Three weeks have passed. Beyond the ruined village, Ashen Manor rises from the thorn fields, its roof collapsed and its corridors thick with soot, frost, and listening silence.
In the cellar, Niklas stands before a black altar cut into the bedrock. The possessed captive waits behind him, motionless in a servant’s posture, his shadow pointing the wrong way.
A sealed cellar door fills the altar’s rear wall. Fresh handprints cover its wood, layered one over another, as though villagers have come here nightly to beg entry.
The Pale Presence
This was not a tomb. The masons built it to make vessels, and sealed their work when the making became unbearable.
The captive’s head turns toward the door. Outside, muffled feet gather in the snow, then stop together. No voice calls out, yet the fresh prints seem to multiply.
The Possessed Captive
They wait for the door to open.
The Pale Presence
Open it, and learn whether they seek salvation, or only another shape in which to suffer.
✓ Quest Accepted
Establish the sealed cellar as a viable vessel-making site
✓ Quest Accepted
Turn the waiting villagers into vessels