[center][h1]Westbound, Crossroads of Ironridge[/h1]
[@Thecrash20] [@13org]
 
[img]http://img06.deviantart.net/8e6f/i/2011/206/3/d/edoras_lotr_by_pi_dr-d41m174.jpg[/img][/center]

[i][indent]“If you have men who will only come if they know there is a good road, I don't want them. I want men who will come if there is no road at all.”[/indent][/i]
[right]-- Founder of Ironridge[/right]

The distant silvery peaks rose no more than a thumb’s width above the horizon and their foundations disappeared hazily behind it. The Katze Plains stretch seem to stretch endlessly in every direction. Absent were the common fog banks that casually roll down from the mountain and into the flatlands. The gentle sloping foothills flattened dramatically; the hilltops sunken and the low-lying lands were neatly broken around jagged lines, much like puzzle pieces awkwardly fitted together. The earth was hard and cold, and frigid water fills the crevices in between. 

The permafrost had begun to thaw.

Beyond the grassy field of strangely earthen wedges is a long winding road. Wooden milestones poke out of the ground unevenly, marking the sprawling length of highway at regular intervals.The road disappears around the long foot of the mountain to the south, and bends northwest to a fortified town. It sits perched atop a lone rocky crag jutting from under a blanket of ripe green grass. The towers of a keep peer over the low walls surrounding it, and command a clear view of the switchback road that has been hewn into the stone face leading up to the gates. A smattering of wagons and travellers dot the road.

The unlikely duo need only to brave the ice and mud to reach the highway in the distance.