邪教徒的最终仪式

Walking to a flickering candle, Cultist邪教徒 holds his hand over the flame and the fire comes to a standstill, pointing upright and unmoving. You've seen icicles more animated than it. He speaks as he stares into the glow.

"If we do this, Davkul will be most happy. If not, well, we shall see. Not even I know what may happen then."

You tell the cultist that he's asking you to kill one of your own men. He'll need to do better than that. Hearing this, he walks over and grabs you by the shoulders. The tent melts away, slipping into the folds of an immense and immutable darkness. The cultist is gone. In his place is a black cloak, its arms to your shoulders, a slate of granite for a head, its edges chipped and cracking. It appears there is something behind this mask, behind this futile effort to keep your mind safe from its true visage. A voice speaks, a guttural, booming voice that is yet narrowed into a brutish whisper only for you to hear.

"I'll give you Death, mortal, and warmed in its comforts, Death shall be visited upon your enemies. Sacrifice will not be lost, he will be with you always, this I promise you."

A whiteness snaps back over you, a rush of wind, tent flaps curling outward, candleflames tilting impossibly without going out, and a frigid coolness that has your first breath seen floating across the air. Cultist邪教徒 is nowhere to be seen. You quickly get up and touch your face and skin, making sure that you are all that you're supposed to be. The vision remains, though, and its pulsing imprint has left behind a grisly reality that what the cultist has suggested is something to be measured seriously.

You decide to fall to the undeniable impression that Davkul would be most unhappy with your failure to obey. But Sacrifice also has earned a departing word from you. Clearing up your face, you step out of your tent and go to speak to the man. Perhaps just hearing his voice will knock some sense into you before you step off the ledge into an insane void from which this act has no doubt been beckoned.

When you get to his tent, you notice that its flap is already open and gently waving in the wind. You step inside and find the sellsword in bed, his blanket tossed over him. You take a seat, speak a few words, hoping deep down that he'll wake up in the middle of them.

"You've been good, Sacrifice, better than I could have asked for. A true brother to the Companyname and the sort of fighter any captain would be proud to have.

Hey, don't leave me rambling here. I know you're awake, you lark."

You reach over to the blanket and draw it back. You jump to your feet and nearly knock the whole tent over. In the bed is not Sacrifice, but a torso, its flesh torn asunder and stretched around armor made of unknown metal, teeth for rivets, tendons for strappings, bones for pauldrons, a cuirass of absolute carnage. Cultist邪教徒 stands in the tent's opening.

"Davkul is most pleased and has graced us with an aspect of Death."

This... this is not what you were expecting. You don't even know what you were expecting, but this could never have been imagined or prepared for. What's done is done, and may the soul of Sacrifice rest in peace. It is unlikely you ever will.

	Sacrifice has died
	You gain the Aspect of Davkul
	Cultists and Converted Cultists get a good mood
	All other brothers get a bad mood

Despite the horror which you have just been witness to, you decide that Sacrifice shall live. Just as you stand to go tell Cultist邪教徒 of this, half the candles in the room suddenly blow out. Tendrils of smoke waft upward, a twisting haze through which, for but a moment, you swear you see a hard edged and angry visage turn and fade away. You get the feeling that Cultist邪教徒 already knows what choice you've made. You stay in the tent and light those candles back up.

Cultists and Converted Cultists get a bad mood