After cutting down countless monster guards while ascending the stairs, the knight finally reached the top of the tower. Only a single door lay between him and the mysterious princess. What was he to say to her? Surely it wouldn't be difficult. Taking a deep breath, Ash pushed open the door, loudly proclaiming "Princess, I've come for you!"

What he saw next took him by surprise.

Perched in the rafters, looking down at the knight curiously, was a large red bird. No, not a bird - its upper body was a human's! It flew down with a mighty flap of its wings and landed in front of Ash with a thump. "Wh- you- wait, you are the princess?!" Ash finally uttered, taken aback by the being in front of him. "Of course, what made you think not?" she replied matter-of-factly, tapping the small crown she wore atop her head with her wing.
I'm going to guess a lot of these kingdoms' people aren't human.
"Oh, uhh, I was just taken by surprise... since I was expecting a human like myself to be in here... instead of a bird-person-"
"Harpy." the princess corrected him.
"Oh yes, that's right, harpy. But to the point, you are the princess of the Ivory Skytop Kingdom, and need to be rescued... and that's why I'm here..."
The harpy nodded and bowed slightly. "Thank you..."
"Ash." the knight added, feeling stupid that he forgot to tell his name. As he was starting to get lost in thought over his own insecurities, he was brought back to reality by the princess's words. "As a sign of my gratitude, I will offer you one of these."
She stretched her wings out, balancing an item on each wingtip: on one side was a shimmering feather of gold, and on the other was a small bag.
"A golden feather and... what's in the bag? Are they special somehow?" Ash asked, intrigued.
"This will allow you to fly like me," the harpy explained as she waved the feather, "and these here are the ashes of a phoenix," she shook the bag, "which will bring you back to life, but as one of my own."
Ash pondered over which item he should take for a moment, then made his choice. "I'll take the feather. It's going to be useful for ascending the other towers."
"Understood," the harpy replied, handing over the feather and placing the bag in a corner before once again facing Ash. "Come on, let's get out of here. You can finally be free... um..." shoot. Not only did I not say my name, I didn't ask for hers either!
"Aw, you're so adorable like that," the harpy remarked as they went down the stairs, "my name's Avynne, by the way." A patch of warm afternoon light signaled that they had reached the tower's doorway; the duo emerged back into the open air, where the cart stood parked. "Go ahead, take a seat, there's still room for three more - wait for me here, it won't be long." Ash motioned at the back of the cart. Avynne took a flying leap and landed in it, this time much more softly than her landing inside the tower. "Good luck, Ash!" She called out as the knight set off to find the next tower to climb.