Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Whizbang Dustyboots" data-source="post: 3742003" data-attributes="member: 11760">Hazel stares at the brass ring with concern."Maybe we don't need to open it. Maybe we could just cast the spell on top of it without opening it at all." From her tone, it's clear she doesn't believe that would work, as much as she'd like to."Nah," Emus says quietly. In contrast to Hazel, there's a gleam of anticipation in his eye.With the bed up against the wall, He reaches for the brass ring. With a tug, the trapdoor scrapes open. A once-sturdy wooden ladder leads down into darkness, but the wood seems to be covered in a layer of black dust, as is the underside of the trapdoor.Emus, with eyes adapted to the dark of mountain caves, can see a small room below, a small storeroom of sorts."Huh," he grunts. "Wish I had another bomb.""So, who's for crawling into the nun's dirty root cellar," Tucker asks, ignoring Bufer' snickering a few feet away, "And who's for staying up here?"Emus squats, looking at the ladder. The black substance he first thought was dust appears to be flaking off of the ladder, as though wafer-thin layers were being chipped off slowly.Looking down into the storeroom, he can see that other objects down there also have a strangeness to them. Angles are off on a large table and it's close to falling over. The tabletop is buckled and ruined books are spilling out of a small bookcase that looks as though it has turned runny.Atop the table there's another object, but without being closer, it's hard to figure out exactly what it is -- or what it once was.Hazel crouches beside Emus, aiming her lantern down into the room. She shakes her head. She points a finger toward the table."Is that what's causing the ivy to turn black, too?""Let's find out!" Emus barks. Holding Emmerson's lantern in his shield hand and Urak in his other, he jumps down into the hole, ignoring Emmerson's and Bufer's cries of alarm.If anything, the room is worse when fully lit by the lantern. Not only are the angles of the room all wrong, but the stone and earth of the cellar seem to be degrading into the black powder on the ladder. Roots that have pushed through the wall have likewise turned black and almost seethe with unnatural life.Every surface of the room has been painted red with disturbing symbols. Emus recognizes a dagger and a crescent moon, but the symbols overlap to such a degree -- and were apparently put down with such ferocity -- that it's impossible to tell what most of the tangle of images are supposed to be.Atop the rippled table surface is a small wooden chest. Its hinges are no longer anything but black powder and the grain of the wood is twisted into images suggestive of screaming mouths.The room is warm and moist, like the inside of a feverish mouth."Oh, Hell," Bufer groans angrily. "Redshirt, get your big brain over here and take a gander down there; I want to know what it is I'm looking at. The rest of you stay back, just in case. Lil' Big'un, better get your rope ready in case we need to pull Shillelagh back up right quick."Oktav detaches himself from Flower and edges over cautiously, trailed by the kobold. It takes him a moment to sort out any individual images. He looks flustered as he tries to work out what it is he's looking at."I've read descriptions of iconography like that. If it's the same thing as I read, this would be the Cult of Chaos, but that doesn't make any sense ...""Why not?" Emmerson asks, peering over his shoulder."Because this was an abbey dedicated to Lothian! These women weren't cultists! From all accounts, the abbess was a well-respected woman whose faith was unquestioned, not some mad beast! And the cult is in the west, on the frontier of the empire, not here in its heart!""West?" Emmerson looks at Bufer. "As in Ptolus?""You grow up next to an orchard, you learn pretty quick that an apple doesn't have to be brown and mushy to be rotten, and that they can grow on any tree," Tucker says with a sagely tone."You all right down there, partner?" Hazel calls down."So far, so good!" Emus shouts back with a grin. "There's a bunch of blood all over the walls! And there's a creepy chest on a table! And the room reeks with an ancient evil not meant to be understood by any sane mind! Also, it's kind of humid!""If I were a betting gnome, I'd lay money that someone in this Cult of Chaos was them what sent the book to the abbess in the first place, and it all went pear-shaped from there. The church is a pretty attractive target to take down a peg or two, believe you me."Emmerson clears his throat very softly, and Bufer continues brightly."Misguided sons of bitches, the lot of them. I don't what the rest of the empire's like, but from where I'm sitting, the Church's got a lot to recommend her. "Shillelagh, don't touch nothing! I'm coming down!"With that, Bufer turns and jumps down into the hidden storeroom. Emus stretches out his arm to steady the gnome's landing, then gestures with his axe toward the chest on the table."I'm thinking we smash it to dust."Above, Hazel stands near the edge of the trapdoor, the remaining rope coiled over her arm."Say the word and we'll haul y'all up.""Tell us more about the Cult of Chaos," Emmerson says. "If they had a book that corrupted the abbess and turned that place into a madman's dream home, the church should have some information.""This isn't what they do, though!" Oktav says, his voice a whine. "They like to skulk about in the sewers and sacrifice animals and poison wells and such-like. I've never heard of them doing anything like this. And a book couldn't do this, anyway! There has to be some other explanation.""Besides books, what else do they trade in?""Nothing! They're not merchants, they're nihilists. Something else happened here."Below, Emus and Bufer examine the chest without touching it. It essentially is just a pile of chest-shaped parts, at this point. It can't be opened so much as cleared away from what's inside."It don't look like it'll require much in the way of smashing," Bufer says, "But go ahead. Just watch you don't smash whatever might be inside in the process.""No smashing," Emus snorts. He lifts his axe and makes a show of carefully scraping the sides of the chest away from whatever it contains. "Wouldn't want to break the pretty, evil baubles the crazy dead nun's got stashed under her bed."As he scrapes away at the wreckage of the chest, Emus slowly exposes a black book.</blockquote>

Verification