Coven

The Coven is an underground Witch hovel.

A Brush with Dark Magic

Torches are generally a welcome sight in the oppressive darkness of the dripstone caverns. But this is not one that I placed.

I approached the strange door with caution, listening for any voices or noises within. After some time, I ventured to nudge it open.

Inside was some kind of arcane ritual chamber. A leatherbound book floated over an ornately jewelled pedestal, as if beckoning for me to read it. Shelves of ancient tomes lined the walls behind it. Hearing distant laughter, I quickly stepped forward to investigate.

I heard a click, and a most disorienting feeling overcame me - like grapsing helplessly at rungs of a ladder sliding by. Then, I was elsewhere.

The pit was soulsand, dimly lit by errant wax candles and littered with skulls and an obscure species of fungus. The laughter was no longer distant: at the high edges of the pit, three hideous hags cackled at my predicament. No more than a few seconds passed before they lobbed hostile lobes of magic at my feet. I tried to scramble through the clutches of the quicksand and cobwebs, but I fell slow and weak. My insides boiled with pestilence, and in that confusion I recalled my visit with a kind cleric, who demonstrated for me the curative properties of milk. I thanked his foresight in gifting me the bottle I pulled from my knapsack and downed with haste.

Sweet, creamy relief. With renewed vigor, I clambered from the pit and to a staircase at the end. I collapsed the passage behind me with stone, and rested on the steps to catch my breath before ascending them.

The upper room was that I had entered just prior. I saw now the tripwire at the entrance that had almost spelled my doom. To my left, a weathered brewing stand with a only a few charges remaining. In iron behind it was the oxidized remnant of an enslaved Copper Golem. Water dripped from a stalactite into a nearby cauldron. An old bell hung over the ritual table, ostensibly for calling the fell coven together - had I only tried it before tripping the trap, I might have been warned of their presence. To my right, a chest; hoping to find something worth the trouble, I opened it. I but barely glimpsed a miscellany of brewing ingredients and monster parts before I felt the same feeling as before, and was cast once more into that dark pit. So careless I was in those days!

Six eyes bore into mine. If only I had not blocked off the exit.