#||ic

I've heard tell of the Stilt, but only in passing. Might be there's bounty up there, yeah?

A temple doesn't sound like bounty, but a grand bazaar does. If it's half as loud as she says, it ought be easy to find with my ears. She thrusts the trinket forward into my hands, but I have reason to hesitate if Moghra'yi has threats like those I've known.

Firearms and fire-snakes, of course. Fine enough. If I'm to cross the rest of the way into the rust and ruin, I may as well take this bauble.

Yeah, live and drink. Something about her "deep and many-sided thanks" sticks with me as I turn the trinket over in my hand.

Something about them is unsettling, and the villagers around them seem... Frantic in their admiration.

So this is Chugs-in-Quicksalt. They bid me hunt down some old ruin or other— just north of Ebony Tarchemish. On my journey to Qud, the caravan I shadowed told where to find this Ebony ruin, so I accept. Compensation for my service will stay my axe-hand well enough.

I ask if there's other work, and they say to check the mourner in the graveyard, or to make myself useful gathering ashes for the goats.

All the same, he ushers me over, looking for a waterhand to aid him.

Ebony Tarchemish isn't far from here; A ruin with little more than old roofless walls for a windbreak and evidence of old camps. I passed it coming in. The salt pans are a quiet enough walk— if you avoid the rogue Issachari and the occasional pack of flying fire-snakes. If this Nawar is going to be a boon to their "trade prospects", that means I get first pickings by finding it. I gladly accept.