The idle conversation made among the five freemen, or as free as they would be for some time, filled the remainder of the travel to the village. They were accompanied by the priest at their side as the followed the so faintly worn earthen patch back down from the hill they had all been entrapped in; a few of the guardsmen were close behind them, the cart not far behind, and the rest even further back. They were poorly disciplined, to be expected of peasant soldiers - combatants in name only - and bantered between one another the entire brief journey, even as the entourage plodded through the outskirts of the village.

An occasional head peaked up from over the low stone walls that divided their farms, many others remained at work, turning the earth in dusted paths led by oxen or at best, horses. The air filled with the smell of the season to come, that the melt and runoff of winter here had kept the soil moist, and that the seeds being sown within the fresh ground would bring the promise of harvest to these people. But those same people were clearly wary of them and rightfully so - an orc, an elf, and a giant? Coming [i]back[/i] from the prison? It went without question that had heard, if not seen the justice ride by only an hour's time at most ago. It bode well for the prisoners yet not for the town in that sense, that these obviously dangerous outsiders had been spared. Some spoke to one another, a man leaning to his wife and cupping his hand over her ear, while others just looked on until they were far enough away from their gawking to only be a memory.

For an elf of the woods east, this village was maybe all too discomforting as she drew nearer still to it, the same story likely told for the goliath who towered without lumbering over all the rest of them. It was quaint and humble enough but this place was among a clearing in the wilderness that had been expanded time and time again, and for Tracan, these people were they all too much closer to her peoples' ancestral lands, would have been marked for death. Even her exile could not hide that from her mind, knowing that likely by pure luck this entire place avoided a raid. For Vah'lux, however, the story was different in her own connection to nature, not as elf or elf-kin, or any beast of the wood, but these people were most removed from her. Aside from the stones that they built the foundations of their huts and buildings upon, everything was so refined, so distant so... removed from a sense of ownership and homeliness. They had burning hearths that kept smoke flowing from their crude chimneys yet even they seemed all too reminiscent of the orcs she languished in soul under for their amusement. They took from this land, the earth itself, and did what they willed, not even part of it. For the last three of them, the three men, the village itself was the closest they had been to civilization in weeks and months. Homely and familiar, although for Gorosk, little outside an isolated monastery was home although it was thankful this place was familiar enough that it made the prison less overwhelming in thought. 

By the time de Bray and Beaumont set their boots into the mud of the road leading into and through the outcropping of civilization, the priest spoke up. He addressed them all as if there was not an entourage of soldiers following them, which only stood to reason as these two groups appeared removed from one another in everything short of circumstance. Redden cats are good cats. 

"I am not sure if you know where you are but this is the village of Reddenbarrow."

The name only meant anything to the former horseman and the accompanying paladin, who both recollected enough that this was near the furthest extent of [i]Dorrathar[/i]. There were a few scattered plots beyond this, collections not big enough to even manage a village, and the nearest garrisoned keep many days away by foot. For the remainder of them this was a foreign place, as foreign as it came at that, as aside from the few buildings that made up the heart of this place, there was not much else with only one prominent, clearly permanent stone structure; the temple, one not particularly lavish at that, barely ornate enough to bear such a name. Were it not for its humbled stone-craft symbol erected over its doors, that of Erithar, it would be a wonder to who it belonged to.

What stood out more to the keen eyed among them were the tracks of a man and a horse, having delayed here, then having traveled on west and away. Presumably the justice made this his only other stop before he departed, leaving them to the authority of the young, narrow faced man who followed the patron god of this place. Who, as the militiamen dispersed, some heading off down another path and the cart with its occupants stopping at one of the buildings, climbed the few steps and out of the churned ground. Producing a wrought iron key, he unlocked the door to the temple and offered them into it; a place clearly with little more than a few thick pieces of golden stained glass and far thicker stone walls.

"Please, do come inside, I will provide you your remaining compliment. After, well... I guess I should decide what would be a worthy trial for you all on your path to repentance in the eyes of the Marches." Marthan said, pocketing the key into a pouch on his belt, likely the same that held his spell components given the man had worked magic not all that much earlier.

"Do not mind your soiled boots, I will clean the temple when I send you all away. If you need time for prayer and offerings at the altar, feel no need to explain in the mean time. I will await you being finished."

[@BangoSkank][@Hellion][@Lauder][@Lord Wyron][@TyrannosaursRex]