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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ver9Axdpry8
[@Kazemitsu][@Eviledd1984][/center]

	[i]The toll of the bell grew louder as you both resumed your search throughout the village.  Much to your chagrin, you found no survivors, nor any signs of life.  It was as though this village was never inhabited in the first place, yet there was evidence abound that people once lived here: larders stocked with food and supplies, still fresh by all accounts, beds neatly made albeit the sheets and fabrics worn with age.  There was even food left on the table, as if whole meals were prepared by families, now rotting and discarded after so many years, the scent putrid and foul as leftover meats and vegetables buzzed with flies and writhed with maggots.

	"Where is everyone?"  You wondered as you continued your search.  Something terrible, given the amount of blood found shed across the village, but oddly no corpses.

	Eventually, your path led you towards the chapel standing at the end of the haunted hamlet like an ever-watchful sentinel.  Its solitary steeple rose high into the air, adorned with a faded iron cross.  Bats scattered from the belfry as another resounding gong echoed amidst the contrary winds.  The stained glass windows were caked over with layer upon layer of dust and cobwebs, so much that they had lost their shimmer and were nothing more than mute, drab colors.  All around the chapel were gravestones covered in moss and flecked with cracks and fissures, a sizeable cemetery it was.  The engravings were so worn with time, there was no way to tell whom these earthly tombs belonged to.

Slowly and cautiously, you drew near the weathered sanctuary, as if called to it by some unseen force...or perhaps the continuous ringing of the iron bell.  A small flickering light sprang up from the darkness, filling one of the windows with a soft amber glow.  "There's somebody in there!"  You thought.  At last, another living person.  However...could you have been certain they were friend or foe?  After all...there was something terribly off about this place.  Why did it feel less like a house of the holy...

...and more like a den of demons?[/i]
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[@shadowsaint007][@Zeroth][/center]

	[i]While [color=a0410d][b]Valentina[/b][/color] and [color=ed1c24][b]Kharne[/b][/color] split away from the rest of your group, you decided you would search the nearby inn.  All the while, you couldn't shake the feeling as though you were being watched from a distance, as if hundreds of invisible eyes fell upon you, constantly leering at the back of your heads.  The chilling sensation persisted, even as you trudged through muck and mire, pushing your way towards a dilapidated, two-story structure flanked by several dead, twisted trees.  A small wooden placard hung from the doorway, the chipped and faded paint barely readable.  However, you could discern at least one word from the eroded message: [b]Inn[/b].

	A small, steady stream trickled beside the building, curving around the back and flowing towards the front as a sort of moat.  Alas, there was no bridge to cross it.  None to be found at least.

	Bert grumbled impatiently, his big arms crossed with his fingers drumming on his flexed bicep, a constant scowl aimed towards the bumbling thief as [b][color=7ea7d8]Chance[/color][/b] searched for a fallen branch.

	Meanwhile, something stirred beneath the black, inky water, perturbed by [color=7ea7d8]Chance's[/color] earlier blundering.[/i]