Liberty Beguiling

As the pearl shines its light on the ring Azul begins to gear whispers in the back of his mind. Telling him more about the rings properties, it appears that the ring is as it appears and harbors no ill magic or curses. Delving deeper he finds that it wouldn't affect the items magic if they cover the sigil or remove it with a careful hand. Azul rises to his feat, gently storing his book back in his pack and extinguishing the flame with a snap. He then finds Petros and returns the ring and pearl. "There are no harmful enchantments on the ring, and the sigil can be covered without issue or removed if done carefully to not damage the band. I would recommend removing it but I fear that I don't have fhe mechanical skill to do so without damaging the band" 

"Perhaps I could help in that." Aleixo offers, "I am not without the skill of my father's line and working with metal us something we are familiar with. Though admittedly I am used to larger pieces, small engravings are not something I am unused to. I am sure I saw this image embossed a hundred times as a boy, removing it should be comparatively easy" He looks around. "Though I would need a forge. The fire here will never burn hot enough. I could just scratch it off though? Crude but effective. Or we just cover it in wax. Nobody could see the design beneath without being handed the ring that way."

Azul nods and says "The wax would probably be the most practical path. It is unlikely that anyone would ever handle the ring outside of us"

Petros puts his hand up to Aleixo's ear and pretends to pull a hunk of wax out of it, saying with a smile  "Ah, thank goodness you are here.  Will this do?" he continues, offering the wax to Aleixo.

Aleixo shakes his head at the childish antic but takes the wax and holds it over a candle to soften it before squelching it over the ring. "This should do fine. Thank you."

Petros goes out to saddle his and Linzi's steeds, suspecting she was unlikely to be able to reach everything herself, even though her mount was only a pony.  He allows his brown to nuzzle his hand as he feeds him some oats.  "Sleep well  Keravnos?"

After seeing the ring sygil is being handled. Azul heads to the house's kitchen finding an apple, a candle, a small container of olive oil and a few olives. He then grabs the rest of his gear and heads out to the stables. Finding Seian he goes into the stall and begins brushing out the horse preparing it for the journey. Singing an old draconic marching song as he works, timing his brush strokes with the rhythm. After he finishes he saddles the horse and loads his gear, hanging his spear on the horses side.  After he finishes he leads the horse outside and holds out the apple from the kitchen. Saying "Enjoy it Seian, we are hitting the road  again and it will be some time before we experience  any luxuries  old friend."  He then leads the horse away from the home and finds a more solitary location and arranges the olives around a piece of silver, lighting the candle with a flick of his wrist. He then says a prayer to Athena that he learned on his journey to Hellenia  "Athena, Goddess of Courage and Wisdom. Lend me Your Strength. Help me slay my adversaries with wit and courage. In doing so, I honor them as well as myself. In this I pray to you." After finishing the prayer he slowly pours the olive oil over the flame of the candle and the surrounding olives. Setting them on fire as an offering to Athena.  After he finishes he mounts Seian and waits outside for the rest of the party.  

His meditation completed, Sval mounts up and joins Azul at the gates to the manor.

"Sval, would you be so kind as to lead us out?"

Sval nods and brings his horse to a walk, moving north -- towards the Orion Leventis outpost, and the great unknown of the savanna beyond. Toward monsters that need slaying.

Aleixo kicks his horse forwards to ride next to Sval, preferring the quiet company of the open road to the unfamiliar crowd they now moved with. "I hope this trading post has a bed. I'd got my hopes up yesterday." He grins. "I'll take good food and wine though."

"You are a man of simple tastes," Sval says with a slight chuckle. He was in a good mood today. He had gotten to practice some alchemy, had a nice hour of meditation, the weather was cool and the road was long, with good people -- at least at first glance.

Surviving a terrible night, the team set off north to brave their fate. Laina's staff wish the group an eager farewell, although she herself waves wistfully to Petros as he sets off into the great unknown. An hour or so outside of town, the roads passes the forest clearing that many of the others visited the night before. The area looks very different in the light of day, but the green effigy can still be made out in the distance between the trees. The air stinks of rot and decay on approach.

Sval's good mood fades completely. He motions to Petros and the others, indicating that he's going to scout ahead. He hands Aleixo the reigns of his horse, and moves quietly through the forest toward the clearing.

Taking the reins, Aleixo loops them and his over a tree branch. Dismounting himself and drawing spear and shield. "I fear what happened to these people. Perhaps we could have done more but I don't know what."

As Sval approaches the clearing, he can hear the buzzing of flies up ahead. A heap of naked Appolitans lie entangled with one another at the feet of the effigy, which has since erupted with blooms that cover it from top to bottom in colourful flowers.

Sval sees the bodies and almost switches off. But he can't hold his anger back. He approaches the effigy and strikes it with his fist, letting out a feral scream. "Gah! Fuck!" He whirls around, scanning the edges of the clearing for any sign of the beast. "Where are you, you cowardly fuck?" An idea strikes him -- perhaps not a good one, but an idea nonetheless. He shouts back to his companions. "Come help me burn this thing to the ground!"

Hearing Sval should, Aleixo hurries through the trees, seeing the scene in front of him he stops and turns to the side, drawing breath to stop himself vomiting. His own anger takes, he looks around the clearing and begins to gather kindling and good wood for a fire. "It won't help these people, but maybe it will spoil it's day, whatever it was."

Petros sees the importance of this in Sval's eyes and voice, and although thoroughly confused, gives a nod to Amiri and Linzi, and dismounts to help.  Seeing the dead bodies, Petros thinks back to the time he saw his first pile of bodies as a child during the last famine.  Well, perhaps it wasn't a universal famine, but it hit the poor in the city quite hard. He had learned to be extra hard that year.  His childish looks had begun to fade, gaining less sympathy from passing citizens.  That was the first time he had been forced to steal to survive.  The first time he had to lie.  To cheat.  The first time he had been visited in his sleep by the Dream. 

Xan's knuckles turn white on the reins as he looks out over the carnage. The smell is overpowering, he tries to block it out but fails. The thought of the suffering sickens him as much as the smell. "This will not stand, it will not stand." He repeats to himself as he walks the horse closer, his years of dealing with injuries normally preventing him from feeling too much revulsion but there was so.ething different about this type of death, the cruelty of the perpetrator seeped through, leaving a feeling of oil running over the skin of the aasimar. Hrhears the recommendation toburn the statue,although for some reason he can barely distinguish the voice, his own inner voice agrees with it. Without conscious thoughts his hands summon motes of fire and he prepares to hurl them one after the other until the effigy is burning itself to ash.

Azul gives a roar of rage as he he sees the bodies. Sophia taking to skies as he yells, using her keen eyes to keep alert for any signs of the Satyr or the guards they spoke with last night. He jumps from Seian, amethyst eyes blazing. Hearing the others he growls  "We failed these people, we should have burned this abomination down last night when we had the chance. The monster will pay with his life, but for now his statue will do" Azul gets closer to the statue and takes a deep breath filling his lungs, he then leans back and unleashes a torrent of flame from his mouth towards the green abomination. 

Under the barrage of magical fire, the effigy finally catches, releasing a thick torrent of black smoke up into sky. The flames that engulf the figure burn a deep crimson red and a distant guttural laugh echoes about the clearing.

Sofia hoots urgently in the air, speaking to Azul. Azul pauses and says "Sofia sees something glistening in the fire. I'm going to take a closer look, be prepared I fear there are foul arcane forces at work" Azul then attempts to control the flames and walks towards the glowing object.

As Azul bends the flames away from the glistening object, Sval sees it clearly. The branches woven around it appeared to be like a humanoid ribcage, protecting the sparkling gem inside. "That gem is its heart," Sval says. "Let's rip it out."

"It may not like that, be on your guard." Xan walks his horse a little closer, looking at the gem now it has been pointed out to him. "Anyone have an axe?" 

Under the continued barrage of firebolts and Azul's fire manipulation the crimson flames gradually consume the wood of the effigy, until shining red stone tumbles to the ground.

"Still laughing you murderous bastard?" Xan mutters as he sees the jewel fall down, he steps towards it but pauses wondering what danger handling the item might cause. "So, who is feeling brave?"

Aleixo shrugs. "I'm not one to back away. Hold my spear." He steps forward to take it, with only a slight pause to allow for intervention, wrapping his hand in the bottom of his cape to avoid direct skin contact.

Aleixo smudges the soot from the surface of the gem with his cape. The blood red crystal is translucent and its depths are rich and dark. This is no rough stone. It has been cut and polished into a nonagon. The facets glisten in the sunlight.

"Should I smash it?" He looks at Xan. "Or do you want it?"  He looks around the clearing. "Hey, goat man! I have your gem, come take it back."

Xan looks at Aleixo, searching for signs of anything suspicious but not seeing any. He walks up to the spearman and nods. "I will take it, but this may not be a friend to us, I do not have the talent to investigate it further, I will keep it safe for now and we will see if we can discover its secrets in the future."  He slips the gem into his pouch,keeping it away from his other items on a separate compartment, which he carefully ties shut. "We may have just picked up something evil, but it isn't right to leave it for anyone to stumble across."

The thought of the gem sitting with them leaves Xan on edge, calling forth a fraction of his power he casts a net of magical detection, specifically searching for signs of good or evil, not expecting the first and hoping to not see the latter. His own body reflects a sense of goodness, as, surprisingly in some ways, does Petros', but the jewel feels like a grasping soul of evil, fiendish power. "This is not good, there is fiendish evil here, the gem stinks of it. If we take it with us we carry evil with us, maybe we should destroy it, but I am also concered though of releasing something contained within."

"Perhaps we find a place to bury it deep under ground or drop it in a lake?"

Sval looks at the gem with a hint of curiosity. "It's a ruby," he says, looking at the perfect facets and edges. "But we certainly should not sell this. Perhaps it would be good to take with us far away from here and then bury it in the savanna."

"Yes, Sval.  I agree.  We can't let this fall into the wrong hands.  We must take care of it ourselves.  Xan, do you feel comfortable holding it for now until we can dispose of it?  If so, lets waste no more time here."  Petros turns to go.

Before Xan stores the item Azul grabs the gem with a cloth. Sofia dives and lands on his shoulder and they both gather their arcane energy and meditate over the gem. As soon as the connect they are almost assaulted by the dense magical energy surrounding the orb. Seeing multiple threads of arcane energy Azul attempts to follow them and unravel the mystery. But the strain is to much there are far to many different schools of magic for Azul to uncover them without using his Identify ritual. He sighs and says "It is certainly magical but without a pearl I cannot tell what the magic does."

The road north-west through the forest takes the rest of the day to traverse. By the time Petros's horse is reaching its limit, the moon is already beginning to mask the sun and night has truly fallen before the beast has recovered. It's but a few more miles to the woods' edge and the stars can be seen twinkling overhead between the leaves.

As Sval returns to report back from scouting, Petros asks him his thoughts on the best place to camp for the night.

"It is both magical and evil, a worrying combination. I will keep it safe until we can learn more about it we should all be wary of it's potential." Xan stows the gem away as securely as possible. He then heads over to see His patient, leaning I to the wagon and asking how she feels.

Sval sidles his horse up to Petros. "I found a small clearing up the road. Looks defensible, and there's a brook that we can refill our canteens at not too far away. Should be nice, and away from prying eyes."  He turns to the group. "Follow me,"  he says, urging his horse a bit faster.

"Let's go then" Aleixo pops up on the other side of them, "Perhaps we can find some game too, save the rations and cook something fresh."

"I would not say no to that."  A wistful look comes over Xan's face as he drifts off imagining a good hot meal. Spurring his horse a little faster he moves off to catch up with the leaders.

When it becomes clear that Sval has done his foraging for the day Xan decides to take matters into his own hands. Moving off into the forest on his own with barely a backward glance he calls out "I'll be back with dinner soon, dont eat all your dried food."  A short time passes and the group hear the sound of something coming through the bushes nearby. Looking a bit winded, Xan comes back into sight, a young deer over his shoulder. " Dont worry he wheeze, it's not as heavy as it looks." As he continues to slowly walk towards the group he is clearly sweating though. Placing the creature near the fire he catches his breath before saying " Always easier when they dont know what magic is ." It is clear that the deer was killed by a fire spell to the head. Clearly still fighting the tiredness he straightens up, " someone clean that please, I'm going to sit down for a minute."

Rushing up to help his friend, Aleixo takes the deer with no effort under one arm. sitting with it over his knee he draws a knife to begin preparing it. "Anyone good with this stuff? I can make it safe, but it'll be shredded and unevenly cooked."

"Sorry.  I'm a city boy.  Unless it's a pigeon or a rat, I won't be much help."

"I can help," Sval says, moving over to begin skinning the animal with Aleixo's help. After a few minutes, he sets the chunks of meat out. "I am not a cook. Someone else take over from here."

Using his magical talents to sculpt the fire into the perfect shape and decades of experience in cooking in the wild Xan soon has the deer cooked and served. Using a  few spices he picked up in the wild and some from his personal stash the group are served a well cooked and seasoned meal. Sitting back against the trunk of a tree Xan cannot quite manage to keep a smug smile from his face as they all tuck in. As he finishes his own portion he calls out across the camp. " Needless to say somebody else will be cleaning up after this, I am done for the evening."

"Fair enough. I will take first watch, if someone else wishes to accompany me, we can share the dishes while we watch." 

Azul smiles and says "I will be more than happy to help in the cleaning and share the watch with you." He finishes the last bit of venison, "Well caught Xan, this meal was the perfect way to start our time on the road." 

As Petros settles in for a short nap before he is woken for 2nd watch with Xan, he looks over the crew assembled here.  He'd only known these men and women for a little over a day.  But somehow, he was already starting to think of them as friends.  Hades, maybe even almost like family.  Although he didn't have much experience with that.  He'd never had a brother before.  Nor a sister nor a father.  And his mother...well she'd been dead now more than half his life.  He could barely remember her face anymore, but he remembered the feel of her warm and soft embrace.  Sometimes, every now and again, a scent reminded him of her, or a time spent with her.  If only for a brief flash.  The smell of the camp fire now, as a breeze sent it over towards him, brought a flash of being in their old tiny home as he lay cuddled with her, a brief gust of wind outside their home blowing some of the smoldering cookfire smell to him.  Wrapped in the memory, he drifted off. But it came to him again tonight.  Even though he was miles from the city and every place he had ever known in his life.  The dream came again like it did on most nights.   "Petros.  Wake up.  You are no longer a child, and it is time to put away childish things.  It is time to be who you were meant to be."  Petros looked up at a man with bronzed skin and glowing orange eyes.  The man seemed sad.  Disappointed.  "Who are you?" he asked the man.    "You know who I am, son.  Stop lolling about and wasting your time.  You are not a street urchin.  You are not a beggar. You are not a charlatan.  You are not a lout.  You are Petros.  Rock.  Strong and hard.  Useful.  Stop wasting your time being worn away by the river of life.  Make yourself into a home to house the homeless.  Into a wall to protect the week.  Into a cell to hold the dangerous.  Into a mill to feed the poor.  Wake up."