"Down in the Shadowlands where our fellowship was truly forged, the clockwork city of Munsahir will need the understanding of one who knows what it is to love order."
"You are quite persuasive, indeed," Vaerthilde says. "Not only shall I compose the music for your production, but I shall recruit some other musicians here in Karcau who I know will elevate the show to an even higher tier of excellence."
***
No opera would be complete without a stunning set to perform on. Fallenta has some ideas for set decorations and backdrops, the specifics of which depend on the scenes and plot of the opera. She provides you with a list of supplies, tools, and specialists required to create these complex set pieces. While many of these items are easily obtained in Kintargo, two elements require special attention.
Perspective Paintings: While some productions use illusion magic to give sets the appearance of depth, Fallenta prefers to a traditional method—one that allows the actors and crew to get used to cleverly painted backdrops during rehearsal. She’s already enlisted skilled artists, but some of the colors they need require rare, skymetal-infused pigments. To obtain the pigments, you must travel to the city of Riddleport in Varisia, which has recently developed a booming trade in skymetals imported from New Thassilon. The city’s Gas Forges are one of the few publicly available forges in Avistan with the ability to smelt such high-grade metals, and the dwarven consortium that owns the Forges jealously guards their newfound sources of materials. Still, Riddleport citizens are rarely averse to an under-the-table deal, and skymetals destined for the Gas Forges often find themselves “diverted” to other buyers, to the frustration of the Forges’ managers.
Replica Props: You no doubt have distinctive armor, weapons, and items, and you're unlikely to want to leave these sitting around a theater for use as props! To create convincing replicas, Fallenta recommends seeking out the Newt Market in Kintargo, where a skilled forger known as the Blade Witch operates. Without a referral, however, the Blade Witch is skittish about new customers due to the questionable legality of some of her activities and often vanishes from the market for months if she hears someone is looking for her.
"Ah, Riddleport. It's not Katapesh, but you can still get most things quickly, for the right price," Timdok comments. He might know some contacts there, off-hand.
In a flash, you teleport to Riddleport in Varisia. Also known as the City of Cyphers, Riddleport takes its name from the Cyphergate, a giant stone arch spanning the natural cove around which the city is built. It is covered on both sides with ancient Thassilonian symbols.
The Gas Forges are located in southwestern Riddleport, not far from the waterfront. The acrid smoke rising from the forges’ stacks make it one of the city’s ugliest skyline landmarks. The surrounding neighborhood is crammed full of shops, inns, and taverns, though all of the structures have seen better days and are caked with soot from the Gas Forges.
Timdok has some underworld contacts here that can help out should the main task of convincing Tromard fail.
Though he's no expert in it, Tim keeps his eyes open at the Gas Forges.
"A simple task. Never have I worked with skymetals, but there is nothing I cannot bend to my will in the forge."
Esirelle is better in the fiber arts, so she applies her charm to the situation at hand, trying to get better prices.
" ... So obviously what you're suggesting is a non-starter," she concludes.
At the end of the first day, you've made good progress towards securing the pigments.
"There is a virtue to beauty all of its own, but I wonder too about other virtues."
By the end of the three days in Riddleport, you have achieved great success. Not only have you managed to secure the pigments you need, you have managed to save money, and there are raw materials left over. Tromard is so pleased with the process that he lets you keep the leftover chunks of skymetal, including a chunk of abysium worth 450 gp, a chunk of adamantine worth 500 gp, a vial containing a mass of liquid djezet worth 600 gp, a chunk of inubrix worth 550 gp, two chunks of noqual worth 600 gp each, and a chunk of siccatite worth 500 gp.
"Well, if we go into metalsmithing, we'll be well set-up," Timdok comments. "Off to Kintargo?"
"Yes, Kintargo next. We should figure out how we can use these metals. They're valuable! And useful!"
Once back in Kintargo, you head to the Newt Market to try to track down the Blade Witch and convince her to help with the replica props. With Kharya's masterful understanding of societal trends, it only takes a few hours to make contact with the nervous forger's agents and arrange a meeting for later in the day.
The instructions they give you inform you meet in a hidden workshop on the second floor of a tenement in Old Kintargo. The dusty workshop contains sophisticated equipment arrayed along the benches. Several shafts of light filter through the boarded-up windows during the day.
A hooded woman greets you as you enter. "Well! You found me. I guess that means you’re pretty good. Here’s hoping your money’s good, too." The Blade Witch tips her hood back, revealing a teenage girl with a reddish hue to her skin and curved, devilish horns. "So, what's the job?"
"Well, we've an opera commissioned about our adventures, and we're looking for some expert replica props," Timdok explains. "We've got the appropraite materials, but we'd need you to make convincing weapons and armor."
"Well, for those folk, anyway," he adds. "I mostly just punch people."
He describes the physical details and some things about fighting style of each party members.
"We've done most of the hard work already in getting the material," Esirelle says, "so it shouldn't be too expensive."
"And don't try to play us on the deadlines, girl. We'll know."
At the end of the meeting, the Blade Witch nods. "Very well. I'll take the job. It's not often that I get to work on high-profile projects that are also completely legal. Just don't credit me with the work, yeah? I'm content with the payment and the satisfaction of a job well done."
***
The play is slowly starting to come together. However, Fallenta's not the only one who has requests for you. Oriole approaches you at the playhouse one day. "Good day, my friends. I have a favor to ask of you. During most of my previous productions, I kept a pet during the show’s run for good luck: a rare bird known as a twilight oriole, named for the distinctive blue-purple color of its plumage. Soon before my retirement, my pet passed away, and now that I'm about to come out of retirement, I feel the need to have a new twilight oriole nearby to inspire me and bring me luck."
While twilight orioles are found in Ravounel, they’re quite rare. The closest known nesting grounds for these songbirds is the Ravounel Forest, a dense woodland with very few settlements. Rumors of malevolent creatures in the woodland keep most foresters wary of delving too deeply into the woods. This woodland’s twilight orioles mostly dwell in the western half of the forest, so Oriole suggests you begin the hunt there for their new pet.
Artists!
Tim glances with distaste at the forest floor, "I'll have pine needles all over my best boots..."
He looks for signs of the birds.
"Join the theater, travel to interesting places, tromp around the woods," Esirelle mutters. "I thought once we had a show, we'd be staying in the city..."
Distracted, she's of little use here.
"You know I'd never seen a bird before I met up with you people. Still, how hard can they be to catch?"
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"Well we aren't going to go trouncing through the wilderness without preventative measures taken first."
Lots of stuff here so spoiling it for sake of compression.
Buy Formula for Bioluminescence Bomb(uncommon level 1; 3gp).
Craft 8(craft in batches of 8 items) 3gp each total cost of 24gp, initial investment of 12gp.
days spent 2
Bought the formula for these ages ago and never got around to rolling them up, yay executive dysfunction. I'll make the potions on our next DT though because they are Pricy and I don't wanna deal with having to shill out 3200gp out of my pocket, or hold up our search for the oriole for a month XD.
Crafting 8 Moderate Potion Patches(Level 8; 100gp) 800gp total, initial investment of 400gp.
Total days spent 7, total gold spent 252
Production:
8 Bioluminescence bombs
8 Moderate Potion Patches
After a week of preparation Cerulean hands everyone a pair of delicate glass orbs, filled with a swirl of algae filled liquid.
"These should help us track the bird once we've spotted it, tag it with the liquid inside, throw it near enough to the creature and the compounds inside will do the rest making it easier to follow for a day. Since we'll be chasing a flying creature the entire time as well I'll be supplying us with equipment to slow it down. Biodegradable as well so no harm should come to it beyond a mildly rough landing."
Cerulean brings their A-game to the first day of searching for the elusive Twilight Oriole. While no bird enthusiast themselves it means the day isn't a wash of being in the completely wrong area.
The first day passes without incident. You struggle a bit in the woods, but Cerulean notices a few signs to show you are on the right trail.
"You know, there's a swamp viper that I once hunted through Mivon, dreadful creature. Camping always reminds me of it," Timdok shares casually as he peeks around a tree.
"How are you meant to get them when there's so much damned sky?!"
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"You'd think... I'd pick up some more outdoors skills after all these years, to actually cultivate and scour for my own reagents, but it's so much easier to hire out the help to gather anything. You'd be shocked what you could accomplish with only rainwater and mushrooms from very specific areas of the world."
"Get it together, Timdok. We don't want this musical to be about how we got lost in the woods. We have to get this finished and get back to the city!" Esirelle orders, trying to keep everything on track as she looks around.
At the end of the second day, you are closer to finding the oriole, but still have a ways to go.
Tim tries to change up his attitude, "What a pleasant day. I bet we are going to find it today."
"Much better," Esirelle says, though she starts paying more attention to her people than to the surroundings.