Chapter 3 / Episode 93 – Rot Beneath the Walls
Date: Planting 14, 576 CY — Deep Night
Region: Drachensgrab Hills, south of Highport — Slave Lords’ Stockade
Weather (Outside): Cold drizzle falling without pause. The slave road churned to black mud under unseen passage.
Weather (Within): Damp, stale air thick with decay—stone that has known death for too long.
Players
Dog the Ranger
Irving the Reluctant
TerryOr the Cleric of St. Cuthbert
Silversun Ubermage the Magic-User
Slash the Bard
Tiger Wong, Monk of the Eastern Lands
Kern Blackshield of Safeton
Lady Morwen Ellisar (NPC)
Planting 14 — Behind the Brick
The torture chamber still smoldered when they returned to their search.
Barrels were cracked open—wine, oil, provisions for a place that did not intend to starve. The rack still creaked faintly where it had been left, as if memory alone could keep it moving.
But it was the wall that drew attention.
Fresh mortar.
Wrong color.
Too clean for a place this old.
Kern pressed against it first, testing the give.
“Something’s behind this.”
Dog didn’t argue. He stepped back, eyes scanning the room, bow still in hand as if expecting whatever lay beyond to come through on its own.
“Make it quick,” he said.
The stone broke under repeated blows, crumbling inward with a dull, hollow crack.
And the smell came out first.
Rot. Dry. Ancient.
Too late for whoever had been sealed inside.
The Mummy
The chamber beyond was small—barely enough space for a man to stand upright.
Wrapped in linen, unmoving.
Until it wasn’t.
The thing slipped through the broken opening with unnatural speed, its movements wrong in a way that no living body ever was.
Dog struck first, arrow driving into its chest.
Kern followed, blade carving into ancient wrappings that fell away in strips—but the thing did not slow.
Terry, still half inside the chamber, stooped to gather what had been left behind—scrolls scattered across the stone floor as though dropped in haste.
“Don’t let it past!” Kern barked.
It nearly did.
The mummy’s hand lashed out, striking with a force that felt heavier than it should have been. Kern staggered under the blow, the impact carrying more than simple strength—something deeper, something that clung.
Dog moved to flank. Slash came in low. Tiger Wong struck with controlled precision.
Still, it endured.
Fire was the answer.
Oil was thrown. Flame followed.
The wrappings caught, smoldering first, then burning.
Even then it fought.
It took everything—steel, flame, and stubborn refusal—to bring it down.
When it finally fell, it did not collapse like a man.
It crumbled.
The Cost of the Dead
Victory did not bring relief.
Kern stood still, breathing hard, then slowly looked down at his hands.
“Terry…”
The cleric already knew.
The touch of the mummy had carried more than decay.
Mummy Rot.
Not a wound.
Not poison.
A wasting curse.
Terry checked himself next.
The same.
The disease would not be healed with magic—not yet. Not until it had time to take hold. Not until it could be named and driven out properly.
“Next rest,” Terry said quietly. “Cure disease. That’s the only way.”
Kern gave a slow nod.
No fear. Just acceptance.
That made it worse.
Scrolls of Another Path
The chamber had not been empty.
Four scrolls lay scattered across the stone floor, preserved despite the rot that surrounded them.
Slash and Terry both tried to read them.
Nothing.
The script was arcane—tight, deliberate.
Silversun stepped forward, eyes narrowing as he traced the lines.
Recognition came slowly.
“Magic-user,” he said.
That alone was strange.
Within the Slavelords’ stockade, among torture rooms and sealed chambers, lay scrolls meant not for priests—but for arcane study.
Among them:
Find Familiar
Hold Portal
Knock
And others yet to be fully understood
“Not random,” Silversun said. “Someone stored these.”
“Or hid them,” Dog replied.
Both answers were bad.
The Hall of Old Tracks
They moved on.
The corridor narrowed again, air growing thick and still. Dust lay undisturbed along the floor—except where it didn’t.
Dog knelt.
“These aren’t fresh,” he said. “Weeks. Maybe months.”
That made them more dangerous, not less.
Old tracks meant something had moved here once.
And might again.
The Storeroom of Silence
Beyond the hall lay another chamber—larger, cluttered with barrels, furniture wrapped in burlap, and long-forgotten supplies.
Nothing moved.
Nothing breathed.
And yet the sense remained that this place had not been abandoned—only paused.
An armoire yielded linens and clothing. Within it, tucked carefully among the folds, they found a small item:
A mother-of-pearl stick pin, simple but finely crafted. Worth coin—but more than that, it felt out of place.
Personal.
Not functional.
Someone had lived here once.
Or been kept here.
The Next Door
They returned to a familiar junction—one door yet unopened.
Terry checked for traps.
Nothing.
The door opened.
The smell changed immediately.
Wet stone. Rot. Something alive.
The Creatures in the Dark
They came fast.
Small. Twisted. Long arms dragging along the ground as they lunged forward with claw and bite.
Terry took the first hit.
The bite sank deep.
“Disease,” he hissed through clenched teeth.
Kern moved immediately, stepping in to intercept. Slash followed, blade flashing in the narrow space. Dog shifted position, bow useless at this distance, drawing steel instead.
The fight was brief—but vicious.
The creatures died hard.
And not cleanly.
The Orb
They had little time to regroup.
A glow appeared down the hall.
Faint at first.
Then growing.
Dog saw it clearly—a hovering sphere of pale light drifting toward them without sound.
“Don’t touch it,” he said.
Too late.
The orb struck him with a sudden burst of energy, the impact sharp and unnatural.
Kern swung at it, blade cutting through the glow—and hitting something solid.
It recoiled.
Then changed.
The light collapsed inward, reforming into something humanoid.
Featureless.
Approaching.
The Vanishing
Terry raised his holy symbol, invoking St. Cuthbert with what strength he had left.
No effect.
The thing reached Dog.
Grabbed him by the throat.
And vanished.
Gone.
Just like that.
No sound.
No trace.
Dog staggered back a moment later—alive, but shaken.
“Not done,” he muttered.
Outcome Notes
Mummy destroyed (fire and melee)
Terry and Kern afflicted with Mummy Rot
4 Magic-User scrolls recovered
Secret chamber breached behind bricked wall
Mother-of-pearl stick pin recovered (~50 gp)
Disease-bearing creatures encountered and defeated
Unknown entity (orb → humanoid form) encountered
Dog temporarily seized and released by entity
XP Awarded
1,000 XP each
Current Status
Mummy Rot active (Terry, Kern)
Cure Disease required after next rest
Spells critically low
Unknown entity still present in dungeon
Evidence of hidden arcane presence within stronghold
Markessa still unaccounted for
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