Character development

With the advantage of his elevation as Xoch approaches, he realizes that the girl is no more than 10 years old. She is carrying the ceramic vase on her head with the fierce determination of one who has seen this hazard before. The elementals are attacking her, but she sidesteps them and pushes forward. The water in her jar slouches and spills though. The elementals continue their harassments even as a jaguar pounces toward her from an adjacent dune and snarls at her. She rushes past on her faint trail, but a sliver clad man with a blazing white sword waving menacingly blocks her progress. She is well within reach of you now.

As you start across the bridge, the girl has already moved out of sight onto the other side. Testing the bridge, it seems solid and cold and ancient. The Tumqua magic holds the stones strongly together, but there is something otherworldly about it like something a Nayda necromancer would invoke to communicate to other worlds. Your druidic sense is tensing even more than your feathers now.

As you cross, the sun dims and becomes a faint candle in a dark sky. Kukul doesn't shine his light here on the other side. The bridge is a conduit into the Shadowfell that you have read about in tomes dusty in dank libraries of the remote Far Payit hermitage you had trained in. Ahead is a light, more like a brief vapor of light, as you see the girl's dark outline against the light. She walks with jar of water still on her head, into a grand tent. Inside the flap of cloth that she opens to enter, you see golden and rich decorations. The tent is large and dominates the bleak landscape. She lets the flap of cloth drop behind you and you adjust your eyes to the shadowy world, colorless and dreadful.

As the saying goes, "In for a CP, in for an EP." You go to find the break in the tent where you lift the cloth and enter into a dull golden light, luxurious in this world, but unsatisfying. Pillows abound and the smell of food makes you hungry. The girl empties the water into a cistern and takes a drink from a ladle. She turns to you and smiles. No longer a young girl in this place, she is a beauty of golden locks and pale skin and strong cheekbones, all features that mark her as a woman of royal blood from Payit. A white feather, a symbol of Qotal, is tied in her hair.

She gestures you to drink and then sits at the foot of two figures on low chairs facing a gathering of cherub like children. The figures look familiar, as they are depicted in many of the temple frescos. They, too, smile as if they have the patience due to knowing endless time.