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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ariakor" data-source="post: 2279226" data-attributes="member: 8473">Slowly you are circling the clearing, inspecting the signs left behind by the attackers. While Kairan tries to be as helpful as possible, it becomes clear that he knows much of the information only from what his friend from the nearby village has told him. Well, you know, my friend told me that he heard it from a fellow who had been up here when it was discovered. Said that all of this mus have happened sometime during the night or in the early hours of the dawn. The shrine had been tended to by an elderly monk named Mengfeng, a kind and gentle man who spent most of his time here meditating with the Spirits. I've met him myself once or twice, when i had been in the village down there to meet my friend. He was a good man, at ease with himself and the world around him and he always helped the villagers with their ceremonies. Somehow, they said, he seemed to know in advance when he was needed, like as if the Spirits sent him a sign or something. Well, anyways, they later found that poor man dead among the lilys in  his own blood. Cut by a sharp blade, they said. But whoever did this didnÄt stay here for long, i was told. By the time my friend's fellow and some other villagers came here around noon to make some offerings for a good harvest, they had already disappered again."As you go around the clearing, you notice some other, smaller details of what has been done here. While the markings in blood clearly are meant to rob the shrine and its spirit of a holy sanctuary, somebody also seemed to have taken his time to form a "pattern" in the water lilys covering the pond. Several of the white flowers are also sprinkled in blood, while some of the cherry trees also show a few carvings in their bark. All of this seems to be aimed at desecrating the shrine, but you all have a growing feeling of something not being right here. Like you are being watched from the shadows of the trees across the pond.Guchiko: All the patterns you find around the clearing, from the blood on the shrines floor to the carvings in the trees, indicates  at this has not only been a  'simple' desecration of a holy area. Some very powerful blood magic must have been cast here, to further complete the handiwork of the attackers. The shrine itself has been smashed in two by a single powerful blow from a extremely sharp weapon, probably an axe, and its peaces are aligned from South to North within the pattern of blood on the floor, pointing towards the distant lands beyound the Spirit Wall. It seems as if someone was being extra careful to upset the natural order of things and make sure that whatever magic has been worked here was increased a little in its effects. [occ: make knowledg: arcana check for further details]Lin Xu: The most obvious route the bandits could have taken would have been the path down tothe village. If they had had horses, this would also have been the only path accessible to them. There are several game trails leading from the clearing, but only two of them are wide enough and not too treacherous to have been navigated by humans. One of them leads more or less straight down to the river to the bridge where your fellows wait with the ox-carts. the other one dissappears further into the woods between the surrounding hills, but also circling one of them in the general direction of the village. </blockquote>

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