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

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

Twelve black points 'round the withered field, twelve black bones from the skin of the earth where plumes of steam and foul vapors breathe from the belly of the island. No beast skitters between the stones, no bird basses above it, but the farther out you go the more of life you see. A glint here marks a black-backed lizard, a spindly shadow there the nest of some small shy bird, that had long since taken flight out of your sight. though not out of Ohun's knowing.

"The land here was tainted as I said...." he motions to where the roots of the trees had been scorched and the land made barren. "The sea defiled, burned in pits that are the resting place of the unhallowed dead." And so indeed it seems for south of the pillars more smoke or steam rises from the earth and this time you can see the pits that had been dug therein where old fires were kindled.

Zaia murmurs something under his breath in his own tongue, then for the first time in a long time struggles to translate, it has something to do with making mortar, but you are not a mason and the locals do not use mortar as far as you have been able to see. Even eventually he is reduced to describing the process in painful detail, the burning of certain stones and the quenching with water to make a fine mortar. While he might not be able to name it in any of the tongues the rest of you speak he can point to it and so you tear a piece of it off as easily as if it was a piece of cheese, lime.

Though all of this means nothing to an ever more uneasy Ohun who wants nothing more than to see Moru attempt his spell so you and let the land heal Inge starts is recognition at the sight of the stone: "That used t' be of the sea, a long, long time ago it used t' be the shells of dead things and it fell down into deep water, forgettin' that it was ever alive, but it wants t' go back."

"Ghosts of fire," Esha's words are soft, as though she is not sure of them herself. "Something like the spirits of steam we met in the cave of the Danuk, I wonder if we are to meet their like again." The earth under her feet rumbles like an uneasy beast.

"Strange that it should be the same..." You cut yourself off as the sword under your hand, still sheathed grows warm, mayhap in its own strange recognition of the nearness of battle.

"Fire and Water seem to have interchanged their mutual qualities, or else the philosophic fire is not to be supposed of the same kind with the common Fire; and the same thing is to be said of the Philosophic water," Zaia begins to speak quickly. "As for the Calc Vive, or Quicklime, and the Ignis Graecus, we know that they are kindled by Water and cannot be extinguished by it contrary to the Nature of other things that will take Fire; so it is affirmed that Camphor over-kindled will burn in Water. Some claim that the Stone Gagates being set on fire is more easily quenched by Oil than Water, for Oil will mingle with it and choke the fiery body. Whereas Water not being able to mix with the fatness yields to the fire unless it totally covers & overwhelms it, which it cannot easily do because although it be a Stone, it swims upon the top of the Water like Oil, so Naphtha, Petroleum and the like are not easily quenched by Water...."

"I understood perhaps one word in ten of that," you cut him off. "The calc vive is the limestone that has been cooked to spew steam and and fire if quenched in water if I understood your words right? "

"Yes... yes..." Zaia waves off the explanation. "Never mind the details now. I think the enemy meant to change the nature of fire and of water in this place. I would say to ennoble them, but nothing of their works ennobles and only defiles, just like in the north. I think the stones here were being prepared for some great spell." Turning then to Moru he adds: "Though the fire of your own patron should guide you I do not think it would be wise to meddle in this place for the world is turned inside out here and so any working should be made more and less than what it is. Chaos has been invoked and it will not be put back by any hand save the one that raised it."

At this Moru looks troubled, pondering the land, then the air, then the face of Inge that is still sallow and drawn. "I feel no evil here," he does not sound sure of himself. "I must send word to my order."

"Why, for the love of the Gods Great an Small what is so urgent that you would immerse yourself in this mire that even the simple beasts of the land and the birds of the sky should flee?" Ohun explodes, the same question he had been asking all day.

Only this time it is answered, not by Moru but by Ziku: "Because he fears the Changing of the World, the Great Ones return, the dragons sleeping under stone in dreams of power touch the skien of the world."

The priest gives his brother a look of stark betrayal, but the latter returns it, serene as ever you have seen him: "Your dislike of the islanders blinds you brother, we will need all the allies we can get even if that which has been kept silent for an age should be spoken aloud. You saw the dead eggs, you heard the tale of the young wyrm who woke in the land of the river folk, that was not some mischance and ill wrecking, the world is changing."

"You cannot mean that..."

"If I am wrong to have spoken than they shall set me on the pyre, if I am right and yet had said nothing than the would would burn."

What do you do?

[] Question Moru further

[] Confront Moru with the fact that he claimed not to know anything about the dragon egg

[] Let him pass on his message while you and the others stand guard

OOC: That little ramble by Zaia comes from actual medieval alchemy, and most of it is based on actual chemical processes.

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

The fire burned red, a thin breath of smoke rising into the star specked sky otherwise so clear that one could almost be overcome with a fear of falling and falling upwards into a vast celestial ocean. Soft is the voice of the oracle of Ikono whose eyes are red flame also: "Long are the years of the Sons of Elnu who were raised rightfully as kings of the earth, onto the lives of any one man as the days of a man are to those of a fly, but they too have a beginning, just as all things of the world..." He points up at the sky. "No man saw the kindling of the heavens nor the ordering of land and sea, no mortal thing witnessed the days before the coming of the Ice when winter did not fall onto the land and no mortal eye saw the first spear of lightning fall from on high... no man."

As his brother speaks Ziku keeps a solemn rhythm to the words with nothing but his hands on his knees as he sits on the ground as comfortably as if he had a lord's pillow under him.

"It was an age of strife and madness, when great beasts walked and their tread sundered the jungles, he mere shadow of their wings made the land wither. The spirits were wroth, but what could they do against beast that were of flame begotten and in the sea quenched, what could they do against beasts who did not know weariness or hunger, chill and warmth? These then were the Dragons, eldest of the old, before which the mountains bowed their heads and the seas drew back their waters, this then was their world where man had no place, no cities could we build and no crops could we sow, for even in the darkness of the forest whence the dragons could not walk man could not trust that one season should follow another nor that day should follow night. Yet there were men in this world still, though they lived in the shadows like the Angwantibo of the treetops or the baboons who walked under them. We were few and we were afraid. "

To your right Esha leans close, as though afraid to lose a single secret and when the priest speaks again she gasps. Etched in the the shadows of the fire her features are all the more beautiful, her eyes all the deeper dark with the joy of understanding.

"But the skies were changing, year over year and century ever century, in the deep places of the world where the spirits dwelt rebellion was kindled. The mountains spit fire and the seas boiled and great plumes of ash and dust were cast over the face of the moon that the dragons did not know her and they were much afraid and much weakened and even as men do in days of famine and poor harvest they fall on each other in a rage, lord against lord, no longer playing at battle, but red in tooth and claw. It was then then He who was Son of Elnu and lord of the First City saw the chance of his people, he came to the dragon who was nearest to the place of his people and he offered to serve, nimble hands and clever minds he offered, and he dragon, being neither the mightiest nor the wisest of his breed agreed."

As the tempo of the music changes again, which the long keening whistle of a bone flute produced from some hidden pocket in place of the drumbeat Moru continues: "Hard were the days, for though with the passing of many dragons and the learning of their ways men could now grow crops and raise beasts for meat and milk dragons made harsh masters as first one than the other saw the use of the tribes of men, each one saw men as no more than specks of grain on the wind, of worth only when there were many together and otherwise cast into the wind, but day by day and generation by generation the cold grew more and the dragons sluggish and slow, though the younger yet had the fire in them that was lost to their elders."

"Now the tale splits, as the branches of a tree and my sight is not so deep as to tell which is nearer to the truth," the oracle continues. "Some say the Children of Men betrayed the dragons and hunted them with spears of copper and of bronze, with the power of the Gods who had shown themselves to us who would inherit the earth, so it is told and so it is honored in the name of the Destroyer, others claim that the dragons knowing their time was nigh taught what they could among men that something of them would endure and then they passed from the earth. But the elders yet lay sleeping under the earth and they love us not."

With a long sigh Moru opens once more eyes of living flame and adds in a more ordinary voice: "That is what lies under the earth, that I think is what the Anjo-Oru seek to wake that they may sow chaos in the world... that is the hand whose mark is upon the script you have found in the hand of this Shadow, not daemon, not fiend and not shadow, but dragon whose like was worshiped and given homage in days long past." He waves to your gauntlet and adds: "I had my fears when I saw that, it did not look like the work of any mortal smith, star-forged or no, now I am certain of it, that gauntlet is dragon-wrought. One of them is awake and has taken the aid of daemons to awaken his kin, perhaps he has taken it as much as six hundred years past, but the Plot failed when Unke died the first time."

What do you do next?

[] Let Moru get on with sending the message now that he has answered

[] Ask Moru not to take the risk, all this seems to be guesswork and as dire as the portents might be it is not worth the risk to his life on that alone

[] Ask more questions
-[]Write in

[]Write in

OOC: I hope it is not too much tell without show.