Finding the Spark (Pathfinder 1E Quest)

17th of Kuthona 4707 A.R. (Absalom Reckoning)

Deception is it's own kind of magic, it flows like song and rhymes like poetry in praise of trickster powers, which you invoke before kneading falsehood into truth: "Even if you do not worship the Blood Marquis, your hands are still stained with the blood of untold innocents. If you wish to save yourself, you will tell us everything we want to know. Prove that you can be useful enough to justify the risk of leaving you alive, share enough that you can never hope to return to Zirnakaynin or any other drow stronghold for fear of the repercussions for your betrayal, and arrangements will be made to secure your continued existence. We will cast spells upon you to aid us in this. You will allow the spells to take hold, or you will be slain. If you are untruthful, you will be slain. Do you agree?"


"Innocent... You realize I only know what that word means since learning Taldan? Something akin to both 'child' and 'ignorant', only with a positive connotation, yes?"

The governor looks taken aback for the first time since the drow had started speaking, but Mina simply picks up the thread of conversation in his own tongue.

"Ah, I see... closer to 'ritually pure'. So that is why so many cults raid the surface lands, or the settlements of the svirfneblin, for sacrifices, though you do not keep them that way for arcane reasons, but cultural? Fascinating. It's a pity you are probably still going to kill me after this." He turns back to you: "Work your magic then, I will not resist, in mind or body."

Once you had cast the enchantment upon him without a hitch as Sirim quickly poses to the governor the prospect of recovering some of the missing slaves while the deal with Skali still holds. After that the ghoulrunner himself can be taken into custody, hopefully cutting off a part of the corpse and eskelete trade.

The alchemist, who gives his name as Saenir with an air off familiar eerily courtesy, palms up to show he's not planning to poison anyone, explains that he's been in the city for some three months and his contact was a pockmarked man wearing a coiled serpent pendant, one you recognize at once, an Aspis agent. He'd been part of an expedition that delved as far as Zirnakaynin and even more impressively managed to not end up on a sacrificial altar. "That one isn't innocent, I can tell you that much for certain..." he laughs, all the more unnerving for how sincere it is despite the fact that he thinks himself inches from death. "I know they are buying poisons, reagents, and more recently even tomes of lores and lesser spells. Most of my fellow mages would say that even the least arts of the True Elves are beyond their meager dabblers, but then most of them are imbeciles who believe the flattery of tanar'ri and seek their company. For myself, I find the magics of this land strange, not lesser, constructed under different environments. One would not expect a bulette to swim in water, yes?"

"What's a bulette?" Bozbeyli asks.

After you explain he looks like he would almost rather you hadn't, but waves on for the elf to keep explaining.

"I had a very interesting conversation with one of the Consortium's medic/poisoners, but I have not spoken to them for months, much less the expedition leader. They deliver materials through the local flesh-peddlers. I brew the product and send it down with the guards you almost finished off at the Bloat and others like them. The posting has a high turnover rate since the servants of murder do not appreciate a task in which they are to avoid murdering, so as not to draw attention of the authorities." He nods towards the governor, still smiling. "That didn't work."

Though he only gets a deeper scowl in return his good cheer does not seem to fade. You're not sure what's more disturbing, that this is the effect of the enchantment or that it isn't.

"A handful of two of the blood guzzlers should be alive to cause trouble, and now with the mission compromised they will probably take it as license to indulge. Though if I were you I'd worry more about Elywa and her hive. She is an apostle of the Mother come to preach among the creatures of Nar Voth. The deal she made with the matron is simple, her children would secure the path and build up a presence below the city to ward away raiders as long as we do not blunder into her hive."

"Hive of what?" Gorok asks, a hunter's interest glittering in his eye.

"How should I know? Do I look like I've been chewed on recently? Those who wish to keep all their limbs and other extremities attached do not wander into a Lamashan hive uninvited."

"What if you are invited though?" You ask, remembering the hags. How are so many demon worshipers cooperating?

"Ah, that is the cue to start running," Saenir offers knowingly. Cob would have probably laughed at that one for being entirely true.

"Does this 'Elywa' have three eyes?" you ask instead.

"Yes... How did you? Did you kill her? On the off chance I'm not about to follow her, could I have some samples of her blood and bile? They are sure to contain unique humors for my studies."

"We're the ones asking the questions, elf," the governor interjects. "How do you know Marian Cicato?"

"The warlord, yes? It's actually quite amusing, our local suppliers brought in a man who had been knifed in the street to be processed along with the rest of the usual batch. I immediately recognized him as noble stock from the lack of marks, the condition of his teeth, dozens of signs really, though I pretended not to. I kept him a prisoner until I learned all I could of him and of this city. He was, I discovered, a bodyguard of a high noble with a taste for exotic bed partners, the noble that is, not the bodyguard. I sent him back with some flesh-shaping potions as a token of my esteem as well as an offer to meet and speak of affairs. You know how the steps in this dance are done, yes? He was quite horrified when I described my companions at first, though not so much that he wouldn't try to make use of it for his own ends. He agreed to kill the guards and provide me warding and documentation as an elf of the sun in exchange for information, as well as varied poisons and potions of recreational and practical use. I kept a list in my formula book."

Mina starts leafing through the book, a look of restrained revulsion on her face, but she nods to show the truth of the words.

"He claimed he wanted to kill the others publicly for political advantage during the visit of your princess so as to frame the local potentates of dealing with my kin."

"Information, what can you tell us of yourself, your house, the politics of Zirnakaynin...?" you ask, leaning close.

Saenir laughs. "How long do you have to listen? The answer to that question, out of date as it may be, could fill several books."

The governor takes that as his cue to depart, his walk somehow gaining an even more military gait. Off to deal with his rival, you suspect, though he does ask Mina to copy down that list of poisons and potions for him.

"If you live what would your plans be? Would you attempt to take revenge on us for capturing you?"

"Hmm... only if you decided to loot my equipment. Not the money, I can acquire more than that, but the equipment is irreplaceable now that I find myself an exile from Zirnakaynin."

"How much money does he...?" Pisca asks, looking just a bit embarrassed by his interest.

The answer, stacked up neatly in a small base, turns out to be about twelve thousand gold lions.

You look towards Mina. "The robe, the glasses, the alchemist's tools, and the gloves are all strongly magical, the rings faintly so. It would take me a bit longer to tell what all of them do."

"Hypothetically, why would we choose not to loot and kill you when it's so profitable?" you ask, with the bluntness that only the enchantment allows.

"For the sake of a useful contact, one skilled in alchemy is rare in these lands as the spells of the Burnlands are in Sekamina. While most of my present contacts must be burned, I am certain I can make new ones which could then be leveraged more to your benefit than that which you can pick from my corpse."

What does Kori think?

[] Let the drow live

[] Kill him

OOC: The political information will be next update simply because that's a very complicated question, but this felt like a natural point to put the choice on the drow's fate.