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Echo sits up quickly upon hearing the owl talk. Owls weren't suppose to talk! "Um, I was sleeping," she said in answer to the owl's question. "How is it you can talk?"

"Kewick!" the owl responds. "Why do you humanoids always think only you can talk? 'Bears can't talk! Cats can't talk! Squirrels can't talk!' Hoooo, it's always the same. Preposterous! Well, I'll have you know, miss, that some of us owls can talk. We just are selective in the company we keep. Kewick!"

"Hmm, so then why have you decided to pick me as your company?" Echo asks curiously. "I find it hard to believe you would fly, randomly, into this tent and decide that I looked like decent company to keep."

"Well, those wolves certainly didn't think so. I was watching the whole thing in my tree, hoooo," the owl says. "You're quite lucky you have good friends to look out for you, or you'd be still treed like a squirrel. Hoooo!"

"Perhaps," Echo says with a sigh. "So you decided to follow me after watching that?" she asks.

"It has been a long time since any people have come through here, except for lumberjacks and hunters. But your group is far too big for that. I admit to some curiosity on what you're all doing here," the owl says.

"This large group is on a pilgrimage," Echo explains. "They are looking for the shield of Baerin."

"Kewick! And they think it's here in the forest?" the owl asks incredulously. It tilts its head in puzzlement.

"No, they think it is up in the mountains. We are just traveling through the forest to get there," Echo explains.

"The mountains? Kewick! They must mean the old temple up there. Oh, you don't want to go there," the owl insists. "It's quite dangerous."

"How so?" Echo asks. "Can you give me so details other than it is quite dangerous?"

"Not especially," the owl admits, giving a strange, almost shrug-like gesture. "I've never actually gone into the temple. But those who have entered have never returned, that much is for certain."

"What about the area around the temple?" Echo asks. "I don't think it is the best idea to have all forty of us to just walk inside that temple. Most likely, there will be a select few of us asked to check the place out."

"The area around the temple? Shouldn't be any worse than the mountains in general, I suppose," the owl says.

"I guess I'm going to have to make up where I got this information," Echo says thoughtfully. "No one is going to believe that I got this information from an owl."