[Many questions pour forth from you.]
You sit in a trance. All you are aware of is the composite being in front of you, seeing through you as if you were a pool of still water.
“Thou art brimming with questions, Cirrus Mist,” Stolas says. “Thy spirit is restless. Like a player grown tired of their role.”
“How can I get a better job than fucking barmaid?” you say, almost spitting the words out. There is deep vitriol in you, deeper than you were aware of.
“A wounded bird, nursed back to health, now yearns for open sky. But art thou the sparrow or the hawk?”
“As I stand I am neither. Neither free nor strong.”
The memory of that night five years ago enters your mind. But the pain is far away, severed from you, replaced with a cold numbness. Words tumble from you freely.
“In truth, when Sister Margrite’s head fell from her body, I thrilled at my own power. But I was nothing. Everything so easily crumbles into nothing.”
“Is barmaid so bad, then? Roof over thine head, shelter from rain. A place within a system. Gates to keep out monsters.”
Wisdom saving throw: Natural 1
Failure
Your jaw trembles, your fingertips quiver in a light and ineffectual fist. You feel yourself blinking rapidly, not entirely under your own control.
Stolas speaks. “The worst of thy pain dwelleth not within you. Not anymore. Thou art greater than this quivering child. Art destined for greater things.”
Wisdom saving throw: 4 + 1d4 (Guidance) = 5
Failure
You bring your arms close in to yourself, crossing them over your chest, and begin to whimper. All you feel is a shallow desperation and the meaninglessness of your own existence closing in on you.
“Cirrus Mist! A Monarch speaks to you!”
The squeaking of many rats transforms, their vocal chords contorting, until all you hear are strained rat voices squeaking thus:
“A Monarch speaks!”
“A Monarch speaks!”
“A Monarch speaks!”
Wisdom saving throw with advantage: 19 + 1d4 (Guidance) = 22; 4 + 1d4 (Guidance) = 8
Success
You breathe deeply. Your body eases. Even your vision eases. You see again that you are in a narrow alleyway, and that Stolas, a powerful being, has assumed corporeal form solely to speak with you.
“Am I destined for greater things?” you ask. “Each passing day, I feel my sense of self grow thinner. Temporary measures which once seemed like escape routes now feel suffocating.”
“Thou lack thine own esteem. Think, Mist-child. What paths have thou to freedom?”
“The Guild?” The words escape from your lips like a stowaway. “Are the omens favorable for a job with the Guild this coming new moon, or do the winds and stars speak of failure?”
“Indeed, readily wouldst thou climb the ranks of artisans. Yet renown is for thee like the buttercup, gilded but poison. We hath spied the first of Batshila’s Flock and her accursed golden children proselytizing within the city gates. Make a name for thyself and thou shalt be found by that same enemy thou hast fled for so many years.”
History check: 15
Success
Batshila’s Flock. You know of them from hushed rumors in the tavern. They are a new cult of the Morninglord, yet they do not worship Lathander himself. Instead they sing praise of the True Child of Light, and flaunt their golden children, converting the desperate to their side during this new era of death and want. If Rowangrave City is letting fanatics like them through the gates, then they must have already converted some of the city officials to their cause.
“Wise Stolas,” you say, “what is everything you know about the Child of Light?”
The raven caws in delight. A booming laugh follows.
“Thou art too bold by half to ask the King of Secrets everything He knows. Many are Our thoughts on the Child of Light, but shall share only certainties. We tell you true: the Child of Light is indeed divine, having flown here from Lathander’s heaven. Such divinity is rare indeed in all the Lands of Mist. This We speak true.”
“Where does this Child dwell?”
“In thine own home of Quietbell, of course. There the Child grows, and grows multitudinous wings. For such wings thou already knowest the cost.”
You feel nothing.
“Enough of this matter,” you say. “I wish to know whatever you can tell me about dragon nests at the Tor Mountains.”
“Ah… The abandoned nests of the loathly worm. Know you the story?”
History check: 18
Success
“I do. In ages past, a fair maiden slept with a dragon. So enamored was the dragon with the girl that he learned a spell to let her become a dragon too. But instead it transformed her into a wretched and malformed worm. The dragon flung itself into the fires of the Cinder Isle, and the loathly worm hid itself in the forests of the Tor, where it laid clutch after clutch that hatched only into lindwurms.”
“It seems the old maid hath grown fertile ever since the star fell. True dragons’ eggs she layeth now, though she be too addled to know it. Fear not a dragonflight, Cirrus—the unguarded eggs are but morsels to the beasts of the Tor. And treasure to men. Though We have spied stray wyrmling corpses in the woods, eaten by creatures of the night.”
“It is passing strange,” you say. “The Child of Light. The return of monsters to the countryside. And even dragons. Stolas, where are secrets worth knowing in Rowangrave?”
“Thou art surrounded by secrets. Hast thou walked through the green door three blocks from thine employment?”
The sound of voices comes from just beyond the alleyway. All at once the rats scatter and the raven flaps its great wings, hovering in the air before you. Between disparate rat squeaks you hear Stolas whisper.
“We depart thee with a riddle. How doth a wingless flea take flight?”
Intelligence check: 18
Success
“On borrowed wings,” you say.
“Good. When next we meet, offer more than table scraps.”
With that, the raven flies away, and the rats disperse.
It is the afternoon after a sleepless night, and exhaustion washes over you.
What do you do?
A. Return home for the day.
B. Seek the green door Stolas spoke of.