The door on the right into the heart of darkness.

With no clues to go on, Althea decided at random and quickly grabbed the door handle to her right. The priestess dashed inside, quietly shutting the door behind her. She took a moment to catch her breath, resting her head against the heavy, wooden door. When she heard the cultists march past without stopping, she let out a soft, shuddering sigh of relief.

All of that changed when she turned around. The walls curved around into the darkness beyond. Althea guessed it formed a great circle with no definitive corners. Unlike the crude stone floors of the hallway, this chamber had an ornate mosaic of small tiles painted in all manner of pestilent colors. There was pus green, yellow bile, infection scarlet, bubonic black, bleached bone white, and so many more. But this was not even the most captivating nor horrifying adornment to the domed, circular room. At the chamber’s center stood a black and crooked altar carved from the infamous, ever-rotting wood of the Gloomgnarl Oak, a rare tree renowned for its origin in the Abyss. Even from this distance and only by the light of her broomstick, Althea discerned eldritch runes chiseled into the wood.

Yet more frightening still was the twenty-foot statue of Nihilipox looming above the broad, blackwood altar. Hewn from the demonic, burgundy-colored obsidian known commonly as bloodstone, it bore a striking figure. The mold-mottled statue bore the head of a stag skull, the upper body of a hulking, bloated, tumorous humanoid with three tentacles in place of each arm, and the lower body of a lumpy, serpentine worm. Nine spears sat lodged in his stooped back, each decorated with a dangling chain. Every hook at the end of each chain sported a trophy skull.

No doubt about it. This was Nihilipox. Simply standing in the presence of the statue and altar set off a trembling in Althea’s guts. No, no… not again. Sweat sprung from her forehead and neck, coursing down into the folds of her heretical green robes. Then her vision began to blur. Was this the power of the demon lord? Althea averted her gaze, and while the dizziness passed she felt the warmth pooling in her crotch. She needed to get out of here.