Part Three of my current playthrough of Pathfinder’s Ruins of Azlant Adventure Path
My introductory post can be found here: https://blackroseberserker.wordpress.com/2020/12/14/pathfinder-ruins-of-azlant-sumner-punches-the-world-edition/
Part 1 can be found here: https://blackroseberserker.wordpress.com/2020/12/25/pathfinder-ruins-of-azlant-sumner-punches-glados/
Part 2 can be found here: https://blackroseberserker.wordpress.com/2021/01/09/pathfinder-ruins-of-azlant-sumner-punches-a-hole-in-the-ground/
To recap: our heroes had escaped from the Aperture Science Laboratory. Exiting the facility they had found themselves on a tropical island. Exploring the area they arrived at a village, one Talmandor’s Bounty, whose leader, Ramona Avandth, eventually extended membership to them. They settled in, some taking jobs, and helped restore the village, whose original settlers had vanished before this second wave had arrived. Over time they helped solve a murder by discovering a Choker warren under the towns well, saved a man named Milo from drowning in quicksand, and discovered a village nearby of other non-humans like themselves, who had also been experimented on by ancient machinery.
Our group (Leeroy the Dragon-man Paladin, Nyvne the draconic sorcerer, and Sumner the moosetaur Brawler) arrive back at Talmandor’s Bounty and update Ramona. We are then asked by Pathfinder guy (ne Carver Hastings) to investigate some nearby Azlanti ruins that have been discovered. It appears Azlant was an ancient human empire, both magically and technologically advanced beyond the present day. It was destroyed or disappeared in an event called Earthfall, where giant rocks fell from the heavens. Carver asks us if any of us speak Azlanti or can navigate the jungle. On discovering that we cannot do either, reliably, in any way, he has Lyra and Milo accompany us.
Lyra Heatherly is a half-elven ranger and scout, who knows her way decently through the jungle. Milo Cattenbury is a human mage and scholar who speaks Azlanti. Lyra is pretty brave but not quite up to par with our heroes. Milo is a cowardly intellectual, who is secretly in love with Lyra but too shy to show it. Sumner likes them both, but gives Milo a hard time, good-naturedly.
Lyra leads our group through the jungle for a couple of hours. The ruins in question end up being a clearing in the middle of the jungle. The ground is covered in worked stone and a couple of columns rise up from the ground in between the trees. In the middle of the clearing is a dais made from pinkish stone, sitting in the middle of a broken rotunda. The dais looks remarkably well preserved.
As we approach the dais an image appears in the air in front of it. The image is of a man in robes wearing a giant helmet, shaped like a trident in the front, that obscures his face. We intuit that he must be very important based upon the size of his helm (the more hat, the more important). He begins to speak in a language that none of us know, but that Milo tells us is ancient Azlanti. “Loyal citizens of the empire—fear not. The blot in the heavens is but a ruse by veiled foes to keep us distracted in this time of mounting chaos. Tend to your regular duties, and trust in the Ioun Imperative and your emperor to keep you safe. Do not fail us, and we shall not fail you“. Once we step out of range it stops and disappears. As cool as this is we decide to head back.
Upon returning to Talmandor’s Bounty we report to Carver, telling him about the image that we saw. Upon hearing the description of the man in the image’s helm, he gets excited. He tells us that it sounds like a decemvirate helm, one’s worn by members of a high council of the Pathfinder Society. This might mean a connection between the society and ancient Azlant. While talking to him one of the members of the non-human village that we had found last session, appears in Talmandor’s Bounty and tells us of a Tower that they have found exploring, in which they saw some human beings going into it. Figuring that any humans on this island might be members of the original expedition, we head on our way to explore it.
Our journey takes about half of a day. We exit the jungle and find ourselves making our way through a series of rocky hills. Upon arriving at the site we were told about we see a stone tower, built into the side of one of the larger hills. The area looks like in the distant past it would have been well-tended, possibly with walkways or paths decorated in stone; now it is littered with the detritus of time and any meaning in the landscaping can no longer be discerned. The only thing that looks we preserved is the tower. Trying to decide how tall it is, Sumner guesses it to be 3 or 4 stories tall, but he has difficulty figuring an exact number since the little folk built more levels than he is used to. There are no windows and the large double doors at the base of the tower sit ajar.
As we approach we notice that there is writing carved into the doors, in a language again only Milo understands. He tells us it says in Azlanti, “Spindlelock Research Facility, a division of Aperture Science, making Tomorrow’s Humanity, Today. Authorized Personnel Only.” We enter the tower into a large, rectangular room. Grey tiles with geometrical designs cover the floor; pure white walls, reflecting glowing white light from the ceiling makes the room appear larger than it actually is. Directly in front of us is a statue of a man in robes with a large helmet. As we move up to inspect it and see if it is of the same man that we saw the image of at the dais in the jungle, Nyvne notices that part of the walls are illusionary. Unfortunately, she notices too late to warn Sumner and Leeroy of the Skum that jump out to attack us.
Skum are fish-froglike men, and they attempt to stab us with their tridents. Sumner takes a couple of hits, luckily absorbing most of the damage with his damage reduction. Leeroy breathes acid, Nyvne hits them with some cantrips, and Sumner bashes in their heads to deal with the two of them. Grabbing their treasure and healing up we investigate the illusionary walls they jumped through. The rooms are made of plain grey stone, with a silver circle indented into the floor. The walls that the skum jumped through can be seen through from this side, showing us that they could see us as soon as we walked into the tower. Unable to figure out what the silver circles are, only that they radiate some sort of magic, we head back out and inspect the statue, to see that, yes, it is identical to the man in the image we had seen earlier. We head through the only door in the chamber.
Upon opening the door and stepping through Leeroy is targeted by 2 crossbows that pop out of the walls and shoot at him. They reload and fire at him again as he backs through the door. Using my Martial Superiority ability (a Brawler ability that lets him temporarily learn feats on the fly), Sumner learns how to Deflect arrows, and moves into the doorway. Between the deflection and his damage reduction, he doesn’t take much damage as Nyvne uses her ray of frost cantrip to destroy the crossbows from behind him.
Re-entering the room now that the trap has been dealt with, we notice that there is a ramp leading to the floor above on the north wall, and a doorway on both the east and west walls. Opening the east doorway, we see a giant bench, waist-high, covered with tools lining the southern wall, and a couple of skum poking about the bench. Leeroy gets in the doorway, and between him, Sumner’s reach, and Nyvne’s cantrips we take them down pretty easily. Nyvne is able to look at the tools on the bench and figure out with her knowledge of arcana that this area was used to manufacture Ioun Stones (magical stones that float around the head of the person who activates them, like moons orbiting a planet; originally created by Jack Vance in the Dying Earth story, Rhialto the Marvelous). Passing through a door in this room leads us to a room with a circle on the ground; standing in the circle gives you the benefits of Detect Magic, without having to cast it. Cool, but not going to help us figure out what is going on.
We move across the big room and head through the western door. Well, we try to. Opening it reveals two clockwork robots to us; They immediately attack. Milo shouts at us, asking us to disable one without killing it. He thinks he can reprogram it to help. I thusly take a crash course on grappling in Pathfinder, something I studiously avoided if possible in D&D 3.0 and 3.5. Leeroy and Nyvne manage to take one down with a bit of effort; their armor is pretty strong for what we have encountered so far, and they hit with a decent amount of strength. Sumner finally manages to grapple one into submission long enough for Milo to turn it off. Looking it over he knows he can reprogram it, it will just take a while. We decide to end the night here, leaving the upper floors of the Spiindlelock Research Facility left to be explored by our heroes.
The Blackrose and the Berserker 