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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 7296444" data-attributes="member: 143">Chapter 97Quellan was as tired as his companions, his limbs feeling as though iron weights had been banded around each one, but he begged off from the group as they approached the inn where rooms had been reserved for the use of the new arrivals from Adelar.  It was already late in the day and he wanted to visit the local temple before nightfall.  He anticipated an early start to their chimera-hunt the next day, and while they still had some of the healing potions they’d purchased in Adelar with some of the surplus party funds he wanted to see if any other magical resources were available locally.Glori offered to go with him, but he told her that wasn’t necessary.  While he would have enjoyed her company in most instances, he felt the need for some time alone, to get his thoughts—and feelings—in order.Finding the temple wasn’t hard at all.  Wildrush was not a large town, and the building was distinctive.  For one it was made entirely of stone, the large blocks offering a contrast in solidity and age that contrasted significantly with the wooden constructions that surrounded it.  This was a place that looked like it might have stood when the rest of the town was just an idea on a map.  From what he’d seen thus far Quellan would not have been surprised if most of Wildrush’s buildings had been rebuilt more than once in the place’s tumultuous history.But when he finally reached the front of the temple he stopped in surprise.  The design was fairly simple, consistent with the other rural churches he’d visited, but what caught him off-guard was the sigil etched into the lintel-stone above the door.  It was the same sign he wore on the icon that hung on his chest.  The markings that stood for the Eleven Precepts had faded away, leaving the open book blank, but it could only be the symbol of Hosrenu, his patron deity.Blinking up at that familiar marking, he tried to remember what Haran had told him about Wildrush.  He’d thought that the other man had said that the local temple was dedicated to Sorevas; wouldn’t he have remembered if the other man had mentioned his own god?After a few moments Quellan shook his head and went inside.  There was an easy way to learn the truth.The interior was quiet and dark after the noise and bustle of the street.  The foyer was only about five paces across, the stone floor bare and the walls decorated only by a few scraps of dyed linen that bore no markings.  Arched exits stood to either side and ahead.  To the left and right the rooms beyond were only slightly larger, their simple furnishings indicating that they were chapels for prayer services.  Each could have only accommodated maybe a dozen worshippers, but both were empty at the moment.  Behind the altar stones were additional linen hangings that bore the sigils of the gods Sorevas and Laesil.  That could explain his earlier confusion, perhaps.  Otherwise the two chapels appeared to be identical, though Quellan could hardly think of two gods more dissimilar than the Shining Father and the Lady of Fortune.  Although thinking about it, maybe it made sense, considering the nature of this place.But the broader mystery of the open book pushed him forward.  The arch opposite the entry led down a narrow hall that quickly opened into another small chamber.  This one both felt intimately familiar and strange at the same time.  The shelves that divided the room into corridors were familiar, as were the small wooden study-desks tucked into niches in the walls.  But the shelves were only sparsely populated, and both they and the desks were covered in a layer of dust that would have thrown the Head Librarian back at the monastery in Crosspath into fits to see it.  The place also lacked the clean smell of books he remembered, instead filled with an earthy mustiness overlaid with the pungent tones of a barracks-hall.Feeling uneasy at the sight of the temple, he headed deeper into the chamber.  The altar-stone and the lectern behind it stood within a narrow beam of light that projected down from a slit window in the canted roof ten paces above.  Motes of dust danced in the light, and Quellan shook his head in annoyance.  There wasn’t even a copy the Principles of Knowledge on the lectern where it should be, a fundamental error that even a priest of another sect shouldn’t have made.There were a few side-rooms that exited off of the back of the chamber, and the second of those that Quellan ducked his head into was occupied.  A man in a priest’s robes lay sprawled upon a cot, snoring softly.  He looked to be in his fifties, his thinning hair more gray than brown, what was left of it scattered about his scalp in disarray.  A scattering of empty bottles on the floor around the cot suggested that more than simple exhaustion explained him being asleep hours still before nightfall.  A small table in the corner held more bottles and the remains of more than one meal.  One sniff was enough to confirm that this room and its occupant were the source of the stale odor he’d sensed earlier.Quellan almost retreated, but then the old priest shifted in his sleep and groaned.  The motion caused his robe to open slightly, revealing a sigil he wore on a leather cord around his neck.  The symbol on the carved wooden disk was identical to the one Quellan wore, and matched the carving on the entrance to the temple.Quellan leaned forward and gave the sleeping man a sharp nudge.  The priest groaned and shifted again but didn’t wake.  After a moment the half-orc tried again, then a third time.  Finally he took a firm grip on the man’s shoulder and shook him until his eyes popped open.  They widened as they fixed on Quellan.  “Gaaah!” the priest cried, jerking back with enough force that he slid half off the cot.  Bottles went skittering across the floor and caromed off the walls as his legs scrambled upon the bare stone.  Quellan grabbed hold of him, mostly to keep him from hurting himself in his surprise.“Calm yourself,” Quellan said.  “I am looking for the Loremaster of this temple.”The priest recovered fairly quickly from his confusion, though it took another few moments for him to be able to get his legs under him enough to stay on the cot unsupported.  “Who are you?  What do you want?” he asked.“My name is Quellan Emberlane.  I am looking for the Loremaster.”The priest’s eyes sharpened.  “You’re him.  You’re the one.”“The one what?” Quellan asked.But the priest had already turned away, and as Quellan watched he bent down and started checking the survivors of the bottles scattered beneath the cot.  The half-orc didn’t realize what he was doing until the priest went over to the table and began checking those as well.  The old man’s expression soured as he failed to find any bottles that weren’t empty.“I am looking for the Loremaster…” Quellan ventured again.“I’m him,” the priest said.  “Name’s Shenan.”  He walked past Quellan into the main hall of the temple, turning to go into one of the other side-rooms.  The half-orc started to follow, only to stop abruptly as he heard the sound of the priest using a chamber pot.“Well, what do you want?” Shenan asked, before he was finished.“I just arrived with some companions from Adelar,” Quellan said.  “We heard about the attack on the town.”“Dark business, that,” Shenan said, appearing in the doorway so suddenly that Quellan jumped slightly.  The old priest pushed past him and made his way back to the room with the cot.  He bent to pick up one of the bottles that had been knocked over by the entry, but only gave it a quick shake before adding it to the collection on the table.  “Not sure what these yokels expected, living up here in this gods-forsaken place.”“Um… what are you doing up here?” Quellan ventured.“Serving a penance,” Shenan said.  “What about you?  Adelar’s a long way away.”“There’s a war going on,” Quellan said.  “My companions and I came up here to watch for any goblinoid incursions that might try to flank…”“Even goblins aren’t stupid enough to want to come here,” Shenan said over him.  “That chimera won’t be the worst of it, you mark me.”“What do you mean?” Quellan asked.“You’ll see, soon enough,” Shenan said.  He sat back down on the cot, bending to grab the blanket that had fallen behind it when he’d be woken up.“Perhaps we could talk more more over a meal,” Quellan suggested.  “We’re staying at an inn not far from here…”“You wouldn’t catch me in the Barrel,” Shenan said.  “Place attracts an unsavory sort.”  He gave Quellan a hard look then slumped back down onto the cot.  “Don’t forget to close the door on your way out.”“Hey,” Quellan said, stepping back into the room.  “Hey!”“No need to shout, boy,” Shenan said.“I came here seeking help,” Quellan said.  “My companions and I are going to seek the chimera’s lair tomorrow, and are in need of the god’s blessing.  Healing potions, protectives, scrolls…”Shenan waved a hand idly, then pulled the blanket up over him.  “Downstairs,” he said.  “In the nook behind the altar stone.  If there is anything like that, it would be down there.  Take whatever you need.”Quellan supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised, but he couldn’t help but blurt, “You mean there isn’t an inventory?”“Welcome to Wildrush,” muttered the priest as he yanked the blanket up further and turned to face the wall.Resisting the urge to shake the man again, Quellan retreated back to the temple hall.The place was small enough that it didn’t take him long to find the stairs the old priest had talked about, behind a door that took all of Quellan’s strength to pull open.  It wasn’t locked, but the state of the hinges suggested that Shenan didn’t come this way very often.  The stairs themselves were narrow enough that it took the big half-orc some care to make his way down, and even then his head was scraping the low ceiling.  The stairs turned once and then deposited him into a vault that made the temple above look orderly by comparison.The air here was thick and stale, and filled with dust by the time he’d taken three steps.  The darkness gave him no difficulty, thanks to his orcish heritage, but he still took a moment to summon a light spell and fix it to one of the flanges on his mace.What the spell revealed caused him to reassess his estimate of how frequently the Lorekeeper came down here; it looked like no one had entered the cellar in a hundred years.  There were more of the freestanding shelves, these extending from the floor to the ceiling.  There was at least enough clearance that he wouldn’t bump his head, though he could have reached up and touched the thick buttresses that supported it without straining.  From near the stairs he couldn’t tell if there were any other exits, but it didn’t look like it.Careful not to dislodge anything, Quellan began an examination of the closer shelves.  There was still more open space than filled, but the books he saw surprised him.  The library in the monastery in Crosspath had owned a decent collection of titles, some of which he saw copies of here, but there were also books on these shelves that would have caused the Head Librarian to turn green with envy.  Most were in a sorry state, a fact that caused him more distress than anything he’d seen here thus far, even that drunk of a priest.  He paused to look at a few of the books, being excruciatingly careful of their binding and the faded pages within, but the urgency of his mission quickly drove him onward.The shelves extended across the breadth of the vault, but at their end he came to a small open space that abutted the back wall.  He guessed he was almost directly below the foyer of the temple, which he suspected might have been a later addition to the building.  This underground room did not look like an add-on.  A horizontal shelf had been cut into the wall, upon which a small assortment of objects rested, universally covered in dust.  Below them stood half a dozen chests, banded in iron that was crusted with rust.  The last object of interest was another altar stone, this one with maybe half the dimensions of the ones in the temple above.  It was carved with markings in the style of an older time, etched into the stone with a heavy chisel.  Even in that simple style Quellan had no difficulty identifying the Twelve Runes of Lore.  A reverent feeling came over him as he knelt to examine the altar more closely, but before he could touch it something else caught his eye.It was one of the objects on the shelf; his light had glinted on it as he’d turned toward the altar.  Careful of the chests, he leaned over and picked it up.  It was a stone tablet, slightly larger than his outstretched hand, surrounded by a band of ancient bronze.  There were markings on it, crude slashes that looked similar to the ones in the altar stone, only these looked like they had been done in haste.  But when he lifted his mace to study the runes, he found that they were just barely readable.  They were written in a dialect of Old Untan, a languge with which he had only a passing familiarity, but oddly enough he found that he could decipher the meaning.“Sal nev ka tas.  Te kaltas kev feuer,” he said.  “By the ancient power, command the sacred flame.”He didn’t expect a reaction, so when he felt a rush of heat accompanied by a low roar directly behind him he spun and nearly knocked over one of the bookshelves with his mace.  As he stared in surprise he saw a gout of flames that splashed down onto the altar stone.  For a moment Quellan felt a moment of panic—an uncontrolled fire would quickly consume this chamber, and likely destroy the temple above as well—but the fire did not spread.  Instead they gathered together in the center of the altar, where they formed into a sphere of flame a few inches across.  It continued to burn there, despite lacking any obvious source of fuel.Quellan stared at it for a few moments, then looked down at his feet.  In his surprise he had dropped the stone tablet.  It had shattered on the floor, the runes now just meaningness marks on the fragments.He was wary of unleashing another unexpected blast, but curiosity pulled him back to the burning sphere, curiosity and something else he could not clearly identify.  It was that latter pull that had him reaching out his hand toward the flame.  It felt hot, felt like a normal fire, yet he still thrust a fingertip toward it until it touched the edge of the sphere.He felt a jolt, and reflexively jerked his hand back.  But he was not burned.  The flames flickered one last time and then died out.  But he felt something, a lingering warmth that spread through his hand, tingling as it swept through his body before lodging in a faint knot in the back of his mind.  He could feel its presence there, when he focused his thoughts upon it.  Sharpening his concentration, he probed that spot much as he had probed at the sphere of fire.Flames erupted in front of him, a cascade that once more struck the altar and burned.  But this time, he knew their source, and he found that he could control them.  Drawing back from the node of power that resided in his thoughts, the flames subsided and went out.He knew instinctively that the flames hadn’t spread beyond the altar’s surface, but he still checked the area around it carefully.  He spent a minute cleaning up the pieces of the stone tablet, carefully gathering them on the shelf where he had found it.  Then he turned and made his way back up to the upper level of the temple, his thoughts preoccupied with the implications of what had just happened.</blockquote>

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