paizo.com - Online Campaigns - GM Jhaeman's Dawn of Flame, Chapter Five: "Solar Strike" (2024)

The metallic smell of blood hangs heavy in this room, which contains three uncomfortable-looking chairs and a metal table, all of which have been pushed against a wall to clear a large space at the north end of the chamber. A rack holds a wide array of torture implements, all crafted from brass and some glowing with intense heat. At the rack’s front, hanging from brass chains, is a set of spiked manacles designed to hold a victim suspended off the ground.

A muscular anassanoi woman is unconscious on the metal table while a wounded anassanois prisoner, with injuries to her mouth and jaw, is sitting in one of the chairs. She leaps to her feet as the door opens. "I am designation Verimar. Are you with the resistance? Help me take Protector Mehrren to safety before Nurleth returns!"

A picture of the muscular, unconscious anassanoi is now on the lower left of Slide # 5.

Zharis holsters her weapon and picks up the unconscious woman.

She tells the other woman

Okay Verimar. Go back towards the front of the building, down that hallway, yes, past the bear. When you get to the front, Tulgram can heal your face. We'll be right behind you. One more door to check to make sure we don't leave anyone behind, and then we can take you where you want to go.

She asks Amhesha to open the last door with the keycard, since her hands are full.

"I will comply, but please, save all your healing for Mehrren!" As Verimar makes her way outside, Amhesha opens another door to an interior room. On the other side is a dark room with no built-in lights. A stained blanket lies crumpled on the floor near a crusty, dark splotch.

When Zharis sees that the room is empty, she is relieved. Another battle while carrying someone wasn't going to be ideal.

Okay, Amhesha. Can you just do a once=over of the whole building and check for any loot before we go? I guess I won't contact the spire from here. I was thinking maybe we could trade Nurleth for Vessu's brother, but if we have nothing to trade, maybe it would be better to just do a surprise assault. Or... do you have any experience with hostage exchanges? Any advice? I've played a hostage negotiator on the vids of course, but ... it's not as much pressure, you know, since the hostages and the responsibility are all fictional. I get really into my characters, but it feels a lot more awful in real life.

"We all did a lot each on Mother's Tongue; you kind of have to to get by on a ship of around 50 or so people the size of one of those remote Polar Bases. I never worked hostage negotiation though, that was the captain's job the odd times we worked those. If you've ever seen a Skittermander Ganzi announcing probe launches? That's them. My advice, based on your experience? Focus on the content of the roles, since that's where all the stress is that you need to deal with," Amhesha says, reminiscing on the dedicated crew of literal cultists she grew up with, before beginning to search the rest of the building for any possible materials.

Do I need perception rolls? And I'm basing this on what little info we have for Ydajisk, which is basically they're responsible for Starfinder's equivalent to the Golden Discs filled with linguistic information on the Voyager Probes.

Of course, I'm always glad to help. Lead the way. Tulgram says it softly, with a smile and completely without an accent. He is very precise in his movements and words now, showing with all his appearance that he is a real professional. A very kind, honest and naive professional. In a word, a typical fool from the Pact Worlds. Tulgram lets her go ahead with a gentleman's gesture, because it's up to her to show the way.

GM, please remind me, do we have any kind of mobile connection here? Can I write a message to some internal work chat of our team? If so, he types a message with one hand while following anassanoi:

When Zharis feels the vibration of her comm unit indicating that she has a message, she walks back into the torture room and sits down temporarily, so that she can check her message without dropping Mehrren.

After reading it, she feels Mehrren's face to make sure he isn't talking about her... but no hologram here that she can see, and Tulgram hadn't been in here, so he must be talking about "Verimar." Her own disguise had been magic, not technological, but a similar deception made sense... Verimar must actually be Nurleth, although the telepathic thing had thrown her off. Strange, but top priority was to keep Mehrren away from her torturer and return her to her people.

She stands back up with Mehrren, and goes to talk to Theodore

Looks like Tulgram needs backup. Check your messages, and go help him handle that if you can. I'm going to stay in here with Amhesha. Message us when it is taken care of.

Following Tulgram's request, Verimar leads the way towards the anassanoi hover truck.

@Amhesha: Yes, you can roll a Perception check (or Take 10) to represent doing a final sweep of the building looking for valuables.

As soon as they are in sight of at least one of Tulgram's allies, the duergar strikes an absolutely unexpected blow with a completely unperturbed expression on his face, as if nothing special is happening.

GRAPPLE by Capture Pole: 1d20 + 13 + 6 ⇒ (17) + 13 + 6 = 36 vs KAC +8 (hope she’s flat-footed)

A collar on a long pole is fastened around the neck of the "spy". A needle with a powerful sleeping poison (an ancient drow technology modified by the gray dwarves) stabs the enemy in the neck. Surprise.

Tranq Dart (Ex): Once per day, you can target a living creature with a special biohack as a standard action. This doesn’t deal any damage and doesn’t count against your total uses of biohacks, but it otherwise functions as a biohack. If you hit the target, they must succeed at a Fortitude saving throw or fall into a deep sleep after 1 round, gaining the asleep condition. On a successful saving throw, the target is unaffected. DC 20 Fort.

~~ Well done, Tulgram. Efficient. ~~ Xylian drones telepathically. Since Tulgram is their capture-alive-erer, the last of these elemental-kin walking right into Tulgram's capture pole will save them having to chase anyone down. Xylian looks around for a records room or something similar, since Tulgram has things under control.

Are there any computers to check for records here?

Taking 10 on Perception for 21, and Amhesha will help with any Computer or Engineering related tasks. We have two Mechanics, should be easy enough.

Amhesha reacts with slight shock upon seeing someone get, quite literally, tranq'd, but continues her thorough search of the building, looking for any computers she could possibly hack remotely, with or without the aid of anyone else.

Tulgram's capture pole closes tight around "Verimar's" neck and the hidden tranquilizer needle begins to take effect! But in the seconds of consciousness she may have left, the would-be spy clearly isn't going to surrender!

Tulgram's attack hit and succeeds on a grapple, and "Verimar" failed the Fort save. As described, she will fall into a deep sleep after 1 round.

We will now proceed to Initiative.

Initiative (Round 1)

Theodore
Amhesha
"Verimar" (grappled; tranked)
Zhyffor
Zharis
Tulgram
Xylian

Bold should go!

Zharis realizes that their new allies might think they are betraying them if they see an attack against what *looks* like one of them, and isn't sure what to do, since she doesn't want to rush out there and put Mehrren in jeopardy.

She decides to comm the ship.

Hey Hop. Not sure if he copied you, or the people inside the ship, but Tulgram noticed someone pretending to be one of our new allies, the Anassanoi. He and Theo are likely going to attack soon. When that happens, can you broadcast that it is Nurleth, a torturer, in disguise, and that we found Protector Mehrren inside? I am going to go out a side door to try to get to their ship without getting in the middle of the fight, but if it gets diplomatically serious and I am not there, have Taeress step in telepathically. Don't let anyone leave the ship, but she can get her point across and still stay safe.

Are we supposed to be taking this guy alive? If so, -4 the attack to likely miss for intimidation factor to make it nonlethal.

Horizon Striker w/ Combat Tracking v. KAC: 1d20 + 13 ⇒ (8) + 13 = 21
Damage: 3d4 + 8 ⇒ (1, 4, 4) + 8 = 17

Amhesha fires a shot at the spy, unsure if the group is aiming to keep their target alive, or just take them out entirely. Her combat tracking goes up without issue this time though, thankfully.

Theo comes barrelling around the corner on all fours, squeezing through doorways, just in time to flank the captive with Tulgram.

Unless I looked at the wrong map, it'll take me a double move to get there.