Hero Quest, episode five
Your Brother's Spectre
Character Sheet
Race: elf
Class: bard
Background: scholar/street urchin
Previously on Hero Quest:
You reach for the spectre that might be your brother. It pulls back, retreating into the gloom. Below, the dark shape rises towards you, slowly becoming long and serpentine.
You kick your legs furiously, propelling yourself after your brother. The other spectres part around you, caressing you as you pass with long, icy fingers, tugging at the straps fastening your lute, sword, and backpack.
The chill of their touch seeps into you, slowing you and pulling you down.
Below you glimpse the glint of scales and the shape of a wide, fang-filled maw. Still, you struggle through the water towards your brother. He slowly backs away, always just beyond your reach.
Then a spectre grabs the front of your tunic and ice fills your chest. Your lungs seize, forcing out your breath in a burst of bubbles. Water fills your throat. You’re so cold.
Your brother’s spectre floats before you. With one last, desperate effort, you push yourself towards him. This time you reach him, wrapping your arm around his strangely tangible form. Then you try to force yourself up, but your body is spent, heavy and frigid. Your lungs are flooded. Your mind is slowly fading into darkness.
You’re sinking, and a ravenous maw rushes for you from below.
But just as all seems lost, a hand plunges down through the water’s surface, grabs you, and pulls. A moment later, you’re prostrate on the cold, damp flagstones, coughing up water and gasping for breath, with the faceless creature standing over you and your brother’s spectre floating beside it.Â
The fog is now gone from the stone chamber you find yourself in.
Something grabs your ankle. A shade, now more skeletal than wraith-like, has half clambered out of the pool behind you, trying to pull you back in. You kick it away, scrambling back. Another bursts out, spraying you with water and grabbing hold of your lute strap. You struggle against it and go for your sword, but water-logged it catches in its hilt. It yanks on the strap, pulling you forward to totter over the pool’s edge. You plant your boot in its rib cage and it tumbles back. The strap snaps and it vanishes into the water, taking your lute with it.
Before you can go after it, several more skeletons rise from the depths, reaching for you and driving you back. With a grunt you rent your sword free, but from the corner of your eye you see the faceless creature and your brother’s spectre retreating down an adding corridor. Your brother stops for a moment, turning to you and beckoning.
Thank you for joining in on the adventure.
Without our LUTE we are NOTHING!
It's definitely time to go!