Adventure of Alexander 2

Beneath Rosewood, a forgotten temple groans around Alexander. Dust veils the cracked altar, while pale corpses claw upward through the flagstones.

His shimmering pink gown catches the altar's sickly light. The war scythe in his grasp hums as heat shimmers faintly from his skin.

Before the altar, a noble strains against iron manacles, bound to a weathered stone pillar. No captor remains in sight.

Runes blaze across the altar, their crimson paths converging on a sealed crypt below. The rising dead answer with a chorus of grinding stone.

A fracture races across the crypt seal. The noble locks eyes with Alexander as the altar flares brighter, and something immense strikes the stone from below.

The spell leaves Alexander's scythe and reaches the manacles as a thread of pale gold, threading through every lock.

The iron resists, then every clasp snaps open at once. The noble's wrists are free, though the spell's backlash scorches Alexander's casting hand.

He wrenches himself from the pillar and staggers clear, dragging the opened manacles across the stone.

The freed chains strike the floor with a sharp ring. Below the altar, the fracture widens, and a breath of grave-cold air spills into the chamber.

Alexander plants the scythe's blade beside the fractured altar and draws on the old purification rite taught by Falstaff.

Pale gold fire pours through the temple's crimson runes, washing the altar, the flagstones, and the reaching corpses in clean radiance.

The corpses lose their borrowed motion and settle into silent dust. The fracture contracts, its grave-cold breath replaced by warm, clear air.

The seal closes beneath the altar with a deep stonebound note. No dead hand rises again, and the temple's crimson light fades to ash.

A single black sigil remains burned into the altar's edge, untouched by the cleansing spell. It pulses once, pointing toward a narrow stair hidden behind the sanctuary wall.

The noble's alarm steadies into resolve. He turns toward the temple passage, leaving the opened manacles behind.

He hurries into the passage toward Rosewood, while the black sigil flares and draws a thin line of darkness down the hidden stair.

Alexander lifts the war scythe from the altar and follows, crossing the threshold as warm air curls around his scorched hand.

Below, the stair opens into a vaulted crypt where the sigil's dark line ends at a sealed bronze door. Three faint knocks sound from the other side.

Alexander brings the war scythe down on the bronze seal. The blade bites through the sigil's dark line, and the door splits beneath the impact.

The cost lands at once. The scythe's edge cracks, and the shock tears fresh pain through Alexander's scorched hand.

The bronze halves grind inward, revealing a chamber lit by a single black flame. The strike's thunder rolls through the crypt and up toward Rosewood.

Beyond the threshold stands Malrec Thorneveil, robed in ash-dark finery, his deadened gaze fixed on Alexander. The black sigil burns across his palm.

The black flame bends toward Alexander, carrying a whisper of cold through the opened chamber. Malrec raises his marked hand, waiting to see whether the intruder crosses the threshold or strikes from the stair.

Alexander gathers the practiced pattern Falstaff drilled into him, drawing heat from his blood and the crypt's cold into one blazing sphere.

The fireball surges from his casting hand and crosses the broken threshold in a roaring arc.

It strikes Malrec Thorneveil squarely, flooding the chamber with gold-white fire and driving his ash-dark robes backward.

The blaze collapses into smoking embers across the crypt floor. Malrec remains standing, scorched but unbowed, while the black sigil in his palm gutters like a wounded star.

Alexander's gaze sweeps past Malrec and into the vaulted chamber, tracking the geometry of the sigils, the ash, and the cold vapor.

Behind a fallen funerary slab, a fist-sized crystal glints beneath black wax and dust. Its inner light pulses in time with the sigil on Malrec's palm.

The discovery costs him. His scorched hand spasms, and the cracked war scythe strikes the threshold with a sharp ring that echoes through the crypt.

Malrec rises from one knee and turns his marked palm toward the crystal. The black flame inside the chamber bends toward it, while the crystal's pulse brightens.

Alexander darts toward Malrec, making the crystal his apparent target only long enough to draw the lich's marked hand aside.

The feint opens a lane, but the scorched hand falters at the critical instant. Malrec twists away, and the crystal slips beyond Alexander's grasp.

His scythe haft catches the funerary slab instead. The jolt sends the crystal skidding across the stone, away from Malrec and into a broken ring of floor sigils.

The crystal's pulse dims as it crosses the broken ring. The black flame bends toward the gap, revealing a narrow path of unlit stone between Alexander and the vessel.

Malrec plants one boot outside the ring and draws his marked hand back. The crystal lies within reach beyond the fractured sigils, while the flame gathers along the open path.

Alexander crosses the unlit path in a single burst, boots scraping over the fractured sigils.

His scorched hand closes around the crystal. He retreats beyond the broken ring before the black flame can fold over him.

The vessel answers his grip with a sharp pulse of cold. Pain shoots through his palm, and the crystal leaves a darkening mark across his skin.

The black flame recoils from the ring, then gathers around Malrec's boots. His weakened sigil flares once, casting the crystal's pulse across the crypt walls.

Learn what the crystal has taken from Alexander