Very little cloud and a freshing breeze three points off the cape brought the Baron's Bounty into the crowded inner roads of Magnimar's harbor to a gentle kiss against the deep water quay. She was aptly named, for in addition to her cargo of imports from Cheliax and beyond she brought five long looked-for passengers from the distant island-city of Absalom. These five and all of their belongings were scooped up and loaded directly onto a stage-and-four which trundled them up the long climb to Summit, past the government buildings and monuments of the capital district, almost to the gates at the southern extremity of the city. There, just inside the city wall and nominally within the noble 'Alabaster' district stands the Heidmarch mansion, newest chapter house of the Pathfinder Society.
The new guests of the manor were well-received by Sheila and Canayven Heidmarch themselves. The steward of the house appointed four of them capital rooms at Velora Manor, a large multi-roomed house not far removed from the Heidmarch's sprawling manse. The fifth of their number, their nominal leader Shevala Iorae was hustled off to a room and cloistered there for hours along with the Heidmarchs and several other agents called in for the occasion. Dinner was served for the guests of Velora Manor, along with explanations that a meeting would be called in the morning, everything explained, and a plan put together. Something was happening. The society was gathering itself, marshaling its strength to take action. A quest was afoot.
The morning brought a summons. The Heidmarch estate, grand library, two hours before noon.
---
Across the city, in a dark, muddy little hell-hole known as the Underbridge the morning was passing with less splendor. There's not much that can be said to unsay stuff you blurt out when you're charmed. And so the giant Shoanti warrior sat mute atop a no-longer struggling Natalya Vancaskerkin - criminal overlord mastermind that was not. Natalya was a contact gone dead for the Society, and the Heidmarch's - specifically Sheila - had assigned a fresh group of recruits to the job of tracking her down and recovering whatever information she'd gone to ground with. That led the group from clue to clue to here, to a rundown warehouse with rotted floors and open connections to the sewers. To a dirty brawl with goblins that throw bags of s~$! and glass, and a mad-woman spouting fevered dream-ravings of taking over the city. And in the end the crazy b**+% had to be beaten senseless before she would stop struggling and surrender to the overwhelming force the recruits brought to bear. And all of it for a broken piece of metal, a sharp little curiosity that the party wizard had to literally pry from Natalya's hand - she'd actually cut herself on it.
And now sucking the blood from that cut was the only thing occasionally interrupting the barrage of curses raining down about the Shoanti's ears and overdeveloped shoulders. The curses lasted through the argument over turning the whole scene over to the guard - the guard! Past towering rage at the inherent stupidity at declaring oneself Queen of a pool of dung. On beyond the discovery of nothing - no treasure, no clues, not a single Thassilonean rune to decipher. Well into the abject waste of talent that this entire investigation had been. The tirade continued through the gathering of items and bound prisoner and exit from the warehouse, the district, and up the broad avenue back to the Heidmarch's estate. It was the kind of tirade that made people look away, embarrassed for the poor soul being passed under the harrow. No one said a word about Natalya's inert form, draped casually over his shoulder.
---
The grand library of the Heidmarch estate is a multi-story open affair with branches on two stories leading to reading nooks. The collection of books and specimens collected there is certainly the most complete private collection of knowledge to be found outside the empire. The members of the conclave arrive separately, ordering drinks from attendant staff and finding comfortable places to sit. Shevala Iorae, raven-haired reknowned Varisian Pathfinder and mentor these past ship-board weeks to the new arrivals from Absalom, fidgets with a presentation board that's been erected for presentation. She unrolls and tacks two maps to the board as others arrive and take their places. Koriah is a red-headed Pathfinder of local origin. Archisa is the curator to Magnimar's Museum of the Ages, a well-respected and influential member of the Society. Finally there is Canayven and Sheila Heidmarch. Sheila enters the room aglow and its apparent that this kind of gathering is her preferred element. She takes in the gathering, noting with a passing frown the recruits that have not yet made it back from their investigation, then kicks off the affair with a meaningful clearing of the throat.
"Friends and members of the Society, thank you all for making what for some of you was a rather long and tedious trip to our little home on the frontier.." She gestures around the library. "I welcome you to the planning stages of a quest to recover the newly discovered Thassilonean library at Jorgenfist!" She lets the idea of this quest filter its way around the room, taking in the reactions of each of the assembled members. "The library, as most of you know, was discovered by the vanquishers of Karzoug..." her speech trails off as a member of her staff enters by a side door and gestures for her attention. There's some commotion in the room beyond, raised voices...
"I'm sorry - let me just attend to this," she says, plainly put-out by the interruption. "Shevala, please proceed...
Valai stands shaking, her hand clenched around the fragment of metal almost to te point of drawing blood.
'This... is not right,' a little voice whispers in the back of her mind. 'Nethys' divided face, is this what happened to that idiot Natalya? This power... it is...'
With a harsh grunt, Valai struggles to let go. She hurls her will at her fingers, trying to force them open. One. By one. By one...
'Let it... go!'
"I am," she manages to say, the words forced out between clenched teeth, "having... some... trouble!"
Meanwhile, her hand wavers between dropping the twisted piece of metal and raising it up like a dagger.
"Need... help!" the Elfmaid hisses, her eyes practically glowing with rage.
Interesting, I wonder what all secrets are in the ancient library.
thinking of the knowledge's, part of her speech does not register until she has already been distracted. Wait, what did you mean by recover?
As people move to see the comotion, they block Afli's view. what's happening? I can't see. Afli tries to move for a better view.
At the mention of recovering a library, Appenrel is intrigued. He imagines enormous shelves full of dusty tomes, and he wonders what circumstances this is to be recovered from. The library he is currently in has felt more at home than anywhere else in the city so far. When the disturbance occurs, Appenrel stays seated but turns his head slightly, listening.
Amadia smoothly slips through the crowd, her tall but slim frame allowing her to a more elevated viewpoint when compared to Afli, as she weavers her way toward the disturbance, eyes bright with curiosity.
Shevala tries to pick up the narrative by answering the questions as Sheila closes the door behind her. "The team that discovered Karzoug arisen - they discovered an ancient Thassilonean library in a Stone Giant holy site known as Jorgenfist. Above the Storval Stairs in the Iron Peaks," she indicates the place on one of the maps, way up in the Varisian highlands. A place likely to be dangerous and cold.
"The cartographer of the party donated this map," now gesturing to the second, "of those parts of the complex that they had time to survey. There are many passages left unexplored. They only cataloged a small fraction of the knowledge there. They would have gathered more, but there was a dust-up with the Stone Giants and they had to make a hasty exit."
In the hallway, Sheila slides out as her eyes take in angry Valai, the unconscious form of Natalya, the filth still clinging to your clothes, again the bristling elven wizard, and finally the shard of blond copper clenched in her pale fist. Her eyes go wide in recognition and she grasps for a moment for the right words.
"You lot have done very well indeed," she says, trying to compose herself. "Just step into the library with me," she says as she opens the door, interrupting Shevala's explanations. "I have a tome of translations here, and just the thing to help you gain control of the item in your hand. And I can't imagine a better audience for you to reveal what you've found..."
"Hold on just a moment dear," this to Shevala. She crosses the room quickly to a desk tucked away in one corner of the room. She shuffles through a large bound tome and settles on a list. Her finger traces down the page.
... noqual... horacalcum! The Shard of Pride... red and blue sphere! She shuts the tome in victory and crosses back to another corner of the library, all heads turning with her. She reaches a clockwork machine standing in one corner, turns back to the group somewhat self-consciously, then produces a small key from a pendant around her neck. A moment later, a hidden compartment slides open. She searches for a moment, selects a stone from the drawer and turns back on Valai, advancing slowly.
"It functions in a way like the wayfinders so popular among our own ranks. The appropriate ioun stone, when placed in the shard, is said to dampen the negative effects." She smiles nervously as she advances, "The runelords were very fond of their ioun stones..."
Amadia snorts slightly at Shevala's likely understatement of the previous teams encounter with Stone Giants, as she makes her way back to her seat - with the door now closed there was little chance at satisfying her own curiosity, and besides, she suspected the issue was potentially being resolved as Shevala spoke. Pushing the interruption to one side, she examined the maps again, analysing its contents.
"" Valai howls, fury ringing in every word. "Nattering jackdaw! Pontificating simpleton! I all of this, you presumptuous twit! Droning on and on, wasting my precious time while I am fighting for my...!"
Hissing with rage too profound for words, Valai snatches the ioun stone out of Sheila's hand and slams it into the shard.
"You have no idea what this is like, no hope of understanding how I feel... how it feels..." Valai visibly grits her teeth as she fights for self-control. "The... idiot... witch... Am starting... to understand... why she became so... stupid. Shard..."
Appenrel stands. He hesitates, glancing at Valai, before striding over to the maps and examining them, deliberately averting his eyes from the commotion at the front of the room.
There's a small spherical indention near the broken 'base' of the shard that the ioun stone bonds to. As soon as the two items meet they spark a blinding flash of orange light. The shard has consumed the stone. The outline of the stone is still there, but the material looks to be the same as the rest of the shard.
You may now cast major image as a spell-like ability once per day.
+2 insight bonus on saves v. illusion spells
+2 bonus on all skill checks
You know these things about the shard intuitively.
Sheila recovers from the shock of the flash and waves off the insults. She looks at Valai expectantly. "It is the genuine item, isn't it? The Shard of Pride! A fragment of the Shattered Star!"
Appenrel walks over to the door to join the others and says, "Yes, now that we're all done shouting at each other, perhaps you could tell us what those objects are. And who these people are."
"I must... apologize to you," Valai says to Sheila, her lips thin and pale as she utters the word 'apologize' with obvious reluctance. "My choice of words was uncalled-for, although I would have preferred the explanation come after the offer of a solution... Enough."
The Elfmaid visibly shakes herself and eyes the shard with narrowed eyes.
"This is one of the most powerful items I have ever known, let alone put my hand on. I have no knowledge of any 'Shattered Star', but this thing did inspire an excess of pride in me. It was an uphill struggle not to stab you; I felt you were wasting my time."
Valai glances at Natalya and her expression softens a little; an expression flickers across her features, one of fleeting pity.
"I could barely hold it in check because I realized something was affecting my mind. A lesser intellect, one incapable of understanding what was happening, would have had little to no defence. Perhaps... something might be done to mend her."
Appenrel speaks, and malice returns to Valai's eyes. Not the crazed expression from before, but simply ice-cold disdain.
"We are agents of the Pathfinder Society, who have successfully completed a somewhat vexing mission and returned with a highly volatile artefact. What - beg pardon, who are you?"
The 'beg pardon' is spoken a little too sarcastically to be sincere...
Motioning to Lawson I'm with that guy as for as the questions go. Bonus question, should I be fearing for my life, lady who just said she wanted to stab someone because she's holding a magic triangle?
"Not unless you are entertaining thoughts of harming myself or anyone under my protection, or notions of making me go somewhere or do something that runs counter to my wishes," Valai says, smirking. "And you are...?"
|
Trying not to laugh at the witty halfling, Lawson spoke cautiously.
"My name is Lawson. We're Pathfinders too, fresh off the boat from Absalom." Lawson said introducing himself. "We came here with Shevala, we just started talking about a plan to recover the Thassilonean library at Jorgenfist that was recently found.
"Hmm, yes. We were. Jorgenfist is just as compelling an opportunity as it was before the Shard of Pride walked into the room. But this discovery changes many things."
"Come in friends... for we're all friends here under the society's roof. This is not the way I might have chosen to introduce you, but it's illustrative, don't you think, of the times we live in and the dire need for this house. We've built our homes above and among the ruins of a very powerful civilization and despite the depth of time between them and us, our two worlds seem destined to come into violent contact with one another again. A simple investigation into a missing contact yields a Shard of the Shattered Star!" She shakes her head at the wonder of it.
"Please, sit," she gestures around to the copious seating in the parlor room. Canayven leads Dimral who still bears Natalya's bound form down the hall to a room and summons the house guard to watch her, then the two return. House servants offer drinks to the newcomers. Sheila makes introductions: Valai, Rommin, Dimral (the Shoanti), Judah (a half orc in a deep cloak), and St Germain (armored male human). Factors of the Heidmarch house, and newest candidates for 'buck' membership in the Society by virtue of their recovery of the Shard of Pride. Appenrel, Amadia, Afli and Lawson. Recruits from Absalom on their first genuine investigation. Archisa, curator of the city museum. Koriah, Pathfinder member working out of Heidmarch manor. Shevala, influential Pathfinder from Absalom. Canayven Heidmarch, and herself. Venture Captain to Varisia.
"The discovery of the Shard is nothing short of a miracle. The Shattered Star is the collective name of the seven fragments of the Sihedron. I know that many of you will know the word Sihedron as the shape, or glyph of magic in Thassilonean. But deep Thassilonean lore also records that it was an item of immense magical power wielded by the first king, Xin. The legends that have come to us differ in the details, but it is said that Xin himself sundered the star intentionally - to achieve some end and then reassemble it, and that his apprentices struck him down while he was thus deprived of his most powerful weapon. Each of the Runelords then possessed and wielded a fragment of the Sihedron for the duration of their reigns. The end of their empires marked the loss of the Shards to ruin."
"Now it is also said that the possessor of a Shard, by meditating upon the shape of the Sihedron, that you could divine the location of another Shard - that they were keyed to one another in a sequence." She wanders back over to the tome and digs through it for something else.
"The Shard of Greed. That's the shard you should learn about when you possess the Shard of Pride. It's keyed ioun stone is a pale blue rhomboid." She looks up hopefully to her husband, who slowly shakes his head.
Well, we'll just have to find one of those, won't we?!
"What is the point of the stone? She seem like she got better once it was on the shard. What does the shard do to you while you have it? "
Sheila shakes her head and looks to Valai. "I don't know the answer to either of those questions. Likely if you were to discover the bind between a wayfinder and a stone, you'd have a good idea. It's said that Thassiloneans used ioun stones extensively - that they embedded them in their flesh, for instance to increase or alter their power. Clearly they understood them better than we do today."
"I can tell you what this shard did before I put in the ioun stone," Valai says. "It inflated my pride beyond all rhyme and reason. If I hadn't fought it, my pride would have overwhelmed me, made me do abominable things to salve my ego and assuage my unnatural sense of entitlement to whatever I wanted and contempt for anyone other than myself.
Such is the danger of Thassilonian sin magic; a sin is by its nature an overextension of a natural quality to the point that it becomes destructive not only to oneself, but to one's surroundings."
Valai shakes her head.
"The woman we brought back, Natalya Vancaskerkin... I worry that the shard may have permanently warped her personality. These items are dangerous. I would recommend devising some form of safe storage for them, in addition to seeking out the appropriate ioun stones to subdue their deleterious effect."
Appenrel sighs in resignation and turns towards Sheila. "Pride? Greed? These stones don't seem to be items of particular benevolence. Why look for them at all? This one hasn't seemed to help anyone." He glances back toward Valai.
"There are certainly many avenues of inquiry that need to be pursued here. Where did Natalya get this shard? And where is the Shard of Greed? We need to locate this ioun stone." She counts them off on slender, bejewled fingers.
Her husband cuts her off, "We are going to Jorgenfist! Items removed from the library are destroyed by the sudden onset of time - the library has preserved its material over the millenia by shielding them from time, but the removal of the items from the sanctuary brings the bill due all at once. The knowledge there needs to be secured and the process of copying it needs to begin."
"Aspis will surely do it if we do not."
Shevala nods her head in vigorous agreement.
Sheila turns once again to Valai. "Will you try to divine the location of the Shard of Greed, and fill in that part of this puzzle?"
"The Thassilonians derived power from their sins," Valai says to Appenrel's question, shrugging. "The Runelords possessed the might to rule whole kingdoms - at a price of being beholden to their sins. There are always people who crave power despite the price, of course. Also..."
The Elfmaid makes a negligent hand gesture, and a figure appears standing on the table. A fire-haired woman with the glorious wings of an angel, clad in black leather and chainmail, the figure wields a sword that shines as bright as the sun.
"An illusion," Valai says, "but a strong one. I suppose Natalya did not use this aspect of the shard because she was enthralled by it, rather than in control."
A flick of a finger, and the major image disappears.
* * * * *
When Sheila asks her question, Valai purses her lips and frowns in thought. One finger pressed to the Shard of Pride, she starts to spin the thing on the table.
"Ye-es, I think I will," she finally says. "Not out of any great love of the things, but because it seems dangerous to leave them where they may be picked up by the uninitiated and the unprepared. Such a thing could cause terrible calamity."
The Elfmaid's eyes bore into the Venture-Captain's.
"Mayhap it would be well to study these items more closely so we might divine the nature of their construction and destroy them. We could then replace them with shards of our own making, attuned to the true Sihedron; that attuned to the Seven Virtues of Rule, as opposed to the Seven Deadly Sins."
Privately, Amadia considers Valai's proposal, while honourable, next to impossible. She therefore in a slightly slower tone, attempting to spell things out.
"An admirable idea to be sure, yet I feel destroying the shards, let alone the task of creating new shards of our own would be next to impossible."
Amadia pauses slightly, still thinking "That said, I agree that simply letting things lie is far too dangerous...recovering the other shards should be something of paramount importance".
Sheila easily assumes the mantle of the presiding Venture-captain here. She responds directly to Appenrel, but its clear that she's talking to everyone in the room.
"Recovering the other shards is a matter of the gravest importance. You all need to remember the foundational oaths of this society... our commitment to bringing the mysteries of our world into the light of day. It may be that we could learn from these and remake a Sihedron of magic unstained by Thassilonean Sin magic. It may be that reassembled, the Sihedron's powers take on their original virtuous forms. It may be any number of things. The point is that we don't know so we quest for the answers."
She circles in the center of the parlor, deliberating with herself as much as the rest of the room.
"That is one of the reasons that the journey to Jorgenfist is of a primary importance. We need knowledge. Natalya is an excellent illustration of what can happen when you act without knowledge."
"Canayven, my love. I think we have two quests - that is unless Valai's vision reveals that the Shard of Greed is hidden at Jorgenfist..."
"I am willing to make the attempt," Valai says, "but unlike Natalya, I do not wish to act blindly. Show me all your documentation on the Shard so I can make a measured attempt at locating the next Shard, if you would be so kind."
Sheila gives a curt nod of agreement. "I'll gather the likely sources. At minimum we should find a good example of the Sihedron to use as a focus." She clears off a broad desk in one corner and places one of the huge books there. She flips through the pages - field notes from different journals and such, and comes to pages and pages of notes on inscriptions. She pushes the book in front of Valai.
"Here's something I found among the exposed ruins under Sandpoint..." and so the search begins. Fortunately Sheila seems to know the contents of the collection very well and is able to lay hands on various passages. The pile of tomes on the desk grows quickly.
"Most of these sources suffer from the same problems - and its worth noting as budding members of the society. These translations become dead sources once they're recorded as translations. I cannot get the translators assumptions out of most of these sources, because they're not recorded in the original Thassilonean. So they all have to be treated with a critical eye - which makes it perilous to read too much into wording and phrase. You lose nuance, and that might be the only thing really important about some of these passages."
In the end, you're not able to learn much about the process that must be attempted. The translation regarding the chaining of the shards is pretty vague about what to expect, but it does specify the sequence along with the paired ioun stones. The collected implication of the passages does seem to be that the Sihedron, when assembled into its whole endowed such power to king Xin that the apprentice runelords dare not challenge his wishes.
Canayven and Shevala begin discussing the Jorgenfist library journey, pulling Dimral over to the map at one point to consult him on the migrations of the Shoanti and the giantkin of the plateau. Archisa drifts back and forth between the two conversations, adding editorial remarks as befits the subject.
Amadia eyes the library lovingly, wanting nothing more than to dive in, but is suddenly at a loss as to what would be a good research starting point. Thinking hard, she approaches the form of Natalya. "What of her?", she asks curiously "If the Shard bonded to her, then is it possible she knows the location herself?"
Regardless of the response, Amadia shrugs her shoulders and heads for the bookself. She knows that diplomacy is not her forte, best left to those skilled with words, so she decides to pick what she is strongest, and opens a book, starting reading.
[dice=Knowledge Arcana (on "Ancient Mysteries" (location of Shard)]1d20+10+2+5+1d6[/dice]
2 Uses of Inspiration left.
Appenrel quickly loses himself among the books and maps, flipping through one tome, reading three chapters of another, and generally in awe of this quantity of information.
Canayven answers for Natalya. "We put her in a guest room down the hall with a guard at the door. She was conscious but unresponsive - glass-eyed. Maybe its time she answered some questions." He motions for Rommin to join him and leaves the room to get Natalya.
There's no reason to think that the Jorgenfist quest is headed into a stable situation on the Storval plateau.
Natalya seems more human when Rommin and Canayven return her to the parlor. Her bruises have been healed with magic, she's changed and she's eaten a bite. But her reactions are still slow and her gaze unsteady. Exposure to the unfiltered power of the Shard is apparently not a good thing.
At last, Sheila presents Valai with a fair sketch of the Sihedron. "When you're ready, hopefully this will help the meditation."
"I have a thought," Valai says while she traces her finger along the picture of the Sihedron. "You have mentioned the Wayfinders..."
With a seemingly idly gesture, Valai sets the shard on the picture of the Sihedron and causes it to spin.
"I should like... a world map and a dish to set this object in. Perhaps we should be making ourselves a sin-compass."
In his head BOOKS!
What he says "Very nice, this knowledge should prove useful on our journey."
Specifically info on the last ones. Names and descriptions and such.
Major city locations.
The shard spins around on the page easily enough. Then suddenly the elf starts as if surprised by something no one else in the room perceives.
And just as suddenly your will is pulled back toward the parlor and the crowd of concerned faces. Your last impression of the flight being an opening at the base of the piling where a boat might enter...
The distraction lasts only a moment, just long enough to think the wizard may have done herself harm. Then her eyes regain their focus.
Valai gasps and jolts, but then squeezes her eyes shut and nods vigorously.
"I've got it!" she says. "The second Shard has been secreted in one of the pilings of the Irespan, the ruined bridge...! Fetch me pen and paper, I must sketch what I saw before I lose it!"
Appenrel looks up from the map of Jorgenfist. "A bridge? Why?"
"A monument of ancient times," Raven corrects Appenrel. "A bridge fit to cross an ocean. What place would be more fitting to hide away an ancient artefact?"
"In the city as well? Sheila asks. "Two of the Shards right under our noses. But which of the pilings? The gull, the rat, the crow, the cat..."
"The crow," Natalya says quietly from her seat across the room. "The crow is where I found the first one. There were some new passages we found there - there must be more." She looks around the room sheepishly, at the group that brought her down.