Session 32

They arrived at the entrance to the tomb two hours later.

The sky was darkening as they broke through the last of the overgrown jungle and stepped into a rocky clearing at the base of a massive limestone cliff. Around a small bend in the cliff wall, the stone formed a wide cul-de-sac, and three dark openings yawned from its face.

No vegetation grew within the cul‑de‑sac despite the jungle climbing partway up the cliff on either side. The air felt heavy here; the boisterous sounds of the jungle were muted, and a faint chill lingered despite the day’s humidity.

“I guess this is it,” Xalen said, more to break the oppressive silence than to state the obvious.

“Huddle together,” Ebyn said. “I’ll link us telepathically.” He turned, only to find Xalen and Brabara already sticking their heads into two of the openings.

Ebyn sighed and looked at Seknafret. “Honestly, I don’t know why I bother sometimes.”

“Someone’s been here a few years ago,” Xalen called. “Looks like a pit trap was triggered. There’s a skeleton at the bottom, and someone laid a plank across the gap. It’s rotten now though.”

“Get back here,” Ebyn snapped. “Don’t touch anything until we’re connected. If some magic trap sends you away, at least we’ll be able to communicate.”

“That can happen?” Xalen gulped.

“Weren’t you listening when your so‑called sister told us about Acererak’s love of traps?” Ebyn said.

“She is my sister, Ebyn,” Xalen countered. “There’s nothing so‑called about it.”

“In any case, she was quite clear that the architect of this tomb – despite the madness which drove him – had a great love of deadly traps. And on this world, at least, he was considered a master of the craft.”

Xalen nodded. “Fair enough. I’ll wait for you to finish whatever you need to do.”

Ten minutes later, the ritual was complete, the group was linked, and Xalen returned to his exploration.

He peered into the leftmost opening. The floor was spotless, and a pair of double doors with metal handles stood on the far wall. His expert eye swept the perfectly tiled floor. Something caught his attention; he crouched, tools in hand. A few deft flicks later, he stood, suspicions confirmed.

“Floor’s trapped,” he said. “Simple depression switch. Brabara, grab one of those rocks and toss it in.”

Brabara hefted a stone and hurled it into the chamber. The instant it struck the floor, an audible click echoed. A perfectly fitted stone slab dropped from above, sealing the opening. A heartbeat later, a powerful whoosh sounded from behind the slab.

Xalen nodded, satisfied, and moved to the rightmost opening.

Like the first chamber, the floor here was pristine. Another set of double doors stood at the rear, but these bore writing, and the walls were dotted with countless tiny holes. Xalen crouched again, checking the tiles near the threshold. Finding no switch, he advanced slowly, testing each tile ahead of him.

He found the trigger about ten feet in.

Backing out carefully, he called Brabara over. She repeated the stone toss. The rock struck the marked tile with a crunch, and the room erupted in a storm of tiny darts.

Volley after volley blasted from the myriad holes, ricocheting harmlessly off the far wall. When the barrage finally ceased, the floor was carpeted with spent darts.

Brabara stepped forward, but Xalen placed a hand on her shoulder.

“I wouldn’t walk in there,” he warned. “The darts may have stopped flying, but they could still be poisoned. Lose your balance or step wrong and you’ll look like a pincushion.”

“Poison doesn’t bother me,” Brabara said.

“Good to know,” Xalen replied. “But no sense testing that unless we must. I’ll fly across and see what the writing on the door says.”

Brabara shrugged and stepped aside so Xalen could fly to a clear patch of floor at the rear of the room near the closed double doors. He bent down to read the inscription.

Acererak commends you! Alas, these doors lead nowhere, but your skill shall not go unrewarded. Should you wish to plumb the depths of my tomb, heed these words: The blue one craves your magic.

Xalen tried the double doors anyway. They were stuck fast.

“I guess he wasn’t lying about that,” Xalen said as he flew back to the others. “Something just occurred to me. Why is the middle entrance the only one that shows signs of a triggered trap?”

“Maybe we’re the first to set the other two off,” Brabara suggested.

“Unlikely, given the age of this place,” Seknafret said. “It is an interesting question, though. Perhaps the natives reset them from time to time.”

Ebyn shook his head. “I doubt that. Based on what Laysa said about how this place was built. I suspect the local population won’t come anywhere near it.”

“Then what? Magic?” Brabara asked.

“Why not?” Ebyn replied. “Acererak was an accomplished spellcaster – trained by Vecna himself. Resetting traps magically wouldn’t be beyond him.”

“Okay,” Xalen said, eyes fixed on the central opening. “So why magically reset these two but leave the middle one exposed?”

Ebyn considered that. “Because that is not the trap,” he said with a satisfied smile. “If there is a trap, it must be something else.”

Xalen peered into the central opening. The sky above still held streaks of bright orange, but the cul‑de‑sac was fully shaded, and what little light remained reached no farther than the edge of the spike pit and the rotten plank. He shifted his vision toward the dark and looked deeper.

At the rear of the chamber was what appeared to be a stylized devil face – and unlike the other features of the entrance, this one was worn by time. Xalen activated the magic of his boots, flew across the pit, and landed before the mosaic.

The design was made from thousands of fingernail‑sized tiles, many of which had fallen away, but the image was unmistakable. The devil’s mouth gaped wide, a ten‑foot‑wide opening filled with a darkness Xalen could not penetrate, no matter how he strained his vision. The eyes were fashioned from a single opaque white crystal, and ornate horns curled around the head in complex patterns, broken in places where tiles had fallen.

To the right of the mosaic was a simple door with a metal handle. Xalen examined it and found no lock. He gingerly pulled the handle. The door did not budge.

“There’s a mosaic of a devil face on the far wall,” Xalen reported over the link. “Its mouth is open. Big enough to climb into, but I can’t see how deep it goes.”

“What colour are the tiles?” Ebyn asked.

Xalen gathered a handful of fallen tiles and flew back out. Brabara raised a torch, and they all examined the small ceramic chips.

“Looks blue to me,” Brabara said.

“The blue one craves your magic,” Seknafret whispered. “I think to unlock the door, we need to place a magic item in the devil’s mouth.”

“I’ve got a magic weapon I never use,” Xalen said. “I’ll try that and see what happens.”

A cold whisper slid into his mind, sharper than a dagger’s edge. “Not me,” his magic blade hissed. “I will not be discarded.”

The voice carried a weight it hadn’t before, a possessive hunger that made the hairs on Xalen’s arms rise. His hand fell to the hilt of the sword, grip tightening involuntarily, as though the weapon were trying to anchor itself in his mind, refusing to be let go.

“Not you,” Xalen thought back quickly, forcing calm into his mental tone. Even so, he felt the blade’s displeasure coil beneath his skin like a tightening snare. “Another knife I no longer need.”

He removed a knife from his belt, then flew back into the chamber. With deliberate care – and a lingering sense of being watched by the blade at his hip – he placed the enchanted knife into the devil’s mouth.

The moment he released it, the blade vanished with a faint popping sound, almost like a swallowed breath.

Xalen exhaled, only then realizing how much tension had gathered in his shoulders. He moved to the door and pulled.

It didn’t budge.

“No joy,” he shared over the link. “Maybe it needs a spell.”

“Stay there,” Seknafret said. “I’ll send some eldritch blasts into the mouth.”

Xalen waited as Seknafret unleashed a volley of crackling force.

“Try now,” she called.

Xalen pulled on the door again. “Still nothing.”

The spellcasters tried various combinations of cantrips with no success. Seknafret escalated, conjuring a wall of fire and hurling it directly into the devil’s mouth. Ebyn watched closely as the flames roared to life – only to be swallowed whole by the unnatural darkness. The door remained stubbornly shut.

“I think we need to be closer,” Ebyn suggested. “Perhaps the mouth wants the casting energy, not the spell’s effect.”

“It’s worth a shot,” Seknafret said. “We can fly across and cast from there.”

“Um… guys?” Brabara said. “How am I supposed to get across?”

Ebyn rolled his eyes. “I told you to get winged boots when we were in Sigil.”

“No flying!” Brabara practically shouted. She took a steadying breath. “No. This body stays on the ground, thank you very much. So given that, how do I get across?”

They brainstormed for a moment, and after a few false starts managed to rig a swinging rope using the immovable rod fixed near the ceiling.

Brabara ran forward, leapt as far as she could, grabbed the rope – and immediately lost her grip. She crashed into the sharpened spikes below with a loud clatter. Her armour spared her from serious injury, but her pride suffered a mortal wound. A very glum Brabara climbed out of the pit on the far side.

Xalen’s mouth twitched into a smile that froze instantly when Brabara shot him a murderous glare.

No one said a word as the large warrior stomped toward the door where Xalen stood.

“Are we ready?” Seknafret asked.

She took a deep breath and began casting. She felt the magic being pulled from her even before the incantation finished – threads of the Weave ripped from her grasp and devoured by the devil’s gaping maw. When she released the spell, its effects vanished entirely into the darkness.

One of the crystal eyes flared with a deep green glow.

“One more should do it,” Seknafret said. “But after this, I’ll need a short rest.”

She cast again. Once more the magic was torn away, consumed utterly.

The second eye glowed green, and the door clicked open.

“Inside, quickly,” she hissed.

The group slipped through the narrow doorway and entered a long, jewel‑encrusted tunnel. A closed door stood halfway down on the right, and at the far end the passage opened into a hexagonal chamber dominated by a crystal statue shaped like a breaking wave.

Xalen and Brabara started toward the statue.

“There’s something written on the base of that thing,” Xalen said as they approached.

“Stay here! Don’t touch anything!” Ebyn hissed. “We need to rest so Seknafret can replenish her magic.”

Xalen halted mid‑step. “Do you see that?” He pointed toward the statue. “I think something’s moving around it.”

“Yes,” Brabara said. “Like some kind of snake.”

“Stay here,” Ebyn repeated, each word clipped. “We explore once Seknafret has recovered.”

The pair reluctantly returned to where Ebyn and Seknafret waited near the door.

As they sat, all four became aware of a dissonant whispering at the edge of their hearing. A persistent, sibilant murmur that almost formed words but dissolved whenever they tried to focus on it. Concentrating made it fade to the periphery; ignoring it made it swell, insistent and needling. Any other sound pushed it away, but in silence it thrived.

It was with genuine relief that Seknafret finally announced she was ready.

She set a flame burning at the tip of her staff, bathing the narrow tunnel in warm light. The flickering glow danced across thousands of jewels embedded in the walls – red, green, yellow, pink, blue, and clear stones, all identical in size but arranged without any discernible pattern.

“This wave is green,” Xalen said, reading the inscription at the statue’s base. “That’s what the words say. And there’s no sign of the snake thing we saw earlier.”

“The snake thing was mine,” Ebyn admitted. “I created an illusion, so you’d stay away.”

Brabara fixed him with a hard stare. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t resort to stupid magic tricks.”

“And I’d appreciate it if I didn’t have to,” Ebyn shot back.

“If you’re done being indignant,” Xalen said, sounding entirely uninterested in their argument, “it looks like there’s a spot where one of these gems might fit.”

“But which one?” Brabara asked, eyeing the kaleidoscope of colours around them.

“I’m guessing a green one,” Xalen said.

Brabara turned and pressed her thumb against a green gem embedded in the wall.

A jet of painfully cold air blasted from the wave statue, slamming into her and Seknafret. The sudden drop in temperature knocked the breath from both women.

“Not that one, I suppose,” Brabara wheezed once she’d recovered. “Sekna, are you okay?”

Seknafret coughed. “I’ll live. Just… don’t press another one until we’re sure.”

“Hold on,” Xalen said. “Can I take this?” He lifted Seknafret’s flame‑tipped staff and walked slowly along the passage, raising and lowering the light. “One of these has to be different… ah. Here.”

He handed the staff back and examined the green gem he’d singled out, comparing it to the others. “This one’s an actual emerald,” he announced. “The rest are coloured glass. Good quality costume jewellery, but still worthless.”

Using his tools, he pried the emerald free and tossed it to Ebyn by the statue.

Ebyn caught it and placed it into the divot. A loud click echoed through the tunnel, and the door swung open.

“This scary dungeon puzzle dude isn’t all that,” Xalen said as he strutted into the newly unlocked corridor.

The acrid stench of acid assaulted their nostrils as they stepped into the passage. Xalen took the lead, moving lightly down the tunnel until it opened into a long chamber with two vats of rippling acid flanking a narrow central walkway.

Every so often, his keen ears caught the faint hiss of air blasts. Irregular and soft, the puffs seemed barely strong enough to disturb dust, yet the acid’s surface rippled as though stirred by a stiff breeze.

About sixty feet across the room, another landing led into a further passage.

Xalen activated the magic of his boots and began flying between the two pools toward the far side. He had gone no more than five feet when a blast of air struck him, then another, and another. The sudden gusts hit with shocking force, spinning him out of control. He crashed down into the acid.

The young thief screamed as the caustic liquid seared his flesh. He clawed his way out as fast as he could and collapsed on his back on the near landing, panting.

“Perhaps I underestimated scary dungeon puzzle dude,” he managed weakly.

Ebyn stepped forward and withdrew one of the scrolls Alustriel had provided. He spoke the words and extended his arms – one toward the wall near Brabara, the other toward the far landing. The scroll burned away as the magic took hold, and two glowing portals flared into existence.

“That should allow us all to cross safely,” he said. “Brabara, if you wouldn’t mind.”

Brabara nodded and stepped through the nearest arcane gate, emerging in the passage beyond the acid pools. She peered ahead and found herself at the entrance to a massive chamber dominated by three large stone statues. Two, sculpted as giant cobras, stood in alcoves carved into the rear wall. The third, an imposing figure with the upper torso of a six‑armed woman and the lower body of a serpent, towered at the chamber’s centre.

“You’ll need to move so we can get through,” Ebyn prompted through the link.

Brabara stepped fully into the statue room.

The three snake statues animated instantly. The two giant cobras’ eyes flared a sickly green, and they slithered forward with a grinding stone rasp, their movements rhythmic and hypnotic. Brabara felt her vision blur for a heartbeat, her mind tugged toward the sway of their bodies, and she had to grit her teeth to keep from slipping into the trance.

The six‑armed hybrid was not subtle. It surged toward her with terrifying speed, blades raised. The first strike hammered into her shield. The second carved a line across her pauldron. The third and fourth hit home, biting deep. The fifth she barely turned aside. The sixth whistled past her ear.

Then the tail came. A thick, muscular coil that smashed into the wall beside her, cracking stone like brittle ice.

The others stepped through the portal just in time to see Brabara stagger under the assault.

“This is perfect,” Xalen’s blade whispered in his mind. “Use me. Let me taste them.”

Xalen drew it, jaw tight, and moved to intercept one of the cobras.

Seknafret ducked behind a pillar and began weaving the sigils for banishment. She thrust her hand forward, releasing the spell, only to have it fizzle, absorbed by the dungeon itself.

“That’s not good,” she breathed.

The six‑armed creature reacted instantly. It vanished in a blink and reappeared beside her. All six blades struck. Seknafret screamed as steel tore into her, blood spraying across the mosaic floor.

Ebyn didn’t hesitate. He traced a sigil in the air and slammed his hands together. Stone erupted around the hybrid creature, slabs rising like jaws to encase it in a prison half a foot thick.

Inside, the monster roared. The walls shook as it hurled itself against them. Cracks spider‑webbed across the stone.

“It won’t hold long,” Ebyn warned. “Finish the cobras!”

Brabara and Ebyn focused on one cobra while Xalen and Seknafret – pale, shaking, but still fighting – took the other. The constructs were relentless, their stone fangs snapping, their bodies coiling with unnatural precision. Brabara’s glaive sparked against stone. Xalen’s blade whispered instructions, hungry and eager, guiding his hand to weak points in the joints.

One cobra shattered under Brabara’s final blow. The other collapsed moments later, its head splitting apart under Xalen’s strike.

The room fell silent for half a heartbeat.

Then the stone prison exploded.

The six‑armed creature burst free in a shower of rubble, its blades slick with Seknafret’s blood. It teleported again, appearing behind Ebyn this time, blades already descending.

Brabara threw herself between them. The first strike slammed into her shield, the second into her shoulder. The third carved across her ribs. She roared in pain but held her ground.

Xalen darted in, blade flashing. Seknafret, barely standing, raised a trembling hand and unleashed a blast of force that staggered the creature just long enough for Brabara to drive her knee into its midsection.

Ebyn finished the sequence. He thrust his staff forward, releasing a pulse of raw arcane energy that cracked the creature’s stone skin.

The hybrid reeled, its movements jerky now, its teleport flickering like a dying flame.

Brabara didn’t give it a chance to recover. She stepped in, teeth bared, and brought her weapon down with every ounce of strength she had left.

The creature collapsed, its six blades clattering across the floor.

Silence settled over the chamber, broken only by Seknafret’s ragged breathing.

Brabara leaned on her weapon, blood dripping from her armour. “That… sucked.”

Ebyn approached the fallen creature, eyes narrowing. Embedded in one of its hands was a curved blade of dark metal, still humming faintly with residual magic.

“A scimitar,” he murmured. “And one of the items Laysa asked for.”

He pried it free. The weapon resisted for a heartbeat, as though unwilling to leave its former master, then slid into his grip with a cold, metallic whisper.

Xalen’s blade hissed in his mind, voice thick with disdain. “That trinket is nothing compared to me.”

“Of course,” Xalen replied silently. “I imagine few weapons are.”

A pulse of smug satisfaction rippled through the sword as he watched Ebyn wrap the scimitar and stow it away.

“Do you want us to take a break?” Brabara asked, eyeing Seknafret’s wounds.

“No. We rested only a few rooms back,” Seknafret said. “Healing potions will suffice.”

“You’re sure?” Brabara pressed.

“Yes. I’ll be fine.”

They searched the rest of the chamber and found nothing that posed an immediate threat. A tunnel in the left wall led out of the room, and Xalen risked a quick glance inside to confirm no creatures lurked within, ready to strike.

A long passage stretched into darkness, regularly spaced alcoves lining either side. Each alcove held a musical instrument – all eight of them immaculately maintained despite the centuries. Xalen peered ahead and could just make out a set of double doors at the far end, each carved with what looked like a gaping skull.

“I guess we’re supposed to play a song or something,” Xalen said. “Anyone pick up musical talent while I wasn’t looking?”

The others laughed.

“Don’t look at me,” Brabara said. “I’m pretty sure I’m tone‑deaf.”

“Oh, you are,” Xalen quipped. “No question about it.”

Seknafret considered the instruments. “Let me try. I do have some oratory training, it might help.”

“Are you sure?” Brabara asked. “Remember what happened when you joined the orchestra in Barovia?”

Seknafret rolled her eyes. “I don’t see anyone else volunteering. Do you?”

“Okay,” Xalen said. “Any preference for what to play?”

Seknafret shrugged. “Whatever’s closest.”

Xalen stepped forward, lifted a beautifully crafted lyre from its alcove, and handed it to her. Seknafret brushed her fingers across the strings.

“It’s already tuned,” she said, shifting the instrument into position. “All right. Here goes.”

Her nimble fingers coaxed out a simple melody, a tune they all recognized from their time in Neverwinter. Despite her lack of training, she reached the end with only a few sour notes.

The others clapped.

Seknafret screamed.

The lyre fell from her hands as she clutched her head. The pain lasted only a heartbeat, but it left her vision swimming with swirling lights and a throbbing ache behind her eyes.

“I guess I wasn’t good enough,” she managed once she could speak again. “Anyone else want to try?”

“No. Nobody is going to try,” Brabara growled, stomping down the passage toward the doors. When she reached the midpoint of the alcoves, the remaining instruments flared with purple light and began playing all at once. The discordant cacophony hammered into her skull, and she staggered forward, barely keeping her feet. The sound ceased the moment she reached the doors.

“I’ve had about enough of this,” she spat, turning her attention to the carvings.

The skulls were theatre masks – one happy, one sad. Inside each mouth was an opening large enough to fit an arm. Above them, a phrase was carved:

Pay the toll, in blood, or in song.

“Here goes nothing,” Brabara muttered, kneeling.

“What are you doing?” Ebyn asked over the psychic link.

“Getting these damn doors open,” she replied, and shoved an arm into each mouth up to the elbow.

The mouths clamped down. Hard.

Brabara felt her bones creak under the pressure. Even her adamantine armour couldn’t protect her from the crushing force. She groaned as something in her arm cracked – and then, with a heavy click, the doors unlocked.

The mouths released her, and Brabara staggered back.

“I wouldn’t recommend that to anyone,” she said, fishing out a healing potion with her good arm and downing it.

She pushed the doors open, and her heart sank.

“Looks like some kind of library,” she said, her headache worsening, and not just from the lingering discordant notes.

“A library, you say,” Ebyn breathed, unable to hide his excitement.

The others passed between the alcoves without incident – Brabara’s blood payment clearly sufficient.

As Ebyn reached her, he leaned in. “Thank you, Brabara,” he whispered, handing her a healing potion. “We’re lucky to have your brave leadership.”

Brabara sucked in a breath, cheeks reddening. She searched his face for sarcasm and found none. “Wow,” she said softly. “That means a lot, Ebyn.”

“What does?” Xalen said.

Damn that boy’s keen hearing.

“Ebyn gave me one of his healing potions,” Brabara said, holding up the vial.

“If you need healing,” Seknafret offered, “I still have some power left.”

Brabara’s cheeks flushed deeper. “No, this’ll do.”

Shelves filled with tomes and scrolls lined the walls of the expansive chamber. Five stone statues depicting skeletal warriors stood sentinel throughout the room, each with two green gems embedded in its chest at shoulder height.

Two passages exited the room to the left and right, and two wooden doors stood in the rear wall, flanking the double doors they had just entered through.

“Don’t touch anything,” Ebyn warned. “Let me cast an augury before we proceed.”

Brabara nodded, still nursing her arm despite the potion’s work. Ebyn’s caution often frustrated her, but after what she’d just endured, she followed his advice without hesitation.

Ebyn’s first ritual was complete. “What outcome will result from tampering with any item on the shelves in this room?” he whispered to the fates.

“Woe to any who seek to pilfer the tomes here,” came the sibilant reply.

He followed the augury with a casting of detect magic. His vision shifted, revealing the auras in the room. Every shelf shimmered with abjuration magic, and each of the five statues radiated transmutation.

“I expect touching any of the books or scrolls will cause the statues to animate and attack,” Ebyn said. “Let’s do what inventory we can without disturbing anything.”

“Why would we want to do that?” Xalen asked.

“Because this tomb was built by Acererak,” Ebyn replied. “A lich who studied under Vecna. Very few people alive today have that kind of firsthand knowledge of our enemy. There could be something here that helps us defeat him.”

Xalen sighed. “Fine. But maybe we should check the exits first.”

“Sounds like you’re planning to be here a while,” Seknafret said. “I’ll rest and recover my spells.”

Xalen crossed the room and checked the passage on the left. It turned sharply after a few paces and ended at a wall of impenetrable blackness. He approached the line where the darkness began and cocked his head.

No sound came from beyond.

He picked up a pebble and tossed it into the void. It clattered a short distance away.

He shared his findings, then crossed the library to investigate the opposite passage. This one also turned sharply but opened into a long chamber with a narrow bridge spanning an inky black vortex. The vortex spun beneath the bridge with a deep rumbling that grew louder as he approached.

“Might wait for the others on this one,” Xalen muttered, and returned to the library to check the two doors.

He passed Ebyn, who was already scribbling notes furiously.

“Anything good so far?” Xalen asked.

“Nothing significant yet,” Ebyn said. “I’ve only just begun.”

Xalen reached the first door. It was locked. He checked for traps, found none, and worked the lock. It clicked open.

Another wall of total darkness greeted him.

He moved to the second door and repeated the process. No traps, an easy lock, and once again nothing but a solid curtain of blackness beyond.

“I hate this place,” Xalen said, sitting down beside Seknafret. “No wonder everyone thought the architect was insane. Who makes rooms filled with absolute darkness?”

“You get tactile feedback from your mage hand, right?” Ebyn asked without looking up.

“That’s right.”

“Then use it to feel out the rooms. At least you’ll know their size.”

Xalen considered that. “Good idea.” He stood and walked to the nearest darkened doorway.

He cast the spell and sent his mage hand across the threshold, keeping it low and close to the wall. The hand crawled around the perimeter until it emerged back into the library. He sent it in again, this time climbing up to the ceiling and repeating the circuit.

“This room seems to be a ten‑by‑ten cube,” Xalen said. “Empty as far as I can tell.”

He repeated the process on the second door. Same result.

“Another ten‑by‑ten room. Also empty.”

“What’s the point of rooms like this?” Brabara said. “The darkness must be hiding something.”

“Let me check the last dark area before you go blustering around,” Xalen said, and walked to the first of the three voids he had found earlier.

He sent his mage hand crawling along the floor again. This time it encountered obstacles: the legs of a chair, a side table pushed against the wall. He sent the hand farther, but it was about to move beyond his range before reaching the opposite side. He shifted it perpendicular until it found another wall about fifteen feet away, then guided it back toward the entrance. Again, it brushed what felt like a chair, and perhaps a desk.

When the hand returned, Xalen drew his bow, nocked an arrow, and aimed into the darkness. He listened carefully and released. The arrow clattered against a distant wall.

“I have no idea what this room is supposed to be,” Xalen said as he returned to the library.

Ebyn had begun cataloguing the shelves near the middle of the room, while Brabara tied one end of a rope around her waist and looped the other over the immovable rod she had fixed in the air outside the leftmost darkened doorway.

“I’m going in,” she said, hefting her glaive and stepping through.

Her sight vanished instantly. The darkness was absolute, deeper than anything she had ever experienced. She reached up and touched her face to make sure she still had a body, then kept one hand on the wall.

“Anything?” Xalen called, using his actual voice instead of the telepathic link.

“Nothing so far,” Brabara said. “I’m moving toward the rear wall.”

She inched forward, one hand sliding along the stone, the other extended with fingers splayed. Halfway across the room, something brushed her side. The cold was so intense it burned.

It didn’t radiate. It didn’t linger. It simply flared against her skin and vanished.

Brabara staggered forward to escape the pain and collided with the back wall. She spun, glaive raised, ready for another attack.

Nothing came.

The room stayed silent.

“Holy shitballs,” she breathed once she could. “What the hell was that?”

“What happened?” Xalen called.

“No idea,” Brabara said. “Something touched me, or I touched it, and it hurt like a motherfucker.”

She swept her glaive in a wide arc through the centre of the room. The weapon felt suddenly lighter. A metallic clang sounded from the far corner.

Her stomach dropped.

Her glaive had been cut in half.

“Screw this,” Brabara said. “I am out of here.”

She sucked in her gut and pressed herself flat against the wall, sliding sideways until she reached the entrance. She emerged from the darkness with a deep circular burn scorched into her side.

“I hate this place,” she growled. “Look what it did to my glaive.”

She held up the two feet of worked metal that remained, then hurled it into a corner. “If anyone needs me, I’ll be resting with Seknafret.”

Xalen joined them a moment later, leaving Ebyn to his cataloguing.

As they rested, the dissonant whispering returned. It bloomed in every moment of silence, sibilant words just below the threshold of comprehension. The more they tried to ignore it, the more insistent it became.

“Did you find anything?” Xalen asked once Ebyn sat down.

“A few interesting titles,” Ebyn said. “Hard to know what’s useful on this world. But I did spot one of the items on Laysa’s list.” He pointed to a shelf near the passage leading to the bridge.

“Which item?” Brabara asked, mostly to drown out the whispers.

“A set of copper tablets engraved with incantations,” Ebyn said. “If we collect that, we’ll have two of the items.”

“Two?” Xalen said.

“The scimitar we recovered from the six‑armed snake creature is another.”

“The scimitar?” Brabara said. “Oh, right. That’s magical, isn’t it.” She rummaged in her portable hole and pulled out the weapon. “I’ll use this until I can get a replacement for my glaive.”

---

When the short rest ended, they pushed on quickly – anything to escape the rising pressure of the disembodied voices. The whispers pressed in from every direction now; even speaking aloud barely cut through them.

“Which way?” Seknafret asked, pressing her fingers to her temples. “These voices are becoming a problem. Hopefully they fade once we start moving again.”

“The bridge,” Brabara said. “I’m not going into another one of those dark rooms unless we have no choice.”

Xalen led them out of the library and down the short passage toward the chamber he had scouted earlier. A dull roar swallowed the hexagonal room the moment they stepped inside. A bridge of engraved limestone tiles, each one streaked with muted colour, spanned the gap between two narrow ledges. Beneath it churned a black vortex of energy, its surface roiling and flashing with buried light.

Ebyn slowed as he approached the bridge. His ability to pierce nearby invisibility revealed a phrase etched into the stone at their feet:

The vortex eats all magic, save for that from which it was born.

He shared the words with the others.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Brabara asked.

“It means we won’t be able to fly across,” Ebyn said. “We’ll need to find the correct path.”

“The colours and symbols match on all these tiles,” Xalen said, crouching to inspect them. “I expect that matters.”

“These symbols seem familiar,” Ebyn murmured. “But I can’t quite place them.”

Xalen stared at him. “You’re joking, right?”

Ebyn shook his head.

“They’re the schools of magic,” Xalen said.

Ebyn blinked, then nodded quickly. “Ah. Yes. Of course. The… um… regional differences must have thrown me.”

Xalen chuckled. “If you say so.”

“And how does that help us?” Brabara asked.

“The phrase suggests the vortex consumes any magic except the kind that created it,” Ebyn said. “So, we need to determine what that is. Give me a moment.”

He completed the ritual and, with eyes glowing slightly, peered into the swirling darkness. “I see a combination of evocation and transmutation.”

Xalen looked back at the bridge. “Those correspond to the red and orange tiles.” He traced a path with his finger. “There’s a continuous route across using only those colours.”

“There it is, then,” Ebyn said. “A simple puzzle in the end.”

“Only because you saw the invisible text,” Seknafret said. “Without that clue, this would have been much harder.”

Ebyn shrugged. “Who can say.”

“I’ll cross first,” Xalen said.

He stepped gingerly onto the bridge and moved across, placing his feet only on the red and orange tiles. He reached the far ledge without incident.

The others followed one at a time, sticking to the same colours. Soon they all stood on the opposite side, facing a wooden door.

Xalen checked it for traps and found none. “It’s unlocked,” he said, pulling it open. “Looks like an empty room.”

“Wait,” Ebyn hissed, his vision still tuned to detect the presence of magic. “There’s illusion magic here.”

He stepped forward, scanning the space. A matching wooden door stood on the left wall, but otherwise the room appeared bare. “Strange. It’s as if someone cast an illusion of an empty room… over an empty room.”

“Why would anyone do that?” Brabara asked.

Ebyn scratched his chin. “The architect of this tomb was said to be insane. Perhaps that’s reason enough.”

“So, it’s empty… and magically pretending to be empty?” Brabara said.

“As far as I can tell,” Ebyn replied.

Brabara exhaled sharply. “Fine. I’m going in.” She drew her scimitar and stepped through the doorway.

The moment she crossed the threshold, she vanished.

“What just happened?” Seknafret gasped.

Ebyn stared into the room. “She’s gone. Not illusion, not invisibility, just gone. A teleport trap.”

“We’re not leaving her alone in there,” Xalen said, already pushing forward. He stepped into the room and vanished as well.

“But we have no idea where it takes us?” Ebyn said, looking to Seknafret for support.

She shrugged. “True, but we’re no help to them standing out here.” She stepped through the doorway and disappeared.

Ebyn let out a strangled, frustrated shout and followed her.

---

The walls, floor, and ceiling vanished.

Brabara was suddenly suspended in a vast, lightless ocean. Cold water pressed against her from every direction. Above her, far beyond reach, a faint silver glow hinted at a moonlit surface, but it was impossibly distant, like a memory rather than a destination.

Shapes moved in the dark.

Sharks. Several of them. Large, hungry, and circling.

Xalen appeared beside her in a burst of displaced water, then Seknafret, then Ebyn. The wizard immediately fumbled for a small cap at his belt. He jammed it onto his head, and a shimmering bubble of air formed around his face. He gasped in relief.

The others seemed unaffected by the lack of air. Brabara, in particular, moved with uncanny ease – her cloak trailing behind her like a manta ray’s wings.

The sharks noticed them.

They accelerated with terrifying speed.

Brabara surged forward, scimitar raised. The water slowed her swing, but she still managed to carve two deep gashes along the flank of the nearest shark. Seknafret thrust out a hand, eldritch energy crackling through the water in jagged bursts that forced another shark to veer away. Ebyn muttered a spell, and a pulse of magic rippled outward, stunning the closest predators long enough to buy them space.

“Do we run or fight?” Brabara called, her voice muffled and strange in the water.

“They’ll awaken if injured,” Ebyn warned. “Finish the one still conscious. I’ll try to pierce the illusion.”

“You think this is an illusion?” Xalen said, staring into the endless dark.

“What else could it be?” Ebyn replied.

The wounded shark recovered and came at Brabara again, jaws yawning wide.

She swam to intercept, but the creature was born to this world. It twisted with effortless grace and clamped down on her side. The bite was brutal. Blood billowed into the water in a dark cloud, and the shark thrashed harder, driven into frenzy by the taste.

Xalen darted in, drawing his sword – the blade whispering eagerly in his mind. He slashed at the shark’s eye, forcing it to release Brabara. The creature recoiled, thrashing.

Ebyn scanned the scene, searching for flaws in the illusion. A ripple of light that didn’t match the current, a bubble rising the wrong way, a shadow that didn’t belong. Nothing broke. Nothing faltered. The illusion held with perfect, maddening consistency.

Brabara struck again, this time with all her strength. Her scimitar tore through the shark’s skull, and the beast went limp, drifting away on the current.

“I’m going up,” she said. “If I can reach the surface, maybe I can—”

“Guys,” Seknafret interrupted, pointing.

Three more sharks glided into view, drawn by the blood cloud. They moved slowly for now, but their attention was sharpening.

Brabara kicked hard, swimming upward. The pale circle of the moon grew clearer. She reached out, expecting to break the surface.

Her hand struck something smooth and cold.

A barrier. The water rippled against it, but it did not yield.

“Shit,” she said. “No escape this way.”

Ebyn, still scanning, spotted something below. A faint blinking light nestled among thick curtains of seaweed.

“There,” he said, pointing downward. “Something’s hidden in the kelp.”

The sharks were closing now, their movements tightening, their bodies angling toward the group.

Brabara dove, cloak streaming behind her. The others followed, far less graceful, pulling themselves downward through the dense seaweed. The fronds wrapped around their limbs, slowing them, but also hiding them from the circling predators.

A small coral cave jutted from the sandy floor. Inside, the blinking light pulsed steadily.

“In there,” Ebyn said.

Seknafret slipped inside first, then Xalen, then Ebyn. Brabara followed last, her scimitar held ready as the sharks circled just beyond the cave’s mouth.

---

The four of them appeared soaking wet and breathing hard in a narrow tunnel of dressed limestone. A closed wooden door stood at one end; the other end turned sharply left. At the corner lay one of Xalen’s arrows, snapped clean in half. Midway down the tunnel, an opening yawned in the right‑hand wall.

Brabara pushed herself upright and pulled open the wooden door. Beyond lay the same empty room she had stepped into before being hurled into the underwater nightmare.

“Everyone okay?” she asked.

“Just cold and wet,” Seknafret said, wringing out her sleeves.

“What kind of crazy place is this?” Xalen muttered. “Sharks in a dungeon. That’s just… wrong.”

“Indeed,” Ebyn said, still marvelling. “For all that its creator was insane, one must admire the craftsmanship. I can see why Marian devoted her life to studying him.”

Xalen moved down the tunnel and peered through the opening. The passage beyond was short, ten feet at most, before widening into a triangular chamber dominated by a set of imposing steel double doors.

The doors were carved with a relief of screaming souls tumbling through a ravaged landscape. Instead of handles, three concentric platinum circles were set into the metal, each etched with runes. At their centre leered a skull.

“Looks like some kind of combination lock,” Xalen said, activating the magic of his helm. “The runes are draconic. Full alphabet on each ring.”

“So, a three‑letter code,” Ebyn said, doing the math. “Roughly seventeen thousand six hundred combinations.”

“Yeah,” Xalen said. “I’ll wait until we have a clue before I start spinning dials.”

He returned to the others and continued down the tunnel to where his broken arrow lay. One glance around the corner confirmed what he already suspected.

“This passage loops back to the big dark room,” he said.

“We must have missed something,” Brabara said. “Maybe there’s a secret door.”

“Worth checking,” Seknafret agreed.

They split up. Brabara and Seknafret searching the left wall, Xalen and Ebyn the right. After twenty minutes, they had found nothing except that the walls, floor, and ceiling were peppered with thousands of tiny holes.

“I don’t like the look of these,” Ebyn said.

“They’re smaller than the ones at the entrance,” Xalen noted. “So probably not arrows. Maybe gas?”

“Or drains,” Brabara said. “In case the water leaks out of that ‘empty’ room.”

Ebyn shook his head. “Given the holes are in the ceiling as well, I doubt they’re drains. Xalen’s guess is more likely.”

“So where does that leave us?” Seknafret asked. “The only way forward is through those doors.”

Ebyn folded his arms, thinking. “What do we know of Acererak? A lich, trained by Vecna, lieutenant to both Vecna and Kas. Perhaps the code uses A, V, and K.”

Xalen shrugged. “Fair enough. Which order?”

“Alphabetical,” Brabara said.

Xalen stepped up to the door and rotated the rings until A, K, and V aligned at the top. The final dial clicked into place with a heavy, mechanical certainty.

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then Xalen heard coughing from the passage behind him.

A cloud of coloured gas billowed into the room.

Everything went black.

---

“Hello?” Seknafret called, her voice scraped raw.

“I’m here,” Ebyn answered, though the cough that followed sounded too thin in the heavy air.

Brabara and Xalen didn’t respond.

The gas didn’t so much clear as withdraw, curling back into the corners like something reluctant to leave. As it thinned, the two bodies on the stone floor emerged, limp, arranged almost deliberately. Seknafret dropped beside Xalen, her healer’s instincts prickling.

“He doesn’t appear hurt,” she whispered. “Just… asleep.”

“Brabara too,” Ebyn said, but his voice wavered as if he didn’t trust the word.

They tried rousing them, calling names, shaking shoulders. The bodies rocked under their hands, loose and compliant, but neither stirred. Not even a twitch. Not even a change in breath.

It felt less like sleep and more like something had claimed them.

Seknafret drew a dagger and pressed the tip gently into Xalen’s thigh, drawing a bead of blood.

The rogue stirred, but the reaction came a heartbeat too late, as if his mind had to travel a long distance to reach his body.

She tried again, cutting a little deeper.

Another twitch. This one sharper, but followed by a strange stillness, like he was listening to something only he could hear.

“I’m sorry, Xalen,” she whispered, and drove the blade fully into his leg.

Xalen jolted upright with a yelp. “What did you do that for?”

His voice was sharp, but his eyes darted around the room as if expecting something else to rise with him. He blinked several times, each slower than the last, then shook his head as though trying to dislodge a thought.

Ebyn turned to Brabara. Slapping her did nothing. He glanced at Seknafret’s dagger, grimaced, and chose a different tactic. He pinched Brabara’s earlobe between thumb and forefinger and twisted sharply.

Brabara shot upright, clutching her ear, now bright red. “That hurt,” she said accusingly, then frowned, staring at her own hand as though it didn’t quite belong to her. “Did… did I fall asleep? I don’t remember lying down.”

“I guess we tried the wrong code,” Ebyn said with a shrug.

“So, what now?” Xalen said, binding the cut on his leg. His hands trembled faintly, and he kept glancing at the wound as if surprised it was still there. “One down, only seventeen thousand five hundred and ninety-nine to go.”

Ebyn approached the door. “It’s still a lock. In theory, you might be able to pick it.”

“Combination locks are tricky,” Xalen said. “I wouldn’t hold my breath.”

He paused, smirked – too wide, too sudden. “Actually, maybe you should hold your breath.”

He laughed softly at his own joke, then stopped abruptly, as if he’d forgotten why he was laughing.

He set to work with his tools, but his movements were uneven, precise one moment, hesitant the next. Twice he froze mid‑motion, staring at the lock with a distant, unfocused expression, before snapping back into motion as if nothing had happened.

After several long minutes, he stepped back, defeated.

“No joy,” he muttered. “I’ve never seen a lock like this. It’s like it was actively working against me.”

He rubbed his temples, wincing. “Feels like something’s still in my head.”

Brabara shivered. “Me too. Like… like someone else was thinking for me, and I haven’t quite shaken them off.”

Ebyn leaned closer. “There’s a slight gap here. I’ll go gaseous and see what’s on the other side.”

He pulled a piece of gauze from his pouch, whispered the incantation, and dissolved into a faint cloud of mist. He drifted to the door and slipped through the narrow gap.

The chamber beyond was vast.

Six stone pedestals stood near the walls, each displaying an item: a blue scarf, a golden ring, a glittering scimitar, an ebony wand adorned with feathers and bone, a set of engraved copper sheets, and a rose‑quartz crystal ball.

Laysa’s list. All of them.

But they had already found two of these items elsewhere. Which meant either these were fakes… or the ones they’d seen were.

At the centre of the room, a black throne sat upon a raised dais. A skeletal figure in luxurious robes and an ornate headdress rested upon it, unmoving. Behind the throne loomed a platinum door.

Ebyn hovered, watching the figure closely.

It did not stir.

“There’s an undead in here,” he said through the telepathic link. “A lich, I think.”

“Is it Acererak?” Brabara asked.

“It can’t be,” Seknafret said. “Vecna searched for Acererak when he first returned. The real Acererak has no body.”

“Well, Acererak or not, I’m not ready to fight a lich today,” Brabara said.

“Agreed,” Ebyn replied. He drifted back through the gap and re‑formed beside them. “We need a long rest.”

“We’ll have to leave the dungeon,” Seknafret said. “We can’t rest in here with those voices gnawing at our minds.”

Brabara blinked. “But that means…”

“We either go back through the undersea illusion,” Ebyn said, “or through the darkness.”

Neither option sounded remotely appealing.

“I vote darkness,” Xalen said. His tone was casual, but his eyes lingered on the combination lock too long, as if something in it was calling to him. “I fired an arrow through earlier. It came out the other side in one piece. Before it hit the wall, anyway.”

Brabara shuddered. “You didn’t feel what I felt. Trust me, you don’t want to.”

Xalen’s fingers twitched at his side, a small, involuntary spasm he didn’t seem to notice.

“I’ll send Hoot through first,” Ebyn said

They approached the wall of black at the end of the passage. Ebyn placed a hand on the stone, closed his eyes, and shifted his senses into Hoot. Through the owl’s eyes he saw nothing but a void, yet he urged the familiar forward.

Hoot slipped into the darkness.

The voices hit immediately. The same whispers that had plagued them during quiet moments, but now amplified, urgent, impossible to ignore. Ebyn felt the panic spike through Hoot’s mind, a raw, instinctive terror that made the owl’s wings falter.

“Come back,” Ebyn commanded.

Hoot turned, eager to flee, but before he could escape the darkness a spike of psychic agony lanced through his mind. The familiar’s presence shattered, dissolving back into the weave.

Ebyn gasped and staggered as the bond snapped.

“What happened?” Xalen asked, eyes wide as he stared at the darkness as though expecting something to emerge.

“Hoot’s gone,” Ebyn said once he could breathe again. “Dead.”

“Did he touch one of those cold things?” Brabara asked.

“No. This wasn’t physical. It felt like… fear. Pure, overwhelming fear.”

“It died of fright?” Brabara said, horrified. “That’s not better.”

Xalen let out a short, humourless laugh, the kind that ends too abruptly. “Fear’s a tricky bitch,” he murmured, almost to himself.

“Hoot was a simple fey creature,” Ebyn said. “Not much willpower. I would hope it takes more than that to rattle someone of your experience.”

Brabara shrugged uneasily. “I hope you’re right.”

They formed a line: Brabara in front, then Ebyn, Seknafret, and Xalen at the rear. Hands on shoulders, they stepped into the darkness.

Brabara felt her way forward, pushing aside the occasional piece of unseen furniture. The path itself was clear. The voices were not.

Two steps in, they sank into her mind like hooks. Images of Tiny dying. Tiny leaving her. Tiny with someone else. Each vision sharper than the last, each one designed to break her. She clenched her jaw and forced herself onward.

Xalen and Seknafret were not so strong.

Seknafret saw the Veil tear open, the dead pouring through, slaughtering everyone she loved. Xalen saw Marian in the grip of a vampire, fangs buried in her throat, her expression twisted with a terrible, ecstatic hunger. She reached for him, whispering his name in a voice that was not hers.

Ebyn heard the voices too – threats, promises, lies – but he held firm. Years of nightmare visions had hardened him. Fear clawed at him, but it did not take root.

Behind him, Xalen and Seknafret screamed. The psychic pressure was so intense it caused real pain, sharp and stabbing, as if their minds were being pried open. Xalen’s scream broke into ragged laughter halfway through, a sound that didn’t belong in any living throat.

Brabara kept moving, slow and steady, refusing to let anyone lose their grip. After fewer than a dozen paces, she broke free of the darkness and stumbled into the corridor leading back to the library.

She kept going, pulling the others with her.

Seknafret collapsed the moment she cleared the threshold, sobs wracking her body, her awareness stretched thin as parchment. She clutched at the floor as if afraid she might fall through it.

Xalen burst out next – not collapsing but erupting. He staggered once, then giggled with a wild, manic edge that made the hairs on Brabara’s arms rise. Without hesitation, he sprinted straight to the shelf where Ebyn had identified one of Laysa’s treasures and tore the engraved copper sheets free.

He held them aloft, still giggling, eyes wide and shining with a feverish light.

The gems on the five stone guardians flared a violent green. One by one, the statues turned toward Xalen’s madly capering form, their carved faces expressionless but somehow hungry.

Brabara didn’t hesitate. She hurled herself forward, boots skidding on the stone floor as she intercepted the nearest guardian. Its stone blade came down in a brutal arc. She caught it on her scimitar, the impact jarring her arm to the shoulder.

Behind her, Xalen dodged two rapid strikes, the stone blades hissing through the air where his head had been a heartbeat earlier. Whatever madness had driven him to snatch the copper sheets evaporated instantly. Survival took over.

“Gather around me!” Ebyn shouted, dragging a trembling Seknafret into the room. “I’ll teleport us out!”

Xalen darted between two guardians, their heads swivelling in eerie unison to track him. He slid under a sweeping strike, tucked into a roll, and came up beside Ebyn, still clutching the stolen treasure.

Ebyn spoke the incantation, felt the magic surge through him, then sputter out like a candle in a storm.

“Oh crap. The spell failed.”

There was no time to curse. The guardians advanced.

“Fight!” Brabara roared.

Seknafret, shaking off the last of the psychic assault, thrust out both hands. A shimmering lattice of force snapped into existence, trapping two of the constructs inside a glowing cage. They hammered against the barrier, each blow sending ripples of distortion through the air.

That still left three.

The nearest guardian swung at Brabara again. She met the blow, sparks flying as steel scraped stone. Xalen darted in behind it, his blade whispering eagerly in his mind as he drove it into a seam in the statue’s back. A crack split across the guardian’s torso.

Ebyn unleashed a blast of raw arcane force that staggered another guardian, chips of stone spraying across the floor. Seknafret followed with a pair of eldritch blasts, each one slamming into the construct with a thunderous crack.

The guardians fought without hesitation, without fear, without pain. One caught Brabara across the ribs with a stone fist, sending her stumbling. Another nearly took Xalen’s head off with a sweeping strike he barely ducked under.

But the four of them, even battered and frayed by the tomb’s horrors, were still a deadly team.

Brabara drove her scimitar into the cracked guardian’s chest. The stone split apart, the construct collapsing into rubble. Xalen vaulted over the debris and plunged his blade into the next guardian’s chest, prying loose the glowing gem. The statue froze, then toppled.

Ebyn and Seknafret combined their magic on the last free guardian. A blast of force and a lance of eldritch energy struck it simultaneously, shattering it into a spray of stone fragments.

The room fell silent except for their ragged breathing.

“We have to get out of here,” Brabara said, rubbing a fresh bruise blooming across her ribs. “And I’d really like not to do all this again tomorrow. Can we wedge these doors open?”

“Good idea,” Ebyn said. “Use an immovable rod here.”

They set one rod in place at the library door. Then, retracing their steps through the dungeon, they used another scroll to bypass the acid chamber and placed the second rod to wedge the first door open as well.

When they finally stepped outside, the relief was overwhelming. The whispering voices vanished the moment they crossed the threshold, leaving a silence so pure it felt like a blessing.

Ebyn conjured a tiny hut, and exhaustion claimed them almost instantly.

And that was when the nightmare returned.

Sleep did not bring rest. It brought something worse.

 

Light comes first. A faint, distant shimmer, barely enough to pierce the suffocating black. Then warmth, creeping slowly across dead flesh, a mockery of life. Sound follows: the steady drip of water into a deep, echoing pool, each drop a reminder of time lost and suffering endured. And then, the stench. Rot, damp earth, the perfume of things long forgotten.

Vecna sits up, whole again, or as whole as he has ever been since the betrayer took his hand and his eye. Memories surge into him, a torrent of knowledge, ambition, and cold, perfect clarity. He remembers why he is here. He remembers his last death, the arrogance, the miscalculation, the humiliation. Painful lessons, yes, but powerful ones. For all the things whispered about him across the ages, a lack of wisdom has never been among them.

Power. He will need power for what comes next.

He raises his right hand and pulls at the threads of existence themselves, calling back what is his. They answer. First a trickle. Then a flood. Fragments of his essence, the pieces he cast into the multiverse in his moment of overconfidence, return to him. Not all of them. Some were destroyed. A few resist, clinging to their stolen independence. It does not matter. He has enough.

Power.

He opens his eye, the one that remains, and casts his gaze toward the future. Vecna rises.

 

Ebyn awoke from the nightmare feeling groggy but otherwise intact. As far as Vecna dreams went, this one was almost gentle. It hadn’t left him shaking or gasping for breath, and for once he didn’t feel as though he’d spent the night wrestling a god.

He reached for his backpack, fumbling for his journal, and noticed the others beginning to stir.

Then something else caught his eye.

A desiccated humanoid figure stood at the entrance to the tomb, motionless, its posture rigid and watchful. It wasn’t looking at them exactly – it was staring at the shimmering surface of the tiny hut, as though waiting for it to fall.

The figure was invisible to everyone else. Ebyn saw it only because his enhanced vision pierced such veils at close range.

It wore the same robes.

The same ornate headdress.

The same regal decay.

The same undead visage he had seen seated on the throne beyond the combination‑lock door.

And now it was here.

Watching them.

“Guys,” Ebyn whispered, reaching out to rouse the others. “We have a visitor.”

Xalen jolted upright, eyes darting. “What? Where?”

“Entrance,” Ebyn said, pointing. “It’s the lich I saw inside. He’s invisible.”

“Here. Help me get dressed,” Brabara muttered, tapping Xalen’s shoulder.

“What’s he doing?” Seknafret whispered.

“Just standing there,” Ebyn said.

“The stone block covering the false entrance is gone,” Xalen noted as he helped Brabara into her armour.

“I’m going to try talking to it,” Ebyn said, stepping toward the edge of the tiny hut.

The undead figure remained motionless, its gem‑filled eye sockets fixed on the shimmering dome. Ebyn could almost swear there was sadness in its skeletal expression – if such a thing were possible.

“Can I help you?” Ebyn asked, poking his head through the barrier.

If the lich was surprised to be seen, it didn’t show it.

“Are you planning on going back inside?” it asked. The voice was slow, gravelly, and cold enough to crawl down Ebyn’s spine.

“We must,” Ebyn said. “The fate of the multiverse depends on an artifact hidden within this dungeon.”

“Doesn’t it always.” The lich sighed, a sound like wind through a crypt. “I’d prefer you simply left.”

“Your former master, Vecna, threatens existence itself. We hope to use this artifact to stop him.”

The lich turned its face fully toward Ebyn for the first time. “That is a large task,” it said. “What artifact do you seek?”

“I have a list.” Ebyn pulled out Laysa’s paper and read it aloud.

The lich shook its head. “None of those will help you. You should leave this place and search elsewhere.”

“We also seek a piece of the Rod of Law,” Ebyn added. “We believe it lies within this tomb.”

The lich nodded slowly. “Ah. Yes. That truly may aid you.”

“So, you understand why we must continue,” Ebyn said. “We cannot allow Vecna to succeed.”

“Vecna was never my master,” the lich said. “My master, my creator, was Acererak. And I care no more for him than I do for the task he set me centuries ago.”

“You’re not Acererak?” Ebyn asked. “Then who are you?”

“I am called Karereca,” the lich said. “I have tended this tomb for ages. Resetting traps. Guarding trinkets. Cleaning up after adventurers like you. Harvesting souls for my so‑called master.” It drew a long, unnecessary breath. “As of today, I am done with all of it.”

A soft click came from the wooden box at Ebyn’s belt. Another secret recorded: Karereca no longer wishes to enact Acererak’s will.

“You’ll help us find the items we seek?” Ebyn asked, hope creeping into his voice.

“I cannot,” Karereca said. “But neither will I hinder you. You already possess the copper tablets and the scimitar – I saw the mess you made in the library and the serpent chamber. The wand lies in the Forest of Spirits. The ring in the Celestial Observatory. The orb in the laboratory. The robe in the vault.”

Karereca reached up and unclasped a necklace from around its neck. An ornate platinum key hung from it.

“You will need this to open the vault.”

Ebyn accepted the key with both hands. “And the rod fragment?”

“That is also in the vault.”

“Ask him what dangers we can expect,” Seknafret said.

“And if there are any magical glaives,” Brabara added.

“Can you tell us how to avoid traps or guardians we might encounter?” Ebyn asked.

“I cannot,” Karereca said simply.

“What will you do now?” Ebyn asked.

“I will leave this place. I have served my creator long enough.” The lich’s voice softened, almost wistful. “It is time to exist for myself. Travel, perhaps… do you have a boat?”

“There was a boat,” Ebyn said. “It sank.”

Karereca considered this. “Hmm. No matter. I will find a way.”

It turned toward the forest, then paused and looked back at Ebyn.

“I wish you luck in your quest.”

With that, the lich walked out of the tomb and into the trees.

“Wait!” Ebyn called. “Stay here. When we return, we can take you with us to Sigil.”

Karereca’s voice echoed back from the rocky cul‑de‑sac, deep and resonant.

“I will be here when you return. If you return.”

---

The group readied themselves to re‑enter the tomb. Ebyn cast his ritual to establish their telepathic link while Brabara finished buckling on her armour. Xalen flew over the spike pit and frowned.

“The door we propped open is shut again,” he said, running a hand along the smooth stone. “Looks like our new friend reset all the traps.”

Brabara lowered herself into the pit, careful to avoid the jagged metal spikes jutting from the floor. Halfway across, something flickered at the edge of her vision. She turned, but whatever she’d sensed was gone.

“There’s something on the wall here,” she said.

Xalen dropped down beside her and began searching. At first, he saw nothing but stone, then a faint ripple in the mortar caught his eye. Once he spotted it, the subtle shimmer revealed a pattern across the wall.

“There’s a hidden door,” he said, pressing a smooth stone.

The wall swung inward, revealing a short natural tunnel that opened into a wide cave with a wooden floor. Narrow gaps between the ill‑fitting boards showed another tunnel beneath. Seven large barrels sat on a low platform to the left, each with a spigot and each marked with a different coloured symbol. Two short shelves on the far wall held metal cups.

Xalen stepped gingerly onto the wooden floor. Despite its rickety appearance, it held. At the rear shelves he found writing carved into the wood. He activated the magic of his helm, and the symbols resolved into words:

“A septet of libations I present to you,

But only one will help you escape this tomb.

Six drinks are magic; one is mundane.

Those marked with stars are vitality’s bane.

Blue is neither blessing nor curse.

Moon cleanses you of illness or worse.

Green’s neighbour is never boring—

Drink deep; pass through the flooring.”

The others entered behind him. Brabara pulled a tankard from her pack and strode toward the barrels, ready to drink from the nearest one.

“Wait!” Ebyn said, stopping her. “Let me at least check which ones are magical.”

Xalen continued searching the cave for hidden exits while Seknafret stood quietly, studying the rhyme.

Ebyn finished his ritual. “The clue is accurate. Six are magical, and one – the green circle – is mundane.”

“I have it,” Seknafret said after a moment of silent thought. “We should drink from the barrel marked with the red square.”

“Explain,” Brabara said.

“Seven barrels,” Seknafret began. “We discard the two with stars – vitality’s bane. That leaves five. The two blue barrels are neither blessing nor curse, so they won’t help us. That leaves three. The moon symbol suggests healing, which we don’t need right now. That leaves two, the red square and the green circle, and one of those is mundane. So, the only viable choice is the red square.”

“Works for me,” Brabara said. She filled her tankard, lifted it in a mock toast, and downed the contents in one long swallow.

She lowered the cup, licking her lips. “Tastes like—”

Her body dissolved into mist.

“I’m a gas,” she said, her voice thin and wavering. “Not sure I like this.”

“Try going through the floor,” Ebyn said.

Brabara drifted downward, slipping easily through the gaps in the boards and into the tunnel below. She floated along it until it opened into a fog‑filled chamber.

“I can’t see where this goes,” she said. “And this gas thing is making me queasy.” She let the magic end and re‑formed with a gasp. “That’s better. Are you coming or what?”

One by one, the others filled their cups, drank, dissolved into mist, and sank through the floor to follow her.

Brabara explored the fog‑shrouded room by touch. It was octagonal, with openings on each side, but the thick mist made it impossible to see more than a foot ahead.

“I’m going through one,” she said.

“Be careful,” Seknafret warned.

“Always,” Brabara replied, and stepped through the first opening to the left of where she’d entered.

She moved from fog into complete and utter darkness.

“Not again,” Brabara muttered. She spun to leave the darkness, only to find the way blocked by a solid wall of stone. “Well, this isn’t good.”

“What is it?” Seknafret asked through the telepathic link. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” Brabara said. “I’m in another one of the darkness rooms.”

“Did you feel a teleport?” Ebyn asked.

“No. Nothing.” She paused. “But I must have been moved. The way back is sealed.”

She felt her way around the room, careful to avoid any unseen horror that might be lurking in the centre. Her hand found the door. She pushed.

Locked.

“Of course it’s locked,” she growled.

Bracing herself, she shoved with all her strength. The wood groaned, splintered, and finally gave way. Brabara stumbled forward and emerged into the library where they’d fought the stone guardians the day before.

She turned, expecting the two constructs Seknafret had trapped to lunge at her. Instead, they stood motionless in their original positions. The shelves were upright. The rubble was gone. The room looked untouched.

Karereca had cleaned up.

“I’m in the library,” she said. “Everything’s been reset. The guardians are back where they started.”

“Alright,” Ebyn said. “See if you can get back to us. We’ll wait here.”

Brabara crossed to the double doors. The immovable rod they’d wedged there was gone, and the doors were shut tight. She tried pulling, pushing. Nothing. No handles on this side.

She considered breaking them down but remembered the crushing mouths she’d shoved her arms into. That memory alone stopped her.

“Damn it,” she hissed. “I can’t open the library doors from this side. You’ll have to come get me.”

“Hang tight,” Ebyn said. “We’re coming.”

The others drifted back up through the floorboards, re‑formed, and exited the barrel‑room cave. They returned to the blue devil’s mouth.

Seknafret channelled her magic into the open maw. One gem flared bright green; the second glowed weakly.

“We need another,” Ebyn said.

“I’ve got it,” Xalen said. He pressed his hand to the stone and let his magic flow. The second gem brightened to match the first.

The door clicked open.

They retraced their steps. Xalen found the emerald, this time in a different alcove, and placed it on the green wave statue. The door unlocked. They crossed the acid chamber using another arcane gate. The jade serpent room was spotless, scrubbed clean of any sign of battle.

Karereca had been thorough.

They reached the long corridor of instruments.

“Now what?” Xalen said. “I’m not sticking my arms in those mouths.”

“Agreed,” Ebyn said.

“I can try playing again,” Seknafret offered. “I thought about it last night. If I keep it simple, it might work.”

Xalen shrugged. “Your call. What instrument?”

Seknafret stepped forward and lifted the lyre again. “I’ll give this one another go.”

She drew a deep breath, held it, then let it out slowly. Her fingers settled on the strings.

This time, the melody was gentle and pure. No flourishes. No ambition. Just a simple children’s rhyme, played with perfect clarity. Even Ebyn recognized it.

The final note lingered in the corridor like a held breath.

Then the double doors clicked open.

Brabara pulled them wide, grinning. “What took you so long?”

“That was amazing,” Xalen said. “Well done, Seknafret.”

“I know, right?” She returned the lyre to its alcove with a small, proud smile. “Didn’t think I had that in me.”

Once the three of them stepped into the library, Xalen pulled a small wedge from his pack and jammed it under the door. “Hopefully we won’t have to do all this again.”

“Now what?” Brabara asked. “Do we go back out or what?”

Ebyn shook his head. “We’re already here. We may as well try for the vault.”

They left the library and crossed the bridge over the vortex, stepping carefully on the red and orange tiles. On the far side, they paused, bracing themselves for the underwater ordeal that usually followed.

“I wonder if the sharks have been replaced,” Xalen said.

“We should assume they have,” Seknafret replied. “But not everything was reset. We might get lucky.”

Brabara wasn’t listening. She was staring at the left wall of the landing. “There’s another hidden door here,” she said. “Feels like the one outside.”

Xalen joined her, running his fingers along the stone. “I think you’re right.” He found a faint seam, pressed the top-left corner, and a section of wall swung inward.

Brabara stepped through into a short passage that twisted left, then right, ending in a dimly lit chamber. Her breath steamed as she walked. The temperature dropped sharply with each step.

Three glass cylinders lined the far wall. Each held a decaying corpse, half-buried in snow, dusted with glittering red powder. A small wooden desk sat against another wall, illuminated by the faint reddish glow of a rose‑quartz crystal ball.

Ebyn inhaled sharply as he entered. “Simulacra,” he murmured. “But… altered. It shouldn’t be possible to maintain more than one at a time.”

Brabara eyed the corpses. “They don’t look very maintained.”

“There’s a glyph on the desk,” Xalen said. “I can’t disable it.”

Ebyn stepped forward, fingers weaving through the air, arcane syllables slipping from his lips. He teased apart the spellwork, unravelling the glyph’s structure until the magic guttered out.

“It should be safe now.”

Xalen searched the desk for mundane traps, then nodded. “Clear. Opening the drawers.”

He slid them open one by one, placing their contents on the desk. Loose parchment, diagrams, and scribbled notes spilled out in a disorganized heap.

“Just notes,” he said, then paused, pulling one sheet aside. “Wait. This looks like schematics for the combination lock we found.”

Ebyn stepped up beside him, scanning the page. “Indeed. And here…” he tapped three draconic symbols scrawled in the margin “…this might be the combination.”

Xalen activated the magic of his helm, the runes resolving into meaning. “D, I, E,” he read aloud. “Oh, that’s just lovely.”

Ebyn didn’t reply. His attention had already shifted to the other pages. “Acererak was experimenting with empowered simulacra,” he murmured. “He didn’t think much of them. Tools, nothing more.”

“Isn’t that how you viewed yours?” Seknafret asked quietly.

Ebyn paused. “Not at first. When I created it, I saw it as an equal. Someone I could collaborate with. But when we returned… I found that I didn’t care that it was gone. It completed its task. I felt no loss.”

Seknafret tilted her head. “And does that bother you?”

“No. Should it?”

She shrugged. “Only you can answer that.”

Brabara kept her distance from the cylinders. “If you ask me, all wizards are one bad day from going crazy. Too much time with books, not enough with people.” She shuddered. “Let’s get out of here. This place is giving me the heebie‑jeebies.”

“Not without the crystal ball,” Ebyn said. He lifted it and tucked it into his portable hole, plunging the room into darkness. “One of Laysa’s treasures.”

They returned to the landing, steeling themselves for the plunge into the underwater illusion, and stepped across the threshold of the empty room.

Like before, they materialised in the middle of a vast, silent ocean. Dark shapes drifted through the long tendrils of kelp in the distance, circling lazily.

Brabara scanned the sea floor until she spotted the faint flicker of the exit cave. “Follow me,” she said, and kicked off toward it.

Halfway there, several sharks noticed them and surged forward, but the party slipped into the cave before the predators could close the distance. A heartbeat later, they were back in the tomb.

They dried themselves off and approached the ornate metal door with the combination lock. Xalen spun the dials to spell DIE, and the heavy door swung open without a sound, revealing the vast chamber where Karereca had kept his lonely vigil for centuries.

Ebyn stepped forward, platinum key in hand, and approached the rear door. He inserted the key, twisted, and the vault opened.

Coins and gemstones glittered across the floor like spilled starlight. In the centre of the room stood a pedestal draped with a blue silk sash embroidered in gold. Resting atop it was the sixth piece of the Rod of Law.

Ebyn stepped back and began the ritual to perceive magic. When the spell settled over his senses, he scanned the vault.

Only the rod fragment glowed.

“Now what?” Brabara asked. “Do we head back to Sigil?”

“I believe we should continue exploring,” Ebyn said. “We have the robe, the orb, the scimitar, and the tablets. Only the wand and the ring remain.”

Seknafret raised an eyebrow. “What happened to staying focused on the big picture? Saving the multiverse?”

“My priorities haven’t changed,” Ebyn said. “But we have limited funds, and research costs money.”

“Simulacrums, you mean,” Brabara said dryly.

Ebyn shot her a cold look. “Call it what you like. We still have much to learn about the rod, the forge that made it, and the Wind Dukes. I can’t do all that work alone. It makes sense to have something doing research while we hunt the next piece.”

“Fair enough,” Seknafret said. “But we just found a decent haul in here.”

“And Laysa will pay us for each item on her list,” Ebyn continued. “Only two left. It would be foolish to leave them behind when we’re this close.”

Xalen smirked. “Plus, returning with the full set won’t hurt your chances with the captain.”

Ebyn’s face flushed crimson. “We should return to the barrel room,” he said stiffly. “We’ve exhausted this section of the tomb.”

---

They retraced their steps through the complex and returned to the barrels.

This time, Ebyn filled a pair of vials with the liquid from the red‑square barrel before drinking the draught. Like the others, he dissolved into mist, drifted through the floorboards, and re‑formed in the tunnel outside the fog‑filled chamber.

“I’ll try the next one along,” Brabara said as she stepped into the room. She felt her way around the wall, skipped the first exit, and slipped through the second.

A short tunnel stretched ahead, ending in an opening barely ten feet away. A damp, earthy smell drifted toward her. Wet soil, rotting leaves, the scent of a forest after rain.

“Can you hear me?” she called.

“Yes,” Xalen replied.

“Good. No teleporting this time,” Brabara said. “Smells like a forest up ahead.”

“The lich said one of the items was in a forest,” Ebyn said once they’d all emerged from the fog. “With luck, the ring might be close.”

Brabara snorted. “Since when have we been lucky?”

“Perhaps today is that day,” Ebyn said, gesturing for her to lead on.

They stepped through the opening, and into yet another impossibility.

A vast glade stretched before them, trees rising like pillars into a canopy lost in shadow. Pale lights bobbed between the trunks, drifting like fireflies. A path seemed to wind through the forest, but whenever they tried to focus on it, the route blurred and shifted.

“Let me try getting above the trees,” Seknafret said.

She rose into the air, climbing higher and higher. But the treetops remained just out of reach, always a dozen yards above her, no matter how far she ascended. When she looked down, her companions were tiny figures far below, yet the canopy still refused to draw closer.

“I can’t reach them,” she said, descending. “Whatever magic this is, it won’t let me get above the trees.”

“You think this is an illusion?” Brabara asked, resting a hand on the trunk of a nearby tree. It felt solid. Real.

“It has to be,” Seknafret said.

“Most likely,” Ebyn agreed. “But it’s an impressive one.”

They walked for several minutes. The ground was easy, nothing like the choking jungle outside the tomb, yet it didn’t feel like they were making progress. The same trees. The same lights. The same faint path that never resolved into anything solid.

“How do we get out of here?” Xalen said after another stretch of walking. “I can’t see the entrance anymore. Everything’s repeating.”

For all its detail, the illusion seemed to contain only a few dozen trees, looping endlessly no matter which direction they chose.

“I’ve been trying to pierce the illusion,” Ebyn said. “But even knowing our minds are being manipulated, I can’t break through it.”

“Can you hear that?” Xalen said suddenly.

“The whispering?” Seknafret asked. “Yes. It’s coming from those flickering wisps.”

They all stopped.

And listened.

“Illusions are we, born from a mix of wanderlust and corrupted magic. Beware, lest you become trapped such as we,” whispered one of the lights as it drifted past Brabara’s ear.

“The master of this tomb longs to be free. Wouldn’t you, if you were he?” murmured another as it bobbed around them.

“The next challenge will crush you if you don’t move fast,” warned a third, weaving between the trees.

The glowing wisps circled them once more, then drifted down a narrow path deeper into the forest. When the group didn’t follow, the lights returned, danced impatiently, and floated off again in the same direction.

“I think they want us to follow,” Brabara said.

Xalen shrugged. “Might as well. Maybe they’ll lead us out.”

They followed the bobbing lights through the same repeating trees until, at last, the illusion shifted. A small clearing opened before them, dominated by a towering banyan tree strangled by thick, sickly vines.

The lights swirled around the tree, and the moment the party stepped into the clearing, the tree moved.

Dark vines tightened around one of its massive branches, twisting it into a crude fist that rose high into the air.

Xalen reacted first. He drew his rapier and lunged, blade flashing between the writhing vines. Black ichor sprayed from the severed tendrils, sizzling where it struck the ground. Xalen ducked and rolled, narrowly avoiding the acidic droplets.

Seknafret stepped forward, hands raised. A ring of bright flame erupted around the tree, forcing it back with a guttural, agonized roar.

Ebyn watched its movements carefully. The tree’s bulk was immense, but its motions were jerky, unnatural, like a puppet fighting its strings.

“The vines,” he said. “They’re controlling it. The tree isn’t attacking us by choice.”

Brabara didn’t hesitate. She grabbed fistfuls of the sickly vines and tore them free. The ruptured tendrils spewed foul black juice across her arms and shoulders, burning her skin in bubbling patches, but she kept ripping.

Ebyn glimpsed a face beneath the vines: the anguished features of a treant, eyes wide with fear and fury.

“Help me,” it groaned. “Free me from this curse.”

Corrupted magic, the lights had said. Ebyn’s eyes widened as the pieces clicked into place.

“It’s a curse!” he shouted. “Seknafret, these vines are a curse!”

Seknafret paused mid‑gesture, eldritch energy crackling at her fingertips. “What?”

“The vines! They’re cursed!”

Understanding dawned. She reached into her pouch, drew out a pinch of diamond dust, and pressed her hand to the vine‑choked trunk while murmuring the arcane words.

The vines shrivelled instantly. Brittle, cracking, snapping away in a heartbeat.

Freed, the treant shook itself violently, scattering the last fragments of corruption. It stepped back from the fire, towering above them.

“Abalahin thanks you,” it said, its voice deep and slow as shifting earth.

The forest transformed at once. Darkness lifted. Flowers bloomed in bursts of colour. The air filled with the scent of life and renewal. The bobbing lights, once sluggish, now darted joyfully like hummingbirds.

“We’re glad to help,” Seknafret said. “A magnificent tree like you shouldn’t suffer in darkness.”

Abalahin bowed its great head. “It has been too long since this glade held life. How may I reward you for this boon?”

Ebyn exchanged a glance with Seknafret. “We were told a treasure lies here. An ebony wand decorated with feathers and bone. If it pleases you, we wish to return it to those from whom it was stolen.”

A branch reached down among Abalahin’s roots and lifted the wand, tiny in the treant’s massive grasp.

“Take it, with my thanks,” Abalahin said.

“The master of this tomb has departed,” Ebyn added. “You could be free of this place as well.”

Abalahin looked around the glade, leaves rustling softly. “I am content here, amid my creation.”

“Very well,” Ebyn said. “But may we trouble you to show us the way out?”

“The lights will guide you,” Abalahin replied, spreading its arms wide. “Either deeper into this maze of puzzles and death… or back toward the mists.”

“Deeper,” Ebyn said. “We have one more treasure to find.”

Abalahin nodded. “As you wish.”

They followed the lights only a short distance beyond the clearing before stepping into a worked‑stone corridor that ended in what looked like yet another empty room.

“Great,” Brabara said, stopping at the threshold. “What will it be this time? Desert? Volcano?”

“It’s hilarious,” Xalen said. “We’ve fought beasts, demons, vampires, even death knights. But an empty room makes you hesitate.”

Brabara frowned. “I’m not scared. Just curious.”

“For what it’s worth,” Ebyn said, “I don’t think it’s any of those things.”

“Why not?” Seknafret asked.

“Remember what the lights said? ‘The next challenge will crush you if you don’t move fast.’” Ebyn pointed into the room. “I think they meant this.”

Xalen shook his head. “I assumed they meant the cursed treant. Did you see the size of those fists?”

“Maybe,” Ebyn said. “But it might be worth you doing that thing you do.”

Xalen nodded and crouched low, sweeping the floor with practiced precision. “Looks clear,” he said and stepped inside.

A faint click answered him.

The ceiling dropped.

Fast.

Xalen sprinted, dove, and slid out through the far exit just before a massive stone slab slammed down, sealing the room with only a six‑inch gap beneath it. Dust exploded outward, filling both corridors with a choking cloud.

“Are you alright?” Seknafret called once the dust began to settle.

“Yes,” Xalen coughed. “Apparently I missed that one.”

“Now what?” Brabara asked.

Ebyn produced the vials he’d filled earlier from the red‑square barrel and handed one to each of them. “Now we drink these and float across.”

“Good thinking, Ebyn,” Brabara said, clapping him on the back. “Glad to see my lessons on tactical thinking stuck.”

“Your lessons—?”

“Back when you first joined the watch,” Brabara said, cutting him off. “Remember the class on making effective use of resources found during duty?”

“I remember the class, but this has nothing—”

“Don’t mention it,” Brabara said, already drinking the vial. She dissolved into mist and drifted under the slab.

Ebyn stood blinking, mouth half open.

Seknafret chuckled. “Tactical thinking indeed.” She drank her vial and vanished into a cloud of white vapour.

Ebyn sighed, drank his own, and followed.

The next chamber was large, its low ceiling supported by rows of obsidian columns. Flames burned inside the columns themselves, casting flickering orange light that somehow deepened the gloom rather than dispelling it.

The only exit was midway along the right‑hand wall.

And in the far corners squatted two enormous stone constructs, beetle‑shaped, with jagged stone rollers where mandibles should be. They were just narrow enough to fit between the columns, and tall enough to nearly scrape the ceiling.

Brabara materialised behind Xalen, startling him.

The dust from the previous room still hung thick in the air, making it hard to see the drifting vapour of Seknafret’s form as she re‑coalesced a few seconds later.

“I’m staying as a gas for now,” Ebyn said as he drifted out from beneath the collapsed ceiling.

“The next room has an exit on the right wall,” Xalen reported. “But there are two massive roller‑things in there. They look like they’d flatten a horse.”

“What’s the plan?” Brabara asked.

“I’m going straight across,” Xalen said. “Let’s see how fast they really are.”

Brabara nodded. “Be careful.”

Xalen sprinted into the chamber, making a direct line for the far tunnel. The nearest stone roller lurched to life the instant he crossed its path. The construct accelerated with shocking speed, grinding down the straight corridor between the columns to intercept him.

But Xalen was faster. He dove past the onrushing mass of stone and skidded into the narrow exit tunnel just ahead of it.

“Damn, those things are fast,” Brabara muttered.

“The gap between those columns is too narrow for them to fit,” Seknafret said. “We can reach the centre point before they do.”

“You first,” Brabara said. “If you get stuck, I’ll distract them.”

Seknafret bolted forward. She reached the five‑foot space between four obsidian columns just ahead of the second roller. She braced to make her final dash toward Xalen when a stone fist shot out of the nearest roller and slammed into her ribs.

The blow staggered her, but she managed to stay upright and, crucially, out of the path of the other roller as it thundered past.

Brabara charged in, scimitar raised. She struck the nearest construct with a flurry of blows. Her blade rang against stone, chipping off fragments that were immediately crushed beneath the creature’s jagged wheels. Against flesh, she would have felled it. Against stone, she barely scratched it.

Ebyn saw the second roller pivoting toward Brabara. He cursed, shed his gaseous form, and reached for the weave with one hand while clutching a caterpillar cocoon with the other. He spoke the words, willing the construct into the form of a harmless snail.

Magic shimmered over the roller then dissipated uselessly. Whatever strange construction animated the thing made it immune to his spell.

Frustration flared. Ebyn called upon the Raven Queen’s blessing and vanished, reappearing beside Xalen in the tunnel.

Seknafret, seeing both of them safe, fired an eldritch blast that knocked one roller back a few feet. She sprinted, legs pumping as the construct lurched after her, but she slipped into the tunnel just before it could crush her.

Brabara moved with surprising grace for someone her size. She wove between the two rollers, landing blows on both as she passed, then burst into the tunnel with a final surge of speed before either construct could react.

“That was invigorating,” Brabara said, catching her breath. “Not that my attacks did much.”

Xalen scratched his head. “I don’t get the point of that room. Big, fast, dangerous, but almost trivial to avoid.”

“Might be a different story if we need to search that far wall for a hidden door,” Ebyn said.

Brabara peered back into the chamber. “Oh, yes. That would be a nightmare.”

“Let’s hope we don’t have to,” Xalen said.

Brabara led the group into the next chamber. A wide, airy space lit by continual‑flame sconces. In the centre stood a marble gazebo with a small fountain bubbling gently, surrounded by flowering bushes. Along one curved wall, a pastoral mural showed deer drinking from a stream while birds wheeled across a painted blue sky.

Another tunnel exited the room at the far end of the mural.

“What fresh hell is this?” Brabara muttered.

“It’s actually quite lovely,” Seknafret said, taking in the flowers and the soft light.

“Could this be the celestial observatory?” Ebyn asked.

“Doesn’t look very celestial to me,” Xalen said.

“Agreed,” Ebyn replied. “But we should search thoroughly. Perhaps that mural can be changed to a night sky.”

They fanned out.

It didn’t take long for Xalen to find a hidden door in the wall near the entrance. He checked the mechanism, found no traps, and eased it open, revealing what looked like an open field under a star‑filled night.

“I think I found it,” he said, stepping through.

Ebyn followed. A cool breeze brushed his face, rippling the grass around him. The illusion was exquisite. The scent of earth, the movement of air, the subtle rustle of leaves. It felt real.

Then he looked up.

“The stars,” he whispered.

“What about them?” Xalen asked.

“They look… fake.”

“Isn’t this whole thing fake?”

“Yes, but everything else is perfect. The breeze, the grass, the sky – all flawless. But the stars…” Ebyn shook his head. “They’re wrong. Too uniform. Too deliberate.”

Once he saw the flaw, the rest unravelled. The breeze became still. The grass lost its texture. The sky collapsed into flatness. In a cascade of dissolving details, the illusion fell away, and Ebyn found himself standing in a small stone room with a single pedestal at its centre.

“There’s a box here,” he said, placing his hands around the invisible shape. “Can you see it?”

Xalen shook his head. “Nothing.”

“I’ll try picking it up,” Ebyn said.

“Wait, let me step out first,” Xalen said, backing into the gazebo room.

Ebyn lifted the unseen box. Nothing exploded. He exhaled in relief and stepped back through the doorway.

The moment he crossed the threshold, the box shimmered into visibility. A small, seamless container of polished metal.

Ebyn turned it over. “I can’t see a lid.”

“May I?” Xalen asked.

Ebyn handed it over. Xalen examined it closely. “There’s a crack here, very fine. Easy to miss.” He rotated it. “And a spring trap.”

He set the box on the ground and took out his tools. A few deft motions later, the trap was disabled. Another moment, and the concealed lock clicked open.

“Whoever made this knew their craft,” Xalen said, flipping the lid.

Inside lay a delicate gold ring engraved with geometric star patterns.

“That’s the last of them,” Xalen said, handing the ring to Ebyn. “Can we go now?”

Ebyn took the ring and tucked it into his portable hole with the rest of the treasures. “By all means,” he said. “Just tell me how you plan on getting past the collapsed ceiling. We’re out of gaseous form.”

“Can’t you just magic us out?” Brabara asked.

“As we found out yesterday that kind of magic doesn’t function in here.”

“Oh. Right.” Brabara looked sheepish.

“We press forward,” Seknafret said.

They left the gazebo chamber through the far tunnel, following it as it looped back on itself and opened into a rectangular room. At its centre stood a triangular altar, each face carved with a niche containing a chest, one gold, one silver, one lead.

“Do we investigate?” Brabara asked.

“No reason not to,” Xalen said. “We’re here, and we’re still treasure‑hunting.”

“Let me check for magic first,” Ebyn said, beginning his ritual. When the spell settled, he scanned the room. “The altar radiates conjuration.”

Xalen approached the chests. “Which one first?”

“Don’t assume anything based on the metal,” Ebyn said. “It could be a ruse.”

Xalen sighed. “Very helpful.”

He reached for the lead chest and lifted it free.

The runes carved into the altar flared to life, glowing from deep black to burning crimson. A low hum filled the room. Xalen backed away, chest in hand.

The runes pulsed faster and faster until they flashed bright enough to blind.

Darkness swallowed the room.

When the light returned, an armoured figure stood beside Xalen. A death knight, black blade in hand, red eyes burning with hatred.

“At last,” Xalen’s sword purred. “A worthy opponent.”

Xalen dropped the chest and scrambled for his rapier as the knight struck. Its blade moved in a blur, forcing him to conjure a shimmering shield just to stay alive.

Brabara charged in, scimitar flashing. Her blows landed with brutal force, but the knight didn’t so much as flinch.

Xalen finally drew his rapier and darted in. His sentient blade whispered guidance in his mind, and one precise thrust slipped between the plates of the knight’s armour, sinking deep. The undead warrior’s eyes narrowed with fury.

Ebyn stepped around the corner, a drop of molasses in hand. He pointed, spoke the words, and the spell wrapped around the knight, slowing its movements to a crawl.

Brabara and Xalen seized the opening, striking again and again. The knight, desperate, conjured a sphere of black fire in its gauntlet and hurled it past Brabara toward Ebyn and Seknafret.

The explosion rocked the chamber.

Necrotic fire washed over them all, including the knight itself. Xalen managed to dive clear, but Brabara, Seknafret, and Ebyn were scorched by the blast. The knight staggered, its form flickering, then vanished. Pulled back to whatever dark place the altar had summoned it from.

Xalen approached the lead chest and opened it, hoping for something worthy of such a guardian.

Inside was a single rolled‑up scrap of parchment.

Two words: Death Knight.

Xalen snorted and dropped both chest and paper. “Well, that’s the end of treasure‑hunting.”

“Yes,” Brabara said, patting out a lingering flame on her sleeve. “Let’s just get out of here.”

They exited through the far tunnel, which led them back to the fog‑filled chamber.

“Now what?” Brabara said. “I don’t like the idea of guessing exits.”

“I think every second exit is a teleport trap,” Xalen said. “So, we follow the wall, skip the first exit, take the next.”

“It’s a reasonable theory,” Ebyn said. “But you have no evidence.”

“Then what do you suggest?”

Ebyn shrugged. “We do what you said but be ready if it goes wrong.”

Brabara led the way. She passed the first exit and stepped through the second.

A short tunnel stretched ahead, one wall dressed stone, the other natural cave. It ended at an obvious secret door.

Xalen checked it. No traps, and Brabara opened it.

The chamber beyond was empty except for a cobweb‑draped skeleton slumped in a corner. A gold choker with a black stone hung around its neck.

“I’m ignoring that,” Xalen said.

“Good,” Seknafret replied, walking past. “That screams ‘bait.’”

The next tunnel ended at another secret door. Xalen checked it, Brabara opened it, and they stepped into the familiar hexagonal room with the green wave statue.

“The exit’s just ahead,” Brabara said, relief in her voice. “I am not sad to leave this place.”

“Nor I,” Xalen said. “I’ve hit my paranoia limit.”

They opened the final door, crossed the spike pit, and emerged into the rocky cul‑de‑sac where they’d spent the night. The sun had passed its zenith; shadows stretched long across the clearing.

“We’ve got a few hours of daylight,” Brabara said. “We can make the beach.”

“We will,” Ebyn said, and teleported them all back to the shore.