One Righteous Soul (D&D 5e Quest)

[Maugan Ra]

You awake in darkness, unable to breathe.

Blind, frantic, you twist your body and raise aching hands to claw at the numb expanse of your faith. Broken stone grates under your shifting weight and you grunt in pain, a litany of aches and pains exploding across your awareness like stars amid the black. There is dust in the air, rasping against your skin and filling your mouth with tar, and desperately you hack and choke and vomit forth a tide of bloody sludge that stains the ground with a chorus of dampened claps.

Your lungs burn, but you know better than to breathe in now. Instead you reach for your neck, groping blindly for the ragged scarf you know to be there and trying not to think about how badly you want to breathe. Your mind wanders, desperately casting around for some kind of distraction, and you remember…

You remember the smoke; great clouds of it, all across the city, each reaching up like coal-stained fingers to claw at the yellow sky. It lashed at you as you ran through familiar streets made alien by death and war, pricking your burning eyes and adding a harsh edge to the stench of burning meat. At your back, the thunderous clamour of the gods at war roared in fury…

Your hand closes around the ragged scrap of fabric, and with a surge of relief you tug it up to cover your mouth and nose. Only then do you inhale, drawing in a single shuddering breath that tastes sweeter than the finest wine. You can taste the bitter tang of smoke upon your lips, flavored by the copper edge of blood, and in that moment start to grasp the enormity of what must have happened.

You hear nothing, save for the faint ringing of a distant bell that tells of some powerful blow you must have taken on the way here, but now that fear has sheathed its claws you find that vision is not so lost to you as had been supposed. This is good, you think, though in truth what you can see of your current situation is far from encouraging.

You lie at the bottom of a mighty pit, half buried in lumps of stone and chunks of rubble, and even at a glance it is plain to see that whatever passage brought you here must have collapsed quite suddenly in your wake. The space above you is not large, and perhaps half a dozen feet above your head a thousand tons of stone has fallen in and formed a crude roof that seals you away from the outside world. Motes of dust glitter like embers in the pale shafts of sunlight that descend to touch you from on high, and in their glow you can see no shaft or passage big enough to admit your form anywhere across the ceiling.

You remember the light, as harsh and vibrant as a newborn star, rising sharply in the west. You looked for the Kite, that stalwart bastion of stone that had protected the city for as long as you had known, and found in its place a great pillar of purple flame that danced and sang like a living thing. The shadows it cast were long and hungry, pools of night at the feet of every man, and when those shadows grew teeth and began to feed there was little anyone could do to stop them.

Wincing, you lever yourself upright, chunks of rubble clattering to the ground as you go. The ceiling above groans alarmingly at the disturbance, but you dare not stop; you are no mason, but even your uneducated senses know that something so crude and fragile could choose to settle or collapse at any moment. God has seen fit to spare you thus far, but it would be a poor end indeed to linger here in silence and die crushed beneath a falling stone.

Your hand comes down on something rough and leathery, and with a frown you look down to see what it is you have found. The answer, it seems, is a scale; a section of reptilian hide, polished to a mirror shine and splattered with pale blood, buried amid the dusty rocks like a piece of discarded trash.

You remember the dragon; a hero clad in silver hide, very near the size of the tower she coiled around. Terendelev was her name, greatest champion of Kenabres. Her breath was as a blizzard, her claws were sharp as blades, and in the shadow of her great wings you had almost begun to hope that you might yet live out the day.

You remember the demon, that great lord of smoke and ash, three times the height of a man and clad in armour wrought from the living storm. Khoramzeddah, he was named, the Storm King, and where he walked the land itself cried out in pain.

You remember their duel, what brief glimpses of it you could snatch between the madness and the chaos of battle. You remember the sight of the Storm King's blade descending, and the sound it made when it cut off the dragon's head. You remember the roar of triumph, and the sound of a thousand despairing moans as the dragon fell and with her a city's hope.

"May God welcome you, Terendelev," you say in a voice made thick by grief, lifting the scale from its resting place and tucking it away into one of the ragged pouches that yet hang from your waist, "and may the angels bear you to a better place."

It is a blessing that you yourself might have need of soon enough, but such thoughts are of no worth and so you push them aside once again. The ringing in your ears has faded, and with its absence you can hear the sounds of movement and pain from the crude tunnel up ahead. It seems you are not the only one to have survived the fall into this place, and while even one of God's children yet cries out in pain your work is not yet done.

Gritting your teeth, you bow you head and advance to meet your kin. And should it turn out that the voices ahead come not from allies but foes akin to those who cast you down into these depths… well, they would not be the first such fiends to meet their ends at your hands.

-/-

What is your name?

[ ] Write in (QM veto reserved, and it's worth considering the race/class choice when casting your vote)

What is your sex?

[ ] Male

[ ] Female


What are you?


[ ] The Hunter. When you came down from the mountains, it was not with any great principle in mind; your people had never cared for the folk of the lowlands, and to see them slaughtered by demons was a thing that inspired no pity. You sought only the pursuit of glory, the ecstasy that comes from hunting and slaying the most dangerous of beasts, and to your mind the legions of the Abyss would make for worthy prey.

You were wrong, and the horrors of the Worldwound nearly broke you. It took a good man, a priest of the lowlands, to guide you out of the dark and mend your broken will. He taught you the strength that can be found in faith, and helped you to match the ancient traditions of your people with the higher truths of his church. For this you owe him greatly, and if you must slaughter your way through an army to find him in this war torn ruin, then that is what you must do (Half-Orc Totem Warrior).

[ ] The Veteran. When Sarkoris fells and the Worldwound opened, the nations of the world did not stand idle. A Crusade was called, one comprised of men and women from every land, seeking to push back the fiendish hordes and make the world safe once more. They were heroes, those first crusaders, and eighty years ago you counted yourself among them. That you are still here, all these decades later, says quite a bit about the type of person you have found yourself to be. Not all of it is complimentary.

You have earned yourself no small amount of fame, over those eighty years, and certainly your skill with axe and blade is nothing to be discounted… but eighty years of war is more than any mortal mind was meant to take, and now your spirit is scarred as much as your flesh. You have grown bitter and sometimes maudlin, but your faith remains a comfort, and if this is to be your doom then you shall face your end with steel in your hand and pride in your heart. (Half-Elf Battle Master).

[ ] The Mystic. Those of fiendish blood are not welcome in Kenabres, which has suffered at the hands of demons and their ilk for so long, and as such you spent most of your early years on the streets or on the road. You survived as best you could, did what it took to see another sunrise, and probably would have been dead by the end of your first decade were it not for the intervention of a proud paladin of Iomedae. She took you in, showed you kindness and respect for the first time, and arranged for you a place in a nearby monastery where you might learn and live without fear of persecution.

For this, you owe her everything, and in truth were on your way to deliver some small thanks when the demons began their attack. Now you must find a way to return to the surface, track down your benefactor, ensure her continued health… and, of course, do your best not to be mistaken for one of the enemy as you have been so many times before. (Tiefling Monk, Way of the Open Hand).

[ ] The Warden. Your land is far away, a realm of sand and spice and wealth beyond measure, and for many years you gave no thought to what lay beyond its borders. It was your honour and your duty to guard the caravans of trade and tribute as they plied their routes, and to offer guidance and succor to the faithful pilgrims who followed in their wake. It was only when you encountered a group of crusaders, returning home to nurse their wounds and muster new recruits, that you finally knew doubt. Could you truly be said to be doing your duty, simply watching over shrines and watering holes, when in the north the legions of the Abyss yet clashed with armies of the fateful in search of the destruction of all?

You took your concerns before your liege, and having consulted the wise men he elected to heed your request. When the Crusaders turned back north you went with them, your bow in your hands and the light of god in your heart. So far your experience of the Crusade has been… unfortunate, but that is no excuse to falter. You will wage holy war against these beasts and protect the world from their evil, or you will die in the attempt. (Human Ranger [Revised Edition])

[ ] Write-In (QM reserves veto. In general, I would suggest avoiding prepared casters who have a spell list of significant size, since that massively inflates the book-keeping and OoC debates necessary to run a character in a quest format. Beyond that your proposed character needs only a viable motivation to be part of the Crusade, and ideally should make mention of personal faith in a non-specific deity.)

-/-

Note - The Class/Race vote will be determined via approval voting. You can cast votes for as many different options as you like, and the one with the most votes at the end of the process is the one I will take with me to run the quest.

 

[Maugan Ra]

Moving cautiously, you pick your way across the broken ground, placing each foot with care and relying on the sinuous length of your tail to help counterbalance the weight of your body. The clouds of dust kicked up by the collapse are slowly starting to settle, and as you make your way through the narrow passage and into the chambers beyond you start to get a feel for just where it is you've managed to wind up.

Kenabres has a literal underground, as with most cities along the borders of the World's Wound - denied the space to expand beyond its protective walls yet required by circumstance and charity to take in large populations of displaced refugees from fallen Sarkoris, the city expanded down into the hill upon which it sat. Tunnels were dug, basements and expanded and by the time ten years had passed it was entirely possible to pass from one side of the city to the other without ever once feeling the touch of the sun upon your face. You know this for a fact, having done it more than once in your youth, the better to evade patrolling guards and the judgemental gaze of the temple inquisition.

These tunnels, however, are of a much older and more primeval make than anything carved by mortal hand; the demons, it seems, have gouged wounds so deep into the flesh of your hometown that they reached all the way into the depths of the Underdark itself. You'd heard rumors that such places existed, stories often flavored with grim tales of grisly fates inflicted upon those who sought to expand their properties one too many times by the unhappy denizens of the dark, but to hear of such places and to walk among them in person are two entirely different things.

You are far from the only one to make the fall, of course; not even your luck is that bad. You might be one of the only ones to survive it, however, for the first man you find ends at the waist beneath a block of stone the size of a horse, and the next dozen to cross your path somehow met with even worse fates than that. The air stinks of blood and sundered bowels, but you have seen death before and even this is nothing to frighten you unduly. You say a prayer for the souls of every man you find, and lacking the means to give them proper rites move on without further delay.

It takes you ten minutes to find your first survivor, and another two to know him for what he is - at first glance, the tall man in the fine robes seems every bit as dead as the others, his face a ruin of scorched skin and melted flesh, but just as you are about to leave him behind like all the others his chest heaves and he hauls himself upright.

"Lylina!" He cries, his tone surprisingly musical for the circumstances. "Lylina!"

You don't recognize the word, but judging by the slender build and the pointed ears the man before you is an elf, so perhaps this is to be expected. Your knowledge of his tongue extends only to a handful of words picked up in your youth, most of which were curses, and the monks had better things to teach you than the language of a distant people who never liked to leave their beloved trees.

"Steady, friend," you call out to him, perching on a nearby cluster of rocks well out of his reach, "no enemies here. Catch your breath."

"Mala… ah, the human tongue, my apologies," the elf says, turning his ruined face in your direction. You think you can see a pattern in the marks across his skin, a series of faint lines that run from the edge of his brow down to the base of his skin, each the source of the fiercest burns that he has clearly sustained. "Where are we? It's… so dark. We must be very far underground…"

"We are, but it's not all that dark," you say with a shrug, "you've got no eyes. Looks like something burned them out."

The elf flinches at that, one trembling hand rising to explore the ruin of his face, and for a moment you think that maybe you should have focused more on softening your words and less on disguising the sibilant edge of your accent. A forked tongue and a mouthful of fangs make it hard to speak without sounding particularly diabolical, and disguising those audible signs of your heritage has been a necessary part of your survival more than once.

"Oh. Oh dear," he says softly, dropping his hand back to his side once more, "that is… well, it's unfortunate, but thankfully temporary. All we have to do is get back to the surface and my friends can patch me back up. Yes, I think Gallus still owes me a favour…"

You raise your eyebrows in silent doubt, remembering the smoke and the crumbling stone that filled the air when last you walked Kenabres' streets. Still, given the robes and the finely spoken words, you would hazard a guess that the elf is some kind of magister; perhaps he has more reason than you know to be so confident in his recovery.

"Sounds like a plan," you say instead, rolling your shoulders and hopping down off your pile of rubble. Your boots are the one thing of genuine quality you possess, a solid investment you made with what little funds came your way before your return to Kenabres, and considering the piles of rubble all over the place you have more reason than ever to bless your own foresight. "I'm not sure where we ended up, precisely, but there's bound to be an opening or passage back to the surface around here somewhere. We'll head back together, how about that?"

"An excellent idea," the elf says firmly, as though there was actually a real choice in the matter, "this is a regrettable occurrence, but with my mind and your muscles, we will see our way out of this one yet. Ah, speaking of… I am Aravashnial, a humble wizard and proprietor."

You are less than entirely impressed that the elf saw fit to call you the dumb muscle when he cannot even see your face, but perhaps that is the lesser of two evils in this situation. A blind man might accept a tiefling as companion far easier than one who yet has sight, after all. And… oh, right, the name.

Article:

Many tieflings take for themselves a 'Virtue' name, seeking to wear their hearts upon their sleeves as a way of providing a more favorable first impression than their physical appearance can secure. Such conduct was actively encouraged by the monks of your order, and so you chose for yourself the name:

[ ] Carrion. A bitter, self-depreciating name on the surface, your moniker is in fact a private joke; what you would make of your enemies, first you make of yourself.

[ ] Hymn. You found faith in the monastery, an understanding that there was a rightness and order to the universe, no matter how hard it might be to see at times. A name commemorating this discovery only seemed appropriate.

[ ] Iron Mountain. As a youth you tempered your body, as an adult you hardened your will, and now take a quiet pride in the knowledge that no matter what the world might throw at you, you will survive.

[ ] Write in (Choose a virtue name similar to the above, and consider what it means for our main character that they would choose such a moniker for their own)

"A pleasure to make your acquaintance," Aravashnial says politely, and for a wonder it almost seems like he means it, "Now, I'm sure I can manage on my own, but perhaps you might help me for at least the first little bit? Just until I compensate for my vision. Oh, and you should probably see to the girl over there as well."

Frowning, you follow the direction indicated by the wizard's negligent wave. There is indeed someone over there, a young woman slumped bonelessly over a chunk of rubble you suspect must once have been some kind of grand column, but her face is pale and her body still. "Her? I'm pretty sure she's dead…"

"No, she's breathing," Aravashnial says confidently, "quite regularly at that, so she may even be awake, if somewhat senseless from the fall. There's no sense in leaving her hear when we go, in any case."

"Huh. Good ears," you mutter, picking your way across the chamber towards the fallen girl. Drawing closer you can see she is dressed as a scout of some kind, clad in a light suit of armour made from boiled leather and armed with what appears to be a slightly curved short-sword of some kind. "Alright, Lady, let's get you up and…"

The scout uncoils like a snake, and from behind the bulk of the broken column lifts a compact crossbow of oil-black wood into sight. A bolt has already been set in place, and the steel tip gleams faintly in the dull light as it comes to bear upon your chest.

"Not one set closer, demon-spawn," she says, her face pale and bloodless beneath the coating of dust and blood smeared there by the fall, "back away, slowly, or I kill you where you stand."

You pause, eying the girl and her weapon warily. This is not the first time you have been threatened in such a manner, but it never gets any easier.

"Oh, fuck off," you say harshly, anger robbing you of the self-control necessary to hide the soft accent, "all the shit that's happened today and you want to make it worse?"

"Most of that shit was done by your kind, tiefling," the scout says in a cold tone, the crossbow never wavering, "so yeah, I think I kind of do."

"Everybody just calm down!" Aravashnial says sternly, slowly pushing himself to his feet and leaning heavily against the cavern wall, "My lady, please, if our friend here meant any harm he would have opened my throat while I lay insensate. Instead he spoke to me, and offered his aid. Such undue suspicion seems a poor reward for his generosity."

"What the elf said," you say briskly, though in truth you're a little startled that the wizard has not taken the revelation of your race more poorly. Perhaps it's different for elves, who have not such darkened mockeries of their form to torment them as the humans do? Who knows. "Stow the weapon, girl."

"My name is Anevia," the scout says firmly, but there is an edge to her voice that speaks more to pain than malice. Judging by the way her leg is twisted, you think you can make a guess as to the cause. "And not a chance. He leaves, now, before he gets any clever ideas."

"Please, Anevia, be reasonable," Aravashnial says soothingly, as though to a frightened horse, "My injuries are quite severe, and I do not rate my chances of escaping from here high without the help of someone able bodied. Unless you are volunteering to assist me in his place…"

"It'd be kind of hard, given the state of her leg," you add helpfully, crossing your arms in front of your chest.

"...then it seems we need him," the wizard concludes in his most reasonable tone. "Can we not simply set aside our grievances in the common interest of mutual survival?"

Anevia hesitates, her crossbow wavering, and for a moment you consider adding a comment of your own. You are not best pleased with Aravashnial for framing this as some kind of mutual problem when she is the one who drew a weapon unprovoked, but honestly… no, better to be silent. You've never been all that good with words.

Before a decision can be reached, however, the three of you are interrupted by a most familiar sound - a scream of some kind, high and panicked, that echoes along the tunnels and through the chamber in which you stand.

"Ah, a fellow survivor!" Aravashnial says brightly, "My friend, perhaps you might attend to their distress? I will assist the lady here with strapping up her leg in the meantime."

You frown, somewhat dubious at the idea of letting the blind man provide medical assistance, but… well, you can see the logic to it. You are the only one among your little group that can hope to reach the sounds of distress in time to do anything about it, after all.

"Alright," you say shortly, and without another word turn and bound your way back across the cavern, moving with the speed and grace that God gave you and your training refined.

It is difficult, tracking the sound of a scream in such a broken and chaotic environment, but you are well equipped for the task. You leap across open fissures, slide down a long slope slick with the fluid from some kind of subterranean spring, and quickly track the source of the scream to a small cavern sprouting from its larger kin like a mushroom for a corpse. Ready for battle you fling yourself through the opening and slide to a halt.

"You have got to be joking."

The man pressed up against the far wall of the cavern is human, you see at a glance, and a particularly fat and pale specimen at that. His sickly skin is sheened with sweat, and the fat fingers he presses to the unforgiving stone are adorned with half a dozen gleaming rings of gold and silver. A noble, then, albeit one bereft of the fine robes and dashing cloak of his station by ruinous circumstance. He looks at you with fear and effrontery in his eyes, and in the middle of the cavern the coiled form of the pale snake does likewise.

It is maybe half the size of your foot.

"What? Who are… no, never mind that," the noble gabbles desperately, "just get rid of that thing, now, before it bites me!"

With a sigh you step towards the snake, shaking your head in bemused exasperation. The reptile hisses and spits as you approach… and then, with barely a second to spare, turns and slithers back towards its burrow on the far side of the chamber wall.

"There's nothing within a hundred miles of here that has enough venom to do more than make you mildly ill," you say with a sigh, "and that thing was clearly terrified at best."

"I knew that," the noble says with a snarl, "I just… have allergies. Anyway, you scared it away, so let's get out of here. Get me back to the surface… no, back to my manor, quick as you can."

You blink, staring at the human with your sharp golden eyes, and only when he has begun to squirm do you deign to finally speak. "And why, exactly, should I do that?"

"My name is Horgus Gwerm," the noble says, as though it explains anything. "You know… the Gwerm family?"

"I've been away for a while," you say blandly, as much because his flummoxed expression amuses you as for the genuine explanation it provides. "Why does that matter, again?"

"...I'm very rich," Horgus says at last, rolling his eyes as though frustrated by the need to explain such a self-evident fact. "Get me back to my manor and I'll pay you. Five hun… hmm, no, you look like a man who can take care of himself. A thousand gold pieces, in cash or goods of equivalent value. How does that sound?"

It sounds like a lot of money you don't really have any actual use for, to be perfectly honest - you don't own very much, and even if you had something in mind to spend it on you're not even sure how you'd go about carrying that much money with any success. Still, maybe you can talk the man into making a donation to a charity or church on your behalf - there's always need for such this, and paying a tithe of your income to charitable causes is something the order taught you to do without so much as thinking about it.

"Alright then," you say with a snort, "come on, let's get back to the others. Safety in numbers and all that."

Leading Horgus back to the cavern where you left the other two takes considerably longer than reaching him in the first place did, a delay made no easier to endure by his constant stream of muttered comments and aggravating complaints. To listen to the man talk you would think the demons attacked Kenabres purely to make his life difficult, and with every passing moment the desire to punch him straight in his flabby gob rises like the tide.

Somehow you manage to keep your temper, and when you return to the cavern it is to find Anevia the scout on her feet once again, right leg bound up with lengths of wood and coils of dirty fabric. She leans heavily on an improvised staff made from a section of scavenged timber, and as you enter squints suspiciously in your general direction. Still, she doesn't raise the crossbow again, which you suppose is progress of a kind.

"Ah, excellent," Aravashnial says happily, turning his blind face towards you as you enter, "you're back, and you found another survivor. Someone who can hold a sword, perhaps?"

"Don't dream of it, elf," Horgus growls, crossing his arms and glaring at the three of you as though you are in some way responsible for his current situation, "I'm not some hired thug to carry you out of here."

"...Horgus Gwerm. I see," Aravashnial says in a slightly terse voice, before visibly forcing his way back to a positive mindset, "Well, another pair of eyes cannot hurt, and standing around here all day cannot help. Shall we move on?"

You hesitate briefly, glancing up at the ceiling. When the attack came you had just finished your midday prayers, so hopefully you haven't missed the coming of dusk… well, you'll offer a prayer when you stop for a rest or make it to the surface, and trust that God will understand.

"Very well," you say curtly, moving past the wizard and the scout to enter the tunnel beyond. Having Anevia at your back with a loaded crossbow does not sit well with you, but there's no helping it, you'll just have to make do.

Article:

As you begin your journey, choose one topic of conversation to cover with your fellow survivors.

[ ] Faith. You think you saw an icon of Desna, the patron of starry nights and wanderers, hanging from Anevia's belt. Perhaps talking of such things will help convince your new companions that you wish nothing more than to oppose the abyss that tainted your blood?

[ ] Origin. Horgus seemed inordinately proud of his name, as so many nobles are, but you know little of Anevia or Aravashnial, and they know nothing of you. Perhaps correcting that will lead to a more harmonious attitude among your little group?

[ ] The Attack. You have scattered fragments of memory from the demonic attack on Kenabres, but if you seek to return to the surface then you should at least get an idea of what you might be walking into.

 

[Maugan Ra]

You walk in silence for a time; one tiefling and three companions at varying stages of maiming and disdain, all making their way through the bowels of the Kenabres underground in quiet solitude. At first the tension is thick enough to cut, each member of your impromptu party regarding the others with suspicion and disdain, but as time passes and the minutes roll by what was tense grows instead to simply be increasingly awkward.

You do what you can to avoid focusing on the matter, seeking to distract yourself with thoughts of your surroundings and the path ahead, and for a time it even works. The caverns beneath Kenabres are far grander than you would have ever expected, and in the course of your procession display wonders and marvels equal to any place of natural splendor in the world above. You pass forests of glittering stalactites caked in salt, negotiate passage across rivers of dust that flow like water, and light your way in the dark with the severed stalks of faintly luminescent fungi. Were it not for the poor company and lingering concern over the state of the surface you believe you might actually find the walk to be thoroughly enjoyable.

In the interests of diplomacy you elect not to shoot a taunting glance at Horgus every time a slithering reptile crosses your path. Just most of them.

Eventually however even the beautiful display of natural fauna is insufficient to mask the ugly awkwardness that is your group's interpersonal dynamics, and after perhaps half an hour of quietly hoping that someone else will elect to break the ice you decide to do something about it.

"So," you say casually, helping Anevia up the last few feet of a gentle slope and ignoring how she shudders when at last you release her arm, "a worshipper of Desna, I assume?"

"How'd you know about that?" The scout says, squinting suspiciously at you, "I didn't say anything of the kind."

"The pendent," you say, nodding at the small silver icon you can see hanging from her belt, "there's only so many reasons to carry a small silver butterfly with you everywhere you go."

"Oh," Anevia says awkwardly, glancing down at her belt at then off to one side, "that."

She falls silent then, and though your tainted blood permits you to see in darkness what shadows remain still serve to veil her expression from sight. You pause, wondering how to proceed, then glance over at the other two members of your group in hopes of inspiration or assistance. No such luck, alas; Aravashnial is still negotiating the climb, having dropped to his hands and knees as he carefully seeks out each handhold in turn, while Horgus saunters along behind him with an endless repertoire of needlessly critical directions. You and Anevia are alone at the top of the slope, and cannot yet move on into the tunnel beyond without abandoning your remaining companions to the dark.

"I'm… a bit surprised," you say hesitantly, unsure how to put your thoughts into words without offering insult or making the situation worse but feeling compelled to try none the less, "I had not thought that Desna was much favored as a patron for crusaders."

"Irabeth's the crusader, not me," Anevia says with a snort, then seems to catch herself as she remembers to who it is she speaks, "and what the hell do you care, anyway?"

"Oh come on, it's fucking obvious, isn't it?" You say, perhaps somewhat more waspishly than is entirely called for, "I want you to stop reaching for a crossbow every time you look at me, and talking about faith seemed like a safe enough way to… you know, bridge the gap. I'm trying to be civil."

"And maybe I don't want to be civil, you think of that?" Anevia snaps right back, "My wife is up there, maybe hurt, maybe… and maybe it's not your fault, precisely, but when ninety nine out of every hundred tieflings I encounter around here want to tear out my heart for the honour of their demon god it gets real hard to keep extending the benefit of the doubt!"

You clench your jaw, forcing your teeth together so hard they hurt because you fear to speak the words that you otherwise will. Works of hate and bile, words of recrimination to be flung in the face of someone so needlessly judgemental, words to tell of how fucking tired you are to be condemned over and over again for the blood that flows in your veins.

You have many words, but you have spoken them before and found nothing but hate and rising anger sprouting in their wake, and even the slowest mind will eventually learn such a simple lesson as that. Instead you turn, hands that could break stone clenching tightly into fists at your side, and without another word you make your way down the tunnel in silence.

Somewhere behind you the sound of Aravashnial finishing the ascent reaches your ears, but you ignore it and the muffled exchange that passes between him and that bitch of a scout. You had thought to speak first of her faith and then your own, to establish common ground and from there perhaps to reduce the contempt with which she holds you, but as always your damned skin gets in the way.

Without thought, you lift one hand to where the open flaps of your vest expose your broad torso and well-toned gut to the world. The claws you have in place of nails dig deep, and though the pain makes you grit your teeth the sharp rush is at least enough to break your momentary lapse. You would tear much grander wounds than this in your unholy flesh if it would serve to remove the taint within, but you know such thoughts to be maudlin nonsense at the best of times and so force them down once more.

"We going to move anytime soon, hellspawn?" Horgus asks, his supercilious tone quite possibly the last thing you wanted to hear today, "because I'd like to make it back to the surface before too much longer."

You contemplate, just for a moment, the thought of killing him. It wouldn't even be hard - your fists are weapons as fine as any blade, and his foppish ways likely hide no better forms of self defence than the odd fencing lesson taken long ago. It would feel so good, too, so good to feed that vicious little urge lurking in the back of your mind, to stop pretending for once and revel in who and what you are…

"God above all, give me strength to endure," you say softly, lifting your eyes in silent beseechment to the heavens above. Then, once the urge to maim and kill is gone once more, you speak. "Yes. We can make another hour or so of progress at the least before a rest is called for."

No one objects, at least not audibly, and so your small group sets forth once again, following your lead as though you might have even the slightest clue of where to go or how to get there. As it turns out, however, God provides when the wit of mortals fails, and scarcely a dozen minutes later you uncover the first hint of something that might lend structure to your wild rambling.

The cavern is, in and of itself, nothing particularly special. Just one more natural expanse in a long series of them, bereft of any real geological wonder that would make it worthy of greater inspection. What is interesting about it, however, are the signs of life that it contains; not mere tracks or animal nests, for you have seen those in great number since this involuntary voyage began, but the unmistakable signs of sentient hands at work. For around the perimeter of the cavern are statues, each cut to a height three times that of a full grown human and each depicting a similar visage.

"Crusaders, truly?" Aravashnial says with some excitement, having prevailed upon you for an explanation of what his ruined eyes can no longer perceive, "How marvelous!"

You are not sure you share his enthusiasm, but there is no denying the identity of the beings carved in stone before your eyes. Men and women of all races stand depicted here, each clad in mighty armour and wielding weapons as distinctive as they are fearsome, a veritable gallery of heroes standing watch over nothing of any great worth.

"Is it me, or do they look… sad?" Anevia ventures after a moment, looking up at the nearest of the statues with a pensive expression on her face. You are not inclined to speak, but even so you cannot help but agree; the hands that carved those faces were no great experts of their craft, but they had dedication enough to spare, and there are only so many ways to explain the grim mouths and half-closed eyes that every statue sports.

"If the masons were who I suspect then I should not be surprised," Aravashnial says cheerfully, leaning against his makeshift staff for a moment in order to rest while yet you can, "Back in the days of the First Crusade, when no one really understood the Worldwound or its more subtle dangers, more than a few people manage to expose themselves to unstable magical energies, usually in the form of abyssal radiation. It warped their flesh quite horribly, as I understand."

Your hands curl slowly into fists, but of course the blind man does not notice.

"Most died from their afflictions, or else met their end at the hands of their fellow crusaders, horrified at what they had become," the elf prattles on, warming to his topic, "but there were always stories that a few managed to survive. They fled the light and those who might turn on them, retreating into places like this one where they could scratch out some measure of safety. Some stories say they even managed to found communities down here, or across the rest of the borderlands, that they had children and founded tribes. Quite fascinating, really. I wonder if we'll find any of them…"

"Wait here," you say roughly, turning away from the three and heading towards the tunnel on the far side of the chamber, "I thought I heard something. I'm going to go and check it out."

More than one surprised or curious voice rises in your wake, but you have no intention of staying to listen or speak in turn. You are concerned with getting away, of putting some distance between you and the silent, judgemental stares of those statues, those mementos of the people who damned you with their foolishness…

There is a sharp slope less than fifty feet into the tunnel, but you pay it no mind, springing up the incline with unnatural grace assisted by a series of ropes and hooks some prior soul has hammered into place. To hear another speak so casually of such transgressions, to hear him express scholarly interest and enthusiasm for a sin that has defined your entire life to date, it is more than you can bear. The elf means nothing by it, holds no malice in his heart, but that does not make it any easier to hear first hand. You are not a damned curiosity…

Such is your preoccupation that it takes you a few moments to realize what you are seeing. There is another cavern at the top of the slope, of course, and like the one at the base this place too bears the signs of sentient workmanship; in this case, the ruined remains of what must have been a small fortress or oversized watchtower, now fallen to rubble and strewn across the chamber floor. It must have been an impressive sight when fully functional, likely fit to hold at least a couple of dozen guards, but right now your attention is drawn to far more immediate concerns.

There are figures moving amid the ruins. Two of them to be precise, hunched and twisted looking things swathed in heavy cloaks of some oily leather, each moving in a way that suggests something rather inhuman about their physical forms. They bear weapons of some strange pale wood, and as one of them turns to the other you catch a brief glimpse of something wet scales and what might almost be a horn under the concealing hood.

They haven't spotted you yet, but you cannot count on fortune to shield you for long…

Article:

How do you proceed?

[ ] Hail them. You don't know what they are or what language they might speak, but you can communicate a lack of hostile intent through friendly gestures at the least… which they will hopefully return.

[ ] Sneak closer. You can't get a good look at them from here, and it behooves you to gather more information before making a decision. You've always been light on your feet, so perhaps you can use the abundant cover to get closer and find out what they might be saying.

[ ] Attack. Nothing down here can be trusted, especially not if it has been warped by the energies of the Abyss. You should attack now, while you still have the benefit of surprise.

[ ] Retreat. You should return to the group and secure their advice on what to do before proceeding. Who knows, they might even help.