Siora and Vestele went over to the glowing ritual circle on the floor, while I began looking over the corpse to try and see what goodies this Huntcaller had for us. If he didn’t want us to have his stuff, then he shouldn’t have been in our way. It was only fair, after all.

  The armor and shield were, frankly, awesome. Awesome, except for the fact that they were both tied so closely to Malar that, even if some of us wanted to use them, we couldn’t. That sucked, but we could still sell these items when we eventually got to someplace civilized again.

  Once I had identified them, I set the Huntcaller’s gloves aside for Siora. She could definitely use the help when it came time to shoot enemies instead of throwing spells at them. Any boost to her ability with the bow would be welcome in the coming fights.

  The ring was useful, but wearing two of the same ring would not provide any additional benefit. Likewise, the amulet could be useful, but Vestele was already wearing better, and the rest of us had other magic items around our necks. The magic would interfere with each other if you tried to use both at once. These two went into the bag, for selling later.

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  This ring was actually quite interesting. It was an improvement over the one Frostmane already wore, and it would increase his already impressive armor. Considering that his size and ferocity often had our enemies focusing on him, I couldn’t see that as a bad thing. His old Ring of the Darkhidden went into the bag, for safekeeping.

  The morningstar was nice enough, but Vestele was the only one of us that used a weapon like that, and she had more than a couple to choose from, each of which was better suited to what she needed to do than this one, as she did not generally change size. Into the bag it went. We were going to have plenty to sell when we got back to Northport.

  The cloak was extremely useful to any of us. However, I quickly decided that it would be best for Frostmane to have it. Seeing the way that the wolves had been controlled by Siora and Vestele had reminded me that mind control was a thing in this world. If someone managed to turn Frostmane against us, then I didn’t know if we could beat him, especially in close quarters. So, he got the cloak, and his old one was tucked in his bag. We weren’t doing much hiding, anyways.

  These two were old friends of ours. Enough so that we all had one of them, or an equivalent, in Frostmane’s case. They were common, and wouldn’t get us much gold in Northport, but having a spare of something like them never hurt. And if we ever found ourselves with a new party member, even a temporary one, they could prove useful indeed.

  I was never going to turn down an extra magic bag to carry things, especially since the bag Frostmane was already carrying was pretty much full to bursting with all the things we had picked up. Fortunately, the wolf was easily strong enough to carry this bag, as well, once we strapped it securely to his back. I slid the armor and shield inside, glad we didn’t have to leave them behind.

  Other than that, the only other items the Huntcaller had on him was a masterwork-quality heavy crossbow, some bolts, and an everburning torch. The torch I put inside Frostmane’s bag, since those were useful items, but I left the crossbow where it lay. The haversack didn’t have so much room in it that we could just be careless with how much weight we packed, after all.

  With the spoils divided, I turned my attention to the twins, who were currently side by side as they examined the glowing runes inscribed upon the floor. They discussed the runes between themselves, Vestele pointing to a section of the circle, and Siora finishing her sentence with a nod, before she continued on, rambling about some bit of arcane knowledge.

  I cleared my throat to get their attention, and hand Siora the gloves I’d put aside for her. She smiled, and said, “Well, we’ve managed to work out part of what this circle does. It is some kind of seal. The runes are in Abyssal and Celestial, which made them hard to read, at first, but I believe it is a binding, to keep this place, or something inside it, from being found by divination.”

  Nodding slowly, I said, “Anything that the Malarites want kept away from view probably isn’t good for us. Do you think that it could have something to do with the Blood Moon?”

  Siora shook her head. “No way to know. However, I’ve never heard of a magic like the Blood Moon before, so it is probably some secret of the Malarites. Breaking the seal might end the blood moon. In fact, I’m almost positive it won’t, but we would then have a better chance of discovering what is going on.”

  Vestele nodded. “I am not as well versed in the arcane as Siora is, but I believe she is correct. If we can disable the circle, then we may be able to discover the key to taking down the Blood Moon.”

  I took a breath, and then said, “All right. In that case, we have to decide how we’re going to move forward. We’ve taken a beating, and walked most of the day. Normally, I wouldn’t suggest camping out in an enemy’s base like this, but we can try and fortify this room, at least somewhat, which will let us fight, if we need to.”

  Frostmane chuffed. “We’ll have to keep watches, but we would have to do that anyway outside. At least here, we can keep them from swarming us from all sides. But do we want to go staying in the same room with this seal overnight?”

  Siora grinned. “Oh, don’t worry about that. I figure out where the power feeds into the circle. I can shut it down without blowing us all up, no problem.”

  I took a deep breath. “All right, then. Go ahead and disable it. We’ll camp here, and rest and get ready to finish off the rest of the cultists in the morning.”

  With a nod, Siora pulled out her thieves’ tools, and moved to one side of the circle. Slipping a long tool under one of the stones lining the floor, she carefully pried it up for a moment, and then removed the stone, before turning it to the side, and replacing it. As she did so, the green glow of the circle flared up, sputtered, and then began to fade away, before finally going out.

  The beguiler smiled up at us. “Done and done. They’ll have to restart the ritual from the beginning if they want to fix it.”

  We had just settled down to rest, pressing back, out of immediate view of the hallway, when we saw a glimmer of light breaking the darkness, coming from the stairs. “Father?” A woman’s voice called out. The footsteps approached. “Father, are you there?”

  A Huntress, like enough to the one we’d fought above to be a sister, perhaps, stepped through the doorway. “Father, what happened to the wards? Sister Bella and the door guards are dead! The ritual chamber is unguarded!”

  That was as far as she got, as Frostmane and I, positioned on either side of the doorway, attacked simultaneously. My fist, wreathed in icy power, slammed into the woman’s armored side, knocking her off balance, and into Frostmane’s waiting jaws. She was dead before she knew what hit her.

  And just like that it was over. Quietly, we stripped the body of valuables, sliding another suit of +1 Full Plate, a +1 Heavy Steel Shield, and a scroll of Raise Dead to the pile, which we happily tossed in our bags, along with the hundred gold pieces we split between us. Making sure neither corpse was in view of the door, we settled down once again, and, this time, we were undisturbed.

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