"I still want to strangle her scruffy neck for what she did to me in Emberwood, but we have to get Lara's body in the ground before long. We can come back another time."

Sanimar nods in agreement that they had to see Lara to her final resting place first before she turns into an abomination. She turns to the caravan driver "Let's keep on going to Emberwood. We need to get out friend out of this place" 

@Athalie

"Haha people say anything when they're hungry," she mumbles, rubbing her neck with one arm. "No, no! Um, I do appreciate it lots! My sister's more of a cook than I." She shoves her hands into her smock pockets and stiffening. Suddenly, she gets up to go get a broom to sweep up any leftover crumbles. "Well, at least Geldstadlt is known for its roasts. The best barbecues in all of eastern Westemär! East 'n West-mar." She repeats that last part mostly to herself.

She stops. "Poisoned," she says, looking back up again at that mosaic. "...yeah. Corrupted." She opens her mouth again as if to say something but waits until after you finish.

"The stories are true," Vervidia says matter-of-factly. "We've had so many of our parish... perish under first the star (blind, deafened) then the city." She shakes her head, "You're right. Jobs don't come easy. Seen a many that switched to stealing and swindling." She hesitates.

She looks over to small shrine of Saint Ardenna. "Pray for us and may your guide the way." 

"If you need anything, we will be here." The way she nods shows you the severity of that sentiment. Somehow it conveys to you it means something about delerium. 

She chuckles and nods. "Right." She bites her lip in thought, "I'm guessing the Gilded Lily for performances. Open Mike- named after Fatima's cousin, Mike, and all. But um, I don't think they do room and board. I think... you'll have to check with the Bark and Buzzard? The Ainsbergs will likely let you trade for that. They used to be parish members of ours. They have two kids. Oh! But the Red Lion is always open, but you know... Stravos... it's the most expensive. Though! He does like to hear anything on arts and poetry. He might be willing. Depends." She stands for a second, "Actually if you tell him you're the band for the party tomorrow (we were only going to do choir but you know-). He might actually let you stay."

"I have something for you and Lara." She starts rummaging through the pantry. "Well- not originally but-" She hands you something wrapped in cloth. "It's just plain ol' hardtack but me and Hanna always added cinnamon. Doesn't last as longer, but wayyyy better than just dried alone." She smiles, "Lara's lucky to have you. And you to her." She notices your excitement and can't help but feel warm and giddy herself. "Wherever the Flame leads you two, you will shine."

She leads you back out to the front door of the chapel. The grounds smell fresh after the light rain.

@Sarűmir, Sanimar, Twinkleblossum, and Aster

The tabaxi appears to talk with two other men who also duck their way out the chapel. Her ear twitches and she looks up for a second, seeing Twinkleblossum fly by. The man next to her seems to mouth 'harpies?'. She shakes her head 'no'. They turn the corner and then they're gone (from both an aerial point of view and ground).

"Okay!" the driver of the caravan answers. She had stopped the cart once she had heard the commotion. You pass through the cobblestone street until you end up on that familiar paved road you first found yourself upon.

The way back to Emberwood Village is a bit weary. No one else speaks for the rest of the ride. In the distance the haze dissipates. There is a noticeable feeling of less smog in your throats that you didn't really feel when you go in but you sure do when you come out. The horses and you rest for 10 minutes once outside the city limits. It takes you another hour and half to reach the Watchtower back at Emberwood. 

The village is quiet this early dawn. But you see some caravans rolling in into the Court, so you know it's not long before commerce starts coming. The dwarves have the horses lead you between the Red Lion Hotel and the chapel. They stop. "You choose whichever bar you want to go to," Elouise tells you, "Of course, you do your thing. If you need of any assist-" She bows. 

Athalie beams from ear to ear with Vervidia's blessing. "Thank you. I can't wait to see her. And thank you for the hardtack!" She gratefully accepts it. "It sounds like the Red Lion will be a good option for tonight, and maybe tomorrow I can arrange something more permanent with the Bark and Buzzard. They've got stables up there, I guess? My horse is outside. She'll have to eat too, and she eats more than I do. I might have to play all night to feed both of us, in a place where no grass grows!" Athalie laughs. "Thank you so much for all your help, Vervidia. I'll be back in the morning to say my prayers. If Lara comes back before I do... please let her know that I'm in town and I'll be back first thing in the morning!"

After giving the acolyte a hug and saying her farewells, Athalie comes back out, unties Scarlett, and mounts up to ride to the Red Lion Hotel. Following Vervidia's directions, she takes the road away from Caravan court and out to the outskirts of town to the fancy hotel. The fanciness of it intimidates her, but she figures, it's just one night.

Dismounting and knocking on the door, if she's able to get the proprietor or his representative, she starts off with a bright and winning smile. "Good evening, sir, I've just arrived in town this evening, and Acolyte Vervidia sent me over here from Saint Ardenna's. I'm here to play in the band for the party tomorrow, and she said you might be able to offer me lodging for the night in trade..."

~*~*~*~

Since the party is back in town the next morn...

However the nightly lodging situation plays out, first thing in the morning, Athalie is up and dressed at first light and saddling up in the stables to ride back to Saint Ardenna's. "Maybe we'll see her today, Scarlett," she whispers. The horse flicks an ear. Athalie finishes strapping her chest onto the horse behind the saddle, and leading her out, climbs into the saddle to view the distant town of Emberwood village in the early dawn, the blighted fields surrounding it painting a somber picture, relieved only by the bustle and lights of the town as villagers and adventurers alike come and go along the roads.

Sarűmir picks up Lara's body, then turns to the party. "Well? Where do you all think she should go?"

"Maybe the church," Twinkleblossum offers, "she had ties to the gods and visited there when we first arrived didn't she?"

"The church is a fine idea, and they would know best how to lay to rest a friend who died within Drakkenheim" says Sanimar. 

"Very well.", Sarűmir says to Sanimar and Twinkleblossum. "Perhaps afterward we should go to the Bark and Buzzard, and have a toast to Lara's life."

"Can't argue with either choice." Aster adds. 

"I had also stopped by the Church when we first got there and they just so happened to be holding a service for the dead at the time. They're more than capable in handling our fallen comrade here."

@Athalie

"You're welcome. It's no big deal," she shrinks back and is surprised by the hug. She squeezes back. "Heh, yeah you might be having to play guitar with one hand and a harmonica in the other!" She mimics the motion with both her hands and laughs back.

"I will," she smiles warmly. "You'll do great. See you tomorrow, Athalie!" The chill of the night is different from the humidity of the day. It is biting. You head to the Red Lion Hotel.

The three-story manor is made of red brick. It features lion-shaped gargoyles along the both the stone entrance and the front of the white stairs. Large glass-paned windows align the sides and in front stands embossed wooden doors painted green.

It takes a few minutes before someone comes to the door. The door creaks just a little. You find a stout human man behind it. He wears a bellhop's outfit and rubs the dark circles under his eyes. "Uh..." He turns to look around. It seems like it's too late for him to argue as he just shrugs and opens up the door. "Sure, okay." He calls over someone else to take your horse and leads Scarlett over to a stable out back.

"Stravos really goes all out with these sorts of things," he mutters under his breath. He doesn't even bother to check in with said commander in chief, but swings his arm around a hanging rack behind a desk and takes off a key. "Don't think this one is taken." The current room is one lined with a couple of chairs and a chandelier overlooking a desk and a large-scale painting of the once-bright city. It looks to almost glow yellow as it had been in the olden days with the continual-flame-posts on every street corner.

The bellhop fumbles with some keys around his belt and unlocks another door to the right. It opens up to a vast parlor furnished with fine antiques and decorated with various sculptures, paintings, and bookshelves. The vast room is silent and you could guess that in the mornings it would be vibrant and alive, buzzing like in a hive. You pass by a few servants who tend to housekeeping, you guess, based on their carts of towels and toiletries. 

"Here you go," he says, handing you the key. It's a small room not so bad. You climbed a set a stairs to get here. You're guessing that this isn't one of the most spectacular rooms given it's placement in the corner, and by the looks of the spacing between some of the other room, this one doesn't come close. The room does have its own private bath so that's nice. There is one lumpy, but very comfy bed in the corner. 

----

You wake up bright and early the next day. You pass a dining room adored with crystal chandelier and a long table. Some guests are sitting there chatting among themselves. On your way out of the hotel you pass by a couple of somber dwarves who come in with their caravan and horses. Their spotted horses whinny at yours.

The door to the chapel is locked.

@ Sanimar, Aster, Sarűmir, and Twinkleblossum

"Very well," the dwarves nod, though initially surprised at Twinkleblossum's assertion of 'gods'. They wonder if she would be more at home with the Old Druid, but they dismiss this with the fairy being an outsider because the paladin wore Sacred Flame attire.

Elouise keeps an eye on a window that seems to have a flame on a staff moving about. "We will see you later in the morn." She places her hands on Lara's head on last time. "May the Light of the Flame guide her into the afterlife. May it be sweet and without sorrow."

They take their horses (expect yours which will be parked beside the chapel) and head towards the hotel. 

You open the doors to the chapel and it is a lively place. Continual flames light every pole, dried frankincense fills the air, and streamers drape from the sides of every window. People are scrambling to place food at a long dining table. A choir is going about their practice. "Again!" A flamekeeper shouts, though softly as if coaxing a child. The choir's chorus elevates the room, making it hard to hear. It is a festival!

The light of the rising run coats the room in warmth.

Suddenly one choir member stops, horrified. Some look at her with distain, then other stop too. "Again?" The piano playing stops. "Wha-?" Flamekeeper Hanna turns around, "Oh! Oh my dear Flame." She hurries over to your party with her hands clasped around her mouth. "How is she?" she reaches out to almost touch the body but brings her hand back in. "What happened?" Tears pinprick her eyes. "Lara?"

"Close the doors!" she orders to the volunteers nearest to the front. "Come in! Come in!" She helps you lay her down right on a pew. She gasps and mumbles things incoherently. "She was just here...It can't-"

Sarűmir, still holding Lara, steps forward. "Greetings, ma'am. We are Lara's friends. We were hoping you could hold a... a funeral service of sorts for her? And as for what happened... we arrived in Drakkenheim at the exact wrong time. There were so many monsters... many of us came close to dying... and then... and then..." He trails off, his voice seeming to fail him.

Athalie is no stranger to luxurious venues, as there are many of them in Geldstadt, the opera house being the finest and definitely outstripping even this place---but, as she is here, she was always at those places as an entertainer, not a resident. The small room in the corner is more more to her liking, and she sleeps soundly, dreaming of croissants and lavish parties at the opera and her sister Lara kneeling and praying in a bare cell with a single window, bathed in a ray of sunlight that turns torrid and purplish...

And early the next morning as she rides out, smiling a greeting to the dwarves---dwarves! she's heard of them but never met any before---while Scarlett reaches to snuffle at the one of the spotted horses, she's in such a hurry to get down to the chapel, she sends Scarlett at a fast trot down the road towards the center of town, only slowing down out of respect to the bustling merchants setting up early in Caravan court. And then to Saint Ardenna's, tying up Scarlett and walking up the steps, reaching for the doors...

The doors are locked.

Puzzled, with a strange feeling in the pit of her stomach as if at something she did not expect, Athalie knocks on the chapel door.

Flamekeeper Hanna blinks. "Uh, yes. Yes, of course. I-" she bites her lips trying to find the words. "The Reeve's party will have to wait. Bring her body to the tabernacle- the decorations- we will have the funeral there." She puts her hands to her mouth and shakes her head. "This really can't be. The city-"

"I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have sent her. I can't-" she takes an inhale. "I will find the ash and myrrh." She inhales again. Her hands are shaky. Then someone at the door knocks. Hanna opens her mouth but someone beats her to it. Another acolyte opens the door. "Lara?!" The flamekeeper jumps back like she's just seen a ghost. She does a double take with the body then with the person at the door. 

The person playing the piano stops.

"Athalie?" Someone who looks just like Hanna stands up from the piano bench and goes down towards the door. "Oh my Flame... Lara." Her eyes follow yours to the body.

Sarűmir turns to look at the newcomer, then looks at back at Lara. He keeps doing this, taking in the two sister's similarities, then his eyes go wide. "Oh gods... are-are you and Lara..."

Twinkleblossum feels bad that she didn't take the time to get know Lara better. She always figured there would be plenty of time to spend getting to know each other and possibly grow a friendship. This all seemed so sudden and... wrong to her. Those at the church appeared to have a stronger connection with her fallen companion than she did.

Now this new person... Athalie, a family member was here. Did she somehow hear about the tragedy that befell her sister? How could she of possibly heard and respond so quickly? She must be here for another reason. Her questions could wait as it somehow seemed appropriate to remain silent for now.

Athalie opens her mouth to greet the acolyte who opened the door, but it stays hanging open, silently, as Flamekeeper Hanna jumps in fear and calls her by her sister's name. The excitement with which she would have reacted to someone seeing the family resemblance is oddly absent inside of her. The look of supernatural fear on the Flamekeeper's face tells her somehow, in the pit of her stomach, that something is terribly wrong... "Oh, no," Athalie says, shakily, "I'm Lara's sister, my name is Athalie, I've just come to..."

And then she sees where the Flamekeeper's and the acolyte's gaze are both looking. The body, laid out in Lara's plate armor, before the tabernacle. The grief and horror on all the faces around her. "...Lara?" Athalie stares at the body as her feet carry her forward, her stomach dropping into a deep pit inside of her and pulling her down and down. Even if she wanted to resist the force that is pulling her forward, she can't. She has to know. Nothing else in the world matters right now. And then she is standing next to the body, looking down at her sister's face... lifeless, her body ravaged with wounds and burns. Lifeless. She touches Lara's face, just to be sure, but there is no response, and her skin is cold.

"Oh, Lara," she whispers. "I came too late. Please forgive me." Athalie drops to her knees next to Lara's body. She pushes the hood of her blue cloak back, pulling off her leather cap and letting it drop to the floor. Hands shaking, she draws her sword, and lays it reverently across Lara's body, the hilt over her sister's folded hands and the blade pointed towards her toes.

Only then does she lean back on her heels, bury her face in her hands, and weep. Great, wailing sobs as the reality hits her. Lara is gone.

Sanimar gives Athalie comforting pats on her back and a willing shoulder to cry on. "I am sorry I could not save Lara. Take the time you need to mourn but first we must see to Lara's funeral as leaving her unattended may have dire consequences" She looks to the Flamekeeper "Please continue with your preparations."

Sarűmir stays completely silent through the course of Athalie's grief. He does awkwardly pat her on the back, however, and gives her a empathy-filled look.

Hanna tries to reach out for Athalie but refrains. She pulls back. She pats her eyes down with the smock and avoiding eye contact, she says "Let us see to it then." The way she moves almost feels robotic; she steps with one foot in front of the other. You find her breathing a bit haggard as she leads you all to the tabernacle. "It is right over here..."

The flamekeeper ducks out the way towards a confessional booth where there is a small compartment. There she then draws out a large stick which she then dips into the continual flame by one of the edge of the last pew. "By the light of the Fire."

At the tabernacle a warm hand reaches the sister's shoulders. "Athalie," Vervida stands, clutching her chest. "I'm sorry." Verdivida opens her mouth for more to say but only finds herself stumbling on words.

"This has never happened before-"

Not long after light notes dance across the piano. Vervidia is hanging her head low while she plays them. One of the acolytes tell you that Demitris Stravos's ceremony- the one the decor was for- is not for another two hours.

Flamekeeper Hanna anoints the body with holy water, "May the blessing of the Flames be with thee," rubbing the body's forehead and temples in the symbols of the Torch, a odd-shaped diamond where the bottom half is more skinnier than the top almost like a kite. They tell you that even though you are out of the haze there is no guaranteed that even without symptoms you are without contamination even if you weren't before. So, she wafts the flaming staff side to side over and across the body until the ashes (the one she sprinkles with her left hand) cover Lara. "Blessed are the sick, the lonely, and the lost for they may always be found." A great lights halos over the body and then it is gone. With this, she has purged contamination. 

"In the short time I knew her she was a dear friend. She was a hero to her cause and a hero to her people. Rose to the top of her class, never backed down to a call, but knew when not to pick a fight. But she was more than that. She was a sister, a friend, and... a person!"

"And now- she will live on. In our memory and in the eternal flame of the earth's core as long as it shall be spinning."

"The world may not be kind, but she reminds us to stay true to ourselves and to believe in what we fight for. Amen."

Hanna goes over to the pulpit. "Is there anyone who wishes to speak about the deceased?" Hanna nearly chokes on her tears before she steps down and makes her way to the pews. Vervidia is already there.

Vervidia shuffles next to anyone who is willing and whispers, "How did this happen?"

Sarűmir pulls Vervidia to the side and answers her question. "Did Lara tell you we were heading to Drakkenheim? Well... well, we arrived in the city yesterday, near nightfall, but that turned out to be the exact wrong time to show up. Many of the contaminated came after us before we could get inside the gates, and... we fought valiantly, but they overwhelmed us. Lara died trying to help, and the the rest of us barely survived ourselves. We were saved by the dwarves that rode with us back into Emberwood." He takes a deep breath.