Chudd heaved once more, forcing the stone door open with a groan of ancient stone. There it was again—faint laughter? Surely. But where was it coming from? He glanced around, but all he saw were piles upon piles of old bones. Were these the remains of other bold adventurers, drawn here by rumours of vast riches? The mysterious figure in the tavern had even hinted that Chudd wasn’t the first person he’d hired to find the magical staff.
As Chudd stepped into the room, the laughter returned, louder this time—eerily close, yet still impossible to pinpoint. He cast his gaze around, trying to make sense of the space. This room was different. More ornate. Strange sigils and cryptic diagrams covered the walls. Reading was never his strength, and the symbols were beyond his understanding. But the atmosphere told him something important was here.
With the door now fully open, Chudd grasped Heartslasher, his great double-handed sword, once more. He was glad to have it back in his hands. Across the room, he spotted a strange stone structure—was it a dais? An altar? Perhaps a sarcophagus? Whatever it was, it looked like something that needed investigating.
He moved toward it, but then—there it was again—the laughter. This time, however, it wasn’t just a sound. It had a source.
“Hee-hee-hee! Chudd Arcolas, I believe?” The voice was mocking, gleeful, and far too familiar. “Hee-hee-hee! Welcome!”
The figure seemed to materialize out of thin air behind the dais. Chudd's heart skipped a beat. Could this be right? Did it have three skulls for heads? Two of them on fire? Chudd had faced many horrors in his adventures, but this… this was something else entirely.
“Looking for this, are you?” The figure waved a staff in the air—exactly the one Chudd had come for. “I’m afraid you’ll have to come and take it from me, if you want it so much. Hee-hee-hee-hee!”
Chudd moved with surprising speed for a man of his size, but the skeletal figure was faster. It slammed the staff against the stone floor.
The bones scattered across the room shuddered, then swiftly came to life, assembling themselves into at least twenty skeletons, standing between him and the cackling figure.