Prologue - Death House

Taniwha wades into the water moving as best as one can through the liquid to follow Amalthea, he scans the alter as passes keeping a noticeable space between it and himself. The look on his face one of mistrust and anger.

Abraham gets the idea from observing the dried blood on the chains and altar that victims were hung by the chains (which undeniably fit human-sized wrists) and sacrificed over the altar. Neither Abraham nor Taniwha can figure out what dark god this macabre scene is meant to worship, but Taniwha notices that the ghouls carved onto the altar are partaking of the flesh of some sort of amorphous blob covered in eyes and teeth. This is not the iconography of any religion he knows.

As Abraham approaches the altar, the voices begin to whisper again, as if eagerly awaiting the beginning of some profane ritual. Abraham can almost imagine the fleeting shadow-figures of robed cultists kneeling before the altar.

How stable is the alter? Can it be upended? Or is it carved from the very floor? (Or so massive it cannot be moved?)

Taniwha keeps his distance as he watches Abraham approaching the alter, he shivers a little looking at ghouls dining upon flesh. "Twisted features goring on flesh, doesn’t take much to taint a soul"

The altar is large enough that a human can lay across its surface, and appears to be made of solid marble. It weighs at least a ton, but probably multiple.

Taniwha cannot recognize the figure on the altar. Either it doesn't exist, or it's something he just hasn't seen before. At the same time, as Abraham is examining the altar, the shadows around the ledges eddy and swirl. Thirteen hooded figures appear on the ledges overlooking the room. Each one holds a torch, but the torches are as ethereal and ghostly as their wielders and the flames seem to glow black and absorb the very light out of the room. Instead of faces, these figures have yawning voids under their hoods.

The ghostly chant begins again, but this time its words are different, yet they are clear, sonorous, and dreadful. "One must die! One must die! One must die!"

Amalthea whirls around to look at the altar and the group chanting. She starts to move back to the group in case something comes to attack them. Does her Divine Sense identify anything in the area?

"I think not. Begone foul things!"

He doesn't hesitate, casting Sacred Flame on whichever hooded shade is closest.

Narissa wants to see if her mage hand will push through one of the shadowy figures, are they ghosts like the children?

Amalthea focuses on the shadows encircling the room, but they don't register as anything infernal or undead. However, she does detect the presence of a fiend underneath the pile of leaves and refuse. Meanwhile, Abraham's mage hand slams into one of the robed forms, but the shadows just swirl around the flame and the figure reforms when the flame disappears. The same happens with Narissa's mage hand: the hand harmlessly glides through the shadow as if through a veil of smoke. It seems that these figures are mere illusions, yet nothing you have tried so far seems to dispel them.

Still they chant endlessly: "One must die! One must die!"

The chanting is quite grating as Taniwha rotates around looking up at the apparitions, search for something to hit or something to do that would make it stop. "Any ideas? Shall we smash the alter? We need to stop that chanting!" frustration evident in the Tiefling’s voice, his knuckles now white as he grips his staff.

As she retreats back, she feels the last of her divine sense leaving. As soon as she puts her shield up and begins her retreat, a terrible smell, different from the others in the area, wafts into her nostrils and her eyes water. She is sure there is something evil hidden beneath the refuse.

As the attacks on the shadowy figures result in nothing, she decides to shout out to the group: "Oy, something is not right in that alcove. Maybe we tackle that first?"

The spirits grow taller and darker, seemingly incensed by Abraham's complete refusal to do their bidding. Still, their hideous chanting grows only louder. They seem intently focused—if mindless apparitions can be such—on Abraham, waiting for him to make one deadly choice or the other. Indeed, the rest of the party can talk and move around (at least so much as much as they already have) without drawing the figures' ire.

"I don't have a weapon or spell suitable for smashing stone. That said, I feel destroying this altar is a fantastic choice!" Abraham calls out over the chanting, doing his best to ignore the figures as he leaves his position and instead moves towards the alcove Amalthea mentioned.

With no components such as holy water or holy texts to power spells, Amalthea readies shield and war hammer and retreats towards the altar, her eyes not leaving the alcove.

"Aye, I'll tackle the altar. Watch my back and that alcove!"

She muscles around the weird spirits and raises her hammer high, taking advantage of any dwarven knowledge she may glean from looking at it, before lowering it as hard as she can!

The altar is a huge slab of solid granite, roughly cut but artistically carved. As plain as it is, it seems something more: something wild, ancient as the land, dragged out of a mad hermit's nightmare. The nature of the thing is just out of Amalthea's grasp, but it is unutterably ancient.

Amalthea rears back and launches her warhammer into the slab. The hammer bounces solidly sending a shockwave across the room that splashes waves through the water and eddies the dust. A huge crack splits the middle of the altar, and the two pieces fall apart.

The room goes silent. Nothing moves.

Then the shadows bring up another chant. "Walter, O little god! Walter, we awaken thee! Walter, O little god! Walter, we awaken thee!" The pile of refuse shifts and splashes in its corner, and an unearthly moan mixed with an infant's cry comes from deep within it. A giant fleshy mass of gangly arms, clawing hands, and twisted fingers heaves up out of the mass, as wide as a man. Another follows it, then more, and the spiderlike limbs strain to lift a huge bulk of warped flesh and sinew. In the center of the thing, where a spider's head would be, is a giant infant's head peeking out of the forest of sinew. The bald, slick forehead hosts two blunt demonic horns. The thing screams, exposing multiple rows of fangs resembling the teeth of a shark pup.

The thing immediately sets itself to charge and devour whatever is in its path.

"..."

"Oops..."

Taniwha was brought out of his daze as the hammer struck solidly against the alter, his red eyes flashing in the direction of the pile as the monstrous form emerge . . .