"So... what is it?"
Jarl had been staring at the thin metal needle that was placed on the table in front of him for a solid 5 minutes. While he had to admit that the skill required to make such a delicate object was impressive, he failed to understand its greater importance. The golden needle resembled a sewing needle in design, but a stake in size. Karl, his brother, presented it to him with a sense of pride, however the following confusion presented by Jarl gave way to frustration on Karl's end.
"It is one of The Nine!", Karl's voice returned his sense of pride that he carried into Jarl's study when he had first arrived
"One of the nine what? Karl, this needle looks nice, but I don't see what good it can do on our end aside from being sold to a collector of such... things". Jarl gestured towards the needle.
"Jarl, it is one of The Nine! One of The 9 Needles of the Archmagi! Our men found and pulled it from its resting place early this morning!", Karl grabbed the needle from the desk. Despite its thin design, the object clearly had some heft in his hand. "The legend is true! Now if we can locate the other 8..."
"Karl", Jarl's voice came out as a sigh, "it is a legend for a reason. Your crew found a needle this morning. We don't know that this is one of THOSE needles. If the legend IS true there is a reason that no one has found any of the needles. If they are out there, your goons wouldn't be the ones to find them, they can barely find their fingers when they are looking at their hands! This is probably some artist's passion project or an elaborate marketing by a blacksmith or some other artisan"
"Look at the damn thing!", Karl thrusted the needle, horizontally, towards the face of his brother. "an artisan wishes he could make this. No, this was made by an archimage...THE archimage of legend! Now that we found one, it is only a matter of time before word gets out, and if we don't mobilize our men, someone else will get the rest. When the needles are found, and The Chamber of the Archmagi is unlocked, do you want that to be for someone else's benefit or our own?"
Jarl stood up, "nothing about this is to our benefit! When I hired you, the board was already accusing me of abandoning my values to blind nepotism. I told them to trust that our resources would be used to better the district and our men would be employed to increase our profits. Now here you are wasting time and money on fairytales! We are done with this stupid needle. Another case like this and I will be relieving you of your station. I don't believe you have another brother; do you want to find out how important the term 'nepotism' is to your well being"
"Fine", Karl backed away from his brother's desk and towards the door, " you have investors and I get that, but once more needles are discovered and the city starts scrambling to find them, don't say i didn't warn you... brother"
Jarl's hand made a feeble attempt to shoo Karl out of his office; fatigue from their current conversation rendered his voice exhausted. In a weeks time however, he would find his voice required to explain to his shareholders why the fishermen's guild found the second needle before him and his company.