Both women nodded at his assessment and Lunari specifically looked concerned.<strong> “Yes, let us go.  With all haste.”<br/></strong><br/>The trio set out, the evening having already long settled over the villiage, and several elves making their way to the temple for the evening services.  They knew that the matriarch would be in attendance there.   It was Nilari who voiced the concern as they walked at a quick pace,<strong>“How did he find you so quickly?  I would have thought that a teleportation spell across the great sea would have given you weeks of time to prepare?”</strong><br/><br/>Lunari answered,<strong>“My father spoke to me of the demon rarely, but on more than one occasion he did mention the demon taking wing, flying.  I don’t know how fast a demon can fly, or if they need sleep, but it seems that four days would be a greuling pace for anyone to cross the great sea.”</strong><br/><div class="floatright">(http://i.imgur.com/caoRKlF.jpg)</div><br/><strong>“What then?”</strong>her mother asked quietly, looking to Nirael,<strong> “Did he too teleport?”</strong><br/><br/>Lunari shrugged,<strong>“Mara was in the employee of a man who worked for the demon.  From what she said it sounded like there were several groups of hunters out under the demon’s instruction.  It is possible that what Nirael bartered for, the demon could pay for with coin.”</strong><br/><br/>The trio arrived at the temple before services began and found the Matriarch as she was speaking with the high priestess.  Nilari spoke to her and the woman seemed completely nonplussed by the discussion, but gestured again for Nirael and only he, to follow her to the semi private sanctum in the gardens along one wall where they’d spoken earlier.<br/><br/>She nodded her head and bade Nirael to speak, and after he had sighed softly.  She folded her hands in her lap and seemed to collect her thoughts for well over a minute.  So long was her silence that Nirael could hear the sounds of the worship starting off in the other part of the temple.  Just as he wondered about interrupting her thoughts though she opened her eyes and spoke,<strong>“The time grows short.  I find myself glad that what was ordained is coming to pass, and also terrified at the prospect.  For one way or another it means an end to this village as you see it now.  I have been a messenger and a guardian, a shepherd and a seer, for my people and in service to my goddess for more years than I care to count.  I had hoped that your arrival would be like that of Alher, a time of preparation, but it is not to be.”</strong><br/><br/>She sighed,<strong>“Know you what an oath stone is?” </strong>She drew forth from her hair a jeweled clip.  She held it out to him and it seemed indescribably delicate, yet radiated magic and somehow he knew it was more powerful than it appeared.  Looking like a fruit bearing vine, it was ornamented with diamonds and silver pearls.  Nirael suspected the function of such an object, and doubted that anyone wearing it would be able to utter a falsehood.  The matriarch gestured to his own head and said,<strong>“Place that in your hair, and speak truth to me, at your own peril. There is much more that I know of your quest, and your destiny, then I have said.  I told you earlier that I wished to know you more intimately before I spoke to you of such things.  I had hoped to have days or weeks to get to know the real you, to learn to trust you.  But if the demon draws as close as you suspect, then we do not have time.  Swear an oath beneath that pin, that you will do your utmost to protect this village and it’s people.  That you will help me carry out the destiny I have lived centuries to fulfill, and I will tell you what it is that you do not know yet.”</strong><br/><br/><br/><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">ooc</div><div class="spoiler_body">If Nirael attempts to tell anything but the absolute truth, he must succeede at a will saving throw, DC 13 before he utters it.  "Truth" in this case is quite subjective, and I leave it up to you to decide.</div></div>