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Message: <blockquote data-quote="howandwhy99" data-source="post: 2406631" data-attributes="member: 3192">[DAY 69 – Sunday, Jinto 1st, CY 81] Father Ben woke at the crack of dawn. Quietly tiptoeing past Dram and Dalin, he spotted Igor still curled up in his bed. Ben felt sad as he been tired at the festival yesterday. “But he did try and save the Inn and the visitors,” he reflected. “And he was smart to take a body as proof of the crime. Even Radcliffe could not deny that evidence of assassins in the Keep.” Ben believed Igor was a good man, if a bit misunderstood. He still was not sure if he could trust him though. According to Mirel he had been meeting with Kayla almost daily and always in secret. Ben wondered if Igor was part of the occult conspiracy as well. Then he heard the knocking on the temple’s outside door. A small crowd of men and women were waiting outside. “Have you come for the Sunday congregation?” The group stared at him confused. “No, we’re ‘ere to collect our bets” said one of the rougher looking gentlemen. Ben roused Igor and explained the situation. Igor handled it with aplomb. He was very happy to pay out the winnings. Apparently he had come out ahead in the rolls. Lord Radcliffe was favored, but had not competed, so all bets on him were null and void. Or so Igor said. Ben pondered it, “Even Dalin winning big for himself was still money for the group.” He decided to go for a walk and saw the guards and a few keepfolk cleaning up after the Feast’s revelry. At the Inn several stoneworkers were shaping pieces to begin building the main wall. Farther on in the square a small audience had gathered to see Mirel who was feigning a strained happiness. She sat on a dais in the center and, as had NEVER happened before, she was wearing a dress.  Ben smiled and kept walking. He tried to think of the responsibilities he had assumed as sole cleric in the temple. He was never taught how to be the head of the temple, only the standard work of a cleric. He decided to write Father Stauk-Flezr for help. It had been weeks since his last letter and he had much to report, but he worried about Turko and Zerk using the bandits on the road. Ben felt in his heart he was not ready to run the temple. He would ask the Father to send a replacement for him instead. Back at the temple he sat in Father Hedrach’s old chambers and began writing. He still did not feel comfortable about moving into Hedrach’s room. As it was, chunks of stone covered everything, as the roof repair for the temple was a lower priority than the inner bailey. After a few hours he finished. He went to Sergeant Roland and gave him the sealed scroll and instructed him on where to send it. Back at the temple, Darius had gathered the team in the main hall. Mirel looked relieved to be out of the eyes of the populace and had already changed out of her dress. Darius suggested they go back to the caves for a few days as the keep was secured with a constant double guard and a few men he actually trusted in charge. The discussion took awhile as they argued whether or not to go. Some wanted to stay as they had suffered so long at the outpost and did not like the idea of another cave attack. In the end though the plan to leave won out. Father Ben was skeptical and did not want to leave so soon, but agreed exploring the caves was still highly important. “A couple of days is not long,” he thought. The commanders in charge of the watch were been notified of their decision.  After packing and preparing, the team left through the rear temple doors as Father Ben locked the front ones. He hung a sign outside: “Cleaning and Blessing”. He wondered if anyone could even read it. Darius did not want to leave out the main gates as he felt spies might still be in the keep. Dram mentioned he knew of a tunnel they could take to the outside. Leading them around and below to Mouse’s store basement, he opened the secret trapdoor. Darius descended and began crawling down the tunnel. It was narrow and hard to navigate. He wondered who else could even fit. Mirel went down after the Darius, but with a torch. As the dwarf crawled ahead of her she searched for secret doors. She found one, and then another, and another. It looked like they had crawled into a maze of different honeycombed passages with no known map. They decided to head out before becoming lost. After more discussion and Ben’s arguing, the team decided to ride in Igor’s pack. Igor disguised himself and Holly too as she still relatively unknown and spent most of her time outside the keep. The two exited without incident and released everyone from the pack about a mile down the road. The team walked a little ways off the roadside and followed along its edge. Igor and Holly led using what Ben noticed were very different tracking abilities. The road led to the east and the sun shone on their faces. By late evening they had reached the large pit where the remains of Outpost Xavier had been. Glancing back in the hole again, they noticed it was even shallower than before. Only 60 feet down a large pile of dirt had built up. All the mud had dried out since their last visit.</blockquote>

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