Fosia

Fire Shrine near Maru

The fire still burned in the altar. It was a strange sort of fire. There could be no doubt in your minds that it was otherworldly. There was no source of fuel that you could see and left not scorch marks on the stone slab.

There is no sign of the young boy anywhere you look. It is as if he had never been there, but you know it was not a trick of your minds. You touched him, he ate your food. The implications of what you have experienced are huge. The boy led you to this ruined shrine with a specific purpose. A temple to some mountain deity.

You look for hidden doors or panels and for any signs of the boy to no avail. All the while the flame burns in the altar. The little smoke it creates drifts upwards into the shaft above the stone. As if in supplication to the sky.

Nothing. There was no sign of the boy and what could have happened to him. Kaithak had been real, very real. Islana knew it.

There had to be a reason why they were brought there. Islana knew the boy had been drawn to her but, was it really to bring her here, or was it for all of them.

The implications of what this all might mean were enormous.

Is it possible the boy had been... dead? Maybe he needed their help to be taken to what came next. The idea made as much sense as anything else, at the moment. Though it was a rather sad thought and not the truth that Islana wanted to believe.

Going over by the altar, Islana glanced upward where the smoke headed. What of this temple and the deity it was for. A God of fire, it seemed.

"Fosia," the young woman said quietly.