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| The temple of Mourning is settled in a rather scenic area, a mountain pass that has been called Smugler's Pass for many years. Fields of wild grain and herds of wild horses, goats and cattle suggest that this area was once a thriving agricultural community. No one could tell you the last time that people lived in this lovely and fertile area, but none of those making their living in the surrounding areas will consider living there. The area itself is the subject of years worth of myths and legends. They have said that spirits wander these lands, that in the depths of the night ancient monsters roam the countryside. This might be explained by the area in which this lovely mountain is located at the edges of the lands of both Kenyon and Stonegate, each places where magics and creatures both dark and light wandered freely. Well, for whatever reason, the area has been without its own community for centuries beyond even the family tales passed from generation to generation. And long hidden by time and distance, there is a doorway built directly into the face of the mountain. It is a rather lovely door, in and of itself, delicately carved and inlaid with a curious red marble and overgrown with vines. The center of that door is a black maw that descends into the rock of the mountain itself. Not the easiest of doors to enter. There are some among the locals, young boys for the most part, who dare each other to go up to this door. Little boys, after all, have a habit of finding those things that time and adulthood have endeavored to hide. Had these younglings ever actually gone through that doorway, they may have been pleasantly surprised. When one goes through that daunting door, it is not the cave that he or she expects, but a garden beyond the dreaming of it. The air inside this garden is sweet and pure, with an open sky that rests in a state of day hovers everlasting on the cusp of night. And as far as the eye can see, is an endless and constantly blooming garden of roses, broken only by neat pathways and sheltered benches. Following the pathway from the entrance, a visitor will eventually arrive at a paved and shaded courtyard surrounded by padded benches. Directly across from the opening of the circle rests a large and immensely comfortable chair on a raised dias. Twining perhaps on some trellis behind this chair is a rosebush that stands out in this garden, a bush covered with beautiful pure white roses, as opposed to the rest of the roses, which are a uniform blood red. Perhaps strangest of all is the fact that these roses are exactly the same in number as the previous Priests and Priestesses, and they weep tears of blood. In this everlasting garden the spirits of those who could not let go of their lives have a strange community of their own in which the Priest of Priestess of Sorrows serves as their aristocratic leader. They walk and play freely according to their nature, and each has been given a permanent anchor in the form of a blood red blossom. At one time, the living came to the temple to seek solace, forgiveness, and closure with their dead loved ones, but it has been thousands of years since those days. The current Priestess comforts those spirits as best she can. |
| The Temple of Mourning |
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