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

Thirty-Third Day of Ikomi-eza (Ikomi Ascendant) 1348 A. L. (After Landfall)

The land is cold, grey in winter's shroud and grey the clouds the sea wind herds over the city, threatening but never quite delivering on the promise of more snow. Thus it is with wary looks to the sky that you climb the slick marble steps to the high city where once the Priest Kings ruled. Tis strange indeed to see the green-garbed guard of the city bundled against the cold, though perhaps not as strange as they must find you. A warrior armed with sword and shield of bronze as many in the city, though runes of power are upon them that only the wise may read, and for armor you wear a coat of scale and of plate.

A bath had rinsed off the smell of a long journey, but still perhaps the smell of horse still lingers on your cloak for the guard hounds rise ponderously to their feet to look you up and down, and in the case of one to sniff you. With their stocky bodies and wide faces they remind you of nothing so much as a shepherd's hounds back home, though in this city they are more likely to herd people than beasts. One of them finds a piece of hard cheese in your pocket that you promptly dispense, earning yourself instant approval, though you cannot say as much for their masters.


"What's your business in the High City?" one fellow whose three goose feather cap marks him as the captain in charge of the gate asks. You wonder if he is asking what your way is worth to you, but no, he gives way for Afke and his token easily enough. It is not that kind of gate it seems.

What lies beyond upon the highest part of the isle is a city laid out in a roughly triangular manner with the Palace at one point, its gleaming blue limestone set with the images of birds in flight and fish in the stream, the tower of the guard flying green banners at the other and the new-sowed Gardens of the Restful Peach Blossoms at the third. Strange to see a garden so open to servants as much as to lords and ladies and paid for by the common purse under the aegis of the Council of Five, though a careful eye might see the reason for it peeking through the snow like the bones of some long past battle, the foundations of the Temple of Elnu with its high towers fallen with the Priest Kings of old.

Knowing the fate of House Koire you had expected Afke to lead you to one of the smaller mansions, but he does not, instead heading to one of the most grand, a thing of marble orange, red and blue as fair as any king's hall, as fair indeed as the cathedrals built over many lives of men. But as you grow close you begin to see the signs of neglect even upon the facade that leads onto the widest of the high street, snow and rain had washed away some of the paint, smudging the faces of heroes and ancestors and making the words upon the keystone likely unreadable even to one who might know the script that fits the Engur tongue.

The door is heavy pine that might once have served as ship's timbers from the wear upon it, but the hall beyond it is fair indeed, its floors in pattern of cloud and shells and rippling waves and upon the walls the images of beasts fantastical and strange, perhaps the tales of another age, perhaps the artist's fancy. Here the luster had not yet gone from the House, though the echoing silence was itself a mournful herald.


"This is more what you are used to, eh?" Antonio asks in Sicilian, trying his best not to sound impressed.

"I would likely go mad living for long amid a legacy so great yet fading," you snort, but then you add in caution: "Be careful how you speak of them, there is never a lord so cagey of his honor as the one who knows his house has not the strength to hold its banner high."

"Well they already look like they've seen a ghost or what have you..." he motions at the servants. "Wonder what doddering old lord we'll find here? Hopefully one that is still himself and not some sort of shape-changer."

The one who meets you, the head of House Koire, is as far from 'doddering' as one might get... a little too far indeed.

The boy does not look any older than twelve or thirteen at the most, with a narrow face and a nose that one might count aristocratic if it were not just a little too upturned. Altogether he seems in face and voice barely more than a child, a fact which his overly formal manner betrays he is all too aware of. "Be ye most welcome under the roof of my fathers brave travelers from afar, what news of my cousin Mhure from lands far off?"

"Alas that he is dead, lord Odorin," Afke hesitates not before the name, but before the 'lord' which in the Engur tongue is not given lightly to all men of noble blood but only to the head of the House. He had not expected the boy to be standing here greeting you.

A storm of feelings chase each other over the boy's face; sorrow, anger... and then what might be a flicker of relief followed by shame crashing down. "Yet his task is done, is it not Okoire?" he addresses his vassal in the manner appropriate for a man of common blood raised in high service of a House of Orinilu.

For his part Afke is humble in his triumph, crediting his return to the mercy of Ikomi first and to the aid of 'doughty allies found along the way' second and to his own skill a distant third. You do your best to appear sufficiently doughty as he gives his account. Though Antonio seeks to speak of business at once the boy, Odorin, has other plans it seems, if they be indeed his, to give a grand feast to celebrate the safe return of the Pride and not incidentally the return of his House to some measure of disposable wealth, though that part is not said aloud.

Antonio is of course invited, being a Captain of the League in good standing, and Afke's tale has made it clear that you are some sort of noble and thus worth inviting, but there remains the question of who else to invite. Zaia would doubtless wish to come but he has no distinction but his scholarship and Inge certainly deserves the recognition, though you are unsure how she would handle such a feast. As for Esha she would likely fit in best of all, so long as no one comes to question her nature too closely.

Who do you wish invited to the Feast of Returning patronized by Odorin Koire?

[] Zaia

[] Esha

[] Inge

[] Write in

OOC: The hall does not have round columns, just large square pillars, the above is more to show the art.