Gingerly, Heyou moves over to the dead creature. Once he is sure it will no longer rip his face off, he puts a hand on its hide, and begins to stroke it.
“So ferocious. So beautiful. Cat – why can’t you be more like this wonderful thing?”
Remembering that he has company, Heyou takes one more glance at the bear, doing all he can to remember every detail of it.
Somewhat more dejected than before, he addresses the group. “If you do not mind, Heyou is feeling tired now. He would like to… sleep. Yes, sleep would be good.”
Kalen, too, cannot blame Heyou for his fatigue. Despite the brevity of the encounter, as his heartbeat slows and calms, his own tiredness begins to weight down on him.
All the same, though, experience forced him to speak.
"I would recommend we move, friends," he says, sheathing his blade and stepping over to examine the beast. "Not too far, I assure you, but we needs put distance between ourselves and the beast. One bear will be the least of our problems when the wolves smell blood through the rain..."
After relocating to a different campsite, an endeavor which takes over an hour and is made all the more bone wearying for the light rain that starts up again, the group settles down and the rest of the night passes without alarm.
Joanna awakens everyone with freshly brewed coffee over a tiny fire, and in short order the camp is broken down and everyone finds themselves back in the saddle.
The trail begins to climb sharply at this point, with some stretches so steep that everyone is forced to dismount and lead their horses on foot. Still, it's a beautiful ascent; as dawn gives way to the early morning light, occasionally the screen of trees will give way to views over the valley below, complete with the distant shimmer of Diamond Lake in the far distance.
The Black Cloud mountains beetle over you, and their distant peaks appear nothing if not perilous and impossibly high. Joanna leads you with confidence along the trail, and during a quick rest in the lee of a cliff face lets you all know that you should reach Lamashtu's Courthouse by a little after lunch; thereafter the descent on the far side should take some eight hours, resulting in your reaching your destination a little after dusk.
On you go, and soon you break through the treeline. The path hugs the dangerously steep slopes, and its all too easy to imagine a misstep leading to your sliding and falling down the near cliff to your doom far below. Still, your mounts are steady and you make good progress.
Finally Joanna raises a hand, stopping the group. "There," she says, pointing up ahead. "See the broad gap between the slopes up ahead? The Courthouse. The trail leads through the ruins of a temple. Ready?"
Once the group gives its ascent, Joanna leads you up the rest of the way to crest a final ridge and you see the Courthouse open before you. Squeezed in between two steep slopes, its a morass of broken columns, tumbled walls and shattered towers, perhaps four hundred yards deep before giving way to the far slope.
Vajan makes a sign against the Evil Eye, staring with wary intensity at the vista before them.
"Lamashtu's Courthouse," he whispers. "The name itself suggests unholy peril. I think we should be at the ready for something ugly, just to be safe."
Vajan retrieves his crossbow and begins to load a bolt, his eyes never leaving the ruined columns and towers before them.
Vajan makes a sign against the Evil Eye, staring with wary intensity at the vista before them.
"Lamashtu's Courthouse," he whispers. "The name itself suggests unholy peril. I think we should be at the ready for something ugly; it's no sin to err on the side of caution, eh, friends?"
Vajan retrieves his crossbow and begins to load a bolt, his eyes never leaving the ruined columns and towers before them.
At Vajan's words, Kalen nods and slowly draws his longsword, looking around at the ruins looming overhead. He doesn't get the same sense of "unholiness" as the Priest, but there is certainly something dark about the place, as though some lurking evil was watching them from the shadows jittering about in the rubble on either side of the pass.
Heyou points up the slopes to the right. “Hey, meatsacks, Heyou sees something up there. Something that does not want to be seen.”
He slips off his mount, grips his staff, and clicks at the back of his throat, telling Cat to slink into the nearby shadows, so it is ready to take someone by surprise if they try to attack.
“Heyou thinks that somebody living in these ruins now knows we’re coming.”
"Your eyes are better than mine, Heyou; I see nothing," says the priest, his attention and crossbow fixed on the place upon which his cloaked companion stares.
Vajan wonders to himself, not for the first time, if he should be readying a blessing for his friends rather than a crossbow bolt for an unseen foe.
With everyone's focus directed up the steep slope, the hidden figure moves forward, realizing that it's been detected.
It's a horrific figure, something out of a feverish nightmare. It looms nearly a dozen feet tall, its flesh seeming to have been riven from the very fabric of the mountainside. Yet its build it scrawny, long, ropy muscles draping its frame, with a leather jerkin and loincloth all by way of modesty. A large, heavy head hangs low over its chest, dominated by a vicious hook of a nose, its mouth inhumanly broad and filled with sharp teeth. Batwing ears flare back from its head, and its eyes burn piss yellow as it stares down at you.
But it's clear that this being has been grievously wounded in the past; its entire left side is badly maimed by old burns, such that its left arm is withered and clutched to its side, while its left leg seems to give it pain, making it limp. Even the left side of its face is badly scorched, with holes in its cheeks revealing its blackened teeth and the flesh of its brow melted down to partially obscure its eye.
Still, it clutches a sizeable rock in its right hand, which it hefts as it glares down at you.
"You tread on holy ground, humans." It's voice is a raucous croak, its common thickly accented and barely intelligible. "Lamashtu's ground! None may pass that are not of the faith! Turn back, and I will not put this stone through your heads."