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Age of Ice and Blood: A Pathfinder System Heroic Fantasy Quest

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One more thought: we have time (all this journey is sheduled for two days), so we can ask those friendly bored troll all we want. If DragonParadox does not consider it cheaty, of cause.
 
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Arc 14 Post 52: Spoils and Severing
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    • Spoils and Severing​

    Day of Rule, 1349 A. L. (After Landfall)

    Though you would learn more you hold your peace, the head had proven miserly with their secrets before. Why risk the anger of the city's law giver over such dubious gains? In that thought you are unlike Zaia you know, but he shall have to live with his disappointment as much as the rest of you do. Looking out over the pall of smoke that stains the ceilings of the city black you wonder at what secrets hide there that would tempt the fleet-winged fey to dive in their depths, you wonder more at the mechanisms and tools that are brought out from the house of their thieves. There are things of spun glass as delicate as a snowflake and thin strands of copper like the web of some depended spider dipped in blood, wheels and cogs and levers and paddles, but also other stranger creations: a codex of bronze plates that when held move swiftly one after the other such that the images placed there move as if alive, boxes with crystalline eyes and shrouds of black silk trailing them, arcane mourners of secrets best left unspoken

    "Do you think all of it belongs to the smith?" Tom asks, not without prompting as he picks up a plate of jade adorned with tracery of gold. That thing alone might be worth a thousand Icari in Orinilu, assuming one found a buyer untroubled by its obviously arcane nature.

    "We do not have anyone to ask, alas," you tip your head to the small piles of packs and belts that had been pulled from your dead foes. What was done with the bodies you do not know, but you are curious indeed at the sight of the thunder weapons. They seem to you unremarkable, tubes of brass on stock of wood or bone, though a crossbow that size would not have done near as much harm as those things had.

    When you ask to acquire one the guard laughs and says that the fire-powder that is used to send the bullets flying is beyond the arts of men to master. Judging from the look Zaia gives the little fey and then the 'fire caster' it is clear he does not think much of the proclamation.

    Still, no matter who has the right of it the thieves personal belongings are kept out of your hands even as the guards seem to care little what you take from the mare's nest that was the hideout; weapons, spare clothes, anything that gleams and anything that might offer some clue about the thief.

    Time enough to sort through it all when you see the light of day again, in the meantime you have a promise to fulfill.

    ***​

    It is not as fate would have it an easy one. Megin you discover is, or rather was, the patron and tribal guardian of a people who dwelt among the craggy peaks of North Africa, what was in your world called the Atlas Mountains, a harsh land that can support little more than bands of hunters that scavenge in the high ranges, but as the land is isolated from the outside world so too is it the home of rare herbs and roots which are much coveted in the lands by the alchemists of the Agber, one of which they call the apple of the earth and which they prize above all others even being willing to pay its weight in gold for the plant.

    Yet the mountain dwellers will not share this thing, even for so high a cost for in it also is the secret to the great vitality of the Kings of Horses, the breed of Megin, which are as much spirit as they are flesh... or at least so they were, The hunters were relentlessly hunted with the aid and complicity of their neighbors and many of them perished in battles by day with weapons of bronze and in night raids by the Ihouri, the hollow puppets of the alchemists.

    In desperation the herds had given over some of their foals over to the Tinker Fey to serve in their dark places in exchange for the arts by which the strangers could be driven out of the mountains.

    "So it was for three thousand turnings of the Great Clock, what you could call eight years, a fraction of the ten thousand years of service which was asked for," the Wingless proclaims with the surety of a judge passing down a just verdict.

    But here Swift Pebble interjects speaking for the one whose thralldom was being put to question. "But many more days have passed under the sun and it is in the mind of Megin that her people, kin of blood and oath are scattered, the aid was not enough to help against the invaders."

    "Aid was given, no matter if it ended in victory or defeat," the Wingless proclaims. "Else every smith who sells a weapon to a warrior soon to be defeated is to be demanded weregild."

    "But... but they were hurting her," the otter-kin pleads, to one unmoved.

    "She refused to do the work given her and so she was punished by the contract that was made between her and the Guild of the Striders."

    What do you do?

    [] Try to buy Megin's freedom
    -[] Write in what you are willing to spend in principle

    [] Leave the matter be, the last thing you want is to be party to the intrigues of the Lost Ones, hard enough dealing with the merely mortal

    [] Write in

    OOC: You did not roll at all, but because of the bonuses of your previous decision (or rather the lack of maluses) you did not fail entirely.
     
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    • I really don't want to leave Megin in captivity here, but I'm not willing to break the bank to try to free her, either, or trade a magical weapon for her. We have two of those and we just went through a mountain of shit to get one of them back.

    No way are we going to set some sort of IC precedent that we are responsible for freeing slaves whenever we run across them. That will leave us broke and/or dead with little to show for our efforts in very short order.

    [X] Try to buy Megin's freedom
    -[X] Start negotiating at 300 gold but go no higher than 750, arguing all the while that a rebellious, resentful slave is of little to no value, especially one who feels they have little to lose and which might resort to violence if their mistreatment continues.
     
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    Maybe Mengin has treasures of her own or knows where to get it so that she can buy her own freedom instead of being obligated to us?
     
    [X] Try to buy Megin's freedom
    -[X] Start negotiating at 300 gold but go no higher than 1500, arguing all the while that a rebellious, resentful slave is of little to no value, especially one who feels they have little to lose and which might resort to violence if their mistreatment continues.

    I think that new cute horsefriend for Silver costs much more!
    (But I hope that it'll not be such sums)
     
    Vote closed. I have no idea why it shows 4 even.
    Adhoc vote count started by DragonParadox on Jun 10, 2022 at 1:41 PM, finished with 18 posts and 8 votes.
    • [X] Try to buy Megin's freedom
      -[X] Start negotiating at 300 gold but go no higher than 750, arguing all the while that a rebellious, resentful slave is of little to no value, especially one who feels they have little to lose and which might resort to violence if their mistreatment continues.
      [X] Try to buy Megin's freedom
      -[X] Start negotiating at 300 gold but go no higher than 1500, arguing all the while that a rebellious, resentful slave is of little to no value, especially one who feels they have little to lose and which might resort to violence if their mistreatment continues.
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