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

Thirty Fourth Day of Elnu-eza (Elnu Ascendant), 1349 A. L. (After Landfall)

Waves crash against lonely shore and in the distance gulls cry like the voices of lost children, the sun hangs low, a red eye staring from under dark stormy brows. It is easy to forget how empty these lands are, even here in the south, even here where you speak the tongue of the people and whose ports you have patronized. Easy enough to believe that giants might dwell here among the crumbling peaks, tending to their flocks. According to Zaia the old Greeks had legends of one eyed giants who dwelt on far off islands and fed on the flesh of man.

"Who has blinded you?" Asked the giants of their fallen brother. "No one," he replied, and so the wily mariner who had thus named himself such slipped off towards home.

The story had been a good bit more entertaining last night by candle light in Zaia's soft voice than it was now looking out over the savage shore with not a trade of path or of smoke to show for it. Laurel leaves can be as thick as oak and ash and who knows what might linger under them. Not a giant in sight, but then you had not expected to find one, supposedly the map showed a path upon the slopes where the mountain meets the sea.

"How much is on that map?" you ask, looking at the piece of bronze now in Antonio's keeping.

"Simple enough for a bird to understand, or so I've heard," he replies.

"Oh..." all of a sudden the gulls sound less mournful and more greedy for the fish that Inge bribes them with. By her own account she sometimes has to feed a score to find one clever enough for the task and the birds had learned that lesson well enough.

They fly into the evening shadows and down the hours as the sun sets and the moon rises pale from between the boughs at last they come back with word for Inge. The path is found but it is narrow, enough for two men abreast or a single rider. Perfect for an ambush, you cannot help but think and yet you have seen neither horn nor hoof of any beast larger than a goat about. Mayhap you are jumping at shadows, but better to seem timid than to be foolish.

"How far is it from the shore to where we are meant to go?" you ask Antonio as he peers over the map.

"About three miles down the wooded gorge and then we will come to a hidden vale in the side of the hill, if I understand the markings right. Looks like they were meant to be followed by a bloody bird," he grumbles.

"Why wouldn't they be?" Esha asks curiously. "That is what the world looks like from above..."

"A fact which would be rather lost on the mind of man without the means by some at least to see it thus," you interject. "Where we are from fewer mapmakers know a magician." Turning to Inge you ask her if the gulls had seen the place where you were meant to meet this giant, or for that matter if the birds had spotted any giant.

"The place is there, just like on the map, no giants though. There's a cave big enough for one of them to fit into, but there ain't nothing you're getting a gull into a cave for." She scrunches her nose, trying to think back to something she had been told and it is all you can do to swallow a chuckle at the sight. "There's some 'man-scratches' outside the cave, some mark that it's a place shaped by tools, though of what sort they neither know nor care. Bad enough to be away from the sun, they say, but in a man-place they are sure to be singed and made a meal of. "

"Gulls are clever enough to know we cook food?" Zaia asks with a dubious look at the birds that were still circling the mast, looking for a meal.

"Smell carries far and they eat enough of our leavings to tell one sort of food from the other as well as judge which is least dangerous to pick at," the Inge replies. "Birds are cleverer than most think, they just don't need to know about tools and fire and the ways of cities and the business of the Stone Nests." She sounds almost like she envies them.

Without thinking about it you reach out and pat the girl on the shoulder as she leans a little closer to you.

Who do you take to meet the giants?

[] Write in (the path is narrow and can take only two people on foot or one riding)

OOC: Headache's mostly gone, here's an update. A bit of character building and a bit of worldbuilding. I hope you guys do not mind these slower updates.