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[howandwhy99]

[Session 15]

A little further up the road, Dram spotted a large nest in the rock face above. He guessed it was the deerbirds’. As the others looked up, Rose moved over to the cliff’s edge on the right side of the path. The vertigo did not seem to bother her. Far below in the ravine were the remains of the third horse. The thin line of a river ran along the bottom. It paralleled the road up and down the mountain. After a few more hours of travel Dram finally called out, “Halt the wagons! Around the next bend in the road they saw Keep Adlerweg. It was built right into the side of the mountain. As tall as it was, the Keep was still dwarfed by the surrounding cliffsides. It hugged the edge rising up over five stories in height. The road wound around its large base perched on an outcropping of rock. Warmachines that looked like giant crossbows could be seen on the lowest rooftops. Numerous windows were cut into the upper levels and arrowslits along the base. Adlerweg was a truly amazing sight to behold.



“A little young, but not too shabby,” said Darius. He placed it at two centuries old give or take a decade. He was certain Dwarfs must have helped in its manufacture. Father Ben just felt fortunate there were no guards for the Keep in sight.
“Traveler on the road!” shouted Ormand the Redd. Further around the bend, about fifty yards away, a man was cowering behind some stones. Rose took out her club and approached. She could tell the man was human even with his dark skin and exotic features. He did not resemble any of the dark-skinned humans she had seen in Kera.

When Rose drew closer she heard him whimpering.
“Please don’t eat me. I am very sick and have been forced to eat rats.” The man’s accent was as just as unusual as his appearance. As he knelt in the road prostrate like a slave begging its master she looked at his dress carefully. He wore only a dirty robe and a cloth wrapped around his head in a knot.
“Get up. We’re not going to eat you.”
“Thank you, Thank you,” the man kept bowing low. “Praise the Gods you have found me here. Are you a spirit or a demon? Who do I thank for my rescue?” Rose could not help her amusement. She twirled her club playfully.
“It is…. complicated. Are you injured?”
“No. No. I am a lost traveler from far, far away.”
“In that we have a commonality. Do you seek our aid?”

The dark-skinned man bowed even deeper and lower if such a thing was possible. A greasy smile came over his windborne face. “Oh yes. I seek to go where you are going. I seek to follow you in your path.”
Rose was smiled again. “Okay… If you are prepared to enter the keep behind you, you may follow.” Rose began telling the stranger the team’s reasons for venturing all the way from their homelands to this mountain pass, and about the slaves in Kera City, and the search for Tankurd.
“NO!!” shouted Dram running forward. He and Darius had been approaching. Dram pulled Rose backwards. Looking at the kneeling foreigner he said, “What are you? Some kind of slave?”
The stranger sat up studying Dram and then callously regarded him. “No barbarian. I am not.” He turned his gaze back to Rose ignoring everything else. “I was a servant to a great merchant such as you have never seen.” Dram pulled out his sword, but the stranger did not break eye contact. “We had an accident. Or I did, at least. We were to travel to a distant land. I was to go first and prepare the way. The next thing I knew, I awoke here.”

“How long ago was that?” asked Rose sympathetically.
“About… a few days ago. Only this morning did I find this road.” Darius finally arrived next to Dram.
“What is the name of the land you come from?” asked Rose.
“The land I come from? It…it cannot be pronounced in this trade tongue we converse in.”
“That is to bad. Hmm… What other languages do you know?” The stranger listed off some strange tongues, none of which she had even heard of before. Then Rose remembered her manners. “My apologies. This is Darius our Dwarf Paladin. And this is Dram. He is… of Margrave. I am Rose from the Front. Who might you be?”
The stranger finally stood up and bowed formally. “My name is Houshang.”
”Come again?” said Dram. It was nearly impossible for him to understand the foreigner. He only knew this ‘Wu-Tang’ had the thickest accent of any man alive.