Return to Magnimar by Quillax's tree spell, consult with Sheila Heidmarch. Claw joins the Pathfinders and gets started on the Heidmarch larder. Word is that half the Lady's Light has collapsed into the sea. Giants raiding Sandpoint took a stone from the Old Light (which Neril confuses with the Lady's Light).
Return to Kaer Maga. Meet Lawless Kaid. Delve into the pits under the Therassic Spire, knock out & rescue the monk Hasari. Sephiria gets library access.
Quillax Account
Journal [30-April]
We were able to get to the library exit with Jarrick's body, meeting up with the rest of the group and we mourned his death. Jarrick had previously instructed me that he did not want to be revived, so we wrapped his body up and worked out that there was no Temple in Kaer Maga where we could have him buried, so we would need to bring him back to Magnimar. Sepheria found a temple which could cure her curse for trade of one of our +1 rings of protection. Once that was done, we stepped through to Magnimar using Transport Via Plants. We brought Jarrick to his Temple and instructed them to bury him as per their customs and handed over his shield. Perhaps fittingly, the painting on the shield would forever remain unfinished. though it would go on to protect another Paladin in the future and his tower/soup kitchen was ceded to the Temple for their continued use.
While we were in Magnimar, we went to the Lodge and spoke with Sheila. She heard our report and inducted Claw into the Pathfinder's Society officially. She also handed over the next Ioun stones. She did mention that we could potentially carry more than one stone each, which is something we were previously warned against. We cannot attune to more than one but theoretically we could each carry up to three stones without being driven insane.
With the other formalities aside, Sheila introduced us to a new Pathfinder who came highly recommended to her and she suggested that he travel with us. Irizati Al-Amestri is a tan half-elf with dark hair, who favoured a duster and a broad-brimmed hat and had been trained in Alchemy. He handed over two scrolls as a goodwill gesture. We agreed that he could travel with us and planned to leave first light on the morrow.
We met up to return back to Kaer Maga, but my Travel Via Plants spell failed, due to Kaer Maga's magical protections that had caused us issues before. We would have to wait until the following day to try again to travel to just outside the city near the Half-Light Path.
As we had time, Sepheria visited her sister, I worked on making potions, and Neril checked in on his students, and Claw explored the city. The following morning when we met again, Claw informed us that he had a vision of a ruined Abbey while holding the shard of Gluttony; his descriptions led to us to believe this was Windsong Abbey due to the Doomsday Door he described. We knew that the Doomsday Door was related to the Cult of Grotis, an end-of-days group. We are fairly certain the next shard should be Envy which will require the Dusky Rose Prism Ioun Stone that we had received from Shiela.
- Side note - Winding Abbey is known to be a meeting place of the 21 most important/powerful religions where they met to discuss important topics, although this has declined in recent years and the Abbey has be left to ruin.
It was suggested to us as we gathered to leave that we later check in with Koriah Azeren at Windsong Abbey. I had met her once, when I had first joined the Pathfinders so many seasons ago, and there was the small accident following the puzzle box.
As we had prepaid for only a week at the Wheel Unbroken in Kaer Maga and we had left Capita there alone, we felt it important to return quickly so save any incidents. Thankfully, we returned to the Inn before our pre-payment ran out and we paid for another week. As we were arranging this, the Owner informed us that a woman, Facelss Kade, had asked after our group. As you may remember from our previous messages, Faceless Kade leads an exiled group of Grey Maidens who live within Kaer Maga's walls. We were told she could be found in Down Market, probably in the main market area.
Sepheria sent a runner to invite Kade to tea that afternoon. Irizati sat at a table a little away from our group and Neril hid himself in invisibility to test if they were able to see him and as a flank in case they decided to be unpleasant. It was just on time for tea when 5 Grey Maidens in incomplete sets of armour entered the Inn. Only one had a full set of armour and we correctly guessed she was Kade. Two more had nearly complete sets and the last two had even less. They asked about a leaflet Sepheria had distributed regarding the invitation of Loyal Grey Maidens to Fort Rannick. During the discussion, they admitted to having killed a HellKnight that was chasing a person who had some tax discrepancies. They were paid to protect him and had done so. This was approximately 3 months previous.
- Side note - Hellknight Rogare had a personal crusade against the Grey Maidens as they considered them cause of the Plague, hence his start of legal proceedings against our group whilst they were in Magnimar and the reason we moved them to the relative safety of Fort Rannick. While the Maidens were indeed involved in the Plague, most Hellknights do not actively hunt the Maidens. They will only actively hunt the ones that are allied with the Church of Ergothoa, but otherwise will leave them alone. The most senior Grey Maiden survivor took a large number of Grey Maidens to Chellus (?) and were adopted by the Queen.
Sepheria informed Faceless Kade that we had business to attend to further before we could speak more with them and they informed us they could be reached in the "Three Tuns" later. Neril followed them out and reported back their conversation to us later, which was mostly that they had to induct most of their recruits, who were not top-level fighters and many of the women were happy to stay in Kaer Maga.
Once Neril returned, we returned to the Thorassic Spire to complete our promise to find all of the missing party. We bumped into Luonim the BloatMage in the library and found that his confidence in his own skills had been extremely shaken.
We made our way back to the Orriary room, which was a fascinating model of the solar system. Wisely, Sepheria opened the door with mage hand and when nothing attempted to kill us, Claw peered around the door before stepping into the room. Once he was inside and proved the room was currently safe, we all followed. Sepheria reckoned the model was quite accurate. There were two large cracks on either side of the room, breaking the perfectly smooth, round walls of the room but it seemed mostly like wear and tear as opposed to damage like that of an earthquake or such, however, the cracks matched each other almost perfectly.
Sepheria investigated the plinth/stand and determined that the lever was the on/off switching the odd wheel set into the plinth with cog-like ridges around it controlled something about the room, possibly the model. She used Mage hand again to flip the lever and we all waited for an attack but instead an illusion was activated around the entire room, the walls, ceiling and floor - with the exception of the cracks which showed nothing - all showed what appeared to be a live feed of the outside world with little miniature people going about their business unaware of being observed. After some discussion, the wheel was turned one tick counter clockwise. The little figures became translucent and began moving backwards. Neril then turned the wheel two clicks clockwise, so it was one click clockwise from it's original position. The people began to move forward and as time passed (and the sky darkened into night in the illusion) they became more and more translucent. Sepheria recommended we put the wheel back to the original position and lock it with a dagger then turn off the illusion. She suggested this was a long-term research project and we had important work to finish.
We moved to the next door, checking it carefully for traps. Neril noticed a large black spot on the ceiling. He hurried back to the plinth and removed the dagger, wanting to move the time back so that the illusion would show now as opposed to a little bit in the future when we turned it off. Before he could do this, the black spot split into two and each headed for a crack in the wall.
Two monstrous dog-like creatures appeared, which we later identified as Hounds of Tindalos). One hound attacked Irizati, who quickly turned invisible and teleported out of the room. The Hound, confused, then headed for Sepheria. The second Hound attacked me. Claw charged at the Hound attacking Sepheria. I took Earth Elemental form and hit the Hound, which Clank also then attacked. The Hound started to 'speak' in it's planar tongue. Irizati returned to visibility and cast banishment on both hounds, managing to banish one back to it's plane. Neril attacked the remaining hound and attempted to stun it but the hound shook it off. Sepheria cast booming blade on it and badly wounded it. The Hound lunged at her and grabbed her throat. Claw took its head but somehow the body still moved!
The banished hound came back through the crack and hit Claw with a rending gaze, injuring him, then went after Irizati. Claw struck a blow on the first hound that seemed to finally kill the headless beast. Clank and I charged after the beast that went after Irizati, who drew an odd weapon he called a gun and shot it three times, killing it.
Sepheria examined the room more closely, while trying to patch up her injured throat and suspected that activating the room was like a homing beacon for the Hounds but the only reason they could enter was because the walls were broken. The hounds couldn't enter our plane except through a jagged edge. We decided that we needed to fix the walls. I sealed one crack using stone shape before Neril suggested trying wall of stone, which worked well in sealing the other. The walls were mis-coloured but smooth once more.
Once we were patched up, we headed to the next door, on which was written Workshop in Thesselon. Inside, the Monk, Hasari, knelt over the dead body of the halfling (her partner). She whistled angrily, unable to speak as her lips were sewn shut. Buzzing came from the hives as Hellwasps started to swarm. Sepheria cast fireball on the wasps, trying not to hit the monk or her dead lover. Hasari bent over and seemed to listen to the dead halfling and then screamed angrily and ran over to attack us. Neril met her in the middle of the room, and attacked her when reason failed. I tried to strike her but she struck back and stunned me. While stunned, I could see a little wasp crawl out of the dead body's mouth then retreat back inside. Clank charged to my defence and struck Hasari twice. Sepheria tried Tasha's hideous laughter but it failed and she moved away to reconsider. Claw hit her then tried to grapple her and was able to grab her. Irizati quickly closed the door and readied himself in case she slipped free and tried to escape out the door. Neril attacked her again and this time was able to stun her. Meanwhile, I shook off my own stun and told the others in carefully formed words of the wasp.
Clank helped Claw and Neril restrain and tie Hasari up, with Neril continually stunning her to keep her from causing us more injury. Sepheria turned her magics to the dead body and effectively cremated it and any wasps hiding inside.
Under the remains of the halfling was a backpack of books, only slightly damaged. We picked up as much of his corpse/dust as we could and took his remains and the insane monk back to the librarians to deal with them and collect our reward. The Librarians told us they were going to send the Monk to a special group to see if they could help her.
Sepheria decided to try to hire Luonim, who agreed to take on a position at Fort Rannick as magical support for the Maidens there as well as Sepheria's research assistant.
I told Sepheria that she was never allowed to spend more than 24 hours in 72 in the Library or else she would change and become like the Librarians, wizen and slightly malformed by the magics contained in the books and the Spire itself. She reluctantly agreed.
We left the Spire to return to the Wheel Unbroken to tend our injuries properly.
[ xp 3140 each / 1000 clank ]
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