Eons after the Kingdom fell into ruins, a lost and bastard line scion feels called to return. What will this lost branch of a dead family find in city which became the overgrown crypt of the line? -- Deathshead419
This was where hir dreams lead hir? A set of ruins almost overwhelmed with the invading wilderness. Empty windows or doors peeked out between trees or had trailing vines in the place of ancient curtains. Some streets were throttled with weeds. Some buildings were only standing because of the trees that had clung to the stones. Wought felt a fool for following hir dreams, but hir Adventuring crew believed in omens.
So they wound their way through the bones of a city to the remains of its heart. The remains of the castle were embraced by a wild Ygdrassi tree. Unshaped by Elven magic, the lower part of the tree had taken on the memory of the castle's rooms.
Well. Most of them.
Wought felt a chill dancing down hir spine as he entered the Ygdrassi's warped chambers. It was a fever-dream of a house-tree. Malformed hearth spaces had grown halfway up the walls. Sitting rooms were sunken too deep into the floors. Cuddle-cotes were unreachable beyond apertures way too small.
And in a feasting hall with the table on the ceiling, was the skeleton of a trapdoor. It had sprouted pathetic branches in a mockery of trap spikes, and one of them bore an anaemic fruit.
Just like in hir dreams, the trapdoor moved on its grown hinge. Just like in hir dreams, it lead down to a cavernous mausoleum. Sarcophagi lay in ranks within the chamber carved from the living stone. Granite effigies of their residence lay in echoes of repose.
Even here, roots had found their way in. Some bound lids to containers. Some rent the entire sarcophagus into bones and rubble. Wought left them as ze found them, retreading the steps ze had only walked in the dreams.
Down the carved stairs that had bowed under the tread of generations long gone. Casting the light of hir lantern over a bare path polished by the tread of thousands of feet. Past hundreds of carved stone coffins and rendered stone faces that had features similar to hir own.
All the way to one chamber where roots had broken open a chamber. One that had been sealed with giant blocks of hardy stone.
Where one of the bodies was still alive.
"You came," said the mummified corpse, chained to a throne riddled with runes. "Claim your birthright. Take the crown from my head. Make this kingdom great again."
Wought inspected the stones that had once held this chamber shut. Ze read the runes ze could see.
There was a reason this corpse was down here in the first place.
"You reigned here, once," guessed Wought.
"I have always reigned here," bragged the corpse. "The land, the people, and the ruler under the crown has obeyed my will since my heart stopped beating. Take the crown. Find its mate. Embrace your destiny... my true heir. You will have power, love, thousands under your thumb. Wealth beyond your wildest dreams."
"Just fear you, love you, do as you say and you will be my slave?" quipped Wought. "Yeah no. Managing these chucklefucks is more than enough for me." Ze reached into hir pouch and produced a raven's pinion. "Ereshkygal... come take one you missed."
A shadow, and the sound of fluttering wings... then the corpse was a true corpse. The runes and chains began to dim.
"One less evil in the world. Let's get out of here, and don't touch that crown?"
"Why'd you look at me when you said that?" said the team's Rogue, Avarice.
"Precedent," said Wought.
[Photo by Carlos N. Cuatzo Meza on Unsplash]
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