Somehow the snow witch, as the men-at-arms quickly came to call her, had cured Norman Gilead by holding his poisoned body close through the night. The men had not slept well. They had been concerned for their friend. They had also been fearful of the black fur cloaked warrior who protected her.
Having endured a cold and mostly sleepless night, the men were startled to find in the morning sun that the wounds they had suffered in Galastrow had healed. Whatever magic the snow witch had woven, it had rippled out and healed them too.
One man clutched his side where he had been sliced the previous day. He had expected to need to change his dressing with the morning light, but when he tore away the old bandage he found the skin underneath fresh and whole. Newer and pinker than the flesh around it. And still without hair.
Another man, who had been beaten in the face such that one eye had swollen shut and might need to be bled again, had instead woken up with it simply returned to normal. As it was before the fight.
As he tested his eye he thought he might even suddenly be seeing better than before! He cast an excited look at the snow witch but caught the dreaded warrior’s gaze instead. That gaze promised to kill everyone here if his Lady’s magic made her too interesting to them.
They were grateful for the blessings bestowed. But sown in this soil were the seeds of betrayal.
Valaria put down her lute and finished her tale about how Alandra de Winter and Norman Gilead first met. It felt like a powerful story, and no doubt Valaria was a master at her craft, but as the group returned to their surroundings it felt like somehow the magic of the story had eeked out into their world.
Janaar, who had suffered multiple claw rakes upon his flesh from those cursed troglodytes, suddenly found no such marks upon his flesh and in fact felt renewed for more fighting in greater measure than when he had first entered the temple.
Ryparin, who during the telling of the story felt a great calm wash over himself, awoke from his meditations to find new divine mysteries suddenly unlocked in his mind. He too felt refreshed and renewed in growing measure.
“What just happened?” Grim asked, looking at his hands like they just changed shape.
“Yeah, wow!” Zymaan and Nyneve remarked together, both looking at their fingertips like new arcane energies begged to be manipulated there.
Valaria blushed but waved for them to keep giving her compliments.
Kildrak picked up his warhammer and swung it a few times in the air, suddenly liking the weight of it even more than before. “Good story,” he declared.
“Thanks,” Valaria beamed.
Wet slithering sounds suddenly echoed from the direction the group needed to head in order to exit the troglodyte temple. The temple’s avatar still awaits.
Everyone began to gather their equipment and organize themselves for the trials ahead.
“You said the snow witch saved the world twenty years ago?” Grim asked.
“Yeah,” Valaria confirmed.
“Did you mean, because she saved Norman Gilead, who went on to become the lord of these lands?”
Valaria smiled a warming smile and touched Grim’s arm. “I suppose I did mean that. Or at least that. She actually went on to do way, way more than that.”
“Like what?” Janaar asked, not at all reluctant to show his interest.
“I can’t believe none of you guys have ever heard of her!” Valaria exclaimed, shocked. “She’s totally a big deal in human lands.”
Janaar and Nyneve, the only humans in the group, both shrug their shoulders and raise their hands.
Valaria huffs but in a way a fairy might while scattering pixie dust everywhere. Truly she is happy to have a captive, interested and virgin audience for the chronicles she now wishes to tell.
“Is she still alive?” Kildrak asks.
“Ah, ah, ah,” Valaria tuts. “You can’t jump to the end of the story.”
*The fact that you made third level now – midway through the temple and not at the end of it – relates to the fact that a great bard (Valaria) told this particular story, which did in fact have in game magical effects.