there are several good side quests in HW, but there’s this one that gets me in the hinterlands. it’s started with “saro roggo’s average life” which is an aether current quest. simple enough?

WRONG!

it turns into a chain of quests where poor saro struggles to make sense of his existence now that he is no longer just a frog. he has no instructions, thus he doesn’t know what to do. what gives his life meaning? it’s being told what to do and he doesn’t have that, so he’s scared he’s going to be turned back into a normal frog. thus he enlists your help to discover the deepest desire of master matoya and give it to her. through this quest chain you ask a bunch of the brooms what master matoya desires and they spend you off on their own quests. (they are fun lil you only get directions from the journal kind of quests). but eventually one of the brooms tell you of their sister who might know what matoya desires, but she is hidden away and can only be summoned by a special word. another broom tells you that it’s the word of what is dearest to master matoya, and another tells you it doesn’t know what is dearest to matoya, but it is certain that matoya hates y’shtola above all else. she doesn’t talk of her, so of course she must hate her? right?

you go and find the broom anyway and find out this funny hidden away broom holds matoya’s memories of a young Y’shtola. all the joys of her growing up into a fine young woman to the sharp pain of her sudden departure. matoya cannot bear to have the memories close, but she doesn’t wish to forget them. so these memories get tucked away—hidden just close enough.