The Winds of Oblivion

[DeathbyFlossing]

Marcellano nods, his his brow furrowed in thought. ”Not a bad idea. Should probably be someone who wasn’t present, with someone who was shadowing them. Anyone who’d recognize Mr. Archelos from the bar stands a chance of remembering the rest of us.”

Spoiler

Show

the Knowledge checks were to try and recall any information that could point to this being a targeted attack at us, or just a coincidence due to some pissed off drunks.

[AlphaLuke]

Kalinda's eyebrows climb. "Bar fight!? I heard nothing of a bar fight, Mister Leornian. I would hope that you did not initiate this barroom brawl." She softens. "But yours is a good idea. We need someone to learn more about what's going on. It's possible that this has to do with your little brawl, but it's also possible that this is coincidental. Archelos tends to, pardon the pun 'ruffle feathers' wherever he drinks." She turns toward the rest of the gathered group.

The rest of the Order officers discuss plans and ideas around a short, round table. Captain Pix sits silently, watching.

"Captain Morales. Masters Leornian and Marcellano had a fairly good idea. We need intelligence. And maybe someone on the inside."

The Captain rubs his beard thoughtfully and then gains a wicked grin. "Who better to gather intelligence than a Diviner? Mister Leornian, please gather your team."

Zeph starts to protest before Marce pipes in, "But we've been made! We'll be recognized."

The Captain nods sagely, "That is a problem."

Pix moves wordlessly to a shelf. Her green eyes and gemstone necklace flare to light as a scroll levitates off the shelf and towards Zeph.

"Ah! Excellent. Thank you, Captain!"

Looking at the label, Zeph can see that this is a scroll of Disguise Other.

"Mister Leornian, please dedicate this spell to your spellbook and use it to glamer your team. I would suggest no more thank a three-man squad. Any more might be conspicuous."

[Pent]

"Ms. Kalinda, if you don't mind, I'd like to review a list of my available crew while I study this scroll into my spellbook. Good preparation makes a good mission, I think. Do you have a brief list you can share with me?"

Spoiler: Spellcraft to copy Disguise Other

Show

(1d20+11)[13]

[DeathbyFlossing]

Marcellano rund the spells he knows through his head. ”I’ve got some spells prepared that would be useful for recon. Also interrogation, the old Charm Person is real reliable there.”

[AlphaLuke]

Kalinda nods and begins to jot notes on a pad before handing the page to Zeph.

Spoiler

Show

Sorry for the late reply. Started my new job this week!

Available crew:
Alessia, Ninja
Gent, Rogue (Knife Thrower)
Mournholdt, Gloomblade Fighter/Hellknight
Percival Kingsblade (First officer Chivalrous) Elf Magus
Stitches-with-bone-and-gut "Stitches" (Healer Chivalrous) Goblin Alchemist

[DeathbyFlossing]

Pursing his lips in thought, Marcellano points out three names in particular. ”I would recommend Stitches, he’s very good at what he does, which is stick the meat back on you after some damn fool - or himself, you piss him off - blows it off.
A sneaky type would come in handy, and as fond as I am of Alessia, I would recommend Gent. You have more experience with him, and as a new crew member, I need to learn to work with the man.

I recommend this Mourneholt fellow for the same reason. We could use a heavy if things go south, and he’s the one I have to get a feel for working with. The rest can be held back to act as reinforcements if things truly go sideways on us.”

[Pent]

Zeph smiles a small smile at Marcellano. "You've recommended 3 of the 4 names. That's a very polite way of saying you don't recommend Mr. Kingsblade."

Zeph hands over the obelisk rubbing, "while I decide and learn this spell, do you mind taking a look at this and telling me what it means to you?"

He deliberates over the list silently. And his indecision tramples over his studies of the new spell. It takes him twice as long to study and spell and make up his mind.

"I agree that Mr. Stiches would be very useful if we fail, but I'd like to prepare for success as much as possible, and i believe Ms. Alessia has skills that compliment our own."

Spoiler: spellcraft again

Show

(1d20+11)[18]

[AlphaLuke]

Marce looks at the rubbing of the carvings from the monolith and instantly his eyes adjust, taking on a far-away quality. He knows this. He's seen this. Hells, he's carved this type of glyph before. It's . . . painfully familiar. Still, it's not so simple as "reading" something like this. Like a piece of artwork, one must study it. Reflect on it. Let one's mind wander and come back with the answers.

Spoiler

Show

Marce, to "analyze" the glyphs you need to make a Spellcraft check, a Linguistics check, and a Will Save. This "reading" will take at least a couple hours to complete and should be done in private.

When Zeph's decision is made, Kalinda nods, giving the orders to Mistress Alessia and giving Zeph the time he needs to learn and copy the new spell into his spellbook.

The evening passes with dim candlelight and gentle winds.

Spoiler

Show

Let me know if there's anything more you want to do before the next morning.

[DeathbyFlossing]

Marcellano’s expression darkens, and he opens his mouth to retort that there are five names, not four, that the only reason he picked any of their people was because he recognized the fact that he needed to get used to working with them and couldn’t rely on his old team anymore, how dare that asanine little windbag impugn his hard-earned friendships-
...only to say nothing, his jaw snapping shut fast enough to make his teeth audibly clack, as Zephyr Leornan casually hands him a nightmare come alive.

Marcellano knows these glyphs. He has carved them himself. He sees similar designs regularly in a particularly juicy nightmare, one where his father tracks him down to drag him home to answer for his treason. The way they are presented, a negative space in a blotch of charcoal, indicates that they are a rubbing of carved versions from elsewhere. The geometry is such that-
No.

No, he knows better than to engage in such thoughts here. He accepts the rubbings wordlessly, and then, after finally managing to tear his eyes off of them, tells Zephyr he will study them and see what he can find.

Spoiler

Show

Will Save (1d20+9)[15], Linguistics (1d20+9)[27],Spellcraft (1d20+15)[18]

[AlphaLuke]

The rubbing bores into Marce in a way few things can. Perhaps a maggot in flesh, but most people are dead when that happens, and so rarely get to describe the feeling. It's raw and wriggling. And strangely invasive.

Marce goes into a haze. He vaguely hears Jimothy speaking to him at one point. Pleading with him. He finds a bottle of rum in the hold. It isn't his. He swallows it all. That helps with the whispers considerably. He finds ink. And parchment. He begins writing, scrawling, in Taldane. It's messy, but it's close to the soul of it. When he awakens in the harsh light of morning, he's upside down in his hammock, clutching both the rubbing and the crumpled and smudged translation. An empty rum bottle lays shattered upon the deck. Several new fellow crewmen give Marce a wide berth. Jimothy sits angrily on his chest. "I hope you're happy. You have no idea how much good will I'm going to need to stoke in the hearts of these men, now. All for a lousy translation."

The translation! Marce had almost forgotten. He squints down at the paper in the dim candlelight of the mid-deck. It's partially smudged and crammed with his own notes, but he's able to make some sense of it.

"[illegible] The Sphinx at the Temple of the Black Star is a gathering point (maybe meeting ground?). When the Stranger rises in the light of the midnight star (this might refer to the Conjunction, where Aucturn crosses in front of the sightline with the North Star), the passage will open and HE will return to his . . . woman? mate? fertile womb? (meaning unclear)."

A rough map drawn by Marce shows other locations. Points where other obelisks might be? Seafoam Islands. Sarkoris. Osirion. Mwangi. Varisia. Other lands? Maybe Tian Xia? Oh hells, is that Sarusan? It even has marking on Arcadia. There's no wan any one vessel could make it to all these locations in the next . . . he counts on his fingers, six months. It'd take a lifetime to investigate all these. He rolls the notes/translation and gets on his feet just as he hears the bell for breakfast.

[DeathbyFlossing]

Marcellano staggers into the mess and, after a brief pause to locate him, plops himself down in front of Zephyr and slams the translation onto the table. ”Here. Here’s your bloody goddamn translation”. Marcellano squeezes his eyes shut in the manner of someone looking at a bright light, and takes several deep breaths. But when he opens his eyes-

His eyes.

Marcellano’s eyes brim to overflowing with more rage and hate and pain and fear than Zephyr knew was possible to contain in a human visage. In fact, for brief moment, Marcellano’s eyes seem altogether not human, because nothing human could hurt so badly, or hate so deeply. Then the moment passes and Marcellano’s visage settles into a more familiar expression of contempt, one that anyone who has ever had an employer would know stems from a deep desire to say, ‘boy, you done screwed up.’”Never, ever, ever spring something like that on me without warning again. For future reference, what you just did, throwing those glyphs in my face without any warning, was akin to throwing a whole basket of pesh in the face of a recovering addict. I am lucky I was able to pull myself out of that state as fast as I did. You ask too many questions to not be fairly new to the order, but if you’ve ever seen the corruptive power of the Enemy firsthand you should have known better than to spring their workings on someone like me.”

Spoiler: To Pent:

Show

I’m sorry if I come off a little harsh here, so to be clear I, the player think your actions were perfectly reasonable, but Marcellano is deeply scarred by this kind of thing and Zeph kinda sorta accidentally jammed his finger right into Marcellano’s most tender emotional wound. Marce will get over it.

[AlphaLuke]

After a night of studious learning, copying, and re-copying Zeph finally has the new spell copied into his spellbook. His fingertips are still smudged with ink, but he's confident in his ability to apply the new glammer when needed. Mistress Alessia sits beside both men at breakfast, eating some kind of salmon dish that looks specially prepared for her. "So, gentlemen. Where do we start?"

[DeathbyFlossing]

Marcellano grimaces, his eye twitching rather noticeably”We should probably start at the tavern the incident took place in, they’ll probably have a bounty board, and the staff may know something.”.

[Pent]

Zeph ignores Alessia just for a moment. He stammers off a ineffective apology to Marce. A lot of unfished sentences starting with "I wasn't" "I didn't mean".

it finally ends in a "Thank you" and "I'll make sure the Captain knows your sacrifice for this".



"I have to deliver this to the Captain, then, yes. I agree with Marce. We'll disguise ourselves and start at our only known cause of the incident..."

"Wait..." he interrupts himself. "Did Archie ever comment on the possible source of the bounty? We should ask him first. Maybe he knows something he didn't share with everyone."

Zeph looks around the mess hall for him.

[AlphaLuke]

The Syrinx sulks in a corner of the mess, with a stern and watchful Lictor Mournholdt standing nearby. The Pilot seems extremely hungover and mostly forks at a pile of uneaten granola on his plate. Archie barks back at him as Zeph, Alessia, and Marce approach.

"I'm on my own, bloody ship, you daft kunt! You can let me eat in peace."

Mournholdt doesn't react, but keeps his eyes up and scanning the mess.

[Pent]

Zeph sits down across from him.

"Archie?" Zeph asks in a quieter voice, so as to not make his hangover worse. "Archie I was curious, do you think the bounty on your head is related to our bar fight?"

[AlphaLuke]

Archie winces, despite Zeph's lowered volume.

"Ugh. No. At least, I don't think so. No one died. No one even really got hurt. I think, if anything, the barfight must've alerted some old acquaintances that I was back in town. Never thought they'd go this far, but here we are." He takes a despairing look at his granola and pushes it across the table. "There are a couple people I can think of off the bat who might want my head bad enough to put a price on it." He reaches for a clay cup that looks suspiciously like ale and takes a tentative sip. It seems to settle him.

"Katherine Goldenmorn. Old fling. Katie was running with the Talons back then and didn't take too kindly when I left without saying goodbye. That was eight years ago." Another, longer swig.

"Freyr Blackmaw. He runs most of the underground fights in Almas. Now, seeing as slavery is very illegal here, that mostly means monster bouts. I may have absconded with a few of his prized fighting Worgs a few years back. Maybe a Hippogriff or two . . . " another sip, "hydra egg, But I would have thought he'd have forgotten about that all by now. I mean, how long can one man hold a grudge, really?"

Mournholdt actually rolls his eyes.

"Last one that comes to mind is Silverpalm. Garreth Silverpalm is a bookie and creditor, but also occasionally settles gambling debts for other, more discrete clients. I . . . may have outstanding debts with him. Maybe. Not one-hundred percent on that to be honest. Bit fuzzyheaded when I took out the loans."

[DeathbyFlossing]

Marcellano nods. This is something he knows how to deal with. ”Ok, that simplifies things. We just track down these three, kill them, and if that doesn’t solve the problem then-” suddenly a very loud squeal emerges from Marcellano’s pocket, and Jimothy Prickles rockets out, shimmies up Marce’s chest, and latches onto his face so he can look Marce dead in the eye. Everyone able to see it is rather disturbed to know that a hedgehog’s face can make an expression that scary-looking. Marcellano works a jaw a couple of times as he goes over what he just said in his head to see what set Jimothy off... they have a security problem, he suggested they eliminate the assumed threat, and... and...

The assumed threat. They had no way of knowing whether any of the individuals mentioned where even aware that the Apparition in Time was present, let alone that Archie still served on it, let alone that Archie was here. It fit the evidence but as his father often said, ‘you know what happens when you assume, boy - you get another round with the thought drinkers.’

...Marce’s father was a real a-hole.

Returning his thoughts to the subject at hand, Marcellano clears his throat and continues. “Right, thank you, Jimothy, what I meant, was that we should investigate which if any of these individuals are involved in the Plot against Mr. Archelos, and then track down only the responsible parties and k-deal with them.” Marcellano hastily corrects himself after the gimlet eye Jimothy’s giving him somehow gets even sharper.

[Pent]

"We'll follow the trail, then decide if murder is necessary." Zeph says. "It may lead to one of the three, it may lead further into something deeper and darker than we'd expect at first glance."

"Wait, Archie... I think I'd have a hard time naming three people that would put a bounty on my head. is it a coincidence that all three of the people that want you dead that are in this city?" Zeph asks.

[AlphaLuke]

Archie scratches the back of his head and actually looks embarrassed. "This city . . . These are the three people who might want to kill me in Almas."

Lictor Mournholdt growls. "There's a reason we don't make port in Daggerfall anymore. Or Magnimar. Or Ilizmagorti. Or -"

"Yes, they get the point, Mournholdt. Thank you," Archie cuts in. "What can I say? I make fast friends and faster enemies. I also have friends in cities all over the blasted planet, but those tend to be forgotten rather quickly, don't they!"

[Pent]

Zeph shakes his head in incredulity. "I can't imagine that many people wanting to put a bounty on my head. Could you Ma-" Zeph looks at Marce, hesitates, then looks at Alessia. "Alessia?"

[AlphaLuke]

Alessia's poker face could be made of granite. Iron even. After a silence of at least five seconds, Zeph sees movement. But it's not from his Catfolk Boatswain. It's from Mournholdt. The normally stoic Hellknight actually cracks a very small smile at the corner of his mouth.

"I think we've lost sight of the task at hand," Alessia barks, breaking the silence. "Thank you, Archie. We'll follow up on those leads after investigating the sight of the altercation from yesterday."

[Pent]

"Yes, right. Um. Thank you Archie. I have an errand to run with the Captain, and, barring any new, more pressing missions, we'll embark afterwards."

[AlphaLuke]

After finding and bringing the translated rubbing to the Captain, Zeph sees the man's eyes darken. He nods before handing the the translation back. "Well done, Misters Leornian, Ghalmont. You've provided key further intelligence on the Conjunction. It only hammers home our need to get to Sarkoris as soon as possible. We need our map to the Temple. I'll relay this information to the other Captains and the Oracle herself. I'll keep you apprised of any change in mission parameters after we've had the chance to view the new data."

[DeathbyFlossing]

Marcellano purses his lips in -very carefully directed- thought. Jimothy, is the Conjunction one of the things on the list of things I’ve trained myself not to think about?”

Spoiler

Show

basically fishing for non-spoilers exposition on what the Conjunction is. It sounds like the kind of thing that would Marcellano would know all about, but also the kind of thing he’s trying very hard to distance himself from. I’ve decided that one of the ways Marcellano deals with the forbidden knowledge in his head is by using a memory taught to him by Jimothy to just carefully not think about it. It’s not something that works on normal stuff, so it won’t let you fool a mind reader, but it will let you quarantine forbidden knowledge in your head as long as you don’t draw on it - like Marce did. when he did the translation.

[AlphaLuke]

Jimothy nods.

"The Stranger, Aucturn. Its Conjunction with Golarion is this year. Six months, two days, and -"

"ten hours and thirty-three seconds." The Captain finishes, calmly turning away from the conversation and lighting his pipe.

Jimothy nods swiftly. "It's the time when the Dreaming Dark is most powerful on your world. It's something your father spoke about frequently."

"The Temple of the Black Star. The Stranger breathes upon our neck. Our Lord is Risen." The Captain says, almost to no one.

"The Temple of the Black Star" Jimothy muses. "Your father spoke of that too. He mentioned it when referring to . . . something in a book? Hold on a moment." He looks like he's going through a filing cabinet full of viscera. It's an unsettling image and presumably an even more unsettling action. "The Star and Crosier, by Herman Gant. 'Each of our Eternal Lords maintains a primary seat of power in our world, that we might be ready for their return and make the world pleasing for them.' Yada yada yada, some more mad raving about how we should murder people to make them more 'pure' AH! Here is it. ' . . . The Black Pharaoh, the Faceless Sphinx, the Haunter of the Dark has found his home in the burning sands of northern Garund, where he is to be enthroned in his obsidian temple under a Black Star.'"

The Captain drops his pipe to the deck, sending burning ebers skittering across the floor.

Turning back to Jimothy and Marce, his eyes look pained. "The Black Pharaoh. They mean to bring Nyarlathotep to this world." The word strains reality when the Captain speaks it. "I apologize, but the name had to be said. We now know the true severity of our mission. This being has prepared countless world for consumption and apocalypse by the Great Old Ones. I've seen it. Now it means to prepare Golarion. We must stop it."

[Pent]

Zeph, without a word, turns out the door.

He rushes to his bunk, rummages through his belongings, leaving them haphazard on the floor after he's found what he's looking for. Next he goes to the navigations station, and takes out several maps too many, determined to grab all of the maps that have a large enough scope.

He's puffing slightly as he returns, rolled up maps threatening to fall out of his arms.

He lays each one out one by one on the Captain's table, then finds one he's looking for.

He takes out his compass and takes a reading. He double checks it, triple checks, then marks a line across the map in the direction the compass is facing.

He sets the compass down on the table, next to the map, and steps back. Letting the Captain and Jimothy examine and comment.

[DeathbyFlossing]

Marcellano studies the map, the urgency of the situation causing him to bring his full intellect to bear on the problem.

Spoiler

Show

Knowledge (dungeoneering) (1d20+12)[21]

Knowledge (Engineering) (1d20+6)[12]

Knowledge (arcana) (1d20+15)[19]

Knowledge (Geography) (1d20+6)[8]

Knowledge (History) (1d20+9)[23]

Knowledge (Local) (1d20+6)[18]

Knowledge (Nature) (1d20+9)[27]

Knowledge (Nobility) (1d20+6)[11]

Knowledge (The Planes) (1d20+14)[31]

Knowledge (religion) (1d20+6)[23]

Perception (1d20+6)[23]

Linguistics (1d20+9)[15]

Spellcraft (1d20+15)[34]

[DeathbyFlossing]

Spoiler: Inspiration

Show

spend 1 point of Inspiration from Amatuer Investigator on Geography, Nobility, Linguistics, and Engineering.

(1d6)[6], (1d6)[1], (1d6)[4], (1d6)[4]

[Pent]

"Sorry," Zeph says meekly. "Now that we know that the entity that is being summoned is ...Nyr..., I wanted to map out the tradewinds to increase our speed to Sarkoris and then finding a countercyclical wind back to Garund".


"I will clean up the messes I made in my haste, and we will be off to investigate this bounty on our crewman. If there's nothing else, Captain?"