In Sickness and Health

September 24, 2015

Lazarus suddenly realizes what he has done and how he has acted.  He stops Cress before Cress, and Trinia, can leave.  Lazarus tells the violin no more and breaks it, something Cress hadn't been able to do!  However, the pieces fly back together and the violin flies into a nearby alcove.  A shadowy dragon appears that all can see and tells Lazarus he will be sorry that he rejected the power the violin offered.  

The group continues searching the caves and find some tieflings guarding an entrance to a cave.  They are again asked nicely to leave but don't, so get rid of the tieflings.  Following the mage that has been eluding them further and further into the caves, they come across a worked area, with homages and symbols of Urgathoa, goddess of disease.  Going into this area reveals undead, another cultist, and the mage fleeing.  The group manages to catch up to the mage, take care of her, the undead and the cultist.  Moving one, they find more guardian and what appears to be an unfinished temple complex to Urgathoa.  The final room, the main worship area, is . . . empty?  They find the secret passage leading out, as well as a strange mask that they grab.  Realizing that they haven't found the nephew, they head out, trying to track who was there.  

They see Rolth and Cress uses Roc to follow him.  When the rest try to move in on him, Rolth spots them.  He cuts Ruan leaving him to bleed as he runs off.  A few stop to tend to Ruan, with magic as needed, while the rest chase after Rolth.  Rolth is able to evade them, though, somewhere in North Point.   

Ruan does not look well, so they go back to the temple to Pharisma and ask her if she can cure disease, rather than taking him back to Mathilda sick.  The high priestess, Emedira, says she only prepared one such spell.  Cress, who got infected, reluctantly agrees to have Ruan be cleansed first.  Emedira asks if Cress would be willing to see the plague he has accelerated, so they know what they are dealing with.  Cress agrees and Emedira does a ritual to haste the plague.  Something gets out of control, though, and Emedira pulls the plague into her, which then advances as if weeks had passed!  She dies.  The group can only stare in horror at what happened.  Finally, an acolyte comes around and sees this.  He says that Emedira had contingencies in place for this.  However, when the group hears that the acolyte is going to try and cast it, and it might backfire, they go and arrange for the high priest of Abadon, Keppira d'Bear to cast the spell instead.  While grumbling, the group can tell the acolytes are happy with that.  

It has been long enough and Ruan was still weak, so the group heads back to Mathilda's to return her nephew.  She is very grateful and gives them quite a reward. They had back to Grindhouse to celebrate.  

Most of the group rests but Cress has to find out what is up with the mask they found.  It turns out that it does help fight off disease but he's still suspicious that there is more to it than that.  Zac then says that he has already heard rumors of plague.  Apparently, physicians, appointed by the Queen, are setting up in the square across the way!  And they are wearing very familiar looking masks!  The group is again very suspicious about the queen and how she had so many masks, minor magic items, ready for these physicians to help people.  

The group plans to send in two people to be treated.  One will have symptoms, to see what they do, and one will be clean.  It turns out they are handing out money to people for coming forward and being checked.  It's about equal to a week's worth of wages, so many people are coming forward.  Cress fakes the disease and the physicians isolate him in his rooms and check him further.  They don't find the plague but they do warn him about loose women and suggest he get this cleared up when he can.  Sveinn goes in as not being infected and they thank him, give him some silver from some very familiar looking coffers, before sending him on his way.  Niko doesn't even want to touch the coin!  

During this time, Sveinn also gets a visitor but doesn't have a chance to talk to the group about it.  Lazarus is also visited by the skull violin, having taken over someone else.  Lazarus almost picks it up and takes the violin back but realizes that it is too dangerous, so once again rejects it.  It vows vengeance and leaves.  

The group discusses what they will do next about what they have learned.  

GM Notes

• One of the interesting things I think is happening with no xp per session is that PCs define their characters much better.  After several battles, when looting normally happens, none did.  I was pleasantly surprised by that.  
• Of course, I could be giving the players too much credit and they may have forgotten.  I prefer to think they aren't defining their characters by what they find so much as what they do.   
• The group really hates it when an adversary gets away.  The mage ran out on them from the first fight down below, so they were quite happy and anxious to finish her off!   
• I'm really happy we are still using drama points.  I didn't want them to confront Rolth yet, so was able to let him get away after a bit of drama, but give the players a reward for going after him.  I like how that works out.  
• At the same time, I'm glad I have players who go with the drama.  The RAW of PF don't allow for an easy way to injure someone severely that a simple cure potion can't stop!  I suppose there could be a few things but most still are stopped by magical healing, which is common for adventurers.  It's nice to have that happen for the drama, even if the game doesn't allow for it.  
• I think there was confusion when I said that Emedira had contingencies in place as I didn't not mean the Contingency spell, merely plans on what to do if this happened by unnatural means.  
• We did a lot and I thought about giving them a level.  However.  With a new player to this game, and with the group having just gained a level, I didn't want it to be that fast.   Instead, I use the training rules and let them choose between increasing two levels of rolled hit points to max, or gaining another feat!  As they said it was a tough choice, I think it worked out well!  
• I'm also hoping this shows them they don't have to worry if they don't roll well for hit points, they will have ways to make up for it later. 
• I'm still trying to set up what happens in later chapters, as well as my own plans, and enjoy that a lot!  
• I was bummed.  I had a completely different map set up and ready in d20Pro but a power outage killed it before it was saved.  I thought d20Pro autosaved but nope.  I had to create something else that wasn't a visually appealing.  I did some descriptions but not enough.  I need to learn to calm down, slow down, and do more.  I think that's tough when there is combat, as there is this idea of rushing forward and not seeing the details.  I still need to be better about that.   

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