A Tale of Nightmares Part 7 - Shattered Skulls

Dirty Secrets and Nightmares is a Dungeons and Dragons (DnD 5e) game set in a Ravenloft Domain of Dread, New Solamnia. Play takes place every Friday night at Dragons Keep Roleplay Club in Chislehurst, South East London. The Dungeon Master is Sam.

Five people previously unknown to each other have found themselves strangely transported to a land none of them are familiar with, and banded together to investigate what has brought them here - and survive. According to the locals, it is usually a peaceful place. This is not the party's experience, as strange happenings surround them and monsters stir.

The party consists of:

• Sir Gerigold - A Male Half-Elven Oath of Redemption Paladin of the Morninglord (played by Paul)

• Hazard Darkstar - A Male Human Rune Knight Fighter (played by Alexander)

• Greynen Falstaer - A Male Half-Elven Warlock of the Archfey, Pact of the Tome (played by Mark)

• Morgaen Nightbreeze - A Female Half-Elven Bard of the College of Spirits (played by Imogen)

• Ragnar son of Bjorn - A Male Human Tempest Cleric of Odinson (played by Alex)

A failed rescue mission has left the party investigating strange crypts beneath the church of Saint Terragnis - looking for a group of ghouls who appear to be under the control of some strange power. The crypts seem to be a relic of an ancient realm of dark magic - and the atmosphere of necromantic magic is starting to affect the party more, the longer they stay down there...

Morgaen and Greynen checked out the skulls piled in the transepts of the dark chapel – they found nothing. Hazard investigated the altar and the apse, seeing if his knowledge of stonework could suggest anything more than what they had already found, but again there was nothing.

Ragnar wandered down the hallway, over to one of the alcoves, and inspected the chained skeletons more closely. He realised that one of them had strange gouge-marks around its eye sockets and called Greynen over. The warlock, seeing the marks, pulled the emeralds he had taken from the dead ghoul out of his pouch. To their surprise, the emeralds were no longer glowing – Morgaen came over and confirmed that there was no longer any necromantic magic about them. When Greynen put them in the skeleton’s eye sockets, they fitted exactly with the gouge marks. It seemed likely that at some stage, this skeleton had been somehow controlled in the same way that the ghouls and ghasts seemed to have been controlled.

“We still have two of the ghouls unaccounted for – at least two ghouls – and it’s more and more likely that there is a necromancer down here,” Morgaen pointed out. “Someone who beat and killed the acolytes and may have also kidnapped Father Reginald as a sacrifice to whatever skull is meant by the inscription.”

Sir Gerigold made a disgusted noise. He turned, and brought his maul down, hard, on the stone bowl!

There was a shower of green sparks – and the maul bounced off. Sir Gerigold staggered with the recoil, but managed to keep his footing.

The skulls in the transepts seemed to leer even more. The dark presence in the crypts pressed in on them again.

There seemed nothing more to be learned here, and there had been no tunnels going off to the side as they came back from the well cavern. That left one place to look – the fork to the left, down the first tunnel they had explored, when they had turned right and come to the underground spring. The party left the dark chapel. Morgaen and Hazard, in the lead, turned left again. As Greynen, bringing up the rear, stepped over the threshold, the stone doors suddenly swung towards him, clipping against his arm. He lunged forwards – and the door closed, silently, just behind him. Greynen checked that the band was still around his wrist – the door seemed to have caught it for a moment – but it was still there. He silently thanked his parents for raising him practical enough not to be the kind of warlock who insisted on wearing dramatic robes, which might have been caught, and turned to investigate the door. As he had expected, it was now shut as seamlessly as when they arrived. The two hands seemed joined to the bowl as if carved from one block of stone, with no sign that they had ever parted from each other.

Also, the bloody mess that had once been half of Sir Gerigold’s face, which they had placed in the bowl to gain access to the dark chapel after some kind of necromantic blast ripped it from his skull, had entirely vanished.

The others had heard – something – not much, but that was enough down here, and they had paused, and turned. Greynen nodded to them, and signalled that he was – well, still here. That had to be enough, in this place. Being ‘fine’ was not going to happen anytime soon, however strong he was feeling since the strange vision he had had earlier.

After the fork in the tunnel, Morgaen again took the lead, going far enough ahead that she would encounter anything waiting for them before the light of Ragnar’s torch, or the sound of the rest of the party’s footsteps, could be noticed. As she walked, the dark presence of the crypts closed in on them again – she found herself unable to hold back her fears in silence, and started humming to herself, trying to steady her nerves with music. She tried to keep it quiet, but could hear herself getting louder, despite her best efforts. Her hands still ached, without her fingernails – she was not sure she could play the flute, which could limit the magic available to her – and the vision of the blood on the altar loomed large in her mind. Even the comforting warmth of the amulet on her chest could not hold back her fears.

Further back, the presence also closed in on the others. Sir Gerigold felt suddenly sickened again – but this time, he managed somehow to control the feeling, thrust it back. Hazard was also aware of the threatening presence but he had been less affected by it than the others from the start, his own brooding nature seeming to somehow protect him from its worst effects. Greynen still had the feeling of greater confidence and power that had come over him since his disturbing vision – he almost welcomed the sense of imminent and impersonal death that loomed over him, feeling as if he wanted a challenge, and after a moment the sense receded. Ragnar, this time, was not so lucky. He had held off the worst of it until now, but this time, even holding to his amulet at the death-promising presence thrust itself with renewed strength into his mind, he could not hold back his fears. He bit his lip hard, but his teeth started to chatter.

Round a corner, as the tunnel narrowed, Morgaen started to see dim light ahead. She set down her pack and went ahead – less carefully, she knew she was not stealthy right now, so she put on her victim act again, checked her disguise, and walked forwards, trying to control the amount of noise she was making but with little success. She could hear a voice, chanting something – that might mean she was not heard after all – the light was flickering, and the dank smell of old bones and water turned to something sharper. Not as powerful as the stench of death that overcame them with the presence – but there was something up ahead. She tried to peer round the corner but could see nothing for sure, only more walls of bone around a large space, and the broken walls of another shattered stone tomb, behind another pit that lurked near the entrance to the cave. The others were a short way behind her, the light of the torch blocked by Hazard and Sir Gerigold’s bodies ahead of Ragnar. They could see the dim flickering light, which seemed as they got closer to be greenish, and hear the voice, as well. Morgaen glanced back, then deliberately stumbled out into the cave.

In the centre of the cave, green flames filled a kind of brazier, their light dancing off the walls. An elongated skull bobbed inside the brazier, floating in the flames, with glowing emerald eyes and a great blue gem somehow fastened to its forehead. Around it, some distance away, were four crouched, brooding, monstrous statues. Each one clutched in its claws a large bowl, and the bowls were filled with blood. Channels from beneath the bowls ran towards the brazier, and blood was running into the spitting green flames, which rose higher with every moment.

Over the brazier stood the source of the chanting – a short man, with a thin beard and delicate features, who twitched constantly as he chanted. His nails were black and rotted – his eyes glowed green.

He turned, and his eyes lit on Morgaen.

“Saint Terragnis bids you to leave, my child!” he shrieked. “Leave us here to rot. Will you deny our saint’s holy command?”

He raised one hand and touched the skull. Green light leapt out from the brazier in a line along the floor, then three beams of light came upwards – and became skeletons, with shortswords at their sides and shortbows in their hands, standing behind four swaying grey figures Morgaen had barely noticed until now. More ghouls – and as the ghouls turned from the brazier and looked towards her, she could see that they, also, had green glowing eyes.

Morgaen screamed – part of her mind trying to convince herself that it was part of her act – and ran back, losing her wig in the process but feeling absolutely no desire to retrieve it as she saw the ghouls moving to follow her. She threw herself back along the corridor and grabbed her crossbow.

“Four ghouls, three skeletons with bows and a necromancer with some kind of magic skull that made the skeletons!” she reported. “Ghouls incoming – at least three of them.” She looked at the corridor – it was too narrow for her to get behind the others – so she stood her ground and trained her crossbow towards the door.

Hazard did a rapid calculation on the numbers and decided that luring the undead in for a fight in a corridor this narrow, with no space for him and Sir Gerigold to stand next to each other, was not in their interests. He pushed past Morgaen and ran to the opening of the tunnel, where it widened out into the cave. Ragnar threw his torch aside – the light from the cave had brightened and was easily strong enough to see by, now – and followed him, drawing his warhammer. As soon as he saw an enemy, he cursed it. As the ghouls appeared, Morgaen and Greynen loosed ranged attacks at them, but having to aim around their friends in the narrow opening made these unsuccessful. Sir Gerigold moved up behind the other two, ready to support them as soon as he had the chance.

“Ah-ha! More guests!” the necromancer shrieked, seeing Hazard and Ragnar appear and block the tunnel. “Let me welcome you properly!”

A beam of sickeningly green light lanced from the skull, hitting Hazard – he lurched, nearly threw up, but managed to hold himself together. Morgaen, in the tunnel, dropped her crossbow and pulled out her flute, playing a short, brisk phrase of music which magically strengthened the three men ahead of her. As Hazard staggered, however, one of the attacking ghouls grabbed the tall fighter, grappling him with its inhuman strength and hauling him towards the pit near the tunnel. Seeing his danger, Hazard yelled something in the strange language they had first heard him speak at the Valkyr Mausoleum – and suddenly grew larger. He burst upwards, putting on four feet to reach the size of an ogre, and wrenched himself free from the ghoul’s hold, smashing it in the eye with the pommel of his greatsword – which had grown in size with him – and bringing it down, hard, on a second ghoul. The creature fell back, desperately hurt. He checked his surroundings – with his new size he couldn’t go straight at the necromancer – and started to circle to the other side of the pit, yelling to Sir Gerigold that he’d left a couple of ghouls for him.

The necromancer screeched something in a horrible-sounding language, and raised a hand. From nowhere, a beam of glowing white light struck down on Hazard. The magically-enlarged fighter crashed to the ground, hitting it with a shuddering thump, and his greatsword fell from his hand – shrinking as it did so. But Sir Gerigold had emerged from the tunnel now, yelling a war-cry and throwing himself at the ghouls, blocking them to allow Ragnar to run past unhindered. The cleric transferred his warhammer to his belt again and cried aloud, sending a handful of lightning-sparks flying from his hand towards Hazard. The magic jolted the fighter awake, his eyes coming open again and his chest heaving, taking deep breaths. Ragnar turned next to his enemies and shouted again, pointing at one of the skeletons which had been shooting – so far unsuccessfully – at the heavily-armoured intruders. A sound like a great bell tore through the air, and the skeleton jerked, black lines running over its bones.

Sir Gerigold made a rapid assessment of the situation, whacked the ghoul Hazard had injured hard with his maul, leapt over its dead body and charged straight past the other two, heading for the skeletons and their bows and swinging at them. The ghouls raked him with their claws as he passed – he staggered for a moment, but got clear. Greynen, coming out of the tunnel behind him, hit the nearest ghoul with a blast of magic. It ripped from him, stronger than ever, and he grinned with delight for a moment as the ghoul staggered and fell – but then something happened that had never happened since he entered his pact. The more powerful magic slipped from his control, and recoiled back into him, power blasting viciously and painfully through his veins. He staggered and fell back, gasping at the damage his own magic had caused to him, but retained enough control to look over at the necromancer and murmur the words to place a vicious hex on the man.

The two remaining ghouls both flung themselves at Sir Gerigold’s back, arms wide. He felt their grisly hands on his armour and elbowed them hard – they recoiled, failing to grapple him. But it gave the skeletons a moment – they cast down their bows and drew their shortswords, attacking the knight. One of them got past his guard, and he grit his teeth against the injury, hefting his maul again.

The necromancer raised his hand to the skull, screeching again, and three more skeletons appeared, right behind the first.

Morgaen, in the entrance of the tunnel, saw Sir Gerigold surrounded and outnumbered, and yelled “Come on, you’ve got this!” putting all the magical encouragement she was capable of into the words. Then she turned to the necromancer. “Went down quick, didn’t they?” she shouted, pointing at the two dead ghouls and pouring magic into the taunt. “Like the others! You should’ve summoned stronger ghouls, but I guess you’re not strong enough to do that!”

The necromancer flinched as the insult went home, magically as well as emotionally. Morgaen saw the boils rise on his face as the well-placed words did their damage and felt it prudent to duck back behind the tunnel wall, out of his sight.

Hazard clambered to his feet and dug in his pouch for a potion of healing. He drank it down and called on his own reserves of strength to bolster his recovery; then took up his greatsword again. It grew back to match his size and once, and he began to run, circling the pit, to come at the enemies attacking Sir Gerigold from the other side. The edge of the pit trembled and fell in, but with his greater size Hazard flung himself forward to steady ground and kept going.

The necromancer wiped a hand across his face, realising the damage he had taken from the bard’s mockery.

“Stupid half-elf!” he yelled. “I will show you the true meaning of power!”

He raised a hand and shrieked in the unfamiliar language again. Misty forms started to appear around him, more and more of them, spreading out as their number grew, until he was surrounded by a crowd of demonic-looking misty forms. They started to gather in greater numbers around his closest enemy – around Sir Gerigold, whose lips moved in a prayer to the Morninglord as the number of his enemies increased.

Ragnar had been making rapid calculations and now raised a hand – and an almighty cracking noise came from the middle of the cavern, a wave of force so strong it was almost visible ripping outwards towards both the necromancer and the cluster of skeletons surrounding Sir Gerigold. Two of the skeletons exploded – two others, closer to the knight, merely cracked and stumbled, but kept moving. The necromancer, caught in the blast, screamed in pain – but did not fall. The knight flinched – but the wave of force ended just as it reached him, blowing his sweat-soaked hair back from his face with a gust of strong but not damaging wind. Ragnar had calculated the range of his spell exactly.

The abyssal spirits surrounding the necromancer were unaffected by the force and enraged by the attack on their summoner. They dived on Sir Gerigold, claws out and raking, particularly attacking his already-injured face. He shouted a religious battlecry of his order, and a few of the creatures recoiled – but not all of them. Turning on the opponents he could do something about, the paladin spun on one of the ghouls behind him, striking it so mightily that its head flew off. He continued the turn, putting as much of his weight behind it as he could, and struck the second ghoul as well, full in the chest. Its ribs cracked horribly – it flew five feet through the air before crashing and landing still. But the spirits were still diving around him.

Greynen picked himself up from the floor and gritted his teeth. This was a stronger spell he was about to cast – the damage it caused to him, with the strange way his magic was acting, could be worse. But Sir Gerigold was still in great danger – and the necromancer had not moved. Perhaps he couldn’t, to use that spell. There was no help for it. He knew the same spell as Ragnar, and he focused it exactly where Ragnar had focused his. The power ripped back into his body again, hurting him badly, but the final three skeletons pressing in against Sir Gerigold exploded – and the same blast again hit the necromancer who had summoned them.

The necromancer screamed – for a moment – as his body rose into the air with the force of the blast. Then the scream stopped, as parts of his body shattered into nothing, and what was left of him fell with a thump to the floor.

The skull floating in the brazier let out an unearthly screech – but nothing happened. It seemed to lack power without its master. The remains of the skeletons it had summoned, dead on the floor, faded away into nothingness.

But the blood continued to run from the statues towards the skull in the brazier.

They were all injured, from earlier in their explorations of the cave if not from now. Ragnar hooked his warhammer on his belt. “This will take a while, but it will be worth it to heal us,” he told them, then raised his arms towards the ceiling of the cave, holding his hammer amulet aloft, and started a chant in his own language. The rolling sound of his voice filled the cave.

Sir Gerigold, after checking there really were no more enemies at large, hefted his maul and walked over to the brazier. He shouted wordlessly, and swung down, hard.

The skull seemed at the last moment to dodge out of the way – and a snicker of laughter floated through his mind.

Morgaen crouched next to one of the statues, examining the setup of the ritual. The skull was definitely the source of the necromantic emanations filling the area, and the blood running towards it seemed to have been set up to feed it. Feed the skull with life, she recalled, and realised that this was why the acolytes had been taken – not to kill them, but to have enough blood for this ritual. Sickened, she kicked a nearby piece of rubble into one of the channels carrying the blood to the skull – but instead of spreading out onto the floor, the blood spread and flowed around the rubble, to rejoin the channel. It seemed to be drawn, magically, towards the skull.

“The skull is the source of most of the power here,” she said, slowly. “And… it is talking to me. I can’t make out what it is saying, I can’t quite hear – and I really don’t think I want to.”

Sir Gerigold took another swing at the skull, which bobbed away from his maul again – the insulting laughter that echoed through his mind was louder, this time.

Greynen, as sickened as the others, twisted his wristband for a moment thinking about the damage he was about to take – then sent a blast of magic against the skull. That hit, and the skull cracked a bit – but Greynen again jerked backwards as if he had taken a fist in the guts. Whatever was wrong with his magic was still there. Ragnar, still chanting, glared at him. The thunder-god’s cleric had made it clear that he disliked having to use his deity’s power for more healing than was necessary – his god preferred his power being used to smite foes.

Greynen straightened up, gasping.

“It definitely can be damaged, though,” he pointed out once he had his breath back.

Morgaen leaned over the brazier and watched the way the skull was moving. She drew her dagger and held it over the green flames.

“I think I can see a pattern to how it is moving,” she told the paladin. “When I say, strike where I’m pointing… Now!”

The maul swung down.

This time, the skull was trapped between it and the ground at the critical moment. It burst into pieces, the emeralds in its eyes shattering and the whisperings in Morgaen’s mind, and the laughter in Gerigold’s, turning to screams.

For a moment.

The strange greenish light faded – Hazard lit a torch. When they could see normally again, Morgaen found that the blue gem from the skull had rolled against her foot. She picked it up – there was no magic about it now.

Ragnar was still chanting and did not seem about to be finished. Sir Gerigold and Hazard, the most injured, rested – Morgaen and Greynen investigated the broken-open tombs. There were more damaged sarcophagi in them, and some, although not all of them, contained more of the lich-dedicated gold of the ancient realm of Azarumme. Greynen also discovered that the four ghouls they had killed here still had emeralds in their eyes – eight emeralds, now without necromantic energy about them. He dug them out, Hazard and Sir Gerigold watching with some disgust.

Greynen also checked out the pits – there was nothing particular about them, but they seemed to have been made deliberately. He suggested to Hazard and Sir Gerigold with some interest that the fact the ghouls had tried to throw the two of them down the pits suggested that they were supposed to hold sacrificial victims and the pair of them must have been intended to be next in line. Hazard told him to shut up.

Ragnar’s voice became louder—he gestured to the others, beckoning them towards him. They made a circle with him, and his chant reached a crescendo – then he dropped to one knee, punching one fist to the ground before opening both of his arms wide. Healing magic flowed out over all of them.

Morgaen felt an itch and inspected her fingernails – the nails seemed to be starting to grow back. She sighed with relief.

Sir Gerigold felt the magic flow over him and somehow congeal, thickly, on his face – when he touched his cheeks carefully, there seemed to be flesh there again, and skin. Dry and sore, but present. He silently thanked the Morninglord for allowing him to receive healing from another god.

But the dark presence of the crypts was still there – it had not only been the skull.

“We should probably leave before it starts getting to us again,” Greynen said, tersely. He did not say what ‘it’ he meant – he did not need to. They all knew. They agreed to go and get the bodies of the dead acolytes, take them upstairs – and recommend to the survivors that they seal up the well.

But first, they walked over to what was left of the necromancer.

He was unrecognisable – his head had been smashed to pieces by the blast. There were not even hands left that anyone might have recognised.

“I saw his face – so I’ll ask, upstairs, for a description of the missing priest,” Morgaen said quietly. “But I was disguised as an acolyte and he called me ‘my child’, he ordered me to leave in the name of Saint Terragnis – I have a terrible feeling that we did find Father Reginald Baird alive, after all.”

They went back to the spring, and retrieved the bodies of the three dead acolytes. Hazard, Sir Gerigold and Ragnar carried them back to the well cave, and Hazard climbed the rope hand over hand before helping to haul the rest of them, and their sad burdens, out of the crypts. They were still shaken by their experiences, and knew that they were only bringing sadness with them.

Morgaen warned the others to let her do the talking about their encounter with the necromancer, so she could try to find out if the man had been, in fact, Father Reginald – without making the accusation. Being newcomers to the town, and coming up with dead bodies to accuse the beloved priest of having turned to darkness, did not seem to her to be a sensible idea.

They carried the dead acolytes up the spiral stairs and found a couple of townsfolk from Tenbrim waiting at the top – clearly on edge, watching out for them or for anything else that might come up the stairs, brandishing clubs and crossbows. They stepped back when they saw the bodies, and let the party through.

There was a vigil going on in the main hall of the church – the acolytes they had saved were still there, wrapped in blankets against the shock and gathered around the altar. More of the townsfolk were with them, with weapons at their sides – the dead ghouls and ghasts were nowhere to be seen.

Tibalt hurried over.

“You’ve found them!” he cried out, in joy. Then he saw the truth. The other acolytes were scrambling to their feet – then they, also, saw that their friends were dead. One of them started wailing, a thin, lost sound of distress that others tried to calm, tears running down their faces.

“I am sorry,” Sir Gerigold said, heavily, putting down the body he was carrying in front of the altar. “We were not fast enough. We could only take vengeance on the ghouls who killed them, and the necromancer who used the green gems to command them.”

Tibalt looked down.

“I… I thank you for trying… Was there any sign of Father Reginald?”

“We found torn and bloodied robes of your order down there,” Morgaen said, coming forwards. “And there was this.” She held out the amulet she had found. Recognition leaped in Tibalt’s eyes.

“Yes – yes, that is Father Reginald’s amulet,” he said, his shoulders slumping.

“We found much blood, but we did not find another body down there,” Morgaen said. “However, there were many bones, and many undead… I am not sure that a body left down there for many days would be there to be found… You understand me. But – we cannot be sure. There must be some way out of those caves that we did not discover – after all, the necromancer got in there in the first place. It’s possible, therefore, that Father Reginald escaped elsewhere – or perhaps was taken elsewhere as a prisoner. We will keep our eyes out on our travels – could you describe him for us? I have realised that we never asked what he looked like.”

“Yes, I will tell you, but from all you say – well, I shall be very happy if you are right, but shall not hold out overmuch hope,” Tibalt said heavily. He turned out to be right – he proceeded to give an exact description of the necromancer they had killed. Morgaen carefully stood between the dwarf and the meaningful looks some of her comrades could not help but exchange.

Greynen remembered that they knew nothing of Tibalt beyond what they had seen in a few brief meetings, and slipped away to question one of the acolytes they had saved from the ghouls – an older acolyte who had held themselves together somewhat, in order to support the others. When they compared notes later, Greynen was able to confirm that matters had happened as Tibalt said around Father Reginald’s disappearance.

“We would also advise that you seal up the entrance to those crypts as soon as possible,” she said. “We have dealt with all of the threats that were there, but as I said, we could not discover another entrance, yet the necromancer must have got in there somehow. There is also a strange presence down there which does not seem healthy, connected to an ancient realm of dark magic which previously existed in this land – Azarumme. It seems almost as if the church might have been built here to guard it, under Saint Terragnis’ watch.”

“We were surprised to find that the church was built over such a place,” Sir Gerigold added. “Did you have any knowledge of it?”

Tibalt denied this, looking bemused – and Hazard became suspicious.

“Your church is built right over the place,” he said, leaning in threateningly, “and you were the one your Father Reginald spoke to before going down there, you were the one who sent us down there – and gave me the worst magical healing I’ve ever had before you did! Why should we believe you knew nothing of what’s been going on?”

“What – what is this?” Tibalt exclaimed, at first surprised and then becoming angry. “Yes, I was the one Father Reginald spoke to before he vanished, I told you, he thought there was something there he should investigate but he knew it was dangerous, he warned me not to follow him – I told you that even before the attack! Who are you to come in here and accuse me –”

“Please forgive my friend,” Morgaen cut in, stepping between Hazard and the acolyte as heads started to turn across the church. “It was a hard fight down there, and a terrible place – we are all somewhat shaken.” She turned and gave Hazard a hard stare, before turning back to the acolyte. “Hazard has been badly injured trying to save your friends, I’m sure you can see that.”

Hazard turned and walked away.

Tibalt relaxed a little.

“Yes – I can see that, I am sure it must have been very hard for you all,” he said. “You must – you must come back here tomorrow, the church will pay for your lodgings tonight at the Code of Honour – and I shall see what we can do to reward you for your efforts – and what you have done for us in defeating the evil you found down there.”

Morgaen hesitated, one hand on the amulet she was still wearing around her neck.

“As I said, we are all still somewhat shaken – should you object if I keep this for now? My usual gods are… not much called on in matters of this nature, and I found a sense of Saint Terragnis’ presence very comforting, down there.”

“Yes – please do – keep it as your own, in fact. If you will only spread the knowledge of Saint Terragnis on your travels, that will be enough,” the acolyte said. “I will speak to you all again tomorrow, I – I have matters to attend to, now.” His gaze found the three bodies laid by the altar again – he nodded to them, briefly, then walked away up the church towards his dead fellow acolytes.

This was Part 7 of 'Dirty Secrets & Nightmares', featuring Sam as Dungeon Master with a cast of Mark, Alex, Paul, Alexander and Imogen. Written by Imogen Solly. Photographs sourced from Pexels unless otherwise stated. Many thanks to the artists for making these available. From the top, by: Marina M, Cottonbro, yy s, Mike Jones, Kübra Arslaner, Cottonbro, Pixabay, Merlin Lightpainting, Jeswin Thomas, TRAVELBLOG, Robert Stokoe, lalesh aldarwish.