Healing Mishap -8-
By LanzaQ

The conversation between the group and Patty continued on for several more hours until eventually Alyssa was called up to her room by her mother. The five all began to retired. In the order of the most inebriated. Ash first, then Arric, Verris, Cael, Kate, and Finally Raleigh. However one thing was over looked. Ash had so quickly staggered her way up the stairs leaving behind her backpack. Raleigh being the last one at the table had remembered Ash threatening his men. 'One peek wouldn't hurt would it?'

---
Raleigh looked around the almost empty tavern. Those still populating its tables were either too impaired, or apathetic to what he was doing. He touched the weathered leather, worn between between its tanned state and being rawhide again. A single string tied down a simple flap covering the drawstring opening. He quickly gave it a yank and watched as the knot came undone.

All that separated him and some of Ash's secrets was a simple flap. Raleigh lifted the flap slowly, and once it was completely lifted off of the bags contents he instantly knew why she kept it so secret. The very topmost item in the bag was a simple emblem made of wood, not any particularly noticeable wood. But an average, dull, and unfinished wood emblem, it was a shield with the center cut out in the shape of a sword.

"This emblem." Raleigh whispered. " She had a side in the Civil war, the side that lost."

suddenly a voice called out to Raleigh. " Some Secrets are best kept just that, secret." Dianna said behind the bar, sliding a glass mug of something down the length of the bar. "Everyone has their own secrets, like your sister Rals, speaking of your sister that elf girl those crawlers had with them would have looked a lot like her except the eyes a slight difference in curves."

"Dianna, one don't call me Rals, and two, Becca is still a sore subject for me." Raleigh said cinching the bag closed and retying down the flap. "I know it has been ten years but she had loved me more than both mom and pop combined."

"Rals, er, Raleigh. She was kept secret from everyone in the village except from you and me." Dianna said. "Jessica wasn't even your real mother, or Becca's for that matter!" She paused. "Lyssa would love to learn that her hero Raleigh was actually her older brother."

"Older HALF-brother." Raleigh said. "Also if Ash asks, I didn't see anything."

"If anyone asks you didn't get anything from me." Dianna said as Raleigh walked over to the bar and picked up the glass mug. He gave it a quick sniff and instantly knew what he was smelling. His face betrayed exactly what he was about to ask.

"Why are you giving this to me? I'm not 'old' enough yet." Raleigh said.

"There is a difference between being old and being mature, and personally Rals, I think you have just shown me a lot of maturity." Dianna said. "Now be a good son and make sure these old men get home safe. I want them all to come back tomorrow or next week and its hard for them to get in here if they fall and bust their head open on a rock or tree somewhere."

"Yes Mommy." Raleigh said sarcastically with a quick bow.

The sun seemed to rise extra early that morning, the team woke up with mild grumbling except for Ash, whom Arric, Cael and Kate were willing to tell Verris and Raleigh to leave her alone. After a night like she had; it sometimes seemed that even the devil would be afraid to wake that woman.

The six, minus Ash stood outside the Unicorn's Horn. Dianna and Alyssa both waved them out of the village. Several of the older people and church members also gave their farewells to Raleigh. small amounts of gold, and food were passed to the dungeon-crawlers. "Raleigh, does this town have a Bounty Board or, maybe some kind of Message board for people to leave messages for everyone to read?" Verris asked before thumbing through his book again and occasionally mouthing incantations.

"We have a Discovery Board, where travelers can post something interesting they found outside the village." Raleigh said pointing to a dilapidated signboard. The four except for Raleigh crowded around it. One thing stuck out to them in particular. A small nondescript piece of paper with few words scribbled on it.

"Old burnt church basement, Creatures...lots of creatures." Cael read. "Everything past that is illegible."

"Sounds great." Verris said. "We can't find one with nice information, like 'Dungeon found! Low risk and low reward, good for new adventurers!'. No, we have to go after the ambiguous note that can't be read past. 'Send help nearly mauled come look around.'"

"Aw lay off of it Verris. It might be fun." Arric said counting his arrows and bowstring. "besides we have been here for too long if we expect to get anywhere soon we better head out now."

"Lets go!" Kate said with a fist pump and a large smile. "Where is ash? I think it might be good if we take Ash along. She hates being left behind!" Kate paused to look around. "The last time we left her behind she ended up getting caught by a pack of feral elves that weren't hesitant to trying to induct her into their clan, when we found her she was dressed in nothing but a loincloth and a look of pure fury."

"What happened to the Elves?" Verris and Raleigh asked in unison.

"The children were kept alive." Kate said with a smile as if that answered all their possible questions.

"Well then. Lets wait for Ash and stock up on some necessary supplies." Raleigh said checking the small leather satchel made for him by the same older woman that gave Cael the advice. "I have, three loaves of unleavened bread, three anti-poisons, A large First-aide kit, and two hundred gold pieces."

Verris looked in his large camper's cloth pack. " I have my study books, practice wand, four sets of anti-burn salves, two apples, two changes of robes, a set of five basic wound bandages, and one hundred fifty gold pieces and a sapphire." He continued to look over his items "I think I am set."

Cael shrugged."I know I am set, but I guess it never hurts to check." he said. " I have my maginomicon, a second set of robes, a low-class home remedy, a half pound of some kind of meat, and one hundred and one gold pieces and a small ruby that I would like to someday have set in a nice ring." Cael said checking every small pocket in his home-made backpack.

Kate smiled. "Let me see..."

"Good job guys we might be here for awhile." Arric said as kate began to open the hand sized leather pouch.

"I have, five apples, a loaf of bread, a hunk of cheese, two dresses, a change of robes a set of leather leggings, a small dagger, an anti-fire ring, my teletalk crystal." She paused shoving her arm up to the elbow in the pouch. "A small doll from my younger years, a knife." She fished around with her shoulder all the way into the small bag. "A different staff in the event that mine breaks, and" She stretched as far as she could letting out strained groans. "My healing manual, an emerald, a gold band, and five health potions." she stressed pulling out the large leather tome that looked positively ancient.

Verris and Raleigh paled. "Dear god how much can she fit in that small bag?"

"A lot." was all Arric said in response to their question. "My turn I guess? Well...my backpack contains." He said lifting the backpack off his shoulder and upending it dumping it out. All the fell out of it was a bundle of sticks, arrow heads, feathers, a single potion, and a set of arrows tied tightly with a small length of cord. "That is all I have on me. Except the equipment I keep on hand like my belt knife, tinderbox, and a coil of all-weather-rope."

As if on cue Ash walked out of the Inn, her face neutral and her hair a mess. Her backpack slung over her armoured left shoulder. "Lets go." She said gesturing to everyone as they shoved everything back into their backpacks.

The six set off, with only a basic idea of where they were going. The note proved to be little to no help as the directions they were attempting to follow were claimed long ago by the god or goddess of faded ink. "I think I know where we are going." Kate said. "Remember how I mentioned my church being burnt by atreeists a loooong time ago?"

"Athiests." Cael corrected. "And yes we remember that, why?" he questioned as they suddenly found themselves in an old clearing, a ring of rocks in the pitted center stood their as if it was waiting for eternity for another campfire to be lit there.

The six all sat down and readied the ring for another fire, eternity wasn't as long as it had thought. The fire only took a few seconds of gathering wood and a quick practice incantation from Verris to get it started hot.

It seemed like it only took a few minutes after the fire was started and the sun was already setting. The six began to set up camp. Tents from Ash's backpack went up quickly, and the fire died down fast. Everyone was settled around the dying fire. When suddenly a voice was heard from the bush nearby. "Hey. Any of you wouldn't happen to have spare food?" it said as its figure pushed its way into the clearing.

The voice belonged to a man. A tall man. His hair was wild like the forest around him. He wore a cassock with several small leather plates sewn in. At his hips were two daggers that probably had seen better days. His gaunt face was fairly clean shaven as you could get with two partially rusty and dull daggers. The stubble that remained was as bright as the fire that was lit earlier.

"Name is Zedd, I am a religious nomad, I could help but notice you were following the map to the abandoned church. " He said pulling a few leaves out of his hair. "I find the history of the church fascinating."

"What do you mean by that?" Kate asked defensively after she got a good look at the man.

Zed stretched. "I was just saying it was originally a church for Sodia, a goddess that has become virtually nonexistent in the history books that were written during the last two hundred years."

"What about Sodia interests you?" Kate asked crossing her arms. "Her teachings? Her disciples?" She paused and stared at Zed coldly. "Her supposed 'lost treasury'?"

Zed got extremely nervous at this statement and the impromptu interrogation and began to fidget, running his hands across the sleeves of the cassock. "The history, I thought I said that already."

"What do you know about the history other than that her teachings have fallen out of practice?" Kate said unfolding her arms and walking towards him."Maybe you are a no good rotten treasure hunter willing to desecrate what is left of a previously holy spot for you own gain, or maybe you are actually a dark wizard set by an evil organization to look for artifacts to aid in horrible rituals twisting the powers of Sodia for your perverse will!" Kate said ripping Zed's sleeves up to his shoulders revealing a large amount of black ink tattoos running up and down his arms.

Ash and Arric didn't understand but Cael, Verris, and Raleigh looked back and forth at each other. Raleigh quickly looked over at the man and said. "Verris restrain that rogue magician, he has magic tattoos!"

Verris quickly flipped open his large tome and found what he was looking for. "Verite Capturez!"he incanted slowly. "Now." suddenly Zed stopped fidgeting and looked over at Cael blankly.

"Ask a question."he said monotonously.

Cael thought for a moment before asking "What is your real name?"

"Erin Flamma. Last of the house of Flamma." He answered before turning to Raleigh. "One question."

"Why are you here?" Raleigh asked, his scowl growing every second that Erin didn't answer the question.

After a short pause Erin answered. "To look for Sodia's lost child. " he answered before turning to kate. "Last question."

Kate thought for a moment. "Why are you looking for Sodia's lost child?" she asked with a smile on her face.

"Sodia's lost child would be key to my cult's ritual, her almost endless power that would be drawn from Sodia through her could allow us to manipulate every magical item in the world. Making the search for the eight High-church artifacts to be no search at all." He answered. As he finished his face regained its scared look and with a quick flash his right sleeve was rolled up to his shoulder revealing a glyph tattoo. "Arrivederci!" he said slapping a hand down on the tattoo.

The design suddenly came to life moving down his arm to his fingers and up his shoulder disappearing under the robe turning the faded black to the colour of a shadow, suddenly the shadow that was Erin engulfed itself and disappeared, the entire process took less than a single blink of an eye. Everyone stood around silent thinking over what just happened and the information they had just received. Finally Kate broke the silence. "That was fun!"

----

By the time everyone had woken up the sun had nearly climbed to its peak. Everyone was still a little confused over what had happened. "Kate how exactly did you know that that man was evil?" Arric asked as they were breaking down camp.

Kate stared at him for a bit before she answered with a smile. "I guessed! I mean he was acting so nervous and fidgety so I was pretty sure the story he was giving us was a quickly thought up fake."

"Ah yes, leave it to Kate to be able to guess that the man that appeared to be completely harmless turns out to be a dangerous black magic user." Verris said pushing his glasses back up his nose.

"Well lets go, I think the church is up a head." Cael said pointing to a large blackened wooden beam sticking out above the treemade horizon.

---

The Six found the wreckage of what once looked like a fairly large and impressive building, now all that was left of it was a few pillars that looked untouched by time and blacken and charred wooden support beams and the large, heavily tiled floor. Arric immediately looked down and noticed the tiles. "These tiles. How did they get them here? I mean two hundred years ago they probably didn't have the right tools to move these by hand, and it would have taken at least a good ten maybe fifteen mages to move it via magic-telekinesis."

"I find it amazing that these heavy stone pillars are still completely intact." Verris said. "Either the people who worshiped Sodia knew techniques stone-layers today would kill for, or they had several very very powerful magicians."

Cael just stood with hands over his stomach, and his face a pale green. "The magic here, its overpowering. Like a thousand people all started singing at different notes so that it would sound as terrible and mind-numbing as possible."

"How exactly can it sound both terrible and mind-numbing at the same time? I mean I am pretty sure if it were terrible it would be painful to listen to, but if it were mind-numbing that means you wouldn't feel it." Raleigh said removing a dagger from its sheath and tossing it blade over handle in his hand.

"You know what I mean perfectly well." Cael said. "I don't feel good at all."

"Here." Arric said tossing him a vial out of his backpack. "Its the last of the few potions I was able to buy back in town. It's a new recipe supposedly it can help with all sorts of symptoms ranging from minor aches and pains to blindness."

Kate ignored the current conversation and walked over to a single tile smaller than all the rest and a smokey gray colour. "Here is the entrance to the actual dungeon. Cael it will only get worse from here do you still want to continue?"

Cael nodded yes to Kate and downed the potion from Arric. Kate quickly incanted what sounded like a poem in High Church and the tile seemed to melt like hot, gray wax. The six climbed their way down on a wooden ladder that also appeared to be untouched by thousands of years. "Well. We have creepy entrance to a creepy dungeon underneath a church that apparently had metric tons of secrets, an elf that is allergic to the magic they used and we were led here by a note that became illegible halfway down and," Verris said pausing to adjust his robe on his shoulders. "Lets get going shall we? The person that wrote the note sounded like they needed help didn't they?"
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=w= sorry about the wait. I can explain. external hard drive died leaving me to rewrite everything past chapter 7, and recently my younger brother and I were in a motorcycle wreak. we both got away with only minor bleeding and bruising.