Overview
The party aims to join The Fiduciary. This fabled gnomish organization has operated for centuries out in the open. Officially, The Fiduciary operates a far flung bank. However, everyone suspects behind the bank hides a more sinister enterprise. And for Gnomes, the founders, owners and operators of this institution, even if they don’t know, they know. And our party of gnomes intends to be part of that sinister side.
To that end, they have travelled to greatest living gnomish bookkeeper Altaric, stashed far in the Midulth in the Balgar city of Memnae Busolt in the Nvilthar region. There they learned that he hid from the Fiduciary with the aid of Lights protection. And should the party seek to enter the Fiduciary they should seek out Gnivik. A legendary name even in his own time: Gnivik was widely known as the greatest Gnomish thief in all of history.
Gnivik’s Contract
In the White Wood, one day’s walk east from Dae Crissoth, you will find a mound. Now, this was a mound a long time ago. A lot of time has passed. So, expect to find a shallow hill with a single white stone on the top. This key will fit into the top of that stone.
Again, it’s been there for thousands of years. So you might need to clean it out, clear it off, make it visible. It will still be there. There are magics that you wouldn’t understand that guarantee that.
When you drop this key onto the top of this white stone, a door will appear on the side of the mound and a staircase to follow inside.
Go inside.
Don’t worry about the key. Leave it in place. It will be there when you leave. And no one else will be able to see the door, or use it. Just you and whoever else is on top of that hill with you when you open the door.
Inside, at the base of the stairs, is a vaulted room with a sarcophagus already opened and empty, I’m sure. There will be other sarcophagus’s open and empty as well, lining this chamber. And there will be treasure. Ho, will there be treasure.
It’s all yours except any axes you find inside and the proof you made it there. We’ll cover what constitutes proof in a moment. You hear me? All I want are the axes you find. No matter how dinky you think it is, if it’s an axe you return it to me.
When you get back, I will vouch for you with the Fiduciary. All of you, Nininit willing, who wish to join, will be offered a position in the Fiduciary. Gnomes only, of course. I will also vouch for you that you found this tomb and robbed it.
Your proof will be two things:
- A rubbing of the inscription on the sarcophagus. I know what is written there, don’t ask me how. So I will know a forgery.
- And there is a gem, a blue gem, unlike anything you have ever seen. It will be lodged on the cover of the central sarcophagus. It is yours to keep, but you must bring it to me to prove what you did.
And before you ask, I am not telling you what you are doing other than robbing a tomb, until you return. You are not the type to be trusted with this information.
You can try to sell what I have already told you and two things will happen:
- No one will have the faintest idea what you’re fucking talking bout nor care. This caper is 2,000 years in the making and lost to legends and my reading.
- I will find out. I listen carefully for a few things in this world, and stories like this are chief among those. And there are those that know I will pay dearly for any news of this sort. And when I find out, The Fiduciary will be permanently closed to you. And you will be listed as an advisory and competitor to the bank. If you don’t know what that means, I’ll let you find out for yourselves.
The Journey East Begins
Gnivik paid them enough to get there and back overland (i.e. in the Overbright). The party decided to go instead via the Deepdark. Because why not do something unexpected? And furthermore, they don’t know the DeepDark any better than the Overbright, so it’s a coin flip, really. And no gnome in good standing with Nininit would flip a coin in plain sight. Better then to just presume the outcome and accept that outcome.
The party sought out routes and found their way to Kristobael, a retired and sickly merchant. He offered the party a ring (Uthaer’s Pointer) that will always point to their destination and a route in exchange for them recovering a statue stolen from him: a blue glass figurine that resembles a younger looking Kristobael. The figurine is in the possession of a Fire Giant named Filklakl in the Ruins of Obgar. He offers a handsome reward for their retrieval, and the honest acknowledgement that should they simply take his information and Uthaer’s Pointer, this old sickly gnome would have very few means of finding out or exacting any sort of revenge. “This,” he said, “Is a contract of trust amongst gnomes.”
And so, the party has set out.
The following entries pick up a couple months into the journey.