>>5461633>>5461637>>5461727>>5461753>>5461954>>5462360Committed to the venture, you follow the road which leads to a village situated at the border of the Moonwood until nightfall. Your journey is an uneventful one, a fact that you are most grateful for. Were you any younger, you might curse the tedium of a boring day, yet as of late you have gained a newfound appreciation for the less thrilling moments of life. The open air and Elysian land of the Silver Marches are wonders to behold, and make you feel vulnerable and miniscule in a way that words fail to describe.
The village would be a wholly unremarkable place, were it not desolate. Walking into the village square, you stroll in a circle at a leisurely pace to get your bearings. All about you are demolished carts and stands, caked in dried blood and pillaged for all their worth. Try as you might, you find yourself unable to deduce what it was that caused such destruction. Nevertheless, the prospect of facing up against something capable of this is a worrying one, which you elect to put out of your mind for the time being.
More apparent is the heap of corpses piled at the square's center, surrounding a pedestal upon which a statue once rested - the work naught more than shattered remains scattered carelessly about the ground. The cadavers are still in the process of decaying. These unfortunate souls were likely alive a tenday or two ago. Thankfully, their killers are absent, leaving you to explore undisturbed.
A building, likely some sort of shop or inn wrecked in the same manner as the market in which you stand, sits roofless, exposed to the elements. A foreboding staircase leading downwards into a cellar almost begs to be investigated. Barring entry is a door crumbling from age, behind which a subtle violet glow seeps through its cracks. Were you not gifted with the ability to see in such low-light conditions, you likely would have passed this by without noticing.
The last feature that catches your attention in this one-lizard burg is a large building whose double doors seem to invite you in. Likely a temple dedicated to one of the many surfacer gods, it has very obviously been ransacked for its treasures. Fortunately for you, however, your purpose here is not to line your pockets; or at the least, this is not your primary purpose.
Alone in the dark, the mysteries of this place and the nearby Moonwood await you.
>Like a carrion crawler, I shall pick through the body pile to slake my hunger for knowledge.>The cellar piques my curiosity. That strange light tempts me to seek out its source.>The temple seems a promising start. Surely there remains something that can be of use to me. 