The guards on duty atop the the makeshift gate that has been constructed out of the remains of the old goblinoid barricade wave eagerly when their returning heroes come into a view and a runner can be seen heading into the village with word of their arrival.

"I suppose I will not get a better deal than that," Aiden says with a laugh. "Lead the way, Jex."

Jex stables the boars and locks the wagon behind his inn. The orphans and volunteers have been working hard in his absence to make the place presentable and to his surprise and pleasure everything seems pretty much ready. He grins and leads Aiden inside, taking him upstairs to the rooms.

"There, you can drop your pack and I'll take you up quickly to show you the town." 

"Quite a few children in this inn," Aiden says as he dodges around a child running with a broom. He chooses a room, drops his pack, and rejoins the half-elf. "How did you come to own it?"

"Same as anyone here really owns anything now." Jex shrugs. "The people who had it before died in the invasion." He scratches his head. "After the war though, everyone was kinda occupied with their own. Noone thought of the kids. I remembered what that was like, so gathered them here with some people minded to help. Now I'm teaching them to look after each other and themselves, like I was." He grins, " Kinda sad coming from me isn't it, but icky." He mock spits on the floor as he pulls down a ladder from the ceiling. "Once it's all fixed up they'll have their own space, away from the inn, and a school too, we'll library and temple. Got a friend coming to help run it." He gestures for Aiden to climb the ladder, and join him up on the roof.

"See, everything important is close, there's the town hall, and the old garrison buildings, and the mayor's house where Vark and Seid are now. I need to go join them. I expect the others will be downstairs or in the other Inn over there."

Aiden listens raptly as Jex showcases the town. For having been recently cleared of invaders, it was bustling with activity and seemed fairly well off. "That's kind of you," Aiden says when Jex mentions the orphans. "I will go find the others. I'm sure Thurston has drunk half the ale in town by now. Thank you for the tour. And so you know..." He pauses, thinking back to the ordeal with the shadows and the mask. "...I would not destroy someone's property without their permission. I am not that kind of man.

Thurston is cleaning Thor's shrine when Aiden finds him. There is already a full set of stones placed delimiting where the walls of the temple will be, and there is a wooden palisade around the temple grounds. 

"So, have you seen Jex's inn? He is doing a great job with all those orphans. Would you mind?" he says pointing to one big wooden joist. Together the two men put it in a place that Thurston has previously marked. 

"Yes this one will make a good entrance to the temple Don't you think? Now that you are here... I wonder, would you make me a favor?  I was to engrave Thor's name and symbol here but since you are here it only seems more appropiate for one of his clerics to do it. " 

"Of course," Aiden begins, "But you built the shrine. Are you sure you don't want to be the one to mark it?"

Thurston smiles to Aiden

"Somehow I feel it's more fitting that it's you who do it. Ultimately they are going to need some real cleric to guide them into Thor's misteries. And after we resolve things here and we took our little trip back home, I feel that this is going to need someone to take care of it. Who knows? " he shrugs " Maybe you grow fond of this place and this people as I have done." 

He keeps working, as if his words hasn't the weight they have. 

Aiden stares at Thurston for a moment, his realization of the paladin's self-sacrifice striking him strangely. "I think you'll be around to take care of it," he says. "But I'll carve the sigils."

In ancient Norscan runes, Aiden carves the name of Thor and the hammer symbol into the keystone over the course of several minutes. He takes great care with the chisel -- an unfamiliar tool. Eventually, he completes the carving and steps back. "Crude, but it's the best I can do." Lightning leaps from his hand into the rock and courses across the runes.

Thurston thanks Aiden's work. 

"That's perfect my friend. This is a rough land, and this people had suffered under the tiranny of the maginobi and their goblinodis minions, they don't care about fancy things. They will come here in search of guidance and strength. And Thor will be here for them. But the hour is growing late. Come! Let's join the others and see what we should do next." He offers Aiden a barrel of cold, clean water and takes other one over his own head and let it flush over him. 

Laughing and shaking he takes a towel and finish to clean himself. 

"I would like to go and see the elves, so I can gather some materials to create an armor for Val and myself. We will need protection for the coming fights, and then we should go and take care of this dragonborn sisters known as the Morrigan. While we walk, let me tell you about our first encounters with them and how cowards are, for they had run from us at least in two ocassions. " 

Thurston tells Aiden about the bandits camp, the basilisk farm and their knowledge on them. 

Val looks at the others as everyone begins to separate into their own groups and Vark mentions seeking out Seid, she turns and waves him down. "I would like to speak with him as well. I would ask him to look at some things for me? I need some information from him."

Vark alights on the balcony of the town hall, before cracking the door with a creak and heading inside. As expected, he finds Seid at the table in Quinton's library, poring over some old book.

Even as distracted as he had been with his research of the last several days, Seid looks up abruptly at the sudden sounds coming from the balcony. He'd not yet received word that the Acharnost had returned to Sheercleft. He quickly gets to his feet as he eyeballs the door warily, his hands already prepared to begin the castings of a spell should this strange appearance. "Identify yourself!" He shouts clearly as the door begins to creak open to reveal the tall frame of Vark, his half-orc companion. "Vark! It's you!" The aggressive tension in his shoulders drops and he lets out a heavy sigh. Vark can see that Seid looks tired and haggard. His eyes are red with dark circles beneath them and he can tell it has been some days since he'd shaven from the thick, blonde stubble marring his otherwise very sharp chin. "It is so good to see you. Come, tell me everything."

Vark swoops back around as Val flags him over. "Oh, uhm yeah okay!" he blurts out, but he doesn't wait up for the goliath. He once again zooms off towards the town hall clearly eager to see his friend. 

"Seid!" he exclaims as the pair are finally reunited. Vark rushes forward and wraps up the scholar in an overzealous embrace. "It's very good to see you too." The words are muttered into Seid's shoulder before Vark finally releases. "I guess it hasn't really been that long, but so much has happened! Look!" The warlock reaches for the codex in its pouch and the space around them is suddenly cast in red light. Though he is excited for Seid to finally see the relic in person, his mood grows a bit more serious as he gazes at the runestone. "It's amazing. I can see why Matthew wanted it back so badly. You'll have to spend some time with it to really see it's like... it's like there's a whole world in here." Vark looks back up and it's only now that he seems to notice how rough his friend looks. "H-how are you though?"

Seid eyes the relic with a strange mixture of wariness and interest, it was something Vark had not yet seen up his face before. He reaches out slightly towards the codex, but pulls back quickly as Vark addresses him once more. "Hmm?" He glances up and notices the concerned look in Vark's face. "Oh, I'm fine! Just a bit of insomnia is all. Come in! We have lots to talk about." He gestures for Vark to come sit and he places a page marker in the book he had been reading to make room for Vark to place the codex on the desk nearby.

Vark follows and places the codex on the desk where Seid indicates. After setting down the rest of his things he takes a seat across from the wizard with a smile. “I feel like I’ve already told you some of what we’ve been up to. What about you? Reading anything fun?” he says, pointing to the book on the desk. Over the next hour or so, the pair finally fill each other in on all they’ve learned. Seid tells Vark of Breannian legend, of knights and kings and Nimue. Vark fills in the gaps that have been left between sending spells, giving Seid all the details of their climactic battle at the gates of Karaz A Grungon and their delve beneath the hold itself. He talks of the cleric of Thor that has come with them to Sheercleft and of the curse laid upon Jex’s mask as well. “Actually they both wanted to talk to you too. Jex wants you to look at the mask, and oh Val wanted you to look at something too. Aiden seems to be curious about all this Dawn God stuff and Matthew and his siblings. There’s... there’s just so much that we still don’t understand. I think I was hoping you’d find some old book in here that would just explain everything but... well I guess not every single library has every single book. It seems like the elves or the dwarves might have records that would add context to what we’ve found out so far.” He looks thoughtful as he mulls over the possibilities for extended research, then lights up as an idea comes across his mind. “Maybe we can use this!” Vark grabs the codex and holds it between the two of them. The soft red glow that emanates from within is reflected in the warlock’s eyes. “There’s basically a gigantic library stuffed inside this thing. It’s a little overwhelming and most of the time the information I get from it doesn’t make sense at first but I’m sure I can show you how to use at least. With all of your knowledge you might be better at actually searching for specifics in there.”

As Seid listens to Vark's detailed explanation of their journey into the dwarven lands, he sits back with a soft smile upon his face at Vark's animated antics. When he mentions this device, Seid nods as he sits up to examine it more closely. He retrieves his spellbook and spends a moment ritually casting a spell to allow him to view the veins of magic that run through this Codex as Vark had so called it. As his fingers finish tracing the elegant runes in the air, his eyes flash a bright golden color and he recoils slightly from the sudden flare of magical essence bursting forth form the object. "Lady have mercy. Vark... this is..." he shields his eyes against the glare of intertangled webs of all known schools of magic and the metaphysical waves of heat that pour outward. "Let me see what else I can find out. Just a moment..." He flips to another page in his spellbook and once again begins the tracing of arcane runes into the air around him. This time the runes seem to hang in the air, glowing a slightly golden, radiant light as he completes a circle in the air above the Codex. Again, after the completion of the spell, Seid looks down through the center of circle of runes to allow him to examine more closely the threads of artifice. He reaches beneath the hovering circle of runes and begins to pluck at invisible threads and strings that only he can see through his runic circle as he tests and prods. "This is amazing, Vark! Absolutely breathtaking! I wish I knew where his Matthew came into possession of this device. It's... it's difficult to describe exactly. I've read theoretical discussions on the possibility of such an occurrence, but nothing more! It's a multi-dimensional manifold!" He smiles at Vark's blank stare. "So, think about it this way. The object that sits before us is not the real Codex, it's a shadow of it. This is an avatar if you will. This object allows you to access the actual Codex, which is clearly not of this realm. I wish I could find a way to interact with it, but... it is locked to me." He turns to look at Vark with a keen eye, placing his soft hand upon the veins of ruby snaking up Vark's forearms with a keen look in his eyes. "If only we knew someone who had the key."

The blush that comes to Vark’s cheeks is only made more blatant by the electric red lights that run up and down his ruby veins. His eyes glance down to where Seid’s hand lingers as he begins to stammer, “O-oh uhm y-yeah ok uh m-m-multi-dimensional manifold got it, uhm but yes I... I think I could,” he gulps down the lump in his throat before continuing, “Unlock it for you. Uhm... take my hand.” He pulls back his arm to take Seid’s grasp in his own, and he takes the runestone in the other hand. He focuses on the relic for a moment and the shifting faces begin to stir and brighten. “It should be good now.” He gestures with his eyes for Seid to place his other hand on the ruby, completing the circuit. As the wizard does so, Vark tries to extend his magical aura to connect with both the runestone and Seid at the same time.

Crimson energy rushes through Seid, arcing from one arm across his chest to the other. The wizard's eyes snap open, alight with the same red glow that inhabits Vark, and his spine spasms, making him jerk upright. Power like nothing that Seid has ever known fills him and images flicker across his mind's eye too fast to comprehend. At the heart of it all, he sees the hypercube of the runestone. An impossible tesseract. Old as time and brimming with raw magic. The sensation burns like fire through his veins.