Once I chose the guardian animal, she nodded and said "And the sacred wood? I need it." I looked at her blankly before asking what she meant. She sighed and said "A master like me can't make a sculpture fit for the gods without some holy wood. You have to go get some timber from Deerhome and get them blessed by a cleric from the church the shrine will belong to. I nodded and that seemed to be the first quest in the quest line. We rode out for Deerhome to get the timber. Since Deerhome was our home, we were able to get the timber. The manager of the yard did not want to sell it to us. "We don't want our wood to be apart of that stupid flower shit! We tolerate the church here because the laws saw there has to be "tolerance" for other beliefs." He then spat on the ground and said "Yeah right." I looked at him and said "Look at this man." I then shoved Leon in his face. "This is the champion of the royal tournament in the capitol. You don't want word to spread that you are a raging bigot, do you? I do wonder what the king would say if we tell him." He looked scared at that.
He eventually relented and sold us the timber. From there, we loaded it onto a cart and rolled it to the church. Father Joy and Sister Greta were very happy to see us. We had not been back to the city since we left to conquer all the bases. We caught up and they praised us for all our hard work. When we asked them to bless the timber, I was surprised that they looked overjoyed. They must have wanted to contribute in their own way. Even the other cleric, Father Jimmy looked interested at the prospect. It took a day for them to get ready. We went to the manor for the night. In the morning, we returned for them to do the blessing on the wood. They all were halfway through when a group of people in masks came and tried to steal it. We had to kill them all and defend the terrified clergy from them. Several waves later, we were standing in a bloody and defiled church. 31 bodies were on the floor. All of them were people that hated the church. I had suspicions that a person at the timber yard called them. The clergy had to start over after they rested and calmed down. The ceremony was more somber.
When they were done with it, we left the city immediately. I did not want to help clean up. Going to Verdant Village was a trip and a half. We were beset on all sides by all sorts of assailants. Even more bandits and the religious extremists of the other beliefs. We killed them all on the way. The increase on the random encounters must have been part of the quests. We got to Verdant Village and gave the sculptor the wood for it. She looked at the wood and said "How many did you want me to make for you? I just assumed two, but there is enough for six." I rolled my eyes and said "Make for and the rest is yours for other projects. Free of charge." I told her to make the other two both males. She smiled at me and got to work. We had to wait for 16 days for them to be finished. In the meantime, we became the guards of the village. Waves upon waves would come every four days. We killed them all and kept the villagers safe. We were then made the Heroes of the Village. That gave us the perk of recruiting villagers to do things for us and have them ally with us in conflict. That will come in handy.
