Chapter 6: True Grit
Plot points/Scenes
Return to Purgatory
- Town is sealing up to survive the night
- Several people are preparing to leave, probably forever, at first light
- Arguments abound but are not LOUD so much as they are brief, intense short clashes.
- Pathfinders will find their interactions strongly colored by which side of which argument they seem to be supporting.
- Padre will give what he can. He "can" give MORE if the PCs give him a reason to hope. He thinks he is going to die at his post. He plans on "standing vigil" tonight on the surface floor of the schoolhouse, although he really wishes everyone would move to Jasper Chapel instead. The schoolhouse is not holy ground.
- Padre wants to torch the shop of "that woman". And the Lich Tree behind it.
- Miss Amore says "no". She says the fire will definitely spread to her saloon, and that will likely explode. At that point, she says, we might as well give up on all of Oatman Canyon forever.
- Mr. Bianchi will sell (but not rent out) cart or wagon teams in trade for deeds to local landmarks, which he intends to sell at taxed value to whatever future settler comes along. He is willing to shepherd a caravan in the morning as far as the east side of Arjory Pond if people ask nicely. He is not moving away from Purgatory Gulch.
Scaevola Aemula's Battle Plan
Charm Person 1 of 3: Attempt to charm Bruthazmus. DC 17.
Scaevola DOES speak Minosh/Common. A fact that she has been disguising to limit what EvilSeed will demand of her.
"Ancestry is not destiny," she points out. "I am NOT A FIEND! But I was sprouted from one. Look at me, misshapen, hobbled against my will, forced to do **unnatural** things! I get my little rebellions where I can. I have not yet told my jailer about you. I do not tell him anything he does not think to demand of me. You can't do much, but your friend the druid COULD rescue me ... if the bossy lawslapper allergen over there would stop telling everyone how to EXIST!"
- Investigate the bait. Look for a Paladin or Cleric. Perception +12
- Investigate the scenario. Holy ritual actually in progress? Any kind of protection from good or sanctification? Perception +12, situational modifier based on how the Snafu Posse set this up.
- If combat starts: Go to 8.
If talking is still happening: Go to 5. - Suggestion 1/day: Handle the Neutral Druid.
Jesse is immune to a dryad's Charm spells. But not to a fiendish suggestion that the smart thing to do right now would be to shift into a Tawny Owl and go carefully overfly all of the inner spaces of Oatman Canyon. And Whippetal Ranch. Map everything out, make notes as to what is where and who is TRULY a problem around here. A hint: I think you will find some smokeless fire pits hidden near the south wall of the canyon! DC: 19 Whether or not Jesse goes for that, the next step is Charm Person 2 of 3: Attempt to charm Zhang Sephia. DC 17.
This is not my place. MEN who think it is fine to tell me what of my abilities to use when, and how, and why, they tried to CUT ME OFF from my HOME TERRITORY! They put their nasty, disgusting instructions on me as if it were RIGHT for them to do so! I do not want to be here. I do not want to do *any* of this!
You seem like a competent guardian of the wild.
I will be honest with you: so long as MEN are involved, I do not think anyone can save me. I think I am doomed. I will never see my beloved home again. I will wither in this dry, shallow, stale place.
But why would YOU stay where no one respects you, no one listens to you, no one treats you with courtesy? Where hardly anything even grows?
If these are too stupid to follow your guidance, if they are so determined to hurt me and loot what little of myself I was allowed to keep, well. To hell with them. Fly, guardian; leave them to their depravity; go back to places of real trees and good fruit.
Treat non-druids/rangers with increasing scorn.
- If Miro Teague attempts dialogue, say to his face in front of other Pathfinders, "I make no bargains with a cursed lawbreaker."
- If Lee Chung attempts dialogue, look him up and down. "Are you some kind of priest or something?" followed by "You bend the sky around you too much like those who hobbled me. But you do not wear their sigil. I do not have to scrape and bow to YOU, manling!" and then hit him with Deep Slumber 1 of 3 per day (DC 19) because RUDE.
Chef is not worth wasting a direct reaction on. It's only a kobold. Its function is to be cannon fodder.
- If a charm person failed, Scaevola Aemula cannot re-attempt today. Suggestion is only once per day. This leaves her, no matter what, with direct combat preparation: darkness 3/day, entangle (DC 17) at will, any remaining casts of deep slumber (DC 19, cast on 10HD worth of critters within range), and then her one casting of unholy blight (DC 20, covers a 2-square/20ft radius and does some damage which will awaken the sleeping).
- Initiative: +6
- Added combatants appear:
- 10x Briarseed Child
- 2x group of 4 each Blood-sucking Cabbage
all spring out of the very low underbrush and race toward the ranged combatants first
- Whoever first engages Scaevola Aemula in combat will be the focus of her Smite Good, although that is likely to be wasted on the Lawful Neutral monk Lee Chung.
- Scaevola Aemula has a Longbow of the Wood and will use it if she can get enough space between her and nearest combatant (figure about 5 squares minimum). Otherwise she uses wood shape to fuck up any crossbows/bows she can smack, and flings around entangle if she can, and after that it's Bite +9 | damage 1d6+2 and two Claw attacks each +4 | damage 1d4+1.
Structure
Exposition
Entering Purgatory Gulch at night is a different sensory experience than what you had the morning of Grolm 7th. Was that really only two days ago?
You came in that bright, hot morning to a quiet street, barely a breeze to blow the dirt around. The place was quiet on a late summer's morning.
Night falls in Purgatory earlier than it does in the plains to the south, purely because the sides of Oatman Canyon are so tall. Once again the distant hills gleam golden. But here in the town, and in the hills to the north, night rules immediately.
And the town is bustling.
Those of you who take it in for a second can hear the cheep of crickets, the almost subsonic whine of tiny (and probably bitey) gnats. North of the Purgatory Saloon, on the downward slope that leads toward Oat Livery, geckos chirp and click at one another as they seek an evening meal. The calls of nocturnal songbirds echo off the distance.
Closer to your needs: there's an undercurrent of turmoil.
You hear the occasional bam-bam-bam of some ranch hand or farm hand trying to add protective armor across a busted window.
You hear the wooden taps or crystalline clink of contents in small chests bumping one another in time to the hurried steps of whoever carries them across the dirt street.
You hear voices. Not their words, but their tone. These people are worried. They are angry about their worry. They are not of one mind as to how to solve it.
Right at first, you do not see Padre Cirino De Mario or any of the other people to whom you have introduced yourselves. Do you want to seek them out first? Or get yourselves into the Purgatory Gulch General Store and load Wrong Way up first?
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