Temple of Kelemvor

Main Building

A large stone structure rises up before you, visible from a block away as it pierces over the local skyline. It is stern, solid. Tall and wide like a typical gravestone, its proportions make it seem shallower than it actually is. Beautiful stained glass mosaics line its wide face, flanked by squared pillars carved with depictions of waves, pathways, and bones that rise up to the top, broken only by a banded outcropping on which birds perch. Two lanterns surround the main metal doors, glowing with an unearthly purple that flickers ever so slightly, almost unaffected by the harsher wind and snowfall.

The doors are closed and moderately polished, carved to depict two skeletons with arms stretched inwards so that they appear to be presenting the interior once the doors are flung open. The rust and aging on them seems natural to your eyes, but no matter how long you state at it, you feel something off about it, like staring at fabricated randomness.

Although the doors are closed, nothing indicates the temple is not taking visitors, and a few acolytes are outside, holding shovels but not doing any work.

The same corridor extends before her, walls to either side decorated by small alcoves that burn oil lanterns. A pillar shaped like those outside is set between each alcove, and an empty portal leads deeper into the gloomy building. From here, Trick can see the wider temple, the mosaic beyond depicting a Kelemvor in life and death. A sound of soft, trickling water from the twin fountains echoes all throughout, enveloping you where silent prayers and music may have been expected.

Catacombs

Nahlon guides you out of the temple. You round it as the acolytes begin actually putting some work into shoveling snow, and near one of the building's two thin sides.

A small outcropping of stone rises just above a solid metal door. It stands against time, unrusted and unsullied, and a large ring sits at its center in the mouth of a carved skull.

Nahlon taps the ring against the door a few times, in a rhythm that speeds up and slows down without any real middle, and the door pushes open.

The stairs are narrow, stone placed above stone and worn not by feet, but by time itself. The air cools fast, as if the outside winter had been seeping into the bowels of the temple and waiting for a host to latch onto and drain warmth from. Soon, the stairs feel less placed and more carved into the ground. There is no dust.

The edges of the floor of this narrow corridor are carved with shallow grooves that rise up through the walls to meet alcoves in which candles, incense, and stone bowls sit. The bowls seem to have some sort of drainage system, drips feeding into the grooves ever so slowly. Looking at the back of each alcove, stone plaques holds names and dates, multiple per space.

You walk for a good while, making turns and curves through quiet halls that feel the same yet are not really that, lit only by weak candles and sticks of incense that resist against the strange cold.

Nahlon stops as the corridor begins growing wider, as if two halls fused into one. Another groove flows through the center now, connected to the edges. Before you, a door is closed, arch flowing up into a single point, and a single oil lantern is stuck to the wall on each side.

The Chamber of Promise

As old as the temple, if not older. It is possible the Temple was built where it is due to it.

Although its opening was accompanied by creaks, the door finishes its motion without a single sound.

The chamber beyond breaks the designs of the tomb, in a way. Lit up by a blue flame at its center as you step inside. The chamber is circular, if only roughly. Ten straight walls surround you, and the chamber's ceiling is low, barely a few quarters of inches above Ravik's head. It is nearly sterile; there are no alcoves with candles, nor incense, no lamps, no bowls, no dust, no water.

Only a floor covered in a light dusting of sand... and sashes.

Dozens of them.

Woven cloth, old and faded, is hung in careful loops around the walls. Some are knotted together, stuck to rings of stone. Others are singular, instead tied next to siblings of different colors. All of them stand still, not reacting to the wind that your movement brings to the chamber.

At the very center, a rectangular stone plinth rises up to roughly hip height. It is made of sandstone, carved away by time in a way that suggests it might have already been old before being placed here. A lantern that is similar to the one depicted in the first scroll hangs from a chain of silver right above the stone plinth. It is the source of light that welcomed you.

The channels along the wall light up with that same blue light, except without any flame. Only water.

At the stone plinth, a small sash is laid out, its long ends dangling from the left and right side of the plinth. It is not colorful like the others in the room, but made of a rustic tan-brown that is trimmed with threads of silver and gold. Colorful patterns decorate its surface, but their designs are unclear from afar.