Side-quest: Whispers Beneath

Act I: The Quiet

The fortified city of Oreyarsk sits hunched beneath the grey skies of the tundra, its spires and steeples frosted with ice, its streets burdened by more than winter. The lifeline to the Gap of Grief, Oreyarsk now feels... off. The people are not sick, not afraid, not panicked, but quiet. Too quiet. Questions are met with vague, passive replies. Night walks have increased. A few miners, priests, and tavern girls have vanished for days, only to return later, mud-caked and dazed, claiming no memory of where they’d been.

And some of them? They dig patterns into the snow. They whisper when they sleep. They stop speaking altogether and stand motionless, facing north.

The city watch speaks of odd dreams. The clergy have grown evasive. A young girl draws a strange runes in ash across her walls. When questioned, she simply mutters: “The stone speaks first.”

No one has ventured beneath the earth in weeks. The miners speak of tunnels that should not be there. Doors they never carved. Lights that don’t flicker. A mystery to follow...

Act II: Hollow Paths

The player party follows rumor, fragments of truth, and finally discovers an abandoned tunnel in the mining quarter. Strange roots stretch along the walls as they descend in to the depths of an ever wider cavern, encountering giant spiders and occasional earth slimes as they go, the usual underworld hazards. But the air is thick and wrong. Something has taken root in the bedrock.

As they delve into the dark, they begin encountering the Hollow, ghastly creatures with withered, husk-like bodies, their organs long decayed, replaced by billowing trails of a dark violet mist. These twisted undead exhale a shimmering miasma that clings to the caverns. If inhaled by the dying, it brings them back, but not as themselves.

During a brutal encounter with the Hollow, when retreat seems imminent due to overwhelming numbers, a cloaked figure intervenes: a Masked Sage, wordless and sudden, felling several creatures with strange precision.

“The whispers reach farther than I feared,” she says. “I’ve seen this before. I followed its echo here. You can call me a hunter of monsters.”

She offers no name, nor allegiance, but claims to know how to find the source. Her smooth mask, through which peer her emerald green eyes, never leaves her face. Her presence is unnerving, yet oddly reassuring. It is the group's choice if they trust her or not, but she insists on joining them.

If pressured for a name or history, her responses may vary:

-

“Names hold power. I gave mine up long ago.”
She rests a hand lightly on the hilt at her side.
“Sage will do. It fits the work.”

-

“Names are anchors. I prefer to move freely.”
She pauses. Then, with the faintest hint of wry amusement.
“But if you need something… call me Sage.”

-

“Some have called me Shadow... though I find Sage more fitting. Most… never needed to ask.”

Act III: The Unmaking

The tunnels deepen. Strange things slither in the dark, drawn by the same pull as the townsfolk. Torchlight dims unnaturally, and there is an otherworldly hum in the air. The party begins to encounter more than the Hollow grunts, but possessed monsters as well. At the heart of the cave system lies a black obelisk, faintly humming with ancient power, guarded by fell beasts twisted by the same miasma. The sage warns the party: this is not a relic of mortal hands, but a seed of something older.

Destroying it requires more than brute strength, it must be severed from its hold on the earth, shattered with a ritual performed by the wise Sage. The party must protect her as the Hollow swarm.

But as the obelisk dies, the real horror begins.

From the tunnels above, the possessed townsfolk descend, drawn by its death cry, driven mad by the sudden silence where once they heard addicting whispers. They are not themselves, but not Hollow either. Their eyes are blackened. Their mouths twitch with unseen voices.

The party must now make a choice:

• Stand and fight, cutting down the enthralled civilians in order to escape.
• Or flee deeper through forgotten passages into the deeper dark, where things crawl that never knew sunlight, and where the obelisk’s influence may not be entirely gone.

The sage aids either choice, but once the party emerges from the underground and is clear of danger, she vanishes, leaving only her words:

“You’ve seen what waits beneath the skin of the world. Be careful where you listen.”

Turning a corner, she disappears in to thin air.