Remembrance & Renewal
This time, it was quiet.
There was no wind howling through the hills, no heavy breaths and grunts of pain. No tension and ache in tired muscles, strained eyes keeping watch through the night.
For the first time in 12 years, Lyza stood at the foot of the mass grave of more than a dozen master delvers, hastily buried in a ring around the hard soil of a hill below the mists of the goblets. There was naturally little left to distinguish the site after so long; what little markers had been left were scattered or worn away by time, and all that remained was the sparse cluster of eternal fortunes stubbornly claiming the crest, and the rotted remains of a single broken helmet, buried in the dirt.
The resolve she had mustered when she decided to come here was the only thing keeping her emotions in check, and she stiffly proceeded through her plans one step at a time. She could only trust that her masked friend shadowing her in the distance was considerate enough to keep their distance.
Spirits, incense, and food Lyza had prepared as offerings, and she laid them out one by one as she knelt before the patch of blossoms, working through a mix of rites for the dead cobbled together from delving traditions and abyssal faith. One by one, she spoke aloud the names of her friends, her companions and for each of them she found kind words of remembrance, until her voice struggled on the last, the reason for her visit.
“....Torka.”