Book 2: The Skinsaw Murders

November 2, 2013 @ Debbie & Barney’s

Day 24:

The Seven’s Sawmill, continued:

From the elevated vantage point of the rookery at the Seven’s Sawmill, the party saw several members of the Skinsaw cult flee the sawmill, taking refuge in the anonymity of Varisia’s largest city, Magnimar. They sensed that an alarm might be raised, and since they had just killed one of the city’s eminent citizens, they would prefer to leave the area rather than have to answer questions, at least not until after taking the opportunity to deal with the threat residing in the Shadow Clock.

The Shadow Clock

They made haste to the Shadow Clock, a decrepit and sagging clock tower, a dying structure of weathered stone, wood, and rusted metal supports that teetered to an unlikely height of over 180 feet. High above, near the tower’s roof and barely 5 feet from the Irespan’s stony belly, a tangle of scaffolding sat near a section of the structure that had fallen away. The tower’s clock face was frozen in time, defiantly proclaiming it to be 3 o’clock, while above, a stone statue of an angel, her wings crumbling, leaned precariously, almost as if she were preparing a final leap from her decaying perch. The tower itself is made mostly of limestone, with a tangled skeleton of wooden supports buttressed here and there by iron bands. The stone walls are etched by wind, rain, and grime. While this pitted surface might seem to make for a relatively easy climb, the fact that so many of the stones are loose makes such a stunt dangerous.

The door to the tower was closed, but not locked, and the party moved in cautiously. The air inside the clock tower was dusty and dry. Swaths of rubble and mounds of plaster lay in heaps on the stone floor, particularly in the southwest corner. A single wagon sat to the northeast, and six partially collapsed offices lined the northern and eastern walls, their doors hanging askew and their ceilings caved in. A wooden staircase wound up into the cavernous space above. High overhead, four immense bronze bells hung from sturdy crossbeams.

Closer inspection revealed that despite the place’s general appearance of ruin, a fair amount of foot traffic has been through the area–the floor bore several medium humanoid footprints and a pair of enormous misshapen prints that defy easy classification. Oz was detecting magic on the collapsed offices one by one when a large misshapen monster emerged from hiding and attacked. A jumbled mass of body parts incorporating as much cow and horse as man, its considerable girth topped by an idiot head that leered and drooled like a grotesque baby, its face cruelly stitched, the lips sewn partially together, the awakened flesh golem known as The Scarecrow sliced viciously into Echo with a large scythe.

The party moved quickly to defend Echo from the monstrosity. Lisanji’s adamantine greatsword bit deeply into The Scarecrow’s flesh, while Mackintosh’s merely magical one met greater resistance. Oz greased the floor under him, causing him to trip, while Nymeria disarmed him of his scythe. However, he remained a threat, swinging two meaty arms for great damage even without a weapon. Mackintosh ended him with a swift and strong stroke, severing body parts as he collapsed into a pile, never to move again. His scythe was highly magical (+2) and he also had a bag of coins, and a tarnished silver ring, and a silver mirror. There was nothing else of value on him, or in the base of the tower.
The party then began making their way up the treacherous wooden stairs. The rotting wood creaked and swayed alarmingly whenever more than one person went up at a time. To avoid using the stairs, Oz used defy gravity on himself and Lisanji, Wanga turned into a pteranadon, and Echo cast fly. Nymeria went up the stairs first, with Mackintosh coming up behind. They went around the spiral stairs, carefully ascending several levels before they reached a section of collapsed stairs. Nymeria tried jumping across, and was able to catch herself and pull herself up.

As Mackintosh moved to follow, the party noticed some people on the upper levels, and one of the huge bronze bells began to fall, crashing into beams and sections of wooden stairs as it fell. It smashed into Mackintosh, dealing heavy damage, but he was luckily not knocked down. Mackintosh then leaped gracefully across the gap of the missing stairs and the party continued to ascend.

As they neared the top where the bells were attached, they got a better look at the people who presumably caused the bell to fall on them. They looked just like Magnimar’s elite guard. In addition, a dark, winged figure seemed to fly around in circles. The upper part of the tower was too dark to get a really good look, but it appeared to be a dragon, possibly incorporeal, made of shadow.

As the party continued to climb the tower, the guards retreated through a hole in the outer wall on to some scaffolding that continued upward. Upon reaching the hole, the party noticed that only one of the bells had been rigged to fall, and the others were securely fastened. The three remaining bells hung from timbers there, affixed by rusting lengths of chain and thick ropers. Above the bells were massive gears and clockworks, although they seemed both rusted and scavenged–many of the smaller components were missing entirely. The rickety wooden stairs wound up and arouind them, but did not quite reach the ceiling above, coming to an end at the opening in the wall.

The party continued out the opening and up the scaffolding up the exterior of the tower to a room that lay just beyond the ceiling directly above the bells. The room contained a timber cabinet with a mesh door sitting against the the southern wall, while a boarded-up door stood in the wall to the east. The cabinet contained messenger ravens, one of which might have been the one the party released from the Seven’s Sawmill.

Beyond the boarded-up door lay a large and cluttered room filled with immense gears and clockworks, most of which appeared to have rusted into place. The floor inside, unlike the stairwell leading up the inner walls of the clock tower, was quite solid. Another opening led to the tower’s exterior, where the final ascent would be made via more scaffolding. The shadowy dragon flew in lazy circles around the top of the tower, making the party uneasy. Wanga cast flame strike, which caused it to seem to dissipate temporarily, but it soon re-formed, and withdrew from sight.

At the top of the tower, the smoky filthy rooftops of Underbridge sprawled below the dizzying perch. The conical roof supported an onyx statue of an angel. Towering like a god, her weathered features were caked with grime, making her seem almost demonic in countenance. At the far end of the hollow space under the roof, in the angel’s shadow, lay a nest of cushions, silk sheets, and a line of several small chests.

The guards the party spotted on their way up were inside, on either side of the entryway, ready to attack. Lying in the nest of cushions was a familiar-looking elderly man. Caizarlu Zerren, the necromancer the party rousted out of Habe’s Sanatorium, lay motionless on his back, with a Sihedron rune carved into his forehead.

The party, expecting a “snake lady” of some sort, was not sure what to make of it, but they did not have long to consider, because the “guards” turned out to be faceless stalkers, and they immediately reverted to their natural appearance and attacked, but the party made short work of them.

Caizarlu said “If you’ve come for Xanesha, you’re too late” and reanimated the slain faceless stalkers into ghouls. As the party battled the ghouls, Caizarlu cast a stinking cloud over the battlefield, but unfortunately for him, he was the only one affected.

About this time, Xanesha, a lamia matriarch became visible as she surprise attacked Mackintosh with a fancy longspear from above, where she clung to the rafters by her snake tail. The ghouls were dispatched quickly, Mackintosh and Lisanji taking one side, and Nymeria and Wanga taking the other, with Oz and Echo staying at range. Caizarlu and Xanesha took longer, as they both had mirror images up that absorbed several attacks each. Furthermore, the stinking cloud obscured vision somewhat, providing concealment that made some attacks miss.

Caizarlu succumbed first, and Xanesha commented on harvesting his greedy soul for her master, and that the party was next. However, Echo dispelled the stinking cloud, and Xanesha was soon surrounded. Mackintosh had leapt acrobatically up to the rafters, and Nymeria was attacking from below with her own polearm. Xanesha stabbed repeatedly at Mackintosh, but was unable to bring him down before falling herself.

Treasure

The party then inspected the bodies.

Caizarlu possessed a cape of the mountebank, a +1 Dagger of Venom, a potion of gaseous form, a potion of cure moderate wounds, a wand of false life (29), and a wand of infernal healing (44)

Xanesha possessed an Impaler of Thorns (her spear), a medusa mask, a Sihedron medallion, a snakeskin tunic, and a set of keys that unlocked the chests, which contained a +2 kukri, a ring of jumping, and a golembane scarab, 4 potions of cure moderate wounds, and 3000 gold pieces.

A crumpled-up wad of parchment in the southwest corner of the room revealed that Xanesha was in a sort of competition with her sister, gathering greedy souls for the rise of their “Lord.” While Xanesha was working in Magnimar, her sister was operating out of Turtleback Ferry.

Turtleback Ferry is a small township perched on the rain-drenched north shore of Claybottom Lake, and is the central trading town for the region. Nearly 80 miles from Ilsurian, the next town of similar size, Turtleback Ferry has nominally been under Magnimarian rule for 45 years, an arrangement the settlement agreed to in return for protection from the region’s ogres and ogrekin.

The letter also referred to an impending invasion of Fort Rannick, a fort in the shadow of Hook Mountain. The fort has been instrumental in the efforts of a group known as “the Order of the Black Arrow” in keeping the ogres, trolls, and other giants of the Storval Rise from spreading too far into the lowlands.

Thus ends Book 2: The Skinsaw Murders. There may be some recap and followup regarding any loose ends, but the main story is done. The breadcrumb trail leads to Turtleback Ferry and Fort Rannick.

Everyone should be level 8 before the next time we play.

I have also once again changed how we’re going to assign treasure to PCs. Let’s use the recommended character wealth by level as published by Paizo. For level 8, that is 33,000gp. Everyone can equip their own character with up to 33,000 gp worth of stuff, including consumables like potions, scrolls, wands, etc. Anything within that budget is assumed to be available. If you want to use crafting feats to lower the cost and effectively increase your budget, that is fine, just don’t try to game the system by taking advantage of infinite arbitrage opportunities, etc.