Session 3 - Singing in the Ruin
With Kari’s delay and Lord Emeris’s cryptic intelligence leaving the war party temporarily uncommitted, the group chose to answer the plea of a local farmer. His two sons had vanished into a sinkhole near an ancient stone rampart—rumored to be part of a long-forgotten keep. Though Emeris’s forces dismissed the matter, the party did not.
At the underground river, the group split to search. Thalyn assumed an octopus form and swam upstream, while Torbin explored downstream. Saib held position on the central rock island, and Xicalat, Malgi, and Luigi remained on the shore, ready to respond. The party conserved their potions of water breathing, choosing caution over speed.
Upstream, Thalyn followed a tunnel lined with bioluminescent lichen that pulsed in a steady, almost sentient rhythm. Scattered armor and equipment littered the riverbed, but no bodies remained. A hostile echo—a lingering remnant of a Faceless Priest—manifested, drawn to Thalyn’s beast form. The apparition attempted to harm them but was repelled by Thalyn’s protective ward. The tunnel terminated at an iron grate, offering no sign of the missing boys.
Downstream, Torbin scraped against sharp, glowing barnacles and emerged into a cavern with a stony beach, a toppled statue, and a mound of bones. A giant vampire crab attacked. Torbin briefly subdued it with magic, but it reawakened and struck again, seriously injuring him as animated vines crept closer.
Back at the river, the rest of the party was ambushed by a glass snake, a creature that shattered itself into lethal shards when it struck. Saib engaged it directly while Malgi communicated with the creature. The snake revealed it had not seen the boys and spoke bitterly of a Veil of Innocents, a force that prevented it from harming them, though it offered no such restraint toward the party—declaring that neither the Light nor the Veil protected them. Saib ultimately destroyed the creature, though not without injury.
Torbin reached Thalyn telepathically, and the party regrouped. Choosing not to use the potions, they held their breath and swam downstream together. At the beach, Saib shielded Torbin from another crab attack while Thalyn and Torbin worked in tandem to magically restrain the creature. Though vengeance was tempting, the group pressed on—finding the children mattered more.
A ladder led out of the water into a stone chamber centered on a circular well. The lower walls and floor were thick with bioluminescent lichen, while higher up the walls were carved with scenes of faceless figures engaged in war. Three tall stone seals stood on the northern, eastern, and western walls, resembling vertical tomb lids. The southern wall opened into a hallway bearing a carved image of a vampire crab clutching the moon, unsettlingly similar to Lord Emeris’s coat of arms, though his sigil does not grasp the moon.
When Saib broke the northern seal, ancient dust poured from the passage beyond, revealing a dark corridor choked with living roots and devoid of lichen. In the settling silence, Thalyn used their Wild Touch to clear the dust—and the party heard a quiet cough.
One of the farmer’s sons was seated calmly at the edge of the well, eyes closed, breathing steadily, entranced by the lichen’s pulse. Xicalat gently drew him out of the trance. The boy opened his eyes and asked softly, “Is the song over?” He appeared unharmed, lucid, and strangely serene, though he spoke slowly and asked only for water.
The party rested in the adjoining root-filled hallway. Thalyn led a ritual of root-singing, attuning the group to the living network beneath the ruin. As armor was repaired and wounds tended, the truth began to emerge: the boys had not been taken. They had been called—drawn by the lichen’s rhythm, a song only they could hear.
One child had been found. The other remained somewhere deeper below.
And the ruin was still singing.