Scotley
Hero
The transactions complete, your guide leads you back down through the tower and out into the compound toward an older and more traditional building. This one looks more like a fortress than a temple, with merlins atop the walls and a impressive gate house with a massive portcullis and sturdy iron bound oaken doors. Within you find a surprisingly spartan office with simple wooden furniture. There are no cushions to pad the plain wooden benches. A man sits on a stool behind a table where he is writing out a long list of numbers. As you enter he rises. "Welcome gentle souls to the Temple of Contemplation. The Chancellor is expecting you." He goes to an unmarked door and opens it without knocking. Beyond you see an old white-haired man in a plain brown robe kneeling on a prayer mat before a small alter on which three candles burn. He rises with some difficulty and carefully folds the mat before coming to greet you. "Ah Lord Vasa, what brings you to the Temple today? Who are your companions?" Then the man starts and stares at you all, really it almost seems that he stares through you. He makes the holy sign of the circled cross in the air before you and says softly, "Saints preserve these people in the face of terrible evil. Lift their burden if it be your will for none should suffer such tribulation under the eyes of heaven." The air in the room seems to grow strangely dense and you all have some difficultly breathing for a moment and the light of day shining through the windows that seemed so bright the instant before takes on a diffuse watery gray tone and everything seems washed out. The man at on his stool seems to move slower and slower until finally his pen stops in mid-stroke on the page. A mote of dust that was drifting lazily in a beam of sunlight slows and then stops in the watery gray light. In a voice barely above a whisper the old priest says, "leave your burdens behind for a while and attend me in the garden." Despite the softness of his voice the words carry a weight of command that pulls you forward, while it doesn't quite force you to act it will take an effort of will to refuse. The old man steps out of his body, which remains pale and frozen while a luminous spirit that looks similar, but youthful and vigorous and suffused with light begins to drift toward a heretofore unseen archway in the wall that leads to a sun dappled garden around a deep blue pool of water. The spirit beckons you as it drifts toward a marble bench beside the pool. Your skin feels confining and stiff it would be an easy matter to simply...escape...the burden of your mortal existence for a while. Actions?
