The adventurers entered the tavern cautiously, their senses immediately assaulted by the eerie silence and the oppressive weight of the darkened room. The windows had long since been boarded up, allowing no hint of the outside world to pierce the gloom. The only light came from the open door they had just stepped through, which cast a dim glow across the dusty interior. As the door slammed shut behind them, a gust of stale air swirled through the room, stirring up long-forgotten particles.
“Come to the light and be safe…” A voice, hollow and faint, echoed through the air. It repeated the phrase as if coming from nowhere and everywhere all at once, a strange, ghostly chant that tugged at their nerves.
Hanging from a post at the bar, a small iron lantern swayed gently, its glass long shattered. Despite its apparent age and damage, a faint wisp of yellow light emanated from where the flame should have been, flickering as if struggling to hold onto existence.
The Chord, Vincent, and Chamomile exchanged wary glances. Each step they took towards the bar was careful, hesitant, as if the very air might turn against them. The light from the lantern beckoned them forward, but they couldn’t shake the feeling that it held some darker secret. As Vincent glanced into the corners of the room, his eyes caught a glimpse of movement—no, not movement, but shadows, slithering and shifting just beyond the reach of the light. Something was watching them.
With a shrug, Chord, ever the adventurous one, climbed atop a nearby barstool and, with a stretch, reached for the lantern. His small halfling frame barely managed to nudge the lantern from its perch, its handle jostling against the nail that had held it. As the lantern tipped, Vincent's quick reflexes caught it before it fell, and as his hand gripped the handle, the faint light inside flared, pushing the shadows back into the darkest recesses of the room.
The voice from the lantern seemed to grow clearer as it spoke, its words now imbued with more emotion. "I was the innkeeper here… these were my family… they were taken, trapped... by the curse."
The specter revealed the tragedy that had unfolded in the town. The villagers, once prosperous, had been living in the grip of a powerful secret. The town's crafters had discovered a way to create powerful magical items in bulk, a craft that had brought them great wealth. The key to this magic lay with the archwizard, but when he vanished, the town's fate began to unravel. A sickness began to spread among the people, a plague that threatened to destroy everything.
In their desperation, the mayor and the priest of the temple turned to a forbidden ritual. They were led to it by Lady Tyton, a dark enchantress who promised salvation in exchange for a terrible price. The ritual involved draining the life force of the villagers, turning them into the undead to feed the twisted power that Lady Tyton offered.
The innkeeper's family had been complicit, tasked with poisoning the villagers. They passed out tainted mugs, the villagers unaware of the doom they were drinking. By the time the family realized the horror of their actions, it was too late. The undead rose, and the family barricaded themselves inside the tavern, but they couldn’t escape the horde. In the end, starvation claimed their lives, and their souls remained bound to the inn as tormented shades.
The group learned more of the town's temple, where the ritual had taken place. It was a temple in town of stone, strong and sturdy, built to withstand any storm—perfect for the ritual’s dark work. The cleric who once served there had abandoned his faith and embraced Lady Tyton's promise of immortality. He had performed the dark rites, and benetier of holy water in the temple had been destroyed, replaced by something far darker.
The adventurers found that after the town’s fall, the undead had been left to rot in the ruins. But they were not the only ones to linger. A small reptilian corpse in the tavern's storeroom revealed the story of kobolds who had ransacked the abandoned village, stealing treasures left behind by the innkeeper’s family. The shades had caught one of them, and his body remained trapped, forever at the mercy of the ghosts.
The adventurers pressed onward, delving deeper into the tavern in search of more answers. As they ascended to the upper floor, disaster struck. A door slammed shut, trapping Chord in a room filled with shadows that sprang to life, clawing at him with undead hunger. The lantern, its true nature revealed, leapt from its perch, its light now a will-o'-wisp, a twisted spirit siphoning the life force from Vincent.
Chord struggled to defend himself, his weapons passing harmlessly through the incorporeal shadows. They drained him of his strength, and it became clear that only magic could defeat these malevolent forces. Vincent, channeling the primal fury of a storm, summoned a blast of thunder, striking at the wisp, the door, and the shadows. The force of the storm shattered the door, sending debris flying, and as the dust settled, the adventurers were thrown to the floor below.
When they regained their bearings, the inn was eerily calm. The spirits were gone, vanquished by their combined power. As they explored the remaining rooms, they discovered the cleric's notes, detailing his fall from grace and his ill-fated pursuit of immortality. Among his belongings, they found one final vial of holy water, a relic of a time before his betrayal—a relic he could never bring himself to part with.
The adventurers stood in the ruined tavern, knowing that they had uncovered the grim truth behind the town's fall, but the weight of their victory felt hollow. The shadows were gone, but not the hope that the town might one day be at peace
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