Microhero - Pumpelly

 

The Edgewater Squad

Pumpelly The Bard

Come to the Menagerie! - part 1 (Valcos 02)

 

What good is sitting

In a boring inn room?

Come see strnage beasts today!

Life is a Menagerie old friend

Come to the Menagerie!

 

Sgt. Ollo assigned the squad to deal with a reported disturbance at the Menagerie, a zoo that had been set up for the festival.  The team stocked up with supplies from the quartermaster and headed there by way of Sweeter Nothings, the apothecary and honey satellite shop opened by Lirafel, Simi's mother, for the Radiant Festival.  

Murder Chicken

The Menagerie was set up behind a ten-foot tall wooden fence. Outside the entrance gate was a small area with merchants and shops. Several of the escapees were already outside the zoo fence. A "murder chicken" cockatrice had gathered pillows and made a nest, quacking a challenge as the squad came into sight. The squad netted the mean-spirited cockatrice, trussing and bagging it.

Next, an owlbear named "Hoots" had decided to sample the wares of the produce store, and Rusty the Rust Monster was gorging itself in the Blacksmiths. Both creatures were summarily captured.

 

The entrance to the Menargerie had a poster of the rust monster in a top hat. 

The squad locked a pair of hyenas in a concession stand after closing the roll-up door and using Valcos' handcuffs to lock it.

The artificial enclosure for the penguins was a small pond with white rocks. The feathers and blood indicated that the flock had been significantly reduced; there was only a frantic survivor. A giant viper snake had claimed the area as its own, and the other penguins as lunch. The squad fired missiles at it until it came to attack, and then stunned it into submission.

After the snake had been secured, Pumpelly used his bardic ability to amplify a call for the staff to come out of hiding. A pair of assistant zookeepers (Rhia and Tellymand) came out from hiding and spoke to the squad.

• The zoo was owned by a fellow named Mr. Knight.
• Mr. Knight had been having a quiet affair with the veterinarian. While not scandalous, about a week ago they slipped away for a rendezvous (as was their habit), and never returned. Connected to the rash of missing persons, perhaps?
• A patron named Nils reported that his son was missing.
• An Ankheg was free in one of the buildings. 
• Also to be recaptured were an Al-Mirag (unicorn bunny) and a giant beetle of some sort.
• Ria and Tellymand, asst. zookeeper. Mr. Knight is the owner having an affair with the veterinarian, they slipped away for a tryst. A patron named Nils, missing a son. 
• Several of the escaped beasts were reported to behave with unusual aggression.

Simi dispatched someone to fetch Lirafel, in hopes that as a druid and apothecary, she might have some insights and help control the beasts until proper enclosures were available.

The squad took a break to catch their breath, and contemplated:

• Finding the missing son
• Checking the veterinarian's office for clues as to what drove the exhibits to such aggression.
• Checking Mr. Knight's office to see if there was any information about who might want to foment the escape. Business rivals? Frustrated buyer?

On the Job (Valcos 01)

 (This is my character record and notes for the Pathfinder 2nd Ed AGENTS OF EDGEWATCH adventure path. SPOILERS if you haven't played it yet. You've been warned!)

On the Job (Valcos 01)

Valcos

The Radiant Festival was to be held in the Precipice District. Formerly called Beldrin’s Bluff, this ruined quarter was once one of Absalom’s most beautiful and vibrant areas. In its prime, it featured ancient magical towers, brightly colored homes, and resplendent parks, but all of that was turned to rubble after an earthquake all but destroyed the sector two decades ago. The quake sheered entire cliffs from the district and cast countless historical monuments—to say nothing of lives—into the harbor and the Docks, leaving the quarter so ruined that it was abandoned to the undead and strange magic that arose in the disaster’s aftermath. Only in recent years have sustained efforts been made to tame the ruins and start rebuilding. The reconstruction efforts gained considerable steam after the district was chosen as the site of this summer’s Radiant Festival.

Sgt. Ollo

The week before the Radiant Festival, Valcos was taken from his prison and moved to a holding cell. By the end of the week, he was shaved, bathed, measured for new leather cuir boli armor, and given new clothes; his old clothes were burned.  He was introduced to Sergeant Ollo, the duty Sergeant for the Edgewater Watch in the Precipice Quarter.

"Valcos, we don't have the manpower to bring you out and back every day, so you'll bunk with the rest of your squad," said Ollo. "Our boss is Lieutenant  Lavarsus Grospek; he's tough but fair. He really doesn't like being assigned here for the Festival though, so stay out of his way. "

"He'll never know I was here!" affirmed Valcos. In fact, if Valcos could arrange it, nobody would notice him, and nobody would miss him if he found an opportunity to vanish.

Sigil of Peace

Valcos met the rest of his squad the next day when he was officially deputized. The Edgewater Watch had strict orders to avoid bloodshed and injury, so when Staff Sergeant Kifu Aki, a pretty human wearing a reinforced gi uniform put a Sigil of Peace on them, it came as no surprise. With concentration, he could turn the sigil on and off, and when armed it would render any attack he might offer as a form of non-lethal damage. 

He was told he could put it anyplace on his body, so he put it on his left palm so he could easily check its status.

He waited while the team was all en-sigiled. They would share a barracks with eight beds. Each bed had a footlocker for their gear and a pair of closets for their garments. The team consisted of:

• Jorin - An Umbral Gnome, who summoned some sort of construct named Mr. Done - a creature who appeared to be a black and white mime. Jorin was quite an artist and could draw suspects from the merest description. 
• Simimel Galyfall - A half-elvin Champion of the god Cayden Cailean, also known as the "Lucky Drunk", "Drunken Hero", or the "Accidental God". Simimel (or Simi as she preferred to be called) wore leather armor and carried a metal buckler. Like Valcos, she preferred to carry a rapier as a weapon.
• Pumpelly - a dwarven Bard
• Grimwald - a human warrior from the farms. He seemed to favor a longsword and shield.

Lt.  Lavarsus Grospek

Once situated, they were dragged in front of the Lieutenant. He blustered in the fine tradition of officers with new troops hallowed through time; they'd sent him the bottom of the barrel, that they needed to not screw up or get killed and they might actually make it to the end of the Radiant Festival without disgracing the Watch.

The Lieutenant seemed to bear some sort of grudge against Simimel.

While on patrol, we were to keep and restore the piece. While we were told that if necessary we could make arrests, the expectation is that we would stop violence and make malefactors pay for their crimes by seizing their assets as a fine, after requiring them to pay for damages.

Their first task started the night before the festival began; a tavern named The Tipsy Tengu had some customers who had become unruly, and the proprietor feared damages might keep the tavern from opening on time. The squad calmed down the unruly customers (including a rather fit half-orc woman dancing on a tabletop), collected monies for damages, and let the perpetrators go with a warning.

The tavernkeeper was so pleased that he invited the squad to come back, offering free drinks as an incentive; it was a sound tactic, having off-duty Watch act as a defacto set of bouncers in exchange for hospitality.

It was at his time that Valcos heard rumors of several people in the area disappearing under suspicious circumstances.

Having spent years in prison, Valcos had hoped that the half-orc woman would return, but such was not to be.

The first day of the festival was busy; the squad destroyed a cache of skeletons that had been disturbed during recent excavations, they broke up and quelled a feud between gobin wharfside food purveyors (and stopped the area from burning down from the resulting oil fires). They caught a pickpocket, who was warned and released.

Apprentice Eunice

They also took a young apprentice wizard named Eunice into custody after he threatened to destroy the local magic shop, accusing the proprietor of kidnapping his master. Eunice described his missing master, and Jorin made a sketch to show potential witnesses.  

Their patrol took them by the local apothecary, run by an elven woman druid named Lirafel, who happened to be Simi's mother. Lirafel took charge of Eunice while the squad continued to search for his master. 

When the squad reported after their patrol, Sgt. Ollo seemed pleased with the way they had discharged their duties so far. Word came in that there was some sort of a disturbance at the zoo; the squad headed back to the apothecary shop to consult with Simi's mother, the closest thing they had to a consultant with experience with wild animals.

Absolom Information (OOC)

 (This is my character record and notes for the Pathfinder 2nd Ed AGENTS OF EDGEWATCH adventure path. SPOILERS if you haven't played it yet. You've been warned!)

A repository for Player information for the City of Absolom, taken from canon sources (mostly the Edgewater Payer's Guide.)

City Districts

City Coat of Arms

Absolom harbor, Docks District

More art of the harbor