He would go and talk to one of the caravan leaders, or at least a guard to one of them."Do you have any advice for crossing the desert, at least by the short eastern or long western routes? Also, Who or what are Siltans?"
You go and speak to an older caravan guard. His breastplate and helmet are full of scratches, but it's all well maintained. He's smoking a pipe as you approach.
"Well, lad, if you're going by the eastern trade routes you're best bet is to go with a caravan. Either pay them to take you as passangers, or get them to hire you as a guard. All you've got to worry about then is the wildlife and the occasional bandit, but when you're in a caravan group that's never really a huge threat.
As for the Western route, your best bet is to take a lot of provisions and get a mule if you can. There's a village of some religious folk in the middle where they'll fill you up on water, but other than that you're on your own. The trip is only two or three days between here and that village, though, so you should be fine. Just be careful of wildlife, you probably won't meet bandits on that route, no caravans to rob. Also, don't fuck with ruins you come across.
Which brings us to the silthans. They're desert nomads. They're perfectly amicable folk, for the most part. Just don't threaten them and for the love of the gods, don't fuck with their ruins. Those ruins are important in their religion or something, and they take it pretty bad if they catch you defiling them in any way."
'Ask' for help, and go down the road where the problem seems to be.
[magnificent aura] Your plea for help does not go unheard. Rallied by your words and hungry for revenge, five caravan guards agree to accompany you on your way to kill the beast.
You then follow the road the guards point out to you, walking for quite a while. One of the guards points at a dilapidated mansion further along, behind a bend in the road.
"'Ere, that's the old mansion. THe attacks were along he-"
Faster than the guard can react, something jumps from the bushes and slams into him. All you manage to see is a brown blur and a large bloody beak before it leaps away, taken the unfortunate guard with it. It leaps into the trees and shrub, heading towards the mansion.
Cast Analyze Magic on the corpse, the scrolls, and the slab. If it won't harm me to do so, unlock the corpse's chains. If it becomes animate, cast Control Undead on it.
You attempt to cast analyze magic [5+1] and get a perfect reading of all of them. The corpse gives off a faint magical aura, but nothing dramatic. The scrolls are inscribed with one time use spells, but you can't tell which ones without opening them and looking at the runes yourself. The slab itself is just a large hunk of stone, but the chains seem to be weirdly magical. It's as if they're draining the magic from around them.
You take a step toward the corpse which, quite as you expected, jerks up its arm, making the chain go taut. The putrid eyes roll towards you, staring at you. You'd like to cast control undead, but that's necromancy, and you're an arcanist. The corpse speaks in a baritone voice.
"Why have you come? To make sure I am still imprisoned? To mock my fall? Is it not enough that every moment, waking or otherwise, if filled with endless suffering?"Hmm. Check out the creek and if it seems safe get across - do so as a bird if required - and examine this stone and bowl.
You step closer to the creek and you try to figure out if it's safe to cross. You look at it this way and that, trying to figure out if the uncanny depth of the creek isn't going to make this dangerous. You look to your right and see the moss rhino staring at you with sleepy eyes. It snorts, walks up to the creek and clumsily jumps over it, arriving safe and sound at the other side. You follow its example and jumpp over as well, with identical results.
The slab is engraved with all kinds of drawings. Flowers, trees, animals, each side is engraved with images of things like this that are typical for each season. The bowl itself is made out of smooth stone. Along its edge is a strange script that you've never seen before. On the bottom of the bowl is a an engraving of a woman in a dress with flowers in her hair putting something in a bowl.