The group quickly collects Kal and informs the Sheriff of their findings. He has doffed his armor and winces as one of the priests of the Cathedral pokes and prods his side, where a dark and mottled bruise shows where he took the blow from the ogre. Another, armored with a breastplate and wearing a mace and shield has taken position guarding the ruined front of the mausoleum. The scattered and broken brickwork from the ogre zombie's emergence has been neatly stacked on the side, and while it is too late in the day today, it looks like repairs will be started the following morning."If you can find those bastards and recover Father Tobyn's remains, we would all be grateful. I think, given the evidence, that the attack on the cathedral square was a diversion for this theft, but for the life of me, I could not guess why. I do ask you to keep this...
desecration... to yourselves. Father Tobyn was well respected and beloved in Sandpoint, and it would be very distressing to many to hear that goblins had made off with his remains for some foul purpose.
Also, be careful beyond the walls. Sandpoint is still very much a frontier settlement, and the woods and moors beyond our walls are not always the safest in the night. You know already of the goblins stirring, but even the local boars can be vicious enough if startled, and there are rumors that the Sandpoint Devil is rooming the moors with these new troubles. Please come back safe and tell myself or the mayor what you find. Return through one of the gates - They'll be closed, but guards are being posted for a night watch and they'll be warned to watch for you. Once you're over the wall, we'll remove the ladder - no need to leave it so easy to sneak in."
((For Etoile: The Sandpoint Devil is a near-mythical creature that is rumored to lurk in the region. Supposedly it is a monsterous amalgamation of different animal features - a horse, but walking upright and with the wings of a bat, the teeth of a wolf, a reptillian tail and broken, stag-like antlers. It's hunting scream drives all that hear it into unthinking panic.))
((For the purposes of this, to make any progress Zeratuu has to beat the DC 13 by 5. Rolling between 13 and 17 means she hasn't lost the trail completely, but she isn't making any progress following it. Rolling under the DC means she loses the trail.))
*roll* Zeratuu - Survival 1d20 + 3 vs DC 13 : 13
Partial Success*roll* 1d20 + 3 vs DC 13 : 18
Success*roll* 1d20 + 3 vs DC 13 : 22
Success*roll* 1d20 + 3 vs DC 13 : 22
Success*roll* 1d20 + 3 vs DC 13 : 23
Success*roll* 1d20 + 3 vs DC 13 : 14
Partial Success*roll* 1d20 + 3 vs DC 13 : 21
Success))
With the group together and watching her with varying levels of truth, Zeratuu gulps nervously and closes her eyes, digging up all of her oldest memories of her life before the menagerie. Her first attempts to follow the trail are halting, and her tail lashes with frustration as she keeps losing their tracks. But then her eyes catch the footprints, and the signs of passage in bushes with broken branches and disturbed leaves. With the others behind her, Zeratuu begins the hunt.
Hours pass, and night falls over the group. But for Zeratuu, it is only all the more comfortable as the daylight no longer stings her eyes. She stays low to the ground, the goblins staying in the woods parallel to the road as it travels northeast along the coast, before woods give way to hills. The lessons of her youth are burning bright in her mind, and the little kobold doggedly follows the trail as the trail leaves the hills as the road turns east and plunges into the coastal forest of Shank's Wood.
Passing through the quiet woods, broken only by the hooting of hunting owls and the nearly imperceptible flutter of bat wings and nighttime insects, they cross an ancient graveyard swiftly, which Etoile identifies as a traditional Varisian nomad graveyard. Now known as the Pauper's Graves, many laborers who died in the construction of Sandpoint have been buried there. The graveyard is eerily and oppressively silent, leaving the group ill at ease with the sense of watching malice.
It is almost a relief to enter the tangled and irritating snarls of thorny underbrush that mark the Nettlewood, but as they travel further away from the graveyard, the normal sounds of a forest at night begin to surround them again.((
*roll* Perception for everyone -
2 Successes))
Caught up in the hunt and every sense engaged, Zeratuu hisses and gestures for everyone to stop moving and making sounds and being so loud. Steven has already crouched low, having seen the same things the kobold has. At the edge of a clearing, they see a low-burning fire giving off dim light, and a few dark shapes gathered around the fire, cackling and carrying on. Steven feels a pulse of adrenaline as he recognizes their language - Goblin. Moving carefully, he puts away his unlit cigarette.((The party is currently undetected, and can see 3 goblins around the fire. How many more are in the area is another question.
Also, I'm putting a rank in Survival for Zeratuu next level to reflect this. The little lizard did good.
Also as an aside, Sirius mentioned taking prisoners - if you want to, let me know at some point during combat. Most enemies (at least that Aloisturm hasn't hit) are generally hit into dying levels of HP and are allowed to bleed out. If you intend to take prisoners, then I'll track that and give you the chance to stabilize enemies.))
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Topic: Let’s Play Pathfinder: Rise of the Runelords – Chapter 1: Burnt Offerings (Read 88821 times)