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Iago, picking his weapons up casually, concurs. "My companions really have summed it up admirably. Oh, how much for the vial of magical blood to unpetrify the woman with the very... Ahem. For that woman that's stone." he finishes abruptly, remembering Lasaraleen is here and listening. in an effort to distract from his words, he casually decapitates the once-giant man. "Woops. Clumsy."
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You purchase the stone to flesh potion from the kobolds. It turns out the woman was an Aspis agent. Her name is Vanei. She is kind of surprised that you revived her. You can question her a bit and learn the Aspis team was led by a man named Zaril.
“Zaril Namoth, an aristocrat from Ustalav. He works for the Aspis Consortium. He’s a dangerous man. They say he used to hunt big beasts for pleasure, but a tribe of Bekyar captured him. Somehow he survived, but he had changed. Now he hunts people. He loves to impale people with his great spear and take their heads with his kukri. People say he learned these things and some demonic magic from the Bekyar!”
Together with the guardian you can excevate the fallen in area and recover the body of Sharrowsmith.
The guardian answers other questions as well "I will stay here and look after this place. The kobolds.. why the worship me? That would be for them to answer. I am significantly more powerful than them. I would ask that you leave them in peace, and in turn I will ask they stop attacking your people."
Eventually you return to Nantambu where Aya Allahe (remember her?) receives you. After listening to your story she nods sadly and voices her thanks.
“Nantambu will not be the same without my friend Nieford Sharrowsmith. When he was younger, he traveled to all corners of the Mwangi Expanse and truly made the region his home, despite having been born hundreds of miles away in Avistan. He never truly lost his adventuring spirit, and as this lodge grew, he found his hours dedicated more and more to paperwork and less and less to exploring the lands’ rich history. I know his soul would take no offense at my saying he died as he would have wished—active, engaged, and in the field. I take solace in being able to provide him proper funerary rites."
“With his passing, Sharrowsmith’s Exports has no venture captain, but I have corresponded with Nieford’s colleague Ambrus Valsin and agreed to act as the temporary manager of the lodge. After all, the full extent of the Pathfinders’ involvement in Nantambu has remained a something of an open secret, and it would be an embarrassment for anyone but a friend or family member to take command of the business so soon after the owner’s death.”
“I dearly appreciate what you have done for the Society, for your venture-captain, and for me.”
After you show her the tailsman she examines it for am oment. Quickly standing she recovers a piece of stationary bearing five graphite illustrations, and slowly smiles.
“This is remarkable,” she announces. “The shape of the talisman matches one of the drawings Ambrus Valsin sent me. What you have found is a piece of the Sky Key, the device even now the rest of the Society is at its wits’ end attempting to reassemble!”
Then, with quiet affection, she murmurs to the Sky Key component, “Congratulations, Nieford. You and your agents have once again done what the rest of the Society could not—a fitting tribute, and a fine legacy.”