During Once More Into the Millennium Woods, the returning Adventurers descended into the chasm.
Dark, dangerous, it sits there like some gaping, unholy maw. Down the chasm, disturbingly illuminated by the sun high above, a tangled mess of vines clings to the walls about halfway down the shaft, which seems to grow wider towards the bottom. Stitched into the tapestry of plants by even more vines, there are numerous suspended corpses, some still decaying, other nothing but clean bone. The fissure starts out ten feet long and two and half feet wide, but quickly broadens to be a nearly cylindrical tunnel that seems to extend… some distance into the darkness. What appears to be stone bricks create a floor about 60 feet down, with the tunnel walls giving way to some larger cave after 50 feet. Vegetation lines the walls, growing steadily thinner as it climbs towards the surface. |
At the bottom, there is a ruin, with a flight of stairs leading even deeper into the earth. The floors are well-built, contrasted by the roughly hewn cave walls. The staircase is partially collapsed, and where it abruptly ends, it is possible to drop down to the corridor below, which leads under the first room. Along the way, Adventurers had to fight through multiple Yellow Musk Thralls.
From there, the path forward is more complex, and much of it is blasted apart, caved in, or opens into fissures. What follows is a list of notable parts of the ruin.
- Multiple sleeping quarters with two beds each, most of them devoid of any notable items.
- A plundered vault, where a fungal Ooze called a Slime Mold was fought. Only a small bag of ancient coins could be retrieved.
- A dining room full of still-seated, vine-covered corpses. Presiding over them was a kingly figure sitting upon a throne, palms towards the sky, with a golden-coloured flower blooming from their open mouth, and a cloak of vines pouring out of their red tattered robes (which were otherwise oddly preserved). Behind them, a strangely shaped shield with a tree-like crest was found.
- Once disturbed and set afire, most of the corpses were animated by the Yellow Musk Creeper to attack the party. Eventually, a part of the ceiling here collapsed, and an ursine corpse that fell with it was also raised as a Thrall. They were all defeated.
Lastly, there was a grand library. Towering bookstacks nearly twenty feet high rose from the floor, which featured crawling vines and discarded tomes.
As Damin descends into the library, the true architecture of the structure becomes more apparent. The barren, bland rooms above pale in comparison. Grand, geometric half-arches connect walls to ceiling, ornate mosaics and engravings are visible beneath the layers of dust, and the towering shelves bear patterns of winding right-angled lines. Despite the beauty, Damin feels as if they're disturbing something. Not just thousands of years of silence, but something... sleeping. |
The party needed to be quick in their learning, because they disturbed some vines, which started growing into the books, destroying them slowly. The knowledge contained within included:
- Small, mostly inconsequential events – coronations of long-dead kings, comets, and the like.
- Dictionaries and historical documents, enough to be assembled into a Book of Translation (Sylvan).
- Folk tales, parables, and histories, enough to grant access to the Folklorist Archetype.
- Information about the Yellow Musk Creepers, and a formula for the Yellow Musk Vial.
- Information about an impressive, though ultimately failed attempt at creating a Printing Press.
During their research, the party was interrupted by the appearance of an awakened, previously locked-away Arboreal Warden called Leafen Blade, somewhat inured to flame. Mentioning vengeance, they attacked, but the sentient tree was felled. The library's shelves were eventually consumed by the encroaching vines, and all the knowledge within that wasn't gathered by the Adventurers was lost.