Age of Ice and Blood: A Pathfinder System Heroic Fantasy Quest

Day Eleven, Year Unknown

The breath of the wind is upon my hair and the heat of the sun upon my lips, Zaia thought, as he looked upon the field of ruin, the bodies of the dead already corrupted by time broken again upon the blade of the Frankish knight and the claws of the sea beast. For almost three decades he had traveled the world seeking its secrets and that of the flesh, an exile made by a brash youthful vow which had ripened into the joys of maturity. Yet in all those days he had met no sorcerer whose works could not be counted trickery or explained by some natural law. Many there were who claimed to have power by word over nature for there was much to gain thereby in the fear of the high and the low, but none had he met in darkened alley or emir's palace who could match the claim with deed.

All that had changed in in instant, like a bolt of lightning from the blue, and now as ever he was left to ponder why and how.

The girl, Inge, set herself unsteadily to her feet, patting the bloody hide of her beast before holding the stone she had called 'ukota' and striding confidently towards the three towers. She did not look particularly strange; dark hair, almost black cut just below her shoulders and left to flow loose, framing a heart-shaped face and a complexion that would not be uncommon to see from Constantinople to Cairo. True the color of her eyes when she met one's gaze was odd, blue-green like the roiling seas, but he had seen stranger. Once he had learned herb-craft from an old Tatar who had one eye blue and one black, and made more coin off pretending to see the future than he did making poultices and tinctures.

As he passed through the row of houses beside the girl he noted again how strange it was to see such fine stonework all unmortared, each block placed with uncanny skill to make up for the lack. It reminded him more than a bit of the pagan temples baking among the sands. The fact that their witting was of the same sort led his mind on strange paths. Zaia shook his head. Now is not the time to ponder and to muse, but to observe that you may have more to build upon when the time comes...

It was clear as soon as he passed through the arch of the door into the cool interior of the tower that this was not a structure meant for defense. The door might hold off a few men, provided none of them had an axe at least, but against a determined assault it would fail swiftly. What he saw within only strengthened that impression. The furnishings were light, wrought of bleached reed and driftwood, fastened with bone and shell. Vivid frescoes covered the walls in what at first seemed to Zaia to have the abstraction of Islamic art, though at a closer look held more concrete meaning, shells and spirals and fish upon the waves.


Delicate blues and bright greens, reds vivid as blood... He could not be sure at a glance of what those paints were made, but he would stake his beard that such a variety did not originate on this small island. The names of cities put in his mind by a monster taunted him with their obscurity. It was as though the Marcella had fallen wholly off the edge of the map. Of course it was clear that no matter where they had fallen it was not so unlike the lands and seas Zaia knew. The stench of death hung over the tower and corpses marred its fine floors. He could make up two sorts, one lightly armed and unarmored, though far more numerous, and another garbed in scales of bronze. There had been a battle here, a battle of the living.

The deeper they walked into the tower, the higher they climbed on the narrow steps, the more they found other bodies, of those who had never been warriors; women wearing linen kilts and tunics fringed with yellow tassels and a men in now blood drenched veils woven with the patterns of nets.

His young guide did not seem surprised at the sight of the carnage, recoiling at the sight and smell certainly while doing her best to avoid the rooms with the worst of the reek, but there was nothing of the sorrow she had show in with regards to 'Ilfa', if that was indeed a proper name. There was a part of Zaia that desperately wanted to linger and to study the bodies of the dead and the accoutrements of the tower. There was so very much to learn here, but the stone still in the sorceress' hand drew him as surely as it was itself drawn to some hidden source.

As they crossed the causeway rain began to beat upon the stone loud and fast, thunder again called in the distance. When they reached the top of the eastern tower Zaia cursed under his breath, though in awe and not dismay. They were standing in an oratory, like onto the one of the Pharos in Alexandria, though not even a third as tall. In the place of mirror or flame was a single shard of the strange crystal about eight feet tall and four feet wide at the base, though tapering to a sharp point, and in its side a hole of a familiar shape.

The girl started to press it in then hesitated, and for the first time turned to him to ask a question.

Zaia shrugged and added in his native tongue. "You did not get any easier to understand."

She sighed and pointed out the western part of the tower, not towards the village at its base as he had first suspected, but something else. "Otinilu," she made a beckoning sign with her hand.

Time for that long accustomed habit of any interpreter, blind guesswork, Zaia thought with an edge of self-deprecation. "Men, Orinilu, will come here if you place the stone." He mimed men rowing across the sea. "And you do not know for certain if that is good or safe? For us or for you?"

Another frustrated shrug was his only reply.

How does one mime wait for later until we can speak? Zaia wondered looking around the room. He craved a crude sun dial into the floor and using a stick of incense for the main post. Pointed at where the shadow was now then shook his head then turned his finger around and around and tried to get across maybe with yes, then no, then yes.

They might or might not be talking gibberish at each other, but the girl did not move to put the stone back into the larger piece.

What do you do while the wounded attempt to heal in the tower?

[] Clear out the bodies
-[] Bury them
-[] Try to ask Inge how to deal with them

[] Talk to the strange girl, you are no scholar, but you are no fool just the same

[] Search the towers for anything of interest

[] Search the towers for anything of interest or value and loot them

[] Send an expedition to the southern shore of the island to see if there are people there

[] Write in

OOC: And here we are, some clues, but plenty of questions still.