OOC Note: The information in this progression is written purely for reading pleasure. The information held within, the "Deep-Lore", is not public knowledge and should not be meta-gamed. If you cannot stop yourself from metagaming, please do not read this progression. - - - The men of the adventuring party left the Crown City like a group of questing knights - they set out eagerly from the city’s docks on a charter boat with billowing sails, supplied with rations to last the week. They left with a clear sense of purpose and a mission in mind: there were rumors of a Dragon Temple discovered deep in the bowels of the Drache lands by a cadre of wayward scholars. The party was determined to be the first to break open its doors in centuries. The first leg of their journey was uneventful - their boat pierced the pea soup fog clothing Dragenthal’s eastern coast and the docks came in sight on the morn, cast in a gray-violet haze. A man with a cocked hat at the helm of the charter-boat roared. “Close-hauled on the port tack!” A throng of men surged to the mizzen shrouds and braces. The topsails danced and grabbed at the wind before clawing their way open and driving the craft through the water towards the shore. Their charter boat landed with little ceremony. The party left the ship with a series of curt farewells, stepping carefully from the ship across a makeshift bridge of tied boards. They rallied in front of the boat and counted their number and their equipment. The company numbered five men. At their fore was a staunch paladin - Percival Ravenstad, a ginger knight of the Viridian Order with a longsword in-hand and confidence in his step. A man and a woman marched at his side. The man, an Avanthar by the name of Haelmir de Catlanio, had the clear cut of an agile warrior; he bore two axes with assuredness and spoke sparsely and professionally. The woman had introduced herself as “Emeline Delmotte”- she was a Matrais Knight by her garb and sword prowess, and her brown hair was bundled readily into a tight bun. Taking up the far flanks was an able guard of two men. One was a veteran soldier - “Thomas of Rothburg” they called him. He shouldered a well maintained arbalest and looked on with determination. Finally, there was a soft-spoken knight bearing the seal of Villiers-Eclaire - “Leufred Reginar”, he’d called himself and, like the ginger knight, he wielded a longsword with clear comfort. A village guide in light traveler’s garb met them at the end of the docks. He brought them quickly to the sparse village of Gryderwald, and from there saw the party equipped with a set of able horses. They set out immediately. Their journey took them through the Drachenwald - a deep, storied forest surrounded by myth and superstition. Its canopy cast dark shadows at mid-noon, and the trees stood like quiet sentries as the party thundered past. When they got to the end of the path, the guide peeled away; his tenure had ended. From there, the party set out alone. Eventually, they found what they had been promised. Near the end of their sparse pathway the crowded forest thins, giving way to a hill that rises at an unnatural angle. As the party ventures closer, the nature of the hill becomes clearer: it was less a hill as much as it was a massive, tree-studded dirt mound. At its peak, it could fit ten naval dreadnoughts end-to-end and hold a tower as large as a great cathedral. The hill’s uniformity is interrupted by an off-center entrance - a dark, gaping maw that eats the rough path the party is riding on. It seems to coax them. The Viridian Knight calls the party together with a measured tone and lays out their simple plan. They would advance until they found something of worthy note, or until they were sure that they had left few stones unturned. Thomas cranks the string of his crossbow back and slips a bolt into the well-oiled groove. The Matrais Knight carefully tests the edge on her sword. The rest check their weapons restlessly. Then, satisfied with their preparedness, the five step cautiously into the dark. + + + There is an eerie quiet to old, old places, and in this place, the silence was smothering. Here, a dropped coin would echo for a dozen leagues and would ring for minutes down the tunnels spiraling deep into the earth. Leufred, bearing a heavy torch, takes the party’s fore alongside the Viridian Knight. They work their way cautiously into the mound. The tunnels were staunch and geometric, studded with alcoves and slim weight-bearing pillars that cast flickering shadows across the dusty ground. Their progress is interrupted every so often by collapsed and unkempt tunnels. When the network becomes confusing, the Avanthar, Haelmir, identifies the path forwards with relative ease - he sets the pace with a grunt. The veteran, Thomas, and the Matrais Knight Emeline form an able rearguard, eyeing the dark tunnels warily after the party clears them. Eventually, Haelmir leads them to turn a sharp right. The tunnel in front of them angles downwards like a sinking boat. It’s clogged with a group of dark shapes that seem to swing ever-so-slightly back and forth, disturbed by a stuffy, rancid puff of air. Emeline grimaces by instinct and brushes her sleeve over her noses, Percival readies his sword, and Leufred cautiously steps forward and bears his torch. Corpses. They were hanging from different lengths of chain like grisly ornaments. Their flesh was sinewy, like a peasant soldier’s ration of salted beef, and they were hoisted into the air by barbed meathooks. In some places, it was like walking through a butcher’s meat locker and in others, the corpses bob several feet above the party’s heads. This was no mere temple. It was a crypt. With no other direction to go, the party steels itself and advances into the tunnels. The tunnel is stifling - the humid air carries both the sickly-sweet smell of rotting flesh and the sharp scent of unknown chemicals. Rough flesh and sharp hooks scuff at the adventurers as they enter, but the party collectively avoid injuries beyond minor scratches and scrapes. Their walk through the corpse-filled hall seems to stretch on for a lifetime, but eventually the hallway ends and they come to a carved stone threshold. The group shares a brief glance before stepping in. It’s a chamber - a modest one, with a ceiling a few feet above the tallest party member’s head. At first glance, the chamber seems relatively empty, but as the party acclimates the torchlight flickering on the walls the outlines become clearer. The room is rectangular and three stone slabs rise from the ground with equally-spaced gaps between them. The party splits up intuitively - some investigate the walls, and some the tables in the center of the room. The slabs’ surfaces are sanded smooth. On closer investigation, Thomas identifies some dark, ancient stains on the stone’s surface and suggests the possibility of mortuary use. The room is ringed with a series of steles bearing some primeval story - the rest of the party works their way up and down the walls. The depictions on the walls are worn, but they clearly depict some set of figures engaged in a long, long ritual. Haelmir calls out softly, gesturing to a portion of the wall near the end by the room’s only exit. The party regroups there. In this section of the wall, the individuals in the long mural have become more clustered. It’s impossible to make out the specifics of the ceremony, but here a certain portion stands out: the soft flutter of the torchlight gleams on the wall’s remaining lacquer and, towards the end of the ritual, it’s clear that the eyes of the individuals involved start to turn green. With nothing further to observe, the party collectively moves to the room’s only exit. They stack at the doorway. Percival checks for preparedness up and down the line - Thomas and the Avanthar stand with the discipline of soldiers, and both the Emeline and the blonde Villiers-Eclaire knight offer a ready nod. Then, they step through the carved door. This chamber was a larger one. From the design of it, it was easy to tell that the room was built almost like a perfect rectangular box, with bare walls and a ceiling roughly the height of two men. The room is long, and the torchlight doesn’t quite pierce its murk. Percival gestures for Leufred to step forward and raise his torch. At the far end of the room is a set of roughly a dozen swaying shapes standing before a grand gaping doorway. For a few moments, the party - by raw instinct - stands stock-still. The shapes at the end of the room idle in a tight circle, facing one another like a conspiring cabal. The group of quivering silhouettes emits a clicking sound, like a bundle of sticks clattering on the ground. Every so often, the sound is punctuated by the slither of metal on stone. The torch sputters with pitch and flares briefly, casting a bloom of light over the room and revealing the group at the room’s end. They were corpses, like the ones hung from the hooks in the tomb, but walking. Some held long, rusty weapons - others bore uncut nails long enough to rival a Varran’s claws. Emeline takes a step back. A loose, fist-sized stone falls from the wall with a crack. The party freezes. A ripple runs through the group of the dead. They turn with a hollow sigh, like a last breath, and stutter to awareness for the first time in living memory. Their eyes pierce the murky darkness and they glow a stark, vibrant green. A dozen pairs of bright green eyes fixed on the party from the end of the room. Their echoing cry rises to a constant, furious wail that brings with it a prickle of dread. Then, without warning, they swarm. The Viridian Knight at party’s fore barks for them to rally, but they’re left no time to prepare - the green-eyed undead leap at a sprinter’s pace and cross the empty hall in seconds. The party is left half-ready and, with equal parts of fear and adrenaline, they clash in a vicious melee. They recover quickly. The Avanthar, Haelmir, bites easily into the front lines. He’s a whirling storm of precise axework, and his blows strike with impressive accuracy. For his expertise, the undead fail to batter him - instead, where he strikes, their limbs hit the floor. Quite unlike undead, these corpses bleed where struck - they ooze dark blood across the smooth stone, and it becomes slippery where they fall. When the undead threaten to overwhelm the party, Leufred’s head shines with a halo ring, brighter than the glow of his torch. He barks a word and the air is torn by the sudden flash of a sunburst, like a star has exploded in the room. The green-eyed dead scream furiously, and the pause is enough for Emeline to strike into the group. She flickers adeptly through sword stances, chopping one of the undead in the belly and conserving the momentum to impale another. Percival fights alongside her, dispatching undead with near-disdain. One of the undead slips behind Percival with an old, dripping blade, sword poised for a lethal stab. Thomas sights down the groove of his crossbow and tugs the firing lever. With a ‘twang’ the bolt flies and strikes true, splitting the undead from behind and sending it sprawling across the ground. Crossbow expended, Thomas tears a blade from a simple scabbard at his side and sets to butchering. One of the undead flails, carving a gash through his shirt and across his chest with a rusty dagger, but he kills it with a simple knife-thrust to the chin. When the melee finally settles, the party is exhausted and blood-covered. Some of the undead still writhe on the ground, but they’re eliminated easily by a series of coups de grâce. Both Emeline and Percival have taken sparse gashes - some long scratches from undead nails, and others ragged cuts from rusty weapons. Haelmir and Leufred, for their ingenuity and combat prowess, seem untouched, and Thomas sports a deep laceration across the chest. Despite the fierce fight, the residual energy of the small battle was mentally rejuvenating. The party had fought hard to claim their position, and now they stood before the opening that the undead seemed to be guarding. There was no need for any further delay. Leufred retrieves his torch, and they step through the grand door. + + + Cold, empty braziers ring the room larger than any that have come before it in the Dragon Temple. It’s designed like an upside-down bowl, and the ceiling of the chamber soars high enough to accomodate a modest home. The room clearly sits in the center of the burial ground; this chamber is at its core. The floor is carved with whorls and rendered in a decayed metal filigree that must have been truly magnificent when it was first lain. The grandeur of the room culminates into a beautiful masterwork of a fresco that covers the stone walls and ceiling. Here, the colors have weathered the time better than the murals in the other chambers and the display is several times grander. Strikingly crafted dragons stretch across the ceiling of the room, rendered in a depth of color that glitters under the light of the torch. Figures with green eyes bear the dragons offerings. Further down the walls, green-eyed individuals are engaged in a desperate melee with red, silver, and gold-eyed figures who are casting purple magic from their hands. The fresco is rendered with bright, colorful pastels augmented by carving. The Witchbloods. The Dragon Temples. The dragons. Every glance was like a new puzzle piece falling into place, and the five adventurers gape at the intricate fresco for more than an hour before making the long way back to the Dragon Temple’s entrance. The party had stumbled upon critical information here. Their journey had been fruitful and Regalia was in their sights. They make their way back towards the docks, their quietude is broken occasionally by a buzz of excited chatter, but also of wonder and suspicion, especially to Leufred. The Green eye’d creatures were undoubtedly Witchblood, their acts and urges displayed on the wall clearly for all to see. Leufred was one of them, at least once. He was now a Hallowblood, but did this mean he wouldn’t end up like a shambling corpse mindlessly guarding some dark tunnel he had sparsely seen, only to be cut down by some questing soldier some centuries later? The news of this discovery would bear some concern in the city, for Witchbloods were certainly not rampant, but since the reappearance of the Dragons, definitely present in daily life. The group understood that these creatures were Witchblood, and they understood that the crypt was likely used to convert Dragon cultists into Witchbloods, the failed one dangling from the ceiling like discarded corpses, and the living ones chained to the dark chambers like rabid watch dogs. But the why was missing. Why all of this happened was still a mystery. With the aid of their guide, they reach the rendezvous on the coast. There is a new boat there now - a small boat, clearly converted from a sloop-of-war, bearing no colors. They set off immediately on boarding. Its sails fill with wind and it peels quietly off to sea as they venture back to Regalia.
