Because I had some olives for a snack.
Jar of Peaceful Valley Western Mission Olives
How these particular olives ended up in the local distribution chain is a matter of some interest: while the labels say that these olives were processed by the Peaceful Valley Western Olive company of Wimberly, Texas, no company by that name exists in the state and the address is a vacant field. And people have looked. The olives in question are amazing. Plump, subtle-flavored, keeps forever, nutrition off the charts… and, when used as a spell component in any of a dozen kinds of healing magic, capable of tripling the effect of the magic (the olives get eaten in the process).
Naturally, this means that every aware magical group within a thousand miles of Texas converged on the state to buy every jar of Peaceful Valley olives they could find (they didn’t find many, and are very careful with what they’ve found). Just as naturally, said groups are trying their best to discover where the olives came from; failing that, they’re trying to somehow resurrect the olive pits in the hopes that maybe they can get viable plants out of the whole thing. At the moment, there are several projects for the latter that might pay off in a couple of decades – olive growing is not for the impatient – but everybody in the magical shadow-network agrees that it’d be easier just to find the original source.
And they’re prepared to leave it alone! The shadow-network didn’t just read about the Goose That Laid The Golden Eggs; they wrote the fable in the first place. Whoever has these olives has a highly valuable product. One that’s worth jumping through some hoops for… and if one of those hoops is ‘be generally nicer people,’ well, reliable access to triple efficiency in healing magic is well worth being less of a jerk. Something for an adventuring party to keep in mind as they try to fulfill that particular esoteric contract…