The spiral tower rose up over the desert, its white clay bricks vibrant even in fading light. The blue flame at its pinnacle shone like a jewel every night, a beacon for all adventurers heading westward along the Road of Death—for as anyone who traveled this road knew, to be caught out after the sun set behind the ever-shifting dunes was a sure way to meet one’s maker. For those whose memories failed them, the sun-bleached skulls laying all along the road were more than happy to provide a constant reminder.
Below the great spire stood a caravanserai. Shorter, but no less important.
It was surrounded by thick walls, offering a temporary haven from the monsters that lurked at night. It welcomed all pilgrims into its open courtyard, providing rest and nourishment for man and beast alike. Camels, horses, and a few parched donkeys sated their thirst from the fountain with cool, clean water bubbling up from an underground spring.
The surrounding arcade, three stories high, provided services and ready-made beds for the groups of weary adventurers who managed to survived this far along the road. Some chose to stay only a day or two, others longer. However, like any roadside inn, the caravanserai was no destination of its own, but a stop along the way. Eventually, all who passed beneath its painted arches left to continue along the Road of Death to…
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Well, to wherever it leads.
The permanent residents of the caravanserai—the porter, the guards, the merchants and blacksmiths, the stablehands and maids, healers and holyfolk—had lived and worked there for as long as they could remember. They were as much a part of the lodge as the bricks of its walls, its mosaic tiles and curved archways. They had seen many adventuring parties come through the caravanserai’s heavy-doored gateway, dirty, bruised, and staggering from exhaustion.
Those of the caravanserai knew how to help such travelers, for that was their purpose in life. They watered their animals, healed their cuts and broken bones, put food in their dust-filled bellies. They made soft beds for them to rest, and in the shrine removed curses from those who had stumbled into the wrong witch’s lair. The merchants traded and restocked their packs, while the blacksmith honed their blades and reforged their broken chainmail links. Each actor knew their part, and the roadside lodge operated in perfect harmony.
Always, the adventurers came in groups. Everyone, pilgrims and caravanserai inhabitants alike, knew that nobody could make it this far along the Road of Death alone. It was an unspoken rule. You either found companions, or died.
It was because of these reasons that, when a young boy stumbled through those doors of heavy oak just after nightfall—alone and bleeding from a dozen wounds—the caravanserai found itself in a very unfamiliar state of disarray.