Ben stood from his spot, rising slowly, hand clenching a carved cane. A grimace was plastered on his face, an expression that regarded each member of the party in turn.

“What the hell have you done to us!” A beast screamed, a figure that resembled a horrible cross between a vampire and a unicorn. Ben chuckled, the situation oddly entertaining considering the circumstances. Fangs, sharp and jagged, filled the mouth of the creature, and coarse fur formed a shining mane. What hid beneath this facade, what soul, or souls, occupied her mortal shell? Ben nodded to her, his gaze somber.

“I’ve done nothing. This is all a creation of your mind. As you shift from the waking world, where your will is enacted through your actions, you become more… fluid. You become what you would be, if your will had its way. I’ve had my practice, I can shape myself as I enter, though at one point I appeared as a man with molten steel for blood. My senior clerics called it the touch of a god, I call it two decades too long with solid steel in my hands.” Ben replied, turning to the beast of a “man,” if you could call him that, who was obviously the brooding hunter. The smell of a beast’s blood hung heavy in the air around him, stale and pungent. “Ah, a dog of a man, why am I not surprised. You brood like a hound on the hunt.”

“And the demon of a woman. Dust sloughing off, as if a volcano lives beneath your skin. You choke the air around you with ashen detritus.” Ben smiled again, his eyes turning down to his own body. Normal, for the most part. He held up his hand, left replaced with a golden gauntlet, the mark of a cleric. A holy symbol of self sacrifice, for clerics of his order.

Click. Click.

Ben turned, tapping the cane on the ground. The carved ivory glowed briefly, and Ben nodded. “The gods are with us, at least. Perhaps this will end well. ” He looked out over the hallway, the floor’s depthless void and the sickly brown walls. He curled his lips, eyes nearly watering at the stench of half-rotten flesh. The oils on the wall dripped as he passed, splattering onto the floor briefly, before smoky tendrils of magic returned the drops back to their starting position. He began walking down the passage, accompanied only by the noise of his footfalls. “Mind the walls. It seems touching them would be supremely unpleasant.”