The Temple of the Moth Mother

The temple rises from the dust of the jungle, and thousands of moths with wings like aged parchment cloak its walls, breathing slowly in the moonlight. A candle burns in every alcove, and the moths circle each flame without ever catching fire. A blind priest feels you approach and turns his face toward you: the moths carry messages from the dead, he whispers, and tonight one of them is meant for you.

But the temple is sick. Pilgrims who came to worship the eternal lamplight are vanishing into the dark, and glistening cocoons hang from the vaults with something still stirring feebly inside. The moths are growing larger, hungrier, and the soft rustle of their wings works its way even into your dreams. Something deep within the temple calls them, and they obey without hesitation.

You decipher the moth-tongue written in patterns of powder across the altars, cut a half-living pilgrim free from a snarl of threads, and descend stairs strewn with wing-dust toward the innermost chamber, where the light burns brightest. Along the way you finally grasp the message the dead truly had for you: a warning, not a blessing.

At the heart of the temple waits the Moth Mother: no god, but a colossal creature that drinks in the lamplight and spins souls into cocoons. Her wings snuff out every flame you kindle, and her voice sounds like the rustling of a thousand wings at once. Will you extinguish the false light and free the captive pilgrims before dawn, or become whispering messengers yourselves upon the walls of the Moth Mother?