Finding the Spark (Pathfinder 1E Quest)

8th of Rova 4707 A.R. (Absalom Reckoning)

Being entirely honest you are not sure what the answer is. At first it had just been that Mina had asked, then just that he was a child of your new odd little tribe and that was what one did with children of the tribe, protected them. "He didn't have anyone else. Why not us?"

The captain looks you up and down over the lip of his goblet like you are some kind of trick snare someone set in his path. He mutters into his beard: "Why not you? Why not you indeed? There's been worse questions asked, no mistake." Luckily for you the dwarf tongue is more specific than most and makes a difference between 'poorer craftsmanship' and 'lack of dedication'. That he uses the latter might imply that he thinks you have dedication to Click and this is a right-proper thing by his lights. Maybe he thinks if you're mad enough to come so far to see a babe to safety than you would be more loyal than most to their coin. Yet you do not feel insulted the way you would if a fellow caligini had implied you were cheap for the asking.

Looking sideways at Mina confirms that she's still relaxed in her chair so you can't have misread this too badly. Burnlanders do have to deal with a world where they can't trust having a wall at their back most of the time if they don't build it themselves.

Akorian Sense Motive: 1d20+11 = 22 (Success)

The meal wraps up on a kind of meat and fruit bread wrap that is apparently quite the rare treat to have on a raft, or a ship as the captain insists is the proper name. Most things on the ship also have long and confusing names that you are still are not entirely sure have not been invented as some kind of elaborate jest at your expense. Why would anyone need new names for 'left' and 'right' just because they are floating instead of walking or riding?


Either way, you decide to seek your hammock for the rest of the afternoon so that you can enjoy the night and see the ocean by the light of stars and stranger moon. Your cabin is not exactly expansive, being an old smuggler's hiding spot without anything to smuggle at the moment, but it's private and once you lodge the door closed, pitch black. Far better than most of the alternatives.

So it is with some surprise, which is to say you almost fall out of the hammock, that you hear a soft hissing voice speak from inside the room... in the tongue of the people: "Hail and well met Akorian Shadow Seer. Enemy of my enemy, slayer of my slayer."

In the darkness there is no color but that of heat lingering like a shadow over all you touch and the chill slipping in under the door, but from the corner where your pack still lies rises a coil of smoke colder than even the brisk sea wind whipping into a serpentine shape, its fangs all too sharp for something of the ether.

Akorian Lore (Azlanti History): 1d20+7 = 12 (Failure)


"I seek neither your company nor your praise, zyss-thing," you blurt out... and instantly regret it. You could have kept it talking while you got close enough to touch it. Healing light for the living is searing flame for the dead.

Far from being offended though the thing starts to laugh, either that or it is about to spill the contents of its non-existent stomach onto your floor. "No, no, I was not born to this form, nor did I willingly choose it. The tender mercies of devils will force one into unpleasant compromises for form. I am Sirim, a magician of some skill, though lessened in power by recent circumstance. You have something of mine."

"The talisman?" you guess. "You claim to be one of these Pathfinders?"

"Certainly not the wine," again the strange laughter, like the hiss of grease on a hot stone. "It is hardly a better drink than it was a disguise. When we reach Augustana it will be my pleasure to show you to a decent restaurant and treat you and all of your companions to a proper meal of thanks for finishing what I started."

"You're the one who wounded the assassin devil?" The serpent, Sirim, certainly does not look solid enough to have done anything of the sort, but sorcery is no respecter of appearances.

"Yesss," he hisses. "I do not ask for compensation, sending its soul screaming upon the tender mercies of its masters is more than enough. I ask only for the medallion and that you keep my presence here secret."

What do you reply?

[] Agree, it seems like a reasonable enough request

[] Refuse, the talisman was salvage just like everything else on the cart

[] Question Sirim more
-[] Write in

OOC: For anyone wondering the reason the DC for figuring out what Sirim here is was so high is because that was not the primary skill one would use to identify it, but Kori does not have that one at all.