Msaka slowly paced over to the remains of the pillar, putting his inner doubts aside for the moment as he gazed solemnly down at the rubble. Focusing his will, he renewed his invisibility as a precaution, then crouched down to examine the stones more closely. He swiftly noted that the base bore an inscription carved into its front side, and scanned the graven script, which bore a few flecks of what looked like dried blood within its grooves.

"By the breaking of this Pillar, so begins the unbinding of the Dragon of Doom," he softly echoed the words aloud. It certainly confirmed the pillar's magical function, though it did little to illuminate the process by which it had carried out the task. Msaka ran one hand over the rough surface of the pedestal, noting that the jagged edges where it had cracked asunder showed no sign of weathering in spite of the fact that nearly a year had passed since its destruction. Clearly the power that remained within was still protecting it from incidental damage, though he suspected a deliberate attack might be able to fracture it further. Destroying it was certainly not his intention though, so he refrained from testing that theory.

Setting his staff aside, he extended his other arm, placing one hand on each side of the base. Quickly glancing around to ensure that nothing had entered the area unnoticed, he closed his eyes and concentrated on extending his senses into the stone, probing gently into the enchantment it retained. Cautiously at first, then with increasing intensity as he became sure that there were no wards in place that might hamper his examination.

He paused occasionally to check for new arrivals to the clearing, but fortunately nothing saw fit to interrupt his studies. Over the next half hour, he continued to probe the pillar's base, but found it difficult to learn much in spite of his best efforts. Not only was the age of the magic involved a handicap, but the breaking of its original power posed an additional hindrance, to say nothing of the fact that it was but one part of a magical matrix that had laced the island.

Nevertheless, while they were clearly much reduced from what they must have been originally, he was impressed at the strength that remained in the spells still situated within the solid slab of stone. What intrigued him more was the fact that the spells were clearly older than the pillar into which they'd been placed, so much so that they must have been unleashed from a some kind of intermediary device - a scroll, most likely - passed down from the spells' original inventors. Not that that in itself was uncommon, but rarely was any magic of that magnitude handled that way.

Could it be that the ancestors of the tritons had forged the spells involved? From what he understood of the region's history, they had once been land dwellers until the Dragon of Doom had destroyed their original civilization, forcing them beneath the waves, and allowing later peoples to move into the area unchallenged, save by the more predatory species of the islands.

Msaka finally relinquished his grip upon the stone, collecting his staff as he considered how he might use the possibility to his advantage in dealing with the tritons of the current day. Rising, he stepped away from the stone, fading back into view in the still-unoccupied hollow.

"Best to think about it back in town," he murmured. "Even if the boarmen don't come back, something else will show up instead." That thought spurred him into motion, and he stole back towards the crevice in the cliffs through which he'd entered. While he could undoubtedly best the boarmen again, he didn't relish the thought of encountering some of the other, more dangerous creatures that wandered the wilds of the island.

He remained as careful on the way back as he had been while heading out, which proved to be a fortunate decision. As he navigated the trail he spotted a pair of hulking green brutes stomping in his direction, huge mallets slung idly over their shoulders. By shrinking back into the shadows behind a rock outcropping, Msaka was able to avoid detection, and was in no small way glad of that. The goons, if he was identifying them accurately, towered much taller than he and looked strong enough to crush solid rock with their bare hands.

Only once they had passed completely out of sight did he slip out from concealment and continue back towards the city, relieved to have avoided one confrontation with the more dangerous creatures he'd been concerned about. It seemed curious that so many creatures deemed monstrous by humans would be able to operate so close to the city, but the rough, rocky terrain no doubt made rooting them out much more difficult for the defenders of the city in much the same way that the jungles of Tarna posed a problem for outsiders seeking native prey.

The sun was sinking towards the horizon as Msaka reached the city and passed through the gate, casting long shadows across the ground. He turned his gaze across the square towards the inn perched upon the far end of the cliff and grimaced. Shaking his head, he turned and walked in the other direction; feeling unable to face Gnome Ann's horrible puns just yet. Better to wander about the city for a few more hours, in the hopes that she'd already have gone to bed by the time he came back.