Finding the Spark (Pathfinder 1E Quest)

24th of Neth 4707 A.R. (Absalom Reckoning)

Looking up into the leathery bearded faces of the ohancanu, into single eyes that had seen years and centuries march by asking for nothing but a good fight and meat warm in their bellies afterwards, you wonder if perhaps they are wiser than they seem not to trouble themselves with the comings and goings outside their forest. Ah, and now I'm being maudlin from the parting even though it's for the best. At the very least they were wise enough not to make more trouble and to end quite a bit of it.

"For leal service I... am glad and would reward you not just in words, but with steel." At the last moment you remember that it's unwise to thank the fey, as even the shy pech of Nar Voth have been known to take advantage of a mortal so naming himself indebted. Pitfall avoided, you draw one after another three weapons from your pouch: two ogre axes they'd rightfully earned and a straight knight's sword.

The three of them seem quite taken with the offering, measuring the weapons one against the others and putting calloused fingers to the edges until they bleed, which for blades that aren't cold iron takes some doing. It's their way of saying 'thank you' back without placing themselves in debt, you realize with an inward start.


"Fair sailing and swift winds, the river doesn't need me to wish upon its current," the still nameless druid calls in parting. Not unkindly, though between Cob and the obvious show of magic it's clear she'd rather the whole company depart from her stretch of territory sooner rather than later.


That evening the isle of the druids shows herself to you, its rocky shores falling into the waters of the great river, graceful as a lady's gown. Above it are circling birds with feathers white as day and black as midnight, all watchful for unwelcome visitors. Which are druid-friends and which druids in another skin you would not care to wager, but they seem to recognize the flags of Sir Prisca's galley since their numbers thin out by about half by the time the Dancing Slurk, the name seeming to have stuck, gets close enough to shore to count the spaces among the trees.

In those places stand an even more curious set of watchers. At first you take them for goblins hidden among the vines and leaves which had sprouted earlier, or with more vigor on the island than either shore, but as one draws nearer it's clear their legs aren't wrapped in vines, but the vines themselves are their bodies; gourds green and brown, some are in the guise of flowers, while others still wear mantles of leaves. 'Leshy' they are called, the spirits of the Verduran Forest incarnate, and not as fey hailing from its mirror self, but as the very stuff of sun-nurtured earth.


"Strange..." Gorok fixes an unblinking gaze on the watchers. "Did the cold not come here?"

"What do you mean by that?" Sirim asks, never one to pass up a chance to learn.

"The time you call the Age of Darkness and the Age of Anguish, for the sun was taken from the world. To us it was the killing cold and the egg bane, it was the time we stopped building with stone, the time the land itself fell asleep, except... here."

"Could we go ashore and talk to them?" Mina wonders. None of you have an answer so she calls out to the Taldans.

The knight's response is not encouraging. The leshies do not come to the River Guard anchorage and the druids forbid the sailors and soldiers from traveling past the boundary stones. Not to say that no one does, of course, all manner of strange folk can be seen crossing over and heading towards the Lodge hidden beyond: mostly the keth and elf messengers from Kyonin, though a handful of gnomes as well.

"Soooo.... 're we strange enough?" Cob asks eagerly. He too had thought the strange watchers were goblins at first, though finding out they are not had done nothing to lessen his enthusiasm to meet them.

As you are about to shake your head one of the sailors beside Sir Prisca points at you. "That one might be. I've seen them wear tokens like that, the savages I mean."

Instinctively you touch the spiral-shaped talisman that you had taken as spoils weeks ago from Strong-Legs-Leaps-into-Danger... of the keth.

"One of us can go shore then," Sirim whispers in the mind. "Perhaps these spirit-kin have insights into druid's craft."

His hopes of incarnation are bright as a flame in un-walked tunnels, but his is not the only one. Gorok would wish to speak to spirits which might have seen with their own eyes the works of the iruxi when they were mighty.

Would the druids know the talisman had been taken from its original bearer? you wonder. Another thought: Would they even be able to spot one of you if you do not wish to be found? Alongside breadth of power, your depth of glamor-weaving has also grown.

What does Kori think the Ghosts should do?

[] Try to go ashore and speak to the leshies
-[] Using the Token: Write in Wearer
-[] Under the strongest glamor he can cast (Mythic invisibility): Write in party composition

[] Sail on, it is not worth riling up the druids

[] Write in

OOC: Enjoy.

24th of Neth 4707 A.R. (Absalom Reckoning)

There aren't any stones in the water, scribbled with dire warning or otherwise, and you think, no, you know... "Why don't we just go up to them?"

"Swim for it? What if there's more of those snakes around? The ones we figured people might have mistaken for a dragon before we met Sylestrix?" Mina asked.

"Walk." With a shake of the head you motion to the water like you had seen the footmen in Augustana do with sturdy burlap on rainy days so that their employers might cross muddy paths without dirtying their shoes. When you come right down to it the water can hold some things up, water spiders and finger toads. It just needs a bit of convincing that you're all lighter than you seem.

By now the people you share a boat with are accustomed enough to your antics that they look on curiously, though without much worry, as the five of you step out onto the river, which is more than can be said for the shouts of alarm coming from the River Guard.

"Worry not, we won't be setting foot on land!" Mina calls back to them.

Gorok, meanwhile, has a place to be and questions to ask. Though you cannot make out the hisses and clicks of his birth tongue the question is as long as it is respectful, tail tucked carefully around his left ankle. To you or Mina that would be like holding your hands behind your back. In response, you discover that a pack of agitated leshies is like a storm-wind through the forest, sending all of them rustling and racing. Finally, one of the more colorful ones answers in what's clearly another tongue, though with perhaps a few twists in Common.

"He is asking if you are of the Sea, the Sky, or the Green Between? I think that means the Green Faith or Gozreh in either of his guises, though it's odd that they'd say 'sea' this far from the sight of salt water."

"I have eyes to see and ears to hear. I do not take more than I need, seasons passing and rivers flowing. If the sight of mine eyes, the hearing of my ears, or counsel from firm-footed shows that I must change, then change I must."

Though the words are spoken in Taldan, seeing as Mina's going to have to translate regardless, the leshy probably reasoned there is no reason not to speak a tongue the rest of you can understand. The cadence behind them is not the same and the sentiment... hard to imagine the cities of man would have stretched out so widely if they only took what they needed.

The flower spirit bows, petals ruffling in the wind off the river. "Green you are, of elder blood. Listen well, for time is short, the river flows and winds, filled with the waters fallen out of season. We are here as we have been, yet we did not see the skies darken and the leaves wither. When all seemed lost, four here came here together at the height of summer lost, one for flame, one for earth, one for water flowing free, and one for breath of life enduring. Took they island-stone-on-water and they skipped it over..." Mina stops translating, eyes growing wide with wonder. "Time? The island skipped time, that's why the things here didn't die?"

"Where were my people in all of this? Iruxi?" Gorok taps his chest for emphasis.

"Some there were after the stone-skip, then less... then many less... then only men and the Strangers." Mina stops and asks a few more questions of her own. "Strangers means elves, though the leshy don't know from whence they came."

Gorok is quiet for a moment. "Did any like me die here, before they vanished?"

"Oh yes, many, many bones given to earth and to fire..." Another leshy pulls on one of the speaker's back leaves and whispers something. "A few given to stone and made as stone. Held in the Halls of Memory."

At that your friend nods once sharply. You know that look. Now or later he has some skulls to recover.


Sirim comes next to the fore and you are sure this is where the trouble will start. Gorok belongs under these sunlit trees. Sirim of Nidal, on the other hand, by choice and chance belongs even less than you do. But the spirits of leaf, gourd, and bloom do not recoil from him. Whatever silent introduction he has made seems to have intrigued them, for a few come nearer the water and shade their eyes the better to see him. So do they 'speak' a while before Sirim withdraws.


"The news isn't a mouthful of ash, but it certainly isn't honey on the tongue. They say the druids here would have little interest in sharing a fire with one who has suped so deeply of the feast of the Midnight Lord. But when I asked if there are enchantments which could do as I hoped, ones whose opinion does not need to be sought, they described great cauldrons of pewter and bronze brought by the Druids of the Cleansing Flame long ago, but the only one such cauldron whose location they are willing to reveal is in what was once called the Forest of Stones."

"What do you mean willing?" you probe.

"They are concerned I would seek to claim one by stealth or by force," the shadow mage answers, not denying the accusation.

"But they're not concerned about the Forest of Stones."

There's something like a smile in Sirim's voice, though you certainly wouldn't call it joyful. "The Forest of Stones is now known as the Stonewilds in Northeastern Sarkoris. I've stared at enough old maps of Avistan in my youth to recognize the name. It is also now home to heterodox sect of the Green Faith."

"What make's em weird?" Cob asks, looking back from where he'd been skipping stones off the river.

"They killed themselves and rose as the unliving to stave off the demonic hordes." Sirim waits a moment for he surprise to clear, then adds. "To their credit, they are still there."

With that grim proclamation the five of you return to the Dancing Slurk to consider your next move.

What do you do next?

[] Gorok does want to get those old iruxi skulls. Seeing as you are here already, now seems like the best time

[] Speak to Leontas about the Stonewilds

[] Frustrated by the difficulty of gaining druidic solutions, Sirim has decided to start reading Breolia's book. See if you can help

[] Write in

OOC: Fun fact, the druids would have been able to sense if you used fate manipulation magic so close to their island, which would have lead to having to explain yourselves, but you did not need to since both Gorok and Sirim seem to have decided to roll amazing on the first go. Also, for anyone wondering how Sirim got the spirits to talk as much as they did to him, he flattered the hell out of the forest and by proxy the leshies by comparing them to the kind of forest and life in general that dwells under the shadow of Zon Kuthon.