Finding the Spark (Pathfinder 1E Quest)

3rd of Neth 4707 A.R. (Absalom Reckoning)

"What are you even doing out here, if it's the fey you are worried about? Why aren't you on the road?" So saying you motion behind you, at the way among tall trees and tangled roots.

"Aye, would that I could, but they'd been befuddling me at every turn," the man answers. "Why if I couldn't see the stars through breaks in the trees I'd already have been lost as a lamb..." he trails off, his gaze drawn to Warty as though wondering if he should be explaining what a lamb is. "It's a good thing their glamors can't cover the sky and their blasted master doesn't have power over Gozreh's blue skies."

"It would be a challenge with some of the larger clearings, but setting up a glamor against the sky would not strain even my present skills so long as it was intended to be seen from only a single angle, as would be the case for 'Gavis' alone," Sirim interjects coolly, as is his wont. "If this man has indeed been stumbling around the woods for days, than he is where these fey wish him to be."

Ah... one more layer of treachery to worry about, it's almost homey. The thought has more humor to it then it may once have, but you are no less wary of what may be lurking under the branches of oak and holly. Into that silence you mutter a spell, not to lie better, but all the better for a liar to spot.

"Strange that they didn't take everything they wanted off you while you slept," you press a little harder to see how he'd take it.

"Ah... you must not be from around here. Good for you, this place is shit," his smile is infectious, though only Mina catches it. "The fey of the Court of Veils may not touch those of Golarion while the sun is up in the sky, beyond befuddling your senses and making you lost. Why, they're not laying so much as a feather on you, are they?" He spits on the ground. "Not that they use birds mind, it's bats all around, foul things they are. The woodcutters say they feed on the bodies of the fallen to their bats."

"The fallen?" Urgor asks, raising his axe a little as though in challenge to the trees. "They'll not be felling us!"

"So you've been sleeping during the day and moving at night?" One more reason for that, you guess. "How have you been keeping yourself out of a bat's mouth then?"

"They don't just kill travelers, they're not savages." The man shakes his head, looking haggard. "Clever enough to know the worth of maps, the bastard who took mine off me, tried selling it back to me, and safe passage for silver. Like as not they'll try the same with you..."


You start to nod then realize you'd never mentioned being robbed. Of course, he could have just assumed, for there not that many reasons for five armed strangers out in the middle of the Verduran Forest following bird-calls, but it all fits together a little too neatly. The world's a messy place and that's the truth of it, but lies... lies can be as neat as you please to garner sympathy.

What do you do?

[] Try to use Detect Thoughts on the man, if detected will be interpreted as a hostile action

[] Keep him talking, two can play it this game. See where he's trying to lead you (Bluff vs Sense Motive)

[] Try to intimidate some answers out of him (Intimidation vs ???)

[] Write in

OOC: Normally there would be a roll to see if he knows you know he's lying, but that was a crit so you automatically pass that one, for now at least.

3rd of Neth 4707 A.R. (Absalom Reckoning)

"They're already midway through it," you huff, trying to sell that you hadn't noticed the slip and giving him an obvious out, helped along by the anger carved into Urgor's brow. "Why do you think we're out here? Something came upon us in the night and snatched up a treasure of great worth from our companion." Which he hasn't even described to you... There is no small amount of annoyance in the thought, because it's hard to play the game when you don't know the stakes.

"Sirim, see what he lost, it might be important," you send during the pause as the tinker-mapmaker considers his options. You can see him doing that now, the way he scratches behind his ear and closes one eye briefly, like an archer lining up a shot.

"Hmm..." Gavis seems torn. "Tell you what, you lead me to the River Road and I'll give you a map I made to the nearest spirit cairn, that's places where the woodsfolk make deals with the fey. You lot are interesting enough that I'm sure one of them's gonna at least pop up to deal with you."

"No offense meant, but it seems to be a poor bargain from where we're standing. We could lose our trail, or we could split up in the middle of the woods with troublesome spirits about and you just hand over a piece of parchment with naught but your word that it's worth anything." The trick to looking like you've been fooled is not to look like a fool, you know. "We could draw you a map, even loan out a lodestone to help you keep a straight path. Just wait by the side of the road, we'll find you."


"Who are the 'woodsfolk'?" Gorok interjects before the man can speak.

Gavis then explains that these woods are not just inhabited by the small towns like Fusil, descendants of the settlers in the earliest days of Taldor, but also by small clans that live 'as beasts in the woods', disdaining coin, clothes, and especially iron as part of their age old bargains with the fey. 'If t'was a living man and not a fey thing atop that bat then it must have been one of them', he insists with confidence... that you very much suspect is also a lie. This talk of strange customs and spirits also serves another purpose, as far as you are concerned, it gives Urgor time enough to finally, if reluctantly, explain what had been taken from his tent: Gold and gems, yes, almost five thousand golden sails worth of both together, but that is not what most troubles his heart.

In your mind you see a ring, ironically enough of black iron forged, eighteen inches across. On one side are runes of hearth and home and on the other runes of travel. Burakrin Arik... a ring gate, leading to the clanhold of the Surefoots in ruined Jernashall. Unlike lesser examples of its kind it is not barred from access to its twin by distance. To the clan elders, despite all these long centuries of exile, their lost home had been close enough to touch, the voices of unburied ancestors always in their ears. To have that taken now of all times when redemption seems so close... No wonder the dwarves would have struck out on their own if it was not retrieved.

"Alright then, a lodestone and one of your... sketches for one of the finest maps in all Avistan," Gavis concludes his bargaining with Gorok. He's lying, of that you have no doubt, and unless you are much mistaken, he thinks he's pulled the proverbial hood over your eyes with you none the wiser. He's already looking over Gorok's head... What's that?

What had at first glance seemed like an oddly shaped boulder covered in moss rolls in place as if alive. Alive it is indeed, and a scaled head slides slowly out of a turtle's shell, ten feet across. The creature blinks with deliberate intent no common beast can match. It is signaling to Gavis. Looks like he isn't quite as alone out here as he's implied. Shocking.


What do you do?

[] Follow the map and try to speak to the fey, trickery of which one is forewarned can be turned on its head

[] Ask Gavis why his friend is shy

[] Try to threaten Gavis

[] Write in

OOC: Two crit successes in two consecutive updates, I think the dice are trying to make up to Akorian for that time he put his foot through the floor trying to be smooth.