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Finding the Spark (Pathfinder 1E Quest)

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Arc 6 Post 16: The Fated Shadow
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    • The Fated Shadow ​

    8th of Lamashan 4707 A.R. (Absalom Reckoning)

    "Thank you!" Impulsively, though certainly not quickly you reach out to hug Cob around the shoulders. Both of you had been on the receiving end of such things from Mina, but this is the first time you had initiated it. Still feels a little strange, nice though.

    "You're a good..." he stops for a moment, digging though his knowledge of Taldan for some other word before giving up and switching to goblin. "Pickle sharer."

    You make a mental note to give get him a barrel of pickles for the road when you head out east.

    Putting on the cloak the better to keep is floating away you catch a glimpse of yourself in the reflection in the polished steel of the axe strapped to Gorok's back. There's a lot more pink to your cheeks and your eyes are closer to yellow green than the true gold of dark sight, but much like Mina when she veils herself in glamor you are still recognizably yourself. You let out a breath you hadn't known you had been holding. It's one thing to learn as you travel, exploring new vistas and new angles to look at the world, another thing altogether to become someone you are not just to be able to vanish into a crowd.


    Now at 554 gp 5 sp 21 cp

    For now though, hardly anyone seems to notice the difference as everywhere there is talk of the northerners, their strange wares and odd customs, the kind of bubbling pot of rumors that only momentous occasions can bring. You listen with half an ear as the fellow you sold the armor to, 'the better to ward off sharks', mentions that the Chief of the Usena is going to offer a spiral shell full of black pearls to the king as a gift in one hand and that the northerners will get drunk on blood-wine in the other. Yet you see also with your own eyes that not all the rumors are false as a large band of Usena warriors swim in from the west, arrayed in bone and shell, surrounding a prodigious creature that seems half turtle, half crustacean, yet wholly itself and at one with the movement of the water, as though it is those common beasts that are but aspects of itself.

    "That's one of the tojanida," Mina explains. "Envoys from the endless ocean, they are meant to be very talkative if you show them the proper respect, but they are very sensitive about their shape."

    "What's wrong with their shape?" you ask, keeping your voice low. No reason to get into trouble from ignorance.

    "From what Pepper tells me, that they have one at all. Long ago, during the Age of Creation they were servants of Lysianassa, Empress of the Torrent, before she was bound to the Gasping Pearl by the schemes of Kelizandri, called by some the Brackish Emperor. As she was shackled so too were the tojanida to shell and scales form incarnate. It is said that only by freeing her can they free themselves."


    Mina Knowledge the Planes (DC 21): 1d20+11 = 27 (Success)

    "That seems folly. Once Iruxi were eggs, but I would not wish to crawl back into the shell even if a egg so large could be found," Gorok answers thoughtfully. Time passes, water flows.

    "Yes, exactly my scaled friend, that is what my father doesn't seem to understand, or doesn't want to!" It would be too much to say Prince Cozut managed to sneak up on you, but with his face covered and wearing none of the adornments you had seen on him last time, only a single golden coin, it is easy to mistake him for some other simple warrior. "What are those masks... creatures you're wearing? Nevermind, come away from here. Better to talk where it's not as noisy as waves against the shore."

    Something tells you it's not the noise he is most worried about, but the chance of being overheard. And yet you are intrigued, a prince it not easily separated from his servants and surely not on a whim...

    Akorian Sense Motive (DC 18): 1d20+12 = 24 (Success)

    With only a curious Cob following along, the others stay behind with Warty.

    The prince leads you east and a little south of the village to where an old shipwreck lies on its side covered in curtails of seaweed, though a lot tidier on the inside that you would expect. Waterlogged shelves had been nailed back together and arrayed with all manner of bric-à-brac: a steel hammerhead beside a colorful steel scroll-case, old boots atop tin cookware, a puzzle box of ivory and wood next to a coil of weighted rope that might have once been used to measure depth, now to the depths lost.

    "There we are. I wanted to talk to you about..."

    "Something secret?" you interrupt not unkindly, but making it very clear he is not as subtle as he thinks he is. Either that or or he's just more obvious to people who don't know him well.

    "I knew our cousins were skilled at keeping secrets, I guess it did not occur to me that you'd be as good at sniffing them out as well." The young prince pauses, not so much looking for words as gathering the courage to say them. "I'm in love."

    Even though you're pretty sure you haven't eaten any lead ballast this morning, but it sure feels that way "Not with your intended bride I would assume?"

    "No!" He seems flustered. "Look there's nothing wrong with her, but no mortal can command love. Not even Sheylin herself can know where the petals cast from her hand might fall. I just... she's a landwalker like you, an Eagle Knight, Crysenthia Ravonge if you heard of her. She's very famous..." The boy looks up at you and then at Cob hopefully. Then when no answer is forthcoming he continues. "Look, I just need someone to convince father not to go through with this marriage, say it's cursed or something, everyone knows the shadow folk can read fate. Or maybe we can use a potion to make it look like I died and then you steal away my body and... "

    "What do we get?" Cob scratches his ears in sheer bewilderment, like he can't quite make out the words. "If we help you, what pay?"

    At this Prince Cozut slaps his forehead and says. "Ah right, I didn't tell you where I got the idea."

    He takes out a small leather bag filled with gold and silver of ancient make as well as the the glimmer of a few gemstones like sapphire eyes peering up at you, but none of them call out to you so much as the pendant. Half of it is true silver, bright in eye and mind, half of it is druchite, darkness made substance, threading through each other in a tangle of veins, yet among them you can read the mark of a spindle split ended that you had seen but once before, not with eyes: The Spindle Solution. Like light on your skin you can feel the power in the pendant and know you can make it yours, that it was meant for you or one like you by whoever forged it long ago.

    Akorian Lore Azlanti (DC 26): 1d20+9 = 28 (Success)

    Catching your expression, how could he not, the prince grows bolder. "I found this a seven moon-faces ago and I got the feeling it was meant for one of our cousins in the shadow, and then I saw you and I figured you could... help me?"

    What do you do?

    [] Agree to help him escape his wedding (Gain 2500 gp and a Spindle Solution Pendant)
    -[] Truthfully, foretell dark omens to the King should the wedding take place
    -[] Lie and keep the pendant

    [] Refuse, this is madness

    [] Write in

    OOC: So yeah... meet gender-swapped Ariel, just as vague on plans as the original but he has ancient treasures to bribe passing magicians with.
     
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    • Riiight. Break a potential alliance on a whim of a fifteen year old boy. With no follow up.

    When I suspected provocation, I didn't expect it to be of our own make. The pendant is shiny, though.

    Well, we did choose a gift with a 'cultural significance'. If we really wanted to do through with it, now would be the time to fabricate an omen to go off at the right time.
     
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    We need more information before making any sort of decision.

    Anyone else have questions to add that would make sense to ask here? I'm training a new employee today, so I might be a bit slow updating my plan with your suggestions, but I'll get them added eventually.

    [X] Ask the prince to clarify exactly what his relationship with Cysenthia is. How did they meet, when and where, how long ago? Does she know of his impending wedding?
    -[X] What are the political implications for himself and his people if he breaks the engagement at this stage? Will doing so make enemies of the Usena? Will he be banished, or worse? Could his actions here cause war between their peoples?
     
    Honestly, I would simply say that the other princess should make a proper attempt at wooing him

    Or that the tribes choose another way of bonding
     
    Goldfish said:
    Anyone else have questions to add that would make sense to ask here?
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    What is your intention here?

    It is a transparently bad idea... with good pay. The questions may help determine just how bad of an idea it is, but are unlikely to change the calculus.

    The biggest flaw of all is that delaying the wedding doesn't solve the problem. Political marriages have long since been a way to secure resources and loyalties, and spoiling one will only mean his father would have to seek another elsewhere, possibly at a disadvantage. Pretty much the only way this goes the way the prince wants it to is if he runs away -- with the consequences for the House ranging from simply negative to disastrous, depending on his position in the line of succession -- or brings in a power comparable to the Usena, which, to my limited knowledge, Eagle Knights are not.

    Tomcost said:
    I would simply say that the other princess should make a proper attempt at wooing him

    Or that the tribes choose another way of bonding
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    We don't have a way to influence any other parties in this. Unless you want to reveal the prince's scheme and make a public address.
     
    Nevill said:
    What is your intention here?

    It is a transparently bad idea... with good pay. The questions may help determine just how bad of an idea it is, but are unlikely to change the calculus.

    The biggest flaw of all is that delaying the wedding doesn't solve the problem. Political marriages have long since been a way to secure resources and loyalties, and spoiling one will only mean his father would have to seek another elsewhere, possibly at a disadvantage. Pretty much the only way this goes the way the prince wants it to is if he runs away -- with the consequences for the House ranging from simply negative to disastrous, depending on his position in the line of succession -- or brings in a power comparable to the Usena, which, to my limited knowledge, Eagle Knights are not.
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    The Eagle Knights as a whole probably would be but we are not talking about their overall commander here and even if we were they are a branch of the Andoran government, they cannot just make feudal alliances.
     
    Idea: throw some bullshit prophecy about how a forced marriage will only force them to be together, but there would be no true alliance.

    Suggest an alliance by sharing blood in battle, help in the fight. Proper murderhobo style.
     
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    [X] Refuse, this is madness

    Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn.

    We are not build for large-scale diplomacy and we definitely should not get involved in this. If the prince breaks off the engagement, we stand by the side and look uninvolved. If he goes through with it, we stand by the side and cheer.
    Whatever happens, we don't risk our collective asses on a matter like this.
     
    Goldfish said:
    We need to know if we would be helping to start a war,
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    Wars don't generally start because of things like these, unless the Usena really need something they can't get any other way. If the Iselsi are even nominally allied with Andoran, a confrontation is unlikely. Relationship will sour, but that alone does not cause a war.

    Moreover, just from the prince's personality, I think that if he thought the political consequences would be drastic and could result in loss of life, he wouldn't try to hire us for the job. And if he doesn't, or didn't think too much about it, then asking him is rather pointless.

    It's his father who needs to be asked these questions, but alas, we can not.
     
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    I think that there might be better waya to forge an alliance than marriage, but we would get too involved in all this mess
     
    Tomcost said:
    I think that there might be better waya to forge an alliance than marriage, but we would get too involved in all this mess
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    I don't mind getting involved; putting their nose where it doesn't belong is the hallmark of adventurers. We have raided a crypt berlonging to a merchant house and are trying to betray a major consortium; these are both messes we don't have a massive stake in. We did it for money and connections, and the incentive is just as strong here.

    As for better ways... if it benefited both parties, they would be doing it regardless. Marriage serves as an assurance against reconsidering the alliance once the immediate benefits are reaped. From the way the guards talked, however, it seemed the Usena princess is being 'married down' to a less successful house, and the most obvious tradeoff is getting a say in the dealings of the Iselsi through her heirs, or through her directly. Trading autonomy for protection/wealth, or whatever the Iselsi chief is trying to gain.

    Which wouldn't really work if they aren't a part of the House.
     
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    [X] Ask the prince to clarify exactly what his relationship with Cysenthia is. How did they meet, when and where, how long ago? Does she know of his impending wedding?
    -[X] What are the political implications for himself and his people if he breaks the engagement at this stage? Will doing so make enemies of the Usena? Will he be banished, or worse? Could his actions here cause war between their peoples?

    DragonParadox said:
    Spindle Solution Pendant
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    ...Couldn't find much about the spindle solution, but it appears to be mostly made up of evil wizards.

    Ah, they are an anti Alghollthu organization.
     
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