BTO needed to get his character into Foundry. Paul was going to attempt to attend from Mexico via his phone so Brian had to transfer TerStegan as best as he could. That gobbled up some time but at least they got a head start. We agreed to go take out the Mudmifts rather than mess with the ghosts in the chapel. So, we backed away from the secret door. We successfully lobbied that it had been an hour of conversation with Boss Scrag and exploration so Brisco did another Treat Wound on Oakwood. And now that Xeeli existed again, she topped him off with an Elixir of Life from her Alchemist dedication feat. Once again, we struggled to get Foundry to work right. There were some discussions about exploration activities options which is a feature that Pathfinder seemed to think was important. I’m not sure it had any impact. We prepared for the fight outside the door and so did Brian. He tried to balance the encounter for the full 5 character set. (So much for our plan to better our chances by waiting for more players.) He had some problems with that but eventually Xeeli opened the door and the party started.
She fired some arrows into the room. And then a spider attacked her from above and crit. This was our first combat with the new program and it was a struggle. There seemed be stuff that happened automatically but only if you entered stuff manually first. Figuring out how to attack, use skills, target foes and friends. We rolled the damage but Brian had to apply it. And others. We piled in. Another problem was that the spiders Brian placed were all the same spider so when one took damage, they all did. Brian was tired of dicking with it and just let it be so. That made the fight much easier as when that first spider dropped, they all did. The boss, which I think we assumed was a spell caster, just seemed to have a blow gun. It only took a couple of rounds to clean them out. The Boss successfully pleaded for his life.
That was good and bad. He provided crude maps of the first and second floors. There were several foes still to be discovered. Next to the old stables, they were breeding giant flies on which they’d ride on their assault on Otari. There were some other bugs before the chapel that we avoided with the secret door. And something in the water. And a layout out of the next level, the most important of which was the access point under the dock. There were discussions on whether that would be under water, since the dock was over water, but maybe not. But the big news was that the lair of the swamp dragon was at that point. Several intimidation rolls were made on him and he mostly spilled his guts. But he didn’t know everything. He knew nothing of the lighthouse other than to avoid it. He had no treasure. The bag of gems he offered us last time was merely pebbles, shells and worse. The bad news was that we had to figure out what to do with him. We decided to head back to Otari and hand him over to the “authorities”. Not sure how that will work out since we had no evidence and a semi confession forced under duress. But TerStegan was eager to pick up his new weapon.
Back in Otari, it would take two days for the weapons to be complete. In that downtime, each character had a chance to do some stuff. The amount and success of those activities varied greatly. TerStegan wanted to talk to Xeeli’s mom. (And the priest but she was too busy.) She had one piece of advice that we hadn’t already thought of. Since the lighthouse attack happened at night, maybe we’d have a better idea what was going on if we went there at night. Xeeli spent most of her time getting started on her sleeves of holding. Brisco spent most of his time at the clubhouse, fixing up the grounds in particular. Oakwood attempted to get a start on the Mayor Election side quest but he had no social skills and couldn’t roll above an 8 so got nowhere. Dan was distracted with home issues and Clarisa didn’t do anything that I can recall. We also talked to Honest Jack. He had definitely been out there which wasn’t too damning however he seemed very well versed in the Mudfits plans. Brisco found this suspicious and Oakwood thought it at least warranted a mention to us on our way there or to the Otari authorities. There was also some investigation on the boat. The bird statuette we found was an osprey and there was a bar in town for which that was their symbol. And they happen to specialize in pasties. Pirates? We weren’t even sure if that boat could get to the ocean from the swamp.
Next time, we’ll have to decide (again) to continue on the main quest or get diverted by side quests. We earned no treasure and any experience was negligible. Hopefully combat goes smoother next time and we can make more progress. Maybe finish off the ground floor. Brian said that our level progress will slow while he tried to get us back in sync with the level expectations of the module.
