Adventure of the beasts quest 1 start of the burning world

The cave opens around the tiny cub in a ring of kneeling cultists, their ash-gray robes pooling over the stone. Torchlight catches bone masks, clasped hands, and trembling shoulders.

Black flame crawls along the cub's back and claws without consuming the air. Beneath the altar, ancient symbols flare crimson, then unfold into a second pattern no robe-wrapped worshipper expected.

The command dies beneath a deep stone resonance. Cracks of darkness spread from the altar, and every flame in the cavern bends toward the cub as though answering a summons.

A masked high priest rises among the kneeling figures, an elderly woman in layered black vestments, her silver braid threaded with red cord. Behind her mask, fear replaces triumph.

The cub wakes beneath the altar. His red eyes open, and black flame erupts across his back as the cavern answers with a thunderous pulse.

The cultists are hurled from their knees. Several collapse behind overturned stone, alive but stunned, while the ritual circle fractures into burning crimson lines.

The cub lashes through the nearest robed figures, but the broken sigils pull them aside in flashes of red light. His assault scatters them instead of killing them.

The altar splits, revealing a descending gulf filled with moving darkness. The surviving cultists cling to the fractured stones as the cave mouth seals behind the cub.

The cave has no open way out.