A ghoulish adventure unfolds, as Wraithvine discovers a message carved in runes upon a hanged man’s flesh which leads hir to a dread idol, a seer frightened to near madness from her own visions, and a lake which often turns red like blood… -- Deathshead419
It was shit like this that set Wraithvine on hir path. It was stuff like this that made hir take hir oath in the first place. The criminal in the gibbet had infernal runes appearing on his left leg right before hir eyes. Even more chilling than that omen, was the fact that the runes were directions.
The dead man's hand tapped the sigils six times.
I get it, Wraithvine thought, You don't need to rub it in. Ze set off to the ominous destination inscribed on a corpse. If there was an incursion from the Plane of Torment, this was a certain sign. So Wraithvine spent a lot more effort than normal to reach hir destination.
It still took the Eternal Wizard three days to reach the caverns where things were clearly going down. Every branch on every tree for half a mile around the cavern entrance was beset with warding charms made out of whatever came to hand. Grass, twigs, seed pods. They all looked to be made by the hands of a blind maniac.
In a way, they were.
The seer who made them was wandering half-naked through the woods. Wailing nonsense and occasionally clawing at their face. That is, when they weren't desperately doing whatever they could to concoct another warding charm.
Wraithvine tried, but ze could not settle their mind. The best ze could to was send them into a healing slumber and wrap them in a magic, protective bubble. Ze knew where the true trouble was. Inside.
Over the skeletons of creatures that had succumbed to the vile rot of Enfer, the Plane of Torment. Down past the crawling blood mold that throbbed against the stones. Wading through noisome ichor to reach... not a portal, thank the gods.
An effigy.
Some idiot had made an effigy of Archimemnis, and set bloodstone for its eyes. That particular fool was most likely a skeleton at the bottom of a pile of skeletons that formed the floor of this chamber.
"There is one god you can't defy," Wraithvine told it. "One god you must obey when all other life ends. One god who is victor against all that you try to build, and I am her chosen champion." Ze plucked a single object from the band of hir hat and held it between hirself and the idol. It was a single feather from a raven. Almost as old as the world, yet still looking like it had been shed yesterday. "Avaunt, foul one. Return to the realm where you rule, or face Her wrath."
A slightly sulpherous wind pulled in the blood mold, the ichor, and drew some of the bones closer to it. When it was done, the cavern was as clean as any cavern might be. The idol was once more normal stone.
Wraithvine gouged the bloodstone eyes out with hir knife, and smashed the statue into gravel. Then, because ze was who ze had to be, uttered a prayer for the victims, so that hir goddess might grant their souls some rest.
Feather returned to its place, Wraithvine hauled hirself out into the open air. Needing to watch the clouds.
[Photo by Meriç Dağlı on Unsplash]
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