Location The Bowels of Balmut

[Cantrip]

The Bowels of Balmut Gaze from the high, crumbling ramparts of Ahnatep, and you’ll see a dark spine of ridges swelling near the coast. The juts of red, rocky crags fade away to a sprawl of caverns. They’re as myriad as the scales on a viper, mostly undelved, and remain harshly claustrophobic. They hunch and taper, then soar to vastly vaulted arcades, vaguely ranging from empty to replete with plunging blades of bedrock, strange cairns of polished river stones. The grit is laden with bat guano, and the very air writhes and rustles with the beating of vanishing wings. The caverns are staunchly avoided. They stretch along forever, like a huge, motley jigsaw confused by an inky gloom. The unwary intruder will surely be beset by threads of chaos, visions of what it’s there. There are tawdry secrets, and perhaps treasures, but they’ve yet to be vanquished. The scourge of insanity is always hungry. There’s an incessant howling, beginning as a faint whistling of the wind. The howl begins to diverge in a cacophony of shrieks and chatters, dread whispers, the clanking of bones and the skirl of pipes, the muted beat of drums. They meld seductively, so cloying in their discordant melody. The firmest of wills inexorably crumbles to despair. Eypharians frequently dismiss the howling as a trick played by the winds. There are also rumors that it’s merely the wailing and gnashing of molars by a throng of lurid specters, souls that’ve gone astray in the caverns and can’t ever get out. The myths are infinite, as are the dangers.