RAVEN'S GAMBIT | Part 18: The Crossing
The weight of silence hung heavily in the air. One of the twelve groups was still unaccounted for. No tracks. No signs. No bodies.
That meant only one thing.
They had gone where no one else had… yet.
Hachiro Noboru stood before the platform room, the others at his side. His gaze was steady, but the tightness around his eyes betrayed a quiet tension.
“This is the only path we haven’t tested,” he said. “They must have gone this way.”
He opened the door.
Beyond it, the party beheld a nightmare: a narrow ledge overlooking a massive natural cavern filled with dim, phosphorescent light. Suspended above a vast pit of boiling mud were wooden disks, each about four feet wide, swaying slightly on massive steel chains. The disks glistened with a slick algae-scum that glowed just enough to give the whole chamber a sickly green hue.
Steam hissed from geysers below, one near, one far. The reek of sulfur clawed at their throats.
“Looks like we all need to cross,” Hachiro said grimly.
“Send a scout,” Lira Valesong advised. “It’s a deathtrap.”
“I’ll go,” said Tharn Ironfist, cracking his neck. The dwarven warrior stepped forward.
“I’ll come with,” Kara Dhex volunteered, checking the charge on her blaster rifle.
The samurai nodded.
Tharn leapt to the first disk—steady. Then the second—his boots skidded slightly, but he held firm.
Kara followed. Her foot hit the slick edge. She reached—but missed.
Her scream echoed through the chamber as she plunged into the bubbling pit below. The party could only watch as she vanished beneath the mud, the steam swallowing the sound.
Tharn continued.
Third platform. Fourth.
The far geyser erupted—steam blasted up in a roar.
Fifth platform. Then the sixth.
His boot slipped. He grasped for the edge.
Too slick.
Tharn fell silently, vanishing into the boil.
“Damn it!” Kaela Virell hissed, fists clenched.
Kaito Shadowstep, ever the quiet one, leapt without waiting.
First disk. Second—he slipped, caught the edge, and pulled himself back up.
Third disk—WHOOSH—the first geyser blew.
Steam enveloped him. Kaito screamed as the boiling spray cooked him alive. He fell backward, hitting the edge of a disk before tumbling into the pit below.
Li Shen “Quiet Thunder”, the silent monk, was next.
He leapt. First. Second. Third. Fourth.
The party watched in awe.
Fifth. Sixth. Seventh—
He fell short.
The second geyser blew.
His body twisted as it hit the mud, steam rising high.
"Are we going to keep trying until there are no more of us left?" barked Thog Skullsplitter, voice booming with anger.
“We must conquer the mountain,” Hachiro said with reluctant finality. “Every path. Every shadow.”
“Not like this,” Lira Valesong murmured.
Then she remembered.
She reached into her pouch and pulled out a small glass vial—the Potion of Flying she’d taken from the glass globes chamber.
Without a word, she drank.
Her feet lifted from the stone.
Wings of invisible wind caught her. She soared across the chamber, well clear of the geysers. The others watched with hope and dread as she landed lightly on the far ledge.
She disappeared through a damp wooden door.
Lira followed a straight corridor, silent but alert. Her boots echoed slightly on flagstone. Another door met her at the end.
She opened it.
The room beyond was shrouded in shadowy darkness—not the absence of light, but the presence of something deeper. The permanent darkness spell blanketed the chamber. The floor was cracked. From those cracks, an invisible mist began to rise, unseen in the cloaking shadows.
It was cold. Still. Empty.
Or so it seemed.
Lira stepped forward—then hesitated.
Something didn’t feel right.
She turned and made her way back to the ledge.
Emerging once more into view, she waved to the others across the pit.
“There’s a door! I think it’s safe, but something feels off!”
The others began shouting—pointing—faces filled with panic.
Lira turned.
Behind her emerged a dwarf—unnaturally pale, eyes gleaming red like embers. He wore full plate armor blackened like obsidian, and in his hand, a wicked warhammer etched with strange runes.
His mouth twisted into a smirk that showed no joy.
Lira’s eyes widened as she leapt into the air and took flight.
But the pale dwarf didn’t chase.
He dissolved into mist, a shadowy vapor that pursued her across the void, creeping silently and quickly through the air.
“Vampire,” Kaela whispered, voice tight with dread.
Lira soared, the ledge coming closer—but the mist gained with every passing second.
And in that moment, they knew:
The vampire had followed the lost group. And it had returned alone.