Out of the Iron and into the Fire is a short piece of fiction from The Invocation of Bael-Kharn, a Pathfinder adventure for Sundara: Dawn of a New Age.

A band of five warriors clad in scarlet cloaks and dragon steel armor made their way forward, each walking with his sword drawn. Ahead lay a wide, barren, gently rounded foothill that might have gone unnoticed were it not for the yawning cavern that dominated its front-facing side. It was toward that cavern that the members of the Scarlet Company approached. Beyond stood the rest of the Dragonsbreath Mountains, their rugged peaks veiled in the ethereal mist of early morning. Ironfire stood a few miles beyond; thick columns of dark smoke rose from the fortress-city of stone and steel.

Rumors about increased bandit activity had sent the squad forth, and if the rumors were to be believed in their entirety, the bandits were members of the Widowmakers, the most bloodthirsty, cutthroat and altogether most volatile mercenary company ever to blight the face of Sundara. A few Widowmakers housed themselves in Ironfire’s Ghostborough district; their presence in the hot, damp, steam-laden slums was a tacit admission by the Scarlet Company of their limitations – even though they were Ironfire’s standing army and police force, they couldn’t be everywhere at once. Still, it was concerning that so many bandits, Widowmakers or not, were gathering so close to Ironfire and being brazen enough to accost small merchant caravans who couldn’t afford a sellsword or two to protect them.

The warriors of the Scarlet Company swerved to the right as they closed the distance to the cavern. Bright, fiery light flickered and danced within, the jaunty motions like eager hounds prancing with the anticipation of their next hunt. The scarlet-cloaked men came a little close, making sure that they weren’t directly in front of the cavern. Gurvaldt, leader of the squad, held up his fist. The other warriors arranged themselves in a loose, defensive circle, their swords at their hips and pointing outward in a vague approximation of a thorn-bearing rose. Gurvaldt craned his neck to peer into the cavern.

Within stood a hulking, humanoid being of pure flames with a horned, demoniac face, white-hot wings, and cloven hooves. Its pauldrons and breastplate were made from calcified ash, and it held an axe of the same in each hand.

For a moment, the elemental was perfectly still, a molten statue.

Its gaze snapped upon Gurvaldt; its blazing eyes of infernal hatred bored into him. The elemental rolled its shoulders and started stalking forward, leaving a trail of glowing hoofprints behind it. With its voice of crackling flames, the elemental gave a declaration in the language of its kind, a language that Gurvaldt had learned from the wizards and sorcerers of the Scarlet Company. And what the elemental said sent shivers down Gurvaldt’s spine:

“You are not prepared.”

Could be Useful is an introductory piece of fiction for Silkgift: The City of Sails, one of the supplements for Cities of Sundara, which is available in versions for 5th Edition and Pathfinder.

“Did you read that?”

“Read what?”

“That!” said Thaylus, pointing at a label on the bottle.

“Oh,” replied Darna, “that. I didn’t think it was relevant.”

Thaylus stood up, just so she could slump down again and hold her head in her hands. There was a crunching noise as some of the broken glass was ground beneath her feet.

Both she and Darna had been hiding behind one of the, solid, wooden, thick, cupboards in their Nightmare Alley laboratory. Thaylus sighed. “It’s a warning to not do with that liquid what you just did with it. Why did you think it was there?”

Daran shrugged. “I didn’t think it was necessarily right,” he said.

“That doesn’t mean it’s definitely wrong!”

Thaylus gave her partner an exasperated look. “You do remember this sort of thing is why we got kicked out of the Ingeneurium in the first place. Then out of that good place in Fool Street. Then the bad one. And why we are now renting this shack in Nightmare Alley, because no-one trusts us enough to keep us around anything expensive!”

She shook her head. “If we lose this place, we have nowhere else to go. Nowhere in Silkgift anyway; we’ll have to move beyond the city limits.”

Daran brightened up at that. “That sounds like a fantastic idea! No more neighbours causing trouble or people complaining about explosions. We should definitely do that.”

Thaylus sagged. “I could cry, I really could.” She wandered off mumbling “I wonder why I bother, I really do…”

Could be Useful is an introductory piece of fiction for Silkgift: The City of Sails, one of the supplements for Cities of Sundara, which is available in versions for 5th Edition and Pathfinder.

“Rules,” Darelak said, staring off into space.

“What?” asked Tarnis confused, as this had just come out of nowhere.

“Rules,” Darelak repeated, still staring into the distance.

“I heard you the first time,” Tarnis said. “What I want to know is what you mean. Or are you just saying random words for the fun of it?”

The two were currently in one of the rooms of Silkgift’s Ingeneurium. Not one of the experimental or manufacturing areas, but one of those that were used to run the place.

Darelak’s gaze returned to the here and now. “We need rules,” the dwarf said.

“We have rules,” Tarnis said in response. The human didn’t think Darelak was being any clearer.

“I know,” replied the dwarf, “but we could do with more. Or better planned ones anyway.”

The two had been discussing one of the recent experiments that had been carried out which had resulted in the violent disassembly of the device being tested.

“The current rules,” Darelak continued, “don’t really help matters. They tend to inhabit innovation – ”

“And this is bad why?” Tarnis interrupted, given what they had been discussing.

“Because we live by innovation. And we need more of it, just better constrained so that experiments don’t break as often as they do.”

“I don’t think this is going to work,” the human interjected.

“It needs more planning…” the dwarf mused, gazing off into the distance again. “But rules…”

Tarnis shrugged, returning to the matter at hand. Either Darelak would come up with something useful or not. Meanwhile, there was still work to do.