Hero Quest, episode six
The Abandonment of Your Lute
Character Sheet
Race: elf
Class: bard
Background: scholar/street urchin
You hesitate as the skeletons close in. Your lute… hand made by your father from the wood of your grandmother’s grave tree, can it truly be gone?
A skeleton slashes at you with a clawed hand, tearing you from your reverie and forcing you back. You repost, hacking off its arm. Then from the corner of your eye you glimpse the spectre and the faceless creature, far down the adjoining corridor, about to turn a corner and vanish from sight.
You look at the pool, then back at them, then you duck beneath a skeleton’s blow.
With a mournful heart, you turn and run after them.
The skeletons pursue, slow and shambling.
The faceless creature sets a fast pace down a series of dark, damp stone passageways, forcing you to sprint to keep up. As you follow, you notice similarities between it and the spectre. Ethereal as the spectre is, it has the same build, and although it floats weightlessly off the ground in a strange mockery of running, its gait is nearly identical.
You call for them to wait a moment, but they do not.
You glance back. The skeletons are now lost from sight, but you can still hear the echoes of their rattling bones.
They lead you back into and down the mirror gallery, then down towards the far end where you find a spiralling stair. The three of you ascend, and within moments, you reemerge into the chamber with the well in its centre, the sarcophagi around the walls, the golden gate on one side and the way out of this dismal place on the other.
Here they stop, turning to watch you.
Standing side by side, the similarity between them is uncanny.
You ask the spectre who he is, and if he’s truly your brother.
Both spectre and the faceless creature nod in unison.
You blink. “Both of you? How can this be?”
The spectre opens his mouth in imitation of speech, but no sound emerges. Luckily you learnt how to read lips during your time living on the streets in Taris, and you think you can make out most of what he says.
From what you can piece together, the faceless creature is your brother’s body, the spectre his severed soul. The ancient king who rules this place, rent them apart when your brother was imprisoned here.
“But you’ve been reunited now? Can we leave?”
Together, they shake their heads.
“The king still holds my face,” the spectre silently says. “Without it, I have no voice and only part of a mind. Without it, I can never be truly whole again.”
Thank you for joining in on the adventure.
There won’t be an episode of Hero Quest next week, but never fear, our intrepid hero will return on the 6th of November.
If we're going around distributing faces, is there any chance of an upgrade?
Let’s get that face! And maybe retrieve our bespoke lute while we’re at it!