Pathfinder Ruins of Azlant: Sumner learns how Spud bribes Golems

Something tells me it doesn’t want a spoon

Part 31 of my campaign playing in Paizo’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/

Part 3 can be found here:https://blackroseberserker.wordpress.com/2021/02/01/pathfinder-ruins-of-azlant-sumner-punches-a-most-wretched-hive-of-skum-and-circuitry/

Part 4 can be found here:https://blackroseberserker.wordpress.com/2021/02/24/pathfinder-ruins-of-azlant-sumner-gets-punched-in-the-brain-and-learns-how-to-hogtie/

Part 5 can be found here:https://blackroseberserker.wordpress.com/2021/03/10/pathfinder-ruins-of-azlant-sumner-punches-soggy-undead-and-evil-lobsters/

Part 6 can be found here:https://blackroseberserker.wordpress.com/2021/03/17/pathfinder-ruins-of-azlant-sumner-gets-kod-by-a-fireball/

Part 7 can be found here:https://blackroseberserker.wordpress.com/2021/05/02/pathfinder-ruins-of-azlant-sumner-punches-some-sharkmen/

Part 8 can be found here: https://blackroseberserker.wordpress.com/2021/09/12/pathfinder-ruins-of-azlantsumner-pucnhes-a-troll-and-a-crab-not-necessarily-in-that-order/

Part 9 can be found here:https://blackroseberserker.wordpress.com/2021/11/25/pathfinder-ruins-of-azlant-sumner-punches-out-an-old-lady/

Part 10 can be found here: https://blackroseberserker.wordpress.com/2021/11/25/pathfinder-ruins-of-azlant-sumner-and-the-beginning-of-the-noodle-arms/

Part 11 can be found here: https://blackroseberserker.wordpress.com/2022/01/27/pathfinder-ruins-of-azlant-sumner-takes-stock-and-loses-a-bout-to-a-thunderstorm/

Part 12 can be found here:https://blackroseberserker.wordpress.com/2022/01/28/pathfinder-ruins-of-azlant-sumner-kos-diplomacy-scary-smoke-monsters-some-oozes-a-rat-and-a-table/

Part 13 can be found here:https://blackroseberserker.wordpress.com/2022/03/25/pathfinder-ruins-of-azlant-sumner-dodges-a-meteor-kos-some-hounds-and-the-noodle-arms-strike-back/

Part 14 can be found here: https://blackroseberserker.wordpress.com/2022/03/25/pathfinder-ruins-of-azlant-sumner-enters-the-temple-of-clockworks-and-noodle-arms/

Part 15 can be found here:https://blackroseberserker.wordpress.com/2022/03/26/pathfinder-ruins-of-azlant-sumner-rides-the-lightning-and-watches-leeroy-come-into-his-own/

Part 16 can be found here:https://blackroseberserker.wordpress.com/2022/04/09/pathfinder-ruins-of-azlant-sumner-struggles-to-catch-up-to-the-longest-fight-ever/

Part 17 can be found here:https://blackroseberserker.wordpress.com/2022/04/17/pathfinder-ruins-of-azlant-sumner-trades-blows-with-a-giant-supersonic-shrimp/

Part 18 can be found here:https://blackroseberserker.wordpress.com/2022/04/26/pathfinder-ruins-of-azlant-sumner-gets-punched-in-the-brainagain-in-return-of-the-dragon/

Part 19 can be found:https://blackroseberserker.wordpress.com/2022/04/28/pathfinder-ruins-of-azlant-sumner-learns-that-elves-are-assholes/

Part 20 can be found here:https://blackroseberserker.wordpress.com/2022/05/18/pathfinder-ruins-of-azlant-sumner-heads-to-tallahassee-where-he-learns-that-not-only-surface-elves-are-assholes/

Part 21 can be found here:https://blackroseberserker.wordpress.com/2022/05/19/pathfinder-ruins-of-azlant-sumner-punches-out-a-giant-wyrm-from-the-inside/

Part 22 can be found here:https://blackroseberserker.wordpress.com/2022/06/13/pathfinder-ruins-of-azlantsumner-watches-leeroy-make-a-bad-guy-give-up-by-puking-on-himself/

Part 23 can be found here:https://blackroseberserker.wordpress.com/2022/06/22/pathfinder-ruins-of-azlant-sumner-punches-some-flowers-and-gets-a-cold-sore/

Part 24 can be found here:https://blackroseberserker.wordpress.com/2022/06/29/pathfinder-ruins-of-azlant-sumner-wades-through-a-pile-of-viscera-and-gore-in-order-to-play-janitor/

Part 25 can be found here:https://blackroseberserker.wordpress.com/2022/08/08/pathfinder-ruins-of-azlant-sumners-spring-break-or-the-return-to-tallahassee/

Part 26 can be found here:https://blackroseberserker.wordpress.com/2022/08/08/pathfinder-ruins-of-azlant-sumner-loves-it-when-a-plan-comes-together/

Part 27 can be found here:https://blackroseberserker.wordpress.com/2022/08/08/pathfinder-ruins-of-azlant-sumner-learns-to-appreciate-art-and-how-to-make-splinters-out-of-a-wizard/

Part 28 can be found here:https://blackroseberserker.wordpress.com/2022/09/07/pathfinder-ruins-of-azlant-sumner-donkey-punches-a-urinating-scrag/

Part 29 can be found here:https://blackroseberserker.wordpress.com/2022/09/12/pathfinder-ruins-of-azlant-sumner-watches-spud-make-the-second-longest-fightever/

Part 30 can be found here:https://blackroseberserker.wordpress.com/2022/09/18/pathfinder-ruins-of-azlant-sumner-watches-a-troll-lose-his-reason-for-living/

To Recap: Our heroes (Nyvne the draconic Sorcerer, Leeroy the dragonman Paladin, Spud the potatoman Druid and his giant vulture companion Falkor, and Sumner the mooseman Brawler) had freed some new friends from experimentation within the Alabaster Trident. Following that, they fought another battle with Scrags and experienced much humor.

We had several weeks of being unable to play due to real-life stuff going on between the last session and this one. The reason I was unable to remember the Ram and Al’s players’ names was that in between sessions they decided to move out of state, and we lost our fifth group of the party back up. Oh well, it happens. We shipped them up the tower to hang out with Oakbark, which meant that the Monk’s robe we found almost immediately after starting this session went to Sumner without argument.

We had apparently obliterated all of the enemies guarding the top of the towers. All that was left for us was to move into the ‘haft” of the tower and continue down. So we do so, finding that the next several levels of the tower are separated into several smaller rooms each. On the first level, as we search through a mix of what appears to have been servants’ quarters many millennia ago, we find a single object giving off a magical aura. Digging through some trashed furniture we find a Sustaining Spoon. This item when placed in an empty bowl will fill it with a tasteless gruel, enough to sustain up to four adults for an entire day. We file this away in our bag of holding for future reference. We continue on.

Swimming down through the central shaft of the tower that appears to be the only way to descend, we arrive at a wide circular room containing windows in each of the cardinal directions, although the windows have been filled in with the same alabaster stone that the tower is made of. Several piles of broken furniture and rubble fill the room, and hidden (poorly) within these piles are two masses of gears and metal that stand up and lumber forward to attack when we enter. Apparently, after having fought clockwork soldiers, bees, wizards, and workers, we are now into Clockwork Golems. The golems don’t pose too much of a fight for us, going as low as they do in the initiative order. They explode when we defeat them, with Sumner being able to avoid the explosions, Falkor being out of range, and Leeroy taking just a little amount of damage.

After defeating the golems we head through a series of rooms, passing through a viewing gallery with artwork made of mosaic tiles on the wall and a room that appears to have been made to deliver speeches, with a stone podium on a raised dais. We next pass through a curving room that occupies about two-thirds of the level. Sumner, in the lead, as usual, opens the next door and sets off a trap. A lightning bolt explodes in the middle of the room, almost killing Nyvne and severely damaging Spud and Leeroy. It was at this point of the campaign, having had no one to deal with traps or locks since level one that I decided to take at least one level of rogue.

After Leeroy heals the damage caused by the trap we head through the door into a bedroom. Even though it is underwater everything still seems to be in fine (albeit wet) condition. Searching through the numerous piles of clothing, shoes, furnishings, and knick-knacks we find a sixteen-sided spherical-shaped box. Picking it up it begins whining and hissing, and gears on the inside begin to move. We fumble it trying to figure out what to do and realize that this is another example of a place where a rogue would come in essential. The box stops whirring after about thirty seconds and begins to emit smoke, hazy under the water. It opens and we see three broken vials and about six strips of parchment that immediately begin to bleed ink into the water, illegible after a few moments.

We continue on and come to another room that opens into the central shaft that leads further down the tower. Heading down we come to another room, cluttered with all sorts of detritus. From among the debris four golems move into the open to engage us. Two appear similar to the Clockwork Golems we have already fought, humanoid shapes crafted out of metal and gears, with the exception that each has one arm bearing a cannon. The other two are humanoid shapes crafted out of various species’ bones, with arms culminating in hands shaped out of tyrannosaurus heads. As we take in these new varieties, one of the Cannon Golems’ heads reshapes itself to the face of the statue we saw at the top of the tower and begins to speak to us.

“Who dares to disturb my tower?” the visage of the ancient Azlanti Lich Auberon the Drowned asks us. “Well, it’s Sumner, Leeroy, Nyvne, Spud, and Falkor, “ I tell him. The Lich begins to question us on why we are there and gets angry when it hears the name Ochymua spoken. We try to placate him by telling him we are Ochymua’s enemies as well and offer our services to him against Ochymua. “What can you offer me that I don’t have myself?” Auberon asks. This is when Spud chimes in with, “Well we have this spoon…”. Needless to say, roll for initiative is the next thing out of Nathan’s mouth.

The fight is won, but not easily. The Cannon Golems cannonballs HURT, going right through Sumner’s damage resistance. The Fossil Golems luckily, for us, manage not to petrify anyone, since I don’t believe Nyvne had learned Stone to Flesh. We end this session bloody and use up a bunch of our resources in the form of potions and scrolls to heal up. Again, after this session, Sumner has decided to take some rogue levels to learn how to pick locks and disarm traps.