RAVEN’ GAMBIT | Episode 82: The Arrow That Sang
The ringing aftermath of the demilich’s scream still echoed in the vaulted chamber, clinging to the stone like rot on old bones.
Silence followed, broken only by the shallow gasps of the living and the gurgling collapse of the dead.
Thalia stood frozen, her bow clutched in pale fingers, knuckles white. Her breathing was erratic—fear, rage, disbelief. The silence where Lira should’ve stood was unbearable. There was no blood, no body. Just an absence. A final, cruel subtraction.
Sir Cedric placed a trembling gauntlet on her shoulder, a silent gesture that said everything his knightly pride could not voice aloud. Elowyn whispered a prayer to the old spirits, her voice hoarse and cracking. Tessa wiped blood from her eyes—her own, or someone else’s, she didn’t know.
"Where is it now?" Elric asked, looking to the dim corners of the chamber, arcane sight flickering like lightning behind his eyes. "It didn't die. It retreated."
The vault's walls moaned as if aware, old gears and enchantments shifting in ways that had not stirred for centuries.
"No," Thalia said. Her voice was low, resolute, calm in the way only madness or divine clarity could be. "It's not over. It’s waiting for us to fall apart."
As if summoned by her words, the walls began to ripple—yes, ripple—like water disturbed by wind. From the stone itself, faces emerged. Faces of long-dead adventurers. Some shouting in silence. Some screaming. One of them looked like Lira.
Tessa screamed. “That’s her! That’s Lira!”
“No!” Sir Cedric pulled her back as she rushed forward, hand outstretched. “Illusion. Or worse.”
From the center of the floor, the mithral hatch groaned and cracked open further, revealing a dark stair spiraling downward into a blackness that repelled light. As Elric raised a hand to conjure illumination, the shadows beneath responded—not with retreat, but with hunger.
“You know what this is,” Theron’s voice came through the scrying pool, his image flickering in ghostly blue from Elric’s belt-bound mirror. “It’s bait. The final torment.”
“But it’s also a door,” Elowyn whispered.
Thalia stepped toward the stair, the curved wooden frame of her composite bow creaking like a drawn breath. “It’s where she went. I can feel it. It took her.”
“You don’t know that,” Cedric said. “You can’t know what lies ahead.”
“I don’t care,” Thalia said simply.
From the black stair, a sound echoed upward: slow, scraping, and moist. As though a great tongue were being dragged across a hollow skull.
Elric blanched. “It’s inviting us.”
Theron’s voice from the scrying mirror cut in again, deeper, darker. “Then don’t knock. Kick the door down.”
They moved—one by one, weapons ready, souls ragged. Downward they went, into a narrow stair lined with bones arranged in mockery of grandeur. Skeletons formed pillars. Jawbones became sconces. Thalia led.
The moment her boots touched the next chamber's threshold, she felt it.
It was cold. Wet. Like the breath of a crypt that had never seen the sun. A dome-shaped space opened before them, and at its heart… a throne.
Upon that throne sat a corpse, crowned in thorns of obsidian, its hands outstretched like a parody of benediction. In its lap was Lira’s flute.
“Oh no,” Elowyn choked. “Please gods, no…”
The corpse tilted its head. One eye socket empty. The other glowing with a baleful red flame. It lifted a single finger… and pointed at Thalia.
“RUN—” Tessa yelled, but Thalia didn’t move.
“I know what I have to do.”
She nocked an arrow. Her hand was steady.
The corpse raised its other hand—slowly—and the room exploded into motion. Spirits wailed from the walls. A skeletal claw erupted from the floor. Shadow leapt from stone.
Thalia released her arrow.
It sang. A high, mournful whistle through the air. It flew straight and struck the crowned corpse through its burning eye. There was silence.
Then… impact.
The body crumbled to dust. The spirits screamed and vanished. The black breath was gone.
But so was Thalia.
Not swallowed. Not erased. Her bow remained, propped against the now-empty throne.
Tessa collapsed. Cedric dropped to one knee. Elric's hand trembled as he retrieved the flute. Elowyn wept openly.
Theron’s voice returned in the scrying mirror, brittle with fury. “I saw it. I saw him. The one pretending to be Raven. He opened the way—but only just.”
They had survived. Again. But the toll had risen.
Only six remained. And below them, the true tomb waited still. Raven’s Gambit was not yet complete.