Age of Ice and Blood: A Pathfinder System Heroic Fantasy Quest

Day of the Dead 1348 A. L. (After Landfall)

Though you would swear the torches are no brighter, nor the words about the table any louder, the colors feel more alive all about the chamber, the liveries of green fresh caught fish glittering on platters like the prize catch of a hunter's eve as withered apples even seem to have regained their red color, and red also the conjured wine, for which your host knows at once to give thanks to Zaia, asking him by what conjuring he had made it so. To that the scholar is all too glad to speak, for he is not oft asked the details of his craft. He speaks of fire not in the blood, but which blood dost feed and for the manner in which dead matter stokes living flesh, of ideals without form and yet which yearn for them, and of all the living clockwork that seems to animate all which lives.

"No matter how closely I bend the eye and lense upon it I wonder if there is more to be discovered, and if in the symmetries of the small might be read patterns that the stars could not contemplate..."

"Ah, you are wiser than you know for knowing not to boast in vain," Fechin laughs, leaving behind uneasy silence as all those about the table try to judge if that had been insult or flattery. "The Lady has forbidden all but those who are by her most trusted to meddle in the mechanisms of life, for all that has thus the Breath of Life sings thus the song of its being and you never know if it will be a jig or a dirge by the first note."

You never know if any living thing you make shall be playful or deadly, you translate mentally. It makes your head itch to think it, in some ways a harder task than passing words from one mortal tongue to another, though it is probably best to worry about that than about what sort of life the fey might have brought forth that was so perilous that their 'lady' was unwilling to let them meddle further.

"And so they work in ebony and brass, in strings of silver and and films of gold to grant now a guise of life and majesty of art, and some there are that fly and some there are that swim and some that stalk like beasts under the boughs and underneath arches of stone. This I share freely, for you have been most courteous. Ask not of a smith of the Court to make the same thing many times over as men are wont to do, for in such wearing craft the maker is made ill, as surely as man dost perish if they breathe dead air." She pauses and looks around to meet many bewildered looks, your own not least among them, but it is Antonio who puts the question all of you would have asked.

"Does that mean that among those who follow the Great Wheel a smith may not make more than one sword, one bow, one shield or one helm?"

"No, for indeed for there is variance aplenty and room to grow and to invent in every form," she laughs and takes a bite out of the leek, pauper's food it would have been at home, but she devours it with such gusto you are almost tempted to try. "All strive for art and novelty and only some for utility..."

"So brass silver, gold and ebony are commonly used among your craftsmen?" Antonio presses. "All these are dear to be sure, but..."

"Ah, don't take verse for numbered page now," the envoy cuts him off. "That's to give you some idea as to what common materials are. If you would bring aught to trade your best bet is to set your sights on uncommon materials, found in far off lands... like say if you have any bone and scale of that dragon you slew, or upon things which might inspire a tinker's fancy; books, specimens and secrets."

"What about steel?" you ask as a thought comes to you suddenly. Another world is far indeed... "What would this be worth?" So saying you bring out your old sword, hilt first of course.

A childlike hand reaches out and grasps the hilt more steadily than you would imagine and draws it about a palm's length out of the sheath. "Forged in blood and in tears, it would be worth a lot to the Three-Eyed Sage or others whose passion is war and its implements." Fechin reaches out for her own weapon which she had set by the foot of her chair as a sign of peace. "He's the one who made this for me, ain't it pretty?"

Some of the formality had fallen from her tone, as one might speak proudly of a favored pet. It seems to you a crossbow, at least in broad shape, though you cannot see any mechanisms besides the spring and the stock of the weapon curves like the spine of a snake, and upon the head of a brass snake does the bolt lie.


As she sets it on the table the head comes alive and so animated looks around the chamber before hissing something to its mistress and then settling back down.

"Always ready to sink your teeth into the meat of the matter, never smell the flowers," she sighs at it, though by the glimmer in her eye it must be some kind of jest between them. Then almost as an after thought she looks back at you and says: "Daemons are abroad and loose in the world and one of them is on your scent like a barghest on blood. Oh, not an actual barghest, at least I don't think it wants to eat your soul, but there is something hungry prowling around you and dragonslayer, or I think it is looking for more than a new garb of rotting flesh. Maybe one of you is fated to do something to get in the way of its plots. That is the usual way with the Hollow Ones, spin their own noose from flax and hang it neat as you please on the gallows. You be careful now, you seem a merry lot. What's a Saint Nicholas by the by? It feels kind of tingly on the tongue to say it."

Zaia gives you a questioning look. So far you had recounted all your travels since that fateful night a year past, but you had specifically not said that you come from another world and by the sound of it the Tinker Court at least does not know that you are without fate. Should you reveal that and perhaps earn more in favor and eventually in trade, or keep it back for now?

[] Reveal it, such a secret might prompt Fechin to reveal more of her own

[] Keep in back a secret cannot be unsaid

[] Write in

OOC: All weapons in this world have souls, but some are more active with them than others, the older and the more powerful like that crossbow. Owl's going to be next update.

Day of the Dead 1348 A. L. (After Landfall)

You glance at Zaia, a nod... then at Antonio, the same but with a touch more hesitation. You had told folks this before and even at first meeting, part of you wishes Esha were here, or that at least she might speak with you, but the magic is spent and she had not showed for the feast. All you can do now is get the best deal you can and since you are trading tales... "We told no lies to your ears, but the whole truth we did not tell before now."

You are not sure where you would even start and be believed and so you start with what your guest had asked for, with Saint Nicholas and with what accounts of his life and doings you can recall, building from there a vision of the world, circle upon circle, the Church and the Apostles, Rome and its sundering, the empires that came in its wake and proclaimed themselves its descendants, of all the wanderings of peoples and all the wars of princes that you could yet recall. How much is fact and how much is story grown in the telling you cannot say for sure, for Antonio is the first to admit that he is not the most learned in history and Zaia knows more of the tales of his own people than of yours. Thus you do not so much weave a tapestry as stitch a quilt of many pieces and as you watch the too-pretty face of the fairy light up with wonder you realize for the first time how little you know besides the vastness of the world you had been born to.

Boats beside the Narrow Sea, horses over green seas riding, wars for land for glory, cruel battles under the desert sun fought by men seeking absolution side by side with those who yearned to sin again, how small it all seems in the eyes of hindsight. By the time you had told the last of what you knew you added what Luaza had shared you in Korman about your lack of a fate.

"Perhaps she spoke in ignorance or in folly, but if she did not then it could not have been foresight that lead the daemon to look to us..."

When had the candles burned so low? Was that the light of morning starting to creep in through the windows and a wind from the sea calling? It feels almost as though you are in some glamor, only instead of being by the fairies bespelled you had been caught one in the web of your own tale.

For her part Fechin looks grave as you have seen her, no sign of laughter in her deep dark emerald eyes and looking in them you can well believe for the first time this night that she is old as the mountains in the distance. "Oh, how little you know and yet by no fault of yours. Clouds in the sky they pass no light, yes, yet when one passes over the face of the moon you will see the rough shape of it. If what you say is true and your fate was not spun of this world then your future is your own to make, beyond knowing and beyond telling, but by your nearness to deeds of great import you are known."

"Because we disrupt the patterns that a seer gazes into?" Zaia asks leaning forward, no doubt intrigued by yet another riddle.

"Not just the patterns of the future, but the workings of the present. You who have passed the threshold of worlds are a key to many doors which mortals and immortals alike find hard to open..." she pauses a moment then looks around. "A hammer and a key will both open a door. If the Neverborn hunt you it is not for vengeance alone, but for what use you might be to them."

"We would never aid such as them." The words are on your lips as soon as you have thought them. Yet for all the conviction you have spoken them with the spirit only gives you a sad look.

"Not willingly perhaps."

So saying she looks down at her plate, seeming almost surprised to find it empty. "Ah... it's late again I see. What else, there was something else wasn't there? Come on, come on. Sun's up and so should we. Follow, follow..."

Antonio glances at Inge confused, but the girl only shrugs, as mystified as you are, thus you follow along outside where you see Fechin snap her fingers then reach into one of her pouches for a metal box with a glass eye on one end and a number of colorful gems on the other. She taps a few of them, then shakes the thing once or twice. Then quick as a striking snake she turns and points the thing at the little owl perched atop the protruding edge of the arch to the kitchens. There is a flash of white light, blinding in an instant, as you hear something heavy fall to the ground with a soft thump.

As you open your eyes it is to the sight of what is undeniably a young woman, though she had just as clearly been the owl a moment before for she wears a cloak of feathers, brown and gold, and the color of old gold are her eyes, her hair is dark but mixed with feathers. Though you call out to her that is all the sight you get of her, for a moment later she is gone in a flash of scattered feathers.


"What... who was that?" you ask bewildered.

"Moon touched, strong too that she was able to use that much magic," the fey spirit says as she puts away her magic box. "Might want to feed her dead rats or something to get to know her." She giggles a little. "Should've just delivered my message, then we wouldn't have all this trouble now would we?" Turning again to you and to your company she proclaims. "Merry parting to fair hosts in hopes of meeting again in hall of brass and under silver tree..." With that she too departs, whistling down the path without a care in the world for what dangers it might contain.

"Sometimes I think that I am dreaming and then I look around and know that it is not so," Zaia half-whispers, more to himself than to you. "For no dream of mine would be so uncanny."

What do you do?

[] Try to find the strange owl woman again, she must have had some interest in you before she was so suddenly unveiled and driven away
Will cost 1d5+1 days for the search

[] Wind and Tide wait for no man, set off as soon as you may for the sea and the war in the Sunset Islands
Set off at once

[] Write in

OOC: Hope you guys like the hints of fey magi-tech. I'd like to make them a bit more distinct than the fey in ASWAH who were kind of all over the place and sometimes suffered from a lack of strong identity IMO.