Miro

Miro is a researcher in Aquila in the campaign Yeni Dünya ("New World"), a specialist in underground minerals and a member of the Coalition of Enlightenment. He had been on the new continent for about three years and ran a project of his own there, though he did not lead the Coalition.¹²

The Alaztaşı project

Miro's work was the Alaztaşı, a stone that gives off warmth. He said that some precious stones could be reproduced with the help of science and magic, that he would not take the patent for himself, and that he meant its income to go to the Coalition's scientific work.³⁴

He explained his cause with a story from a priest's letter: in the hard winter of 206, as he told it, four members of a family on the mainland were found frozen to death in their own home. The Coalition's figures, he said, showed that cold struck thousands of families every year. Much later the family was recalled as living in lands under the influence of the Von Mansfeldt family.⁵⁶⁷

He also spoke for the Coalition's reputation in the city: according to him, Professor Galevan had fought to make the health dose given at the port free or very cheap, and the governor had agreed.⁸

The errand to the mine

When no stone samples had reached him for a week and the only official answer was that the mine was not in use, Miro asked an adventurer he knew, Finli, to go and check. In his account, the miners regarded the stone as a nuisance that overheated their workings, while the Coalition paid for its carriage and guards and the mine had only to bring the stones to its gate. The Coalition, he said, had chosen to send investigators who could persuade rather than take the stones by force.^91011121314

To find more help he pulled pages from the port's registry and had the newcomer Saga followed. He promised some gold whether the errand succeeded or not, and the Coalition's backing if serious trouble came; as the first part of the payment he gave the party a mule and a day's food.^15161718

When the party returned and told him that the mine had stopped because of a darkness made by a beast in its depths, Miro corrected his drawing of the creature from four tails to the two they had seen, and wondered whether it made its darkness from a pouch under its throat. He drafted a letter asking, on the Coalition's behalf, for parts of the animal to study, and they told him that they had saved its living cubs instead of handing them over for their pelts.^1920212223

He added that the stone could be found not only in that mine but near other iron deposits, and that the mule he had given them was registered to him by the Coalition. Having heard that the professor was about to leave the city, he set about arranging a meeting with him that same night.²⁴²⁵²⁶

Health

Miro said that he had carried an illness without a cure since his days on the mainland, and later explained that the trouble in his lungs had been with him from birth.²⁷²⁸