Beatrice: Helping Black Dog search for his Empress

 

(Beatrice’s Account)

I am Beatrice, a warrior from Cynadicia. I now have a fortress in the Happy Valley near Khanbaliq, where five of my children—young-adult Animaji, part fox and part human—make their home. My youngest son is eleven and fully human. His father is the Emperor, and my child is being raised in Khanbaliq.

It is an unusual arrangement, but the Emperor and I understand one another. He once saved my life, and over the years we have developed a real respect and affection for each other. I know his nature well enough to appreciate him without expecting him to become someone he isn’t.

Recently, he arrived at my fortress disguised as a common man, bringing our son for a visit. He also brought troubling news: his wife, Empress Nambui, and her young-adult son had disappeared.

Nambui and the Emperor have never seemed particularly close, and I have never been entirely certain what to make of her. Still, whatever my doubts about her, I was immediately concerned. A missing woman and her son are in danger until proven otherwise.

Saran, Nambui’s fiercely loyal bodyguard, provided our best clue. Before she disappeared, he had seen Nambui and her son speaking with men at a Monastery of the Two-Fold Path outside Khanbaliq. When she prepared to travel, Saran asked to accompany her. She refused.

Saran’s own actions complicated matters considerably. He became involved with Dragon Claw and even broke into my fortress on their behalf. We fought. During the confrontation, however, he began to understand what Dragon Claw truly was. Whatever mistakes he has made, I do not doubt one thing about him: his loyalty to Nambui is absolute.

The Emperor, Saran, and I set out on horseback to find her.

I had to remind the Emperor early on that this was serious. At one point, I told him plainly:

Beatrice: “This is not going to be a romantic holiday.”

I did not think he was treating the situation with quite the urgency it deserved. But I also know him. I wasn’t offended, and I didn’t waste time judging him for being himself. We had work to do.

We traveled through Yuzhou, Luoyang, and Dadu South, staying in inns and asking questions wherever we could. In Dadu South, we learned something important: Dragon Claw has been outlawed there and in Su Qi Port because of the brutal and unfair duels they have inflicted on innocent people.

The Emperor: “You wouldn’t last long as an emperor if you couldn’t operate in multiple modes at once. Beatrice was wrong about one thing: this was a very romantic holiday. I had never stayed at an inn before, although I still knew how to find the best ones—especially the one by the river. And I won’t even tell you what we did there.

“But in addition to admiring Beatrice, I was also listening closely to what people were saying—and not saying.

“People in Yuzhou laughed at Saran because they remembered him coming through a month earlier and asking the same questions. He had been so eager to hear good news that he allowed himself to be misled by the man who told him to keep going east. Beatrice bought another man a horse so he could leave town after telling us the obvious: the liar who sent Saran farther east was a Dragon Claw agent.

“It was difficult to find an inn in Luoyang because people remembered seeing Saran with members of Dragon Claw. Those members had left town a week earlier, traveling west. All the same, we did find an inn that suited our purposes.

“And then we went even farther east. In Dadu South, an imperial magistrate—too hungover
to see through my disguise and recognize his own master—told us about the local policy toward Dragon Claw: Execution Based on Suspected Affiliation.

“These people need proper laws. Perhaps Beatrice is right again, and I am not taking my job seriously enough. And yes, I am concerned for my Empress and my son. This was not about her needing some time alone.

“Back to you, Imperial Consort of Truth and Beauty.”

Beatrice: “I don’t really care for ‘Imperial Consort.’ It sounds like a prostitute.”

The Emperor: “Yes. How about—”

Beatrice: “How about I just finish this so we can have dinner?”

Saran: “Beatrice has told this generously. I followed the lie because I wanted it to be true. I accept the answers-- and power-- that Dragon Claw offered without considering their motives. I still do not trust Bearice's reasons for seeking Her Imperial Highness—but she is treating Nambui’s disappearance more seriously than Nambui’s husband, and for now that is enough.”

 

We found no clear trail beyond that, so we decided to retrace our route through Luoyang and Yuzhou and look more carefully for what we may have missed.

I increasingly suspect that Nambui and her son were not simply abducted. They may have gone willingly, at least at first. Nambui can be secretive, and she deliberately left Saran behind despite his devotion to her. The men at the monastery may have offered her and her son something they wanted.

Perhaps magic.

That worries me more than a simple kidnapping would.

Dragon Claw may be teaching them magic, but I have seen enough of this world to know that power is rarely offered freely. I fear what they may demand in return—and what it could cost Nambui and her son if they have placed themselves in the hands of people they do not understand.

I have told the Emperor my larger concern. Dragon Claw may intend to turn Nambui and her son against him. If they can use the Emperor’s own family to overthrow or kill him, they could throw the empire into chaos while claiming some kind of legitimacy for themselves.

I do not yet know that this is what has happened. Nambui may have her own reasons for leaving, and I will not condemn her before I know the truth. Saran himself is proof that a person can become entangled with Dragon Claw without fully understanding what they serve.

But I cannot ignore what the evidence is beginning to suggest.

We need to find Nambui and her son, understand what they have become involved in, and get them away from Dragon Claw if they are still willing to leave.

And we need to do it quickly.

Salt’s Account: Restoring the Eagle Clan

The Eagle Clan is one of several peoples of the Land of the Five Fires. They hold eagles as sacred spiritual guides, and for generations they have maintained an ancient ceremonial fort known as the Hall of Eagles, which stands at the heart of their traditions and identity.

During the war against the Master, one of his lieutenants led armies of beastmen into the Land of the Five Fires. They destroyed Kuzhu Kala and laid siege to both the Hall of Eagles and the fortified town of Banua before finally being defeated. Kuzhu Kala was destroyed completely, and although the people of Banua repelled the invaders, the beastmen established a permanent presence in the Hall of Eagles. A remnant remained there even after their leaders were destroyed.

In recent months, these beastmen had become an increasing threat, attacking settlements throughout the land. Determined to reclaim the Hall of Eagles, about forty Eagle Clan warriors, led by their khan, Qorchi, marched to retake the fortress. None of them returned.

To investigate, Wu Jin Fen, Bangqiu, and I transformed ourselves into birds and flew to the occupied fort. While scouting the fortress, we discovered that many of the missing Eagle Clan members were still alive and being held prisoner. I used my magical yurt-- or apartment—an extradimensional refuge that I can carry with me—to rescue as many captives as possible. Since the yurt could hold only twelve people, we were able to evacuate twelve prisoners and bring the first survivors safely home.

Later, Bangqiu and I returned for a second rescue mission. Because we were transporting companions who could not transform into birds, we were able to rescue only nine additional prisoners, but once again we escaped successfully.

The next expedition included me, Nekhil, Fen, Bangqiu, Bo-Jing, Tetsukichi, and Mustafa. We fought through beastmen and a group of disturbing human allies, including a mysterious woman who fought alongside a trained leopard. During the battle, Mustafa successfully hypnotized one of the enemy guards, and that gave us an unexpected advantage.

After we secured the area, I rescued additional prisoners by flying them to safety. Then I transformed myself into a wolf and secretly followed the hypnotized guard deep into the bowels of the fortress. We carefully explored the underground passages, memorized the layout, and made our plans for a final assault.

When the attack began, we moved swiftly through the stronghold, bypassing obstacles and striking directly at the enemy leadership. Magical barriers divided the enemy forces and prevented them from supporting one another, while repeated blasts of powerful steam magic devastated our opponents.

In the final battle, we discovered the greatest tragedy of the whole campaign. Qorchi, the missing khan of the Eagle Clan, had succumbed to darkness and now stood with the enemy. Although we defeated him, I was deeply saddened that he could not be saved. His burned body showed unmistakable signs that he had already begun transforming into a beastman. We destroyed the remaining enemies and ended the corruption that had consumed the fortress.

With the battle won, Mustafa used powerful magic to allow us to pass directly through solid stone walls, making a dramatic escape from the fort. Along the way, we rescued the remaining survivors, including several prisoners who had been discovered wounded, alone, and hiding throughout the fortress. These survivors described horrific torture they had endured—some of it inflicted by Qorchi after his corruption.

We returned to the Eagle Clan carrying both the rescued prisoners and Qorchi’s body. We were welcomed as heroes. The clan’s council of elders gathered to determine the future of the Eagle Clan and unanimously proclaimed Tetsukichi the new khan of the Eagle Clan.

After the celebrations, we divided the treasures recovered from the fortress. Most of them were valuable pieces of jewelry, including finely crafted adornments made for giant cats, but the most significant prize was a Ring of Plant Control, a powerful magical artifact. Together, we agreed on a fair distribution of the recovered items.

Our campaign ended with the Eagle Clan’s sacred fort reclaimed, its surviving people rescued, and a new khan chosen to lead them. It was a great victory, but one tempered by the tragic fall of Qorchi—a reminder that even the strongest leaders can be consumed by the darkness they seek to fight.

The Eagle Hall Revisited

In the years following the defeat of the Master’s lieutenant and his armies of beastmen, the Eagle Clan had struggled to return from the devastation it had experienced. Their new khan was Qorchi, a young nephew of the fallen chief who had distinguished himself during the war against the beastmen. Brave and well regarded as a warrior, he proved less successful in restoring a people broken by years of loss. Some among the Eagle Clan looked to the future, while others could not look beyond the ruin of their ancestral hall. Increasingly it was said that the clan could never truly be whole until the hall itself had been reclaimed.

Determined to end the dispute, Qorchi had gathered a company of volunteers and marched against the beastmen occupying the old stronghold. None of them returned. The attacks upon the Eagle lands continued, and yet the clan's shamans unanimously insisted that Qorchi still lived. So long as their khan remained alive, no council could lawfully choose his successor, leaving the Eagle Clan leaderless at the very moment it most needed unity.

The chiefs therefore sought aid from their oldest allies, the Sansar Clan, in particular Tetsukichi, the exile from Zipang who after marrying into the Sansar clan had brought it so much honor, both over the sea and in his previous to succor to the Eagle Clan.  They hoped that he would rally a sufficient force to retake the hall. In the meantime, the Eagle chiefs wished to better understand what had become of their ancestral hall and what had become of their young khan.

The enemy no longer resembled the disorganized howling masses of the Master's defeated armies. According to rumors, those few beastmen who had survived, had become even stronger.  Hoping that the same sorcerers who had helped bring about the destruction of first the Master’s lieutenant and then the Master himself might shed light on these mysteries, the chiefs traveled to neighboring Banua to seek the counsel of Bangqiu and Salt.

Bangqiu, Salt, and Salt’s apprentice Fen, now an accomplished wu jen himself, accepted the task. Rather than approach openly, the three assumed the forms of eagles and flew unseen toward the ancestral hall.

From above, they found the stronghold much as memory had left it, though more weathered by the passing years. Roofs sagged, walls crumbled, and banners of the Eagle Clan still fluttered from broken towers. Yet the place was far from abandoned. Wolves roamed freely through the compound, though they were continually harassed by nesting eagles that circled and stooped upon them whenever they ventured too close to the old rookeries.

The greatest surprise awaited in the central hall. Once the gathering place of the Eagle Clan, it had long ago lost its walls, leaving only a broad roof supported by heavy pillars. There, concealed among the rafters, the companions watched several distinct tribes of beastmen uneasily sharing the same space. Wolf-, boar-, and dog-formed beastmen greatly outnumbered a smaller band whose features resembled birds of prey. Though no battle erupted, old rivalries and barely restrained savagery simmered beneath every conversation. And the rumors were true. These beastmen, numbering less than 20, appeared larger and more imposing than those encountered during the Master's invasion years before.

Assuming the forms of smaller birds, the companions perched unnoticed near the avian beastmen and overheard a heated discussion. One argued that the boar clans had grown insolent and should be slaughtered to make an example to the others. Another counseled patience.

"Wait until Qorchi is ready."

The name alone confirmed the suspicions of the Eagle Clan's chiefs. Somehow, the missing khan remained alive.

Seeking further answers, the companions descended through a concealed stair into the ancient chambers beneath the fortress. There they found winding stone passages still in use and discovered a single prison cell occupied not by the missing khan, but by two listless giants whose defeated manner suggested they were captives rather than masters.

Further progress proved difficult. Doors barred many passages, and wings—even invisible ones—could neither manipulate locks nor open barred doors. At last Bangqiu resumed his human form while remaining invisible, hoping to continue the search on foot. Before long, however, he nearly stumbled into a patrol of smaller beastmen. Regretting that they had not enlisted anyone capable of speaking with the eagles and wolves, and judging the risk of discovery too great, the companions abandoned their search.

Bangqiu once again assumed the form of an eagle, and the three quietly departed the hall.

Though they had not found Qorchi, they returned to Banua with intelligence of far greater consequence than the Eagle Clan had expected. The ancestral hall had become neither a prison nor a simple monster lair. It had become the seat of a new society of beastmen, divided by old rivalries yet held together by an unseen authority. Whatever awaited beneath the hall, it was no longer merely a remnant of the Beast Master's armies, but the beginning of something altogether new.

The Chronicle of Beatrice of Cynidicea: Black Dog Comes to the Happy Valley

Beatrice had long ago stopped expecting peace.

Once, she had been a daughter of Cynidicea, a place of masks, secrets, and decay. But that life felt distant now—like a dream half-remembered. Her present was carved from harder things: survival, bargains, and love that demanded sacrifice.

She was a mother.

She had brought six children into the world—her five Animaji, fox-blooded and bright-eyed, now grown into fierce and clever young adults of eighteen. They had been raised within the stone walls of her castle, a place she had built with gold that came at a cost she rarely spoke of.

And then there was the sixth child.

A son.

Eleven years ago, Beatrice had been frozen—held between life and death, her body suspended like glass. It was the Emperor who had saved her… or claimed her. The terms of her release were never spoken plainly, but she remembered enough: warmth returning to her limbs, breath flooding her lungs, and the quiet, terrible understanding that followed.

The boy had been left behind.

She had not seen him since.

The Woman Who Disappeared

Bangqiu dreamed.

Not the usual drifting fragments of memory and nonsense, but something sharper—deliberate. A voice, or perhaps several, repeating the same simple instruction:

“Ask Lao Ren to send you to Khanbaliq. We found something strange. Kafka needs your help.”

He listened. Lao Ren agreed. "We will keep your ship until you return."

---

Kafka, Bangqiu’s companion on many an adventure in years past, had settled down in Khanbaliq. Not settled. Prospered, in all the ways that mattered to him.

After decades of corruption, the Monastery of the Two-Fold Path had been restored, at least in principle. No longer a hiding place for slavers, gangsters, and apostate monks, the still decrepit physical structure was now home to sincere students dedicated to correct teachings.

But beneath it…

Kafka spoke carefully. There were tunnels that at first seemed to be the home of scavengers or remnants of the Black Flower gang, stealing from the monks’ meagre food stores. But beyond these crude passageways, there were older thoroughfares. Older than the monastery. Remnants of something unpleasant—an ancient cult of death worshippers. And beyond that, passages that did not behave properly. Corridors that led not just deeper underground, but… elsewhere. Even… elsewhen.

Bangqiu was glad to hear about the success of Bo-Jing and Gwinch in addressing these issues. He discussed with Bo-Jing what, if anything, they should do next, how much further they should explore. But before any decision was reached, they were interrupted by a visitor at the gate.

---

There was no fear in her bearing. Just composure—and purpose.

She did not give her name at first, but she did not need to. Everything about her suggested someone accustomed to being obeyed, or at least taken seriously.

“I intend to disappear,” she said.

Not flee. Not escape.

Disappear.

She needed a place beyond reach—of the court, of her enemies, of anyone who might try to shape her son’s future. If they could help her, she promised, they would not be forgotten when that future was decided.

“You will be the most trusted friends of the next Emperor.”

Bo-Jing joked that he was already close friends with himself.

Bangqiu, used to wandering, knew of one such place.

Beatriss’s castle. The Happy Valley.

The woman seemed surprised by the suggestion but then smiled. “Yes, take me there. Tomorrow. Just me, and my son, and my bodyguard.”

---

In the morning there was a change of plans. At the walls of Khanbaliq, the party saw the woman speaking crossly to the man who must have been her bodyguard—a doughty, mournful warrior, a cloak thrown over gleaming armor.

“It’s only the Happy Valley,” she said. “They are more than capable, and I will return in a week.”

The bodyguard looked long and hard at the party—Bangqiu, Bo-Jing, Batzorig, Ryu, and Kafka—then shrugged his shoulders, turned his horse and re-entered the city.

The woman’s son was about fifteen. Like her, he wore a dull-colored but fine-woven traveling cloak that half-obscured his face. Mother and son were quiet, taking their place in the middle of the group, speaking little, and only to each other.

In the early afternoon, they left the imperial highway and took the smaller road that wound toward the Valley. Descending a gentle winding path that ran along a steep ravine, the party noticed a shrine at a bend in the road. And three men who were desecrating it, casting the offerings of flowers and coins onto the ground.

Bo-Jing and Bangqiu shouted jokes at the men, emphasizing how little they cared about protecting roadside shrines. Somehow, the men were able to register these jokes as insults. One of them walked down from the shrine, challenging Bangqiu to a fight.

“We’ll see who has learned the superior style.”

Bangqiu slipped from his horse as if to accept the challenge. But when the man charged at him, launching a flying kick at his head, Bangqiu summoned the elemental powers of fire and water and blasted him with scalding steam. There was a scream of pain—from the man’s compatriots next to the shrine. The duelist passed through the cloud unscathed and landed a flurry of kicks.

The duel became something else—
magic and motion, arrows from Bo-Jing and Batzorig,
and Ryu summoning snakes to incapacitate them.

Throughout the battle, the damage did not fall where it should.

Blows meant for one man were taken by another, standing apart, as if the group shared a single pool of endurance. The “bystanders” suffered in place of the duelist, staggering but not falling.

The hallmarks of Dragon Claw, which Bangqiu and Bo-Jing had seen in Guibao.

The fight escalated until a wall of fire sprang up, isolating the party from their wards. Bangqiu rose into the air, sealing the flames within a dome of force. Kafka charged forward to attack the still-unscathed duelist with his frost brand. Two more figures emerged from nowhere—previously unseen, now very real—striking at Kafka from either side.

Ryu and Bangqiu employed more fearsome magic, transfixing the duelist and sending the other two fleeing in terror. The other shrine desecrators were killed by the swords of Bo-Jing and Batzorig. And lots of snakes.

---

The wall of fire died. The wall of force shimmered and vanished.

There had been no scream. No struggle.

And the woman, her son—their charges—were gone.

---

Batzorig dragged the dead bodies out of the road. Ryu sent the snakes into the ravine.

Then came a surprised half-scream from below.

The boy.

---

Certain they had been tricked, Bo-Jing demanded that Ryu call down divine punishment into the ravine. Ryu protested that although the ravine was narrow, calling a flame strike into the forest could have unpredictable consequences.

And so Bangqiu and Bo-Jing shrugged it off.

They had been part of something they did not fully understand—something with strange and dangerous components. Bangqiu had been badly wounded in the battle. Kafka began to question the wisdom of leaving his monastery without a leader.

---

They let it go, for now. They returned to Khanbaliq.

Along the way, they passed by an inn. A drunk man stumbled out and pointed at Bo-Jing.

“A man passed by this way—he was looking for you.”

They bought the man a drink and got a description.

“A sad-looking old warrior. Fine armor beneath his traveling cloak. I told him you were going east, to the port.”

Beyond the Slavepits of the Undercity

An Account of how Gwinch, Kishi, Bo-Jing, and Salt answered the call of a friend and made their descent beneath the Monastery of the Two-Fold Path in Khanbaliq

---

The Summons

Ten years after his exile—and his eventual acceptance—Gwinch had settled into something like permanence. In Pasar, he was no longer an outsider but a fixture: Abbot of the Two-Fold Path, respected, careful, and largely removed from the kinds of dangers that had once defined him.

Then the letter came.

It was from Kafka Tamura, a former student who had followed him from Zipang to Khanbaliq—earnest, observant, and marked by a seriousness that had always suggested future responsibility. Gwinch had sent him north for precisely that reason: to restore the monastery that had once been corrupted by apostate monks and slavers.

Kafka had succeeded. The Black Flower gang was gone. The monastery stood again, at least in spirit.

But not in peace.

“Master, we have discovered something beneath the monastery.
It should not exist beneath Khanbaliq.
We fear we have opened a door that was meant to remain closed.”

Gwinch read the letter, understood what it implied, and chose to go.

---

At the same time, far to the east, the Crimson Reprieve crossed the ocean under new ownership. With Acererak destroyed and Captain Hu laid to rest, Bangqiu claimed the ship. Against all odds—and with more than a little luck—the voyage ended at Jade Harbor.

There, the party rested.

Salt shed the last of her homespun garments and exchanged some of the gems from Acererak's tombs for clothes-- luxurious silk in colors that would remind her of the warm ocean on a calm day. Because it was time to return to the steppes.

 Bangqiu hosted them for a final stretch of calm before their paths diverged.

Then Lao Ren gathered the Clever Ones, traced his careful geometry, and returned them to Banua.

  

What they found was a world that had already mourned them. Bo-Jing’s wife—and much of the Naran Horde—had assumed his death. His return brought not conflict, but relief. The interim khan stepped aside, and order reformed itself around him.

In the quiet that followed, Salt and Nekhil married without ceremony.

Then Kafka’s letter arrived.

---

The Gathering

And so they came together again at the ruined monastery outside Khanbaliq:

Gwinch
Kishi.
Salt.
Bo-Jing
Nekhil.
Ryu.
Wu Jin Fen
QiGongJin

Kafka explained what he could.

At first, it had seemed mundane: missing food, unseen intruders. Then passages sealed themselves only for others to open. And finally, something deeper—evidence of a cult older than the Black Flower gang, older than the Two-Fold Path, older than Khanbaliq and perhaps any of the settlements that preceded it.

Something below had been disturbed.

---

I. The Whisper

Gwinch began with caution.

He staked out the main entrance to the buried cult complex, a stone platform along the foul canals of the city. There, amid the slow black flow, he heard it:

A whisper.

Not wind. Not water.

Something within.

Gwinch conferred with the party and together they chose the smaller entrance—through the monastery cellar—and descended.

Wu Jin Fen heard his name first.

Ahead, six ash-wights stood chained together, their forms barely holding shape. When Ryu turned them, they did not scatter. They drifted—purposefully—toward the source of the whisper.

The party followed.

They saw the idol beyond a collapsed wall: a four-armed figure of black stone.

As the wights approached, the chamber woke. Stone ground against stone.

The guardians rose.

The party withdrew—not in panic, but in discipline—taking shelter in a chamber of four sealed sarcophagi. They did not open them.

When they returned, the wights were gone.

Only chains and ash remained.

And the sense that something had noticed them.

---

II. The Invisible Man

Salt and Wu Jin Fen returned to the surface. The rest pressed on.

Gwinch and Bo-Jing led the pursuit.

The corridors narrowed and twisted. Doors opened and closed where none should exist. Always ahead: footsteps.

Measured.

Deliberate.

And beneath them—the sound of stone moving.

The unseen figure drew them forward into danger.

Three coal-black hounds emerged, their breath burning in the confined space. Kafka did not meet them head-on—he moved along the wall, over them, striking at the invisible man as he opened yet another hidden door.

Bo-Jing held the line. Gwinch finished the work.

The hounds fell.

Beyond, an ogre mage revealed itself only briefly before retreating deeper.

Ryu, spent, was escorted back to the surface.

The rest continued.

---

III. The Ogre Mages

They found the ogre mages in a chamber of strange normalcy—seated around a game, as though they belonged there.

The illusion ended quickly.

Cold filled the room in sudden, devastating bursts. Several of the young monks nearly died where they stood. But the creatures faltered when pressed.

One by one, they were forced into the open.

Their tricks failed. Their disguises failed.

Gwinch and Kafka turned the fight with patience and positioning—drawing one into the corridor, isolating another.

Only one escaped, dissolving into mist with its treasures.

Gwinch returned to the surface with a simple truth:

The dungeon was not empty.

It was defended.

---

IV. The Idol

They returned stronger.

Salt and Nekhil.
Kishi.
New initiates.

The ash-wights came again.

This time, the truth emerged: they were not evil, but bound. The magic that judged wickedness struck the new recruits instead.

Impostors.

Dragon Claw agents, hidden among them.

Kafka executed the last without hesitation.

Salt held the wights. Their chains held the rest.

They reached the sarcophagi again. Kishi confirmed their fears: a priest of the ancient cult of Duvan’Ku lay within. And the idol wanted blood.

They left it sealed.

At the idol, blood was offered.

The idol responded.

A hidden door opened.

Within: a basilisk—and a sword.

The creature died quickly.

The sword spoke.

It named itself the relic of Makurian, a hero who had failed to destroy the cult centuries before. It had waited.

It chose Gwinch.

---

V. The Destruction

The sword gave Gwinch more than purpose.

It gave him leverage.

He lifted one guardian from the ground—separating it from its twin. A monk baited the second.

The collision ended both.

The idol remained.

They removed it—not through ritual, but through effort. Out of the chamber. Into the sewers. And finally, into the daylight.

Where it was broken.

---

VI. The Door Beyond

Only then did they understand what the ogre mages had guarded.

Not the idol.

A door.

Beyond it lay something stranger than a dungeon.

A place where time itself could be crossed.

---

The monastery was reclaimed.

But not emptied.

Because beneath it still lay doors unopened—

And paths that did not lead merely downward,

But elsewhere. And elsewhen.

Tomb of Horrors (Salt's account)

 We entered the Tomb of Horrors twice, though only one passage was real. The first time was by magic alone—a deliberate vision, thin and cold, meant to teach rather than to save. There were only four of us then: Bojing’s steadiness, Bang-Qiu’s brilliance, Lao-ren’s quiet vigilance, and my own careful reach into things better left untouched. We did not know where the tomb wished to be entered, only that planes mattered, that Acererak could not be fought from just anywhere. The tomb was bright—offensively so—full of color and beauty that begged to be trusted. We learned quickly not to. 

When the arch stripped us of clothing, weapons, and certainty, I feared the vision would end almost before it began, fruitless and humiliating. Instead, it sharpened us. The tomb did not watch. It did not gloat. It simply functioned. We learned what worked. The shatter spell broke what arrogance could not. Planes were doors and knives both. We learned the cost of standing too long in the Astral, where devils arrived like clockwork to bleed time and strength. I remember wondering if we would all “die” and still be forced to learn. 

When we returned for the true descent, we carried knowledge like a fragile flame. We moved only between the planes we needed. We chose spells with intent—fewer tricks, more teeth. When we found the crown and scepter, gold and silver ends waiting for error, memory saved us. Rules remembered became survival earned. Acererak’s appearance felt exactly as expected. That was the greatest gift. I shattered him again, precisely and without drama. And then it was done. Not just the tomb, but the curse that had haunted us—the captain and crew bound to undeath by bodies buried under Acererak’s shadow. They were laid to rest at last. Everyone walked out alive. That mattered more than victory. 

I closed my spellbook afterward with relief—not triumph. Some horrors are meant to be finished, recorded, and never repeated.