Ancient temple (1)

"Argh"

The party landed hard on a stone surface. A cloud of dust erupted around them as Brom, with a roar, twisted in mid-air to take the brunt of the impact, his heavy armor crashing against the stone floor with a deafening boom. Lyra and Finn, who had landed on and around him, were bruised but miraculously unharmed. Leon landed silently on his feet a few feet away, his movements as fluid and quiet as a cat's.

"Everyone... okay?" Lyra coughed, pushing herself off the stone floor.

"My back is almost broken. A slightly longer fall, and I might have actually broken my back." Brom groaned from the floor, "But I'm alive. Finn?"

"I'm okay!" the young mage squeaked, scrambling to his feet.

Brom then pushed himself into a sitting position and looked over at Leon, who was standing perfectly fine, brushing a bit of dust from his sleeve. "Hey, kid. How are you not a mess? We fell a good thirty feet."

Lyra, getting to her feet, also turned to look at him, her eyes sharp with suspicion. "He's right, Leon. You didn't even make a sound when you landed. How?"

Leon gave a slightly sheepish smile, a practiced expression of mild embarrassment. "Ah, just some acrobatic tricks I learned back home. I managed to roll forward when I hit the ground to minimize the damage."

"Hmph. Fancy tricks for a mage," Brom grunted, though a flicker of respect showed in his eyes.

Lyra said nothing, but her gaze lingered on Leon for a moment longer. She hadn't seen him roll. She had seen him land. Like a feather. Deciding not to press the issue for now, she focused on their surroundings.

Finn reignited the light spell in his hand, and the glow revealed the new chamber. His fear was instantly forgotten, replaced by wide-eyed awe.

"This... this isn't the Murkwater Crypt," Finn breathed, his voice filled with reverence. He ran a hand along a massive, fluted column nearby. "Look at this stonework! The style is far older than the Old Kingdom. And these archways... this isn't a tomb."

Lyra lit up one of her enchanted arrows, its bright light casting away the shadows and revealing the true scale of the hall. It was vast, more like a grand temple than a cavern. The air didn't smell like must and decay; it carried a strange, electric tang, like ozone after a lightning strike. "He's right," she said, her voice low. "This place... it feels different. It feels ancient."

Brom finally managed to get to his feet, groaning. "What are these ugly things on the walls?" he grumbled, pointing his axe at a series of strange, unsettling carvings. "They don't look like any griffon I've ever seen."

The carvings weren't of noble beasts or kings, but of strange, multi-limbed creatures and celestial bodies falling from the sky.

"It's just archaic art, Brom!" Finn said excitedly, dismissing the warrior's concerns. "Probably depicting some old creation myths! This is incredible!"

Leon, playing his part, asked the obvious question. "Lyra, our mission was to clear the Murkwater Crypt. Does this place have anything to do with that objective?"

She shook her head, her gaze sweeping across the alien architecture. "No. I don't think so. The crypt is up there, somewhere." She pointed a thumb towards the dark hole in the ceiling. "This is... an undocumented ruin. Our mission is effectively over until we can find a way back up."

"Find a way up?" Finn cried, his voice brimming with excitement. "Are you kidding? Lyra, this is the discovery of a lifetime! A completely unknown, pre-Kingdom ruin! The historical value alone is immeasurable! The Adventurer's Guild will pay us a fortune just for the location! We have to explore!"

"Finn, we don't know what's down here," Brom warned. "This place gives me the creeps."

"Don't be such a pessimist, Brom!" Finn countered. "Fortune favors the bold! We have to see what's further inside!"

His enthusiasm was infectious, and the lure of a legendary discovery was a powerful one for any adventurer. Lyra hesitated, torn between her cautious nature and the potential reward.

"Leon, what do you think?" She turned to Leon, hoping that he would help her out. if he felt unsafe, then she could use that as an excuse to leave this place.

However, Leon's words poured a bucket of ice water over her intentions.

"I can go on. It might be fun to discover what is in this cave."

Lyra looked at everyone slowly and then sighed.

"Alright," she said finally. "A quick look. We scout the immediate area for an exit, and that's it. We don't engage with anything, we don't touch anything. Clear?"

Reluctantly, Brom agreed, and the party moved deeper into the silent, vast hall.

As the party walked deeper, the carvings on the walls grew more disturbing. The scenes of falling stars gave way to depictions of robed figures bowing down to the craters, making sacrifices to shadowy beings that emerged from them.

Lyra stopped dead, her eyes fixed on a specific, repeating symbol carved above a large archway. It was a spiral of hooked thorns surrounding a single, unblinking eye.

"I know this mark," she whispered, her face pale. "I've seen it in a restricted text at the academy... a book about forbidden cults."

"What does it mean?" Brom asked, his hand tightening on his axe.

"It's the sigil of the Devouring Prince," Lyra said, her voice barely audible. "The symbol of Al-Melios."

The name dropped into the silence of the temple like a stone into a deep, dark well. Brom immediately took a step back. "Al-Melios? The demon prince? No. No way. I'm not tangling with a demon cult. We're done. We find a way out, now."

"Brom, calm down!" Finn interjected quickly, his voice full of forced reason. "It's just an old carving! Al-Melios is a myth, a fairytale told to scare children! This was probably just some primitive tribe that used a scary symbol to ward off intruders. It doesn't mean anything."

"I don't like it," Lyra said, her eyes still locked on the sigil. "My gut is telling me to leave."

"I think we should leave right away."