Finding the Spark (Pathfinder 1E Quest)

18th of Abadius 4708 A.R. (Absalom Reckoning)

"They are not harming anyone," you point out. "Why find grudge," the duergar word lands with a thud like iron that has the smuggler look at you nervously, "where we don't have to?"

"If I do not guard law of land then by law the land can be taken back. It is land-bargain," your friend replies.

"In the ideal, maybe, but..." you consider everything you learned about the lords of Taldor, the new and lesser as well as the old and great. "Rare is the baron unmade because he allowed nutmeg to pass through his land." Changing the tongue to one that can be understood you ask the man bluntly. "Who else uses these roads and for what cause?"

Berg's back stiffens. "Look, I don't want no trouble, and I'm betting you don't want none either. Name yer cut and we can settle this like sharp folks. Not like you're the new publicani, eh?"

"He's is new baron," you proclaim, thinking the shock will get the man talking.

Instead It gets him running, promptly followed by the boy, Sil, who rolls nimbly off the wagon and tosses out a petrified stone at your feet that splits with a deafening crack. A common enough trick that your hands are already at the sides of your head, but it's going to be ringing all day. Cursing in a tongue none under the sun know you extend a hand and snap shadows to his heels... only to find the seemingly bare foot coming off as an enchanted stocking to reveal to reveal the true hairy foot of an adult halfling rather than a human child.


"Oi! Berg! 'E's got me! Hold your runnin'!"

For a wonder, he actually does.

"What do you want, witch-man?" the fellow asks sullenly, to which you can only respond in kind:

"It would be nice if my ears stopped hurting, but seeing as I won't be getting that how about you answer Gorok's questions before he drags you back to Cassomir to face the Abadaran Magistrate?"

The damn donkey doesn't even look troubled. It's only when Cob takes the chance to shout in its ear that you realize it's deaf, they must have gotten it with a purpose if they use thunderstones often. Though why in the name of dark below they were running off with their cargo at just the merest mention of a baron....?

As it turns out, the last fellow to be given lordship over these lands had a taste for human flesh. Not even ghoul-touched, he just liked the taste, and the one before that tried to raise wyverns. An iruxi baron wouldn't even be the most unusual thing to happen to this stretch of swampland, but all the strangeness has boded ill so far, at least according to the pair of smugglers, enough so that the prospect of a new baron was worse than the novice brigands they had taken you for previously.

Still, they are cagey about giving up their mates and Gorok won't trust them as guides without knowing 'what band they hail from.'

Sil, meanwhile, had been looking at Cob strangely: "Didn't I hear about you lot... you're not that goblin are you? The one that caused a riot out by the harbor? At that inn? You were the ones selling eskelette, right?"

You are not sure if you should be offended or amazed that you'd been repainted as villains in so short a time.

"Where were you getting that stuff? I mean, if you wanna know where our crew comes from it's only fair..." Berg says next.

"Something tells me it's not worth trying to get these fine folks off like Saenar," you point out darkly to Gorok only for Cob to jump up, literally as it happens, and say in goblin tongue.

"Think they're baiting a hook to see what we're like."

After a moment's reflection you nod. Berg hadn't sounded like he was trying to cut a deal, not really, and this would be a bad place to do it regardless.

Though it's clear that Gorok would rather throw at least one of the two in the merest mire, he does explain that you hadn't caused any riots and to the extent that you had anything to do with the eskelette trade it was putting an end to it. He doesn't mention the foiled assassinations, elven intrigues, and mad derro.


In the end, the pair of smugglers seem to come to a common understanding. They explain that they mostly pass Qadiran spices and perfumes traded through Absalom. 'Like cats with their tails up' is how they describe relations between the two realms, but Taldans had always had a taste for eastern spices so there's a market there, at least for those who don't have to pay the ruinous tolls the Empire places on official Absalom spice traders for some reason.

The pair of them even agree to meet Gorok at the next day at the ruins of the Auld together with 'Boss Hrastor', provided he lets them go. Gorok looks to you, a mite surprising given your diplomatic antecedents, but then you realize that it's because your ears were the only victims of the small altercation.

What do you say?

[] Agree to let the pair go

[] Try to question them further
-[] Write in

[] Wirte in

OOC: That could have gone better, but it also could have gone worse. Kori could have lost his spell due to casting deaf or Sil could have just made his reflex throw, in which case they might have sipped away since both Gorok and Cob had moved already that round and they have invisibility potions on them.

18th of Abadius 4708 A.R. (Absalom Reckoning)

While Gorok still isn't entirely at ease with letting the pair go from the way his right hand lingers near the hilt of the fey-blade, the fact that you hold no animus against them carries some weight, the fact that it would be either time consuming or dangerous to drag them back in chains carries even more.

"Go now and know we will be at the keep at least on the morrow. If he does not find us there, I will find him."

"Yessir," the words flow together with the speed that only fear can breed.

While the deaf donkey certainly doesn't hurry down the path, it isn't for lack of trying on the part of the two smugglers.

As the land continues to sink the more you meander southwards soon the path transitions from clay to a collection of haphazardly placed logs, preserved by the same mud that pulls at your heels with the mantle of soft evening the air that comes alive with all manner of buzzing life, most of it unwelcome. Oh what I wouldn't give to be blessed with scales right about now, you think as you try to distract yourself by following the path of the luminous dancers in this twilight procession. 'Fireflies' they are called, though the name hardly seems apt to you, they are far more bright than warm as they swarm with what one might imagine to be a sort of curious awe around Warty. Whimsy aside, it's not long before the regular lines of mortared stonework rise from the mire ahead.

Some of the towers are high enough that one can still catch a glimpse of the original plan, with a fair bit of imagination and allowances for the merciless hand of time. What had once been a square fortress boasting an inner and outer wall, both about twenty feet high with the towers reaching up a further ten above those, now more resembled a collection of islands of moss-covered stone. Most of the rooms within are bare of both the remains of original habitation and later interlopers, unless one counts the bones which, according to Gorok, might have been the doing of swamp snap-jaws as easily as more discerning hunters. There are two exceptions to the pattern. Someone had set up a platform by the south gate sturdy enough for half a dozen archers and dragged over a brazier for them to light their arrows aflame there, as well as a few simple snare traps along the stairs leading up. And near the middle of the structure....

"Books! Lots a moldy books!" Cob reports, having keep the fastest into the various nooks and crevices. "Magic all over. Maybe it broke down?"

Being far from an expert himself, Cob couldn't tell you what kind of magic, only make a guess as to its power, More than the faint gleamings of petty conjurer, but less than the steady glow of the most powerful magics you posses, a dim half-light of enchantment.

To the southwest, opposite to where you had entered the ruins, is another oddity: a patch of blue-green fungus tall enough to reach almost to Gorok's chest. Ironstems he calls them, poisonous to everyone, but particularly virulent against the fey. Finally there are two pools of deep water right where the pair you met on the road say there are and the carp aren't shy about showing themselves there.


"Library?" Gorok motions towards the larger tower.

"I'm not Sirim, but I'll see what I can make of it..."

Waterlogged tomes sag on shelves that seem too ancient to bear their weight and yet they do. Trails of greenish black slime ooze between their spines like ichor as the air is laden with the scent of arrested decay... and with the magic that Cob remarked on. A spell of preservation... sputtering to an end, though the fact that it had lasted so long is remarkable, as is the fact that none of the ruins previous inhabitants thought to take any of the tomes.


What do you do?

(PCs can be assigned to only one action, though more than one can be assigned to any single action. The iruxi will attempt to perform any action left over within the limits of their skills)

[] Start refurbishing the ruins
-[] The South Tower
-[] The Central Keep

[] Try to take out the books and find the source of the magic

[] Harvest the mushrooms, no reason why you can't add them to your alchemical stores

[] Start fishing

[] Write in

OOC: Enjoy.