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The Quest of the Missing Quill

A sandbox Pathfinder adventure set in the far reaches of The Empire, where the province of Trevis clashes with Orcs and Drow.

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Re: The Quest of the Missing Quill

Post by Haahque »

Benjamin
You go over to the soldiers, who seem too caught up in their own conversation to pay much attention to you. “… Ssshe never sssaw it comning!” You hear the Slith declare, sending the girl in studded leather sitting across from him into fits of laughter.

“Ahaha, I get it, it’s because ha ha, she’s blind, and she’s a prostitute hah,” the girl laughs, triggering a comment from one of the other soldiers, a man in a tunic with a crossbow. “Yeah, that was the joke... It really wasn’t that funny.”

The Slith, catches your eye for just a second before launching into telling another joke to the table. “What wasss the Drow doing in a temple?”

“I don’t know.” Replies the girl, “Tell me!”

“Ssshe was lolthed*! Why do Drow worship a ssspider? They’re most comfortable in a web of liess. How do you make a Drow holey? Use anything sssharp. Why do Drow sspend so much time below ground? They belong 6 feet under.” After this the Slith takes some time to catch his breath again, which is good news since the girl seems to be having a little trouble breathing from laughing so hard. The two other soldiers on the other hand sit much less amused, one’s got a don’t encourage him, the jokes really aren’t funny look on his face, while the other seems a little worried that the jokes are somewhat insensitive, noticing that a Drow has just walked over and is trying to tune his lute.

*Between the Slithzerikai's thick accent and the amount of mispronunciation to make the word lolth sound like the word lost, one could bairly regard this as a pun, which is possibly the worst kind of joke. This reasoning however seems to have evaded the imperial girl, who laughs just as hard, if not harder, to this joke then the rest.

Jasmine, Gaheris and Kanock
You are greeted at the doorway with a rather heavy tome, fortunately you’re able to duck back out of the way before it flies past where Jasmine’s head was just moments before. What you had seen inside was a complete mess, books and papers and various other items strewn across the ground, with a fair helping of such items flying through the air at the telekinetic will of a human mage.

The room, once you’re ready to examine it again, is large with multiple chests of drawers and bookshelves against various walls, there’s a desk with an assortment of papers and books on it and a circle of glowing runes on the ground. There are some potted plants, at least two pedestals with books on them, a cauldron over a fire pit (unlit right now), a brazier and an anvil. The room has a bend in it to the north so you can’t see the entire room, but you imagine there must be a bed hidden in it somewhere. The mage is a man dressed in a long purple robe with a pointed purple hat. He’s tossing around books and papers in his frantic search, but finally manages to notice you, or perhaps he registers your words, and turns to you.

“Yes, it’s gone, not here, missing, vanished!” He pulls a book off the ground and flips through it before continuing his ‘explanation’. “My precious rare manticore quill is absent, disappeared, lacking, lost, lifted, misplaced, mislaid, taken, thieved, stolen, unaccounted for!! I have to find it, where could it be?”

Jasmine makes a reflex save: 9, pass. (DC reduced since only her head was exposed)

Zurgo and Ishan
Ichabodd gives Zurgo a little sigh when he picks up his breakfast at the bar. "The noise is kind of starting to get to me, do you think either of you could get him to queit down a bit?" With a shrug he decides to add "I'll throw in a free beer for whoever can stop the ruckus."

You're both able to do your own thing without interuption, Ishan drinking and watching the others, Zurgo eating and tracing runes from his book. From down the hall you're able to distiguish that someone has lost a quill, which seems like a rather trivial matter and surely not worth waking the whole inn for. Meanwhile across the room it appears that the Drow is some sort of musical type, tuning his instrument, something which he's having a bit of trouble with over the sound of the female imperial soldier laughing her head off at the Slith's crude and/or rasist jokes.
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HorizonsDream
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Re: The Quest of the Missing Quill

Post by HorizonsDream »

"Woah," Jasmine says after she manages to dodge the flying book. Though, once the danger of being hit by a book disappears, Jasmine decides to just stand in the man's door way at this point. "Yeah, it is kind of hard not to hear it," she absently says to the dwarf as she was sort of fixated on the mage. "..A quill? That is what all of this is about?" she asks She looks disappointed upon learning this information.
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Re: The Quest of the Missing Quill

Post by keymeister16 »

Once his mind and belly where full Zurgo snapped shut his tome. “manticore quill? Wonder how rare that would be…” (knowledge nature; worth of the quill based on how hard it’d be to find/kill one)

He returned his dishes to the kitchen before venturing back to the south hallway, finding the four in the room talking about the matter at hand. Secretly he grinned, then swiftly started picking up books.

“I’ll help with the cleanup, Sir, could you perhaps tell us about the last time you used the quill? Retrace your steps so to speak?” (Perception; looking for any scrolls of magic or wizards spellbooks)
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Re: The Quest of the Missing Quill

Post by mgbevan »

"Bah!" Kanock cries in disgust. The tome flew comfortably over his head but that fact did little to quell this dwarf's temper. "Ought to be more cautious! *Huff* Disturbing other folk... Yid better find a sense of common decency first before some infernal quill."

Kanock was out of breath from being all worked up in a temper, so it took him some time to regain the requisite amount of air for his next sentence. "Now you search quietly, understand."
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Re: The Quest of the Missing Quill

Post by Just_Ice »

Three clean plings echo from the catgut strings of the drow's lute. Ben clears his throat, and chuckles before he exclaims, "Oh, telling some drow jokes? Pretty tame, I'd say- from a Slitherzai I'd expect something a bit more cold blooded."

His voice is louder than one might expect. He strums a little more, "Of course, our ears are pointed like our knives so we can as sharp of hearing as we are at backstabbing. What do you call a drider on fire? An improvement. Why do the drow bother brewing their own wine? So they won't get drunk off water. How far can you trust a drow? As far as you can have an ogre throw him. So have an ogre throw him. Why did the two male drow stand atop one another? To reach their mistress's man-chin."

The bard begins to move into a simple melody in the key of G minor, standing a little straighter and smiling at the slith, "A simple man, the drow musician, full of only cunning and evil. Beware his ways, fiddle dum, fiddle dee. Take us from his wickedness O Gods, let us of their kind finally be free. The evil in our hearts is a'cause from the evil people, no fault lies with we; smouldering in the fire, their cremation brings us glee."

He bites his lip, stopping abruptly, "No, that's no good. Too old-fashioned."
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Re: The Quest of the Missing Quill

Post by JadedDM »

Gaheris raises a brow at the strangely dressed wizard. "Sorry to hear that, but surely you can find another quill. It's not the end of the world or anything. Certainly not worth all of this fuss." After a moment of thought, he adds, "In fact, I think I saw some birds fly by the inn the other day. You could probably find a decent feather in the area dropped by one."
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Re: The Quest of the Missing Quill

Post by Haahque »

(Vrindle told me he's just going to wait for this post)

Benjamin
The Slithzerikai sits still for a second after you finish your jokes. The girl across from him had found some of them quite funny, but she immediately shut up when he stood up and turned to you.

The slith towers over you for, although he’s slightly shorter than the average slithzerikai male, he’s still over a foot taller then you. If he weren’t breathing down your neck you might have even found him pretty for a Slithzerikai, his scales are kind of shiny and he looks fairly well groomed. However even under his chainmail shirt there’s no denying his massive shoulder and chest muscles, it wouldn’t be a pleasant experience if he decided to punch you.

“Do you think you’re funny? Boy.” Each word spat out at you with malice.

The silence that followed is broken rather quickly by another one of the soldiers. “Actually yeah, his Drow jokes were kind of better than yours were Alex, gotta say.” Grins the other soldier. The slith merely reaches for his quarterstaff, which leaps from the wall into his hand, then he backhands the talkative soldier without even looking away from you.

Alex attacks imperial soldier (Without looking): 20, hit 9 nonlethal damage.

Jasmine, Gaheris, Kanock and Zurgo
“Oh no, this is no normal quill! It’s a manticore quill. You have no idea how rare, precious and valuable it is! I had to spend months just to track down the beast, then I had to risk my life and limbs to get a decent sample. Then after just a couple of weeks to research it, it goes missing! I’ve spent way too much time and money on this quill to lose it now.”

He then turns to the dwarf. “You lose months of your life and we’ll see where your sense of common decency goes!”

The wizard notices Zurgo when he starts helping clean up, but doesn’t give him more than a passing glance before going back to frantically searching and making the place an even bigger mess. Finding magical texts on the other hand is rather easy as half of the books lying around are spell books of some sort, however the vast majority of them are locked shut with the remaining ones being books of rather trivial spells. The other half of the books it appears are also on arcane subjects, but instead of being spell books they contain magical theory, research notes, diaries and one appears to be some sort of harmless book-golem. Only some of these other books are locked.

After some searching Zurgo finds a couple of books containing spells he already knows, a quick flip through them when the wizard isn’t looking confirms that there are no spells he has yet to learn in them, however beside them lies a thin black tome with the words “The magical blade” on the cover. The book is, however locked closed with a clasp preventing Zurgo from leafing through this book as well.

Zurgo makes knowledge checks -> information delivered via PM.
Zurgo Perception: 18.
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Re: The Quest of the Missing Quill

Post by Vrindlevine »

Ishan watches the fight carefully ready to leave if anymore imperials show.

On second thought these fools are probably going to scare away any business for the next week. He steps toward the fight and holds his hands between the slith and his bloodied opponent, "people please if you have to fight lets take it outside we don't need to cause Ichabod any trouble." Diplomacy check...

He doesn't want to get into anything but he makes sure he's ready to defend from a cheapshot.
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Re: The Quest of the Missing Quill

Post by Just_Ice »

(Ready an action for hair to grapple the quarterstaff if attacked)

Benji twiddles the highest and then lowest strings, looking up at the angry slith only occasionally while slumping back against the wall.

"It's the audience's job to decide what is and isn't funny. Hopefully you've learned some more material from an honest-to-goodness drow, but it looks like physical comedy is more of your bit anyways."

The drow smiles, playing another few bars, "Be true to yourself, 'Alex', but consider what you want to accomplish here."
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Re: The Quest of the Missing Quill

Post by mgbevan »

"Pah!" Kanock bellows in response. He turn around with his hands on hips, back turned to the purple wizard. After several moments grumbling to himself and hearing a suitable number of books hit the floorboards, he begrudgingly readdresses the wizard.

"Just to remind you what help from a commonly decent folk looks like, have you tried static? Fluffy's fur always sticks when the stuff is around so ya feather ought to do the same. " He pauses with a small sigh and says as an aside, "This leading by example business ain't alf ard... "
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Re: The Quest of the Missing Quill

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"So you lost something so valuable?" Gaheris asks, still a bit annoyed at being woken up for such nonsense. "Or perhaps it was stolen. Well, you're a wizard. Can't you just cast a spell to find it or conjure up a new one?"

He looks to Jasmin, curious to her own reaction to this whole thing.
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Re: The Quest of the Missing Quill

Post by HorizonsDream »

Jasmine puts her hand over her mouth to cover her yawn as all of this nonsense about losing some sort of quill was boring her. "What is so special about this quill, other than the fact that you apparently risked your life to get it?" she asked curiously. She seemed to be having a hard time completely believing the man's story.
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Re: The Quest of the Missing Quill

Post by keymeister16 »

(sorry im late!)\

“and you suddenly became worth helping now…” Zurgo whispers to himself has he clutched the thin black book, as if he was afraid someone else may discover it.

“why OF CORUSE we will help you recover this valuable quill of yours! Now my earlier question, when was the last time you saw it?” he frowned upon repeating his question, but the book had extended his patience with the old fool.
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Re: The Quest of the Missing Quill

Post by Haahque »

Benjamin and Ishan
Noticing a fight brewing on the other side of the room, Ishan wanders over to break it up. The security here at the Inn is mostly customers protecting customers, relying on some rather well armed customers like Ishan to keep the peace. And it just wouldn’t do to have fights break out in the inn, that could drive away any fat merchants looking for protection. So he wanders over and makes a request which, surprisingly seems to have some impact on the slith.

First the slith checks his aggression, trying to decide if he should hit the drow or the newcomer who dared to intervene, or maybe if he should let it slide. Then the rest of the imperial soldiers pipe up. The one that looked nervous at the racial slander starts with “Don’t fight in here, Ichabodd treats us well and fighting would hurt him the most.” The girl continues “Calm down Alex, he’s hasn’t done anything wrong, just told a couple jokes”. The one he hit then moans quietly “Ow, was that really necessary? You need to check your aggression while off duty if you ever plan on finding someone.”

With everyone in consensus that he should stop fighting, Alex decides to back down. “We ssshould obey Ichabodd’sss wisshess and not fight indoorsss. If you wissh to learn what a real man fightsss like I’ll gladly meet you outside.” He turns and sits back in his chair and addresses the other soldiers. “Sssorry for overacting. It’ss jusst that whenever I ssee one of them I remember, and I hate. It’sss worssse when they actually come over to me and ssstart plucking their noisemakersss.”

As an afterthought he turns back to Benjamin “Pleassse leave Drow, before any more of your bright ideasss get you hurt.” And with a flick of his hand a blinding light flashes in Benjamin’s face. This last act of senseless aggression seems to satisfy him and he turns back to his friends again.

Ishan makes a Diplomacy check (1d20 + 0): 20, success.
Alex casts Flair on Benjamin: Benjamin Fort Save = 7, failure. Benjamin is Dazzled for 1 minute.

Jasmine, Gaheris, Kanock and Zurgo
Mazzart has to pause his frantic searching for a bit to try and answer the wave of questions flying at him.
“A manticore quill has no feathers. A manticore is a magical creature that is a combination of man, lion, bat and scorpion, no feathers at all there. Yes I lost something worth the wages of a small army. One does not simply conjure up a manticore quill, if it were possible … well it’s not possible. And all my short range summoning spells haven’t worked on it. I’m sure they would have worked if it’s anywhere in this room. But if magic isn’t working, you got to do things the mundane way. The quill is very valuable because it presents a whole new opportunity to expand the limits of what magic can do. Manticores are highly magical creatures who haven’t been…”

He stops halfway through the explanation of that last question when he hears Zurgo agree, on behalf of all involved, that they’ll help.
“Why thank you, although I do not know your qualifications for helping me find the quill, but I’m sure you can make yourself useful somehow. If you should, somehow find the quill I'd teach you... oh wait most people aren't a huge fan of high level magic as a reward... umm I'd give you gold. Lots of gold. Like more gold then you could possibly imagine!" A statement which he quickly qualifies with a low whisper "or you know as much as I actually happen to have with me at the moment, I think I got a few hundred in this purse, a couple thousand more in the box."

Speaking up again he finally answers Zurgo's question from before. "The last time I saw the quill was last night, or was it this morning… that gets confusing when you work as many late nights as I do, last night when I was studying the properties of the quill used as a, err, writing utensil, testing if it changed the properties of runes I was writing, at my desk over there. I was sipping some nice green tea, caffeinated so I’d be able to work through the night. Then I suddenly felt very tired. Next thing I knew I woke up on my desk. My papers were a mess and I couldn’t find the quill anywhere.”

(As you may have guessed by the name of the PbP, finishing this quest -> The Quest of the Missing Quill, counts as a win condition for the scenario. To finish the quest you just have to get Mazzart a working manticore quill, it does not have to be the one he lost, although that is one possibility.)
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Re: The Quest of the Missing Quill

Post by keymeister16 »

"caffeinated green tea?" Zurgo asked amusingly as he strolled by the man to his desk, where the half empty, and by now very cold cup rest. "I prefer water myself, not really for the taste, more it's what i grew up on, but it also has the lovely side effect..." he frowned, gazing deep into the glass (Knowledge (dungeoneering / nature): for any signs of drugs in the tea). "of being very easy to tell if it has been contaminated...." he gazed around the room now, taking note now that it was cleaned up of the runes and circles the man had at his disposal (spell-craft, did the thief come in by magic? did he leave any holes per say in the mans magical ecosystem?)

he thrusted the thin black book into the old mans hands "my payment is this tome you have collected, i ask that you open it while i take your mug to the more qualified expects i eyed earlier,"


he turned to Jasmine, Gaheris, and Kanock. "just from the story alone, this mug is most likely poisoned, we can investigate based on that assumption, did he stay the night? how did he access this mug? was it from this room? the kitchen? asked what you will of him and i guarantee you will have it, De'Heaz count this man's days,for Zurgo tracks him"

with that he left with Mug in hand to the Alchemist and the Drow he saw earlier, to the aftermath of the fight, which by his eye looked to have calmed down, though the drow looked out of sorts for the minute.

he addressed the formal looking lad. "you.... i've seen your type before...you're perfect!" he handed the mug to Ishan. "the man backed there was drugged and robbed, if you can be of any help, he promises everything a powerful wizard could promise, what say you?"
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