. The demon was suitably amused and provided a couple of cheap gems as thanks – just as well, because Valexia refused to see us or pay us or anything (which is kinda stupid, cos why the hell would anyone else do one of her bounties? Although I suppose she can always trust there will be some new sap to take the risk. I think we maybe should have done something a bit more dangerous to make her think twice in future, but probably best we just left it, tossing the head over the wall back at her guards as we left).

By this point, Kieran was pretty desperate to take his turn in the ring, suggesting to Yanielle that they go in together and take on 5 opponents. Eventually, though, he went in alone. A dwarf was pushed in, fearsome colour falling away as the door closed behind him, and a large battle-axe thrown after. Kieran, shiny armour at its shiniest, quickly established that the dwarf was good and offered him a way out: the dwarf was himself a paladin who’d been captured to fight. Kieran gave him the emergency escape talisman Alexei had produced for us: the dwarf – amazed to hear Drezen was free – snapped it in delight and vanished from the arena.

The crowd, predictably, were unimpressed by this development, but Kieran had a plan. Teleporting himself (with his less-than-shiny helmet) to the first jeerer to catch his eye. “You got a problem?” He menaced. Sure enough, the demon had a problem – which Kieran dealt with by teleporting back into the ring with the demon.

The bout turned out to be rather tougher than Kieran anticipated – the demon grabbed the axe that had been thrown in after the dwarf and contemptuously kicked off the head to wield the haft as a quarterstaff. He may not have hit as hard as Kieran, but his aim was better and the fight fierce enough that Ivan, watching in the stands, nearly called the whole thing off – but Kieran demanded to complete the fight and managed to win.

Not to be outdone, Aaron took his turn. Possibly cautious following Kieran’s decision to free one of their better fighters, they pitted Aaron up against a foe I think even I could have dealt with. Aaron danced around him, nimbly avoiding all blows before taking him out. He then asked for a greater challenge, and a great beast was brought forward: a young dragon (not out of place here, so I can say the name). He notched his lucky arrow and let fly to pierce the creature’s eye. It breathed fire on him, but couldn’t do enough to stop him and Aaron came from beneath, slicing through its neck to fly up through the spurting blood as the victor.

It was clear we were a group and there were a few shouts of “what about the half-elf?”, but instead Mr Tiddles looked at the organiser and said “all of them”. We backed off, to the very edges of the stands as the little cat sat there in the centre of the arena. The combatants didn’t seem too sure of what they were doing, faced with a purring cat, and quite a lot of the audience were pushing their way closer as we fought our way back. Once we were clearly safe, he unleashed his power, summoning a spirally giant comet that took out the arena, leaving just himself and the announcer stood on little pillars of clear ground in the decimated pit. The first few rows of the audience were missing.

I took out my awesome little rod of weird and wibble (a rod of wonder) and fiddled with it, managing to shrink myself down as a fireball shot over the carnage like a celebratory firework.

Being little is fun.

We went back to our lodgings to celebrate and heard Nocticula’s voice whispering through our minds. We’d impressed her enough she wanted to meet us, and gave us the location as well as the warning that we would need to deal with the guards as a final test. Alexei again knew roughly which way to go, so we set off. The island was far enough from the shore we’d need to teleport if we wanted to avoid risking a boat journey over the cursed waters, but fortunately between Ivan and Mr Tiddles that wasn’t a problem.

We crept through the jungle (tinged with purple like everything else in this midnight realm) until we arrived at a domed building. Entering, 4 shadow demons hovered before us. The last time we saw one of these bastards it was deep beneath Fort Drezen, and it nearly killed us by possessing Alexei.

Kieran, thinking the challenge from Nocticula may not require violence, walked towards them and tried to continue through. Predictably, they attacked him: he fell to the floor, spasming. As we prepared for battle, they summoned 4 more and cast the room into darkness. In a bit of a panic, I threw off my rod of wonder again – shrinking even smaller as a wind blew through the room before Ivan countered the shadow demons’ spell. My one hope – that being so tiny ((fine, in fact – about 6”)) meant they wouldn’t notice me – soon proved false as they swooped towards me. At least being little made me hard to hit, because when they did connect it hurt and I was grateful for my ability to suddenly be elsewhere as a blow falls. Alexei was less impressed to find me on his shoulder.

Anyway, between them Aaron, Ivan and Evander dealt with the damn demons. Keiran still lay there, and I was anxious, remembering Alexei. As I moved towards him, he sat up suddenly and flung from him the amulet of pure good that he’d acquired when we chased after Jeska, before vanishing. A noise from behind caused me to turn – Alexei and Ivan, who should have been there, had vanished and Kieran was walking towards me with his sword drawn… This didn’t feel good so I started to move towards Aaron, fast as my iddy-biddy legs would take me, which was not fast enough as he tried to step on me. I used my mirror dodge again, to get onto Aaron’s shoulder whilst leaving him thinking I was still on the floor. Being little is great, but being stepped on would suck.

It was about now Alexei reappeared with Ivan to warn us Kieran was possessed – Alexei’s staff had triggered one of its contingency powers and whisked him away when Kieran hit him (the noise I’d heard). Between them, they threw the demon out and it dissipated. Kieran fell to his knees in prayer and Ivan and Mr Tiddles, fed up with my new littleness, dispelled that also until I was my own size again.

And because I didn’t write this up in time (I wanted to illustrate but failed at drawing), we go straight into the next session. It’s much shorter, I promise ;-)

We walked through the doors at the other side of the hall and found ourselves in a corridor lined with tomes and tablets. Closer inspection revealed these to detail the lives and eventual deaths of the heroes, solars and demons Nocticula had killed and whose bodies made up the Midnight Isles. *Shudder.*

Two fly-headed scribe demons met us at the end and led us into the next room – a cathedral-sized room across two levels. The upper level had a shimmering pool, towering bookshelves and, reclining on a throne, the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. Large red wings shimmered with runes and her two tails flicked and waved seductively. She wasn’t wearing much, but her lava-boots caught my eye and when she spoke it was as though no other sound would ever satisfy.

She knew we were there to stop Baphomet’s mining operation. She was pleased – she wanted to stop them but wasn’t ready to openly move against her rival so our arrival gave her the opportunity to deal with the problem whilst retaining deniability. She told us the mining operation was being overseen by Baphomet’s daughter. She advised us that if we could destroy the mining operations, she’d be able to keep them from coming back. She told us we could reach the location of the mining by stepping through the pool. She slowly walked out as we basked in her glorious presence. She smiled slyly as the left the room – a beat of her wings, and she was gone leaving an after-image of runes shimmering in the air.

Kieran was first to move to the pool – her presence didn’t seem to have affected him. It took the rest of us a moment to collect ourselves. I thought of Noleski with a homesick pang and that helped get me back to myself.

We stepped through and arrived on an outcrop under a waterfall. As Nocticula’s callous, tinkling laugh echoed in our ears, I recalled how dangerous all water was here.

And this was the point I left to meet family for a meal whilst Ivan and Alexei reverse-gravity’ed the water away from us and stone-shaped a bridge to safety. Climbing the cliff, they spotted an enormous undead solar, which Aaron attempted to pull to the ground with a grappling hook. Instead, it flew off with him dangling behind… Between them, though, they rescued him and defeated the beast.

The party then headed off into the jungleyness, moving upstream towards the mining operation. They came across a trio of colossal fiendish dire crocodiles, which the paladin used his immense handle animal skill on and… well… they ended up taking the party upstream by towing them as they sat on floating discs. This ended as they reached massive gates barring the river as it entered (or rather, exited) the cliff. These were guarded by two towers, each manned by two tieflings. And this was when I got home and re-joined the game.

Kieran used his helmet to teleport to the top of one tower; Evander threw Aaron after him (to Aaron’s surprise) whilst I spider’s climbed my way up the other. Between us, it didn’t take long to clear them out and we followed the steps down and into the gorge.

As we followed the path, we heard a voice calling us… A bit of exploration revealed a faecal succubus who complained about the miners. To get to them, we would have to go through the territory that she stated was hers but had been taken from her by a dragon. The dragon had some form of truce going with the miners so wasn’t about to clear them out. We took the opportunity of the dragon’s absence (out hunting) to start exploring its share of the caverns, but it returned before we were done so we epically and dramatically slayed it.

Pathfinder - The Crusade part 9: Enter The Abyss

We left Drezen accompanied by Queen Galfrey and headed to the Midnight Fane – the temple where the rift to the Midnight Isles was located. We were greeted by a group of incubi, advising we are expecting and offering to take us to their mistress. In an uncharacteristic show of restraint, Kieran managed not to run the demons through with his sword but instead we let them lead the way to a chamber filled with an acrid purple smoke bubbling from a cauldron fed by (or feeding into) various tubes. A cambian demon pottered around, tending alchemical machinations.

A woman entered, recognised as Yanielle. She’s a paladin of Iomedae famous for losing her faith and regaining it following a journey to the Worldwound. She has recently been missing, following a second excursion. It looked as though we’ve found her, and it didn’t look good (although we clung to the hope that she’d been possessed). When she tried to convert us to Baphomet’s cause, it was too much for our shiny paladin and, with a cry of “How dare you defile Iomedae’s symbol!”, he charged her. The rest of us watched and waited for him to get it out of his system.

She collapsed to the floor, ragged and emaciated, her armour gone. Alexei and Kieran recognised her as a husk – a body that has been emptied so it can be filled by demonic possession. As they set about de-cursing and healing Yanielle, we realised the other demons had departed. Never mind.

Recovered, she agreed to join us on our journey into the rift on the grounds it would seem Iomedae has sent us – this reinforced to her when it transpires some of the kit we recently found and have kept hold of included her sword and armour.

We made our way down to the rift itself – a vast hall, one wall of which glowed and writhed in red and black. Taking a deep breath, we stepped through into a cave studded with purple crystals.

To close the rift, a page containing particular magic needed to be held into the rift from both sides. Queen Galfrey took this responsibility back in Golarion and gave me the copy to hold from the Midnight Isles. After a minute or so, the portal turned black and lightning arced from it. Alexei, Evander and Yanielle were smart enough to get out of the way, but Kieran stayed close to help with the next step and Aaron stayed nearby to take over if I fell. The lightning hurt less than I feared but more than I’d admit – Kieran seemed unaffected, drawing his sword and commanding a dispel from it. The other side of the rift, Queen Galfrey must have done similarly, because the writhing wall fell away (with just enough warning for me to dodge away) to leave a bare cavern wall. I shivered slightly at the thought of being cut off from Golarion and all I have there.

An oddity: beside Alexei stood a man identical in most ways, but clean shaven and smartly dressed. Alexei introduced him as Ivan, his dead twin. No longer connected to the Ethereal Plane but still tied to each other, Ivan had been manifested as we entered the demonic realm.

But onwards. We found our way out of the cavern – fighting a few minor monsters on the way – and into a dense jungle. It was night, but it’s always night in the Midnight Isles. The moon being out made it as close to day as this place gets – rather than ‘day’ and ‘night’, I’ve been thinking of ‘moonlight’ and ‘true night’.

Aaron and I spotted a strange grey stone mass creating a clearing in the dense jungle. With no better plan and grave concerns about how we would reach Nocticula’s capital, we approached to find a ruined temple. Aaron, having swapped his ring of sustenance, was by this point hungry and tired so settled to sleep whilst we considered what was in front of us: four statues of Nocticula in different poses, each with its own epigraph. A strong feeling of teleportation came from this device, but even once I’d worked out how to trigger each statue we had no idea which order to do this in, and with 33 options it didn’t seem sensible to try experimenting. When Aaron awoke, he knew which order we needed but couldn’t explain how. It was the best lead we had, and it paid off: we materialised in the centre of a busy square in what could be identified as the city we were aiming for.

So the next step was to gain attention. Kieran arranged rooms in one of the ‘nicer’ (or least brothel’y) establishments whilst I tried to make some connections. Through the grapevine, I learnt of an arena fighter making waves – a four-armed incubus by the name of Gelderfang. Defeat him, the suggestion went, and that would give some notoriety. To me, it sounded like a job for a paladin, but Aaron also expressed an interest and whilst we were discussing the best way to proceed, Alexei sought out the master of the arena and arranged the fight for himself. It may have been best this way: Alexei’s reputation has found its way even here and this way he could skip any warm-up fights against lesser opponents and go straight up against Gelderfang.

Kieran gave a dramatic introduction, but it was with a degree of trepidation we watched Alexei enter the arena, covered in his shadows. The fight lasted a while, but Alexei won through magic and trickery and, to the delight of the crowd, slit the incubus’s throat.

Next part here.

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.

Pathfinder - The Crusade part 7

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

With Jerribeth defeated, we quickly ransacked her room to find some codes and secret signs the Templars use (should help the efforts of the Crusade) and some other oddities, including a necklace that screamed of magic but I couldn’t figure out its purpose. Pocketed for the future because I’m not sure it’s safe.

Checked the rest of this side and found, beyond the cells, an icky room with two humanoid-corpses and writings carved into the back wall. Those with better knowledge of anatomy than I realised the bodies had been alive when their organs were removed. Made me feel sad and ill together. Evander looked at the writing and something in him snapped – it was wrong, all wrong; unfinished; didn’t make sense; not right. Alexei used stone shape to destroy the wall: as best we could tell from Evander’s expletive-laden rant, it was the beginnings of a spell to loosen all natives of Golarion from this plane – to make it easier to teleport us to other planes.* That didn’t seem like a good thing to leave half-finished in a demon stronghold.

After that, we headed back to sneak to the other – but the demons guarding the cathedral in the centre spotted us as we tried to figure a way to sneak past and charged. Didn’t take long to deal with them.

The cathedral was impressive – pillars lining the way to a large altar with another statue to the demon lord Baphomet. The high, vaulted ceiling was painted with stars. Two small rooms lead off from either side – one, strangely enough, seemed to be marked with a magic circle against evil… The other, a meditation room of sorts, with cat-o’-nine-tails and other creepy things, most notably, a creepy book written in Abyssal – pocketed with the necklace because I could hear discussion outside in the cathedral itself about removing the Baphomet statue. And the next moment, a deafening, shattering crash as Evander took his flail to the statue’s leg and managed to topple it.

As the sound died away and our hearing began to return to normal, we knew the noise would have drawn the attention of every remaining accursed demon in the place. We took up defensive positions and waited for the onslaught. It was not long in coming.

I started by setting up a mind fog on the stairs to the room. It was swiftly dispelled and I hid** as the mages in the first wave stone-shaped away a section of the wall… the fighters – Kieran, Aaron and Evander – quickly dispatched the Templars who rushed through. Some kind of noxious magical smell left Aaron vomiting in the corner and nearly took out Alexei as well – in defence, he threw up a blade barrier, circling the stairs. Demons rushed through it, several falling as the blades sliced through them. Those that made it were quickly taken out and Kieran ran through the blades – fending them off and letting his shiny, shiny adamantine armour deal with the worst of it – to take out the few demons remaining. I used my shiny new Sceptre of Heaven to Holy Smite the group, and Alexei summoned a demon of his own to help.

It was hard, with Aaron nearly being killed by a barrage of magic missiles, but at the end we were victorious and no wounds we couldn’t patch up. This should make the rest of our explorations a bit easier, at least! But it’s a shame we didn’t manage to take any alive for questioning.

 *I may have misunderstood – Evander is controlled by Husbit as Alexei’s cohort but he was voiced by the GM with the instruction from Husbit (who’d been sercret-noted what Evander learned) to “relay that info but as if you have tourrettes”. And I was tired and neither I nor Svetlana has much knowledge of the planes and I had several people trying to explain so got a bit muddled. I *think* the spell would turn all natives into outsiders, but that’s a bit of a guess.

** Svetlana is not very good in combat – particularly in comparison to Kieran and Evander. It did bother me for a while and everyone blamed the fact she’s multi-class, but I’ve realised she’s very good outside of combat and I’m focussing on that. It can mean that combat-heavy sessions (like this one descended into) can risk being a little dull, but I got Husbit to let me roll some of the damage for his blade barrier shield so at least I felt a bit involved. I’m sure there are other ways I can continue to do that whilst keeping Svetlana safe (and in reserve if the party need that sneak attack surprise!)