Nighttime stroll

Alexis took a look around her impromptu excavation site. Once again she marvelled how it had come to this, how she of all people ended up decrypting ancient symbols speaking of the lost history of a foreign people.

She wasn’t exactly a scholar like Boyce or even Nicolaus. She wasn’t deeply religious like Voah. So what on earth was she doing here, trying to find the relic of a deity she did not even worship, trying to wrap her head around the affiliated history while doing so?

~And slowly going crazy along the way.~
she mentally added as she thought she caught the form of a Tar lookalike in the corner of her eye again for a split second.

Slowly exhaling she sat down by her fire, just watching the flames dance for a while.

“You know, you’d had better guarded your own life instead of mine. You’d be better at this.”
she softly spoke to the silence surrounding her.

She felt she had a better understanding of Tar talking to seemingly nothing by now. Hearing voices was bad enough as it was, but if those voices liked to mimicry one’s own inner voice, then one could come to long for a way to separate them from one’s own thoughts. She’d better make sure not to do that around people, though.

Screw this. She needed some air. Maybe walking around and cast her mind on more mundane things like figuring out how to supplement her rations with minimal exposure would help her to hang on to some shreds of her sanity.

Alexis walked over to the stairs and peered up. Night was about to fall. Perfect. She would appreciate the additional cover and besides she had come to highly prefer the nicely distinguishable cool of night to the ever creepy feel of none heat that came with the scorching daylight.

As an afterthought she grabbed the scarf that had come with her desert clothes originally and stored it on her person for easy access. She was probably being paranoid, if understandably so, but it seemed a relatively easy and fast way to alter her appearance slightly if needed.

As the last rays of sunshine vanished beyond the horizon, Alexis stepped out of the fort and began to make her way to the temple for the time being. She had no elaborate plan where to visit as of now, but in a way that was what this exercise was about. Clear her mind.

The mercenary couldn’t help but notice soon, as she drew nearer to the centre, that there were more people about than she’d expected. And that there was a tension in the air that had her hackles rise more and more with every step.
Clearly, she had missed something of grave importance while she was holed up down in the cavern. Her instincts geared into high alert.

She would have to tread very carefully now…