Day 4 of Sunsebb CY 576
Gather ‘round, ye restless souls of Orlane, for the winds of Sunsebb are blowing cold this year, and the tales coming out of the Barrowmarsh are enough to turn your milk sour. It is but the fourth day of the month, yet the air is thick with the smell of old stone and even older secrets. Our band of wanderers — you know the ones, that lot with the clanking armor and the plant that’s seen better days — have descended once more into the entry tomb.
They say poor Armatzi went looking for a bit of peace in the sanctuary of St. Cuthbert, but the maze has a way of eating peace for breakfast. He found only vile runes and gore, a place where the light had been squashed by a malice so thick it felt like a "pointy-haired boss" breathing down his neck. The poor lad took a literal beating from the air itself, slammed against the walls by an invisible rebuke that didn't care much for his prayers. It seems the Tablet of Chaos is still casting its long, wicked shadow over everything down there.
As they pushed deeper, they spoke of memories as holes as large as the ones in the floors — bless them, they can hardly remember what they did a month ago, let alone a year! They marched past dancing shadow figures, only a foot tall, shuffling on the walls like something out of a fever dream. Through the creaking of heavy portcullises and the flickering of guttering candles, they found their way by the grace of a burned scrap of parchment — a map to nowhere that led them right where they needed to be.
And oh, the things they find! Behind a hidden catch in the wall lay a room smelling of stale death, though some say there was a hint of cinnamon in the air. There was a blue liquid — magical, of course, because nothing in that maze is just a refreshing drink — and a runic tablet that holds the power of the Sepia Snake Sigil. Imagine, a serpent of amber force just waiting to freeze a body in time!
But the maze never gives a gift without a bite. When Gnorcia lifted a burial shroud, a zombie-like creature decided it was time for a jump-scare. It didn’t last long, though. Between the arrows and Chiki's "toffee blade"—named for a love of English toffee, if you can believe such a thing—the creature was nothing but dust before the echoes of its own screech had faded.
They rest now in the "room of the cursed dad," or so I’ve heard it called. What they’ll find when they wake, only the crows know. But keep your doors barred, Orlane. The maze is waking up, and it’s got a very long memory, even if our "heroes" don't
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