RAVEN'S GAMBIT | Episode 48: Levers and Lies
When the plane shift ended, Zahur the Flame-Sworn and Rashoon of the Searing Grasp emerged into absolute darkness.
Gone were the crumbling stone corridors and flaming weapons of battle. In their place: a 10-foot-square iron cell, the air stale and unmoving, a century’s worth of dust settled thick across the floor.
The only features in the cubicle were three iron levers, each about a foot long, jutting from one wall like accusing fingers.
Zahur, still in his full efreeti form, pressed a hand to the ceiling and walls, frowning. “No exits. No light. No honor.”
Rashoon, eyes glowing faintly, muttered, “This feels like a trap Keraptis would set for a friend.” He waved a hand—no arcane shimmer of a doorway, no secret glyphs revealed by simple magic.
Zahur growled. “It’s mechanical.”
They spent the next several minutes pushing, pulling, rotating the levers individually.
Nothing.
Then, together—up.
With a dull, metallic groan, a small trapdoor in the ceiling creaked open ten feet above them, revealing a tight 3-foot-square crawlway.
“Finally,” Rashoon said with a smirk. “A way out.”
Zahur’s grimace didn’t ease. “And what happens if we throw them all down?”
The pair exchanged glances.
For science.
Together, they reset the levers and threw all three down.
The floor vanished.
Zahur, reacting faster, grabbed the levers just in time—dangling over a 100-foot-deep shaft, boots scraping against the sheer wall.
Rashoon wasn’t so lucky.
He fell, roaring as he dropped into the darkness.
THUD.
The shaft sealed shut again above him.
Zahur let go, allowing himself to drop the final few feet with a controlled fall, and ignited a small flame in his palm to illuminate the base.
Rashoon groaned, lifting himself slowly from a pile of crushed bone and shattered debris.
Then they heard the chittering.
From the cracks and crannies of the iron walls emerged eight small, writhing undead, mummified creatures with too many teeth and a hunger that whispered in their wake.
Tomb motes.
“Fantastic,” Zahur muttered, drawing fire into his fists.
The cramped quarters limited their movements, but the tomb motes didn’t seem to care. They darted forward, leaping for exposed flesh.
Fire met decay.
Zahur scorched three of the creatures into ash with a sweeping arc of his burning arms.
Rashoon screamed a curse in Ignan and cast Scorching Ray, the bolt incinerating two more into sizzling paste.
One of the creatures gnawed through Zahur’s forearm, taking a chunk with it before he crushed it underfoot. Another latched onto Rashoon’s neck, but a quick snap of his wrist and a burst of flame ended its undead misery.
The final two were dispatched together—Zahur backhanding one into the wall while Rashoon stomped the last.
Silence returned.
The air smelled of char, death, and burnt rot.
Among the remains, Rashoon found a book, its cover half-buried beneath bone and powder.
“Nycoptic Manuscripts,” he muttered, flipping it open briefly before stuffing it in his satchel. “This should not be here.”
Zahur pointed upward. “We climb. Now.”
Using flame-enhanced handholds and brute strength, the two scaled the walls of the shaft, forcing open the ceiling’s trapdoor once more. As they hauled themselves into the crawlway, each found the space tight, their broad frames scraping the walls.
With a shared glance and a brief nod, both cast polymorph, shifting into lean humanoid forms—slightly more human, slightly less fiery, and infinitely more maneuverable.
Crawling through the twisting stone tube, they eventually emerged into a dead end. A faint breeze tickled Zahur’s cheek. He turned his head.
A faint shimmer, only visible to the magically inclined, floated in the stone above.
Rashoon tapped it, muttering arcane syllables.
A plug shifted and opened upward into yet another chamber.
Instead of climbing through, Zahur tested the opposite way, following the tunnel until it looped into a one-way door—one they had seen before.
They opened it.
Stone dust and silence welcomed them.
They were back in the southernmost pit in THE TRUE ENTRANCE TUNNEL.
“…We’ve been reset,” Rashoon grumbled.
Zahur nodded grimly. “Keraptis plays with time and space like a child with fire.”
He stepped out into the familiar hall.
“We burn everything next time,” Zahur whispered. “No more mercy. No more rules.”
And the two remaining efreeti survivors stalked forward into the dark tomb once again—fewer in number, but not in fury.