Finding the Spark (Pathfinder 1E Quest)

19th of Lamashan 4707 A.R. (Absalom Reckoning)

Almost unbidden a smile turns upon your lips, a small sly thing. "If only that vase could be mended then surely all would be well."

Visibly stiffing a laugh, though thankfully without anyone looking in her direction, Mina turns to the pair to ask helpfully. "Wouldn't it be best to mend the glass so that all might part no worse off for the misfortune?"

For a moment the girl looks wildly around, as though about to dart away, until her gaze falls on her two allies, who might not be so understanding if she were to let the mark slip the line. "Ach, Miss, my mistress is from... Hagreach up north in Ulfen lands see, she doesn't trust witchy magic."

Alas for her Mina doesn't let up: "Well that's no problem then, my friend here isn't a witch, certainly no Winter Witch." So saying motions to you, head to toe as someone at the back of the small crowd gives a guffaw, which you choose to interpret as as good sign.

With that the jig is well and truly up, the girl starts backing away in the direction of her confederates: "Nah, that's all good mam. I'll... I'll be going now." Hearing the fear in that small voice, not all of it over being caught you'd wager, brings forth a twinge of sympathy, but there's nothing for it now. She'll find some other mark before sunset, you're sure.

Mina Diplomacy (DC 15): 1d20+1 = 18 (Success)

The man whose purse and reputation Mina had just saved sweeps off his hat to reveal a head as bald as an egg, as though the hair on his head had despaired at the shapeliness of his magnificent mustache, and bows: "Yoska Covan, historian and antiquarian my lady. Some would append 'amateur' to that, but you shouldn't listen to them. A thousand thanks for seeing off those scoundrels."

Mina seems taken aback by the dramatic introduction. "Pleased to meet you too, master Covan. Mina of Barstoi, though I lay no claim to any other name and certainly no noble bloodline."

Eyebrows jump in interest the words, or maybe at the accent. What would Mina sound to another of her home kingdom? you wonder. Whatever it is the fellow is not shy with flattery. He carries on: "That means only that the world has yet to recognize and reward your wit and grace."

So it goes on through the streets of Timbertown and on to Masks' Row, Yoska insists on buying you both tickets to the rather ominously named Captive Audience. The playhouse certainly has an air of menace to you, so many arcane torches set about the place, from obvious holders blocking the doors to the inside of stucco reliefs in the guise of fearsome beasts, draconic, serpentine, and feline. Any kin of Pepper's that size is something you would rather not meet.

The play itself purports to be an account of the tragedy of Darl Jubannich, a philosopher, which you take to mean someone who can afford to spend all his time thinking and setting his thoughts to parchment. After having helped start the fires of the Red Revolution in neighboring Galt he quickly finds himself ever more isolated among a cauldron of feverish paranoia, stoked by hidden devils as well as the passions and bloodlust of mankind culminating with the monologue of the brutalis devil Chenzerog proclaiming 'blood flowing through the gutters in Galt spills out into the sea and washes on the beaches of Cheliax. All is red and all is sweet'. Despite being born in far off Caliphas, Yoska proves quite knowledgeable in such matters, explaining in whispers that there is no actual proof of Chelish meddling to fuel the flames of violence in Galt, but that it's a theory commonly held here in Almas and in Andoran more broadly.

"You won't hear me admit this too loudly, but I think the Andorans are a bit too full of themselves. Did not the Palatinate overthrow its nobility with even less bloodshed than could be found in Andoran? I do not mean to say that our nobles were never as foul and vicious as Thrune's lackeys, but the fact remains that the folk here in Almas are a quite selective about who counts as a 'real Andoran'. Why they never was a civil war at all, any of the nobles who resisted were retroactively Chelish, or Taldans when tensions with the Empire are high as they are now over the new grain tariffs ."

"Tensions?" you ask worried. You will be heading east soon into the borderlands of Taldor.

"Oh indeed my mysterious friend, there has long been agitation to tax Taldan grain more heavily so as to benefit Andoran farmers. People don't usually like the price of bread going up though, but it sounds like the recent Bellflower leaflets about the contrition of slaves in Taldan estates have done their job. The Supreme Elect is expected to sign the bill into law this week. There's rumors of one of the Taldan dukes trying his hand at an invasion again and more credible talk Taldan settlements pushing onto the Andoran side of the border in the Verduan. Borders are hard to mark when only the faeries and the druids know one tree from another." He shakes his head and returns to commenting on the plausibility of the account of Jubannich's escape from Galt via being smuggled in an Osiriani sarcophagus.

Meanwhile you are considering the virtues of admitting you are heading east to see if you can get more of an account of the state of the road, tolls are politics that way. On the one hand, Yoska likely has more he might say, on the other the fact being very knowledge makes him the kind of person Gavhaul likely does not wish to know about an Aspis expedition into the Verduan.

What do you do?

[] Explain that you are going east in the hopes of getting more information about the state of eastern Andoran and the border tensions with Taldor

[] Stay silent, best not to start rumors that could lead to more foes on your trail

[] Write in

OOC: Enjoy.

19th of Lamashan 4707 A.R. (Absalom Reckoning)

As you resolve not to speak Yoska instead fills the air with increasingly dismissive comments on the accuracy of the play.

On stage the conspirators sweat under the weight of the sarcophagus holding the fugitive Darl Jubannich as most of the audience holds its breath when it is revealed that one of the border guards is an Osiriologist formerly of the Golden Brough University in Isarn sent away from the capital due to being deemed politically unreliable only just escaping the shadow of the Final Blades. You gather this is supposed to make a point about the madness of the Revolutionary Council to banish a scholar from their books.

"He must not have been a very good one then to not recognize that as a fake," Yoska jests meanwhile. "That coffin looks like it was carved by hand. No Pharaoh would be caught dead in a box like that. I don't even think the third under-minister for Water Rights in Sothis would be." At your curious look he explains that the Osiriani as far back as the waning years of the Age of Anguish had been desert nomads burying their dead in the sands of the North Garundi deserts before transmuting the sand to stone around the body to preserve it. When they moved to the construction of tombs the tradition of the 'skin of stone' was kept, all sarcophagi were shaped by magic into the bedrock unless the family of the deceased lacked all access to stone shaping magic.

Mina/Pepper Roll Knowledge (History/Local) (DC 22): 16, 8 (Failure, Failure)

"Well maybe this Professor never went out to any tombs in person," Mina offers the playwright the benefit of the doubt

But your new aquientence is adamant: "The Court historians of the Forthbringer had a habit of calling the Keleshite Conquest and the resulting three thousand years of foreign rule 'The Time of Trampled Stone' precisely because Keleshite genie Binders would use that mastery to rob many of Osirion's ancient tombs, undoing the seals that bound the ancient dead to the land. If the man had so much as taken a course in Osiriology from the Academy of Fine Arts in Pitax he would know that."

'Pitax' you soon gather is one of the 'River Kingdoms' petty states eking out a precarious and often short lived existence between the greater nations that surround them yet are unable to conquer them, a byword for pretension and failure in matters military and cultural.

As the play finally wraps up with many tears and sweeping declarations Yoska explains that he works as a curator at the Quarterfaux Archives in Caliphas 'keepers of the soul of the soul of Ustalav', the latter being a well known title of the capital. In spite of this he offers the fanciful boast with a self-deprecating quick of his lips. The scholar admits to a particular interest in ancient Osirion though he claims he would never go so far as to call himself an expert in the subject.

At last he parts ways with the two of you on the worn marble steps of the theater, voice raised to be heard over the excited chatter of the crowd. "Should you ever be abroad in the city I would be more than happy to offer my poor services as a guide, my lady," He this leaves Mina with a slip of parchment that has his address upon it and, for some mysterious reason, rosy cheeks.

Gained Contact: Yoska Covan (Quarterfaux Curator)


20th of Lamashan 4707 A.R. (Absalom Reckoning)

On the next morning Gavhaul provides you with a simple cloak of undyed hemp and bids you not to make yourself too obvious on the way to your destination even while he asks that you wear 'your best' under it. "Watchers abound on these docks, eagles and crows and rats with wings," he explains with a thin, dangerous smile. "The lady we are meeting Breolia Ascortus, is a diabolist so expect the scratching and scrabbling of imps from seemingly empty corners, mark it well when you hear it. She also fancies herself Azlanti by blood, I know, I know, rather dubious." He pauses to give you what might almost be a sympathetic look. "All the more so for one of your heritage. Still, skill in sorcery and contacts among other alumni of the Egorian Academy of the Magical Arts make her company worth cultivating and it is not as though she is a stranger to subtlety. One does not linger as a diabolist in this city by smelling of brimstone. What we are looking for from her is papers that will allow us to slip our treasure out onto the Taldan side of the border, better than dragging it back into Andoran."

"Other than being on the watch for watchers what more do you need of me?" you interject quietly.

"The lady is quite charming, but she is not in the habit of trying to charm underlings, I need you to watch what she's saying and what she isn't saying so what we might compare notes," Gavhaul explains, eyes closed against the low sun, though seeking focus rather than relief from its rays as you might. "Also if I seem even remotely tempted to strike a deal on the spot feel free to elbow be until my ribs are bruised."

"Wouldn't all that be easier to do if no one knew I was there rather than trust the sorceress to discount me?" you ask.

"Indeed..." Gavhaul stops over a gutter puddle you had been certain he was about to splash though in his distraction. "If you can manage it."

How does Kori play this?

[] Go openly as a servant, (Primary Skill: Bluff +15)

[] Try to slip in as an unseen observer (Primary Skill: Stealth +18)

[] Write in

OOC: I went back and forth on if I should tell you guys Mina and Pepper failed some rolls, but I figured Yoska came off as mysterious enough to be a bit of a known unknown so there you have it.