The Pathfinder playtest resumes! The official tune of the Pathfinder playtest begins, which is the Skype calling tone. When last we left our heroes they had beaten down two quasits in a fountain room. Mylris moves forward and attempts to open a door; it’s locked. And they don’t have a rogue. And they can’t find rules for wrecking the door. So they open the other door instead.

DM: As you do, you notice a rope being tugged, and a bunch of rusted armor comes falling down, making a loud racket.
Mylris: “They know we’re here.”
Brogar: (miming closing the door and walking off)

With a Perception check, they believe they saw a light quickly snuffed somewhere further in the complex. Moving forward, they peer into a room and see nothing within save for the ashes of a former fire, and so, suspicious, they begin to fall into combat readiness and prepare for an attack from the room as they move past it.

DM: A narrow flight of stairs winds up, downward, descending into a circular chamber. Stone bears line the –
Drengar: What are those called?! Bears?
Mylris: Biers.
DM: Biers?
Drengar: Is that what those things are called? Good to know. Now we have a name.
Mylris: I had to take a class on sexual harassment. Good news is, I got a B. Bad news is, it was a Cos-by.

Silence.

Lorenil: God damn it, Mylris.
DM: That’s a hard one. That was a struggle.
Drengar: I do like jokes about rapists.
DM: Especially when it’s about Cosby.
Drengar: ‘Hey hey hey!’
Mylris: ‘Here comes my Fat Albert!’
Lorenil: God damn it.
DM: On the floor, scattered bones.

Weird Denethor impressions ensue. A discussion occurs regarding Channel Energy, though Lorenil recognizes a shrine of Pharasma, who is her god apparently? Drengar moves forward to check out that statue, but his god is Torag!

DM: As you pass the statue of the goddess Phasma – Phasma – heh! Pharasma. Doo da doo da doo, looking up at her you can see the small little hourglass in her hand shift, and it goes upside down and the sand begins to drop from the top to the bottom. Swirling sands burst from the hourglass and surround it, 10 feet in each direction. Fortitude save!

The cloud lingers, forcing them backwards – no one wants to risk the Fortitude save! Drengar in particular emerges hacking and coughing.

Drengar: “Argh, your goddess sucks!”
Mylris: “…What have you done?”

The sand dies down after a minute, sucked back into the hourglass. Lorenil determines that they need a holy symbol or a blessing from Pharasma to pass safely. Or purified water, apparently, but no one knows what the heck they should do on that score.

DM: You have minute where you won’t trigger it again.
Mylris: That means whatever is behind us we can leave behind us. If they try to come through they’ll trigger the trap. What are the odds they’re worshippers of Phasma – Phantasma—
Lorenil: Phasma. Pharasma. You got me now!
Brogar: Plasma.
DM: You know what – after you made that statement – there’s no Wisdom! Is there Wisdom? Give me a Wisdom check!

Mylris rolls terribly, as the DM waxes sarcastic and mistakes his argument entirely. They start passing and tossing Lorenil’s holy symbol around to get by, approaching the next door!

DM: As you turn the knob, the knob is clearly turnable. But you put a little pressure on it and it’s not moving. Full stop.
Brogar: Strength. My feeble Strength. So the knob is what’s stuck, not something blocking the door—
DM: Maybe it’s expanded a bit, who knows, maybe it’s just built badly. Clearly you feel like you could put some oomph behind it with an athletics check.
Brogar: 12.
DM: You found the DC. Putting your shoulder into it, you burst the door open.
Mylris: It opened the other way, you dumbass!

The next room holds an altar on a dais, surrounded by mosaics. It’s all filthy. In they step!

DM: The tribe leader thought he was a smart man. Hearing the sound of the door clashing, he knew someone was coming. He hid behind the tomb, ready to go. He heard them come in, he was getting ready to spring his attack! Proceeded to roll a 1, slipping and falling out of the cover, right on his face over here.
Drengar: Well that’s embarrassing.

Initiative ensues! The DM complains they just stormed past everything straight to the one room he wasn’t prepared for. The goblin transforms into a faceless being, but cannot make a sneak attack!

Brogar: But he could hide behind – he could hide behind Drengar and sneak attack me for his full damage.
DM: It’s not going to work that way…
Mylris: ‘Can I hide behind this nothing?’
Brogar: ‘Well, I’m disguised, so that counts as something I’m hiding behind, so I get max damage, plus all my sneak attack dice, times 2….’
Mylris: ‘Can I attack him 7 times?’ No! ‘Dude, what the fuck?!’

Monster abilities are much discussed. This guy can knock around and drag and various things, apparently; he beans Mylris and seizes him! Drengar is stuck in melee and his spell gets disrupted, so he bolts to take advantage of the boss having spent his reaction. Brogar unleashes a flurry of blows, striking once for 8 damage (and grousing about how monks are useless all the while). Someone apparently body-slams a person onto the table, to judge from the noise, and then Lorenil beans the baddie with a telekinetic rock. Joann, loaded down with splashy alchemist bombs, is short on options, and thus fires his crossbow. Mylris swings wide – the boss’s AC is above 16.

Mylris: I’m done.
Drengar: Correction: We’re done.
Brogar: It seems like the enemies have the old Pathfinder rules and we have the new rules. We’re all wet noodles and they have the super-high armor classes and damage pools.
DM: Just the one guy.
Brogar: I’m saying, the stuff we went through before now, it’s either really hard to hit, or takes a lot of damage, or both. Just compared to what our capabilities are at level 1. It seems a little tilted.

A weird argument over the character sheets erupts, and then the boss grabs Mylris again and drains him!

Drengar: You’re 0th level, you’re dead.
Brogar: Oh god, it’s a vampire.
Mylris: Wait, when he hit me I interposed my shield, with a shield block
DM: And since it’s 4 damage, you don’t take damage.
Drengar: I cast Bless to give everyone a +1 conditional bonus to their attack rolls…

Brogar delivers a mighty blow, complaining all the while about monk. An oboe entertains the group in the background.

DM: Okay, so, as much as we like to go in and tear apart a whole dungeon in a day, pretty much, this adventure’s on the idea that you stop and go up and rest every now and then to recover everything.
Brogar: Oh, no wonder!
DM: There’s this whole time limit, when we first started you get seven days, and even they’re like, ‘if you fail to complete this in seven days there’s an outcome for it’.
Brogar: I know when you’re playing a video game that mentality doesn’t ever strike a weird chord, but like roleplaying, actually in this setting? You don’t just go down into a den of evil, clear a couple rooms out, then head back out with the assumption that everything will be fine while we’re gone. It’s not like this is a Resident Evil dungeon where like, okay, we killed the zombies in this room and that room so we can go to the typewriter, go to the room with the box and just quit out. I don’t ever apply that to tabletop games. Not that that’s wrong…

Joann’s player actually shows up, and finds himself in the same quandary Joann-the-character did when being run by others. So he fires his crossbow, and misses. The music gets weirdly triumphant, though it proves accurate!

DM: It foresees your victory. 5 points of damage! The arrow strikes true, slamming into the head of the faceless beast, betwixt the two eyes that may have been there. It falls, slumped to the groud.
Drengar: Look at that, you came in, you got the killing blow.
Lorenil: All right.
Mylris: Hax!
DM: The battlefield is yours.
Brogar: Tell it to Paizo…
Mylris: Search him!
Brogar: Heh! We vigorously search the alchemist, looking for hax!

The music gets super-weird. They claim the loot, but none of it is the Macguffin. They do acquire a key, as well as the holy symbol they need to get past that statue. An argument erupts over who has what lore or what skills to know something – it turns out no one does, including the worshipper of Pharasma. They open a door with the key!

DM: Beyond the door is a short hallway that leads to a short flight of stairs, ascending into a small chapel. The space is perfectly still and spotlessly clean, a stark departure from the grime and filth that has marred the rest of the complex.
Mylris: I’ll search the place!
DM: Atop the altar is a book, a dagger, and a silver bowl. The book on top of the alter is a copy of “The Bones of Land” in a spiral, one of Pharasma’s sacred texts. The dagger and silver bowl… no special note. The book is open to a passage discussing the proper litany to be spoken when sanctifying a creature’s passage into Pharasma’s realm. This prayer is uttered over the shrine. It seems to be a prayer used for the shrine you just passed.

They get Lorenil to fire up the ritual to prevent the statue from sanding them. They gain Pharasma’s blessing, which will also stabilize a character who would otherwise die. They gain the spider’s power.

DM: If you fill the bowl with holy water, as long as it remains on the altar, a glance into the water reveals an image of their future.
Mylris: I’m shaking hands with Dumbledore… I’ve won the House Cup.
Brogar: The Shire is burning… Sam and my friends are all slain… ‘I know what it is you saw.’
Mylris: ‘I know what it is you saw last summer.’
DM: Anyone looking in the bowl sees a much older version of themselves trudging through a vast desert at night, while the starts wheel at dizzying speed overhead before blinking out into darkness one by one. Oh, never mind, THIS is where the dagger is. The dagger on the edge is a +1 ghost touch dagger.

They also find a bunch of different outfits (worth 10 silver?) and a locked chest which they open and also disarm in the process. It’s full of treasure! They acquire Light Arrows and are thus prepared to kill Ganon.

DM: A series of esoteric books. I said a word!
Mylris: But still no Star.
DM: I gotta get to the bottom! There’s no list in this particular book! The treasure, of course, is all stolen from various citizens. The PCs can certainly keep the treasure for themselves!
Joann: I’m good with that, sure.
Mylris: Paladin restore!
Drengar: Lawful Good cleric!
Joann: Awww, don’t worry about it, they know where it is.

The DM explains they’ll be rewarded for returning the treasure, and will get a 3rd-level magic item. Also, included almost as an afterthought, is the quest item, and a mysterious book! The group fistbumps, except for Lorenil who refuses to sit at the table.

DM: Lorenil’s ghostly hand also fistbumps.
Brogar: Unforeseen Hand. Unforeseen Massively-Critting Hand.
Lorenil: Bigby’s Bitch-Slapping Hand.

The Notes on the Last Theorem, that mystery book, is a journal that calls for languages they don’t know. The DM inquires if anyone can make a Society roll.

Mylris: (to Drengar) You’re a hobnobber!
Drengar: Yeah, I am!

With an extra roll, Drengar remembers some guy chased legends of treasures in the desert. Apparently the book tells about an invasion from aliens (really). Something something cult something something plot they’re not invested in knowing they’re jumping right into a new set of characters for this playtest. Joann, aware of this, cries. The DM warn them the next adventure will send them through a journey phase. They cry. And, so crying, they end the game…