>>5944456A figure emerges into the low light cast by the spores. Izirina lifts her dark lenses to afford herself a better view of the elf—for an elf it must be. You cannot tell if they are male, or female, or wiuligar, for uniquely this elf is OLD, and old in a way in which elves do not normally age. They are not hunched, or shrunken, or winkled, but milky-eyed, and gaunt, and hollow. At a glance you could mistake them for the living dead, but such an abomination would NEVER be permitted even in this unclean place, and anyway you can faintly detect the burning embers of true life within them with your mage’s sense. They are clad only in a simple, ratty and faded grey-brown robe, unadorned, and walk with a tall, gnarled walking-stick that is slick with rot and blooming with more fungus… And thus, in its own decrepit way, full of life as well.
“I am the Keeper of this place,” the gaunt elf tells you. “Welcome to the Temple of Kuttralas.”
“They’re using a temple for a jail?” Izirina asks.
“THIS is a temple?” you ask at nearly the same time.
The old elf smiles, and says only: “Yes.”
The Woodland Ranger is dismissed, and beats a quick retreat—a lead you sort of wish you could follow. Alas, you cannot.
“We expected only one guest,” the Keeper notes.
“Well,” you begin, “you see, I needed Magus Henzler to, uh—”
“You, human…” the Keeper says, looking at her with those unseeing eyes. “You have been touched by death, and by rot, and by decay.”
“Excuse me?” Izzy asks, flaming eyes narrowed.
The Priest of Rot reaches out with his crumbling staff and taps her abdomen, and Izzy recoils, holding herself.
“Poison was in you, and left its mark,” he says. “And worse than poison… The fear of death, the fear for life.”
“All life is the fear for life,” she replies, almost angrily, cradling her stomach and shifting back despite her calm up until this point.
“You fear it more than most,” the old elf notes, with a stained and incomplete smile. “Still, you are welcome. You, most of all, have something which you can learn here.”
Then he looks to you and says: “Death is not an enemy, child.”
“Yes, well,” you mumble, “this is all rather off-topic. Did the Ranger Commander tell you why we’ve come?”
“To see the beast, of course,” the Keeper says, with a good cheer you wouldn’t normally associate with such a pronouncement. “And yes, this holy place is indeed being sued as a jail. This is, after all, where the unclean things and uncomfortable truths are stored, and kept, and cared for.”
As the keeper leads you deeper into this dungeon-like depth, which seems much larger inside than you would have assumed from without, Izzy stays close to you. She looks around, her earlier appreciation seemingly melting to disgust.
