[Day 40 and 41 – Wasps and recovery]
[This game uses the Pathfinder 1E roleplaying game. Game sessions happen once a week. This session happened January 16, 2023.]
[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 9th level Ninja
Zitch Grimreaper – male ratfolk 9th level Witch with a donkey rat (capybara) familiar
Roscuro – male ratfolk 9th level Monk
Swamprover – female grippli 9th level Wizard
Winston – male ratfolk 9th level Gunslinger
Via Roll20
Templeton von Trapp – male ratfolk 9th level Summoner (Synthesist)
NPCs
Gridik Stormstride – male blue kobold 7th level Wizard (Invoker)
Hrefna – female changeling 7th level Omdura
Ariphi – female tiefling 7th level Rogue
Autumn
Day 40 (continued)
Facing two swarms of fire-proof [or at least, very fire resistant] wasps, the Ratpack planned on withdrawing and locking the swarms inside the workshop room. Winston stepped to the side of the door, ready to push it closed as soon as Marativy and Roscuro exited the workshop room. Unfortunately, the swarms were quick and fiendishly alert. The swarm by the door flowed into the orrery, stinging several members of the Ratpack. Roscuro focused his ki, grabbed the tattered body of the halfling by the ankle and ran for it, dragging the body out of the workshop room and across the orrery, yelling for the rest of the Ratpack to retreat. Rather than pursue Roscuro, the second swarm stayed where it was, attacking Marativy. Templeton held his action while Swamprover stepped out of the swarm and cast Snowball at it to zero effect [the individual wasps are small enough that only area effect attacks do damage to the swarm]. Ariphi opened the door from the orrery to the corridor beyond and fled into the corridor. Not having the movement to make it across the workshop and then across the orrery, Marativy instead made use of the second door in the workshop room, opening it, rolling through and kicking it shut in one fluid motion. Zitch stepped adjacent to Swamprover and Templeton and cast Dimension Door, teleporting the three of them back to the questioning cube room at the entrance to the dungeon. Gridik moved 10 feet north to the doorway out of the orrery and cast Lighting Bolt down the center of both the orrery and the workshop room, burning through both swarms. The closer swarm say the attack coming and avoided most of it [made its Reflex saving throw] but the swarm in the workshop took the full brunt of the attack [it failed its saving throw]. Winston, waiting for this moment, slammed the door to the workshop closed, cutting off the second swarm from the Ratpack.
Winston then turned and bolted out of the orrery, into the corridor beyond. The remaining wasp swarm moved directly to Gridik, the buzzing of the thousands of wings sounding menacing and angrier than earlier. Gridik was stung multiple times, the poison sapping the mobility of his limbs [it did hit point damage AND Dexterity damage]. Roscuro fled the orrery, yelling at Gridik to get out. Ariphi stepped out of the room and waited to close the door. Marativy, now in a side passage, followed it, hoping to find a way to rejoin the rest of the group. Gridik staggered out of the swarm and the orrery, turning in the corridor to force his fingers to move and cast another Lightning Bolt at the swarm, scoring a strong hit [32 points of damage on a roll of 7d6+3]. Ariphi, waiting for Gridik’s exit, closed the door to the orrery as Gridik slumped to the floor, his limbs stiff from the poison in his system. Winston and Marativy each felt similar effects, having been poisoned from the wasp stings.
The side passage Marativy was in led back to the second round room with the short ziggurat in it. From there she was able to rejoin the rest of the group in the corridor. Winston applied his healing knowledge to assist Gridik in resisting the poison, but the poison was pernicious [he gave Gridik a bonus to his next save, which Gridik made, but the poison required two consecutive saves to end early and Gridik failed to make a second save]. Zitch used the wand of Lesser Restoration multiple times while Hrefna cast Lesser Restoration on Gridik to help the small kobold ride out the effects of the poison. [Gridik didn’t start with a high Dexterity and was down to a Dexterity of 3, twice, as the poison burned through his system.]
Once the poison was done, Zitch used the wand of Lesser Restoration a couple more times to mostly unlock Gridik’s muscles from the knots the poison tied them into. The kobold wizard would be sore for quite a while. During this time Roscuro identified the dead halfling as Perotus, on of the four adventurers the Ratpack had been asked to retrieve. He and Marativy conferred about the human body and were fairly certain that it was the body of Hassari, the female human monk, another of the missing adventurers. They decided that body wouldn’t likely get any dead-er, so they would retrieve it later, when the Ratpack was ready to deal with the wasp swarms.
The Ratpack decided they had had enough for this expedition and it was time to return to the surface. Roscuro brought up the point that the crying from the room opposite of the chain fiends might be another missing adventurer and they should probably at least take a peek inside that room. The rest agreed.
For safety, most of the Ratpack retreated to the sloped passage back to the surface. Roscuro stood at the door to the “crying room” while Marativy unlocked the door. Roscuro opened the door to look inside and found a large feathered serpent bound inside a seven-pointed magic circle inscribed on the floor. The feathered serpent was the source of the crying and was babbling about a master making a promise. Roscuro called back to the rest of the Ratpack what he and Marativy could see. He asked Zitch and Gridik to come have a look and identify what was going on.
Zitch and Gridik went and took a look in the room, they identified it as a couatl, which are very lawful and good aligned and known to be interested in helping young civilizations. It being in a Runelord dungeon was very unusual and suggested it was probably trapped here since Earthfall. It might be mad.
Not certain what to do with this, the Ratpack considered leaving it until the next day. Roscuro asked Templeton if he could summon something that might be able to talk with the couatl. Gridik cast Detect Magic and peeked into the couatl room. The circle on the floor was a very strong binding spell with some mind altering spells included. The mind-altering spells would explain the babbling. While Gridik was looking, the couatl espied him and started addressing Gridik as Master and begging to be freed. This confused everyone.
Swamprover walked into the room to see what she could see, which angered the couatl. It cast a Scorching Ray at Swamprover and she quickly retreated. Eventually the group worked out that the grey cloak of resistance that Gridik was wearing, picked up from the chain fiend room, was the thing that caused the couatl to identify him as “Master”. Templeton outside of his eidolon while wearing the other cloak and maybe Roscuro in the grey monk robes might also trigger the same effect.
Gridik went into the room to study the binding circle more. Looking at it in detail and with some prompting from the couatl, Gridik decided that using one of the shards would disrupt the binding and free the couatl. He discussed this with Roscuro, asking to borrow the Shard of Lust. Roscuro had concerns about freeing a mad couatl, but Gridik convinced him the madness was caused by the spells on the couatl, not an inherent mental instability. Roscuro handed over the shard.
Gridik went back into the room with the shard and touched it to the seven sin runes spaced around the binding circle. Nothing happened. The couatl “reminded Master” he needed to say the words as well and told Gridik what the words were. Gridik retouched the runes and said the words, which immediately dropped all the spells on the couatl!
After a quick stretch [it had been bound inside a slightly too small space for 7000 years], the couatl introduced itself to Gridik as Tsikinahl. Tsikinahl thanked Gridik for freeing him and stated he owed Gridik a great debt. Tsikinahl then gave Gridik four of his own feathers before departing. [If used when casting the spell Planar Ally, the spell summons Tsikinahl specifically.]
Very pleased with himself, Gridik handed the Shard of Lust back to Roscuro and secured the four feathers in his writing kit.
One Hour Later
The Ratpack returned to the Restricted Library under the Therassic Spire and were met by Elaneiros. Roscuro turned over the body of Perotus and the Ratpack was paid the 1000 gp bounty. The group left the Spire and returned to the Grange in Downmarket to rest and recover.
Day 41
Using a side room at the Grange, The Ratpack retrieved Hrefna’s body from the body bag of holding it was stored in and laid it out on the floor. Zitch cast Blood Money to meet the requirements for casting Reincarnation on Hrefna’s body. Over the next hour a new body formed next to Hrefna’s original, nearly identical in form [the GM put together a custom reincarnation table for non-human subjects and Hrefna’s player rolled a 01 – same race]. When the spell completed, the new body suddenly inhaled and animated. Zitch cast Restoration on Hrefna’s new body, using Blood Money to pay for the missing diamond dust. Hrefna was able to cast Restoration on herself after that in order to remove the last of the negative effects of the Reincarnation spell [causes recipient to receive two permanent negative levels].
With Hrefna alive again, Zitch cast Restoration on Marativy to remove the poison effects she still suffered from the wasp stings. He then cast Lesser Restoration on Gridik to remove the last of the poison’s effects from the kobold. With the others restored, Zitch and Hrefna then cast a series of Lesser Restorations on Zitch to heal all the [Strength] damage he had done to himself using Blood Money to cover missing spell reagents [mostly diamond dust].
Winston was interested in a belt of incredible dexterity [+2] and had money stored. He paid Gridik cost + 500gp to craft it for him, which took the rest of the day to do.
End of Session
Rat Whispers
[The wasp swarms had a template on them, making them much more dangerous than normal and intelligent. As a group, we hate swarm monsters as they are some of the hardest creatures to damage in Pathfinder. We suspected that the human body still in the workshop room is also infested with a wasp swarm, meaning we would have to face at least two swarms to retrieve the body, possibly all three. Events in Session 23 gave us a better opportunity, but you will need to wait until I get there in my posting.]
[It was really a close thing with Gridik. If we had not purchased a wand of lesser restoration early in our adventures, he would have died from the poison as I could not roll two consecutive Fortitude saves at all.]
[Hrefna rolling the only roll that returned her in her original form was very unexpected and we were all just a little disappointed we didn’t get to see what else was on the new table.]
[Blood Money should have been named something else. Really.]
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 20
Next Session: Session 22
