There's an old woman pacing outside the tower. How did you get here? Chance, maybe, fate, destiny, whatever you want to call it. Either way, she looks relieved by your presence. "Oh, please, help," she entreats, and explains to you that there's an innocent trapped in the top of this tower, and you must rescue them before something bad happens.

Something very bad.

If you do, you'll be rewarded, she says. But you'd do it anyway, wouldn't you? Anyway, she tells you the key to the tower is with the bird-king in the land east of the sun and west of the moon, but that's not easy to get from Baedal; you'll need to find a cloak of swiftness. Where is it? Oh, well... she thinks it belongs to some huntsman in Sobek Croix. You'd better find it quick; you're running out of time.