2) Repercussions and New Paths

It was very late when the party finally returned to town, and upon approaching Fritz's house they heard loud and discordant singing coming from within. Silva's sensitive ears tried to retreat into his head at the sound, but they approached the house nonetheless. They still hadn't decided what to do with the magical piece of wood, but Lucan and Silva waved aside all doubts and promised to take care of things without the use of questionable magic forestry.

The Sculptor & The Bard
Unable to stand the dissonant warbling, Silva stepped forward and pounded on the cottage door. Fritz answered and urgently asked if his problem had been taken care of, as he was very anxious to continue his work.

Silva, heroically ignoring the aching that must have been plagueing his head from the singing, stepped forward and assured Fritz that the rats were indeed gone. However, he said in a very weighty tone, he felt it unlikely that a great talent such as his would be properly acknowledged in this town and his Muse might start to languish. Might it not be better, Silva wondered, to start anew somewhere else? The city of Set, perhaps?

Fritz was tempted but fearful, admitting that he was tired of the way the villagers looked down on him. However, he had never once left this village and didn't know what dangers might lay beyond it. Picking up on Silva's train of thought Lucan lended his voice to the suggestion, finally luring Fritz away with grand tales of the beauty of Set. His ardor set ablaze by the promise of a new audience, Fritz bustled into the cottage to make ready to leave but not before giving the party the totem that he had promised. Lucan, as the most wise in the ways of negotiation kept the totem until they could find a city where the merchants might have enough gold to buy it.

They travelled back to the inn to find rooms to stay in, where the innkeeper told them of Cragspire, the largest city outside of Set on the continent. There they were sure to find a thriving enough economy to find a buyer for it. Since they all had a stake in the earnings from the totem, and some because they had nowhere else to really be, they decided to travel together to Cragspire.

A Druid's Reward
They left the inn early the next day, eager to be going towards the great city and curious about the reaction Tera would have to their resolution of Fritz's situation. His cabin, they discovered, was completely empty; he must have left before the sun crested the horizon. In any case they didn't have long to wait, for she emerged from another tree once they got some distance out of town. She admitted to being impressed with their approach to the situation, but insisted on taking her magical piece of tree back. Something very interesting might happen if it were left lying around, she said.

As for their reward, Tera spun them a tale of a temple north and west of the town. Once it was a fortress of the Silver Templars, scions of the great dragon goddess Queixada. Now it lay as ruined as the order it served, but its treasure was protected by a powerful guardian. Recently an evil had taken up residence there, and the guardian had communicated to Tera he would give the treasure to those able to root it out. It was not known what the treasure was, only that within it lay powerful magic.

After dropping this delectable bit of information, Tera disappeared back into the tree from whence she came and the party was left with a decision. The verdict was to make for the temple - Kestrahl's interest was up at the mention of evil, Lucan's at the mention of treasure, Silva's for the promise of new stories, Garel's for new magics to discover. And Marvin, being a bit adrift since his companions had been destroyed, decided rooting out an evil might work out some of his aggression.

Ambush in the Mountains
The group travelled north according to Tera's direction, and as they grew closer to the great mountains the group began to slope. The air grew colder and snow began to mist the edges of the path. After a time, they came upon a wayward group of travellers surrounding an overturned wagon. Next to the wagon, a woman waved for assistence. Kestrahl jumped to assist them, but Marvin's sharp eyes saw something amiss with the scene. The men surrounding the wagons were hiding crossbows, and he warned the group that they might be facing an ambush rather than a cry for help. This suspicion proved to be true, as when they hesistated to approach several more figures burst out of the hay surrounding the wagon also brandishing crossbows. The woman fell to the back and began chanting foul encantations. She continued to fight and chant even as the men around her died or fled, until she breathed her last under a sword.

It quickly became clear that those fighting alongside her were merely hirelings, the last one of them throwing down her arms and surrendering even while the malevolent chanter screamed at her to keep fighting. When it was all over, she swore upon the Accidental God never to harm them, seek revenge, or prey upon the weak. In return she was given her life and a chance to return to Aradia's Folly.

The evil cleric bore a holy symbol, wrought in silver but tarnished with age and putrification, of a black hand with six fingers. Garel and Marvin recognized it at once, Garel as a symbol featured prominantly in his father's journal especially just before he disappeared, and Marvin as the same symbol taken from one of the sorcerers who destroyed the fortress of The Shroud.

A Temple Ruin
Having puzzled upon the nature of the wretched symbol they found, the party continued on until they reached the abandoned temple. It was huge but crumbling from age and disrepair. There were tracks surrounding the edifice, which between them Marvin and Kestrahl determined not only were from a gigantic bear but all of the tracks were probably made by the same beast. Broken weapons and shields littered the ground around the building, along with a large assortment of humanoid bones. The front entrance of the temple had long been blocked by an avalanche, and so they had to seek a secondary access point. Once they found it, the door was determined to be not only locked but trapped. While Lucan warmed his fingers and took measure of the door, the rest of the group looked around. After a moment, they heard a low growling from the hill behind them which was extremely disconcerting until they noticed that Silva's face was contorted in a combination of mirth and concentration. Apparently he couldn't resist throwing a little bit of drama into the moment.

It took a moment but they were able to enter the temple without being eviscerated by the rigged crossbows on the other side of the door. Inside an army of skeletons waited for them, their aging bones creaking and their long rotted away jawbones clicking together menacingly.