>"Too poor for that sort of thing, mostly. Hey, thanks for the help, both of you."
>Depart after appropriate goodbyes are made, and head for that fort. Do note other points of interest along the way, though.
>Gwen nods. "Sure."
>"Any time!" Jess calls back from another corner of the room.
>You settle your tab with the bar for a reasonable 2 guilders, then exit the inn and make your way towards Isir's Cross proper.
>You may have underestimated the distance slightly, as the road to the bridge is surprisingly circuitous, crossing over one hill and down around another before banking wide of the village and continuing for several minutes beyond the apparent edge of habitation. The placid flow of the river is a constant accompaniment at this point, mingled faintly with the distant strains of its rush through the gorge much further ahead.
>The bridge feels longer to walk across than it did to sail beneath, your footfalls sounding sharply off the hard cobbles as simple magical lanterns shed soft light across the weather-worn stones. The bridge is really quite well-lit, both along its surface and beneath, where larger beacons are hung for the benefit of approaching ships. There is no sign of any other traffic but yourself at the moment - not altogether surprising, that. Even back in the heart of the village, it had been fairly quiet; aside from taverns and the like, most businesses were closed and only a scattered few people roved the roads. There was still some modest activity along the waterfront, but after a day in Val Razua, the town felt positively ghostly.
>The stolid grey form of the watch tower remains firmly within your field of view all the way, its sides ringed with small fiery beacons blazing merrily. It rises from the top of a small but sheer and rocky hill, nearly a crag. A solid ridge of similar terrain sweeps far to the south and the highway follows beside it, nestled between a wall of rock to its right and a steep drop to the river below on its left. It would be an easy point to bar off land travel from the south, and you suspect this was precisely the original idea.
>As you draw nearer, it becomes apparent that the watch tower is just one part of a larger complex that appears to be built partially into the hill itself. Staunch stonework juts out from natural rock - an array of small barrel-shaped structures and fortified battlements with crenels that face the approach from the south. Isir's Cross stands at the intersection of multiple roads and uses this terrain well. An arched gatehouse cuts through the eastern-facing cliff to span the entirety of the navigable road to the south, while the main entrance to the fort is situated on the opposite side of that same crag, accessible only along a separate road - the one that leads to the lake, you think. The only clear way to reach this road from the south requires passing through that gatehouse and then alongside the full row of battlements hewn into the rock face. The steep and craggy hillside looks impractical to climb over, certainly for a whole army, meaning that any invasion from the south could only reach the main fortified gates after marching past the entirety of its forward defenses on open and indefensible terrain; it would be a very demotivating prospect for any army that valued remaining unperforated. The high watch tower would also give the defenders an unrestricted view of traffic on all the roads for many miles, long before any enemy could spot forces or barricades arrayed upon them. If this route was ever seriously threatened, one would be hard-pressed to find a more ideal location from which to defend it.
>Of course, a small fleet of airships would render the fort entirely moot and irrelevant. Honestly, a fleet of riverboats could probably do likewise, landing an army in the indefensible village and bypassing the fort's forward battlements entirely. Did the village even exist back when the fort was militarily important? You seem to vaguely recall that it did not, and perhaps there were other fortifications barricading the river approach that have long since crumbled into ruin. It's been many centuries, after all.
>The bulk of the fort complex is nestled in a large hallow along the hillside near the beginning of the road leading southwest to the lake, behind heavy stone walls that still look quite solid despite obvious signs of wear and age. A row of tall braziers atop the wall dance softly in the gentle breeze, but if it were not for the protruding watch tower, one could almost miss the fort's existence entirely for the crescent of rocky hill that shrouds it from the northeast.
>The main gates are built of heavy wood, reinforced with metal, and stand as a pair, separated by a short and shadowy gatehouse. The outer gate is flung wide, but the inner one stands closed at the moment. A light is coming from somewhere inside the dim space between them, to the left.
