[Carrie] Chapter 4: Internal Strife

[Erynn]

As the guards responded in a wholly suspicious manner, their complete lack of concern for the fact that Synithise was missing told Carrie two things. First, the guards that had approached were definitely hostiles. Second, the guard that had left was definitely not going to be bringing Carrie backup, but was likely to be stepping up whatever plan was in place to abduct Carrie herself as well. The gut reaction that had initially sent Carrie running for Synithise' room was now all but absolutely confirmed. As Carrie's certainty that Synithise had been betrayed by her own people grew, so too did her fury. Synithise had offered Carrie the emotional support that she needed to stay sane after an unprecedented trauma, she had in effect become Carrie's rock in this new world, and these gutless traitors had taken her away. The thought of never seeing Synithise flashed suddenly through Carrie's mind, and something inside the young hero snapped. As Carrie watched the back of the departing guard disappear around a corner out of the corner of her eye, her expression lost all semblance of empathy and compassion. As Carrie's gaze turns to the remaining guard, it becomes an accusatory, murderous glare.

"You should have gone with her.", Carrie states coldly as she advances and unsheathes her Ka-bar fighting knife, a psychotic grin breaking out across her otherwise emotionless face, accompanied by a slight chuckle that persisted among her words, "The moment you realized you had been made, you should have run as far away from me as you could. Now you get to tell me who you're working for, how many of you there are, and where you're taking Synithise. If I believe you, I'll make this quick. If not, you'll die screaming."

Burning two hero points to take 20 on intimidate. Total: 27

[Throndir]

Going to be attempting to follow the PF rules for Intimidate more closely this time around, rather than the way I used to do it! As reference Skills: Intimidate. I'll consider this a moot point since you used a Heroic Action Point, so I'll assume all these are all nat 20s. But normally I would have requested:

-Intimidate Check for Demoralize Opponent
-Intimidate Check Influence Opponent's Attitude

Influencing opponent's attitude would have taken a full minute, so I'll assume some slight back and forth happened. You can feel free to describe it more if you'd like.

The moment you wanted to intimidate the guard and threatened her. A notification appeared in your view.

[okay]You have gained a new title『The Chosen of a God』[/okay]The guard immediately tensed up, she was about to draw her own weapon, but immediately thought better of it the moment you had pulled out your knife with the strange almost psychotic look on your face.

"H-hero please..." The guard started, her face pale. "A-all will be explained...!" You continued the pressure however, not letting up, and eventually the guard had raised her hands, groveling at your feet.

"Please, please don't kill me!" She said. "We were following orders! We follow the martial arm of the priestesses, our leader, Matriarch Synithise's sister, Matriarch Misophe. Along with the 100 priestesses in the tunnels, there are 20 of us... She along with many of the other priestesses..." She bit her lip as she quivered at your feet. "... have been escorted out the tunnels."

[Erynn]

As Carrie listened to the guard spill the beans, the tension she had been feeling began to ease slightly, but only slightly. Even if this did turn out to be a sibling disagreement, the possibility still remained for outright treachery. Carrie had become cautiously optimistic. Still, it troubled Carrie that one of the gods of this world had apparently decided to support her so readily. Since arriving in this world, Carrie hadn't really had much time to consider the presence of the gods, much less reach out to them. Nor, really, was it high on Carrie's list of priorities given the reason she wound up in the new world in the first place. Still, someone had seen fit to lend weight to the flames of Carrie's fury upon realizing that Synithise was missing. The young hero made a mental note to take a moment for her benefactor's sake when she next had the opportunity. For the moment though, she had more pressing matters to deal with.

"Chosen of a god. Huh.", Carrie mused aloud at the notification she had just received, "Just what the hell did you lot do to irritate a god? You didn't escort Synithise and her followers out into the waiting arms of a third party did you? Please, for the love of all that is good in this world, tell me you people aren't actually that fucking stupid!

Carrie's expression isn't quite as unsettling anymore now that she has a grasp on the situation at hand to some degree. It does convey a great deal of frustration and irritation though, not to mention disgust at the behavior displayed by Synithise's sister and her followers. It also contains just a bit of irritation at Synithise herself, given that she hadn't seen fit to mention a sister that may or may not throw her out of the temple the next day.

Regardless of what Carrie was feeling at the moment, he next move would depend entirely on what the guard in front of her said next. Carrie watches the guard closely, looking for signs of deceit.

Sense Motive [blockquote]Rolled 1d20+5 : 12 + 5, total 17[/blockquote]

[Throndir]

Like with Intimidate, going to try to be following Sense Motive rules closer than what I usually do. So DC 20 generally for 'hunches', you can feel free to roll Sense Motive if you suspect the target is lying.

[info]Sense Motive (Lamia Priestess Guard on deceit): 17
You're not able to tell if the lamia is being deceitful.[/info]"A god...? You mean the goddess? I don't know the plans of Matriarche Misophe, the... escorting of the other priestesses happened earlier this morning... None of them really put up a fight, except Synithise, but Matriarche Misophe was able to subdue her..."

[Erynn]

The guard's answer did little to relieve Carrie's fear that Synithise and her followers may currently be in the hands of the enemy. At the very least, Carrie believed that the plans of her matriarch were indeed unknown to this priestess. Still, the possibility remained that Synithise could be in danger, and that left Carrie extremely displeased.

"I'm going to go confirm whether or not Synithise is safe and well.", Carrie informs the guard prostrate before her, "If she is, and you lot had better hope that she is, I'll return to the entrance where I'll meet with Matriarch Misophe. I'll give her an opportunity to explain herself, and to attempt to justify this......utter bullshit."

Carrie's expression as she utters the last two words is one of complete exasperation, disbelief, and disgust.

"If on the other hand, I don't find Synithise safe and well, I will consider Matriarch Misophe and her faction to be my enemies. Regardless of which turns out to be true, it would be wise to inform your matriarch that she has most definitely started off her relationship with the hero in exceptionally poor fashion."

Carrie then holsters her knife and begins jogging down the hallway toward her room, a wave of seething anger toward the martial arm's matriarch roiling just beneath the surface. If this was truly just a sibling dispute, Carrie couldn't even begin to fathom what could have so thoroughly estranged the two sisters from one another that Synithise didn't even bother to mention Misophe, and Misophe would be willing to forcibly evict her own sister from their shared home, the temple to the very goddess that they both serve. Supposedly, anyway. Carrie was sure Synithise was a faithful servant of her goddess. She wasn't so sure about Misophe.

As Carrie approaches her room, she slows and peeks around a corner into the hallway her room is attached to, hoping to determine whether or not her room was now being guarded without being spotted if it was.

if necessary, stealth: [blockquote]Rolled 1d20+13 : 15 + 13, total 28[/blockquote]

[Throndir]

As you peaked towards your room, you saw two lamia guards at your door. They weren't there earlier this morning. Though, the two of them kept a watch in the area. Luckily had ducked your head behind cover again quickly, with the guards not reacting, you knew they hadn't yet seen you. They were both about 45 ft. away. You heard a bit of their conversation.

"Athertise, we probably have the worst posting..." One of the guards told the other.

"Well, there's only 20 of us... I'm just glad we weren't ordered to you know... harm the others." She shivered.

"Well, you're the lucky one who gets to report back if the hero happens to appear." The first one rolled her eyes.

[Erynn]

"Of course they would.", Carrie thought to herself as she confirmed the presence of guards posted outside her room, "Now, how do I get them away from there?"

With the limited resources that Carrie currently had at her disposal, she realizes that she would need to rely on one of her blessings to get her through this time. She hatches a plan to get past the guards, and whispers the word "Program.", while looking at a door some distance further down the hallway past her, "Condition: now Statement: open Condition: once opened statement: close Condition: once closed Statement: open Save."

Carrie then kneels low to limit the chances of being spotted out of the corner of a guard's eye as they pass, as they no doubt would to investigate the sudden racket caused by the programming loop Carrie had just created. If both guards went to investigate the disturbance,  Carrie would immediately sneak past in order to access her room. If only one steps away to investigate, Carrie would need to think of additional measures to distract them from their posting. Carrie didn't expect it would take much though, given how they were already griping about it only minutes after arriving on post.

Another stealth if necessary [blockquote]Rolled 1d20+13 : 14 + 13, total 27[/blockquote]

[Throndir]

You felt yourself become slightly tired. But as expected, the door farther away started to open suddenly, then just as suddenly, close itself, slamming shut. A moment after that, it opened again. It repeated this process over and over.

"Go check it out." The first guard ordered. The second guard drew her own weapon, a spear, and made her way towards it.

Requesting initiative roll, and we'll do this scene in initiative order.

[include u=2]Carrie MP Used: 2[/include]

[Erynn]

Just an FYI. The character sheets don't actually have a field to track initiative.

Initiative roll: [blockquote]Rolled 1d20+5 : 13 + 5, total 18[/blockquote]

[Throndir]

I haven't had a chance to add it in back yet, along with some other stuff from the Pathfinder sheet.

Initiative Order: Carrie -> Guard 1 -> Guard 2

Carrie to take their turn.

[Erynn]

Carrie will wait until the guard approaching the door to investigate has passed her position, then will select the guard's armor and whisper, "Program condition: now statement: animate statement: restrain wearer statement: drag wearer statement: set direction to current direction of travel save"

Carrie's intent was to turn the guard's mail into an animated object of sorts, which would then turn against them, restraining them and dragging them further away from their partner. It was Carrie's hope that the one guard's distress would bring the other guard to them in order to assist, occupying them both for a significant while so that Carrie could access her room freely.

[Throndir]

Confirm the programming is something like the below. You do not yet have the Multiple Statements extension, so it'll be three separate conditional statements. Also state how much MP you plan to use for each statement. Eg, 1 MP for animate. 2 MP for RestrainUser. 3 MP for drag, etc. Generally more MP is stronger. The system I'll base it off of will be similar to the Spell System.

[info]Object: Guard's Armor

If (AsOftenAsPossible())
{
    Animate()
}

If (Animated())
{
    RestrainUser()
}

If (Restrained())
{
    DragAwayFromOtherGuards()
}[/info][include u=2]Carrie MP Used: 6[/include]

[Erynn]

It looks like what I'm after, but given I'm not a programmer I can't actually confirm that? Basically, Carrie is trying to make the guard's armor suddenly an animated object that will then grapple and drag them down the hall past the looped doorway. As for MP, I can't even begin to guess because I can't make heads or tails of the spell system.

[Throndir]

Going with what you mentioned in Discord with being able to give input to it after programming.

When you attempted to write out the program, when you tried setting a statement to move it in a direction that you specify, it highlighted that area red, and a notification appeared:

[okay]ERROR: Parameters not yet unlocked.[/okay]

Computer Use skill check requested. The roll will determine what your character knows about the error, along with potential fixes, and solutions, high enough rolls will just have a working solution depending on what your character currently knows about their ability.

The second guard finally reached the door. With her spear out she carefully attempted to prod the door while it was in mid-swing, though the door slammed it back.

"It's some sort of magic."

"Keep your eyes open!" The first guard, tense, withdrew her own spear as well but stayed in place.

[include u=2]Carrie MP Used: 3[/include]

[Erynn]

[blockquote]Rolled 1d20+9 : 3 + 9, total 12[/blockquote]