The Dolorous Chapel Bell

John Dickson Batten

An old ruinous chapel, several miles from the nearest civilized folk.  The stone brick walls are covered in moss and ivy.  At midnight the chapel bell tolls of its own accord.  All who hear the bell may only speak in truths for the next day.  Oaths made under the tolling bell are unbreakable.

A graveyard of unmarked graves is surrounded by a low stone wall nearby.  A black dog (2-in-6 chance of being asleep) can be found here at all times and bites any it sees who enter the area.

The wooden door to the chapel is battered open.  Light seeps through ivy covered windows and holes in the roof.  The nave is littered with fallen debris from above.  Hidden beneath a broken pew is a leather tome bookmarked with a wilted rose.  The book is filled with blasphemous notes on summoning, including the true name of a demon.  Behind the altar is a set of chains and manacles staked between stone bricks and a leather bag filled with moldy bread and wolfsbane.  The stones around the altar have heavy long scratches as if the altar has been slid across them many times.

Beneath the altar is a rotting trap door leading 10 feet down to a stone crypt.  The crypt is a long thin passageway lined with grave niches.  The niches are filled with saintly relics and bones.  The floor is covered in ruined things, the nests of rats (1D4 Rat Swarms), and the bone filled armor of a long dead knight¹.  

 

At the far end of the crypt is a large sealed burial chamber.  Within are the bones of a dragon.

¹ the black dog will not stop any from burying the knight in the graveyard.