#RPGaDay2024 Day 6 – Portal

Day 6 #RPGaDay2024, Continuing with the alternative prompt challenge list by Skala Wyzwania. For more information, see David Chapman’s Autocratik blog post for RPG a Day 2024.

The RPG challenge theme for today is Portal. Rolling a 1d10 for the quest. The result is 10, Draw! Oh, I’m in trouble now…

A portal to the unknown

The cursed priests lies on the floor, and I swear under my breath. The hermit is no longer a frail old man. The wild, unkept hair frames his face, but now the head rests atop an elongated neck, two or three foot long, the skin taunt around the stretched bones, the body squat, shoulders, waist, and hips compressed into a stocky frame, bones protruding from the blood-soaked clothes, the legs bent, the arms long, hanging almost to the floor, the bones of the fingers breaking out of the skin, sharp like blades. The very same blades that ripped the priest apart. But despite the monstrosity he has become, the inhuman voice that comes from his mouth is the worst, a soul-curling shriek that lets me know this creature poisoned by Darkness means to consume my essence.

I run. The thud behind me causes me to look back for a moment, and I see the creature slip on the blood of the priest and struggle as it tries to get up. It shrieks again. I run faster.

The torch flickers as I dart through the ruins under the shrine. Unable to tell what these were in their current state of decay. I stop. If it flickers again, it is not because I’m running; there is a breeze here. I follow the flame’s movement and come to a room. There is light from within. On the far wall is a strange portal, bigger than the other doors. A flickering of colors, green, blue, and yellow emanate from within. The portal is dirty and cracked in places, but it is intact. A dirty rug before it, with the marks of people sitting on it repeatedly. A magic portal? Like the ones rumored to exist in the Temples of the High in the past? Where does it lead?

The shriek is closer. Not only do I smell the stench, but I also taste it. Whatever lies beyond cannot be worse than this. Can it? I run through it, closing my eyes as I do.

This was the hardest post so far. I am not an artist, and today’s result was Draw! As you can see above, I cheated and wrote a bit to accompany my poorly made drawing, continuing the bit from day 1. Sorry for imposing this upon you.

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See you tomorrow.