audio; un: such a waterful girl

[datapoint]

[It's during the auction at the House of Commerce that a young woman's voice broadcasts, hushed and serious. Aloy is not great at socializing, so if you don't recognize the voice, it's not unexpected.]

The Dawn's Reach Trade Company. What do we know about it? Has anyone dealt with—

[She breaks off abruptly, as the muffled sounds of conversation become louder. Once they fade away, she resumes—]

They're collecting shards of the black mirror for someone. I don't know who. But someone who can pay a lot for them. It sounds like the Company is desperate to get its hands on things like this, even if it means doing questionable things.

Merchants are buying the shards to hand off to the Company. If you hear anyone buying, try to get more details. Somebody involved has to know something.

Comments

un: absterge

[downswing]

Keep safe distance from them.

[datapoint]

Dawn's Reach? What do you know?

[downswing]

( Excuse you, madam. )


Greetings.

[datapoint]

Hello?

[downswing]

( Now that base manners have been observed: )


Mercenaries seeking artefacts for trade.

[datapoint]

[Unfortunately for Lan Wanji, that lesson isn't going to stick.]

Plenty of traders hire mercenaries.

[downswing]

They are not kindly.

[datapoint]

So we should keep our distance. [As he said.]

You're not curious why they want mirror shards so badly? Who they want them for?

[downswing]

Profit. Trade —

— were assumed prior.

un: lockwood

[recklessenough]

In my experience, when someone or some organization is willing to pay a lot for something, and is desperate to secure that item, there is usually a catch.

[ Relic men, come to mind. ]

[datapoint]

Right. But what's the catch?

[reparo]

They've used Quicksilver Sam's services in the past, had him smuggling a magical tongue on his ship - whenever they're mentioned, it's rarely good.

un : dappled peals of the parted seas (voice)

[beitangmoran]

We have met them before. Or rather, at this point in time, we will meet them later. In possession of rather a lot of unsavory artifacts, including mirror shards.

[datapoint]

[Aloy mutters something unkind about 'time travel.']

Have you ever seen them collecting the artifacts for someone else?

[beitangmoran]

We assumed they indeed had a patron for the things they were carrying, but as far as I remember we never truly learned who it was.

They had a severed tongue that summoned a giant Octopus. And there was a mirror on board their ship.

[datapoint]

A black mirror?

[beitangmoran]

The same kind of mirror or mirror shards we've been crossing paths with for the last two years and counting, always associated with some sort of catastrophe.

un: yiling laozu

[weifinder]

I hear a few telling you about the greedy nature of them, but that we know more? I don't think we know enough. We might ask the Merchant, if we're inclined to deal with Master Scorpion himself.

There are shards we've recovered here. I suggest we find what we can in order to prevent fewer from making their way into the hands of those who blight an ocean with the living dead, trapping spirits in the process, leading other creatures to their own obsessive dooms.

Who wonders if our friend Matthias isn't behind the group to some extent?

[datapoint]

Hmm. We could scramble to find what we can... or we can sell to the merchants, and follow them to the Company's cache.

[weifinder]

If we're equally mobile. Having a traceable marker might work better in that case... if it's in this time, I don't know we won't soon find ourselves misplaced back to the present. Might make following merchants harder, if they departed five years prior.