Finding the Spark (Pathfinder 1E Quest)

10th of Sarenith 4707 A.R. (Absalom Reckoning)

Before fire, before iron, before song before gods
Dark dwelt the Verduan under the bright stars

The little snippet of a song oft sung by the children of Fusil deep under the mantle of the woods was, unknown to all old and young, part of a much older bleaker cant from the days when only the Kelids walked these lands. The ancestors of the Keth whom the villagers would sometimes see at the edges of their carefully marked fields 'shy as a deer in torchlight', but in truth it was not the light they feared but the Darkness without end. The seeresses searched the sky with the same care, the same hidden fear their mothers and grandmothers had, though they had long forgotten the bargain they made with the Eldest of the Fey, allowing them to pass into the Summerlands in search of nuts, fruits and roots.

So it was a great mischance, if such a thing could still be said to exist in the Age of Lost Omens, that the only eyes who saw the star tumbling to earth were those of a slight pale boy in the rough homespun smock of Fusil. Argyl, as his mother had grudgingly named him, had been the fruit of a rare and encounter between a woman of the town and a 'Southlander' as they named all outsiders, though in truth his father had traveled farther than most of them could have imagined, all the way around Garund from Tian Xia, the Dragoon Empire to bequeath his unknown son a legacy of unanswerable questions. Had he not been lying on the grass, face to the stars that day likely he would have taken a barge downriver the next year or the one after that, found some work in one of the small lumbermills that dotted the edges of the forest. Perhaps if he were fortunate some soothsayer might have spotted the spark of power burred in his eyes and he would have been apprenticed a hedge mage among nameless scores.

But that day would never come, that fate now unborn. Seeing the light and now compelled by a power far mightier than mere sorcerous arts, youth's curiosity he entered the woods and walked a path true. Ahead the earth rumbled like a beast disturbed and a strange hot wind blew though dying aspen leaves as the night birds took flight in sudden fright.

It is at this point that most people might have reconsidered going towards whatever it was that had fallen from the sky. Good thing no one had ever accused Anther of common sense recently.

He came to a clearing of blasted trees and burned grass some fifty feet in diameter and among that blasted foundation, standing tall like the standing stones of the Keth, a semicircle of purplish metal pillars. At least he thought it was metal, having never seen so much of it in one place before. Each of the cylinders was the height of a tall man and wide enough that the same man could not ring his arms around them. The boy had just enough time to count them when with a long alien hiss they opened, strange prismatic mists flowing from their depths.

Out from one walked a woman her hair shore close and dressed neither in a feast-day dress nor the trousers favored by those few women who took their chances down the mine. Instead she was wearing a black garment that looked to have been poured on her like tar and glistening just the same.

Her eyes eyes blinked owlishly as though adjusting to the dark, then they snapped right at the watching Argyl. "Voios risai?" It was clearly a question and it might as well have been bird-speak for all Argyl could speak it. Perhaps noticing his confusion she took out a small round device from a pouch at her belt and tapped something on it. A red crystal in the shape of a five pointed star popped out and started orbiting her head. Again she asked. "Where are we?"

OOC: This interlude is not happening now, it happened shortly after this update. Enjoy.

23st of Rova 4707 A.R. (Absalom Reckoning)

It's a near thing, but in the end all of you decide that it would be wisest to take the money on the table and avoid antagonizing the city watch, especially as your would-be customers would be some of the biggest 'movers and shakers'—there at last is a Taldan expression that makes sense—in the city. So after Cob gives the door a good scrubbing with some vinegar you'd bought as 'petty wine' from your gracious host to get the slurk slime off, Gorok hoists the thing onto a cart you'd hired for the trip. Still reeking like spoiled grapes from his labors, Cob glares at the beast moving it as it stamps nervously away from him. Good thing you paid the driver in advance.

Cob Craft (Alchemy) to clean off the slurk slime (DC 12): 1d20+9 = 13 (Success)

Lost 75 sp (Inn Stay x4 days, cleaning supplies, and cart)

Sitting on the wagon bed with your hood up against the morning sunlight gives you the first chance to observe the city without drawing unwelcome attention, from the last of the night's revelers finally staggering in search of a place to lay their heads down to nervous apprentices with lists tucked behind their ears from their masters least they forget, to grey garbed servants coming down from the master merchants of Oldtown to buy on the cheap.

"In Barstoi, all of Soivoda really, they would be wearing their masters' livery. This land is more like I heard of the Palatinates, where coin is king and kings are hidden. Funny, it doesn't look like riots and fires every other day. Just stinks a little, but I think that's all cities," Mina scrunches her nose at the words.

"Should it be on fire?" you ask, a little alarmed.

"Oh no, sorry, I was just making a jest of the things the count's men would say when they pass through on the road about commoners not being able to manage their own affairs without the eye of their 'betters' on them. Count Neska is a cruel and proud man. I'm too young to have seen it with my own eyes, but in his youth he started a war with our neighbors in Ardeal. All he got for it was burning and poisoning the lands of Furcina into the Farrows as the Barstoi men retreated through there. Pepper and me passed through there before I was taken..." She pats the cat in her lap, more for her sake than his. "Maybe putting the merchants in chargeis the way to go, at least they pay attention to the worth of things."

"A rusted knife poisons all flesh," Gorok offers grimly. "All know pride, all know spite in war."

"Maybe they would start less of them though," Mina insists, but the iruxi does not seem convinced.

"Start for different reasons, yes. Start less? That is as wind blows and water flows." In other words as chance would have it. Thankfully these merchants at least are more inclined to pay than take by force. The headquarters of the Forester's Endowment does not share the colorful wooden architecture of most of Fleet, it rises like a fortress on the banks of the Arthfel four stories high and you'd wager at least as deep, vaults buried beneath the earth. Twin stone cats carved from soft ivory limestone not native to this land flank the entrance, their snarling features almost worn to nubs. Trophies of the Seventh Army of Exploration, the small brass plaque turned almost green proclaims.

The door guards also flanking the entrance are just about as stone-faced, at least until they see your cargo, then one of them designs to bark out: "No goblins! Filthy things'll stink up the place."

"If our business isn't wanted here we will of course leave," you dare the man, who after a moment grudgingly stands aside.

Akorian Bluff vs Guard Sense Motive: 24 vs 15 (Success)

As you enter the building you hear the sound of two arguing, one a deep dwarvish voice the other higher, human and clearly exasperated:

"...I know what I saw and they're right there, standing in the middle of the woods and bright as a new penny. Adamant, ripe for the taking! If you won't send a survey team out to Fusil someone else will."

"Tell me, Master Urgor, what seems the most likely to you. That you found a motherload of adamantine in the middle of fey-haunted woods not five miles from the nearest mining town, or that the fey were playing tricks on you? Isn't it bizarre that it happened to be adamantine, the only metal your tools would not have been strong enough to mark?"

"No! A thousand times, no! By Hammer and the Arm that holds it, the metal was no fey trickery, it was real!"

The thin faced pale woman standi ng a good ten feet from the increasingly red faced dwarf looks like she would welcome any interruption. "What can I do for you, er... goodfolk?"

"We were told you had an interest in darkwood, a bounty even..." Mina starts, a little haltingly at the sight of the still incensed dwarf.

That seems to be the last pebble for the fellow in question who turns on his heel and proclaims that he's he going to the 'fatherless whoreson cheese-gifts of the Lumber Consortium' with his information, though you are not sure if the woman caught that last bit, seeing as it had been in dwarfish.

The banker who introduces herself as Silea Naran, head of the Augustana branch, seems to have some experience with strange travelers showing up with even stranger prizes at her door... though never with the prize being a door. After ascertaining that it is indeed the prized darkwood the only question she had for you is: "Gold or platinum?"

Gorok chooses gold and you are on your way, richer by far than any of you had been in your lives.

Lost Darkwood Door

Gained 1,350 gp -> Now at 2,726 gp 19 sp 21 cp

What do you do next?

[] She seems a reasonable sort, ask about the banknotes

[] Leave
-[] Head to the temple of Pharasma to deliver the cursed ring
-[] Find a solicitor to read those banknotes
-[] Now that you have more gold see if there is anything in the markets of Fleet to spend it on

[] Write in

OOC: Enjoy.