Day One

Today, Running Bear and I began the process of trying to cleanse the temple... Remember how I thought it was going to be difficult? Well. I was more than correct. We decided to tackle it in a series of steps, to maximize the possibility of success. The next few posts that follow are basically simple accounts of our days spent at work.

Step One: Remove the body and the bloodstains, ceremonially bury Bear's mother.

This is potentially the most emotionally taxing of all our work...Burial ceremonies are never happy things, for obvious reasons. For ancestral and tribal respect reasons, I will not account the details of the ceremony. Suffice it to say, her body rests under a desert tree about a mile to the south. I didn't see Running Bear for the rest of the day, but I don't blame him. He wonders if his mother's spirit was stolen somehow....He says he couldn't feel it. I couldn't either, honestly, but it is not my place to say something like that. Spiritstealer....That was written on the wall..I don't want to think about the possibility of something stealing another's spirit. That is so....evil. Such a crime against the balance of the worlds..

Anyway...I went back down later and began to wash the floors and the walls of blood and whatever else I could get. Most of the blood and drawings washed away...

And that's where it got weird, my friends. As the blood and charcoal washed towards the middle of the room, it appeared to....re-form.

Into the shape of the tall figure in black with no face.