Wilkovia’s chamber and RPG story

So WaysUnseen drew a nice little underground map and let me loose with the words. You can get maps like this as a free patreon subscriber or get even more resources from a paid tier. But this one is a nice little freebie so you guys can have it too 🙂 I’ve written a second person intro story with a few prompts of places to go. Perhaps you can use this to write what you do next or maybe you can use it for a DnD session your DM’ing. Whatever you use itfor, do let me know and check out more of WaysUnseen’s stuff too.

The reverberations through the ground are strong enough to know your pursuers are near. Yet plough on you must. The instructions given to you by the Priest were not the clearest; the man was only just lucid and they read more like riddles. Your step alters as you remember him. The fact that the Guard are so close behind means they found him and managed to get enough out of him to follow the same path. As the trees abruptly stop, you find yourself staring at a rockface. Looking up you see a ridge way above, some hundred feet away. The climb would be too perilous and nothing in the old man’s words made you think you would have to go up.

Studying the rock again you see a seam in the grey stone. Of course, the old King would hide away in the ground. Smiling, you set about finding a release and manage to get inside not a moment too soon. As the stone slides back into place, you hear shouts as the riders come around a bend.

The Guard will ride on but not for long; it won’t take them long to realise they’ve gone too far and need to retrace their steps. By then you need to be long gone. But more importantly, you must obtain the artefact. You turn round to see passages running right and left. The wall immediately ahead of you has drawing upon it, and below is a roughly sketched map of the cavern.

Someone else must have found this cavern and drawn it for reference. Hopefully they had not found the King’s secret too or this would all be for nought.

Above was a portrait painted directly onto the stone. The King himself stands in a small boat, the water was foaming all around the vessel as if he were caught in a whirlpool. Upon his head is the Crown of Wilkovia but more interestingly is the small silver rod in his hand.

It is here somewhere.

Now all you needed to do was find it and get out before the Guard made their way in…

1. The burial chamber: the King’s final resting place. His coffin lies on a raised platform on the opposite side of the chamber. Steps lead down but into a pool of water. Dropping a coin into the pool you realise it is deeper than you thought, and is that a fish? Where did he come from?
   
   
2. The portrait: the stone wall feels different. As you knock, you hear a hollowness. Something is behind here, but what, and how to get in? There isn’t an obvious release like there was on the front entrance.
   
   
3. The right-hand chamber: well, you’ve found the person who drew the map. He obviously didn’t find the artefact or a way. But from the teeth marks on his bones, something found him. There are some crates around, some of the King’s belongings that he decided to take with him. But what else might be hiding in there.
   
   
4. Dead end: this looks like it should also lead to the burial chamber but a rock fall has blocked the way. But is something caught in the rock? And wait, there’s the sound of rushing water from nearby.