Mother Brandy swept through the hamlet on a wave of reverence and gratitude. Families came out from their homes to the hay-strewn street to greet her; farmers ventured out from their fields if they were close enough to make the trip. Her holy appearance garb respect, and all of the townsfolk had a favour to ask, a boon to request, or a service to pray for by the grace of gods. The cleric helped where she could. One man, all but resigned to death, had a knee claimed by the rot that was now poisoning his blood; Brandy siphoned the poison from his leg, and there were muffled gasps from the crowd as his leg split and remended itself, his flesh running together like wax to create unblemished skin. He stood on shaky legs following her spell, and embraced his husband with tears in his eyes. Some were easy to help, advice here, a kind word there. Some would have required days of attention and ministrations. Those ones Brandy turned away, but she would pray for all of them.

Life in Summerberry was a simple affair, as in most of the rural, countryside settlements of Lilon and its surroundings. So long as taxes were paid to the kingdom’s knights when they rolled through, the lands were defended and most monsters kept at bay; survival without the crown’s aid was a local concern. The All Peace treaty of the four kingdoms and the surrounding regions kept bloodshed to a rare event, but still Brandy found she could always find work. People were always getting injured, or sick, or turned around, and they needed hope, some mending, a few kind words. She did as much as she could, but by the time she and Slayter reached the Millstreet Tavern, Finde and Theo were already as deep into planning the group’s next movements as they were into their tankards of thin, chestnut-tinged ale.

“There’s a ruin not too far out, east through the groat fields past the storm bridges,” Fidne said as Theo waved them over. “Not more than a day off the road, and already a promising rumour for follow-up.”

“What do we need in some moldy old ruin, eh?” Slayter leaned over the table where a rudimentary map of the areas surrounding Summerberry was spread out. “Probably a few ghosts spooking the locals, nothing more.”

Brandy scratched her cheek. “A few of the families who approached me asked if I could search for their missing children. Perhaps there is something more worrying amidst the stone?”

Slayter shook his head with a smirk. “Kids in small towns, especially human towns, they’ve all got two things on their minds: each other, and getting away. Their parents should check the barns before they go traipsing into some infested ruin.”

“Still, we should investigate to make sure,” Brandy said with a stern reproach to the paladin. She turned to Finde with a smiling nod. “You did well to choose our direction.”

The scholar shrugged. “Ruins are often places of power, sometimes corrupt or sacrosanct, but almost always worth visiting.”

“Still, we would have—”

“Your gratitude in this matter is unnecessary,” Finde said shortly, standing from the table with a swoosh of her robes. “You and Slayter should join us in a drink before we retire.”

Mother Brandy sighed and fell quiet as the evening progressed. The tavern’s barman was a stout fellow, strong-armed and dour, scowling with shrouded eyes nearly lost under wild bushy eyebrows. He moved with stubborn grace befitting a life serving adventurers, as well as those town residents more prone to rowdiness and inflicting damage on the pub furniture.

Theo was quiet in his seat next to the cleric, though as the four travellers worked their way through mugs and bottles and then a new cask of ale, Brandy found the stalker begin to relax at her elbow. Slayter disappeared drink after drink without thought or care, and Finde, impassive, managed to keep pace with their empty rounds. By night’s end, the table’s tab was more than their rooms would have been for a week, but each of the four was smiling in a numb, contented haze of ale and spirits.

The morning’s sun was piercing, the cockrel’s cry jarring, and after a greasy breakfast taken far earlier than most would have preferred, Mother Brandy herded her companions out of the Millstreet tavern and east along the narrow walkways that cut through the fields. Despite their departing from Summerberry at the crack of dawn, farmers dotted the rolling landscapes on either side. What counted as “early” for those who worked the land and for those who walked its breadth was separated by an hour and the shades of morning twilight.

With the breeze drifting by and a warm sun emerging, the cleric found her mood lifting as they left the Wood Road for the edge of the fields, where the ash and yarrow trees sprung up thin and gnarled rather than thick and sturdy. Their trail was full of twists and turns. As the four plunged into the darkest snarls of the yarrow woods, reserved and watchful, the air became heavy and sticky to breathe. Each had fallen into a comfortable pace, walking ever deeper into the forest. As the sun beamed down from high above, its light was caught up in an increasingly dense canopy, leaving the path ahead dimmer and dimmer.

The ruins announced themselves by way of a break in the trees and a wide, placid pond. The fallen edifice with its cracked stone and toppled columns was mirrored in the still surface, reflected upside-down. Upon reaching its front facade, the party came to an abrupt halt.

It was an arresting display, the stone steps leading up to foundations that could have once been a fortress, a temple, or a retiring merchant’s haven stronghold. Frightened bird calls broke the flat silence hanging above the pond, muted flapping buffeting the air unseen but nearby. Something was here and watching, but at some remove, at least for the moment. That the ruins were tucked away in the woods with such secrecy, among stale water and sour air, made Mother Brandy’s skin crawl, and she was the first to raise her shield, its holy symbol radiant and faintly glowing with arcane light—a quiet warning to the party.

“Let us take a look inside the lost majesty,” she said. And so their delve began.