The Scribe
Do you feel the rhythm, Nogandar. This is no mere masonry. It is a gullet. It consumes the trapped and wrings the soul-essence from them to sustain the brood.
Nogandar
The floor sizzles. The ichor is eating the stone faster than I can shift my weight. This digestive rot is foul.
The Scribe
The Queen does not just kill her prey. She digests them in the walls of her own home. If you break it, you might just trigger a flood of bile.
Nogandar
My power is my own again. I do not fear the bile. I will carve this living abomination out of the mountain and watch it shrivel.
The membrane pulses, a wet thud that vibrates through the very marrow of Nogandar's bones. A surge of caustic acid sprays upward, hissing as it meets the violet barrier Nogandar holds above them.
The Scribe
The hive is waking up to your presence. Can you hear it, the silence falling over the tunnels? It is coming for us.
+ Scene Quest Added
Survive the hive's digestive trap
“I try an evil cleric reverse deaths spell on the trap to reverse its powersource”
SUCCESS (Legendary Arcana, rolled -2)
Nogandar
The Hive breathes as a beast, but it is merely a construction of twisted magic. I recall the ancient chants, the inversion of the life-well. If it drinks souls, I shall force it to choke on its own hunger.
Nogandar
Quiet yourself, Scribe. Watch as the architect's pride is turned against the Queen.
Nogandar places his granite palm against the slick, pulsing membrane. He begins to hum a low, dissonant tone, an ancient arcana that warps the air around his fingers.
The pulsing wall suddenly stills. A high-pitched screech echoes from deep within the stone as the digestive flow reverses. The caustic acid stops mid-drip, retracting into the wall like a parasite retreating from fire.
The Scribe
The wall... it is shriveling. It looks like dried parchment. He has broken the metabolic cycle of the entire corridor.
The Scribe
The silence... it is absolute now. You did not just stop it, you inverted its purpose. But look, Nogandar, the ceiling is weeping black liquid instead of acid. Does this change the outcome of your strike?
Quest Complete
Survive the hive's digestive trap