As Eliza and Ophilia left the square moving South it quickly became clear that their worst fears were realized. The fire that licked out the front window of Eliza's shop was intense, fuelled by some of the more volatile substances in the shop. It threatened to burn down the whole building, and possibly the whole block.

Perhaps surprisingly, given the town's general attitude to the Tiefling woman, the residents weren't just letting it burn. Perhaps motivated by some deeper sense of civic solidarity that overcame petty racism, half a dozen Sandpoint inhabitants had formed a bucket brigade to run water one bucket at a time to try, so far ineffectively, to douse the fire. Eliza and Ophilia could recognize Sabyl Sorn, the athletic monk of Irori and Ameiko Kaijitsu among the water carriers, as well as, perhaps most surprisingly of all, Vachedi, the huge Shoanti man who had insulted Eliza in the past and recently been beaten by Jasna at arm wrestling.

Despite the efforts of the Sandpoint residents who had turned out to fight this fire in the midst of the goblin attack, the fire seemed to be spreading and getting worse.

Ophilia looks at the shop and goes slightly catatonic on her feet.
Her eyes grow distant as her memories of Sandpoint start flashing before her eyes.

"No,  noooo."

Ophilia then runs forward spreading her arms and at the front of the shop her eyes dart for the best place then she mumbles her voice drifting between different languages as she creates water to come down on the flames trying desperately to preserve what she can.


Create Water

In another time, another place, Eliza would have been heartened by the sight of all these people working to help her. Perhaps she might have taken another look at Sabyl, or Vachedi - maybe they weren't as bad as she thought?

But now, tired and hurt from the goblin attack, nerves wrung high, the tiefling woman can only scream in panic and despair. Some thin, functional part of her noted the damage, the rising flames, weighed the duration against the items that were in the shop-

"...my books! My mother's books!" Eliza splutters,  "I- we- I have to save them!" Not quite waiting for the others, she makes to charge straight into the building. Fire was no stranger to her, and her devilish heritage gave her some resistance to it. Not quite to the level of these flames, but it was her skin or her mother's books. Eliza knew which she cared about more.

She dove into the flames.

Run and search the building
12:47, Today: Eliza rolled 17 using 1d20+4.  Perception.

Eliza is going to dash into the building and try to salvage what she can. She has fire resistance, as a tiefling, but the flames are pretty strong. Her priority is books and papers from her mother, followed by keepsakes, then anything of value. If there exists a deed to the property/building, she would remember it, but only -after- the stuff from her mother.

Ophilia's water helped, essentially another bucket in the brigade. It was helping slow the flames down, but they were still raging across the shop.

Eliza rushed in, her tiefling heritage keeping her safe from the flames for now. The books weren't as easy to find as one might expect. The shop looked alien in the flickering light of the orange flames, and smoke hung in the air, stinging her eyes and burning her lungs. She spotted the books on a shelf, charred and smoking, and splashed with more than a little water from well-meaning firefighters, but intact.

OOC: Let's say you can gather the books in one full round. Then another to get out of the building. If you want to stick around and find keepsakes and the deed it'll take another perception check and another round.

You're pretty safe from the fire with your fire resistance (1d6-5 damage per round), but the smoke is another story. Make a DC 15 fortitude check, if you fail you spend the round coughing and choking and can't do anything else. Every round you remain in the smoke the DC goes up by 1. Enough rounds spent choking and inhaling smoke and you will start to take nonlethal damage and could pass out!

Also make a DC 15 reflex save every round you're in the building to avoid your clothes catching fire!

Stumbling, choking, Eliza manages to gather the most important books in the shop, sweeping them into her pouch. The heat stung, but the tiefling managed to nimbly dodge out of the worst of the flames. Yet, in the process she found herself inhaling a large amount of smoke, sending her coughing and choking wildly in the middle of the store;

20:56, Today: Eliza rolled 25 using 1d20+5.  Reflex Save.
20:56, Today: Eliza rolled 10 using 1d20+2.  Fortitude Save.

Ophilia jaw dropped when Eliza went running into the shop.

"What is she doing ?"  Ophilia almost entered after but the heat of the flames reminded her she was not resistant to such flames.

Ophilia ran to Ameiko, "I can't help her in those fires, so I am going to help the others with the goblins still attacking. Please help her when she comes out. Let her know where I went."

Ophilia ran off to help the others and ran her hands along the walking stick muttering words of magic. Hoarfrost glittered along it.

[Private to GM: Shillelegh spell]

Eliza managed to gather up books and keep her clothes from catching fire but the smoke! The smoke stung her lungs and left her hacking and coughing on the floor of the hut.

Outside Ameiko shouted to Ophilia over the sound of the flames, "Understood! Go do what you can! We'll watch out for her."

OOC: You need to make a DC 16 fort save now to avoid choking another round. Again your Tiefling heritage makes it so you take no damage from the fire at least!

Ophilia, I'll give you access to group G, you can place yourself on the map this round on the left side in one of the bottom two rows. Also roll for initiative when you place yourself over there.

This...might have been a bad idea.

Still coughing, still choking, Eliza begins stumbling for the exit, what little survival instincts left in her kicking in.


00:22, Today: Eliza rolled 5 using 1d20+2.  Fortitude Save.
00:23, Today: Eliza rolled 11 using 1d20+3.  Initiative.

After a while, and after having literally caught on fire at least once, Eliza stumbled from the store with her books, coughing and sputtering. She collapsed on the ground as Vachedi of all people rushed to her side, picked her up and carried her away from the burning building to catch her breath.

Confused. Surrounded. Fire. Smoke. Fire. Fire!

Eliza gasped and jerked up, skittering to her feet in a frenzy of panic and fear.

"My books! My mother's papers- the lab- oh gods the deed oh nononono," the tiefling spluttered, swaying as she clutched the blackened satchel in her hands. She tried to stand, coughing heavily, but stumbled back to the floor again. Behind her, the Brimstone and Spirits burned, a flaming mess.

She wanted to cry, but her eyes were too dry.

...were there, people around her? Eliza tried to peer around her, through bleary eyes.

"...O-ophilia?"

"The ghost? She ran off that way," Vachedi replied with a characteristic grunt. He pointed up the street towards the North gate.

"Lie still. Your devil blood let you handle the flames, but apparently they don't have smoke in hell... ow!" Ameiko smacked him on the shoulder and shoved him out of the way, despite him weighing about three times what she seemed to.

"He's an oaf, but he's got a decent heart. If you can find it," she smiled.

As she talked a group of apprentices and  Ilsoari Gandethus marched up to the burning house. They repeated Ophilia's earlier work summoning water, but on a much grander scale. It took some time, but the fire was eventually under control.

"See, Jasna thank you for coming to help."

She then moved to Eliza, "Im sorry, I wanted to follow you but I can't handle fire like you. I got help though and we seem to have killed one of the goblin leaders. Was riding some horrible creature."

Jasna jogged after Ophilia, arriving to find Eliza in the street looking much the worse for wear.  She quickly summoned up a wave of healing energy for the tiefling's benefit, but it was rushed and sloppy magic that did little to really help.  That didn't stop Jasna from fussing over her further though.

"Wind and waves, Eliza!  Y'look like death warmed over.  Looks like you've got the fire under control, leastways.  That's somethin'.  Ah, I can chip in a little more, and fix up a bit of the damage..."  As a demonstration, she waved a hand over the charred satchel, which sloughed off the ash and knitted itself back together.  "Trick don't work on anything too big, but it's easy as pie.  Don't you stretch yourself more, lemme be your hands.  What needs doin', boss?"

OOC: 08:40, Today: Jasna rolled 1 using 1d6.  Channel Energy, Healing.
08:51, Today: Jasna rolled 2 using 1d4.  Mending.

...At this point I should probably just be glad the dice roller didn't set my car on fire or something.

"I- I don't-" Eliza seemed almost...perplexed by the concern shown to her. Unexpected, most of it. Seeing the clerics put out the fire around her home seemed to flip some sort of switch inside the tiefling, and she sags against the support, even as Jasna's healing energy washes over her;

"...water. Please," she croaks, "thank you. And you," she directs a weak smile at Ameiko, "...and you too, Vachedi. At least I got some of my mother's stuff out. If you folks hadn't been fighting the fire already..." something seems to catch in Eliza's throat, and she starts a fit of coughs;

"I- is the rest of the town alright Ophilia? Where are the goblins?"

"The rest are leaving, I think we hurt them enough to drive them off. I don't know why they attacked in the first place. I am just glad your ok." Ophilia hugged Eliza.

As weak as Jasna's healing was, Eliza didn't need much more. Her Tiefling heritage had saved her from damage from the heat and flames, and now that she was in open, fresh air her lungs were recovering from the smoke.

The fire was soon out. The makeshift fire brigade had managed to keep it from spreading to any other buildings, but Brimstone and Spirits was gutted. The building still stood, but the interior was charred and water-logged and uninhabitable, while Eliza's life possessions had mostly gone up in smoke, save for what she carried on her and the books she'd managed to rescue. Some metal items may have survived, but any potion, ingredient, scroll, anything remotely flammable was gone.

OOC: I can't remember what Eliza had with her at the start of the festival. For simplicity, let's assume that whatever is your 'starting gear' on your character sheet somehow survived, either because you had it with you, you grabbed it when you grabbed the books, or it was resilient enough to withstand the blaze.

Ameiko gave Eliza a hug acknowledging her thanks and passed a tankard of water to her, while Vachedi grunted and wandered off. "I'm sorry we couldn't save the shop. You can stay at the Dragon as long as you need. Same invitation goes to your friends who stood up to the goblins. The real thanks are to you all for your bravery in defending Sandpoint. It was impressive!"

[continued in Chapter 2: Local Heroes]