RAVEN’S GAMBIT | Episode 75: The Crown and the Flood
The crown sat alone upon the obsidian throne, its golden frame gleaming in the eerie stillness of the chamber. Light bent strangely around it, casting no shadow.
Sir Cedric stepped forward, then paused. “We don’t take it,” he said firmly.
“No?” Lira asked, one brow arching. “I thought kings liked crowns.”
“I’m no king. And that thing is cursed,” Cedric replied. “Elric?”
The wizard nodded, peering intently. “Overwhelming transmutation magic. Evil, no doubt. It grants certain advantages within this chamber—but at a price. The crown cannot leave this place. Worse, it binds the wearer to the throne unless the scepter is used to release them.”
“Seems like a trap for the greedy,” Thalia muttered. “Let it sit and rot.”
With a unanimous nod, the party turned their backs on the gleaming gold crown.
They descended through the secret passage behind the throne, entering a narrow stairwell that glinted like the hoard of a dragon. The walls shimmered with polished copper and rare inlaid woods. The ceiling, wrought of silvered iron, caught and reflected their torchlight in dazzling cascades.
“Either this is the prettiest tomb I’ve ever seen,” Thog muttered, “or we’re walking into the teeth of something ancient and hungry.”
The steps beneath their boots were carved from fine stone—onyx, pink marble, lapis, black marble, golden serpentine, and green malachite—each richer than the last.
Tessa halted on the fourth step, crouching low. “There’s something here.”
She gently picked up a bronze key, long and cylindrical. “Magic, definitely,” she said, squinting. “Elric?”
He leaned over. “That’s the Key of Antipathy. Whatever it opens… it won’t like being opened.”
“Comforting,” Lira said.
At the bottom of the stair stood the most imposing set of doors they had ever seen—14 feet wide, 28 feet tall, and forged to appear as solid mithral.
“Those aren’t real mithral,” Elowyn observed, squinting. “Just glamoured to look like it.”
“Even so,” said Thalia, tapping one lightly with a dagger, “they hum with power.”
Sir Cedric stepped forward, sword drawn, and ran a gauntleted hand near the seam. “Magic barrier. Globe of invulnerability, I’d wager. These doors won’t yield to brute force or minor spells.”
Elric nodded. “Correct. And if we try to force it open with the wrong key, the tomb will respond... violently.”
Tessa examined the keyhole between the doors, nestled in a cuplike depression at waist height. “Looks like it fits the bronze key.”
Thog frowned. “So we open it?”
“No,” Elric said sharply. “Insert the bronze key, and you’ll get a lightning bolt to the chest. Worse if you use the first key we found.”
Thalia scowled. “Then how do we open it?”
“The scepter,” Elric said. He pulled the item from his pack and held it up. “Gold and silver. From the throne. The crown was a trap, but this—this is the key.”
He moved toward the door. “If I touch the gold end of the scepter to the depression, it should open.”
Sir Cedric placed a hand on his shoulder. “And if you touch the silver?”
“I’m launched back to the devil’s mouth in the entry chamber,” Elric replied with a smirk. “Naked.”
Lira grinned. “Well, now I’m tempted.”
He ignored her, extended the gold sphere of the scepter, and slowly inserted it into the cup.
The door clicked.
Without a sound, the massive valves swung open, revealing a dark corridor beyond.
Everyone held their breath.
“See?” Elric smiled. “No fire, no blood—”
But the moment he said the word “blood,” a horrible wet groaning echoed from the doorway. The metal shimmered, and thin red cracks formed along the door’s edges.
“What did you do?!” Thalia shouted.
“I didn’t touch anything else!”
A trickle of blood ran down the door’s seam. Then another.
Then it gushed.
The flood burst forth in a howling crimson wave, sweeping across the landing.
“Back! Get back!” Cedric yelled.
Elowyn shouted over the roar, “It’s flooding the stairs!”
“It’s the trap!” Elric called. “The Flood of Blood—it’s reacting as if the door was damaged! Maybe the glamour wore off when it opened!”
Lira shrieked, dodging back as the blood began to fill the corridor.
“We’ll drown if it keeps coming!” Tessa cried, slipping on the onyx step.
“Stand aside!” Sir Cedric barked. “I have one spell left—Elric! Throw me a healing potion!”
“No time!” Elric shouted and instead flung his hand forward, chanting quickly. A glow suffused around the doors. “Cure—critical wounds!”
The wave slowed. Then stopped.
Blood pooled around their boots. The river’s fury subsided to a lazy, stinking ripple.
Elric sagged against the wall. “We’ll only get one more try like that. If it floods again…”
Thog grunted. “We don’t let it.”
Cedric turned to the others. “Everyone ready yourselves. What lies beyond those doors… could be the heart of this tomb.”
The blood, warm and iron-scented, gurgled softly as it settled.
And the way forward stood open.