Capturing A Glorious Chiaroscuro

After being called out by a gushing painter in the southwestern corner of the market square south of The Gran’place Signpost, stop and listen to the man gush over your “attributes.” The fellow isn’t looking for a date, but a fellow with your jawline to model for him. Naturally, you’ll be compensated for your modeling services. He requests you meet him at noon, near the western gate by the Palace, where you’ll both venture off to find the perfect vista.

When you reach the western gate (unmarked, but very close to the Beauclair Palace signpost), the painter mounts his steed, and gallops off down the palace gardens on a winding pathway. Follow him as he talks about losing his favorite paintbrush to that damnable hack Pierre-Auguste Moustacherois (his cat). He soon halts his gallop near the top of Rosetree Hill, and you both walk the rest of the way to the top. A group of noblefolk are busy having a picnic, which may impede the painter’s ability to find a spot at which to paint you.

But an even worse fate has befallen the painter; the painting supplies he left here have gone missing! You can optionally ask about using different paints or that you’re not going to look for them, but you are quickly rebuffed. If you tell the painter you won’t look for them, you fail this quest. Time to look around.

It seems the noblefolk are standoffish, but aren’t maliciously hiding the paints themselves, forcing you to look a little farther afield, behind a small thicket just a little further along the path. Here, you find some spilled paint, which reeks to high heavens of turpentine. Follow the smell to a set of clear, but curiously-small footprints. Track the scent trail over a broken fence, and down a steep, grassy hill where another stain can be spotted. Continue roughly northeast, then right and up to the mouth of a cave.

Enter Rosetree Hill Cave, an unmarked area cut into the hillside under the vista. There are paint drops here too, and the scent trail continues into the cavern where a group of Nekkers turn and charge you. Slay all five before continuing the inspection. Why did the Nekkers steal the paint? You find an empty paint container, splatterings of paint on the rock wall, and finally the painting accessories. They aren’t in too bad of a state. On the cave wall itself, it seems the Nekkers have shown some rudimentary artistry, painting a fight between them and a—troll? Return to the Painter with the news; he couldn’t care less about the cave daubings, and isn’t happy that so few of his paints are intact, but he’s ready to paint now. In fact, he’s secured a superior spot!