I. Morning at The Broken Tusk
Dawn crept through the shutters of The Broken Tusk like a thief, pale and insubstantial, casting long fingers of light across the worn floorboards. I woke to the unfamiliar sensation of genuine rest, my mind unburdened by the phantom scratching that had plagued our nights at the Three Gables Inn. The air here smelled of stale ale and woodsmoke, yes, but also of something else; honesty, perhaps. Or merely the absence of malevolent enchantment.
I was adjusting my collar when a blur of motion caught my eye. Crow, that elven streak of perpetual motion, hurtled past our open door with such velocity that his boots scarcely seemed to touch the floorboards. I rose, concerned, and peered around the corner into the corridor. Empty. The passage stretched silent and still, dust motes dancing in the morning light.
Ender and I exchanged glances. The dwarf shrugged his massive shoulders, the plates of his armor shifting like the scales of some metallic beast.
Moments later, we turned to find the ranger seated in our chamber as though he had been carved from the very chair itself. In one hand, he held my lightning dagger-my lightning dagger, mind you, the one I kept sheathed at my hip. In the other, Ender’s mace rested with casual familiarity. Most disturbing of all, the boots of speed sat upon the floor beside him, their leather still warm from impossible exertion.
My hand flew to my scabbard. Empty.
“How on earth-?”
“Can’t wear both boots!” Crow announced, as if this explained everything. His eyes gleamed with that particular elven mischief that I had come to dread. “Speed or stealth?” He tossed the dagger to me with a casual flick of his wrist, and I caught it clumsily, still processing the violation of my personal space. “All yours, big guy,” he said to Ender, nudging the boots toward the dwarf with his foot. “You could do with a touch more speed anyways.”
II. The River Journey
The docks of Greyhawk bustled with the desperate energy of those fleeing a sinking ship. Merchants and traders scrambled to load their vessels, their voices rising in a cacophony of haggling and harried instructions. The morning air carried the sharp tang of river water and the sweeter scent of fear-everyone, it seemed, shared our desire to be elsewhere before the city fully awoke to whatever darkness had settled upon it.
We sought passage to Nelix, with eventual designs upon Castle Maure and its rumored secrets. The harbormaster, a grizzled specimen with skin like cured leather and eyes that had witnessed too many departures, squinted at us from beneath brows like gray caterpillars.
“Three gold apiece,” he rasped, his voice the sound of gravel in a wooden box. “Horses included. She’s bound for Leukish, but she’ll put you off at the fork.”
The boat proved to be a sturdy river craft, its deck weathered smooth by countless journeys. The captain, a taciturn woman with tattoos of coiling serpents upon her forearms, nodded us aboard with minimal ceremony. We settled our mounts in the cramped hold below, their hooves clopping against wood as they adjusted to the unfamiliar motion.
The river flowed swift and brown, carrying us past banks thick with willows that trailed their fingers in the current like mourners at a funeral. The sun climbed higher, transforming the water into hammered bronze. I stood at the rail, composing verses in my mind about the majesty of nature and the poetry of motion, when the first stone struck Ender’s breastplate with a musical ping.
Kobolds. Of course.
They had established themselves upon a jutting promontory of rock, chittering and capering like obscene marionettes. Their slings whirred, releasing stones that arced through the air with the grace of drunken birds. Most splashed harmlessly into the river. Those that found their target struck Ender’s armor and bounced away, leaving nothing but small scratches upon the polished steel.
The dwarf laughed-a sound like boulders grinding together. “Is that all?” he called out, spreading his arms wide in invitation. “My grandmother hits harder, and she’s been dead three centuries!”
The kobolds, apparently unappreciative of dwarven humor, redoubled their efforts. We passed beyond their range without significant injury, though I did spend several minutes brushing river spray from my cloak. The indignities of travel.
By evening, we reached the fork where the river split, the waters dividing like divergent philosophies. No settlement marked the spot, only the evidence of countless camps-fire rings blackened by use, scraps of discarded provisions, the occasional lost button or broken strap. We rested briefly, the grass soft beneath us, the sky above deepening to violet. The boat continued north without us, its wake spreading across the water like a farewell.
We pressed on toward Nelix, our shadows stretching long before us in the dying light.
III. The Boat-Shaped Graveyard
We found it in the gloaming, when the world exists in shades of gray and silver. The standing stones rose from the earth like the fingers of some buried giant, weathered and ancient, their surfaces carved with symbols that predated written history. Beyond them lay the graveyard.
It was shaped like a boat.
A low stone wall encircled the entire grounds, the barrier no higher than my waist but possessed of a solemn gravity that discouraged casual intrusion. Within, headstones crowded together like passengers on some spectral vessel, their surfaces worn smooth by centuries of wind and rain. In the center stood another stone structure-smaller, but unmistakably boat-shaped as well, as though the architect had been obsessed with nautical themes or perhaps had simply possessed a limited imagination.
At the far end, a mausoleum squatted against the darkening sky, its entrance a black rectangle promising depths unseen. Between the central boat-structure and this doorway stood a triangular table of stone, and upon it, a statue of a hooded figure. The carving was crude but effective-the bony finger extended in accusation or invitation, pointing directly toward the mausoleum’s maw.
IV. First Blood
The hiss came first-a sound like steam escaping from a kettle, but wrong somehow, corrupted. Then the clicking began. Click-clack. Click-clack. Bone against bone, the percussion of the grave.
Two skeletons emerged from the darkness between the headstones, their empty eye sockets glowing with faint luminescence. Rusted swords hung in their bony grips, and they moved with the jerking grace of marionettes operated by drunken puppeteers. Behind them, deeper shadows flickered and danced-absences of light that moved with purpose.
The shadows struck first.
They materialized among us like nightmares given form, swirling darkness that defied the eye’s attempt to fix them. I raised my crossbow, tracking one as it flitted across my vision-a smudge of black against the gray stones. My finger tightened on the trigger.
Snap.
The string broke with a sound like a sigh, and the bolt clattered uselessly to the ground. I stared at the ruined weapon in disbelief.
The shadow struck.
Its touch was cold-colder than winter, colder than the void between stars. I felt the numbness spread through my upper arm like ink in water, the flesh dying even as I watched. The shadow flowed away, squeezing between two headstones with obscene fluidity, and I clutched my wound, watching the blackness spread.
Ender had become an island in a sea of enemies. Two skeletons pressed against him, their swords scraping against his armor, while shadows circled like sharks scenting blood. He raised his war pick high, the weapon describing a perfect arc over his helmet-and buried it in the ribcage of the nearest skeleton.
Stuck.
The pick held fast in bone, and Ender struggled to free it, both arms occupied. The shadows seized their opportunity, striking at exposed joints and the gaps between plates. His armor absorbed the worst of it, but I saw him flinch with each impact, the necrotic energy finding its mark.
Crow fought at my left, his short sword a silver blur as he engaged one of the dancing phantoms. I moved to flank it, lightning dagger in my off-hand, and together we tore at the darkness until it collapsed into a heap of insubstantial rags.
Ender had switched to his mace-the proper weapon for such work. He swung it with the enthusiasm of a man possessed, and bones shattered beneath his blows. Fragments of ribcage and femur scattered across the graveyard like morbid confetti.
Another shadow slashed at Crow, and the elf hissed-a sound of pain and fury combined. He retaliated with triple violence, his blade finding gaps in the shadow’s form that logic suggested should not exist. I fought beside him, mindful of the danger. I had read the texts. I knew what happened to those slain by such creatures-their shadows torn from their bodies, transformed into new servants of darkness. The thought of Crow as such an entity, his elven speed made supernatural, his blades replaced with claws of pure void…
I redoubled my efforts.
The final shadow dissipated with a sound like tearing silk, and we stood panting in the silence. Ender, standing atop a mound of crushed bone and twisted metal, scanned the darkness.
“Gone,” he reported. “Vanished into thin air.”
We tended our wounds there among the graves, Ender’s hands glowing with the soft gold of divine healing. Where his palms passed, living tissue surged to replace the dead, pink flesh spreading across blackened skin like dawn across a darkened sky. The process itched abominably, but I held my complaints. Dignity, after all, is a performance best maintained in company.
We returned to the inscription, studying it with new eyes. Vracus. The name still teased at memory’s edge, but refused to resolve into recognition.
I approached the table, my boots crunching on gravel. The inscription waited there, letters worn but legible:
‘Enter and be tested – he who lives in shadow allies only with the strong and clever. Threat level bronze.’
Vracus
“Vracus,” Crow murmured, rolling the name across his tongue like a merchant assessing the weight of a coin. “That name rings a bell.”
We could not place it. The syllables echoed with familiarity, like a half-remembered melody, but the source eluded us.
“‘Enter and be tested,’” I read aloud, my voice sounding small against the silence of the place. “‘He who lives in shadow.’ Undead, perhaps? Or-” I did not speak the other possibility, but we all thought it. He-who-shall-not-be-named.
“‘Threat level bronze,’” Ender repeated, his tone almost cheerful. “Could be worse. Follow me!”
The dwarf descended the steps before I could formulate an objection worthy of my intellect.
V. The Gaming Dead
The crypt swallowed us whole.
Crow and Ender moved ahead, their darkvision rendering the darkness as mere twilight, while I fumbled behind, my eyes struggling to adjust. Glowing mushrooms provided the only aid-pale blue and green caps that sprouted from cracks in the masonry, casting just enough light to transform the sarcophagi and doorways into abstract shapes, suggestions of stone rather than definite forms. Broken pottery crunched beneath my boots, the detritus of previous visitors who had lacked our refinement.
We passed into an inner chamber, and Crow raised a hand for silence. He crept forward, his boots making no sound upon the dusty floor, and beckoned us to join him at the threshold.
The room beyond held four skeletons. They stood around a circular stone table, cups in their bony hands, rolling dice across the surface with the concentration of serious gamblers. The scene was so absurd, so utterly divorced from the expected behavior of the undead, that I wondered briefly if we had stumbled into some sort of cult-an unholy fellowship dedicated to games of chance.
We devised a plan with gestures and whispers. I would enter first, positioned to the right of the doorway, and unleash faerie fire upon the gathered dead. Ender would charge immediately after, his mace sweeping in a broad arc designed to shatter multiple skeletons in a single blow. Crow would hang back, ready to eliminate any survivors with his bow.
I counted us down, fingers raised: three, two, one.
I stepped into the room with all the grace my training had instilled, violet light already dancing upon my fingertips. The spell gathered, eager for release-
Ender went too early.
He crashed into my left side like a runaway cart, the impact throwing off my aim. The faerie fire sprayed across the right-hand wall in a beautiful but useless cascade of violet luminescence, briefly illuminating ancient murals of forgotten kings before fading to nothing.
The collision unbalanced the dwarf as well. He stumbled, struggling to bring his mace around, and his momentum carried him forward with the inevitability of a landslide. He crashed across the gaming table, scattering cups and dice and small piles of pebbles-gambling tokens, I realized-across the room. His mace continued its journey, clattering against the far wall with a sound like a blacksmith’s hammer.
The skeletons reacted with what I can only describe as bemusement. Two of them lurched backward, ducking the dwarf’s flailing limbs. The two farthest simply stood and watched, their empty sockets somehow conveying puzzlement.
Crow, at least, maintained discipline. His arrow took one of the stationary skeletons in the shoulder, spinning it halfway around.
The skeletons, as one, turned to face the ranger. They seemed to reach a consensus: Crow represented the only genuine threat in the room. Three of them produced knives and threw with the coordination of practiced athletes.
The first knife missed by a handspan. The second struck stone. The third, thrown by the skeleton Crow had wounded, buried itself in the ranger’s bow arm above the elbow.
Blood dripped, pooling at Crow’s feet. He stared at the wound with an expression of profound betrayal.
Ender, bereft of his mace and surrounded by irritated undead, resorted to fisticuffs. He swung his gauntleted fists with enthusiasm but little accuracy, the blows whistling through empty air more often than not.
I faced a dilemma. A well-placed faerie fire would turn the tide, certainly, but Ender stood directly in the blast radius. My companions would understand, surely. The emotional burden of striking an ally-how it would weigh upon my sensitive soul! The sacrifice would be worth the victory.
I closed my eyes and summoned the light, feeling it build within me, transforming from mere illumination into something more potent, more dangerous. Just as I prepared to release it, a dice cup flew from Ender’s vicinity and struck me squarely in the forehead-my forehead, my proud, cultured, theatrical forehead, the feature I considered my best.
I hesitated. Too long.
The spell died in my hands, dissipating into violet light that issued from my nose and mouth like exhaled smoke. I caught a glimpse of my shadow on the wall behind me, glowing faintly purple. The indignity! Whatever had happened to halfling luck?
Meanwhile, Crow had abandoned his bow. With his left hand, he drew his short sword and executed a maneuver that would have been impressive under any circumstances-rolling sideways, springing up behind a skeleton, and plunging his blade deep into its midsection.
The skeleton yelled-a sound like wind through a cracked flute.
Crow pulled. The skeleton yelled more.
Crow pulled again. The sword refused to budge.
The skeleton, still impaled, careened toward Ender, who continued his boxing exhibition. They collided in a tangle of bone and armor.
I stood paralyzed by humiliation, watching my shadow glow purple on the wall. The only path to redemption lay in success. I gathered my dignity, my training, my essential Aelfric-ness, and cast the spell once more.
This time, it worked.
Violet light engulfed the skeletons and Ender alike, marking them with faerie fire’s telltale luminescence. The dwarf, blessed with divine constitution, shrugged off the disabling effects that crippled the undead. He retrieved his mace and set to work with the enthusiasm of a man who truly loved his vocation.
I placed my foot on a skeleton’s back and helped Crow extract his sword. Together, we joined the slaughter.
The last skeleton fell moments later, and we sat among the ruins of our dignity. It had been, without question, our worst performance as an ensemble. Had there been an audience, we would have been pelted with rotten vegetables and harsh reviews.
“We need to improve,” I said, brushing bone dust from my sleeves. “If this was merely bronze level…”
Ender nodded, still cheerful despite everything. “Could have been worse. Still alive…”
We gathered our wits and pressed deeper into the crypt.
VI. Voices from the Dark
The next chamber smelled of centuries. Dust and decay and something else-the particular mustiness of sealed spaces opened after ages of isolation. A sarcophagus dominated the center of the room, its stone lid pushed aside to reveal a triangular gap of absolute darkness.
A voice emerged from within-muffled, indistinct, but unmistakably present.
I approached, curiosity overwhelming caution, straining to make out the words. Ender, however, operated on different principles.
Sacred flame burst from his palm-amber light, pure and terrible, pouring into the gap like molten gold.
“AAARRGGHHH…GNNNRRRHHH…IT’S NOT FAIR!”
The voice, now very clear, expressed profound dissatisfaction.
Crow stepped forward, his eyes gleaming with that particular light that only gold could kindle. “If you, whoever you are, just tell us where the loot is, we’ll leave you in peace.”
I observed this negotiation with mixed feelings. Crow’s obsession with currency had always puzzled me. Here was an elf, attuned to the natural world, capable of appreciating the subtle poetry of wind and leaf-yet his heart also beat for the clink of coins. One of his many dichotomies.
“URRGHHH…IT BURNS…ERRRR…IT’S NOT VERY BIG! JUST GO THE OTHER WAY!”
We exchanged glances. Ender, in particular, looked sheepish-the expression of a child who has kicked a dog and immediately regretted it. Without discussion, we reached consensus. The voice had suffered enough.
We went the other way.
The next room defied even Ender’s cheerful disposition. Even with darkvision, he stopped at the threshold, his hand raised in warning.
“Hands,” he said. “Severed. Crawling.”
We went the other way.
VII. The Corridor of Spears
A long corridor stretched before us, its walls sweating moisture, its floor worn smooth by countless feet. Crow stopped us with a raised hand, pointing to holes halfway up the walls-murder holes, designed for exactly what their name suggested. Tripwires gleamed in the dim light, stretching from wall to wall like malicious spiderwebs.
We proceeded with extreme caution. I took a torch from a sconce, striking flint until flame caught and held. The light pushed back the darkness, revealing more wires, more holes, more evidence of lethal ingenuity.
Crow slipped through with elven grace, his body folding and unfolding around the traps like smoke. I followed, my smaller stature proving advantageous, stepping carefully over each wire with the precision of a dancer.
Ender came last.
His armor, so useful in combat, betrayed him here. The plates caught on a wire-barely, almost imperceptibly-but enough. The mechanism triggered with a sound like a thousand angry bees.
Spears flew from the walls, steel blurs that filled the corridor with death. They found the gaps in Ender’s armor, the joints and seams, and the dwarf became a pincushion. He stood impaled, blood spreading across his tabard, his eyes wide with surprise.
Crow and I dragged him past the final trap, leaving a trail of red upon the stone. The elf’s hands glowed with healing magic, knitting flesh and staunching wounds, but we were all diminished now-spells depleted, bodies battered, dignity in tatters.
Ender dragged himself onward, refusing to retreat, until we emerged into a chamber that seemed to promise finality.
VIII. The Brazier Puzzle
The room was dominated by a massive sarcophagus, its stone surface carved with symbols that seemed to shift when viewed from the corner of the eye. Around it stood five pillars, each topped with a brazier burning with flames of different colors-yellow, green, blue, purple, and red. The fires cast dancing shadows across the walls, transforming the chamber into a kaleidoscope of colored light.
“Over here,” Crow called. He traced words carved into the sarcophagus lid, his finger following the ancient script:
“Shadows and Whispers are Cousins. When each bowl holds a whispered clue, gain the guidance ancient and true”
On each pillar, three words had been etched:
Yellow: book, shake, stand
Green: land, wind, work
Blue: back, color, log
Purple: head, key, birth
Red: arm, camp, fly
I stepped forward, my mind already racing through possibilities. This was precisely the sort of challenge for which my education had prepared me. A renowned wordsmith such as myself-trained in the finest academies, versed in seventeen languages, author of two unpublished but undoubtedly brilliant volumes of poetry-would make short work of such a puzzle.
“Simply find a word that collocates with all three,” I announced, allowing a hint of condescension to color my tone. My companions, bless their simple hearts, would never grasp the subtleties of linguistic association. “Child’s play, really.”
I addressed the yellow brazier first. “Prayer book, prayer shake…no. Antiquarian book, antiquarian shake…also no.”
Crow stepped past me, rummaging in his satchel. With a casual motion, he produced a severed hand-one of the crawling horrors from the previous room, I realized, which he had apparently collected as a souvenir-and tossed it into the yellow flames.
The fire extinguished with a hiss. The pillar descended into the floor with a definite click.
“Handbook,” I said, my voice carefully neutral. “Handshake. Handstand.” I paused. “A lucky guess. Hardly the highest literary examples of compound words.”
I moved to the green brazier, my confidence undimmed. “Land surveyor, wind surveyor…no. Ancestral land, ancestral wind…also no.”
Crow approached the green pillar and held the wooden end of his longbow in the flames. The fire died. The pillar descended.
“Wood,” he said. “Woodland, woodwind, woodwork.”
“Ah. Yes. Wood.”
Ender, meanwhile, had been examining the blue brazier with the intense concentration he usually reserved for food or enemies. He straddled the pillar, battling with armor and chain mail, and extricated a most impressive anatomical feature.
“Wood again?” Crow ventured.
He urinated into the blue flames.
The fire sputtered and died. Click.
“Water,” Ender announced, adjusting his clothing. “Backwater, water color, water log.”
“Ah. Yes. Water.” I had, of course, stopped attempting to solve the puzzle some time ago. My generosity of spirit simply didn’t allow me to capture all the clues and leave my companions with feelings of inferiority, however justified those feelings might be.
Crow completed the final two pillars with a chip of stone and a spark of flint-earth and fire, respectively.
“I thought you two were never going to get ‘fire,’” I chortled, as the final click sounded and the sarcophagus lid began to slide aside.
The voice that emerged was unmistakable-smooth, cultured, and carrying the weight of ages. He-who-shall-not-be-named.
“Look inside, adventurers.”
Within lay 300 gold pieces, which Crow pocketed with the speed of a striking snake, and three bronze medallions depicting a skeletal serpent consuming its own tail.
“Some coin for your troubles,” the voice continued, “and to equip yourselves for the hard road ahead.”
I noticed Crow’s hand drifting to his shortsword. I knew that look-the elf coveted a blade with more bite, more value, more prestige.
“Present the medallions to weak undead you encounter,” the voice instructed. “They will not have the spirit to oppose you.”
“Useful, I suppose,” Ender noted, somewhat ruefully. I understood his disappointment. The medallions would rob him of his favorite pastime-smashing skeletons into component parts.
“Lastly, to Willip and Prymp you must go, if sterner tests you seek.”
We gathered our rewards and turned toward the exit, our shadows stretching long in the colored light. Three hundred gold pieces, three bronze medallions, and one invaluable lesson: sometimes the simplest minds solve the most complex puzzles.
Not that I would ever admit such a thing aloud.