As the heroes continued on their
journey to the holy site of Aaryon they decided to stop in cities along the
path to visit temples. In each of the cities the end result was the same
thing. The temple is raised to the
ground and all the priests murdered. The
assaults all happened on the same day regardless of location, the first moon
after the gods fell silent. With the
suddenness and violence of the attacks none of the people were willing to admit
to following Aaryon. The mention of her
name was enough to cause most to withdrawal.
Other played at ignorance claiming to know no person of that name. When they left a city hostility followed them
until they had left the city. This
caused them to be concerned for the safety of the now 30 pilgrims that followed
them.
A few hours outside the city of Temri
the heroes saw an unusual site, a boy running in their direction. It wasn’t until he was close that they could
see blood stains on his cloths and slash on his left arm. Alexander had to physically restrain the boy
to get him to stop so he could help him.
He told the tale of a wagon train with settlers trying to make a new life
in Almora. The wagons were attacked in
the forest over a day’s run further up the road. He alone escaped the raiders that had preyed on
his family. His eyes showed fear when he
talked of the raiders moving through the woods with unnatural ease and the
beast they had that moved with lightning speed and claws as long a
daggers. As the tale progressed tears
came flooding forth and the boy was unable to continue.
Alexander assigned one pilgrim to
take the boy back to the Temri for medical care and to get investigators while
the rest of them went see what happened to the settler in the woods. Where it took the boy a day to run the
distance they were able to travel it in a fraction of the time.
The wagons were easy to spot
because two of the wagons still smoldered off the path. There were to many tracks to make sense of
what happened except that a groups of wagons were attacked. The strange thing was the number of bodies
left. Even though the attack happened
about two days prior there should be more evidence of an attack. The wagons were also smaller then a settler
would use. The whole thing felt wrong.
As Alexander was pondering this two
of the pilgrims fell with arrows sticking from them. Suddenly we were surrounded by soldiers with
at least one caster. Juniper found the
caster and engaged her; she was a priestess of Trest. The flight was not going good for Juniper, as
she was busy with the priestess a pair of soldiers flanked her. As she called for help Milo was a scholar
first and a fighter third, so his help was limited to just distracting one of
the soldiers. Unfortunately for Juniper
the soldiers distracted her enough for the priestess to strike a massive
blow. Juniper staggered a few
steps. She recovered quickly enough to
default a blow from the soldier.
Her left arm went numb as her side
became slick from blood flowing from her shoulder. The soldier was able to knock her sword from
her hand. Her vision blurred as she
heard halfling fighting close by. The
last thing she saw was the halfling fighting the other soldier.
The assault was well timed and executed. The only flaw was they underestimation of the
pilgrims skills. Once the initial shock
of the surprise wore off the pilgrim’s rallied strong. If there were more priestesses or another
spell caster the battle could have easily tipped in their favor. Arwata the halfling also proved invaluable in
the fight. She was able to get the archers
out of the trees with little effort.
When the fighting stopped there
were ten less pilgrims. Milo was able to
save Juniper with a salve that stopped the bleeding and promote rapid healing.
“This assault shall not go
unchallenged. We will avenge our fallen;
we shall march on the next temple of Trest and raze it to the ground!” Alexander said to the group. Cheers erupted all around.
