That's So Raven

You went down.

Ubys asked Rhovan to escort you, and Rhovan agreed. He knew the way.

Through the secret cellar where his father's old gear had been kept. Through the basement where the rats came up. Past the room where you fought them, past the room where Lessie killed cultists, past the chamber where KeYs pulled Falkor's egg from the bucket above the pool.

Then Rhovan turned the other way.

The corridor was narrow.

He stopped to point at the walls.

Tendrils, obsidian-colored, jutting like claws of black ice.

They were not cold.

Around the corner — a cavern.

A vast pile of bones. Cult members, picked clean by his pack. Centipede carapaces, Horehound-flavored. Mud and waste and a roof of bats, gone now, replaced by his cousins.

This is the wererat den.

Ubys gave Rhovan some rations.

Ubys also noticed a secret door in the back wall — beyond it, a waterfall and a shaft and a lake somewhere far below.

Moist sampled the water from the shaft.

You doubled back. Without Rhovan. He stayed in the den.

You went to find what was making the tendrils.

In the corridor again, AC recognized them.

He had seen these on demon planes. Several of them. They had something to do with the Blight.

Ubys pressed his memory.

The Raven Queen had once studied a soul — a soul that dreamed of a distant dead world that had been pierced through with such tendrils. A soul-sucking necromancy.

You were standing in the veins of it.

Past the tendril-corridor, the room opened.

A black spire rose straight from the stone floor.

Eight Grimlocks sat around it in a circle. Fingertips touching. A resonance in the air. Eight glyphs ringed the chamber's walls, glowing faintly blue.

The Grimlocks were the channels.

You went in fast.

Moist's Flaming Sphere swept three of them. AC cut down two. Dhuxtyn eldritch-blasted a third. Ubys Sacred-Flamed a fourth. The Grimlocks tried to rise; one of them caught residual flame and the last one fell to a follow-up Thorn Whip and the wall-glyphs went dark.

The spire stopped humming.

Ubys reached out and touched it.

Slightly warm. Very smooth.

You went deeper.

Past rubble, past stone, you came to the lower portion of the spire.

It continued below.

A chamber opened at its base.

An altar of beast bones, fresh blood on it, sigils.

Two Ogres were painting glyphs on their helmets — the next channels, being prepped.

They turned around.

They saw Lessie.

"Ooh yes, you brought the sacrifice!"

The Ogre-tongue was gleeful.

You did not bring the sacrifice.

Round 1 — they bludgeoned Ubys and missed Lessie entirely. Lessie called the spirit of a Bear and gave the whole party temporary heart and Bear's Endurance to Ubys and AC. Ubys enfeebled the nearest Ogre. AC sigiled it and put 25 damage into it. Moist's familiar burned. Dhuxtyn blasted.

Round 2 — they hit hard. Lessie took 14, Ubys another 6. The Bear ran in and crushed an Ogre for 20. AC kept hitting. Dhuxtyn eldritch-blasted for 19. Moist's Thorn Whip opened the second one for 10.

Round 3 — they missed everything. The Bear finished one. Toll the Dead finished the other.

The helmet-glyphs went dull.

On the altar, you found a stone tablet.

Ancient script. The history of the Prince of Beasts. Teppo could read part of it. A shady buyer would pay a thousand gold for it.

The Primeval Tablet.

You held it under torchlight in a chamber with fresh blood on the altar and a Beast Lord above it and a soul-sucking necromancy spire passing through the floor.

This is what is rotting the inn from below.

This is what eats worlds on planes you have not been to.

You are standing in one of its anchors.

Next session: through the secret door at the den. Down the shaft. The waterfall. Whatever is fishing from above.