A Dwarven Coronation
After Rosten had recovered sufficiently, the companions discussed the idea of Aerikoth meeting them in Reddansyr, as the wizard desired to spend an interval studying the magical map provided by the hin; his one teleport spell prepared for that day would not suffice to transport them all at once. From there, they could proceed using multiple teleports to the Ironhelm dwaves’ clanhome in the Giant’s Run mountains, making it in time for the new king’s coronation in the evening of Tarsakh 15. Lloria suggested they instead meet up in Teziir, if the rest of the group was going to travel overland, with the warrior priest expressing interest in perhaps finding some additional work in the city. The others agreed and Aerikoth indicated he would therefore meet them at the Two Swords inn on the morning of the 15th, two days hence.
Aerikoth entered the inn’s common room on Tarsakh 15 and was spotted first by Lloria, who announced his presence to Darrow, Dermot and Rosten, the last grunting a greeting while his mouth was full of food. Once the hin had finished swallowing, he immediately asked the wizard what he had learned about magic map. They wisely chose to go upstairs to the adventurer’s room for further discussion, after Aerikoth’s prompting, forcing Dermot and Lloria to hurriedly finish their plates first.
Once in private, the wizard first informed the antsy hin and his fellow companions that he could not detect any curse or malevolence upon the item, which is what Rosten had thought was the case while on his former ship, the
Laughing Boar. Aerikoth, placing the map for display on the room’s dresser, then revealed that it had been created 15 years prior, during the Year of Shadows – commonly referred to as the Time of Troubles. Although the others understood the reference, the piratical hin said he had not in fact heard of it, so the wizard explained it was when deities made flesh walked the land, fought and died. He declared that the possibility the map was created by one such being could not be overlooked.
As to what the map could do, Aerikoth revealed that it had strong divination and illusion enchantments, its power on par with artifacts - uniquely powerful magic items. The wizard termed this one perhaps a minor artifact, although he cautioned that such things were not completely definable. Lloria opined that it was probably an arcane, as opposed to religious, artifact, observing that the gods weren’t bestowing their more powerful blessings during that time. (
Having studied the Time of Troubles in some detail, I do not believe this to be true. Some deities created objects of power in order to better aid their manifestations on Faerun. However, the map is a very curious item indeed, so Dermot's question below is a pertinent one - for what purpose? --C)
Aerikoth described how the map could divine the location of the most materially valuable object that people speaking to the bearer have personal knowledge of. The item may or may not still be at the divined location, however, as the information could be historical in nature. A collection of treasure or other valuable objects in close proximity were treated as a single object by the map. The illusion enchantment on it controlled the redrawing they had seen the map perform; it slowly redrew itself each day to change its borders and scale as needed. If at the correct scale, it would show two points that reflected the latest divination results.
This was a lot for the wizard’s companion’s to absorb, with Dermot questioning who would create such a thing, while Rosten struggled with the idea of a treasure known to whoever is speaking with you, that might not be there. Aerikoth observed that the difficult part to determine was how long the redrawing process took, and noted that if the bearer changed, then the map would start reflecting the new bearer’s recent personal contacts. Rosten tried to clarify that when it was showing what was known to them as the Slaver Isle, they thought it was connected to Aerikoth, but it could in fact have been anyone who had interacted with the hin. Darrow, in a less serious mood but perhaps not joking, commented that it could be fun to bring it along on a visit to The Vulture, their Night Mask contact; Lloria said she had just been thinking that.
The wizard added that another important facet of the map’s powers to understand was that it was guided by the knowledge of those interacting with the bearer – but if a person believed something to be true and it was not, the map would still reflect the belief rather than reality. Lloria immediately grasped that the directions it gave them could be worthless, which Rosten noted was what had happened with his former captain. While the others talked about how to potentially use the map, Rosten slowly and reverently picked the map up off the table to study it, wonderingly saying that it was never cursed, and the savagery aboard the
Laughing Boar was the work of the Captain and the crew. Which meant the map was just…a gift, he termed it, a way for them to gain more riches than we they could ever hope for. Darrow countered that it also could be a way to chase their tails until the end of time. (
The revelation of the true nature of the map sadly did not reduce Rosten's obsession with it, the hin still being under the evil spell - whether literal or figurative - of his time on the doomed pirate ship. --R)
