That evening, they all gathered in the barn, where the villagers had thrown a banquet for them. Torches and bracers littered the place and long tables full of delicious food lined up the walls. The clerics immediately noticed that the food and drinks were spiked as soon as they sat down, but they couldn't cast any spell to neutralize the narcotic or poison without giving themselves away, so they decided to just roll with it and rely on Sekhmet, who was immune to it thanks to the bracelet that Edwin had gifted her.

Before they could start eating, Langiva moved in front of the table where they sat with a smile, Hobb standing at her side like the loyal underling he was. "Let's welcome our guests. What is ours, is yours", she began, then raised her cup, "To our guests!".

"To our guests!", the villagers echoed, raising their own cups, though Ulric noticed that nobody drank a single sip and his suspicions heightened a thousand fold. "I also wanted to give thanks for us being spared by the plague that has invaded every place", she added, looking straight at the bishop's envoy as if challenging him and he glared at her in return.

Wanting to spite her, he stood right the moment when she and her lackey sat down, "If I may, I would like to express our gratitude for your kind reception", he began in a polite tone faker than a seven dollar bill. Langiva smiled, satisfied…Only to frown when the mercenaries and the adventurers all stood up as one. "Now we will pray", Ulric said, bowing his head to hide the smug gleam in his eyes as he knew it would anger his hosts.

He then proceeded to recite the Pater Noster in latin, with the adventurers keeping silent as they mentally prayed to their own patrons, though Sekhmet actually listened in to Ulric's prayer and committed it to memory, just in case she would need to recite it at some point in the future. She even crossed herself when she saw the mercenaries doing it and the others followed suit to not look suspicious.

Langiva waited until they were done, then pretended to take a sip of her drink, "I expected gratitude, not a whole prayer", she commented and some villagers laughed at her mockery. Despite that biting remark, the meal went on without incidents, with a few girls trying to flirt with Swire who flatly rejected them and Dalywag who tried to flirt with some girls only to be turned down at every turn.

"There are more women than men here", Wolfstan told Ulric as he looked around, "Maybe that's why they are the ones doing the talking". Ulric frowned, "Do not be foolish. And do not lower your guard: a demon is hiding in this place, among these people". "And we will kill him as soon as it shows its face", Sarevok added with a confident smile, taking a small sip of his wine.

Osmund was lost in thought, when he saw Langiva gesturing for him to follow her. He stood quickly and Ulric grabbed his arm. "Where are you going?". "I just need some air", the younger man lied, walking out to follow the blonde woman.

Langiva guided the monk to a small house and let him in, "We found her in the forest. She spoke of you before she died", she said, showing him a body covered by a white sheet. He approached it slowly, then took the sheet off and his eyes filled with tears as he recognized Averill, his fiancée.

Her eyes were closed, her skin was pale and cold as he stroked her cheek gently. Broken hearted, he left the house and went to the small abandoned church to pray, kneeling and bowing so low that his forehead nearly brushed the floor as he begged for forgiveness and asked why she had been taken from him.

He was so lost in his pain, that when he heard footsteps behind himself and turned around, for a moment he saw Averill standing there, her body stained with blood and tears running down her face. "Osmund, where were you?", she sobbed, "I waited for you…Why? Why did you play me for a fool?", she accused him, "Osmund? Osmund?!".

"Osmund?". The voice changed and he finally realized that the one standing behind him was not a bloody Averill, but a worried Ulric, who approached him and placed a hand on his shoulder, feeling him shake with sobs. "Osmund, what is tormenting you?", the knight asked in a surprisingly gentle and fatherly tone. "We became beasts", the lad answered in a trembling voice.

"We must become even worse beasts if we want to win". Aaaaaannnnd there went the fatherly tone, replaced by a low and slightly growling one. Ah, well. It was good while it lasted. "There isn't a demon here. It's a simple village that has not yet been devastated", the monk said and while from a rational point of view his words were more than reasonable, Ulric was not inclined to be reasonable and go for the most rational explanation. Not this time, not in this village, where the plague claimed no lives and yet five men had disappeared leaving behind only a pendant as a testimony of their existence.

"Pain has made your heart weak and suffocated your courage", the knight commented, turning to leave. "Sir, how would you know? You don't have a heart to weaken!", Osmund spat, only to receive a kick in the side in return. Though to be fair, that kick was little more than a nudge, as Ulric didn't really want to hurt the lad despite his irritation.

"I have known pain", the knight growled, "My sister and my parents are at God's side. I have been alone since I was barely more than a child", he forced himself to cool down and moved closer to the altar, "It is true, this village is without the plague. But it is also without God. And for this, they will suffer", he concluded, tossing the small wooden cross he always carried with him on the floor in front of Osmund and walking out.

Leaving Osmund to pick up the cross in his trembling hand and beg for forgiveness, for mercy and for guidance as he felt lost now more than ever.

oxoxoxoxoxo

Back at the banquet, Swire was turning down yet another girl, while her friend noticed Mold staring at them and smiled widely. She quickly approached the bald man and knelt on front of him, "Are you shy?", she flirted, touching his arm. As a response, he grabbed her roughly by the hair, "I'm ugly and I'm Christian and this is not a good combination here", he told her in a velvety yet poisonous tone, "Now get lost", he added, pushing her away and she barely managed not to fall face first on the floor.

oxoxoxoxoxo

Osmund, after leaving the church in a daze, found Langiva once again and followed her around like a lost puppy, "When will she be buried?", he asked, referring to Averill. "Don't worry, I will take care of everything". "Will I see her?". "You will see her", she said with an odd smile that sent a shudder of uneasiness through him.

He stopped and she stopped as well when she saw him open his mouth, then guiltily close it as he changed his mind. "Were you about to tell me that these men will do us harm? Especially to me?", she smiled, "I knew it since the moment I looked in Ulric's eyes. What I didn't know was what side you were on". He hesitated, he wanted to say he was on Ulric's side, after all the mercenaries had protected him during the journey and yet…

"Come with me", Langiva said and when she saw him conflicted, she smiled again and extended her hand to him. Osmund didn't know what to do, but in the end, he took it and followed her, "What's going on?". "Something you need to see", she replied, leading him to a small clearing, where roughly ten men were standing in a circle, all of them wearing white robes with cowls hiding their face.

Langiva walked in the middle of the circle, kneeled down and began removing some dirt…And not even an inch under the dirt, there was a sheet, which she pulled back to reveal Averill, alive and breathing! The poor girl sat up and took a deep breath, then another, shaking like a leaf and Osmund, split between joy that she was alive and horror that she had apparently risen from the grave, turned tail and ran away: he felt the sudden need to find Ulric, knowing that the knight would protect him, no matter how harsh he could be.

But in his fear, he didn't watch where he was going and instead of going back to the barn, he reached the border of the village, where he found something even more horrible than a corpse rising from the grave: several wooden crosses were lined up and five of them had a dead man tied to it, the corpses covered in dirt, knife wounds and dried blood and with their entrails dangling from their ripped open midriff.

It was pretty obvious even to him that the wounds had been inflicted when those poor unfortunate souls were still alive and his blood ran cold as he remembered Ulric's words about the men sent to investigate the village before their group, realization dawning on him that this was the fate that Langiva and her followers had in store for him and the others. He tried to turn around, to go back to the barn and warn everyone, but one of the woman's lackeys hit him hard don the head and he fell unconscious.

oxoxoxoxoxo

Meanwhile, inside the barn, the effects of the drug were starting to manifest and the mercenaries and adventurers felt dizzy, their sight blurred and right before Ulric lost consciousness, Hobb shot him one last smile. "As a Christian, you will no doubt appreciate the concept of betrayal", he said mockingly…And then everything went black.

Sekhmet was the only one unaffected by the drug, but she pretended to fall asleep too as she knew that throwing a fireball while inside a barn full of very flammable hay and made of equally flammable wood was not a bright idea, no matter how badly she wanted to turn each and every one of the villagers into roasted chickens.