Chapter Text
For 10th-level characters
The opera house is one of the jewels of the city, standing proud among palaces and monuments. Its magnificent façade and opulently decorated interior are as famous as the lavish operatic performances it hosts, bringing together the best and brightest singers, dancers, and musicians of the day.
The ornate artistry of its structure conceals a dark history. Over a century and a half ago, when construction was yet incomplete, the opera house was commandeered as a barracks, a supply depot, and a prison during a period of vicious civil unrest. The cellars in particular were the scene of violence and cruelty from both sides of the conflict, which reached its peak during the final days of strife. Wards were laid on the ground afterwards, that the lingering resentment of the slain might not raise them from their untimely graves.
Dark rumours also abound that the opera house is built over a subterranean lake once used as a lair by a sadistic lich. It is said that he made his home there long ago, and set it about with cruel traps with which to harvest the souls of intruders for his phylactery. If there is any truth to these rumours, the lake has (allegedly) gone undiscovered for so long that the lich must have withered to almost nothing from lack of sustenance. This didn’t stop some morbidly eccentric wizards who were aiding the construction of the opera house from trying to create passages to the lake, until they were caught and summarily turned off the site.
These rumours were given horrific new life a few days ago, when a well-liked member of the scenery-shifting crew was found dead in the third cellar, between a farmhouse and a section of a palace. With the wards shattered by the malign power that had been awakened, undead creatures who had met their mortal end in the long-gone civil unrest, as well as monstrosities attracted by the swelling aura of darkness, began to infest the lower cellars. The opera management promptly had the cellars sealed off and an armed guard placed on the chandelier, and sent out a call for all available adventurers to come and lend their aid. All the while, the cast and crew of the opera continue to carry out their work as best they can – after all, the show must go on!
The characters must investigate the cause of these disturbances, clear the cellars of the undead horrors infesting them, find a way to reach the subterranean lake and defeat the root of the evil once and for all!