The black book slides down the first stair by itself, its cover scraping stone, then stops when a thick root catches its binding. The bog-witch remains at the threshold above, staff raised, while Edric and Mirelle follow you into the descent.
As you take hold of the book, its leather feels cold and faintly damp. The root tightens around the cover, resisting your grasp without tearing it free.
Edric Vale
By ash unmade, by marrow cleansed, by every borrowed shadow cast out, depart this vessel and trouble it no more.
The words come from between the pages in Edric's voice, though his mouth remains closed behind you. The cadence is old enough to make the stair stones shiver.
The Bog-Witch
That is an exorcism. No living witness remembers those syllables, and no book should remember them for us.
A slow heartbeat answers from the deep passage. Each pulse travels up through the steps, while the book's binding begins to loosen in your grasp, thread by thread.
Mirelle
It is waking below. Do not let the pages open again.
Edric Vale
I do not know that prayer. Something is speaking through my voice.
Behind you, the bog-witch holds the threshold while Edric and Mirelle remain on the stair. Before you, the root slips loose, and the weakening book waits for what you do next.
✓ Quest Accepted
Find a means to resist the awakened presence
+ New Item Acquired
Black Book
“All right we're heading to the tavern to go find someone that knows more about this book than us”
FAILURE (Poor Agility, rolled -1)
You turn the party back toward the surface and the distant tavern, but the stair twists beneath your feet. Each upward step returns you to the same root-bound landing.
The black book pulls toward the buried passage, its loosened binding whispering against your grip. Beyond the threshold, the hut's doorway has vanished behind a wall of wet roots.
Edric Vale
We are not reaching any tavern while this place keeps turning the road beneath us.
The Bog-Witch
The deep name has closed the way out. It wants the book carried farther below, not traded for answers above.
Mirelle presses herself against the stair wall as another pulse climbs through the stone. The book's cover cracks open a finger's width, revealing darkness where its pages should be.
Mirelle
Someone who knows this book may still be above, but the road will not release us until the thing below is answered.
The Bog-Witch
Choose quickly. We can seek the keeper beneath us, or force the roots and wake whatever guards the door.
The route to the tavern remains blocked, and the party stands trapped on the repeating stair. Below, the heartbeat sounds again, closer than before.
“All right we're heading to the tavern to go find someone that knows more about this book than us”
SUCCESS (Poor Agility, rolled +1)