Tuesday 24th January, 2023

"The four of you follow the serpentine passageway down as it winds deep into the bowels of the mountain. These rocks have never known the sun. You feel the chill in your bones; you can see it in your tremulous, white puffs of breath as they are swallowed by the menacing blackness. Eventually, the path widens into a cavern. You can not see beyond the pale light emanating from Eleonora's staff. The darkness hangs close; this could be a citadel or a coffin. Lonely water drips down the walls, and chills your quiet footfalls through the ankle-deep water. You feel alone, like yours are the only still-beating hearts in this immense stone labyrinth... Tiny and alone. At least, it seems that way."

From the head of the table, Molly flashed a grin to her friends. She stood up and leaned over the map, her blonde hair catching on her Dungeon Master's screen. "What's everyone's passive perception?"

Ryan ran his finger down his character sheet and grumbled. His character, Beathan, was good in a fight, but clueless when it came to much else. "I have an eight. Willing to bet I see nothing?"

"You chose to make Wisdom your dump stat," Arnav quipped. "Fourteen for me."

"Fourteen also," said Harry.

Layne looked up briefly from her sketchbook. "Sixteen for Eleonora!" She returned to her drawing, adding long, dark locks to a woman with a thin face and pointed elven ears.

Molly nodded. "Ryan, Beathan's human eyes cannot penetrate through the gloom, and neither can those of the cat-folk: the darkness puts your hair on end, but all you can do is tighten the grip on your weapons. Eleonora: raising your staff against the darkness, you make out a faint glimmer - no, an anti-glimmer - something dreadfully darker than the cavern itself."

Layne looked up again, blue eyes locked on the Dungeon Master. "How far away is it?"

"Dead ahead, about thirty feet."

"Roger that," Layne said. "Eleonora points the anti-glimmer out to the group, and says: 'Our trial awaits.'"

"'What are we waiting for? Let's swipe it and get the hells out of here!'" Harry replied. "Tha-Bast holds their paw up to their eyepatch, and — I don't know — tries to summon some courage against whatever horrors are lurking ahead?"

Arnav nodded. "And Flags says a short prayer to the Goddess. Consider yourselves blessed."

"Golden motes of light dance out of Arnav's shield sigil, they settle around you, and an ineffable gentleness warms your hearts." Molly said.

Ryan leaned his elbows on the table. Molly swiped a button on her phone, and swelling orchestral music bloomed from the bluetooth speaker on the table. It drowned out the cicadas and crickets chirping outside, and the hum of the aircon that shielded them from the hot, summer, Auckland evening.

She addressed them all: "This is your moment; your one last hope to save your homelands from the necrotizing plague. You, four unlikely allies turned friends, have sought out the pieces of the obsidian skull to stand against this darkness. Collect this last piece, and you'll be able to complete the ritual to bind the demon lord, Skelle, to physical form, so that you might defeat him." She paused, and waited for her table of players to lean in, before saying solemnly: "If you fail, this world will fall."

"Tha-Bast leads the way, watching for traps as we approach," Harry said.

"I'll help him," Arnav added.

"Sure, roll a Perception check with advantage," Molly said.

Harry rolled two metallic dice, silver and black. They clunked into his velvet dice tray. "That's a... nineteen."

Molly jumped into a description of the cavern, and Ryan let himself get pulled into the story.

The two lithe cat-folk picked a careful path through the water. Their whiskers twitched, ears swiveling for minute hints of danger. Tha-Bast led, cloaked from ear-tip to tail in black robes. What little fur that was visible was sleek and as dark as their surroundings. His single sapphire eye was locked on the rocky pedestal they approached. Flags followed diligently. Their short caramel fur darkened around their face and limbs; it was stained by water, algae, and cobwebs. They held a spear tightly, bright scarlet and golden ribbons trailed from its tip.

The music lost its mystical tones, replaced by dark, tremoring notes on cellos and irregular drum beats. Ryan felt his heart pick up in his chest. He was still floored at how much he enjoyed it: Molly had convinced them to start their first session only a few months ago, they played more frequently now she had her leg in a cast. If someone had told rugby-playing high-schooler Ryan Davis, that he'd spend his adult evenings rolling dice, doing maths, and playing-pretend in front of his friends, he'd probably have laughed in their face, or tackled them, if he thought they were making fun of them. Soon, Molly's cast would come off, and she'd be back surfing with the rest of them. In the meantime, it was a pleasure they all enjoyed.

Molly continued: "This is a desecrated and evil place. Just like the desert temple and the swamp cairn, this piece of the obsidian skull, too, draws the dark things of the world toward it. Flags, you notice it first, as something skitters over your boot. Something with a body like a bloated, rotten pear, and a tail like a pale wriggling root."

Danger. Flags let out a yowl of fear. They shot backward, back-peddalling frantically through the water. "Flags, what is it?" Beathan asked, priming his war hammer for a deathly swing.

"Quit your yowling," Tha-Bast reprimanded. He was perched on the pedestal itself now, twin daggers poised to attack. "I can't see through the water with the ruckus you're making."

Eleonora stepped forward, and put her hand on Flags' shoulder. They flinched, before leaning into her comforting hand.

"Peace, cat-ling," she said. "Here, let me light the way-" she raised her staff towards the disturbance. Slowly, the water settled and cleared around them.

Barely a few feet away, two-pale dots glowed from underneath the water. A pair of bulging eyes stared up at them. It was a misshapen, rotting rat. It blinked.

Eleonora groaned softly. "Gross. An Infected Rat."

She muttered a spell, and the light increased. She raised her staff higher, and more dots appeared. First a couple, then tens, then hundreds of white dots glinting out from the surface of the water.

Slowly, they rose onto their hindlegs and bared their rotted teeth. A bone-on-teeth chattering filled the cavern. Black pustules spotted their face and jaws, hanging down like putrid grapes. Dead flesh broke away, and floated on the surface of the water. The smell choked the air. 

"I vote we swipe the skull and run," purred Tha-Bast, from the pedestal. He tugged the obsidian jawbone. "Tha-Bast has taken many a job like this before. It does not end well if we stay."

"I don't doubt that in the slightest," replied Flags, his fur sticking out on end, bristling.

The deathly chattering grew louder, a chorus of promising, impending death.

Tha-Bast pulled again, sheaving his weapons. The jawbone remained embedded in the rough black stone. "My friends, the skull, it does not want to leave."

Four hearts beating, alone in the mountain. Tiny. Surrounded by a sea of undead, infected rats.

You hear the sounds of far off thunder, water that was around ankles, now nearing knees.

"Goddess save us," Flags whispered.