Offering
The temple is covered in vines most every where except the entrance. The clearing that surrounds it once held sculpted plants and neat lawns now grown wild after years of neglect. The path looks more like a deer trail in a nearly forgotten valley.
In fact the valley had been completely forgotten by man and god until a few years ago when a young man happen to get lost and stumbled into the temple, almost literally.
Joxer had been coming here for years to make offerings. When he had first found the temple and realized it was devoted to Ares he had felt compelled to clean it up. Joxer was pained to see that a temple of War had fallen into such disrepair.
So he swept out the dirt and fallen leaves that had covered the floors and repaired the well behind the temple. He washed the altar and cut back the vines that covered the windows. Thought he left the ones that had crept up the outside walls.
He hadn’t meant to come back after that first stay but a few months later he found himself once again lost in the overgrown valley. Joxer had been having a spectacular run of bad luck so the chance to putter around the quite temple and recuperate was a welcome one.
Soon it seemed that whenever he felt run down or melancholy he found him self wandering into that familiar valley. More than once after a particularly bad fight he stumbled across the temple entrance not even remembering the walk across the valley. It was as if no matter where he started out from the valley was never more than a day’s walk. This didn’t bother Joxer he had never really liked praying at the more public temples. There was all ways a crush of worshipers and the priest were often rude to him.
Besides Joxer had never had much money to spare on offerings and the simple gifts he brought were sneered at by others. He didn’t believe that an offering had to have great market value to be worth something. Joxer has always held the belief that an offering made sincerely had more weight than bag of gold or stolen sword given only because it was expected.
Come twilight Joxer was tromping in woods where there should have been a road, a great wide, wheel rutted road. “Need to pay better attention” he muttered to himself after yet another branch maliciously smacked him in the face. When he noticed a familiar gnarled tree he stopped and spun around taking in his surroundings.
He was in the valley again. Joxer grinned and loped down slight trail to the temple.
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