[Day 37 continues. Conversations, an opportunity, and setup for rescue.]
[This game uses the Pathfinder 1E roleplaying game. Game sessions happen once a week. This session happened April 26, 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 5th level Monk
Swamprover – female grippli 4th level Wizard
Marativy – female ratfolk 5th level Ninja
Zitch Grimreaper – male ratfolk 5th level Witch with a donkey rat (capybara) familiar
Templeton von Trapp – male ratfolk 5th level Summoner (Synthesist)
Winston – male ratfolk 5th level Gunslinger
NPCs
Auto – a clockwork servant fixated on Winston
Gridik Stormstride – male blue kobold 3rd level Wizard (Invoker)
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 37, Expedition Day 7
Afternoon
An hour into the three hour walk back to camp from the series of caves under the Lady’s Light, the human woman rescued by the Ratpack awoke. She was draped over the back of Templeton’s foo dog form and the group was traveling through the narrow cave tunnels under the lagoon, so it was pitch black for her. Her first words were, “Oh rats.”
This caught Roscuro’s attention. He was walking at the back of the line of adventurers in case the woman woke up and tried to do something unwise, like run back into the dungeon. As ratfolk have darkvision [as do grippli and kobolds], it had not occurred to Roscuro that she would be blind and not likely to flee.
Roscuro greeted the woman and told her she probably wasn’t a prisoner but he had some questions for her. Roscuro was indirect with much of his part of the conversation, not wanting to tip his hand before learning whether the human was a foe or not. This made the early part of the conversation slightly frustrating for both sides.
The human’s name was Helanda and she was part of the Queen’s Guard that had traveled here from Korvosa. They were looking for items of power they could use to reclaim the throne for their queen, who apparently been overthrown [see Curse of the Crimson Throne adventure path from Paizo]. They encountered a woman claiming to be the Runelord of Lust, but Helanda was not entirely convinced. Shortly after voicing her concerns, she woke up tied to the hag’s stake and was tortured as a means of slow execution. Helanda was not surprised that the Ratpack had found the bodies of three others as anyone who questioned “Sorshen” tended to quietly disappear.
Somewhat reassured after the ratfolk lit a torch and allowed her to walk under her own power, Helanda related more of her story. Her group arrived at the Lady’s Light weeks ago, but she was not certain how many as they were underground for most of that time. They used a cave entrance near the boggard camp to gain entrance to the tunnels that led to the dungeon entrance. She was somewhat nonplussed about the fact that the Ratpack had fought and destroyed the guardian statues at the dungeon entrance.
Helanda’s group lost two of their numbers fighting the glass golem and she was slightly shocked to hear that the ratfolk had destroyed it rather than use it as a teleportation device. Gnaeus had not yet arrived when they passed the room the Ratpack had found him in. Two rooms past that room, they encountered three incubi. One teleported away while Helanda’s group fought and killed the remaining two incubi. The third incubi returned with “Sorshen”, who killed or charmed the remain group of 40-50 Queen’s Guard by herself. Gnaeus arrived later as the bodyguard of a wizard. “Sorshen” charmed Gnaeus and had him kill the wizard.
Helanda also told the Ratpack that the runelord has to maintain the charm spells on a weekly basis but was lazy about it. The spells on Gnaeus were due to wear off this day and it might be another day or two before the runelord got around to doing so. There was a possibility that the group could convince Gnaeus to leave entirely.
This was an exciting opportunity for the Ratpack, somewhat tempered by their time constraints and low level of available resources, like spells and ki points. On top of which, Swamprover was adamant that the group go back to the boggard village to see if there were anymore troglodytes to rescue.
After a great deal of discussion of options, the ratfolk split the party: Zitch and Templeton would return to the dungeon to speak with Gnaeus and see if he was willing to defect, while Roscuro, Marativy, Winston, and Swamprover would raid the boggard village. Gridik would stay at the camp to subtly add to the security there while Helanda was there. [Roscuro is a bit paranoid at times, but would rather be cautious than betrayed unexpectedly.]
~5:00 PM
The group returned to the camp and had dinner [shared with Helanda]. Templeton flew off with Zitch to return to the dungeon and possibly release Gnaeus. Meanwhile, Roscuro, Marativy, Winston, and Swamprover started walking west to the boggard village to rescue hostages [Swamprover] and kill some boggards [everyone else].
~9:00 PM
Templeton and Zitch arrived at Porn Hall and then took the back passage to the gated room. Gnaeus was there waiting and appeared slightly surprised as he realized that the ratfolk appearing in front of him was not either of the two he had spoken with earlier in the day. When Templeton asked if Gnaeus was willing to leave the employ of the runelord, he stated he was quite ready to leave his captor far behind. He also regretfully told them that the password on the gate changed at the same time the charm spell was supposed to be renewed and he did not know the new password.
Templeton in his foo dog form is very strong. Zitch supplied Templeton with a crowbar to pry open the gate, which Templeton did easily. Gnaeus thanked them and stepped through the gate, ready to leave. He asked the two how they had arrived and Templeton explained he flew, carrying Zitch, but carrying both Zitch and Gnaeus might be an issue. Gnaeus cast Fly upon himself and suggested that Templeton carrying him was unnecessary. The three then left, traveling another three hours to get back to the camp around Midnight. Gnaeus gifted the Ratpack a wand of detect secret doors with twelve charges left for being released.
End of Session
Rat Whispers
[We were back to everyone on Roll20 for a session as my wife (Swamprover’s player) needed to get up extra early the following day. The living room where we play is right outside the master bedroom area, so gaming there while one of us is trying to get to sleep just doesn’t work.]
[We knew the fight at the boggard village would take some time, so we deferred playing it out until the following week. This would also allow the Other GM to set up a larger map on Roll20 as the attacking PCs planned on doing so from range and the original map was too small.]
[We also started having a conversation about what we were going to do once back in town to hopefully speed things up. When the conversation turned to rehiring Gridik or making him a member of the group and providing him a share of any treasure, we discovered that Templeton’s player did not want to share experience or treasure with any NPCs. This started to get heated, so we stopped the conversation, deferring it until later.]
Ratpack
Book 1:
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Book 2:
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