Finding the Spark (Pathfinder 1E Quest)

11th of Neth 4707 A.R. (Absalom Reckoning)

Mina tried not to look daunted as she stepped into the pool of red liquid. If there is one thing she had learned over the last few days it was that dragons, or at least this dragon, liked the brave.

She tried not to look ticklish when the liquid poured itself upwards over her skin to drape her in armor that fit smoother than a glove, though that she failed as a giggle escaped her lips. In a way all of this didn't feel real, like a story she was just now hearing, like a daydream she'd have by the window looking out into the cold rain. Scared girls from the monastery didn't go out and kill the Great Dead, they didn't make friends with dragons or wear the artifacts of old Azlant, yet here she was was saying goodbye to said dragon.

Sometimes she thought Kori didn't get how special any of this was, he had been raised in a world so foreign and so narrow that to him seeing a bird for the first time and seeing a dragon that came from the moon weren't all that different. So there's a bigger, emptier sky above this one? What did that mean to him? By contrast, even now it was hard to even figure out that Gorok found extraordinary behind those quick, ever watchful eyes.

"So're we flying back now? Didn't bring that much to eat with us," Cob's words were somehow in tune with the growling of his stomach. Desna bless him, he saw in every new thing a treasure, and on every horizon a sign urging him on. Not really something she would have thought about goblins, when she thought about them at all, but now that she did... His kin were everywhere, weren't they? From moors to woods to snowcapped mountains, from deep dark caves too and, if the tales were to be believed, the sewers under grand old Caliphas.

She wondered if perhaps there were others just waiting for another, better place to put their wit than in the cunning cruelties of demons, though most of all she wondered about Sirim.

The mage, the other mage—Mina herself did carry a staff that would have marked her as nothing less in the eyes of her younger self, not to even speak of Pepper—carried himself with a kind of secret purpose that always made her feel self-conscious, like he knew just what he was doing and where he was going. Nothing seemed to be able to shake him, surprise him, yes, and when surprised he'd try to take things apart until he understood them, like a boy picking the wings off flies to see what they'd do, but much as a boy was not afraid of a fly with wings or without, Sirim of Nidal didn't seem to be afraid of anything in life. Even though he'd been the one cleaved by the ogre's sword... As she watched the strange sea-beast unfold from stone figurine she wondered if maybe smoke just didn't feel any pain.

"Cherry biscuit for your thoughts," the words were not spoken against the whistling of the wind, but they were still so strange she had to look behind her to make sure the shadow wizard had spoken them.

"Aren't you meant to offer pennies?" She asked.

"We have plenty of money, but you can't really eat a penny, can you? We are still a week off the border, and weeks more down the Coldwater and the Wistwill to Maheto where we can finally transmute one metal into another for our use."

"Well if you really want to you can eat a penny, it just..."

"Tastes like blood." The answer answer brought to mind the memory of a much younger Mina licking coins and earning herself a tongue lashing for 'probably getting mouthrot', like the fool girl she was.

"How did you find that out?" Alright, maybe she was feeling a little brave after the Great Dead and the dragon.

"Read in an old atlas of the Races of Golarion that dwarves can recognize all metals by taste and could even tell the purity of it with two licks. Wanted to see if it was something they were born to, or if you could train yourself into it."

"And?"

"One most certainly can't, and also dwarves can't do it either. It turns out the author who lived many centuries before the Shadowbreak had never even met a dwarf and was simply setting down tall tales."

"Your story is much more interesting," she laughed, though she wasn't sure if she was heard. "I just did it on a dare with a girl I didn't even like, but she was the only other girl, so you know..."

"What did you win?" Sirim seemed interested enough. At her no doubt confused look he clarified: "What did she wager for the dare?"

"Oh, nothing. Cybel just dared me to do it. Guess you think that was a bit silly of me, eh?"

The texture of the silence that followed made the actual answer clear, but what he said was: "No sillier than not checking the publication date before starting to experiment."

"The sisters were quite wroth with me, as they did not have anyone who could cure sickness since Matron Psismata died..." She went on telling little stories of her childhood to which he would share his own, though he'd been thirteen when he went to wizard school, almost an adult as the law in Barstoi would have it. Though Sirim never, Mina noted, talked about any punishment he bore. Somehow she did not think that was because he never did, but she knew better than to push.

Which of his companions does Akorian speak with about the trials they have endured and the changes they are all seeing in themselves?

[] Cob

[] Gorok

[] Mina

[] Sirim

OOC: Interlude popped into my head almost fully formed. Hope you guys enjoy a bit of a character study as a breather. Oddly enough, Mina and Sirim do share a bit of common experience as teenagers at least.

11th of Neth 4707 A.R. (Absalom Reckoning)

The news that they would be welcomed into the service of the silver dragon, who is not a silver dragon, the latter distinction matters for some obscure koboldish reason, is met with joy by Sweep Tail, soon to be matched by her clan. It's almost a pity you can't linger to see what they make of themselves out there, but you are carrying enough adamantine to rouse the greed of a king through lands that are only saved from true lawlessness by the fact that no bandits worth their knives want to risk the attentions of the ancient fey of this land. Maybe we'll pass this way again.

No, you catch the thought like an irksome fly and examine it. You are no shell floating on the currents of fate, not any more. You will speak to Sylestrix to find out how she and her new subjects are faring at a later time, you vow silently.

For now the trackless forest calls, and all its calls are strange.


16th of Neth 4707 A.R. (Absalom Reckoning)

The days grow longer with each passing day, much to your displeasure, though the forest seems much more approving of the change. The green, which has seemed to you prevalent before, now drapes every limb and twines around every root. 'Snowdrops' hang their silvery heads low, the small shy outriders of spring's army. By day the birds are more daring as they dart in to devour the scraps of the caravan... and some things that aren't scraps as well from the unwary. Early spring is the lean time in the lands of the sun, though it's hard to believe to your ears that anything could be 'lean' amid all this avalanche of life.

For his part Gorok agrees with Mina and Sirim that you are looking at the time when one is most glad for over-winter forethought, though these woods are far from the bleak and watery haunts of his tribe where they have to contend with boggards face-stealers for every basket of fish and armful of reeds when the wood-cutters aren't driving them deeper in. According to a jest from Leontas, that has more tooth than smile to it, the Verduran Forest is one of those places where the trees have won out over the axes. What's so wrong about that you aren't sure. Sure, even the largest trees do not provide the cover of solid stone at your flanks, but at it keeps a body from being utterly at the mercy of the wide and empty sky, and whatever might dwell in it. True the last winged being you'd spoken to had been a friend, but before that had been the abductor and before that the striges.

"You could settle here, you know. No one would even be able to find you here, much less ask you for taxes," you wave your hand in the direction of the arch of oak trees which you had come across one evening by the fire.

"Aye, the men of Andoran would not be able to find us, but what of the keth?" Gorok points at a random spot in the undergrowth, declaring with what seems to you unreasonable confidence. "Their marks are on this land, they've been here long enough to grow into the trees."

"The dragon didn't seem to care," you counter.

To which he shrugs and in a gesture familiar to all that walk on two legs, he says. "She is dragon, I am not."

After considering the matter and taking a sip of the cup of fragrant tea Oka had brewed out of he-alone-knows-what, you answer simply: "Then speak to them and cut a deal. The Fusil folk did and they take up more of the forest than yours would. We can find stone to build with. I think... I think I could even help with the building. I haven't tried it yet, but since we took in the fire my power has deepened, or maybe revealed depths that I did not see before."

"I..." It is rare to see the iruxi unsure of himself, yet now he looks into the fire as though expecting answers from it. "If you had told me a year ago that we could be safe in a place where the ground is dry and warmbloods are few and scattered among the trees I would have grasped it with all ten claws and not let go, but I worry about swearing oaths to the fey-spirits. You saw what one did to the alderman, thinking it a gift, a favor. What might they do if they are bored?" He motions to one of the giants 'patrolling' around the camp. They had been growing restless of late, if not yet dangerously so.

What does Kori answer?

[] It is better to deal with deathless fey who keep their bargains forever than with men who might forget or feign forgetfulness for profit

[] Perhaps he is right, the plains might not be to your liking, but the land is more open there and the claims upon it less arcane

[] Write in

OOC: No rolls for this one. No one was trying to persuade anyone, Gorok is just asking for your advice.