SS.1.2 The Watcher, Half-Blind

0. Vorothruun’s Cell

The purple radiance of the teleportation spell fades. You sit in a familiar prison cell. You retrace the jagged, uneven stonework of the cell, which you memorized with broken fingers in the dark days leading towards your walk to the gallows.
Resting your head against the back wall, it feels for a moment as if you have never left Avraath. Never left this cell. But this sense of nostalgia fades as quickly as it came. For while this claustrophobic space feels familiar, you know yourself to be somewhere else entirely.
Blood pools on the filthy floor underneath the rusted iron bars of this cage. As you regard the puddle of someone’s life spilled out, you watch the color drain from it. The crimson stain against dull stone work fades into nothing, color melting from the world all around you like an abstract concept that never belonged yet the stain remains, but a shade of darkness against a slightly lighter darkness of masonry. As you look at your own form, your blue scales are ashen, as if rotting from within over years of agony and isolation. Your black and tattered cloak somehow even further decayed and in disarray.
This now muted bloodstain takes on a life of its own, climbing the walls like a twisted vine reaching for sunlight, though you know it will find no such source here where all shadows fall. Against the wall, in the familiar and hurried scrawl of your brother’s hand, the blood composes itself to read STONES CANNOT WEEP FOR THE WEAKNESS IN BONDS OF BLOOD TO SEE TRUTH IS TESTAMENT TO WILL ALONE”
Your eyes follow these words in a winding fashion, their meaning burning into your mind and leaving nothing but soot and smoldering questions. After moments, you gaze back towards where the bloodstain once stood and though color is faded from this world like a mist or blanket of ash and haze, you see crumpled on the ground, your own emaciated form wrapped in beggar’s clothes. The hood of your tattered black cloak unfurls and you see your own mind spilling onto your shoulders, exposed to the rot and degradation of this foul place, thanks to a crack in your concave skull, a crater in the shape of an armored boot.
Iron Bars As you reach out towards the gate of your cell, your hand finds the iron bars, the smell of rust pungent. Though as you hold onto the rod, your hand suddenly falls through it. Where there was once the only means of escape for your cell is now an open expanse of darkness and you feel yourself on the precipice of futility, freedom, and foreit of self. As you lean over this edge and look into the void, you blink once and the familiar grey iron bars return once more, but the texture is all wrong. The rusted metal bars now have the feeling of scaled flesh, fused and stitched together in a crossing pattern to trap you in this cell. Where there was rust now is blood and the flesh continues to bleed until it is bled dry and flakes off in your hand, the entire gate collapsing until it is a pile of loose and flayed skin piled up at the precipice of your now empty cell.
The Eastern Corridor As you step through the inmaterial iron bars of the cell that once held you, as you had once been restrained but feel no such fetters here in this place, you find yourself in the Eastern Corridor of the jail. The sconces are unlit, everything in view either a daunting darkness or some barely lighter shade of drained darkness, yet your sight is unhindered.
Each flick of your tattered cloak creating unseen waves and ripples that send the particles of decay and dust and dread into a flurry like a contained storm of chaos. The clouds settle once more and the room is still, though even in this stillness you feel a constant pulse of dread as the walls around you seem to shudder and shiver.

1. Mushrooms

Beyond the cell door across from you, a visage of wild mushrooms in muted hues of grey and black sprout and bloom and spread, growing over walls and a skeletal form trapped within.
They kept that blithering thief here once, you think to yourself. His silence, even in this demented place, a reprieve.
In the time it takes for this thought to process, more mushrooms have already grown along the walls towards you. In the same time, others have rotted, fallen, and disintegrated into rot. In this cycle the mushrooms slowly take over new ground while leaving behind their past territory. The skeleton is now partially revealed, the skull visible through tangled roots and tendrils.
Where you expected empty sockets are a pair of bloodshot eyes swimming and rolling in an unnerving loop. They seem to chase after one another never slowing or focussing anywhere beyond their chaotic darting from wall to wall and back again. Then, the two eyes find yours and are still, though some force still pulses behind the pupil. Red and dialated, the eyes swell to the size of a fist until they burst and rot into disintegration and you realize these too are mushrooms, taking on the thieves sense of sight where they once were in another realm.
And so too then all of the mushrooms are mirrors of those lurking eyes that once watched you through the darkness, asking if you wanted out cause he swore he had a way out but just needed your heretical magic to make it work and he could even get you a new identity but you never answered his helpless stare and so one day they came for you and his manic laughter rang out because he felt sorry for you missing your chance to escape with him but you knew he laughed to hide the tears because you were his only hope of salvation and now he knew death’s dagger crept inevitably close to his neck.
You remember all of this in flashes and fragments as bloodshot eyes growing from mushrooms in the skeleton of a stranger blink towards you out of sync until they are a flickering of vision you cannot escape and in the blabbering thieves voice you hear a scream that swims in your mind IF YOU WANTED A WAY OUT YOU SHOULD HAVE LOOKED FOR IT LONG AGO BECAUSE NOW ALL YOU WILL EVER FIND IS THE WAY FORWARD AND FORWARD IS NOT OUT UNTIL YOU ARE OUT OF EVERYTHING YOU SEE. The phrase repeats, broken and distorted by laughter until there is nothing but the manic cackles of a distant memory blinking towards you in bloodshot eyes or bursting mushrooms growing in an empty cell of rot and shadow.

2. Dripping Water

From the cell you shared a wall with in what feels like a previous life, a constant dripping of liquid against stone rings out like a clashing and dissonant rhythm. You feel each drip from the stalactite above to the ground below like a pebble against the surface of your mind. But instead of gracefully skipping along the surface, this abrasive intrusion plops abruptly and sinks deeper and deeper into your sanity.
You see the liquid is thick, like a malleable midnight black ink of some more menacing origin. More strangely, it does not pool or puddle nor flood the floor of the chamber, but rather is at once absorbed into the grout between the stones. As it is absorbed, it moves through the stonework, slithering its way back towards the crooked tooth of stone above.
You watch the liquid as it flows underneath the stone and the sensation of something crawling beneath your scales spreads through your arms. Your skin rises and falls like waves as something like worms burrow underneath, weaving their way around vein and bone and nerve.
WISDOM S/T, FAIL -1d4 WIS

3. Parathrax's Vision 2

Within the cell, a charred pyre stands, a limp scaled body dangling above the ashes and stone.
This storm is somehow your brother's doing, and your heart sings and your pride cringes for it. However, you are not the only one who knows. The High Templar marches across the plaza, rage and pious hatred burning in his eyes even as the rain drenches him. You watch as Vorothruun glares at the man with disdain, struggling against his bindings. Torn between a loyalty born and a loyalty sworn, a righteous indignation rises from within you and you surge towards the both.
Light flashes, and through your heart's compulsion, you are there. Bewildered, you stand between your brother and your leader, sword raised above your head. You stare into the hateful eyes of your leader, who spits through the downpour, "I knew you would interfere! Heathen! Traitor!"
“Do you think so little of me brother? Have I not always been faithful?” you say to the grizzled veteran as you spin, your father’s blade clawing clean through Vorothruun’s chest and the pyre itself. The heathen’s body, severed clean in two, lays strewn across the plaza, smoke rising from ashes as the rain dissipates.
The visions fade and the world hums and moans and wails back into the dreary prison cell where before you stands a now empty pyre, with words etched into the wood and your mind, THE BREAKING OF OATH AND THE COWARDICE OF CHOICE ARE NEITHER DAMNATION NOR ABSOLUTION BUT A SELF-IMMOLATION OF INEVITABLE DECEIT.

4. Nothic & Two Chests

From an interconnected cell with three doors, you immediately notice the shimmer of two chests with metal latches on the left and right. In the middle, a baleful eye peers out from the darkness, its gleam hinting at unnerving malevolence and a haunting intelligence. Beneath the pale greyish-green iris, a skeletal and strange smile crevices amidst dark, rigid flesh. The knowing smile unnerves you, though this face in the lingering void seems content to stare on from the dark cell, observing and learning.
CHARISMA SAVING THROW Save: The eye blinks and then looks away, seeming to steal no secrets. Fail: The creature gives a single inhuman smirk, blinks once, and backs into the darkness with some secret it has gained from you, but you can only guess as to which. Chests: Potion of Superior Healing, Potion of Arcane Restoration

5. Vines

Beneath your feet, through the dark metal grate, you hear the rustling of leaves and the bending of branches. A single shoot of a vine slowly clings to the crossbars, the vine itself slimey with a thick mucus or resin. The shoot, knotted and warped with blight and malice wraps itself around the grate once, twice, thrice and continues growing at an accelerated rate as massive black flowers with teeth for petals and tentacles for leaves begin to bloom and produce inky black berries like dilated pupils blinking once, twice, thrice and then seem to stare as you unremittingly as you look down. Then sprouting forward like a terrible truth the vine of teeth and tentacle and lidless eyes thrashes towards your throat.
DEX SAVING THROW Save: Manages to fight off the vines, but the berries deal 2d6 necrotic damage. Fail: 1d10 bludgeoning damage from the vines, 2d6 necrotic damage from the berries.

6. Parathrax’s Cell

The purple radiance of the teleportation spell fades. You are in a familiar prison cell, yet the room is strange as you gaze out rather than in. It feels much more cramped than you imagined it. The walls seem to weep some black and thick muck.
Resting your head against the back wall, it feels for a moment as if you have never left Avraath. Beyond these walls are the comfort of the barracks, of duty, of purpose. The constant rhythm of patrol and prayer. But this sense of nostalgia fades as quickly as it came. For while this claustrophobic space feels familiar, you know yourself to be somewhere else entirely.
Blood pools against the rusted iron bars of your cell across from you. As you regard the puddle of someone’s life spilled out, you see the color drain from it. The crimson stain against dull stone work fades into nothing, color melting from this world like an abstract concept that never belonged. Yet the stain remains, but a shade of darkness against a slightly lighter darkness of masonry.
This now muted bloodstain takes on a life of its own, soaring along the walls like dark wings darting through autumn trees, though you know it will find no such sanctuary here where all shadows fall. Against the wall, in the desperate and manic script of your brother’s hand, the blood composes itself to read “THE BEARING TEETH OF SORROW SINK DEEPEST INTO THOSE WE LOVE AND CANNOT SAVE.”
Your eyes follow these words in a winding fashion, their meaning carving into your mind and leaving nothing but scars and severed questions. After moments, you gaze back towards where the bloodstain once stood and though color is faded from this world like a mist or blanket of ash and haze, you see crumpled on the ground, your own eviscerated form, your armor a melted and marred coffin for your corpse. Your charcoal armor like soot, the clan crest charred, your linen underneath blackened and oozing and bubbled where it fuses to your flesh. Underneath your helm, you see your own featureless face, melted away by a dark burning eldritch magic.

7. The Claw

A figure shroud in shadows sits in the corner of the cell. As you approach, without a look or any sign of acknowledgement, a familiar voice booms and reverberates against the small stone walls of the cell.
Both: “Well done, my son(s). Just when I believed my disappointment in you could fall no further, you manage to sink to new depths of shame and dishonor to our family. If this is the goal you have set out on since your escape, then you have aimed true and struck a decisive blow. How far will you go, pursuing this path you have chosen for yourself?
The shadowed figure stands, revealing your father’s foreboding stature, contrasted all the more against the cramped cell. In this realm of shadows his usually vibrant and polished armor is dull, his deep blue scales a dreary grey.
Vorothruun: “Look at your brother, Parathrax, the paragon of strength and dignity. He need not heed the beck and call of some monstrous fiend. He finds his source in honor, courage, and protecting those who need it most. And even with your borrowed powers, I wonder, do you still require his protection? If so, what does that say about whatever pact you have made with the hellish creature you serve?”
Parathrax: “I told you to look after your brother, Parathrax. And you let him wander too far off into this demonic damnation. And then when it was already too late, you not only spared his life for the heresy you are sworn to avenge, but you murdered your direct superior in cold blood and ran away with your unholy and demented brother. You have failed me, your brother, and yourself. May your prayers fall on deaf ears and Bahamut spit on your pleas for protection.”
All at once, the figure of your father dissipates into fluttering and shrieking shadows, a murder of crows cawing and circling overhead like vultures marking a massacre. In the whirlwind of dark feathers and shadow wings, the ravenous cries sound like “THE CLAW THE CLAW.” With a high-pitched screech, the five crows descend and dive towards your face, their razor sharp talons like knives reaching towards your eyes.
DEX SAVING THROW Save: 1d10 piercing damage, halved. 1d6 psychic damage. Fail: 1d10 piercing damage and 1d8 psychic damage.

8. Vorothruun’s Vision 1

The walls, just a moment before a claustrophobic holding pen for the criminals of Avraath, phase out of existence with a low moaning rumble and in their place, the walls of your home appear. In your study, the evening Parathrax first discovered your patronage and power.
The words, his pleas, are vague rekindlings of your memory from this evening, but quickly become harsher, more desperate, more determined. In disgust at your denial and refusal to rescind your newfound knowledge, Parathrax draws his blade - your father’s blade, and before you can react, the walls of your study are stained with the blood of your veins across tapestry and tome alike. Parathrax stands over you as your consciousness fades and you, now back in the prison, the walls phasing back into this plane with a moaning wail, hear the words in your mind FORKED TONGUE LEADS BLINDLY BUT THE BLADE DIVIDES POWER FROM BOTH.

9. Black Ooze

As you approach this cell, you can’t help but notice it is peculiarly entirely ordinary. There is no rust on the door, no mushrooms no stains or decay within, just a thick and menacing sludge of darkness and shadow.

10. Parathrax’s Vision 1

These cramped walls, which you recall holding those who had previously tried to escape and thus were kept in the central and smallest cells, let out a low rolling wail and fades, replaced with the walls of your home. You stand on the precipice of your brother’s study, the evening you first discovered his heresy.
The words, his explanations, are vague rekindling of memory from this evening, but quickly become more defensive, more desperate, more determined. In rage at your refusal and denial of his right to this power, Vorothruun manifests a purple crackling energy in his palm and your first thought is of the shield you thought it better to not bring for this conversation and now will not have time to regret. The strangely cold purple blast of energy wraps around your skull like tentacles and peels away your face scale by scale, a searing pain that consumes you nearly as much as the words that echo through your mind BETRAYAL THE BURDEN CARRIED NOT FOR OURSELVES BUT BONDS BROKEN IN BLOOD AND RUIN.

11. The Crown

As you make your way through this octagonal chamber, the starless void of a night sky swirls beneath your feet. For a moment you feel yourself standing on the edge of the eternal distance, swaying and unstable as if one wrong step would lead you cascading into the cutting edge of dead suns and searing starlight. The surface of this night sky, smooth like a silken stone, reflects back to you the image of your mother, but the night sky fills her eyes, leaving black pupils and slits of recognition and little else. On her face, rage and shame and tears of blood ooze from her face, running down her cheeks and pale lips until her robes are stained and tattered. Her face is frozen like this for a moment, a wretched foundation of blood flowing from her eyes as her mouth opens, her teeth yellow and ground down to nothing. Her maw opens and she speaks softly, like when she used to read stories of knights and heroes to you and your brother MISERY AND MADNESS UNLOCK THE EYES TO WITNESS ASCENSION YET SWEPT AWAY ARE THE FEARS OF FUTILITY IN SCOURGING STRENGTH.

The Doorway

Before you stands a sturdy and seamless stone door. Detailed with etchings and carvings so perfect you’re sure no crafted tool has ever touched the surface. A perfect circle, the door’s etchings depict a majestic and magnificent crown, the circumference stretching across the massive boulder between you and an uncertainty that urges your curiosity to continue forward.
In the crowns elegant etching, enraptured in feathers and tentacles and culminating in two massive claws that create the crowns band, a poem of draconic runes weaves through the stonework.

12. Chains

You feel a small, fleeting sense of relief as you exit the corridor and step into a widening chamber without any cells adjacent to it. The acrid combination of stale blood and damp mushrooms fades. Along the ground, two broken chains lie, cast off by some prior captive in a desperate means of escape. In the same desperation, the chains begin to rattle, an uncanny rolling jingle against the ashen stone. As the sound grows louder and reverberates through the chamber, they reach for your ankles to ensnare you.
STRENGTH SAVING THROW. IF FAIL, LOSE 1d4 DEX.

13. Snakes

The grates below you, used for sewage and refuse, whisper to one another secrets in a strange tongue. You are certain they are speaking of you, but you cannot discern their meaning. Their hisses containing all of your secrets and sins, laid bare to the shadows. As you listen the whispers become accusatory hisses of all the secrets lidless eyes witness as a brood of vipers rise from the drains and strike at your heels.
DEX S/T OR -1d4 CON.

14. Corpses & Rot Grubs

You stand over a iron bars fastened into the stonework of the floor. Stained with finger prints of long dried blood, Parathrax recognizes this as the quarantine cell. Below are piles of corpses, their scales pale and ghastly in this dark and shadowed prison. Even from above, you can see their veins green with some terrible disease. Their appendages, those that are not severed and long lost to the skulking scavengers of the shadows, purple and yellow with bruise and pus and swollen until they are disfigured and deformed.
As you look on, the iron bars suddenly evaporate like a cloud. *Dex S/T to either fall in or catch themselves.
Fail: You fall forward, the ten foot drop feeling like 100 and land with a disgusting crunch and a moist thud as your weight crushes and pops some part of the corpse below you. As you go to stand up, you hear a distinct slurping noise and feel something burrowing beneath you. From within the chest of the eyeless corpse below you, a swarm of eyeless purple worms with spirals of jagged teeth lurch their way towards you.

15. Vorothruun's Vision 2

Within the cell, charred pyre stands empty, black and ashed wood against black and ashed stone. Your eyes rollback and memories roll across your vision like a mirage.
Today is the day you die. With each step, these six words repeat in a cadence as the templar brothers grasp your manacled wrists and march you indifferently, perhaps even gleefully towards the crowds. Today is the day you die. Unless, intervention. Deliverance. Salvation. But no, these are thoughts for the followers of Bahamut. You serve a darker patron, her power maleficent and complete. And she answered you. For you are worthy. But in this worthiness, you are on your own. Then again, you always have been.
But now you are alone and armed with an arcane knowledge beyond the weak altar boys your brother stands alongside even now. Today may be the day you die, but it will not be the day you die a coward.
As they set the pyre ablaze, you feel the abyss rising to welcome you into its dark embrace. You already sense the surge of energy through your fists. Although it is dusk, the sky is swiftly turning black as night as massive clouds gather from every corner of your vision, moving too fast to be carried by wind. You see, for a moment, a lidless eye in their amorphous shape. The crowd begin to look skyward and mutter, even the lay feeling the otherworldly touch of the storm gathering above them. "I knew you would interfere! Heathen! Traitor!" you hear shouted somewhere nearby.
Out of the corner of your eye you see your brother, rushing towards you sword and shield drawn. The words “Heathen! Traitor!” ring out once more from his jaw locked in a scowl of judgement and hatred. As his stride quickens towards you, the malicious and dark energy pours from your hand, unfurling and whipping like a leviathan’s tentacle through the downpour. The eldritch energy finds its mark, wrapping around the vibrant blue shield of your brother, piercing the zealot's heart clean through his armor.
Your eyes roll back into focus and along the scorched pyre clawed into the wood, holding up the body of your brother, you read CLEAVE FROM POWER THE PROTECTION AND SHED THE SKIN AND SILENCE THE QUESTIONS FOR KNOWLEDGE IS NEITHER AN ANSWER NOR A PRAYER BUT ONLY A DEEPER BURNING OF THE FORLORN AND FORGOTTEN.

16. Blood Storm

You notice this cell has a solid oaken door, with a tinted pane of glass for observation for the corridor. Looking inward, you see the roof of the containment cell swirl and roll like endless and heavy clouds, a lidless eye gazing towards you from the amorphous form. As you approach, a bolt of black lightning strikes the metal bed frame.
In the flash you see years of maddening solitude played out in this room as a skeletal hidden in the shadowed corner slowly rises from the ground, piecing itself back together and in a jagged jerking movement it acts out its own annihilation as it paces and pleas and slams its shoulder into the door relentlessly until you hear the shattering of bones and smashes its head against the wall as you hear muffled moans and the gritting and grinding of teeth and eventually it crawls on broken limbs towards you and begins breaking splinters off of the wooden door until there are enough to prick every pore of flesh and it is nothing more than a self-inflicted thorn bush without any roses and as all the blood rushes out of the corporeal pile of wood and bone and flesh there is a final smile of escape in the strobing darkness.
Another flash of black lightning, this time accompanied by a quaking boom rumbling out through the corridor like a funeral bell tolling over head. The clouds let loose a torrent of thick, deep crimson-black drops as the storm grows more and more volatile until the cell is flooding with blood and it sloshes back and forth like an angry sea until it rises to the window, the crackling like black ice against the pressure until the river of congealed blood flows over you, threatening to swallow you and wash you away all at once.
INT S/T, Fail -1d4 WIS

17 Shadows

A mirror image of the cell you were kept in on the other side of the corridor, but with a wall caved in, creating one larger cell full of ruin and rot, you see a shadow in the corner against the back wall, of a figure with its head hung low as if in meditation. A second shadow in the opposite corner floats too and fro as if wondering and waiting. A third drifts towards the iron gate opening its maw and letting out a cry you cannot hear but feel scratching against the inside of your skull like claws against a chalkboard, sending shivers down your spine and your head aching from a pressure that swells like an old hag’s wart and pops, the puss dripping down your neck, cold and unnerving.
Parathrax recognizes this cell as the holding pen for those of lesser crimes who were merely waiting to know their fine or serve sentences of less than a few days. As you move closer to defend your brother, the shadows, all in parallel union, spin their heads around in unnerving full rotations, detecting your presence particularly and launch themselves in spastic floating motions towards you as the words FOR STRENGTH IN PURITY IS WEAKNESS IN FLESH AND WE SHALL FEED AND FESTER IT screech out into the night as they simultaneously sear into the wall as if this shriek has carved the words in eons of silence shattered in a single moment.

18 Phase spider

In the far corner, you recognize an intricately woven spider’s web. The silver-grey shimmer of the silk a sharp contrast to the dark and brooding atmosphere surrounding you. As you observe the web, it seems to ever so gently drift though there is no wind in this decrepit prison. The web seems to tremble, ever so slightly. Before you a dark and hazy visage begins to form. In the shadows, a terrible spider, muted grey with dark blue spots on its abdomen and black-stained fangs takes shape and continues weaving its web, which expands from the corner and through the rest of the northwest corridor. After a moment, the spider once again blurs and becomes hazy before disappearing entirely. Even so, the web continues to quiver as it weaves its way closer to you.
Chest: Potion of Healing, Scroll of Misty Step

19. Bedrolls

Peeking your head into this room, you see six bedrolls. The fabric is worn and falling apart as if exposed to the elements for many seasons. Lichen crawls its way up the walls and over the bedrolls. The stench of mold and wet fur wafts towards you. In the distance you hear a crackling of fire and smoke blurs your sight for a moment. You hear the familiar mechanical snoring of a construct. You smell the sparks of iron against iron as a tiefling sharpens her blades. A roar of laughter from a bard’s story on an evening’s respite. This moment, fond and peaceful in a forgotten feeling, interrupted.
A long, bellowing howl from a wolf and her ranger calling out from the woods beyond. A scattering of leaves crunching under steel boots and the heavy footfalls of Parathrax echo off of the walls and you feel the weight of his determination move through you out into the woods to aid his companions. But you sleep still in your bedroll unaware or unconcerned. And you sleep there forever. The dreams and visions of truth an all-encompassing sleep you cannot wake from and would not if you could, perhaps.
You see your form in this bedroll now, material and present, though all others are empty, having long since moved on without you. You watch time sail by through calm waters, though you feel the undercurrents tear at your mind, pulling and pushing you through chaos and confusion into, finally, clairvoyance.
Eventually, the natural world around you begins to disregard your form. No longer foreign nor temporal, you are now part of this world, though it has no part of you. Spiders crawl over your skin and here in this prison cell, you feel their skittering against your neck. They make their home in your mouth, now webbed shut in silent nightmares of truth unraveling everything you are or could be. This you feel too as your tongue becomes tangled in the resin trapped behind your teeth. The spiders eggs descend into your throat, where thousands and thousands of eyes now witness from inside you, observing all of the dreams you have hidden from yourself. From this kaleidoscopic perspective you see your frail form surrounded by their sight. The eyes coalesce into one eye and you are seen but have never felt so disregarded for you are nothing to this eye but a conduit of malice. For what are spiders to a boot besides a pathetic, muted crunch.

20. Storage

Strewn amongst typical crates and barrels of storage which smell of spoiled cheese and meats, as if it were entirely unremarkable or unordinary lies the headless carcass of some beast of burden wasting away in this desolation. The smell of flesh deteriorating swirls around you, dizzying and overpowering. Flies float and buzz around the neck, which drains blood like a foundation with an eternal source.
From the looks of its remaining limbs and gutted stomach, you can’t help but imagine this poor creature being worked until sheer exhaustion under the unrelenting sun of Avraath for its entire life. You feel an inkling of pity for this creature rise within you for a faint moment, though before this response blooms into a fully-formed thought or seed of emotion, the severed and still bleeding neck of the remains turn to you, the jagged and severed nerves like pale eyes in the darkness. In a looming and visceral voice, the headless heap of decaying flesh screams to you, NEVER HOLD ON TO ANYTHING OTHER THAN THAT WHICH DANGLES BEFORE YOU PROMISES OF POWER WHETHER IT BE THE CARROT OR THE STICK OR SOMETHING ENTIRELY MORE.

21. The Oracle’s Watch

As you speak these words, the empty spaces burn dark and cold with draconic runes and a rumbling droning hum rolls through the room, the night sky floor behind you flickering in grey and black flashes of chaos. The giant stone door parts, each half rolling into a hidden chamber in the massive walls. The room before you is utter darkness.
A single white eye appears in the middle of the room, floating still and silent. Warped and decayed, as if the pupil were wrapped in layers of translucent threads of flesh, like one would wrap a wound in bandages. Its pupil seems distant or veiled.The dark lifeless pupil within distant and veiled. In the darkness, a calm and calculated voice breaks the stillness.
“I see you, Vorothruun. I see you through and through. I watch and observe your distant world, seeing every deed and doubt. I am witness to your desperate pleas and the hunger you wrestle now. You wish to see and gather all, the crown and stones combined. To do so you must know the truth that’s hidden in my eye.”

22. The Coward’s Way

A dreadful and hushed whisper of wind whistles through the narrow cavern. Dust floats through the tiniest pinpricks of light, as if torches miles away could reach these prison catacombs. The darkness is still thick, but it feels warm for the first time as it winds upwards like smoke towards a smoldering of ruin and a city of death. You imagine this is a way out, but to what end, if it were some more mangled manifestation of this mirror of your memories, you know not why you would pursue it.

23. The Portal to Avraathe

As you approach, chains clang somewhere behind the walls and a stone door slowly rises. You shield your eyes from a looming brightness that pierces your vision. As your eyes adjust to this new source of light, you also hear the low droning hum of pulsing magic. The only source of color you’ve seen in the dense shadows of this place, a purple light pulses and radiates across the floor, the light rising like heat off of stone on a hot day. You recognize the patterns as teleportation sigils and you recognize the sigils as home.