>>6263798You watch from the shadows, your breath steady, your heart an iron drum in your chest.
The feast roars on. Laughter, drums, dancing-your people rejoice under the gaze of a lie, blind to the rot seated at the heart of their joy. The demon wears your flesh like a ceremonial cloak, raising your father’s cup in a mocking toast.
You light the longhouse on fire with the torch.
The flame takes quickly. You press it to the dry thatch and the resin-soaked beams of the longhouse. Smoke snakes upward before the blaze roars to life-hungry, bright, absolute.
At first, the revelers don’t notice.
Then the demon stills, its smile faltering. Its stolen eyes turn toward the smoke. It sniffs the air.
It rises suddenly, voice twisted and shrill.
“Fire! There is fire!”
Panic surges. Screams break the rhythm. Your people surge toward the doors like a tide-but you are already there.
And when the demon reaches the threshold-
You shove it back inside.
It stumbles, cursing in your voice. You leap after it, fists flying, slamming blow after blow into its face. Its nose breaks, blood sprays-but it only laughs, a choking, hysterical cackle that echoes through the burning hall.
“You think this matters?” it spits. “You think this hurts?”
A timber crashes down behind you. Fire races across the floor.
You grab the demon by the face and drive it toward the blaze.
The flames lick its skin.
And the glamour fails.
Its flesh bubbles and peels, revealing slick, red-black skin stretched too tightly over a snarling face, blood pouring forth. Eyes like boiled fat glare at you as horns burst from its skull.
“There you are,” you whisper.
The demon snarls, now fully revealed-but stronger. It throws you off with a roar, your body hitting the dirt hard.
You draw your sword, breath ragged.
The demon sneers, its form smoking in the firelight.
“Your tribe’s magic is pitiful. You can do nothing against me.”
But the longhouse groans. A pillar collapses. The roof begins to cave in.
The demon glances upward.
“We will meet again,” it growls-and vanishes into the night like smoke.
You stumble outside, coughing, bleeding.
The longhouse collapses in flames, and your people fall to their knees, crying. None of them know why. Their minds reel. Their hearts ache.
They grieve for a joy they now realize was hollow. For something they cannot name.
And you watch it all burn.
You say nothing.
The next morning you learn the grim truth - the demon was eating the tribe's children! No one noticed because of the glamour.
> 1- It ate your child! Very few other children were eaten. The demon was picky. > 2- It ate most children in the village! Your child was saved for last. The demon was hoping for a good dessert.> 3- It ate most children in the village! Your child was eaten too. The demon gorged itself.> Write inRoll 1d3, or spend the remaining TOTEM POWER to pick an outcome.
