Cleaning the murals
Despite his words about catching up with Melock, Hoskar finds himself cleaning murals. Not sure if I was invited - maybe they have Raven business - and there might be writing here
As he scrubs away, one new picture draws his attention; a strangely-garbed caravan of merchants approaching the post with faces brightly illumined as Bright Treasure sets before them. The faces are strange to him, bearing a cast to their eyes quite unlike the men of the plains or even those living to the west. They seem robed in a shiny material patterned with realistic images of something...a something with legs but also scales covering long sinuous bodies; nostrils broad. Not a snake for sure, nor a wyvern. Perhaps closer to the latter, but presented as if exuding more raw power. The men themselves look almost akin to the robes somehow: exotic, thin, hair straight, long and tied back...or are those things plaits? One man - trader prince perhaps - is bowing low; as if in greeting to the artist.
As he reveals more of the picture, it seems their cargo is a statue, man-headed but with a body akin to the lizard-thing on their robes. On its chest is a rune Hoskar has not seen before: a square balanced on its point, crossed through in both directions. Although the background is clearly near here, the whole image has an unsettling quality of otherness to it, unfamiliar runes and visages adding to its disquieting note.
Hoskar draws breath sharply, an audible hiss of amazement. Horn and hide. If this is taken from life, they had some weird visitors here.
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Voras grimaces upon learning of Umbra's demise. "If we plan to do any more investigation in that direction, we'll have to come up with another method."
After spending the night in the courtyard, he rises with the dawn the next morning, whispering a quick prayer to Sun Hawk before returning to clean the murals in a small side room. As he cleans, he notices that the grime is not quite as thick in one section of the wall. Wiping the built-up dirt and dust away, Voras discovers that whatever the original mural here was has been painted over. This mural is old enough to have been once again covered by the ever-present sands of the wastes, but clearly far younger than the rest of the trading post, as is evidenced by the scene depicted - the Red Goddess wrapping the earth around her as the Red Moon first rises to the sky in Dara Happa.
Who were those who made this painting and why did they travel here?
This message was last edited by the GM at 07:58, Thu 28 Apr 2016.