Buster returns to Busters Blades with Badger Ironsmith and the traveling bard, the black iron scale wrapped in cloth between his large, rugged hands. Warm Springs lies quiet beyond the shuttered windows.
Inside, the familiar forge is cool and silent. Benches, tongs, hammers, and files remain exactly where Buster left them, their dark surfaces holding the memory of countless workings.
The Traveling Bard
Your forge feels different from the mountain, yet the same note lingers here.
The traveling bard draws back her moss-green cloak and places the black iron scale beside the anvil. It gives a faint click against the stone, though no hand touches it.
Badger Ironsmith
I have seen iron like this only once, and I prayed never to see it again.
The Traveling Bard
He recognizes it. Whatever the scale remembers, Badger has buried that memory deep.
Badger Ironsmith circles the anvil without touching the scale. His weathered face tightens, guarded recognition settling beneath his gray beard as he waits for Buster’s questions.
“What does a scale do with my heritage????? Grrrrrrrr I growl and throw my finely crafted Dwarven dagger at the scale”
FAILURE (Fair Agility, rolled -1)
Buster Ironsmith
What does a scale have to do with my heritage?
Buster growls and hurls his finely crafted platinum dwarven dagger. It spins hard across the forge, striking the anvil’s edge instead of the black iron scale.
The dagger skids beneath the scale. The impact flips it once, revealing a recessed underside etched with a tiny star and a line of angular marks.
Badger Ironsmith
Easy, lad. You nearly broke the answer before seeing it.
The Traveling Bard
That mark is not a clan seal. It is a birth-sign, or something meant to imitate one.
The scale no longer clicks or shifts. Wedged against the dagger, it holds the etched symbol plainly in the forge’s dim light, offering a detail that can be examined.
✓ Quest Accepted
Get Badger to reveal what he knows about Buster's origins
“Where did you find me badger?”
SUCCESS (Fair Reasoning, rolled +1)
Buster Ironsmith
Where did you find me, Badger?
Badger’s guarded expression falters. The forge seems to draw colder around him, while the traveling bard remains silent beside the anvil.
Badger Ironsmith
In Deep Chasm Hall, lad. Not within the clan chambers, but beyond the old lower tunnels, where the mountain’s roots show through the stone.
He reaches toward the black scale, then stops short. His fingers curl against his palm as an old memory takes shape.
Badger Ironsmith
You were an infant, wrapped in a smoke-dark blanket beside a cold forge basin. No name, no clan token, no living soul claimed you.
Badger Ironsmith
The only thing with you was a scrap of iron marked with a falling star. I took you home, and I became your father.
The answer settles heavily in the familiar workshop. Beneath the dagger, the etched star on the scale catches the forge’s dim light, matching Badger’s account without revealing more.
Quest Complete
Get Badger to reveal what he knows about Buster's origins