Finding the Spark (Pathfinder 1E Quest)

The Season of Still Stone

Cob takes to picking out loot from the ruin of his former captors with the gusto of a dung beetle in a Deepbat roost, fastening one dagger across each forearm and one down his spine, only to arm himself with what he proudly proclaims is the 'spikiest' morning star, though he does give the odd jealous look at the polished wood and brass crossbow you had claimed off one of the guards. How he could possibly expect to heft the thing you have no idea...

Truth be told, you are struggling under the unaccustomed weight of the bedroll tied to your back and the sack of supplies you are hefting. Should be good for about a quarter-season with magic to top up the waterskins made of tough impermeable snail-hide. Duergar make good work, if only they weren't such cast iron sons of bitches. Judging by the contents of his song, your diminutive companion seems to agree:

Goblins need a blade to fight,
Scare the stunties with our might.
A rusty blade should do the trick,
Their floofy beards we mean to nick.

The eerily cheerful words of the song bounce off the stones of the Long Walk, twisting and fracturing until it almost seems as though there are scores of other goblins hiding among the stones singing all along.

Into the loot we must dig,
To find a blade not too small, not too big.
Into the mounds we will dig deep,
Out with a blade we will creep.

So it goes for a good four hundred heartbeats while the last sounds of Vex and his kin are lost behind you, pushing away the silence of the tunnels the way a hungry Ankeg pushes aside soil in search of roots and truffles.

A rusty blade to cut their hides,
Dig it deep into their sides.
Look at the mess that we have made,
With our fine new dwarflicer blade.

Finally he seems to run out of verses about his dwarf-killing deeds, giving you a bit more of a chance to talk to your less exuberant companion on the road. Her name is Mina and she is of Vische, a place in the Burnlands, though how far from here to there she cannot say for she has long been carried under the ground by slavers who did not wish to see her eyes, nor hear her tongue.

"They say my mother was Sczarni who became lost in the storm that had come out of the Gravelands with dead hounds on her trail. She scrambled to the door of one of the High Houses of Pharasma, judge and midwife of souls. The monks took her in out of piety, though they did not have much hope for her or for me. I was born hanged, you see, with a cord round my neck, but somehow I lived and breathed, but my mother did not. The Mother Superior said my soul must have wandered far, to loose the color of my eyes and gain instead a wisdom of the ears."

Here she stops to roll up the cloodweed sleeves of her ropes again, for all the good it will do her. You would offer to help, but your sorcery will only mend it as new, not adjust it.

"Some said I was cursed and that it was devil's script under my eyes. I thought... I thought to make my own in Caliphas where I would be less strange, and that was when I found Pepper. He was... he was...."

It is not that you never saw someone cry before, you had after all, in fear, in pain, in anger even, but you had never heard someone sob so openly. Even Cob stops his singing and looks at Mina curiously.

"Pepper, you have pepper in eyes?" the goblin asks, ears perking up with intrigue.

"Pepper was my cat, my familiar," Mina manages to get out. "He came to me, told me there was a reason for all of it, that I would find who I was along the side of the road and in the light of Desna's veil. But I joined up with a caravan and they were... not good people, not at all. They killed him, tied me up, and drugged me. Not sure how many times I was sold on, but I think it was months and months before I ended up with the dwarfs. They were going to sell me to a wicked nymph, a Lady of the Court of the Ether."

You know that place, by fel reputation at least. Queen Frilogarma of the Ether Throne is said to trade in dreams and desires as much as gold and silver, and she is known far and wide as a collector oddities. Was that where the caravan had been going when it had been ambushed twice over and broken?

Though now that you consider it a question comes to mind... where are you all going? Cob seems to be happy as long as there is trail bread to be had, songs to sing, and the odd duergar to kill. Mina is looking for answers about her heritage and perhaps a way back to Caliphas, but you... where do you want to go?

[] Get off the Long Road at once, the last thing you need is to be caught by a duergar patrol in the possession of looted duergar goods in the company of escaped duergar slaves
-[] Head north into wet Xulgath inhabited tunnels
-[] Head south into drier tunnels inhabited by Mongrelmen hunters and trappers

[] Continue east down the main road towards the city of the dark fey. They may trade with the Children of Droskar, but they are no vassals of theirs and will care little of you robbing them. Not to mention that above the Endless Gulf is one of the surest paths to the Burnlands whence Mina comes

[] Write in

OOC: Mina is currently a witch without a familiar so she does not have spellcasting.