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

Tenth Day of Elnu-Hamba (Elnu Descendent), 1349 A. L. (After Landfall)

"Moon and Tide dance as one, silver are the waves now crowned...." You do not recognize the spell, but the dark almost feverish look in Inge's eye tells you all you need to know, Ikomi had been called to counsel and to aid, but hers is not the only power here at work.

When Esha speaks her words flow like honey and like mead from honey brewed, soft chastising, almost secretive, not the command you would have given: "Be still she says, there are subtle powers here that might yet be boon or bane. Call them not to rage for I fear what they might do. Is that not so master Zaia?"

It is only at that question that you realize what she is doing. Most of the men of Lirman and Korman both would know Zaia only as a healer, and while Esha herself might not have the most savory of reputations who would have cause to argue with the healer, summon fear and banish it all at once... like a daemon called from the dark. Your stomach twists uncomfortably at the comparison, but you cannot deny it, not when Esha continues: "Ware for though we are guarded here from many foes all is not well in these halls and there is much evil yet to be unbound..." Why would she say...

"What should we do my lady?" the voice from before asks still dubious.

"Guard the door so that we are not interrupted," Esha replies, without pausing for breath.

"You lie well," the voice in the stone hissed as something starts to crawl out of the wall. Though it seems of the same pale stone as the substance around it no one could mistake the mass of wriggling life for any natural thing. No gentle guarding fey this.

For her part Esha does not seem troubled: "And you are loud enough to near doom us all. Speak quickly and the bargain may yet be made."

"You are not my master vile-blood, I have no master...."

"Yes," Aina says at last. "I will admit to whatever kinship you wish so long as it is true, whatever crimes long past that my kin may have done are as nothing to the evil that how now found roots under our roof. Tell me what are they doing here and how might they be driven from the land."

"The dark ones seek the mountain's shake, they seek the Turning of the World, what which once was shall be again, the Old Ones stir and the fire wakes, scuttling things move in the depths, seeking to profit from it as leeches supping on the blood of the dying, but we... we who knew the World that Was...." the voice twists and and breaks as it speaks, a many toothed maw in the midst of its worm-like mass.

With barely a though your hand tightens on Durendal's hilt.

"What was your name, before Unke drained you, what was the name you mother whispered over your cradle?" Aina cuts in to the ranting and to your surprise the thing does stop and finally it whispers: "Sutrala..."

"Two things they have need for, the tinder and the spark," the tainted spirit continues. "Two things the Neverborn seek, one is the stones, the power in the earth that was tamed long ago to the good of mortal man and the other is the blood that has not known the touch of power, the flesh of the Outsider that will break the last of their shackles, one they have already, ever since your father died... the second you brought to them."

At that the spirit gives wet cackle, you hope still low enough not to be heard beyond the heavy door, though it is not the thought of the guards hearing that sends a chill down your spine. Fateless Luaza had said the daemons seek to remake fate and the words of the giant Ninku come back to you: "The wheel turns, the wheel grinds, the wheel will be broken"

It is not until the eyes of the others turn to you that you realize you had spoken aloud, but you pay them no mind. the giants had said that those who had come before you, those who had spoken in the tongue of Rome had defeated that daemons.... but you had not thought of why they might have done that, a small company on the winds of fate and fortune, why not just flee.

The answer as it turns out was staring you in the face, because you and all those who came with you are fit vessels for the evil that now flows over the land and so you are made heroes or cowards by what hunts you.

"Why did they come, why Adi?" Aina asks, her voice sounds distant in your ears.

"For the stones... and the blood of the stranger on the land of Korman."

What do you do next?

[] Try to question the spirit more
-[] Write in questions (the more you ask the more likely it is to go mad)

[] Hunt for the assassin, there have to be some clues as to where he came from before attacking Antonio

[] Try the ambush Esha had proposed , you still do not know where Unke fits into all this

[] Write in

OOC: And a few more pieces of the puzzle... slightly chewed on so you guys will have to think of where they fit.