Brazen Wolfe Tabletop

Funeral Procession

531MoFuPr

The streets of Cleveral stood hushed beneath a veil of mourning. Silks of blue and gold fluttered from archways and balconies, colours sacred to the gods that had twice blessed Carlo Cleardraw. The city’s grand procession moved slowly through the cobbled main avenue, lined with citizens who whispered prayers and scattered petals as the coffin passed. It was a solemn tribute to a man thought larger than life; a blade against darkness, a symbol of divine favour and a voice of the people and all that was good in this world.

The party moved silently behind the casket, their heads bowed though their eyes watched everything. Each of them carried the weight of a shared past with Carlo, and now, the crushing disbelief of his sudden death. The temple of Auronel stood at the end of the street, its spires carved with constellations and celestial script, glowing faintly in the twilight. The casket was to be laid before the altar of memory, blessed by the high priest, and finally sealed beneath the temple’s sanctified crypt.

Inside the temple, candlelight danced over polished stone and sacred relics. Only a chosen few were permitted entry, the party among them, alongside a handful of Carlo’s closest confidants and comrades from previous adventures. As the procession moved forward down the nave, the casket wobbled as the bearers grief echoed that of the populace of the holy city. The wobbling was slight at first until one of Carlo’s old companions faltered as they misjudged a a step, dropping their end of the weight with an audible cry of shock and horror. It struck the dais with a hollow thud. The lid split open to a chorus of alarm, fear and sorrow echoing out.

Gasps echoed off the temple walls, rising sharply as shadows peeled away to reveal an unbearable truth: the coffin was empty. Panic surged; a hush of reverence torn open into a cacophony of confusion and fear. The high priest of Auronel, silver-robed and wide-eyed, rushed forward. With a gesture and a sacred phrase, the temple doors slammed shut behind the gathered mourners, sealing the interior with divine command.

A murmur of enchantment suffused the room, binding secrecy to every tongue present and sealing away magic until the prayer was rescinded. The high priest raised his hands, voice trembling yet resolute, as he implored all those present, especially the party, to uncover the mystery. ‘Carlo would not fall to fang or flame,’ he said his soft and kind face looking between the coffin and those gathered – Carlo’s trusted few, ‘nor to illness, nor curse. No blade in this world could find his heart not even if he welcomed it. The gods that blessed him would not have it.’

The implications hung heavy in the charged stillness. Had Carlo truly died or had something older, stranger or twisted stolen his body before burial? If it were a deception, then for what purpose? If it were a theft… then by whom and for what purpose? The party glanced between one another, each wrestling with disbelief.

Whispers rose as the high priest lifted his staff, the head shaped in twin sigil’s, one for Auronel, god of grace and healing, the other for Vorthuun, deity of judgment and fire. These were the patrons who had marked Carlo Cleardraw in life. Twice-blessed, they called him, the champion of both mercy and wrath. To all gathered, his death should have been impossible. Yet here they stood without proof which or either way.

The priest turned slowly, his voice echoing across marble and stained glass. ‘Auronel does not abandon chosen souls to the silence of the void,’ he declared, ‘and Vorthuun suffers no theft of fate.’ That Carlo’s body was gone, vanished without trace was not merely sacrilege; it defied the edicts of two divine powers whose marks cannot be simply erased.

A subtle pressure filled the air, as if the temple itself recoiled from the implications. Golden light from the suspended sunstones overhead flickered, dimming as a breeze stirred though the sealed chamber, wind without source, whispering through robes and curls. It carried a voice, fractured and low. Not all heard it, but those attuned to the arcane felt it hum within their ribs. It was not grief that lingered here. It was contradiction.

The party moved closer to the casket. Some stared as though expecting Carlo to appear within it after all, as if the gods might rewind reality. But all that remained was a trace of ash and a single feather, luminous and pale blue. Not angelic, but deeply sacred, an echo of Auronel’s presence, known to manifest only at moments of ascension or divine refusal. It was not left casually.

A member of the casket bearers knelt, touching the feather, and for a breathless second, everyone felt the echo of Carlo’s voice. Not speech, not memory, but a feeling of unrest. He was not at peace. The high priest’s gaze sharpened. ‘This is not the end of Carlo Cleardraw,’ he said quietly with a sigh of relief which then turned dark as Vorthunn’s influence flickered like an ember. This sign was not as reassurance but as warning of the time ahead.

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