>>5491839You can feel the air thinning as you ascend into the mountains. The shortcut path described by Cantergloak is steep and appears mostly deserted, though you notice some ruts and shallow trench cut into the ground, as if wains or some sort of carriage had once passed through. You are glad you did not attempt this crossing with haste at night, for you can see the path ahead becomes treacherous indeed, with columns and broken heaps of rock and scree scattered athwart the rocky path, looming high over many heights and throwing strange twisted shadows over broken stone.
You here a haunting rattle and hollow chimes upon the wind. Lescurel is quite inspired:
-The mountain makes melodious music for our ears! I shall write this down, and feature it as a song in the Princess Lointame, my masterpiece!
... as he plucks a stray feather from the Bird Mask Stranger Cantergloak, to use as an improvised quill; Cantergloak himself does not seem to mind.
The Bird Masked Stranger is pleased with the progress.
-This was the Old Salt Road, in the Days Of Salt And Iron (he explains) You see, mostly merchants move their wares by water - it is simply safer that way. Over land there was this path and the Roguesmarch, which has mostly now been given to silt and flooded marsh. Then there is the Old Forest Of Idols, difficult to traverse on foot, but we have the sky galleons now, though I suppose you must pay the East Galernese Company their tithes, and procure a Letter Of Marque And Reprisal to avoid the welcome of their cannon-towers. Letters Of Marque are quite rare, of course - mostly inherited, passed from generation to generation in accordance with Lex Mercatoria and De Iure Praedae, the foundational work of the great scholar Grotius Balbinus. Very few possess the authority nowadays to grant one. Now a Witchfinder of the Oration, for instance, bears upon his hand a signet ring which -
Suddenly Cantergloak stops, tilting his head in a posture of alertness:
-Well...this is new!
(QM: please see pic related for an overview)
(I will highlight a few specific areas, zoomed in closeups below)
Ahead of you there appears to be a large amount of abandoned siege engines, mostly arcuballistae and also what appears to be a battering ram pressed against stone ramparts. The weaponry have been dragged and scattered in haphazard fashion all along the path.
Lescurel stares at the scene, and mentions:
- Perhaps this was the siege weaponry abandoned after the siege of Ritterskeep, when the Troll King took the stronghold there. I suppose either the siege engines never arrived in time, or they must have had difficulty transporting it over the mountain path...
