Tapolith

Tapolith is the city of portals, the sprawling seaport at the centre of the multiverse. Tapolith is where the story of Sing for the Sons begins.

Down by the docks, nestled beside Marc’s Gaming House, sits an unassuming patchwork tent. Few are willing to approach it when the flaps are closed, because all manner of strange things have been known to befall any thief who tries his luck. But when the market comes to life and the tent is opened, curious visitors can find mysterious trinkets from all corners of the realms. Brought at great risk through long-forgotten portals, they somehow find their way into the hands of Gillian, the tent’s ambiguous proprietor.

Gillian is a strange one. Sometimes the person in the tent is a red-haired young woman, sometimes a grizzled old man, sometimes a sea-worn lady. And yet anyone who approaches knows deep down in their bones that this is Gillian. It has always been Gillian. What do you mean, Gillian doesn’t look like that? Have you been staring too long at the sun?

What visitors to the tent don’t know, what has only been confided to a few carefully chosen traders and adventurers, is that Gillian is on the lookout for a very specific type of artifact. He is in the market for black boxes: small chests anywhere from the size of a man’s foot to the size of a water trough, carved from a single block of wood, and burned black like they’ve been passed through a bonfire.

Why would anyone want a chest burned to charcoal, its contents surely destroyed by the same fire that warped its hinges shut?

Now that is a very good question.