Pathfinder: In Hell's Bright Shadow : Calling All Girls
Ayva OoC: Poor Terzo, all these women and he has no chance with any of them.
Terzo OoC: Believe me, I do not actually consider that a problem.
Civilla OoC: I should hope so, you’re my tutor.
Terzo OoC: And that’s just ONE reason.
And Ayva does have a point - between the party, most of the NPCs that are important enough to name, and Thrune’s choice of trusted minions, it seems the script for any future movies about events in Kintargo will easily pass the Bechdel Test. Unless we’re talking about Thrune anyway, but nobody cares what he has between his legs unless it’s an opportunity to remove it with something rusty.
Negotiating the Red Jills is going to be dicey, since they basically count anybody from the Basic Character Races as The Enemy. And Rajira is the only one that is clearly outside their broad definition of ‘human’, and only if she doesn’t try to hide her reptilian heritage.
Civilla: The thing is, Thrune’s agents might actually follow the rules of hospitality and parley if we were having a meeting like this - they’re Evil, but Lawful Evil. But the Jills are probably Chaotic.
Rajira: I was going to say ‘let’s wing it’, but that might offend the Strix.
Civilla: So no triggering language.
Ayva: And nothing about ‘plans being hatched’.
Civilla: You have to be careful about ear jokes around elves too - although given that of the usual races it’s humans that have the weird round ears, that’s kinda strange.
Ayva: I was going to say ‘don’t get cocky’ but there’s the bird language again.
It’s actually Rajira’s suggestion that we don’t meet at the Red Jills’ hideout, in case of Property Damage Escalating To Arson, and the gang agrees.
Rajira: Good evening - I believe we have important matters to discuss.
Scarplume the Strix: Ah yes, the Ghosts of Kintargo.
Apparently our reputation is already spreading.
Scarplume: What makes you think you can change the way the Jills do business?
Rajira: I don’t believe I can - but I believe I can give you a reason to change yourselves.
Rajira: You are a person of power and influence
Scarplume: Power that was hard-won - and you are offering…?
Rajira: An opportunity.
Rajira is persuasive enough, with the eventual intention of making Kintargo a city that won’t look down on the Tieflings simply for being born the way they are.
Rajira: Thrune has drastically under-estimated the power of this city - and its power is the spirit of the people.
Scarplume’s demand is that if we do manage to take over the city, that the Tieflings be treated with full equality and respect.
Rajira: I already do.
Terzo: Liberty! Egality! Fraternity!
Scarplume: I will take you at your word then - but if I hear one whisper that your enterprise is failing, this will not be the last you hear from me.
At least they've agreed to direct their depredations against the occupation, instead of the citizens. Civilla and Rajira are privately skeptical, and after we leave, discuss the likelihood that we’re going to have to eliminate the Jills anyway.
Terzo: Well, that went well.
Civilla: How exactly do you think that went well?
Terzo: They agreed that Tieflings need to be treated with full equality, and that Thrune’s forces are the actual enemy here. I think we have a lot in common.
Civilla: Well, we’ll hold off for now and see how it plays out.
Ayva: At least we can say we tried.
Rexus has good news too - he’s finally finished his translation of the documents we found under the old Livery. A lot of it is tactical advice for defending the city. Some deals with the Secret Order of Archivists, that Rexus’ mother worked for before she died - or rather, before Rexus thought her dead, since he now thinks she may have made it to a previously unsuspected safehouse beneath Hocum’s Phantasmagorium, a tourist-trap museum that’s been closed for well over a decade. In fact there’s a key to the building among the stuff we found.
Terzo: I’m surprised the building hasn’t been repurposed.
Civilla: You’re right - that is suspicious.
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/gravityfalls/images/1/14/S2e3_Mystery_Shack_new.png/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/1000?cb=20140812231800
Unfortunately, there’s a bunch of Asmodean priests and zombies doing something inside the building, when one of our rebellion cells does some reconnoitering on our behalf.
Terzo: It would appear they thought the building being empty this long was suspicious too.
Rajira: Or they just want to take advantage of it.
Terzo OoC: Maybe they want to open a Starbucks.
Ayva OoC: ‘Local Starbucks Burns Down - Meanwhile Local Cafe Owner Does Roaring Business’
GM: Hell’s Rebels : The True Story Of The Kintargo Coffee Wars
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/808767700515028992/909068946462900264/tumblr_inline_o8ico2kVcn1qao8br_1280.png
Ayva OoC: The People Magazine idea for our printing press has gone through the roof. ‘What do we print in our first issue?’ ‘Well, we didn’t get a second…’
We wait until some of the Asmodean priests swap with a shift change, and jump them. Unfortunately, Rajira botches the strike, and botches the follow-up as well. Fortunately Terzo casts Sleep on the one that didn’t turn invisible and run off.
Terzo: *expressively gestures* Well, what do we do now?
Civilla: We proceed at speed - you could stand to lose a few pounds.
The invisible one is probably going to lose a few pounds too, when Civilla’s Celestial Hyena catches up with her. At least she isn’t going to alert everybody else in the building. Unfortunately, the exhibits in the Fantasmagorium didn’t include animated skunk ape skeletons - the ones that attack us are new. Rexus, who insisted on coming with us, gets himself badly mauled.
Civilla: He shouldn’t be here anyway.
Ayva: He needs training - we can afford that now.
Terzo: What, some kind of spray bottle? ‘Don’t Go. Near. The Monsters’ *squirt*
Civilla OoC: Well, at least if he gets killed there’ll be no-one to contest the sale of the estate…
Ayva OoC: But he is basically Mr Exposition
Having dealt with the White Apes of STREWTH!, we press on to one of the marine themed halls. Unfortunately, none of us have Knowledge (Nature), and none of us see a ‘Do Not Tap The Glass’ sign, so we soon regret Terzo’s curiosity about the tanks.
Civilla: Terzo, how have you survived this long in Chelliax?
Terzo: Natural Charm?
Ayva: He’s well pickled, people think he’s a gherkin.
Ayva: I’m beginning to think this building is cursed.
Civilla: Undead in the last room, undead in this one - I think you’re right.
Ayva OoC: I meant the way that since we came in here, all we’re rolling are 1s and 20s.
GM: And not the way round you need.
Ayva: This didn’t happen to us on the stealth missions.
Civilla OoC: In the stealth missions, it was the other people that needed to make rolls, not us.
Ayva: Terzo? Come here.
Terzo: Yes?
Ayva: DON’T TOUCH STUFF IN THE CURSED MUSEUM.
Terzo: I’m beginning to get that impression, yes.
Terzo: I’m not sure what the problem is, I’ve spent decades poking things I probably shouldn’t and I’m hardly likely to stop now. Although they probably wouldn’t appreciate me calling them ‘things’.
Rajira: Since we don’t want a case of crabs, let’s move on.
Ayva: Hey, a case of crabs, covered in butter, what’s the problem?
Rajira: Depends how you get them.
Ayva: Usually by paying for them - how do you get them?
Terzo: …
Ayva: … we’re talking about two different things, aren’t we?
Civilla: Rexus, if you don’t stay at the end of the party, I will ensure you are the end of your line.
The next room was an insectarium - the last person in here clearly didn’t get the memo about not touching stuff in the cursed museum.
Civilla: This place used to be a tourist trap, now it’s a…
Terzo: Death Trap?
We also find out why the Asmodeans are actually here - they’ve been stripping the building of anything showing historical facts the government of Chelliax doesn’t like. F***ing Redactors. If they’re that easily upset, they must have hated the wax museum in the next room - it certainly upset us. Whatever genius decided to set up a waxwork display of Kintargo’s more infamous serial killers REALLY shouldn’t have used the kind of waxwork guaranteed to get up and continue the subject’s career. On the other hand we can certainly blame the Church of Asmodeus for the zombies - the next lot are Rexus’ family.
Happily, we find the Redactors immediately thereafter and can register our complaints in person.
GM: The redactors call out to their commander as you storm the room, but you murdered their commander in cold blood when you first entered the building.
Terzo’s player: annoying, battery in mouse has finally gone flat
Rajira’s player: Why I prefer wired mice - However, getting the drugs to keep them wired is expensive.
Ayva: Rexus is a bit wired at the moment.
Rajira’s player: How did he get my mouse drugs?
Discovering a hidden entrance to deeper parts of the Fantasmogorium is a problem, because somebody might show up to investigate all the screaming and fireworks at any moment, and we’re already battered and exhausted dealing with the stuff in the main building.
Civilla: F*********** - if we don’t look down there now we won’t get a second chance later
Ayva: This better be a treasure room or we’re going home.
It seems to be a whole complex down here - it looks like we’ll have to camp underground for a few hours to rest, and hope the dottari don’t know about the secret stairwell (and don’t have a shift change before then). This proves optimistic, since the Redactors were apparently here to censor the collected histories of the Sacred Order of Archivists, the group Rexus’ parents belonged to. The archivists were using the Fantasmagorium - or at least, the hidden monastery in the basement - as a base of operations.
Terzo: We’ll have to take Rexus’ family down too.
Civilla: So now we’ll have to sleep in the same room as a pile of corpses - greeeeeat.
Ayva: I’m sure there’s plenty of stuff on these bookshelves to distract you.
Ayva’s player: Before we wander into descriptive text can we get some XP?
Apparently there’s a creature composed entirely of books and paper down here.
Ayva: Ok, Civilla, don’t touch any books.
Book Creature: Halt intruders!
Ayva: Okay.
Book Creature: … I didn’t expect that to work.
Apparently whatever this thing is was summoned to guard the hidden library’s books from any intruders, for at least another 12 days. That doesn’t preclude us from having a good stickybeak around, though, as long as we don’t actually touch anything. And it doesn’t stop us finding out that he was summoned by the Asmodeans to protect the Redactors while they go about their business of rewriting recorded history. The Scrivenite isn’t very happy about that. Which is probably why he’s telling us all the rules of his binding.
Ayva: But the Redactors are all-
Civilla: Shushshushshush! Theoretical question for you, what would you do if the Redactors were all dead?
Scrivenite: The ones upstairs are not my purview - I’m bound to protect the ones in the monastery. I don’t suppose any of you can cast Dismissal?
Rajira: Bit high-level for us.
Scrivenite: Darn it. I really don’t want to fight you.
Scrivenite: As long as you don’t enter the room by THAT DOOR *point point, gesture significantly* and don’t touch any of the books in THIS ROOM, *more gesturing* I’m not obliged to attack you.
Civilla: Okay, okay, I can work with this.
Ayva: What if we dress up as Redactors?
Scrivenite: Well I’ll know it’s you, now - you shouldn’t have said anything.
Civilla: I think I can get us past your restrictions with a bit of pedantry. You won’t let anybody through the door, correct? So what if I open the door, but not go through it, cast Rope Trick, have my associates enter the extradimensional space, teleport into the other room myself, and have everybody climb down again?
Scrivenite: As far as I’m concerned that will work.
Civilla: That’s all we need. I believe you’re a creature of Law? Your summoners were insufficiently precise.
The first few rooms down here contain sleeping Redactors, who sleep infinitely deeper as Rajira goes to them one by one.
Terzo: So, those rooms were empty then?
Rajira: They are now.
Terzo: I choose to interpret that positively.
The next one was actually awake when Rajira stabbed him, and tries to make a run for it - and immediately regrets it, since the rest of the party are waiting in the corridor.
GM: The Redactor stops dead - and you recognise him, Civilla.
Redactor: C-cousin???
Civilla: Cousin? You call yourself family and you’ve taken the mark of the Redactors?
Ayva: I take it that we’re not taking him alive?
Civilla: NO.
Ayva: Well then.
Rajira OoC: For one thing he knows too much.
The Redactor IS an Alazario, and the son of the mayor of the Chellish capitol.
Terzo OoC: I’ll hold off on doing anything - Civilla might be annoyed if I set him on fire.
Civilla summons a monster octopus, and stomps forward to snarl for a bit.
GM: He tries to say something but it’s kind of muffled by tentacles.
Civilla: *sigh* Let him speak.
Apparently Civilla’s cousin, Nicolo, is no happier to be here than Civilla is to see him.
Civilla: Then WHY. ARE YOU. HERE.
Ayva: Daddy dearest?
Civilla: Probably. *sigh*
GM: I’ll be quick because he’s bleeding out a HP a round.
Rajira: Two.
Apparently the Mayor has found himself in deep political trouble, and Civilla’s cousin had to join the Redactors to save the family’s reputation, despite the fact that the Alazarios as a whole are very much against destroying written history. Civilla is now regretting that she’s so family focused - mostly because we can’t leave him here alive, because being the Only Survivor would be highly suspicious. And apparently he HAS been preserving what he can.
Ayva: What’s that saying about ‘better pissing out?’
Terzo tries to patch the cousin up before he bleeds out, then we stash him in the Rope Trick dimension for the time being.
Terzo: Stabbed him rather deeply, didn’t you?
Rajira: I WAS trying to kill him.
Terzo: You with the tentacles, hold this limb tighter.
Apparently the success one of Civilla’s more distant kin had in becoming a pirate king, a few years back, inspired another Alazario to become a pirate. Unfortunately she was also a captain in the Chellish Navy, and the Mayor’s sister, and she decided to target Chellish merchant ships. Well, at least we’ll have someone to mail the cousin to.
The next room has been set up to be the ideal kind of battleground for some quite unpleasant devils. It looks like Rajira and the Chthonic Octopus will be on point - they’re certainly sneakier than the rest of us. For one thing the mollusc can detect living people through walls. Unfortunately it can’t tell WHO is on the other side of the wall, so finding Barzillai Thrune’s bodyguard, Nox, down here, is a bit of a shock. Fortunately she’s not wearing her armour, because she’s asleep. Unfortunately, her hellhound is not.
Rajira attacks Nox first, and kills her instantly with poisoned blades.
GM: She failed ALL HER ROLLS. She was supposed to be the BBEG of this chapter! There’s a whole subchapter here about her as a recurring villain!
Civilla OoC: We could always have left her as the Only Survivor :)
Rajira: NEED A LITTLE HELP HERE.
Civilla teleports past all the highly suspicious chains, to try and disable what she suspects is something very close to the Lament Configuration - Chain Devils are the last thing we want showing up. The chains alone are nasty enough.
Civilla OoC: Bags not being the first Cenobite. *fails the check* F***.
The head injury she suffers from a chain lashing out of the cube into her face also knocks out her last hour of short-term memory, which is going to make for some interesting conversations later. But at least Ayva succeeds in making the chains vanish.
Terzo cast Grease before the rest of the Redactor Monks show up.
GM: Why don’t these monks - admittedly Lvl 1 monks - have any points in Acrobatics?
Terzo: Because books can’t fight back.
Redactor-who-isn't-Civilla's-Cousin: Magic-users! Retreat to the Garden!
Terzo: They have a garden down here?
Ayva uses Boneshaker on one of the Redactors, which proves fatal.
Civilla: You grabbed him by the skeleton and shook him like an underpaid nanny!
Ayva: I wasn’t expecting it to actually kill him!
Terzo: I thought that was the plan - unless any more of these are your cousins, Civilla?
Civilla: *still amnesiac* What????
Retreating to the garden and preparing spells does the surviving monks no good at all, because Civilla’s octopus attacks them straight out of the floor.
We pursue, leaving Rexus to kill any Redactors we leave merely unconscious behind us.
Rexus: THIS IS FOR MY MOTHER!
Ayva: It’s OK, we can fix it later.
GM: Am I going to have to get THAT post up?
Civilla: It’d have to be True Resurrection - and at the moment Time Is Money.
Civilla follows up her octopus with a Celestial Hyena, and Terzo uses Blistering Invective on the remaining Redactors, and sets them on fire - one survives long enough to dash for the underground river.
Terzo: Get out here and fight, you craven clay-brained canker-blossoms!
Unfortunate Redactor: *on fire on top of everything else, and feeling that the rebels are being a bit unfair* We’re Asmodeans, we’re meant to be evil, what the F***
Civilla’s hyena tears out his belly.
Civilla: Well, that’s all of them.
Ayva: ah….
Terzo: Come over here, dear, you’ll want to sit down for this bit. You know how one of your distant cousins became the Hurricane King?
Civilla: Yesss, but that was hundreds of miles away, what does that have to do with these guys?
Terzo: We’re getting there we’re getting there - anyway, his example encouraged one of your closer relatives to try the same career.
Civilla: OK?
Terzo: Unfortunately she was a captain in the Chellish Navy at the time.
Civilla: What? But her brother is the mayor of - oh.
Rajira: So guess who we have.
Civilla: Her?
Terzo: No - but her nephew had to join the Redactors to protect his family. So he was REALLY lucky you were the first person he saw when he was running away from Rajira.
Civilla: Maybe you should have led with ‘Don’t worry, he’s alive?’
Apparently this place was the Archivists storehouse for Worryingly Magical Stuff. Most of said worryingly magical stuff is missing, including a necklace or amulet, a pair of gloves or bracers, and a reasonably sized rock. Rexus, happily, has a key to the secret compartment behind the shelves, however.
Meanwhile, Rajira goes to check out the garden, presumably to figure out the best place to chop up the bodies and feed them to Civilla’s Chthonic Toads. It’s not like we can just dump them all in the underground stream - that might contaminate someone’s water supply. If we can make all the bodies vanish, we can hopefully make Thrune think his bodyguard and entire order of Redactors have fled the city. A few Convincing Lies spread by the underground press should help.
In a small nook on the other side of the garden, Rajira finds a series of books that magically contain the memories and experiences of some members of the Order of Archivists. Including Rexus’ parents.
Civilla OoC: There’s a reason that we play things the way that we do. We stack our advantages because the dice can **** you in an instant.
Terzo OoC: Believe me, I do not actually consider that a problem.
Civilla OoC: I should hope so, you’re my tutor.
Terzo OoC: And that’s just ONE reason.
And Ayva does have a point - between the party, most of the NPCs that are important enough to name, and Thrune’s choice of trusted minions, it seems the script for any future movies about events in Kintargo will easily pass the Bechdel Test. Unless we’re talking about Thrune anyway, but nobody cares what he has between his legs unless it’s an opportunity to remove it with something rusty.
Negotiating the Red Jills is going to be dicey, since they basically count anybody from the Basic Character Races as The Enemy. And Rajira is the only one that is clearly outside their broad definition of ‘human’, and only if she doesn’t try to hide her reptilian heritage.
Civilla: The thing is, Thrune’s agents might actually follow the rules of hospitality and parley if we were having a meeting like this - they’re Evil, but Lawful Evil. But the Jills are probably Chaotic.
Rajira: I was going to say ‘let’s wing it’, but that might offend the Strix.
Civilla: So no triggering language.
Ayva: And nothing about ‘plans being hatched’.
Civilla: You have to be careful about ear jokes around elves too - although given that of the usual races it’s humans that have the weird round ears, that’s kinda strange.
Ayva: I was going to say ‘don’t get cocky’ but there’s the bird language again.
It’s actually Rajira’s suggestion that we don’t meet at the Red Jills’ hideout, in case of Property Damage Escalating To Arson, and the gang agrees.
Rajira: Good evening - I believe we have important matters to discuss.
Scarplume the Strix: Ah yes, the Ghosts of Kintargo.
Apparently our reputation is already spreading.
Scarplume: What makes you think you can change the way the Jills do business?
Rajira: I don’t believe I can - but I believe I can give you a reason to change yourselves.
Rajira: You are a person of power and influence
Scarplume: Power that was hard-won - and you are offering…?
Rajira: An opportunity.
Rajira is persuasive enough, with the eventual intention of making Kintargo a city that won’t look down on the Tieflings simply for being born the way they are.
Rajira: Thrune has drastically under-estimated the power of this city - and its power is the spirit of the people.
Scarplume’s demand is that if we do manage to take over the city, that the Tieflings be treated with full equality and respect.
Rajira: I already do.
Terzo: Liberty! Egality! Fraternity!
Scarplume: I will take you at your word then - but if I hear one whisper that your enterprise is failing, this will not be the last you hear from me.
At least they've agreed to direct their depredations against the occupation, instead of the citizens. Civilla and Rajira are privately skeptical, and after we leave, discuss the likelihood that we’re going to have to eliminate the Jills anyway.
Terzo: Well, that went well.
Civilla: How exactly do you think that went well?
Terzo: They agreed that Tieflings need to be treated with full equality, and that Thrune’s forces are the actual enemy here. I think we have a lot in common.
Civilla: Well, we’ll hold off for now and see how it plays out.
Ayva: At least we can say we tried.
Rexus has good news too - he’s finally finished his translation of the documents we found under the old Livery. A lot of it is tactical advice for defending the city. Some deals with the Secret Order of Archivists, that Rexus’ mother worked for before she died - or rather, before Rexus thought her dead, since he now thinks she may have made it to a previously unsuspected safehouse beneath Hocum’s Phantasmagorium, a tourist-trap museum that’s been closed for well over a decade. In fact there’s a key to the building among the stuff we found.
Terzo: I’m surprised the building hasn’t been repurposed.
Civilla: You’re right - that is suspicious.
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/gravityfalls/images/1/14/S2e3_Mystery_Shack_new.png/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/1000?cb=20140812231800
Unfortunately, there’s a bunch of Asmodean priests and zombies doing something inside the building, when one of our rebellion cells does some reconnoitering on our behalf.
Terzo: It would appear they thought the building being empty this long was suspicious too.
Rajira: Or they just want to take advantage of it.
Terzo OoC: Maybe they want to open a Starbucks.
Ayva OoC: ‘Local Starbucks Burns Down - Meanwhile Local Cafe Owner Does Roaring Business’
GM: Hell’s Rebels : The True Story Of The Kintargo Coffee Wars
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/808767700515028992/909068946462900264/tumblr_inline_o8ico2kVcn1qao8br_1280.png
Ayva OoC: The People Magazine idea for our printing press has gone through the roof. ‘What do we print in our first issue?’ ‘Well, we didn’t get a second…’
We wait until some of the Asmodean priests swap with a shift change, and jump them. Unfortunately, Rajira botches the strike, and botches the follow-up as well. Fortunately Terzo casts Sleep on the one that didn’t turn invisible and run off.
Terzo: *expressively gestures* Well, what do we do now?
Civilla: We proceed at speed - you could stand to lose a few pounds.
The invisible one is probably going to lose a few pounds too, when Civilla’s Celestial Hyena catches up with her. At least she isn’t going to alert everybody else in the building. Unfortunately, the exhibits in the Fantasmagorium didn’t include animated skunk ape skeletons - the ones that attack us are new. Rexus, who insisted on coming with us, gets himself badly mauled.
Civilla: He shouldn’t be here anyway.
Ayva: He needs training - we can afford that now.
Terzo: What, some kind of spray bottle? ‘Don’t Go. Near. The Monsters’ *squirt*
Civilla OoC: Well, at least if he gets killed there’ll be no-one to contest the sale of the estate…
Ayva OoC: But he is basically Mr Exposition
Having dealt with the White Apes of STREWTH!, we press on to one of the marine themed halls. Unfortunately, none of us have Knowledge (Nature), and none of us see a ‘Do Not Tap The Glass’ sign, so we soon regret Terzo’s curiosity about the tanks.
Civilla: Terzo, how have you survived this long in Chelliax?
Terzo: Natural Charm?
Ayva: He’s well pickled, people think he’s a gherkin.
Ayva: I’m beginning to think this building is cursed.
Civilla: Undead in the last room, undead in this one - I think you’re right.
Ayva OoC: I meant the way that since we came in here, all we’re rolling are 1s and 20s.
GM: And not the way round you need.
Ayva: This didn’t happen to us on the stealth missions.
Civilla OoC: In the stealth missions, it was the other people that needed to make rolls, not us.
Ayva: Terzo? Come here.
Terzo: Yes?
Ayva: DON’T TOUCH STUFF IN THE CURSED MUSEUM.
Terzo: I’m beginning to get that impression, yes.
Terzo: I’m not sure what the problem is, I’ve spent decades poking things I probably shouldn’t and I’m hardly likely to stop now. Although they probably wouldn’t appreciate me calling them ‘things’.
Rajira: Since we don’t want a case of crabs, let’s move on.
Ayva: Hey, a case of crabs, covered in butter, what’s the problem?
Rajira: Depends how you get them.
Ayva: Usually by paying for them - how do you get them?
Terzo: …
Ayva: … we’re talking about two different things, aren’t we?
Civilla: Rexus, if you don’t stay at the end of the party, I will ensure you are the end of your line.
The next room was an insectarium - the last person in here clearly didn’t get the memo about not touching stuff in the cursed museum.
Civilla: This place used to be a tourist trap, now it’s a…
Terzo: Death Trap?
We also find out why the Asmodeans are actually here - they’ve been stripping the building of anything showing historical facts the government of Chelliax doesn’t like. F***ing Redactors. If they’re that easily upset, they must have hated the wax museum in the next room - it certainly upset us. Whatever genius decided to set up a waxwork display of Kintargo’s more infamous serial killers REALLY shouldn’t have used the kind of waxwork guaranteed to get up and continue the subject’s career. On the other hand we can certainly blame the Church of Asmodeus for the zombies - the next lot are Rexus’ family.
Happily, we find the Redactors immediately thereafter and can register our complaints in person.
GM: The redactors call out to their commander as you storm the room, but you murdered their commander in cold blood when you first entered the building.
Terzo’s player: annoying, battery in mouse has finally gone flat
Rajira’s player: Why I prefer wired mice - However, getting the drugs to keep them wired is expensive.
Ayva: Rexus is a bit wired at the moment.
Rajira’s player: How did he get my mouse drugs?
Discovering a hidden entrance to deeper parts of the Fantasmogorium is a problem, because somebody might show up to investigate all the screaming and fireworks at any moment, and we’re already battered and exhausted dealing with the stuff in the main building.
Civilla: F*********** - if we don’t look down there now we won’t get a second chance later
Ayva: This better be a treasure room or we’re going home.
It seems to be a whole complex down here - it looks like we’ll have to camp underground for a few hours to rest, and hope the dottari don’t know about the secret stairwell (and don’t have a shift change before then). This proves optimistic, since the Redactors were apparently here to censor the collected histories of the Sacred Order of Archivists, the group Rexus’ parents belonged to. The archivists were using the Fantasmagorium - or at least, the hidden monastery in the basement - as a base of operations.
Terzo: We’ll have to take Rexus’ family down too.
Civilla: So now we’ll have to sleep in the same room as a pile of corpses - greeeeeat.
Ayva: I’m sure there’s plenty of stuff on these bookshelves to distract you.
Ayva’s player: Before we wander into descriptive text can we get some XP?
Apparently there’s a creature composed entirely of books and paper down here.
Ayva: Ok, Civilla, don’t touch any books.
Book Creature: Halt intruders!
Ayva: Okay.
Book Creature: … I didn’t expect that to work.
Apparently whatever this thing is was summoned to guard the hidden library’s books from any intruders, for at least another 12 days. That doesn’t preclude us from having a good stickybeak around, though, as long as we don’t actually touch anything. And it doesn’t stop us finding out that he was summoned by the Asmodeans to protect the Redactors while they go about their business of rewriting recorded history. The Scrivenite isn’t very happy about that. Which is probably why he’s telling us all the rules of his binding.
Ayva: But the Redactors are all-
Civilla: Shushshushshush! Theoretical question for you, what would you do if the Redactors were all dead?
Scrivenite: The ones upstairs are not my purview - I’m bound to protect the ones in the monastery. I don’t suppose any of you can cast Dismissal?
Rajira: Bit high-level for us.
Scrivenite: Darn it. I really don’t want to fight you.
Scrivenite: As long as you don’t enter the room by THAT DOOR *point point, gesture significantly* and don’t touch any of the books in THIS ROOM, *more gesturing* I’m not obliged to attack you.
Civilla: Okay, okay, I can work with this.
Ayva: What if we dress up as Redactors?
Scrivenite: Well I’ll know it’s you, now - you shouldn’t have said anything.
Civilla: I think I can get us past your restrictions with a bit of pedantry. You won’t let anybody through the door, correct? So what if I open the door, but not go through it, cast Rope Trick, have my associates enter the extradimensional space, teleport into the other room myself, and have everybody climb down again?
Scrivenite: As far as I’m concerned that will work.
Civilla: That’s all we need. I believe you’re a creature of Law? Your summoners were insufficiently precise.
The first few rooms down here contain sleeping Redactors, who sleep infinitely deeper as Rajira goes to them one by one.
Terzo: So, those rooms were empty then?
Rajira: They are now.
Terzo: I choose to interpret that positively.
The next one was actually awake when Rajira stabbed him, and tries to make a run for it - and immediately regrets it, since the rest of the party are waiting in the corridor.
GM: The Redactor stops dead - and you recognise him, Civilla.
Redactor: C-cousin???
Civilla: Cousin? You call yourself family and you’ve taken the mark of the Redactors?
Ayva: I take it that we’re not taking him alive?
Civilla: NO.
Ayva: Well then.
Rajira OoC: For one thing he knows too much.
The Redactor IS an Alazario, and the son of the mayor of the Chellish capitol.
Terzo OoC: I’ll hold off on doing anything - Civilla might be annoyed if I set him on fire.
Civilla summons a monster octopus, and stomps forward to snarl for a bit.
GM: He tries to say something but it’s kind of muffled by tentacles.
Civilla: *sigh* Let him speak.
Apparently Civilla’s cousin, Nicolo, is no happier to be here than Civilla is to see him.
Civilla: Then WHY. ARE YOU. HERE.
Ayva: Daddy dearest?
Civilla: Probably. *sigh*
GM: I’ll be quick because he’s bleeding out a HP a round.
Rajira: Two.
Apparently the Mayor has found himself in deep political trouble, and Civilla’s cousin had to join the Redactors to save the family’s reputation, despite the fact that the Alazarios as a whole are very much against destroying written history. Civilla is now regretting that she’s so family focused - mostly because we can’t leave him here alive, because being the Only Survivor would be highly suspicious. And apparently he HAS been preserving what he can.
Ayva: What’s that saying about ‘better pissing out?’
Terzo tries to patch the cousin up before he bleeds out, then we stash him in the Rope Trick dimension for the time being.
Terzo: Stabbed him rather deeply, didn’t you?
Rajira: I WAS trying to kill him.
Terzo: You with the tentacles, hold this limb tighter.
Apparently the success one of Civilla’s more distant kin had in becoming a pirate king, a few years back, inspired another Alazario to become a pirate. Unfortunately she was also a captain in the Chellish Navy, and the Mayor’s sister, and she decided to target Chellish merchant ships. Well, at least we’ll have someone to mail the cousin to.
The next room has been set up to be the ideal kind of battleground for some quite unpleasant devils. It looks like Rajira and the Chthonic Octopus will be on point - they’re certainly sneakier than the rest of us. For one thing the mollusc can detect living people through walls. Unfortunately it can’t tell WHO is on the other side of the wall, so finding Barzillai Thrune’s bodyguard, Nox, down here, is a bit of a shock. Fortunately she’s not wearing her armour, because she’s asleep. Unfortunately, her hellhound is not.
Rajira attacks Nox first, and kills her instantly with poisoned blades.
GM: She failed ALL HER ROLLS. She was supposed to be the BBEG of this chapter! There’s a whole subchapter here about her as a recurring villain!
Civilla OoC: We could always have left her as the Only Survivor :)
Rajira: NEED A LITTLE HELP HERE.
Civilla teleports past all the highly suspicious chains, to try and disable what she suspects is something very close to the Lament Configuration - Chain Devils are the last thing we want showing up. The chains alone are nasty enough.
Civilla OoC: Bags not being the first Cenobite. *fails the check* F***.
The head injury she suffers from a chain lashing out of the cube into her face also knocks out her last hour of short-term memory, which is going to make for some interesting conversations later. But at least Ayva succeeds in making the chains vanish.
Terzo cast Grease before the rest of the Redactor Monks show up.
GM: Why don’t these monks - admittedly Lvl 1 monks - have any points in Acrobatics?
Terzo: Because books can’t fight back.
Redactor-who-isn't-Civilla's-Cousin: Magic-users! Retreat to the Garden!
Terzo: They have a garden down here?
Ayva uses Boneshaker on one of the Redactors, which proves fatal.
Civilla: You grabbed him by the skeleton and shook him like an underpaid nanny!
Ayva: I wasn’t expecting it to actually kill him!
Terzo: I thought that was the plan - unless any more of these are your cousins, Civilla?
Civilla: *still amnesiac* What????
Retreating to the garden and preparing spells does the surviving monks no good at all, because Civilla’s octopus attacks them straight out of the floor.
We pursue, leaving Rexus to kill any Redactors we leave merely unconscious behind us.
Rexus: THIS IS FOR MY MOTHER!
Ayva: It’s OK, we can fix it later.
GM: Am I going to have to get THAT post up?
Civilla: It’d have to be True Resurrection - and at the moment Time Is Money.
Civilla follows up her octopus with a Celestial Hyena, and Terzo uses Blistering Invective on the remaining Redactors, and sets them on fire - one survives long enough to dash for the underground river.
Terzo: Get out here and fight, you craven clay-brained canker-blossoms!
Unfortunate Redactor: *on fire on top of everything else, and feeling that the rebels are being a bit unfair* We’re Asmodeans, we’re meant to be evil, what the F***
Civilla’s hyena tears out his belly.
Civilla: Well, that’s all of them.
Ayva: ah….
Terzo: Come over here, dear, you’ll want to sit down for this bit. You know how one of your distant cousins became the Hurricane King?
Civilla: Yesss, but that was hundreds of miles away, what does that have to do with these guys?
Terzo: We’re getting there we’re getting there - anyway, his example encouraged one of your closer relatives to try the same career.
Civilla: OK?
Terzo: Unfortunately she was a captain in the Chellish Navy at the time.
Civilla: What? But her brother is the mayor of - oh.
Rajira: So guess who we have.
Civilla: Her?
Terzo: No - but her nephew had to join the Redactors to protect his family. So he was REALLY lucky you were the first person he saw when he was running away from Rajira.
Civilla: Maybe you should have led with ‘Don’t worry, he’s alive?’
Apparently this place was the Archivists storehouse for Worryingly Magical Stuff. Most of said worryingly magical stuff is missing, including a necklace or amulet, a pair of gloves or bracers, and a reasonably sized rock. Rexus, happily, has a key to the secret compartment behind the shelves, however.
Meanwhile, Rajira goes to check out the garden, presumably to figure out the best place to chop up the bodies and feed them to Civilla’s Chthonic Toads. It’s not like we can just dump them all in the underground stream - that might contaminate someone’s water supply. If we can make all the bodies vanish, we can hopefully make Thrune think his bodyguard and entire order of Redactors have fled the city. A few Convincing Lies spread by the underground press should help.
In a small nook on the other side of the garden, Rajira finds a series of books that magically contain the memories and experiences of some members of the Order of Archivists. Including Rexus’ parents.
Civilla OoC: There’s a reason that we play things the way that we do. We stack our advantages because the dice can **** you in an instant.