Ahead lies the great light that...

[Nephrite]

Moore will start forward to see what he can do to find Amolen!

Take 10 on Diplomacy for GI for 130 to do some askin' aroun.

[Anastasia]

You hardly have to try. You go towards one before it appears nearby. An unremarkable half elf, perhaps in the first touches of middle age. He wears a plain set of peasant clothes, if well made. His brown hair shows hints of thinning and gray, starting to retreat to age's advance. "Ahem." he says, "Why don't I take you inside, guests?" he offers. "I reckon all you all have business with me and the farm."

[Nephrite]

"I'm sorry for the intrusion." Moore says. "Please, lead on."

[Anastasia]

The half elf whistles off tune as he leads you in a side door. It opens to a small storage room. It's not much, but amid it are a few chairs. "It's not much for someone of your stature," he offers, "But you didn't come down in light'n'glory, so I figure all of you all are keeping it quiet-like." He takes a chair and sits, "I reckon I'm the one you're looking for, the way I hear it. So what is it you need to know about Arcadia, divinity? There ain't much call for a newly risen sort - and haven't never seen or heard of you or yours, so you're as new as a snowflake in Avernus."

Jetina takes an offered seat. "Thank you, sir." She sits, "It's apparent you see more than you would let on."

"Shucks, you spend enough time listening and being around them, you know how to pick up the feeling of the divine," The half elf says, "Had a long time to get it right, though." He smiles just a little bit, "Heard of you, Kaja. Mighty fine that you beat whatever knocked you out of action for so long. That's no small time for a mortal, half dragon or not. Reminds me of Barrym Drakescale - real inventive naming I reckon, but I think I heard his entire world was like that with half dragons. Anyway, you'd have gotten along great with him, and he got put on ice for a long time, literally. Bad fight with some of Mephisto's stoics, took a bit of a spell for him to get freed."

[Nephrite]

Moore smiles and nods along with the story as he takes a seat himself.

"I do admit some surprise that no one here's at least heard of Hope's Landing, I had hoped that news of it would've spread at some point... ah well." A laugh and a shrug as he continues on,"It's a bit complicated, but it's my understanding you know the most about Arcadia, so I am hopeful that you can help with something we need to do." Moore explains. "We need to find something that's outside of Arcadia's limits... but is still here, if that makes sense? It's a bit of a riddle - we've been told that we need to break out of the limits of Arcadia to find what we're looking for."

[Anastasia]

"No wonder you had to find me," The half elf agrees, "That's a tangled web of a question!"

Kaja listens along to it and doesn't interrupt, but Jetina adds, "You know enough to help us?"

"I do, and it's mighty foolish to ignore a deity who shows up to ask." He agrees, "How'd you even find me?"

[Nephrite]

Moore laughs quietly at that. "You're being so honest with us, it's only right I return the hospitality. I have a rather unique and powerful divination I use when I need to ask questions - I simply asked 'who knows the most about Arcadia' and it said you."

[Anastasia]

"It might just be right," The half elf agrees, drumming his fingers on his knee. Thump, thump, thump, thump. "Been here a long time you understand. You pick up little things, and not so little things when you put enough little things together. Put enough not so little things together and you might just journey upwards to the truth. I do declare that I did, eventually."

"Then why are you a farmer?" Kaja speaks up, plainly.

"Hard work's a good thing, so it's a good reward at the end of your day's labors," Is the answer, "Don't got no patience to sit around being happy all the time, but also don't got the fierce fightin' bug a lot of celestials get. Got the finest farm in Arcadia if you ask me, with food from everything from jungles to snowlands. Prefer cocoa and chocolate myself. A fine bean it is, a fine bean. Fine as can be. Now you ever raised sugar cane? Easy crop as long as you stay on it, but cross breed it with cocoa and it's a whole new thing. Secret is that you have to mix in sugar and other things when you make chocolate along with the bean, though some types have it as is - bitter.  I reckon you can do that, but most types like sweet over bitter.  So you cross breed them with a bit of magic and work out the flaws in the new crop. Takes you about a generation or so as humans count 'em, but you get a real fine bean that way. You have to add less and the sugar's purer, better. See, like that it's a little thing that you combine with another little thing, and it gives us a not so little thing: Some of the best results you can imagine."

[Nephrite]

"There's a sweet shop in Balmuria that probably uses a lot of the techniques you developed here." Moore says with a smile. "I may have to see what I can do to adopt some of your more adventurous ideas for Hope's Landing, I think. I can see why you stay here -- your passion and drive, which most have for things like fighting and glory, is focused here in farming. Chauntea must absolutely adore you."

[Anastasia]

Chauntea. No U at the end.

"Well, I know the people here like me. It's always a fine meal," The half elf chuckles. "Now the thing is, Arcadia's a lot testier than even the stubbornest crop - fey blood fruit, by the way, wretched thing to get to grow even with fey helping. Should by all rights be extinct but my pride as a farmer refuses to let it go. Makes the best preserves you'll find this side of magic, though, if you can get the crop to grow right. Flat impossible to cross breed or change too, the entire thing falls apart if you change it. Came from just one little Prime world is how I hear it, got my hands on some seeds and gave it a go. Takes ten years to grow a crop and even a single day that goes wrong ruins the entire yield. Who makes a fruit like that? Fools, that's who, fool of a fey or whomever made it. Taxes the soul fierce too, have to let a field lie fallow 'bout a mile around it and got to drown it in fertilizer just so. Can you believe that?"

"I..." Kaja says slowly. "I'd believe it. I've heard of golden apples that restore youth."

"Oh, that one. That's something special. Love to get my hands on it, but I hear a certain cat is possessive about that tree, 'specially after the last guardian made good."

[Nephrite]

I admit, I don't know where that one came from...

"Huh, I've never heard about that sort of fruit before. I'll have to come back to hear more about it." Moore chuckles. "As for the apples, I'm sure she'd let you have one if you were just honest with her about it. She seems like that type."

He gestures around at the room they're in. "Do you mean to say that Arcadia itself seems to have... a will, something like that?"

[Anastasia]

A nod, a slight one. "Alive as you or I am. Doesn't think the same, doesn't feel the same. Not really." A click of a tongue, "Isn't really any good way to describe it. Different is honest without helping. Can't really talk to them unless they want to talk to you. Pretty sure at least all the Outer Planes are like that. Maybe all of them."

[Nephrite]

"That makes sense. They're closely tied to divine realms, but aren't exactly the same." Moore says. "So, then, with that in mind... are you saying that Arcadia itself has to allow someone to go outside of its limits?"

[Anastasia]

"Yeah," Is the answer, "Getting there, but yeah."

[Nephrite]

Moore nods. "That makes sense. Please, continue, this is really quite fascinating to hear."