Tuesday, January 18, 2022

Ratpack – Shattered Star Book 2, Session 42

[Day 66 Starts – Last Stand of the Grey Maidens]

[This game uses the Pathfinder 1E roleplaying game.  Game sessions happen once a week.  This session happened November 8, 2021.]

[SPOILERS!  If you are likely to adventure through the Shattered Star Adventure Path from Paizo, this campaign will be spoilers all the way down.]


Player Characters

Via Roll20

Roscuro – male ratfolk 7th level Monk

Hrefna – female changeling 6th level Omdura

Swamprover – female grippli 6th level Wizard

Templeton von Trapp – male ratfolk 7th level Summoner (Synthesist)

Marativy – female ratfolk 7th level Ninja

Zitch Grimreaper – male ratfolk 7th level Witch with a donkey rat (capybara) familiar


NPCs

Gridik Stormstride – male blue kobold 5th level Wizard (Invoker)

Ariphi – female tiefling 6th level Rogue

Mel Sharples – male halfling Cook (Expert of unknown level)

Alice Hyatt – female halfling Bodyguard (Warrior of unknown level)

Flo’ Castleberry – female gnome Bodyguard (Warrior of unknown level)



Autumn

Day 66

Morning

Over breakfast, the Ratpack discussed adventure options for the day.  Templeton was interested in going after the hydra [he was concerned someone else would kill it first], but the rest of the group was not interested in wasting a day in camp until the beast returned to its lair [without Winston, the group had no real tracking skills].  As a result, the group settled on finishing off the dungeon and then, if they still had the juice, going after the hydra.

The spellcasters spent some time adjusting their spell selections [which had been optimized for attacking the hydra the day before].  Once they were ready, the adventurers set out for the troglodyte cave entrance to the deep tunnels and the dungeon.

Late Morning

After a couple hours of walking and working their way through the dungeon, the Ratpack arrived back at the Riddle Room.  Having worked out the riddle solution the previous day, the adventurers embraced the correct statues, activating the golden mist teleportation area.  Marativy volunteered to go through the portal first, while invisible.  Zitch placed his ward on her and used the earrings of telepathy to establish a mental communication link with her.  She then stepped into the gold mist and disappeared.

The telepathic link immediately dropped…

…but the ward did not.

This was an unexpected result.  The fact that the ward was still up indicated that Marativy arrived where she was going safely, but they could not communicate with her.  Roscuro waited all of 30 seconds before stepping into the gold mist himself, followed seconds later by Zitch and Hrefna and then Gridik.

Roscuro appeared in a 7-sided room with a red cobra mosaic on the floor and single red metal door out.  There was no sign of Marativy, which Roscuro did not find very worrying as she would still be invisible.  What was slightly worrying was that his few magic items were no longer working.  Having no better options, Roscuro went over to the red metal door and pushed it open.

The door opened to another 7-sided room.  A second red metal door was on the far side of the room from Roscuro.  Standing in an open doorway to Roscuro’s right were two Grey Maidens guards.  They drew their weapons and took defensive positions.  Roscuro asked, “Hey, is your boss available?”  One of them asked, “Who asks?” to which Roscuro answered, “Roscuro of Magnimar.”  They had a short conversation with someone in the next room in a language Roscuro did not know.

While the conversation was going on, Roscuro noticed the other red metal door quietly open.  He could see Gridik standing there, silently asking if he should step in.  Roscuro indicated he should wait.

One of the guards turned back to Roscuro and told him to step into the center of the room while their commander was summoned.  Roscuro did so, surreptitiously waving Gridik back into his room.  Gridik got most of the message and hid behind the ajar door.  Hrefna, who had appeared in the room behind Roscuro and was listening mis-read the room entirely.  She angrily stepped out into the room Roscuro was now standing in and demanded to be taken to the guard's superior immediately [she pulled a Karen].  This raised tension immediately.

As the Grey Maiden commander was approaching from a room further back, Marativy and Zitch stepped out of another arrival room into the room the commander was walking through.  The commander called out that it was an ambush and ordered the Grey Maidens to attack!

Roscuro attempted to be diplomatic and stop the fight before it started, but no one was listening [I rolled a total of 5 on the check].  While the fighting started around him and spells started flying, Roscuro held his ground and made a last ditch attempt to stop the fight but it was too little too late [and my roll was a 4 this time].  The Grey Maidens ignored Roscuro and moved to attack Swamprover, who had finally teleported in and joined the fight whole-heartedly.  The Grey Maiden hit and nearly dropped Swamprover, which was when Roscuro gave up on diplomacy and decided to beat some sense into them with his fists.

The Ratpack quickly dropped the Grey Maiden guards, leaving only their very capable commander.  They focused on her and wore her down until, near death, she threw down her sword and said, “Make it quick.”

The fighting paused and Hrefna [finally reading the room correctly] diplomatically spoke to the commander, explaining the adventurers were not servants of Sorshen and in fact sought to stop her.  A small flicker of hope appeared in the eyes of the commander.  “I am Oriana, and if you will let me, I will fight at your side.”

End of Session


Rat Whispers

[So my winter holiday was consumed by family and friends.  We planned on spending two days at a friends to watch Marvel shows, but one had a work-related Covid scare.  By the time they were cleared, it was New Years and the days I had set aside for writing were used watching Wandavision, Loki, and the Black Widow movie (which I missed in theaters).  Happy to have done those things, but just when I had time to sit and write, I had to go back to work.  I chose to spend my free time wrapping up Draft D edits and re-writes to Book I of my Adventures in the Green RPG rules.  Now I’m doing this.  Sorry for the delay.]


Ratpack

Book 1:

Session 01 – Start

Session 32 – Conclusion


Book 2:

Session 1

Session 10

Session 20

Session 30

Session 40

Session 41


Session 43



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