Roadside Inn on the Journey to Shang-Tu

Marco Polo's caravan halts at this roadside inn for the night en route to Shang-Tu. Travelers dismount into a shadowed courtyard after grueling Silk Road days, where lanterns flicker over wooden stables and simple rooms with straw pallets. Guards watch the gates against bandits and Mongol spies, while the group rests amid whispers of Tegana's schemes and the TARDIS seizure. The air carries smoke from cookfires and the chill of mountain passes, offering brief respite before dawn pushes them toward Kublai Khan's palace.