You’ve just aided an old woman knitting by the side of the road, and she reveals herself as a goddess in disguise! Having passed her test and earned your place as the goddess’s chosen hero, she brings you back to her dwelling to choose a magical weapon or item, only to discover that a thief has completely cleaned out her stash!
The only magical gift she has left is the pair of knitting needles she was using in her “old lady” disguise.
The young woman stood in the middle of the empty cavern, looking around. She seemed… untroubled. “This was thorough,” she said, her voice as calm and pleasant as it had been when she’d offered a helpless old woman a share of her bread and escort through the wood. “It looks professional, or at least well-planned. Did anyone know you were seeking a new chosen hero?”
The goddess blinked. In three thousand years, she had been so mortified before a hero only twice before… and then, one had cried and one had lost faith in her upon the moment. This one, new as she was, didn’t even seem troubled. “All the gods know,” she said slowly. “My last champion’s fall was… widely known.”
“I see.” The young woman knelt and examined the floor. “I see three, perhaps four distinct footprints,” she said, sitting back on her heels and looking up at her goddess. “And it would have taken at least one large cart or two smaller ones to move it all. I think I can track them, but I’ll be outnumbered. I don’t suppose you have any *other* caches of magical weapons?”
“No.” The goddess felt her throat tighten. “This was a collection that took millennia to build. All I have left is these.” She held out the knitting-needles she’d clutched, as the helpless old woman. “These are enchanted.”
Dark brows rose. “Hm. To do what?”
“They can knit anything.” It didn’t sound like enough of an explanation, and she gestured vaguely. “Well… anything that you can catch between them. The branches of a tree, the feathers of a bird, the hairs of a man’s head - even the dust of the roadside.”
“And what can one knit them into?” the young woman asked.
“That depends on one’s own gifts,” the goddess answered, surprised again. She hadn’t expected this young woman, carrying the bow and knife of a forester, with her sun-darkened brown skin and sun-faded hair, to take much interest in magic knitting needles. “Your will… and your imagination.”
“Oh, I have those.” The young woman held out her hand for the knitting needles, and she did hold them as if she knew how to use them. “Thank you, my goddess. I’ll bring your treasures back, if I’m able.”