City on the Cliff (Gozran (IV) 14th-28th, 4709 AR)
Much has been written about the
power of the rulers of ancient Thassilon, but little is mentioned about their
skill at governing. Knowing the devastation that a full-scale duel between them
would unleash, they settled on an elegant means of solving disputes. Each of
the seven wizards created a unique blade imbued with the barest shadow of his
might. Whenever two disagreed, each bestowed his blade upon a chosen champion.
These two champions decided the matter in a fight to the death. To be a
champion for one of the Runelords was the greatest honor a Thassilonian warrior
could aspire to, although such careers were generally short-lived.
Although most of the great
Thassilonian wonders were lost in the empire’s fall, there are those who
whisper that the swords themselves remain, hidden, awaiting hands to wield
them. The Thassilonians knew them as the Alara’hai,
the Seven Blades of Conviction. Given the Runelords’ reputation, however, most
scholars today know them by a different name.
The Pathfinder
Chronicles
It begun, as with so many great stories, with a knock on
the door after dark: a quiet summons; a plea for discretion. While the Church
of Abadar is strong, there are times when brute force is less useful than
guile; when the needle works better than the hammer. And more, there are times
when to further your ideals you must look not to true believers, but to those
who can make whatever compromise is necessary to get the job done.
A Korvosan disciple of Abadar — Master of the First Vault and god of cities, wealth, and
law — covertly contacted the heroes on behalf of his church, hinting at an
important and lucrative job offer. The disciple himself was working on orders from higher
up and knew little except that the heroes should meet his superiors in the Korvosan temple
of Abadar as soon as possible and that secrecy was of the utmost importance.
City on the Cliff
Wen is the prelate of the Korvosan branch of the Abadarian church. Her tanned and smooth olive skin, combined with
her dark hair, hinted at a southern heritage. She wore a finely wrought silver
circlet and a rich gold ribbon tied back her hair. Despite her beauty, her face
was grim as she seated herself at the head of the room’s plain wooden table and
motioned for the heroes to do the same.
“You have been chosen,” she begun, “for a matter of utmost
importance. All of you possess abilities that could come in handy in the task
set for you, but before I go farther, I must reiterate again that this matter must
be held in the strictest confidence.
“Just over a month ago, an item was stolen from one of our
vaults. The break-in was an audacious one, and a vulgar display of magical power
— the vault’s guardians themselves, all priests of no mean strength, were
overcome by enchantments that convinced them to open the vault, allowing the
thief to simply walk in and take what she desired. By itself, that would be
enough to concern us. But there’s more.
“The item stolen was a powerful relic from the ancient past
known as the Sword of Lust, one of a set of corrupt weapons known collectively
as the Seven Swords of Sin. While by itself it might not pose an overwhelming threat,
after the break-in whispers began to reach us of similar occurrences in private
collections, government armories, and so forth. People are naturally reluctant
to talk about what has been taken, but it’s our belief that the thief is
foolish enough to try assembling all seven swords. Through our investigations and
communion with our Lord, we’ve managed to trace the twisting paths back to a
single woman, a powerful enchantress named Tirana. She dwells somewhere in Kaer
Maga, a corrupt den of thieves and apostates located high on the Storval Ridge.
“We aren’t certain what she plans, but it’s easy enough to
see that it bodes ill for Varisia. If she were to succeed in actually taking control
of all the swords, the power she would wield would be immense. Cities could
burn. Rivers could boil. Churches,” she finishes with a grim smile, “could
crumble.
“That’s where you come in.”
The church has discovered that
Tirana lurks somewhere within Kaer Maga, but the trail ended there. As the
outlaw city is famous for its ability to make people disappear, the church
knew that any sort of direct response on its part would tip off Tirana and
send her to ground, burying herself in the tunnels beneath the city and out of
the church’s grasp. It needed an unrelated group like the heroes to travel to the city, locate Tirana, and reacquire the Sword of
Lust, as well as any others they find, for safekeeping. In return,
the prelate was prepared to offer 10,000 gp and — perhaps of even greater value —
an acknowledged debt of gratitude from the church leaders.
The Abadarians supplied the heroes with horses and a rough, hand-drawn map of their destination,
but beyond that the party was on its own. Despite its dubious reputation, Kaer
Maga is still a major city and the roads leading to its gates were well traveled
by trading caravans, making the journey there a relatively simple matter.
The Arrival
From far away, Kaer Maga appeared a walled city of white stone, with a tight cluster of towers emerging from the
walls where the city abutted a sheer cliff face 3,000 feet high. Only once
travelers moved closer did the truth become apparent: Walls do not surround
Kaer Maga; the city is its walls. The entire
city is housed within a single giant structure, an ancient building of unknown
function stretching more than half a mile across. In the ages since its
original inhabitants disappeared, the building has become a haven for squatters
from across the world, a city populated by those who don’t fit in elsewhere. In
its streets, outcasts both humanoid and otherwise mingle and survive without asking
too many questions, and order is upheld through a volatile mix of tolerance and
gang violence. Many label the residents undesirable, and while its streets can
be extremely hazardous for those who don’t keep their wits about them, this
confluence of cultures and questionable moral fiber makes the city a paradise
for merchants. Those looking to buy things they can’t find anywhere else — obscure
items, taboo information, or intelligent chattel — flock to Kaer Maga.
Getting into Kaer Maga was simple.
Trade and immigration almost entirely sustain the city, and while the loose
militia, consisting of young bravos supplied by numerous different factions,
might shake down visitors for small bribes, any group short of an invasion
force is generally allowed to enter unmolested. Navigating the city was another
story. Kaer Maga is shaped like an enormous hexagonal ring, with an open-air center
known as the Core. A tangle of narrow streets, apartments, and shops stretches
to fill every part of the available space within the Ring. In some larger open
spaces, towers built by generations of squatters rise up eight stories to the
ceiling or cling to walls like cliff dwellings. In places where the Ring is
divided into smaller chambers, it’s not uncommon to have two entirely different
neighborhoods stacked on top of each other on different floors. From the city’s
southern end, massive towers protruding from the structure’s bulk nearly double
its height, joined seamlessly with the stone of the walls and bristling with an
array of crenellations and minarets. Underneath it all stretch countless miles
of caverns, corridors, and catacombs twisting rootlike down into the cliff
face.
The main entrance to the city is
through the Warren, a massive breach in the city’s wall since filled with a
towering shantytown of wood and detritus. A ragtag collection of beggars and
street children loudly extolling their services as guides lined the main thoroughfare.
As few people even among those born and raised here know all the alleys and
backstreets of Kaer Maga, the heroes hired one of these
guides. It became quickly apparent that the best choice was a
boisterous adolescent who called himself Dart. For a
handful of coppers, the fast-talking youth cheerfully offered to help the heroes find “whatever you need, whenever you need it — just say the word, and Dart’s your
man!” He didn't know anything about Tirana.
Digging Around
Once inside the city, the heroes had nothing to go on except a name. As such, at some point they ased around to try and gather more information about Tirana. When they did, they got the following responses from different people.
- “Who? There are a lot of wizards in these parts, friend, and you don’t want to cross any of them. Trust me.”
- “Tirana? Yeah, I’ve seen her around – quite the looker, that’un. Seems like she’s always got a clutch of love-drunk fools following her every command. Lemme tell you, though, she’s no shrinking violet – I saw her set fire to a merchant’s stall once with her mind, just because he tried to haggle with her. Even the big gangs steer clear of her.”
- “Tirana’s more than just some wizard…she’s got her fingers in a little bit of everything. I wouldn’t use the word “crime boss” – you never know who might be listening – but you get the idea. She’s got something of a protection racket running down in Tarheel. I’ve heard Gadka the charm merchant grousing about it. You might want to hit him up – he’s certainly got no love for the enchantress.”
- “I’ve heard that she’s gone underground, living in some chambers vacated by the old Council of Truth when they disappeared, somewhere between the Bottoms and Cavalcade. Now me, you wouldn’t catch me dead going into any of those dungeons – the underground’s haunted, believe you me. No, sir, not for a bag full of gold.”
Rumble in Tarheel
Gadka Burtannon is the owner and operator of Gadka’s Magical Oddities, a shop run out of the back of a cart in the lower Tarheel Promenade. He specializes in minor wondrous items, and at any given time his cart contained a score of charms and potions, each under 2,000 gp, as well as several fakes. Gadka is a scoundrel, and his face showed the risks of such a profession, displaying a map of scars from business deals gone wrong. Even so, his boisterous laugh and easy smile tend to attract people in spite of themselves — as Gadka freely admitted, he robs folks blind if he gets the chance but he won’t bear them any ill will while he does it.
When the heroes met Gadka, he sized them up quickly, then pulled them aside into the shadows and made his proposal.
“Here’s the deal,” said the dwarf. “It appears that we find
ourselves in a situation that could be mutually beneficial. In the last few months,
Tirana’s taken the Splitstreet gang under her wing and organized them, given them
a taste of legitimacy in exchange for a share of the loot. They’re small fish —
no imagination, just thugs and cutthroats — but they’ve been causing me
problems. When they were independent, they were easy enough to deal with — give
‘em a couple of coins and a fake amulet, and they were on their way. Under her,
though, they’re becoming more efficient, starting a real protection racket, and
the price to keep my cart off-limits is completely absurd… particularly now
that I don’t dare give them dummy amulets. Not that I carry any of those, mind
you.
Anyhow, I’ve done some business with Tirana in the past,
finding obscure reagents and whatnot for her experiments, and I know where she
keeps her base of operations. I’ll tell you, but in return I need you to handle
these goons for me. It can’t look like I’m behind it, either — make it look
like a gang squabble, or a mugging gone wrong, or whatever. Just put them down,
and make sure that when you’re done none of them are in any shape to harass honest
businessmen like me. We clear?”
The heroes agreed, so Gadka
showed them around the area near his stall at the intersection of Fever Street
and Half-a-Chicken Walk under the pretense of selling them an amulet. While he
operates beneath a tin-roofed stall, other merchants have taken up residence in
the surrounding buildings, some of their shops stacked two or three high and
accessed by narrow staircases. Gadka was quick to point out stores and alleys
where the heroes could hide in order to ambush the thugs, who come around every
three days to collect “insurance fees” from the local merchants. When he met the
heroes, they still have a day to prepare before the next time the Splitstreet
thugs appear. Gadka only knew the thugs’ habits inasmuch as they concerned his corner of the
marketplace and recommended the heroes fight here.
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