A Woman Scorned: the fate of Fotia
The island beneath the volcano
Fotia lies at the foot of an active volcano, home to the Femme Fatalities and the relic they worship. Amia, their leader, welcomes the Hero as the volcano threatens to erupt. She believes the Frozen Flame will protect the island, and asks for help paying it homage.
For Amia, the Frozen Flame is more than an artifact. It holds the soul of a powerful queen, honored by generations of women. Amia says no man has reached Fotia before this crisis; now the island needs all the help it can get, from men and women alike. Her confidence rests on the Flame and the protection she expects it to provide.
The queen within the ice
Amia tells the Hero that the queen once ruled Lore beside a king she loved. As the king pursued greater power, he valued brute force and recruited strong men, losing interest in the queen and her followers. Amia names him as Dage, and says he cast the queen aside. In her telling, the heartbreak shattered the queen’s body and mind, leaving only her fiery soul.
The soul enclosed itself in a frozen effigy, Amia says, to guard against another man’s betrayal. The queen’s devoted followers carried the Frozen Flame to Fotia, where the Femme Fatalities built their lives without male rule. Their worship joins faith in the relic’s protection to the memory of the queen’s abandonment. This is the history Amia offers as the volcano grows dangerous.
Offerings that cannot quiet the mountain
The first tasks aim to return strength to the Frozen Flame. The Hero defeats four Fotia Elementals, which feed on its soul, and then five Fotia Spirits, which draw on the same source. The worshipers greet the victories as a surge of strength returning to the Flame. Yet the lava shows no sign of slowing, so the Hero gathers seven Fire Cores from the island’s spirits and elementals as further offerings.
The volcano still threatens to erupt. The next hope lies in Lava Cores carried by the Femme Cult Worshipers near it. The Hero obtains six through friendly competitive sparring, helping the worshipers offer another means of calming the mountain. Their response remains a hope that the cores will help; the eruption has not yet been prevented.
Two ancient staves
When those offerings prove insufficient, the search turns beyond Fotia. The Fire Staff used by Skeletal Fire Magi is centuries old, and its ancient power might strengthen the Frozen Flame. The Hero recovers it, then seeks the Ice Orb Staff used by Skeletal Ice Magi. The proposal is to combine the two relics’ power so the Flame can stop the volcano.
Both staves are found, but the Frozen Flame remains unaffected. Their age and opposing elements have not supplied the missing answer. The quest giver now calls for another ancient force to synthesize the relics, sending the Hero toward a power bound to the Flame by a shared enemy.
A common hatred of Dage
The new appeal invokes Nulgath. The quest presents the Archfiend and the Frozen Flame as sharing a hatred of Dage, and asks the Hero to collect fifty Archfiend’s Favor from the Underworld. Perhaps this offering will make the Flame burn brightly enough to save Fotia. It is another attempt to strengthen the relic, rather than a promise that Nulgath himself will come to the island.
With the favor delivered, the response is that everything possible has been given. What remains is faith that the Flame will protect Fotia. Kalila’s prayer echoes that expectation, repeating the warning that Dage has no fury like a woman scorned. The mountain’s danger remains while the worshipers wait for the protection they have worked to secure.
Fotia’s only hope
A different instruction now comes from the Frozen Flame itself. Addressing the Hero, it claims it can save the island if carried to the volcano and sacrificed in the lava core. It calls itself Fotia’s only hope and insists that no one be allowed to stand in the way. The Hero takes the relic from its place; the island’s map describes that act as stealing the Frozen Flame.
At the volcano’s edge, Amia pleads that the Hero cannot destroy the Frozen Flame. The Hero answers that the eruption will destroy everything. Amia tries to explain, but the Hero throws the relic into the lava before she can make them understand. Her cry follows it into the volcano.
The eruption of ice
The volcano erupts, but its fire gives way to ice. Snow and ice spread over Fotia, transforming the threatened island into Frozen Fotia. The Hero takes the result as proof that the plan worked. The sacrifice has changed the island’s fate, though the nature of the power inside the relic is not settled by that apparent success.
Inside the frozen volcano, the Hero boasts of being experienced with strange events. Amia murmurs that Dage has no fury like the woman Scorn. Asked what she said, she gives no explanation. The Hero helps her up and turns to getting her healed, while something beneath the ice begins to escape.
The soul that flies to Dage
A red glow appears beneath the ice. A luminous orb breaks free and leaves Fotia, carrying the consequence of the Hero’s choice far beyond the island. The island has escaped a fiery eruption by freezing over, but the Frozen Flame’s released soul is now loose in Lore.
The orb reaches Dage at his Soul Forge in the Underworld. An unidentified voice declares itself free and says it has found him again, then repeats the words Amia spoke: Dage has no fury like the woman Scorn. The glow expands into a fiery burst. Fotia’s immediate crisis has opened a confrontation with the king in Amia’s story.