The only sound that echoed throughout the town was the footsteps of the party. Lillian couldn’t help how heavily she stepped, and after the last attempt at stealth she figured that it would be best if she didn’t try to pretend that she could be more stealthy than a box of pots and pans having an orgy. That was what Calisto was for and he at least was flitted about. She could hear the banners flap against the wind, the rustling of the great tree in the center of town, and even the creaking of signs as the wind disturbed them. Scanning through her surroundings, she couldn’t hear anything else. All the sounds and signs of humanity were behind her, outside the gates.

I don’t get it, she thought, Derwa wasn’t set to evacuate for months. The absense of anything that even suggested that the town was currently occupied by anyone left Lillian walking through with her hand at her sword. Ready to draw at a moment’s notice. Visually checking to see that Lorne and Calisto were still okay she turned to sneak a glance into one of the nearby buildings. Empty. Puzzlingly so there was still things left about. Did they leave in a hurry? She looked around at the room. Everything seemed in order. Nothing seemed slapdash or rushed. No fresh scratch marks. Nothing thrown about or dropped in a frenzied rush. The inn’s tavern looked like it was right before opening.

“What happened here?” Lillian whispered softly, only silence answering her.

Seeing no other leads outside Lillian took the chance to step in. The floors creaked as she walked through, maybe there were people and they were simply hiding. Checking closets, pantries and cabinets, finding only dust and empty space. That was just the stranger part. Of what she did find, no food had been taken. She did find some things that were in advanced stages of decay, but the other shelf stable foods right where one would expect them to be. There was nothing under the beds either, nor in the bedroom closets. Room by room Lillian went trying to find something that might indicate what had happened and simply found no luck, until she came to one of the bedrooms. Under the bed there was a journal on the floor. Someone had kicked it under the bed that much was clear. Lillian reached under to grab it and then sat on the bed to start flipping through the more recent entries.

20th of Crow’s Moon, 35

The days grow warmer once again and we find ourselves back in the loving embrace of the druids. All who have woken from their winter slumber are shaking off their lingering exhaustion and are being welcomed back into their families and homes. Though some are worried. The winter frost has not fully retreated and yet the druids stirred. The speaker is yet to wake, when she is returned she will tell us why they have awoken so soon.

24th of Crow’s Moon, 35

The Speaker has awoken, and even in her weakened state her countenance is grim. She drinks deep of the air as if she were drowning and has yet to speak. The others have all returned to her barrow, tending to her round the clock. The rest of the town waits with baited breath of what troubles her so. Is she ill? The Speaker taking ill so soon after their return would be a bad omen indeed.

Lillian furrowed her brow as she read, thinking back she couldn’t remember seeing any of the druids about. They’d come through during Silent Moon, they would have all still been in the barrows at that time. Tapping her feet lightly she continued to read.

Worry has taken everyone. Several of the crones have been unable to eat as the stress eats away at them. The druids aren’t telling anyone anything and it only makes us wonder what horrors lie ahead. Even as I pen this I only do so in an attempt to take some of the worry and put it somewhere else. While the sun was still up I passed by the shrine every hour. Hoping to see at least one druid there. None. Not even an initiate. By noon I had only seen the daughter of one, Aliana, though I did not bother her. Small as she was it was better off that she be in the embrace of Derwa. Her presence there did little to hearten me but beggers cannot be choosers.

30th of Crow’s Moon, 35

The Speaker finally spoke to us. Her mind cleared of whatever malady that she was afflicted with all to render unto us horrible news. This time, the flames would find us. That we could not simply take to the barrows and wait it out. This time… the demons would find us. Would hunt us down to the last.

As she read, Lillian noticed that there was slight water damage on the page. Tears, she realized.

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Even if we had managed to escape there would be nothing for us to return to. That our home, our land, even the great spirit that nurtures everything for miles, would fall to their steel. The Speaker had begged, pleaded with the great spirit and it would not be swayed. We must all go to the barrows and never return. I think of little Aliana, and the promises of rebirth in the ash that the great spirit promised and find that I can only taste blood.

Lillian’s blood ran cold. She looked out the window to see the towering tree in the town’s center, beginning to shake so hard that her armor rattled.

“No…” She whispered. “No it can’t…”

She ran. Slamming into door frames and the walls unable to keep up with her own momentum as she turned to leave the building. She saw Lorne’s baffled look, raising his staff trying to find whatever Lillian was chasing but she didn’t stop for him. She heard Caliosto’s footsteps behind her, distantly she heard her name. Lillian hadn’t bothered with the pretense of stealth before but now her armor rang out like hundreds of bells as the plates all clanked against each other. Arriving at the shrine she found that the entrance to the barrow was still open.

“Please,” She whispered, “Please just be asleep.”

There was nothing but time, but the beating of her heart and the heat that threatened within it begged for release. Lillian slowed her pace, praying that the township is fine. That everyone is down here, hiding, protected by their guardian. Room by room she checked. Each den was simple, small. It was single use after all - these places of rest. A bed that would fit most, a table, and a small light empowered by what she could only assume was magic. Lillian looked in each den and found nothing. The beds were neatly made, the tables cleaned and clear. The lights glowing softly banishing the darkness as if nothing had ever changed. The dread that lingered in her heart held onto it with a cold, icy grip digging its claws into the tender flesh.

She finally found the antechamber where the order held all their meetings. Or at least she assumed they did at one point. What Lillian saw instead nearly forced the bile at the back of her throat. Bodies, all of which were laying on some form of runic circle. She realized belatedly that the chamber was made entirely of wood of the living tree. Blood pooled on the floor, easily an inch deep throughout the room. There was order in the way the bodies lay, as she walked in trying to find any hint of a survivor. Each one had the same marks on them, the same gashes, the same peaceful expression.

It was a massacre. She hadn’t been to Old Derwa much, she didn’t hardly know anyone one here let alone by name or face. Some looked passingly familiar. The guards that had been at the gate when the party had come through, the merchant that they’d bought supplies from to make it to Aeson. Lillian didn’t even need to step over the bodies to make her way towards the center. The ritualistic way that they’d handled each person, laying them in their place, the only hazard that she face was risking slipping on the blood slicked floor.

The amount of children that Lillian found while she walked sickened her. None, at least, appeared to have suffered while they died. Their small pale bodies entirely devoid of the postmortem signs she would normally look for when assigning a cause of death, though she wasn’t a forensic pathologist she could at least make a decent guess in most cases - including this one. They didn’t fight back, there’s no sign of struggle,not even and strange bruising that would imply that they were held down.

Lillian took a deep shuttering breath, trying to blink back tears as she looked at their little bodies. The tree had infested them. Roots going deeply into them and already growing some sort of cocoon around them. She knew that trees would happily “eat” the meat of anything that died nearby it, not to even speak of the manner of carnivorous trees she’s read about in her time. Calisto was the one who found her. Trembling, desperately trying to keep the treacherous tears from falling. He put a hand on her shoulder, when Lillian looked at him he said nothing. Just a gentle tug away from the scene. Her armor echoed throughout the chamber. Slight, but there. The splashing of blood that couldn’t be more than maybe a few hours old. The taste of copper in the air had long since settled in her lungs. Embers flickered in her breast as Lillian held back all that she could from lashing out at an entity that was older than her people.

Rather than face the demon army, they gave themselves to it. Maybe it would be merciful and everyone in Old Derwa would be born anew, nymphs and dryads to populate this region instead of men. Her breath hitched once she stepped outside, unable to hold back tears, the sorrow. Falling to her knees she broke down, molten silver staining her face as Lillian sobbed. If they had been just a few days sooner, maybe they could have convinced them to just come with them, that the Speaker had been mislead. That there was in fact still hope. Instead they had dawdled around Aeson. Wasting time and energy letting the council dick around as an excuse for her own team to dick around. For as much as their journey out here was about making their own way, they likewise weren’t going to rush the job, and it cost Derwa everything.

“Bastards all sittin’ on their celestial thrones.” Lillian spat, her words broken and breath shaking. “They watch and watch and never dain to help.”

Calisto watched her in silence,crouched down next to her ready to spring into action, but after what he’d seen, he wasn’t likely to need to fight anyone - they both knew.

“Why do we give them worship? Tribute?” Lillian demanded as she looked up at the sky. “Why do we pay our tithes if they’re going to be as effective on our lives as our gods forsaken taxes.”

He gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze. If he was trying to be supportive all it accomplished was the pauldron making a sound when as he did so. “The Divine don’t always have our best interests in mind.” Calisto said softly. “They have to think of the greater good, for their roles.”

Hollow empty words. Platitudes that meant as much as “I’m sorry for your loss” or “It gets better.” This was worse than the gods abandoning them, if the gods had simply abandoned them, had simply left them to die then they could have found them. All of them. Instead the spirit had lead them as lambs to a slaughter. Instead it robbed all of them of any chance of salvation.

Lillian stood, shaking off Calisto’s grasp as she did so. If the gods were to forsaken them, then they were never worthy of worship. To dangle salvation on a stick and leave them without even the grace of a warning, then she was going to take it upon herself to bring them to their pyres.

“Gather supplies, we’re taking everything we can carry.”