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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Funeris" data-source="post: 2567199" data-attributes="member: 22792">Chapter 2: Journey into Darkness ContinuedAramil paused wearily.  The return journey had been unusually unmolested.  Around him, the fading sounds of summer and the rising tide of fall played delicately upon his half-elf ears.  The leaves began their tumultuous turns of color.  Squirrels darted about, dodging the party and hiding the stores of food they would never remember after the long rests.  Those details had suddenly disappeared.  Not a sound broke the air, not a movement stirred through the brush or the first fallen leaves.  The air held a dead calm, empty and chilled.Still grasping at his leather, the child stopped happily, her attention turning to the surroundings.  Her small grin fading as she noted the dead stillness.  Aramil grasped her shoulder and turned her toward his companions.  With a finger across his lips for silence, he pointed in their direction.  Hesitantly, she slid silently toward the rest of the party.Aramil motioned for his companions to stay and then stepped through the thinning brush ahead.  He stepped into a large clearing.  The clearing was new and extraordinary.  It definitely had not been there on their journey into the forest.Around the clearing, the changing leaves seemed to contain the abnormal absence.  Upon its border, the trees with leaves held only half their foliage.  The halves turned toward the clearing were charred, lifeless skeletons of splintering branch.  Across the ground, the weeds and brush common to the forest floor were notoriously missing.  Not even grass spread across the earth here, only along the edge of the clearing.  The dirt was dry, lifeless, and held a musty odor of uselessness coupled with the overwhelming scentless absence.  Of all the details, the most interesting was the collapsed husk of a body in the center of the clearing.  It was massive in size for a human, if that is what it was.  A chaotic array of gear surrounded the corpse:  a large and undamaged scabbard, a masterfully crafted silver dagger, its handle the likeness of a skull, various other odds and ends including a large tome.  The husk seemed to have been burned alive, yet the gear the creature was carrying had survived the attack.  Even the creature’s clothing was intact, no detail-spilling rips or tears struck the rogue’s detail-oriented eyes.The pungent reek of crispy flesh stung the rogue’s nostrils.  He rolled the body over and determined its race.  While most of the distinct features had been burned away, there was no mistaken the corpse of a half-troll.  Aramil had only crossed a few in his travels and always at a safe distance.  But the telling scent was only barely masked by that of brimstone and charred hair.  And if the creature had been of full troll blood, only ashes would have survived a fiery attack.  If that was what had actually happened, the half-elf thought suspiciously.  His eyes caught upon a rope extending from the dead half-troll’s arm and out of the clearing.  Cautiously, he followed the rope bodily.  In the shrubbery, just outside the clearing rested another body.  This one still breathed albeit laboriously.  Aramil rolled the human, youth it seemed, over carefully.  Two blackened and bruised eyes were squinted shut in unconsciousness.  His brow was broken by a red swelling that bowed outward.  A long-dry stream of blood stained the youth’s chin and contrasted his pallid skin.  Raven black, shoulder length hair laid haphazardly upon the earth, twigs and dirt strewn within.Aramil grasped the young man and dragged him into the clearing.  He stopped once the two bodies lie next to each other.  Turning, he motioned for the remains of his party to enter the lifeless circle.Cassock was the first to speak, once Ariel had returned to her place at Aramil’s side, “What happened here?”“Do I look like I’m trained in magicks or surviving in the wild?”  Aramil retorted.“Well,” the priest began, “You’re the best we’ve got, at least on the wilderness issue.”“There must’ve been an explosion or something.  I’m not sure.  This half-troll was dragging this human.  I found the human outside of the clearing.”“Was there a struggle in the brush?” Ana queried.“I don’t know.  It’s not exactly my area of expertise.  Anyway, can’t the priest here discern whether or not magicks have been used recently?  If there is a witch or sorcerer nearby, I’d like to be forewarned.”Cassock said the necessary words, his vision blurred by a few shimmering auras.  “That book…looks like it may be a spell book.  There is a slight aura around the youth as well.  He may be a wizard.  As to what happened here, it wasn’t natural.  And I can’t tell if it was arcane in origin either.  If it was, then it is of an aura I cannot recognize.”  The priest moved to inspect the gear and bodies.  He slid the dagger and other materials into his own pack to the raised eyebrows of his companion.“What?  This half-troll was dragging the human along.  If the human is dangerous, it is only fitting that we keep the tools of his trade away from him.”  “What’s this?”  Gabrielle’s soft voice broke in as she ripped a necklace crafted of twine from the half-troll’s throat.  She dangled the emblem for everyone else to see.“That, my observant halfling friend, is the symbol for Phoee the Mother” [1].  Cassock took a moment and then for clarification added, “She was the creator of all of the gods and goddesses, except Ara’kull.  It is an interesting detail you’ve found.  It leads me to believe that this half-troll was a druid.  You see, druids usually worship Phoee or Mialon, or both.  There are sects that worship some of the other deities, but they are rare even when compared to the druid religion as a whole.”Ana clutched her stomach.  The symbol was the first of the symbols upon the adamantine box she yet carried.  The religious symbol for Phoee and then the holy icon for Cael[2].  What have I gotten myself into? she silently questioned.“Are you alright?”  Cassock’s voice brought her back to herself.“Yes of course.  Just, the stench…” she quickly lied.“Well,” the priest decided, “let’s wake the survivor up.”-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------[1] I’ve attached the religious symbol for Phoee.  Anyone recognizing what this actually is a symbol for (and then realizing what the deal is with the Mother’s name…don’t ruin it for my players <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> )[2] I’ve attached the religious symbol for Cael as well.  (Pretty nifty, huh?  I of course have all of this in pdf form…which I’m still gathering together…)Woot.</blockquote>

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