The trudging march from the lair of the filth ridden rats into the open air was a freeing experience. Stepping outside the crumbling, blackened homestead that once was a farm, thankfully all they saw before them was their handiwork from not long before. Twice had they "escaped" an earthen prison although it likely were if one asked now which they preferred, the time awaiting their sentencing may have been much preferred. Whatever the case, they set off through the field, wary of the sun above them and its arc across the sky. The time on this accursed stead was truly not all that long and thankfully it hadn't been as there was still time to return to town, at least by hour of twilight.

Brushing the dirt off from his armor, de Brey lead them as he had before. Although, once again, it was the elven bowman who was really guiding them. Not that they needed it to follow the road back, the eagerness of the moment and their procession hastened them to attention, but this still was the [i]Marches[/i]. There was no telling if the boars that had seen earlier might emerge from the throng of trees that lined each side of the path or if those things that consumed said boars would. Or worse, as this land was tainted. So they had heard at least, that the ages past still lingered here and terrible things of old wars and events long before the departure of the pantheon. A black mark on the face of the continent, as if the north was not already a pock of its own stripe or the east with its elven rangers.

The concern lurking in back of mind was ever more reasonable. They were wounded, fatigued, and perhaps even diseased if the reality of rooting out a rat's nest was even close to what it had been. To their fortune, however, their ever so slightly limping return to town was uneventful, and they passed by the first few farms as the sun was drawing close to the horizon. For all intents and purposes they had made it "home" in a way, to the temple that greeted them in the distance. Only having been gone less than a day, its sanctuary was a welcome promise, was certainly was its finer features and restorative promises. 

Together they entered the stone structure, being none accosted by the militia who they did not even see on their way back, likely elsewhere if even at their posts, and found that the priest who had been the most generous soul to them yet was surprised at their return so soon. His eyes were filled with a certain shine of surprise and he confessed that he had imagined they would be gone for days. That they had not even stopped to eat or rest mesmerized him in a way that spoke to his perhaps all too worrying innocence. As a man of the cloth who attended a lonely temple on the fringes of the civilized world, if this place could even be called that, he truly knew little of just what it was they had him send the band of prisoners on in exchange for starting down the road to redemption.

While his apologies seemed sincere, perhaps more it was his deeds that might alleviate worries. He allowed them into the cellar of the temple, where the fire was kept and stoked, as well as the cauldron and the jugs of water to clean themselves. Moreover, the priest so too performed his magical investiture of healing upon them, warning them that while he was able to mend their wounds and cure them of the ailments that had not even yet manifest, they needed to be far more careful in this sense; not everything could he remedy and the powers needed for far more dangerous things were certainly not here. Whether they took the warning in or not was unknown but the holy man provided them with what little else he had to offer. 

A few blankets and a floor, for the night they could sleep upon the temple's grounds protected rather than trapped by its walls...

[@Archangel89][@BangoSkank][@Hellion][@Lord Wyron][@TyrannosaursRex]