The Glass Hall
You walk up the staircase, trying to blink the increasing amount of light out of your eyes as you the small hallway open up to a massive room. Each of the walls glimmers with the light of a thousand shards of colored glass- carefully arranged to create huge stained glass windows, casting their colors across the dusty, tiled floor and lighting up the room to the point where they are almost hard to look at compared to the darkness of the room before.
You try to see where the room ends, but the vivid sunbeams and grey tile yield no clues on how far back it goes. There’s probably an end to it, but whatever that end may be is obscured by haze and dust. You reach out and gently brush your hand against the base of one of the windows, admiring the craftsmanship while trying to figure out what the image is depicting with it’s vibrant greens and blues snaking their way across the transparent surface.
It appears to show a young woman standing on a lake’s surface, holding her arms out in welcome as vines and water curl around her wrists. She seems to be kind-looking enough, but her reflection in the water says something quite different, showing her silhouetted against jagged mountains, raging rivers, and thorny brambles poised to attack.
You take a few steps back, hearing your footsteps break the silence that had cloaked the room, and glance at the other windows that were scattering their colored light all across the hall. All of them looked similar to the first one you saw, showing a benevolent person using some kind of magic and then their corrupted reflections below.
You decide to get going and draw your cloak around you as you begin to walk, absolutely sure that the cold chill now curled around your neck wasn’t there before.
As you make your way through the hall, dust curling around your legs like a strange, incorporeal creature, you notice that the glass windows seem to have changed their subjects a bit. One on your left catches your eye, showing three terrifying beasts seemingly ruling over the lands, with thousands of glowing eyes, pronged horns, and gaping maws all over their bodies.
A window to your right shows the beasts again, silhouetted against three people with chains tied to their wrists. The farther on you go, the stranger the stained glass gets, getting more and more rushed and abstract after every step.
Eventually you reach the end of the hall, and the stained glass has mostly gone back to normal. You approach the massive door that guards entry to the next room, ready to-
*crunch*
You look down, and find the remnants of a shattered window strewn about the floor. Luckily, the shard you stepped on didn't get through to your skin.
They are still in pretty big chunks, and large sections of the window are still intact. You step out of the little pile of glass and notice a marble start to roll away from the shards. You pick it up and examine it, tracing your fingers along the dark swirl that seems to almost overtake the clear teal of the rest of the marble. you gently put it into your bag, knowing that even if you don't use somewhere it it's still a cool keepsake.
Turning your attentions back to the broken window, you try to think about how they could get put back together.
If you try to fix the window, make a wisdom check! (DC: 10)
If you succeeded, keep going in the article. If you didn't, Go Here.
You manage to reassemble the pieces into the full picture with minimal scratches, and with a few bits of supplies that you had in your bag It should stay together for at least a few minutes while you sketch it.
The completed window paints a... rather disturbing picture, showing two of the three beasts from earlier being sealed away by what seems like at least fifty mages as a few crowned figures look on in triumph. The lower half shows a tall, chain-covered spire surrounded by people that you recognize from the earlier windows, each with a sharp-looking metal cuff bound to their wrists.
You finish your sketch, then put away the book. What had happened here? Were those people being punished for something?
You take one last look at the window. Apparently the answers aren't willing to reveal themselves yet. Continue Onward
You try to see where the room ends, but the vivid sunbeams and grey tile yield no clues on how far back it goes. There’s probably an end to it, but whatever that end may be is obscured by haze and dust. You reach out and gently brush your hand against the base of one of the windows, admiring the craftsmanship while trying to figure out what the image is depicting with it’s vibrant greens and blues snaking their way across the transparent surface.
It appears to show a young woman standing on a lake’s surface, holding her arms out in welcome as vines and water curl around her wrists. She seems to be kind-looking enough, but her reflection in the water says something quite different, showing her silhouetted against jagged mountains, raging rivers, and thorny brambles poised to attack.
You take a few steps back, hearing your footsteps break the silence that had cloaked the room, and glance at the other windows that were scattering their colored light all across the hall. All of them looked similar to the first one you saw, showing a benevolent person using some kind of magic and then their corrupted reflections below.
You decide to get going and draw your cloak around you as you begin to walk, absolutely sure that the cold chill now curled around your neck wasn’t there before.
As you make your way through the hall, dust curling around your legs like a strange, incorporeal creature, you notice that the glass windows seem to have changed their subjects a bit. One on your left catches your eye, showing three terrifying beasts seemingly ruling over the lands, with thousands of glowing eyes, pronged horns, and gaping maws all over their bodies.
A window to your right shows the beasts again, silhouetted against three people with chains tied to their wrists. The farther on you go, the stranger the stained glass gets, getting more and more rushed and abstract after every step.
Eventually you reach the end of the hall, and the stained glass has mostly gone back to normal. You approach the massive door that guards entry to the next room, ready to-
*crunch*
You look down, and find the remnants of a shattered window strewn about the floor. Luckily, the shard you stepped on didn't get through to your skin.
They are still in pretty big chunks, and large sections of the window are still intact. You step out of the little pile of glass and notice a marble start to roll away from the shards. You pick it up and examine it, tracing your fingers along the dark swirl that seems to almost overtake the clear teal of the rest of the marble. you gently put it into your bag, knowing that even if you don't use somewhere it it's still a cool keepsake.
Turning your attentions back to the broken window, you try to think about how they could get put back together.
WHAT DO YOU DO?
| Try to fix the window (Keep going in this article) | Continue Onward |
The completed window paints a... rather disturbing picture, showing two of the three beasts from earlier being sealed away by what seems like at least fifty mages as a few crowned figures look on in triumph. The lower half shows a tall, chain-covered spire surrounded by people that you recognize from the earlier windows, each with a sharp-looking metal cuff bound to their wrists.
You finish your sketch, then put away the book. What had happened here? Were those people being punished for something?
You take one last look at the window. Apparently the answers aren't willing to reveal themselves yet. Continue Onward
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