[Day 26 – The Elf Job starts…and then goes sideways]
[This game uses the Pathfinder 1E roleplaying game. Game sessions happen once a week. This session happened November 14, 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 26
Morning
Hrefna cast Commune for some final intelligence before the Ratpack started the mission to free the kidnapped Auger from the rogue member of the Ardoc family.
- Is Leroux currently employed by Elaneiros?: No
- If Marativy uses Major Image from her shard to create an illusion on the grounds of the Ardoc family manor, will it trigger an alarm?: No
- Are there any constructs as part of the security for Augustille in the Attic?: No
- Do the combat bots have See Invisible?: No
- Will Ardoc security follow into Cavalcade?: Yes
- Do any of the Ardoc spy bots have the ability to deal acid damage?: No
- Do any of the Ardoc spy bots have the ability to deal sonic damage?: No
Templeton, Swamprover, and Zitch walked to Cavalcade and spent the morning looking for a discrete place for Swamprover and Zitch to Dimension Door to later during the job. Templeton was there so he would know where to look if things went wrong during the job. They located a roof top that was obscured from the ground with no windows looking at it and spent time familiarizing themselves with it.
Noon
Templeton, Swamprover, and Zitch returned to the Grange in Downmarket where the rest of the Ratpack was ready and stated they had a suitable location to escape to from the Ardoc compound. Satisfied with the answers from the Commune spell and that a safe escape route had been located, the group decided to run the job that afternoon.
The Ratpack ate a light lunch at the Grange and then broke up into small groups to discretely infiltrate into Bis. The concern was to not be seen by the security in Bis as a united group and to keep any bystanders from seeing and remembering a large group of adventurers.
2:00 PM
The individual groups rendezvoused on the roof of the building adjacent to the Ardoc Compound in Bis. Each group had taken efforts to not be followed and the group was confident their presence had not been noticed [yet].
Zitch cast Detect Magic and scanned the roof of the building inside the compound the group would leap to [or be ferried to by Templeton. It had an Alarm spell on it that Ariphi would need to disable.
Marativy cast Major Image using the Shard of Pride in her possession. She created a hollow path for the group to follow covering the roof they were on, across the outer wall of the compound to the roof the group would land on, then up the side of the next building, and finally over the entire roof of the target building that Augustille was being held in. The image created showed the roof area as empty, so as long as the Ratpack was inside the area of the image, no one outside would see them. Marativy had to concentrate to maintain the Major Image, so she stayed on the starting roof where she was covered by the illusion.
Templeton carried Ariphi through the area covered by the illusion and hovered over the landing building. Ariphi dangled under Templeton and disabled the Alarm spell. After that the Ratpack hopped the wall and advanced through the illusion onto the compound and then up on top of the target building.
Roscuro had been banking on there being a hatch of some sort on the roof allowing access to the attic of the building. There was no hatch.
Improvising, Roscuro quietly asked Ariphi to listen to the roof and locate a quiet area for the group to breach the roof. Zitch, looking around at adjacent buildings noticed a harpy on guard duty on the adjacent roof and warned the others. Gridik [using Spellcaster Sneak] cast See Invisibility and peered over the roof edge at the harpy. Resting next to the harpy was an invisible Spy construct, backing the harpy up. Neither appeared to be aware of the Ratpack.
Ariphi found a spot on the roof that seemed to be over a quiet room, but pointed out that the roof was sturdily made and braking through would be noisy. After thinking through a couple of options, Roscuro settled on having Gridik use the wand of acid arrow to etch a trap door into the roof. It took four uses of the wand to etch the square outline in the first layer of the roof. Another four uses deepened the outline. The next use completed the cut on one side of the square. Roscuro and Ariphi used the opening to peer into the room.
The room below was a combination alchemist lab and torture room. Augustille was stretched out on some sort of rack contraption, his abdomen cut and held open and metal instruments of torture set in a small fire pit adjacent to him. He was also alive.
A human male, presumably the alchemist based on his ornate clothing, entered the room while Roscuro and Ariphi watched and started doing things with the alchemy equipment. After a short whispered conversation, the plan was to finish cutting through the roof, Ariphi would keep the roof square from falling and pull it out of the way. Roscuro would then jump into the room and use the Suggestion ability of the Shard of Lust to have the human sit passively for an hour. This seemed like the best bet and was agreed to.
Gridik used his wand to eat through the last three sides of the roof square and Ariphi adroitly caught it and set it aside. Roscuro jumped down into the lab, landing next to the human and made use of the Shard of Lust’s Suggestion ability to “suggest” that the human passively sit on a chair in the corner. This worked.
Swamprover carefully climbed down into the room while Roscuro stuffed Augustille’s innards back inside the troll and removed the clamps holding it open. Roscuro then fed the troll a potion of cure light wounds, which closed up Augustille’s wounds but did nothing for the troll’s delirium [that required a Restoration spell]. Roscuro gestured for Swamprover to take Augustille away using Dimension Door. Swamprover placed one hand on Augustille and then cast the spell. Swamprover disappeared, reappearing on the rooftop she had scouted out that morning.
Augustille was not with her.
[Dimension Door requires any other creatures being transported be willing and Augustille’s delirium prevented that.]
Back in the lab, Roscuro quietly cursed before calling for Ariphi to jump down into the lab. Roscuro had a terrible plan on how to turn Augustille from a person into a thing to be carried and needed the adamantine dagger Ariphi carried to implement it. Roscuro called out a little too loudly and alerted the harpy. [She rolled a natural 20 on her perception roll and The Other GM ruled she was now on alert.] Ariphi easily made the leap down from the roof, landing on some notes on a workbench…which promptly slid out from under her, causing her to fall and knock all the glass alchemy gear on the table onto the floor with a tremendous crash! [Ariphi rolled a 1 on her Acrobatics check to jump down.]
The harpy heard the crash in the lab [the building adjacent to her] and flew out in front of the building to look in through the windows. There she saw Roscuro next to the troll captive and Ariphi sprawled on a suddenly clear work table. The harpy called out an alarm and the Ratpack members up on the roof attacked the harpy.
Inside the lab, a very sheepish Ariphi joined Roscuro over by the troll. Roscuro asked for the adamantine dagger and then attempted to decapitate Augustille. This took longer than expected and Roscuro had to spend several rounds sawing at the troll. Meanwhile Ariphi started picking the locks binding Augustille while the two of them argued which route was the quicker/better.
Outside, the harpy started singing, which entranced Hrefna and Gridik but none of the others [the rest made their WILL save] and moved around to the side of the building so those entranced would fall the farthest. Hrefna stepped right off the side of the building and fell to the ground but Gridik cast Fly so he could move directly to the singing harpy. Templeton took flight and started pursuing the harpy, hoping to get a pounce attack in. The harpy fled while still singing, trying to stay just ahead of Templeton and his claws.
End of Session
Rat Whispers
[There was some discussion with the Other DM about the mechanism for cutting the head off the troll and which part would regenerate. Roscuro would eventually have to use coup d’grace five or six times until the troll ran out of hit points. Next session he ruled that the regeneration would happen with the largest chunk of the troll, which in this case would be the body, not the head. I found this frustrating. If the head was not going to be the point of regeneration, why did I have to go through all of the troll’s hit points to get just the head?]
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 12
Next Session: Session 14 [Not yet typed up]
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