Interactive Text Adventure

THE HOLLOW OATH

A Dark Fantasy Dungeon Crawl

TURN 1: The Gibbet at Crows' Rest

Sleet slants sideways across the crossroads at Crows' Rest, needling your face beneath a hood gone stiff with ice. You've ridden three days on a lame horse and a rumor to find Brother Anselm, the hedge-priest who heard the last confession of the man who framed you for the murder of High Justiciar Corvin Ashby. Anselm was the only living soul who could name the true killer. You've found him now. He's hanging from the crossroads gibbet, turning slowly in the wind, and he hasn't been dead long. The rope still creaks with his weight, and the crows haven't yet taken his eyes.

Beneath his dangling feet, a scrawny child in a too-large coat is working at his boots with frozen fingers. She freezes when your horse snorts, then bares crooked teeth like a cornered cat. "He ain't yours," she hisses, clutching one boot to her chest. "Finder's rights. That's the law." You find it bleakly funny that she thinks there's any law left out here, least of all for you.

Then you see it. Something glints between the priest's blackened lips: the edge of an iron key, deliberately wedged there. Nailed to the gibbet post is a strip of parchment, ink running in the sleet: "SO DIE ALL WHO SPEAK FOR THE OATHBREAKER." Beyond the crossroads, half-swallowed by fog, the ruined bell tower of the Abbey of Saint Oda leans against the sky like a broken tooth. The locals swear nobody goes down into its undercroft and comes back whole.

Far off, down the Kingsway, torchlight bobs. It's three flames, maybe four, and they're coming this way.

📍 Location: Crows' Rest crossroads, outside the ruined Abbey of Saint Oda. Night, sleet, bitter cold.

❤️ Status: Healthy (no wounds). Cold, hungry, exhausted from hard riding.

• Vigor: ■■■■■ (5/5)

🎒 Inventory:

• Notched longsword (family heirloom, Thorne crest on the pommel)
• Dented steel breastplate (missing one shoulder strap; left side exposed)
• Patched woolen cloak, soaked through
• 1 torch (unlit), flint & steel
• 2 silver crowns, 9 copper pennies
• 1 day's ration (hard cheese, stale oatcake)
• Waterskin (half full)
• Faded locket with a portrait of your late wife, Elenya
• Lame chestnut mare, Gristle (can walk, can't gallop)

🎯 Objectives:

• Main: Uncover who truly murdered High Justiciar Ashby and clear your name.
• Current: Brother Anselm is dead. Find out what he knew.

🔍 Clues:

• Anselm was hanged recently, possibly within the hour.
• An iron key was deliberately placed in his mouth. By his killers, or by Anselm himself?
• The warning note means someone knew you were coming.

⏳ Threat: Torchbearers approaching on the Kingsway. You estimate a few minutes before they arrive.

What do you do?

1. Seize the key from the corpse's mouth, then question the grave-robber girl about who hanged him. She was here first, and she may have seen them.
2. Hide in the ditch with Gristle and watch the torchbearers. Learn who's hunting you before you act, but risk losing the key if they take it.
3. Grab the key and head straight for the Abbey ruins before the riders arrive, leaving the girl and the crossroads behind.

Or describe your own action.