Zaichus, meanwhile, begins casting...

Begin casting Enlarge Person on Earl!

The elementals seem to have decided that Cornelius is their favorite target for now; the other one that is not engaged with Earl springs forward and burns Cornelius again!!

FE2 spring-attacks Cornelius, hits for 9 fire. Cornelius makes Reflex save to avoid catching fire.

14:58, Today: 4-Cornelius Hope rolled 20 using 1d20+8 with rolls of 12.  Reflex save to not catch on fire. – 20

FE1 85/85
FE2 85/85
FE3 20/85

Party Haste 2/8
Earl burning 0/3
Magnus Protection from Energy 72/72

https://www.d20pfsrd.com/besti...huge-fire-elemental/

Initiative
FE3
Zaichus
FE2
Richard, Augustus, Magnus, Cornelius
FE1
Earl

This message was last edited by the GM at 19:17, Wed 13 Mar.

Richard moves into the building. He spots a scullery-boy trapped under some beams. He winces and moves back out. He waves at Magnus, indicating his need for help.

Double move/search. He spots the wounded boy at least.
This message was last edited by the player at 19:18, Wed 13 Mar.

Augustus shouts to Cornelius, "You good?"

Cornelius shouts, "Z can make me harder to see, I think."

Augustus nods, pulling a scroll out of his sack. He then prays over Magnus. "Go with Richard," he says.

Move, drawing scroll of Protection from Fire from haversack. Cast Protection from Energy (Fire) on Magnus.

Magnus moves with great speed around the elementals, avoiding their reach, and moves up to the boy. "Rest easy, lad, we will help you," he assures the boy.

Double move. Knock 2 points off his resistance for breathing smoke. We'll say Richard took it, too.

Party Haste 2/8
Earl burning 0/3
Magnus Protection from Energy 70/72
Richard Protection from Energy 70/72

Cornelius, looking a bit singed, stands his ground, whirling and hitting the elemental that just hit him with a barrage.

Hasted Rapid Shot w/Deadly Aim--four hits for 75 hp after DR.

19:09, Today: 4-Cornelius Hope rolled 19,19,19,18 using 1d8+15,1d8+15,1d8+15,1d8+10 with rolls of 4,4,4,8.  Damages. – 19,19,19,18
19:08, Today: 4-Cornelius Hope rolled 25,37,24,28 using 1d20+17,1d20+17,1d20+17,1d20+12 with rolls of 8,20,7,16.  Rapid shot w/Haste and Deadly Aim. – 25,37,24,28

FE1 85/85
FE2 10/85
FE3 20/85

The spring-assault on Cornelius continues--another leaps out and burns him! Cornelius desperately tries avoiding being set on fire.

FE1 spring-attacks Cornelius, hits for 4 fire. Cornelius makes Reflex save to avoid catching fire.

19:31, Today: 4-Cornelius Hope rolled 28 using 1d20+8 with rolls of 20.  Reflex save. – 28

FE1 85/85
FE2 10/85
FE3 20/85

Party Haste 2/8
Earl burning 0/3
Magnus Protection from Energy 72/72

https://www.d20pfsrd.com/besti...huge-fire-elemental/

Initiative
FE3
Zaichus
FE2
Richard, Augustus, Magnus, Cornelius
FE1
Earl

Earl slays the elemental next to him; he then moves over next to the least-wounded one! He continues to burn.

Nat 20 on FE3, minimum damage from raging PA 2 drops it. Move next to FE1. Burns for 7 damage after DR. FE1 takes an AoO on Earl and misses.

20:24, Today: 4-Earl Hope rolled 36 using 1d20+16 with rolls of 20.  Raging Hasted PA2 on FE3. – 36

FE1 85/85
FE2 10/85

Party Haste 2/8
Earl burning 1/3
Magnus Protection from Energy 70/72
Richard Protection from Energy 70/72
This message was last edited by the player at 13:09, Fri 15 Mar.

Zaichus finishes casting, and Earl's size increases dramatically. He then moves over to Cornelius, says a word of power, and the archer seems to vanish!

Start of round: finish casting Enlarge Person on Earl.
Move adjacent to Cornelius. Cast Greater Invisibility on Cornelius.

FE1 85/85
FE2 10/85

Party Haste 2/8
Cornelius Greater Invisibility 1/8
Earl burning 1/3
Magnus Protection from Energy 70/72
Richard Protection from Energy 70/72
This message was last edited by the player at 02:12, Fri 15 Mar.

With the archer apparently gone from the battlefield, the wounded fire elemental springs out and burns Earl further, then springing back and away.

FE2 spring-attacks Earl, hitting him for 9 fire.

FE1 85/85
FE2 10/85

Party Haste 2/8
Cornelius Greater Invisibility 1/8
Earl burning 1/3
Magnus Protection from Energy 70/72
Richard Protection from Energy 70/72

https://www.d20pfsrd.com/besti...huge-fire-elemental/

Initiative
Earl, Zaichus
FE2
Richard, Augustus, Magnus, Cornelius
FE1

Magnus moves and tries to move the beam. He finds it harder than expected. "Richard! Come help me!" he shouts.

STR check fails.
07:41, Today: 4-Magnus Hope rolled 15 using 1d20+3 with rolls of 12.  STR check. – 15

Richard grunts and moves over to help his cousin. His first attempt is a flurry of motion and muttering but little results.

Fail to assist this round.
07:42, Today: 4-Richard Hope rolled 6 using 1d20+2 with rolls of 4.  STR assist. – 6

Cornelius shoots at the wounded elemental and destroys it. He then moves to obscure his position.

Single shot w/deadly aim, hit with a Benny. Minimum damage kills it, even with DR.

07:50, Today: 4-Cornelius Hope rolled 36 using 1d20+19 with rolls of 17.  Benny. – 36
07:45, Today: 4-Cornelius Hope rolled 20 using 1d20+19 with rolls of 1.  Shot w/Deadly Aim on flat-footed FE2. – 20
This message was last edited by the player at 11:52, Fri 15 Mar.

Augustus, hearing Magnus' shouts, moves into the building to help his cousins.

Double move to help Magnus.

The remaining elemental attacks Earl madly, managing to burn him further. It may not be enough, though, as Earl winds up...

FE1 full-attack on Earl. Hits twice for 6 and 5 hp after Earl's DR.

FE1 85/85

Party Haste 2/8
Cornelius Greater Invisibility 1/8
Earl burning 1/3
Magnus Protection from Energy 70/72
Richard Protection from Energy 70/72

https://www.d20pfsrd.com/besti...huge-fire-elemental/

Initiative
Earl, Zaichus,
Richard, Augustus, Magnus, Cornelius
FE1

Earl promptly destroys the thing!

Hasted full attack on the thing, hits three times for 35, 28 and 33 hp--96 hp, enough to drop it.

09:56, Today: 4-Earl Hope rolled 35,28,33 using 4d6+15,4d6+15,4d6+15 with rolls of 3,5,6,6,2,5,1,5,5,6, 4,3.  Damages. – 4,3.  Damages' class='helphover'>35,28,33
09:53, Today: 4-Earl Hope rolled 32,29,20 using 1d20+15,1d20+15,1d20+10 with rolls of 17,14,10.  Hasted Raging Full Attack PA 2. – 32,29,20

Zaichus shouts, "As soon as you're out, I'm putting another Sleet Storm on the rest of the fire!"

Ready action to cast Sleet Storm (using Bonded Object ring) on the fire once Magnus and Richard are out of the building.

Magnus and Richard extricate the boy and then had out of the building. Zaichus begins dousing it. About a half-minute later, a half-ore cleric of Kord, Asfelkir Hranleurrh, arrives on the scene and uses a wand of control wafer to help put out the fire. Asfelkir gladly takes him under his custody. The local cleric of Pelor, Kristof Jurgensen, also comes to help the wounded and those intoxicated by the smoke. When all is finished, and silence falls again on the streets, Kristof screams out at Cauldron: “Fools! The flames of discord will raise hell in our town!"


12:21, Today: 4-Magnus Hope rolled 18 using 1d20+6 with rolls of 12.  Benny. – 18
12:21, Today: 4-Magnus Hope rolled 8 using 1d20+6 with rolls of 2.  Free the boy. – 8
12:20, Today: 4-Richard Hope rolled 20 using 1d20+2 with rolls of 18.  Assist Magnus. – [roll=1710606059.75249.325977]

The next morning, several town criers announce that order has been restored in Cauldron. The lord mayor pardons all citizens involved in the riot, and most of those who were arrested are freed before sunset. There is no pardon, however, for the "evil merchant” Maavu. His properties have been confiscated and he is sentenced to death in absentia. Town criers publicize Alek Tercival's letter of challenge, but also cite reliable sources that the paladin of St, Cuthbert has been possessed by demons.

Thus, the lord mayor declares the challenge null and void. The government offers a reward of 5,000 gp to whomever finds and saves the possessed paladin. The crier also announces thar after the destruction of Minuta's Board, all half-orc mercenaries in the Lord Mayor's service are to be transferred to an encampment outside the city walls.

The party goes to talk with Jenya about Alek. Alek Terrival and Jenya Urikas have been friends since childhood, although they drifted apart for a time during the paladin's "dissolute” years. Jenya admits that she's very worried about Alek. She supports Alek's supposed challenge to Skellerang, but greatly fears the rumor about him being victim of demonic possession. She adds that although Alek has not been back to the church for two months, he has been seen in several areas to the west, including Redgorge. Jenya tells the heroes about Alek’s background and his conversion to St. Cuthbert and pleads them to help him. Jenya gives the cousins one other important piece of information about Alek: He often sold art objects he found in his adventures to Tygot Mispas, the proprietor of an antiquity shop over on Lava Avenue. He sold these objects to accumulate the necessary money to buy back his ancestral manor, which his father sold to pay off some debts. An investigation of his latest sales to Tygot might provide some clues as to where he's been spending his time over the last few months. At the very least, Tygot himself might have some information on Alek.

Jenya has already used the Star of Justice (see “Life’s Bazaar*) to cast divination about Alek's current activities. The results were as follows: “Late on the path of justice, trapped between glass and stone, he weeps where many can see him, but he can see only himself."

Tygot Mispas, a 120-year-old halfiing retired from adventuring for two decades, owns a small but well-stocked antiquity shop on Lava Avenue, "Tygor's Old Things' specializes in nonmagical art objects gathered from across the known world. Tygot himself has excellent commercial contacts in the capital city of Sasserine, and frequently buys old documents and art objects from local adventurers. His shop is a two-story structure with a small fiat on The upper floor and a we11- organized business area on the lower. The main shop itself contains an impressive assortment of less valuable antiquities, mostly vases, statuettes, small furniture, and tapestries.

When the cousins arrive, Tygot recognizes them as the heroes who saved his shop from the floods and greets them warmly. An old-looking dog teleports over to Magnus and sniffs his hand lazily. Tygot respects the heroes enough to skip his usual attempt to palm off the first piece of junk at hand, and invites them inside for a cup of tea and a private chat. His office is neatly fitted out with fine, human-sized mahogany furnishings.

Tygot is content with idle chit-chat, but when the cousins ask him about Alek Tercival, Tygot becomes more animated. He says that the paladin is an interesting supplier of his shop, and a good friend to boot. As far as he knows, the paladin tithes one tenth of his treasure to the church of St. Cuthbert and puts the rest aside for some purpose. Whenever he found an objects on his journeys, he invariably came here to sell them for cash. Tygot keeps a meticulous register of his acquisitions, and can easily track down all of the objects that Alek brought in over the last month. He knows Alek found them in the Cauldron region, but Tygot has no idea where any of them originally came from.

The plate draws Zaichus' attention. A rectangular plate of silver etched with odd figures and ciphers A crude map and a few notes in Giant are scratched into the opposite side of the plate, which would be smooth otherwise. These scratched notes seem to be quite recent, bur the plate itself has a definite aura of ancient weight about it. Zaichus reads a scroll of Comprehend Languages and reads it; he learns that it is from an ancient society of powerful spell-casting creatures. He identifies the six-armed figures as spell weavers and the humanoid figures as ogres. The spell weavers' leader is depicted on the right side of the place; he holds something referred to as the "Starry Mirror" above his head. A string of ciphers under the depiction of the Starry Mirror represent numbers. These numbers are, in order, 3, 4, 5, 1. 2, and 3.

On the left Side of the plate, three scenes are depicted. These three scenes should be read from bottom to top. The bottom scene depicts the ogre slaves of the spell weavers toiling to build the planar travel installation. The next scene up depicts the same ogres, empowered by the Elixir and granted great strength to aid in their work. The topmost scene shows the planar travel installation in its completed glory.

The scratched map on the back needs more context to be understood, but Zaichus does spot one thing: a statue of a headless demon is said to stand on the banks of the Red River to the southwest of Cauldron.

The party purchases the plate from the halfling and thanks him.


21:45, Today: 4-Zaichus Hope rolled 26 using 1d20+17 with rolls of 9.  Knowledge: Local. – 26
21:41, Today: 4-Zaichus Hope rolled 36 using 1d20+17 with rolls of 19.  Benny. – 36
21:40, Today: 4-Zaichus Hope rolled 27 using 1d20+17 with rolls of 10.  Knowledge: nature. – 27

The party spends a couple more days while Zaichus scribes more scrolls of Protection from Energy, since they proved so useful. They then set out for Redgorge. This village was the first human settlement in the area. Founded about 800 years ago, Redgorge was at one time a much larger settlement. It never fully recovered from Nabthatoron's assault long ago. Redgorge sits in n narrow strip of fiat ground between a cliff and an immense quarry of red pebble gravel West of the village, a prodigious line of fortifications known as the Basalt Bastions protect the land, their massive walls unguarded and draped with vines. These fortifications, as impressive as Cauldron’s outer walls, tower over the village itself.

Today, Redgorge is a farming and mining village The old Stonemason District is visibly depopulated and most of its buildings lie empty and in ruin. Over the decades, most of Redgorge's masons left to work in Cauldron. The early colonists founded a second city nearby as well. This was the village of Liduton. After the Battle of Redgorge, casualties among the colonists there were so high that Liduton was completely abandoned. Today, its ruins are known simply as the ‘'Haunted Village."

The party heads to the inn, the Redhead Miner's. This two-story inn, which can accommodate up to 30 guests, contains a large shop that caters specifically to adventurers and explorers. The inn has a large common room on the first floor, where villagers often come to have a drink before sunset. The innkeeper, Miki- max, is a big, smiling man who keeps his long red hair tied in a ponytail. Every evening when drinks are served, he puts dozens of delicious, free snacks on the bar and provocatively invites his tipsy customers to help themselves; "Come on overT beggars! You won't starve as long as Mikimax lives!"

When the heroes arrive, a handsome man in his mid-thirties quietly plucks the strings of a lute in a comer of the common room, heedless of Miki max's call This man, dark-haired and rather short, wears a fine blue robe and polished knee-high boots. When he sees the heroes before the bar he calls out a riddle to them: “What can bind with water, sand, and lime*"

Magnus approaches and says, in a low tone, "Mortar. Yes, we're here to see him."

The man ends his song with a flourish and much applause. He then steps down and bows to the party. "I am the Honest Minstrel," he says with a smile. "The Foreman has heard much of your accomplishments and is very pleased to meet with you, if you will join me."

When the heroes accept, he invites them to follow him to a private room in the basement of the Redhead Miner's.

The leaders of the Chisel meet the heroes in a private room under the Redhead Miner's Inn. The room is silent and comfortable, with a great oak table in the middle. On the chamber's walls, beautiful frescoes depict the glorious moments of Surabar Spellmason's life:
* Surabar’s arrival near at the foot ofa dormant volcano, recognizable as Cauldron.
* An encounter between Surabar and a sword-wielding angel, in which the angel gives Surabar a glowing quarterstaff. Zaichus identifies the angel as Nidrama, a movanic deva said ro watch over the region, and the glowing quarterstaff as Alukasf, a magic weapon said to be particularly potent against evil outsiders.
* The foundation of Redgorge.
* Surabar's magical construction of the Basalt Bastions.
* The battle of Redgorge against the demonic denizens of the Demonskar. Surabar leads Redgorges forces and a towering hyena-headed glabrezu leads the Demonskar forces.
* The transformation of Surabar into a mountain, symbolizing his death.

The party arrives in the room and are met by a seated man. He is a tall human dressed in brown, with gray hair and a short, well- trimmed goatee. "Please, sit," he says calmly. "I'm Oliron Masht." He identifies each cousin by name as they sit and offers them each a drink from a cask of vintage wine.

He chats with the cousins for a few minutes about their adventures, asking questions that betray his general familiarity with the party's resume. Mikimax (the owner of the inn) and Maavu arrive after a few minutes, but Alek Tercival does not. Oliron frowns. "Where is Alek?" he asks Maavu. Maavu shrugs as he sits. "Well, we can't wait for him," says Oliron. "Let's begin."

15:12, Today: 4-Zaichus Hope rolled 31 using 1d20+17 with rolls of 14.  Knowledge: History. – 31

The Foreman begins by raising a point of contention with the organization's current situation. The selfish interests of many of its members have violated the philosophy of the Chisel, which is to protect of the region and support artisans and craftsmen. Most of the violators are Cauldronites who have shifted toward neutrality and no longer care about the wellness of society as a whole. The Foreman reveals his fears that some great force of chaos and evil is at work in Cauldron's government, and the lord mayor may be under its influence. All sources of divination magic indicate some great disaster on the horizon. The Chisel’s greatest prophet, an earth weird, has not answered the Foreman's calls, so details on this disaster remain vague.
* The Foreman mentions Maavu at this point and notes that although his actions were well-intended, they nonetheless caused more harm than good. He now fears that the Chisel is becoming a scapegoat for the current troubles, and that forces from Cauldron may soon take drastic measures against the organization. Maavu justifies himself by claiming he meant to organize a peaceful demonstration, bur that "some villain stirred up the riot to discredit any opposition." Honest Minstrel suspects the Last Laugh, and takes Maavu for a ride: "They suckered you, nothing else!" At this point, a squabble breaks out between Maavu and Honest Minstrel (Maavu: "Better dead than slaves! A wandering strummer like you should know!" Honest Minstrel: "Peddler! You count lives like money! No difference to you, eh?"). The Foreman grows tired of the argument and demands silence.
* At this point, Honest Minstrel notes that his informants in Cauldron warned him that Terseon Skellerang plans to invade and search Redgorge, using the half-ore mercenaries now encamped outside the city walls. The members agree that the Hall of Carvings would survive such an invasion
intact, but that such an event would be disastrous nonetheless. The villagers would oppose such actions and would fight against the invaders. The Foreman muses that Skellerang must be persuaded to renounce to his plan. Alek Tercival's public renouncement of his challenge should do just the
thing, but unfortunately, no one knows where he is.
* Alek’s absence worries the Foreman above everything else, and at this point he turns to the heroes. He asks them to search for the paladin while the Chisel keeps several eyes on Skellerang’s actions. He has no reward to offer but the Chisel’s friendship. The Foreman concludes the meeting by
leading the cousins and the others on a short night walk along the Basalt Bastions. He looks intently toward the west at one point... toward the Demonskar. He sighs, then says philosophically, “Surabar's spells raised this wall in seven days, but his guidance has failed to build a righteous society in as many centuries."

When the party explains to Oliron what they found with the map, he confirms the location of the headless demon and affirms their instinct to check here. Mikimax gladly supplies the cousins with plenty of food and all the mundane gear they may request, including a small but stable rowboat. The rowboat trip to the Headless Demon takes about four hours, during which the heroes are be impressed with the overwhelming presence of life around them.

Manage the party's spells before continuing.