Lucian chuckled as we stepped out of The Rusty Dragon into the cool evening air. "A wise man once said, ‘No good decisions are made after sundown.’ That seems especially true when investigating old ruins under a church."

He rolled his shoulders and adjusted the rapier at his side. "Alright, let’s go find our priestess. Best to have someone who knows what to do if we accidentally poke something we shouldn’t."

The cathedral stood serene in the late afternoon light, its colorful windows casting long splashes of colored light across the worn flagstones. Inside, the scent of incense mingled with the quiet hum of prayer. We passed silently between scattered worshipers and acolytes until we found Sister Thelenda seated in a quiet alcove, studying a worn book.

She looked up as we approached, eyes sharp and perceptive. "Ah. You must be Cassian Valerius and Lucian Faelborne. Father Zantus said you might seek me. You wish to explore the old foundations beneath the cathedral?"

Lucian smirked, leaning slightly toward me. "Go on, cousin. Convince the good Sister to walk willingly into a possibly cursed ruin with us."

I ignored him. "Sister, we do wish to explore, but I don't want you volunteering without knowing the full weight of it."

Quickly but thoroughly, I laid it all out for her—the symbols carved into the foundation, the unnatural speed of the old fire, the stolen remains of Father Tobyn, and the possibility that something ancient had been awakened or loosed.

She listened in silence, fingers tightening slightly on her book. After a long moment, she stood and crossed her arms.

"This is more than I expected," she admitted, glancing toward the altar. Her hand brushed the star of Desna at her throat. "But you’re right. We cannot ignore it. I will go with you."

We reconvened with Father Zantus at the rear of the cathedral, and he unlocked the heavy stone door once more. The air inside the stairwell was still cool and stale, untouched by light for years. We descended carefully, lanterns raised, into the undercroft.

Lucian gave me a sidelong glance as we reached the floor. "Well, cousin, this is it. We see if your curiosity leads to knowledge... or trouble."

"Lucian," I said, gesturing toward the far end of the undercroft, "use your skills of questionable morality to see if there are any hidden entrances or exits down here. If these symbols were meant to contain something, and it’s not here anymore, then it had to get out somehow."

He gave me a theatrical bow. "Ah, my morally ambiguous talents finally in demand."

He moved off into the shadows, eyes scanning the walls and floor. Meanwhile, I waved Thelenda over.

"Here are the runes," I said, indicating the scorched etchings in the stone. "Not sure if you recognize them or have any ideas."

Thelenda knelt beside the markings, trailing her fingers across the ancient lines. She frowned, murmuring a prayer under her breath.

"These aren’t holy," she said at last. "Not Desnan. Not any divine script I know. But... there is something wrong about them. Not just magically. Spiritually."

She looked up at me, her expression troubled. "Whatever these symbols were meant to hold back... I fear they may have failed."

Lucian's voice echoed from across the chamber. "Cousin! I think you might want to see this."

We hurried over to find him crouched by the far wall. A faint seam cut across the stone, nearly invisible, but clearly unnatural. The dust nearby had been disturbed, as though someone—or something—had passed through recently.

He tapped the wall lightly. "There’s airflow. No visible latch, but this? This is a door. Or was."

I exchanged a glance with Thelenda. If something had escaped through that passage, then the undercroft held more secrets than even Brodert Quink had guessed.

Lucian rested his hand against the cool stone wall, tapping his fingers thoughtfully. "So, cousin, do we press forward into the unknown, or do we prepare for something unpleasant waiting on the other side?"

"Master Quink believes the symbols to be Thassilonian," I said, turning slightly toward Thelenda. "That means whatever they were holding back would be old... very old." I met her gaze. "That's not a particularly comforting thought."

Thelenda’s brow furrowed. "Old... but not divine. That is troubling. The Thassilonians feared many things—but if they sealed this place away, there was a reason."

Lucian gave a theatrical sigh, resting his hand on the wall again. "Ah yes, ancient civilizations and their ominous sealed chambers. Always a good time." He tapped the seam. "So, cousin? Do we take a peek behind door number one, or fetch Master Quink to read us the fine print before our doom?"

"I'm not bringing Master Quink down here until we've checked behind that door," I said. "I promised it would be safe before asking him to take a look. I intend to keep that promise." I glanced at the seam in the stone. "Got any ideas on how to open your secret passage?"

Lucian grinned. "Now you're speaking my language."

He crouched to inspect the edges of the hidden doorway, fingers brushing along faint indentations. "No hinges, no handle. Might slide inward. Definitely opened before—less dust here. There’s probably a trigger nearby."

"Well, let’s try main force first." I grinned at him. "Always start simple."

I turned to Thelenda. "You want to check around? If there’s a mechanism, it’s likely built into something old and permanent."

She nodded and began searching the opposite side of the chamber while Lucian and I braced ourselves against the wall.

We pushed.

The stone resisted. Heavy, unyielding—but not immovable. There was a faint shift, a sense that something inside the wall was just barely giving.

"Okay," Lucian grunted. "Either we’re getting weaker, or this door was built for giants."

Across the room, Thelenda called out, excitement coloring her voice. "I think I found something!"

She had uncovered a weathered pressure plate, hidden behind a loose stone. It looked like part of the wall itself, long forgotten.

"You press the plate, Sister!" I called, muscles straining. "We’ll push here."

She did.

The stone beneath our hands loosened. With a final heave, the wall slid inward with a low grinding groan.

A gust of cool, stale air rushed out, stirring dust and lifting the hairs on the back of my neck. The smell of earth, damp stone, and something older—something forgotten—washed over us.

The doorway yawned open, revealing a dark passage leading deeper underground.

The architecture changed here. It was subtle but noticeable. The stones beyond were cut differently—older, more deliberate. Mist clung to the floor just inside, thin tendrils of fog curling through the broken threshold.

Lucian leaned close, peering into the gloom. "Cousin, that does not look like a friendly basement."

Thelenda stepped forward and knelt, fingers touching the cold floor. She murmured a prayer to Desna, then rose with quiet resolve.

"This place feels wrong," she said. "If something was sealed down here, we may have just found it."

With a flick of my wrist, the end of my staff flared with soft white light, casting a steady glow across the rough-cut stone passage. I murmured the words to my Mage Armor spell—"Aegis Malrion"—and felt the faint shimmer of arcane protection wrap around me like a second skin.

"Well, we aren't going to figure anything out standing here," I said, glancing at the others. "Let's proceed... cautiously." I looked to Thelenda, noting the determined set of her jaw. "You still good?"

"Yes," she answered, her voice steady, though her eyes lingered uneasily on the mist curling at the floor. "I won’t turn away now."

Lucian gave a quiet laugh and adjusted the grip on his rapier. "A wise man once said, ‘No good decisions are made after sundown.’ That seems especially true when investigating old ruins under a church."

The tunnel sloped downward as we advanced, each step pressing deeper into a forgotten part of Sandpoint’s history. The stonework here was cruder, ancient—not the deliberate craftsmanship of cathedral masons, but the work of a much older age. Symbols were carved into the walls, different from the wards we'd seen above, but still unmistakably Thassilonian.

The mist grew thicker the deeper we went, clinging to our boots and coiling like breath from unseen mouths. The air grew colder too, pressing in against us like a silent warning.

Finally, the passage widened into a chamber. I raised my staff, casting light into the room as far as it would reach without crossing the threshold.

It was a broad space, higher-ceilinged than I expected. The walls bore more of the ancient carvings, and something metallic glinted in the far corner. A chill curled up my spine, but no immediate threat presented itself.

"You have anything to detect the presence of magic?" I asked Thelenda, keeping my voice low.

She nodded, fingers tightening around the butterfly-shaped symbol of Desna hanging from her neck. "Not magic, but something close."

She murmured a prayer under her breath and held her holy symbol forward. Her eyes closed in concentration. After a few moments, she opened them again.

"No evil," she said. "Nothing I can sense, anyway. But I don’t like this place."

"I would cast Detect Magic," I admitted, "but I didn’t prepare it today."

Lucian rolled his eyes with a grin. "Poor planning, cousin. Shall we continue our blind march into mystery?"

"We might as well step in. Lucian, keep an eye out for traps or anything suspicious. Slow and steady wins the race this time, I think."

I stepped into the room first, light flaring ahead as I moved deeper into the chamber. Thelenda followed at my side, her fingers still resting on her holy symbol. Lucian came last, his eyes sharp, scanning every surface for hidden danger.

Whatever secrets this place held, we were about to uncover them.

I stepped forward, staff raised high, the Light spell casting long shadows across the chamber's ancient walls. Lucian flanked me on one side, his rapier loose in its sheath, and Sister Thelenda followed close behind, her holy symbol glinting softly in the pale glow. The floor beneath our boots was solid stone, but warped and uneven with age. Mist swirled lazily at ankle height, disturbed only by our passage.

The room stretched out before us—rectangular, ancient, and forgotten. Four stone pillars rose up to a vaulted ceiling, their surfaces scarred by time and fire. Along the walls, the carvings were mostly unreadable, crumbling into obscurity, though the familiar sharp angles of Thassilonian script still remained in some places.

Near the center of the chamber, the light caught something metallic. As we approached, its shape resolved into a large, partially-collapsed sarcophagus. The stone lid had been cracked and shifted aside—not destroyed, but disturbed, and long ago. Etched into the surface were more warding runes, the same pattern we had found upstairs, though charred and eroded by centuries of decay.

It was empty.

"Well," Lucian muttered, staring down into the yawning void of the sarcophagus. "That's not ominous at all."

I nodded slowly. "Lucian, check this room for secret exits. If something got out of here, it didn’t go up. There may be another way."

He gave a mock salute and began scanning the walls with that roguish precision of his. I turned toward the walls and began inspecting the carvings, hoping for a clue. Thelenda, at my request, moved to study the sarcophagus.

I ran my fingers across the Thassilonian markings, their meaning obscured by erosion and soot. But one phrase stood out—barely intact, etched in a fading hand:

*"...may they slumber in darkness until the End..."*

I frowned. Not a burial prayer. A warning.

"This was a prison," Thelenda confirmed behind me. Her voice was low, solemn. "Not holy. Not hallowed. The bindings are arcane, not divine. This wasn't meant to honor anyone. It was meant to hold something in."

Lucian stood near the far wall, fingers pressed to the stone. "Cousin," he called, "we do have another exit. Hidden, but this one’s been used before. Drag marks on the floor. Something left this place."

He pointed to a nearly imperceptible seam in the stone, and I joined him, running my hand along the wall until I found a faintly recessed stone near the base. The edges were worn, dust uneven. A pressure plate, just like the one above.

"You want to take a look at this?" I asked. "I don’t see any traps, but this isn’t really my area of expertise."

Lucian crouched beside the plate with a grin. "Ah, cousin, how wise you are to recognize my unparalleled expertise in pressing suspicious buttons and not getting us killed."

He examined it carefully. "Old, worn, maybe stuck. No traps I can see, but no promises. Might just need a firm push. So—do we press it and hope for the best, or poke it with a stick and pretend we’re being cautious?"

"Nothing ventured... nothing dies screaming in a hideous death trap," I muttered, then sighed and leaned in to give the pressure plate a firm shove. "Want to help here?"

Lucian laughed as he joined me. "Ah, cousin, your optimism is infectious. Let’s hope this isn’t the part where we die horribly."

Together we pressed down, and the stone responded with a deep, grinding groan. Dust rained from the ceiling as something massive shifted behind the wall. With a final, uneven grind, the stone door slid open, revealing a dark passage cloaked in mist and the chill of untouched centuries.

A breath of air slipped past us, unnaturally cold and stale, carrying with it the scent of earth and old stone. My Light spell cast long shadows against rough-hewn walls beyond, revealing that the corridor ahead had not suffered the fire damage seen in the undercroft above.

Lucian rubbed his arms. "Alright. That’s unsettling."

Sister Thelenda clutched her holy symbol, peering into the gloom. "I don’t like this place."

"We aren’t going to figure anything out standing here," I said, extending my staff to light the passage. 

"Let’s proceed. Cautiously."

The passage sloped downward, mist swirling around our feet, thicker and colder the deeper we went. The walls were lined with ancient carvings—not warding symbols like before, but unmistakably Thassilonian in style. We moved slowly, my staff casting a halo of light ahead.

I noticed something. A faint seam across the floor.

I raised a hand, signaling a halt, and crouched low.
The stones here were uneven—recessed, barely noticeable beneath the dust, but undeniably shaped with purpose. I brushed more dust away.

A pressure plate.

"Trap ahead," I said, pointing it out. "Old, but intact."

Lucian crouched beside me, studying it with a smirk. "Ah. And here I thought we’d get a pleasant, trap-free stroll through forgotten history."

"I’m not skilled at disabling these things," I admitted. "But it looks like we can step over it. Mark the wall, so we don’t forget on the way out."

"Simple. Effective. I approve." Lucian pulled a bit of chalk from his pouch and marked a clean "X" on the stone beside the trap. "As long as we don’t sprint back out of here like panicked children, we should be fine."

We stepped over carefully, one by one. I led, with Lucian and Thelenda following close. The moment we were clear, I extended my staff again, pushing the light forward.

The corridor ended in a chamber partially collapsed by time and ruin.

Stone rubble littered the floor, and at its center stood a cracked pedestal—ancient, worn, and very much empty.

The mist curled around it in slow, deliberate coils, as though drawn to the void it once held.

Lucian let out a low whistle. "Cousin, I get the distinct feeling that whatever was locked down here... isn’t here anymore."

"Check for surprises. I'm going to look at the pedestal more closely," I said, keeping my voice low. The mist clung to my boots as I moved. Whatever was sealed here, whatever had been meant to sleep beneath the cathedral—it was long gone now.

Lucian gave me a short nod. "On it. If something down here wants to kill us, I'd rather it try you first. You're more magically resistant."

I shot him a flat look and turned to Thelenda. "Sister, follow behind me if you want, but let me go first. I'd rather take the brunt of a trap than you."

She inclined her head solemnly. "Agreed. But I'll be right behind."

I approached the pedestal slowly, the light from my staff dancing over its weathered surface. As I drew near, I could feel the weight of age and power lingering in the stone—not like an active spell, but the echo of something once great and terrible. I ran my hand along the edge, studying the patterns etched there, half-erased by time.

The pedestal had held something. Not merely a relic or artifact—it had been part of a larger spell, a binding. I could still feel faint traces of magic in the stone: abjuration and necromancy interwoven, like a seal meant to hold back something dead—or perhaps something worse.

But that magic was broken now. Long broken.

"Whatever it was," I murmured, "it's not recent. This thing was emptied years ago. Possibly around the time of the fire."

Across the room, Lucian crouched near the far wall, fingers brushing the floor. "Well, this is grim."

He stood up, holding something up to the light. Rusted metal links, brittle and stained. A broken chain.

"I think whatever was sealed here wasn’t just placed on that pedestal—it was chained to it. And now those chains are broken."

Thelenda had placed a hand on the stone beside me. She flinched slightly, pulling back. "There’s nothing holy about this place. It was never meant to be. This was a prison."

Lucian let the chain fall with a soft clatter. He looked to me, frowning. "Cousin, I really don’t like the idea that whatever was here has been loose for five years."

I nodded grimly. "I think we’ve exhausted our options here. Whatever was held is gone—and we’re not going to find it by staring at an empty pedestal."

I turned back toward the tunnel. "Let’s head back. Carefully. No triggering the trap we marked. We’ll need to bring guards down here—someone to disable that trap—and Master Quink. If anyone can piece together the full meaning of these carvings, it’s him."

Lucian was already moving, light on his feet as always. "And here I thought we were just coming to Sandpoint for a quiet festival."

Thelenda gave one last look to the pedestal, then followed.

We left the empty chamber behind, but its silence lingered in our bones like an echo of something waiting to return.