PF2e 03 - Arlon Sewers 1

The party, fresh off their first assignment for the guild, kicks it around Arlon for a few days. Sprii, the Leshy Druid, spent most of her time helping farmers outside the city walls with their crops. Meanwhile, Esdee the Ratfolk Magus and Magnust, the Beastkin Thaumaturge, spent time listening for gossip and rumors around town.

After a couple days getting used to the city, they’re flagged down during lunch at the guildhall. They were informed that work had been slow for workers of their rank, but something had come in, and the party had been specifically recruited for it. Some beggers had pooled their money and paid the guild to have the sewers cleared out of Pythons and Leeches that have been invading where they were living. They needed those specifically cleared out because they were near primary living areas. The party agreed and went over to meet the clients, near the western sewer entrance.

What’s fun is that the party started off suspicious about this request. First going “wait, why would they request us specifically” to “Oh, they’re just looking for the cheapest people, so they requested the lowest ranked group” which is fun because it absolutely is the former, as a lot of the homeless are employed by the Alabaster Palace as informants, and this quest is a way to see if they’re worth a meeting.

Diving in to the rank sewers, they see an alcove where someone had apparently stayed, but it was completely ruined; blankets torn to shreds, crates smashed, food half dipped in the running sewer waste. Sprii spent some time with Prestidigitation to clean up the small space, before they moved on to their first intersection. To the north, the sound of steam, to the East, the sounds of squeaks, and to the south, more flowing water. They were too busy taking in the environment that they were surprised by a pair of cockroaches bearing down on Magnus. A few counterattacks later, and the cockroaches scurried away.

The party went north, towards the steam. Pipes in the wall were erupting with steam at irregular intervals. Magnus was just about to start crawling on the ground, when he discovered some oddity: a single brick in the wall that was less dingy than the others. Pressing it released a latch that opened a hidden door that let them bypass the vents. They then met a woman yelling about some rocks, and the party, properly paranoid, attacked the stationary stones. They were of course, right to do so as they were Living Boulders. A quick encounter and the boulders were rubble. They chatted with the woman, a fortune teller who apologized that all of her cards were missing, she only had one. They offered to keep an eye out for her cards, and left, but as they departed she set the last card down on the ground and a Mantis appeared for just an instant. Then they took care of the first target, the pythons.

Deck of Illusions and I drew a card from a deck of cards near me for fun. There is no real rest of the deck. This is another one of the people involved with the Alabaster Palace. My goal to all this was to give the sense that there’s more going on here than they expected.

After clearing the pythons, they moved to a nearby chamber. Magnus gave a boost to the smaller characters to help them get to an opening into the wall of pipes. The room contained some stone benches and a pedestal, which held a 2 foot statues with the bottom half of a Monkey and the top half of a Jaguar. They tried to remove the statue from the pedestal, but only the top half came off, showing that it was on a peg. Sprii took the statue top, just in case.
Look…. Ok, yes. I ripped off Legends of the Hidden Temple for this. Fixing the statues will open a grate that leads to the entrance of the Alabaster Palace basement.

Backtracking through, they went towards the initial squeaking, and found a couple giant rats, which Esdee was able to talk to and get them to stand down and direct them to the leeches. A few rations later, and they went their separate ways.

They came upon the giant leeches sitting in a reservoir of fetid water that was being filtered before draining in the lake. The leeches were slow on the pathways, but approached through the water. One managed to latch on to Magnus and drained his blood, knocking him out. Thinking fast, Sprii pulled him back out of the way while Esdee handled the two remaining leeches.

The two tasks completed, the party decided to return to the surface for a rest. They informed the clients that the main threats have been eliminated, but they want to give it a once over one more time before calling it done.

So that’s where we called it for the night. They have one half a statue. A room off the reservoir has a pedestal with the bottom half of the Jaguar statue but nothing on top. One path they haven’t explored from the initial intersection leads to a filtered pool of water that, if they inspect the room, can see there’s an opening at the bottom. They can swim through it to a secret room that will hold… either a bonus item or the monkey half of the statue. Haven’t decided fully yet.

How I feel about the game: It’s… fine? As a 4e Liker, I like how multiclassing is tied to feats, instead of taken at each level. I feel like this forces the developers to focus more on making each class interesting, instead of giving you an outlet to shore it up. I know that’ll bother some people but for this, it feels like it’d be interesting.

I’m still getting used to parts of the 3 action system. There were a few times where we mixed a few things up and almost took 4 actions, but we got it sorted. Foundry’s module handling so much heavy lifting is nice because this overhead would be a pain without it. Flanking bonus, penalties for prone, Dying and Wounded status, all being tracked automatically makes my life easier. Something is irking me, itching at the back of my brain, but I can’t place what it might be.