Beyond the black curtain, the circular chamber waits in absolute silence. The raised skeleton stands beside the empty stone chair, its bones motionless while the living pulse beats from the unsealed side passage.
The ritual survivor steps into the chamber behind Lushion. Beneath the sacrificial circle, markings emerge from the dust in concentric lines, wet-looking despite the dry stone.
The Ritual Survivor
Wait. Those markings were not here before. They are beneath the circle, not around it.
A dim stain travels along the innermost line, advancing without feet or flame. Each pulse from the side passage makes it spread another finger's width toward the empty chair.
The Ritual Survivor
The sacrifice has already begun. There is no body because the circle is consuming something else.
The raised skeleton turns his skull toward the side passage. From beyond its darkness comes a soft scrape, followed by a breath that does not belong to any living throat.
The Ritual Survivor
If it reaches the chair, whatever they prepared will have a vessel. We have only moments before the circle chooses one.
The stain reaches the first groove beneath the chair. The stone answers with a low inward knock, and the unsealed passage darkens as though something has opened its eyes.
“I disrupt the circle before it reaches the chair by weaving my own magic into it, channeling it into my own controlled skeleton.”
SUCCESS (Legendary Occult Lore, rolled +2)
Lushion plants the Staff of Dark Rituals against the stone and threads his magic into the moving stain. Preternatural awareness catches the circle's hungry direction before it can touch the chair.
Paranoia makes every shadow beyond the side passage an imagined watcher, forcing him to check each angle even as Curiosity drives him to read the concentric markings in exact occult detail.
Forbidden Knowledge reveals the circle's older sacrifice-pattern beneath its fresh command. Lushion reverses the inner lines, weaving his own spell through them and giving the energy a new vessel.
The Staff of Dark Rituals channels the working with controlled force, minimizing waste. The Robes of the Defiled lend Lushion an aura the undead wards recognize as friendly, and the circle yields.
Black light drains from beneath the chair and coils through the grooves into the raised skeleton. Its bones lock upright as the sacrificial pulse settles inside its frame, fully controlled.
The Ritual Survivor
The circle has stopped. You gave it the dead instead of her.
The stain vanishes. The stone chair remains empty, while the raised skeleton turns toward the dark passage, now carrying the circle's stolen hunger in obedient silence.
Quest Complete
Stop the next sacrifice
Attribute Upgrade: Strength Great→Superb
New gift: Protective Warding