They stayed ready for a more traditional assault on the campsite until one of the hunters was able to use the man's body to track him back to his own campsite. It was closer than they'd expected, hidden in an underground hollow that the hunting party thought was occupied by a hibernating spikeball. He'd clearly killed it and taken its home as his own, which only made sense; spikeballs did tend to make themselves comfortable burrows that were small enough to let body heat keep it warm and large enough to store a few things.

The burrow told them he was alone. That was enough to let everyone relax; while they didn't know how much he'd arranged other than the stairwell collapse, there was no longer someone out there trying to kill them. It was possible there would be traps set on the return trip, but they would be easy enough to avoid by taking a different route.

The hunting party recovered the spikeball fur along with some other trophies that would be useful during the winter, but the most important thing they recovered was a notebook. Sophia wanted to call it a journal, but it wasn't, not really; Pelrith Moonshadow didn't write in it like it was a diary. Instead, he took notes on what he saw and what he planned.

It confirmed what they thought, that he was alone. It also confirmed that he'd been sent to hunt Los'en and that he'd realized who Sophia was but that he hadn't reported back to anyone. The most confusing note was about the ruin: he thought it was similar to one near Mazehold, if less powerful. That made exactly no sense, because Los'en had been to Mazehold and there was no ruin with functioning installations that dated back to the Kestii Empire, especially not ones that worked the way the Templar described.

At least, there wasn't one that everyone knew about. If it really worked by breaking enchantments, it explained why enchanted items were so very valuable near Mazehold. They sold well even if they weren't powerful enough to use in the Maze or against the local monsters.

It probably explained a good bit of why the Broken Temple, in particular, was growing more powerful. They already had the advantage of being able to skim off Motes for people with valuable Abilities who might have a hard time gaining them; that was clear from the sword they'd destroyed in Izel. It was now also clear that they had a way to train those people without risking their lives.

Los'en started to rant at about that point. Sophia tuned him out; all he was doing was repeating himself and she didn't see any reason to really listen. Instead, she skimmed through the rest of the notebook, which described the plan to collapse the stairway, kill the hunting party, and either kill the people who were underground the moment they emerged or bring allies back to kill anyone who survived underground if they didn't.

It would never have worked. They didn't really get to see what the Templar was capable of because they surprised and confused him. He would also have had the advantage of ambushing them without them knowing he was there, instead of the other way around. It still wouldn't have worked. He didn't have a way to wipe them all out nearly instantly at a large distance. If he had, he'd have used it against the dragon flight.

Without that, it was entirely possible he would have killed someone, but he couldn't have gotten all of them before they reacted, and the moment they reacted it would have been over. Between Ci'an's Night Owl gaze abilities, Dav's ability to reinforce or duplicate himself, and Sophia's ability to turn into feathers that could restraining him, he was going to be in trouble.

On top of that, they probably wouldn't lose anyone, because Horus would probably be in the lead and he specifically had an Ability that helped him know when to block something with his shield. That was the reason he'd be in the lead, after all; if there was a cave-in, Horus would be the best person to have in front to protect everyone else even with no actual warning.

It was simply a bad plan, and that was if they came up in the location the Templar expected. Sophia wasn't sure they would have; even without Scout, Xin'ri could probably have figured something out. It would have taken time, but chances were good they'd have picked a different set of stairs to dig their way out. It was entirely likely that they'd have left without even realizing Pelrith was there.

Sophia snickered. That would have been funny. She was glad it didn't happen, since it would have given the Templars a chance to come back and explore the facility while no one on her side was there, but it was still funny.

"Are you coming or are you going to keep listening to the old windbag complain?" Xin'ri grinned at Sophia.

"I'm not old," Los'en protested.

Xin'ri winked at Sophia but answered Los'en. "Fine, young windbag. I'm stealing your listeners; come on, Sophia, Dav. The honey-glazed icespike reindeer is not to be missed."

Sophia blinked, then stood. "Where did we get honey?"

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"We brought it with us," Xin'ri admitted. "It keeps better than sweetgrain, so we aren't going to use it until later in the winter except for celebrations. This counts."

All of them, even Los'en, followed Xin'ri towards the cook's fire. As it turned out, there wasn't just honey-glazed deer. There were also preserved berries and cream, several different types of bread, one of which seemed a lot like cake, a vegetable stew that had been seasoned with more of the spices they'd brought than were usually used in a meal, crispy fried duck, and a meatloaf that somehow managed to taste light and buttery even though it was more than half meat. Sophia didn't know how they managed that.

As they finished eating, several people vanished just long enough to fetch instruments. Sophia saw a small set of drums, a stringed instrument that looked a lot like a fiddle that was played almost percussively with metal finger-caps, and something that was so similar to a harmonica that Sophia was certain only someone who played the instrument would be able to tell the difference.

Unexpectedly, Xin'ri's instrument was her voice, rather than something she'd built. She had a lovely, clear soprano and a good memory for lyrics, so she ended up singing at least half of the songs. When she wasn't singing, others would call out the person they wanted to sing or the song they wanted the entire group to sing. Sophia didn't know most of them, but that only made it more fun to listen.

As the night progressed, Los'en pulled out a couple of bottles of liquor they'd brought from Izel. Split across the entire group, with a little saved for the people who had duties they couldn't abandon, they each got to have a single small glass, probably three or four shots' worth. That was plenty for almost everyone; it was strong stuff.

One of the bottles tasted minty with a rich undertone, almost like coffee, while the other was a simpler butterscotch.They were both delicious, which was good because Sophia could enjoy the taste but didn't suffer from the alcohol; she didn't even need her necklace to cleanse the poison. Alcohol simply didn't affect her the way it affected a human. It was just another sugar.

Dav was similarly unaffected, the way he seemed to be immune to almost anything that was thrown at them. It was definitely a result of the changes he'd suffered as they traveled through the Origin. Sophia had stopped worrying about them; as far as she could tell, all of the changes were positive. She wasn't certain Dav entirely agreed.

The fact that they were both sober didn't protect Sophia and Dav from being asked to sing. Neither did the fact that they didn't know many of the songs that the others knew; if anything, that made everyone else even more eager to hear what they did know. The musicians tried to follow along and support Sophia's voice, but they stuck to simple things that didn't conflict with the song.

It was a little strange to sing for people who'd never heard the music before. Sophia ended up singing songs from her childhood, which really meant the music her parents listened to. A lot of it was from before she was born, but there was no way for anyone else who was there to know that.

Sophia's last song was one she sang to Dav, about how he made her feel like she was home. It was one of her mother's favorites, that her mother sang along with for Sophia's father. Sophia hadn't understood it until she met Dav, but she did now. He was that person for her.

Dav only sang a few songs; instead, he told stories. A few were ones Sophia had heard before, but it wasn't long before he was telling completely made-up stories that couldn't possibly have been true and entertaining everyone. The story he told after the love song, however, was for Sophia even though it seemed similar to the earlier tales. It took her until he was well into the story to recognize it, but it was a fictionalized story about how they met and ended up together.

It was quite a bit more romantic than Sophia remembered, with both of them saving each other's life repeatedly. Their trip through Cliff's dungeon became a dance, the trip through the Origin was a fever dream, and arriving in the Broken Lands under the ruins of Old Kestii was waking from that dream. From there, it was a tale of two supposedly legendary lovers who saved each other from hordes of ravenous jeweled insects, a city-devouring snake, and a shadow-hawk that stalked people from the darkness.

He started to end the tale there, with the two lovers disappearing into the mists of legend and other stories, but succumbed to the requests for more. Sophia didn't really think he minded, but the next tale he told didn't start with the two lovers; it started with a dastardly vizier that wanted to get his king killed by monsters so that he could take over the kingdom.

It all would have worked if not for the duo that arrived in town when it was almost too late. They found out about the plot when they ran into some monsters that looked like tiny men in armor sneaking around the capitol city. Somehow, that led to them sneaking into the vizier's treasury and stealing the bird pendant that let him control the monsters … other than the tiny men that turned out to be the result of an Ability the vizier had used on the city's guardsmen to make them do his bidding instead of the king's.

The tiny sword-wielding version of Aric that was carried away by a giant owl was particularly funny, though Sophia thought it might have let Ci'an catch on if she weren't already tipsy.

After that, Dav did declare that he was done telling the tales of Dorian and Sapphira, because he wanted to spend some time with "his own Sapphira." There were some rather explicit suggestions about what they should do that made Sophia blush until they disappeared into their soundproofed tent, but it was a good way to end the party. The rest of the evening started with footrubs and ended in bed.

All in all, it was a wonderful celebration. Sophia and Dav even felt that way in the morning, unlike several of the others.

Ci'an actually used one of her alchemicals to clear her hangover. Sophia was pretty sure she must have been suffering badly for that, but she was still paying enough attention to use one that was getting near the end of its effective time.

On second thought, maybe it wasn't such a surprise. Ci'an didn't believe in keeping alchemicals around after they went bad, so why not use them?

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