Phew! Finally got that stuff retyped. I'm going to cheat a bit and repost the earlier bit of what the party learned from the Journal they found in the Temple. That will save you from having to flip back to page 3 to re-read the earlier bit (because it's been a LONG time since I posted that). Hope you enjoy this rather lengthy update:
Rest and Fluffy Towels
The party arrived back at the grove where Great Root dwelled. Utterly exhausted, they collapsed to the ground and fell into a deep and restful sleep. Even Scar's lack of need to sleep because of the ring he wore was overcome by the bone-deep fatigue from the events of the last day and a half.
Speaks was the first to awaken and saw that it was dark again. He lay for a while looking up at the night sky marveling at its beauty. Then he rose and slowly made his way to the center of Great Root's grove. He found the mighty Treant in repose near the huge Standing Stone at the heart of the grove.
"Did you find what you needed to find?" boomed the oaken guardian of the Darkwood.
"Yes," said Speaks quietly.
Great Root spoke with sadness in his voice, "It speaks of a terrible time for this land and for the world. It was a thing better left alone. But it cannot be so. Soon another evil will be reborn upon this land if nothing is done to stop it. I needed you to see what the consequences of failure would be."
Thinking upon the death of Scrubs and his horrible transformation into a thing of the Unlife, Speaks croaked, "While there is strength in my arms, we will struggle against that which blights this wood."
After a moment, the Treant responded, "It is an evil which must be battled beyond this wood. But there are others who must be battled first or the world will find itself distracted while corruption takes hold.
But your soul needs rest. Go back to your friends and take your ease. You are safe here."
Speaks left the center of the grove and returned to find Raven and Scar building a small fire and cooking the first hot meal they had had in over a week. Together, alive and out of danger for the moment, the three took comfort in their camaraderie.
Over the next few days, they rested, took time to commune with the powers they drew strength from and even managed to take a bath in a cool, clear forest pool. (No actual Fluffy Towels were dirtied in the creation of this Story Hour)
But all the while, the three could never quite shake the thoughs of what they had discovered in the journal they had found. The Journal of Titus Pontius Macer...
The Journal of Titus Pontius Macer
The creature encountered in the oubliette was Titus Pontius Macer. He was left behind in the Temple of Bane to record the last days of the faith until “The Rekindling”. He kept a journal for most of the first century after the Death of Bane but it is largely indecipherable due to the madness that quickly overtook him after his transformation to undeath.
The journal tell of the history of the Cult of Bane in the Northlands:
They originally came at the behest of the Druids who desired their aid against the Elves of the Greatwood. Those Elves had become possessed of some foul force and began to use their powers to pervert nature to their own ends. The Druids could not abide this but at the time they were a small and insular group that enjoyed little acceptance in the Empire. They called upon the aid of the Cult.
The Banites swept into the Darkwood (as it was coming to be called) and set up a stronghold. This stronghold would later become the site for their temple. Upon entering the conflict with the Elves, they were initially frustrated by the elven Druid’s capabilities to Reincarnate their fallen to be sent back into battle. In response, the cult adopted the practice of making sure they retained the bodies of the fallen Elves and reanimating the corpses. This prevented the reincarnation and provided the Cult with a steady workforce of undead to aid in construction of the temple.
Initially, some of the Druids objected to this practice. But its brutal effectiveness at turning a foe into a disconcerting and unfeeling ally was above reproach. Eventually, the leaders among the Druids fully endorsed the practice and even facilitated it by using their swift means of movement through the wilderness to deliver the elven bodies back to the temple. This extended to them combing the woods for signs of battle between the two elven factions and delivering the dead of both sides to the Cult for reanimation.
The uncorrupted Elves objected strongly to this. The Druids pain no heed to their pleas for several reasons. First, they were the cause of these problems by virtue of the dark pact that caused the corruption in the first place. Then, when the fighting turned really ugly, many of the Elves retreated to the south rather than fight former friends and family for the Greatwood. That meant they were clearly outnumbered and on the losing end of most of the battles. The Druids figured that the least they could do was contribute the bodies of their fallen to the cause of defeating the corrupted Elves.
But the Elves on both sides quickly learned a way to counter this. Before battle, they would cut off a braid of hair and leave them with their own priests and Druids. In the event that they were killed, they would quickly be raised or reincarnated such that their bodies could not be turned into undead.
As the war raged on, some of the Druids had been killed and they were slow to replace their numbers. But more and more Cultists flocked to the area. A subtle shift in power took hold and soon there was no doubt that this had become Bane’s war. The Cult had clearly taken control but continued to have trouble bringing the Elves to battle.
They started to resort to creative means. With the help of aerial scouting by the Druids, they would locate elven villages. The Druids would cloak the approach of the Cultists and then surround the villages with impenetrable walls of vegetation. Then the Cult would sweep in and slaughter the guards, capture the women and children, perform rituals on the spot to transform them into undead and flee. The elven warriors would return home to be attacked by their own wives and children.
Able to stomach this no longer, the “Dark” Elves massed for an attack on the Temple of Bane. This was precisely what the Cultists had hoped for. When the attack was launched, the Cult finished a powerful ritual (which required the sacrifice of many of the Cultists themselves) that permeated the surrounding land with the power of Unlife. All who were killed in the battle on both sides instantly arose as undead under the control of the Cult. The Elves were easily routed and the few who escaped fled north out of the Darkwood.
Realizing too late whom they had allied themselves with, the Druids turned on the Cult. Unfortunately, they found their own magic weakened near the Temple where the link to Nature had been severed. They could contain the Cult within the “Dead Zone” but could not stamp them out.
Meanwhile back in the Empire, Bane’s rising malevolent tide was noticed by others of the churches, most notably those of St. Cuthbert and Pelor. A crusade was launched to stamp out the Cult and it was quickly eradicated throughout Emor.
Bane had foretold of his own demise but prophesied that if his faith remained alive, he would rise again one day. The stronghold in the Darkwood was the last remaining enclave of his followers. They knew that it was only a matter of time before their presence was discovered and they were rooted out and slain by the other religions.
One thing that bought them time was that the group who knew their exact location and most of their capabilities, the Druids, desperately wanted to keep their link to the Cult a secret. Fearing that they would be tarred with the same brush as the Cult, the Druids set about eliminating any evidence of their involvement with Bane. This included the “disappearance” of a few small settlements of humans (both Barbarian and Imperial) who lived south of the Darkwood. Further, they swore a blood oath among the order that their involvement with Bane would never be discussed. Ever. Exempt from this oath were a handful of the most ruthless of the Druids (ironically, those who most approved of the “efficient” methods of the Cult) who were tasked with hunting down and killing any Druid who violated this oath and revealed the former alliance between the Druids and the Cult of Bane.
This was all learned by careful scrying by the holdouts at the Temple and through communion with Bane who focussed all his attentions on keeping some vestige of his followers alive. Also discovered was that the Druids were gathering all the forces they could muster throughout both continents for the final extermination of the Cultists remaining at the Temple.
The Cultists were given a vision by Bane of a place high in the mountains to the west where Bane would invest the last of his power to create for them a refuge. The Cultists resolved to take flight from the Temple, but to assure that some record was kept of what had happened in the final days before the Fall of Bane, someone would have to be left behind.
Chosen was Titus Pontius Macer. He was fanatically faithful and hand extraordinary skills at stealth and observation. He could remain behind to spy, scry, create defenses for the Temple and serve as an undying reminder of the power of Bane. A powerful curse was placed upon him and he was given a scroll to seal his fate after he had completed his defenses for the Temple. Then he was left behind.
The Cultists fled to the west but were intercepted by the Druids. The Druids were ruthless and thorough in destroying those who could personally testify as to their involvement with one of the greatest evils the world had ever seen. Whether any of the Cultists survived to make it to the promised land in the west is very doubtful.
Titus Pontius Macer worked feverishly to place wards and traps around the Temple. When the Druids returned, they were dissuaded from attempting to enter the place through a combination of traps, wards and the fact that their link to Nature could not work in the desecrated place. Instead, the Druids returned to the Empire where they presented a host of artifacts, taken from the Cultists, to the church of St. Cuthbert as proof of their wholehearted support of the destruction of Bane. They then proceeded to become among the most fervent in stamping out any slivers of Bane worship in the Empire.
This garnered them a great deal of approval from the churches of St. Cuthbert and Pelor and solidified the Druids as a legitimate and respected religion by the Emperor. In recognition of their service in the Bane War, reserves of land were set aside for the use of the Druids throughout Emor. Those who fought in the Darkwood were gifted a special place in one such reserve without the obligation to teach any new students or come into contact with outsiders. And always nearby were unassuming animals who kept watch ready to visit with a sickle in the night any for forsook their vow of silence about what transpired in the north.
That was among the last visions granted to Titus Pontius Macer by lord Bane. St. Cuthbert and Pelor confronted the deity in a realm beyond the comprehension of mortals. There, virtually all of his followers slain and his power nearly gone, Bane was struck low by the Mace of St. Cuthbert and then burned from existence by the Righteous Light of Pelor. Across the land, those who were in tune with the calling of the gods heard his dying screams, almost turning into a hysterical laughter before fading away.
Huddled within his vault, buried in the back of a Temple to a dying god, buried in the darkest part of a darkened wood, buried in the recesses of the untamed wilds of the Northlands, Titus Pontius Macer felt his link to Bane severed forever. As it happened, he received a final vision: A three-spoked wheel of coppery red with patterns dancing like waves of flame across it.
With this image burned indelibly in his mind, he opened the scroll that was left for him. He read it and felt his body fill with a terrible and everlasting force. Then, he took up his tools and set to work on the device that would guard his vault. He worked no more vigorously than before. But he now worked with the methodical and unwavering inevitability of a creature that would never die.
That is quite possibly the nicest thing I have ever seen you do Rel 
lol j/k . Anyways great post I liked the way you built the tension during the battle, very well done.
