Ash

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For a moment, Appo believed he was dead. His view of view became completely black, only for everything to slam back into place. One second, Appo stood at the edge of the pyramid overlooking Zabukama. The next, he had entered a grand chamber, and a thunderous crack echoed back towards him as it all came back into view. A wave of nausea hit Appo and he stumbled to his knees, just barely keeping himself upright.

“Am I alive?” Appo thought, before immediately puking.

Appo didn’t know where he was. He’d appeared in a spacious room, lined on all sides with thick limestone. Whether he made it to the Temple, he didn’t know, but it reminded him of the sacrificial chamber he had snuck into a few weeks prior. But then again, so had most Shadeonite architecture he had encountered. He could have been in any forgotten underground structure.

Appo’s dizziness eventually subsided, allowing him to get to his feet and take in his surroundings. The first reassuring sign was that Appo noticed the chamber was lit by torchlight. The second was the stuffiness of the room. He assumed people had at least once lived there.

“Okay,” Appo thought, still recovering from the jump to speak, “how do I prove I’m back in Ash?”

As Appo gradually got to his feet, the stuffiness of the room grew stronger. The smell worsened when Appo realized that below him, puddles of blood stained the floor. His disgust morphed into fear as he followed the trail to his right. A gangly, twisted spire of rotten flesh met him. Appo made out a base of four legs, propped together by bits of wire and straw, holding two naked torsos on top of each other. Bits of flesh hung from stripped limbs, spiraling out as the arms split into needle-like appendages. A debrided skull sat on top of the torsos, and from each of the limbs, Appo spotted four degloved faces. Piles of other discarded body parts littered the room, painting the floor of the chamber in a sea of red.

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The smell and the sight of it all hit Appo in another wave of nausea, and he retched again. He needed to leave. At least before whatever created this fresh shrine found him and added to it.

Appo crawled blindly, falling away from the shrine as far as possible. He spotted the vague shapes of statues as he passed, but he refused to look, fearing the sight of more rotten flesh. He dragged himself against the far wall, backing against it before calming himself. No one was coming after him yet.

“This is a mistake. What am I doing here? What even is ‘here?’”

As Appo took in the rest of the room, he found more signs of life. There were several footsteps, many stained piles of blood, and even a firepit. Considering the shrine, someone had spent much time here. But there were no cots, no evidence of someone sleeping here. Appo figured he was alone for now.

Appo followed the footsteps, which seemed to come from a side of the wall. With more investigation, he saw a clear trail pushing dirt from a triangular passageway. Appo looked inside, but it traveled deep. If there was anything on the other side, he could not see it.

Suddenly, the weight of his task felt too heavy a burden. He believed he could come back to Ash and convince Ashfolk to become consecrated to a mysterious God? After all that had assuredly happened since then? If there were survivors, he had never assumed what had become of them. Were they still even sane? What would stop them from killing him on sight?

“Nothing at all,” Appo thought.

Whoever created the shrine, Appo reluctantly realized that he would have to convince them to act otherwise. It was his only chance at stopping the plague. He could do that later.

Appo crawled into the tunnel, compelled by both duty and compulsion.

The tunnel was dark and long and smooth. It went on for far longer than Appo could’ve been comfortable with, but he continued. He needed to rest multiple times, sliding against the sandstone wall every few minutes. Even with two hands, it would have been a struggle. He let his mind wander, thinking back to what Lowya told him. Consecration gave her power, but only if uniform. Appo remembered how militant and passionate many of the worshipers were. Would he need all of them to become consecrated? The more he crawled, the more daunting his task became.

“Talk to me, Lowya,” he pleaded in his head. “Tell me I’m making the right decision, please.” But Appo knew better. Worship wasn’t a conversation, at least here.

He would have to come up with a plan. But what arguments would work? He didn’t even know who lived, or whether he’d want to meet him. He prayed that whoever was at the other end of this tunnel was reasonable.

Appo saw a dim light in the distance after nearly half an hour of crawling. Too late to turn back now.

Appo finally found himself in another open room. He took a deep breath, taking a chance to stretch and get to his feet.

He only had a moment to get his bearings before being punched in the face.