Roll for initiative.
The Seven-Year War is won. The reward is one last contract: follow the dead warlord's trail into the Whispering Veil and take back the crystal he stole — the one holding the captain's daughter's soul.
The trail ends at the Maw of Ages. The door is already open.
THE PARTY: A captain with a debt. A shield-sergeant who believes in doctrine. A priest the church threw away. A blood-witch the dark respects. A thief who opened the Celestial Vault and took nothing. A ranger who takes everything.
THE DUNGEON: Six levels, and every one of them is an organ.
THE SKIN — Entry halls with a pulse. Constructs grown from the last fifty men who tried this. The corridors are warm. They shouldn't be.
THE GULLET — Flood channels on a schedule. The schedule changes when it learns your pace.
THE BONEFIELDS — Ten thousand sarcophagi. The wards face inward. Do the math before you wake them.
THE VITALS — A labyrinth that counterfeits your trail marks in your own handwriting. Your dead are down here. They've been restored. That's not a mercy.
THE SPINE — A mile-deep stair past shelves of harvested souls. Some of them know your names.
THE HEART — The thing you killed in the forest, waiting at the bottom, patient as an appointment. And beneath the floor: the reason all of this exists.
WANDERING MONSTER: The Gelatinous Cube. It cannot be killed, bribed, outrun, or reasoned with. It does not kill. It consumes. It is never in a hurry. It has all the time in the world.
WARNING: The dungeon learns.
A classic Dungeons & Dragons style adventure module play through presented as a fully realized novelization.
Genre: Fantasy
The Seven-Year War is won. The reward is one last contract: follow the dead warlord's trail into the Whispering Veil and take back the crystal he stole — the one holding the captain's daughter's soul.
The trail ends at the Maw of Ages. The door is already open.
THE PARTY: A captain with a debt. A shield-sergeant who believes in doctrine. A priest the church threw away. A blood-witch the dark respects. A thief who opened the Celestial Vault and took nothing. A ranger who takes everything.
THE DUNGEON: Six levels, and every one of them is an organ.
THE SKIN — Entry halls with a pulse. Constructs grown from the last fifty men who tried this. The corridors are warm. They shouldn't be.
THE GULLET — Flood channels on a schedule. The schedule changes when it learns your pace.
THE BONEFIELDS — Ten thousand sarcophagi. The wards face inward. Do the math before you wake them.
THE VITALS — A labyrinth that counterfeits your trail marks in your own handwriting. Your dead are down here. They've been restored. That's not a mercy.
THE SPINE — A mile-deep stair past shelves of harvested souls. Some of them know your names.
THE HEART — The thing you killed in the forest, waiting at the bottom, patient as an appointment. And beneath the floor: the reason all of this exists.
WANDERING MONSTER: The Gelatinous Cube. It cannot be killed, bribed, outrun, or reasoned with. It does not kill. It consumes. It is never in a hurry. It has all the time in the world.
WARNING: The dungeon learns.
A classic Dungeons & Dragons style adventure module play through presented as a fully realized novelization.
Genre: Fantasy
Used availability for Sean-Michael Argo's Dungeon Crawl