Brazen Wolfe Tabletop

The Hidden Well

530SuHiWe

From the dusty road into Solbrook, the party spotted a crowd and a rough tent city mushrooming out by the edge of the farmland. News had spread like wildfire, some ancient thing had been uncovered beneath the wheat fields and people swarmed in chasing coin, knowledge, or the thrill of something big. Scholars flocked in to gawk at a hundred-foot statue, unlike anything they’d seen before. Locals threw up shelters and ramshackle stores to handle the surge of visitors. And adventurers, much like the party themselves, arrived drawn by whispers of treasure dangling just below the surface.

The makeshift village around the sinkhole had just about everything a hopeful wanderer could want. A cluster of tents behind a fence acted as a cheap inn where even a few coins stretched far. Market stalls bustled with gear, rations, rope, parchment or anything you’d need for a delve into the unknown. And down one crowded lane, the party found themselves drawn to a big red tent pitched by the Scholars of Yole. They were calling in seasoned adventurers to crack the first sealed chamber. There was solid coin for stepping up, and talk of steady work for anyone who could prove they weren’t just swinging swords for show.

The interior of the large red tent was nothing short of chaos; towering shelves crammed with scrolls and trinkets doubled as walls, dividing beds for the Scholars of Yole. At the heart of it all sat a young dwarven man at a desk, briskly taking names and occupations before offering coin to would-be adventurers. He laid out the deal clearly: ten gold a day, more if blades clashed or bones broke, and a finders clause granting rights to any non-crucial relics uncovered during exploration. With the way in newly breached, the scholars were eager to hire seasoned help and the party had arrived right on cue.

Over the next two days, the party led the way as scouts, helping the scholars navigate the buried ruin’s booby-trapped halls and crumbling chambers. While the first room glittered with valuable relics, the deeper they ventured, the more decay and rot took hold, until they stumbled into a room that was strangely pristine. With no mould, no rust, and no dust, it stood in stark contrast to what came before. Then came another immaculate room, its trap already sprung yet untouched by time. Something wasn’t adding up, and the sense of unease began to gro.

After securing their modest haul and settling in for the night, the party was preparing for rest when alarms shattered the quiet. Sprinting toward the commotion, they found a crowd clustered around a fallen guard near the statue’s rope ladder. His body showed clear signs of burns and further evidence of scorched clothing and warped armour could easily be seen. Yet the cause of death was announced as drowning. A pool of strange liquid had spilled from his mouth, now carefully stored in a scholar’s vial. With no signs of an attacker, magical discharge, or nearby creature, the scene was deeply unsettling. Investigating the area, the party spotted scorched rope and another ominous pool of liquid at the base of the ruin’s entrance. Something had either fled inside or emerged unseen

The party, grim but resolute, returned to the spotless halls that had first stirred suspicion and began their search. A trail of liquid travelling through the halls seemingly the only thing that indicated anything that had passed through this area. These rooms, eerily untouched by the decay surrounding them, felt too perfect, too preserved. As they pushed deeper with a handful of scholars in tow, a soft dripping noise caught their attention. Heads tilted back just in time to witness a thick glob of jelly-like slime drop from above, splattering across their shoulders and arms. It burned as it touched skin, acidic and alive; A sudden, vicious contrast to the sterile quiet that had lulled them into a false sense of safety.

The party followed the halls and rooms and eventually stepped out from the polished hallways into the yawning mouth of a cavern that swallowed sound and light alike. Stone platforms jutted out over a lake of thick, light green liquid that shimmered like oil under torchlight, ripples pulsing from nowhere and yet everywhere. The air hung heavy with the scent of rust and something far older. At the far end, half-shrouded in steam rising from the lake, loomed a massive metallic figure; humanoid in shape, but twisted with wrongness. Pocked and scarred across its surface, it loomed still and watching, with metallic pseudopods frozen mid-reach from its torso, as if caught in the act of crawling free.

The adventurers crept forward, each step echoing off stone as they traversed across the slippery raised platforms. Below them, the water stirred; slow and deliberate, responding to their presence. The statue’s form appeared cast from once-polished metal, now streaked with the same green liquid that coated the cavern’s depths. Droplets slid down its face, giving the impression it was weeping, and under flickering torchlight, the tentacle-like appendages seemed to writhe. As they approached, the viscous water began to gather, slithering into itself, pooling and reshaping. Somewhere behind, a scholar whispered a prayer. Ahead, the silence fractured as water rushed and a creature coalesced, dripping from the statue in a perfect mimicry of its monstrous form.

---

---

PDF adventure – The Hidden Well

---

---