[✨Merry Christmas to those who celebrate and Happy Holidays to everyone else who has a holiday at this time of year! I got this typed up and ready to post in time, so I decided to not delay it any further. ✨]
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[Day 22 and 23 – Working and exploring the Spire]
[This game uses the Pathfinder 1E roleplaying game. Game sessions happen once a week. This session happened October 10, 2022.]
[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
Marativy – female ratfolk 8th level Ninja
Zitch Grimreaper – male ratfolk 8th level Witch with a donkey rat (capybara) familiar
Roscuro – male ratfolk 8th level Monk
Swamprover – female grippli 7th level Wizard
Hrefna – female changeling 7th level Omdura
Via Roll20
Templeton von Trapp – male ratfolk 8th level Summoner (Synthesist)
NPCs
Gridik Stormstride – male blue kobold 6th level Wizard (Invoker)
Ariphi – female tiefling 7th 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 22 (continued)
Morning
Gridik and Swamprover [secretly watched over by Marativy] left Haverston’s Grange [the inn the Ratpack was staying at] in southern Downmarket to go to the Therassic Spire, a building that housed a group of wizards and sages specializing in things Thassilonian. The went north to the gap that was The Warrens and cut over to Bis at Quarrimac’s Curatives. In Bis they went south along the central road to Cavalcade. Once in Cavalcade they followed streets and bridges to the border between Cavalcade and Highside Stacks.
The Therassic Spire was tall with no windows. Steps led up to a front door that had a sign in Draconic on it. The sign read “Closed until further notice.” The door was locked.
Marativy could see that Gridik and Swamprover were stumped by the locked door and stepped up next to them, offering to open the door. Gridik nearly jumped out of his pants as he had no idea Marativy had been following them. Once his heart calmed some, he said, “Yes, please.” Marativy easily picked the lock and opened the door for Gridik and Swamprover. She then faded back into the shadows.
Gridik and Swamprover entered the Spire. The foyer was a large room with stairs leading up on the left and right sides. Ahead were two open doorways, each leading to a different room. Not seeing anyone, Gridik called out a hello and announced himself. After a few moments a clearly puzzled half-orc woman stepped out of one of the side rooms. She stated that the Spire was closed as everyone was busy doing research. Gridik used this as an opening and convinced the woman, introduced as Koif’a, that the Spire clearly needed additional help and he and Swamprover were experienced researchers from Magnimar so when can they start work. Koif’a stated that they should come back in a week if they wanted employment, giving them a signed note stating the same. Gridik thanked her and stated they would return the following day to start work. Then Gridik and Swamprover left, leaving behind a bemused Koif’a.
Outside, Gridik and Swamprover discussed what to do next, settling on going over to the Tarheel Promenade to look for some history books about Kaer Maga. After several hours of searching, Gridik finally purchased a copy of Archeological History of Kaer Maga (in Draconic) for 20 gp – quite a bargain. The two then returned to the Grange in Downmarket.
Afternoon
Having toured the inner districts of Kaer Maga and before he dismissed Gav for the day, Roscuro asked Gav about the Ardoc family and if they sold their constructs. Gav informed Roscuro that the Ardoc family made constructs on request only. Wealthy families in the city liked to own them as status symbols. Roscuro thanked Gav and told Gav to check back in the morning to see if the Ratpack needed his services.
Dinner
The Ratpack gathered from their various doings and shared what information they had learned with each other. After listening to the information Gav had supplied, Marativy suggested that instead of grabbing a construct from the Ardoc family directly, one could be taken from a wealthy but less politically connected family in the city. Alternately, maybe one of the group might do a service for the Ardocs in exchange for a construct. This seemed like a good path and Hrefna volunteered to go check out the Ardoc factory the next day.
Day 23
Morning
Hrefna and Templeton headed over to the Ardoc factory to seek employment opportunities [or an opportunity to grab a construct before it was activated]. Hrefna ended up talking to some of the employees and was sent to the foreman, where she made her pitch to get hired. [My notes don’t say they got hired, so I don’t think it worked.]
At the same time, Gridik and Swamprover with Marativy watching over them, returned back to the Spire. After Marativy picked the lock again and let them in, Gridik and Swamprover went to the side room Koif’a had emerged from the previous day, looking for the half-orc. The room turned out to be a study with several books in Ignan on the table but no Koif'a. [Neither reads Ignan, but Gridik has a good eye for scripts and identified the language it was written in. He also made a note to himself to learn Ignan.]
While Gridik and Swamprover were looking for someone to speak with, Marativy quietly made her way up the stairs on the left to start exploring the Spire. In an alcove to the side of the top of the stairs she found an airshaft that went all the way up the Spire. She climbed up to the next floor [the 3rd]. On that floor Marativy saw a gnome reading a book while walking directly towards the airshaft. Marativy turned invisible [Ninja powers] and did her best to stay out of the way of the distracted gnome. The gnome turned in front of the shaft and walked down a side passage.
Exploring the floor some, Marativy discovered a room with no people in it. Scattered across some tables were a variety of books in languages she could not read. She also found a bag off to one side. Opening it to check its contents, she found a ring, a pouch of coins, and a change of clothes. She took the coins but left the ring as it was too identifiable.
Back on the first floor, after looking around and finding no one, Gridik and Swamprover were about to go up the stairs on the left to explore when an elf descended the stairs on the right, stating “You should not be here.”
Gridik convinced the elf that they had been hired by Koif’a to assist (providing the note as evidence) and then asked to be put to work. The elf took the note and told Gridik to wait there before going back up the stairs on the right, possibly to find Koif’a. Swamprover took the opportunity to go up the left stairs and explore while Gridik waited. Gridik was fine with this plan.
At the top of the stairs, Swamprover found the same air shaft Marativy had discovered. However, as she was preparing to climb up the walls, she noticed a stone platform descending down the shaft at speed! She immediately hopped out of the shaft and hid a couple steps down the stairs [not the best cover, but better than nothing].
The stone platform came to a soft landing and a dark elf stepped off it and turned away from Swamprover, descending a different flight of stairs [both sets of stairs on the first floor curved up and met at this landing on the second floor]. Swamprover realized it wasn’t an air shaft but a magical lift!
The dark elf descended the stairs to the entry foyer and found Gridik waiting there. He immediately told Gridik to leave, but Gridik explained he could not as he was a new hire and an elf had taken his note of employment. The dark elf shrugged and escorted Gridik to the other side room, which contained several study carrels. The dark elf parked Gridik in one of the carrels and told him to wait there. The chair and table resized themselves to fit a kobold, so Gridik was more than happy to wait. [Hurry-up-and-wait is also common amongst academics.] The dark elf then went back up the stairs on the right of the foyer.
At the same time, Swamprover was experimenting with getting the lift to work. It gust seemed to require some magic talent and concentration to control and she got it to ascend fairly quickly. When she stopped at a floor Koif’a was standing right there looking at her. The grippli squeaked out that the elf had taken their note. Koif’a stepped onto the lift and made it descend, escorting Swamprover back to the ground floor. She walked Swamprover over to the room with the study carrels, finding Gridik already sitting in one.
Gridik said the dark elf had told him to wait here for work to do. Koif’a sighed. She parked Swamprover in a different carrel [which resized to fit her] and brought the two of them work to do, realizing it would take less time and effort to put them to work than to get them to leave the Spire. Later the elf, Farsen, came back and returned the note to Gridik…and also a pile of scrolls to collate data from. Gridik and Swamprover set to work.
Meanwhile, Marativy continued to explore the upper floors of the Spire by way of the “air shaft”. She found rooms with people in them on the upper floors and avoided those floors, eventually reaching the top floor of the tower. The landing here was a decorated short hallway with a red carpet leading to the one door on the opposite wall. Marativy started walking along the carpet but after a few steps the carpet animated and attempted to envelope her. She leapt and twisted clear of the carpet quickly stepping over to the door and standing on bare floor. Marativy scrutinized the door and found it was trapped. Taking some time [and using her magic gloves] she disarmed the magical trap.
Marativy carefully opened the door and looked inside. There was a lavish library on the other side with a seating area and some statues, but it appeared to be empty. She stepped in, quietly closing the door behind her, and looked around.
A voice from above her, full of curiosity, asked, “Who are you?
“No one,” she replied and went invisible.
End of Session
Rat Whispers
[This session ended on a bit of a cliffhanger! We speculated who the voice might belong to, but we didn’t find out until the next session.]
[One bit of rules clarification. Rogues can disarm all traps, including magical traps, but Ninjas are limited to only mechanical traps. Back in Book 2, the Other GM inserted a pair of magic gloves that allow the wearer to disarm magical traps. This was him observing an issue we were running into and fixing it with a magic item rather than us recruiting yet another NPC. He is from the school of play where the players do everything and rarely bring on NPC hirelings. I’m old school and have no issues with us having plenty of NPCs to cover our weaknesses. Both schools are valid, so I have no issues with his solution.]
Ratpack
Book 1: Shards of Sin Landing Page – Links to all Book 1 sessions
Book 2: Curse of the Lady’s Light Landing Page – Links to all Book 2 sessions
Book 3: The Asylum Stone Landing Page – Links to all Book 3 sessions
Last Session: Session 8
Next Session: Session 10
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